Quarter Bin #8 "Argus"

There’s not going to be much mystery concerning this week’s subject once I say the comics that inspired it, so let’s get that out of the way:

ARGUS #1-6 (DC)
From April through October 1995.

Okay, so you may actually still be scratching your heads, but suffice it to say, but if you guessed “Argus,” then you were correct. Like Sparx (the subject of Quarter Bin #6 a few weeks back), Argus was a product of the 1993 Bloodlines annuals, whose origins have to do with an alien invasion, what began as a series attacks that were supposed to kill, but instead transformed a select group of ordinary joes into members of what was supposed to be a new generation of superheroes.

Argus debuted in THE FLASH ANNUAL #6, and was created by speed guru Mark Waid, and designed by Phil Hester, who also supplies the art for much of the ARGUS mini-series. What helps set this particular Bloodlines character apart from some of the others is the fact that Waid actually used Argus in the FLASH ongoing from time to time, whereas most of the others were quickly abandoned by the host series they sprang from. At the time, Waid was still getting warmed up in his run (these wordplays never get old!), having only recently worked on the seminal “Return of Barry Allen” (which, contrary to its title, did not actually feature the return of Barry Allen, but featured all sorts of breakthrough Speed Force work, including the debut of Max Mercury, one of my favorite characters of all-time). He was busy carving out a whole working mythology, and an extended cast of characters, and while Argus was not, in fact, a speedster, he still worked within the context of what Waid envisioned, which including a broadening of the role a character like the Pied Piper, who began as a Rogue and would eventually (apparently) die as one, could inhabit.

On the surface, Argus appears to be something of a riff on Daredevil, a superhero with vision issues, and a horribly complicated life, and maybe that’s exactly why he never caught on. Now, obviously, I’m arguing that this sells the character short. The mini-series that’s at the heart of this column is a testament to this fact, proves that a good, distinctive story can come out of him. Or that, at the very least, Argus is one of the few Bloodlines creations that remains completely salvageable, along with Sparx, Loose Cannon, and Anima, all of whom have gotten some measure of almost-satisfactory exploration, and comparatively better fates than their contemporaries, excluding Hitman, but not Gunfire (though maybe even he’s redeemable).

ARGUS is written by the team of Mark Wheatley and Allan Gross, and concerns not only an involving exploration of the character as originally envisioned by Waid, but also a considerable evolution of him, taking Argus on a personal odyssey that includes a complicated relationship with his father, his status as a federal agent working deep undercover in a mob, and the loss of his eyes, which has the outcome of bringing out new facets of his powers. Clearly this is not just a book that uses an existing character, but is at every step deeply invested in that character. On that level alone ARGUS is worth reading, since few comic book stories are interested in doing that sort of thing, whether they attempt to mask a thinner version with only the suggestion of such storytelling, or not bothering to write any real characters at all.

Needless to say, however, Argus has been largely absent from comics in recent years, and was quickly forgotten by DC in general not long after this mini-series, and even by Mark Waid himself, who admittedly had a lot of things to work with, and so even when he was working on THE FLASH during that decade, he could only turn to Argus so many times. And, unfortunately, when Waid wasn’t writing him, it was incredibly unlikely, even then, that anyone else would include the character in their stories. As I’ve suggested, Argus appears on the surface to be extremely derivative. When he didn’t catch on like DC might have hoped, even with his own fairly lengthy mini-series, it was only natural for the publisher to forget about him. Argus isn’t flashy enough on his own that his participation in any kind of team book would make much of a difference. DC tried using exactly this kind of character in SHADOWPACT, and that didn’t exactly work out (and it didn’t the first time around, PRIMAL FORCE, either). Without any kind of commitment or substitute home, any hope that Argus might stick around very quickly diminished, and he slipped into superhero limbo.

The whole Bloodlines project was something of a gamble anyway. Trying to introduce even one new superhero is always difficult, but trying to introduce a whole group of new superheroes is even more difficult, especially when they’re supposed to stand on their own, but in fact have a common origin, one that stems from a single event, and be the result of a scenario that itself isn’t very popular, as evidenced by the singular lack of impact these particular aliens have had on subsequent DC lore. And given that DC somewhat liberally employs aliens in its storytelling (its flagship hero is the most famous alien in history), that’s really saying something.

Still, I like to contend that Argus is not a totally worthless concept for modern readers. A man trapped between worlds, and saddled with abilities he can’t always make sense of, that’s the sort of thing that timeless comics are made of. Give another shot, Argus can be timeless, too. As Mark Waid himself has already demonstrated, the character can function entirely independent of his origins, and as ARGUS further demonstrated, the character can also function within the context of his particular elements, and not a word of those origins, again, are particularly relevant. Some characters are bound by their origins, others aren’t. Argus doesn’t need to be. Maybe he doesn’t really matter to a Flash story now, and he doesn’t have to do that, either. You don’t need to know Wolverine was ever a member of the X-Men to enjoy one of his stories, after all. Maybe Argus could join a team, maybe he doesn’t even need to. Maybe there’s another big story within his own framework just waiting to happen, that will explode his possibilities.

Or, hey, maybe he’s just another great discovery for those reading the comics they can find in the back issue bins, where all superheroes have the privilege to exist. Who really wants to call that limbo?