Pandemic Comics #10 “Ichabod Snip/Howard Fleck Expedition in 2020!”

Penultimate reporting on the Mile High mystery box comics:

Infinite Crisis Aftermath: The Spectre #2
The Crispus Allen version of the Spectre had as dramatic an introduction as possible, Allen’s arc beginning in the pages of Gotham Central where he existed alongside another character named Jim Corrigan (no, not the boy genius!), which led many readers to believe they knew exactly what would eventually happen. But then Corrigan murdered Allen, and Allen became the new host of the Spectre. In hindsight, this angle might’ve had longer legs had Allen accompanied his other colleague from Gotham Central, Renee Montoya, into the pages of 52. But then a lot of other things might’ve turned out differently. So maybe Crispus Allen was always destined for the reboot turnover scrap heap...Then again, so was Montoya. Spirit of Vengeance, where art thou???

Star Trek #1
From 1984, in the wake of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, following that exact continuity, the way the old Star Wars comics at Marvel used to try and guess what was relevant to do between films. Here it’s imagined that in a world without Spock, Kirk just kind of continues on without him. Oh, sure, he struggles with the idea, but...Anyway, like those Star Wars comics, these are tales somewhat instantly negated by the next movie, as Search for Spock would make clear...Mike Barr, the writer, points out in an essay that this is technically the first time Star Trek actually happened without Spock. And while later there would be a lot of Star Trek without Spock, it never seemed to work out the way everyone imagined it in those early years. The TV reboot in the ‘70s that was going to end up repurposed as The Motion Picture, which of course heavily featured Spock. Even his death didn’t prevent Spock from soldiering on! Which is to say, Barr indeed wrote history.

Stormwatch: Team Achilles #9
Couldn’t manage to read more than a few panels, alas.

Action Comics #662 
In hindsight it shouldn’t have been so surprising for the Superman writers concluding they literally had to kill the Man of Steel to prevent him from getting married too soon (in case you didn’t know, that was always their story for why Doomsday happened, because Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman was just getting started on TV, although ironically everyone loved it until they got married) (then the wedding was ruined anyway)...This is the big issue where Superman finally reveals his secret identity to Lois (who had just gotten engaged to Clark)...and most of the issue is spent dithering over the Silver Banshee. Although also historically interesting as it deals with the aftermath of Lex Luthor’s death, setting up his heir, no doubt quickly revealed to be his “son,” who ended up being revealed as his clone. (Lex died as a result of Kryptonite poisoning, of all the delicious ironies.)

Adventures of Superman #500
Polybagged, and will remain so, even if it’s never worth anything again. This was both the beginning of “Reign of the Supermen,” and the road to Superman’s return, as he spends the issue in the afterlife, talking with Pa Kent, who’s had a heart attack. (I know it’s as traditional in continuity as the reverse, but I prefer Pa, and Ma, alive versus dead. It’s the Lois & Clark fan in me. I love those three-way phone calls!)

Action Comics #849
(Between #662 and this, we’re talking 1991 and 2007, by the way!) I’m just gonna ignore the issue itself, a somewhat misguided effort to talk about matters of faith in relation to Superman. The back page features Peter J. Tomasi announcing that he’s leaving editing duties behind and commencing a full-time career as a writer. Here we are in 2020, and it was a very good decision, Pete!

Superman Confidential #1
Darwyn Cooke & Tim Sale begin “Kryptonite,” a Year One Superman tale that’s really easy to see in the  vein of Sale & Jeph Loeb’s collaborations, as of course it features Sale on art and Cooke very much writing the Loeb style. I’m frankly mystified that it’s not one of DC’s evergreens.

Swamp Thing #93
From 1990 and writer Doug Wheeler (in the letters column most of the readers are reacting to his recent acquisition of the job, and reflecting on his famous predecessors, like that chap Alan Moore). Anyway, this was a fun issue, and the source of the title to this post, the moops trying to expose the legendary “Swamp Man,” one of them wondering if the results won’t be famous in that fabled far-off future of 2020, which made it funny to read in 2020...Since, outside of the Charles Soule New 52 comics I’ve never really made a habit of reading Swamp Thing, it’s always nice to be reminded that things like Alec’s speaking pattern and even orange word bubbles have long been part of the mythos. And maybe I ought to read more of them.

Reading Comics 236 "Marvel Comics #1000, The Vigilant Legacy"

Marvel Comics #1000 (Marvel)
(Review copied from Goodreads)

I'm not a Marvel guy. I'm a DC guy. Generally speaking, I think Marvel is what fans in general think of when they think of superhero comics, what they expect. DC tends to be where the more interesting things actually happen. I think it's true of the movies, too, by the way. But I'm not averse to enjoying Marvel when there's something really worth enjoying. Marvel Comics #1000 is one of those things.

Strictly speaking, this is a gimmick book that's playing off the legitimate, historic thousandth issues of Action Comics (last year) and Detective Comics (earlier this year). Marvel likes the do that sort of thing, sort of fake a milestone just because it's been good business at the competition. But this one is not just a gimmick. Marvel put real effort into it, and it's probably somewhat instantly one of the best things it ever did.

The main writer is Al Ewing, part of the more or less uncelebrated modern creative generation at Marvel. He weaves a sporadic narrative introducing the concept of the Eternity Mask, which goes all the way back to the beginning, linked to the debut of the original Human Torch (who along with Namor established Marvel's superhero credentials). Marvel's periodically mined its early years for new material, most famously when Captain America was defrosted in the '60s to help assemble the Avengers, but more recently in the underrated Twelve that was sort of half Captain America and half Watchmen. But this time I think the trick was really nailed in an ingenious way. Ewing weaves a secret history while bringing up a series of forgotten heroes, all while discussing the idea that it's the rebels who've forged American history, free from the tyranny of kings.

Every page revisits a milestone for all eighty years of Marvel lore, and each is a master class in creativity, from a host of famous writers and showcasing the stellar art the company is still capable of even in an era that has more often been derided on that score than celebrated (seriously; known and unknown artists alike combine to fill every page with works of technical achievement).

Since there are so many creators, each working a single page (with a few exceptions, including Ewing), I don't want to bog down the review referencing individual talent (though there are some surprises, such as Patrick Gleason, who until this celebration has long been associated with DC). Suffice to say, you won't be disappointed with the turnout.

The whole thing is a playful examination of the mounting legacy of the company, without leaning heavily on anything (which is something Marvel, or its fans, often can be guilty of), letting the characters speak for themselves. Maybe it's that very element that's lets a DC guy appreciate a Marvel comic, since as far as I'm concerned, Marvel doesn't stop and smell the roses nearly often enough, too busy throwing itself into another wild adventure to let things sink in a little, or conversely, taking itself too seriously (as I noted above; that's part of why I never got into Marvels and instead admired that other Alex Ross-painted epic, Kingdom Come).

This is a comic that'll be very easy to revisit in years to come, regardless of how significant the Eternity Mask thing becomes. It's also something that would be very easy to recommend to fans who really only know Marvel from the movies. Not only will they get an idea or two about what could come next to the big screen, they'll see just how much there has always been, and will be for a long time to come.

That's the end of the review as previously written.  Here I'll mention that I loved seeing Stuart Immonen (with wife Kathryn) showing up for one of the spotlights.  Jeff Lemire was another welcome sight (a full-blown Cable project would be fun; although I almost would want to see Matt Kindt's interpretation even more).  Loved Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale reprising their act in a lighthearted entry.

Also read:

The Vigilant Legacy #2 (Rebellion)
Simon Furman, although more specifically the various house ads concerning reprint material, leans pretty heavily on how this is a legacy comic, too, revisiting various British superheroes who are virtually unknown across the pond, creating a kind of integrated landscape and, eventually, a team, that reads like Valiant's best comics from recent years.  Glad I stumbled across it during a recent trip to Barnes & Noble, where it was the lone actual comic in the magazine section, nestled in with the genre stuff (the bookstore chain quit selling individual issues of comics, in general, several years back).  In today's age it can sometimes seem impossible to showcase new characters, or at least ones that can be presented as such, but it's things like this that prove what nonsense that really is.  All you need are competent creators willing to work with them, and each other, to pull it off.

Quarter Bin 106 "Challengers of the Unknown"

Challengers of the Unknown #5 (DC)
from July 1991

This was a series I originally discovered, randomly, rummaging through back issues, so it's always nice finding it again that way, even though eventually I read the complete story in the trade paperback collection that ought to be reprinted, perennially, as the classic it is.  Unfortunately it's mostly remembered, if at all, as the first pairing of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, who later ended up collaborating on Batman: The Long Halloween, and a host of other stuff that brought them far greater acclaim.

Reading an issue again, now, is to be reminded just how special it really was, a truly inspired work of art in which Loeb felt free to write exactly as he wanted, completely untethered.  I became an amateur fan of the Challengers after discovering this, and sampled later versions, but beside the fact that none of those could ever hope to compete with it, I'm still surprised that DC hasn't even tried to bring them back recently, whether in the New 52 or, so far, in Rebirth.  Heck, even in the new Young Animal line.  Loeb's Challengers, like disgraced Gerard Jones's Green Lantern: Mosaic, was Vertigo material that was never identified as Vertigo material, even though in hindsight it clearly was, as Vertigo was in its nascent days, when Grant Morrison was doing Animal Man and Doom Patrol, and not so much The Invisibles. 

Reading these original issues also helps me keep tabs with what readers were thinking.  And you know the concept is doomed when the editor is begging those readers to spread the word, "and with any hope there will be more!"  This never means anything good.  And it's a shame to report, more than a quarter century later, that this stuff is still waiting to be discovered.

Quarter Bin 90 "Captain America: White #1"

Captain America: White #1 (Marvel)
From November 2015

writer: Jeph Loeb

artist: Tim Sale

I'd already read this issue when it was originally released, but it came in one of the packs of slightly oldish comics I picked up recently (I love that comics are being packaged and sold in diverse retail environments again), so here I am, reading and writing about it again.

I've continued to be a fan of Loeb/Sale even after they've stopped being popular (I tend to do that), especially in a project (this one) that didn't seem to interest anyone, even though Marvel does few enough projects like it, and for fans like me it's an ideal way to read a company that more often than not alienates me.

Like Loeb/Sale's other Marvel projects over the years (Spider-Man: Blue, Daredevil: Yellow, and Hulk: Gray), Captain America: White is a kind of origin story that takes the form of a reminiscence over a lost loved one.  In this case, Steve Rogers lamenting Bucky Barnes. 

It's kind of odd, because Bucky finally came back from the dead (you may have heard about it), and so trying to get people interested in a concept that's now completely retro is probably one of the reasons nobody cared about this.  Marvel fans are hopelessly nostalgic to a fault, but they also love the idea of being eternally current.  If that makes any sense.  Very few Marvel stories stand the test of time in the ways DC's routinely do.  It's more about nostalgia, like I said, and whatever's happening now (heh). 

It comes off as a little homoerotic (not that there's anything wrong with that, but unlike Batman & Robin I don't think anyone ever really suggested such a relationship before) for Steve to be pining away for Bucky in the classic Loeb/Sale/Marvel manner, which I think is another reason fans skipped over this one.  The biggest problem is that other than Peggy Carter or her descendant Sharon (a thing that mostly has its roots in the movies), Steve Rogers has never been depicted as someone with any close relationships.  He's a soldier, and soldiers bond with other soldiers.  But Bucky is usually depicted as much younger than him (Loeb describes the relationship as father/son).  The great irony of Steve that few writers choose to spotlight is that in a lot of ways he's still the skinny little guy who originally couldn't make it into the army.  Loeb/Sale bring this up in terms of his relationship with women, but even in that it just makes it seem that much more that the real problem is that he's gay and just doesn't seem to know it.  You don't have women throwing themselves all over you and remain totally oblivious to it, just because of who you used to be.  You can probably ask any given celebrity about that sort of thing.

The issue prints not only the first one but reprints the zero issue as well, from nearly a decade ago.  For whatever reason there was a massive delay between the start and completion of this project, whether because Loeb got too busy in Hollywood or Sale just wasn't feeling motivated, or whatever.  Neither really deals with Steve's transformation, but rather throws him and Bucky into the war (there's a little contradiction as to whether the story starts with their first or last excursion).

Regardless, if you'd never read Loeb/Sale before, I'm sure this would all read a lot better.  I tend to read too much into things, or think too much in general.  But then, this series hasn't exactly been a blockbuster, either.  But it's definitely worth a look, as a curiosity at the very least. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quarter Bin 78 "Seagle/Sale, Drew Melbourne, Archer & Armstrong, and Bizzare New World"

This is a back issues feature.  However, these particular comics were found in a quarter bin.

The Amazon #3 (Dark Horse)
From May 2009.
And, from 1989, because this was a reprint of a twenty-year-old comic, one of Steven T. Seagle's first projects, and only one project removed from Tim Sale's first collaboration with Jeph Loeb.  I find the latter factoid perhaps more relevant, because it might further explain how their overlooked masterpiece, which I know by its collected title, The Challengers of the Unknown Must Die!, came to be.  A few years back I noticed tonal similarities with Andrew Helfer's Shadow.  As it turns out, Sale and Loeb may have taken inspiration from Sale's own work, too.  Seagle, I think, has remained one of the true comic book mavericks.  A lot of creators try to wear that face, but Seagle lives it.  He's been able to, I think, do it quite successfully.  It also makes him hard to pin down, so every time I spot him, it's a nice little treasure. 

The title of this project refers to the Rain Forest, not the Greek myth that eventually gave birth to Wonder Woman.  It's an '80s environmental message (so of course it resurfaced again).  More significantly, at least creatively, is the unorthodox approach Seagle takes in telling the story.  As far as I could tell, because one out of three issues, even if it's the conclusion of the story, can't quite explain everything, the two sets of captions indicate that the narrator has presented both his initial thoughts and the ones he later publishes for the reader.  Whatever else it is, the story is the guy's reactions, which leaves an impressionist feel to the proceedings.  Those who like straightforward storytelling would probably just throw their hands up in frustration.  I loved it.

But the thing is, that's the kind of storytelling Loeb later adapted for his Challengers comic with Sale.  It's unorthodox, and you can tell how their relationship evolved, to better fulfill superhero expectations, as the years went by.  That first effort, to me, remains the most pure.  So it's nice to see a little more of how it happened.

ArchEnemies #4  (Dark Horse)
From July 2006.
I snatched this up as a reread, because I originally reviewed this mini-series when I first wrote about comics on the Internet (so this would be a ten-year-anniversary kind of deal for me).  The reason I read the comic was because writer Drew Melbourne had won a contest put together by Top Cow back in 2004, when I first pursued the task of breaking into comics.  Drew's winning pitch, Future Heroes, never got made, but I assume the connections he made by winning the contest helped make ArchEnemies happen. 

It's interesting to reread this.  Today, I know that Drew's comics career went no further than this issue, which is kind of sad.  I mean, I really started to root for the guy!  But that's the catch-22 about contests and/or new creators.  Just because you break in, doesn't mean you'll make it.  The guy maintains his fascination with steak (read about it here!), but I guess he fit in that model of trying to look at superheroes differently, that's so attractive to comic book publishers other than DC and Marvel (well, normally; you can never tell with Marvel these days), only too well.  Because that's what ArchEnemies is, a tale of roommates who unbeknownst to each other are actually a superhero and his arch-foe.  It's a great setup.  Drew decided that the villain was, perhaps, a more interesting character to explore.  This final issue makes him pretty human.  (I honestly don't remember the rest of the story at this point.  Part of the comic's marketing campaign was creating a Myspace profile for one of it's characters!) 

The art just makes everything so much harder to follow than it needs to.  Yvel Guichet, directly before this, had been working steadily in mainstream, DC comics.  After this, he didn't.  His last notable work was, once again for DC, Trinity of Sin.  Clearly the guy has mainstream chops, but he seems to have approached this particular project as obtusely as possible.  On the other hand, the covers cleverly acted as the first page of the issue, so that was pretty cool.

In the end, I think the whole idea wrote itself out of relevance.  I think if Drew had been a little more established, this could have been a cool little Image ongoing comic, where the premise itself would have worked.  But instead he convinced himself, or allowed himself to be convinced, that he could try for something deeper, which he just wasn't ready for, and neither was this comic.  But again, Drew still loves steak, so there's that!

Archer & Armstrong #4 (Valiant)
From November 2012.
At the opposite end of that spectrum is Valiant's latest incarnation, which has proven to be a fruitful platform to present the kind of comics readers of Marvel's Ultimates line, and maybe what DC's New 52 era was supposed to be, kind of expected to happen to superhero comics.  The thing that Valiant's done is not overstretch itself.  I can't say whether every project has been a hit, but this is a cohesive, clever universe it has constructed.  The more I read of it, the more, generally, that I love it.

I read the first issue of this particular series digitally a few weeks back, and loved it.  Previously, I had no idea what Archer & Armstrong was supposed to be about.  I thought it might be fairly throwaway buddy nonsense, like Quantum & Woody turned out to be.  But as it turns out, it's actually essential to that core narrative that Valiant has been building.  Concepts like Ivar, the Time Walker (which is another concept that I previously had no idea about) or The Eternal Warrior, or the Geomancer, which was key to the excellent The Valiant mini-series, come from this.  Armstrong is a long-lived guy who's trying to project ancient secrets that bad guys would just love to get their hands on.  Archer is an adept who's been used by the bad guys to get the job done.  Together, they realize they are a great combination, once they sort their differences out, and so goodness ensues.

This is the kind of buddy comic Quantum & Woody only wishes it was.  (Quantum & Woody is a thing because it was the most popular thing from that era of '90s Valiant comics.)  The writer, Fred Van Lente, is a guy I always like to see at top form, because at top form, he's a true pleasure to read.  Valiant tends to collect writers like him (Matt Kindt, Jeff Lemire, Jen Van Meter), who in the best of all possible worlds would be the most sought-after writers in the medium, but for whatever reason don't tend to connect at the Big Two.  So it's Valiant's gain, and Valiant knows exactly what to do with writers like this.  And Valiant, in turn, gets to publish some of today's best superhero comics.

Bizarre New World #1 (Ape)
From 2007.
This is another flashback from a decade ago, Skipper Martin's baby, about an average man who learns he has the ability to fly.  Like Drew Melbourne's take on the traditional superhero archetype, Skipper chose to skew the topic.  In an essay at the back of the issue, he somewhat uncomfortably makes a case that the superhero formula, today, probably looks ridiculous.  This will, of course, be the argument for anyone who no longer subscribes to an opinion they once held, or perhaps never held it.  It's also a textbook case of a fan (he references a closet-full of comics) who perhaps never understood it.

I have no beef with Skipper.  Like Drew, his career went nowhere.  I maintain Facebook contact with him (the sucky thing about social media is that it's a lot of illusion), and so it's especially weird to be talking about the project where I first heard about him, and having to question his thought process.  Then again, it's kind of how the Internet goes.  I don't think he'd be the type to stumble upon this and flip out, but you never know.  (Then again, what did I just do with Drew's comic above?)

The problem with presenting an average's man's experience with learning he has the ability to fly, in the real world, is that it can quickly spiral out of control.  Later comics saw the whole world gain the ability.  This issue sees the lead character grapple with the implications, and then, more directly, how it might affect his relationship with his son.  It ends up being a bonding experience. 

That, I imagine, is what set Skipper's story apart.  Sometimes, writers can't really tell where the heart of their story is.  It happens all the time.  Some of the writers responsible are bad, and that's the reason why, and others just didn't really think about it.  Skipper, in the essay, talks about the six years it took for him to develop the story, and he seems to have focused almost exclusively on how the guy got the powers, if that was even relevant, and none on what the story, ultimately, should be about: an intimate family drama.

Live and learn?  Well, maybe some day, Skipper can learn from it.

Reading Comics 182 "Making a commitment"

Yesterday I went to see Deadpool and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (thought it was entertaining, loved it, respectively) and in between visited Heroes & Villains again.  I wanted to order a copy of Omega Men #3 (the only one missing from my physical collection) and pick up the latest issue, #10.  Then I put in reserves for the two remaining issues, and next week's Wonder Woman: Earth One from Grant Morrison.  Omega Men, as anyone who's been reading this blog since last fall will know, has become my favorite recent comic, certainly favorite since Morrison's Annihilator which concluded early last year (and topped the last two annual QB50 lists).  Things rarely work out this way for me (yet), but ideally I'd like to see Omega Men remembered in the same ranks as Alan Moore's Watchman as a seminal superhero comic.  It's just that good.  It changes everything.  At least DC has rewarded writer Tom King with the plush assignment of Batman in the impending Rebirth era.

I walked away with a few other comics, and so I'll talk about that stuff:

Sam Wilson: Captain America #7 (Marvel)
Billed on the cover as celebrating Cap's 75th anniversary, this supersize issue features a pivotal moment in the "Standoff" crossover arc, for Steve Rogers, and a few extra stories from some acclaimed creators.  The lead features Sam Wilson, who's been Captain America for the past year or so but is also familiar to fans as Falcon, as he enters Maria Hill's misguided supervillain reconstruction town.  He teams up with Bucky, who still responds to the name of Winter Soldier these days.  The writer is Nick Spencer, who made a splash with DC a handful of years ago but has otherwise been making his name with the Image series Morning Glories.  (I'm surprised his name didn't already have a label here, because I was reading him in those early years, including the start of Glories, but I guess that was just before I started this blog.)  Joss Whedon teams with superstar artist John Cassaday for a tale from Cap's WWII past, Tim Sale does a mostly wordless story concerning Cap's oft-overlooked parents, and Greg Rucka features Steve Rogers at the ballet, along with artist Mike Perkins, who worked on Ed Brubaker's Captain America, as well as Marvel's ambitious adaption of Stephen King's The Stand.  Rucka and Perkins easily have the best work in the issue.

Omega Men #10 (DC)
King finally gets to the war the Omega Men have been plotting against the Citadel from the very start, and predictably, there's very little glory to be found, just mere survival.  Kyle Rayner stumbled into the fight of his life, one that has nothing to do with Green Lanterns, and by the end of the issue he walks off into the distance, and his last words in the issue are, "No.  No, I'm...I'm just another Omega Man."  King's quote from William James (always one of my favorite features in this series) says, "Truth happens to an idea.  It becomes true, is made true by events."  It's not until this issue that the Omega Men have truly been allowed to do what they've been promising all along, to be the heroes in a great fight for freedom.  What does it feel like to be a part of that?  Although King has been featuring the secret origins of the team itself, the series has had Kyle at its core since the start.  He doesn't revel in the results they've had so far.  Not having a personal stake, it means something different to him, but it has become personal.  That's King's genius. 

Prez #6 (DC)
This is the final issue of the initial run.  DC's promised to let Prez complete its twelve issue run, just as with Omega Men, but it'll take a little longer.  Ben Caldwell has since started work at Marvel.  I hope he'll be back to finish Prez, because Mark Russell's biting political satire is truly some of the best mainstream work I've seen in years, challenging what I believe, and I still love it.  That's just one of the many things to love about it.  I'm glad to have finally read the issue.

Superman/Batman #1 Special Edition (DC)
This was a freebie released in conjunction with Dawn of Justice, reprinting the debut issue of Jeph Loeb's modern World's Finest series.  Loeb had become one of the most acclaimed writers in comics at the time, and this series continued his trademark psychological insight into superheroes he'd previously brought to works like Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman For All Seasons, plus the more contemporary Hush arc with Jim Lee, in which he helped shape the landscape of DC at that time.  In this issue, President Luthor is still in office, one of the key developments that stretched from the dawn of the millennium to Infinite Crisis, characterization that reflects Lex's role in the later Geoff Johns Justice League and Zack Snyder's Dawn of Justice.  There are far worse free comics out there...

Digitally Speaking...48

Digitally Speaking...covers comics I've read from my comiXology account...

CBLDF Defender #1 (Creator Owned)
From April 2015.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund takes comics seriously, as in they champion creator rights, and the right for readers to have access to comic book material.  It's basically the comic book version of the inexplicable banned book phenomenon.  Banned books, as in the concept of allowing ninnies to censor what you're allowed to access.  Mostly this takes place at schools and libraries, which means the very institutions intended for society to build itself up are in fact breeding ground for people to tear each other's potential down.  This strikes me as wrong.  This debut issue of a journal detailing CBLDF's activities and relevant discussions such as Neil Gaiman's experiences (via an interview) and the Charlie Hebdo controversy (in which one culture violently attempts to tell another what is acceptable, and the other responds with cartoon drawings) is pretty dry.  Usually the Defense Fund enlists industry veterans to make actual comic book material out of the discussion first begun with Seduction of the Innocent (also covered in the issue, by the way), but for whatever reason chose not to do so here.  Insightful material, but could use more innovative analysis.  Personally, using more examples of challenged material would be more interesting.  An excerpt from Persepolis is almost completely unreadable in even the greatest enlargement, which only enhances the size of the pixels.  Alas, comiXology's Guided View is useless in this instance.

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #1 (Marvel)
From 1993.

This issue begins Frank Miller's origin of Daredevil alongside artist John Romita, Jr.  This was years after Miller's famous work on the character, and it shows, how well he knows Matt Murdock, calling back to mind things Miller had done previously.  By the end of the issue, Matt's father has refused to throw a fight (this is depicted in the movie released a decade later) and been murdered for it, following Matt's blinding and subsequent training under Stick, although his interest in the law and even nickname "Daredevil" is presented as predating all of this.  Romita has a distinctive style that is already in full evidence, pretty much exactly as seen in his current Superman work.  Perhaps tellingly, it looks much like Tim Sale's work.  And hey! speaking of which...

Daredevil: Yellow #1 (Marvel)
From 2001.

After years of telling Batman stories together, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale went over to Marvel and started a series of character sketches there, too.  Their Daredevil read a lot like Frank Miller's, and looked like it, too.  Probably not a coincidence.  Miller's work paved the way for Loeb, who always seemed to have an instinct for superhero psychology and an intuitive grasp of their personal narratives.  Later he'd bring this to his greatest success, Superman/Batman, which began life as a series of dueling monologues straight out of the work he'd done in Batman: The Long Halloween and Daredevil: Yellow, among others.  Yellow is another origin story, and the first issue covers the same fateful sequence concerning Matt's father as detailed above.  Yet repetition, as always, creates resonance, especially when covered by expert hands.  One master to another...

The Defense Fund could find a lot of illustrations in Matt Murdock's story.  Miller depicts the formative days of the boy who would become Daredevil as full of delinquency and fallen heroes.  Yet this only serves to create the man who would become a hero best known for never giving up.  Surely a message worth spreading?  Comic book fans, especially superhero fans of the Marvel persuasion, are always arguing that this is a medium that celebrates triumph over adversity.  Isn't that the CBLDF mission statement?

Django/Zorro #5 (Dynamite)
From 2015.

Django/Zorro, and Grant Morrison's Annihilator, became the first time I read a comic book first-run digitally.  I haven't made that clear until now.  My local comics shop is supposed to have the series (both of them, actually) pulled for me, but then, the guys who run this store are always screwing up.  So I didn't even realize I hadn't read this particular issue yet until I checked in on my comiXology account.  I don't always have time to read the material there, which is why my alphabetical journey through it has taken such a long time.  As it turns out, this is the issue of Django/Zorro I've been waiting for all along, the moment the Quentin Tarantino in the story really pops.  Not just because the late Dr. King Schultz makes a cameo, or that Don Diego de la Vega (a.k.a. Zorro) pulls off the same trick Schultz does in Django Unchained concerning revealing the identity of someone he has a bounty on, or that gunfire irrupts abruptly.  Okay, maybe a combination of all these is enough.  It's the first time Matt Wagner seems interested in more than a superficial juxtaposition.  Here he's making a clear effort to evoke not just the spirit of Tarantino's movie but its feel as well.  And this is a good thing.

(I've also added Descender to my subscriptions.  Where will I strike next???)

My All-time Favorite Comic Books, 25-21

Every comic book reader worth their salt has a list of their favorite comics, the ones they treasure the most and most recommend to new and fellow readers.  Here's mine:

#25. Spider-Man Reign

Creators: Kaare Andrews
Publication dates: 2007
Issues: 1-4

This is my personal favorite version of The Dark Knight Returns, one of the most famous Batman stories ever told.  Marvel was a little slow to respond to it, but along with the excellent Wolverine story arc "Old Man Logan," it was easily Spider-Man Reign that finally rose to the challenge.  Where Reign trumps DKR is its ability to capture the essential message of the lead character in a way that goes backward and forward.  In the future, Peter Parker is an old man who once more dons his costume to battle an insidious plot to enslave all of New York City.  It's the quintessential "pathetic loner" Spider-Man story, told evocatively and sparsely, featuring most of the familiar supporting cast although each of them in surprising ways.  When you picture Spider-Man you usually have the wise-cracker in mind, but far more deep to the core is a guy who has never fit in and never quite got over that feeling of exclusion.  That's what this story is all about, how the story ends for one of the greatest heroes ever.

#24. Mister X

Creators: Dean Motter
Publication dates: 1984-present
Issues: 1-14, Brides of Mister X, Condemned, Eviction, Hard Candy

One of the greatest comic book characters I've ever read isn't a superhero, but rather Dean Motter's archetypal retro-futurist creation, the reclusive Mister X, originally published by Vortex Comics but by increasing demand finally staging a comeback at Dark Horse with new graphic novel releases every few years.  Along with Motter has been a number of other creators who have helped shape one of the most breathtaking artistic achievements in comics history, comparable to Will Eisner's more famous Spirit, creating an impact that's still only beginning to be felt.

#23. Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason's Batman and Robin

Creators: Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason
Publication dates: 2011-present
Issues: Batman and Robin Vol. 1 20-22, Vol. 2 0-present

I've been increasingly impressed with this dynamic duo, who first came together for Green Lantern Corps and were later again paired together in the pages of Brightest Day.  Yet it's in Batman and Robin where Tomasi and Gleason have truly peaked (so far), creating a book that's almost a companion to contemporary Batman lore, offering the best commentaries on current storylines while also immersing themselves in the private lives of Bruce Wayne and his son Damian.  Key issues include #0 (Damian's origin) and 23 (a perfect eulogy to Damian's death).  Bucking every expectation, this has the potential to climb much higher.  Or Tomasi and Gleason can somehow top themselves in a different collaboration entirely.

#22. Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung's Young Avengers

Creators: Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung
Publication dates: 2005-2012
Issues: 1-12, Avengers: The Children's Crusade 1-9

To my mind still the most perfect of the monthly depictions of the Marvel universe, even if it lasted for one year and then years later for a reprise about as long.  Heinberg took the Infinity Inc. formula of looking at how the next generation of famous archetypes would perform (a thing Marvel had tried before in things like M2 and 2099) and perfected it, with an entire bumper crop of characters with the same angst as the '60s boom generation and all the room to explore and grow as their story continued.  Children's Crusade remains inexplicably underrated, even though it was the sequel to House of M years in the making and completely unexpected, as well as a natural sequel to Heinberg and Cheung's original run.

#21. Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Challengers of the Unknown

Creators: Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale
Publication dates: 1991
Issues: 1-8

Later collected under the title Challengers of the Unknown Must Die!, this is Loeb and Sale's earliest and to my mind best collaboration, a complete deconstruction of the superhero narrative in a way Watchmen could only dream, literary and therefore mostly untouchable to anyone expecting traditional material.  And the fact that it features a group of undiscovered icons makes it all the better.

(All covers via Comic Book Database.)

Quarter Bin #36 "The Invisible Catwoman Avenger as Interpreted by Loeb, Morrison, & Johns"

CATWOMAN: WHEN IN ROME #1 (DC)
From November 2004:
Here’s Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale again, continuing what they began in THE LONG HALLOWEEN and DARK VICTORY, this time centering their story on Selina Kyle. Their storytelling is so effortless, it’s baffling that fans have found it so easy in the last half dozen years to try and erase their legacy. In a way, I’m glad that I’ve been in the position to play catch-up with their projects, as it affords me an opportunity to read it as if it’s new, so I can pretend that they’re still active. I know Loeb is still working at Marvel, but he seems to have abandoned the kind of stories he does best, which is a little incomprehensible. I assume it’s because that’s the easiest way to survive at Marvel, because character-rich stories are secondary at the House of Ideas, the exception rather than the rule, which is the opposite of the company’s public perception. But it’s the truth. WHEN IN ROME, by the way, was a six-issue mini-series, so I’ve got more to read, when I get the opportunity.

THE INVISIBLES #4 (Vertigo)
From December 1994:
An omnibus edition of the complete series is being released in August, and so that’s probably when I’m going to begin reading the whole story. Ironically, when I scoured Heroes & Dragons for back issues, I came back with an issue I’d already read in the first volume, SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION. It’s fine, because Grant Morrison is Grant Morrison, and this way I get to read a little of what he was like in the letters column, and in 1994, I guess both he and his readers felt like being cheeky, because that’s what the letters in this issue are like, reactions from the start of the series. I know at one point there was going to be a TV show, but that never happened, and reading about that was actually one of the first times I started taking Morrison’s legacy seriously. Reading comics can sometimes form a false sense of their overall worth. It’s only when you step back that you begin to appreciate them, and the several times I’ve been forced to do that has only heightened my appreciation of Morrison particularly, as can plainly be seen on this blog. THE INVISIBLES is just one of the books he did around this point in time that was as subversive as he could make it (which makes his mainstream work since all the more remarkable, the reverse Alan Moore). One has the sense that his writing will only become more lucid (as he periodically experiments with impressionist work like WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN), that he may very well channel his talents to stuff even his most skeptical critics will be able to appreciate. And for the rest of us, there’s stuff like this.

THE AVENGERS #s 70-71 (Marvel)
From October-November 2003:
These issues are also numbered 485 and 486, and they are written by Geoff Johns, some of the few comics he’s written outside of DC. And for me, one of them is fairly infamous. In #71, Hank Pym crawls up the chest of Janet Van Dyne, clearly wet, and the implication is obvious. Pym is Ant-Man/many-other-identities, has the ability to both grow and…shrink. (Van Dyne shrinks, too, and is better known as Wasp. They’re both founding Avengers, but are not, so far as the publicity has revealed, in the new movie.) Back in 2003, I read about this scene with disgust (yes, I was an Internet fanboy), and it colored my opinion of Geoff Johns as representative of the immature comics I kept reading about at that time. Johns broke into comics at about the same time I had to stop reading in, 1999, and so far as I knew, wasn’t a talent worth considering, and reading about this scene was the last straw. I was never going to care about this writer, this hack! Some ten years later, he’s one of my favorite writers. Actually reading his AVENGERS is one sign of this drastic transformation of opinion. To my mind, this is the way the team should be written, not as a glorified vanity project (sorry, fans of Brian Michael Bendis), full of interest in the actual characters. It’s not possible to write them like this all the time because, well, Marvel cares more about telling stories than writing about their characters, which is exactly the opposite of the DC instinct, which is why Johns writes at one company today and not the other. The first issue is the conclusion of “Red Zone,” which features Red Skull’s attempted hostile takeover of America following an elaborate ruse that put him in the president’s cabinet. Johns makes more sense of Black Panther in this one issue than I’ve been able to gleam from any other appearance or series. We’ll also note that the next issue, with its heavy spotlight on the incredible shrinking Avengers, would be impossible to publish today, unless in the pages of the little-respected Young Avengers tale of THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE. But then, how could it be any other way?

Quarter Bin #33 "Loeb & Sale in Yellow, Gray, & Blue"

DAREDEVIL: YELLOW #1 (Marvel)
From August 2001:
Much has been made about how Marvel, the “House of Ideas,” focused its big boom creations of the 1960s on accessible characters who were more relatable to readers who might have considered themselves a little more vulnerable than those who’d grown up on the mythic dimensions of DC’s superheroes. And, on a slightly different note, that Jeph Loeb is overrated. Believe it or not, but the latter opinion was not always true. In his heyday, during the late ‘90s and early 2000s, he was arguably the hottest writer in comics. Known for his partnership with artist Tim Sale, Loeb delivered a succession of iconic stories, including BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN, “Hush,” and SUPERMAN: FOR ALL SEASONS. It was around the time of SUPERMAN/BATMAN, actually, the bestselling book of the early millennium that opinions started to shift. Caught in between was a trio of reunion projects for Marvel in which he and Sale took intimate looks at some of the company’s most recognizable characters. Until that point, Loeb had been known as a DC man. He joined the writing team on HEROES (for which Sale also produced distinctive art), starting playing with the Hulk (in red!), and faded more or less into the background of the conversation. (For some reason, his return to filmed entertainment, from which he’d come to produce the masterful CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE! with Sale, signaled not only the end of his popularity, but the beginning of the end of the HEROES phenomenon, too.) The Marvel “color” books (which CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE was to continue, until it was aborted) were some of Loeb’s most directed character work, in a career that had dedicated itself to exploring the men behind the masks, as it were, figuring out the narrative thrust as it had been shaped by others (and only sometimes moving it forward). DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, for instance, takes the shape of a letter from Matt Murdock to Karen Page, one of the Man Without Fear’s primary love interests, who became embroiled in the thorny mess of his career, and had been killed off only a few years prior. Our hero (who originally dawned a yellow costume, hence the title) reflects back on his origins, including the fate of his father, his main source of inspiration, a boxer whose career was revived by a thug trying to make money on the sport by fixing contests, with the senior Murdock paying the price for his scruples once he figures out what’s going on. In Loeb’s version, Matt’s already in law school when this goes down, and the subject, at least in this issue, of how he became blind isn’t even relevant. It’s taken for granted that his need for justice leads to a cowl, and it’s not a weakness of Loeb’s so much as the idea that Marvel characters need only one extraordinary circumstance to thrust them into a dangerous and insane career as a superhero. Loeb and Sale can make anything seem like it’s a classic, and it’s a little exhilarating knowing that they get to do what few Marvel creators ever get to do, which is restate an origin and try to make it relevant to new readers. The exercise is like getting a perspective on Daredevil’s whole career. And you’re left to wonder, what would Loeb do if he were writing this character on a regular basis?

HULK: GRAY #s 1 & 6 (Marvel)
From December 2003 & April 2004:
The answer can be extrapolated from Loeb (and Sale)’s work here and in his subsequent Red Hulk work, the long anticipation about who exactly the new Hulk was, something I know bugged a lot of readers to have to wait so long, but something I happily had a look at when it finally happened. I don’t typically read Hulk comics, and the main reason being, other than Bruce Banner’s story, Hulk is really just an idiotic monster who smashes things, meaning that he’s far more interesting from the vantage point of others, or how Banner manages to survive the transformations and actions he can’t control (which is why everyone loved Bruce Jones for that one moment, when he wrote the comics equivalent of the old Lou Ferrigno TV show). Like DAREDEVIL: YELLOW (and the next book), HULK: GRAY follows our lead character as he reflects on the inexplicable love interest whose relationship he is still trying to reconcile years later, in this case Betty Ross, daughter of Hulk and Banner’s arch-nemesis (and, SPOILER, eventual Red Hulk) Thunderbolt Ross. Again, Loeb and Sale are unimpeachable, and fans at the time cherished these comics the same way they did Loeb’s work with DC. The problem is that the stories reflect on the past more than they do the present, which is the only real way Loeb and Sale could have done their stories at Marvel, because that’s what a culture that obsesses over building an artificial sense of continuity has to rely on, and can’t really handle random stories of the past (although to be fair, SUPERMAN: FOR ALL SEASONS was like this, too, and pointedly is not as popular as their other work) that could do the same thing as HULK: GRAY in quite the same way LONG HALLOWEEN did for Batman, crafting a new story along the process of illuminating the past. Even though he still works at Marvel, Loeb does not find these books as perennial trade paperback printings like he does for the work at DC.

SPIDER-MAN: BLUE #s 5-6 (Marvel)
From November 2002 & April 2003:
If there’s one constant source of nostalgia for True Believers, it’s Gwen Stacy, the dead girlfriend who’s lived on for decades in the fond memories of perhaps the same fans who became outraged when Peter and MJ were split up a few years ago. (She can also be seen in ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-MAN 3, and yes, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, this summer’s relaunch of the film franchise.) So it was only natural for Loeb and Sale to revisit Gwen in their Spider-Man effort, with much the same framing narrative, of Peter pining over his lost love (today it can be done with Mary Jane!). Of the three projects, this one’s the closest to what they did at DC, since Spider-Man is the closest Marvel has to a DC style hero (even though he’s the prototypical Marvel creation; it’s his inability to actually grow up, even when he does, that keeps him in the realm of characters who by definition are able to deal with their angst, because he does in name only). When grounded by an inner monologue, Peter Parker is able to seem more mature, more cerebral than his typical manic portrayal allows, making this a book that should serve as an example and counterpoint to his usual depiction, and, as LONG HALLOWEEN was for Christopher Nolan’s Batman, a good gateway for fans interested in seeing how Andrew Garfield will deal with great power and responsibility.

If you want to know the influence of Jeph Loeb (and Tim Sale), that’s all you need to know. The material is there. Sometimes talent needs to be rediscovered to be appreciated.

The Challengers of the Unknown must live!

It’s easier to find a movie, say, or a book, or some music act that most other people seem to be overlooking or undervaluing, than a comic book. I don’t mean a series that doesn’t sell very well, or something from the indies (which by definition is swimming against the current). Most serious comics fans will usually know better than filmgoers seeking out the latest blockbuster or whatever moves them specifically, book buyers seeking out their own familiar commodities, or music lovers grooving on their favorites, just what exactly is available. Sometimes it’s merely a matter of not having enough funds to cover everything that looks interesting in the comics shop, or a lack of general availability, that prevents certain titles from being read. Most comics that sell worse than others usually suffer from a lower profile, or perhaps a lack of a galvanizing creative direction, which again circles back to the fact that there are many comics published on a weekly basis, and very few readers capable of actually buying them all. There are certainly really good books that seem to sell not so much really well for reasons that don’t sound quite that good, but again, that may simply be that they just don’t have the buzz, or that most the buzz is going elsewhere, and whatever remains simply isn’t enough, or that unwarranted bad buzz or an inexplicable lack of buzz swallows perfectly worthy projects whole…

I could probably talk circles around that, so let’s just move on. The point of this introduction is, it can sometimes be a little difficult to understand how a really good comic book can be overlooked, given the kind of community exists around this medium (and inversely, really easy to understand, given the community as we all know it). I mean to talk about Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN book, originally published as a mini-series 1991, and eventually reprinted as CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE!, after the team had become famous for such works as BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN and SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Still, I’d wager that very few people know this story even exists, and it’s a darn shame.

Loeb has in recent years distanced himself from comics work, having achieved a great deal of success with such recent efforts as SUPERMAN/BATMAN and HULK, not to mention to epochal collaboration with Jim Lee on the Batman story arc “Hush,” partly as I would assume to the fact that many fans have found it increasingly difficult that he has any real talent, beyond a massive amount of hype. I find this to be a terrific travesty, because to my mind, Jeph Loeb is easily one of the finest writers of modern comics, capable of finding an inner monologue to any given character, whether iconic or obscure, and maybe it’s just because that’s exactly the kind of skill I admire in a writer, but that’s not by far a bad attribute. Those fans claim he’s horribly formulaic and predictable, that his stories always feel less inspired in their conclusions than in their blockbuster setups. I would perhaps counter-argue that any good story ought to have an ending worth talking about, especially if the rest of the story was as compelling as everyone made it seem, but maybe that’s just me being difficult and contrary again. If it seems too “comic booky,” then maybe it’s the creator’s way of making the reader think about the medium in a more serious way. That’s exactly the kind of ending CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE! concludes with, with a villain that only really appears at the climax of a story that had spent all its time examining the individual members of the Challs, as they’re affectionately known, as they perhaps never have been before.

Along with Loeb, of course, for this story, is his most famous collaborator, artist Tim Sale, whose most recent claim to fame was his work on the TV show HEROES, which turned out in later seasons to be more unfortunate than it first seemed. Sale initially provided the finished paintings of a clairvoyant artist in the early episodes, and it was a clever link for a series that otherwise shunned comic book conventions. Then, of course, Sale’s art reappeared in the second season, well after that original character had been killed off, and like the series as a whole, Sale’s continued participation was viewed in terms of stagnation rather than inspiration (or perhaps, continuity!). Aside from what now appears to be an aborted project (CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE) begun a few years back, Sale, too, has all but vanished as a regular comics presence.

It does seem appropriate, that Loeb and Sale might have ended in without much ceremony their comics careers, since their Challengers work was equally overlooked. Readers of this blog might recall that I originally discovered, or at least started reading it, thanks to a series of quarter bin raids that forced me to track down the rest of the story. Appropriately, I found a dirt-cheap used copy of the trade collection. I can honestly say that this earliest Loeb-Sale effort is, in my opinion, their finest. I wish I could then properly explain how it was left to and remained in obscurity, except that really good things usually fail to find a really big audience.

This was Loeb’s first comic, even! I confess to still not have all that much experience with his screen work, from before or after, but the remarkable maturity and complexity on display in …MUST DIE! is enviable by any standard, in any medium, clear in some ways that Loeb was not at the time concerned with conventions. He tackled a team of heroes who for decades were viewed as Fantastic Four knockoffs, even as they remained something of a DC underground favorite, as with many Jack Kirby creations, popping up every now and again, rebooted past the conclusions in MUST DIE! for later appearances, though it’s probably been about a decade or more since the last time. In the first issue of the eight-issue mini-series, Loeb and Sale reduce the team of four plus one (members Prof, Rocky, Ace, and Red, along with assistant June) to three, after blowing up Challenger Mountain and most of Challengerville, not to mention Prof and June. For the remainder of the series, Rocky, Ace, and Red, having disbanded, redefine themselves, growing apart, and assume the civilian lives they left behind when they originally “cheated death” and started “living on borrowed time.” (When you think about it, the Challs would have made a picture-perfect 1980s TV show, and then 2000s summer blockbuster.)

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE! deserves to be remembered as a comic book classic, and ought to be part of the perennial reprint parade, prepped for an Absolute edition, and lauded loudly as the first genius pairing of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, as well as its definitive legacy. What many creators struggle for many years to accomplish with a given franchise they managed in eight issues, and in many ways, it’s almost better that the Challengers belong to obscurity before and after, since there really aren’t any fans to argue with over such a monumental story. If the team must be remembered for something, this more than earns such a distinction. It’s a calling card for potential, proved to be exactly that for Loeb and Sale, for what a comic book could do, and what even C-level characters can accomplish. What more could you ask for?

Quarter Bin #5 "From an Actual Quarter Bin, Part 2"

This is the other great batch of actual quarter bin comics, the second haul from last summer, when I really buckled down with the targeted picks. Once again, the selections are from Escape Velocity in downtown Colorado Springs. Because there are so many, I will skip further introductions and dive right in:

THE 99 SPECIAL (Teshkeel Comics)
From 2007; I had originally selected this one in anticipation of the then-upcoming DC book that saw this team return in a mash-up with the JLA, so obviously the topicality has come and gone. In many ways, I still wish Fabian Nicieza were the dominant creative voice here, since there’s so much potential that just sort of gets left on the floor, a problem that continues to this day. This particular comic, though, was a good find, because it’s an origin issue, so I was at least able to dive rather directly into the 99’s story.

AMERICA’S BEST COMICS PREVIEW (Wizard)
From 1999 (originally presented with WIZARD #91); I suppose in hindsight Alan Moore’s ABC comics were even more important than they seemed at the time, since they represent the last time he was truly committed to the mainstream, before he became completely disillusioned with one too many movie adaptations he felt didn’t do his comics justice. Is it an irony that no one ever moved to make a film of this work?

AMERICAN CENTURY #9 (Vertigo)
From January 2002; Howard Chaykin is an icon who has completely transcended every traditional comic book expectation, and I’m still waiting for him to truly receive his due. This book, however, possibly because he doesn’t supply the art, doesn’t help do him justice.

ANIMAL MAN #22-24 (DC)
From April, May, and June 1990; these were among my happiest finds, some of Grant Morrison’s later issues in his acclaimed run. I was all of nine years old when these were originally released, so even if I had been reading comics at the time, there’s no way I would have been reading them, or at least appreciating them. The book that made Grant’s reputation is of such mind-boggling scope that it’s little wonder that he struggled for years to find a proper follow-up (he’d presented his masterpiece, ARKHAM ASYLUM, a year earlier, but I hope to write more about that at a later date), spending time with the surrealistic odyssey THE INVISIBLES before going mainstream with JLA in anticipation of his Batman work a decade later. I didn’t have any experience with ANIMAL MAN until reading the DEUS EX MACHINA trade only a few years ago, and these issues represent part of the arc collected in that climactic story that shattered storytelling boundaries. Having apparently peaked so early (what other writer has ever approached such transcendent material?), Grant then had to tackle the matter of how to make the traditional material better than it’s ever been. Well, that’s my argument, anyway…

ASH #1 (Event)
From November 1994; now that he’s stepped down as the head honcho at Marvel, maybe Joe Quesada will go back to making comics on a regular basis. Do you even remember this one? After the blockbuster creation of Azrael at DC, Joe set out to create his own company, outside of the Image revolution, but relying on the same art-driven mandate that drove much of that decade crazy. You can see for yourself with this issue how completely overblown Joe’s concept was. Event’s only real success was Painkiller Jane, which actually became a short-lived TV show. Joe’s own art took radical steps away from the style presented here. Would anyone be interested in revisiting Ash today?

ASTRO CITY ½ (Image)
ASTRO CITY #18 (WildStorm)
ASTRO CITY: LOCAL HEROES #1 (WildStorm)
ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE - BOOK ONE #4 (WildStorm)
From January 1998, August 1999, April 2003, and December 2005, respectively; Kurt Busiek shot to instant acclaim with MARVELS, a project that revisited the storied origins of, well, Marvel’s most famous superheroes, and their earliest and most iconic adventures. He eventually parlayed that success into an ongoing project that explored his own creations, though the tone didn’t really change (the controversial and extended DARK AGE is famously based on what would have been his actual sequel to MARVELS). Like Alan Moore, Busiek doesn’t write comics so much as stories that reveal his love for the medium (and while Moore eventually branched out into history and other established literary figures, Busiek maintains his first love). Arguably, while this is the big strength for both creators, it has often hindered their potential (I would argue that it eventually caused Moore’s bitter split with the mainstream; in that vein, his frustrations with Hollywood adaptations of his work is actually a manifestation of his bafflement that other people really don’t understand what he’s doing; in essence, Frank Miller making a movie out of Will Eisner’s Spirit is closer to his goal than anything else). Still, the ASTRO CITY comics I found in those bins were happy, happy finds, since I’ve only recently begun reading Busiek’s passion project, and my appreciation has grown.

FLASH & GREEN LANTERN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1 (DC)
From October 1999; this one is such a throwback, here in 2011, for so many reasons. For starters, Barry Allen and Hal Jordan were both dead and buried in 1999, and now they’re both back and headlining DC. The title “The Brave and the Bold” was another thing that was extinct in 1999, but was brought back for an extended run last decade. Then there’s Mark Waid. In many ways, Waid fit’s the Moore/Busiek mold I was discussing above perfectly, achieving much of his early success drawing extensively from the past. With his famous “Return of Barry Allen” arc, that not only made his run in THE FLASH but also finally solidified Wally West’s right to succession, he made Barry relevant for a whole generation of reading, and paved the way for his return. But while Moore and Busiek constantly look backward, Waid kept looking forward, and anticipated the rise of Geoff Johns, a man often accused of building all his stories on the bones of the past. But what other creator has done more to forge the future of an entire company?

BREACH #11 (DC)
From January 2006; the fact that Bob Harras was synonymous with Marvel prior to his work on this short-lived book (this is actually the final issue) is perhaps the least interesting thing to talk about here. What greater concerns me is DC’s continual efforts to introduce new superheroes, which DC’s readers are constantly rejecting. I love reading on the Interweb how there’s been a lack of new characters in recent decades with staying power. Well, Interweb, it’s exactly your fault. The very demographic, or description of demographic, that’s supposed to support such initiatives fit’s the description of the Interweb: a small but vocal representation of an audience. The problem, almost the whole Interweb seems exclusively interested in bitching about things rather than expressing an actual interest in things. I would suggest many things would have been different for many characters created at DC and elsewhere over the last fifteen years if the Interweb had set a better example. One of the reasons Marvel and DC are bringing back letters columns is that they finally realized that the quality of conversation available on a letters page is infinitely greater than anything that has manifested on the Interweb since they attempted the transition, to “keep up with the times.” This is not to say that letters columns breed success for new ideas, but that message boards, tweets, profile updates, and the like certainly do not. “Progress” doesn’t always mean what it seems to. And for the record, Breach was another in a long line of interesting concepts that fans, if they were utilizing technology the way most people assume they do, or could, should have had a longer shelf life. The good news is that if he can be located in a quarter bin, that increases his chances of staying clear of that limbo Grant Morrison wrote about.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #5 (Marvel)
From March 1997; if you’ve done your math, you’ve no doubt realized that this comic comes from the Heroes Reborn era, and so yes, this is a Rob Liefeld book, female Bucky (since imported back into the mainstream), eagle-instead-of-A, and exaggerated figures all around. At some future date, I hope to represent here just how much I contradict the popular view of Liefeld, but suffice it to say…

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #2, 4, 5 (DC)
From April, June, and July 1991; if you revisit Quarter Bin #2 you might note for the record that CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #4 was also represented in the first Escape Velocity quarter bin haul, and that was my introduction to this first, seminal teaming between Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, what you might consider the start of a quest, which led to these purchases, and eventually, the whole trade collection, which I will write more about later. Such has my appreciation of this work grown that I now consider it to be one of the great undiscovered masterpieces of comics.

DEADMAN #1 (Vertigo)
From October 2006; in a different reality, this title eventually achieved the same reputation as Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN, another title that took the name of an established DC superhero and completely reimagined it. I first became acquainted with Bruce Jones during his run with THE HULK, when he did some of the most interesting work with that character since Lou Ferrigno. Somehow Jones was never quite viewed as a comics master, possibly because of his work on NIGHTWING in which he went all Lovecraftian on Jason Todd.

GENERATION X #27 (Marvel)
From May 1997; I thought this was a pretty clever find, since Bastion is the villain here, as he was last year in “Second Coming.” Hey, remember Generation X?

RAGMAN #4 (DC)
From January 1992; even though I hadn’t really read him until SHADOWPACT, Ragman was a favorite character of mine since I collected his trading card. The original and ultimately more interesting Spawn, Rory Reagan also has the distinction of being the most famous Jewish superhero in comics, a fact that only periodically seems to come up. This is one of those times.

SEAGUY #3 (Vertigo)
From September 2004; when I read the SLAVES OF MICKEY EYE mini-series, it was without having read its predecessor, so mostly I got a kick out of Grant Morrison more or less parodying his own work in FINAL CRISIS. I had no idea how long fans of Seaguy had actually waited for the adventure promised at the end of this very issue. It’s also funny to note that Cameron Stewart’s art style actually changed between books.

SPELLJAMMER #8 (DC)
From April 1991; there’s no other reason for this one other than, once again, Joe Quesada, whose art is unrecognizable, either from ASH or his most recent work. So, props for evolving, Joe.

YOUNG AVENGERS #4, 6, 7 (Marvel)
From July, September, and October 2005; this book and Ed Brubaker’s then-nascent CAPTAIN AMERICA is the work that finally got this life-long DC man to finally read Marvel on a regular basis. Allan Heinberg approached his material just as if he were writing a continuous and personal odyssey for a set of characters that were, through the duration of his original run, exclusively his, and he took every opportunity to create the very best stories he could, utterly devoid of the typical Marvel inability to make any lasting impact on old superheroes. Granted, this was possible because Brian Michael Bendis had set the stage (which he then removed, only to set a wider stage for the same old status quo) with “Avengers Disassembled.” I knew much of the earliest developments with the Young Avengers through Marvel’s efforts to recap previous stories at the start of each issue (still the smartest thing the company has ever done), so to actually read some of them was nice. I’m still baffled that AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE has met only apathy.

Quarter Bin #2 "From an Actual Quarter Bin, Part 1"

I’ve got to say, I’ve been excited about this column, because the comics I’ll be slogging through come from an actual quarter bin, boxes I pawed through and selected personally. It’s the first of two such collections I got last year at Escape Velocity, the shop I sometimes visit in Colorado Springs. Some of the comics are still a little more interesting than others.

ACTION COMICS #596 (DC)
From January 1988, this one has “Millennium Week 4” stamped on the cover, which helps prove to weary event book readers of the present day that fans of yore also had such troubles. This was an event that saw Manhunters from Green Lantern lore becoming interlopers among the human population, really not all that different than Marvel’s recent “Secret Invasion” with the Skrulls. John Byrne was the creator, and the Spectre guest-starred. It’s mostly about Superman freaking out over Smallville being directly affected.

ACTION PHILOSOPHERS #6 (Evil Twin)
From June 2006, this is the book that helped establish Fred Van Lente as one of the next great comic book writers, a predecessor to his other Evil Twin book COMIC BOOK COMICS (which details the messy history of, well, comic books). In this particular book, Van Lente made reading about great philosophers fun, and in this particular issue, he writes about Kierkegaard, St. Thomas Aquinus, and Wittgenstein, who is probably the most fun (not that he would have agreed).

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ANNUAL #5 (DC)
From 1993, this was part of the Bloodlines project (and part of the Earthplague phase, for those keeping meticulous score). Reading this particular comic helped put me into a massive Sparx (who debuts this issue) craze last year, which will be reflected in later installments of this back issue column, trust me. I developed a whole comic I would still love to do for Vertigo, assuming my impossible mission of one day writing for comics actually comes true…

ASSASSINS #1 (Amalgam)
From April 1996, “Amalgam” actually means DC/Marvel, for those of you too young to remember MARVEL VS. DC, one of the biggest events of that decade, a comic both companies actively collaborated on, which led to a series of books that combined characters from them into slightly new and exciting concepts! This one features mash-ups of Catwoman, Daredevil, Elektra, Deadshot, Bullseye, Kingpin, and the Riddler (reading it, especially when the combinations make sense, this nonsense really was fun), among others. But what still jazzes me is that the artist on this particular book was Scott McDaniel, who was at the time and continues to be one of my favorite artists.

BATMAN: THE OFFICIAL COMIC ADAPTATION OF THE WARNER BROS. MOTION PICTURE (DC)
From 1989, I’ll be you’ll never guess in a million years what this was. What’s really interesting is that the adapting was done by Denny O’Neil and Jerry Ordway. I’m betting that even those who had no interest in the movie might have gotten a kick out of this comic. I am the night!

BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #9 (DC)
From July 1990, this was one of those really great finds, the fourth of five installments of Grant Morrison’s “Gothic,” some of Morrison’s work that I haven’t actually read yet (I only just read ARKHAM ASYLUM last year, for honesty’s sake).

BLACKHAWK - BOOK TWO: RED SNOW (DC)
From 1988, this was a Howard Chaykin prestige format effort, based around a character that was probably fairly obscure even in 1988, but then, good stories really don’t care if their subject matter is well-known or not, do they? Chaykin is an undeniable treasure in the industry, and I’m not sure enough fans realize that. What little I’ve experienced of his work continually attests to this, so this was another treasured find.

BLUE DEVIL #1 (DC)
From June 1984; I didn’t even have to be a Shadowpact fan to be jazzed about this one, the debut and origin of the character. Now, of course I’ve been fully aware of Blue Devil’s origin for as long as I’ve been aware of the character, but it’s still a little surprising that he really does have such a wonky origin…

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKOWN #4 (DC)
From June 1991, this was the first time Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale ever collaborated. In fact, I’m pretty sure this was Jeph Loeb’s first ever (or at least first regular) comics gig, and quite frankly, it’s a lost gem. The second wave of Escape Velocity quarter bin comics I’ll be writing about in a later column will detail the other issues I was able to snatch up from this book. I’m still in the process of tracking down the remaining issues, but suffice it to say, this one was my biggest find, and the one I most recommend for others to read.

COMICS INTERVIEW #88 (Fictioner)
From 1990, this was another neat find, an issue of this magazine that covers THE FLASH, the short-lived but excellent TV series that was a result of the brief superhero craze Tim Burton’s BATMAN (from a few comics earlier!) kicked off. If you have never seen this show, imagine THE CAPE but with an established character, and a little more affection from the creators, who happened to be Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo, who happened to write actual Flash comic books a few decades after their brief experience helping to extend the franchise’s legacy. What’s funny is that they ended up writing Bart Allen, not even Wally West, who was the Scarlet Speedster at the time of the one season the TV show had a chance to chronicle for new fans the experience of Barry Allen behind the cowl. What’s sad is that about a decade after the show’s failure, CSI made it cool to watch police forensics on TV, and that was half of what the series was about, when Barry wasn’t running around in red, er, rubber. But COMICS INTERVIEW #88 really didn’t know how awesome the show was, either, so the lack of viewers wasn’t so surprising. For a generation of fans, this was Barry Allen. Truth be told, I think even Geoff Johns would be proud.

DARKSTARS #1 (DC)
From October 1992, this was another lucky find, the debut of what was for a short time something of competition for the Green Lantern Corps (John Stewart actually became a Darkstar for a while, as did Donna Troy). It was a concept that I found pretty interesting during that early period of my comics experience, which eventually disappeared. But there are always chances for revivals in this medium, aren’t there?

ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN #1 (Marvel)
From August 1986, credited by me to Marvel above, but actually one of the books that helped launch the short-lived Epic imprint. This was, of course, a Frank Miller project, which was another awesome find, and that title helps further explain the Amalgam book from a little earlier. You see how I could love the random fate of quarter bins?

FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #19 (Marvel)
From 1985, this was another John Byrne comic, featuring Skrulls and Avengers, plus the first family of comics!

GENE RODDENBERRY’S LOST UNIVERSE #1 (Tekno Comix)
From April 1995; it’s such an old trick by now, to try and launch a new comic book company by glomming onto some established name or property, but it’s always interesting to see the permutations. This was from a period just before some of Roddenberry’s files were investigated to bring a pair of new TV shows (EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT and ANDROMEDA, both of which I enjoyed and lasted for a good number of seasons each, but garnered little respect from the fan community, not having enough “creator cool” to satisfy they) to life, so the idea of creating some comics out of his ideas probably seemed like a pretty good idea. Then again, the company also had Leonard Nimoy collaborating on one of their books, so who’s to say what their real motives were? At the time, Star Trek wasn’t yet run into the ground (I say that in the context of its popular appeal, which in 1995 was about to take its first hits, not out of a personal opinion), so it’s fair to say that Tekno really hoped to latch onto properties it didn’t even have…

G.I JOE: SPECIAL MISSIONS #1 (Marvel)
From October 1986, apparently while Marvel was celebrating its 25th anniversary. Yet another book available to me because some eager fan in the distant past bought some first issues out because they were stung by the Buzz Bee, and not apparently out of some personal interest.

HOUSE OF M #8 (Marvel)
From December 2005, this was the conclusion of the first of many Marvel event books inspired by the rise of Bendis, the very issue that followed “No More Mutants,” which for me now serves as a prelude to AVENGERS: CHILDREN’S CRUSADE.

JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE #1 (DC)
From April 1989, another of those Buzz Bee stings, and so once again I come up the winner in this temporal exchange.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL #3 (DC)
From 1989, what I extrapolate as possibly the only other Giffen/DeMatteis comic that fan got. All told, they probably could have done better. If they only knew…

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL SPECIAL (DC)
From 1990; but wait, there’s more! This one features Mister Miracle, in one of the many attempts to make Jack Kirby’s New Gods popular with readers (sadly, it has never worked).

LEGENDS #1 (DC)
From November 1986, this is actually relevant to viewers of SMALLVILLE this season, as this is the event book that directly inspired this season’s arc. A number of legends happen to work on this book, including John Ostrander, Len Wein, John Byrne, and Karl Kesel.

LEGENDS #4 (DC)
From February 1987, it’s another issue!

MARVEL AGE #35 (Marvel)
From February 1986, this was an in-house magazine similar to COMICS INTERVIEW; featured is “A day in the life of Marvel comics!” I got a little bored after a while…

MARVEL AGE #56 (Marvel)
From November 1987, featuring a bunch of new G.I. Joes, which I’m sure the Tony of 1987 would have been more excited about. But I kid. Part of the real fun of back issues is discovering and/or reading about developments (which are now history) that can be found in such comics, and these MARVEL AGE books are chalk-full of that sort of thing. Referenced in this one, for instance, is that predecessor to “Grim Hunt,” Kraven’s last fight with Spider-Man. On the back of both issues are calendars of the very same style Wizard Magazine would copy for one of the periods where I was a regular reader, thereby once again confirming that, at least for a time, Wizard Magazine was virtually a Marvel fan magazine. I mean, it was in those pages where the recently sacrificed Sentry essentially debuted…

NEW X-MEN #115 (Marvel)
From August 2001, this was Part 2 of the three part “E is for Extinction,” the debut of Grant Morrison (along with Frank Quitely) with comics’ favorite mutants. Morrison worked on this book almost exactly during the period I wasn’t reading comics, so I missed this whole thing, but then, I missed a lot of Grant Morrison comics, which is okay, because I’ve also had a chance to read a lot of Grant Morrison comics. It’s nice to know there’s a lot more of them out there.

NEW X-MEN #152 (Marvel)
From March 2004; such as this one! Part of the “Here Comes Tomorrow” arc, the one that brought about the conclusion of Morrison’s run. It’s such a shame that Marvel basically decided to ignore everything he did with the X-Men, almost immediately backpedaling on the whole Xorn thing, for instance. I ask, what, other than “No More Mutants” and the Hope saga, has anyone actually done since?

NOMAD #1 (Marvel)
From May 1992, this series featured Jack Monroe, a character touched upon in the early issues of Ed Brubaker’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, and a version of Nomad that wasn’t Steve Rogers or that alternate Bucky from the Heroes Reborn era currently running around with the name. Brought to you, most importantly, by Fabian Nicieza, who had a full Marvel career before he came to DC, where I became familiar with him as more than just a name, one of my favorites.

OWLHOOTS #1 (Kitchen Sink)
From 1990, a Western ditty that I figured was worth a look. It was.

RISING STARS #½ (Top Cow)
From August 2001, one of J. Michael Straczynski’s early stabs at comics was one of those universe books with an assortment of original superheroes, and this was something of a promo, possibly originally offered by Wizard Magazine, but definitely a reprint by Top Cow with a $2.95 cover charge. But it does contain an interview with Joe, in which he discusses his writerly origins, emphasizes his notions of total creator control, and kisses a little Top Cow ass.

SUICIDE SQUAD #10 (DC)
From February 1988, featuring Amanda Waller, who underwent something of a renaissance some years later thanks to the Justice League cartoons (a way of saying, “was rescued from obscurity,” and can now be seen on SMALLVILLE), owning Batman in ways modern Batman comics would never in a million years allow. That’s another funny thing about reading older comics. Their versions of characters can sometimes seem somewhat quaint, or at least very different from what modern readers will be used to. Another appearance by John Ostrander.

SUPERMAN #4 (DC)
From April 1987, featuring Bloodsport, a character who would about a decade later return to a facsimile of prominence when two villains claiming the name would square off, during a period where I was reading firsthand, so this was a nice find for me. Featuring the work of John Byrne (and once again the Compositor figures that John Byrne was something of a hobby).

Entering Titans county!

TALES OF THE TEEN TITANS #42 (DC)
From May 1984, this is a comic I had randomly come across previously, so now I have two copies, and it’s just as well, since the issue marks the start of the famous “Judas Contract” arc, with Terra and Deathstroke. It figures that the Compositor would have at least a few Teen Titans comics, since they were one of the hottest things in the 1980s, no foolin’.

TALES OF THE TEEN TITANS #48 (DC)
From Nov 1984, featuring a “bonus Flash Force 2000 comic” with art by Denys Cowan, either advertising a forgettable toy line, or a forgotten spin-off comic based on said toys, sandwiched in the middle of a story that history does not record as significant as “Judas Contract.”

TALES OF THE TEEN TITANS #50 (DC)
From February 1985, featuring the wedding of Donna Troy, and Terry, who might as well have been gay. Suffice it to say, really significant at the time, but not really all that important anymore. I think Terry came back during Blackest Night, so there’s that.

TALES OF THE TEEN TITANS #52 (DC)
From April 1985, featuring Cheshire and Jericho, Marv Wolfman, but not George Perez. Apparently, the next issue of the series was to feature some iteration of Azrael. I didn’t know one existed before Jo Quesada. So I will have to do some research.

TEAM TITANS #1 (DC)
From September 1992, featuring Mirage. Now, I know that comic book women are not real (unlike the vast majority of fans who were caught up in the bad girl craze, which has since morphed into the sexy girl subgenre, were the bad girl craze in truth began; a highlight for this crowd is the alternate cover, the one where this illustrated girl…is nude!), but certain characters (and I’m not talking about a Vampirella, Witchblade, or what have you) are drawn so consistently attractively, I tend to remember them somewhat fondly. Mirage is one of those characters. This book, however, could not survive on Mirage alone. This book, in fact, was about ten years irrelevant, and so that’s probably why you don’t remember it.

THE WEB #14 (Impact)
From December 1992; the final issue of the series. Impact was an imprint of DC. Tell me if some of its characters sound familiar: The Shield, the Crusaders, The Web…Yeah, so the company has been trying to revive these characters for a while. I was a fan of the latest incarnation of The Web. This version, not really comparable.

WILDC.A.T.S #1 (Image)
From August 1992, Jim Lee’s big contribution to the fabled launch of Image, a company that now exists almost as a shell of itself. I mean, it’s great that the whole creator-owned concept still exists, but if the guys who conceived of the company had realized that all their superheroes except for Spawn and Savage Dragon would be virtually forgotten in less than twenty years (which, admittedly, isn’t bad, considering that WildStorm, which became an imprint of and was subsequently shuttered by DC, and Top Cow, which survives on the strength of Michael Turner’s legacy and a Witchblade franchise, have recently still been viable commodities based on the original model) they might have thought twice. Most of them scrambled back to the Big Two after realizing they weren’t the creative dynamos they thought they were, and I say this not to insult them, but to suggest they hadn’t exactly thought everything through. After the giant explosion and implosion of the artist’s market, comics swung back to writing, and writing was never Image’s strong suit, unless you’re talking things not created by the original creators. And again, in that sense, Image was a huge and sustained success. But from the point of view of the average fan, Image really wasn’t. But to move onto another comic…

X-MEN #1 (Marvel)
From October 1991; hey, there’s Jim Lee, and the Buzz Bee again! Getting back to the Image question again, I can’t imagine greater hubris from a bunch of creators who had only barely made their names to suddenly claim the future belonged to them. I think Jim’s the only one who could legitimately claim that he has a viable legacy. No offense to those who still like Spawn, but even two hundred issues won’t make up for the fact that Spawn is a character with no actual direction, and whose purpose ran out a long time ago, when Todd and others just started spinning their wheels instead of writing comics that actually mattered. Jim, meanwhile, ditched those WildC.A.T.s and became simply a superstar artist again, the only one still capable of drumming interest among fans, and on a consistent basis. To blur the line between Image and what I mentioned early with Joe Straczynski, creator control only really matters when you’ve really got something to offer. I could write a column about Joe, but for now, I’ll simply leave it at the thought that sometimes, if really does end with that thought about legitimate contribution versus mindless vanity.

X-MEN 2099 #25 (Marvel)
From October 1995. The 2099 comics were some of the best things Marvel ever did; they were like the Ultimate line but without the illusion and/or pretension to suggest they alone were going to bring in a new generation of readers. What ruined them was when the creators and/or Marvel got bored, dropped the ball, decided to end and/or ruin them. X-NATION, the highlight of the experiment with Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos for the first couple of issues, was the one that really suffered from this meltdown. Spider-Man 2099 has made something of a comeback, but that doesn’t mean he deservedly has his own book back. And that doesn’t mean that anyone remembers that X-Men 2099 was a book that actually returned the mutant franchise back to the original point: a bunch of outcasts lost in a sea of bigotry and uncertainty. Which actually makes at least their fate fairly appropriate.

YOUNG JUSTICE SECRET FILES & ORIGINS (DC)
From January 1999, this was , beyond one of those Secret Files specials I wish DC were still producing, the predecessor, as it now stands, to the new cartoon series, but originally an intended replacement for the tired Teen Titans franchise, featuring Robin, Superboy, Impulse, and a bunch of characters Peter David created and/or used, including the still-improbable original incarnation of the current Wonder Girl. The problem with Peter David is that he has an inclination to juvenile instincts, which on the surface made him appropriate for this kind of book. It also makes him something of a junior version of Joe Straczynski, and sometimes, even Joe Straczynski can’t pull of Joe Straczynski…Anyhoo, there’s something of a joke in this particular Secret Files, since Pete’s got a character named The Secret in this team. Another character lost to the annals of time…

Most editions of this column won’t actually be this long, or lists of a thousand different comics, but what can I say, I’m giddy about quarter bins, and I rarely have the opportunity to indulge. So my pleasure is your pain!