Reading Comics 223 "The DC Walmart 100-Page Giants, Month 5"

So I've continued buying DC's Walmart-exclusive (although someone...smuggled? them in, as I guess you should expect, to one of the comic cons I went to this fall) 100-page giants.  I've caught every issue of the Superman giants, most of the Batman, and started buying the Teen Titans giants again.  Haven't really gotten back into Justice League after the first issue.

World's Greatest Super-Heroes Holiday Special
The second holiday special, after the Halloween one, is Christmas-centric.  The lead, original story is from Scott Lobdell and features the Flash and his Rogues.  The real highlight of this particular giant is, however, is a reprint from two years ago, "Good Boy," a Batman Annual #1 reprint written by Tom King, his origin of Ace the Bathound, who starts out as a dog used by the Joker.  Batman brings him home, not knowing what else to do, and Alfred spends the next four months taming him, exhibiting his infinite Pennyworth patience.  The sequence, of course, ends on Christmas, with Batman noting wryly that Alfred didn't get him anything this year.  One of King's great characterizations has been Alfred; it'd be great for an extended look at some point, although if this is the closest we get it'll still rank among the highlights of the run.

The other highlight is from Superman #64, originally published in 1991, as you can tell a little less than a year before "Doomsday."  The writer is Dan Jurgens, but the artist is Butch Guice (as he was later known; here he's still known as Jackson Guice), who was later one of the key "triangle era" artists, best known for his Action Comics Eradicator "Reign of the Supermen" arc.  The Guice in this issue is wonderfully moody (even if the inking could be updated to freshen it up), full of shadows, a marked contrast to his later work and not the kind of art you typically associate with Superman.

There's also a Supergirl tale that's similar to Jurgens' tale about answering mail and humanity; a Harley Quinn; and a Green Lanterns, Rebirth era tale featuring Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz.  Honestly, when that run began I was hugely excited for Baz and Cruz to step into the spotlight, but over time I've grown tired of the storytelling that leaned so heavily on their core insecurities, which of course this tale does, too. 

Batman 100-Page Comic Giant #5
The lead is the third installment of Brian Michael Bendis and Nick Derington's all-new tale, which this issue finally reveals as featuring Vandal Savage as the big bad, after spotlighting an atypically muddled Riddler as Batman and eventually Green Arrow, too, trying to figure out his latest scheme.  Bendis is clearly having a ball (a lot of DC fans expected him to jump into writing Batman, not Superman, when his jump from Marvel was first announced), while Derington has helped keep things lively, too.  I was trying to remember where I knew Derington from, and figured out it was the Young Animal Doom Patrol, famously much-delayed in recent issues.  Hopefully his collaborating with Bendis means Derington is gaining DC's confidence as one of its elite artists.

As has appeared in previous issues, the three reprint comics that round out the Batman giants are the "Hush" arc, plus the New 52 Nightwing and Harley Quinn.  I was initially a fan of Kyle Higgins' Nightwing, but I find myself glossing over the material in the giants, and I have no real interest in Harley Quinn.  "Hush" remains brilliant, although in hindsight it certainly seems obvious that Jeph Loeb's fixation on the previously-nonexistent childhood pal of Bruce Wayne, Tommy Elliot, is a dead giveaway that he was the mystery villain all along.  The Jim Lee art equally remains spectacular.  Honestly I think Lee's DC work will become his lasting legacy.

Superman 100-Page Comic Giant #5
But I'm really here to once again gush over Tom King.  Like Bendis, he's now on the third installment of his giants tale, which features Superman's search for a little girl, and the increasingly desperate lengths he will go to in order to find her.

This issue features his most desperate moment so far in the tale.  It's a kind of update on the classic Superman/Muhammad Ali boxing match from the '70s, only this time it's not Ali he's fighting, but an alien named Mighto.  That cover image is from artist Andy Kubert, who unlike his brother Adam has stuck with DC since they jumped, like Bendis, unexpectedly from Marvel, ten years back.  Until now Andy had mostly been associated with Batman material, but he's proving equally adept, and perhaps, ideally suited, to Superman, and this issue, as it for King's tale, might be the highlight of his DC work to date.  It's really something you ought to go out of your way to track down and read for yourself.

As really only the classic "Doomsday" arc had done previously, the story is all about Superman's incredible endurance, his ability to absorb punishment.  This is superhero comics storytelling usually reserved for Spider-Man (which always seemed fairly beside the point to me, other than Marvel's penchant for tortured characters), and seems counterintuitive for someone like Superman, who's usually thought of as overpowered to the point where an artificial weakness (kryptonite) had to be invented along the way.  But Superman is best understood not by his powers but by his force of will, his humanity, and as such, King has rightly illustrated what putting him in a fight ought to look like.  He takes an incredible pounding, apparently past his ability to endure, and yet he refuses to stay down. 

When you think of DC going out on a limb with something like these Walmart giants, you don't really expect them to throw away exceptional material like this, much less have talent the caliber and prestige of Tom King, Brian Bendis or Andy Kubert.  And yet these are bold decisions that are truly paying off, as these guys are massively delivering, and this installment proves beyond any doubt that truly great material is making its way into the giants. 

Reprints include Green Lantern (the original Geoff Johns series), Superman/Batman (someone at DC no doubt finds it deliciously amusing to look back at President Luthor in the Trump era), and The Terrifics, which continues to prove, well, terrific.  I hope Jeff Lemire can keep it going for a long time.  It's at long last, perhaps, his DC breakthrough, and quite possibly Mister Terrific himself in his breakthrough moment.

Teen Titans 100-Page Comic Giant #5
Dan Jurgens, at his most generic, is about the level of what you'd expect from the idea of Walmart-exclusive storytelling.  This is not to say that Jurgens can't rise well above that perception, but he seems uninterested in what I've read, and why I haven't read all of the Teen Titans giants.

But the reprint material is well worth the price of admission.  Johns' Teen Titans is being serialized (last issue included the classic moment where Bart Allen officially reinvented himself as Kid Flash).  I'd never really read it before; this introductory arc is kind of funny in hindsight, as Johns is clearly presenting a version of his later Reverse-Flash as a villain merely attempting to make the hero better, an idea that reached its zenith in Flashpoint.  There's also Super Sons, which I likewise haven't previously had a lot of experience actually reading. I think Pete Tomasi is better suited to writing this than he was Superman.  And then there's Sideways, which on a superficial level was always interpreted as the New Age of Heroes DC version of Spider-Man, but honestly, like the New 52 Doctor Fate before it is kind of more the DC version of the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel.  And in two more issues I'll finally get to read the first appearance of the Seven Soldiers of Victory in the series.  But I'll probably have to track down the annual separately to enjoy Morrison playing in that sandbox again...

Reading Comics 222 "Nightwing, Halloween ComicFest, Walmart 3-Pack Residuals"

Been lousy keeping up Thought Bubble Comics, I know, I know...

Halloween ComicFest 2018
Here's another free comics event, one I haven't really participated in as enthusiastically as, well, Free Comic Book Day, mostly because, well FCBD is a legit phenomenon and this isn't.  It's just an excuse for some free comics!  Not that there's a problem with that sort of thing, right?  Of course, participating publishers also have a kind of themed mandate with this one where they don't on FCBD.  As such, it was far harder, and conversely far easier, to make selections.  I ended up with just two, DC/Vertigo's John Constantine: Hellblazer special edition and Marvel's Thor: Road to War of the Realms.  I wasn't really interested in anything else (not even anything particularly relevant to snag for my three-year-old niece, alas), though I hemmed and hawed, because free comics, yo. 

Obviously DC was most interested in selling the Vertigo brand itself, and Constantine is as reliable a selling point, as signature an element, as Vertigo ever had, sort of the last crayon in the box by the end, absorbed into DC proper eventually but never really feeling at home there.  I mean, the whole concept was built for the original Vertigo mandate of the creepy fringe elements.  I never really got into the character, mostly because he seemed to be used mostly as an excuse, a vehicle, more than for whatever he specifically brought to the table, or that his fans were not particularly vocal about his selling points.  I mean, the concept, which became a Keanu Reeves movie at one point, and then a short-lived TV series and then featured player in another show.  This issue was written by Neil Gaiman, who does Neil Gaiman at his most vague.  What always made Gaiman's instincts work so well in the pages of Sandman was that it was always grounded in real human pathos.  There's an attempt made in the story, but Constantine is inherently uninterested in what's most interesting in Gaiman's best material.  And I'm not really much of a horror for horror's sake kind of reader.  So anyway, still haven't figured out the guy's appeal, or waiting for a writer like Lemire, in the pages of I, Vampire, to figure out how to draw him out of his shell.  What he needs is other characters to consistently react against. 

The Thor issue was part of Jason Aaron's sprawling run, apparently somewhere near the beginning (third out of twelve volumes helpfully spelled out in the back pages).  What's most annoying about Thor as a character, to me, is that he's so often, certainly in Aaron's hands, entirely limited to Asgardian business.  It's like Aquaman only concerned with Atlantis court intrigue.  You need to remember that this is a character who will thrive best as a fish out of water, not forever thrust in alienating context.

Anyway...

Batman #57
Tom King's latest successful outrage magnet was hobbling Nightwing (more on that in a moment) in the midst of a mini-arc with the KGBeast.  I was perfectly okay with this for any number of reasons.  One is that he previously made a very early career mark with the Beast in the pages of his seminal Grayson: Futures End, which of course featured Nightwing, years before King wrote an issue of Batman.  Another is that this arc instantly further elevates the Beast's credibility by placing him, basically, at the same level as Bane, who in King's hands has finally reached his full "Knightfall" potential.  And as he has so often demonstrated, King used this moment for another excellent character study.

But let's move on to...

Nightwing # 50-51
Between Ben Percy and Scott Lobdell, this is the start of a bold new era for Dick Grayson.  Another bold new era.  This is a character who has defined bold new eras in DC. Fans like to slake their need for nerd outrage by claiming Dan DiDio has long had it ought for Nightwing, but...the results?  They kind of suggest the character has blossomed as never before under DiDio's watch.  Whether it was in the pages of the New 52 Nightwing, where he was consistently presented as relevant to Scott Snyder's Batman, which never happened in the long-running first Nightwing ongoing (which went on for a hundred and fifty issues, no less), or the bold new era of his exposed secret identity, which led to the spy adventures of Grayson, which by the way introduced readers to Tom King, the character has had it good.  For a character almost as old as DC itself, who went from a kid sidekick to growing up and claiming his own identity, who had his own team built around him, these have all been milestone events not just for Nightwing but DC and superhero comics in general.

So quit complaining already.

This time it's "merely" a story where he's temporarily forgotten all about having ever been Nightwing, Robin, any of that.  As if that's going to last.  In the meantime, there are going to be entirely new Dick Grayson stories.  That's always a good thing.  Too often, Nightwing stories are most worried about distinguishing him from Batman.  And just as often, a new creative team becomes obsessed with returning the character to his roots.  Somehow Kyle Higgins was the first one to do so as literally as taking him back to Haly's Circus. 

Which means letting him experience something that's not comparing him to Batman or harking back to some previous era (which is not to say material that's done this hasn't been very good) or setting him up in some new territory...This is, once again, a great time to be a fan of Nightwing.  That's the bottom line here, folks.  And Percy and Lobdell in these issues prove they're capable of making it interesting, and good reading. 

Walmart 3-Packs
Ah!  So I've continued reading the latest DC gifts to Wallyworld, the 100-page giants, and while I wish I'd been talking about the King and Bendis tales now unfolding in them here, it's always fun to revisit the 3-packs that still haven't sold out and were trotted out when the giants' display boxes went up.  So I started buying them again, of course, because someone has to...

Batman #1, 25, 34 - These are all from the New 52, and were fun to read.  I was never the biggest fan of Scott Snyder's much-acclaimed and -read run, but I appreciated what it was doing.  And the funny thing is, I always seem to enjoy reading it, too.  The twenty-fifth was a "Zero Year" issue, while the thirty-fourth was written by Gerry Duggan, who later took his talents to Marvel (where the state of its zombies is such that they have no idea Duggan is a great talent they ought to be appreciating).  It's a great issue.

Batman Eternal #1 - The start, all over again, of the weekly series that sort of allowed Snyder (and a host of collaborators) to play in the established sandbox a little more than he allowed himself in the main series.  I'm still surprised that there's so little appreciation for the results. 

Green Lantern Corps #34 - John Stewart is still trying to deal with the fact that he let a planet die in Cosmic Odyssey.  It's just one of those late-80s things that has a longer shelf life than necessary.  But it also gives Kyle Rayner-era villain Fatality more stories, and weaves into the complicated nature of the expanded spectrum.  Good GL mythology snapshot (for an issue with a "selfie variant cover," ironically or not).

Trinity of Sin: Pandora - Futures End
Pandora is that signature New 52 character who kind of helped lead the charge of disappointment for fans, who ultimately found her underwhelming despite a massive amount of hype.  But the funny thing is, and I'm pretty sure I've now read this issue through the acquisition of several copies enough times for it to finally sink in, that the fate of the New 52 era is spelled out, how it always seemed destined to lead to DC Rebirth.  Because as far as this issue is concerned, apparently that was always the purpose of Pandora.  Never mind how Geoff Johns later had Doctor Manhattan unceremoniously obliterate her, a kind of symbolic gesture on the whole New 52 era.  Or maybe even that was intentional.  Most fans are never going to care.  But Pandora deserves a better fate.