Reading Comics 244 “Tom King, Geoff Johns, and other familiar faces…”

This year the local shop, South Tampa Comics, went out of business but the location was quickly snapped up by a chain called Coliseum of Comics, and until a few weeks ago continuity was maintained by Randall Armstrong (known on the internet as Randall Begins for reasons I will probably never know) as head clerk. But Coliseum sent him packing. I made weekly trips to the store when it opened, but then scaled back, and my visits have become sporadic, just enough to keep in touch with what interests me. Over the course of three recent trips I scooped up a bunch of interesting comics, in the process of which learning Randall’s fate. I figured I could share the results on this old blog.

Animal Pound #3 (Boom!) One of the things Randall never quite caught onto was that if he just set aside Tom King releases for me I would buy them. It’s not the business of sales clerk to set these kinds of things up (hold files set up by customers being the preferred method), but it happened frequently enough that we talked about Tom King and how one other customer was buying Tom King releases out from under me (stores with low sales have little incentive to invest in more than single copies of some things), and leaving me often with nothing. I don’t like to special order from a store. There’s this thing called the internet. I go to a store for the convenience, and it was also fun to talk with Randall. Anyway, so Animal Pound is Tom King’s update of Animal Farm, only instead of communism he’s commenting on democracy. It’s another great comic from Tom King. This post will have several more.

Batman #s 148-150 (DC) Chip Zdarsky has been one of the best writers in comics for a number of years at this point, and his Batman is up there, for me, in modern runs with Grant Morrison, Tom King. And the longer he writes it, the better he gets. But you don’t have the guy who did a fantastic run on Daredevil because you expect anything less. #148 concludes Batman’s war with Failsafe, #149 is like the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Similitude” (for me high praise in every connotation), and #150 is at last a pause for a more human-level story. I can’t wait to see where he goes next.

Batman and Robin #10 (DC) Notable not just for the return of Bane but, for me personally, Damian’s old pal Goliath, from the pages of the highly underrated Robin: Son of Batman.

Gotham by Gaslight/Gotham by Gaslight: The Kryptonian Age #1 (DC) DC reprinted the original Elseworlds graphic novel alongside the return of the imprint with the first issue of the follow-up.

Blood Squad Seven #1 (Image) Joe Casey in an essay at the back of the issue is not legally allowed to call this Youngbloods: Thirty Years Later! But of course, that’s exactly what it is. He’s also hopeful it’ll spark a renewed interest at the company for a shared superhero landscape that isn’t just Spawn or Savage Dragon or Radiant Black. Good luck with that, pal.

Blue Beetle #10 (DC) A title soon to be cancelled (but it’s still Jaime Reyes’s third ongoing series, which is impressive, for DC, in this era). Bought mostly to support Josh Trujillo, who put together such a great tribute to Keith Giffen a few issues ago.

The Boy Wonder #2 (DC) Another great little standalone spotlight for the legacy of Robin(s).

Geiger #3 (Image) Geoff Johns finally split (mostly) from DC and set up his own landscape with Ghost Machine, and I hope he gets to play in this sandbox for a while. This lead creation is surprisingly durable, clearly inspired by the Atomic Knights post-Infinite Crisis but also its own thing. 

Green Lantern #12 (DC) Jeremy Adams made his mark with The Flash and then got to segue here. He’s settled in nicely. This issue sees Carol Ferris possibly finally, finally commit to a relationship with Hal. And a backup featuring Guy Gardner, Kevin Maguire, and Bottle City Czarnians. Adams would be absolutely perfect for a JLI revisit.

Helen of Wyndhorn #2 (Dark Horse) In yon olden days, DC would’ve had the Vertigo imprint for Love Everlasting, for Animal Pound, for Helen. Now they’re all at different publishers. Tom King never settles. He remains just as ambitious as ever. Helen is yet another contender, as it turns out, for a true career highlight. I didn’t really know what it was, before reading this issue (my first of the series), other than a reunion between King and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow artist Bilquis Evely. Turns out it’s kind of a Victorian novel crossed with Conan, kind of The Unwritten (for those interested in a Vertigo deep cut).

Justice Society of America #10 (DC)  Currently looking like Johns’ last hurrah at DC, the much-delayed JSA epic just went deeper by adding in the Legion of Super-Heroes. There’s still no one at DC who can do what Johns has done. He doesn’t just love what’s been done before him, he’s consistently tried to build on it, keep it evolving.  Like his Ghost Machine he truly sees it as a mythology.

The Penguin #11 (DC) Here’s Tom King again, penultimate issue of this story trying to help Oswald Cobblepot navigate the extremely complex legacy he’s left for himself. Can he truly leave his empire behind without dying in the process?

Redcoat #3 (Image) I’m not all in on Ghost Machine, but I love what Johns has come up with in Redcoat, a welcome modern popular entertainment take on the Revolutionary generation.  It may be batshit crazy, but it’s the good kind of batshit crazy! And that’s the whole point!

Wesley Dodds: The Sandman #6 (DC) The oldest comic in this pile, it’s the final issue. Robert Venditti earned a huge amount of respect from me in the pages of Hawkman, which I thought might be reflected here. I’m happy to report I was right. The surprise was seeing Riley Rossmo somehow evolve his work into Tim Sale proportions. Someone take note at DC!

Spider-Man: Reign 2 #1 (Marvel) I adored Kaare Andrews’ original story, which for me was absolutely the webslinging take on Dark Knight Returns, and I am keenly aware I am in a tiny minority. So I’m very pleased that somehow a follow-up has somehow happened anyway.

Star Wars #47 (Marvel) Charles Soule has proven surprisingly hit or miss with me, but one of the things I absolutely loved back in the day was his Lando Calrissian miniseries. This issue is Lando getting out of a spot of trouble in the days leading up to Return of the Jedi.

Wonder Woman #10 (DC) I am keenly aware that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for Tom King in recent years. I follow a blog that said this issue was yet another abomination. Wow. It is not. It is the opposite of that. Plus more Lizzie! I’m just eager to see how long King can stick around. I want the adult Trinity we were promised, too!

Uncanny X-Men #700 (Marvel) It’s the coda to the Krakoan age. It fits the bill. I love how Apocalypse is used to illustrate it.

William of Newbury #1 (Dark Horse) For fans it’s really hard not to see this as Michael Avon Oeming on a spiritual sequel to Mice Templar.

Zatanna: Bring Down the House #1 (DC) For the life of me I’ll never understand why DC has never pursued her in more solo tales. But we have this! Finally! Worth the wait!

Free Comic Book Day 2024

Free Comic Book Day!

Technically this makes twenty years for me, having discovered it in 2005.

Having to cheat last year because I’d just gotten into town with family for a visit and so couldn’t reasonably expect them to go visit a comic book store, I was ready to dive in this year.

I opted to make my target Nerd Out, the shop farthest away I’m willing to make the effort to visit, which I haven’t done in a few years, so that was another motivating factor.

Got there some thirty minutes after open, but in my experience they just don’t line up in Tampa the way I really like to experience these things.

Nerd Out always has two selections, one from this year’s event and a second cobbled from older free comic events. They had some old stuff in that one! From the new stuff they only let you take one (unless you actually bought stuff), and didn’t even have a comprehensive set. They didn’t have any DC and I’m not sure they even had Marvel. 

When I hit the repurposed South Tampa Comics later, now part of the Coliseum of Comics collective, I scooped up DC and Marvel. Between them there was no chance for Valiant, a reliable presence since the revival in 2012, and particularly disappointing because they’re making a new push for relevance again.

At Nerd Out I hit the dollar bins and found a bunch of cool stuff, as well as Supreme: Blue Rose in collected form (very excited to read it again). 

Since I hit Coliseum late in a very long day I just scooped up my allotted five picks there and headed back out again.

So anyway here’s the six I got:

Absolute Power (DC) Mark Waid setting up his next big event.

Barda (DC) A preview for one of those young reader graphic novels the company keeps pumping out. Barda, as in Big Barda. I look forward to this one.

Blood Hunt (Marvel) One of the things that continually astounds me is how little Marvel comics and movies have to do with each other. It’s really only the Guardians of the Galaxy that managed to avoid such a fate, but in typical comics fashion the company flooded the market ahead of seeing how much interest the market actually had. Anyway, this one revolves around Blade, that guy the company technically had as its first cinematic success who’s been MIA basically the entire time.

Flash Gordon (Mad Cave) Jeremy Adams, who keeps trying to convince DC to keep him around, hedged his bets by looking around for another property to explore. Really surprising that comics have slept on ol’ Flash Gordon all these years.

Spider-Man/Ultimate Universe (Marvel) Marvel is currently desperately trying to make their Ultimate comics a thing again. It could happen!

Star Wars (Marvel) This one was really because it’s also Star Wars Day today.

Alan Moore is Disingenuous

Alan Moore is disingenuous.

In interview after interview he complains about the injustices perpetrated against him in the comics industry, how his stories were stolen from him, how he had no choice but to ultimately walk away from the medium.

But Alan Moore is disingenuous. His heyday was in the ‘80s. That’s when he produced his best-known work (Saga of Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, Watchmen). Immediately following the ‘80s was of course the ‘90s. In the ‘90s comic book creators very famously forged new ground for creator control. Moore himself wrote for Image. His work there wasn’t notable until he settled in with his Silver Age Superman pastiche version of Supreme, which when he left Rob Liefeld’s studio was converted into Tom Strong and the rest of the ABC line, which was handled by WildStorm, right before it sold to DC.

So Moore quit again. He continued working in comics. He continued his public domain bonanza League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He did a few other things. He kept complaining about what DC did with all his famous stories done under its umbrella.

Then he quit and quit again, proclaiming how unfair the medium is to creators, right to the present day.

Tell me what, beyond V, that he’s created wholesale that his fans unabashedly adore. Tell me what he did once leaving DC that was wholesale, that he had every ability, like every other modern creator, to own completely, that his fans trumpet in the same way as his classics.

(Never mind that fans as a rule, of anything, very rarely step out of the shadows of classic material.)

Tell me that Moore didn’t thrive, best, using or reinterpreting, the creations of others throughout his whole career.

And then argue that Alan Moore is not disingenuous. The argument always turns on his fans proclaiming all over again how great his best works are, that whatever his stance is their stance. 

The man has had many years and many opportunities to create and own outright whatever his heart’s desire. He has either been incapable of doing so, or uninterested.

That’s the real story, here.

Everything else is Alan Moore being disingenuous. And I’m tired of hearing the man complaining by explaining he isn’t complaining, that if DC had only been fair to him, everything would be different. 

DC or otherwise, that’s the history of literature, and Alan Moore has always been a part of it, building on the legacy of the work of others. Eventually every creator’s name is forgotten, and the story, if it’s important enough, endures.

Get comfortable with history, Alan Moore. Eventually, if your work is important enough, it will endure. And no one will remember the name Alan Moore, or care how hurt you felt about controlling the rights, or destiny, of those stories. If it’s that important to you, do something magnificent, undeniable, now, while you still can. And then see if it’s really as successful as your classics, you’ll lose control anyway. Fans have a funny way about expressing their appreciation. They will do the same thing DC did to Watchmen. I guarantee there are reams of Watchmen fan fiction out there you never saw or knew existed. No one made a career out of it, a name for themselves, a fortune. But it’s the same thing. It’s life beyond the original story, the Trojan Horse after The Iliad. If you had owned the rights to all those comics, blocked their constant republication, they wouldn’t even be remembered today, except by diehard fans. And a generation after their death, a footnote. Then nothing.

Just think about it. Decades ago it was the fight of your life. Decades later you’re still fighting it. It’s like George R.R. Martin at this point, making a career out of talking about writing that next book instead of getting the darn thing published. People like to say you wouldn’t complain about this anymore except everyone who interviews you forces you to all over again, every single time. Except you have a choice. You’ve always had a choice. And more importantly, as a creator you have always had the chance to express yourself, as you always did, through your work. At some point your narrative shifted from your work to your complaints. You still write, and have shifted, increasingly, to prose. But you’ve discovered that the prose world, so eager previously to use you as a shining example of the literary merits of comic books, doesn’t care as much about you when you’re operating under its own rules. So maybe you keep plugging away at it and change minds, or you reconsider what all your decisions have resulted in, and take one last great stab. While you still can.

Either way in a hundred years it won’t matter. Unless you do, and the choices you make now impact whatever legacy you have. It’s about your peace of mind. Because as much as you might claim otherwise, you’re kind of an angry old man. Anything you say to the contrary is disingenuous.

Club Comics #1

A couple weeks ago I snatched up most of Superboy and the Ravers from a back issue bin. This was a series that ran from 1996 to 1998, Superboy’s second ongoing series from that era. It was a teen team book in a decade where teen teams were nearly as hot as they were the previous decade, thanks to Generation X at Marvel (a team that’s been completely forgotten since) and Gen 13 at Image (a team that can still be visible today whenever WildStorm nostalgia hits DC). DC launched a new Teen Titans with Dan Jurgens, and Ravers, neither of which were nearly as popular.

But I loved Ravers. Still do. Obviously the idea hinged on a somewhat desperate grab for hip readers, teenagers literally attending an intergalactic rave, a party scene, but the characters who ended up coming together were far beyond that concept from the beginning. It’s really as if someone in editorial pitched the gimmick, and writers Karl Kesel and Steve Mattsson actively thumbed their noses at it.

Because the Ravers turned out to be a bunch of misfits. Take Half-Life. (Please!) There’s no way this kid would’ve been accepted as one of the cool kids. The whole point of the character was that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was an outcast. That’s him on that cover to #3. Need I explain? He’s the reason I was never convinced Marvel had the market on misfits, which its fans have claimed for half a century. Marvel’s monsters are for the most part headcases. Unless your name is Ben Grimm, the writers continuously stretch credulity to pull any of it off. Half-Life is Ben Grimm if Ben Grimm didn’t have the Fantastic Four constantly around him to give him a context he of course constantly ignores, because Marvel. Half-Life has the Ravers around him, sure, but the thing is, the Ravers aren’t a family. They’re not really a team, either.

They’re more like a club. No one’s impressed Superboy is there. This isn’t really a Superboy book at all! That’s what’s so great about it. It turns out all these characters are just trying to find themselves, to where they might actually fit in. You’ve got an actually organic gay superhero named Hero. Yeah! His superpower is actually the H-Dial, which in his context is a vest. You’ve got the most lovable Khund warrior ever, Kaliber, whom DC tried its best to turn into a breakout character in Genesis. You’ve got Sparx, still my favorite Bloodlines creation because of her appearances in Ravers, who grew up in a family of superheroes but never felt at home until she found an actual group of peers. Probably the closest its members came to generic was Aura, the alien princess trope.

For nineteen issues, this group of friends struggled to keep things together, and fittingly, at the end, they go their separate ways, and basically none of them is ever heard from again, except of course Superboy. They were a club of heroes. Their adventures were far more about telling their stories than the adventures of the Ravers themselves. This became my favorite kind of superhero storytelling, in large part thanks to Ravers. I cared about Half-Life. I was happy when Hero found Leander (I was just getting into Greek myth at the time, so synergy like that was welcome!). This wasn’t teen drama. All these characters were thrust into the world and forced to find their own way. Just imagine where they went next…

I like comics that feel like the characters are telling you about themselves. I like great storytelling, but I need to care about the characters themselves. Ravers was an unexpected way to discover this. When it’s one character in their own book, Mark Waid’s Wally West, for instance, struggling to understand his own legacy, that’s easy. Do with it with a whole cast? Maybe that’s asking too much. I can completely understand this not be a popular, bestselling comic. But it’s still one of the best, and no comic has come along remotely like it since.

Free Comic Book Day 2023

 Clearly I haven’t blogged about comics in some time. Well.

A few weeks back it was once again Free Comic Book Day! I happened to be traveling this year, so I didn’t visit a comic book store that day, but the following Thursday I did, after I got back home. I headed to South Tampa Comics, which opened just down the street from me last year (I’ve bought many graphic novels from them, and you can find many reviews at Goodreads from the results). Since I was already planning to Midtown the bulk of my catch-up, and couldn’t expect to find any of the FCBD comics at the store (typically they’re only available that Saturday, and Sunday after it), I didn’t expect to pick up any of this year’s releases there, but it turns out I could, and some from last year’s Trick or Read (another free comics promotion geared toward kids). In years past at another local shop, they’d have selections from prior years and other such events, so that was nice. And of course I took advantage of Midtown, too, and that box arrived on Tuesday.

So here’s what I got!

• Best of the Mighty Marvel Backlist (Marvel) 
• Animal Castle Volume Two (Ablaze)
• Uncanny Avengers (Marvel)
• The Best Comic Ever!! (2000 AD)
• Choujin X (Viz)
• Clark & Lex/Fann Club: Batman Club (DC)
• Conan the Barbarian (Titan)
• Crimebuster  (Comic House)
• Dawn of DC Primer (DC)
• Dawn of DC: Knight Terrors Special Edition (DC) This is DC’s latest publishing event, like Future State, Convergence, and Flashpoint before it taking over the publishing slate for a few months.
• Dog Man and the League of Misfits (Scholastic)
• The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (Fantagraphics)
• Fishflies (Image) New from Jeff Lemire.
• Girl Taking Over (DC)
• I Am Stan Lee (Ten Speed Press)
• Marvel Voices (Marvel)
• Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir (Dial Books)
• Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (Marvel) Trick or Read
• Ranger Academy (Boom!) As in Power Rangers.
• The Sacrificers (Image) New from Rick Remender.
• Shadowman: Darque Legacy (Valiant) Valiant has undergone tons of publishing turmoil in recent years, and releases very few comics these days, so it’s just nice to see them still in the game.
• Smurfs 65th Anniversary (Papercutz) They’re not just from the ‘80s cartoon!
• The Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel) Trick or Read reprint featuring Queen Goblin.
• Spider-Man/Venom (Marvel)
• Star Trek (IDW) Featuring a crossover event called “Day of Blood.”
• Star Wars: Doctor Aphra (Marvel) Trick or Read
• Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures (Dark Horse) IDW and Dark Horse have gotten to publish young readers comics in the current Marvel age.
• Strange Academy (Marvel) Trick or Read
• The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)
• We Are Legends Special Edition (DC)

At Midtown I also ordered a few backlog FCBD offerings (which were no longer free):

Carriers (Red 5) From last year. Red 5 used to be the publisher of Atomic Robo, and dependably released a new Robo comic every FCBD, but Robo went to IDW and then online. I wanted to pick this up last year since it included a preview of Bëorn from Ben Bender, who’s in my Twitter feed. Bender’s art is very reminiscent of Bill Watterson.

We Are Humanoids Featuring The Incal (Humanoids) This is from 2020, the FCBD that played out in stages throughout the summer of that year. I didn’t participate that year, making it the first FCBD I missed completely since discovering the event at Newbury Comics in Burlington, MA in 2005 (the event itself began several years earlier).

Now of course typically a comic book store will limit the number of free comics you can pick up, so if you have your eyes on multiple releases you have to hit multiple stores (which I’ve done), unless you’re Zimmies that one year and passed out huge bags with all the comics. Or order from Midtown. I like to support the local shops (besides South Tampa Comics there are two other stores close by that I visited on past FCBDs). I bought comics from Midtown and at South Tampa while scooping up the freebies. Spent too much. Not just saying that! What I really missed this year was experiencing the line! Typically FCBD will draw people who don’t normally go to a comic book store (which is the whole point), and you get to listen to whatever it is they talk about while you wait. I always like this experience. Of course, Marvel tends to release a movie that weekend, too (this year was the third Guardians of the Galaxy, in which animals were digitally harmed). It’s a whole thing! My brother-in-law had no idea about it! So maybe next year…

On the Death of Kevin Conroy

I haven’t posted in this blog in more than a year. It’s the longest by far in twenty years, outside of reviewing collections at Goodreads, I’ve gone without talking comics. This post won’t do that, either. Instead it acknowledges the death of the voice of Batman.

Kevin Conroy, folks.

Kevin voiced Batman starting in Batman: The Animated Series, which celebrated its thirtieth anniversary this year. When it began, Tim Burton’s cinematic revival had already cleansed the camp reputation of Batman from the popular consciousness, after the 1960s live action TV show had set the standard. Comic book fans had already had Batman redefined in the pages of The Dark Knight Returns in the 80s, but perceptions still feared the combination of Burton and Michael Keaton would revert the character back to Adam West.

The cartoon followed Burton’s moody take, even adapted its theme music from Danny Elfman, to the point where there were probably kids watching who just assumed it originated there. It tackled and redefined the Gotham landscape, even introducing new elements like Renee Montoya and Harley Quinn that would become permanent along the way. Its Joker was voiced by Mark Hamill, a realization that didn’t sink in right away, but would eventually totally redefine him, too.

Watching as a kid, I was always impressed at how Kevin gave separate voices to Batman and Bruce Wayne. It was the first time I was really aware that there might be a difference between them, and in the three decades since it’s still the clearest example that there probably ought to be, in any medium.

Kevin kept voicing Batman over the years, whether in material directly associated with the cartoon or in various other projects. He finally got to play a live action Batman in the Arrowverse’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover in 2019.

Over the years, I lost interest in the cartoon. The more it ended up codified as a defining version of Batman (in many eyes, the defining one, the same way fans assumed John Stewart is the only acceptable Green Lantern, because he was the version in this shared universe), the more I struggled to remember why I had been a fan, too. Watching it now, it’s very clearly a kid’s show. The villains all have voices that would not be out of place in the 60s show. Forget that how they were used, such as Mr. Freeze, gave them new depth: how they sounded is harsh on an adult’s ears without the filter of nostalgia.

That being said, Kevin gave a star performance. He was impeccable, and you could listen to his Batman now as then without doubting for a moment that this guy should be Batman. Out of all the actors who have played Batman over the years, and this is not to say any of them were bad, it’s still a great argument that Kevin sounded like the most perfect fit. 

So: rest in peace, Kevin. Your legacy in the role is assured. You made it your own, and in doing so you defined the character for generations. 

Future State - Top Ten: #1. Wonder Woman

 

Writer/Artist: Jöelle Jones

This result was basically self-evident from the first issue. I say “basically” since I had it ranked second when covering just the first two weeks of Future State. Swamp Thing topped it initially, with a truly outstanding first issue that was probably never going to be easy to follow with only one additional issue (though, again, Ram V’s follow-up series has more than adequately rectified that). But Jöelle Jones had created something that was truly effervescent:

A perfect confluence of writer, artist, and character. Two out of three of those were fairly easy to accomplish, as Jones wrote and drew the comic. Her new Wonder Woman, Brazilian (as in Amazon Rainforest) Yara Flor, didn’t bother with any kind of introduction or justification, but rather plunged into Jones’s version of Wonder Woman adventures.

Now, Wonder Woman is one of DC’s Big Three, but she has never had the rich history of Batman or Superman. She’s had continuous publication and significance, but really, none of the classic storytelling. There has been a considerable uptick in great storytelling in the past twenty years or so, with Greg Rucka (at least his classic embassy run) and Brian Azzarello being the obvious highlights, but nothing that feels quite as effortless as what Jones accomplishes here.

Simply put: This is a truly fun read. It’s beautiful to look at (I’m ashamed to admit this is the first time I’ve really appreciated Jones’s artwork), but it’s playful and assured in ways I’ve never really seen in a superhero comic. Usually playful means cartoonish. That’s not what Jones does. Her Wonder Woman enjoys being Wonder Woman, and is prepared for what she encounters. Simple as that.

And it’s a complete revelation. It’s easy to see that DC envisioned Future State to be a platform for new voices. I truly hope Jones has the chance to be elevated as far as she can go. I’ve read the first issue of the follow-up, and it’s just as awesome, but now I want more! I want to see Jones unleashed! The first female lead creator in comics!