Quarter Bin #35 "Archive Edition!"

SUPERMAN/BATMAN #33 (DC)
From March 2007:
Back when I was researching appearances for Bloodlines character Sparx, I came across this comic, and mistakenly purchased the issue before it, which incredibly I had already read and/or purchased, so it was with much appreciation that I actually found the right one sometime later in the back issues bins at Heroes & Dragons. Turns out she only makes an appearance on the cover (along with Loose Cannon, among others), but that’s okay, because I can still enjoy the issue as a typical SUPERMAN/BATMAN experience. It may not be remembered in 2012, but this was one of the hottest books of the new millennium, a Jeph Loeb project that was basically the second coming of Grant Morrison’s JLA, a series that centered on iconic characters in iconic ways, only this time further consolidated to the two most important superheroes in the DC canon, strictly from their perspective. By the time the series ended, you might be forgiven to having forgotten that it was an important book, because it had degenerated in significance in much the same way JLA did after Morrison left, how important readers then considered it. Mark Verheiden concludes his tale of an alien invasion revealed to be the work of Despero, a Justice League villain who has not been seen as a major threat for years. The twist is that all of Earth’s alien champions are turned against humanity. In a longer story arc, this would have had much more impact. Centralized on Superman and Batman, as is necessary in a series called SUPERMAN/BATMAN, it works better than it should, with Alfred serving as narrator and focusing on Batman’s perspective.

STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE #6 (Malibu)
From January 1994:
Star Trek has been subject to one of the comic book medium’s worst hot potato games. Marvel had the property, then DC, then Malibu jumped into the game with DS9, and then Marvel had it again, and now IDW has it (and has, pound-for-pound, done the most good with it). Unlike Star Wars, which has called Dark Horse home for years, Star Trek had new screen material being produced throughout this period, and so that’s probably why it happened, and probably why there’s been so many interpretations about what exactly a Star Trek comic should be. (Dark Horse, meanwhile, launched immediately into the same kind of adventures the books started doing, only vaguely related to the screen material, though you won’t hear the fans of these efforts complaining, which I would say is a problem.) The DC material started out trying to fill in gaps around the original movies, and then things grew complicated when THE NEXT GENERATION premiered, and grew still more complicated when DEEP SPACE NINE came about (hence why Malibu produced this comic, and not DC). VOYAGER had a comic when Marvel had the franchise again, but only briefly. ENTERPRISE, so far as I know, has still never been represented in comic book form. I have not read enough of the results in any form to make a total judgment on the efforts, but I will never make the argument that the comics are an adequate substitute for the shows (or movies). (The books aren’t, either, but there are fans here, too, who curiously have tried to make that argument for years.) I bought this issue because it seemed like the most likely one in the available selection to give its best foot forward, with a cover that suggested Sisko would be dealing with the emotional baggage of Wolf 359 (if I need to explain that, then you shouldn’t be reading any of this particular entry). Turns out there are three stories in this issue, and each of them seem to be geared for younger readers, which is a disappointment to an older reader, especially one who knows in 2012 that older viewers were exactly the intended audience for DS9, even if the series was slow to reach that point. True, the early seasons could be a little deliberation in presentation, but episodes like “A Man Alone” and “Duet” from the first season, for instance, demonstrate a maturity that Star Trek had rarely attained previously. I would have hoped that comic books made after these episodes (the entire comic book, in fact, was only launched after the first season had concluded, a point brought up in the letters column) would have reflected that quality. These are not notes from a sour fanboy, because god knows there have been plenty of notes from sour Star Trek fanboys on the Internet, but reflections from a comic book fan who wanted to see what was out there. This is what he found.

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #6 (DC)
From January 2005:
Visitors to this blog should already know how I’ve come to cherish the Loeb/Sale Challengers book that was created more than a decade prior to this particular effort, and so you’ll know why I gave it a shot. The creator is Howard Chaykin, and as with every other work by Howard Chaykin it’s quintessentially Howard Chaykin in nature. (That’s another statement I will not explain if you don’t understand it already.) Howard’s someone who plays by his own rules, and so when he gets his hands on a property like the Challengers, you ought to know that it won’t be like anything else you’ve read under that name. In fact, he’s got his own team, and this mini-series (with this being the concluding issue) was an origin that I assume led to nothing else, which is another shame (and maybe this is another Challengers comic that I will have to track down and read in its entirety, which is exactly what happened a year ago). Other than being a tad confusing, it’s brilliant. (My favorite Chaykin is the DIE HARD: YEAR ONE book he did for Boom!, but then, I haven’t read too much, considering he’s got a long career beyond what I’ve experienced, and he seems to specialize in standalone projects that are best remembered by Howard Chaykin fans…and I have a hard time finding other Howard Chaykin fans beyond the publishers who keep giving him paychecks.) Wow, so what have I actually said about this one? I’m afraid I’m making Howard out to be a boogeyman. What I’m really saying here is, if Howard Chaykin is attached to a project, it’s worth checking out, and if the Challengers, in whatever form they take, are involved, it’s worth checking out. And combined? I’m going to have to check it out…

CEREBUS ARCHIVES #1 (Aardvark-Vanaheim)
From April 2009:
The title of this column finally becomes clear! I bought this issue in the hopes of finding actual Cerebus material, but that was not to be. This is literally archive material, but not Cerebus in nature; rather, it’s David Sim’s own history. CEREBUS is one of the most important comic books of the last forty years, the longest-running independent work, not simply from a single creator, but period. Back in 2004, I had the chance to read the final issues, because I was just getting back into comics, and the final issues were being published, but I was not prepared to appreciate that fact, and so I missed the opportunity and Heroes & Dragons was not prepared in 2011 to compensate. Instead there was this. (I bought the first issue of Sim’s follow-up work, GLAMOURPUSS, when it came out, but didn’t attempt to continue reading that series.) I suppose it’s interesting to learn how militantly Canadian Sim was in those days when he was trying to break into comics, but I really wanted to read me some Cerebus. That will just have to be one of my quests.