More comics from the Mile High mystery boxes...
The Justice Society Returns: National Comics #1
Here’s Mark Waid writing the Flash. No, not Wally West, Jay Garrick! But Waid actually gives more focus to the original Mister Terrific, whom he characterizes as...great at everything. I don’t know if it’s only in comics, but it’s really funny how in comics the idea of the renaissance man is such a cartoon, that not only are these people better at one thing than has ever been humanly achieved before, they’re better at a wide range of things. I don’t think comic book writers understand how this works. They really don’t understand how Olympic athletes perform, for instance. They seem to assume that because someone has reached the Olympics they’re absolutely flawless. Anyone who has ever watched the Olympics knows even the winners often show flaws, and a lot of reaching the gold medal is that the vast majority of the field has flubbed horribly. This is not to say that just anyone could beat them. It takes real talent, but real talent does not mean it comes without flaws...Anyway.
The Kingdom: Son of the Bat #1
Here’s Mark Waid again (he’ll come up again!), expanding on the version of this character that isn’t Damian Wayne. In this case, reconciling competing legacies pretty much by default goes in Damian’s favor. This one (will not dignify his terrible name) doesn’t even care to carry on the Batman legacy, and the story is basically about how ineffective he is at outthinking the end of the world. Which is of course something Batman does, uh, every other day (and twice on Sunday).
L.E.G.I.O.N. #32
I think this whole team concept was basically doing a present-day Legion of Super-Heroes. Stupid name all the same. If you’re going to have an acronym in the title, make sure...Okay, just don’t do a series with an acronym in the title. Basically, only S.H.I.E.L.D. gets a free pass with this (and really only because of the TV show, and the movies, has it ever actually gotten one).
L.E.G.I.O.N. #44
Anyway, I’m not spelling out any acronyms again. Ever! Pain in the ass, aside from everything else...Anyway, these issues feature some of the Khunds of which I speak in the title line of this blog entry. The Khunds are kind of like the Klingons at DC, a badass warrior species.
Legion of Super-Heroes #310
Relationship drama. It’s hard to remember now, but the Legion was about as popular as the X-Men and the Teen Titans in the ‘80s. But they were building less real history, so there’s less to remember. Even “The Great Darkness Saga,” the team’s surprise Darkseid epic, seems to recede easily into the past. Er, future. Also: Khunds.
Lobo: Infanticide #4
Lobo battles his bastard kid! The artwork probably deliberately obscured the gruesome action. More importantly, I’m pretty sure this comic (cover-dated January 1993) is the first time I’ve seen ads heavily promoting the launch of the Vertigo line. I remember a TV spot from the general time period that promoted DC and Vertigo (took me years to have any clue what “Black Orchid” was about, and even now I’m not hugely sure; one of the big early Vertigo comics, but quickly got left behind).
Manhunter #33
This was the Starman of its era, but the acclaim didn’t stretch nearly as far, and it hasn’t received strong collection support. And this issue is perhaps too busy to let any if its material really land. But still impressive work.
Metamorpho #2
Honestly, I assumed some of the stuff I was reading in The Terrifics was created specifically for it, but apparently it’s all right there in these earlier Metamorpho adventures, so that was great to see. Rex Mason would be a much bigger deal, I think, if his superhero design weren’t so...weird. Also: Mark Waid wrote this, too!
The Next #1
At the time, DC seemed to have heavily invested in fantasy writer Tad Williams as a comics creator. Along with this he was also given Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis, and as it happened I read both and thoroughly enjoyed them. But Williams didn’t stick around long (unlike the epic lengths of his fantasy books), and I never did revisit his comics until now. What it read like this time was someone in the vein of Grant Morrison with far more interest in being weird, and no real grounding to support it. Which makes me glad the Tad Williams experiment didn’t pan out. And I only read one of his massive fantasy books, too. He’s someone else’s favorite writer, I guess.
Showing posts with label Vertigo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vertigo. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Reading Comics 229 "Tom King, Vertigo, Recent Comics"
Okay! If I'd written this earlier, I'd be talking about less, but here we are and now there's more...
Apparently it was DC's decision for Tom King to leave Batman itself to finish the story in Batman/Catwoman? Or maybe there's an explanation that doesn't sound sinister? But, in news that's only relevant to people who aren't on the internet (yay troglodytes!), King's work is still appearing in the Superman 100-Page Giants found at Wal-Mart. I confirmed this (but have yet to read it) with the recently released Superman Giant #12.
Apparently DC has cancelled the Vertigo imprint. There will be a lot of fans freaking out over this, how DC's killing a part of its soul or whatever, but really...I don't see a real problem here. Vertigo hasn't really been Vertigo since Scott Snyder backed off of American Vampire, which was the last major series launched under the imprint. And in that regard, the big send-off for trade-friendly Fables might be considered the real end of the imprint, getting a trade-size (and published in trade format, no less) final issue. Fans will say it's because Karen Berger was released as managing editor, but Fables and the most recent issue of American Vampire were released in 2015. That's a long time for the imprint to linger in irrelevance. Meanwhile, times changed. The Walking Dead, which in a lot of respects was a Vertigo title published by Image, was a game-changer. Image itself transitioned into a Vertigo mentality after pushing the superhero format in the '90s. And there are dozens of smaller publishers now operating that also follow the Vertigo template, which itself began by collecting a number of existing DC titles that were intended for mature readers, which...
And that's the new plan, by the way. The new DC Black Label will now be the destination of anything that might've once been Vertigo. There's also Brian Michael Bendis's Jinxworld, which is its own DC imprint, which in earlier times would have been part of Vertigo. (Bendis was operating more or less this way with Marvel, too, which never made a serious move to expand into other creators producing creator-owned material.)
So again, I say there's nothing to complain about here. Paul Cornell was able to retrieve the rights to Saucer Country, which for all intents and purposes was a post-Berger Vertigo series, and continue it at IDW as Saucer State. The Vertigo mystique did nothing to salvage G. Willow Wilson's seminal Air, which sputtered under little critical or fan attention under Berger's watch from 2008 to 2010. What Fables did was itself signal the end of an era, in which Vertigo was previously known for dark genre instead became home to light genre material, which couldn't sustain the same cult following.
Anyway, here's some comics I read recently:
Batman: Last Knight on Earth #1 (DC)
Here's Snyder and Greg Capullo reuniting for one last grand Batman story. As suggested previously and as I hoped to see since Snyder's contribution to the 'New 52" era Detective Comics #27, it's finally an extended look at the concept of Batman producing a series of clones to continue the crusade past his original lifetime. I'm not sure this debut entirely squares with the concept, but I do love that Snyder heavily leans into his concept that Batman and the Joker are essentially an odd couple, having progressed well beyond hero-and-villain status. The idea of Batman carrying around the disembodied head of the Joker is the best thing I've come across in a Scott Snyder comic, where he's finally and truly gone as wild as he could imagine.
Daredevil #6 (Marvel)
Chip Zdarsky's wonderful run continues. I hope fans are registering its existence.
Ascender #2 (Image)
Lemire and Nguyen's Descender sequel continues.
Doomsday Clock #10 (DC)
I made sure to buy this issue (I committed to tradewaiting the series after missing too many previous issues, including the first one) after coming back to the Geek Twins, a break that corresponded with the death of my mother and the exploding of what had been a regular blogging habit, and finding that they heartily recommended it as a unique way for DC and/or Geoff Johns to once and for all reconcile the multiverse by redubbing it the metaverse. This issue sees Doctor Manhattan explaining his journey post-Watchmen by, in part, revisiting all the times DC has rebooted its continuity, starting well before the famous Crisis on Infinite Earths. And my fears that Doomsday Clock would duplicate what Johns had done previously in Infinite Crisis were alleviated. Basically the pivotal issue of the series and a landmark in DC lore in general.
Heroes in Crisis #9 (DC)
There ended up being a lively discussion as to what exactly this series accomplished over at Speed Force, and then DC solicited Flash Forward, which will act as a sequel and spotlight for Wally West, and I wonder if any of the fans upset over what Tom King "did to him" will begin reconsidering. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Me, as I tend to, I thought King's work was brilliant.
The Immortal Hulk #2, 18 (Marvel)
Al Ewing put himself on the map with this one. Essentially an in-continuity of the classic Hulk TV series, Bruce Banner's back as the Hulk, but he's skulking around the country trying to keep the beast at bay, and stumbling into horror stories along the way. Anyway, it's good reading, and fans have certainly noticed, and I'm glad I had a look.
Naomi #5 (DC)
The other Bendis imprint at DC these days, Wonder Comics, launched Naomi with the promise that eventually it would seem important. Well, I finally got to have a look, and with exactly the right issue, in which we learn that she comes from an alternate Earth, which is an idea that surprisingly hasn't really been done before, even though DC has visited dozens and dozens of alternate realities over the years. The closest is Superman, probably, who in current continuity is actually a survivor of a previous one (which is something you don't need to know to enjoy his latest adventures, but sounds exactly like the insanity that led to Crisis on Infinite Earths to begin with).
Sasquatch Detective 64-Page Special (DC)
Originally a back-up feature in Mark Russell's Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, this is essentially DC allowing itself to have some family-friendly fan with something that isn't based on an existing franchise. If it were Marvel, there'd already have been an ongoing series and several dozen more concepts exactly like it. DC restraint!
Superman: Leviathan Rising (DC)
Originally previewed in Year of the Villain, this intro to the Bendis event conveniently called Event Leviathan was most appreciated by me for its preview of Matt Fraction's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, which was a real treat to read. And for those wondering, the Bendis Leviathan is the same as the Morrison Leviathan, this time with (seemingly) less Talia. So yeah, Morrison's Batman is the gift that keeps giving.
Apparently it was DC's decision for Tom King to leave Batman itself to finish the story in Batman/Catwoman? Or maybe there's an explanation that doesn't sound sinister? But, in news that's only relevant to people who aren't on the internet (yay troglodytes!), King's work is still appearing in the Superman 100-Page Giants found at Wal-Mart. I confirmed this (but have yet to read it) with the recently released Superman Giant #12.
Apparently DC has cancelled the Vertigo imprint. There will be a lot of fans freaking out over this, how DC's killing a part of its soul or whatever, but really...I don't see a real problem here. Vertigo hasn't really been Vertigo since Scott Snyder backed off of American Vampire, which was the last major series launched under the imprint. And in that regard, the big send-off for trade-friendly Fables might be considered the real end of the imprint, getting a trade-size (and published in trade format, no less) final issue. Fans will say it's because Karen Berger was released as managing editor, but Fables and the most recent issue of American Vampire were released in 2015. That's a long time for the imprint to linger in irrelevance. Meanwhile, times changed. The Walking Dead, which in a lot of respects was a Vertigo title published by Image, was a game-changer. Image itself transitioned into a Vertigo mentality after pushing the superhero format in the '90s. And there are dozens of smaller publishers now operating that also follow the Vertigo template, which itself began by collecting a number of existing DC titles that were intended for mature readers, which...
And that's the new plan, by the way. The new DC Black Label will now be the destination of anything that might've once been Vertigo. There's also Brian Michael Bendis's Jinxworld, which is its own DC imprint, which in earlier times would have been part of Vertigo. (Bendis was operating more or less this way with Marvel, too, which never made a serious move to expand into other creators producing creator-owned material.)
So again, I say there's nothing to complain about here. Paul Cornell was able to retrieve the rights to Saucer Country, which for all intents and purposes was a post-Berger Vertigo series, and continue it at IDW as Saucer State. The Vertigo mystique did nothing to salvage G. Willow Wilson's seminal Air, which sputtered under little critical or fan attention under Berger's watch from 2008 to 2010. What Fables did was itself signal the end of an era, in which Vertigo was previously known for dark genre instead became home to light genre material, which couldn't sustain the same cult following.
Anyway, here's some comics I read recently:
Batman: Last Knight on Earth #1 (DC)
Here's Snyder and Greg Capullo reuniting for one last grand Batman story. As suggested previously and as I hoped to see since Snyder's contribution to the 'New 52" era Detective Comics #27, it's finally an extended look at the concept of Batman producing a series of clones to continue the crusade past his original lifetime. I'm not sure this debut entirely squares with the concept, but I do love that Snyder heavily leans into his concept that Batman and the Joker are essentially an odd couple, having progressed well beyond hero-and-villain status. The idea of Batman carrying around the disembodied head of the Joker is the best thing I've come across in a Scott Snyder comic, where he's finally and truly gone as wild as he could imagine.
Daredevil #6 (Marvel)
Chip Zdarsky's wonderful run continues. I hope fans are registering its existence.
Ascender #2 (Image)
Lemire and Nguyen's Descender sequel continues.
Doomsday Clock #10 (DC)
I made sure to buy this issue (I committed to tradewaiting the series after missing too many previous issues, including the first one) after coming back to the Geek Twins, a break that corresponded with the death of my mother and the exploding of what had been a regular blogging habit, and finding that they heartily recommended it as a unique way for DC and/or Geoff Johns to once and for all reconcile the multiverse by redubbing it the metaverse. This issue sees Doctor Manhattan explaining his journey post-Watchmen by, in part, revisiting all the times DC has rebooted its continuity, starting well before the famous Crisis on Infinite Earths. And my fears that Doomsday Clock would duplicate what Johns had done previously in Infinite Crisis were alleviated. Basically the pivotal issue of the series and a landmark in DC lore in general.
Heroes in Crisis #9 (DC)
There ended up being a lively discussion as to what exactly this series accomplished over at Speed Force, and then DC solicited Flash Forward, which will act as a sequel and spotlight for Wally West, and I wonder if any of the fans upset over what Tom King "did to him" will begin reconsidering. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Me, as I tend to, I thought King's work was brilliant.
The Immortal Hulk #2, 18 (Marvel)
Al Ewing put himself on the map with this one. Essentially an in-continuity of the classic Hulk TV series, Bruce Banner's back as the Hulk, but he's skulking around the country trying to keep the beast at bay, and stumbling into horror stories along the way. Anyway, it's good reading, and fans have certainly noticed, and I'm glad I had a look.
Naomi #5 (DC)
The other Bendis imprint at DC these days, Wonder Comics, launched Naomi with the promise that eventually it would seem important. Well, I finally got to have a look, and with exactly the right issue, in which we learn that she comes from an alternate Earth, which is an idea that surprisingly hasn't really been done before, even though DC has visited dozens and dozens of alternate realities over the years. The closest is Superman, probably, who in current continuity is actually a survivor of a previous one (which is something you don't need to know to enjoy his latest adventures, but sounds exactly like the insanity that led to Crisis on Infinite Earths to begin with).
Sasquatch Detective 64-Page Special (DC)
Originally a back-up feature in Mark Russell's Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, this is essentially DC allowing itself to have some family-friendly fan with something that isn't based on an existing franchise. If it were Marvel, there'd already have been an ongoing series and several dozen more concepts exactly like it. DC restraint!
Superman: Leviathan Rising (DC)
Originally previewed in Year of the Villain, this intro to the Bendis event conveniently called Event Leviathan was most appreciated by me for its preview of Matt Fraction's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, which was a real treat to read. And for those wondering, the Bendis Leviathan is the same as the Morrison Leviathan, this time with (seemingly) less Talia. So yeah, Morrison's Batman is the gift that keeps giving.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Reading Comics #132 "Detective Comics #27 Free Edition and Vertigo Defy"
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| via Robot 6 |
The lead story is from the original version, the 1939 one, from Bob Kane and Bill Finger, the very first Batman story in all its dated glory. Then comes the Brad Meltzer version of that same story, originally presented in that second edition, and a little later a third version, borrowing the captions from the Melzter story and the Finger art from the Kane story, altered by famed graphic designer Chip Kidd, an excerpt from an otherwise exclusive element to a different Batman release for the celebration. And to round all that out, the Scott Snyder/Sean Murphy story from the second edition, which remains brilliant, one of the best things Snyder has ever written (the best?), and conveniently reminding everyone that Snyder and Murphy also collaborated on the recently-concluded Vertigo mini-series The Wake (which I haven't read, because I've grown leery of Snyder aside from this Batman short).
Anyway, all that being said, if you caught this freebie, that's all well and good. It's still available at comiXology if you'd like to have a look yourself.
I'd like instead to talk about something that might have been obvious to a lot of other people, but for me was really only obvious after reading through this special: Tim Burton's Batman was pretty much "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate." Sure, the Joker wasn't in it originally, but everything else is basically exactly the same (no "king of the wicker people" or black rubber suit, I also realize). Meltzer certainly supports that impression (and he does insert the Joker). The first dozen or so times I saw the movie, I'd never read the first Batman story, so I can be excused for not realizing that. Movie critics will certainly never care about that, either. (They care very little about how accurate a comic book movie is to its source material, although Marvel always seems willing to oblige direct comparisons, at least as soon as they update their own material to match.) I wonder how much fans really care, either. But there you go. I'm not even sure Burton particularly cared that he was making a Batman movie. It might even be argued that he wasn't making a Batman movie at all (the same can certainly be said about Batman Returns). He had a look at the first story, figured out the Joker was a perfect figure to insert and build around, and really, there wasn't much else he had to do. Batman is kind of a creep in the movie. He's not even necessarily the good guy, just the guy who defeats the villain. It's a gangster movie. For some reason, gangster movies made a surge at that time, with Godfather Part III and Goodfellas and The Untouchables. Even Dick Tracy! (Is it any surprise that the further the Batman movies drifted obviously toward comic books or even Burton's own tendencies and further from other their own origins, the more audiences questioned them, to that point? The decade following Batman saw a flood of comic book movies, and virtually none of them was a success. The decade after that, everything changed. But then, event movies had finally come to complete dominate the market.)
So let's switch topics and examine what one might learn from browsing through the Vertigo Defy preview:
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| via Comic Vine |
- Bodies from Si Spencer. This is the listing for a new project with an excerpt. The only time I've read Spencer I was soundly unimpressed (X-Club). I can't imagine anyone believing in him as a strong talent, but maybe my experience was unrepresentative, he's grown, what have you. The excerpt isn't terrible, but excerpts can be deceiving. It's a mini-series that launched in July, so if you want to have a look at a story about multiple investigations across time concerning the same corpse and hope Spencer pulls it off, by all means, do so.
- Coffin Hill, a current monthly. I know nothing about this one other than the one-page ad in this special. Doesn't seem to have distinguished itself.
- The Names from Peter Milligan. This is another new mini-series, complete with an excerpt. Milligan is a long-time Vertigo talent, although one I personally have never been sold on. From what I see here, I haven't found a reason to change that opinion.
- American Vampire from Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque, one of Vertigo's current headlining acts. Snyder and Albuquerque (an instant favorite when I saw his work in the pages of Blue Beetle a good handful of years back) had the helping hand of Stephen King when they originally launched this project, and I read those issues, and King's work was consistently my favorite work, Skinner Sweet being an instant icon whereas Pearl was just another character experiencing the beginnings of the saga along with everyone else (although that fact that I remember her name was Pearl is probably a point in Snyder's favor). Is this a shining example of Vertigo at its finest? I have such a hard time appreciating Snyder the way virtually everyone else seems to, it just seems like the prime example of Vertigo's new vanity image (heh), something he gets to do to give his Batman work greater credibility (because otherwise Snyder remains in a relative vacuum as far as his output is concerned other than the Dark Knight).
- Astro City, Kurt Busiek's long-standing metaphor baby, a kind of ongoing Alan Moore-style nostalgia project trading on his Marvels reputation, relocated to Vertigo as a matter of convenience (it's also been published, of course, by Image).
- The Kitchen, another new mini-series with an excerpt. Doesn't much distinguish itself anymore than the other two.
- The Sandman: Overture, the callback mini-series to Vertigo's formative years and heyday, which is typical Neil Gaiman brilliance and a reminder of what the imprint can do when it's really inspired.
- Dead Boy Detectives, an ongoing series that spun out from Sandman.
- Hinterland, an ongoing that seems to be a variation on Fables, the other current Vertigo headliner.
- Suiciders, a new monthly from Lee Bermejo that seems to be an extended version of the movie subgenre of people killing each other for sport and survival and yes, entertainment. Seems mostly relevant for its art (heh) and even as a kind of bridge back to superheroes (famously, Vertigo had its origins with alternative looks at superheroes, and the biggest thing to happen to the imprint recently was in fact losing all its most famous superhero projects back to DC proper).
- Fables, the ongoing that's highly popular in the trade collections and similar to the later-launched TV series Once Upon a Time. Started out horribly but seems to have leveled out and become an institution, although it's kind of a poor man's Sandman (no offense to Bill Willingham intended).
- Fairest, a Fables spin-off that focuses on female characters.
- FBP (stands for Federal Bureau of Physics), an ongoing that launched last year that might actually be the best non-Sandman Overture series Vertigo is publishing at the moment, the one I still most recommend checking out, even though I haven't done so in a good long while (I'm now fearful that I've missed too much, and so I should instead start reading in the trades if I'm so inclined).
Missing from the lineup is The Unwritten, which is probably another series Vertigo can hang a happy shingle on. I'm not sure why it was left out. The conclusion I reach from this survey, however, is that the imprint needs a little help at the moment. (I'd personally love to see what Geoff Johns would do if he finally decided to launch something there. Maybe give some other DC acts that kind of chance. Vertigo is always at its best when it's reinventing itself.) American Vampire and Fables are not terrible ways to headline the imprint, but I'm also not sure they stand up to the best it's ever seen. The best of what's around doesn't necessarily say much. Maybe FBP is that series. It certainly needs more publicity.
Or, like Detective Comics #27, perhaps a lot more repetitions of what's already been said...
Monday, May 20, 2013
Quarter Bin #49 "From An Actual Quarter Bin, Part 3"
Comics featured in this column are not always actually from a quarter bin. However, this is a rare occasion where they were, courtesy of a grand opening/preview sale for the second location of Escape Velocity in Colorado Springs earlier this year.
Blackhawks #1 & 2 (DC)
From November and December 2011:
One of the titles I was most looking forward to in the fall 2011 DC relaunch was Blackhawks, not because I have a particular affinity forbeachfront property the classic Blackhawk concept but that it was being written by Mike Costa, who has earned my eternal respect for his Cobra comics over at IDW. Those are some of the best things I've ever read in this format, and I'm continually surprised that their genius still hasn't been embraced by even a cult audience at this point. They continue to be published because IDW itself has realized what it has, like Red 5's devotion to Atomic Robo. (Seriously, people, Atomic Robo is fantastic.) Yet I opted out of reading Blackhawks at the time based on an accurate and yet unfair snap assessment that it didn't properly evoke my Cobra memories. The series was based less on the aforesaid classic Blackhawk (like a superhero version of the formative Air Force) and more a DC version of G.I. Joe. Costa's Cobra (recently relaunched as The Cobra Files, for the record) is basically the antithesis of anything you might think about G.I. Joe. It's all about espionage and deep character study, far less about war games. Based on the original glances I took through its pages, Blackhawks looked like it was typical G.I. Joe war games, as if someone at DC had looked at Costa's name and only cared to see that it was associated with G.I. Joe and not what he was doing in the sandbox. And to a certain extent, that's really what happened. The thing is, Costa still made the most of it. His Blackhawks are the good guys (until recently he only had token Joes in his Cobra), but in these issues (which I opted to sample based on the Collected Editions recommendation) there's a similar (if not exactly the same) focus on character rather than fairly generic action that I had expected. Now I'm sorry I skipped reading this one. It was quickly cancelled, and Costa was not welcomed back by DC. Now I may even have to track down the whole collection.
Flashpoint: The Canterbury Cricket (DC)
From August 2011:
This is something I bought at the time and was forced to part with (along with many, many other treasured memories) when I sold my comic book collection last fall. The whole reason I remain obsessed with the Canterbury Cricket is that it was the odd original creation during the Flashpoint event, and that seemed like something worth commemorating. As his name suggests, the Cricket is British, part of the resistance movement during the Amazon/Atlantis conflict that was one of the many things happening in the background of Barry Allen's existential crisis. He is also, as the name suggests, a giant cricket, although he used to be human. One of the things fans of Marvel characters always say is that they're so relatably human, even the ones who don't look so human anymore like Ben Grimm a.k.a. Thing from the Fantastic Four. And over at DC it's always been reliable that the characters who used to be human but aren't as much anymore get much better exploration, like Man-Bat, Blue Devil or even Jason Blood (the flipside of Etrigan the Demon). Canterbury Cricket, as depicted by erstwhile editor Mike Carlin, is all about that, and what's interesting is that he views the transformation as a good thing, because he didn't like who he used to be. It's a lot like Spider-Man but without the Great Guilt Trip. I'd love for this character to appear again.
Flashpoint: Abin Sur - The Green Lantern #3 (DC)
From October 2011:
With the release of the woebegone Green Lantern movie in 2011, there was a good amount of bonus releases featuring characters from the franchise that year. One of the things I loved about Flashpoint was that it found ample space to share this love, including several spin-off mini-series including this one featuring Hal Jordan's predecessor. Abin Sur is one of the great characters in fiction who is technically dead the moment he becomes relevant. He also had a comeback in Brightest Day, which ended at the end of the old continuity, otherwise he might have been the ultimate recipient of the fabled white ring of spectrum power. He had another shot here. Maybe I'm mixing up the stories now, but he ends the issue with a white ring here, too. Throughout much of it he's also battling his doomed persona thanks to Sinestro. In the lore Abin and Sinestro were actually pals. Sinestro was in love with Abin's sister. Like Canterbury Cricket I think there's ongoing potential in exploring Abin Sur's story. It seems somehow wrong that with Green Lantern we not only get thousands of potential characters to follow but also a rich history that has barely been scratched. You could go worse than to spend a little more time with Abin Sur.
Flashpoint: The Outsider #3 (DC)
From October 2011:
Technically the lead character in this one is in the title, another of the rogue genius manipulators who populate a lot of comics. But this issue also features the Flashpoint version of Martian Manhunter. Martian Manhunter is always fascinating. His origins are unique and his relationship to humans is equally unique. He's the real outsider here. But what's perhaps more fascinating about the issue, written by James Robinson, is that it strongly evokes 52, the sensational experiment that proved weekly comics were possible in the modern era. It weaves Black Adam into the story, more as a reference than a character, but that's enough. I didn't get a chance to read most of the Flashpoint spin-offs (something I hope to rectify at some point), and this was in fact my first experience with this one. It was a good issue to catch.
Flashpoint #5 (DC)
From October 2011:
I read the complete Flashpoint mini-series itself in 2011, and it was a highlight of my year, a year I was trying to quit comics. It was a very good very bad thing to happen. It was brilliant. Geoff Johns had brought Barry Allen back in The Flash: Rebirth, and then spent about a year in the subsequent ongoing series before launching this event based entirely around him. It was a little disappointing for some fans to think he'd be walking away after it (Geoff spent half a decade writing the Wally West version of The Flash), but he'd already accomplished the unthinkable. Barry Allen's previous highlight was dying in Crisis On Infinite Earths. He was made into the central character when Marv Wolfman wrote a prose adaptation of his own story. It was Mark Waid who pushed the franchise into a more central position, but it was Flashpoint that made it possible for everything to pivot around the Scarlet Speedster. Geoff envisioned the ultimate conflict between Barry and his nemesis Eobard Thawne, Professor Zoom. Thawne tricked Barry into changing history and affecting an entire alternate reality. Another of the side stories in the world of Flashpoint was that Thomas Wayne never died and it was him who became Batman. This final issue makes this particular element so much more poignant when Barry has managed to correct the timeline, but with a message from Thomas to his son Bruce. An animated movie based on Flashpoint is due to be released in July, and there has been some criticism (possibly only among Flash fans) that the Batman element has been retained as a key element. It really should be.
Sovereign Seven #1 (DC)
From July 1995:
I read the complete Sovereign Seven as it was originally released in the '90s (fun fact! Power Girl eventually became a replacement member of the team). It was a big sensation at the start, mostly because Chris Claremont was the writer. Claremont made his name making the X-Men into legitimate icons in the '80s (the upcoming Days of the Future Past movie is based on one of Claremont's best stories, as was the Jean Grey/Phoenix arc from the second and third films). He was a genius at team dynamics and mythology. That's what Sovereign Seven was all about. Each of the members from this team were exiled royalty from alien worlds. The result was more fantasy than superheroics. I suspect this may have been one of the reasons fans became disillusioned. Maybe another was that it was difficult to tell how this creator-owned series related to the rest of the DC landscape. Ham-fisted attempts at better integration (hence Power Girl) were made later, but by then it was too late. Please note to creators of new characters in a shared universe: it's never a good thing to be isolated, and it's never enough to have cameo appearances in your own book. You need to appear elsewhere. You need to be accepted into the family in the family. It might seem scary to lend your shiny new character to someone else so soon, but that's where the real strength of the concept shines. Claremont further annoyed fans by ending the series by apparently suggesting his characters were fictional in their own world, too. I think there's still room for a serious revival, and Claremont need not necessarily be involved. Although it would be far less likely to happen without him.
Vertigo Preview (DC)
From 1992:
This was the most sensational discovery for me, the vintage preview book for the launch of DC's Vertigo imprint. The flavor of what was to come had already begun in Neil Gaiman's Sandman and other projects, but this was the dawn of a whole new era. There's an introduction from recently departed iconic Vertigo editor Karen Berger to kick off the festivities. Then previews of all the books of the official freshmen class. First off is Gaiman's own Death: The High Cost of Living, spinning off from Sandman. Death is the ultimate Goth Chick, even better than the real thing. Peter Milligan, long associated with Vertigo and another of the writers of the '80s British Invasion, is represented with Enigma. The reliable J.M. DeMatteis is present with Mercy. Anne Nocenti, one of the longest-tenured women in comics, has Kid Eternity. Grant Morrison, of course, must be here too, and it's with Sebastian O, though he'd win much greater Vertigo acclaim with The Invisibles, in some ways his magnum opus. Black Orchid is featured with Dick Foreman and Jill Thompson. Animal Man, which Morrison had helped shape into the Vertigo groove, is here with Jamie Delano. Doom Patrol, also shaped by Morrison into the proper configuration, is here with Rachel Pollack (Pollack and Delano and Milligan were all reliable Vertigo staples in the early days). John Constantine, Hellblazer, is written by Garth Ennis with art from frequent collaborator Steve Dillon. Ennis would stake his Vertigo fame with Preacher years later. Milligan also has Shade the Changing Man. Nancy Collins has Swamp Thing (in its '80s Alan Moore incarnation perhaps the prototypical of all prototypical Vertigo, besides '70s horror comics like House of Mystery). Of course the coup de grace for this whole preview is an exclusive (i.e. original) Sandman tale from Gaiman, which is pretty much exactly Gaiman giving his pressing and introduction to the whole venture. Pretty awesome.
X-Men 2099 #1 (Marvel)
From October 1993:
In the brief period where my brothers were the ones in the family who read comics (they were both older than me), they read Star Wars and X-Men and Batman comics. They caught the 1992 bestselling X-Men relaunch. I got to read a lot of "Knightfall" because they did. One of them got the complete collection of the original zero issues from Zero Hour. And then they stopped and scoffed at the whole thing, much like they did their appreciation of Hootie and the Blowfish. I remained fans of both comics and Hootie. A lousy psychiatrist would say I did that because I spend my life trying to catch up to my brothers. I prefer to believe it's because I still appreciate these things. Sometimes when someone believes they've outgrown something, they just never go back. That's just how it is. The discovery I most appreciate from my brothers is X-Men 2099. The whole 2099 line was a brief experiment to revamp the Marvel landscape with new incarnations set in the future. People still talk about Spider-Man 2099 (well, sometimes), but to my mind the money remains with X-Men 2099. My perennial problem with X-Men comics in general is the same I have with all Marvel comics: they only pay lip service to the conflicts at the heart of their concepts. X-Men 2099 is everything a mutant fan ought to love. None of the faces are familiar but they're all engaged in the same tragic struggle you love from all the ones you do know. Like the rogue members who began populating the comics you remember (Wolverine, Storm...Rogue), these guys were all outsiders even to each other. Someday, much like my Flashpoint ambition, I hope to read the complete X-Men 2099.
Blackhawks #1 & 2 (DC)
From November and December 2011:
One of the titles I was most looking forward to in the fall 2011 DC relaunch was Blackhawks, not because I have a particular affinity for
Flashpoint: The Canterbury Cricket (DC)
From August 2011:
This is something I bought at the time and was forced to part with (along with many, many other treasured memories) when I sold my comic book collection last fall. The whole reason I remain obsessed with the Canterbury Cricket is that it was the odd original creation during the Flashpoint event, and that seemed like something worth commemorating. As his name suggests, the Cricket is British, part of the resistance movement during the Amazon/Atlantis conflict that was one of the many things happening in the background of Barry Allen's existential crisis. He is also, as the name suggests, a giant cricket, although he used to be human. One of the things fans of Marvel characters always say is that they're so relatably human, even the ones who don't look so human anymore like Ben Grimm a.k.a. Thing from the Fantastic Four. And over at DC it's always been reliable that the characters who used to be human but aren't as much anymore get much better exploration, like Man-Bat, Blue Devil or even Jason Blood (the flipside of Etrigan the Demon). Canterbury Cricket, as depicted by erstwhile editor Mike Carlin, is all about that, and what's interesting is that he views the transformation as a good thing, because he didn't like who he used to be. It's a lot like Spider-Man but without the Great Guilt Trip. I'd love for this character to appear again.
Flashpoint: Abin Sur - The Green Lantern #3 (DC)
From October 2011:
With the release of the woebegone Green Lantern movie in 2011, there was a good amount of bonus releases featuring characters from the franchise that year. One of the things I loved about Flashpoint was that it found ample space to share this love, including several spin-off mini-series including this one featuring Hal Jordan's predecessor. Abin Sur is one of the great characters in fiction who is technically dead the moment he becomes relevant. He also had a comeback in Brightest Day, which ended at the end of the old continuity, otherwise he might have been the ultimate recipient of the fabled white ring of spectrum power. He had another shot here. Maybe I'm mixing up the stories now, but he ends the issue with a white ring here, too. Throughout much of it he's also battling his doomed persona thanks to Sinestro. In the lore Abin and Sinestro were actually pals. Sinestro was in love with Abin's sister. Like Canterbury Cricket I think there's ongoing potential in exploring Abin Sur's story. It seems somehow wrong that with Green Lantern we not only get thousands of potential characters to follow but also a rich history that has barely been scratched. You could go worse than to spend a little more time with Abin Sur.
Flashpoint: The Outsider #3 (DC)
From October 2011:
Technically the lead character in this one is in the title, another of the rogue genius manipulators who populate a lot of comics. But this issue also features the Flashpoint version of Martian Manhunter. Martian Manhunter is always fascinating. His origins are unique and his relationship to humans is equally unique. He's the real outsider here. But what's perhaps more fascinating about the issue, written by James Robinson, is that it strongly evokes 52, the sensational experiment that proved weekly comics were possible in the modern era. It weaves Black Adam into the story, more as a reference than a character, but that's enough. I didn't get a chance to read most of the Flashpoint spin-offs (something I hope to rectify at some point), and this was in fact my first experience with this one. It was a good issue to catch.
Flashpoint #5 (DC)
From October 2011:
I read the complete Flashpoint mini-series itself in 2011, and it was a highlight of my year, a year I was trying to quit comics. It was a very good very bad thing to happen. It was brilliant. Geoff Johns had brought Barry Allen back in The Flash: Rebirth, and then spent about a year in the subsequent ongoing series before launching this event based entirely around him. It was a little disappointing for some fans to think he'd be walking away after it (Geoff spent half a decade writing the Wally West version of The Flash), but he'd already accomplished the unthinkable. Barry Allen's previous highlight was dying in Crisis On Infinite Earths. He was made into the central character when Marv Wolfman wrote a prose adaptation of his own story. It was Mark Waid who pushed the franchise into a more central position, but it was Flashpoint that made it possible for everything to pivot around the Scarlet Speedster. Geoff envisioned the ultimate conflict between Barry and his nemesis Eobard Thawne, Professor Zoom. Thawne tricked Barry into changing history and affecting an entire alternate reality. Another of the side stories in the world of Flashpoint was that Thomas Wayne never died and it was him who became Batman. This final issue makes this particular element so much more poignant when Barry has managed to correct the timeline, but with a message from Thomas to his son Bruce. An animated movie based on Flashpoint is due to be released in July, and there has been some criticism (possibly only among Flash fans) that the Batman element has been retained as a key element. It really should be.
Sovereign Seven #1 (DC)
From July 1995:
I read the complete Sovereign Seven as it was originally released in the '90s (fun fact! Power Girl eventually became a replacement member of the team). It was a big sensation at the start, mostly because Chris Claremont was the writer. Claremont made his name making the X-Men into legitimate icons in the '80s (the upcoming Days of the Future Past movie is based on one of Claremont's best stories, as was the Jean Grey/Phoenix arc from the second and third films). He was a genius at team dynamics and mythology. That's what Sovereign Seven was all about. Each of the members from this team were exiled royalty from alien worlds. The result was more fantasy than superheroics. I suspect this may have been one of the reasons fans became disillusioned. Maybe another was that it was difficult to tell how this creator-owned series related to the rest of the DC landscape. Ham-fisted attempts at better integration (hence Power Girl) were made later, but by then it was too late. Please note to creators of new characters in a shared universe: it's never a good thing to be isolated, and it's never enough to have cameo appearances in your own book. You need to appear elsewhere. You need to be accepted into the family in the family. It might seem scary to lend your shiny new character to someone else so soon, but that's where the real strength of the concept shines. Claremont further annoyed fans by ending the series by apparently suggesting his characters were fictional in their own world, too. I think there's still room for a serious revival, and Claremont need not necessarily be involved. Although it would be far less likely to happen without him.
Vertigo Preview (DC)
From 1992:
This was the most sensational discovery for me, the vintage preview book for the launch of DC's Vertigo imprint. The flavor of what was to come had already begun in Neil Gaiman's Sandman and other projects, but this was the dawn of a whole new era. There's an introduction from recently departed iconic Vertigo editor Karen Berger to kick off the festivities. Then previews of all the books of the official freshmen class. First off is Gaiman's own Death: The High Cost of Living, spinning off from Sandman. Death is the ultimate Goth Chick, even better than the real thing. Peter Milligan, long associated with Vertigo and another of the writers of the '80s British Invasion, is represented with Enigma. The reliable J.M. DeMatteis is present with Mercy. Anne Nocenti, one of the longest-tenured women in comics, has Kid Eternity. Grant Morrison, of course, must be here too, and it's with Sebastian O, though he'd win much greater Vertigo acclaim with The Invisibles, in some ways his magnum opus. Black Orchid is featured with Dick Foreman and Jill Thompson. Animal Man, which Morrison had helped shape into the Vertigo groove, is here with Jamie Delano. Doom Patrol, also shaped by Morrison into the proper configuration, is here with Rachel Pollack (Pollack and Delano and Milligan were all reliable Vertigo staples in the early days). John Constantine, Hellblazer, is written by Garth Ennis with art from frequent collaborator Steve Dillon. Ennis would stake his Vertigo fame with Preacher years later. Milligan also has Shade the Changing Man. Nancy Collins has Swamp Thing (in its '80s Alan Moore incarnation perhaps the prototypical of all prototypical Vertigo, besides '70s horror comics like House of Mystery). Of course the coup de grace for this whole preview is an exclusive (i.e. original) Sandman tale from Gaiman, which is pretty much exactly Gaiman giving his pressing and introduction to the whole venture. Pretty awesome.
X-Men 2099 #1 (Marvel)
From October 1993:
In the brief period where my brothers were the ones in the family who read comics (they were both older than me), they read Star Wars and X-Men and Batman comics. They caught the 1992 bestselling X-Men relaunch. I got to read a lot of "Knightfall" because they did. One of them got the complete collection of the original zero issues from Zero Hour. And then they stopped and scoffed at the whole thing, much like they did their appreciation of Hootie and the Blowfish. I remained fans of both comics and Hootie. A lousy psychiatrist would say I did that because I spend my life trying to catch up to my brothers. I prefer to believe it's because I still appreciate these things. Sometimes when someone believes they've outgrown something, they just never go back. That's just how it is. The discovery I most appreciate from my brothers is X-Men 2099. The whole 2099 line was a brief experiment to revamp the Marvel landscape with new incarnations set in the future. People still talk about Spider-Man 2099 (well, sometimes), but to my mind the money remains with X-Men 2099. My perennial problem with X-Men comics in general is the same I have with all Marvel comics: they only pay lip service to the conflicts at the heart of their concepts. X-Men 2099 is everything a mutant fan ought to love. None of the faces are familiar but they're all engaged in the same tragic struggle you love from all the ones you do know. Like the rogue members who began populating the comics you remember (Wolverine, Storm...Rogue), these guys were all outsiders even to each other. Someday, much like my Flashpoint ambition, I hope to read the complete X-Men 2099.
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