Reading Comics 242 "Fifth and final Forbidden Geek mystery box"

Yeah, so that happened.  The title of this post reads "fifth" mystery box, when it really ought to have read "sixth."  You might recall that I had problems with my fourth box.  Forbidden Geek, when I contacted them, quickly shipped a replacement box when I told them the original had been lost in the mail.  The company sent out an email explaining how they'd had trouble keeping up with mystery box shipments during the holidays.  And then my fifth box never arrived.  Payment was processed for my sixth box, and the shipping information for the fifth box was immediately replaced for the sixth's.  I decided enough was enough.  The sixth box actually arrived exactly on-schedule, the same as the first three boxes had.  But I didn't want to continue supporting an unprofessional company.  It's one thing for shipping to be messed up once.  It's another to know there's a problem and take no real steps to address it and just get back to the schedule later. 

So I missed a box, and this final one, which actually proved all over again the value the service had for me, arrived.  It also included a trade collecting material relevant to the forthcoming Birds of Prey movie, and another Funko statue, plus these comics:

Animal Man #76
from October 1994

I had never read an Animal Man from this initial Vertigo period that wasn't written by Grant Morrison.  I understood that DC was keen to keep the series going without him, but I imagined that the results wouldn't really interest me.  As a result, I don't think I'd read a Jamie Delano comic before this.  Delano was one of the Vertigo originals, but he never had a signature comic like Morrison or Neil Gaiman, much less Peter Milligan (a lesser but still talented writer who continued working with the imprint for years after the original creators moved on).  This issue doesn't even feature Animal Man himself, but rather is part of an arc that includes the Red, a concept that was later used in the New 52 in ways fans didn't think was relevant, and yet here it is.  The New 52 was a job of reintegrating Vertigo characters back into the DC mainstream, and to do so it reclaimed familiar superhero tropes rather than focused squarely on horror elements (though the Red, and the Rot, were certainly intended even later to be considered horrific).  Anyway, long story short, I think I won't be so reluctant to read a Jamie Delano comic in the future.  We all have our biases for familiar creators, and can be shy about sampling unfamiliar ones.  Sometimes that approach is sheer nonsense.  You might discover a new favorite, or perhaps merely someone who is worth reading.

Batgirl #71
from February 2006

An incredibly simplistic story (this writer was totally unknown to me, and I was happy to leave them that way) featuring Cassandra Cain under the cowl, with the mouth covering she's traditionally associated with literally snipped away, apparently from a period where the Dark Knightress was no longer intended to be so ominous.  Great cover from Tim Sale, though.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #3
from 1993

"Bloodlines," yeah!  This is one of those things I'll always be nostalgic about, not just because a few of the new superheroes created during it turned out to be fun to have around (for as long as they managed to; Sparx and Hitman probably had the longest runs out of them, and neither is around anymore, and haven't been for decades).  Like the theme months in the New 52, I'll always be up to sampling the results all over again.  This one actually features two new characters, a hero and a villain, who end up cancelling each other out (both are depowered by the end), which isn't something I'd seen before.  Bonus, of course, that it features Azbats!

Batman #4
from February 2012

There's Scott Snyder's initial "Court of Owls" arc again, which lately I've been cursed to revisit again and again, whether in a Forbidden Geek trade collection or the Batman Giants.  Or this single issue.  Which I actually kind of want to write my own version of.  Y'know, so Snyder can never, ever see the results, and how much better they are.  (Take that!)

Hawkman #8
from March 1987

I admit that I didn't really read this one.

The Kingdom #2
from February 1999

Kingdom Come was a big epic tale that became one of my all-time favorite comics.  Mark Waid decided to follow it up with The Kingdom, which didn't really approach it (like at all) in quality, but was really an excuse for Waid and/or DC to officially bring back the multiverse via the concept of "hypertime," which actually got a bigger bow in the pages of Karl Kesel's Superboy (though, like Superboy in this era in general, is generally forgotten, despite a wealth of great material, and not all of it from Kesel and Tom Grummett).  Much like Morrison's later Multiversity, Waid sandwiched The Kingdom with one-shots exploring individual characters/concepts, which in the end were more valuable.  (Actually, the same is true of Multiversity.)  I actually think Kingdom Come's legacy was tarnished by The Kingdom.  If there were only going to be two issues of the lead story, DC and/or Waid could really have stood to opt for at least more impressive art, even if Alex Ross wasn't available.

The Ray #7
from December 1994

It's Howard Porter on art!  But not quite the Porter art as later depicted in the pages of JLA, meaning his style hadn't yet advanced to that familiar level.  And while I was always interested in at least sampling this series, featuring one of the many teenage '90s superheroes (for reasons, in this particular character, I never really understood), this issue is hijacked by Black Canary, which is kind of hilarious, because it proves how engaging she is apparently right after a series starring her was cancelled due to poor sales.  Stupid readers!

Robin #4 (of 5)
from April 1991

The original solo mini-series, featuring Tim Drake taking on the dreaded King Snake (a villain Tim's stories repeatedly returned to in the '90s, but who otherwise quickly faded into obscurity) while trying desperately not to think about having sex with Lady Shiva (hey, he was a '90s Teenage Superhero).

Stanley and His Monster #4
from May 1993

No, not Stan Lee and His Monster!  Although after Lady Shiva, it's kind of funny that the best thing about this comic is the sexy lady demon.  The best thing about the art is the sexy lady demon, too.  So there's that.

Starfire #2
from November 1976

Ha!  So apparently "Starfire" existed before the New Teen Titans!  And no, not the orange-skinned alien who sometimes is too sexy for comic book fans (it's a distinctly modern problem '90s fans would've been completely baffled by, as that was literally a whole genre back then; Americans still have no idea how puritanical our culture remains, regardless of how we explain it), but...a sword & sorcery Starfire!

As explained in an editorial in the comic itself, DC was desperately trying to launch a sword & sorcery angle to its lineup at the time.  Literally the only success from the many failure attempts in this initiative was Warlord, Travis Morgan, who still pops up from time to time.

And like the later Starfire, this Starfire is a sexy lady whose wardrobe does not attempt to cover large swathes of her body.  Anyway, the comic was also fun to read, and it was just fun to discover that the name had been used before.

The Titans #16
from June 2000

Devin K. Grayson!  I don't know, I think fans never forgave her for Dick Grayson's (no relation) rape.  Maybe there were other reasons, but Devin left comics behind and never attempted (or never succeeded at) a full-time comeback.  Which is absurd, because she was a talented storyteller, and instantly grasped DC continuity and how to continue it.  This team is literally the original Teen Titans, as adults, reunited, and this issue sees them rehashing interpersonal conflicts and deciding it's okay to have them and still maintain relationships (which makes it completely inconceivable in today's environment).  Kind of bittersweet, in hindsight, too, with how it handles Roy Harper, who in current continuity is kind of dead with far less fanfare than what happens to Wally West within the pages of Heroes in Crisis.  And suddenly I want a Devin K. Grayson series starring Roy.  At least they're finally reprinting her Nightwing.  Hopefully.  Sometimes DC ends up cancelling these sorts of things.

So long, Forbidden Geek, and thanks for all the fish!

Quarter Bin 81 "Starlin's Infinity saga, Loeb's Iron Man, Moench's JLA, Hitch's JLA, Waid's Offspring, Moore's LXG"

Although this is a back issues feature that doesn't necessarily always feature comics literally found in a quarter bin, this time you can once again safely assume that.

The Infinity Entity #1 (Marvel)
From May 2016.
I love that my local shop puts damaged new releases in the discount bins.  It makes it incredibly simple to sample stuff I might have otherwise overlooked, such as Jim Starlin once again revisiting his Infinity saga.  Starlin's the guy who has been guiding this stuff from the beginning.  You have him to thank for Thanos, that guy who's kind of the big bad in the Avengers movies, and basically, the Infinity saga is Starlin's ongoing narrative of the further exploits of Thanos, and other interested parties, such as Adam Warlock.  This mini-series actually takes place between two Starlin graphic novels, Thanos: The Infinity Relativity and Thanos: The Infinity Finale, which was released this past April.  Infinity Entity focuses on Adam Warlock as he reintroduces himself following one of those untidy comic book deaths.  It's amusing, seeing him interact with the original Avengers.  These are Marvel comics I eagerly anticipate reading at some later date, the older and newer stuff.  This is, you understand, not something I usually say about Marvel comics...

Iron Man #9 (Marvel)
From July 1997.
I think so much of what Marvel was doing in the '90s came off as desperately trying to look cool (possibly because, oh, the fate of the entire company was in the air thanks to potential bankruptcy) that it ended up alienating older fans and leaving newer fans with the impression that none of this mattered, once the company shifted focus back to more familiar ground.  I rarely read Iron Man comics (I've just never been interested), but I figured I had to read this one, as it was written by Jeph Loeb, during that whole period where he was writing Marvel comics without anyone realizing it was Jeph Loeb, because being Jeph Loeb didn't matter until fans got excited about him thanks to DC work like Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman/Batman (which is ironic, because he never gets the same respect at Marvel, and yet that's where he's been for about a decade now).  This story features an old Tony Stark colleague who was actually partly responsible for the original set of Iron Man armor, and has since kind of gone off the deep end.  Naturally, the guy is totally unknown in today's lore (didn't see him in 2008's Iron Man, right?), and so he's been lost to the same comic book vagaries and/or '90s amnesia that are so easy to rely on with fans.  I didn't find it to be such a bad read.

JLA: Act of God #3 (DC)
From 2001.
Doug Moench was one of the lead Batman writers in the '90s (among other things, helping spearhead "Knightfall" and the vampire saga with Kelley Jones; he also created Bane and Black Mask, as well as Deathlok and Moon Knight over at Marvel, where he did most of his formative work).  One of his last projects with DC was a prestige format JLA mini-series, Act of God, where he imagined what it would look like if all superpowered heroes suddenly lost their superpowers.  By this finale, several of them had banded under the direction of Batman, while Superman and Wonder Woman struggle with finding new meaning in their lives.  It's not terribly hard, in retrospect, to read it as Moench's swan song statement, and so I'm glad to have read it.

Justice League of America #8 (DC)
From May 2016.
Bryan Hitch's Rao saga continues in this issue, and I suspect the next one finally explains why all those dead Superman bodies kept showing up, as depicted in the first issue of the series.  Hitch's art was once known for its hyper realism, but in this series it's been simplified so that it kind of looks like the work of Stuart Immonen.  As a fan of Immonen, I find this acceptable.  Hitch is the writer of the Rebirth Justice League (along with art from Tony Daniel), and I think this was a good choice.

The Kingdom: Offspring (DC)
From February 1999.
The Kingdom was Mark Waid's follow-up to Kingdom Come insofar as it depicted many of the next generation heroes from the original story, and featured the menace of Gog, who was responsible for next generation hero Magog.  The Kingdom was split up between bookend issues where the overall story was told, and several one-shots.  This may be the first time I've read Offspring, which features the son of Plastic Man.  Both of them are struggling with the idea of being taken seriously, and as such Offspring makes for a good standalone story in and of itself.  It doesn't hurt that Frank Quitely provides the art, because Quitely isn't really capable of doing ho-hum work. 

It's interesting, though, The Kingdom, because it's an example of what DC always wanted to do, and eventually did, with Watchmen.  I've talked far too much recently about Alan Moore (elsewhere), but suffice to say I find it disappointing that he left mainstream work the way he did, and wanted no part in revisiting Watchmen.  For a lot of fans, that's become axiomatic, which strikes me as interesting, because this is the comics medium, the place where storytellers are most free to reinterpret, the basic job of storytellers everywhere, ever.  And yet, there's Waid, doing it with Kingdom Come, not very long after.  I mean, it makes sense from a business standpoint.  DC, and its parent company Warners, would understandably be interested in maximizing the profitability of a proven hit.  That's just basic business sense.  I never thought The Kingdom was or was intended to be the same kind of creative statement as its predecessor, but it still provided room for material like Offspring, which represents excellent material in and of itself.  To assume that this is impossible is, to my mind, to completely misunderstand the art of storytelling.

It's interesting, too, just to reconsider Kingdom Come, thanks to something like Offspring.  This was something that was a major deal twenty years ago.  It's not inconceivable to think that fans really did think this was something akin to Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns.  Yet, twenty years on, you really don't find anyone talking about it like that anymore.  I find that odd.  The more I think about it, the more I wonder, have we just lost the ability to conceive new touchstones as actually existing?  Without Kingdom Come, you wouldn't have Civil War.  I mean, Mark Millar's Civil War, when you strip it down to its essentials, is essentially Kingdom Come, done in regular continuity.  Tragedy strikes, and the superhero community is forced to decide what to do next.  Isn't that argument enough that Kingdom Come is still important?  It's just, we stopped trying to see it as important, when it proved about as important as a superhero comic could get.  DC had Identity Crisis, later, and Marvel finally jumped on the bandwagon.  Civil War was clearly a creative watershed for the company.  And you wouldn't have it without Kingdom Come.  I'll leave it at that for now.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #6 (ABC)
From September 2000.
Alan Moore's last significant creation was LXG, in which he envisioned a unified Victorian literary canon, which infamously was adapted into a 2003 movie that not only proved to be Sean Connery's last, but the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of Moore's ability to interact positively with the mainstream.  (The movie also made it important among fans that movies not treat, to their mind, adapted material with disrespect, which actually had the result of superhero movies after that time being more important in terms of mainstream crossover appeal than appealing directly to fans, which in 2016 seems to have taken on new wrinkles thanks to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in which fans have once again sunk their teeth into the debate).  Anyway, reading LXG itself is something of an odd experience.  Creatively it's not much of a statement.  More seems to have been put into the novelty of packaging the comic in vintage ads and, in the letters column, being wonderfully droll than in distinguishing the story experience itself.  At this point Moore had started to retreat into the familiar comforts of home, and yet the comic doesn't read as particularly British (that's why Paul Cornell's Knight & Squire was such a delight to read), and even if that wasn't the intent, just tossing familiar characters together reads like a cheat.  I mean, the old Allan Quatermain makes a fascinating subject, surely, in the same sense that comics with old superheroes (say, The Dark Knight Returns) tend to be, but it's odd to juxtapose him with, say, Moore's somewhat racist impression of Captain Nemo.  Quatermain (best known as the protagonist of King's Solomon's Mines, and as a cultural predecessor of Indiana Jones) and Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) are surrounded by Mina Murray (Dracula), although for what reason, if not a vampire (as in the movie), I have no idea, at least as depicted in this story (more sense would have been Van Helsing, who was the subject of Van Helsing, which like LXG served as a template for Marvel's Avengers), the Invisible Man, and Jekyll/Hyde, plus Professor Moriarty as the antagonist (by the end, as much of a genius as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan's Khan), a predecessor to James Bond, and some Chinese characters who perhaps deserve about as much speculation as Moore's Nemo...

I feel I have to reiterate that I don't come by my impression of Alan Moore lightly.  I haven't read everything he's done, and wouldn't particularly care to, even if the best of it is better than the worst that I have read.  I'm just irritated, irrationally, by the notion that to some fans Alan Moore is a god, and that his views and his work can't stand criticism, when to my mind not only is it possible, but necessary for any true reader.  I mean, it's not like I'm not used to people picking on the stuff I like.  I know how it goes.  Maybe some of this logic is best left to fanatics.  We all form strong opinions, and to give voice to them, whether in the privacy of friends or in the wide reaches of the Internet, is to invite contrary opinions.  To dismiss the opposite as an idiot is maybe the easiest response.  But just maybe, it ought to have you reconsider why it is you formed those strong opinions in the first place. 

Well, we all reconsider our thoughts, eventually.  Hopefully.  I guess I really shouldn't worry about it.