Quarter Bin #30 "Time of Your Life"

MARTIAN MANHUNTER #35 (DC)
From October 2001:
Today it seems weird to even consider that Martian Manhunter has actually had an ongoing series, much less that it ran (only?) for a few years. Thanks to Grant Morrison’s JLA, J’onn J’onzz finally had a high enough profile where DC, after many decades, thought he could carry one even though he’s a green-skinned, bald alien whose costume traditionally features practically nothing but a blue cape. Writer John Ostrander chose a strictly cerebral approach from the start, and stuck with it to the end, a mere one more issue after this one, crafting story after story of the introvert’s continued battles with the ghosts of his past, namely unresolved conflicts with the dead Martians who were more often than not related to him (the superb 2006-2007 mini-series that sought to given J’onn a more modern look and perspective did pretty much the same). In the New 52 he’s been drafted into Stormwatch, but I figure Martian Manhunter would probably work best in a Vertigo title (maybe not as much the modern Vertigo), where the rich storytelling potential that persists around him could truly be exploited and appreciated, since very few creators seem interested in seeing what it would be like to see what he looks like in the mainstream (other than munching on Oreos). Anyway, Ostrander goes so far here as to see what he looks like in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World. Because nothing says popular appeal like Jack Kirby’s Fourth World!

IMPULSE #88 (DC)
From September 2002:
This was one of those books that were practically doomed from the start, after such a distinct and awesome and totally appropriate creative team of Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos helped introduce it. Any other combination was either going to have to try and live up to it, ape it as closely as possible, or actually try something else. For a while, trying to live up to it actually seemed to work, under the auspices of William Messner-Loebs and Craig Rousseau (who memorably gave us a bald Bart Allen), but I think after a while, aping was exactly what subsequent creators tried to do, which is what I found in here. I had to give up reading the book in 1999, so I lost track of what the series became, and only knew that it was eventually cancelled and morphed into Geoff Johns’ new vision of Bart in TEEN TITANS. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Todd Dezago and Carlo Barberi, except they’ve basically taken the Waid/Ramos template and all but made a parody of it. There are letters from readers in the back of the issue (the penultimate one of the series) calling it a young reader’s haven, but that wasn’t what the series was originally intended to be. I call this dilemma Harry Potter Syndrome, in that J.K Rowling makes it cool for kids to read again, and so publishers rush into accepting inferior product from other writers who only think they know how to write for this audience. Again, it’s not a bad issue, but for anyone with experience with earlier issues, it just doesn’t stand up. (Then again, when I say reinvention…well, I was going to use SUPERBOY #100 as an example, because I’ve written about that one in a previous Quarter Bin, #22 to be precise, but I’ve got a better one later this very column.)

IMPULSE #79 (DC)
From December 2001:
Slightly earlier in the title’s past we have a “Joker: Last Laugh” tie-in from Dezago that puts the focus on Max Mercury and a foe from his past. Normally I would have been extremely happy to read an issue that puts the spotlight on Max, because I quickly became a fan of the Zen Master of Speed from Mark Waid’s introduction of him in “The Return of Barry Allen” (these days I need to probably explain that this particular story isn’t what you might expect from that title, and I’ll simply implore you to read all of Waid’s Flash from this time). The problem is, Max is written the same way Bart is by Dezago, and it’s with no real grasp that it’s a character who used to be taken seriously, which is not to say Dezago doesn’t, but not in the same way as Mark Waid. It’s like reading a Will Payton Starman by someone other than James Robinson. Sure, it’s possible, but are you really going to care? Also, in regards to “Joker: Last Laugh,” I kind of feel bad for DC readers who had to put up with this particular crossover.

NIGHTWING #153 (DC)
From April 2009:
It was easy to tell back in 2009 that Dick Grayson would be a big hit as Batman, because the final issue of his first Nightwing series sold so much better than any other one probably since the earliest ones. I know I had a hard time finding it, for years, and even double-dipped on the one right before it because I was so convinced and confused about which one the last one actually was. Well, I finally corrected that and read the issue, from Peter Tomasi, the writer who took over from Marv Wolfman, who took over from Bruce Jones, who couldn’t possibly have hoped to follow in the footsteps of Devin Grayson (no matter what popular opinion says about her) or Chuck Dixon, especially since he was the first writer to try and toss out everything that had previously been established in the series. (Wolfman, who tried his best to tap into Dick’s history in other respects, came to closest to bringing the book back to its glory days.) Now, I love Tomasi, whether working on Green Lantern, THE MIGHTY, or even the odd BATMAN & ROBIN I’ve managed to read from him and Patrick Gleason, but he was not a good fit for NIGHTWING. This final issue is more awkward than I’d hoped (best sequence is the backup “Origins & Omens” feature that involves Barbara Gordon), but was still worth finally reading, knowing what was coming next, and certainly now that I’ve read Kyle Higgins’ excellent New 52 series.

NIGHTWING #s 84-85 (DC)
From October & November 2003:
Devin K. Grayson doesn’t get near enough respect, and here’s why in a nutshell: all the work Chuck Dixon put into crafting Dick Grayson’s first ongoing series, crafting a whole city of his own around him, Devin exquisitely deconstructed. To this day I don’t know if that was Dixon’s plan all along, if Devin was working from an outline she only had to embellish, or if and more likely she envisioned her own scenario that happened to beautifully complement what had come before, but the bottom line is, as much as I liked what Dixon did, I loved what Devin did that much more. Dixon introduced the character of Tad Ryerstad, “Nite-wing,” and a whole rogues gallery of corrupt law enforcers, and even introduced Blockbuster as Nightwing’s personal Kingpin, but it was Devin who realized that the character of Tarantula was necessary to bring it all together, someone who could work with all of Dick Grayson’s strengths and weaknesses (their relationship culminates in what fans at the time decried as an emasculating and humiliating “rape,” and then like a classic thriller pretty much everyone but Nightwing dead). These are some key issues in Devin’s run, which also included a coda in which Dick pretends to turn villain during the height of the “Villains United” lead-up to INFINITE CRISIS. If I had it my way, every one of Devin’s issues on NIGHTWING would be in collected edition form, and she’d be working alongside Higgins in the continuing adventures of Dick Grayson. If many fans still hold up Frank Miller’s Daredevil to be one of the peaks of comic book storytelling, Devin Grayson’s Nightwing was taking the precedent to the next level.