The title of this feature is not literal. It's a back issues spotlight. Most of the comics from this particular were definitely not bought for a quarter.
This has been a summer of awareness that I probably won't be buying too many comics in the near future, for the foreseeable future, and so I've kind of made a mockery of how I've been intending to slow down my purchases. I know, it's easy to hide how many comics I've read in group reviews like this, but the truth is, it's been a lot, and now that I'm nearing the end, I thought I might take a deliberate look at the back issues, and find some interesting stuff I wanted to have a look at. This time, they'll be grouped between creators or titles, because I've tried to be an advocate of reading comics for the sake of the artistic value, admittedly from the writer side of the equation, most of the time, getting a sense of what a creator, or a series, has done as a statement in the medium, and not just reading for the sake of reading superheroes, or comics, in general. And I managed to once again find some good stuff...
Animal Man #26 (DC)
The Invisibles (third series) #9 (Vertigo)
JLA/WildCATs (DC)
Spotlight: Grant Morrison
It should come as no surprise that Grant Morrison factored into this search, as he's been a longtime favorite, and favorite topic, of mine. Animal Man #26 is the final issue of his run in that series, and features the classic scene where Buddy Baker literally has a conversation with Morrison himself, which I'd previously read in the Deus Ex Machina trade collection. Morrison wonders if he's maybe indulged himself a little too much, but the whole concept of fictional worlds being utterly under the control of their writers, and the writer's perspective on it, is a fascinating topic in and of itself, including how Morrison approached Animal Man as a whole, and what he thought he'd accomplished. Buddy's experience in the issue, for me, comes off like a precursor to The Truman Show, the Jim Carrey movie where he realizes he's the subject of a TV show. If you want, it might even be an analogy for the surveillance age, in which we're all paranoid about being watched. (Who watches dull people?) The Invisibles, meanwhile, is the Morrison opus I've never even come close to reading in full, much less fully comprehending what it was all about. Morrison, and his fans, liked to claim in later years that The Matrix kind of shamelessly ripped off of it, but after The Invisibles #9, I'm not sure I'd make that claim. It seems more like Matt Kindt's recent Mind MGMT, in which a subset of humanity has a hard time coming to grips with its own past. In a way, this whole thing was Morrison's statement on the lasting effects of the '70s generation, the one most influenced by the '60s counterculture revolution, who absorbed alternative culture as the culture, and has been trying to reconcile it with the mainstream ever since. This is where anyone who wants to figure out Grant Morrison should really investigate. JLA/WildCATs, meanwhile, comes so early in Morrison's then-recent JLA launch that it still features Electric Superman. Unlike a lot of crossovers between companies, this prestige format one-shot has something other than novelty on the brain. It's like Morrison's initial attempt at a mainstream event story, with a villain who unites the teams (this is the most clear statement of who the members of the WildCATs are I've ever read, by the way) in an intricately-conceived story, filled with what would become Morrison's trademark language for concepts that go well beyond the average, the language, in other words, that he developed to convey his vision of superhero comics (there's a reason why he gave the title of his nonfiction commentary Supergods). It's also fitting that the story begins with Wally West, as he was one of the characters, in the pages of The Flash, where Morrison spent some of his formative time writing mainstream superheroes. Needless to say, these were all well worth reading.
Countdown to Infinite Crisis (DC)
Spotlight: Geoff Johns
Although he co-writes this comic with Greg Rucka and Judd Winnick (Johns and Rucka would later be part of the impressive 52 writing team together), I prefer to think of Countdown as the start of Geoff Johns' ascension to the top of the DC writing order. As its title suggests, it leads directly to Infinite Crisis, Johns' event follow-up to Crisis on Infinite Earths. Somewhat inexplicably, Johns had written an event book at the beginning of his DC career (Day of Judgment, which somewhat prophetically was ultimately a Hal Jordan story), but by the time of Countdown, his stock had risen sufficiently to ensure that he would no longer be lost in the shuffle, or feel he might need to look elsewhere for some love (by which I allude to his short stint writing for Marvel in the early millennium). What he achieves with Countdown is the complete mastery of DC continuity, as he was helping it become, that he'd later demonstrate in Flashpoint and DC Universe Rebirth, among others. There are those who are unhappy about Johns' rise, saying that he's a shameless fanboy who regresses continuity more than builds it. To them I say, Green Lantern. No one in comics has ever built continuity like that, no single person on any single property, as extensively as that, as comprehensively, as productively. Go ahead and challenge me if you like, but it's true. There was groundwork laid for some of it, but he completely exploded the whole concept, in the best way possible. What Countdown does is provide a coda for Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis, which became the modern benchmark for making event stories count for something. In detailing Ted Kord's tragic investigation, Johns and his co-writers transform Blue Beetle, who had become a fairly worthless character in the years after losing Justice League membership, into one of the most heroic figures in DC lore, in much the way Meltzer made it practically impossible to ever again (excluding 52, obviously) tell a good Elongated Man story. Ted Kord, Ralph Dibney...these were characters who were never DC icons, whose stories ended so perfectly it continues to seem impossible to use them productively again. Ted showed up in Johns' Justice League, but he's now serving as a mentor to his replacement, Jaime Reyes. Where Alan Moore has tried desperately to seal off Watchmen because he didn't think there was anything left to tell about that story, and fans generally agree (except Geoff Johns), the fates of Ted and Ralph are examples of effecting that in-continuity. Some future edition of Identity Crisis should actually include Countdown, and if Infinite Crisis somehow hasn't to this point, it definitely should. It's required reading for DC fans.
Daredevil: Dark Nights #1, 3 (Marvel)
Spotlight: Lee Weeks
I read the first issue previously in a digital edition, and I raved about it as an answer to the long-standing Miller Narrative, garnering the rare outside comment (meaning, someone other than Pat Dilloway) in response. Lee Weeks, who has been delighting me in Superman stories with Dan Jurgens, turned out to be one of those artists who can also write exceptionally well. The psychology he brings to the table is considerable, establishing what it is that keeps Matt Murdock grounded without having to tear the floor out from under him (the Miller Narrative), as a more human superhero than we tend to see. This despite the fairly meaningless superpowers he gained in his origin story. Daredevil ends up as a human Superman, if that makes any sense, who can hear far beyond the ordinary range and wants desperately to help out, even when it tests the limits of his endurance. When Spider-Man does that (there's a famous moment in which he hefts a heavy weight of crumbling infrastructure fans like to remember), it just comes off as his writers struggling to underline his underdog status. I never understood why Spider-Man had to be an underdog, too, when Peter Parker already filled that bill. With Matt Murdock, he's a lawyer who champions the underdogs when he's not Daredevil, who is one of the few disabled superheroes (quick, name another!), and so there's a real sense that he's just a guy trying to do the right thing, despite all other extenuating circumstances. Weeks is the first time I've found someone who truly understands that.
Green Lantern: Mosaic #16, 17 (DC)
Spotlight: Green Lantern: Mosaic
When I read the first issue of this series some twenty-five years ago, I was instantly thunderstruck by its maverick vision. Recently I think I've settled on characterizing it as the mainstream DC version of the then-emerging Vertigo psyche, providing a truly alternative approach to storytelling, and bucking expectations with abandon. As a Green Lantern series, it remains completely unique to this day, and also totally unappreciated. So I always enjoy dipping my toes into my still-incomplete enjoyment of the complete experience (there is but one more issue after #17 remaining for the run). The letters columns seem to have been a battleground in attempting to define what exactly Mosaic was. Mosaic #16 features two fascinating letters discussing whether or not John Stewart adequately represents black Americans. On the one hand is Dr. Shabbaz, who advocates the African perspective, and on the other Thad Damien Pendleton, who insists that who he is shouldn't be defined by the color of his skin. Both are valid in their own way, and that they are united in reading a comic book about a guy with a magical ring trying to keep disparate colonies united, despite all opposition, seems quite frankly to be unbelievable. And yet, in recent years whenever Marvel has placed a new minority in a familiar role, letter writers have chimed in with similar sentiments. They want, above all, to be represented, to be heard. That's the message of Mosaic in a nutshell. John Stewart, to that point, was the black Green Lantern, or the Green Lantern haunted by his failure to save a whole planet in Cosmic Odyssey (these two versions appear in the Justice League cartoons), but within the pages of Mosaic he takes up a whole new crusade, one uniquely his own, and perhaps he uniquely was capable of undertaking. DC always understood that legacy meant an opportunity to build rather than merely change, something Marvel has been having a hard time understanding recently. Fans look at the New 52, at DC Rebirth, and even Crisis on Infinite Earths and say DC was just screwing with them. But this is what DC has been doing since the Silver Age, since Hal Jordan became Green Lantern, since Barry Allen became the Flash. Well, John Stewart starred in Green Lantern: Mosaic, and that's something Marvel can never touch, either. These aren't simple stories, and Mosaic may have been one of the most complicated ones ever. I say again, it deserves to be recognized. DC has been reprinting a lot of old material lately. Make Green Lantern: Mosaic a part of that, please.
Green Lantern Movie Prequel - Abin Sur (DC)
Green Lantern Movie Prequel - Hal Jordan (DC)
Green Lantern Movie Prequel - Sinestro (DC)
Green Lantern Movie Prequel - Tomar-Re (DC)
Spotlight: Green Lantern (2011)
The Green Lantern movie became one of the infamous superhero busts at the box office, a victim in part of the emerging Avengers surge that has been dominating audiences ever since. Plenty of people have said that it's because the movie just wasn't any good, but I've never understood that. I mean, I do tend to like a lot of movies that other people don't. It's not because I'm a contrarian. It's not because I'd wanted a Green Lantern movie for years, and in that respect might be said to have liked it simply because it finally existed. I liked the movie. I loved the movie. It completely worked for me. Maybe because I was primed to understand its logic? Well, that can't necessarily be it, because I'm sure there are plenty of Green Lantern fans who didn't like it. I don't know. The hate kind of drowned out everything else. These prequel comics generously lay out the whole concept, especially what it means to be a Green Lantern, kind of like what it would have been like to be a marshal in the Old West. What throws a lot of people, I think, is the concept that Green Lantern is that rare superhero who isn't singular, but plural. The four Green Lanterns featured in these one-shots (there's also one for Kilowog). A lot of times, tie-in prequel comics are worthless. They're shameless cash-in efforts with little attention afforded to quality. Because these feature four (okay, five) different versions of a Green Lantern, all of whom have a significant role in the movie and a different perspective, I think it was impossible to get anything less than decent results. But they also represent what a pitiful opinion of humans Green Lanterns had before Hal Jordan, and I think that's part of what made the movie such a hard sell, too. We tend to be pretty egotistical. Even in Star Trek, humans are the glue that holds everything together. Superheroes inevitably define Earth as the center of the universe, too. Green Lantern has always been different. Hal Jordan is a tough sell, too, because inevitably the question becomes, what makes him so special, other than the ring? Well, as with any Green Lantern, the ability to overcome great fear. The movie makes him almost tough to like, a tough sell even to the audience as a worthy bearer of a power ring. But his perseverance, and his willingness to question authority, make him unique. These are qualities that can be easily lost in the shuffle, when he's presented as a member of the Justice League, for instance. But in the comics, Hal has long been defined by his inability to work within the system, even leaving the Green Lantern Corps (that's how Guy Gardner and John Stewart became Green Lantern) when he felt he could no longer put up with it. I don't know. The concept fascinates me. The movie fascinates me. And I'm glad they got these comics right, too.
Legion of Super-Heroes #53 (DC)
Spotlight: Stuart Immonen, Tom McGraw
When I was digging around for another Stuart Immonen LSH issue to read, I tried really hard not to double-up on the one I'd read last time. Turns out, I goofed. It didn't help that the cover had new resonance for me, having just read the Valor issue where Glorith had also appeared. This is the awesome little recap issue where the team finally defeats her, or she defeats herself, whatever the case may be. I just love how Tom McGraw pulls together years of continuity to spell it all out. Now, plenty of readers hate exposition, telling rather than showing, but if it's done right, it's as good as any other kind of storytelling. This was definitely done right. McGraw and Immonen, as I explained before, relate the recap below the main action, so that as you're reading the issue, both unfold at the same time. I find it highly likely that Immonen kept this in mind when he was telling his later Superman stories, which tended to buck creative tradition on occasion. It's a truly great issue, and I can't for the life of me figure out why the Legion was so hard-up to find vocal fans during this time.
Superior #1 (Icon)
Superman Adventures #22 (DC)
Spotlight: Mark Millar
Mark Millar clearly has Superman on the brain. One of his most-recent projects, Huck, was his response to Man of Steel, presenting a Superman who might convincingly be said to hail from a simple small-town life (similar to Tom De Haven's vision from It's Superman!). Somewhat similarly, Superior was Millar's response to the malaise that greeted Superman Returns. It's also, somewhat amusingly, his recoupling of Captain Marvel as a Superman figure, when a disabled boy gets the chance to be Superior (for all intents and purposes, Superman). One of Millar's signature stories is Superman: Red Son, which imagines what would have happened if the rocket had landed in Soviet Russia instead of rural Kansas. Some of his early solo comics work was in Superman Adventures, based on the animated series, said to be some really good Superman material, regardless of continuity (again). I hadn't previously read either Superior or his Superman Adventures work, and so I figured I'd give it a look. Incidentally, Millar has been mulling a new project for the Big Two, and has narrowed down his choices to something for Marvel, or Superman. Guess which one he'll choose?
The Adventures of Superman #596 (DC)
Spotlight: 9/11
This was the comic that arrived in stores the day after 9/11, featuring a close-up of Superman busting his Clark Kent dress shirt open...revealing a black-lit version of his familiar S-shield. It was the aftermath of the "Our Worlds at War" arc, the defining story of that Superman era, but it coincided with the real world in ways conspiracy theorists still like to speculate about. I'd never read it. One of the most famous comics of the new millennium, and finally, it ended up being really easy to buy, cheap, and worth every penny. The story concerns Superman deciding it wasn't his place to clean up after the effects of the devastating alien war he'd just fought. President Luthor (yes, it's that era, too) tries to claim otherwise, but some ordinary people back up Superman's stance, saying it gives them point of pride to do what Superman does, chip in with the task of living in this world, regardless of what happens. It reads like an acknowledgment that even if Superman did exist, we wouldn't, and shouldn't, rely totally on him. There's always the debate that since Superman seems so powerful, not only does he seem invulnerable to most threats, but can solve every problem. That just isn't the case. Whatever else this era accomplished, it was good for defining Superman's limits (previously, it had also told a story, "King of the World," where he tries to be Superman 24/7, which proves untenable). This was a time when DC was attempting to redefine Superman's relevance. Post-9/11, it might have looked like he suddenly became the most irrelevant fictional character around. And yet, because of a quirk of fate, he was already giving the world the very statement it sought.
"garnering the rare outside comment (meaning, someone other than Pat Dilloway) in response."
ReplyDeleteSay whaaaaaaat?