Reading Comics 242 "Fifth and final Forbidden Geek mystery box"

Yeah, so that happened.  The title of this post reads "fifth" mystery box, when it really ought to have read "sixth."  You might recall that I had problems with my fourth box.  Forbidden Geek, when I contacted them, quickly shipped a replacement box when I told them the original had been lost in the mail.  The company sent out an email explaining how they'd had trouble keeping up with mystery box shipments during the holidays.  And then my fifth box never arrived.  Payment was processed for my sixth box, and the shipping information for the fifth box was immediately replaced for the sixth's.  I decided enough was enough.  The sixth box actually arrived exactly on-schedule, the same as the first three boxes had.  But I didn't want to continue supporting an unprofessional company.  It's one thing for shipping to be messed up once.  It's another to know there's a problem and take no real steps to address it and just get back to the schedule later. 

So I missed a box, and this final one, which actually proved all over again the value the service had for me, arrived.  It also included a trade collecting material relevant to the forthcoming Birds of Prey movie, and another Funko statue, plus these comics:

Animal Man #76
from October 1994

I had never read an Animal Man from this initial Vertigo period that wasn't written by Grant Morrison.  I understood that DC was keen to keep the series going without him, but I imagined that the results wouldn't really interest me.  As a result, I don't think I'd read a Jamie Delano comic before this.  Delano was one of the Vertigo originals, but he never had a signature comic like Morrison or Neil Gaiman, much less Peter Milligan (a lesser but still talented writer who continued working with the imprint for years after the original creators moved on).  This issue doesn't even feature Animal Man himself, but rather is part of an arc that includes the Red, a concept that was later used in the New 52 in ways fans didn't think was relevant, and yet here it is.  The New 52 was a job of reintegrating Vertigo characters back into the DC mainstream, and to do so it reclaimed familiar superhero tropes rather than focused squarely on horror elements (though the Red, and the Rot, were certainly intended even later to be considered horrific).  Anyway, long story short, I think I won't be so reluctant to read a Jamie Delano comic in the future.  We all have our biases for familiar creators, and can be shy about sampling unfamiliar ones.  Sometimes that approach is sheer nonsense.  You might discover a new favorite, or perhaps merely someone who is worth reading.

Batgirl #71
from February 2006

An incredibly simplistic story (this writer was totally unknown to me, and I was happy to leave them that way) featuring Cassandra Cain under the cowl, with the mouth covering she's traditionally associated with literally snipped away, apparently from a period where the Dark Knightress was no longer intended to be so ominous.  Great cover from Tim Sale, though.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #3
from 1993

"Bloodlines," yeah!  This is one of those things I'll always be nostalgic about, not just because a few of the new superheroes created during it turned out to be fun to have around (for as long as they managed to; Sparx and Hitman probably had the longest runs out of them, and neither is around anymore, and haven't been for decades).  Like the theme months in the New 52, I'll always be up to sampling the results all over again.  This one actually features two new characters, a hero and a villain, who end up cancelling each other out (both are depowered by the end), which isn't something I'd seen before.  Bonus, of course, that it features Azbats!

Batman #4
from February 2012

There's Scott Snyder's initial "Court of Owls" arc again, which lately I've been cursed to revisit again and again, whether in a Forbidden Geek trade collection or the Batman Giants.  Or this single issue.  Which I actually kind of want to write my own version of.  Y'know, so Snyder can never, ever see the results, and how much better they are.  (Take that!)

Hawkman #8
from March 1987

I admit that I didn't really read this one.

The Kingdom #2
from February 1999

Kingdom Come was a big epic tale that became one of my all-time favorite comics.  Mark Waid decided to follow it up with The Kingdom, which didn't really approach it (like at all) in quality, but was really an excuse for Waid and/or DC to officially bring back the multiverse via the concept of "hypertime," which actually got a bigger bow in the pages of Karl Kesel's Superboy (though, like Superboy in this era in general, is generally forgotten, despite a wealth of great material, and not all of it from Kesel and Tom Grummett).  Much like Morrison's later Multiversity, Waid sandwiched The Kingdom with one-shots exploring individual characters/concepts, which in the end were more valuable.  (Actually, the same is true of Multiversity.)  I actually think Kingdom Come's legacy was tarnished by The Kingdom.  If there were only going to be two issues of the lead story, DC and/or Waid could really have stood to opt for at least more impressive art, even if Alex Ross wasn't available.

The Ray #7
from December 1994

It's Howard Porter on art!  But not quite the Porter art as later depicted in the pages of JLA, meaning his style hadn't yet advanced to that familiar level.  And while I was always interested in at least sampling this series, featuring one of the many teenage '90s superheroes (for reasons, in this particular character, I never really understood), this issue is hijacked by Black Canary, which is kind of hilarious, because it proves how engaging she is apparently right after a series starring her was cancelled due to poor sales.  Stupid readers!

Robin #4 (of 5)
from April 1991

The original solo mini-series, featuring Tim Drake taking on the dreaded King Snake (a villain Tim's stories repeatedly returned to in the '90s, but who otherwise quickly faded into obscurity) while trying desperately not to think about having sex with Lady Shiva (hey, he was a '90s Teenage Superhero).

Stanley and His Monster #4
from May 1993

No, not Stan Lee and His Monster!  Although after Lady Shiva, it's kind of funny that the best thing about this comic is the sexy lady demon.  The best thing about the art is the sexy lady demon, too.  So there's that.

Starfire #2
from November 1976

Ha!  So apparently "Starfire" existed before the New Teen Titans!  And no, not the orange-skinned alien who sometimes is too sexy for comic book fans (it's a distinctly modern problem '90s fans would've been completely baffled by, as that was literally a whole genre back then; Americans still have no idea how puritanical our culture remains, regardless of how we explain it), but...a sword & sorcery Starfire!

As explained in an editorial in the comic itself, DC was desperately trying to launch a sword & sorcery angle to its lineup at the time.  Literally the only success from the many failure attempts in this initiative was Warlord, Travis Morgan, who still pops up from time to time.

And like the later Starfire, this Starfire is a sexy lady whose wardrobe does not attempt to cover large swathes of her body.  Anyway, the comic was also fun to read, and it was just fun to discover that the name had been used before.

The Titans #16
from June 2000

Devin K. Grayson!  I don't know, I think fans never forgave her for Dick Grayson's (no relation) rape.  Maybe there were other reasons, but Devin left comics behind and never attempted (or never succeeded at) a full-time comeback.  Which is absurd, because she was a talented storyteller, and instantly grasped DC continuity and how to continue it.  This team is literally the original Teen Titans, as adults, reunited, and this issue sees them rehashing interpersonal conflicts and deciding it's okay to have them and still maintain relationships (which makes it completely inconceivable in today's environment).  Kind of bittersweet, in hindsight, too, with how it handles Roy Harper, who in current continuity is kind of dead with far less fanfare than what happens to Wally West within the pages of Heroes in Crisis.  And suddenly I want a Devin K. Grayson series starring Roy.  At least they're finally reprinting her Nightwing.  Hopefully.  Sometimes DC ends up cancelling these sorts of things.

So long, Forbidden Geek, and thanks for all the fish!

Reading Comics 183 "Bloodlines 2016, Empress"

I was in another comics shop recently, and picked up a few things...

Bloodlines #1 (DC)
Watch out!  The '90s are starting to receive the nostalgia treatment.   Are you ready for that?  Among the things I never expected to see resurface was the Bloodlines generation, the new superheroes DC unveiled through its 1993 annuals.  This was the most recent new character initiative undertaken by the company, but most of the superheroes that resulted became hapless victims to the perception that the whole event was a shameless attempt to mooch off the Image Comics momentum then still sweeping the medium.  So a lot of great characters who didn't deserve to be forgotten were.  I'm happy to report that the best of them (sorry, Hitman) is the first one to return.  In this debut issue of the mini-series finally rectifying the gross injustice done Bloodlines, Loose Cannon returns.  This was a kind of Incredible Hulk superhero whose human guise was a guy who got around on crutches.  His early stories were written by none other than Jeph Loeb.  This new version is a teenager in high school, but he remains a blue goliath in his transformed state.  I was both eager and leery about Bloodlines when I first heard of it, dreading that it would be kind of exactly what everyone thought the original version was, something quickly dashed off and without the necessary quality to justify it.  But seeing Eddie Walker as the lead character quickly allayed my concerns, and writer J.T. Krul nailed his new iteration.  Krul is a DC veteran at this point, and this marks his homecoming.  I last wrote about him way back in 2011 in the Brightest Day era of Green Arrow, which was equally surprisingly good stuff.

Empress #1 (Icon)
Mark Millar is constantly generating new ideas for his Millarworld imprint and snagging some of the best artists out there to draw them.  So it was only a matter of time before he went knocking at Stuart Immonen's door.  Actually, this is their second collaboration, as Millar was tasked with the dialogue of Immonen's later Superman issues, so this is kind of full circle for both of them.  The concept is that 65 million years ago a different species of intelligent people ruled Earth, and that the ruler himself is a douche, and so the woman he convinced to give up her life (I mean, completely; he said she couldn't even bring it up) to rule at his side decides she's had enough, so she finally runs away.  This is a full-blown sci-fi epic in a different way from Millar's previous Starlight, a bit more like Saga.  Immonen is coming off Marvel's Star Wars, so anyone who is most familiar with him there will feel right at home.  It's good stuff, and Immonen is once again going for that more minimalist (though appropriately grand) style that I loved so much from his Superman, after years toiling at Marvel with a more hard-edged one that presumably someone thought he should adopt to keep up with expectations.  But clearly his work stands on its own.

Quarter Bin #58 "Binge-worthy III: Mark Waid's Marvel, and other artifacts"

Bloodbath #1 (DC)
From 1993.

via DC Wikia

DC's 1993 annuals represented an effort to introduce an entire generation of new superheroes under the "Bloodlines" banner, surviving victims of a parasitic alien invasion who discovered hidden powers.  A few of these characters were featured in their own short-lived ongoing series (Gunfire, Anima) or mini-series (Loose Cannon, Razorsharp in Psyba-Rats), or else in various teams (Sparx) or as supporting characters in the titles whose annuals they debuted (Argus in The Flash).  The most famous alumnus, Hitman, branched off to create his own Garth Ennis-fed legacy.  Critics generally dismiss the whole effort as a crass attempt to cash in on the Image craze at the time, and maybe it was, but it was considerably ambitious and also the last time DC tried to replicate the success of its breakthrough Silver Age boom, which was followed by the Marvel Age renaissance a few years later.  I've been interested in these characters being revisited ever since, but that day still hasn't come, so the next best thing is to revisit "Bloodlines" itself, which I've done on a few occasions now.  This time I couldn't help but enjoy the snapshot of the DC landscape of that time that Bloodbath helps capture.  There's Mullet Superman, "Azbats," Bulky Armor Booster Gold, even my good buddy Bloodwynd.  There's also an advertisement for the DC adaptation of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, something I didn't read at the time and am still hoping to track down some day.  I'm one of the few people out there who wouldn't mind owning the complete "Bloodlines" event, and its related material.  That would be binging!

Captain America #444 (Marvel)
From 1995.

via Marvel Wikia

Until now I'd never read Mark Waid's Captain America, which at the time was distinguished as the first time he'd been noticed for something other than The Flash.  It was a run that was interrupted by the "Heroes Reborn" thing, another effect of the Image revolution, but popular enough that Marvel brought Waid back after the "Heroes Return."  I'd always wondered if Waid really was as ideal with Cap as he'd been with Wally West.  What made his Flash so special was a deep love for the character and his history, and everything Waid added to that legacy, notably bringing all the speedsters together, creating a few of his own, and introducing the concept of the Speed Force, basically a prototype for everything that Geoff Johns would do for Green Lantern a decade later.  After reading some of Waid's Captain America, I'm still not sure what to make of this work.  This issue in particular seems determined to make readers appreciate Steve Rogers for the idealistic and idealized hero he is, a Marvel concept if I ever saw one, the sacrifices and triumphs he's experienced over the years.  Steve isn't even in the issue, it's his supporters standing up for him against the doubts a skeptical government agent.  It's not very subtle work, although by the end of the issue Waid has done his trademark work of focusing on an iconic image, a frozen Captain America, except this time he's in the clutches of his enemies.  Most telling, perhaps, is Waid's heavy use of Quicksilver, Marvel's resident speedster, either a concession to fans of The Flash or a storytelling crutch for someone who was more than familiar with that kind of character at that point.

Captain America #445 (Marvel)

From 1995.

via Comic Megastore

Perhaps the most ironic part of Waid's arc at this point is that it's happened again under the current Rick Remender regime: Steve Rogers losing his super-soldier edge.  In this issue, he's given his strength back by his worst enemy, the Red Skull.  Part of the reason I know the fans were exaggerating a little, or that there were far fewer fans championing this run, is that until now I had no idea any of that even happened.  Waid creates the Speed Force and it's a permanent addition.  Waid monkeys around with Captain America and it's just his version of the classic '90s crisis every superhero underwent.  This is not to say it's not good storytelling, but that it doesn't seem to have had much impact.  I've been wondering the same about Waid's current Marvel cult favorite, Daredevil, which seems headed in the same direction.  Which leads me to this conclusion: Waid knows how to work the angles of any given iconic character, but he rarely seems interested, or motivated, to significantly add to that character's legacy.  

Captain America #5 (Marvel)

From 1998.

via Comic Vine

Obviously, this is part of Waid's return engagement.  This one's got a pretty interesting idea: What happens when an enemy (in this case the shape-shifting Skrulls) actually undermine Cap by making him popular?  All of Marvel's superheroes have inferiority complexes in one shape or form, part of the gimmick that's supposed to make them more relatable to the angst-ridden teenage market (also why the company has somewhat distanced itself from that approach in the big box office era).  If you ever wanted to know the biggest difference between Superman and Captain America, there it is.  Although a dude with "America" in his name, that doesn't automatically mean Cap is always aces with his country (something Captain America: The Winter Soldier helped demonstrate).  Although it should be noted that Waid did a similar story in the pages of The Flash.

Captain America #20 (Marvel)

From 1999.

via Comic Vine

Cap working alongside S.H.I.E.L.D. sounds like the movies, doesn't it?  Other than that, there's Sharon Carter drama (which was also a theme of other issues I sampled), and Andy Kubert (the Kubert who now has a functional Batman legacy under his belt thanks to helping Grant Morrison introduce Damian) proves there's at least one thing he can't draw, which is Steve Rogers drinking wine.  Maybe I don't know the character well enough, but I highly doubt he'd hold the glass like a dandy.  The man's a soldier.  I think people sometimes forget that.  Somehow...Actually, come to think of it, if I'd formed any impression of what to expect from a Mark Waid Captain America, I would have expected a heavy emphasis on that.  Although he seems to have done anything but.

The Creeper #1,000,000 (DC)

From 85,271/1998.

via DC Wikia

Another event I have a great affinity for is Grant Morrison's DC One Millioni, which imagines what the legacy of today's superheroes will look like in the year the one millionth issue of their current comic books would be published.  Turns out, despite all that time, pretty familiar.  Except The Creeper keeps it close to home, featuring the present version, possibly because this also happens to be the last issue of the series, meaning writer Len Kaminski has to come up with a statement on the character that makes sense in the event context.  He pulls it off.  Creeper is one of those wild card characters DC loves to experiment with, a sort of Joker combined with the Mask and Deadpool, with the same body-swapping gimmick as Captain Marvel and the Demon Etrigan.  I'd never read the series, so picked up the issue mainly out of interest in One Million, but I ended up loving the issue.  In hindsight this was another of those comics DC should probably have published under the Vertigo banner, as it features many of the classic hallmarks of a more abstract interpretation of superhero storytelling.  But if that had happened, the One Million issue would never have happened.

DC Universe #0 (DC)

From 2008.

via DC Wikia

Technically the last issue of Countdown to Final Crisis, this one was written by Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns and is best known for Morrison's interlude between Batman and the Joker, which ties in with "Batman R.I.P."  The narration is provided by Barry Allen, whose return is revealed at the end of the issue.  He'd been the most famous victim of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which Final Crisis undoes by bringing back the concept of the multiverse in full force.  But readers who expected it to be more like Infinite Crisis probably have only this issue to hold onto.  Probably Johns' biggest influence on it.

Dinosaurs vs. Aliens Free Comic Book Day Special Preview (Liquid Comics)

From 2012.

via Comic Vine

This is Grant Morrison's intended film collaboration with Barry Sonnenfeld, a project that followed on the hinges of a similar release in 18 Days.  Dinosaurs vs. Aliens sounds gimmicky, especially when you consider the similarly-titled Cowboys vs. Aliens and how poorly that went over with wide audiences, but it's actually pretty interesting.  It's Morrison in minimalist mode (We3, Joe the Barbarian), although as gorgeous as the art is (I should note that I've previously read the whole graphic novel release), it's almost better to read the script excerpts, where you can truly appreciate how much effort Morrison puts into his concepts.  The trouble with this one, though, is that it risks being, ultimately, about as interesting as that underwater chase in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in which the heroes are confronted with a succession of large fish.  The animators put a lot of work into that, too, details you might not have caught, even a whole story you might have missed.  It's a little hard imagining that a potential movie version of this concept would play differently, which might be part of the reason there still isn't, well, a movie version of this.  Maybe it just needs more Rip Torn?

Fantastic Four #508 (Marvel)

From 2004.

via Marvel Wikia

The final Mark Waid in the binge, this issue features Dr. Doom possessing successive members of the Fantastic Four, a concept straight out of the Silver Age, although it also features the "death" of the Thing, although by the end of the issue Sue Storm is already talking strategies on how to bring him back.  So in that regard, Waid is ahead of his competitors.  I can't judge his First Family on one issue, but I didn't find it to be too remarkable.  The biggest hook for me is Howard Porter on art.  Ever since his JLA with Grant Morrison, I've been interested in Porter's career, and although he's never had another high profile run like that, I'm happy whenever I see him on a new project (current one: Justice League 3000).  Some artists change their style over time, but Porter's is the same in this issue as it was in JLA.  I consider that a good thing.

Quarter Bin #44: Brother's Blitz, Part 2

Disclaimer: Comics featured in this column do not necessarily come from a quarter bin.  The ones in the "Brother's Blitz" series, however, in all likelihood were got for a good price.  The following are the contents of several boxes given to me as presents more than a decade ago, which I did not read until recently.

Avengers West Coast #48 (Marvel)
From September 1989:
Anyone who thought Scarlet Witch's predicaments since House of M are unique for the character probably aren't aware of just how obsessively Marvel keeps track of its own comics and keeps using even the most ridiculous developments to inform new stories (thankfully, there are limits).  In this issue (from another time there were a bunch of Avengers teams running around), Wanda is being held captive and exploited by an evil organization.  From the mind of John Byrne.

Cable #33 (Marvel)
From July 1996:
Jeph Loeb seems to thrive better in shorter assignments than when he's called to work in a more ongoing capacity (he got around this in his seminal Superman/Batman by working on very specific arcs).  In the last Blitz, I dismissed Cable as just another symptom of the mediocre X-Men '90s, but it's worth noting that Loeb and James Robinson wrote those (and they were released in 1997).  I won't say they're good, but they do have the hallmark character work, even if it's mired in uninteresting material that someone at Marvel thought was awesome at the time (I appreciated DC at the time because it avoided what the rest of the industry was doing).  Are these comics worth a look?  Well, only just that.

Concrete: Think Like a Mountain #2 (Dark House)
From April 1996:
For some of you newer comics readers, Concrete was pretty big at the time, basically what Hellboy is today for Dark Horse.  He was a human trapped in an alien body, which as "Concrete" suggests basically turned him into the Fantastic Four's Thing.  Except Concrete was not the Thing.  He was a lot like a mountain, actually.  And creator Paul Chadwick was an unapologetic environmentalist (if you don't believe me, check out this issue for the bonus material alone), and that's what this comic is all about.  To Chadwick's credit, at least in this issue he allows Concrete to be fairly (typically) impassive.  I wonder why the character didn't resurface in the wake of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth campaign (famously more passionate than his presidential one).  Now Chadwick seems content to leave Concrete as a curious artifact.

Damage Control #3 of 4 (Marvel)
From January 1990:
This seems to be Marvel's version of DC's (in)famous Bwa-ha-ha Justice League, a jokey look at the more routine (and less reverent) corners of the superhero life.  These guys try to clean up the damage left behind, hence the title.  She-Hulk dominates the issue, however, with not a little assist from her gimmick at the time, breaking the fourth wall.

Elven #4 (Malibu)
From May 1995:
Malibu may be obscurely known today for giving us the Men in Black concept that led to the movies, but at the time it made a game attempt to join the superhero big leagues with its Ultraverse line, which Marvel eventually absorbed and forgot about.  Less forgettable than the star of this book is guest-star I'm-Definitely-NOT-Captain-Marvel Prime.

Ex-Mutants #14 (Malibu)
From March 1993:
Speaking of the Ultraverse, this was another of its efforts.  It's forgotten now, but in the early '90s several companies attempt to make their own mutant franchises.  This one did not make its intentions subtle.  It was also not especially good.

Freex #4 (Malibu)
From October 1993:
Another offering from Ultraverse, this one was easily the bunch of the three.  But it had a terrible title.  Hence another reason why nobody remembers it.  From writer Gerard Jones, who was a notable Green Lantern creator.  Very reminiscent of DC's later Primal Force, part of the original Zero Month.

Give Me Liberty #1 (Dark Horse)
June 1990:
That there are people who argue Frank Miller hates women (mostly because in Sin City they're all strippers) is a little surprising, considering he's responsible for the creation of Martha Washington.  No, the first president's wife was not a time-hopping robot.  This Martha Washington lives in a future where everything bad about America has only gotten worse.  Miller (and artist Dave Gibbons, who must have felt a certain amount of deja vu, having worked on Watchmen a few years earlier) tracks Martha's life in this issue from 1995 to 2010, as she grows up in a district/asylum for the underprivileged and escapes it by enlisting in the military.  Forced into desperate acts that appall her, Martha is always sympathetic.  I always knew this one was in the collection, but never got around to reading it, which is just as well, because I think I appreciate it more now than I would have ten years ago.  The character last appeared in 2007, but already by then was a forgotten piece of Miller's legacy, which is a pity.

Guardians of the Galaxy #53 (Marvel)
From October 1994
Guardians of the Galaxy #56
From January 1995:
A Marvel book from the '90s that looks like an Image book from the '90s, especially that first issue.  I think these guys were Marvel's attempt at an answer for DC's Legion of Super-Heroes, a team set a thousand years in the future.

Hawkman #7 (DC)
From March 1994:
Featuring Mongrel, another character created during the 1993 Bloodlines Annuals event, and a version of Hawkman that was very Native American (it's curious, because Zero Hour was supposed to have made Hawkman less schizophrenic).  Actually pretty interesting, though I thought the Bloodlines characters on the whole were a lot more interesting than their legacy suggests.  If you want some 2012 context, I think what happened was that fans at the time thought they were just an attempt to cash in on the Image phenomenon.  No, fans, that's the horrible art in Guardians of the Galaxy #53.  Bloodlines was awesome, and I will not rest until I resurrect what it achieved.

Heroes #3 (Milestone)
From July 1996:
No, not a comic based on a TV show that debuted a decade later (seek Isaac Mendez elsewhere).  Rather, this was Milestone's attempt to be a little more mainstream.  On all accounts, Milestone was already mainstream.  Icon was a Superman figure.  Hardware was an Iron Man figure.  Static was a Spider-Man figure.  The Blood Syndicate was an Image figure (see!).  But they were all black.  Heroes, then, was an attempt to try and make Milestone more relatable.  The body builder-esque female Donner was white (or certainly looks it).  Reads almost like a Kurt Busiek comic today.

The Inhumans Special  #1 (Marvel)
From April 1990:
I've never been able to care for the Inhumans, basically a version of Jack Kirby's New Gods as if they were mutants and thus perpetual outcasts (or, the popular reception of the New Gods!).  This did not change my opinion.  Possibly doesn't help that the cover touts their first encounter with the Fantastic Four.  Which really doesn't amount to anything special.

My Name Is Chaos #3 of 4 (DC)
From 1992:
From writer Tom Veitch, this was one of the big discoveries from this batch, part of a prestige format mini-series that today reads like a version of Ridley Scott's Prometheus that doesn't become a horror story midway through.  Ideally this would be another comic that would not have been forgotten.  Though popular reception of Martian tales does seem to be a dicey affair, so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised.  I will probably attempt to read the rest of this one.

The Omega Men #21 (DC)
From December 1984
The Omega Men #27
From June 1985:
Pretty much rubbish, but the second issue does reference Peter Pan, so I may have to have another look at some point.

One Mile Up #1 of 5 (Eclipse)
From December 1991:
Terrible cover, but what's inside is pretty awesome, like an updated version of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (more on that later!), so that was a nice surprise.

The Origin of the Defiant Universe (Defiant)
From February 1994:
Jim Shooter kicked around for quite a while, trying to jumpstart new or existing characters outside of the Big Two (he's probably still at it), and this was one of those efforts, an ambitious prose introduction that's like Jack Kirby's New Gods (there they are again!).  In all likelihood, the resulting comics were not worth this effort, but at least this was interesting!

Shakespeare's Othello (Tome Press)
From 1993:
Actually a very interesting adaptation, from David J. Verruni.  Previously I was most familiar with the play thanks to Kenneth Branagh and Laurence Fishburne.  Though somehow I had more sympathy for Othello when he was Morpheus...

Outbreed 999 #1 (Black Out)
From May 1994
Outbreed 999 #2
From July 1994:
I kind of feel bad for small press creators when they don't seem to realize that something about their effort is obviously small press.  The art, in this instance.  And maybe the lack of subtlety.

Overland Magazine #1 (Eclipse)
From April 1987:
An anthology of small press black-and-white comics!

Oz: Romance in Rags #2 (Caliber)
From 1996
Oz: Romance in Rags #3
From 1996
Oz #11
From 1995
Oz #12
From 1995:
In a lot of ways, Eric Shanower and Skottie Young have completely spoiled me.  Their Oz adaptations from Marvel have come to represent L. Frank Baum's original intentions (and not just because they adapt Baum's original books directly).  So it's both a good and bad thing to read these Oz comics now.  Shanower and Young have helped me catch up on some Oz lore that would not be apparent from the Judy Garland movie or the first book, so it's better that I read these comics now than when I originally got them, because the appropriate context would not be there for me to even begin to appreciate the work.  Young especially has come to represent my ideal Baum artist.  These comics do not feature Skottie Young.  But they're not as bad as they would have seemed without the context.  It is still unfortunate that anyone might have had to accept this as Oz material.  It's not bad, it's just not what it could be.  And it takes Oz in a direction that doesn't jive with Baum's original spirit.  Except if you know how he kind of it himself.  Emphasis on kind of.

Prince (Piranha)
From 1991:
The best thing about this comic (from a DC imprint) is that it was created by Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan, who would later make their reputations on Milestone (McDuffie passed away last year).  The rest of it is a daydream of the pop musician's ego.  So yes, it features "When Doves Cry" Prince.  It's not terrible, but it is ludicrous.

Pummeller $2099 #1 (Parody Press)
From 1993:
A parody of Punisher 2099 (in case that wasn't obvious).  Not bad, may also even be funny!

Purge #1 of 4 (Ania)
From August 1993:
A completely low-rent answer to Milestone (gosh, tons of references to Milestone in this Blitz!), with poor production values.  This is the kind of description that gets me in trouble.  It's not that bad.  But it's not Milestone, either.

Q-Unit #1 (Harris)
From December 1993:
Harris Comics was known for Vampirella.  Let's just leave it at that.

Quagmire USA #1 (Antarctic Press)
From March 1994:
A spinoff from Ninja High School, which Antarctic had recently reacquired, and probably only decipherable by those fans.

The Queen of the Damned #9 of 12 (Innovation)
From September 1993
The Queen of the Damned #11 of 12
From December 1993:
Anne Rice was pretty huge at the time, thanks to Interview with the Vampire.  Queen of the Damned became a movie, too, a decade later.  For some reason Lestat in this comic seems to be based on Christopher Lambert (very noticeable on the cover of #9), erstwhile Highlander.  Pretty fascinating stuff, though.

Quest for Dreams Lost (Literacy Volunteers of Chicago)
From 1987:
Anthology meant to promote adult literacy.  Ironically, it could have used more thorough editing.  One segment features the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!  Also features the first professional work of the late Mike Parobeck!

Robin Annual #3 (DC)
From 1994:
The theme of DC's 1994 Annuals was Elseworlds, a concept that replaced the multiverse during that decade, and gave fans a ton of alternate versions of their favorite characters.  This one, from Chuck Dixon, places the Batman mythos in feudal Japan, to remarkable effect.  Batman is Robin's sensei, and protector of a besieged lord.  And it only becomes more complicated.  Batman dies early in the story, leaving Robin to figure out how to avenge him (or not, which is his mentor's dying wish).  Eventually, Robin runs into Catwoman.  A lot of it plays like a version of Robin's experiences following "Knightfall," but infinitely more awesome.  The thing about these one-shot comics, annuals or not, especially if they're set in an alternate reality, is that fans are not likely to remember them.  I could read a whole series based on Ninja Robin, but this is certainly enough of a taste to know how well it works.  It's not surprising that Dixon would write a lot more martial arts comics following this effort.

Rogues Gallery (DC)
From 1996:
Basically an excuse for a pinup gallery of DC's villains, with Underworld Unleashed as the inspiration.  Said title was a crossover event from Mark Waid and Howard Porter, whose main benefit was to help differentiate Captain Marvel from Superman.  Come to think of it, that was the point of Kingdom Come, too.  Why hasn't Waid written more Captain Marvel?

Rust #5 (Now)
From 1989:
Ed Brubaker, thank this comic for having something to be ten times better than.

The Saga of Original Man #1 (Omega 7)
From 192:
Remember what I was saying about Milestone (!) and Purge earlier?  Original Man is exactly what Purge wasn't.  It's bad comics.  Pretty much hilariously bad.  I think I went to middle school with kids who did better work than this.

The Saga of the Sub-Mariner #3 of 12 (Marvel)
From January 1989:
Let me set some context here: Namor, the Sub-Mariner, is literally one of Marvel's original creations.  It's baffling that in seven decades no one has ever figured out what to do with him.  Aquaman has a better track record.  Aquaman!!!

Savage Dragon #2 (Image)
From July 1993
Savage Dragon #23
From October 1995:
Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon is basically an ongoing parody of traditional superhero comics.  The second issue of the series apparently featured the Ninja Turtles (two appearances in this Blitz?!?), while the 23rd features girls with boobs, at least one of them in a costume that could not logically contain them, and certainly not in battle!  And Savage Dragon is one of two Image series that is still in regular publication from the earliest days.  Is it really any wonder that the company basically abandoned the superhero format years ago, with few exceptions?

Secret Weapons #13 (Valiant)
From October 1994:
I'm not really sure what this was supposed to be about.  And I have two copies of this issue.

Shadowman #22 (Valiant)
From February 1994
Shadowman #23
From March 1994:
Valiant was one of the companies that tried to support the superhero line that invariably includes Solar, X-O, Turok, Magnus...Shadowman does not belong in this company.  I'm not sure what's going on here, either.

The Shadow #8 (DC)
From March 1988
The Shadow #9
From April 1988
The Shadow #10
From May 1988:
I'm now at something at a loss to reconcile something.  If you will remember (or have a look through my Challengers of the Unknown label), I became a little obsessed with Jeph Loeb and Tim Sales Challengers of the Unknown Must Die!, a precursor to The Long Halloween and other famed and popular collaborations.  Must Die, however, was not popular.  The world wasn't yet ready for Sale's art, for one thing.  Except these issues of The Shadow suggest precedent.  From Andy Helfer (better known as an editor) and Kyle Baker's debut on the title, these issues are so similar to Loeb and Sale's work with the Challengers that I can't help but assume a few things: that, for one, Loeb was inspired by this work when he was making the decision to enter the comics field; that perhaps I read or at least looked at these comics when I first received the Blitz; and that subconsciously my interest in Must Die was derived from them.  One way or another, memorable stuff.

Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #7 (Marvel)
From December 1992
Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #8
From January 1993
Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #9
From February 1993:
Marvel's bad girl comics!

Space: Above and Beyond #3 of 3 (Topps)
From March 1996:
Based on the short-lived TV series, think of it as Star Wars by way of BattleStar Galactica by way of Top Gun by way of Wing Commander...Features art from Yanick Paquette.

Space Cadet: The Original Tom Corbett #1 of 10 (Eternity)
From September 1990
Space Cadet: The Original Tom Corbett #2
From September 1990
Space Cadet: The Original Tom Corbett #3
From October 1990
Space Cadet: The Original Tim Corbett #4
From November 1990
Space Cadet: The Original Tom Corbett #5
From December 1990:
Reprints of classic daily comic strips from September 1951 to July 1952 (and that's half the series, on both accounts) featuring that guy you may recognize from the poster on Leonard and Sheldon's wall in The Big Bang Theory.  This is surprisingly interesting stuff, vintage sci-fi that with the right treatment could totally be revived today (if you doubt me, remember One Mile Up).

Superman Adventures #2 (DC)
From December 1996:
Featuring Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics), based on the second Bruce Timm/Paul Dini animated series.

Tempus Fugitive #1 of 4 (DC)
From 1990:
Not as compelling as My Name Is Chaos, but another prestige format limited series that nonetheless interesting.

They Were 11 #3 of 4 (Viz)
From 1995
They Were 11 #4
From 1995:
A manga that I found to be enjoyable, perhaps because it features some interesting character work.

The Mighty Thor Annual #15
From 1990
The Mighty Thor Annual #17
From 1992:
My attitude toward Thor, at least in these stories, is very similar to the Inhumans.  Remember what that was?

Triumph #1 of 4 (DC)
From June 1995:
Marvel's Sentry was Marvel's version of Triumph, an attempt to retroactively add an iconic superhero to the history books.  Neither of them is around today.

Turok Dinosaur Hunter #43 (Valiant)
From May 1996
Turok Dinosaur Hunter #44
From May 1996:
Although this is some fairly generic Native American storytelling, it's still heads and shoulders above most of the other stuff in the Blitz, so it counts as a win.  It's surprising that no company has been able to keep Turok and the several others like him in publication, or that any major company hasn't snapped them up, or whatever it would take to bring them some stability.

Venom: Nights of Vengeance #3 of 4 (Marvel)
From October 1994
Venom: Lethal Protector #4 of 6
From May 1993:
The other curious development of '90s Spider-Man besides the Clone Saga was the attempt to make Venom as pretty much originally envisioned a star.  I know everyone was wild about him...But really?

Warchild #4 (Maximum Press)
From August 1995:
Maximim was one of several versions of Rob Liefield's own publishing line after Image no longer wanted him (the best attempt was literally Awesome).  That's the only thing notable about this comic.

The Web #2 (Impact)
From October 1991:
Archie's Red Circle superheroes are in the same boat as Turok & pals: no one can figure out how to keep them in publication, and many have tried.  Impact was DC's first attempt (the recent Web series from Marc Guggenheim and Roger Robinson was worth the effort, but I was one of its few fans).  It obviously didn't work.

What If? #40 (Marvel)
From August 1992:
What If? is basically Marvel's long-running version of Elseworlds, only far less awesome, often very pedestrian look at what would have happened if something from a particular story had turned out differently. In this instance, what if Storm hadn't joined the X-Men?  As this story posits, nothing about her life would have changed except joining the X-Men.  How fascinating!

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.

Quarter Bin #29 "The Future is in the Past (sometimes)"

NEW GODS #7 (DC)
From August 1989:
The theme of this edition of Quarter Bin is pretty much spelled out in the subtitle; there's a lot of rich storytelling material waiting to be rediscovered in back issue bins, and as primary case-in-point we begin with Jack Kirby's perennial, in this iteration being co-written by comics historian Mark Evanier (no other name involved has immediate historic appeal). As with just about every other New Gods comic, much of the story in this issue reiterates the New Gods story, pivoting around Orion, spawn of Darkseid, raised by Highfather (the opposite is true of Mister Miracle). I begin to suspect that the problem this franchise constantly runs into is that the material isn’t inviting enough; either you already like it or you don’t, and probably won’t, either. It’s a problem of accessibility. This leads us to…

RETURN OF THE NEW GODS #13 (DC)
From August 1977:
A relaunch literally a few years after Kirby’s original Fourth World tales (spanning NEW GODS, FOREVER PEOPLE, and MISTER MIRACLE), this one features writing from Gerry Conway and an inexplicably redesigned Orion (looking a bit like Geo-Force, actually), and assumed that someone other than Kirby could make the franchise more reader-friendly. That may very well be the case yet, even if readers have since put up nearly-insurmountable barriers. John Byrne, at least in my experience, probably came to closest in a strictly canonical sense with JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD, while COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS, if read strictly as a Fourth World adventure, would probably do the trick, even if it has the actual FINAL CRISIS to compete with (and hey, it’s Grant Morrison, so a lot of readers assumed the end result was necessarily more significant in any respect than DC’s second weekly series, which I thought was criminally underrated to begin with). What the New Gods need (and what Morrison recognized, if apparently unsatisfactorily) is a strong connection to regular continuity (and again, even Kirby knew that, which was why he liked to sneak in connections to Superman, just not clearly enough; and this brings up another point, in that how awesome would it have been for the King to work on the Man of Steel directly?). Morrison’s answer was to bring Darkseid down to earth, grounding the signature figure of the Fourth World in a human frame. COUNTDOWN, meanwhile, embroiled a number of Earth-based characters in an adventure that ultimately led to the Fourth World, which to my mind is exactly what the franchise needs. If that connection had been more explicit, perhaps readers would have cared a little more. Anyway, RETURN OF THE NEW GODS was not the answer, obviously. There’s a bonus, though! If you possess a working time machine, you can find a handy way to be cast in 1978’s SUPERMAN (you will believe that Gene Hackman can pull off Lex Luthor), thanks to a contest printed in this issue!

ANIMA #0 (DC)
From October 1994:
Another veteran of the 1993 Bloodlines experiment (see also Quarter Bin #s 6 & 8, for Sparx and Argus), Anima was a teen punk enthusiast who became bonded with Animus, her own monster guardian (the 1990s were a great decade to feel nostalgic for the Captain Marvel dynamic of a surrogate character in some sort of partnership with a heroic figure; see also Prime and The Maxx) she could summon in times of need. Anima made a minor sensation and then disappeared completely, like most of the Bloodlines characters, briefly being considered part of DC’s teen line that included Superboy, Robin, Impulse, and Damage. The concept as outlined in this Zero Month issue probably would have fit her nicely in the Vertigo line of the time, except writers (and creators) Elizabeth Hand and Paul Witcover (and this may also help explain her fate, because, really, who?) probably failed to make it clear enough (the series, which had already run about half a dozen issues to this point, lasted about as many more). This is not to say Anima is actually worthless or hopelessly a product of its time. In fact, even considering how Hand and Witcover basically made it a period piece waiting to happen; only a few minor changes would be necessarily to drag it into the OWS era. Besides, comics could always use a few more female lead characters.

NEW TITANS ANNUAL #9 (DC)
From 1993:
The Bloodlines annual that introduced one of the few characters from the experiment to receive their own ongoing series, this was written, naturally, by Hand and Witcover, and follows the same basic outline as every other installment of the event: spinal fluid-sucking aliens unwittingly unlock powers in a random victim, and the resulting character either becomes a hero and helps the main characters or gets in their way. The New Titans were the latter-day New Teen Titans, getting long in the tooth from their Wolfman/Perez heyday but not yet decided on actually (or trying to) move on with their lives. The artwork doesn’t really do the Titans themselves any favors, nor Anima, but it does look good on the aliens, who could perhaps reappear one day, with a slightly more focused story and a more confident lead writer who could flesh them out a little, make them more distinctive…

SOVEREIGN SEVEN PLUS #1 (DC)
From February 1997:
Chris Claremont probably had the most precipitous fall in modern comics history, from writing the most popular comics of the 1980s (and a few years into the next decade) to be an afterthought whose new X-Men comics were completely overlooked a few years ago. That helps explain why everyone found his creator-owned DC work so easy to dismiss, even though I thought SOVEREIGN SEVEN to be some of the best comics I read during that time. The only problem I identify in hindsight is the same problem the New Gods have had for the past four decades, a problem of accessibility. He came up with a great concept, and a distinctive set of characters, but there was no real perspective in how the stories actually handled them. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. When a large audience is supposed to embrace it, the more deliberate the better (small audiences like insular worlds better), so that everyone has a chance to either latch onto a particular element and try and juggle all of it (again, large audiences are a diverse lot and more often than not are not actually united about the things they like about the one thing they all like). What’s so funny about this one-shot is that Claremont, who clearly would’ve liked to write him some Legion of Super-Heroes, approaches the Legion the way he should have the Sovereigns, with a very selective use from it, concentrating on Saturn Girl while his own team dances around her, with a soft focus on Network (without ever really explaining why readers should care as much about her as he does Saturn Girl). Having read SOVEREIGN SEVEN, I know that Claremont did spend a fair amount of time developing Network and lead character Cascade, and spent time showing how the other characters were unique, but what he failed to do was keep any of them apart long enough for readers to try investing themselves in any of them. That’s what truly makes Alan Moore’s WATCHMEN stand out from other superhero comics, in that he wrote about a team, but that team didn’t really hang out together during the series, and so Moore was able to write about the characters rather than the team, and readers have any number of narratives ready-made for easy consumption (even though the story as a whole assumes you can put all of it together). Then again, WATCHMEN was a twelve-issue maxi-series, and DC probably assumed, the same way that Claremont did, that SOVEREIGN SEVEN, being an ongoing series, wouldn’t have to follow the same rules. Pointedly, the New 52 uniformly puts character first. So, a couple of lessons: respect Claremont, let him write the Legion, and remember that character ought to trump most other elements in a story.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS QUARTERLY #2 (DC)
From September 1992:
Can you believe that there was a time when the Green Lantern franchise didn’t depend on Geoff Johns to carry a full slate of titles? When this issue was published, there was also GREEN LANTERN (the standard flagship) and GREEN LANTERN: MOSAIC, starring John Stewart, with the first Guy Gardner solo book on the horizon. It seems unbelievable now! It certainly was by 1994, when MOSAIC had been forgotten, QUARTERLY cancelled, WARRIOR (what GUY GARDNER transitioned into fairly quickly) barely acknowledging that Guy had once slung a green ring, and Kyle Rayner the last of the Corps (for a while). This one, then, is a great issue to stumble across; a sort of time capsule to what might have been an alternate version of the franchise’s fortunes, if only a few more issues here and there had been sold. The framing narrative is an incredibly unsubtle plug for MOSAIC (I myself have only ever read the first issue, which is something I’ve been trying to correct for the past few years now, but is difficult short of ordering from the Interweb to actually accomplish), a conversation between Hal Jordan and Stewart that catches the reader up on things the latter has been experiencing lately (and can it also be emphasized that Geoff Johns singlehandedly reintroduced Sinestro as an active participant in the Green Lantern saga after many years of near-neglect?) in his own book, leading into short stories involving Alan Scott (who had only recently returned to regular appearances in the pages of a short-lived Justice Society relaunch that as a result only helped remind readers who all those old-timers were who becomes victims of ZERO HOUR), G’Nort, and “The History of Sector 2814,” the plug on the cover that made me buy the issue in the first place. Yes, we get a tale of an 1800s American who becomes drafted into the Corps in the midst of a personal crisis, but I guess what I expected was a somewhat more literal history, detailing predecessors of Hal Jordan and Abin Sur, which leads me to one of my biggest points for this column: Star Wars fans have been accepting generic sci-fi drivel for years from creative minds other than George Lucas, badly filling in elements of the saga that don’t revolve around Anakin Skywalker, yet DC can’t be bothered to do a regular anthology of Green Lantern stories that look at all the interesting things that probably happened prior to the modern era? I mean, sure, we’ve had the sporadic Abin Sur tale, and Johns expanded on the Alan Moore prophecy of the Darkest Night, but there’s so much more that could be done, the first Green Lanterns, even so far back as the Manhunters, or simply fleshing out the rest of Sector 2814 (that’s one of my biggest beefs with the franchise, that sectors and their designations and representatives are mostly a crapshoot any writer can improvise at their will), at the very least. Anyway, Gerard Jones and M.D. Bright (one of my personal defining Green Lantern creative teams) provide the framing narrative, while other featured fellows include Roger Stern, Dusty Abell, Mark Waid (whose story is highly amusing, and together with IMPULSE just screams for Waid to write in this style more frequently), Ty Templeton, Doug Moench, and even Scott Lobdell.

Anyway, that’s it for this column!

Quarter Bin #8 "Argus"

There’s not going to be much mystery concerning this week’s subject once I say the comics that inspired it, so let’s get that out of the way:

ARGUS #1-6 (DC)
From April through October 1995.

Okay, so you may actually still be scratching your heads, but suffice it to say, but if you guessed “Argus,” then you were correct. Like Sparx (the subject of Quarter Bin #6 a few weeks back), Argus was a product of the 1993 Bloodlines annuals, whose origins have to do with an alien invasion, what began as a series attacks that were supposed to kill, but instead transformed a select group of ordinary joes into members of what was supposed to be a new generation of superheroes.

Argus debuted in THE FLASH ANNUAL #6, and was created by speed guru Mark Waid, and designed by Phil Hester, who also supplies the art for much of the ARGUS mini-series. What helps set this particular Bloodlines character apart from some of the others is the fact that Waid actually used Argus in the FLASH ongoing from time to time, whereas most of the others were quickly abandoned by the host series they sprang from. At the time, Waid was still getting warmed up in his run (these wordplays never get old!), having only recently worked on the seminal “Return of Barry Allen” (which, contrary to its title, did not actually feature the return of Barry Allen, but featured all sorts of breakthrough Speed Force work, including the debut of Max Mercury, one of my favorite characters of all-time). He was busy carving out a whole working mythology, and an extended cast of characters, and while Argus was not, in fact, a speedster, he still worked within the context of what Waid envisioned, which including a broadening of the role a character like the Pied Piper, who began as a Rogue and would eventually (apparently) die as one, could inhabit.

On the surface, Argus appears to be something of a riff on Daredevil, a superhero with vision issues, and a horribly complicated life, and maybe that’s exactly why he never caught on. Now, obviously, I’m arguing that this sells the character short. The mini-series that’s at the heart of this column is a testament to this fact, proves that a good, distinctive story can come out of him. Or that, at the very least, Argus is one of the few Bloodlines creations that remains completely salvageable, along with Sparx, Loose Cannon, and Anima, all of whom have gotten some measure of almost-satisfactory exploration, and comparatively better fates than their contemporaries, excluding Hitman, but not Gunfire (though maybe even he’s redeemable).

ARGUS is written by the team of Mark Wheatley and Allan Gross, and concerns not only an involving exploration of the character as originally envisioned by Waid, but also a considerable evolution of him, taking Argus on a personal odyssey that includes a complicated relationship with his father, his status as a federal agent working deep undercover in a mob, and the loss of his eyes, which has the outcome of bringing out new facets of his powers. Clearly this is not just a book that uses an existing character, but is at every step deeply invested in that character. On that level alone ARGUS is worth reading, since few comic book stories are interested in doing that sort of thing, whether they attempt to mask a thinner version with only the suggestion of such storytelling, or not bothering to write any real characters at all.

Needless to say, however, Argus has been largely absent from comics in recent years, and was quickly forgotten by DC in general not long after this mini-series, and even by Mark Waid himself, who admittedly had a lot of things to work with, and so even when he was working on THE FLASH during that decade, he could only turn to Argus so many times. And, unfortunately, when Waid wasn’t writing him, it was incredibly unlikely, even then, that anyone else would include the character in their stories. As I’ve suggested, Argus appears on the surface to be extremely derivative. When he didn’t catch on like DC might have hoped, even with his own fairly lengthy mini-series, it was only natural for the publisher to forget about him. Argus isn’t flashy enough on his own that his participation in any kind of team book would make much of a difference. DC tried using exactly this kind of character in SHADOWPACT, and that didn’t exactly work out (and it didn’t the first time around, PRIMAL FORCE, either). Without any kind of commitment or substitute home, any hope that Argus might stick around very quickly diminished, and he slipped into superhero limbo.

The whole Bloodlines project was something of a gamble anyway. Trying to introduce even one new superhero is always difficult, but trying to introduce a whole group of new superheroes is even more difficult, especially when they’re supposed to stand on their own, but in fact have a common origin, one that stems from a single event, and be the result of a scenario that itself isn’t very popular, as evidenced by the singular lack of impact these particular aliens have had on subsequent DC lore. And given that DC somewhat liberally employs aliens in its storytelling (its flagship hero is the most famous alien in history), that’s really saying something.

Still, I like to contend that Argus is not a totally worthless concept for modern readers. A man trapped between worlds, and saddled with abilities he can’t always make sense of, that’s the sort of thing that timeless comics are made of. Give another shot, Argus can be timeless, too. As Mark Waid himself has already demonstrated, the character can function entirely independent of his origins, and as ARGUS further demonstrated, the character can also function within the context of his particular elements, and not a word of those origins, again, are particularly relevant. Some characters are bound by their origins, others aren’t. Argus doesn’t need to be. Maybe he doesn’t really matter to a Flash story now, and he doesn’t have to do that, either. You don’t need to know Wolverine was ever a member of the X-Men to enjoy one of his stories, after all. Maybe Argus could join a team, maybe he doesn’t even need to. Maybe there’s another big story within his own framework just waiting to happen, that will explode his possibilities.

Or, hey, maybe he’s just another great discovery for those reading the comics they can find in the back issue bins, where all superheroes have the privilege to exist. Who really wants to call that limbo?

Quarter Bin #6 "Sparx"

Let’s start this new phase of the Quarter Bin off a little differently, by listing the comics that led to the topic we’ll be looking at this week:

BLOODBATH #1-2 (DC)
From December 1993.

SHOWCASE ’94 #6 & 12 (DC)
From June and December 1994.

BLOOD PACK #1-4 (DC)
From March to June 1995.

SUPERBOY #65 (DC)
From August 1999.

SUPERMAN/BATMAN #32 (DC)
From February 2007.

Okay, so the subject, in case you were wondering, is Donna Carol Force, otherwise known as Sparx. Debuting in ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ANNUAL #5 (which was part of Quarter Bin #2), Sparx was a part of the BLOODLINES initiative, a 1995 effort that ran throughout that year’s annuals intended to create a whole new generation of heroes (Hitman ended up being the most enduring, but because he belonged to Garth Ennis, he lived and died almost exclusively in his own series) based on an alien invasion that activated the meta genes of random victims. As you can tell, given that you yourself no doubt have a very tenuous awareness of any of this, it was a general failure, as has been pretty much every other effort from the past twenty years to create genuinely new superheroes within both DC and Marvel with enduring, mass appeal. Sparx, though, was a favorite of mine, thanks to her continuing adventures alongside Superboy, notably in SUPERBOY AND THE RAVERS, a hugely unappreciated comic I hope to fully explore later on in this blog, an issue-by-issue affair that will be legendary.

But for now, I thought it would be fun to revisit Sparx a little more singularly. In the beginning, she was just another of the BLOODLINES creations, and the first comics listed at the top of this column are the concluding mini-series for that event (for most of the Nineties, it was customary for DC to link their annuals through some kind of event or gimmick, back when annuals were something the company made an effort to produce for most of its line, if indeed at all, and not just to conclude or explain some major event from the regular series). That was 1993 Sparx.

In 1994, the company began making an effort to grant these new heroes more exposure. Gunfire, who would eventually sink into a deep obscurity, was probably the first one to receive an ongoing series commitment. Sparx and others began exploring the potential of being featured in SHOWCASE, a traditional DC title that had at that point become a series of twelve-issue annual anthology projects. While SHOWCASE #12 is a glorified cameo appearance hyping BLOOD PACK, #6 is a return to her true potential, revisiting the Force family intrigue originally apparent in AOSA #5. But it was BLOOD PACK awaiting her immediate future. A mini-series that revisited many of the BLOODLINES creations (notable exceptions included Gunfire, Hitman, Argus, and Loose-cannon, the latter two being my other favorites, whom you’ll no doubt hear more about in the future, but probably Argus first), it was also an attempt to cash in on the then-fledgling reality show craze (THE REAL WORLD was just getting started). Reading a lot like recent efforts such as FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH: DANCE (featuring Super Young Team) or INFINITY, INC., it wouldn’t be entirely out of place with a new collection (though the audience would probably still be…just me). That was 1995 Sparx.

And aside from SUPERBOY AND THE RAVERS, that was pretty much Sparx, period. SUPERBOY #65 is another random appearance that doesn’t really amount to much. SUPERMAN/BATMAN #32 is kind of a funny story, since it’s the wrong issue, but based on another random appearance. It’s a shame, too, because Sparx is a wonderful character whose potential is so much greater than her association with Superboy. As Donna Carol (D.C.) Force, there are so many more possibilities than are typically associated with not just the creations of BLOODLINES, but most superheroes. The Force family is known for its meta genes. The only reason why Donna didn’t already have powers was because hers hadn’t activated yet. Otherwise, she’s already part of a rich tradition, even if very few creators really seemed all that interested in exploring it. Ignoring Sparx is like saying there’s nothing interesting about mutants. While that was an argument readers apparently wanted to make in the Sixties, you’d look like a fool trying to assert such a sentiment today. And that’s basically what’s happened with Sparx. I would not hesitate to term her absence in comics today to be foolish.

That’s a little of what it’s like to combine past experience with the potential of back issues and quarter bins, the ability to rescue treasure from the scrap heap. While her backlog is small (excluding …RAVERS, which again I will come back to at some point), Sparx has a potentially huge future ahead of her. She may seem like just another failed effort now, almost as completely forgotten as Gunfire, but with the right kind of effort, she can become, well, a whole new force in comics. Having a whole family of superheroes is nothing to sneeze at. Ever heard of the Fantastic Four? Or the Incredibles? Well, this is a whole bloodline that’s been living with the meta gene for years, and they don’t have the benefit of the public eye to contend with, or benefit from. I guess, then, that it’s only natural, that Sparx has faded into the background, since that’s where her family has always been. But Donna Force has already demonstrated once the ability to transcend that.

And she can do it again.