My All-time Favorite Comic Books, 15-11

The list continues!

#15. Grant Morrison's Batman

Creators: Grant Morrison, Andy Kubert, Tony Daniel, Chris Burnham, various
Publication dates: 2006-2013
Issues: Batman 655-658, 663-683, 700-702, Batman and Robin 1-16, The Return of Brice Wayne 1-6, Batman Incorporated 1-8, Leviathan Strikes!, Batman Incorporated 0-10, 12-13

Morrison's epic vision of the Dark Knight is best defined by the Damian arc, the introduction of the first Robin to actually be the son of Batman.  He's explained that the two major villains of this run, Doctor Hurt and Talia, Damian's mother and Bruce Wayne's one-time lover, not to mention daughter of Ra's al Ghul, are father and mother figures for the hero best known for a tragic secret origin concerning the deaths of his parents.  A new defining mark for a comprehensive understanding of Batman mythos, these stories are a true test of all the Caped Crusader's most cherished beliefs, and a stark commentary on his legacy.  I would have ranked the run higher on the list, except I've been struggling with how it ended, and while I've come out the back end in a soundly positive way recently, I think I still need to read through the whole thing again for a proper final appreciation.  There are three distinctive acts to be explored, the events leading up to "R.I.P.," which involve Doctor Hurt; the Batman and Robin era, which feature Dick Grayson under the cowl and a heavy focus on Damian; and the Batman Incorporated era, which features a whole league of new allies and the final reckoning of Damian.  It's possible to be a partisan of any one of these, and that's the real trick, because sometimes I think I prefer the first the best, and other times I'm convinced the other two are equal contenders.  But as a whole?  As with anything else Morrison does, it's epic ambition beyond any ordinary scope.

#14. Seven Soldiers of Victory

Creators: Grant Morrison, various
Publication dates: 2005-2006
Issues: Seven Soldiers of Victory 0-1, Bulleteer 1-4, Frankenstein 1-4, Guardian 1-4, Klarion the Witch Boy 1-4, Mister Miracle 1-4, Shining Knight 1-4, Zatanna 1-4

The only thing more ambitious than Grant Morrison's Batman is his Seven Soldiers of Victory, the last sprawling effort of his on this list (but not last project; he dominates with five out of the twenty-five selections, plus a share in a sixth; his closest competitors are half that, although one of them has the top two slots and another shared listing in the top five, being Mark Waid, while Geoff Johns is the other).  Simply put, this project was breathtaking, and the reason I became a devoted fan of Morrison's.  An innovative look at the superhero staple of the team book, this was a team that did not actually operate as a team throughout the majority of the story, instead leading their own separate but linked adventures.  The biggest strength was that Morrison was able to demonstrate the full range of his talent, as no two characters in this line-up were the same type.  His Frankenstein elevated the character so far that it resulted in a New 52 ongoing series that lasted for sixteen issues, while his Shining Knight led in part to Demon Knights.  Just an incredible creative achievement, something no other single creator could have pulled off, or probably even considered.

#13. The Great Ten

Creators: Tony Bedard, Scott McDaniel
Publication dates: 2010
Issues: 1-9

This remains one of my most treasured undiscovered masterpieces.  You can tell that it was underappreciated from the start, considering the name of the team and book, and the fact that the issue count was reduced by one while it was still being published, and what a dirty shame.  This is Bedard and McDaniel achieving what Grant Morrison did in Seven Soldiers on an issue-by-issue basis, brilliant character studies of superheroes with extremely limited exposure prior to the series.  If there is a lasting testament to the work accomplished here, it's August General in Iron's later appearances in the New 52 series Justice League International.  If it were up to me, there would already be a collected edition of this, and it would be a perennial bestseller.  Easily, easily one of the best comics I've ever read.

#12. Joe the Barbarian

Creators: Grant Morrison, Sean Murphy
Publication dates: 2010-2011
Issues: 1-8

The last of the solo Morrison projects (there would have been at least one in the top ten if I hadn't had so many competing favorites), and a story that as I was reading it wondered if it wouldn't read better as a whole than in installments, and as time passed I realized I was probably right about that.  I appreciate Joe more and more.  It's Morrison at his finest, employing the full range of his wild imagination but in an entirely approachable way (which is not always the case), the simplistic promise of We3 wedded with the best of his superhero stories.  This is truly a modern fairy tale, a fable in the tradition of the great 19th century achievements that is also uniquely its own, and for this creator a remarkably brief yet still expansive adventure.  It's everything it needs to be.  I believe, more than any other comic in this list, Joe the Barbarian has a long road ahead of it.  I don't think it will be forgotten soon, and in fact will become more and more fondly remembered the more people become aware of it.

#11. Superboy and the Ravers

Creators: Karl Kesel, Steve Mattsson, Paul Pelletier, Josh Hood
Publication dates: 1996-1998)
Issues: 1-19

90s comics were known for a number of things, but two of the prevailing trends that came to define it were bad girl comics and a renaissance of the teenage hero.  DC exploited the latter trend just as much as anyone else, and I think the happiest development was this perennially underrated gem, Superboy's second ongoing series for a few years.  It remains a touchstone, and a treasured favorite memory.  Everything I would later come to love about Seven Soldiers of Victory and The Great Ten were already well on their way to perfection in the nearly twenty issues of Superboy and the Ravers.  Beyond Superboy the rest of the cast became some of the best defined characters in all of comics: Sparx (the best of the Bloodlines generation), Aura, Half-Life (that's the grim-looking dude on the cover), Kaliber (perhaps the best single creation of the whole thing, and a featured player in John Byrne's Genesis), Hero, Rex the Wonder Dog, Kindred Marx, and even someone called the Flying Buttress.  Desperately deserves a big fat collected edition, needs to be remembered as the landmark series that it was.

(All covers via Comic Book Database.)

To Trade or Not to Trade...?

Okay, so that’s a fairly silly question. Let’s put an end to that debate. Many fans have, through the years, wondered if it’s, shall we say, nobler to read their comics via single issues, the regular release scheduled typified by your average Wednesday shelf jockey, or trade and/or hardcover collections, when you can read entire story arcs at your convenience. You can do both. That’s my conclusion.

But sometimes, and not when you’re hypnotized into making that trip or that order, reading beat by beat, drove by drove of comics, you wonder if you’re not somehow missing out, when you read the collection over the issue, that it’s somehow less special, less privileged. I have that kind of thought at the moment over Grant Morrison and his BATMAN, INC. run. As you know, I have quit my regular reading habits, to alleviate monetary strains, so I no longer read comics with the regularity I once did (or twice, depending how good your memory is). But once an addict, always the impulse to relapse. Fortunately, in this case we’re only talking about comics, so I think I can once and again indulge in the occasional comics purchase, and that’s the topic this week, jumbled as it is with other thoughts, including, yes, whether or not it’s just as well to wait for the collection. For instance, I will likely read Stuart Immonen’s latest major offering, FEAR ITSELF, as a collection. I didn’t mention it last week because it didn’t really fit in with the tone of the rest of what I had to say (that and I had temporarily forgotten about it), but it’s still pretty awesome that Marvel thinks he’s important enough to give him some truly significant work.

I’m content with the knowledge that there will be collections of all that FLASHPOINT material that has me salivating (I’m more interested in the side projects than the event itself, which is somewhat unusual, but those projects actually seem to be something of the point this time), and probably the Green Lantern one-shots that will accompany the movie, which I will otherwise not have a reasonable chance to reading without breaking my new code. I will, if all goes to plan, however, make a trip to Escape Velocity for Free Comic Book day next week. That’s an allowable exception. As are random trips and purchases such as will be covered in this column.

One of the painful results of that code, of the decision that broke the habit three months ago, was to give up BATMAN, INC., which had only just begun. Morrison was demonstrating a fresh perspective, a more carefree one than he’d exhibited in almost anything else I’ve read from him, except maybe JOE THE BARBARIAN (but more on that a tad later). Grant Morrison collections, are one of the few guarantees to be considered instant in-stock material, however, at the bookstore where I work, so that has been one of my sources for solace, whenever I wish I were still in the thick of it. Strangely, though, I’ve made the transition fairly painlessly. For someone who spent 2005-2010 made weekly trips to a comic book store or receiving orders in the mail, you’d think there’d be more separation anxiety, but there really hasn’t been. That isn’t to say that I received, like some smug jerk, that I was finally “grown up,” “matured” and realized I didn’t need comics anymore, but that not reading comics every week did not exactly turn out to be the end of the world. For one thing, I’ve been writing at Comics Reader during this time, so I’ve had at least one excuse to continue thinking about them, and while that doesn’t seem like much (especially if you consider just how many comics I used to read), I have a reason and that seems like enough. I’ve also been creating a database of all the comics I own, and sometimes, keeping up with the memories is enough, too. (It’s not like I don’t have any comics to read.)

I also have the fact that I will be writing future columns for Comics Reader based around collections, including a series on Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN, which I will be reading for the first time, and so you will have hopefully fresh thoughts on one of the medium’s touchstones, and so will I, to look forward to. There are others, and of course, new collections from new comics.

Speaking of Grant Morrison, JOE THE BARBARIAN comes up again later in this column when I talk about the comics that interrupted the exile, but I can’t help but wonder again, as I have when reading other issues of this book, if this might not be one of the better arguments that some comics really are made almost directly for collection. I suspect it reads better as a whole, and almost wish I had actually waited for collection. But now that I own all the individual issues, do I really need that collection? That’s the kind of thorny issue that still remains in this debate.

But giving up comics entirely? Well, that’s just crazy talk. Some of the following comics come from Escape Velocity in downtown Colorado Springs, and a few others from the aforementioned bookstore, when it seemed as if it was never longer going to be receiving new comics, so I thought I was going to be commemorating, not just enjoying, a fond memory. Anyhoo:

BATMAN, INC. #3-4 (DC)
Morrison takes Bruce Wayne to Argentina in his continuing quest to find recruits for the Batman family, and finds more and more intrigue, as only Morrison can, with a broader spectrum of possibility than most creators consider in a whole career (I’m not here referring to Stan Lee, who never saw a gimmick he didn’t want to appropriate for himself). That’s what’s typified Grant’s whole run with the Dark Knight, either focusing on the iconic, or seeing what can be done, with that same stance, with the least likely tangential characters. Morrison is the only writer who truly seems to be enjoying himself, on a continual basis, discovering at every turn that comics aren’t a challenge, but an opportunity. These two issues, glad as I was to find them both, are not the complete story. Hence, all that brooding over collections earlier.

COMIC BOOK COMICS #5 (Evil Twin)
Very pleased that this one was available, since the book itself was one of my proudest placeholders in my Midtown pull list, which, I think, didn’t publish a single issue the whole year-and-half I had that account. No matter! This issue, the penultimate in a study of comics history from Fred Van Lente, explores the various thorny monetary matters that can arise from the medium, some of which I was familiar with, others I wasn’t, but all amusing detailed, as Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey have been doing since ACTION PHILOSOPHERS (but more on that later).

JOE THE BARBARIAN #8 (Vertigo)
The much-delayed conclusion from Morrison and Sean Murphy is exactly what you might have expected, and with a few surprises, and is just as appropriately magical as the rest of the book has been. Like an animated movie with all the cookie cutter elements left on the floor, JOE may end up being a significant element of Grant Morrison’s legacy, unexpected, given that Grant is as well known for his subversive impulses as his icon-busting/embellishing. If you want a version of the Morrison archetype that won’t deeply unsettle you or change everything you thought you knew, JOE THE BARBARIAN is the book for you. It quietly explores epic storytelling with an authentic emotional core, almost like a streamlined BONE (to keep that comic alive at Comics Reader).

BATMAN #707 (DC)
Tony Daniel concludes his sequel to “The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” (as I like to view it), confounding students of Sensei and letting Dick Grayson win the day without a lot of help from Peacock and I-Ching (when I’m not sure that could have been said, at least by Peacock, earlier). I still stand by Daniel’s work as a successor to the work of Morrison, Loeb, and Miller. It makes me wonder what an epic story would look like, if he truly cut loose, once he feels completely at home as a creator.

THE FLASH #9 (DC)
The kind of issue Geoff Johns only does very occasionally with Hal Jordan over in GREEN LANTERN (and I hope is more frequent here), a more character-based interlude with Barry, clearly in anticipation of FLASHPOINT (hello Hot Pursuit/Barry Allen!).

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #57 (DC)
Tony Bedard rounds out his Weaponer arc. Maybe it’s just me, but I really didn’t see it coming, when Sinestro actually convinces the Weaponer to join his corps. Nice bit of continuity, this whole arc, which has only affirmed my interest in Bedard, one of the least-heralded but probably best writers in comics today.

All this DC talk makes it seem like I’m sliding back into partisan mode. I intended to pick up some more Hickman FF (both the final issue of the previous series, and the first of the book literally called FF), but I decided to pass. I remember that I wrote about “Three” as if Hickman would be jumping ship right after, and even now, knowing what he did next with the franchise, I wonder if there’s much point. Oh, and hey, Steve Rogers is going to be Captain America again! I just expect more from Hickman, who did such unusual, subversive work with Image. But I am still interested in the new “Big Time” Spider-Man comics. I’ll be reading some of those collections, definitely.

But this whole column should still be considered an exception!