Although this is a back issues feature that doesn't necessarily always feature comics literally found in a quarter bin, this time you can once again safely assume that.
The Infinity Entity #1 (Marvel)
From May 2016.
I love that my local shop puts damaged new releases in the discount bins. It makes it incredibly simple to sample stuff I might have otherwise overlooked, such as Jim Starlin once again revisiting his Infinity saga. Starlin's the guy who has been guiding this stuff from the beginning. You have him to thank for Thanos, that guy who's kind of the big bad in the Avengers movies, and basically, the Infinity saga is Starlin's ongoing narrative of the further exploits of Thanos, and other interested parties, such as Adam Warlock. This mini-series actually takes place between two Starlin graphic novels, Thanos: The Infinity Relativity and Thanos: The Infinity Finale, which was released this past April. Infinity Entity focuses on Adam Warlock as he reintroduces himself following one of those untidy comic book deaths. It's amusing, seeing him interact with the original Avengers. These are Marvel comics I eagerly anticipate reading at some later date, the older and newer stuff. This is, you understand, not something I usually say about Marvel comics...
Iron Man #9 (Marvel)
From July 1997.
I think so much of what Marvel was doing in the '90s came off as desperately trying to look cool (possibly because, oh, the fate of the entire company was in the air thanks to potential bankruptcy) that it ended up alienating older fans and leaving newer fans with the impression that none of this mattered, once the company shifted focus back to more familiar ground. I rarely read Iron Man comics (I've just never been interested), but I figured I had to read this one, as it was written by Jeph Loeb, during that whole period where he was writing Marvel comics without anyone realizing it was Jeph Loeb, because being Jeph Loeb didn't matter until fans got excited about him thanks to DC work like Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman/Batman (which is ironic, because he never gets the same respect at Marvel, and yet that's where he's been for about a decade now). This story features an old Tony Stark colleague who was actually partly responsible for the original set of Iron Man armor, and has since kind of gone off the deep end. Naturally, the guy is totally unknown in today's lore (didn't see him in 2008's Iron Man, right?), and so he's been lost to the same comic book vagaries and/or '90s amnesia that are so easy to rely on with fans. I didn't find it to be such a bad read.
JLA: Act of God #3 (DC)
From 2001.
Doug Moench was one of the lead Batman writers in the '90s (among other things, helping spearhead "Knightfall" and the vampire saga with Kelley Jones; he also created Bane and Black Mask, as well as Deathlok and Moon Knight over at Marvel, where he did most of his formative work). One of his last projects with DC was a prestige format JLA mini-series, Act of God, where he imagined what it would look like if all superpowered heroes suddenly lost their superpowers. By this finale, several of them had banded under the direction of Batman, while Superman and Wonder Woman struggle with finding new meaning in their lives. It's not terribly hard, in retrospect, to read it as Moench's swan song statement, and so I'm glad to have read it.
Justice League of America #8 (DC)
From May 2016.
Bryan Hitch's Rao saga continues in this issue, and I suspect the next one finally explains why all those dead Superman bodies kept showing up, as depicted in the first issue of the series. Hitch's art was once known for its hyper realism, but in this series it's been simplified so that it kind of looks like the work of Stuart Immonen. As a fan of Immonen, I find this acceptable. Hitch is the writer of the Rebirth Justice League (along with art from Tony Daniel), and I think this was a good choice.
The Kingdom: Offspring (DC)
From February 1999.
The Kingdom was Mark Waid's follow-up to Kingdom Come insofar as it depicted many of the next generation heroes from the original story, and featured the menace of Gog, who was responsible for next generation hero Magog. The Kingdom was split up between bookend issues where the overall story was told, and several one-shots. This may be the first time I've read Offspring, which features the son of Plastic Man. Both of them are struggling with the idea of being taken seriously, and as such Offspring makes for a good standalone story in and of itself. It doesn't hurt that Frank Quitely provides the art, because Quitely isn't really capable of doing ho-hum work.
It's interesting, though, The Kingdom, because it's an example of what DC always wanted to do, and eventually did, with Watchmen. I've talked far too much recently about Alan Moore (elsewhere), but suffice to say I find it disappointing that he left mainstream work the way he did, and wanted no part in revisiting Watchmen. For a lot of fans, that's become axiomatic, which strikes me as interesting, because this is the comics medium, the place where storytellers are most free to reinterpret, the basic job of storytellers everywhere, ever. And yet, there's Waid, doing it with Kingdom Come, not very long after. I mean, it makes sense from a business standpoint. DC, and its parent company Warners, would understandably be interested in maximizing the profitability of a proven hit. That's just basic business sense. I never thought The Kingdom was or was intended to be the same kind of creative statement as its predecessor, but it still provided room for material like Offspring, which represents excellent material in and of itself. To assume that this is impossible is, to my mind, to completely misunderstand the art of storytelling.
It's interesting, too, just to reconsider Kingdom Come, thanks to something like Offspring. This was something that was a major deal twenty years ago. It's not inconceivable to think that fans really did think this was something akin to Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns. Yet, twenty years on, you really don't find anyone talking about it like that anymore. I find that odd. The more I think about it, the more I wonder, have we just lost the ability to conceive new touchstones as actually existing? Without Kingdom Come, you wouldn't have Civil War. I mean, Mark Millar's Civil War, when you strip it down to its essentials, is essentially Kingdom Come, done in regular continuity. Tragedy strikes, and the superhero community is forced to decide what to do next. Isn't that argument enough that Kingdom Come is still important? It's just, we stopped trying to see it as important, when it proved about as important as a superhero comic could get. DC had Identity Crisis, later, and Marvel finally jumped on the bandwagon. Civil War was clearly a creative watershed for the company. And you wouldn't have it without Kingdom Come. I'll leave it at that for now.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #6 (ABC)
From September 2000.
Alan Moore's last significant creation was LXG, in which he envisioned a unified Victorian literary canon, which infamously was adapted into a 2003 movie that not only proved to be Sean Connery's last, but the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of Moore's ability to interact positively with the mainstream. (The movie also made it important among fans that movies not treat, to their mind, adapted material with disrespect, which actually had the result of superhero movies after that time being more important in terms of mainstream crossover appeal than appealing directly to fans, which in 2016 seems to have taken on new wrinkles thanks to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in which fans have once again sunk their teeth into the debate). Anyway, reading LXG itself is something of an odd experience. Creatively it's not much of a statement. More seems to have been put into the novelty of packaging the comic in vintage ads and, in the letters column, being wonderfully droll than in distinguishing the story experience itself. At this point Moore had started to retreat into the familiar comforts of home, and yet the comic doesn't read as particularly British (that's why Paul Cornell's Knight & Squire was such a delight to read), and even if that wasn't the intent, just tossing familiar characters together reads like a cheat. I mean, the old Allan Quatermain makes a fascinating subject, surely, in the same sense that comics with old superheroes (say, The Dark Knight Returns) tend to be, but it's odd to juxtapose him with, say, Moore's somewhat racist impression of Captain Nemo. Quatermain (best known as the protagonist of King's Solomon's Mines, and as a cultural predecessor of Indiana Jones) and Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) are surrounded by Mina Murray (Dracula), although for what reason, if not a vampire (as in the movie), I have no idea, at least as depicted in this story (more sense would have been Van Helsing, who was the subject of Van Helsing, which like LXG served as a template for Marvel's Avengers), the Invisible Man, and Jekyll/Hyde, plus Professor Moriarty as the antagonist (by the end, as much of a genius as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan's Khan), a predecessor to James Bond, and some Chinese characters who perhaps deserve about as much speculation as Moore's Nemo...
I feel I have to reiterate that I don't come by my impression of Alan Moore lightly. I haven't read everything he's done, and wouldn't particularly care to, even if the best of it is better than the worst that I have read. I'm just irritated, irrationally, by the notion that to some fans Alan Moore is a god, and that his views and his work can't stand criticism, when to my mind not only is it possible, but necessary for any true reader. I mean, it's not like I'm not used to people picking on the stuff I like. I know how it goes. Maybe some of this logic is best left to fanatics. We all form strong opinions, and to give voice to them, whether in the privacy of friends or in the wide reaches of the Internet, is to invite contrary opinions. To dismiss the opposite as an idiot is maybe the easiest response. But just maybe, it ought to have you reconsider why it is you formed those strong opinions in the first place.
Well, we all reconsider our thoughts, eventually. Hopefully. I guess I really shouldn't worry about it.
Showing posts with label Jim Starlin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jim Starlin. Show all posts
Friday, June 17, 2016
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Reading Comics 156 "Impending Secret Wars"
And thus the new version of Secret Wars that's about to commence.
Maybe there's more to it than that. I'm not sure how much I should care. I know this much: the company has been making various decisions that make it look like "everything will be different" post-Secret Wars (this is the usual statement post-any event). And maybe once announcements start coming about what does result (DC started making such announcements at a fairly rapid pace, so that fans knew what to expect post-Convergence before Convergence itself even began), I can quit worrying and maybe learn to embrace Secret Wars.
Or not.
What's clear at this point is that while DC chose to represent certain eras in its version of this event, Marvel is evoking acclaimed stories, and it has been releasing handy one-dollar reprints of first issues for these stories. The Infinity Gauntlet edition is the only one so far that I actually took up on as an offering.
(I passed on Age of Apocalypse after some consideration; I've never read this event, but it always seemed pretty interesting, although recently I read an analysis of it that was not particularly flattering. Also, I saw what's inside Armor Wars. A lot of extremely dated art. I passed quite eagerly on that one.)
Like Convergence, Secret Wars is featuring a bunch of spin-off mini-series. The only one I'm interested in is Old Man Logan, to be written by Brian Michael Bendis. It's inspired by a classic story arc from the mind of Mark Millar, which I greatly enjoyed in its original incarnation. Does Bendis has something interesting to say? Oh, "Old Man Logan" refers to Wolverine. In-continuity Wolverine is still dead, by the way. But his publishing schedule remains undaunted.
Anyway, I didn't really pick up the Infinity Gauntlet reprint because of Secret Wars specifically. I picked it up because of Infinity Gauntlet itself. This was Jim Starlin's opus, the culmination of his Thanos stories. You know, Thanos, as in the guy at the end of The Avengers who grins in the general direction of the audience when his lackey equates fighting the eponymous heroes with "courting death." This is because Thanos obsessively courts Death, literally. Everything he does is because he loves the silly gal.
And no, not the version in Neil Gaiman's Sandman. (That might be easier to understand. She's kinda cute.) Starlin figured out a way to convert Thanos from a blatant ripoff of DC's Darkseid to a Shakespearean tragic figure, who has no idea how ridiculous his quest really is. Death literally resurrects him to play into her hand, not because she loves him or respects his obsessive courtship (I mean, who would?).
Whenever Starlin focuses on Thanos, his storytelling is blameless. It's when he focuses on anything but that the wheels wobble. Sure, Silver Surfer and Dr. Strange are fine and all, but they're not Thanos, and the three don't amount to the inhabitants of every panel. And other characters are not to par.
Basically, Infinity Gauntlet is absolutely worth your time. Thanos is the standard by which all cosmic villains should be rated. But finding a story that at any point deviates from his specific perspective is perhaps a challenge too great for even Jim Starlin.
Ah, which means, if Jonathan Hickman uses Thanos in Secret Wars, which certainly seems to be the implication, he ought to be careful indeed...But then, how likely is it that Secret Wars itself will be anything but a random series of "everything-changes-forever!" nonsense? You know, in a way that Convergence isn't?
Yeah...
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Quarter Bin #52 "Grant Morrison, Cosmic Odyssey"
Comics featured in this column were not necessary bought in in a quarter bin. This is a back issues feature.
Animal Man #24 (DC)
From June 1990.
Animal Man #25
From July 1990.
Recently Zimmie's (my local comics shop these days) actually had a selection of bargain back issues. I love poring through boxes of this stuff. Fortunately, wherever this selection came from had a keen interest in Grant Morrison. I've read both these issues already (collected in Animal Man: Deus Ex Machina, the most memorable and iconic volume of his run). The first issue features Superhero Limbo, which rereading the complete Final Crisis made me realize is a concept Morrison actually revisited. The second has Buddy Baker on the verge of finally breaking the fourth wall, meeting Morrison himself, on his way to realizing he really is a character in a comic book. The more recent Animal Man comics (recently concluded) from Jeff Lemire has been the closest to this era the character has come in years, although without all the existential awareness.
Cosmic Odyssey #4 (DC)
From 1988.
One of several DC crossover events (including Legends, Genesis, and the aforementioned Final Crisis) to feature Jack Kirby's New Gods as the primary context, this is the event that became best known for Green Lantern John Stewart's from-that-point defining moment of losing an entire planet on his watch. In this issue he grapples with suicidal grief, with Martian Manhunter helping him get over the hump. The writer is Jim Starlin, which is hugely appropriate, given that this is a Darkseid story, and Starlin is best known for his Darkseid pastiche, Thanos (coming soon to Marvel movies everywhere!) in such crossover events as The Infinity Gauntlet. The artist is Mike Mignola in perhaps his best-known work prior to creating Hellboy. Aside from John Stewart, it's always been Mignola's work that I wanted to experience from this event. If I were DC, I would keep all of these New Gods crossover events in print.
Doom Patrol #22 (DC)
From May 1989.
Doom Patrol #29
From January 1990.
I didn't buy all of the Grant Morrisons in the selection, but picked and chose. The first of these two Doom Patrol issues is the finale to his opening arc, "Crawling from the Wreckage," which I hadn't read before (it would help, I assume, to read the complete story). The second is the finale to "The Painting That Ate Paris," a story I have read in its entirety. Aside from the narration from a poorly educated man (amply reflected in his poor spelling), this issue may perhaps best be known for Morrison's first handling of DC's icons (aside from, I guess, Arkham Asylum). Doom Patrol has recently resurfaced in Forever Evil and Justice League. This team is the original X-Men, just as the Challengers of the Unknown are the original Fantastic Four. Morrison tended to take an extremely surreal approach to the team, the first version of his Invisibles, as it were.
Animal Man #24 (DC)
From June 1990.
Animal Man #25
From July 1990.
Recently Zimmie's (my local comics shop these days) actually had a selection of bargain back issues. I love poring through boxes of this stuff. Fortunately, wherever this selection came from had a keen interest in Grant Morrison. I've read both these issues already (collected in Animal Man: Deus Ex Machina, the most memorable and iconic volume of his run). The first issue features Superhero Limbo, which rereading the complete Final Crisis made me realize is a concept Morrison actually revisited. The second has Buddy Baker on the verge of finally breaking the fourth wall, meeting Morrison himself, on his way to realizing he really is a character in a comic book. The more recent Animal Man comics (recently concluded) from Jeff Lemire has been the closest to this era the character has come in years, although without all the existential awareness.
Cosmic Odyssey #4 (DC)
From 1988.
One of several DC crossover events (including Legends, Genesis, and the aforementioned Final Crisis) to feature Jack Kirby's New Gods as the primary context, this is the event that became best known for Green Lantern John Stewart's from-that-point defining moment of losing an entire planet on his watch. In this issue he grapples with suicidal grief, with Martian Manhunter helping him get over the hump. The writer is Jim Starlin, which is hugely appropriate, given that this is a Darkseid story, and Starlin is best known for his Darkseid pastiche, Thanos (coming soon to Marvel movies everywhere!) in such crossover events as The Infinity Gauntlet. The artist is Mike Mignola in perhaps his best-known work prior to creating Hellboy. Aside from John Stewart, it's always been Mignola's work that I wanted to experience from this event. If I were DC, I would keep all of these New Gods crossover events in print.
Doom Patrol #22 (DC)
From May 1989.
Doom Patrol #29
From January 1990.
 |
| via Simon Bisley Gallery |
I didn't buy all of the Grant Morrisons in the selection, but picked and chose. The first of these two Doom Patrol issues is the finale to his opening arc, "Crawling from the Wreckage," which I hadn't read before (it would help, I assume, to read the complete story). The second is the finale to "The Painting That Ate Paris," a story I have read in its entirety. Aside from the narration from a poorly educated man (amply reflected in his poor spelling), this issue may perhaps best be known for Morrison's first handling of DC's icons (aside from, I guess, Arkham Asylum). Doom Patrol has recently resurfaced in Forever Evil and Justice League. This team is the original X-Men, just as the Challengers of the Unknown are the original Fantastic Four. Morrison tended to take an extremely surreal approach to the team, the first version of his Invisibles, as it were.
Monday, November 25, 2013
My All-time Favorite Comic Books, 10-1
The final countdown...!
#10. Geoff Johns's Green Lantern
Creators: Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, various
Publication dates: 2004-2013
Issues: Green Lantern: Rebirth 1-6, Green Lantern 1-67, 0-20, Blackest Night 1-8
Green Lantern was already my favorite comic book franchise when Johns strolled into the story in 2004. I thought I already had my definitive era in Ron Marz's Kyle Rayner. Then Johns brought Hal Jordan back, and exploded the whole mythology. I mean, literally, he took the basic building blocks and figured out the best possible expansion, and led the whole thing to its greatest heights. It's the epitome of creative storytelling, the single best innovative run in superhero comic book history, one that will continue to be felt for years. I mean, even Larfleeze has gotten his own ongoing series now. Larfleeze! How awesome is that? Saint Walker made it into the pre-New 52 Justice League, the Red Lanterns have had their own series since the DC relaunch, and Johns has made a strong case for a Sinestro series. No one would have ever thought that possible before 2004. That's the definition of a substantial legacy.
#9. Air
Creators: G. Willow Wilson, M.K. Perker
Publication dates: 2008-2010
Issues: 1-24
Along with 52 part of a very select group to top my annual QB50 list twice, Air was an unabashed obsession of mine throughout its publication, even though it struggled to find an audience that did not have the name "Tony Laplume." But it was brilliant, typical of the Vertigo breed in having a distinct and imaginative mythology, but atypical in its intimate approach, like Sandman without all the Goth touches. G. Willow Wilson managed to spin a conspiracy and hero journey into one yarn. The closest proximity I've found since was the similarly short-lived Saucer Country. As with most of my selections, widely deserves a much larger audience.
#8. Cobra
Creators: Mike Costa, Antonio Fuso, Christos Gage
Publication dates: 2009-2013
Issues: 1-4, Special 1-2, 1-13, 1-21, The Cobra Files 1-9
This is basically everything I loved about Superboy and the Ravers, The Great Ten, Seven Soldiers of Victory, and Young Avengers in a nonsuperhero title, and surprisingly with another famous franchise it managed to totally reinvent from the outset, featuring an obscure Joe named Chuckles in the mission of his life, a reboot timeline where Cobra is just being discovered. And from there, it's basically the Assange/Snowden/NSA era well before any of those scandals broke, one brilliant bit of character exploration after another in a world of paranoia and secrets, an unexpected phenomenon publisher IDW never expected, assuming it had merely a good mini-series when it acquired G.I. Joe in 2008, leading to a series of extensions that eventually transformed the whole line with the sensational death of Cobra Commander. You don't need to know or care about the franchise to love this saga. You just need to love great comics.
#7. Sandman
Creators: Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, various
Publication dates: 1989-1996
Issues: 1-75
For simplicity's sake I'm sticking to the original series rather than also include subsequent additional materials, such as the recently-launched Sandman Overture mini-series. Simply put, this one needs no introduction. It's perhaps the most literary comic book ever published, filled with classical elements and one of the best-known mythologies outside of superheroes ever created. It's a masterpiece. Move along, move along.
#6. Bone
Creators: Jeff Smith
Publication dates: 1991-2004
Issues: 1-55
This one I owe entirely to a friend who was obsessed with it. For a while, there was a very small cult audience obsessed with it. And it expanded, thanks to word of mouth. It started making in-roads to full-blown mainstream awareness. There was talk of a movie. All of this is for good reason. Like a cartoon strip wedded perfectly to epic fantasy (such as you would never have believed possible until Bone), Jeff Smith's vision was a dream come to life, so popular Image for a while took over publication, until it went back to Smith's own company, where it completed its epic journey, only to be reborn in a series of reprints, where its legacy (as I've been hoping throughout this list for many other series) has grown. Oh, and because it's my favorite phrase from Bone: stupid, stupid rat creatures...
#5. Wasteland
Creators: Antony Johnston, Christopher Mitten, Justin Greenwood
Publication dates: 2006-2014
Issues: 1-60
I've attempted for years to be an ambassador to this series, a classic post-apocalyptic yarn that explodes the genre into a startlingly rich landscape filled with intricate relationships between isolated figures. Unlike The Walking Dead, Wasteland has made the riddle of what created the world after the Big Wet the whole point, except it's taken the whole journey to reach it. In the meantime social politics have defined the story, especially the betrayals at the heart of life in Newbegin, the perfect representation of civilization after civilization's end. My favorite character remains Michael, a sort of Wolverine if Wolverine had never joined the X-Men.
#4. 52
Creators: Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, Keith Giffen, various
Publication dates: 2006-2007
Issues: 1-52
DC's first weekly series in years, an ambitious effort to put out a new issue every week for a year, could have been its riskiest gamble ever. Instead it turned out to be a stroke of genius, one of the best single comics it ever put out, following a hodgepodge of characters who could never have been mistaken for the mainstream (although some of them, including Booster Gold and the new Batwoman, received their own ongoing series as a result) as they embark on the greatest stories of their careers, including the Elongated Man's long-awaited response to Identity Crisis and Black Adam's shot at redemption. The league of creators who wrote it remains a who's who, and to my mind in no small part to their participation in this book. The company's later attempts to duplicate this remarkable accomplishment never seemed to capture the same interest from the fans, but that's to be expected, although I would highly recommend Countdown, while the bi-weekly Brightest Day is another winner.
#3. The Death of Captain Marvel
Creators: Jim Starlin
Publication date: 1982
Issues: [graphic novel]
This is the comic book that made me a fan of comic books, and it is also among the first I ever read, and completely by accident, something my sister had randomly come across and I stole a look, and no joking, I was changed forever. The death of any comic book character wasn't as common in 1982 as it is today, and the true testament of this event is that Captain Marvel remains respectfully deceased. It's a surreal, literary exploration and epitaph for a character who was never really that popular but whose legacy was instantly cemented by this effort. What more could you ask for?
#2. Kingdom Come
Creators: Mark Waid, Alex Ross
Publication dates: 1996
Issues: 1-4
You might notice that I love my comics to be literary, and no superhero comic was ever more literary, not to mention seminal in my own creative development, than this landmark event that peered into the future of DC's icons and saw nothing good. Lois Lane dead. Superman forced into retirement. The next generation, led by Magog, the reverse of everything that had come before them. Narrated by a simple preacher and steeped in religious imagery (this is the secret origin of my obsession with the number 7, and why I subsequently adopted the term "seven thunders" from the Book of Revelations for what I always assumed must be my own magnum opus, because it was used in the previews for Kingdom Come), this was both creators at their absolute finest. One of them ended up chasing this achievement for years (Ross) while the other only occasionally revisited it (Waid, in The Kingdom event that was as close to Seven Soldiers of Victory as DC ever got before Grant Morrison), while Geoff Johns famously brought it all back in the pages of his Justice Society of America. Even Magog eventually entered the regular canon and had an ongoing series. Often seen as DC's response to Marvels, it is more accurately seen in its own distinctive light, which is ultimately a more hopeful version of The Dark Knight Returns, taken on the grand scale.
#1. "The Return of Barry Allen"
Creators: Mark Waid, Greg LaRocque
Publication dates: 1993
Issues: The Flash 74-79
I choose to include only one storyline from Mark Waid's extended run on The Flash for a specific reason, because it was the earliest and best example of the whole thing, which often lived up to its potential and sometimes didn't (and the best of it wasn't even in the pages of The Flash but rather Impulse), so it's better to remember what remains the most memorable than complicate matters. Because "The Return of Barry Allen" is most certainly the best of it. And for the record, it doesn't even feature Barry Allen. This was years before Barry came back. The Flash throughout Waid's run was Wally West ("and I'm the Fastest Man Alive"), the third speedster to carry the name, and he was keenly aware of the whole mythology, which before Geoff Johns on Green Lantern, Waid was the first to attempt a wholesale expansion, introducing the concept of the Speed Force and old as well as new faces to the family, including my personal favorite, Max Mercury, the Zen Master of Speed. If there is any weakening to this legacy, it's perhaps that even Waid seemed to let it slip by the wayside after a while, perhaps after "Dead Heat" (acknowledged within the pages of Johns's The Flash: Rebirth with a cameo by the villain Savitar), while Johns himself in two separate runs (with Wally and Barry) went in different directions. Better, again, to remember it at its most pure, most perfect, most serene, most effective, when it's Wally struggling with his role in the grand scheme of things. James Robinson would later take the same basic concept to similar heights in the pages of Starman, but has no comparable single storyline to this one. This is the one, if you love superheroes and their legacies, that you have to read. This is the love letter of all love letters to the whole phenomenon.
(All covers via Comic Book Database.)
#10. Geoff Johns's Green Lantern
Creators: Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, various
Publication dates: 2004-2013
Issues: Green Lantern: Rebirth 1-6, Green Lantern 1-67, 0-20, Blackest Night 1-8
Green Lantern was already my favorite comic book franchise when Johns strolled into the story in 2004. I thought I already had my definitive era in Ron Marz's Kyle Rayner. Then Johns brought Hal Jordan back, and exploded the whole mythology. I mean, literally, he took the basic building blocks and figured out the best possible expansion, and led the whole thing to its greatest heights. It's the epitome of creative storytelling, the single best innovative run in superhero comic book history, one that will continue to be felt for years. I mean, even Larfleeze has gotten his own ongoing series now. Larfleeze! How awesome is that? Saint Walker made it into the pre-New 52 Justice League, the Red Lanterns have had their own series since the DC relaunch, and Johns has made a strong case for a Sinestro series. No one would have ever thought that possible before 2004. That's the definition of a substantial legacy.
#9. Air
Creators: G. Willow Wilson, M.K. Perker
Publication dates: 2008-2010
Issues: 1-24
Along with 52 part of a very select group to top my annual QB50 list twice, Air was an unabashed obsession of mine throughout its publication, even though it struggled to find an audience that did not have the name "Tony Laplume." But it was brilliant, typical of the Vertigo breed in having a distinct and imaginative mythology, but atypical in its intimate approach, like Sandman without all the Goth touches. G. Willow Wilson managed to spin a conspiracy and hero journey into one yarn. The closest proximity I've found since was the similarly short-lived Saucer Country. As with most of my selections, widely deserves a much larger audience.
#8. Cobra
Creators: Mike Costa, Antonio Fuso, Christos Gage
Publication dates: 2009-2013
Issues: 1-4, Special 1-2, 1-13, 1-21, The Cobra Files 1-9
This is basically everything I loved about Superboy and the Ravers, The Great Ten, Seven Soldiers of Victory, and Young Avengers in a nonsuperhero title, and surprisingly with another famous franchise it managed to totally reinvent from the outset, featuring an obscure Joe named Chuckles in the mission of his life, a reboot timeline where Cobra is just being discovered. And from there, it's basically the Assange/Snowden/NSA era well before any of those scandals broke, one brilliant bit of character exploration after another in a world of paranoia and secrets, an unexpected phenomenon publisher IDW never expected, assuming it had merely a good mini-series when it acquired G.I. Joe in 2008, leading to a series of extensions that eventually transformed the whole line with the sensational death of Cobra Commander. You don't need to know or care about the franchise to love this saga. You just need to love great comics.
#7. Sandman
Creators: Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, various
Publication dates: 1989-1996
Issues: 1-75
For simplicity's sake I'm sticking to the original series rather than also include subsequent additional materials, such as the recently-launched Sandman Overture mini-series. Simply put, this one needs no introduction. It's perhaps the most literary comic book ever published, filled with classical elements and one of the best-known mythologies outside of superheroes ever created. It's a masterpiece. Move along, move along.
#6. Bone
Creators: Jeff Smith
Publication dates: 1991-2004
Issues: 1-55
This one I owe entirely to a friend who was obsessed with it. For a while, there was a very small cult audience obsessed with it. And it expanded, thanks to word of mouth. It started making in-roads to full-blown mainstream awareness. There was talk of a movie. All of this is for good reason. Like a cartoon strip wedded perfectly to epic fantasy (such as you would never have believed possible until Bone), Jeff Smith's vision was a dream come to life, so popular Image for a while took over publication, until it went back to Smith's own company, where it completed its epic journey, only to be reborn in a series of reprints, where its legacy (as I've been hoping throughout this list for many other series) has grown. Oh, and because it's my favorite phrase from Bone: stupid, stupid rat creatures...
#5. Wasteland
Creators: Antony Johnston, Christopher Mitten, Justin Greenwood
Publication dates: 2006-2014
Issues: 1-60
I've attempted for years to be an ambassador to this series, a classic post-apocalyptic yarn that explodes the genre into a startlingly rich landscape filled with intricate relationships between isolated figures. Unlike The Walking Dead, Wasteland has made the riddle of what created the world after the Big Wet the whole point, except it's taken the whole journey to reach it. In the meantime social politics have defined the story, especially the betrayals at the heart of life in Newbegin, the perfect representation of civilization after civilization's end. My favorite character remains Michael, a sort of Wolverine if Wolverine had never joined the X-Men.
#4. 52
Creators: Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, Keith Giffen, various
Publication dates: 2006-2007
Issues: 1-52
DC's first weekly series in years, an ambitious effort to put out a new issue every week for a year, could have been its riskiest gamble ever. Instead it turned out to be a stroke of genius, one of the best single comics it ever put out, following a hodgepodge of characters who could never have been mistaken for the mainstream (although some of them, including Booster Gold and the new Batwoman, received their own ongoing series as a result) as they embark on the greatest stories of their careers, including the Elongated Man's long-awaited response to Identity Crisis and Black Adam's shot at redemption. The league of creators who wrote it remains a who's who, and to my mind in no small part to their participation in this book. The company's later attempts to duplicate this remarkable accomplishment never seemed to capture the same interest from the fans, but that's to be expected, although I would highly recommend Countdown, while the bi-weekly Brightest Day is another winner.
#3. The Death of Captain Marvel
Creators: Jim Starlin
Publication date: 1982
Issues: [graphic novel]
This is the comic book that made me a fan of comic books, and it is also among the first I ever read, and completely by accident, something my sister had randomly come across and I stole a look, and no joking, I was changed forever. The death of any comic book character wasn't as common in 1982 as it is today, and the true testament of this event is that Captain Marvel remains respectfully deceased. It's a surreal, literary exploration and epitaph for a character who was never really that popular but whose legacy was instantly cemented by this effort. What more could you ask for?
#2. Kingdom Come
Creators: Mark Waid, Alex Ross
Publication dates: 1996
Issues: 1-4
You might notice that I love my comics to be literary, and no superhero comic was ever more literary, not to mention seminal in my own creative development, than this landmark event that peered into the future of DC's icons and saw nothing good. Lois Lane dead. Superman forced into retirement. The next generation, led by Magog, the reverse of everything that had come before them. Narrated by a simple preacher and steeped in religious imagery (this is the secret origin of my obsession with the number 7, and why I subsequently adopted the term "seven thunders" from the Book of Revelations for what I always assumed must be my own magnum opus, because it was used in the previews for Kingdom Come), this was both creators at their absolute finest. One of them ended up chasing this achievement for years (Ross) while the other only occasionally revisited it (Waid, in The Kingdom event that was as close to Seven Soldiers of Victory as DC ever got before Grant Morrison), while Geoff Johns famously brought it all back in the pages of his Justice Society of America. Even Magog eventually entered the regular canon and had an ongoing series. Often seen as DC's response to Marvels, it is more accurately seen in its own distinctive light, which is ultimately a more hopeful version of The Dark Knight Returns, taken on the grand scale.
#1. "The Return of Barry Allen"
Creators: Mark Waid, Greg LaRocque
Publication dates: 1993
Issues: The Flash 74-79
I choose to include only one storyline from Mark Waid's extended run on The Flash for a specific reason, because it was the earliest and best example of the whole thing, which often lived up to its potential and sometimes didn't (and the best of it wasn't even in the pages of The Flash but rather Impulse), so it's better to remember what remains the most memorable than complicate matters. Because "The Return of Barry Allen" is most certainly the best of it. And for the record, it doesn't even feature Barry Allen. This was years before Barry came back. The Flash throughout Waid's run was Wally West ("and I'm the Fastest Man Alive"), the third speedster to carry the name, and he was keenly aware of the whole mythology, which before Geoff Johns on Green Lantern, Waid was the first to attempt a wholesale expansion, introducing the concept of the Speed Force and old as well as new faces to the family, including my personal favorite, Max Mercury, the Zen Master of Speed. If there is any weakening to this legacy, it's perhaps that even Waid seemed to let it slip by the wayside after a while, perhaps after "Dead Heat" (acknowledged within the pages of Johns's The Flash: Rebirth with a cameo by the villain Savitar), while Johns himself in two separate runs (with Wally and Barry) went in different directions. Better, again, to remember it at its most pure, most perfect, most serene, most effective, when it's Wally struggling with his role in the grand scheme of things. James Robinson would later take the same basic concept to similar heights in the pages of Starman, but has no comparable single storyline to this one. This is the one, if you love superheroes and their legacies, that you have to read. This is the love letter of all love letters to the whole phenomenon.
(All covers via Comic Book Database.)
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