Quarter Bin 106 "Challengers of the Unknown"

Challengers of the Unknown #5 (DC)
from July 1991

This was a series I originally discovered, randomly, rummaging through back issues, so it's always nice finding it again that way, even though eventually I read the complete story in the trade paperback collection that ought to be reprinted, perennially, as the classic it is.  Unfortunately it's mostly remembered, if at all, as the first pairing of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, who later ended up collaborating on Batman: The Long Halloween, and a host of other stuff that brought them far greater acclaim.

Reading an issue again, now, is to be reminded just how special it really was, a truly inspired work of art in which Loeb felt free to write exactly as he wanted, completely untethered.  I became an amateur fan of the Challengers after discovering this, and sampled later versions, but beside the fact that none of those could ever hope to compete with it, I'm still surprised that DC hasn't even tried to bring them back recently, whether in the New 52 or, so far, in Rebirth.  Heck, even in the new Young Animal line.  Loeb's Challengers, like disgraced Gerard Jones's Green Lantern: Mosaic, was Vertigo material that was never identified as Vertigo material, even though in hindsight it clearly was, as Vertigo was in its nascent days, when Grant Morrison was doing Animal Man and Doom Patrol, and not so much The Invisibles. 

Reading these original issues also helps me keep tabs with what readers were thinking.  And you know the concept is doomed when the editor is begging those readers to spread the word, "and with any hope there will be more!"  This never means anything good.  And it's a shame to report, more than a quarter century later, that this stuff is still waiting to be discovered.

Have Muse, Will Travel

Baby did a bad, bad thing.  See, I was about town when I discovered there’s a new comics shop in Colorado Springs, called Muse.  It carries a wide assortment of titles and keeps older issues around for continuing titles.  See, this is bad because I had a chance to catch up with some stuff I’ve missed recently.  I quite reading new comics last year because I am not, as they say, flush with cash, and since I lost my job recently, I really ought to have repeat that feat, not gotten a bunch more comics…But I’m an idiot savant (or perhaps just an idiot), so I told myself, These are good stories and need to be read.  And so I listened to myself and here’s what I got:

DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #s 6-8 (DC)

Readers of this blog may know that I have a soft spot for the Challengers of the Unknown, basically the DC equivalent of the Fantastic Four without fancy powers, who’ve gone through a number of incarnations the past few decades (including the excellent and seminal Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale version depicted in THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE!, and a Howard Chaykin cycle that’s very Howard Chaykinian), so when I first heard of the New 52 anthology title doing a Challengers story, I worried that I’d miss out, because Heroes & Dragons does not carry the entire New 52.  Muse corrected that but good, having the complete arc (which like I said is par for the course).  This version postulates the team as stars of a reality adventure show (playing fast and loose with the concept), but otherwise keeps the concept of risk-takers living on borrowed time intact (even if many of them actually die in the story), and to my mind is a worthy take on the team.  It reads as incredibly self-contained, in case you were wondering, which is only natural for a concept that has existed since 1957 but has never been popular, making every appearance special and finite.

THE LABYRINTH: A TALE OF JORGE LUIS BORGES/NEPOTISM (Spleenland)

Muse also had a small selection of local work, which is always nice.  This one was published in 2003, and comes from the mind of Geoffrey Hawley, reading like one of the best independent comics no one ever read, which is a shame.  The lead story is based on writer Jorge Luis Borges, a philosophical kind of guy, and is like a cross between Fred Van Lente and Jeff Smith.  There are a couple of shorter works as well, and they’re fine, but the lead story is the best thing here, easily.  

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #1 (DC)

The first issue of the series was always a curiosity for me, considering that’s when the Starfire controversy that still dominates its reputation came from.  It’s actually interesting, because Starfire receives a soft reboot in the story, revealed as having a short memory, basically, which explains at least why she’s ignored Dick Grayson since almost marrying him (but still doesn’t explain Dick’s silence on the matter since that time).  The issue actually revolves around Roy Harper, and Jason Todd’s rescue of him, which explains why they hang out now.  And anyway, I love this book, and it was just nice to see how it started.  I recently learned that Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort are taking over SUPERMAN, which might be what I need to finally read an issue of that series in the New 52.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF D.B. COOPER #s 1-3 (Oni)

I’ve got a couple of biographies waiting in development at Bluewater Press, and I mentioned that I was interested in doing something with D.B. Cooper, and although I didn’t received a favorable response on that, I was a little chagrined to learn of the existence of a series called THE SECRET HISTORY OF D.B. COOPER not so long after.  I mean, what are the chances that D.B. Cooper will have two comic books, much less one, on the stands at the same time?  Cooper famously hijacked a plane in the ’70s and got away.  I figured it’d be interesting to provide an account of the search for this bogeyman.  SECRET HISTORY is about an alternate explanation for why he’s been so elusive for forty years.  Stop me if you’ve heard this one, Chuck Barris.  It postulates that he’s an agent of the C.I.A. whose career as an assassin is aided by access to a pocket dimension where he uses a sword and fights monsters that are analogies for his targets.  The creator is Brian Churilla, whom I first encountered as artist of THE ANCHOR, which is almost exactly this book, but not as awesome.  I thought THE ANCHOR was awesome, by the way.  It was written by Phil Hester, one of my favorite comic book creators (though he doesn’t seem to get a lot of respect otherwise).  So I knew what SECRET HISTORY would look like, but I had no idea how it would actually read.  It’s like a mix between AWAKE, the short-lived TV series about a man living parallel lives, and THE ANCHOR (which I’ve already alluded to, and is only appropriate).  And it’s absolutely brilliant, richly layered and featuring a teddy bear as Cooper’s main companion.  It has quickly vaulted into my favorite books of 2012.

THE SHADE #s 5-7 (DC)

That makes twice this year I’ve miraculously been able to catch up with this series, which inexplicably has been all but ignored by pretty much everyone, even though it’s James Robinson at his finest.  Featuring a supporting character from Robinson’s STARMAN, the basic story is about trying to figure out who tried to kill The Shade, and why.  So far it’s caused a lot of introspection and revisiting of his history (and just begging anyone to care enough so we can read this as an ongoing series), and in these three issues a visit with Spanish heroine La Sangre, a vampire caught in the midst of an epic feud with the Inquisitor, with his own rich history.  This whole story is steeped in history, and maybe I love it because I love stuff like this and maybe not a lot of other people do, but I love depth in comics, and that’s what THE SHADE is all about.  These are the best issues so far, too, and that was a treat to discover, and what makes it all the more wickedly fantastic that I was able to catch them.  Our antihero would approve.

THE TWELVE #s 9 & 11 (Marvel)

The interval years since the first eight and then the last four issues meant fans of this J. Michael Straczynski/Chris Weston mini-series that reads like a modern WATCHMEN means that anyone who wasn’t already thinking about it was forced to do exactly that, especially now that BEFORE WATCHMEN has come upon us.  A comic book that seeks to explore the origins and motivations of superheroes cannot help but have comparisons to WATCHMEN, even if Alan Moore’s legacy became about deconstructing superheroes rather than building them up.  THE TWELVE doesn’t deconstruct or build anyone up.  It’s a version of the Captain America story where twelve heroes were put into cryogenic suspension in WWII and then reawaken in 2008.  It’s a story about generations, but really the changing of social mores and the ability to remain relevant, to understand oneself (very few of the characters in WATCHMEN seemed interested in that, but most of them thought they did).  Straczynski isn’t interested in creating individual narratives so much as weaving a tapestry.  I suspect the whole thing reads better in one sitting, but it also reads well in single issues, and that’s most of the point, that these are characters who figure things out in increments.  Both WATCHMEN and THE TWELVE have a thru-line of a character being revealed as murdered (the Comedian and Blue Blade, respectively) and then trying to figure out the who and the why.  Both stories are then about figuring out how the resulting revelation explains everything.  THE TWELVE has a couple of happy endings, where things end badly for just about everyone in WATCHMEN, where the illusion of control is key.  THE TWELVE is about the lack of control, and whether one can find peace with that.  Each character has some kind of reckoning with that.  You don’t need to know or care about WATCHMEN to enjoy THE TWELVE, by the way.  But it doesn’t hurt to love comic books, and good storytelling.

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.

The Challengers of the Unknown must live!

It’s easier to find a movie, say, or a book, or some music act that most other people seem to be overlooking or undervaluing, than a comic book. I don’t mean a series that doesn’t sell very well, or something from the indies (which by definition is swimming against the current). Most serious comics fans will usually know better than filmgoers seeking out the latest blockbuster or whatever moves them specifically, book buyers seeking out their own familiar commodities, or music lovers grooving on their favorites, just what exactly is available. Sometimes it’s merely a matter of not having enough funds to cover everything that looks interesting in the comics shop, or a lack of general availability, that prevents certain titles from being read. Most comics that sell worse than others usually suffer from a lower profile, or perhaps a lack of a galvanizing creative direction, which again circles back to the fact that there are many comics published on a weekly basis, and very few readers capable of actually buying them all. There are certainly really good books that seem to sell not so much really well for reasons that don’t sound quite that good, but again, that may simply be that they just don’t have the buzz, or that most the buzz is going elsewhere, and whatever remains simply isn’t enough, or that unwarranted bad buzz or an inexplicable lack of buzz swallows perfectly worthy projects whole…

I could probably talk circles around that, so let’s just move on. The point of this introduction is, it can sometimes be a little difficult to understand how a really good comic book can be overlooked, given the kind of community exists around this medium (and inversely, really easy to understand, given the community as we all know it). I mean to talk about Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN book, originally published as a mini-series 1991, and eventually reprinted as CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE!, after the team had become famous for such works as BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN and SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Still, I’d wager that very few people know this story even exists, and it’s a darn shame.

Loeb has in recent years distanced himself from comics work, having achieved a great deal of success with such recent efforts as SUPERMAN/BATMAN and HULK, not to mention to epochal collaboration with Jim Lee on the Batman story arc “Hush,” partly as I would assume to the fact that many fans have found it increasingly difficult that he has any real talent, beyond a massive amount of hype. I find this to be a terrific travesty, because to my mind, Jeph Loeb is easily one of the finest writers of modern comics, capable of finding an inner monologue to any given character, whether iconic or obscure, and maybe it’s just because that’s exactly the kind of skill I admire in a writer, but that’s not by far a bad attribute. Those fans claim he’s horribly formulaic and predictable, that his stories always feel less inspired in their conclusions than in their blockbuster setups. I would perhaps counter-argue that any good story ought to have an ending worth talking about, especially if the rest of the story was as compelling as everyone made it seem, but maybe that’s just me being difficult and contrary again. If it seems too “comic booky,” then maybe it’s the creator’s way of making the reader think about the medium in a more serious way. That’s exactly the kind of ending CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE! concludes with, with a villain that only really appears at the climax of a story that had spent all its time examining the individual members of the Challs, as they’re affectionately known, as they perhaps never have been before.

Along with Loeb, of course, for this story, is his most famous collaborator, artist Tim Sale, whose most recent claim to fame was his work on the TV show HEROES, which turned out in later seasons to be more unfortunate than it first seemed. Sale initially provided the finished paintings of a clairvoyant artist in the early episodes, and it was a clever link for a series that otherwise shunned comic book conventions. Then, of course, Sale’s art reappeared in the second season, well after that original character had been killed off, and like the series as a whole, Sale’s continued participation was viewed in terms of stagnation rather than inspiration (or perhaps, continuity!). Aside from what now appears to be an aborted project (CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE) begun a few years back, Sale, too, has all but vanished as a regular comics presence.

It does seem appropriate, that Loeb and Sale might have ended in without much ceremony their comics careers, since their Challengers work was equally overlooked. Readers of this blog might recall that I originally discovered, or at least started reading it, thanks to a series of quarter bin raids that forced me to track down the rest of the story. Appropriately, I found a dirt-cheap used copy of the trade collection. I can honestly say that this earliest Loeb-Sale effort is, in my opinion, their finest. I wish I could then properly explain how it was left to and remained in obscurity, except that really good things usually fail to find a really big audience.

This was Loeb’s first comic, even! I confess to still not have all that much experience with his screen work, from before or after, but the remarkable maturity and complexity on display in …MUST DIE! is enviable by any standard, in any medium, clear in some ways that Loeb was not at the time concerned with conventions. He tackled a team of heroes who for decades were viewed as Fantastic Four knockoffs, even as they remained something of a DC underground favorite, as with many Jack Kirby creations, popping up every now and again, rebooted past the conclusions in MUST DIE! for later appearances, though it’s probably been about a decade or more since the last time. In the first issue of the eight-issue mini-series, Loeb and Sale reduce the team of four plus one (members Prof, Rocky, Ace, and Red, along with assistant June) to three, after blowing up Challenger Mountain and most of Challengerville, not to mention Prof and June. For the remainder of the series, Rocky, Ace, and Red, having disbanded, redefine themselves, growing apart, and assume the civilian lives they left behind when they originally “cheated death” and started “living on borrowed time.” (When you think about it, the Challs would have made a picture-perfect 1980s TV show, and then 2000s summer blockbuster.)

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE! deserves to be remembered as a comic book classic, and ought to be part of the perennial reprint parade, prepped for an Absolute edition, and lauded loudly as the first genius pairing of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, as well as its definitive legacy. What many creators struggle for many years to accomplish with a given franchise they managed in eight issues, and in many ways, it’s almost better that the Challengers belong to obscurity before and after, since there really aren’t any fans to argue with over such a monumental story. If the team must be remembered for something, this more than earns such a distinction. It’s a calling card for potential, proved to be exactly that for Loeb and Sale, for what a comic book could do, and what even C-level characters can accomplish. What more could you ask for?

Quarter Bin #5 "From an Actual Quarter Bin, Part 2"

This is the other great batch of actual quarter bin comics, the second haul from last summer, when I really buckled down with the targeted picks. Once again, the selections are from Escape Velocity in downtown Colorado Springs. Because there are so many, I will skip further introductions and dive right in:

THE 99 SPECIAL (Teshkeel Comics)
From 2007; I had originally selected this one in anticipation of the then-upcoming DC book that saw this team return in a mash-up with the JLA, so obviously the topicality has come and gone. In many ways, I still wish Fabian Nicieza were the dominant creative voice here, since there’s so much potential that just sort of gets left on the floor, a problem that continues to this day. This particular comic, though, was a good find, because it’s an origin issue, so I was at least able to dive rather directly into the 99’s story.

AMERICA’S BEST COMICS PREVIEW (Wizard)
From 1999 (originally presented with WIZARD #91); I suppose in hindsight Alan Moore’s ABC comics were even more important than they seemed at the time, since they represent the last time he was truly committed to the mainstream, before he became completely disillusioned with one too many movie adaptations he felt didn’t do his comics justice. Is it an irony that no one ever moved to make a film of this work?

AMERICAN CENTURY #9 (Vertigo)
From January 2002; Howard Chaykin is an icon who has completely transcended every traditional comic book expectation, and I’m still waiting for him to truly receive his due. This book, however, possibly because he doesn’t supply the art, doesn’t help do him justice.

ANIMAL MAN #22-24 (DC)
From April, May, and June 1990; these were among my happiest finds, some of Grant Morrison’s later issues in his acclaimed run. I was all of nine years old when these were originally released, so even if I had been reading comics at the time, there’s no way I would have been reading them, or at least appreciating them. The book that made Grant’s reputation is of such mind-boggling scope that it’s little wonder that he struggled for years to find a proper follow-up (he’d presented his masterpiece, ARKHAM ASYLUM, a year earlier, but I hope to write more about that at a later date), spending time with the surrealistic odyssey THE INVISIBLES before going mainstream with JLA in anticipation of his Batman work a decade later. I didn’t have any experience with ANIMAL MAN until reading the DEUS EX MACHINA trade only a few years ago, and these issues represent part of the arc collected in that climactic story that shattered storytelling boundaries. Having apparently peaked so early (what other writer has ever approached such transcendent material?), Grant then had to tackle the matter of how to make the traditional material better than it’s ever been. Well, that’s my argument, anyway…

ASH #1 (Event)
From November 1994; now that he’s stepped down as the head honcho at Marvel, maybe Joe Quesada will go back to making comics on a regular basis. Do you even remember this one? After the blockbuster creation of Azrael at DC, Joe set out to create his own company, outside of the Image revolution, but relying on the same art-driven mandate that drove much of that decade crazy. You can see for yourself with this issue how completely overblown Joe’s concept was. Event’s only real success was Painkiller Jane, which actually became a short-lived TV show. Joe’s own art took radical steps away from the style presented here. Would anyone be interested in revisiting Ash today?

ASTRO CITY ½ (Image)
ASTRO CITY #18 (WildStorm)
ASTRO CITY: LOCAL HEROES #1 (WildStorm)
ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE - BOOK ONE #4 (WildStorm)
From January 1998, August 1999, April 2003, and December 2005, respectively; Kurt Busiek shot to instant acclaim with MARVELS, a project that revisited the storied origins of, well, Marvel’s most famous superheroes, and their earliest and most iconic adventures. He eventually parlayed that success into an ongoing project that explored his own creations, though the tone didn’t really change (the controversial and extended DARK AGE is famously based on what would have been his actual sequel to MARVELS). Like Alan Moore, Busiek doesn’t write comics so much as stories that reveal his love for the medium (and while Moore eventually branched out into history and other established literary figures, Busiek maintains his first love). Arguably, while this is the big strength for both creators, it has often hindered their potential (I would argue that it eventually caused Moore’s bitter split with the mainstream; in that vein, his frustrations with Hollywood adaptations of his work is actually a manifestation of his bafflement that other people really don’t understand what he’s doing; in essence, Frank Miller making a movie out of Will Eisner’s Spirit is closer to his goal than anything else). Still, the ASTRO CITY comics I found in those bins were happy, happy finds, since I’ve only recently begun reading Busiek’s passion project, and my appreciation has grown.

FLASH & GREEN LANTERN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1 (DC)
From October 1999; this one is such a throwback, here in 2011, for so many reasons. For starters, Barry Allen and Hal Jordan were both dead and buried in 1999, and now they’re both back and headlining DC. The title “The Brave and the Bold” was another thing that was extinct in 1999, but was brought back for an extended run last decade. Then there’s Mark Waid. In many ways, Waid fit’s the Moore/Busiek mold I was discussing above perfectly, achieving much of his early success drawing extensively from the past. With his famous “Return of Barry Allen” arc, that not only made his run in THE FLASH but also finally solidified Wally West’s right to succession, he made Barry relevant for a whole generation of reading, and paved the way for his return. But while Moore and Busiek constantly look backward, Waid kept looking forward, and anticipated the rise of Geoff Johns, a man often accused of building all his stories on the bones of the past. But what other creator has done more to forge the future of an entire company?

BREACH #11 (DC)
From January 2006; the fact that Bob Harras was synonymous with Marvel prior to his work on this short-lived book (this is actually the final issue) is perhaps the least interesting thing to talk about here. What greater concerns me is DC’s continual efforts to introduce new superheroes, which DC’s readers are constantly rejecting. I love reading on the Interweb how there’s been a lack of new characters in recent decades with staying power. Well, Interweb, it’s exactly your fault. The very demographic, or description of demographic, that’s supposed to support such initiatives fit’s the description of the Interweb: a small but vocal representation of an audience. The problem, almost the whole Interweb seems exclusively interested in bitching about things rather than expressing an actual interest in things. I would suggest many things would have been different for many characters created at DC and elsewhere over the last fifteen years if the Interweb had set a better example. One of the reasons Marvel and DC are bringing back letters columns is that they finally realized that the quality of conversation available on a letters page is infinitely greater than anything that has manifested on the Interweb since they attempted the transition, to “keep up with the times.” This is not to say that letters columns breed success for new ideas, but that message boards, tweets, profile updates, and the like certainly do not. “Progress” doesn’t always mean what it seems to. And for the record, Breach was another in a long line of interesting concepts that fans, if they were utilizing technology the way most people assume they do, or could, should have had a longer shelf life. The good news is that if he can be located in a quarter bin, that increases his chances of staying clear of that limbo Grant Morrison wrote about.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #5 (Marvel)
From March 1997; if you’ve done your math, you’ve no doubt realized that this comic comes from the Heroes Reborn era, and so yes, this is a Rob Liefeld book, female Bucky (since imported back into the mainstream), eagle-instead-of-A, and exaggerated figures all around. At some future date, I hope to represent here just how much I contradict the popular view of Liefeld, but suffice it to say…

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #2, 4, 5 (DC)
From April, June, and July 1991; if you revisit Quarter Bin #2 you might note for the record that CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #4 was also represented in the first Escape Velocity quarter bin haul, and that was my introduction to this first, seminal teaming between Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, what you might consider the start of a quest, which led to these purchases, and eventually, the whole trade collection, which I will write more about later. Such has my appreciation of this work grown that I now consider it to be one of the great undiscovered masterpieces of comics.

DEADMAN #1 (Vertigo)
From October 2006; in a different reality, this title eventually achieved the same reputation as Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN, another title that took the name of an established DC superhero and completely reimagined it. I first became acquainted with Bruce Jones during his run with THE HULK, when he did some of the most interesting work with that character since Lou Ferrigno. Somehow Jones was never quite viewed as a comics master, possibly because of his work on NIGHTWING in which he went all Lovecraftian on Jason Todd.

GENERATION X #27 (Marvel)
From May 1997; I thought this was a pretty clever find, since Bastion is the villain here, as he was last year in “Second Coming.” Hey, remember Generation X?

RAGMAN #4 (DC)
From January 1992; even though I hadn’t really read him until SHADOWPACT, Ragman was a favorite character of mine since I collected his trading card. The original and ultimately more interesting Spawn, Rory Reagan also has the distinction of being the most famous Jewish superhero in comics, a fact that only periodically seems to come up. This is one of those times.

SEAGUY #3 (Vertigo)
From September 2004; when I read the SLAVES OF MICKEY EYE mini-series, it was without having read its predecessor, so mostly I got a kick out of Grant Morrison more or less parodying his own work in FINAL CRISIS. I had no idea how long fans of Seaguy had actually waited for the adventure promised at the end of this very issue. It’s also funny to note that Cameron Stewart’s art style actually changed between books.

SPELLJAMMER #8 (DC)
From April 1991; there’s no other reason for this one other than, once again, Joe Quesada, whose art is unrecognizable, either from ASH or his most recent work. So, props for evolving, Joe.

YOUNG AVENGERS #4, 6, 7 (Marvel)
From July, September, and October 2005; this book and Ed Brubaker’s then-nascent CAPTAIN AMERICA is the work that finally got this life-long DC man to finally read Marvel on a regular basis. Allan Heinberg approached his material just as if he were writing a continuous and personal odyssey for a set of characters that were, through the duration of his original run, exclusively his, and he took every opportunity to create the very best stories he could, utterly devoid of the typical Marvel inability to make any lasting impact on old superheroes. Granted, this was possible because Brian Michael Bendis had set the stage (which he then removed, only to set a wider stage for the same old status quo) with “Avengers Disassembled.” I knew much of the earliest developments with the Young Avengers through Marvel’s efforts to recap previous stories at the start of each issue (still the smartest thing the company has ever done), so to actually read some of them was nice. I’m still baffled that AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE has met only apathy.

Quarter Bin #2 "From an Actual Quarter Bin, Part 1"

I’ve got to say, I’ve been excited about this column, because the comics I’ll be slogging through come from an actual quarter bin, boxes I pawed through and selected personally. It’s the first of two such collections I got last year at Escape Velocity, the shop I sometimes visit in Colorado Springs. Some of the comics are still a little more interesting than others.

ACTION COMICS #596 (DC)
From January 1988, this one has “Millennium Week 4” stamped on the cover, which helps prove to weary event book readers of the present day that fans of yore also had such troubles. This was an event that saw Manhunters from Green Lantern lore becoming interlopers among the human population, really not all that different than Marvel’s recent “Secret Invasion” with the Skrulls. John Byrne was the creator, and the Spectre guest-starred. It’s mostly about Superman freaking out over Smallville being directly affected.

ACTION PHILOSOPHERS #6 (Evil Twin)
From June 2006, this is the book that helped establish Fred Van Lente as one of the next great comic book writers, a predecessor to his other Evil Twin book COMIC BOOK COMICS (which details the messy history of, well, comic books). In this particular book, Van Lente made reading about great philosophers fun, and in this particular issue, he writes about Kierkegaard, St. Thomas Aquinus, and Wittgenstein, who is probably the most fun (not that he would have agreed).

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ANNUAL #5 (DC)
From 1993, this was part of the Bloodlines project (and part of the Earthplague phase, for those keeping meticulous score). Reading this particular comic helped put me into a massive Sparx (who debuts this issue) craze last year, which will be reflected in later installments of this back issue column, trust me. I developed a whole comic I would still love to do for Vertigo, assuming my impossible mission of one day writing for comics actually comes true…

ASSASSINS #1 (Amalgam)
From April 1996, “Amalgam” actually means DC/Marvel, for those of you too young to remember MARVEL VS. DC, one of the biggest events of that decade, a comic both companies actively collaborated on, which led to a series of books that combined characters from them into slightly new and exciting concepts! This one features mash-ups of Catwoman, Daredevil, Elektra, Deadshot, Bullseye, Kingpin, and the Riddler (reading it, especially when the combinations make sense, this nonsense really was fun), among others. But what still jazzes me is that the artist on this particular book was Scott McDaniel, who was at the time and continues to be one of my favorite artists.

BATMAN: THE OFFICIAL COMIC ADAPTATION OF THE WARNER BROS. MOTION PICTURE (DC)
From 1989, I’ll be you’ll never guess in a million years what this was. What’s really interesting is that the adapting was done by Denny O’Neil and Jerry Ordway. I’m betting that even those who had no interest in the movie might have gotten a kick out of this comic. I am the night!

BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #9 (DC)
From July 1990, this was one of those really great finds, the fourth of five installments of Grant Morrison’s “Gothic,” some of Morrison’s work that I haven’t actually read yet (I only just read ARKHAM ASYLUM last year, for honesty’s sake).

BLACKHAWK - BOOK TWO: RED SNOW (DC)
From 1988, this was a Howard Chaykin prestige format effort, based around a character that was probably fairly obscure even in 1988, but then, good stories really don’t care if their subject matter is well-known or not, do they? Chaykin is an undeniable treasure in the industry, and I’m not sure enough fans realize that. What little I’ve experienced of his work continually attests to this, so this was another treasured find.

BLUE DEVIL #1 (DC)
From June 1984; I didn’t even have to be a Shadowpact fan to be jazzed about this one, the debut and origin of the character. Now, of course I’ve been fully aware of Blue Devil’s origin for as long as I’ve been aware of the character, but it’s still a little surprising that he really does have such a wonky origin…

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKOWN #4 (DC)
From June 1991, this was the first time Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale ever collaborated. In fact, I’m pretty sure this was Jeph Loeb’s first ever (or at least first regular) comics gig, and quite frankly, it’s a lost gem. The second wave of Escape Velocity quarter bin comics I’ll be writing about in a later column will detail the other issues I was able to snatch up from this book. I’m still in the process of tracking down the remaining issues, but suffice it to say, this one was my biggest find, and the one I most recommend for others to read.

COMICS INTERVIEW #88 (Fictioner)
From 1990, this was another neat find, an issue of this magazine that covers THE FLASH, the short-lived but excellent TV series that was a result of the brief superhero craze Tim Burton’s BATMAN (from a few comics earlier!) kicked off. If you have never seen this show, imagine THE CAPE but with an established character, and a little more affection from the creators, who happened to be Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo, who happened to write actual Flash comic books a few decades after their brief experience helping to extend the franchise’s legacy. What’s funny is that they ended up writing Bart Allen, not even Wally West, who was the Scarlet Speedster at the time of the one season the TV show had a chance to chronicle for new fans the experience of Barry Allen behind the cowl. What’s sad is that about a decade after the show’s failure, CSI made it cool to watch police forensics on TV, and that was half of what the series was about, when Barry wasn’t running around in red, er, rubber. But COMICS INTERVIEW #88 really didn’t know how awesome the show was, either, so the lack of viewers wasn’t so surprising. For a generation of fans, this was Barry Allen. Truth be told, I think even Geoff Johns would be proud.

DARKSTARS #1 (DC)
From October 1992, this was another lucky find, the debut of what was for a short time something of competition for the Green Lantern Corps (John Stewart actually became a Darkstar for a while, as did Donna Troy). It was a concept that I found pretty interesting during that early period of my comics experience, which eventually disappeared. But there are always chances for revivals in this medium, aren’t there?

ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN #1 (Marvel)
From August 1986, credited by me to Marvel above, but actually one of the books that helped launch the short-lived Epic imprint. This was, of course, a Frank Miller project, which was another awesome find, and that title helps further explain the Amalgam book from a little earlier. You see how I could love the random fate of quarter bins?

FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #19 (Marvel)
From 1985, this was another John Byrne comic, featuring Skrulls and Avengers, plus the first family of comics!

GENE RODDENBERRY’S LOST UNIVERSE #1 (Tekno Comix)
From April 1995; it’s such an old trick by now, to try and launch a new comic book company by glomming onto some established name or property, but it’s always interesting to see the permutations. This was from a period just before some of Roddenberry’s files were investigated to bring a pair of new TV shows (EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT and ANDROMEDA, both of which I enjoyed and lasted for a good number of seasons each, but garnered little respect from the fan community, not having enough “creator cool” to satisfy they) to life, so the idea of creating some comics out of his ideas probably seemed like a pretty good idea. Then again, the company also had Leonard Nimoy collaborating on one of their books, so who’s to say what their real motives were? At the time, Star Trek wasn’t yet run into the ground (I say that in the context of its popular appeal, which in 1995 was about to take its first hits, not out of a personal opinion), so it’s fair to say that Tekno really hoped to latch onto properties it didn’t even have…

G.I JOE: SPECIAL MISSIONS #1 (Marvel)
From October 1986, apparently while Marvel was celebrating its 25th anniversary. Yet another book available to me because some eager fan in the distant past bought some first issues out because they were stung by the Buzz Bee, and not apparently out of some personal interest.

HOUSE OF M #8 (Marvel)
From December 2005, this was the conclusion of the first of many Marvel event books inspired by the rise of Bendis, the very issue that followed “No More Mutants,” which for me now serves as a prelude to AVENGERS: CHILDREN’S CRUSADE.

JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE #1 (DC)
From April 1989, another of those Buzz Bee stings, and so once again I come up the winner in this temporal exchange.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL #3 (DC)
From 1989, what I extrapolate as possibly the only other Giffen/DeMatteis comic that fan got. All told, they probably could have done better. If they only knew…

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL SPECIAL (DC)
From 1990; but wait, there’s more! This one features Mister Miracle, in one of the many attempts to make Jack Kirby’s New Gods popular with readers (sadly, it has never worked).

LEGENDS #1 (DC)
From November 1986, this is actually relevant to viewers of SMALLVILLE this season, as this is the event book that directly inspired this season’s arc. A number of legends happen to work on this book, including John Ostrander, Len Wein, John Byrne, and Karl Kesel.

LEGENDS #4 (DC)
From February 1987, it’s another issue!

MARVEL AGE #35 (Marvel)
From February 1986, this was an in-house magazine similar to COMICS INTERVIEW; featured is “A day in the life of Marvel comics!” I got a little bored after a while…

MARVEL AGE #56 (Marvel)
From November 1987, featuring a bunch of new G.I. Joes, which I’m sure the Tony of 1987 would have been more excited about. But I kid. Part of the real fun of back issues is discovering and/or reading about developments (which are now history) that can be found in such comics, and these MARVEL AGE books are chalk-full of that sort of thing. Referenced in this one, for instance, is that predecessor to “Grim Hunt,” Kraven’s last fight with Spider-Man. On the back of both issues are calendars of the very same style Wizard Magazine would copy for one of the periods where I was a regular reader, thereby once again confirming that, at least for a time, Wizard Magazine was virtually a Marvel fan magazine. I mean, it was in those pages where the recently sacrificed Sentry essentially debuted…

NEW X-MEN #115 (Marvel)
From August 2001, this was Part 2 of the three part “E is for Extinction,” the debut of Grant Morrison (along with Frank Quitely) with comics’ favorite mutants. Morrison worked on this book almost exactly during the period I wasn’t reading comics, so I missed this whole thing, but then, I missed a lot of Grant Morrison comics, which is okay, because I’ve also had a chance to read a lot of Grant Morrison comics. It’s nice to know there’s a lot more of them out there.

NEW X-MEN #152 (Marvel)
From March 2004; such as this one! Part of the “Here Comes Tomorrow” arc, the one that brought about the conclusion of Morrison’s run. It’s such a shame that Marvel basically decided to ignore everything he did with the X-Men, almost immediately backpedaling on the whole Xorn thing, for instance. I ask, what, other than “No More Mutants” and the Hope saga, has anyone actually done since?

NOMAD #1 (Marvel)
From May 1992, this series featured Jack Monroe, a character touched upon in the early issues of Ed Brubaker’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, and a version of Nomad that wasn’t Steve Rogers or that alternate Bucky from the Heroes Reborn era currently running around with the name. Brought to you, most importantly, by Fabian Nicieza, who had a full Marvel career before he came to DC, where I became familiar with him as more than just a name, one of my favorites.

OWLHOOTS #1 (Kitchen Sink)
From 1990, a Western ditty that I figured was worth a look. It was.

RISING STARS #½ (Top Cow)
From August 2001, one of J. Michael Straczynski’s early stabs at comics was one of those universe books with an assortment of original superheroes, and this was something of a promo, possibly originally offered by Wizard Magazine, but definitely a reprint by Top Cow with a $2.95 cover charge. But it does contain an interview with Joe, in which he discusses his writerly origins, emphasizes his notions of total creator control, and kisses a little Top Cow ass.

SUICIDE SQUAD #10 (DC)
From February 1988, featuring Amanda Waller, who underwent something of a renaissance some years later thanks to the Justice League cartoons (a way of saying, “was rescued from obscurity,” and can now be seen on SMALLVILLE), owning Batman in ways modern Batman comics would never in a million years allow. That’s another funny thing about reading older comics. Their versions of characters can sometimes seem somewhat quaint, or at least very different from what modern readers will be used to. Another appearance by John Ostrander.

SUPERMAN #4 (DC)
From April 1987, featuring Bloodsport, a character who would about a decade later return to a facsimile of prominence when two villains claiming the name would square off, during a period where I was reading firsthand, so this was a nice find for me. Featuring the work of John Byrne (and once again the Compositor figures that John Byrne was something of a hobby).

Entering Titans county!

TALES OF THE TEEN TITANS #42 (DC)
From May 1984, this is a comic I had randomly come across previously, so now I have two copies, and it’s just as well, since the issue marks the start of the famous “Judas Contract” arc, with Terra and Deathstroke. It figures that the Compositor would have at least a few Teen Titans comics, since they were one of the hottest things in the 1980s, no foolin’.

TALES OF THE TEEN TITANS #48 (DC)
From Nov 1984, featuring a “bonus Flash Force 2000 comic” with art by Denys Cowan, either advertising a forgettable toy line, or a forgotten spin-off comic based on said toys, sandwiched in the middle of a story that history does not record as significant as “Judas Contract.”

TALES OF THE TEEN TITANS #50 (DC)
From February 1985, featuring the wedding of Donna Troy, and Terry, who might as well have been gay. Suffice it to say, really significant at the time, but not really all that important anymore. I think Terry came back during Blackest Night, so there’s that.

TALES OF THE TEEN TITANS #52 (DC)
From April 1985, featuring Cheshire and Jericho, Marv Wolfman, but not George Perez. Apparently, the next issue of the series was to feature some iteration of Azrael. I didn’t know one existed before Jo Quesada. So I will have to do some research.

TEAM TITANS #1 (DC)
From September 1992, featuring Mirage. Now, I know that comic book women are not real (unlike the vast majority of fans who were caught up in the bad girl craze, which has since morphed into the sexy girl subgenre, were the bad girl craze in truth began; a highlight for this crowd is the alternate cover, the one where this illustrated girl…is nude!), but certain characters (and I’m not talking about a Vampirella, Witchblade, or what have you) are drawn so consistently attractively, I tend to remember them somewhat fondly. Mirage is one of those characters. This book, however, could not survive on Mirage alone. This book, in fact, was about ten years irrelevant, and so that’s probably why you don’t remember it.

THE WEB #14 (Impact)
From December 1992; the final issue of the series. Impact was an imprint of DC. Tell me if some of its characters sound familiar: The Shield, the Crusaders, The Web…Yeah, so the company has been trying to revive these characters for a while. I was a fan of the latest incarnation of The Web. This version, not really comparable.

WILDC.A.T.S #1 (Image)
From August 1992, Jim Lee’s big contribution to the fabled launch of Image, a company that now exists almost as a shell of itself. I mean, it’s great that the whole creator-owned concept still exists, but if the guys who conceived of the company had realized that all their superheroes except for Spawn and Savage Dragon would be virtually forgotten in less than twenty years (which, admittedly, isn’t bad, considering that WildStorm, which became an imprint of and was subsequently shuttered by DC, and Top Cow, which survives on the strength of Michael Turner’s legacy and a Witchblade franchise, have recently still been viable commodities based on the original model) they might have thought twice. Most of them scrambled back to the Big Two after realizing they weren’t the creative dynamos they thought they were, and I say this not to insult them, but to suggest they hadn’t exactly thought everything through. After the giant explosion and implosion of the artist’s market, comics swung back to writing, and writing was never Image’s strong suit, unless you’re talking things not created by the original creators. And again, in that sense, Image was a huge and sustained success. But from the point of view of the average fan, Image really wasn’t. But to move onto another comic…

X-MEN #1 (Marvel)
From October 1991; hey, there’s Jim Lee, and the Buzz Bee again! Getting back to the Image question again, I can’t imagine greater hubris from a bunch of creators who had only barely made their names to suddenly claim the future belonged to them. I think Jim’s the only one who could legitimately claim that he has a viable legacy. No offense to those who still like Spawn, but even two hundred issues won’t make up for the fact that Spawn is a character with no actual direction, and whose purpose ran out a long time ago, when Todd and others just started spinning their wheels instead of writing comics that actually mattered. Jim, meanwhile, ditched those WildC.A.T.s and became simply a superstar artist again, the only one still capable of drumming interest among fans, and on a consistent basis. To blur the line between Image and what I mentioned early with Joe Straczynski, creator control only really matters when you’ve really got something to offer. I could write a column about Joe, but for now, I’ll simply leave it at the thought that sometimes, if really does end with that thought about legitimate contribution versus mindless vanity.

X-MEN 2099 #25 (Marvel)
From October 1995. The 2099 comics were some of the best things Marvel ever did; they were like the Ultimate line but without the illusion and/or pretension to suggest they alone were going to bring in a new generation of readers. What ruined them was when the creators and/or Marvel got bored, dropped the ball, decided to end and/or ruin them. X-NATION, the highlight of the experiment with Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos for the first couple of issues, was the one that really suffered from this meltdown. Spider-Man 2099 has made something of a comeback, but that doesn’t mean he deservedly has his own book back. And that doesn’t mean that anyone remembers that X-Men 2099 was a book that actually returned the mutant franchise back to the original point: a bunch of outcasts lost in a sea of bigotry and uncertainty. Which actually makes at least their fate fairly appropriate.

YOUNG JUSTICE SECRET FILES & ORIGINS (DC)
From January 1999, this was , beyond one of those Secret Files specials I wish DC were still producing, the predecessor, as it now stands, to the new cartoon series, but originally an intended replacement for the tired Teen Titans franchise, featuring Robin, Superboy, Impulse, and a bunch of characters Peter David created and/or used, including the still-improbable original incarnation of the current Wonder Girl. The problem with Peter David is that he has an inclination to juvenile instincts, which on the surface made him appropriate for this kind of book. It also makes him something of a junior version of Joe Straczynski, and sometimes, even Joe Straczynski can’t pull of Joe Straczynski…Anyhoo, there’s something of a joke in this particular Secret Files, since Pete’s got a character named The Secret in this team. Another character lost to the annals of time…

Most editions of this column won’t actually be this long, or lists of a thousand different comics, but what can I say, I’m giddy about quarter bins, and I rarely have the opportunity to indulge. So my pleasure is your pain!