My fourth Forbidden Geek mystery box actually is sort of my fifth. The fourth got lost in transit. Realizing it was not going to come when Forbidden Geek was setting up the next shipment, I contacted the company, which responded promptly and shipped a replacement box immediately. That was cool of them!
The resulting box had a Funko statue from Shazam! (I think it was Eugene), a copy of the Batman/Superman: Their Greatest Battles trade collection (a duplicate for me, so I earmarked it as another eventual gift for one of my nephews in Maine, whenever I get to see them and/or ship off the stuff I've been collecting for them), and the following comics:
(Nothing older than 2011 this time, but that's okay.)
Ame-Comi Girls #1 (DC)
from December 2012
The bulk of this is the Palmiotti/Gray/Palmer version of Wonder Woman's origin, with Amanda Palmer happily on art. Until, for whatever reason, a far inferior artist fills out the issue. I've mentioned before how inexplicably terrible I find the title of this series, but the contents are good.
Batman: Arkham Knight #8 (DC)
From November 2015
One of several Howard Porter covers in this selection. Even though Tomasi is writing, I don't really care about this one.
Before Watchmen: Moloch #1 (DC)
from January 2013
I love being a fan who isn't pissed off that Before Watchmen happened. I have a theory that the New 52 wasn't officially written off by fans until Before Watchmen happened. Anyway, I was very happy to see this comic in the selection, as I'm pretty sure I didn't read either issue of Moloch on original release. The creative team is J. Michael Straczynski and Eduardo Risso (a typically strong team for Before Watchmen, typically performing at peak capacity). This first issue explains Moloch's origins, how being treated as a freak (because of those ears, chiefly) led him astray, and how he entered a path of redemption. Until, y'know. At its best, Before Watchmen brilliantly expanded (rather than needlessly duplicated) Watchmen lore (here I'm thinking of Comedian, which I recently reread), and Moloch, it seems, was Before Watchmen at its best. I'm not always Straczynski's biggest fan, but this really is him functioning at peak potential.
Birds of Prey #12 (DC)
from July 2011
One of the 2011s! I'll get back to the significance of this a little later, but as for this comic: Gail Simone. I'm just not a fan.
Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands #4 (DC)
from April 2018
Because blogging, I somehow ended up following Tony Isabella's blog. Isabella is Black Lightning's creator, and is still basically all he's known for, including his periodic revisits of the character (including a great-looking '90s run that I still want to check out). If not this issue specifically, then this mini-series was featured on his blog just before I got the box, so it was pretty fortuitous when I opened it up and found this comic. But, alas, I didn't much care about its contents. Sort of like the CW series (although it was still great to see the character finally show up in the Arrowverse during Crisis).
Earth 2 #24 (DC)
from August 2014
Still one of my favorite things from the New 52, this issue is from the Tom Taylor period (years before he wowed readers with DCeased), already proving his dynamic understanding of DC lore. This issue is pretty neat, as it features both the new Earth 2 Batman (Thomas Wayne) and Superman (Val-Zod), which sort of stole the thunder from the quasi-Justice Society but still made for fantastic developments in that continuity.
The Flash #55 (DC)
from November 2018
The other Howard Porter cover in the selection (this time a variant), featuring the budding expanded "forces" concept Josh Williamson brought to the Scarlet Speedster, sort of his version of the emotional spectrum in Green Lantern lore.
Green Lantern Corps #19 (DC)
from June 2013
The final issue in the Green Lantern family of titles before Geoff Johns' final issue of Green Lantern, as "Wrath of the First Lantern" weaves its way through them. Volthoom! Still a great name, right up there with Larfleeze. I'm not kidding! (I still want another Larfleeze series!)
Red Robin #21 (DC)
from May 2011
Tim Drake borrowing the name and costume from Dick Grayson's Kingdome Come future, but it's not all one-way, as the issue also features an appearance of a version of the red variant of his own costume Nightwing was going to sport in the New 52. Don't think I didn't notice, DC!
Superman #20 (DC)
from July 2013
Clearly DC thought this issue was going to leave a far bigger impact than it did (hyped in the "News Channel 52" feature as it was, a war between Wonder Woman's "two suitors"), as the Man of Steel clashes with Orion! But it's a fun story all the same, which makes the New Gods' lackluster presence in the New 52 all the more painful. There was such potential!
The Unwritten #29 (Vertigo)
from November 2011
I just read the two collections from The Unwritten: Apocalypse, the sequel series that ended this saga, so it was great to get a further glimpse into more of what happened previously (someday I will probably read the whole thing). But more importantly: 2011! So here it is. Just before the New 52 era, DC tried a few things to lure fans back, including "drawing the line at $2.99" and...bringing back letters columns! Which means, all three comics from 2011 featured...letters columns! DC quickly dropped them again with the New 52, which was kind of disappointing, but not before making it clear that they did have their value, a concentrated forum for fans (not angry internet people) to share knowledge and appreciation (which again, not angry internet people). I remember visiting DC's official message boards when they had switched from letters columns to the belief that the internet somehow replaced them, and that's where I found the fans hopelessly devoted the return of Hal Jordan as a clear-cut good guy (I think there was even a dorky name for the movement, but I don't remember what it would have been). I just don't think anyone realizes what's lost when there are big shifts in how things are done, that it matters that some things are lost even while other things are gained. I never understand the rush to shuck off old things, things that can't be replaced, no matter how much change improves things. On the other hand, we now live in an era where the margin for success is wider than ever, that things with a smaller audience can still thrive for years, where they would've been aborted quickly before. So the more things change, the more they stay...interesting. I bet DC brings letters columns back, again, at some point. After all, the more things change, the more they stay the same, too. Sometimes you just have to wait. Like those Hal Jordan fans.
Showing posts with label J. Michael Straczynski. Show all posts
Showing posts with label J. Michael Straczynski. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Digitally Speaking...#17 "Apocalypse Al"
Apocalypse Al #1 (Image)
From 2014.
I think it started with Quentin Tarantino. The smartass outsider making a dent in pop culture with Reservoir Dogs. I love Tarantino. But I don't like all the folks who've followed in what Hollywood imagines to be his footsteps. I'm not talking about other filmmakers who've made movies that are sort of like his. I'm talking about other writers who spend their time making their characters too quippy for their britches. Tarantino can get away with it because he is a genius. But the line has to be drawn somewhere. And that's at anyone who is not a genius.
The first wannabe I have in mind is Kevin Smith, who became the Bizarro Quentin Tarantino after Clerks was released. Then there was Kevin Williamson, who became best known for Dawson's Creek and the Scream movies. (I actually liked the Scream movies, by the way.) Then there was Joss Whedon, whose style has been become the new mainstream thanks to the Avengers movies.
There's also J. Michael Straczynski to consider. Joe, as he likes to be called, has a history that dates back further than any of those guys. When he references Young Frankenstein at the back of Apocalypse Al, it was nearly enough for me to reconsider my opinion of him. Except I don't think Joe is in the same category as Mel Brooks. Joe's first real claim to fame was Babylon 5, the quip-happy version of Star Trek that hooked geeks because it was also a pioneer of the serialized TV format. Then he tried doing other things. There was the Angelina Jolie movie Changeling. He was involved in the adaptation of World War Z to the big screen (appropriate, somehow, given that the source material came from Mel Brooks's son Max). He also did the comic book The Twelve, which I unabashedly loved.
But basically, Joe is really no better, in my eyes, than a Smith or a Williamson or a Whedon. For a lot of people, all of these guys are very talented, very enjoyable writers. Which is fine. But for me, they've always represented, well, what goes wrong when you're trying to find the new Tarantino and looking in all the wrong places. (Joe Carnahan or Martin McDonagh do it so much better, folks.) All the quip, none of the focus that will mean something past the next contemporary reference they make. Which is fine, making references every two seconds. Or just being irreverent. Except for me, being irreverent can quickly turn to irrelevant.
And that's what something like Apocalypse Al is for me. Joe thinks he's finally getting to do something funny for a change. But as far as I'm concerned, that's the bulk of his material. Just...spinning wheels. The title refers to Allison Carter, who regularly combats forces who are looking to bring about the end of the world. The issue opens with a flippant take on the world-eater (read: Galactus) model. And flippant is about all you get. Page after page of flippant. And Al running around in skimpy outfits. For some reason. Joe goes out of his way to praise the art of Sid Kotian. But if this is Sid's best work...Sorry, Sid, I'm not a fan.
Maybe it's wrong to expect any of these guys to try and be Tarantino. Maybe it's the wrong comparison entirely. But I get the sense that at least some of them have careers at all because someone thought they had that potential. And some of them have struggled quite a bit, outside of cult followings, including Joe. I think there's a reason for that, and I think something like Apocalypse Al demonstrates what's wrong.
Yes, you can have fun. But you have to ground the fun in something substantial. You have to have an anchor. And Joe doesn't have one here. And if he's not careful, enough people are going to realize that and his career really will come to nothing, as it's sometimes seemed it will at any moment. He's a talented guy. But his instincts are more often than not misguided, circling the trivial rather than embracing whatever inspiration he's found.
If you don't agree with anything else I've said here, just know this: Apocalypse Al is definitely no Young Frankenstein. And that's the bottom line. Straight from Joe's own words, that comparison...
From 2014.
I think it started with Quentin Tarantino. The smartass outsider making a dent in pop culture with Reservoir Dogs. I love Tarantino. But I don't like all the folks who've followed in what Hollywood imagines to be his footsteps. I'm not talking about other filmmakers who've made movies that are sort of like his. I'm talking about other writers who spend their time making their characters too quippy for their britches. Tarantino can get away with it because he is a genius. But the line has to be drawn somewhere. And that's at anyone who is not a genius.
The first wannabe I have in mind is Kevin Smith, who became the Bizarro Quentin Tarantino after Clerks was released. Then there was Kevin Williamson, who became best known for Dawson's Creek and the Scream movies. (I actually liked the Scream movies, by the way.) Then there was Joss Whedon, whose style has been become the new mainstream thanks to the Avengers movies.
There's also J. Michael Straczynski to consider. Joe, as he likes to be called, has a history that dates back further than any of those guys. When he references Young Frankenstein at the back of Apocalypse Al, it was nearly enough for me to reconsider my opinion of him. Except I don't think Joe is in the same category as Mel Brooks. Joe's first real claim to fame was Babylon 5, the quip-happy version of Star Trek that hooked geeks because it was also a pioneer of the serialized TV format. Then he tried doing other things. There was the Angelina Jolie movie Changeling. He was involved in the adaptation of World War Z to the big screen (appropriate, somehow, given that the source material came from Mel Brooks's son Max). He also did the comic book The Twelve, which I unabashedly loved.
But basically, Joe is really no better, in my eyes, than a Smith or a Williamson or a Whedon. For a lot of people, all of these guys are very talented, very enjoyable writers. Which is fine. But for me, they've always represented, well, what goes wrong when you're trying to find the new Tarantino and looking in all the wrong places. (Joe Carnahan or Martin McDonagh do it so much better, folks.) All the quip, none of the focus that will mean something past the next contemporary reference they make. Which is fine, making references every two seconds. Or just being irreverent. Except for me, being irreverent can quickly turn to irrelevant.
And that's what something like Apocalypse Al is for me. Joe thinks he's finally getting to do something funny for a change. But as far as I'm concerned, that's the bulk of his material. Just...spinning wheels. The title refers to Allison Carter, who regularly combats forces who are looking to bring about the end of the world. The issue opens with a flippant take on the world-eater (read: Galactus) model. And flippant is about all you get. Page after page of flippant. And Al running around in skimpy outfits. For some reason. Joe goes out of his way to praise the art of Sid Kotian. But if this is Sid's best work...Sorry, Sid, I'm not a fan.
Maybe it's wrong to expect any of these guys to try and be Tarantino. Maybe it's the wrong comparison entirely. But I get the sense that at least some of them have careers at all because someone thought they had that potential. And some of them have struggled quite a bit, outside of cult followings, including Joe. I think there's a reason for that, and I think something like Apocalypse Al demonstrates what's wrong.
Yes, you can have fun. But you have to ground the fun in something substantial. You have to have an anchor. And Joe doesn't have one here. And if he's not careful, enough people are going to realize that and his career really will come to nothing, as it's sometimes seemed it will at any moment. He's a talented guy. But his instincts are more often than not misguided, circling the trivial rather than embracing whatever inspiration he's found.
If you don't agree with anything else I've said here, just know this: Apocalypse Al is definitely no Young Frankenstein. And that's the bottom line. Straight from Joe's own words, that comparison...
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Unbeatable Comics: Nite Owl #1
writer: J. Michael Straczynski
artist: Andy & Joe Kubert
I don't usually acknowledge the inker (when I wrote for Paperback Reader, I used to get to plug in the entire creative team, so maybe that's why I don't do that anymore), but in this instance it's as notable and necessary as pointing out that this is another entry in DC's Before Watchmen project.
The reason is that Andy Kubert is being inked by his father, Joe, and the difference is huge. It's the first time I'm familiar with where Andy's art ends up looking like his father's, and it's undeniably because his father's inking it, lending a huge influence to the effort that creates something distinctively familiar and new.
Much like Before Watchmen. This one is all about Nite Owl, the Blue Beetle surrogate Alan Moore created that most outsiders will probably assume is a stand-in for Batman, especially for the general look. A legacy hero (like Blue Beetle), Nite Owl is both the Minutemen's Hollis Mason and the Watchmen's Dan Dreiberg. The transition from one to the other is the crux of this issue, which portrays Dan growing up in an affluent household with a father who doesn't understand or support him, leading Dan to idolize and then seek out Hollis, who retires from the vigilante business and decides to train the eager youngster to replace him.
It's with Nite Owl perhaps that it becomes clear that Dan Dreiberg is at the center of the whole Watchmen story. Some might argue that the Comedian is, or perhaps Dr. Manhattan, but it's Dreiberg who connects two generations most clearly, and forms key relationships with the second Silk Spectre and notably Rorschach, the psycho who serves as the most colorful of these characters. It's the dynamic between Nite Owl and Rorschach, emerging in this issue, that may serve as one of the more intriguing revelations of Before Watchmen. J. Michael Straczynski writes the standard Rorschach here, and it may seem like a parody or it may prove the real strength of Moore's original vision. Perhaps we won't know until Rorschach's own book, but here he emerges as a more entertaining figure than anyone previously imagined.
There's a lot to learn in Before Watchmen, and Nite Owl may prove to be the source for the most knowledge.
artist: Andy & Joe Kubert
I don't usually acknowledge the inker (when I wrote for Paperback Reader, I used to get to plug in the entire creative team, so maybe that's why I don't do that anymore), but in this instance it's as notable and necessary as pointing out that this is another entry in DC's Before Watchmen project.
The reason is that Andy Kubert is being inked by his father, Joe, and the difference is huge. It's the first time I'm familiar with where Andy's art ends up looking like his father's, and it's undeniably because his father's inking it, lending a huge influence to the effort that creates something distinctively familiar and new.
Much like Before Watchmen. This one is all about Nite Owl, the Blue Beetle surrogate Alan Moore created that most outsiders will probably assume is a stand-in for Batman, especially for the general look. A legacy hero (like Blue Beetle), Nite Owl is both the Minutemen's Hollis Mason and the Watchmen's Dan Dreiberg. The transition from one to the other is the crux of this issue, which portrays Dan growing up in an affluent household with a father who doesn't understand or support him, leading Dan to idolize and then seek out Hollis, who retires from the vigilante business and decides to train the eager youngster to replace him.
It's with Nite Owl perhaps that it becomes clear that Dan Dreiberg is at the center of the whole Watchmen story. Some might argue that the Comedian is, or perhaps Dr. Manhattan, but it's Dreiberg who connects two generations most clearly, and forms key relationships with the second Silk Spectre and notably Rorschach, the psycho who serves as the most colorful of these characters. It's the dynamic between Nite Owl and Rorschach, emerging in this issue, that may serve as one of the more intriguing revelations of Before Watchmen. J. Michael Straczynski writes the standard Rorschach here, and it may seem like a parody or it may prove the real strength of Moore's original vision. Perhaps we won't know until Rorschach's own book, but here he emerges as a more entertaining figure than anyone previously imagined.
There's a lot to learn in Before Watchmen, and Nite Owl may prove to be the source for the most knowledge.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
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.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Quarter Bin #38 "Band of Heroes"
SANDMAN
MYSTERY THEATRE #4 (Vertigo)
From
July 1993:
Matt
Wagner is one of those great comic book writers who’s managed to float through
the medium for years without having been locked down by DC or Marvel. He’s perhaps best known for GRENDEL, which he’s
done for Dark Horse, and MAGE, which he’s done for Image. He actually has written for DC on a
semi-regular basis, but as I said…he’s a floater. SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE is one of those books
Vertigo was publishing when I first started reading comics but wasn’t old or
experienced enough to be interested in reading at the time. I always thought it had to have some
connection to Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN, but then, at the time I didn’t have any
experience with that one, either. But
no, MYSTERY THEATRE starred the Golden Age Sandman, Wesley Dodds, whose last
major appearance was KINGDOM COME. This
is the first issue I’ve actually read of the series (late to the game, I know),
and now I can appreciate it as a kind of monthly crime thriller that TV
features in infinite combinations these days, sometimes in franchise variety, a
period comic book that was another of the Vertigo books at that time that
featured experienced DC properties in new and interesting ways. I wonder why it’s been forgotten since then,
left out of print, and not even a legacy character who’s trusted to be anything
but a bit player in team books. I think
given influence I’d probably change that.
This being an early issue, I get to read letters reacting to the very
start of the series, too, which is always fun.
STARMAN:
THE MIST (DC)
From
June 1998:
Part
of the “Girlfrenzy” skip week event, this was a one-shot spinning out of James
Robinson’s STARMAN. Fans reading it
today may find the references to Hal Jordan villains a little quaint,
especially since BLACKEST NIGHT star Black Hand is featured as an obscure
curiosity. It should be no wonder that I
purchased this issue around the same time I was reading the omnibus last year,
in an effort to steal some extra STARMAN goodness without spoiling some of the
rest of the story I’ll be reading once those collections are printed in
paperback later this year. It’s funny,
because THE SHADE is helping to keep one of Jack Knight’s foes in the
headlines, while the one featured here has kind of gone into the very obscurity
that Robinson was playing with here.
BRIGHTEST
DAY #24 (DC)
From
June 2011:
The
conclusion of Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi’s follow-up to BLACKEST NIGHT was
something I missed last year when it was first published, thanks to my
semi-retirement from reading new comics, which at that time was more
semi-permanent than it is today, since I only really started to try and be
semi-active once FLASHPOINT began. To
me, BRIGHTEST DAY was on par with 52, certainly leagues better than the
meandering TRINITY, and better focused than COUNTDOWN (though I am probably
COUNTDOWN’s biggest fan, just as I remain one of 52’s biggest supporters). With a tightly focused core of characters and
a smaller slate, BRIGHTEST DAY was like the catch-all version of Johns getting
to do all the characters he’d really love to work with, and will probably go
down as the best Deadman story to date (which made it all the bigger a shame
that Boston Brand only received the first story of an anthology title in the
New 52, rather than his own series). The
biggest shame of BRIGHTEST DAY was that Johns and DC so quickly went about
rebooting everything, so that there was no real momentum from what occurred in
this story. As a big-concept culmination
of the previous incarnation of the DCU, however, it’ll be worth relishing for
years, or simply as an excellent sequel to BLACKEST NIGHT, to which BRIGHTEST
DAY is probably superior.
BABYLON
5: IN VALEN’S NAME #3 (DC)
From
May 1998:
J.
Michael Straczynski and the fans of BABYLON 5 are guilty of worshipping a TV
series that did not actually live up to its reputation. Like a long series of B-movies, it was a show
with a grand vision that could not in execution match its ambitions. Still, there are legions of fans out
there. Perhaps one day it can be redone
as an epic trilogy of movies, and Straczynski can be present to help guide it
once more. For now, its legacy is what
it is, and that can be seen in spin-offs like this comic book, too. Valen, if you didn’t know, is the Minbari
name Jeffrey Sinclair assumed after he traveled back in time to help end the
war he couldn’t prevent from happening in order for the resulting Shadows
conflict from ending in disaster.
Sinclair was the first lead character in the series, and was quickly
replaced in the second season. This is
the story of how his reputation meant everything (except anything practical to
the weekly episodes). Straczynski has
become known as someone who believes in total creative control, and BABYLON 5
was the project that helped him get that reputation, yet the irony is that a
critical analysis suggests that he flew by the seat of his pants, making it up
as he went along (even if he didn’t, that’s exactly what it looks like now,
regardless of how well-documented the transition between the fourth and seasons
is), rather than deliberately shaping the series from a pre-plotted roadmap. It’s funny, too. Every time a BABYLON 5 or STARGATE or
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA appears and starts usurping the Star Trek audience and
makes them believing they’re actually the hot new thing that’ll endure forever,
they can never really launch an enduring franchise. Maybe they all try too quickly, I don’t know,
but it’s always funny to see them collapse (even X-FILES did it). Just thought I’d mention that. It amuses me.
SUPERMAN:
METROPOLIS #11 (DC)
From
February 2004:
This
was a twelve-issue series that Chuck Austen did in the year before I started
getting back into comics, and something I’d never heard of before stumbling
across it at Heroes & Dragons.
Starring the intrepid Jimmy Olsen and featuring a strong technological
theme, I kind of wonder why it’s been so thoroughly forgotten, given the
extreme nature of smart phone obsession we now endure. You’d think if DC sanctioned a twelve-issue
mini-series, the company believed it enough to keep it in print. Jimmy is a character who’s been famous for so
long that he can be easy to take for granted.
Me, I’d keep him active in the paperback collections, and I’d have
plenty of suggestions on how to fill them (not the least being his “I found out
Superman’s secret identity!” debacle from the late 1990s), and I’d definitely
have him starring in his own book. Of
all the Superman characters, he’s the most relevant to the average reader. If DC wanted to start somewhere in picking up
that slack, they can reprint this story.
SUPERMAN:
THE MAN OF TOMORROW #2 (DC)
From
fall 1995:
In
the ’90s, it was impossible to escape Superman and Batman on the stands every
week, and eventually even the skip weeks were covering in BATMAN CHRONICLES and
this title, published quarterly for a handful of years. At the time of this one’s release, Lex Luthor
was just coming back from an extended period of being his own son, via a
surrogate clone sporting a full head of red hair, thanks to UNDERWORLD
UNLEASHED (which had not yet begun), and years away from being elected
President of the United States (yes, it happened), and he was matched by the
mysterious Contessa, a character I’d keep around as a permanent addition to the
Superman mythos. I’d also retain Alpha Centurion,
who was still working his way into the Superman comics of the time after a
false introduction during Zero Hour. The
Centurion was so rich in potential, and was years ahead of the Hollywood curve
that with GLADIATOR brought back the appeal of the historical epic, yet he
disappeared soon after his arrival, never to be heard from again. He’s another character I would unquestionably
revive, with probably a few modifications.
I thought I’d read most of his appearances, but I guess I wasn’t quite
as religious with Superman at the time as I thought I was, since I skipped the
second issue of MAN OF TOMORROW, with the Contessa and Centurion clearly on the
cover. It was another happy discovery.
JSA
CLASSIFIED #30 (DC)
From
November 2007:
Mr.
Terrific’s early loss in the New 52 of his first ongoing series was a mercy
killing. The book was terrible, baffling
in its lack of understanding of just how awesome Michael Holt really is, and
how relevant he is in the modern world.
Arvid Nelson, one of my favorite writers, wrote this spotlight that has
the rest of the Justice Society backing him in one of his periodic wars with
Nazis (a crossover with Atomic Robo is inevitable!). It’s still weird to think that the JSA has
had so many books in recent years, but was ignored in the first wave of the New
52, and still won’t have a book with its name in the title in the second. But then, Robin doesn’t have his own book,
either, so there’s at least some consistency.
I hope DC hasn’t given up on Mr. Terrific as a character who can command
his own stories. We’ll see.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Twelve #10
writer: J. Michael Straczynski
artist: Chris Weston
Honestly, I'm beginning to see this one more and more as an update of Alan Moore's Watchmen. It's been so obvious, but I think it's important to start with that as the lead.
What most readers will probably be thinking instead is, They actually continued it finally?!? Yes, it's been an incredibly long wait for the final three issues, and anyone who really loved this book, and that would be everyone who read the original issues, has been waiting patiently, and got to enjoy a one-shot from Weston in the meantime, which now serves as a bonus.
The story is a classic mystery, built around a whole team of characters who share Captain America's second origin, how he was deep-frozen at the end of WWII and later revived, except these are all characters who waited many more decades than Steve Rogers to celebrate their comeback, all vintage Marvel Golden Age creations reclaimed by J. Michael Straczynski for a self-contained tale that explores their potential in ways that weren't possible in the format comics were written at the time, and ending up with something that resembles how Moore crafted a character-driven fable that delved into the limits of superheroes, both as archetypes and storytelling elements.
There's a big revelation this issue, which leaves you wondering what'll fill out the remaining chapters, but you've waited this long, haven't you? Straczynski usually has some a big concept in mind, and it's a good bet that he had one here, too.
artist: Chris Weston
Honestly, I'm beginning to see this one more and more as an update of Alan Moore's Watchmen. It's been so obvious, but I think it's important to start with that as the lead.
What most readers will probably be thinking instead is, They actually continued it finally?!? Yes, it's been an incredibly long wait for the final three issues, and anyone who really loved this book, and that would be everyone who read the original issues, has been waiting patiently, and got to enjoy a one-shot from Weston in the meantime, which now serves as a bonus.
The story is a classic mystery, built around a whole team of characters who share Captain America's second origin, how he was deep-frozen at the end of WWII and later revived, except these are all characters who waited many more decades than Steve Rogers to celebrate their comeback, all vintage Marvel Golden Age creations reclaimed by J. Michael Straczynski for a self-contained tale that explores their potential in ways that weren't possible in the format comics were written at the time, and ending up with something that resembles how Moore crafted a character-driven fable that delved into the limits of superheroes, both as archetypes and storytelling elements.
There's a big revelation this issue, which leaves you wondering what'll fill out the remaining chapters, but you've waited this long, haven't you? Straczynski usually has some a big concept in mind, and it's a good bet that he had one here, too.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Heroes and Dragons and Vampires
Last week I had my first opportunity to visit Heroes and Dragons in probably two years. This particular comics shop used to have two locations in Colorado Springs, both sides of town. I was a regular from practically the moment I moved into town, having quickly determined that it was the most convenient store in town (I had two other options; Bargain Comics, which later became Escape Velocity, was always close second). When the recession forced it to consolidate and basically stay on the other end of town, I sniffed back a few tears, said goodbye to another great era of my comics experience (did I ever mention the horrible irony of three different stores either moving or closing during my original period reading comics? I miss thee, Zimmies and Ray’s 3Cs, and still wish All About Comics and Hobbies had stayed put, and probably not renamed itself The Keep, which was another horrible irony), but was prepared to move on. Not in the way that I “have” moved on this year, “quitting” reading comics for the second time, but onto Escape Velocity and Midtown Comics.com.
I don’t want to sound too flippant, because I really did miss Heroes and Dragons, was sad to see it go, and kept obsessing on a way to visit its new location, no matter how impractical it seemed. (Should I mention here that I am differently-mobile, in that I don’t drive, and rarely take the bus?) I had some personal time to eat up thanks to Borders going out of business, so I took a vacation last week, stayed with my sister, and that happens to be on that end of town. I timed my visit for Wednesday. As if you have to ask why.
I’ve got to say, I don’t think the move was as terrifically beneficial as the owners thought it would be (not that, in some ways, it wasn’t necessary, thanks to draconian and increasingly elitist mall financial practices). It may be actually, that business is actually quite good, but I arrived only a few hours after the store had opened, timed so that the new product should have been put out already. (Okay, so the clerk had lots of boxes clearly sitting out in the open, and seemed to think his time was better spent with aerobics; I’m being literal here.) Still, I wasn’t greeted with great comparisons considering my recent experience with Escape Velocity. I was generally appalled. The store seemed only tangentially interested in new releases. I don’t know if it reorders more furiously than it initially orders, or if “Richard Simmons” was even lazier, relatively speaking, than he seemed, but suffice to say, I was disappointed. The trade collection, meanwhile, was basically exactly the same as it had been two years ago. Yay for consistency! Boo for complacency! That’s a matter of business, too, but come on! Anyway, I did end up with several great back issues, though, which I will write about in a future Quarter Bin, and the new RASL, which brings me to the concluding portion of this latest post. You know the drill.
DC COMICS: THE NEW 52 (DC)
This is the official preview of the September relaunch (next month!), complete with the JUSTICE LEAGUE excerpt from Geoff Johns and Jim Lee that leads me more and more to consider it a de facto ALL STAR JUSTICE LEAGUE, which only makes me feel better about it. Anyway, aside from the fact that the giant stack of these freebies was sitting away from customer reach on the counter, I was very happy to find it available.
GREEN LANTERN #67 (DC)
The concluding chapter to “War of the Green Lanterns.” I know I’ve previously stated that, aside from the other exception I’ve talked about elsewhere, I decided I could wait for the collection to finally read this arc, but c’mon! It was there! In so many ways, stripping Hal of the ring is absolutely the smartest thing Geoff could have done. Next to giving it back to Sinestro. Suffice to say, I’m a happy Emerald Reader.
RASL #11 (Cartoon)
Along with BATMAN, INC. this is the book I’ve deliberately continued to read in 2011, and I’ve been darn lucky to find each new issue of both. This one was particularly serendipitous, since I’d overlooked the particular shelves it was located on, even though I’d tried to be as thorough as possible, trying to find the magic I ultimately decided simply wasn’t there anymore (then again, maybe a store like Escape Velocity can give me that magic on a sporadic basis, and Heroes simply can’t). Jeff Smith’s follow-up to BONE continues to dazzle at least this reader. To October!
SUPREME POWER #1 of 4 (Marvel MAX)
Kyle Higgins, writer of the forthcoming new NIGHTWING series, came to my attention during a recent visit to the Comic Book Resources message board as someone far more worthy of my attention than I’d previously considered. I was able to find this particular example of his recent efforts to confirm this newfound faith.
FLASHPOINT #4 (DC)
I love how the “Captain Thunder” family is used this issue. I’m also glad that I’ve managed to read every issue so far of this event book. One more to go!
MYSTIC #1 (CrossGen/Marvel)
Surprisingly or not, I never got into the original CrossGen experiment. Most attempts to build an entire comics line at the drop of a hat usually tend to create a bunch of comics that are patently ripping off something else, or otherwise trying too hard to duplicate, well, something else, all with the guise of “being something different.” I’ll admit CrossGen had art that was basically the complete opposite of what originally put Image on the map (which has now been converted to Comics Characters Welcomed), but in my experience, when writers try to write new stories with an artificial impetus like “create new comics line,” the results aren’t pretty. Dark Horse (and many other companies) has discovered that the more times you, say, recreate Doctor Solar, the more likely you’ll actually create something perhaps worth looking at. That may be the case here, too. Besides, the real reason I bought this one was AIR writer G. Willow Wilson. Maybe the original MYSTIC actually was awesome, or even comparable to this experience. Maybe my sister has been having me watch too much CHARMED lately (very disappointed Heroes didn’t have that comic, or IDW’s G.I. Joe, which Escape Velocity doesn’t carry, even though the COBRA books are some of the best comics I’ve ever read; which is another irony, because the IDW preview for its acquisition from DDP was among the last comics I bought at the old location; please stop me if I’m referencing far too much to keep up with). Anyway, Wilson does not disappoint. The one thing I will absolutely say positive about Marvel in 2011 is that it is giving G. Willow Wilson money to write comics. Thank you, Marvel.
SUPERMAN #714 (DC)
The final issue before Reboot City concludes “Grounded” and is basically J. Michael Straczynski and/or Chris Roberson’s answer to “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” I thought that was a nice touch.
WAR OF THE GREEN LANTERNS AFTERMATH #1 OF 2 (DC)
Please, as if I was going to pass up this opportunity. Written by Tony Bedard, too, who will have my everlasting gratitude for penning the classic GREAT TEN, hopefully one day to receive its proper appreciation as a masterpiece. Need I go on?
Which brings us to one final note, something I bought at Wal-mart:
GREEN LANTERN SUPER SPECTACULAR
This is a magazine-format collection of several issues from the would-be movie icon’s past, the second edition (I skipped the previous one I’d found at Escape Velocity), including “Nor Fear” from GREEN LANTERN #s 1-3 (the first time I’ve read the whole story, since for some reason back in 2005 I wasn’t prepared to read Geoff Johns doing GL on a monthly basis, something that didn’t last even a year), plus an Alan Moore story from GREEN LANTERN CORPS ANNUAL #2 featuring a previous version of Abin Sur’s grand undoing, and the same (ALL STAR) JUSTICE LEAGUE preview I talked about earlier. I like something like this being available for wide consumption. The comics industry will never recover in my eyes until you can find issues of the books you’ll actually want to read at places like Wal-mart and Toys R Us. I won’t hold Sam’s Club to the kinds of packs they used to have. I will one day blackmail them.
I don’t want to sound too flippant, because I really did miss Heroes and Dragons, was sad to see it go, and kept obsessing on a way to visit its new location, no matter how impractical it seemed. (Should I mention here that I am differently-mobile, in that I don’t drive, and rarely take the bus?) I had some personal time to eat up thanks to Borders going out of business, so I took a vacation last week, stayed with my sister, and that happens to be on that end of town. I timed my visit for Wednesday. As if you have to ask why.
I’ve got to say, I don’t think the move was as terrifically beneficial as the owners thought it would be (not that, in some ways, it wasn’t necessary, thanks to draconian and increasingly elitist mall financial practices). It may be actually, that business is actually quite good, but I arrived only a few hours after the store had opened, timed so that the new product should have been put out already. (Okay, so the clerk had lots of boxes clearly sitting out in the open, and seemed to think his time was better spent with aerobics; I’m being literal here.) Still, I wasn’t greeted with great comparisons considering my recent experience with Escape Velocity. I was generally appalled. The store seemed only tangentially interested in new releases. I don’t know if it reorders more furiously than it initially orders, or if “Richard Simmons” was even lazier, relatively speaking, than he seemed, but suffice to say, I was disappointed. The trade collection, meanwhile, was basically exactly the same as it had been two years ago. Yay for consistency! Boo for complacency! That’s a matter of business, too, but come on! Anyway, I did end up with several great back issues, though, which I will write about in a future Quarter Bin, and the new RASL, which brings me to the concluding portion of this latest post. You know the drill.
DC COMICS: THE NEW 52 (DC)
This is the official preview of the September relaunch (next month!), complete with the JUSTICE LEAGUE excerpt from Geoff Johns and Jim Lee that leads me more and more to consider it a de facto ALL STAR JUSTICE LEAGUE, which only makes me feel better about it. Anyway, aside from the fact that the giant stack of these freebies was sitting away from customer reach on the counter, I was very happy to find it available.
GREEN LANTERN #67 (DC)
The concluding chapter to “War of the Green Lanterns.” I know I’ve previously stated that, aside from the other exception I’ve talked about elsewhere, I decided I could wait for the collection to finally read this arc, but c’mon! It was there! In so many ways, stripping Hal of the ring is absolutely the smartest thing Geoff could have done. Next to giving it back to Sinestro. Suffice to say, I’m a happy Emerald Reader.
RASL #11 (Cartoon)
Along with BATMAN, INC. this is the book I’ve deliberately continued to read in 2011, and I’ve been darn lucky to find each new issue of both. This one was particularly serendipitous, since I’d overlooked the particular shelves it was located on, even though I’d tried to be as thorough as possible, trying to find the magic I ultimately decided simply wasn’t there anymore (then again, maybe a store like Escape Velocity can give me that magic on a sporadic basis, and Heroes simply can’t). Jeff Smith’s follow-up to BONE continues to dazzle at least this reader. To October!
SUPREME POWER #1 of 4 (Marvel MAX)
Kyle Higgins, writer of the forthcoming new NIGHTWING series, came to my attention during a recent visit to the Comic Book Resources message board as someone far more worthy of my attention than I’d previously considered. I was able to find this particular example of his recent efforts to confirm this newfound faith.
FLASHPOINT #4 (DC)
I love how the “Captain Thunder” family is used this issue. I’m also glad that I’ve managed to read every issue so far of this event book. One more to go!
MYSTIC #1 (CrossGen/Marvel)
Surprisingly or not, I never got into the original CrossGen experiment. Most attempts to build an entire comics line at the drop of a hat usually tend to create a bunch of comics that are patently ripping off something else, or otherwise trying too hard to duplicate, well, something else, all with the guise of “being something different.” I’ll admit CrossGen had art that was basically the complete opposite of what originally put Image on the map (which has now been converted to Comics Characters Welcomed), but in my experience, when writers try to write new stories with an artificial impetus like “create new comics line,” the results aren’t pretty. Dark Horse (and many other companies) has discovered that the more times you, say, recreate Doctor Solar, the more likely you’ll actually create something perhaps worth looking at. That may be the case here, too. Besides, the real reason I bought this one was AIR writer G. Willow Wilson. Maybe the original MYSTIC actually was awesome, or even comparable to this experience. Maybe my sister has been having me watch too much CHARMED lately (very disappointed Heroes didn’t have that comic, or IDW’s G.I. Joe, which Escape Velocity doesn’t carry, even though the COBRA books are some of the best comics I’ve ever read; which is another irony, because the IDW preview for its acquisition from DDP was among the last comics I bought at the old location; please stop me if I’m referencing far too much to keep up with). Anyway, Wilson does not disappoint. The one thing I will absolutely say positive about Marvel in 2011 is that it is giving G. Willow Wilson money to write comics. Thank you, Marvel.
SUPERMAN #714 (DC)
The final issue before Reboot City concludes “Grounded” and is basically J. Michael Straczynski and/or Chris Roberson’s answer to “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” I thought that was a nice touch.
WAR OF THE GREEN LANTERNS AFTERMATH #1 OF 2 (DC)
Please, as if I was going to pass up this opportunity. Written by Tony Bedard, too, who will have my everlasting gratitude for penning the classic GREAT TEN, hopefully one day to receive its proper appreciation as a masterpiece. Need I go on?
Which brings us to one final note, something I bought at Wal-mart:
GREEN LANTERN SUPER SPECTACULAR
This is a magazine-format collection of several issues from the would-be movie icon’s past, the second edition (I skipped the previous one I’d found at Escape Velocity), including “Nor Fear” from GREEN LANTERN #s 1-3 (the first time I’ve read the whole story, since for some reason back in 2005 I wasn’t prepared to read Geoff Johns doing GL on a monthly basis, something that didn’t last even a year), plus an Alan Moore story from GREEN LANTERN CORPS ANNUAL #2 featuring a previous version of Abin Sur’s grand undoing, and the same (ALL STAR) JUSTICE LEAGUE preview I talked about earlier. I like something like this being available for wide consumption. The comics industry will never recover in my eyes until you can find issues of the books you’ll actually want to read at places like Wal-mart and Toys R Us. I won’t hold Sam’s Club to the kinds of packs they used to have. I will one day blackmail them.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
"Three"
It seems to me that comic book fans themselves are as much invested in burying their chosen medium as anyone else. Without even realizing it, they treat it as it were just as ephemeral and a waste of time as the people who actively view it as juvenile nonsense.
Before you wonder what the heck I’m smoking, let me explain a little more: Comics fans are the first ones the jump on any hot new thing, and they’ll follow a favorite series or company religiously. They’re also the first (and presumably only ones) to vehemently attack and deride a project or creator. Now, I’ve encountered that same kind of reaction in television opinions and pro wrestling (so presumably I’m talking about a far wider phenomenon, but for argument’s sake I’ll stick only with comics today). What interests me is that those same fans will lionize the most popular and established stories (or, again, demonize them), create and perpetuate the myths that support their current opinions, and every new comic is another opportunity to reiterate what they’ve already said. The result is that new releases and trade and/or hardcover collections get a fair bit of publicity. What falls in between is any talk on something that no longer seems relevant, that is either too old (which can mean that it was released last month) or was never collected.
Most of what I’ve been and will continue to talk about on this blog is exactly that kind of material. I realize you can find people talking about this kind of stuff elsewhere, but mostly it’s either nostalgic or facetious, and is completely irrelevant to the continuing interests of a comics fan, a comics reader, appealing more to the archivist or researcher. Yes, you can find a lot of material on something that’s just come out, or some opinions on something that has been deemed a classic, but how often do you hear about the rest of it? Are comics really that disposable? That’s what you might assume.
I begin this column with such thoughts because I am only now going to write about the death of Johnny Storm, hence the title at the top of the page, from FANTASTIC FOUR #587. For most fans, it’s such old news, they had to release the issue a day early just to try and keep on top of the story, and so old a topic that writing about it now seems completely irrelevant. Most fans already decided the only real reaction was simply to say, “Well, he’s just going to come back anyway, so what’s the point?”
That’s as much my point as anything else, too, but here’s why: Does reading the issue now, does the idea of the story, of the death of Johnny Storm, truly hold up? Some of this would seem to be histrionics on my part, trying to make a point out of thin air, but while some readers are advancing to the next issue, the next development, I’m in the unique position of being that reader who isn’t, who has in fact disconnected himself from the comics stream, and who therefore has the luxury of asking the questions that seem beyond the point, but bring up another point entirely. How to make what even comics fans consider to be an instantly disposable event into something worth talking about, how to write about comics that don’t seem to matter, as if they’re still worth talking about.
For starters, let’s rewind a little. Jonathan Hickman is the writer responsible for all of this. He first came to my attention, as he did with many others, while he was working for Image, when he was doing some of the most innovative and thought-provoking work in comics, a revolutionary at a time when it seemed safer to try and reemphasize the things that had worked in the past. When Marvel hired him, it seemed like a natural for the House of Ideas. He was quickly placed into projects that would capture his perspective in a more traditional context, but as he himself seemed to realize, the Fantastic Four were an inevitability. Most writers seemed to write them only as cosmic adventurers, or as a family unit that ahd become a cornerstone of the company, but rarely with anything truly challenging in mind (heh).
What Hickman represented was a chance to bring the team back to its roots, as an agent of the science games that gave Marvel almost every one of its famous superheroes (something that many writers had been doing with Iron Man over the years, but notably Orson Scott Card and Matt Fraction in the recent past, and Dan Slott recently with Spider-man). Like Fraction, he seemed to embrace the concept on a wide scale, but he was driving, inevitably, toward something much greater, something other writers had attempted before him, driving the story of the comic directly behind the characters themselves, and in the most dramatic way possible, by killing one of them off. You can’t come up with any more immediately iconic name for a Fantastic Four story than “Three.” Everyone knew exactly what he was aiming for the minute he started it.
Those who read Hickman’s run regularly say he teased every one of the team’s members as a possible victim, from Mr. Fantastic (whom I’d pegged, owing to the generation-spanning adventure I’d earlier sampled) to Invisible Woman (Sue Storm, wife of Reed Richards and sister of Johnny) to The Thing (who’d long ago become the most iconic member, even though it didn’t really come off that way in the movies). As Hickman himself explained, however, the only really logical choice was the Human Torch, who in addition to having personal connections with every other member as none of the others did, was also the only one created from the image and likeness of an existing Marvel property. Quite simply, Johnny was a victim of opportunity all the way around.
Of course, this is not to say we won’t see him again, and it seems likely and yes, inevitable, because this is comics we’re talking about. I’m not saying that with the same bitterness many seem to regard the phenomenon. If you’ve got good stories to tell, you shouldn’t let anything stand in your way, because hey, it’s only fiction. Even Sherlock Holmes proved too popular to kill off, and writers throughout the centuries have found it remarkably easy to revisit characters like Hercules and King Arthur, who did, in fact, die at the end of their original adventures.
The question, then, isn’t really whether or not Johnny Storm or any other member should have died, but whether or not it was worth reading for readers who hadn’t, in the common sense, been reading regularly, whether the issue was worth it for them then, or even now. If we were to treat FANTASTIC FOUR #587 as we would a book or a movie anyone could track down with very little effort, how would it fare? This is the back issue treatment, in essence. We’re not even talking about collections, of which there will inevitably be for “Three,” whether or not it stays in print past its original release. (Comics fans have an even more difficult time than Disney fans in keeping things out of some metaphorical vault.)
If fans were to treat individual issues the way they treat favorite storylines, the way trade and/or hardcovers collections are treated (as long as they’re in print), not just as fodder/filler for a box in someone’s home or store, not just in valuing a first appearance or random variant cover, what would be the value of this particular story?
The way I read it, most of the issue is a complete wash, a random adventure that’s impenetrable to anyone who hadn’t read the rest of the storyline, and doesn’t seem to foreshadow in the least bit Johnny’s death. Hickman seems to have borrowed, at least in spirit, Spock’s death from STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, a happenstance that appears to be the only way for the heroes to escape certain doom, with the sacrifice of one of their own. The actual moments of Johnny’s decision, how the issue closes, is absolutely worth the hype, something that would stand up no matter who the character is, whatever the scenario or medium. Hickman handles that like a pro.
The problem is, I don’t end up feeling that Hickman himself really needed to have written it. I don’t see even a trace of the Hickman I knew from Image, in any of his Marvel work. I see a certain logical connection to the titles he’s worked on, but not the material. As a representative work for a particular creator, I wouldn’t much see the point of having this in my portfolio. The way Grant Morrison kept working toward at and with his grand vision of Batman’s fall and return justified every bit of the hype that continues to surround his efforts. Even Ed Brubaker continues to have some kind of logic surrounding his work with Captain America (though I would argue, he writes a far better James Barnes than Steve Rogers). What can you say about Jonathan Hickman and the Fantastic Four? Maybe the regular readers will know, but the only time anyone wrote about Hickman’s run was “Three.”
Maybe the problem is a conceptual one. Maybe the Fantastic Four really don’t work on both levels, both the cosmic and the personal, as many fans and creators, including Hickman, seem to think. Maybe it’s simply a problem on my end. I’ve never, except during Civil War, read FANTASTIC FOUR regularly. I’m not sure any creator after the team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (whose appeal was immediately evident to me when the infamous “lost” issue was finally printed a few years back) has truly understood the appeal and potential in these characters. Except for the wedding between the parent figures, they’ve been hurt more than any of superheroes by the static nature of even Marvel properties, which routinely attempt to demonstrate the worth of a continuing and all-encompassing history (well, when it’s convenient). Hickman did recognize that a change had to happen, and he went for the obvious one, and in the middle of a big cosmic adventure, so he appealed to all the right things.
But it seemed like a last-ditch effort, rather than a concerted one. Unlike Brubaker, who had the benefit of a relaunch to fit all his ideas into a coherent whole, or Morrison, who employed an entire tapestry, as far as I know, Hickman seems content to let everything fall on that one moment, one “Three” and the death of Johnny Storm, and let a relaunch and general ramifications take over.
But I suppose that’s a problem for other readers. It was definitely worth talking about, and that’s exactly my point, when it was published and even now, and should be as relevant now as it was then, not just for what it caused and symbolized, but what the comic itself was and now stands to be forever, a single issue in a flood of single issues, but a notable, noteworthy, newsworthy, item.
I was last inside a comic book store a month ago. It doesn’t seem like such a long time ago, but sobriety is one step at a time, so one month is a long time for me. That’s also the last time I received a shipment from Midtown, which technically the method by which I was reading the majority of my comics in recent years. To have cut those subscription ties and to have stayed away from a comic book store and for only a month to have passed…Sometimes it seems like an eternity has passed by, sometimes like it’s silly to be feeling in the least bit nostalgic. I’ve heard about an issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN that made me want to head down to Escape Velocity, or place an order for it, one of those landmark events that seems like it should be in everyone’s collection. So far, I’ve contented myself with knowing that Slott is doing the kind of material I knew he could. I’ve got the few comics I can read and/or buy at work, at the bookstore, including the first appearance of Flash Thompson as the new Venom, plus the big reveal of Hot Pursuit as some kind of alternate Barry Allen.
…Anyway, the rest of this column represents the last batch of new comics from the era that has now slipped, however tenuously, into history, the shipment that included FANTASTIC FOUR #587. Here’s what else I read:
WONDER WOMAN #606 (DC)
When I heard that Phil Hester had picked up the baton from J. Michael Straczynski on this book, I couldn’t help but think that business was about to pick up. But aside from a new zestiness that reminded me of all the character Greg Rucka brought to Wonder Woman’s world, the story still meanders on the same Straczynski path, which is the only disappointment possible, given that I still expect Hester to rock this book, once he’s free to explore his own ideas. Because there really is a new spark evident.
SHAZAM! #1 (DC)
Eric Wallace, one of the slightly more anonymous regular presences at DC, provides this continuation of the Marvel family saga, which the company only seems halfhearted about, despite some excellent work that’s occurred in recent years, highlighted by THE TRIALS OF SHAZAM! But among the first new letters DC has printed in about a decade, someone does add their voice to this very frustration. Maybe they’re hinting at something?
GREEN ARROW #8 (DC)
J.T. Krul continues a run that apparently isn’t getting a lot of appreciation from the fans, even though, as far as I can tell, if it didn’t start out awesome, has only gotten better with time. This issue spends a lot of time exploring the Galahad character, one of the more intriguing additions to Green Arrow lore, and a terrific piece of the current mythos, in that forest of his.
DETECTIVE COMICS #873 (DC)
Scott Snyder’s third issue wraps up his first arc, and makes a few more haunting suggestions about how he plans to approach Dick Grayson. If he digs much deeper, this will truly be a remarkable run, for both creator and character.
BLOCKBUSTERS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE (Marvel)
Okay, so maybe it’s just me, but rather than being so encyclopedically thorough with these things, couldn’t Marvel be a little more reader-friendly? I’m not suggesting turning them into fluff, but there has to be a way to make it a little more…fun? Archives don’t make for casual reading, and when you release it in this format…fun should sort of be the mandate. Just saying…
ACTION COMICS #897 (DC)
Due to a shipping snafu, my store got double the number of this issue, which would be amusing if we sold this title half as well as we do BATMAN. In fact, if we sold any copies at all. We sell out of BATMAN, by the way, all two copies, every time. Anyway, Paul Cornell continues his tour with Lex Luthor, this time allowing The Joker to drop in for some fun. I think I would have more thoroughly enjoyed these stories if Cornell hadn’t believed he needed the gimmick of a guest star every issue. Or maybe it was a mandate he had to accept. Still, we do get another Larfleeze comic out of it!
That’s it, then (and pretty literally at that, pretty much). I’ll be moving into some interesting new topics in the coming weeks, so there’s definitely plenty of reasons to keep tuning in. The red phone is always open to calls, too!
Before you wonder what the heck I’m smoking, let me explain a little more: Comics fans are the first ones the jump on any hot new thing, and they’ll follow a favorite series or company religiously. They’re also the first (and presumably only ones) to vehemently attack and deride a project or creator. Now, I’ve encountered that same kind of reaction in television opinions and pro wrestling (so presumably I’m talking about a far wider phenomenon, but for argument’s sake I’ll stick only with comics today). What interests me is that those same fans will lionize the most popular and established stories (or, again, demonize them), create and perpetuate the myths that support their current opinions, and every new comic is another opportunity to reiterate what they’ve already said. The result is that new releases and trade and/or hardcover collections get a fair bit of publicity. What falls in between is any talk on something that no longer seems relevant, that is either too old (which can mean that it was released last month) or was never collected.
Most of what I’ve been and will continue to talk about on this blog is exactly that kind of material. I realize you can find people talking about this kind of stuff elsewhere, but mostly it’s either nostalgic or facetious, and is completely irrelevant to the continuing interests of a comics fan, a comics reader, appealing more to the archivist or researcher. Yes, you can find a lot of material on something that’s just come out, or some opinions on something that has been deemed a classic, but how often do you hear about the rest of it? Are comics really that disposable? That’s what you might assume.
I begin this column with such thoughts because I am only now going to write about the death of Johnny Storm, hence the title at the top of the page, from FANTASTIC FOUR #587. For most fans, it’s such old news, they had to release the issue a day early just to try and keep on top of the story, and so old a topic that writing about it now seems completely irrelevant. Most fans already decided the only real reaction was simply to say, “Well, he’s just going to come back anyway, so what’s the point?”
That’s as much my point as anything else, too, but here’s why: Does reading the issue now, does the idea of the story, of the death of Johnny Storm, truly hold up? Some of this would seem to be histrionics on my part, trying to make a point out of thin air, but while some readers are advancing to the next issue, the next development, I’m in the unique position of being that reader who isn’t, who has in fact disconnected himself from the comics stream, and who therefore has the luxury of asking the questions that seem beyond the point, but bring up another point entirely. How to make what even comics fans consider to be an instantly disposable event into something worth talking about, how to write about comics that don’t seem to matter, as if they’re still worth talking about.
For starters, let’s rewind a little. Jonathan Hickman is the writer responsible for all of this. He first came to my attention, as he did with many others, while he was working for Image, when he was doing some of the most innovative and thought-provoking work in comics, a revolutionary at a time when it seemed safer to try and reemphasize the things that had worked in the past. When Marvel hired him, it seemed like a natural for the House of Ideas. He was quickly placed into projects that would capture his perspective in a more traditional context, but as he himself seemed to realize, the Fantastic Four were an inevitability. Most writers seemed to write them only as cosmic adventurers, or as a family unit that ahd become a cornerstone of the company, but rarely with anything truly challenging in mind (heh).
What Hickman represented was a chance to bring the team back to its roots, as an agent of the science games that gave Marvel almost every one of its famous superheroes (something that many writers had been doing with Iron Man over the years, but notably Orson Scott Card and Matt Fraction in the recent past, and Dan Slott recently with Spider-man). Like Fraction, he seemed to embrace the concept on a wide scale, but he was driving, inevitably, toward something much greater, something other writers had attempted before him, driving the story of the comic directly behind the characters themselves, and in the most dramatic way possible, by killing one of them off. You can’t come up with any more immediately iconic name for a Fantastic Four story than “Three.” Everyone knew exactly what he was aiming for the minute he started it.
Those who read Hickman’s run regularly say he teased every one of the team’s members as a possible victim, from Mr. Fantastic (whom I’d pegged, owing to the generation-spanning adventure I’d earlier sampled) to Invisible Woman (Sue Storm, wife of Reed Richards and sister of Johnny) to The Thing (who’d long ago become the most iconic member, even though it didn’t really come off that way in the movies). As Hickman himself explained, however, the only really logical choice was the Human Torch, who in addition to having personal connections with every other member as none of the others did, was also the only one created from the image and likeness of an existing Marvel property. Quite simply, Johnny was a victim of opportunity all the way around.
Of course, this is not to say we won’t see him again, and it seems likely and yes, inevitable, because this is comics we’re talking about. I’m not saying that with the same bitterness many seem to regard the phenomenon. If you’ve got good stories to tell, you shouldn’t let anything stand in your way, because hey, it’s only fiction. Even Sherlock Holmes proved too popular to kill off, and writers throughout the centuries have found it remarkably easy to revisit characters like Hercules and King Arthur, who did, in fact, die at the end of their original adventures.
The question, then, isn’t really whether or not Johnny Storm or any other member should have died, but whether or not it was worth reading for readers who hadn’t, in the common sense, been reading regularly, whether the issue was worth it for them then, or even now. If we were to treat FANTASTIC FOUR #587 as we would a book or a movie anyone could track down with very little effort, how would it fare? This is the back issue treatment, in essence. We’re not even talking about collections, of which there will inevitably be for “Three,” whether or not it stays in print past its original release. (Comics fans have an even more difficult time than Disney fans in keeping things out of some metaphorical vault.)
If fans were to treat individual issues the way they treat favorite storylines, the way trade and/or hardcovers collections are treated (as long as they’re in print), not just as fodder/filler for a box in someone’s home or store, not just in valuing a first appearance or random variant cover, what would be the value of this particular story?
The way I read it, most of the issue is a complete wash, a random adventure that’s impenetrable to anyone who hadn’t read the rest of the storyline, and doesn’t seem to foreshadow in the least bit Johnny’s death. Hickman seems to have borrowed, at least in spirit, Spock’s death from STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, a happenstance that appears to be the only way for the heroes to escape certain doom, with the sacrifice of one of their own. The actual moments of Johnny’s decision, how the issue closes, is absolutely worth the hype, something that would stand up no matter who the character is, whatever the scenario or medium. Hickman handles that like a pro.
The problem is, I don’t end up feeling that Hickman himself really needed to have written it. I don’t see even a trace of the Hickman I knew from Image, in any of his Marvel work. I see a certain logical connection to the titles he’s worked on, but not the material. As a representative work for a particular creator, I wouldn’t much see the point of having this in my portfolio. The way Grant Morrison kept working toward at and with his grand vision of Batman’s fall and return justified every bit of the hype that continues to surround his efforts. Even Ed Brubaker continues to have some kind of logic surrounding his work with Captain America (though I would argue, he writes a far better James Barnes than Steve Rogers). What can you say about Jonathan Hickman and the Fantastic Four? Maybe the regular readers will know, but the only time anyone wrote about Hickman’s run was “Three.”
Maybe the problem is a conceptual one. Maybe the Fantastic Four really don’t work on both levels, both the cosmic and the personal, as many fans and creators, including Hickman, seem to think. Maybe it’s simply a problem on my end. I’ve never, except during Civil War, read FANTASTIC FOUR regularly. I’m not sure any creator after the team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (whose appeal was immediately evident to me when the infamous “lost” issue was finally printed a few years back) has truly understood the appeal and potential in these characters. Except for the wedding between the parent figures, they’ve been hurt more than any of superheroes by the static nature of even Marvel properties, which routinely attempt to demonstrate the worth of a continuing and all-encompassing history (well, when it’s convenient). Hickman did recognize that a change had to happen, and he went for the obvious one, and in the middle of a big cosmic adventure, so he appealed to all the right things.
But it seemed like a last-ditch effort, rather than a concerted one. Unlike Brubaker, who had the benefit of a relaunch to fit all his ideas into a coherent whole, or Morrison, who employed an entire tapestry, as far as I know, Hickman seems content to let everything fall on that one moment, one “Three” and the death of Johnny Storm, and let a relaunch and general ramifications take over.
But I suppose that’s a problem for other readers. It was definitely worth talking about, and that’s exactly my point, when it was published and even now, and should be as relevant now as it was then, not just for what it caused and symbolized, but what the comic itself was and now stands to be forever, a single issue in a flood of single issues, but a notable, noteworthy, newsworthy, item.
I was last inside a comic book store a month ago. It doesn’t seem like such a long time ago, but sobriety is one step at a time, so one month is a long time for me. That’s also the last time I received a shipment from Midtown, which technically the method by which I was reading the majority of my comics in recent years. To have cut those subscription ties and to have stayed away from a comic book store and for only a month to have passed…Sometimes it seems like an eternity has passed by, sometimes like it’s silly to be feeling in the least bit nostalgic. I’ve heard about an issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN that made me want to head down to Escape Velocity, or place an order for it, one of those landmark events that seems like it should be in everyone’s collection. So far, I’ve contented myself with knowing that Slott is doing the kind of material I knew he could. I’ve got the few comics I can read and/or buy at work, at the bookstore, including the first appearance of Flash Thompson as the new Venom, plus the big reveal of Hot Pursuit as some kind of alternate Barry Allen.
…Anyway, the rest of this column represents the last batch of new comics from the era that has now slipped, however tenuously, into history, the shipment that included FANTASTIC FOUR #587. Here’s what else I read:
WONDER WOMAN #606 (DC)
When I heard that Phil Hester had picked up the baton from J. Michael Straczynski on this book, I couldn’t help but think that business was about to pick up. But aside from a new zestiness that reminded me of all the character Greg Rucka brought to Wonder Woman’s world, the story still meanders on the same Straczynski path, which is the only disappointment possible, given that I still expect Hester to rock this book, once he’s free to explore his own ideas. Because there really is a new spark evident.
SHAZAM! #1 (DC)
Eric Wallace, one of the slightly more anonymous regular presences at DC, provides this continuation of the Marvel family saga, which the company only seems halfhearted about, despite some excellent work that’s occurred in recent years, highlighted by THE TRIALS OF SHAZAM! But among the first new letters DC has printed in about a decade, someone does add their voice to this very frustration. Maybe they’re hinting at something?
GREEN ARROW #8 (DC)
J.T. Krul continues a run that apparently isn’t getting a lot of appreciation from the fans, even though, as far as I can tell, if it didn’t start out awesome, has only gotten better with time. This issue spends a lot of time exploring the Galahad character, one of the more intriguing additions to Green Arrow lore, and a terrific piece of the current mythos, in that forest of his.
DETECTIVE COMICS #873 (DC)
Scott Snyder’s third issue wraps up his first arc, and makes a few more haunting suggestions about how he plans to approach Dick Grayson. If he digs much deeper, this will truly be a remarkable run, for both creator and character.
BLOCKBUSTERS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE (Marvel)
Okay, so maybe it’s just me, but rather than being so encyclopedically thorough with these things, couldn’t Marvel be a little more reader-friendly? I’m not suggesting turning them into fluff, but there has to be a way to make it a little more…fun? Archives don’t make for casual reading, and when you release it in this format…fun should sort of be the mandate. Just saying…
ACTION COMICS #897 (DC)
Due to a shipping snafu, my store got double the number of this issue, which would be amusing if we sold this title half as well as we do BATMAN. In fact, if we sold any copies at all. We sell out of BATMAN, by the way, all two copies, every time. Anyway, Paul Cornell continues his tour with Lex Luthor, this time allowing The Joker to drop in for some fun. I think I would have more thoroughly enjoyed these stories if Cornell hadn’t believed he needed the gimmick of a guest star every issue. Or maybe it was a mandate he had to accept. Still, we do get another Larfleeze comic out of it!
That’s it, then (and pretty literally at that, pretty much). I’ll be moving into some interesting new topics in the coming weeks, so there’s definitely plenty of reasons to keep tuning in. The red phone is always open to calls, too!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
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!
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!
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