Back Issue Bin 125 "Exit Stage Left, Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown, and other comics"

A clerk walked up to me and whispered into my ear, "You know, they're five for a dollar at the moment," and that's why I got a bunch of old comics recently.

Air #1 (Vertigo)
from October 2008

I still fondly remember getting into G. Willow Wilson's Air.  My interest at first was tentative, but then it became one of my favorite comics.  I still think it's Wilson's best comics work, which she doesn't seem to have been in too much of a rush to replicate, even after finding popular success years later with Ms. Marvel.  I've never added it to my graphic novel collection, though, so revisiting it was a long time coming, so it was great to find the first issue itself.  And I still enjoyed it.

Azrael #40 (DC)
from April 1998

I always find it funny to be reminded of comics I decided not to read, and there were some in the '90s that in retrospect really leave me scratching my head.  Even if I had no interest in Azrael itself, it's still strange to think there were rematches between the one-time Batman and Bane that didn't feel important enough to catch. About seven years back I read other encounters in the series between them (and maybe even this one?), so it was fun to do it again.  That the series lasted a hundred issues seems incomprehensible today, whether or not I was reading it myself.  But then, companies back then didn't have as itchy a trigger finger as they do now, constantly rebooting the big ones much less being patient with the smaller ones.  You can see how Azrael's lack of appearances in recent years would bode for any new attempt at a solo book.  The best of this issue is being reminded how long the original depiction of Bane managed to stick around, before subsequent generations screwed him up (well after the clownish version in Batman & Robin).  Thank goodness Christopher Nolan and Tom King came around!  This is a legitimately great character, with even greater potential still possible, which seems even more unlikely for a villain seemingly created just to provoke one of those endless '90s crises.

Batman and the Signal #3 (DC)
from June 2018

Duke Thomas was at one time pegged to be the next Robin, at least as far as fans expected, but eventually he assumed his own heroic identity, the Signal (Scott Snyder can be remarkably insular in his imaginative thought).  This was his first spotlight with the new handle.  Cully Hamner seems somehow less assured than usual on art, which was kind of strange.

DC Sampler (um, DC?)
from 1983

Ha!  A few years before Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC seemed pretty assured of its comics line.  This was a freebie they sent out with creative teams giving a small taste of what to expect from most of the titles at the time.  For flimsy reasons, it omits some pretty significant titles: Justice League of America, Green Lantern, and Camelot 3000 (one of the projects the company used to heavily promote alongside Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, and the slightly less forgotten Ronin).

Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #5 (DC)
from July 2018

I've been talking about Mark Russell quite a bit here lately, and with good reason: He's struck me as one of the most significant creators to emerge in recent years, and in recent years, he's finally started cementing his reputation.  And for intents and purposes, that reputation begins with Exit Stage Left.

Using as its central conflict the familiar McCarthy Red Scare witch trials of the '50s, Russell reimagines a familiar Hanna-Barbera cartoon property as an allegory for the struggles of the LBGTQ community to find mainstream acceptance.  It was immediately picked up on by observers that Russell had struck upon a compelling concept.  I never had a chance to read it myself, having fallen into a black hole of sporadic comics reading at the time, and the later collection has been impossible to find in places other than the interwebs.  Now I think I may have to finally go that route, because more than Prez, more than Flintstones, it seems Exit Stage Left pushes Russell beyond the concept of social commentary into truly great writing, and finds him at his very best, just as the reports have had it.

The Red Scare is always going to be a fascinating concept in and of itself, what it was, what it provoked, and the general response to it, whether or not we learned anything from it, or might still have a chance to.  Clearly Russell believes it still has things to teach us, and as far as I'm concerned, he was absolutely right.  What emerges is at least the perception of an effect on society similar to the Nazis in Germany, which is an interpretation that history normally flattens into "naming names," something that seemingly only affected Hollywood.  DC itself has used the trials to explain what happened to the Justice Society after WWII, which the same flat interpretation.

Bottom line is, Russell created something that far exceeded a simple Hanna-Barbera nostalgia comic, into something that's valuable in a truly transcendent manner.  It should be a lot easier to find.

Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #1 (Marvel)
from 1988

What I really like discovering are comics I didn't even know existed but turn out to be far more interesting than such a fate suggests.  This is obviously one of those.

From the husband-and-wife writing team of Walt and Louise Simonson (the latter of which I'd really only previously seen in the pages of Superman: The Man of Steel) and featuring art from Jon J. Muth (whom I'd previously seen in Grant Morrison's Mystery Play), this seems like another of Marvel's inexplicably lost evergreens.  The biggest difference between Marvel and DC that I've seen is that where DC actively celebrates its best stories, Marvel is most content basking in its great legacy.  Even the X-Men have gradually lost their once-celebrated memory for their '80s heyday. 

And this is part of it, perhaps the best part of it.  Wolverine, the poster child for breakout '80s X-Men success, and Havok (you know, Cyclops' brother).  (Oh, wait, you probably don't.  Because Havok has a tiny legacy.)

The Simonsons spend part of the story recounting the then-recent Chernobyl disaster (as recently depicted in a much-celebrated TV mini-series, called Chernobyl).  That was itself fun to read, real history unfolding in the pages of a comic that subsequently has great historic value.

Of course, Muth's art is spectacular in and of itself.  I have no idea, without researching, why Muth didn't make a much bigger name for himself, but it's not for lack of breathtaking talent.

Of course, at its heart Meltdown is a buddy adventure, and Wolverine & Havok play well off each other, in a story that's far removed from typical superhero comics material.

Marvel obviously knew it was a worthwhile project at some point: it was published in the prestige format.  It would be nice for Marvel to remember at some point, so fans can, too.  But thanks to whatever idiot gave up a treasure like this so I could discover it.

Justice League United #16 (DC)
from February 2016

I got this as much to see where the series had gone as astonishment that it had actually lasted that long, because it melted pretty much into oblivion, and I was just interested to see an issue from that late in the game (really only a few months before Rebirth).

JSA Classified #25 (DC)
from June 2007

I loved that DC expanded its Legends of the Dark Knight concept for a number of titles, between this, the JLA (Classified) and Batman and Superman (both Confidential), giving the company some anthology platforms.  This issue has the spotlight on the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott.

Legends of the DC Universe #9 (DC)
from October 1998

This is another '90s series I'm surprised I mostly skipped completely over, and of course it's a precursor to what I was just talking about, with this issue revisiting the classic team-up of Green Lantern (in this instance, Hal Jordan) and Green Arrow, with a tale of how they first met.

Legion of Super-Heroes #88 (DC)
from January 1997

I'm really sure I didn't read this issue when it was originally published, even though 2019 Tony thought it was an immediate necessity, as it features Impulse on the cover, and obviously a guest appearance by him inside, which 1997 should have been far more interested in, as I was a big fan of Bart Allen, and have since begun considering Mark Waid's Impulse perhaps a better overall experience than his Flash, which was itself one of my favorite '90s comics.  And I was happy to discover, even at the late date of 2019, that Impulse still amuses me.  This was a great spotlight for the character.

Marvel Boy: The Plutonian #1 (Marvel)
from March 2010

I thought this was another great discovery.  And I mean, it's interesting, but...Not as much as Havok & Wolverine.  I demand a Havok & Wolverine movie.  Or TV mini-series!  Starring Jared Harris!  As, I don't know, Wolverine!

Millennium #2, 3, 4, 6 & 8 (DC)
from 1987

Yey gods...I had never read Millennium, one of the event comics DC did after the great success of Crisis on Infinite Earths, but was pretty familiar with the concept, the Manhunters story where various characters were revealed to be infiltrators of the nefarious robot predecessors to the Guardians' Green Lantern Corps.  Now I wish I still had never read Millennium, because it's...dreck.  A totally botched event comic.  By the end, it feels like one of DC's perennial excuses to try and introduce a new generation of superheroes.  And absolutely none of them made it past Millennium itself.  At least as far as I can tell.  I had never heard of any of them until I saw their would-be spectacular debuts in the final issue.  And even I, who pride myself in being able to see great potential where others usually can't, couldn't imagine rehabilitating.  Any of them...

Mister X #1 (Vortex)
from June 1984

Mister X: Razed #4 (Dark Horse)
from May 2015

I had a great affinity for Dean Motter's Mister X.  I didn't discover it in that first issue from 1984, but rather years later, in a reprint collection, when interest was just beginning to surface again, leading to the Dark Horse revivals.  I got into Dean Motter comics, including finally reading Terminal City, which Motter had done for DC, and became a pretty big fan.  But Mister X itself is a somewhat peculiar beast.  The whole concept is almost only a concept, in which a character who's never really anything but a background character in his own comic exists mostly for a backstory, in a comic that looks spectacularly designed, regardless of who's drawing it (the original wasn't even written or drawn by Motter).  Yet strangely, I remain attached to it, even as I grow detached from my original excitement.  Seems almost like a secret handshake for true comics aficionados.  One I'm proud to be a part of.

Primal Force #12 (DC)
from October 1995

DC made the curious decision to publish a lot of titles that would've fit nicely with the original Vertigo conceit (an offbeat look at superheroes) under the regular DC label, and I think a lot of great material got buried as a result.  It only occurred to me that Primal Force is a part of that strange distinction upon this latest revisiting.  I didn't read this one at the time, either, of course, but I discovered and devoured it years later, and am always happy to be reminded of it.  I wish more fans understood what it accomplished, too, so that DC could add it to the trade collections always in-print.

The Sandman #4 (DC) 
from September 1975

As you can see from its publication stamp above, not the Neil Gaiman comic!  (Which of course I didn't read in the '90s!)  This is the earlier one, which at least as of this issue featured Jack Kirby art!  And exclamation points!  After!  Every!  Utterance!  Interestingly, features an add for a DC line expansion that includes Warlord (who endures in random appearances to this day) and Claw (who resurfaced in Primal Force and...doesn't endure to this day).

Seaguy#2 (Vertigo)
from August 2004

A lie!  A vicious lie!  Some jerk slipped this cover onto an issue of Fables.  I didn't discover this until I had already brought it home.  Some customers would probably bring it back and demand satisfaction.  I am not one of those costumers.  Makes for a better write-up here, anyway.

Starman #30 (DC)
from May 1997

Of course I didn't read Starman in the '90s.  What were you thinking, even wondering?  But I like to revisit it every now and then. 

Titans #30 (DC)
from August 2001

Hard to think of any date immediately preceding 9/11 without thinking of 9/11 (even though, as time stamps in comics go, this was actually released probably in June 2001, well ahead of that day).  Anyway, as Roy Harper comics go, at this point he was pretty much exclusively associated with Cheshire, the Elektra to his Daredevil, and this tale actually pivots more accurately on Cheshire herself, as she awaits the verdict for a trial concerning her villainous ways.  And then Roy Harper dies in Heroes in Crisis, and all anyone can fixate on is what Tom King did to poor Wally West.  What about Roy, fans.  What about Roy?

Back Issue Bin 124 "The Weather Man and other comics"

True Believers - Jessica Jones: Alias #1 (Marvel)
The True Believer comics are dollar reprints, which have been popular in recent years from a number of publishers to help catch fans up.  This particular one was intended to celebrate both Marvel Knights, twenty years this year as the last time Marvel fans really celebrated a whole creative moment (the Ultimate line coincided with it) and the Netflix shows, of which Jessica Jones is one of them.  Alias was the original title, before Jennifer Garner and J.J. Abrams made it more famous.  But when you think about it, it's appropriate for this particular character to be advertised under a proper name, a post-Starman expansion of the post-Watchmen deconstruction movement, where superheroes could walk away from the life.  Anyway, this is also one of Brian Michael Bendis's most famous creations, and the pattern he's been following in Jinxworld ever since.

Bane: Conquest#10 (DC)
TV shows get revived all the time these days; it sometimes happens in comics, too.  Dan Jurgens was doing it before it was cool, revisiting Doomsday in a series of projects.  Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan have done it with Bane a few times, too, most recently in this mini-series, whose only real questionable decision was the mask revision, where we see Bane's nose.  Yeah, no.  Anyway, otherwise this is perfectly identifiable as continuing the original Bane narrative, perhaps last seen in Vengeance of Bane II.  I never really liked the Bane revisions, which is another reason to admire Tom King's comics, as they're the first time Bane has really been Bane since the old days.

Image Firsts: Curse Words #1 (Image)
Here's another company with dollar comic reprints!  And here's me finally reading Curse Words!  And I really feel bad about it now, more than ever.  I've been a big fan of Charles Soule for years now.  Unfortunately "big fan" for me doesn't mean the same thing it used to.  If I were spending money on comics like I have before (rashly, unwisely, in terms of general finances), I'd've been reading everything Charles Soule I could get my hands on.  I'd've read the complete Letter 44, his complete Daredevil, and this.  But I haven't, and hadn't even had a proper look until now.  But it's great!  This is the story of a fantasy world a wizard escapes from, after realizing his mission to destroy Earth was a bad one and subsequently settling in as a wizard-for-hire.  The whole issue reads wonderfully.  Soule positively crackles with creative energy, and this whole concept encapsulates that really well.  So I will probably have to read more at some point.

DC Universe: Last Will and Testament (DC)
This was a one-shot from Brad Meltzer, who famously made a big bang comics debut with Identity Crisis, and then a sting in Justice League of America.  This is a wonderful spotlight for Geo-Force, a character who otherwise never really stands out.  But this is really, really a story that should've corrected that, and a terrific way of demonstrating a compelling story can be found for any character.

True Believers: Infinity Incoming! (Marvel)
A repackaging of Jonathan Hickman's first issue of Avengers, it's clear how epic Hickman wants to feel, but I'm not sure as a storyteller he ever quite hits the notes he reaches for, which is why I've never gotten into him. 

Marvels #2 (Marvel)
I've never read the complete Marvels.  In fact, this is now the most I've ever read!  It always seemed like a Marvel-exclusive tale, a celebration, and I spent a lot of time not feeling like that kind of reader.  But it was so famous, I've read some of this already.  But not all of it.  The issue is actually geared toward the X-Men and the "mutant problem."  I'm not sure anyone's ever really adequately explained why superpowers in Marvel are considered bad (mutant or otherwise), so I guess that's just a story I'll have to keep looking for.

Mera: Queen of Atlantis #1 (DC)
I love that Mera finally has her own comic!  Even if it's just a mini-series.  That's one of the biggest things Geoff Johns has accomplished over the years, elevating Mera to known status, and I think she's got farther to go.  Curiously this debut issue sort of spends most of its time...focusing on Aquaman-specific elements.  So you can see how far it can still go...

Orion #23 (DC)
The Walt Simonson series; Simonson is one of the few creators who can get away with revisiting the New Gods without anyone thinking he's revising them.  This particular issue doesn't really have anything to do with the New Gods, which is actually a lot like how Jack Kirby himself first used them. 

Thanos #2 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire!  Another modern creator I'd love to read more extensively, and another comic I'm reading for the first time.  The only thing I don't get (otherwise it's a lot like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but without the humor) is why Thanos would fear death.  Maybe I'm not thinking clearly about this because I'm not exhaustively versed in it, but isn't Thanos obsessed with Death?  If he can be united with her in death, wouldn't that help him fulfill his fondest desire?   But maybe this is something Lemire explores elsewhere in his tale.

The Twelve #12 (Marvel)
I read this series as it was originally published, even enduring the long delay halfway through with patience, but it was fun to revisit.  I honestly think that what's happening with Marvel now is that it tried extremely hard to reinvent itself over the past twenty years as a more dynamic House of Ideas, but now that it's gone back to its more traditional mode, fans realize that there was something missing.  There's no reason why The Twelve shouldn't be considered an evergreen title.

The Weatherman #1-5 (Image)
Being a Star Trek fan, (I want to say of course here, but it hasn't been that simple with Star Trek fans for at least twenty years), I watched the first season of Discovery, which featured a lot of twists, one of which was that one of the characters was a Klingon all along and didn't even know it.  I don't know if Jody LeHeup and Nathan Fox were at all inspired by that, but it was impossible not to think about while reading, and remains my favorite way to think about these issues.  Because otherwise they're a lot like...most Image comics, in that they seem to exist merely to indulge shock value, with [hang narrative description here] merely an excuse to do so.  Few of them seem at all interested in anything more than a shallow understanding of their characters, and it's really no different here.  It's not that most comics have more depth, but that as a rule, Image seems to be, well, image-deep.  Back at its founding, it was famously led by artists, with writing that was never really a priority, until it was pointed out and they started bringing in better writers.   But then they seemed to forget, all in the interests of championing independent comics that still had a reasonable chance of, y'know, selling.  So they took shortcuts.  All the time.  And so the image stays the...same.

Reading Comics 204 "Fifth Trip 2017"

American Gods #2 (Dark Horse)
Amazingly, this adaption of the Neil Gaiman book still really hasn't reached the actual concept of the story.  Although Spider does drink an amazing amount of mead, and beats up a rather tall leprechaun.

Bane: Conquest #1 (DC)
Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan reunite and return to the chronicles of Bane.  The results may baffle readers who are less familiar with Vengeance of Bane (parts 1 & 2) and more "Knightfall," Dark Knight Rises, Tom King's recent "I Am Bane," or any manner of terrible Bane appearances over the years, but they're entirely in-character, especially, again, for the Bane of Vengeance of Bane (parts 1 & 2).  The luchadore mask Nolan gives Bane for this comic is a fun little nod to the fact that the character is, technically, Latino, even though that never seems to come up other than his base of operations and/or origins.

Batman #21 (DC)
The Flash #21 (DC)
Batman #22 (DC)
Parts 1-3 of "The Button" see Tom King and Josh Williamson collaborate on a sequel to Flashpoint (the importance of this classic story to yours truly is chronicled in the early period of this blog) that also helps set up later DC-wide storytelling first introduced by DC Universe Rebirth.  Very, very good storytelling here.

Blue Beetle #8 (DC)
Giffen/DeMatteis have apparently taken over the title as of this issue, and bring a strong Larfleeze feel to the proceedings.  I loved the original Jaime Reyes series post-Infinite Crisis, and so it's great to read his Blue Beetle again.  The big draw for the issue, however, is that the magical scarab that has granted him powers (and/or de facto Iron Man suit) all these years has been taken from him.  So he and Ted Kord (the second and most famous Blue Beetle) make a bold decision: Jaime will now, even if temporarily, revive Ted's classic costume.  Yeah!

Divinity III: Stalinverse #4 (Valiant)
Matt Kindt will be moving on to Eternity, a sequel rather than continuation to Divinity, so this is the conclusion of this particular vision.  And I think, having read it twice, he came up with a good one:

"This world you've built may be real.  But you know it is not true.  You read books when you were younger.  Just as I did.  Do you not remember?  We are similar, you and I.  We were not forced to read.  We were encouraged.  But my adoptive parents raised me.  Treated me as their own.  They gave me books.  Science fiction was my favorite.  I read everything they gave me.  It wasn't until much later that I realized what they'd really done.  My parents couldn't force me...or anyone to be good.  Just as the Soviet Union cannot.  All they could do was present me with their example.  And with stories.  With writing.  With ideas.  Through those books I learned the danger of power.  I learned of the terrible effects of violence and conflict.  Of the unending cycle of war that we should be working to break.  And I learned the importance of love and to be loved.  Earth...humanity?  They are our children, Kazmir.  They can't be forced to learn.  They must learn by example.  They must be taught with stories.  With experience.  We have the power of gods, Kazmir.  Yet you choose to live a parasitic life inside Myshka.  And you choose to obey a small-minded oligarch.  But there is an entire universe out there for you.  Worlds to see.  Galaxies to explore.  Just like in the books we read when we were younger.  I am sorry for what happened to us out there...in the unknown.  I am sorry I did not bring you back when I returned.  And I am sorry that Myshka broke your heart.  I understand why you came back for revenge.  What I don't understand is why wouldn't you stay out there?  Why wouldn't you go further?  Why wouldn't you want to see more?  Our conflict will have a winner and a loser.  That is the nature of the game.  But why should we confine ourselves to the game?  Ti these pieces?  To this artificial boundary?  To Earth?  When there is the unknown all around us?  Waiting to be explored?  I tell you all of this, Kazmir, not to "win."  But to set you free."

That's the best argument an hero has probably ever made to their enemy, in a comic book.  It's an argument that can only be made in a comic book, I think.  It's a perfect synopsis of superhero logic, as has Divinity been from the start.  I don't know why Divinity hasn't become more important among comic book readers.  It's the Watchmen of intellectual superhero storytelling.  It's surely one of the most fascinating comics I've ever read.  Every issue has someone involved in creating the issue provide commentary.  Most of it is somewhat hugely overblown praise. Most of it seems to miss the point.  It's not just how it's executed that makes Divinity great, but its ideas.  I'm hugely glad to have read along.  And to see where Kindt goes next.

Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern #3 (Boom!/DC)
This latest mash-up is about as good as Green Lantern/Star Trek (which is to say, good), but it's the art I came to see.  Omega Men's Barnaby Bagenda, to be precise.  That guy deserves to reach the stratosphere, like his collaborator, Tom King.  Hopefully it'll happen at some point.

Green Lanterns #22 (DC)
The adventures of upstarts Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz have now reached the stage where they're actively interacting with the rest of the Green Lantern Corps.  Continues to be what I've long hoped to read in a Green Lantern comic again.

Nightwing #19, 20 (DC)
Well, hot damn.  Tim Seeley has turned Nightwing into a must-read after all.  Nightwing has been so hit-and-miss since the Dixon/Grayson years, a lot of creators coming in hot and then sort of sputtering out.  This includes Grayson, Seeley and Tom King's bold revision that saw Nightwing become a spy for a couple years.  But to take Nightwing away from Dick Grayson is to take away the essential part of the character, no matter how intriguing the results.  Too many of these writers have tried to forget this or that element of the character.  Seeley seems to have built not only on the Grayson momentum, but folded Dick's Batman and Robin days back into his adventures.  "Nightwing Must Die" is a Dr. Hurt story (the whole thing plays nicely with Batman and Robin, Grant Morrison memories), but it remembers that Dick's whole history is what defines him, perhaps more than any other superhero.  Possibly the two best issues of Nightwing I've ever read (Grayson: Futures End notwithstanding).

Savage Dragon #223 (Image)
If you were to read, in 2017, only one comic book series in its entirety to figure out what superheroes are all about, I think Savage Dragon would have to be that series.  Erik Larsen is the Image creator who never gave up on the original vision of the company, who never decided to pursue other interests at the expense of the creative freedom and opportunity his vision gave him.  The letters column is almost more important than the comic itself this time:

"Change is inevitable and being more stuck in the past is no solution. Styles change, people change. You loved that old stuff because you were 12 and that was your sweet spot. You may not want change but I crave it. Doing the same drawings the same way for decades is mind-numbingly monotonous. I love nothing more than finding new ways of tackling a similar problem. I look at the older issues and see all the mistakes. I see all the poor drawings and attempts to hide my deficiencies behind a wall of crosshatching and it doesn't do much for me. The lines aren't defining shapes and establishing light sources. They're lines for the sake of lines. Emulating that seems insane. 

Strong iconic poses are great, sure, but ultimately, I'm trying to tell a story here, not compose pictures to be popped onto T-shirts and lunchboxes. And given the choice of repeating a familiar shot or finding something new--nine times out of ten I'll go with the new.

It's not an easy path. Some artists get stuck in a rut, forever repeating and emulating their old work. Readers get bored and move on. Others keep trying new and different approaches but that can alienate old readers who liked the way things had been. There's no simple solution, clearly, but in order to preserve my sanity, I need to keep moving. If I'm not kept engaged, I can't expect my audience to be. If I'm bored, it's reflected in the work. So I tend to try something new. Sometimes it's successful and sometimes it's not, but hopefully it's worth your attention. 

And honestly, it's important to unlearn what you've learned. A lot of what made earlier work vibrant and full of life was the learning process. I was figuring stuff out. And part of that involved screwing up. I can look back at old art and see where arms were clearly too long or faces were constructed poorly, where compositions and anatomy and perspective are all skewed and line work makes no sense. It's hard to recreate that--and why would I want to? It would be like going back to high school."

To my mind, it reads like Larsen becoming the Bill Watterson of comic books.

Superman #22 (DC)
I really need to read more of this run.

Old Man Logan #22 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire continues his concluding run with Wolverine exploring the character's fictional past, brilliantly, literally revisiting famous stories (at one point his origin in the pages of a Hulk comic, complete with the original dialogue).  If anyone had to tell Old Man Logan stories as a surrogate to actual Wolverine stories, I'm glad it was Lemire.  He proves why it was such a good idea all over again.

Quarter Bin #42 "Knightcontinues"

Disclaimer: "Quarter Bin" does not always feature comics from an actual quarter bin.  The quarter in the title is for inflation purposes.  This is my two cents worth on older comics.

I don't normally link to the material that helped inspire what I sometimes write about here at Comics Reader, but as it happens, the subject and specific comics came up with another blogger I follow, PT Dilloway, who wrote about the same general topic here.  I originally heard about this story thanks to History of Comics on Film, which wrote about it in this survey.

Okay!  So let's print up the marquee:

AZRAEL #s 37-38 (DC)
from January-February 1998

These issues are part of a greater arc (including the ones before and after) called "Angel and the Bane," which constitute a rematch five years in the making, after the climactic Batman #500, in which Jean-Paul Valley, having succeeded Bruce Wayne as the Dark Knight and donned his armored Batsuit for the first time, defeats the man who broke Wayne's back.  A cool logo, probabl cooler than the ones used during the "Knightfall" saga, is created for these issues and everything!

I should note that Azrael #36 was available, too, but not having an exact outline of the issues I needed, I couldn't be sure, because it was one of those Faces of DC covers that the company released across its line for releases dated December 1997.  It was one of those initiatives that certainly makes a mark,but it also doesn't provide any details about the story inside the actual comic, so double-edged sword there.

Anyway, "Angel and the Bane" is not a major story, except maybe for Azrael, so it's not strictly essential to have read the whole story anyway.  It's very much indicative of what Azrael as a whole did for a hundred issues.  This is not to say that legendary writer Denny O'Neil wasted his time, but that he created a very insulated experience, which is odd, because for a time, Jean-Paul Valley was very much mainstream.  He was, after all, Batman.

Then again, that's usually the fate of fairly random characters trying to replace icons.  Ever try to keep track of the guys not named Steve Rogers who have been Captain America?  Even Ed Brubaker won't be able to keep Bucky Barnes relevant as the Winter Soldier.  Arguably the only replacements who won't be forgotten are Dick Grayson (who has pinch-hitted for Batman twice, but has also well-established himself both as Robin and Nightwing) and the three human Green Lanterns not named Hal Jordan (Guy Gardner, who became an icon as an atypically coarse hero; John Stewart, one of the most enduring black heroes; and Kyle Rayner, who after all had the weight of the whole Oan legacy on his shoulders for a while).  You could also argue Wally West as the second Flash (Jay Garrick belongs to a separate tradition, though he is routinely included in the same franchise), though recent years have seen him completely forgotten in favor of his predecessor and mentor, Barry Allen.

Anyway, what separates Azrael from most heroes and probably helped O'Neil stick him in a distinct corner for so long is that all his skills are completely artificial, programmed into him by a fanatical religious order.  For that reason, he has a lot more in common with Bane than might be appreciated on the surface.  In the comics, Bane is still best known for the steroid Venom, which is green and made him a hulking menace, though he used his brains to overcome Batman.  For many fans and writers, no matter how often Bane is shown to have overcome and come to completely despise Venom, he is inextricably associated with it.  In a way, it's Bane's own programming, something he must continually overcome.

That makes the dynamic between Bane and Azrael more compelling than simply the strange dance Bane took with two men named Batman.  By the time he realized that the Batman who beat him (mostly thanks to clipping the hoses connecting and feeding Venom to him) wasn't the original, Bane probably came to think of Azrael in a whole new light.  Since I haven't read the complete "Angel and the Bane," I don't know how much O'Neil spent philosophizing on this, but to Bane, the concept of Azrael must have been irresistibly compelling, in much the way Batman was when he was first trying to make his name (successfully, at least to start).  Here's a man who like I've said was also induced by artificial means to become something more than what he was.

(Here I should note that while growing up in the prison pit from the comics and Dark Knight Rises, Bane is not the weakling suggested in Batman and Robin before being injected with Venom for the first time.  That may go over well with Captain America, but Bane only survives, and is in fact selected for the procedure, because he's already amply physically capable.  The actual weaklings died because their bodies couldn't handle it.)

In "Angle and the Bane," he uses a modified version of Venom as a tool of control, a marketable asset, to try and restart his empire.  He targets Azrael as a test subject, curious to see what will happen when this curious individual is pumped full with it, and whether withdrawal will kill him.  I didn't read the final issue, as I said, nor the apparent subsequent "No Man's Land" tie-in followups, but suffice to say, the hero in the title of the series prevails, which can be assumed thanks to the fact that there are sixty issues yet to go.

This is not, then, a story about a rematch.  That's not what Bane wants or needs, and not what Azrael wants or needs, either.  Azrael, in fact, seems to be an incredibly reluctant hero throughout this series, who is at the margins of Batman's world, though seven issues after this arc, the series is newly subtitled Agent of the Bat; this seems to have no noticeable impact.

In comics characters can be created and discarded with equal ease.  I'm no stranger to finding some creations more fascinating than their publishing history suggests.  On the whole, Bane has been able to weather his "Knightfall" legacy better than Azrael, who has become a footnote (even replaced with a totally new character, Michael Lane, for a time, though using the same name and backstory), even if he must continually fight the perception that he's only worthwhile if hopped up on Venom, or at least somehow thinking about it.

In Dark Knight Rises, Venom is entirely removed from the equation, but then Bane is also reduced, in the end, to being a henchman to a higher power (a relationship to Ra's al Ghul derived from the comics).  Mr. Dilloway and me have debated what exactly that means to his overall role in the movie, whether it truly diminishes his other accomplishments in bringing Gotham to its knees.  I don't mean to say that Bane didn't, in fact, do that, but for me, he's a character who's most fascinating when he uses his mind.  He has turned his body into a weapon, to be sure, with or without the use of Venom, but his original defeat of Batman had nothing to do with his body (except for the whole back thing) and everything to do with his mind.  That's something that was quickly forgotten, even by the time Jean-Paul Valley beat him, and something every writer, even those with the best intentions, have never really gotten back to since.

"Angel and the Bane" is a sincere attempt by O'Neil to reclaim that territory.  Personally, I would have very much appreciated in this strange relationship had lasted a little longer, if Bane hadn't simply slipped away and Azrael continued doing whatever it was he did for another sixty issues.  Azrael begged for concrete context, just as much as Bane did.  Bane could never be a Lex Luthor.  The sad part is, two years after "Knightfall," DC turned another bruiser into a calculating menace, Blockbuster, who went on to trouble Nightwing...for a hundred issues.  Imagine if Bane had ever been used with that level of commitment.

Maybe the stuttering attempts to use Bane since "Knightfall" helped make Dark Knight Rises possible.  Maybe a poor publishing history also paradoxically helped keep the Azrael property viable.  Jean-Paul Valley maybe doesn't have the same staying power as the suit he wears.  In the later incarnation, the suits literally gobbles up its wearers, uses them up and spits them out.  For Valley, that ended up being exactly what replacing Batman was like.  Maybe that was something of the point of that story, too.  It takes a will like Bruce Wayne's to make that work.

For a lot of heroes, legacies are an incredibly hard thing to come by.  You know Batman, you know the Avengers, but there are others like Azrael who slip through the cracks, even if they make a spectacular splash at some point.  For villains like Bane, legacies can be a hard thing to live down.  So it's only appropriate when something like "Angel and the Bane" happens, even if it leaves very little impact at all.  If you care about the characters, you'll check it out, and see exactly why it happened, and what it meant.  It could inspire someone to do something even greater in the future.

Quarter Bin #32 "Kaboom, Slott's Spider-Man, LXG, and Bane"

KABOOM #s 1-3 (Awesome)
From July, August, & December 1999:
I eagerly read the original KABOOM mini-series from creators Jeph Loeb and Jeff Matsuda, but the follow-up came after I quit reading comics in 1999, so I never even knew it existed until strolling through the back issues at Heroes & Dragons and coming across some covers I didn’t recognize. The good news is that Awesome did manage to produce some more KABOOM before it imploded, the not-so-good news is that some if not all the charm from the original comics were lost in translation, the loss of Matsuda and addition of Keron Grant on art. Grant apparently had no idea that the art was what helped make KABOOM shine in its previous incarnation, with Matsuda driving the narrative Loeb crafted into something that resembled the comics DC was doing at the time with the same youth leads, but with an expansive concept that introduced something new to the genre, something I hoped would have staying power. With more generic art, it’s not as easy for the story (shaped by Rob Liefeld but still scripted by Loeb, who doesn’t get near enough respect from fans) to distinguish itself from the sea of indy comics competing for attention, which is probably what happened to the comics scene at the time in general, not just Awesome (which boasted its biggest gun with Alan Moore, who quickly bolted to create America’s Best Comics when this gig ended). Needless to say, whether or not this version of KABOOM impacted me the same way as the first one, I remain a fan, hoping that more will come of it.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #655 (Marvel)
From April 2011:
This will not be the only pretty-recent back issue in the coming weeks (there’s one more), but it’s an example of what started to happen last year, when I really was trying to quit spending money I don’t really have on things I enjoy, namely new comics, and not always completely succeeding, mostly because I find comics to be a continually rewarding medium. Dan Slott’s Big Time was shaping up to be a worthy successor to Brand New Day, perhaps even better, but I couldn’t justify trying to read a mostly weekly series when I shouldn’t have been reading any series at all. Early in the run I heard about this issue, marked by a stark white cover by Marcos Martin, in which Peter Parker mourns the death of J. Jonah Jameson’s wife, a personal defeat at a time when it seemed like Slott would finally help develop Spider-Man into less of a caricature than he tends to be portrayed by most creators (as I’ve suggested, Brand New Day was a giant exception, which is why I enjoyed following it, the only time I’ve been a regular reader of one of my favorite superheroes) than a multi-dimensional character with a fully-developed world worthy of his famous origins and not just the typical Marvel machine built around hype and generic storytelling. Yet it appears that even Slott has succumbed to the pressure of delivering Spider-Man as he’s been traditionally presented by the House of Ideas, making this perhaps the standout issue to date of his run, and now perhaps atypical. So I suggest you read it, and prove me wrong if I’m wrong, because I don’t have the experience to be comprehensive of Slott’s run for the past year, falling back on the impression I’ve gotten from events like “Spider-Island,” which don’t feel like they’re worthy of the intimate approach I originally assumed Slott was going to stick with.

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN #5 (America’s Best Comics)
From June 2000:
Hey! So let me now chime in here at Comics Reader on one of the biggest comic book stories of 2012, namely DC’s decision to go forward with BEFORE WATCHMEN, and Alan Moore’s bitter renunciation of the project. There’s are reasons to side with Moore, and there are reasons to believe that he’s a bitter old man intent to reject anyone trying to make him, or his legacy, do anything without his explicit approval. Moore is without a doubt one of the greatest writers to ever grace the medium, but at this point he’s better known for being crotchety about film adaptations and angrily swearing off any notion of the mainstream, instead retreating to, well, others people’s creations and his interpretations of them. Some people defend his decision to do this by saying it’s different from what he himself has been disputing all these years, because he’s alive and, say, Mark Twain is not. He can make decisions based on whether or not he personally created something and can make a public and legal claim to that effect, whereas Twain cannot (because, to borrow from Monty Python, he has ceased to be). I respect Moore, but he’s become a writer less influenced by the need to create new and compelling work than provoking a reaction. LXG is a prime example, blending a number of disparate literary creations to assemble a historic Justice League. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, and this issue (the penultimate one of the original mini-series) exhibits a sober result, but I can’t help lament the loss of the guy who used to do this stuff to more productive results. Is there an argument out there that LXG is comparable to WATCHMEN? Because I think that would make a far more compelling argument than anything Moore has said in the past few months.

CHECKMATE #12 (DC)
From May 2007:
Speaking of diminished returns, even Greg Rucka apparently didn’t have anything relevant to say about Bane a few years ago. (I suppose the case would be different if Bane had boobs, because Fire receives more nuanced treatment in this issue.) It’s incredible to me that a character who started out with such a specific and dramatic origin as Bane was so easily reduced to “that big dude who used drugs to pump up and break Batman’s back,” and set off on increasingly meaningless further adventures, eventually winding up a virtual punchline and not even a shadow of his former self in Gail Simone’s SECRET SIX, a book shared by Catman, whose revival in the same INFINITE CRISIS prelude material that helped bring us this incarnation of Checkmate rescued him from exactly that fate (or, to be more accurate, actually made a character out of him). Thank god for Christopher Nolan, is all. Thank god he was able to figure out that there was a reason Bane was created in the first place, and it wasn’t to slum by on a distortion or outright simplification of his reason for existence. I think there’s BANE OF THE DEMON waiting for me to read somewhere, perhaps the only other time besides “Knightfall” and the two VENGEANCE OF BANE one-shots where reading Bane is actually worthwhile. I may have to work on tracking that one down, and quit expecting to read just any random appearance to not be, more or less, a waste of my time…

(This week's column brought to you by Bitter Returns.)

Quarter Bin #25 "Bane and Superman"

It’s kind of funny to be writing about Bane and Superman in one column (to be perfectly accurate, though, it’s because of the back issue bins at Escape Velocity in Colorado Springs and what I found on that particular day), since Bane was more or less created to be an evil version of Doc Savage, who is a precursor to Superman…

Anyway, let’s just dive in!

BATMAN: VENGEANCE OF BANE (DC)
From January 1993:

This is the first appearance of that hulking figure Tom Hardy will be playing in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES next summer. I’m so glad that Hardy is playing him, and that it’s Christopher Nolan and his creative team conceiving this incarnation of Bane, since it seems just about no one since Bane’s earliest appearances has been able to figure out just what Bane is supposed to be. Simply put, Bane is Batman’s opposite number, someone who got an exceedingly bad break and chose to handle it by perfecting himself. Where Bruce Wayne became a vigilante who tried to correct injustice, Bane (no real name has ever been given to him in the comics) chose to exert his resulting might to control rather than react (an interesting distinction, especially for the purposes of Nolan’s vision, since Batman was last seen crossing that line). Batman’s parents were murdered as innocents, whereas Bane’s father was someone who’d eluded the law, forcing Bane’s mother and then Bane himself as a newborn to face justice in his place. Batman grew up knowing the world firsthand; Bane grew up in prison and learned everything in books. This origin issue explains all this (there’s a sequel from after the “Knightfall” saga and Bruce Wayne’s return that sees Bane rededicate himself to more noble causes), plus introduces his relationship to the Venom toxin that for so many creators after Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan became almost the complete story of his character, his obsession and dependency on a steroid that fueled not only his strength but apparently uncontrollable rage (as if he had become a human-sized Hulk), something that was really only a problem, in this stage of storytelling, when he faced Jean-Paul Valley’s armored version of Batman. Presented here, Venom is something that was added to him after he’d already perfected himself, and so it became just another weapon in his arsenal, not the sole means for his strength or even the method behind his menace. It was his mind, and a conscious decision to seek out the one man who might rival him, as he’d learned in prison (again, before the Venom), that motivated Bane to take on the challenge of Batman. Perhaps after next year, DC will once again take him seriously, rather than let him wallow in minor titles and in circumstances that aren’t befitting a character like…Bane.

THE LEGACY OF SUPERMAN (DC)
From March 1993:

Following “Doomsday,” after the entire real world had become convinced of the tragedy of a legendary comic book character actually dying, DC had to be very careful about taking the aftermath seriously. There was the “World without a Superman” arc that looked at the effects on Lois Lane and the rest of Metropolis, as everyone braced for the vacuum caused by the death of the Man of Steel. LEGACY OF SUPERMAN came before the “Reign of the Supermen” arc that famously introduced four possible replacements or even reincarnations (who later became known as Superboy, Steel, Cyborg, and the Eradicator). Then-current and famous Superman creators looked back at other heroes, some of whom had been forgotten then, and some which actually remain forgotten today: Karl Kesel and Walter Simonson brought us to Project Cadmus (which later produced the clone who would become Superboy), where we met with the Guardian (Jim Harper), who met his genetically-engineered and only-theoretical replacement Auron; Roger Stern and Dennis Rodier brought back Thorn, a curious hero who didn’t even know, in her secret identity, that she participated in vigilante activity; Jerry Ordway and Dennis Janke handled Gangbuster, who was most recently seen in TRINITY; William Messner-Loebs and Curt Swan tinkered with Sinbad, someone I’d never heard of, and who was probably never seen again; and Dan Jurgens unsurprisingly featured Waverider and the Linear Men. Just imagine if the Superman books (which at that time included SUPERMAN, ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, ACTION COMICS, and SUPERMAN: MAN OF STEEL) had played with these heroes for a year…

SUPERMAN #164 (DC)
From January 2001:

If he were still writing for DC today, Jeph Loeb’s SUPERMAN would probably be collected today; instead readers might be forgiven to believe Loeb didn’t write the Man of Steel (after FOR ALL SEASONS, that is) until SUPERMAN/BATMAN. Then again, readers might still not appreciate it, since the general opinion for some reasons believes that Loeb isn’t much of a writer, and that’s a terrible shame, since he has a distinctive style that puts a deliberate focus on the inner life of the characters he writes. Frequent collaborator Ed McGuinness supplies some of the art in this issue, which features Jimmy Olsen, Bizarro, and the run-up to “President Luthor” (more on that in a moment), and so on the surface doesn’t feature a lot of introspective material. Except Loeb is one of the masters of captions, an art I hope isn’t as endangered as it currently seems.

PRESIDENT LUTHOR SECRET FILES AND ORIGINS (DC)
From March 2001:

Ah! And so we see that DC actually allowed Lex Luthor to become president! Perhaps one of the last great developments from the momentum the 1990s Superman creative teams produced, Luthor had been through so many epiphanies that he went from the traditional foe who had actually fatally poisoned himself with Kryptonite to a methodical and manipulative genius who still ended up getting his way, first by becoming his own son and then returning to reclaim his empire and solidifying his new power by forming an alliance with the Contessa, someone who literally took the fall for him, so that he could then take his false image as a legitimate businessman and benefactor to humanity to the next level, once he’d seen that Superman was still more beloved than he was. So he became President. This special outlines the whole process, as only the SECRET FILES specials could. But that was a different time. Today we once again enjoy a Luthor more closely tied to his origins (best illustrated by Paul Cornell, Grant Morrison, and Geoff Johns), since really, who would buy that Lex could ever become President? Naturally, a scandal brought him down, eventually.

SUPERMAN #176 (DC)
From January 2002:

After “Our Worlds at War,” what was at that time the biggest event of the previous decade, Superman famously modified his costume to replace the yellow in the S-shield with black, a symbolic gesture to represent the fact that even he recognized that the world was no longer a simple place. (It remains a great irony that this transformation occurred at the same time as 9/11.) Jeph Loeb is still writing our Man of Steel, this time with art from Ian Churchill; the story features a therapy session for Superman while he otherwise battles that era’s incarnation of General Zod, the continuing effects of “OWAW,” and a separation from Lois. At that time, DC was doing just about everything it could think of to try and make Superman relevant to readers again (which eventually led to Manchester Black), without resorting to a reboot. Turns out the reboot would have been easier, as long as everyone else joined in (*cough* “New 52”).

As a collection these issues represent what different creators and eras can have on characters, their presentation and potential, and still only covers about a decade. That’s one of the true virtues of comic books. Some fans may bitch and moan about it, but really, what other medium can so consistently allow such continual reinvention on so broad a spectrum with the same basic creations?