Quarter Bin 118 "Fan Fuel"

Batman: Master of the Future (DC)
from 1991

Master of the Future is a sequel to Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, a Victorian Age tale that has stood the test of time from the Elseworlds era, the unofficial multiverse that existed between Crisis On Infinite Earths and its sequel, Infinite Crisis.  Gaslight was part of the 1989 barrage (along with Batman, the movie, and Arkham Asylum, the Grant Morrison tale).  Like Master it's written by Brian Augustyn, who otherwise is best known as editor of Mark Waid's Flash, and the first guy who tried succeeding Waid in that series.  Gaslight was one of Mike Mignola's DC projects (other notable examples: Cosmic Odyssey and the covers from "A Death in the Family").  The artist for Master is Eduardo Barreto (other notable works: Martian Manhunter: American Secrets and Superman: Under A Yellow Sun, like Master both prestige format projects).  There's a DC animated film based on Gaslight in production at the moment.  Master, as I've never actually read Gaslight, doesn't particularly read as terribly noteworthy.  I don't know if it reads better as a sequel.  But it's still interesting, having finally read something Gaslight related.

The Flash: Our Worlds At War (DC)
from 2001

Our Worlds At War was at the time intended to be a next-level Crisis event, redefining the concept in a modern, literate manner.  Lead writer was Jeph Loeb, in-between Batman: The Long Halloween and the one-two punch of "Hush" and Superman/Batman, the three major works that still define his legacy (Marvel fans seem to remember him only for his later Ultimatum, which is a huge shame).  But the concept was overshadowed by the coincidental real-life catastrophe that was 9/11, which occurred in Our Worlds' aftermath.  The comic ended up looking like just another of the unfortunate reminders of that day.  But it's always fascinated me, as I wasn't reading comics at the time.  A couple years ago I read an omnibus of the event, so finally got caught up.  I forget if it was in that or a Geoff Johns Flash omnibus where I've read this particular extract previously.  I don't think it's a great way to sample Johns except to see Cyborg pop up in another of his stories; later, Johns had him join the New 52 Justice League as a founding member, which is how he shows up in the upcoming movie, too.  The dramatic heft of the story, actually, belongs to the New God known as the Black Racer, who is best known as the guy who inexplicably skis everywhere.  But he's got a great, emotional story, being tied to a human trapped in a hospital bed.  I'm not sure if Johns used him again in his "Darkseid War," but not as I remember or have read (haven't read that whole story yet, either).

Justice League of America #58 (DC)
from August 2011

This is from the Brad Meltzer relaunch era, but once James Robinson, post-Cry for Justice, had taken over, in its final days before the New 52.  Robinson had cobbled together his own League, including Congo Bill, whom he doesn't seem to have made relevant again (six years later and no additional Congo Bill, right?), but basically another B-League, which has always been curious to see even considered again post-JLA.  But Robinson certainly seems to have also used the opportunity to subtly promote his best-known work, the 90s Starman, although not with lead character Jack Knight (alas).  The Starman here is the blue alien, whom a letter writer (this is the brief era in which DC brought them back!) celebrates for helping make gays visible.  And also the Shade, who is somewhat absurdly praised as being basically the most powerful dude around.  But Robinson would later produce The Shade, a fascinating maxi-series during the New 52 that curiously never really got much love (fickle fans!).  I'd always wanted to sample this work, as Saint Walker, the Blue Lantern, is also a member of the team.  And on the cover?  Seven Soldiers of Victory's Bulleteer!  But...not so much in the issue.  But Zauriel is!  Also funny to see all the Green Lantern movie hype in the issue.  And...!  Josh Williamson writing a Subway comic ad insert!  After an...unfortunate formative interlude with Dark Horse where I may have questioned his ability to produce distinctive comics, he's now become one of my favorite writers of The Flash...

Justice League of America #3 (DC)
from June 2013

...This incarnation of the title started off with a bang (it's the Justice League's opposite number!), and was even written, in the beginning, by Geoff Johns, who of course was also writing the New 52's Justice League at the time.  (Yet another iteration of the title launched in the Rebirth era, where it looks like the curse may have finally broken; fingers crossed!)  Anyway, so aside from reading another Johns issue (I had only read the first, previously, the one with covers for every state in the United States), I was eager to read it mostly for Vibe, who was hyped with his own ongoing series simultaneously launched with it.  Vibe was previously known as a joke from the Justice League Detroit era.  Thanks to this revival, he gained a third chance at relevance, where as far as I'm concerned he's earned it, in the second TV Flash series, where I think he may actually be the best character, aside from maybe the many incarnations of Harrison Wells.  Anyway, the art is by David Finch, who was brought in by DC with little clue, at first with what to do with him, so he was given his own New 52 series, at first, Batman: The Dark Knight.  Eventually, he did Forever Evil with Johns, Wonder Woman with his wife, and finally Tom King's Rebirth Batman.  Where, I think, the signing finally really paid off.

Superman Special #2 (DC)
from 1984

From classic creators Cary Bates (a legend at DC in the '70s) and Gil Kane (a classic Green Lantern artist), this one features Brainiac tricking an alien civilization into thinking Superman is the bad guy.  It's the kind of storytelling that feels quaint today, but served as the backbone of comics for decades.  Which is kind of way a lot of fans still have a problem with how comics read today.  They lament the British explosion in the same breath they celebrate it, without really realizing it.  Alan Moore was credited with making superheroes perhaps too mature, but he and his cohorts were really guilty of one thing and one thing only: making this stuff permanently more sophisticated.  Fans still want to argue this alienated the inherent juvenile audience of the medium.  But, again, comics were never actually intended for kids.  Funny joke in hindsight, Wertham.  You convinced the fans...

It's worth noting that these comics are the first ones I bought as, once again, a resident of Florida, this time on an ongoing basis.  I was last here two years ago.  I haven't actually visited a comics shop yet.  These came from a kind of vendor shop at a mall. 

Quarter Bin 113 "Wildcats/X-Men"

Wildcats/X-Men: The Modern Age #1 (Image/Marvel)
from August 1997

I was really hoping this comic would help explain the Wildcats a little better.  I mean, I get the premise, but I wanted more about the characters in the team, what helped make them stand out individually.  James Robinson, I think, didn't have the same interest.

But Adam Hughes at least makes everything look really nice. Hughes was a superstar artist in his own right, maybe not what one thought of as the Image model, but the Marvel/DC equivalent in the '90s.  His work here looks more traditional than his later covers, which really ramped up the Hughes appeal.

For what it's worth, the X-Men don't come off much better. Fans will say that's because the '90s weren't particularly kind to the X-Men, but it was a distinctive era.  Just not one that's reflected in this comic.  It seems to have wanted to present an iconic version of both teams, but in doing so glossed over what made either of them special.  That's always the risk with team books, let alone team-up books, trying to squeeze too many characters into the story, so none of them really get a chance to shine.  I mean, the Hellfire Club gets more of a shout-out than anyone...!

Well, it was worth a try.

Quarter Bin 84 "Spider-Man, Starman, Superman, '90s edition"

This penultimate edition of a series covering comics found in an actual quarter bin is no indication that this feature's title can always be taken literally.

Sensational Hornet #1 (Marvel)
(Sensation Spider-Man #27)
From May 1998.
This was part of a storyline in which Peter Parker felt his Spider-Man persona was becoming more trouble than it was worth, and so he adopted several new superhero identities.  Clearly a nod to the Superman replacements of a few years earlier (although as far as I know none of these identities made it past this arc, in any form), this was '90s Spider-Man once again taking a direct page from DC, as anyone would easily argue that extended Clone Saga was created to do, to the chagrin of readers who had absolutely no interest in it.  For me, I had a look at the issue for the Mike Wieringo art, which if you'll remember was also the intent with the Flash comic I read earlier in this series of Quarter Bin columns (follow them alphabetically, or just root around the recent ones).  Ringo was a big part of my enjoyment of '90s comics, whether in his Flash or Robin runs.  Like every other creator that decade, he went on to launch a creator-owned series, Tellos, except fate played a cruel trick on him, and his fans, and comics fans in general, when he died unexpectedly in 2007, at the far-too-young age of 44.  His was a playful, expressive style that proved incredibly adaptable, and he was a natural to draw Spider-Man's adventures.

Spider-Man: Blue #4 (Marvel)
From October 2002.
The magic team of Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale produced a series of stories for Marvel's superheroes, each of them featuring narration directed at the biggest influences in the characters' lives.  For Spider-Man, they chose Gwen Stacy, whose untimely death in a 1973 comic forever altered the destiny of Peter Parker, again.  Interestingly, both this and the above issue feature one of Spider-Man's most intriguing, and oldest villains, although the Vulture takes the latter title pretty literally.  I would almost say that the melancholy Sandman of Spider-Man 3 might almost have been better replaced with Vulture, who still has yet to appear in the movies. 

Starman #45 (DC)
From August 1998.
For a lot of fans, James Robinson's Starman was the comic that redeemed '90s DC as something that wasn't merely reacting to the scene around it but producing something new, a commentary on the superhero tradition.  Which admittedly, for me, already existed in the pages of Mark Waid's Flash, but Robinson's efforts were perhaps easier to spot because he began them in a fresh title, with a fresh, new character in Jack Knight, who as of this issue launches himself into space, which someone observes in the issue is only appropriate for someone calling himself Starman.  His task is to locate one of his predecessors in the role, and he's accompanied by another of them, an alien who happens to also be gay.  For me, I always kind of saw Starman as being perhaps a little too impressed with itself, although its role as the DC equivalent of what had previously resulted in the birth of the Vertigo line remains a unique achievement, duplicated in brief by such efforts as Chronos and Primal Force, and most recently by Tom King's Omega Men, but on the whole a lasting testament to what's possible when a creator is allowed truly free reign in a mainstream comic, has the talent to pull it off, and seizes the opportunity.

Superman #57 (DC)
Action Comics #667-668 (DC)
From July, August 1991.
The truly sensational thing about the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman was that it was allowed to break all the rules.  Superman reveals his secret identity to Lois.  Lex Luthor dies.  The death.  The wedding.  And now, because of the Convergence rebirth, even a child.  There was also the time Superman executed some of his foes, and the Eradicator, a Kryptonian menace that presaged Doomsday, and in fact was incorporated in the monster's aftermath.  The first two of the three comics above feature the end-battle with the first humanoid version of the Eradicator, who originally appeared as a robotic relic with a mission similar to what later played out on the big screen in Man of Steel.  The replacement Superman with the visor?  That was the Eradicator, too.  First, Superman engages in mortal combat with this foe, and is probably the moment this generation of creators first dreamt of going all the way with such a scenario.  The last issue features the specter of Lex Luthor, who had died, ironically, due to Kryptonite exposure, having worn a ring embedded with a chunk of the stuff.  Later, the clone would be introduced, and later still, be magically reborn following a lethal clone illness back into the familiar bald form we all know (the clone, "his son," had the youthful look of the vision of the villain's father as portrayed in Smallville).  The issue is fascinating, because it opens the door to the perception that among ordinary citizens of Metropolis, Lex Luthor really was seen as the good guy, which is usually impossible in comics that relentlessly feature his war against Superman.  The creator involved include Roger Stern and Dan Jurgens, both classic members of the '90s generation, Stern near the end of his career and Jurgens near the beginning.  I'd known the post-Doomsday comics I enjoyed the rest of that decade were a direct continuation of material I hadn't read, and so every now and then I like to have a look at the earlier stuff.  And now, this period gets little respect, but it deserves it.  For anyone who started reading at, and only ever cared about, Doomsday, the lasting impression probably makes perfect sense.  But it really doesn't.  This was truly a rich vision, an impressive tapestry, a whole era that saw some of the best-ever Superman stories told, a cohesive, comprehensive story that didn't end until the end of the millennium, when DC started looking at ways to "make Superman relevant again."  The stories changed, the vision changed, but it took a while for anyone to even approach getting better than what had come before...

Quarter Bin 80 "Mark Waid's Flash, Generation X, Guy Gardner, Harley Quinn, and Caleb Monroe"

No, not all comics featured in this feature were literally bought in a quarter bin.  But these were.

The Flash #93 (DC)
From August 1993.
From the files of Mark Waid's excellent run on The Flash comes this second issue of Bart Allen's introduction.  Waid was literally the guru of the Speed Force, and if any character greater embodied his philosophy than Wally West, it was Bart, who would variously be known as Impulse, Kid Flash, and even the Flash himself (it...didn't go particularly well, however).  Bart was the grandchild of Barry and Iris Allen, raised in the future but mistakenly caught up in a program that sought to study him, which accidentally accelerated his growth because no one actually knew what to do with him.  (Waid cleverly explains that in this issue.)  Later the star of Waid's second Flash series, Impulse, Bart would appear in a more sinister version within the pages of the New 52's Teen Titans (which was one of the many things that angered fans about the New 52).  I revisited this issue hoping for some sweet art from the late Mike Wieringo, but if I'd read the cover more closely, I'd have noticed that Carlos Pachelo was filling in for him.  Somewhat ironically, while Ringo gained a massive cult following before and following his untimely death, the letters column for this issue features a decidedly cautious interest in his work. 

Generation X #25, -1 (Marvel)
From March and July 1997.
Scott Lobdell's contributions to '90s X-Men lore have largely been marginalized in recent years, mostly because fans have generally marginalized '90s X-Men in general.  His Generation X (which famously forced Gen 13 to come up with its alternate title, which didn't stop it from becoming one of Image's signature '90s hits) introduced, as the title may indicate, a new generation of mutants, who have since largely vanished.  I just don't get it.  Lobdell has been working with DC since the New 52, and he still doesn't get any credit, even though he's generally one of the best character-driven storytellers in the business.  The "-1" issue was Marvel's response to the "0" issue phenomenon, part of a whole flashback month.  Neither issue actually features the new generation too directly, but that was okay.  It was still good stuff.  James Robinson wrote the "-1" issue, and Carlos Pachelo, in his first signature work, was on art for both.

Guy Gardner #1, 2 (DC)
From October and November 1992.
Gerard Jones was absolutely on fire with the Green Lantern franchise during this period.  He not only dominated it, but expanded it as never before.  Besides the lead series, there was also Green Lantern: Mosaic (previously discussed here), and Guy Gardner, which launched with Guy having just acquired Sinestro's yellow ring, but would later feature him gaining different powers entirely.  Geoff Johns would expand on the mythology of the yellow ring, but at the moment, it was just something that wasn't a Green Lantern ring, and still allowed Guy to run roughshod on the concept of superheroes.  Basically, Guy was one of DC's answers to the burning '90s topic of breaking from tradition, and boy was his ready for it, even if his nifty new ring, in these issues, didn't feel like fully cooperating.

Harley Quinn and Power Girl #6 (DC)
From February 2016.
The creative team of Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Justin Gray had previously collaborated on a pre-New 52 Power Girl ongoing series (which featured the dubious distinction of Vartox's debut), and so it was nice to see them taking the opportunity provided by Harley Quinn's massive popularity to reprise the act (with Vartox!).  This is irreverent storytelling pure and simple, with Harley literally acting the part of the jester as Power Girl tries to once and for all end her Leela/Zapp Brannigan relationship with Vartox.  Good luck with that...

Hunter's Fortune #4 (Boom!)
From January 2010.
As with Skipper Martin and Drew Melbourne, Caleb Monroe was a budding creator I came across a decade ago, and when he scripted this series I enjoyed watching him find success.  (Despite how it can sometimes seem, I don't actively wish ill on any creators.  Everyone's work has an audience.)  The concept, developed by Andrew Crosby, is basically Indiana Jones/National Treasure/Lara Croft without a sensational lead character.  Hunter is merely the recipient of a fortuitous bequeathal.  Monroe's signature gift to his fellow budding creators was setting up a list of submission guidelines, which was above and beyond what you'd expect from someone basically at the same level as you.  He's remained active in comics, at least as of two years ago, when he was still writing stuff for Boom!, and that was good to see. 

Quarter Bin 69 "Eight Below"

As always, "Quarter Bin" is a figurative term.  This is a back issues feature.

The title of this edition comes from the fact that I bought the following comics from the store Five Below (basically another dollar store), two different packs of four comics each.  These are not the first comics I've gotten from Five Below, and not even the first bargain packs I've picked up in the last few months, but there's one excellent, and several good ones, reason to write about this set first (I'll get to the others later).  Namely, it gave me my first look at one of Grant Morrison's Marvel projects I hadn't gotten around to yet.  Without further adieu, let's dive in:

New Avengers: Illuminati (Marvel)
From September 2006.
Civil War was kind of better in a handful of one-shots specials than it was for the event itself or the comics that followed it.  Here I'm mostly thinking about the ones concerning the death of Captain America (I'm sorry, "death"), but this is another of the literate stories Marvel let slip through, Brian Michael Bendis getting to write about the Marvel landscape in frank terms, setting up a cabal (that kind of went nowhere but was intended to be more significant), a meeting of the heads of the big guns before everyone started to become Avengers (even before the movies made it cool).  I guess I'll never understand why Namor has been such a tough nut for Marvel to crack, I guess just too difficult to reconcile with the more juvenile instincts of the company, even though he's one of its founding creations.  He's a standout here.  Conspicuous by his absence?  Captain America.

Daredevil #253 (Marvel)
From April 1988.
I thought this would be a Frank Miller issue (shows how much I know, I guess), but it ended up being Ann Nocenti, one of the more long-lived female comic book creators who has been involved in DC's New 52 initiative recently, writing Green Arrow and such.  She writes about what you'd expect from Daredevil.  It's telling, what fans were thinking, or at least what Marvel was thinking, from the letters in the back lamenting the grim turn in then recent years, which would be the Frank Miller era, which was not yet completely over.  The editor suggests to readers still searching for a good Kingpin story Daredevil: Love and War, Miller's graphic novel from two years earlier.  Well, anyway, what's perhaps best to talk about is the debuting artist in the issue, none other than John Romita, Jr., at least as described in the letters column (which was always months behind), actually three issues into his run at this point.  Romita would go on to make quite the name for himself (probably known at the time very much as "Junior"), and a distinctive style.  Which is hard to find in the work here.  So I spent perhaps more time trying to find the Romita I know than to anything else.  But it was still worth checking out for all three reasons.

DC Universe Presents #11 (DC)
From September 2012.
James Robinson, just starting his comeback, though everyone seemed to ignore The Shade (despite its generally excellent quality), writing a Vandal Savage arc, uniquely featuring him as something other than the villain, trying to make peace with a rebellious daughter while trying to avoid the sins of his past.  As the antagonist of Legends of Tomorrow and having apparently resurfaced in the Superman titles recently, Savage is experiencing a renaissance of significance lately.  He's a compelling character, and Robinson certainly helps sell him better than the norm. 

Fantastic Four: 1234 #4 (Marvel)
From January 2001.
I assume Marvel did a roundabout second printing of this, because the copyright fine print says "Vol. 2" and the cover features a 9/11 memorial logo, even though the publication date still lists it as the beginning of the year...Either way, this is the first time I've read anything from this Grant Morrison's project.  Morrison's Marvel work is better known for his New X-Men and Marvel Boy, but there's also this to consider.  And now having read some of it firsthand, I would almost consider it his response to Marvelman/Miracleman, a dystopian twist on a traditional superhero property.  Aside from a classic comic book twist that undoes it, the issue features Dr. Doom turning the team against each other, against themselves, all of that, in ways Alan Moore's opus never adequately explained, except that he just didn't understand superheroes anymore and wanted them to "grow up."  This is  a whole thing among fans, the relationship between Moore and Morrison, how Morrison tried to write in his own contribution to Moore's work on that property (to be printed years later by Marvel), and how they've been "rivals" ever since.  It's a fairly one-sided creative conversation, though.  Morrison did his version of Watchmen in Pax Americana (within the greater Multiversity construct).  But few observers seem to have perceived 1234's commentary.  It even makes Dr. Doom credible for the first time...ever.  So that's good to read, too.  Now on to Skrull Kill Krew!

Force Works (Marvel)
From January 1995.
The Image explosion caused chaos across the board, and one of the weirdest effects was forcing (heh) Marvel and DC to try and ape the style approach, which meant as much about the art as the less subtle storytelling (which eventually gave way to more subtle storytelling, so on the whole it was probably a good thing).  DC created a Justice League that starred in the series Extreme Justice, Marvel created an Avengers called Force Works.  I originally learned about the latter in a calendar I had as a teenager.  I admit, I liked the title.  So now I read an issue for the first time ever.  Scarlet Witch is taken semi-seriously, in a kind of stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold kind of way.  U.S.Agent is in a costume I don't recognize.  There's a Mandarin story that doesn't really feature Mandarin all too well (Iron Man 3  wants its plot back!), and Tony Stark is being a shmuck.  On the whole, seems about right.

Hawkeye #11 (Marvel)
From August 2013.
I think I've read this issue already.  Or maybe Matt Fraction used the dog gimmick again later?  Either way, this is the dog gimmick issue, which features a dog and the only words the reader gets to read are the ones in the dialogue the dog would understand.  Otherwise, it's the various associations the dogs would make, conveyed via icons.  I don't want to underestimate the uniqueness of the artistry, certainly in a mainstream work, that Fraction manages to bring to Hawkeye.  In any other era, this would have been hailed as the second coming of Frank Miller.  For whatever reason, that just never happened with this series.  I don't think anything groundbreaking was achieved, except to highlight that no one really has a definitive Hawkeye story they figure is worth telling (except, you know, that he debuted as a villain?), which even the movies acknowledge, so that Fraction literally could do anything, like this dog issue.  But that's still a breakthrough for a mainstream superhero comic.

Prime #3 (Malibu)
From December 1995.
I used to think that Prime was basically a Captain Marvel) (DC version) ripoff, but after this issue, I guess he's kind of more like the Spectre, a powerful entity that needs a human host to anchor it.  Which obviously was otherwise poorly conveyed.  In hindsight, Prime is just too comically overmuscled.  I mean, was that deliberate? 

Professor Xavier and the X-Men #1 (Marvel)
From November 1995.
I think I got this comic back in the '90s.  I guess it doesn't particularly matter.  It's a '90s version of the early X-Men years.  It still baffles me that Marvel has never considered using Jean Grey more productively.  Here's a character who used to be known as Marvel Girl.  She's the center of one of the most famous X-Men, if not Marvel in general, stories ever in "The Dark Phoenix Saga."  And even the movies had her as second lead after Wolverine.  She's the lead character in this issue, too.  And still...Nothing.  Talk about missing a golden opportunity. 

Fantastic Four #645 (Marvel)

writer: James Robinson

artist: Leonard Kirk

This is it.  Marvel and/or Disney has thrown a hissy fit because Fantastic Four remains a 20th Century Fox film property and thus not part of the Avengers franchise (as Spider-Man has now become), and so the series has been cancelled, put on indefinite hiatus.  Goodbye, see you later, nice knowing you, First Family.

How does it end?  James Robinson followed a Jonathan Hickman run that sought to push the team to new creative heights.  Mostly he reboots it right back to its classic dimensions, and basically winks to the reader and says there are some constants, and the Fantastic Four are one of them no matter how it looks at the moment.  I mean, Marvel would be pretty stupid to keep it gone, right?

Karl Kesel gets to write a Johnny Storm solo, Louise Simonson a Sue Storm entry, Tom DeFalco gives the Thing his moment, while Jeff Parker rounds these shorts out with Reed Richards.

Mark Paniccia, identified as senior editor at Marvel, writes a farewell notice.  Various creators write odes to their favorite covers and by extension, their favorite stories.  "Willie's Mailbag" (referencing an old timey supporting character), which may or may not have been an ongoing letters column in the series and/or the history of Fantastic Four (my reading history with the World's Greatest Comic Magazine has been sporadic; I read somewhat steadily during Civil War, and I popped in once or twice during Hickman's run), but here it represents a chance for the fans to say goodbye.

And that's it.  Goodbye.  See you again!

Reading Comics #138 "Character rundown from The Multiversity: The Just, plus other October 2014 comics"

Boom! Studios Halloween Fright Fest 2014 (Boom!)

via Previews World

The only Halloween freebie I picked up this year.  Frazer Irving illustrated the Adventure Time lead story, which was interesting insofar as Irving always does good work and Adventure Time is, well, interesting.  There were a few vintage Peanuts strips reprinted, plus background information on Charlie Brown's infamous luck with kites explained by the late Charles Schultz.  Finally, the lead-out was Fraggle Rock.  Hey, it was free.

Marvel 75th Anniversary Celebration (Marvel)

via Hero Complex

I'm not really a Marvel guy, but I like it when Marvel celebrates itself (which does seem to happen often).  Anyway, this was a special that featured a couple of stories and retrospective essays.  The first story is from James Robinson and is close to the Marvel version of Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier comics over at DC.  It's also, I guess, like Marvels.  Reflects on "where were you" when the Fantastic Four were born.  Bruce Timm next adapts Stan Lee's first-ever Marvel story, featuring Captain America.  Works better in a modern, Timm style.  Also included is the original text version.  Then there's Brian Michael Bendis revisiting Alias (his comic, not the unrelated TV show).  I never read Alias, but if it was as good as this was, hopefully Bendis really does consider bringing it back, as is suggested in the story.  A text piece explores forgotten Golden Age creations, and curiously includes Rockman, a character revived in the pages of the excellent The Twelve.  Tom DeFalco does a pretty typical young Peter Parker Spider-Man tale.  A text piece on Marvel's black superheroes.  Len Wein returns to his most famous creation, Wolverine.  A text piece on the real world intruding in Marvel's pages.  Goofy covers that mock things that would never happen (What If? for the Instagram generation).  All told, I thought it was a pretty good reflection.

The Multiversity - The Just (DC)

via Comic Vine

The third issue of The Multiversity from Grant Morrison explores a world populated by all the DC characters created from the '90s onward, a next generation experience that takes a different tack from Kingdom Come, more akin to Morrison's ideas previously represented by Zenith and Super Young Team, superheroes straight from our media-obsessed age, who have less fighting and more angst to fill up their days.

Here's a rundown of the characters who appear"

• Sister Miracle (Sasha Norman), new creation, based off Shilo Norman, the Mister Miracle alternate Morrison used in his Seven Soldiers of Victory project.
• Megamorpho (Saffi Mason), new creation, based off Metamorpho, also known as Rex Mason.
• The Atom (Ray Palmer), long-established character who in the '90s was de-aged and became a member of Dan Jurgens' Teen Titans.
• Alexis Luthor, Lex Luthor's daughter, based on a concept from late '90s Superman comics.
• Batman (Damian Wayne) one of Morrison's most famous characters.
• Superman (Chris Kent), based on the "Last Son" character created by Geoff Johns.
• Azrael (Jean-Paul Valley), his costume on display; the post-"Knightfall" replacement Batman.
• Offspring (Ernie O'Brian), featured in Mark Waid's follow-up to Kingdom Come, The Kingdom.
• Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), the '90s addition to the franchise.
• Green Arrow (Connor Hawke), Oliver Queen's son and one-time successor.
• Loose Cannon, Chronos, Gunfire, Max Mercury, Anima, Risk; group shot.  Loose Cannon, Anima and Gunfire were part of the "Bloodlines" generation from 1993.  Chronos was the anti-hero star of a brilliant, short-lived series.  Max Mercury was another Waid creation, within the pages of The Flash and Impulse.  Risk was part of Jurgens' Titans.  There are a few others I can't positively identify.
• Superboy (Kon-El), whom Morrison cleverly has suffering from Bizarro syndrome.  I have no idea why this is the first time the idea has ever come up.  Brilliant.
• Red Amazo, combining Red Tornado with classic Justice League villain Amazo.
• The Flash (Wally West), the defining Flash for a generation thanks to Waid and Johns.
• Alpha Centurion (Marcus Aelius), a character I've badly wanted to see make a comeback for years.  This may be it.  For now.
• Steel (Natasha Irons), daughter of John Irons, the original Steel, with a long history herself.
• Argus (Nick Kovak), another "Bloodlines" creation.
• Wonder Woman (Artemis), the Azrael of the Wonder Woman '90s.
• Aquaman (Garth), also known as Aqualad and Tempest.
• Menta (Holly Dayton), daughter of Mento, Steve Dayton, associated with Doom Patrol.
• Doctor Midnite (Pieter Cross), part of the revived Justice Society at the turn of the century.
• Bloodwynd, part of Dan Jurgens' Justice League, famously described by Morrison in the pages of Supergods as being one of the worst examples of '90s comics.  Should be noted that his distinctive speech bubble (a crackly red outline) is omitted.  He, Alpha Centurion and Max Mercury are characters I'd want to explore given any possible comics career.
• Arrowette (Cissie King-Hawke), taking the name of a character who was part of Young Justice.
• Gypsy (Cynthia Reynolds), a member of the '90s Justice League scene.
• Jakeem Thunder, a character Morrison created to join the revived Justice Society, succeeding one of the original members.
• Impulse (Bart Allen), later known as Kid Flash.

Anyway, loved this issue.  Although of course I've loved all of them.  But this one in particular.

Saga #24 (Image)

via Previews World

The Brand enters (re-enters? I don't know) the picture, looking to figure out whatever happened to The Will, one of my favorite supporting characters who hasn't been around in a while.  Just a truly excellent issue, classic example of what made me love the series in the first place.  Pity, since the series now goes on hiatus until sometime early next year.

Superman #35 (DC)

via Ain't It Cool

Geoff Johns returns after the Futures End interlude to continue the Ulysses saga as he and Superman step up their efforts to end the threat of the Machinist.  Ulysses ends up making a bold move that may prove to be the definitive transition of the arc.

Wonder Woman #35 (DC)

via Rhymes with Geek

The conclusion of the Brian Azzarello/Cliff Chiang era has been getting mediocre reviews from the circles I visit, but I was going to have to read this one for myself even though I've had a spotty record reading the series so far.  This is basically the end of the First Born arc, too, with the most feeling of conclusion coming from Azzarello revealing the true nature of one of his supporting characters, a twist that underwhelmed other observers, but to my mind tracks well with what the series had done previously, exploring the nature of conflicting allegiances that has always been one of the worst-explored aspects of Wonder Woman (previously relegated to "you represent us!  you don't represent us!").  All along I've been convinced that this was a classic interpretation of the character, completely unusual and therefore with that much greater opportunity to say something new, which has been badly needed for decades.  It's distinctive, not just because of the art, but because it's allowed Wonder Woman to completely own her own mythology, not just "Greek gods, Greek gods, Greek gods" but what that means to her specifically.  Again, something that's needed to be done for a long time.  The instinct in the future will be to distance Diana as much from this material as possible without outright erasing it from the record, but that would be a mistake.  DC's already had other writers doing a more traditional interpretation simultaneously, including within the pages of Geoff Johns' Justice League and a burgeoning, unprecedented-in-the-modern-era line of sister titles, Superman/Wonder Woman and Sensation Comics.  I don't think any of that would have been possible without Azzarello's confident take

Quarter Bin #49 "From An Actual Quarter Bin, Part 3"

Comics featured in this column are not always actually from a quarter bin.  However, this is a rare occasion where they were, courtesy of a grand opening/preview sale for the second location of Escape Velocity in Colorado Springs earlier this year.

Blackhawks #1 & 2 (DC)
From November and December 2011:
One of the titles I was most looking forward to in the fall 2011 DC relaunch was Blackhawks, not because I have a particular affinity for beachfront property the classic Blackhawk concept but that it was being written by Mike Costa, who has earned my eternal respect for his Cobra comics over at IDW.  Those are some of the best things I've ever read in this format, and I'm continually surprised that their genius still hasn't been embraced by even a cult audience at this point.  They continue to be published because IDW itself has realized what it has, like Red 5's devotion to Atomic Robo.  (Seriously, people, Atomic Robo is fantastic.)  Yet I opted out of reading Blackhawks at the time based on an accurate and yet unfair snap assessment that it didn't properly evoke my Cobra memories.  The series was based less on the aforesaid classic Blackhawk (like a superhero version of the formative Air Force) and more a DC version of G.I. Joe.  Costa's Cobra (recently relaunched as The Cobra Files, for the record) is basically the antithesis of anything you might think about G.I. Joe.  It's all about espionage and deep character study, far less about war games.  Based on the original glances I took through its pages, Blackhawks looked like it was typical G.I. Joe war games, as if someone at DC had looked at Costa's name and only cared to see that it was associated with G.I. Joe and not what he was doing in the sandbox.  And to a certain extent, that's really what happened.  The thing is, Costa still made the most of it.  His Blackhawks are the good guys (until recently he only had token Joes in his Cobra), but in these issues (which I opted to sample based on the Collected Editions recommendation) there's a similar (if not exactly the same) focus on character rather than fairly generic action that I had expected.  Now I'm sorry I skipped reading this one.  It was quickly cancelled, and Costa was not welcomed back by DC.  Now I may even have to track down the whole collection.

Flashpoint: The Canterbury Cricket (DC)
From August 2011:
This is something I bought at the time and was forced to part with (along with many, many other treasured memories) when I sold my comic book collection last fall.  The whole reason I remain obsessed with the Canterbury Cricket is that it was the odd original creation during the Flashpoint event, and that seemed like something worth commemorating.  As his name suggests, the Cricket is British, part of the resistance movement during the Amazon/Atlantis conflict that was one of the many things happening in the background of Barry Allen's existential crisis.  He is also, as the name suggests, a giant cricket, although he used to be human.  One of the things fans of Marvel characters always say is that they're so relatably human, even the ones who don't look so human anymore like Ben Grimm a.k.a. Thing from the Fantastic Four.  And over at DC it's always been reliable that the characters who used to be human but aren't as much anymore get much better exploration, like Man-Bat, Blue Devil or even Jason Blood (the flipside of Etrigan the Demon).  Canterbury Cricket, as depicted by erstwhile editor Mike Carlin, is all about that, and what's interesting is that he views the transformation as a good thing, because he didn't like who he used to be.  It's a lot like Spider-Man but without the Great Guilt Trip.  I'd love for this character to appear again.

Flashpoint: Abin Sur - The Green Lantern #3 (DC)
From October 2011:
With the release of the woebegone Green Lantern movie in 2011, there was a good amount of bonus releases featuring characters from the franchise that year.  One of the things I loved about Flashpoint was that it found ample space to share this love, including several spin-off mini-series including this one featuring Hal Jordan's predecessor.  Abin Sur is one of the great characters in fiction who is technically dead the moment he becomes relevant.  He also had a comeback in Brightest Day, which ended at the end of the old continuity, otherwise he might have been the ultimate recipient of the fabled white ring of spectrum power.  He had another shot here.  Maybe I'm mixing up the stories now, but he ends the issue with a white ring here, too.  Throughout much of it he's also battling his doomed persona thanks to Sinestro.  In the lore Abin and Sinestro were actually pals.  Sinestro was in love with Abin's sister.  Like Canterbury Cricket I think there's ongoing potential in exploring Abin Sur's story.  It seems somehow wrong that with Green Lantern we not only get thousands of potential characters to follow but also a rich history that has barely been scratched.  You could go worse than to spend a little more time with Abin Sur.

Flashpoint: The Outsider #3 (DC)
From October 2011:
Technically the lead character in this one is in the title, another of the rogue genius manipulators who populate a lot of comics.  But this issue also features the Flashpoint version of Martian Manhunter.  Martian Manhunter is always fascinating.  His origins are unique and his relationship to humans is equally unique.  He's the real outsider here.  But what's perhaps more fascinating about the issue, written by James Robinson, is that it strongly evokes 52, the sensational experiment that proved weekly comics were possible in the modern era.  It weaves Black Adam into the story, more as a reference than a character, but that's enough.  I didn't get a chance to read most of the Flashpoint spin-offs (something I hope to rectify at some point), and this was in fact my first experience with this one.  It was a good issue to catch.

Flashpoint #5 (DC)
From October 2011:
I read the complete Flashpoint mini-series itself in 2011, and it was a highlight of my year, a year I was trying to quit comics.  It was a very good very bad thing to happen.  It was brilliant.  Geoff Johns had brought Barry Allen back in The Flash: Rebirth, and then spent about a year in the subsequent ongoing series before launching this event based entirely around him.  It was a little disappointing for some fans to think he'd be walking away after it (Geoff spent half a decade writing the Wally West version of The Flash), but he'd already accomplished the unthinkable.  Barry Allen's previous highlight was dying in Crisis On Infinite Earths.  He was made into the central character when Marv Wolfman wrote a prose adaptation of his own story.  It was Mark Waid who pushed the franchise into a more central position, but it was Flashpoint that made it possible for everything to pivot around the Scarlet Speedster.  Geoff envisioned the ultimate conflict between Barry and his nemesis Eobard Thawne, Professor Zoom.  Thawne tricked Barry into changing history and affecting an entire alternate reality.  Another of the side stories in the world of Flashpoint was that Thomas Wayne never died and it was him who became Batman.  This final issue makes this particular element so much more poignant when Barry has managed to correct the timeline, but with a message from Thomas to his son Bruce.  An animated movie based on Flashpoint is due to be released in July, and there has been some criticism (possibly only among Flash fans) that the Batman element has been retained as a key element.  It really should be.

Sovereign Seven #1 (DC)
From July 1995:
I read the complete Sovereign Seven as it was originally released in the '90s (fun fact! Power Girl eventually became a replacement member of the team).  It was a big sensation at the start, mostly because Chris Claremont was the writer.  Claremont made his name making the X-Men into legitimate icons in the '80s (the upcoming Days of the Future Past movie is based on one of Claremont's best stories, as was the Jean Grey/Phoenix arc from the second and third films).  He was a genius at team dynamics and mythology.  That's what Sovereign Seven was all about.  Each of the members from this team were exiled royalty from alien worlds.  The result was more fantasy than superheroics.  I suspect this may have been one of the reasons fans became disillusioned.  Maybe another was that it was difficult to tell how this creator-owned series related to the rest of the DC landscape.  Ham-fisted attempts at better integration (hence Power Girl) were made later, but by then it was too late.  Please note to creators of new characters in a shared universe: it's never a good thing to be isolated, and it's never enough to have cameo appearances in your own book.  You need to appear elsewhere.  You need to be accepted into the family in the family.  It might seem scary to lend your shiny new character to someone else so soon, but that's where the real strength of the concept shines.  Claremont further annoyed fans by ending the series by apparently suggesting his characters were fictional in their own world, too.  I think there's still room for a serious revival, and Claremont need not necessarily be involved.  Although it would be far less likely to happen without him.

Vertigo Preview (DC)
From 1992:
This was the most sensational discovery for me, the vintage preview book for the launch of DC's Vertigo imprint.  The flavor of what was to come had already begun in Neil Gaiman's Sandman and other projects, but this was the dawn of a whole new era.  There's an introduction from recently departed iconic Vertigo editor Karen Berger to kick off the festivities.  Then previews of all the books of the official freshmen class.  First off is Gaiman's own Death: The High Cost of Living, spinning off from Sandman.  Death is the ultimate Goth Chick, even better than the real thing.  Peter Milligan, long associated with Vertigo and another of the writers of the '80s British Invasion, is represented with Enigma.  The reliable J.M. DeMatteis is present with Mercy.  Anne Nocenti, one of the longest-tenured women in comics, has Kid Eternity.  Grant Morrison, of course, must be here too, and it's with Sebastian O, though he'd win much greater Vertigo acclaim with The Invisibles, in some ways his magnum opus.  Black Orchid is featured with Dick Foreman and Jill Thompson.  Animal Man, which Morrison had helped shape into the Vertigo groove, is here with Jamie Delano.  Doom Patrol, also shaped by Morrison into the proper configuration, is here with Rachel Pollack (Pollack and Delano and Milligan were all reliable Vertigo staples in the early days).  John Constantine, Hellblazer, is written by Garth Ennis with art from frequent collaborator Steve Dillon.  Ennis would stake his Vertigo fame with Preacher years later.  Milligan also has Shade the Changing Man.  Nancy Collins has Swamp Thing (in its '80s Alan Moore incarnation perhaps the prototypical of all prototypical Vertigo, besides '70s horror comics like House of Mystery).  Of course the coup de grace for this whole preview is an exclusive (i.e. original) Sandman tale from Gaiman, which is pretty much exactly Gaiman giving his pressing and introduction to the whole venture.  Pretty awesome.

X-Men 2099 #1 (Marvel)
From October 1993:
In the brief period where my brothers were the ones in the family who read comics (they were both older than me), they read Star Wars and X-Men and Batman comics.  They caught the 1992 bestselling X-Men relaunch.  I got to read a lot of "Knightfall" because they did.  One of them got the complete collection of the original zero issues from Zero Hour.  And then they stopped and scoffed at the whole thing, much like they did their appreciation of Hootie and the Blowfish.  I remained fans of both comics and Hootie.  A lousy psychiatrist would say I did that because I spend my life trying to catch up to my brothers.  I prefer to believe it's because I still appreciate these things.  Sometimes when someone believes they've outgrown something, they just never go back.  That's just how it is.  The discovery I most appreciate from my brothers is X-Men 2099.  The whole 2099 line was a brief experiment to revamp the Marvel landscape with new incarnations set in the future.  People still talk about Spider-Man 2099 (well, sometimes), but to my mind the money remains with X-Men 2099.  My perennial problem with X-Men comics in general is the same I have with all Marvel comics: they only pay lip service to the conflicts at the heart of their concepts.  X-Men 2099 is everything a mutant fan ought to love.  None of the faces are familiar but they're all engaged in the same tragic struggle you love from all the ones you do know.  Like the rogue members who began populating the comics you remember (Wolverine, Storm...Rogue), these guys were all outsiders even to each other.  Someday, much like my Flashpoint ambition, I hope to read the complete X-Men 2099.

Unbeatable Comics: Earth 2 #3

writer: James Robinson
artist: Nicola Scott

The dude on the cover of this issue is Alan Scott, which is ironic, because it's the previous issue that most observers will associate with the character, in which this incarnation is revealed to be gay.  That was big news for the media, but not so surprising for James Robinson as a writer, who's started making a career of revealing characters to have different sexual orientations than previously assumed.

Anyway, this issue is more significant as far as the storyline goes, since Alan emerges from the wreckage of the explosion from last issue, scarred and approached by a green flame, which rehabilitates and recruits him to be Green Lantern, which as before (since the Guardians had not yet been invented) has nothing to do with the space corps most people now associate with the name.  Like Jay Garrick before him, Alan converses with his unlikely benefactor, trying to understand what exactly is going on, but unlike Jay, it's likely we'll have more chances to uncover the mystery of this new origin.

The new (old) Flash, meanwhile, has an interesting encounter with Hawkgirl, who impresses on him the importance of knowing how the fight above and beyond his spectacular new abilities.  Robinson has been making a fine serial of this series, and Jay and Alan have both been beneficiaries so far.  Perhaps this is necessary because both of the characters he's been putting at front and center were in a previous lifetime very much old and experienced, whereas now, with nothing to take for granted, everything needs to be built back up again from the ground up.  From an objective standpoint, I can't imagine anyone really having a problem with this.  I haven't been reading the New 52 Flash series, so this is the most I've had from anyone able to identify themselves as the fastest man alive, and I'm liking it.

The 10 Best Comics of 2012 (So Far)

The following are my favorite comic books from January through June.  They are not necessarily my favorite comic books being published in 2012, but the ones that have done the best work so far.

In no particular order:

Action Comics (DC)
Grant Morrison became my favorite comic book writer a little over five years ago.  Before that time I tended to take him for granted, except in cases like his hypermainstream JLA, and have been trying to play catch-up ever since.  Action Comics has since the New 52 launch last September been a fine example of Morrison's best instincts, presenting an iconic character in an iconic way that nonetheless presents an entirely new way to view him.  No other issue besides #9 presents this so well.  Outside of the regular continuity in the series to date, this issue presents an alternate reality Superman who just happens to be black, who ends up being confronted by a Clark Kent (along with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen) from yet another alternate reality, and forced together they challenge just about every preconceived notion of the Superman mythos, and is essential reading even if you've never cared for this character a day in your life.  I promise you that you'll know about to understand what's going on, and Morrison will blow your mind.

Batman and Robin (DC)
Pete Tomasi started out as an editor at DC (so did Mark Waid) but has transitioned into one of its most crucial writers, and I think this current stint on Batman and Robin may be the point where readers really start to notice.  While there's a lot of Batman comics out there, and Scott Snyder's dominates all the press, this is the one fans who care about the Dark Knight's continuing legacy really ought to be reading.  I wasn't reading this one at the start of the New 52, and only stumbled into it basically by accident, even though I've loved Tomasi and Patrick Gleason since Green Lantern Corps, and once I started I had to read everything I could get my hands on.  This doesn't happen to me all that often, so I knew I had found something special.  Basically this is the Damian we've all been waiting for, the one who is stubbornly claiming the story as all his own, a Robin with teeth, more controversial and more essential in the role than Jason Todd could ever hope to be, and in the signature story of the year, falling into a trap set by the son of Henri Ducard, famously depicted in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins as Bruce Wayne's original mentor (and real Ra's al Ghul, lest you forget), and clawing his way out, and even Batman doesn't quite know how to react, a story that's still unfolding.

Green Lantern (DC)
The unlikely redemption of Sinestro hit its stride in 2012 as he set about trying clean up the messes that still remained from his time leading the Yellow Corps, especially on his home planet of Korugar, and then dragging the reluctant Hal Jordan along to confront the Indigo Tribe, whose origin holds the key to unraveling  the Guardians' plans for an impending Third Army.  Originally I didn't understand how Geoff Johns intended to integrate Hal Jordan into his approach to Green Lantern, and this is a statement I make going all the way back to the launch of the 2006 series after Rebirth, but over time I've come to appreciate his vision as starting with a frequently rebellious and controversial member of the Corps to an expansion of the whole mythology that has developed the concept to a greater extent than any other writer in the history of the franchise.  His handling of Sinestro is emblematic of this approach, rehabilitating a character who had long been dismissed as a cautionary tale turned into a generic villain, but now one of the most nuanced figures in comics.  Hal becomes relevant as the one person who has the most to resent in Sinestro's new life, but also the one most likely to give him a fair shot, because he knows better than anyone that a fall from grace leads to a giant leap of faith in accepting a second chance to get it right.  I've been so surprised that Johns has actually lost a lot of the momentum he had earlier in his career, in terms of critical and fan support, that perhaps the more mainstream he's become, the easier it's become to underestimate his talent.  Any other writer might have stumbled in trying to figure out what his story for a franchise he's been writing for seven years will be in 2012, but Johns is still finding new ways to explore that same territory, and keep it interesting without even needing to reinvent the wheel every few years.

Justice League (DC)
The more remarkable thing about Johns is that he's not just writing Green Lantern, or even this book, or Aquaman, but has an official post in the DC front office, too, and he's not wasting his time in any of his commitments.  Justice League has failed to capture the popular fanboy imagination, and like Green Lantern isn't particularly a critical darling, either, but it remains one of the best things to come out of the New 52.  The truly remarkable thing is that as the series has aged since its launch last fall, it still retains an almost mythic appreciation of its central heroes, and has increasingly turned its focus to more earthbound concerns, including a villain Johns has been setting up since the beginning, who finally lost his faith in them when these superheroes couldn't, ultimately, solve every evil in the world, including those that struck his own family.  There's also liaison Steve Trevor, whose growing disillusionment concerning his relationship with Wonder Woman (a classic romance most modern writers have completely forgotten about) is proving to be the true star of the book, and a guest appearance from Green Arrow that challenges our conceptions of both the original and current incarnations of the character.  This is the first Justice League since Grant Morrison's that truly has legs, and if history (and more specifically his tenure with the Justice Society) is any indication, Johns is just getting started.  Equally noteworthy is the Shazam backup feature, in which Johns and Gary Frank update Billy Batson as a cynical orphan struggling to accept life with a new adoptive family, including the kids who are trying to make him feel at home.

Nightwing (DC)
There've been some great runs for Nightwing since he gained his first ongoing series in 1996, but Kyle Higgins is threatening to eclipse them.  He's been busy establishing himself on this book since last fall, introducing a more centralized version of Dick Grayson, grounded in his own story for perhaps the first time ever, revisiting Haly's Circus and discovering unexpected inheritance and corruption, no longer hiding from his roots in Gotham but actually embracing them, even during the midst of a nightmarish revelation that pits him at the heart of the Court of Owls, a fact Higgins and Scott Snyder might have talked a little more about, with perhaps greater results than we actually got.  Still, this is the most fun I've had reading the character in years, and considering he's long been one of my favorites, I hope that's saying something.

RASL (Cartoon)
Jeff Smith's underrated (or at least, underhyped) creative followup to Bone reached its final issues this year, and there's still no telling what the conclusion this month will actually reveal about the story of Rob Johnson, a scientist who saw his life's work turn into a nightmare he decided he had to stop personally, but that ended up proving far more difficult than he imagined.  There's the hopping behind parallel worlds, the girlfriend he thought he lost forever, the affair that he's been finding solace in throughout several alternate realities, and the former colleagues who will stop at nothing to thwart his efforts, believing as he can't that there's no harm in seeing his work through.  For Smith, I can only say that I wish this story could last longer, that we could soak in this world(s) for many more years, but he's reached the end and if RASL is an argument for anything, it's for creative freedom, knowing how far to go, and being allowed to finish the job under the right terms.

Saucer Country (Vertigo)
Paul Cornell has been growing into one of my favorite writers for years now, and I've been waiting for him to work on a book that could truly be considered his.  Saucer Country is that book.  Courting the familiar tales of alien abduction, Cornell subverts expectations by not only blurring the line between perception and reality, but thrusting it into a far bigger story about politics and image, and although the book is only a few months old, it already feels like the next great Vertigo series I hoped it could be, following in the tradition of Sandman and Y: The Last Man.  A lesser writer might have ended up writing X-Files stories already, but this is something Cornell has been thinking about for a long time, and it already shows, in his devotion to a linear structure that can already be considered byzantine, working on characters we're only just meeting as if they already have a rich and distinct history, leaving some critics utterly baffled, but some of us utterly enthralled.

The Secret History of D.B. Cooper (Oni)
Brian Churilla first came to my attention as an artist, but on this book he tackles writing duties as well, and taking readers on a huge leap of faith as he blends the mysterious figure of hijacker D.B. Cooper with an unlikely government assassin who travels into an alternate dimension in order to reach his targets, depicted as gruesome monsters he nonchalantly dispatches in between conversations with a talking teddy bear, all while in the real world dealing with very harsh realities he probably prefers to avoid.  Given that so little is known about Cooper, any legend, no matter how outlandish, can be considered the truth, and over the years a lot of people have been fingered to be the culprit, and Churilla happens to have taken that to the extreme, using fiction at its highest potential to embrace an elusive icon who's already at the fringe of the popular imagination to hopefully elevate him still higher.

The Shade (DC)
The long-awaited followup to Starman sees James Robinson exploring the life of a reformed villain, now so thoroughly engrossed in his own narrative that it seems scarcely credible that he was ever considered anything but what he essentially is, a rogue who plays by his own rules because hardly any others apply to him.  The best issues this year, #s 5-7, involve his relationship with a French vampire, La Sangre, and her own battles, a sidestep from the Shade's investigation into an attempt on his life, which has led him into the darkest secrets of his family line.  This is another book I am incredulous to see get so little critical or popular attention, not the least for its pedigree or its own worth.

Wasteland (Oni)
I've only just been able to read this series again after several years of its scarce availability and inconsistent publishing schedule, but a new artist has not dulled the impact of Antony Johnston's epic vision of an apocalyptic future where the past has become both a mystery and legend and the present is dominated by religious beliefs that don't much ken to outsiders, especially when those outsiders happen to be Michael and Abi, who hold many secrets, not to mention the key to explaining everything.  The story is rapidly bringing them closer to the fabled city of A-Ree-Yass-I, a destination readers have known about from the beginning, making this book that is in so many ways so similar to The Walking Dead, and in more important ways, besides far fewer readers, so different, and better, focused in a way that allows for a heartbreaking world where power rarely saves you from misery, but merely provides a temporary delusion, as the assassin Gerr discovered in #38.

Unbeatable Comics: The Shade #9

writer: James Robinson
artist: Frazer Irving

Having had an opportunity recently to catch up with this series, I've become more eager to read more.

Beginning the final arc of the twelve-issue run, Robinson finally reveals who in his family line was interested in murdering Richard Swift, the Shade.  Turns out his enemies are both in league with gods, and in control of them (Egyptian, in case you were wondering).  In fact, by the of the issue, for the first time in centuries, he's powerless.  Yeah, the stakes have gone way up.

Although the character has possessed spectacular powers since he first appeared, the Shade has never really been defined by them.  Robinson has gone out of his way to write him more for his deep connection to legacy.  In Starman, he was Jack Knight's best connection to legacy.  Jack's father, Ted Knight, was the original Starman, by was now an old man.  Jack's brother, David, died in the first arc of the series, and was the reason why the reluctant collector of novelties accepted the role of superhero in the first place.  The Shade was once a supervillain, but had grown more ambiguous over time, less interested in taking an active role, perhaps because he no longer felt he had much purpose.  Jack helped give him purpose again, and helped redefine him as a theoretical force for good.

The Shade so far has been steeped heavily in the character's history, with two "Times Past" issues (one of the recurring elements of Starman, along with "Conversations with David"), while the last arc saw how his long relationship with La Sangre has affected both their careers.  We've gotten to see a portrait of Richard Swift that has convincingly presented him as more interesting than even Jack Knight.  Of course, "ambiguous" is the key term here, and perhaps that's why few readers have been reluctant to embrace his successor, because unlike a reluctant superhero, there's no easy thing to grasp onto with this story.  The Shade is not a hero and is not even a villain in Robinson's intricate vision.

Speaking of visions, art chores are now given to Frazer Irving.  I guess I didn't expect that the art would change with every arc, but now that there've been several, and several good ones, there's no more denying that this was always the plan.  Irving is yet another coup, and a testament to DC's interest in seeing the best for this project.

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.

Many Happy Returns

ATOMIC ROBO PRESENTS REAL SCIENCE ADVENTURES #2 (Red 5)

I haven’t read a new Atomic Robo adventure science Free Comic Book Day.  Excuse me, let me clarify, FCBD 2011.  I didn’t read this year’s installment, because for the first time in five years, I missed FCBD.  Heroes & Dragons doesn’t participate.  I may ask them if they can at least get me copies of the free comics I wanted (the annual Atomic Robo offering, plus my regular dose of free DC).  Anyway, back to the matter at hand, I’ve just read Atomic Robo, which I’ve enjoyed doing for four years, give or take, now.  His adventures have been among the most clever material I’ve ever read in a comic book, as if BONE had never gone into deep fantasy, and remained lighthearted.  It’s primarily been the work of writer Brian Clevinger and artist Scott Wegener, but the distinctive appearance of the character has long inspired fan art, and so it was only a matter of time before Wegener actually gave way to other artists.  REAL SCIENCE ADVENTURES is essentially an anthology title that accomplishes exactly that, Clevinger delivering exactly the same kind of witty, sparse storytelling, and our first chance to see variations on the basic style already well-established (there are six paperback collections if you’d like to see for yourself).  There are clear parallels between Robo and Hellboy, but whereas Hellboy is involved in fairly steep mythology and franchise at this point, Robo is still his trademark blissfully carefree self, like the most pure form of what a comic book should be.  In fact, if that’s how you want to consider Atomic Robo, then I would encourage and endorse that view!

AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #7 (Marvel)

At the start of the year, I rather pithily dismissed the launch of this series, but now I get to benefit, so I’m going to quickly and quietly reverse my position, if only for one issue.  I’m a big fan of Stuart Immonen (and his frequent collaborator and wife, Kathryn), but until this issue I haven’t seen the Marvel version of Stuart Immonen compare favorably to the transcendent version I enjoyed at DC at the end of the last millennium.  I would go so far as to say that version of Stuart Immonen as one of the best creators of his generation, both as writer and artist.  The Marvel version of Stuart Immonen has tried a variety of ways to be the exact opposite of that Stuart Immonen, and suffice it to say, I really don’t see the point.  So it was with great pleasure that I saw this issue, which features Spidey teaming up with She-Hulk in a throwback adventure in so many ways.  It’s at once an argument that Stuart should do Peter Parker (he did Pete once before, in ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, but that was Bendis Spider-Man, not Immonen Spider-Man), and that maybe he wouldn’t be such a bad fit for She-Hulk, either (and yes, I acknowledge that Kathryn was the writer of this tale and not Stuart, but for me, when Stuart’s art is the art I best associate with Stuart, the whole story becomes associated with him).  So, Marvel, take note, or if you don’t, then at least let Stuart notice that at least some of his fans are.  This might have been a random issue of a series that doesn’t really seem to have a coherent point to it, but its significance is greater than you can imagine.

HISTORY OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE (Marvel)

One of Marvel’s periodic attempts to chronicle its own fictional history in a journalistic fashion, this comic is also evidence that Marvel has produced many, many stories with a bare minimum of coherence, which may be fun to read at the time, but don’t actually make up a history that inspires a lot of confidence.  This is what people think of when they think of comic books, and maybe that helped THE AVENGERS wildly succeed as a movie, but it’s not a lot to take seriously, unless you don’t look very closely.  A DC version of this would read differently, is all I’m saying.  I know that MARVELS managed to make this kind of history lesson look remarkably impressive, and maybe the same thing could be done today with the same effect, but to see how many times Marvel has changed characters and attempted to kill them off, only to backpedal and still pretend that every single story its ever told actually exists in continuity, well…to a perpetual skeptic who can still appreciate the odd story, it just beggars the mind.  Fans really prefer, on general majority, Marvel to DC?  Maybe it’s because Marvel does the cliché comic better than anyone, I don’t know.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but every now and again, it’s probably worth living up to the hype instead of coasting on reputation.  Just saying…

JUSTICE LEAGUE #9 (DC)

Speaking of which, this is a book that many fans seem to assume is doing exactly that, when it’s doing anything but.  Geoff Johns has been building a coherent story since the launch, and this is an issue that really rewards faith in that, even if you haven’t always been, pardon me, a true believer.  His angle has from the start been about the world’s perception of the League which is why Steve Trevor is relevant as a character for the first time in decades, and why a new villain named Graves (for the moment?) may be the most significant new adversary for the team since Prometheus, emerging first as an anonymous cheerleader who literally wrote the book about the team, and then became embittered and disillusioned, an arc Mark Waid tried to do in THE KINGDOM, but which here may actually work.  The best comic book stories in this millennium will always tell stories on at least two levels: 1) from the ordinary perspective of the characters involved, and 2) from the greater perspective of how that story relates to the world the characters live in, which more or less means they work on objective and subjective levels.  There are many ways to do this, and Geoff Johns has perfected his, first with Green Lantern, and now with the Justice League.  Sit back and enjoy the ride.

NIGHTWING #9 (DC)

Random attacks by the Talons in “Night of the Owls” continue, and for Nightwing, they’re surprisingly personal.  Kyle Higgins continues to exploit his opportunity to give the Grayson family line the same amount of depth writers have been giving the Waynes for years, so that Dick Grayson is no longer just the orphaned son of circus performers who served as a useful surrogate for Bruce Wayne’s war on crime, but rather someone with a rich history of his own.  In fact, Scott Snyder seems to have unwittingly ceded the most relevant part of his epic to his partner in crime.  This issue reveals both the strengths and the weaknesses in the concept of the Court of Owls, how random an opponent they really are, and how convoluted it is to make them relevant in the way they’re supposed to be.  Higgins, though, makes it work in surprising fashion, and it would do well for future Nightwing writers to remember this issue.  This is a greater concern than you’d think, because most new Nightwing writers tend to ignore what’s come before them (there are exceptions, but then if there weren’t, there wouldn’t be a rule).  What Higgins is really doing here is establishing once and for all that Dick Grayson is a viable character in his own right.  I for one hope that Higgins remains onboard for many years to come.

PETER PANZERFAUST #3 (Image)

I’ve been intrigued by this title ever since I learned of its existence.  This is the first issue I’ve actually been able to read, but I’m still infinitely glad and gratified.  Peter Pan as a cultural icon is fascinating, the first time in pop entertainment where a child is held up as an ideal, even if he’s a deeply flawed one, suggesting that youth and experience are not always mutually exclusive in surprisingly profound ways.  Of course, one of the distinctions in the traditional story is Peter’s relationship with Wendy, and by sheer coincidence, this issue of PETER PANZERFAUST, a vision of the character by Kurtis Wiebe that recasts him into WWII, is the introduction of Wendy into the narrative.  Sometimes luck really does work that way.  I don’t know how long this series can last, but I’ll be a faithful reader for as long as possible.

SAUCER COUNTRY #3 (Vertigo)

Not surprisingly, this is going to be a series that deepens its own mythology with every new issue, exploring and meditating on the same themes as they unfold, one narrative and vision, which just so happens to be pretty profound.  What is the proper relationship one should have with fringe experiences?  Like the TV show FRINGE, SAUCER COUNTRY does not have easy answers, but Paul Cornell wastes no time getting beyond that and plunging deeply into his story.  Maybe things won’t happen very quickly, but they’ll be interesting.

THE SHADE #8 (DC)

I’m still shocked that most fans have skipped out on this one, but pleased that DC saw fit to give James Robinson a full year to explore one of the more fascinating elements of his late, critically acclaimed STARMAN series, a reformed villain with a rich history and a thorny future, all of which is intertwined in this story.  I’ve missed three issues since the last time I was able to get my hands on THE SHADE, and you’ve got to know that ensuring I didn’t miss the rest of it was one of my primary concerns in opening a box at Heroes & Dragons. So then, here we go again.

Crossing the Threshold

ACTION COMICS #9 (DC)

Sometimes it takes seeing a familiar story in a new light to understand it.  Everyone has a chance to experience this, even if the first reaction is to reject the new version in favor of the familiar one; writers are faced with this challenge all the time.  The main difference between DC and Marvel is that DC has for most of its existence been reinventing itself and its most famous characters.  Grant Morrison accepted the biggest challenge of the New 52 by tackling Superman, who has long been accused of being irrelevant to today’s readers, a relic who survives on nostalgia and tradition.  True, he didn’t toss out or drastically remodel the Man of Steel (even the blue collar “costume” from the first few issues gave way to an updated version of what Superman has been wearing for some seven decades), but rather made some of the most familiar elements of the story as vibrant as he did, famously, in ALL STAR SUPERMAN.  This particular issue does that all over again, with an alternate Superman announced on the cover, who just so happens to still have Lex Luthor as a mortal enemy.  What’s truly interesting is an alternate Lois Lane and Clark Kent who stumble onto this world.  A couple of key differences, before we proceed: the lead Superman is black, and the visiting Clark Kent is not an ordinary guy.  And yet, like in ALL STAR SUPERMAN, Morrison dwells on one of the more overlooked aspects of the Last Son of Krypton, that his abilities do not stop at his powers, as both the Superman and Clark Kent in the story demonstrate.  Morrison never presents his vision of the icon as an infallibly brilliant individual (the delusion of which fuels Luthor and is also what many other characters and creators sometimes try to and horribly botch in execution); in this one issue, which is totally out of canon (but strongly suggests MULTIVERSITY, the project Morrison has been working on for several years now), Superman is both human and superhuman on multiple levels.  It’s essential reading in that regard alone, and is probably the best single story Morrison has done for the character.  As an added bonus, Sholly Fisch adds in his backup feature further ruminations that will challenge anyone who believes they’ve got everything figured out.  Read it and then tell me what I meant (it doesn’t hurt if I now suggest that you consider the presidency of George W. Bush).

BRILLIANT #3 (Icon)

I wrote my first letter to a comic book because of this, mostly because Brian Michael Bendis pitiably laments the lack of such things so far in the letters column he has to fill with an extended interview concerning current Marvel events (before shamelessly plugging his collected works, as he always does).  I love that he is one of the creators who still insists on having letters columns, even if I have not regularly read his books.  BRILLIANT is his reteaming with historic collaborator Mark Bagley (ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN), who is now thoroughly back in his element after the TRINITY experiment that killed DC’s weekly series concept by making it too cuddly (DC’s Big Three are many things, but they are not cuddly, and that’s the general Bagley style).  “Brilliant” is also the way to describe this effort from Bendis, who can get a little carried away with doing a million variations on the same Avengers story without really getting anywhere (yes, HOUSE OF M got somewhere, but it took other creators to get there), though when he’s focused (such as in POWERS or introducing Miles Morales or Peter Parker) he’s really good.  BRILLIANT features a focused Bendis, working with a whole group of precocious teenage geniuses this time, who have created superpowers and now don’t know exactly what to do about it.  This ought to be a really good ride.

EARTH 2 #1 (DC)

James Robinson is a creator who can either get fans to love him or get them to hate him, and it really depends, like Bendis (but with the fans actually caring about the results), if he’s got a good handle on what he’s trying to accomplish.  STARMAN, for instance, was James Robinson knowing what he wanted to do.  EARTH 2 looks like it be Robinson working like that again, but it may be a little early.  Most of this debut issue features a variation on the story Geoff Johns told in the opening arc of JUSTICE LEAGUE, the invasion of Earth by the forces of Apokolips, and the shocking sacrifices of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to get the job done this time.  The fascinating implication of this setup is that the Justice Society characters who for several generations now have represented a quasi-older generation of superheroes even they were all created after Superman, who only had the benefit of sustained popularity to keep him youthful and current for decades, will finally get to be the second generation again.  Maybe that’s why DC did away with the name “Justice Society” in the nU, much as in an earlier time these heroes gave way to their own succeeding generation in an alternate timeline, with Infinity, Inc.  That’s really the best way to explain EARTH 2, as a way to remove the dust from characters with a rich history but who have even in their second Golden Age (the two ongoing series Geoff Johns helped launch, the first with the help of Robinson) been reduced to heroes who can hardly be expected to be the first line of defense, always supporting others, second-class citizens even though they also helped inspire everything DC is now.  Well, now Alan Scott won’t just be that guy who wasn’t a member of the Green Lantern Corps but nonetheless worked under the name Green Lantern; he’ll be his own man.  Here’s to seeing what Robinson actually does with this.

NIGHTWING #8 (DC)

Kyle Higgins was a virtual unknown when he was announced as the writer of the New 52 NIGHTWING, which caused me all kinds of panic, since I believed that Dick Grayson was being relegated back to relative obscurity, even though he’s been around since virtually the start of the Batman saga.  But Higgins started his DC journey on BATMAN: GATES OF GOTHAM, a mini-series he co-wrote with Scott Snyder, who has for many readers become the new definitive Dark Knight creator and current ringleader of the Court of Owls epic.  GATES OF GOTHAM has itself become increasingly important, which is unusual for a mini-series, though not totally unheard-of, especially for Batman (examples to include SWORD OF AZRAEL, for instance, or just about every relevant Bane appearance outside of “Knightfall”), and yes, Higgins is now getting to take advantage of that fact within NIGHTWING, especially in this issue, and how Dick factors into “Night of the Owls.”  That’s as much as you need to know to enjoy this issue, which may be the most important one of the series so far.  It’s a strong indication, too, that Higgins knows exactly how to keep Dick Grayson’s profile both high and significant, and that’s a very good thing.