Reading Comics 240 "Batman #85, Doomsday Clock #12, and more"

Because there were a few comics I had to read at the end of the year, I put in another order at Midtown, and this is what I got:

Batman Annual #2 (DC)

This isn’t the issue I was aiming for, but it was nice to revisit all the same, as it demonstrates Tom King’s lyrical grace, a quality that seemed to have eluded many of his readers, or at least his many critics.  But if something like this escapes them, I suppose it doesn’t matter whether or not they approve.  At the end is a coda for King’s whole conception of Batman, and Catwoman, and it is beautiful.

Batman #85 (DC)

Here’s King’s grand finale, which splits time between defeating Thomas Wayne/Flashpoint Batman, and tying everything up, how the whole thing flowed from Batman’s theory of a “good death” at the start of King’s run, how he finally reconciled the death of his parents and what that meant about the existence of Batman, and his continued existence, and how his relationship with Catwoman confirms all of it.  I think it’s brilliant, but then I think just about everything Tom King does is brilliant.  He has no contemporary equal.  He may in fact be the best superhero comics writer ever.  And he has set the bar very high indeed.

Batman: Last Knight on Earth #3 (DC)

A Batman finale of a different order, this is Scott Snyder and Greg Capulo’s farewell.  As I was reading it, it suddenly occurred to me that if there’s any logic Snyder has followed all these years, it’s probably Dan Jurgens’.  Dan is famously the guy who in the final analysis is responsible for the death of Superman.  He further contributed to DC ‘90s lore with Zero Hour, an event that’s frequently overlooked but is probably one of the greatest event comics ever written, a “Crisis in Time” that expanded on Hal Jordan’s fall from grace to truly epic proportions and offered a plausible reshaping of continuity that hit a very soft reset button.  But Jurgens more often writes his superheroes in broader strokes.  His ideas are seldom as grounded in grace as his best stories (sort of like Mark Waid), and so he’s kind of easy to dismiss as the comics great that he ultimately is, at his best.  Snyder, meanwhile, has so often leaned on the assistance of cowriters it’s probably easy to forget that he has relied so often on them, when his legacy has shrunk to the “one great thing to come out of the New 52.”  He needs someone to temper his crazier instincts.  He’s the kind of writer who looks at the examples other writers have set, and considered only that they look like the most outrageous thing that could’ve been done, and so what he needs to do is the most outrageous thing he can come up with, and the logic will explain itself.  And his ideas are sound, but the execution always beggars the imagination of the reader more than convincingly tells a story.  His big finale, as he seemed to decide after coming up with the Court of Owls in his original Batman comics, centers around Batman’s relationship with the Joker.  As far as the Joker is concerned, everything he has ever done was meant to make Batman the best he could be.  But I don’t think Batman would ever be comfortable with that assessment, even in a scenario where he’s confronted with a version of himself that’s the worst he could be (and even there, Snyder doesn’t adequately account for how Batman could end up wanting to take over the whole world; that’s a story that would contrast Batman with Lex Luthor, not himself, much less Joker) (and while we’re on the subject, Snyder really, really missed a trick with his current projects when he called his upgraded Luthor “Apex Lex,” when, since the rhyme is already there, the logic clearly dictates calling him “Apex Luthor).  As far as Snyder’s own logic goes, I suppose this is as appropriate a finale as he could’ve envisioned.  This isn’t what I thought the original cloning concept he introduced way back in Detective Comics #27 (the New 52 edition), but at least he did something with it.

Doomsday Clock #12 (DC)

The second grand finale I wanted to catch (the above Snyder was merely incidental, not something I had intended to go out of my way to catch), or at least read for myself, since I had allowed the internet to spoil it for me.  Naturally, the internet was most interested in Geoff Johns outlining the theoretical future of DC lore.  I don’t think anyone at DC seriously expects this material to be followed (considering one of the stories referenced is apparently another crossover with Marvel, a situation always fraught with complications, as the long development of JLA/Avengers proved).  The sentiment itself represents the central thesis that DC follows Superman, that wherever he goes, his new continuity is the foundation of DC’s new continuity, even going so far as to suggest that if comics are still being made in 3020, a thousand years from now, the age of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Superman’s origin will take place then, and continuity will resettle around him once again, even though the Legion took its inspiration from the exploits of Superboy a thousand years earlier.  I think the whole project is justified.  It gives Doctor Manhattan a far more satisfying arc than he got in Watchmen (although I think Zack Snyder corrected that in his movie, too), removing the cynicism of Alan Moore himself and allowing a man who can see everything (except his ultimate fate) to adequately comprehend it, given the opportunity to make a decision, or in this instance, rethink a decision.  Which may also have been the point.

Family Tree #2 (Image)

I wanted to have a look at this latest Jeff Lemire project.  The guy is the most prolific creator in comics!  The art is from Phil Hester, whom I always love to see pop up with new work.  A fine variation on familiar Lemire themes.

Flash Forward #4 (DC)

I had already read what happened in this one, too, but wanted a chance to experience it for myself: Wally West meets Lightspeed, Linda Park!  But, of course, a Linda Park from an alternate reality, and who doesn’t particularly care what a counterpart made of Wally.  But the comic is also toying with Wally reuniting with his kids, which is something I’ve become much more fond of in the years since Mark Waid first introduced them in his return to Wally’s adventures, which were sort of a soft launch of the Tomasi/Gleason Superman, which wasn’t as good as their Batman & Robin, but still well worth existing.  And I think most fans will agree, if Wally is back, his whole family ought to get to join him, too.  Hopefully this comic has a truly happy ending.

Incoming! (Marvel)

Basically a tour of the current Marvel landscape, another visit with the Masked Raider (I don’t know if this guy, that name, and his gunslinging costume, is destined for greatness, but he’s nice to hang these stories on), and the push for the upcoming Kree/Skrull invasion of Earth!  The movies are probably headed somewhere in that direction, too, so it’s nice for the comics to get there first, for a change (a lot of recent comics belatedly obsessed over Thanos, which seemed way too obvious at that point), picking up where a famous, but forgotten-except-by-diehards-because-Marvel-can’t-keep-its-defining-stories-in-print Avengers epic left off way back in the ‘70s (or ‘60s? but I think ‘70s).  And central to all this?  My 2005 inner Marvel nerd is excited that it’s characters from Young Avengers! 

Invisible Kingdom #8 (Dark Horse)

Lately I’ve been feeling kind of bad about not caring that G. Willow Wilson has enjoyed so much success in recent years, since Air was such a favorite of mine from when nobody else cared, so I checked out an issue of this project.  It’s okay. 

Joker: Killer Smile #2 (DC)

Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino once again reunite for a tale of a psychiatrist’s descent into madness when he believes he can figure out the Clown Prince.  A bit obvious, but a sort of welcome companion to Lemire’s brilliant Moon Knight.

Klaus: The Life & Times of Joe Christmas (Boom!)

I haven’t had much luck reading the annual Christmas follow-ups to Grant Morrison and Dan Mora’s original Klaus, so I was pleased to order (because as I’ve come to understand, I just won’t be able to find it in an actual comics shop) the latest.  This one’s sort of in the model of a calendar, which counts up from December 1 and ends on the 25^th.  And there is no dialogue, only a chronicle of the life and adventures of Joe Christmas, who sort of becomes Klaus’s sidekick.  I almost choked up when I realized the cat had died.  Great comic.  Might singlehandedly justify Morrison’s whole concept of making Santa Claus a superhero.  Years from now someone could write a whole series around Joe Christmas based on this one comic, or maybe they could base a movie on it.  (Hint hint.)

The Old Guard: Force Multiplied #1 (Image)

I read the original miniseries in trade paperback at the library, and was immediately smitten, so I was extremely glad to discover this follow-up.  Perhaps moreso than the story itself is value of the Greg Rucka essay at the end detailing his thoughts about the origins and emerging legacy of Old Guard, including an upcoming Netflix movie version.  I’m glad things are working out this way.

The Amazing Spider-Man #36 (Marvel)

I was suckered into buying this issue because the solicitation listed Pat Gleason as the artist.  He was not.  But I subsequently picked up a slightly earlier issue, and he was. 

Superman Smashes the Klan #2 (DC)

Gene Luen Yang writes perhaps his most important Superman and/or DC comic, at last, detailing a group of kids’ experiences with Superman as he, well, battles the Klan, centering around a Chinese perspective, not in the way Hollywood has been catering to the massive Chinese market in recent years, but because Yang has more immediate ties, the kind that stretch across American history.  We tend to forget, except for all that Chinese food that was actually invented in America, how long the Chinese have been here, and how complicated their lives have been here.  Thankfully Yang is here to help fill in the gaps.  Included is an essay detailing Superman history that’s both familiar and also relevant to Yang’s perspective and intentions.

Quarter Bin #48 "Day of Judgment, Flash, and Green Lantern"

Comics featured in the Quarter Bin column were not necessarily bought from a quarter bin.  This is a back issues feature.

Day of Judgment #3 & 4 (DC)
From November 1999:
I've been wanting to read Day of Judgment for years.  For any number of reasons.  One of them is that it was released in 1999.  I quit reading comics in the spring of 1999 as I prepared for college.  Ever since then I've been trying to catch up with everything I missed between that time and 2004, when I started transitioning back into regular reading.  1999 was significant for a lot of reasons, and one of them was that it was the first big year for Geoff Johns at DC.  He started out writing the fairly innocuous Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., a kid punches version of Starman.  And yet the company seemed to know it had something far bigger than that right out of the gate.  Years later Johns became an event machine for DC, but his very first one was Day of Judgment.  That's not even the only hallmark for this event.  It was also the last stop on the redemption tour for fallen Green Lantern Hal Jordan, who had gone on an epic rampage as Parallax before sacrificing himself in The Final Night.  Day of Judgment saw him assume hosting duties for DC's Spirit of Vengeance, the Spectre.  The Spectre is always a hard character to write on a regular basis.  He's envisioned as the embodiment of God's Wrath, dispensing justice in grim and ironic ways.

I spent years looking through back issue bins for Day of Judgment.  It was never collected, and it was impossible to find (unless you use the Internet cheat and were willing to pay for the pleasure of reading this increasingly obscure adventure).  Johns finished the redemption of Hal in the pages of Green Lantern: Rebirth, with the hero literally shedding the identity of the Spectre like changing an outfit.  If you want the lasting legacy of this phase in the character's history, it sits in the pages of Kevin Smith's Green Arrow: Quiver (which only figures, because Hal and Oliver Queen have their own brand of DC history).  Earlier this year, even knowing that DC was finally going to collect the mini-series, I was still looking for the back issues.  I came across these, like a preview (rest assured I have the collection and will write about that, too).  The most curious thing about it is the art, which is the reverse of anything you'd expect, much subdued.  (Soon enough DC would go in the opposite direction in that regard, immortalized in Our Worlds at War and the existence of Manchester Black.)

I'll leave this one for the moment with the thought that it was worth the wait.

The Flash 80-Page Giant (DC)
From April 1999:
In the spring of 1999 Mark Waid was still writing The Flash, immersed in the subsequently lost saga known as "Chain Lightning," but DC was already preparing for the post-Waid Speed Force.  He doesn't write a single story in this special, although his editor Brian Augustyn does.  There are seven tales from a variety of creators.  The first one is Augustyn's and features Wally West teaming up with Jay Garrick, something that not uncommon in the Waid era.  There's a vintage Teen Titans of the original lineup (with West again in his classic Kid Flash getup), then another Wally tale that evokes the pre-Waid era, then another Wally tale, then another one that at least ruminates on his relationship with Linda Park.  Finally we get one that features someone else entirely (mostly), the Flash featured in Kingdom, the Waid reality that evoked his own Kingdom Come.  The final tale features XS, the Legion of Super-Heroes speedster.  I always wondered why she was mostly neglected as a character.  I don't she even exists these days, which is pretty sad.  Soon enough, Geoff Johns was writing Wally's adventures and then rewriting the legacy of The Flash by bringing back Barry Allen.  This serves as a nice time capsule between these eras, so I guess it's only right that Waid was not technically involved.

Green Lantern #167 (DC)
From September 2003:
I got this issue from the Judd Winick era mostly because the cover image inadvertantly evokes the later Geoff Johns era with an alien who looks very much like a member of the Indigo Tribe.  Who knows, and that's as much as why I wanted to have this one, but maybe Johns was inspired by this very issue, or perhaps just the cover?  It seems reasonable enough.  There's even an alien on the very first page who looks exactly like Larfleeze.  It's worth noting that in the back page DC projects preview section, Geoff's Teen Titans #1 and Waid's Superman: Birthright #1 and Empire #1 are listed.  I don't plan all these connections.  They just happen.

Green Lantern #181 (DC)
From November 2004:
This one's the final issue of Kyle Rayner before Green Lantern: Rebirth.  It's fittingly written by Ron Marz, Kyle's creator, who hadn't actually written Kyle regularly for years at this point.  It'd been creators like Winick and Ben Raab in the meantime.  I'd caught a previous "final Rayner issue from Marz" during one of the rare comics I caught during my exile (Marz would later write a Rayner mini-series called Ion based on a character revision from Winick), so I'm happy to close this loop.  In the issue he battles Major Force, a villain whose main claim to fame was originating the hideous "women in fridges" syndrome in Kyle's early adventures when he shockingly murdered the new Green Lantern's girlfriend Alex, whom readers might have assumed would be a love interest with longevity.  The last bit of trivia I'll mention is that the issue is edited by Peter Tomasi, who would go on to a successful writing career with Green Lantern Corps being one of his first assignments.