Ranking the first two weeks of Future State, plus Crossover and more!

Fortified with pandemic money, I decided to read at least the first month of Future State, the DC thing that is not 5G but was originally intended to be. I love these DC event blocks whatever their origins, from Tangent Comics to Convergence. Granted, 5G was conceived as a kind of new Silver Age update, a line wide reset, even more radical than the New 52, a new generation of superheroes, including the big three. DC fired Dan DiDio to stop it from actually happening, but it’s...pretty much going to happen anyway. A lot of people were fired to help set up a new generation of creators, many of whom are unofficially beginning their runs here. I feel bad for people losing their jobs in the pandemic, but I also like bold new ideas executed well, and this is what Future State is already proving. From these first two weeks, I see a ton of good.

I’m ordering all this from Midtown. It took ages to get the first box, and then the second of course arrived a few days later, so while everyone else has just digested the third week, here I’m working with just the first two. Well anyway, here’s a ranking, as depicted in the image:

1. Swamp Thing #1 - Ram V, every time I’ve had a look at his work (mostly in the pages of Justice League Dark), has wowed me as working beyond the level of his peers. This might be the project that makes him, or should make him, hard to ignore. This is as good as Swamp Thing has ever been, a return to the famous existential state of Alan Moore. Mike Perkins, another longtime standout, is on art. 

2. Wonder Woman #1 - Joëlle Jones is another creator finally getting her full due spotlight, as writer and artist of this bold new Brazilian Wonder Woman, steeped in mythology, lively, looking and reading brilliantly. 

3. The Next Batman #1 - I have a feeling Future State is happening at all because this past summer’s BLM protests finally made DC publish John Ridley’s Other History of the DC Universe (the second issue of which publishes next week, and which I will write about... a week later?), and this as well. He’s even getting a followup miniseries with the concept. And it will be worth it. This is a Batman who is a fresh look at the familiar concept, a Wayne Enterprises scion who’s been away and is now entering the impossible task of cleaning up Gotham. The big benefit is that it’s a man with an actual family, Tim Fox, whose brother Luke once filled the costume of Batwing. 

4. Dark Detective #1 - Bruce Wayne is dead, Batman is dead. Long live Bruce Wayne, long live Batman. The art is from Dan Mora, Grant Morrison’s brilliant collaborator in Klaus. But the highlight of this book is the Grifter backup feature. It’s the first time I have ever read a competent Grifter comic, so that’s a very welcome development.

5. Superman of Metropolis #1 - The Jon Kent lead is fine, but like the above comic a backup is the real highlight, the Shilo Norman Mister Miracle feature, with standout art from Valentine de Landro.

6. Kara Zor-El, Superwoman #1 - Marguerites Bennett and Sauvage are once again a potent combination here, writing a grownup Supergirl still making peace, or perhaps finally having done so, with arriving so much later than Superman (and now having his son to contend with, too).

7. Justice League #1 - The lead features the next generation League, which is great in and of itself, until it gets even better with the return of the Hyperclan (!!!), plus a Ram V JLDark backup in which, among other things, Detective Chimp has become the other half of Etrigan.

8. Harley Quinn #1 - The big highlight here is the art from Simone DiMeo, which subverts all the usual isn’t-she-a-rebel-but-also-sooo-sexy stylings of Harley Quinn by...making pretty much everything else the focal point. It might be difficult for some to appreciate what the panels actually do, but for me it’s hugely refreshing. 

9. The Flash #1 - The whole Flash family is here, and the story is a riff on Wally Is Bad!!! that’s been a thing since Heroes in Crisis, which is only going to further infuriate those fans, but the story quickly gives another explanation for what’s happening here, and thus a clever setup for the classic Flash battles with the science-based weaponry of his Rogues. For me it’s really just great seeing that family back together, including Max Mercury.

10. Green Lantern #1 - The lead story from hardcore Hal Jordan hater Geoffrey Thorne is yet another tale of the Corps in crisis (it’s time to put a moratorium on that, even more than Superman Reveals His Secret Identity!!! or Daredevil’s Secret Identity Is Revealed!!!), but happily it features G’Nort (obligatory reminder that it’s actually pronounced “Nort”). But the Guy Gardner backup is the real draw, in which he actually finds himself in the position of solving (a) world(’s) peace, with a bar. Until Lobo shows up.

11. Robin Eternal #1 - The big draw for me in this one (besides a neat subplot with the deaf lady who possibly comes from the pages of We Are Robin) is the art from Eddy Barrows. I cannot fathom how he hasn’t attained superstar status. 

12. Superman/Wonder Woman #1 - There’s no reason to dislike it except I was seriously wowed by the new Wonder Woman’s solo book so it kind of pales in comparison.

13. Teen Titans #1 - I look forward to reading the second issue so I can hopefully better appreciate the intrigue surrounding Red X (a character making his canon debut after debuting in the manic cartoon). This is a concept that will be showing up in the post-Future State comics slate, by the way. 

I don’t know if I will be continuing the ranking concept with the next batch (much less shuffling all of them together, much less revising at the end of next month), but that was fun. I like to thwart expectations for these sorts of things, besides, the assumption always being that if you like the stuff at the top you probably don’t the stuff at the bottom. I liked all of this, generally. Some of it, particularly at the top, was truly great material. I’d hate for fans to miss out on it because they fear change or dismiss this tangent matter.

I had a look at a preview of the new Eternals comic from Marvel. I know there’s a movie coming at...some point. I have no idea why, except maybe because Marvel knew DC was working on a New Gods movie, and the Eternals are the Marvel version of the New Gods, also created by Jack Kirby, with not even a tenth the legacy. The new comic seems equally pointless.

I read the second and third (I had previously read the first) issues of Donny Cates’s Crossover. It’s a clever concept. It might wear thin, depending how long it goes. Image tends to dilute its best stuff this way. It’s weird, because Mark Millar ruins all his stuff by making it so short, but Image otherwise lets everything else drag on and on. Everyone is currently waiting to see if there’s going to be more Saga (which would have hugely benefited from not just throwing every weird idea at the, ah, saga), while Kirkman finally admitted he really didn’t actually have anything else to say about Walking Dead. 

Snyder ended Death Metal. It’s a thing that happened because it could, weird stuff being weird for the sake of being weird, which is what Snyder does. 

I read the second issue of Kaare Andrews’ AWA comic E-ratic, which doesn’t look anything like his Spider-Man Reign, alas. But is still a pretty good read. Just saddled with a terrible title.

Generations Shattered turned out to be classic DC storytelling straight outta the ‘90s. Which was the whole point. Is there more? Probably?

Green Hornet #5 from Dynamite featured one of several Lee Weeks covers from these two weeks, which admittedly was one of two reasons I bought it. The other being that it was written by Scott Lobdell, recently finishing up a decade at DC. The story, or at least the art, evokes the classic Batman animated series, which I assume was quite intentional, Green Hornet as a TV property spinning out of another Batman show.

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4 from Boom! and Al Ewing was interesting enough to justify having already ordered the fifth issue. This was a reprint. I ordered another reprint, from Chip Zdarsky’s Daredevil, in a box arriving...soonish, but passed on the new issue from this coming week. But the cat’s out of the bag: Elektra is now moonlighting as Daredevil.

Reading Comics 238 "Flashpoint Batman, Far Sector, Second Coming, & more"

I haven't been to an actual comic book store in about half a year, so I decided it was time to visit one, given the opportunity, and found some good stuff:

Batman #84 (DC)
And now there's one issue to go.  Ironically or not, but the longer Tom King's run went, the less fans really cared.  The obvious tipping point was when the wedding didn't actually happen.  Fans felt cheated.  They wanted something truly big to happen, and King seemed to promise exactly that.  Instead the reaction has solidified on...pretty much how all of King's DC material has been received, as so much awkward navel-gazing.  The irony here is that when he did it for Marvel (The Vision), everyone lauded him as a new genius, perhaps because Marvel so seldom publishes reflective material, let alone seems to realize that it has, and that it's worth celebrating. 

I still can't think of any comic book writer I've so consistently admired, who has so often grasped the potential of DC's landscape.  His accomplishments go far beyond anyone else's for the fact of delivering on nearly everything he's done, dating back to Omega Men, when he was entrusted with his first spotlight work.  That goes back to 2015.  Half a decade of excellence, and one long stellar run on a major title.

This particular issue harkens back to his first standout mainstream accomplishment, Grayson: Futures End, where I first came to discover King's remarkable talents.  Grayson was a series he typically wrote in conjunction with Tim Seeley, but for the Futures End one-shot, he wrote solo, and even beyond the clever coding gimmick, it was brilliant character-based storytelling. 

So in the issue, he basically extrapolates the Flashpoint Batman's complete story, which is all the more remarkable because that story was already brilliantly told in Flashpoint itself and the acknowledged best mini-series that spun out of it.  And in doing so, explains his whole purpose for the Batman run he's been doing all along.  This is a master class, not only in itself but in the fruitful extension of someone else's ideas.  When all is said and done, it's something that will need to be included not only in the legacy of Batman, but Flashpoint, and superhero comics in general.

Collapser #5 (DC/Young Animal)
I like to try and discover interesting new material, too, when I visit a comics shop.  Granted, this was far easier when I used to spend far more money on comics (money that I, ah, didn't technically...have?), but now I have to use the old "it looks interesting" approach, or even risk taking recommendations (these don't always pan out, naturally, but then, it's how I discovered Young Avengers).  And Collapser #5 had an interesting cover, and it was a Young Animal comic.  I love the Young Animal imprint, even if fans in general seem strangely apathetic about it.  Such is life.  The results this time were adequate, if not sensational.  I didn't regret buying and/or reading it.  Yay!

Copra #3 (Image)
Ah!  So Copra is being published by Image now!  The last time I can think of that Image picked up a popular self-published comic was Bone.  Probably not the only example, but the only one I really care about.  And Copra is another great acquisition!  It may look crude, compared to the slick packages of virtually every other Image comic (but that goes with the name, right?), but Copra remains a good read.

Doctor Mirage #4 (Valiant)
I've sort of let Valiant's comics slip from my radar in recent years, but I like to keep tabs.  Apparently they finally continued Doctor Mirage's adventures!  Sadly, not under the title The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage, much less written by Jen Van Meter, but it's still nice to see!

Far Sector #1 (DC/Young Animal)
Ah!  It's almost like reading King's Omega Men all over again!  Insofar as it's another Green Lantern tale, without "Green Lantern" in the title, that turns out to be a brilliant new interpretation of what a Green Lantern comic can be!  Far Sector features yet another new human Green Lantern, but N.K. Jemisin doesn't linger (at least in this debut issue) on that aspect so much as the murder mystery she's tossed into, in about as grand a miasma as King's Omega Men featured.  Some readers might complain that Jemisin tries to be too hip, but I think it works, and it makes me want to not only keep tabs on Far Sector, but read some of Jemisin's books.  It doesn't always work, but finding talent outside the usual comic book circles has the potential to find a Jemisin or a Tom King.  And apparently awesome new Green Lantern comics.  Love it!

Flash Forward #1 (DC)
After all the complaints about Heroes in Crisis, I loved when DC announced Flash Forward, a new Wally West tale.  Several issues have been released at this point, but I figured I should see how it began.  And I love it.  Scott Lobdell, who has quietly become one of DC's one reliable character writers, captures a Wally who's even more traumatized than readers by his actions, but thrust all the same into a wild new adventure.  Juxtaposing Wally's arc with another wild ride into the multiverse is itself another interesting choice, but I think Lobdell can avoid duplicating what ultimately happened to Booster Gold when he attempted a career revision in similar fashion (and in the process helped form the foundation of the TV series Legends of Tomorrow, which he inexplicably has never factored into).

Legion of Super-Heroes #1 (DC)
I've never been a devoted Legion fan, but I've read enough Legion comics to have built up an interest, and this is Brian Michael Bendis, still firing on all cylinders in his new DC digs, so of course I dig it.

Second Coming #5 (Ahoy)
Wow.  So I haven't read anything but this issue, but I'm glad this comic exists.  It's exactly what Mark Russell should be writing.  The guy made his name writing stuff like this, so I'm glad he returned to the well.  This particular issue is God and Satan having an awkward attempt at reconciliation, which is itself brilliant, plus the Second Coming Superman analog struggling at another kind of reconciliation, whether or not he'll ever have a child, which '90s Superman (in the comics and Lois & Clark on TV wondered about, too) was also concerned about, although since then we've gotten two versions of Superman's son.  I'm in love with Russell again.  I continue to hope that, even as his profile has risen greatly in recent years, it can go higher still.

X-Men #1 (Marvel)
Jonathan Hickman, riding high from great acclaim for his X-Men universe relaunch, begins to settle in, and I still enjoy the results.

Young Justice #11 (DC/Wonder Comics)
Here's Bendis again, integrating Naomi into the greater landscape.  I love that he's helped Tim Drake finally follow in Dick Grayson (and Jason Todd's! and even Stephanie Brown's!) footsteps and assume an identity that doesn't have "Robin" in it.  I know some fans complain that it's...Drake, which is...already his last name.  But realistically, his secret identity is still firmly intact.  And at the moment, his adventures are so wild, he's far removed from the common element, so it hardly matters.  But I want it to stick.  I want a Drake comic.  (And a comic for everyone in this book!  I wasn't totally committed to the Peter David version of the team.  But I'm glad it's made a comeback.)  And I'm glad Naomi is getting a chance to expand her emerging legacy.  I hope she sticks around for years.

Reading Comics 196 "DC Rebirth Week Eight, Divinity II, Moon Knight"

Covered this edition: Detective Comics #937, Divinity II #4, The Flash #3, Moon Knight #4, Nightwing #1, Red Hood and the Outlaws: Rebirth #1, Action Comics #960, Titans #1, and Wonder Woman #3.

Detective Comics #937 (DC)
Batman escapes from the custody of the bad guys this issue, which features the return of Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong (I remember him fondly from the pages of '90s Robin), who is a little criminal genius in the making.  As this is the bulk of the issue, it's a slam dunk of a sequence.

Divinity II #4 (Valiant)
The final issue of this particular story in the saga (an ad promises Divinity III this December, as does some quick foreshadowing) is a remarkable conclusion to Abram Adams' war with Myshka in which he's able to connect with his fellow cosmonaut-turned-god on a strangely human level.  Matt Kindst's work with Divinity remains some of the best stuff being published today.

The Flash #3 (DC)
I can't even begin to describe how happy I continue to be about this relaunch.  I haven't been (with all due apologies to Geoff Johns) been this interested in a Flash comic since Mark Waid's prime.  The cleverness just doesn't stop.  One would think Central City being flooded with new speedsters would diminish the role of Barry Allen as a significant figure, other than as budding mentor (can you say Max Mercury?), but then his new sidekick August Heart says something brilliant like, "Do you know how fast you were going?" 

Moon Knight #4 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire continues to knock this one out of the park.  (If chosen carefully, the things you enjoy shouldn't be so difficult to enjoy.)  I decided to catch up with this weeks-old issue, and damn if this isn't one of my favorite comics in recent years.  It's really that good.

Nightwing #1 (DC)
This is a strong follow-up to the Rebirth one-shot, in which Nightwing repositions himself as a mole in the Parliament of Owls and then meets Raptor, the latest dude who thinks Dick Grayson can't hack it on his own.

Red Hood and the Outlaws: Rebirth #1 (DC)
This is Scott Lobdell's restating of the Jason Todd biography, although this time he makes the point that Jason is uniquely suited to appear like he's the compromised Batman, which is interesting.  I know Frank Miller probably has conniptions every time a comic book suggests Boy Wonders aren't destined to become lunatics, but I don't have a problem with it.

Action Comics #960 (DC)
Wonder Woman enters the fight, but other than getting some readers up to date about Doomsday's origins, nothing much significant happens this issue.

Titans #1 (DC)
This fairly Wally West-centric issue also features Linda Park.  Hey, I can't argue with that.  Dan Abnett lets other Titans in on the act, notably Lilith, who's one of the more obscure members of this family, before shockingly revealing that Abra Kadabra is claiming responsibility for Wally's disappearance.

Wonder Woman #3 (DC)
Greg Rucka does a pretty powerful study of Cheetah, one of Wonder Woman's most famous foes, who probably comes off better in this one issue than she has in all her other collective appearances combined.

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. 

Convergence: Blue Beetle #1 (DC)

writer: Scott Lobdell

artist: Yishan Li

Seriously, though, folks: Scott Lobdell.  The guy can't seem to catch a break with the fans, but he's a genius, he really is.  That excerpt from one panel in this issue helps prove it all over again.

Across multiple Convergence spin-offs fans have seen characters breaking or attempting to break the rules of Battleworld Telos (he's a planet, too!).  Finally (maybe it's occurred in some of the titles I haven't read, but I suspect not), Lobdell hits on the obvious, a literary technique that probably doesn't get mentioned in comics a lot: the unreliable narrator.  As in, you don't have to believe everything he says.

It takes the Question to say it.  Of course it does.  The title says Blue Beetle but it's actually a whole Charlton reunion, featuring Question and Captain Atom as well (the nucleus of the characters Alan Moore borrowed for Watchmen, and borrowed back by Grant Morrison for Pax Americana), plus referencing others.

Lobdell knocks the whole issue out of the park.  Usually his comics shine best in narration, so he would certainly be the one to know all about the rules of the storytelling device.  This one doesn't have narration, but it does have yet another novelty (again, in my personal Convergence experience) in showing Telos himself as his explanation for the dome experience is once again repeated, as it is in each Convergence spin-off.  Usually it's featured as it was in Convergence itself, as disembodied words in the air.  Lobdell and Yishan Li play by their own rules.  And thank goodness.

Convergence # 0 & 1 (DC)

writer: Jeff King, Dan Jurgens (#0), Scott Lobdell (#1)

artist: Ethan Van Sciver (#0), Carlo Pagulayan (#1)

Here it is!  The big DC event that finally brings back the pre-New 52 landscape.  All of them!

And yeah, Marvel is doing something remarkably similar in its new Secret Wars, and yeah, it's another multiverse story, which DC has done many, many times, even yeah, Marvel has made a considerable splash, too, with the whole Spider-Verse concept.

But this is pretty awesome.  And yeah, there are shades of DC vs. Marvel, too, pitting different realities against each other, but none of that particularly matters.  What matters is DC doing what it always does and usually getting little to no recognition for it: paying homage to its own past.  Not in the way Marvel does.  For Marvel, the past is directly connected to the present, even though Marvel finds creative ways around how that past is usually ignored or subverted without being outright replaced.  For DC, it's a matter of history being built on, usually at the expense of that history (so fans like to complain), but constantly acknowledging it.

Which is to say, Convergence owes Crisis On Infinite Earths a huge debt, just as Crisis owes "The Flash of Two Worlds."  And without Infinite Crisis there would be no Convergence.  And you need Final Crisis in that sequence.  And you need Zero Hour.  And so on.

What does Convergence do differently?  Well, for one, it's not really part of that sequence.  It is, in that DC has finally stopped worrying about competing realities.  That's what Crisis was all about, trying to end any such debates.  And then Infinite Crisis said it wasn't such a problem after all.  And then Final Crisis opened the doors for finding out how much fun it really can be.

But it starts a new narrative.  This one involves an existing concept, being Brainiac, the Collector of Worlds, who has long gone about the business of creating bottle cities to preserve specimens.  Now we have Telos, who is kind of like the keeper of those specimens, an intermediary in the tradition of the Monitors and Watchers, only this time condensed and not held back by a stance of noninterference.

What he comes equipped with is threats.  He states at the outset that if anyone attempts to subvert the rules, he will put an immediate end.  He wants fights.  He wants a sole survivor.  Of course, the individual spin-offs will flirt with subverting the rules all over the place.  How Telos deals with that will likely play out in the pages of Convergence itself.

In a way, Convergence mainlines the idea of comic book limbo first introduced by Grant Morrison in Animal Man.  Where DC is saying that old ideas don't really go away (which technically was done long ago with the Justice Society, who began as contemporaries of Superman but beginning with "Flash of Two Worlds" became something else), this isn't just a multiverse story, it's dealing with the direct consequences of having all this in-house competition and dramatizing it in the most direct way possible.

Lead writer Jeff King is new to comics, and so DC has paired him with a couple of veterans to pull this off.  In the preview issue, this means Dan Jurgens, and it has a true Jurgens flavor as a result, very straightforward storytelling, Superman confronting Brainiac and not being a happy camper and whatnot.  The first issue is with Scott Lobdell, meanwhile, and regardless of what fans tend to think about Lobdell, this means more intricate storytelling, flowing directly from the events of Earth 2: World's End (neither King nor Lobdell, mind you, had anything to do with that one).

Likewise on art there's a tale of two styles.  The Ethan Van Sciver who shows up in #0 actually is not a particularly ideal Superman artist.  The rest of the issue shows excellent work, though.  Carlo Pagulayan, meanwhile, is an ideal selection for #1.  He has a nice, clean, all-encompassing approach.

Also well-worth reading are the references to relevant comics at the back of each issue.

Reading Comics 154 "Blasts II"

My local comics shop tricked me into buying more comics.  Yeah, tough gig.  They were holding a sale on the bins they've been filling with recent comics that needed to be removed from the shelves in order to make room for more comics.  These comics were already discounted.  They told me the discount increased, and so I took another deep dive.  The results:

Batman and Robin #23.1 (DC)
Part of the 2013 Villains Month, that year's version of the annual tradition DC has of celebrating each September as an anniversary of the New 52 launch from 2011.  This one was a tie-in with Forever Evil (surprisingly I had avoided such issues from the month previously), but I wanted to have a look because it was Pete Tomasi writing.  On the cover Two-Face is billed as the star, and what's significant about this is that at the time, Tomasi was gearing up for the Batman and Two-Face arc, "The Big Burn," a detour from the Damian arc that will, post-Convergence, fall to Patrick Gleason to continue solo in the pages of Robin, Son of Batman.  As a visual storyteller, I have full confidence in Gleason.  Hopefully he have as good a grasp with the narrative, because so much has been done in the past year.

Grayson #1 (DC)
Okay, so now I've finally read the first issue!  This was something that initially sold out at the shop, so by the time it was restocked I had a chance to start second-guessing how interested I was in the series.  In subsequent months I've come to various conclusions, but the truth is, Grayson is pretty good.  There's a whole underpinning arc to what Tim Seeley and Tom King are doing in the series, that level alone makes the proceedings intriguing.  It has the proven potential for great individual stories.  But history may be getting made in other ways, too.  More as things develop.  Also, the post-Convergence landscape has already proven one element of Grayson to have borne fruit: a new Midnighter series, after the WildStorm character served as a primary element in Seeley and King's early stories.

Star Trek New Visions: Annual 2013 "Strange New Worlds" (IDW)

John Byrne already has an assured place in comics history.  He's been working at one in Star Trek history as well.  His previous, hand-drawn work has been impressive enough (Assignment Earth, McCoy, and Romulans), but lately he's been working on comic book photo-novels.  This is the first time I've read one of these efforts myself.  (Although the original Star Trek photo-novels are some of what helped me become a fan in the first place.)  The results are impressive.  "Strange New Worlds" functions as a sequel to Captain Kirk's first adventure, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," the second pilot of the original series.  The fact of its place in canon, first Kirk but also featuring some characters who wouldn't appear in subsequent episodes such as Dr. Piper, is Byrne's effort at turning "Strange New Worlds" into a kind of "Menagerie," the two-part episode that repurposed the first pilot "The Cage," which also featured a different set of characters (Spock is the only one present in all casts).  As in "Where No Man," "New Worlds" features the problem of Gary Mitchell, who accidentally develops god-like powers.  Mitchell was Kirk's close friend, and having to eliminate his threat was a considerable challenge on multiple levels.  Byrne presents a deepening of the whole experience, a good one.  There's an essay on the art of photo-novels included, as well as interview with Byrne.

Star-Lord: Annihilation - Conquest (Marvel)

In conjunction with last year's Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel put out numerous special comic book releases reprinting Star-Lord's past appearances.  The last time I sampled one of them featured Peter Quill's earliest adventures, which were generic and as such, to me, terrible.  Thankfully I gave these things another shot.  I just read my digital copy of how the whole Annihilation thing began, so I have some context, but it hardly matters.  This is the only context necessary: Annihilation - Conquest is the secret origin of the Peter Quill and pals everyone fell in love with in the movie.  What a discovery!  And now it only figures that Keith Giffen wrote Annihilation itself, because his more familiar imprint is all over Conquest.  Brian Michael Bendis is generally credited with a lot of what Marvel has been doing at the movies, and rightly so.  He's the one who took up the Star-Lord ball most recently, but without Giffen, he probably would never have thought of it.  Conquest features a somewhat different team line-up, though Rocket and Groot are present and accounted for (second most surprising revelation of Conquest: at least for these specific circumstances, Groot does not only say, "My name is Groot").  This is seriously good stuff, a great, great find.

Action Comics #23.3 (DC)
This is a Villains Month release featuring Lex Luthor!  You'd think there would have been a little more attention given it, given how significant Luthor was in Forever Evil and later, Justice League.  And what's all the more interesting still is that it's written by Charles Soule.  The Luthor here seems far less redeemable than the one in Justice League (as depicted so far), a diabolical one that tracks well with the past and present of the character.  It's also nice to see Lex Luthor star in an issue of Action Comics again, after the Paul Cornell run that helped signal the character's future potential...

Superman: Doomed #1 (DC)
The "Doomed" arc, naturally, features Doomsday, and represents Scott Lobdell's last hurrah writing Superman, working in conjunction with Charles Soule (who had featured the monster in the pages of Superman/Wonder Woman) and Greg Pak.  I still don't get the massive opposition to Lobdell.  I think he does a great job building on existing concepts.  In the post-Convergence landscape, he's got a chance to expound further on his ideas in a whole Doomed series, which speculation must suggest has some relation to this arc and/or Doomsday.  What I read in this issue looked pretty good, a modern take on the Doomsday issue that takes Superman himself to another level.  How exactly the whole infected-with-Doomsday thing played out, is another thing I'll have to find out...

Swamp Thing Annual #2 (DC)
Charles Soule and Swamp Thing.  There's a lot that I need to catch up on, but the bits and snatches I've caught...this stuff is brilliant.  It's almost as if Soule has taken the idea of the avatars Geoff Johns used in Green Lantern and took a more deliberate, intimate approach to them.  Of course, not the Green Lantern avatars themselves, but various elemental ones as related to Swamp Thing.  And it's always fascinating.  I have no idea why I wouldn't have become dedicated from the moment I read it the first time.  This annual explores more about the history of the avatars, and how they affect Alec Holland's future.  I will continue reading more and more of this...

Trinity of Sin: The Phantom Stranger #14 (DC)
This is the the one I most picked up on a lark.  I like the Trinity of Sin concept.  As far as I can tell, it became less interesting when the three characters were finally merged in a single series.  Yet this issue of Phantom Stranger proves it can work.  Good to have in my collection.

Reading Comics #126 "Bull Moose Grab Bag III"

Ten comics for a steal.  Even when the contents go wrong, you can't go wrong.  These happened to all be bagged and boarded.  Always a plus.  I used to do that with all my comics.  Became less of a priority after the first break in reading at the start of the millennium, and then I sold that collection, and sold the next one.  What're you gonna do?

Uncanny Avengers #16 (Marvel)

Here's Rick Remender again, our new friend from the pages of Captain America, apparently in the thick of some gigantic crisis that will likely have been rebooted, given all the characters who are killed off during it.  The big threat constitutes the Apocalypse Twins (this series is part of the X-Men/Avengers mash-up that has persisted since the end of, well, AvX, so the referenced Apocalypse is the one and same Apocalypse you may or may not have recognized as teased at the end of X-Men: Days of the Future Past).  This story kind of wraps up next issue, but carries over into the next storyline.  Well, whatever.  The big development in this particular installment involves Thor and Captain America being all climactic, in typical Avengers fashion.  The artist is Steve McNiven, whom I remember most fondly from the "Old Man Logan" arc in Wolverine.  Good reliable talent right there, makes this looks sufficiently impressive.  As usual, I don't really understand what Remender is up to.  Like Jonathan Hickman, Remender for me is what Grant Morrison seems to be for a lot of other readers.

Batwing #28 (DC)

For a while, Batwing was the African representative of Batman Incorporated.  I enjoyed what I read of that from the start of the New 52 era.  Recently the armor has gone to Lucius Fox's son.  Based on this issue I don't see this as an improvement.  Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have plenty of good credentials behind them (various Jonah Hex and Uncle Sam & the Freedom Fighters comics chief among them), but they're felled by the typical trap of trying to fake their way through the stereotype urban scene (ready to write Milestone adventures they are not).

The Flash #27 (DC)

At one time I read The Flash regularly without exception, thanks in large part to the remarkable Mark Waid run that began a little over twenty years ago.  I haven't really done much of that lately, not really at all since the New 52 launch, perhaps out of disappointment that Geoff Johns cut short his second run with the latest relaunch.  This issue, from recently departed (co-)writer Brian Buccellato, who along with Francis Manapul has shifted over to Detective Comics, is actually pretty good, mixing Rogues with history, playing with the revised Barry Allen story of having the death of his mother hanging over him thanks in part to fact that her murder was pinned on his father (made for truly excellent material in Flashpoint).  I still have to wonder if this increasingly revolving game of musical chairs will lead to resolution on that.  Or simply hope Johns will return to the thread he left behind...

Forever Evil: A.R.G.U.S. #4 of 6 (DC)

I remember Martin Gray over at Too Dangerous for a Girl calling this perhaps the best part of the Forever Evil crossover event.  A.R.G.U.S. is the we're-not-S.H.I.E.L.D.? group from DC (which is funny, because Checkmate is a perfectly viable and distinctive alternative).  The main draw for me is the presence of Steve Trevor, who in a previous incarnation was the, ah, Lois Lane to Wonder Woman's Superman.  Since the New 52, he's best been defined by his inability to retain that relationship, and thus his efforts to find a surrogate.  I thought he'd found it in Justice League of America, but things might've changed when I wasn't looking.  Another sometimes-supporting cast member for Wonder Woman, Etta Candy, is present in the issue.  Wonder Woman herself isn't in the issue (mostly), but curiously she is on the cover, and her frequent enemy Cheetah shows up both on the cover and on the last page (it's actually artist Neil Edwards' weakest moment the whole issue, besides mouthless Psi).  One has the sense that the whole point of the mini-series was to further establish the Wonder Woman brand in the New 52.  This is overall a good thing.

Green Lantern #28/Red Lanterns #28 (DC)

via Hit Fix

via Green Lantern Wikia

This is another another comic I was glad to have gotten randomly in one of these grab bags, especially based on my increased appreciation for Red Lanterns from other grab bags.  This was the flip book saga featuring the debut of Supergirl as a Red Lantern.  This is a saga that completely capitalizes on the New 52 version of Supergirl, who isn't the well-known superhero she was in previous incarnations.  In fact, no one knows who she is when she pops up as a Red Lantern.  They in fact think she is just a random Red Lantern.  This occurs in the midst of other things that've been developing in the Green Lantern franchise, likely by the lead of Robert Venditti, who was given the unenviable task of following Geoff Johns in that regard (unless people were just looking for a fresh start, which Green Lantern itself didn't really get at the start of the New 52).  One of his ideas has been to restrict the use of all those rings floating around, with the idea that unrestricted usage drains the universe of essential energy.  Something like that.  Star Trek: The Next Generation toyed with that idea concerning warp drives.  Venditti also seems to have reconfigured a few semi-familiar faces from days past, including Evil Star (totally reinvented and it seems quite interestingly), Kanjar Ro, and Bolphunga the Unrelenting (famously debuted in the same Alan Moore as Mogo, "Mogo Doesn't Socialize").  Each time I sample Venditti's Green Lantern I like it.  Certainly the same goes for Red Lanterns these days.  The writer on the flipside is Charles Soule, who's always impressing me.  The man running the Red Lanterns in the comics is Guy Gardner, who is actually less of a hothead than ever before.  He's also got Ice by his side once again (more fond memories from two decades ago), although it's as contentious a relationship as ever.  (By the way, Guy looks awesome these days.  About the first time ever that can be said.)  The main thrust of the flip book actually has far more to do with Green and Red Lanterns not getting along (but for different reasons than before, more like a professional rivalry these days).  When they realize this mysterious girl is Kryptonian, they of course realize she has something to do with Superman.  If you're not reading either (or I guess any of these, including Supergirl), this would be a good sampling occasion.

The Superior Spider-Man #26 (Marvel)

I recently talked a little bit about how the Doctor Spider-Man era ended, but on its way to that ending there was (seemingly as always) Green Goblin to deal with.  But in this particular issue Goblin is dealing with the Hobgoblin, trying to figure out who's behind the latest incarnation.  He thinks he knows.  He's wrong.  There are a number of stories in the issue with a number of artists drawing them.  One is Peter Parker inside the so-called mindscape figuring out how he'll find his way back.  Another is the Avengers finally rejecting Doctor Spider-Man (I won't explain that again).  The final is the Goblin/Hobgoblin one, which amounts to the most significant one (it does rate the cover), and feature the work of Humberto Ramos.  I was a huge fan of Ramos for years thanks in large part to, ah, his collaboration with Mark Waid (I just can't avoid mentioning that guy!) on Impulse.  I'm glad he's remained relevant, and that he's become one of Dan Slott's chief collaborators on whatever version of Spider-Man he's writing.  His Goblins are fantastic.  Who knew?  Plays completely against type (as far as I knew), but it's a huge reason why that's the best thing about this issue.

Superman #27 (DC)

One of the major developments of the New 52 was the sudden end of the romance between Lois & Clark.  (Guess she didn't want to become a desperate housewife.  Ha!)  But thankfully, Lois Lane has stuck around.  And even gained powers.  But I guess with this issue she lost them, which as far as current logic goes is a good thing.  Superman risks a giant gamble in allowing Parasite to siphon them from her.  Scott Lobdell is at the helm.  Apparently his run wasn't very popular.  I still have no idea why fans find him so hard to love.  (But, ah, the next issue promises Starfire.  There you go.)

Swamp Thing #28 (DC)

Swamp Thing, with about a decade lead time, was a poster child for the early Vertigo, thanks to Alan Moore's psychological approach.  In the New 52 the character has returned to his own mythology, which Charles Soule goes about exploring in this issue.  The character of Capucine, featured and named on the cover, is fascinating, a long-lived woman with an incredible story all her own.  This is good stuff.  Another series I've never really thought to buy deliberately, but am infinitely glad each time I've found it in a grab bag.

Talon #15 (DC)

A spin-off from Scott Snyder's Batman...not hugely compelling a concept on its own.

Teen Titans #27 (DC)

Remember Impulse, which I mentioned earlier.  That was Bart Allen's earliest incarnation.  Geoff Johns turned him into Kid Flash.  And the New 52, thanks to Scott Lobdell and a new backstory, or I guess forestory, is a freedom fighter from the future.  I've long been interested in reading some of this for myself, and I think it's pretty interesting.  The only curious element is the strange looks Kid Flash keeps giving people, as if he really is the villain fans have been interpreting this new version of the character to have suddenly become.  One of Lobdell's original Titans, Solstice, has her story explained in the issue, too, while the Superboy situation is explore, too.  (From what I've read about it, I think that's pretty interesting, too.)  Besides all that, I also found it interesting that Scott McDaniel provided breakdowns.  I found this particular image to make that most obvious:

via Up Roxx

If you know McDaniel's work at all, you can see it most clearly in the shoulder.  He's another talent I wish would get a better break these days.  He's long been a favorite of mine (how long? twenty years of course!).  The last significant work he's done was the short-lived Static Shock at the start of the New 52, which to say it was received poorly would be an understatement.  This is unfortunate, since McDaniel started out that one as both artist and writer (his first real effort in that regard), which was a statement of confidence from DC.  I don't know what's happened, but it certainly seems like he lost it, apparently in both regards.  I wish him luck digging his way back to where he belongs.

Superman #25 (DC)

via Comic Book DB

writer: Scott Lobdell

artist: Kenneth Rocafort

The Superman books have had a game of musical chairs going since the New 52 relaunch (aside from Grant Morrison's near-twenty issue run on Action Comics).  I was kind of hoping Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort would stick around this title longer (though two years is about how long Morrison went).  I was among the select few who responded to their Red Hood & the Outlaws with something other than, "Why the heck is Starfire acting like Starfire???" (paraphrasing for accuracy), so I was very pleased to see at DC recognize and reward their collaboration by giving them a bigger spotlight (Superman had already chewed up veterans George Perez and Dan Jurgens, alas).

Sadly, because I had to drastically limit my comics intake starting around that point, I never really got a chance to enjoy this choice pairing and their plush new assignment.  It seems they devoted the bulk of it to the creation of H'El, and I phrase it that way because I hope the character sticks around.  He's handy in the same way Eradicator or General Zod are in providing a nasty reminder of Krypton for the Man of Steel's ongoing adventures.

The thing this particular issue, which I went back and caught up with months after the fact, does quite well is accentuate the true strength of the whole New 52 Superman line (which from the start I didn't really get to enjoy because even then I was limiting the intake, a chronic condition that is probably not going to change anytime soon, unless someone wants to dump a lot of money or free review copies in my lap).  Besides Red Hood and Teen Titans, Lobdell wrote Superboy from the start of the DC relaunch.  I wish I'd been able to read that one regularly, because I liked what I read in the debut issue, but distance from ongoing experience kept making me fall back on my other impression of the series and/or character: that he looks like the Tron of Steel in his new outfit.

Which is unfortunate for a lot of reasons.  The original clone version of Superboy, from the days of the "Reign of the Supermen" arc following the original Doomsday storyline (in case you didn't know, there's a new one going on at the moment) was always a favorite character of mine (I liked all of DC's teen heroes in those days, actually).  I didn't necessarily want a reboot of the character, especially since the welcome if different revision Geoff Johns cooked up for another Teen Titans reboot had already created for me sometimes too much distance from it.  And also, Tron of Steel.  But Superman #25 is a reminder that there actually is plenty to like about the newest iteration.  Lobdell is a big reason why.  He's got a knack for getting in the head of his characters, and knowing how to present them.  Think Mark Waid's Flash.  

The H'El arc has intersected Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl for a while.  H'El has been having a strong impact on Supergirl, too, drawing out what makes the latest iteration of this character so special for the reboot as well.  Supergirl is no longer just another Character of Steel on Earth, but rather seems to inhabit her own corner.  In the past it's been incredibly easy just to play up her relationship to Superman (or if you're Peter David, ditch everything and...basically write a different character entirely, maybe one called, oh, Fallen Angel).  I don't know a whole lot about what was going on with Supergirl prior to H'El first appearing, but her appearance in Superman #25 is as strong as anyone else's.

Including Jor-El.  Lobdell has come up with the kind of story Jonathan Hickman tried doing in Fantastic Four a few years back (before the "death" of Johnny Storm).  Surprisingly, few writers have tried to come up with ways for Superman to team up with his father.  Now, technically that's about as impossible as it gets, given the circumstances.  But "impossible" is the middle name of comic books.  So what do you expect?

The issue spells out everything you need to know about the whole H'El arc, including how the villain came into being.  This is also the arc's conclusion, which is handy if you only want to sample the thing.  But I think, even if one long arc and one creation under their belt, Lobdell and Rocafort have an excellent legacy behind them, the kind they deserve.

Rocafort isn't as astonishing here as I'd like, but it's clearly still his work, and that's good enough.  It's completely atypical for Superman (you'll certainly believe a man can fly...into the fantastic!), as it was for the characters in Red Hood.  He's the version of the Aspen template that has something on the mind other than Michael Turner's long lady torsos.  

Anyway, I'm glad I finally caught up with these guys.

Superman #23.3 (DC)

via Comic Book DB

writer: Scott Lobdell

artist: Dan Jurgens

Ha ha!  Wasn't I just complaining about Marvel's convoluted numbering ideas?  Here's DC doing it, too.  At least they did it, this most recent time (and the time before it, the second set of zero issues during a whole zero issue month), for a specific reason.  That was the annual New 52 launch anniversary celebration, which last year featured fifty-two issues spotlighting DC's villains.  It was, appropriately, known as Villains Month.  

Since the villains selected didn't necessarily come from every comic DC was publishing at that time, and also they really wanted to double- and triple- and even quadruple-dip with some of the big name heroes and their well-known villains, that necessitated some wonky numbering.  That meant, basically, that DC had to do the same decimal nonsense Marvel has been doing.  

Thankfully, along with familiar names DC also took the opportunity to help launch some new villains, such as H'El in this particular issue.  The first thing you need to know about H'El is that, yes, someone finally made the obvious play-on-words with Superman's birth name.  The other thing you need to know about him is that he's basically the comic book version of the Zod featured in Man of Steel, a Kryptonian who wants to bring Krypton back, and doesn't particularly care about what (and/or who) needs to be sacrificed in order to do it.

But that's not really all you need to know.  Since Superman's past is rarely the present in the comics, mostly because, well, it's the past and Superman didn't exist so much as his parents on a whole world that had to die in order for his origin to live, lots of creators have taken liberties with the established canon of Krypton and who was doing what in its last days.  H'El is, thusly, a new element of Jor-El mythology.  Jor-El, of course, is Superman's father, the guy responsible for sending baby Kal-El into space and eventually to Earth.  

He's the kind of character that might seem convoluted if you're not feeling generous.  (And let's face it, fans are as apt to feel generous as not.)  And Scott Lobdell is a writer whose reputation is much the same.  For every fan who loves what he does, there's another who wishes he would just go away.  I think he's pretty brilliant, personally.  He's a high profile success who also happens to be a constant underdog, always on the cusp of actually being appreciated.  I think it's because he hasn't really become known for anything but superheroes.  He was the defining writer of the X-Men during the '90s (when people didn't necessarily care about the X-Men, besides Generation X and Onslaught/Age of Apocalypse), and his New 52 work has been bizarrely controversial (because he...dared to use Starfire pretty much...the way she's always been used in comics?).  He understands the characters he writes, but he also understands their potential, which is rare, and he's not afraid to take chances (which is rarer) which pay off (which is rarest of all, which pretty much puts him in the same league as Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison and...that's about it, really).

The other part about this issue is that the art is from Dan Jurgens.  The Artist Who Killed Superman.  Actually, most recently he's the reason I haven't really made the effort to continue reading The New 52: Futures End (which is the DC version of X-Men: Days of the Future Past).  Which is bizarre, because I've continued to be a champion of Jurgens long after everyone else jumped off the bandwagon.  I'm among a select few who enjoyed his Teen Titans.  I loved that he helped keep the Tangent universe alive.  His art is so distinctive, this can be a good thing.  And it can be a bad thing.  In Futures End I find it distracting for the first time.  But within Superman #23.3 it's a welcome link to a previous era.  I really wouldn't mind Jurgens owning a whole pocket version of Superman.

So I like H'EL.  I like Lobdell.  And once again, I like Jurgens.  I'd like at some point to read all of the Villains Month issues.  I've had the opportunity to catch up with a select few, and I haven't been disappointed.  I have been selective about it, but still.  I think it was a great idea.  And again, I love that a few new villains had their shot during the event as well.  

Quarter Bin #51 "Icon, Nick Fury, Mark Waid, and other curiosities"

Comics featured in this column were not necessarily bought in a quarter bin.  This is a back issues feature.

Deity #2 (Hyperwerks)
From October 1997:
This is a pretty awful example of the dreck that the '90s boom helped produce by way of the extreme proliferation of comic book publishers.  Actually, I won't dignify it with much discussion other than to note that Brian Bucellato, who has since transitioned into writing such comics as the New 52 Flash with Francis Manapul, was a colorist on this project.  Move along, move along...

Icon #1 (Milestone)
From May 1993:
This is the missing link between Malcolm X and Superman, you'll find yourself thinking if you read this debut.  I have a limited amount of experience with the Milestone experiment from DC (a whole imprint dedicated to black heroes and creators), which most famously led to the Static Shock cartoon, but I've always respected it as one of the boldest efforts ever.  Maybe all those early Superman crossovers weren't such a good thing, because they only served to distract from what made Icon different from the Man of Steel, rather than what made him familiar, a real voice for the social conscience.  Reading this debut makes me wish I could read the rest of the series, just to see if this perspective was maintained.  If it was, that would make Icon one of the most significant fictional efforts in the continuing cultural dialogue of America.

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #36 (Marvel)
From June 1992:
You might be forgiven to believe that the character of Nick Fury only became significant after Samuel L. Jackson started portraying him in the movies.  You might be surprised to learn that the Nick Fury in the comics is in fact a white dude (it's the Ultimate version of the character who resembles Jackson, because he was in fact designed that way, and debuted long before the movie version; the mainstream version was eventually and lamely updated to try and capitalize on this trend).  No, Nick has a long history, and has even had his own solo adventures.  This issue is pretty good, too, featuring a guest appearance from Luke Cage (another character who despite increased prominence in recent years has not been granted a new ongoing series even though seemingly everyone else has), about the PTSD of a former S.H.I.E.L.D. operative who ended up becoming a villain, redeemed by the end of the story.  It's a fairly early effort in the career of Scott Lobdell, and at first it seems obvious that he needed to be transitioned into younger characters (which he famously was in Generation X by the midpoint of the decade), but by the end it really doesn't matter one way or another.  I'm continually impressed by Lobdell.  He's still working toward receiving the accolades he's long deserved.

Mystic #5 (CrossGen)
From November 2000:
I read the Marvel revival of this series a few years back when it was being written by the wonder G. Willow Wilson, and that version is better than this one, though Ron Marz's original isn't too bad, either.

Robotech: The New Generation #12 (Comico)
From December 1986:
I'm apparently still not at the point where I can properly appreciate the legacy of Robotech outside of an action figure or two I randomly acquired as a kid, but this issue was worth looking at if only to remember the legacy of Comico, which was an early publisher of some of the best creators in the medium, including Matt Wagner on both Grendel and Mage.  I think it's about time to give Wagner the accolades he deserves.  He's gotten more of them than Lobdell, but really, not nearly enough.

Ruse #7 (CrossGen)
From May 2002:
Mark Waid has been trying for so long to get on the ground level of a spectacular new comic book publisher (Ape and Boom! besides) that I think it'll ultimately hurt his overall legacy unless someone eventually brings all these disparate projects under one rough in some future reprint effort.  CrossGen was one of those efforts, which as far as I can tell tried to do everything but superheroes, which is fine, and it helped launch the careers (much like Comico) of some truly outstanding talent, but all of that material counts for nothing if the company quickly fades away, as CrossGen did.  Waid ends up being the loser all over again (ironically, Boom seems to be the most enduring of these efforts, but Waid himself departed after completing his Irredeemable cycle, the one time he's returned to superheroes outside DC or Marvel).  Ruse is a detective series in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes, and this issue features some crackling dialogue and romantic chemistry, two things that Waid's stories are not normally known for.  Recently I engaged in a debate over his Daredevil work in the comments section of another blog.  I argued that his Marvel work never compares to his best DC work (which I've recently made quite clear that I greatly admired).  I think all these launch projects are a part of that curious creative psychology of Waid's.  He's a rebel who nevertheless when given the opportunity to play in a familiar setting does the most reverent work ever with characters we only thought we knew.  But he also rebels against his own best interests and instincts.  Needless to say, but I'm still trying to figure out Mark Waid.

Quick Hits: Red Hood and the Outlaws #15 (DC)

Part of the "Death of the Family" crossover that concluded recently, this is one of those issues that could've been something really special, especially considering that it stars Jason Todd, the first Robin to die in the line of duty, confronting the psychopath who killed him, the Joker.  Unlike the initial Batman and Robin outing, however, Red Hood and the Outlaws doesn't embrace the opportunity, which is curious, because Scott Lobdell has wisely wrapped the whole series around Jason's perspective, which is part of the reason I've been trying to make the case for it being exactly the opposite of the horrible mistake everyone else has been trying to make it.  Yet for some reason Lobdell hesitates at the moment of his greatest triumph, and this may be due to the fact that he simply wasn't sure how far he could take it, given that the Joker has similar confrontations in every other tie-in, and so inherently the moment can't help but be dimmed, because that was the weakness inherent in the apparent strength of a Joker story like this.  You can't expect him to be everything to everyone.  And so Jason doesn't get much out of what should have been a seminal moment.  Maybe the other issue accomplishes that, or maybe there's simply room for a future story where Joker and Jason are all alone together, advancing the "Under the Hood" story that much further.  Because in a lot of ways, the Joker is more of a Jason Todd villain now than he can hope to be Batman's.  Batgirl has a similar claim.  I didn't check in to see whether the moment was realized in her opportunities.

Teen Titans #0 (DC)

writer: Scott Lobdell
artist: Brett Booth

For the record, although I seem to be writing quite a bit about Scott Lobdell these days, I didn't buy this issue because of Lobdell, but rather to complete the New 52 Zero Month collection of Robin stories.  (Others included Batman and Robin, featuring Damian; Red Hood and the Outlaws, featuring Jason Todd; and Nightwing, featuring Dick Grayson.)

Teen Titans until recently was the only place where Tim Drake could be found in the relaunched DC landscape.  This had to be considered a little shocking, since Tim was the Robin for two decades, and was the first of them to be featured in his own series, not to mention the only founding member of the Geoff Johns relaunch to retain his own book (unlike Superboy and Impulse/Kid Flash).  Although much of my superhero experience has involved the rich lineage of the Boy Wonder, he's always been who I consider to be "my" Robin.

And yet somehow Tim, who'd become Red Robin (a costume originally designed for Kingdom Come and therefore an identity first held by Dick Grayson, and ironically or not next worn by Jason Todd in Countdown to Final Crisis) in his last phase before the New 52, was dropped unceremoniously into a book that really did not have a link to Batman.  Certainly there is precedent for Robin, but not for Tim Drake, so it was always a little shocking to me that this had happened, and yet as part of the streamlining process it was also a little inevitable that his role should change.

The Teen Titans themselves have tended to fluctuate in terms of importance.  In the Wolfman/Perez '80s they were the lifeblood of the company.  Johns shot them back into significance, but in a lot of ways DC has spent a great deal more energy keeping the Justice League relevant, which is fine, although there will always be comic book fans who believe only by engaging the younger reader base will the industry's future be assured.  This may be one of the reasons why the Titans (sometimes called Young Justice) have a continuing role in the cartoon leg of DC's efforts.

Lobdell, meanwhile, took on the youth wing of the New 52, whether that meant Teen Titans, Superboy, or even Red Hood, which in a lot of ways is another Titans book (and in a previous era this would have been more obvious), based largely on his reputation from Generation X.  Because the Titans have such a turbulent publishing history, I didn't have an interest in checking this new incarnation out.  It seemed if anything something for a new generation, moreso than most of the other new books, even though most of its characters are some of my favorites (the same was true for Superboy, though I had a look at its first issue).

All that being said, I finally read an issue because it finally put the spotlight on Tim Drake.  It's interesting to me, someone taking another shot at Tim's early development.  One of the great benefits of comic books is that they're one of the few creative mediums (music is another) that actively encourages revisiting familiar material.  It's a chance to have a fresh look and discover what makes it special all over again.  A Bob Dylan song sounds different when played by Hendrix or U2, but they're all pretty great (here I'm thinking of "All Along the Watchtower," by the way).

The bulk of my experience with Tim comes after he's already become Robin, so the period in which he figures out (or as depicted in this issue, spends a lot of time trying) Batman's secret identity (originally presented in Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying) is pretty fascinating.  In a Brian Bendis comic this would have been the first twenty issues (which is what he did in the initial Ultimate Spider-Man comics and then again with the introduction of Miles Morales).  Tim is such a unique Robin, too, in that his parents at least at the beginning of his story are both alive.  He's driven by different ambitions than any of the others, including Batman himself, and Lobdell does a great job of explaining that.  (It's also worth noting again that Batman #0 includes brief looks at each of the Robins, and as I said when I commented on the issue, Tim stands out.  Bendis should switch to DC and do that.)

While I'm very happy that this issue happened, I also wonder why.  Shouldn't it have been dedicated to the whole team, if not the new members Lobdell has introduced?  Just wondering.

Superman #13 (DC)

writer: Scott Lobdell
artist: Kenneth Rocafort

I've come to have a great appreciation for the talents of Scott Lobdell.  He's been just beyond the mainstream for years, a name fans are familiar with but not someone who has produced a tangible legacy behind him, though he's certainly done notable things.  When I saw that he was apparently one of DC's major acquisitions to help shape the New 52, I was intrigued.  I'd just become acquainted with his work on Generation X (which was the X-Men title at the time), so I saw it as an opportunity to see how well he held up not just historically but as a working writer.

I was impressed from the start.  I stuck primarily with Red Hood and the Outlaws, which was somehow notorious for sexualizing Starfire (even though only in the cartoon everyone was thinking about had she ever not been sexualized since her debut in the '80s).  It was good stuff, and not just because I'd been wanting a series starring Jason Todd for years.  There was also the stellar art of Kenneth Rocafort.

When I saw that the pair had been elevated to Superman, I wasn't thinking that this particular series was getting its third major creative shakeup of the New 52 relaunch.  I was ecstatic that I wasn't the only one to have noticed not just Lobdell's work but the unique chemistry he has with Rocafort, whose work can be called a post-Michael Turner dynamism, very reminiscent of '90s art but a step beyond it, as if someone were finally noticing that it could be taken to another level.  Like the artists who ushered the Image revolution, Rocafort is not just an artist but a storyteller, one of the boldest of his generation.

All that aside, their work so far in Superman has been everything that I hoped it would be.  There is a tad bit of awkwardness involved in this transition process, however.  Lobdell and Rocafort, either by their own initiative or by editorial mandate (something that admittedly has played a role in the preceding administrations, as it were), are going almost directly into a crossover event (also involving Supergirl and Lobdell's own Superboy) involving the latest incarnation of a threat from Krypton's past coming back to haunt the survivors of the present.

But very few readers of this particular probably cared too much about that.  And actually, Lobdell proves that he hasn't let the continuity of previous creators fall by the wayside, as the personal shakeups that have plagued Clark Kent (our erstwhile Superman, in the off chance you didn't know that), famously including a breakup with Lois Lane (less drastic with new continuity than when Spider-Man did the same a few years back, although of course his ex is Mary Jane Watson, not an intrepid reporter).  

As you may or may not have heard, Clark quits the Daily Planet, and in spectacular fashion, with a grand speech about journalistic ethics and ideals that seem to have been abandoned by today's press (though you may be forgiven to be thinking of TV rather than newspaper as you consider his points, as very few people, ah, think of newspapers these days).

It suggests Superman's famous credo: Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

This is the kind of territory Grant Morrison has been visiting in Action Comics, the other ongoing series to chronicle the adventures of the Man of Steel, in which Superman returns to his roots as a social crusader (though not like Joe Straczynski did in the days leading up to the New 52).

Although as far as the action goes, and again this has a lot to do with Rocafort's considerable talent, this may be the first time Superman looks vital in years.  All of this is to say that if you haven't taken this dude seriously in the recent past, you have one less excuse to use.  Two books, two distinctive approaches, and they're both firing on all cylinders.

Quarter Bin #45 "Brother's Blitz, Part 3"

Disclaimer: Comics featured in this column do not necessarily come from a quarter bin.  The ones in the "Brother's Blitz" series, however, in all likelihood were got for a good price.  The following are the contents of several boxes given to me as presents more than a decade ago, which I did not read until recently.

Conclusion!

Alpha Flight #6 (Marvel)

From January 1997:

This Canadian team is best known these days for Northstar, a pioneering gay character who just got married.  There was a time the only relevant association was Wolverine.  Very rarely, it's the team itself.  This issue comes from Steve T. Seagle and Bryan Hitch (before The Ultimates made him a superstar), and features the diminutive Puck trying to track down Sasquatch, who's being screwed around by the authorities.  One of the more interesting reads from this selection.

Atari Force #7 (DC)

From July 1984

Atari Force#8

From August 1984:

A comic book not meant for the likes of me.  In the letters column of the latter issue, however chimes in one Thomas Paoli.  It's only the second time I've seen that surname.  The first is in the pages of Mike Costa's Cobra, where Paoli is the last name of the twins Tomax and Xamot.  Coincidence?

The Avengers #290 (Marvel)

From April 1988:

Of tenuous interest to the many viewers of this summer's biggest blockbuster.  Remember the Tesseract?  In the comics it's better known as the Cosmic Cube.  In this particular comic it's become Kubik, though it has the bad fortune of temporarily being corrupted by the Adaptoid.  Much havoc ensues.  The Avengers in the issue are very much a b-team, though Captain America is around, even though this is a period during which Steve Rogers is estranged from the US government (he does that periodically).  He sports a variation of his usual costume that looks like the one U.S. Agent wears later

Battlestar Galactica #21 (Marvel)

From November 1980:

This is not your BSG.  This is, as the publication date suggests, the original.  There's a reason it was almost totally reimagined.

Captain America #347 (Marvel)

From November 1988:

As with the above Avengers comic, the role of Cap is in flux, with a sort of prototype Jean-Paul Valley arc going on as the unstable John Walker assumes a role he makes considerably less familiar.  

The Crow: Dead Time #1 of 3 (Kitchen Sink)

From January 1996

The Crow: City of Angels #1 of 3

From July 1996

The Crow: City of Angels #3 of 3

From September 1996:

I think I've been spreading some falsehoods.  In a previous edition of "Brother's Blitz" I suggested that there haven't been any new Crow comics in years.  There is in fact a new one in print right now.  There was also a new Concrete one-shot just recently published from material previously published in Dark Horse Presents.  Journalistic integrity...eventually!  Anyway, Dead Time is original material from Crow creator J. O'Barr and features art from Alex Maleev.  City of Angels is based on the movie that tried to start a screen franchise after the infamous Brandon Lee original (infamous because Lee famously died on the set).  Yes, the franchise did happen, but to very little success.  Angels failed to connect with fans.  It's become increasingly obvious that anyone cared about the Crow at all because of Lee's death (though pro wrestler Sting took the look and has kept it in the public conscious since '96).  From this comic I think the story certainly had its merits.  If the execution was off, I suppose that would be one thing.  I may have to start watching some of this material to see for myself.  Like the Highlander franchise, it's a cult I wasn't in at the time, but have found myself increasingly attracted to.  

Elfquest: Blood of Ten Chiefs #3 (Warp Graphics)

From November 1993:

I still don't find myself caring for Elfquest.  Sorry.

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #19 (Marvel)

From July 1984

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #20

From August 1984:

Anyone who thought adding aliens to the franchise in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was hopefully scratching their head in the former issue, which features a dragon.  Yeah.  The latter sees someone trying to impugn the name of Marcus Brody!

Ghost Rider 2099 #1 (Marvel)

From May 1994:

Features the art of Carlos Bachalo.  Otherwise seems to be a pretty standard Ghost Rider comic, and not particularly inspiring 2099 material.

Hawk & Dove #1 of 5 (DC)

From October 1988:

From Karl & Barbara Kesel as well as some dude named Rob Liefeld, whose legendary inability to draw feet (or so modern observers like to claim based on his current style) is somewhat belied by many feet appearing this issue.  Hawk & Dove is a pretty interesting concept (though Hank Hall is perhaps more interesting as Monarch/Extant, or for slightly more recent fans Brightest Day), and got their own New 52 comic.  This issue features the debut of the female Dove, who replaces Hank's brother Don.  Her name is Dawn.  This is what it sounds like when doves cry.

Infinity Inc. #35 (DC)

From February 1987:

Features art from Todd McFarlane, which looks nothing like the Todd McFarlane art later featured in Spider-Man and Spawn.  The team, by the way, was second generation Justice Society.

Jack of Hearts #s 1-4 (Marvel)

From January-April 1984:

This character has a terrible costume design.  Otherwise fairly interesting.  The second issue features the first reference (of many) in the comics from this Blitz to the Official Marvel Try-out Book, which famously launched the career of Mark Bagley.

Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #s 1-6 (Marvel)

From November-April 1984-85:

From Chris Claremont's legendary X-Men run comes this mini-series featuring Wolverine's second-ever solo(ish) adventure, which is really a supporting role in Kitty Pryde's story in which she runs away after being rejected by Colossus (which going on this information alone makes Joss Whedon's most famous Astonishing X-Men moment completely illogical) and discovers her father's dirty business dealings have gotten him into trouble with Japanese gangsters.  In his previous mini-series Wolverine's Japanese connections had just been established, which makes it awfully convenient.  As it's written by Claremont himself, this is readable material, even if Al Milgrom's art does no favors to Kitty's hairstyle, before and after it's forcibly altered by the chief villain.

Lady Death #0 (Chaos!)

From November 1997:

A character straight from the '90s bad girls scene, though this particular comic certainly makes her out to be pretty, er, matrony.  It's actually pretty interesting.  This is Lady Death's secret origin!

Marvel Fanfare #16 (Marvel)

From September 1984:

Apparently much controversy was to be had at the time by editor Al Milgrom appearing in the Marvel corner symbol, a spot normally reserved for the stars of the particular title (it's something DC did, too).  I don't know what that's about, but it's the most memorable thing about this one.  It also features work from Marv Wolfman and David Cockrum, as well as Mike Mignola (unlike McFarlane and even Liefeld above looking familiar to fans of his later work).

MASK #1 (DC)

From February 1987:

Based on a toy line I had brief experience with.  Art by Curt Swan!

The Micronauts: The New Voyages #4 (Marvel)

From January 1985

The Micronauts: The New Voyages #6

From March 1985:

Features art from Kelley Jones, who would go on to play a memorable role on the covers of the Batman "Knightfall" saga as well as several vampires tales featuring the Dark Knight.  Even moreso than Mignola, Jones' work is instantly recognizable in these issues.  It's the only thing worth noting about them, however.

The Mighty Thor #409 (Marvel)

From November 1989:

From Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, the latter of whom would later work in the '90s Superman comics I enjoyed so much, except when illustrated by Ron Frenz.  Not the right style.  No label link for Ron Frenz!  Features Dr. Doom!  Hercules!  Exclamation points!  And the second time Thor was tied to the body of an ordinary human!

Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD (Marvel)

From December 1983:

But featuring reprinted material from '67 and '68 and the work of legendary Jim Steranko, a conceptual genius when it came to art.  There's only a few panels here that truly reflect that, however.  It's nice finding classic work in these random comics, and for some reason this batch was just loaded with notable artists, even if some of them weren't doing their most iconic work.

Nightmare Theater #1 & 4 of 4 (Chaos!)

From November 1997:

A horror anthology that I enjoyed best for its surveys of classic Hollywood films (these issues cover the Golden Age and the resurgent '60s.  Both issues feature Eric Powell (The Goon) inking someone else's work.  The latter issue features a story from Alan Moore, in classic form taking an alternate look at familiar faces, this time movie monsters and featuring wolfman Francis "Itchy" Peterson.

The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #3 (Marvel)

From March 1983:

Characters from The Collector to Dracula are profiled, with Collector probably being the most interesting character, with Deathlok coming in second, though more famous ones like Cyclops, Daredevil, and Dazzler (famous?), as well as Doc Samson, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, and Dormammu (??) are also featured.  Marvel's Captain Marvel is listed in the appendix on the inside back cover.  I don't know if he got better treatment in the previous issue, but he was an incredibly notable character, especially in Jim Starlin's famous Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel.  Is it that he was dead by the time this was published?

Pitt #15 (Full Bleed)

From September 1997:

Dale Keown's Pitt was pretty famous in the '90s, and was also one of a rash of characters from the decade to duplicate the (Fawcett/DC) Captain Marvel gag of being closely tied to a little boy (or perhaps Keown was more inspired by Bill Watterson?).  Now Pitt just seems like one of those out-of-control art oddities that also littered those years.

Preacher #25 (Vertigo)

From May 1997

Pride & Glory #s 2 & 3 

From August-September 1997:

I'm lumping these together because they're both written by Garth Ennis.  I've had something of a contentious relationship with Ennis.  I've never read him regularly.  The one time I almost did, I ended up taking a fairly violent reaction to his work.  The thing to understand about Ennis is that he's not writing comics to write about superheroes.  In fact, it might be said that he really dislikes superheroes.  He's incredibly cynical about them (whether in the pages of Hitman or The Boys).  He's probably better understood outside of comics where he forces himself to write about something he neither enjoys nor particularly understands.  Preacher is perhaps his most famous creation.  These three issues (Pride & Glory has no relation) reveal a writer who has a great deal in common with Stephen King.  Both of them like to have fairly ordinary characters swap stories.  I think with this insight, I may begin to better appreciate Ennis.  Don't tell him I said so.

Robotech #1 of 3 (DC)

From January 1985:

Written by Andy Helfer!  Based on a Japanese TV show (does not feature Wolverine).  That is all.

ROM #23 (Marvel)

From October 1981

ROM #s 63-64

From February-March 1985:

I still don't get ROM.  (The first issue features Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and a cameo from the Fantastic Four.)  Great concept, terrible design.  How did this series run for so long?  I think if anyone wanted to revive it now they'd better give the lone survivor of a band of space knights a better look.

Sabretooth (Marvel)

From 1995:

From Fabian Nicieza and Gary Frank (showing glimmers of the work he'd make famous with collaborators like Geoff Johns), this one was perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the last Blitz.  From the foil-embossed cover I was expecting very much the kind of (mostly) bad X-Men comics I've been characterizing in these things.  It's anything but.  This is all the more surprising because I remember being baffled that anyone thought it made any sense to try and make Sabretooth a member in good standing of the mutant community.  Nicieza crafts this tale in the fashion of Jeph Loeb (years before anyone would truly appreciate that fact), and Frank makes Victor Creed the spitting image of Wolverine...as portrayed by Hugh Jackman in movies that wouldn't exist for another five years.  In effect, this is a comics years ahead of its time, and is all the more remarkable for it.  

Shatter #1 (First)

From December 1985:

It's almost sad, the amount of hope First Comics seemed to have in this series.  Tell me how many comics fans know about either Shatter or First Comics today.  The comic features digital art, however, so that was pretty revolutionary.  The company also published Mike Grell's Jon Sable, John Ostrander and Timothy Truman's Grimjack, as well as Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! (apparently being written by Alan Moore at the time), Nexus, Michael Moorcock's Elric...Holy crap, First Comics was a precursor to the indy dream!  But is it remembered?  First indeed...

Uncanny X-Men #-1 (Marvel)

From July 1997:

Note the minus sign in the issue number...This was part of Marvel's "Flashback" event, more or less its version of Zero Month (1994 and 2012 versions) from DC.  Written by Scott Lobdell, it's another indication that '90s X-Men wasn't completely wasted by attempts to cash in on the Image art craze (which it actually began with Jim Lee's X-Men #1).  Lobdell probably did his most notable work in Generation X, but apparently he was at least as ambitious with the main group.  I'm not sure fans agreed, and the legacy doesn't seem to be there, but this was another comic worth discovering in the Blitz.  Another appearance from Bryan Hitch, too!

Vengeance of Vampirella #15 (Harris)

From June 1995:

Bad girls be gone!  Written as in previous Blitz appearances from the tramp vamp by Tom Sniegoski, sometimes collaborator of Jeff "Bone" Smith.

West Coast Avengers #37 (Marvel)

From October 1988:

More Al Milgrom!  A team of Avengers acting dysfunctional!

Wolverine: Days of Future Past #2 (Marvel)

From January 1988:

Harking back to a famous Claremont tale...but not itself destined to be famous.  The next First Class X-Men film is going to be borrowing from one of them.  Guess which.

X-Men Annual #12 (Marvel)

From 1988:

From Claremont.  Not featuring vintage Claremont.