Back Issue Bin 122 "The Batgirl of Burnside and other Throwbacks"

Batgirl #42 (DC)
(from September 2015)

The Batgirl of Burnside will be remembered as a turning point in DC lore, not only for permanently reviving Barbara Gordon's superhero career, but as part of the youth movement that also saw Marvel introduce Kamala Khan and a whole generation of young heroes, as well as inspiring the brief DCYou era.  I was already well into a more limited comics reading experience by the time Batgirl went to Burnside, but I appreciated the idea even if I didn't get a chance to read it myself.  (There's a silly notion that just because you haven't personally enjoyed something you somehow automatically count as uninterested; that's poor perception of economics.)  The Burnside revival began in Batgirl #35, and it was as much cosmetic as approach.  Babs suddenly looked youthful again, and she was given a bold new costume and art direction, the latter of which was another primary feature of DCYou.  This issue features a different redesigned member of the Batman family, namely Batman himself, or rather Commissioner Batman, James Gordon.  Y'know, Batgirl's dad.  Commissioner Batman was also a bold creative left turn, always meant to be temporary.  It was only fitting for Batman and Batgirl to team up during this era, so I'm glad it happened.

Batman #457 (DC)
(from December 1990)

Ah!  This was Tim Drake's costumed debut!  Tim Drake, otherwise known as the third Robin, after Dick Grayson and Jason Todd.  In the Rebirth era, continued efforts to distinguish Tim led to his "death" in Detective Comics, as part of the Oz arc that eventually revealed the mystery figure to be Superman's dad Jor-El.  Tim was originally designed to be a dynamic new Robin, a faithful partner of Batman in standing with tradition, but "Knightfall" and its aftermath actually shoved him into full-fledged independence.  He eventually assumed the mantle of Red Robin in an ode to Kingdom Come, even wearing the same costume Dick does in that comic.  In the New 52, even though he was the first Robin to have his own ongoing series, Tim had to make do with leading the Teen Titans while Dick starred in Nightwing and then Grayson, and Jason in Red Hood and the Outlaws while Batman's kid Damian Wayne costarred in Batman and Robin.  For a generation of Robin fans, Tim Drake is the Boy Wonder, so this is a landmark issue.  It's the first time the traditional costume gets a complete overhaul, too!

Captain America #698 (Marvel)
(from April 2018)

Okay, so this one's pretty recent, a victim of a cover tear and subsequent banishment to the cheap bin.  I love that stuff!  This is one of Mark Waid's early comics in the post-Secret Empire revival, Marvel's effort to redeem the character after spending roughly a year with him operating as a natural born agent of Hydra.  Waid kicks off an arc where Cap wakes up after having been frozen again, with America in the grip of tyranny.  Only Captain America can save the day!  Ironically!

Earth 2 #25 (DC)
(from September 2014)

After James Robinson set up the concept, Tom Taylor took over and got to use versions of Superman and Batman.  I loved the New 52 Earth 2.  The Society continuation wrapped up in the early days of the Rebirth era, but at that point really only the DC office cared, which was too bad.  The Earth 2 Batman was actually Thomas Wayne!  I don't know if this was inspired by the Flashpoint Batman, but it was fun to see DC revive the idea in some fashion.  Obviously Batman couldn't dominate the title, even if he makes the cover this issue, at least the Batman 75th Anniversary edition.  Because the issue also features Val-Zod, the Earth 2 Superman, finally decide to embrace being Superman, so he rates the standard cover.

And there he is!  Both the Earth 2 Batman and Earth 2 Superman had unique costume variants on the classic templates.  Thomas Wayne Batman had red where Bruce Wayne typically has white, and Val-Zod sports silver where Clark Kent has red, with a red substitute as the field behind the s-shield.  As events later developed, neither Thomas Wayne nor Val-Zod were adequate substitutes for the icons who died in the first issue, but Dick Grayson later assumes the mantle of Batman in Convergence and Earth 2: Society, marking a true progression in the lineage he only gets to temporarily fulfill in regular continuity.









The Flash #48 (DC)
(from March 1991)

With no offense to William Messner-Loebs (help him here!), Wally West didn't properly become the Flash until Mark Waid started writing him.  That may have something to do with the fact that I was introduced to Wally as Flash by Waid's comics.  So I like to look into Messner-Loebs' work when I get the chance.  Among the interesting guest-stars this issue include Elongated Man Ralph Dibney (as a Flash continuity nerd it's surprising that Waid never got around to that) and a severely aged Vandal Savage (really want to read that next issue now!).  Plus Wally learning new things about his mom.  Waid was definitely part of the mythology movement that came to dominate DC, whereas Messner-Loebs embodied the more grounded ideas of the receding era that came before it.  It's not surprising their takes on Wally were different. 

Gotham Academy #7 (DC)
(from August 2015)

Batman tends to dominate DC's publishing schedule, as he's been their most consistent seller for...fifty years?  That's about right.  So that gives him a lot of sway, and gives creators a lot of space to play in.  This concept takes place in Gotham but doesn't necessarily involve Batman, although I chose this particular issue because it features his kid, Damian Wayne.  At this point, really only Grant Morrison and Pete Tomasi had written Damian, so this was an opportunity for a fresh set of eyes.  The result is a much softer version, which stands to reason, as Gotham Academy was itself a much more kid-friendly Batman comic.

Grayson #11 (DC)
(from October 2015)

It's sometimes easy to assume Tom King ended up getting the Batman assignment because of DC's respect for his Omega Men, but it's really down to his work on Grayson, where he got to explore the Batman landscape with a writing partner (Tim Seeley, who later built on Grayson's legacy with his Nightwing Rebirth material).  And King even had Mikel Janin on art!  Janin later proved to be a signature collaborator in the pages of Batman, too, of course, which makes it all the more obvious how important Grayson was for both their careers.  This issue, with a typically fantastic cover from Janin, helps the title reach a culmination of the Spyral arc it continued from Grant Morrison's Batman Incorporated (first volume).  Really, even I sometimes underestimate the importance of this groundwork material for King.  Someday I hope to read the complete run, add it to my King collection.  I have pretty much everything else already.



The Adventures of Superman Annual #3 (DC)
(from 1991)

The Armageddon 2001 annuals arc was one of the early themed events DC did that helped set the precedent for what it would later make an annual tradition in the New 52.  In fact, this particular arc is not all that different from Futures End, a kind of fast-forward.  Waverider, a character who could really use a revival, peers into the future of every hero trying to determine who becomes the villainous Monarch.  DC lore has it that it was originally intended to be Captain Atom, who in fact does become a different Monarch years later in the pages of Extreme Justice, but in the meantime it was switched to Hawk of Hawk & Dove (soon to appear on television!).  At any rate, it was never going to be Superman, right?  This issue instead focuses on the then-recent introduction of Maxima as an alien who fancies Superman to be her ideal mate.  Ah...they're later in Dan Jurgens' Justice League together! 

Adventures of Superman #632 (DC)
(from November 2004)

There's a number of things Greg Rucka is known for in his first run with DC (Wonder Woman, Gotham Central chief among them, and eventually Batwoman), but writing Superman isn't one of them.  And yet here he is!  There are two things to know about the issue: one is that Lois has been shot and is possibly dying (hindsight says probably not), and that Ruin is trying to become the next great Superman villain (hindsight says probably not, possibly owing to the fact that he's basically Lex Luthor).  Please also note Paul Pelletier on art!

Marvel Knights: X-Men #5 (Marvel)
(from May 2014)

Industry observers hailed Marvel Knights, along with the Ultimate line, to be one of Marvel's creative saviors in the early millennium.  Somewhere along the way both of them petered out, the Ultimate comics with a bang, the Knights with a whimper.  This is one of those projects that just kind of happened.  It's an ambitious attempt by new creators to give the X-Men new creative relevance (which was the Knights mandate as a whole) without necessarily reinventing the wheel.  Maybe the results this time were a little too woolly to stick the landing, too caught up with the emerging indy aesthetic Marvel would come to try and embrace across its line.  So it didn't really stick out.  But for an X-Men comic it still looks unique.  I think the problem mostly was that it tried to introduce new characters but didn't trust them to guide the story.  The X-Men gained new life when new characters started guiding the story.  Maybe time to try that again?

Digitally Speaking...49

This column details my adventures reading comics from my comiXology account...

Fade Out: Painless Suicide (WiseDog)
From 2014.

I'm not entirely sure what this was supposed to be.  It starts out like it's going to be about suicide.  And then young love.  Young love and suicide?  Makes sense.  But then it's about a murder mystery.  And then the murder mystery ends with the main character being murdered.  Not, you know, committing suicide.  So I guess...I just don't get it.

Fantastic Four #1 (Marvel)
From 1961.

History could have read this so much differently.  Mister Fantastic (Plastic Man/Elongated Man) and Human Torch (the Golden Age Human Torch) were archetypes of existing superheroes, while the Thing and Invisible Girl were culled straight from horror movies...In fact, the whole thing seemed to be Stan Lee and Jack Kirby creating horror characters more than superheroes, but using them as superheroes.  The team launched the Marvel Age, and as such became known as the first superheroes to inhabit the angst-ridden, "human level" variety Marvel became known for, but...they were horror creations, tossed together like Van Helsing meets League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  Doom Patrol, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk, these were all characters more akin to horror, which at that time cinematically was still steeped in the classic horror age, before the dawn of the slasher flicks twenty years later.  Just imagine if the team had remained known as horror characters, rather than superheroes...But then, Marvel became known as DC's main competition, and the rest is history.  Characters who slipped in from the frames of movies have transitioned into the movies, where they have become a whole genre like, well, the horror movies that inspired them.  It figures.

Fatherhood #1 (Challenger)
From 2013.

This one-shot is much like Fade Out, tonally somewhat baffling.  The writer describes it as attempting to explore what it means to be a father (hence the, ah, title), fighting between impulses of great devotion and the ability to do very questionable things because of that great devotion...but the story abruptly shifts from being about the pain of a separated marriage to the father going all psycho and pseudo-noir as he gets the latest popular toy for his daughter.  Like Fade Out, I can say I just don't get it.  You understand, this essentially means, these are poorly-reasoned comics.

Fighting Stranger: Chapter One (HicksVillain)
From 2013.

Fighting Stranger is...strange.  And it becomes stranger.  The good news is that it's a good kind of strange.  The writing is at turns incredibly clever and clunky.  Thankfully the cleverness outweighs the clunk.  And the cleverness extends a few ways, from how the stereotypical story of an amnesiac being guided along a journey to discovering he has certain skills and purpose is reshaped by how it's done (by the end of this chapter, there's a whole new level added) and with what kind of characters.  The most important character isn't the lead at all, but his guide, the dancing entertainbot C4D, who proves endlessly amusing.  Good stuff.

First Law of Mad Science #1 (Noreon)
From 2012.

By the time a quote from H.P. Lovecraft shows up at the end, I guess what precedes it makes perfect sense.  Lovecraft has inspired something of a religion.  I doubt his fans would consider their devotion to be a religion...but yeah, it's something like a religion at this point.  The story involves a scientist who's a pretty crummy father, a son who is resentful of his scientist father being so crummy, cybernetic eyes, robot daughters, seeing monsters that aren't there...Damn Lovecraft fans.  I rue the day I ever learned about Lovecraft!

The Flash (DC)
#30 (from 1989)
#54 (from 1991)
#162 (from 2000)

I was recommended the first two when Flash comics went on sale in celebration of the new TV series launching.  For me they're rare Wally West stories not written by Mark Waid, but rather William Messner-Loebs.  There came a point where I no longer believed this, but during the '90s, when he was writing The Flash, Waid could do no wrong.  He was, for me, the definitive writer of not only Wally West but the Flash in general.  So for someone to recommend reading issues from the same series Waid later made his own felt like an impossible mission.  Waid came onboard years after the series launched, which meant he wasn't the first writer to attempting defining what it meant for Wally to have assumed the scarlet cowl, succeeding his friend and mentor Barry Allen.  But the recommendation was, Messner-Loebs made Wally's life as a speedster interesting.  And so?

The first issue features Wally in a theater realizing that time seems to have stopped.  But it didn't, he merely sped up without realizing it.  That's a pretty neat trick.  Not that special, but pretty neat.  The second issue is probably better.  This recommendation made it known that Wally's "Nobody dies" edict alone was special, but there's also diving out of a plane to catch someone, and that was special.  Messner-Loebs, it seems, got what being a speedster could feel like.  Waid always concentrated on the legacy, but here's a writer who slowed things down (heh) and let Wally, and the reader, experience how the powers actually work.  Sometimes it takes a great deal of effort.  This is something that's rarely touched on in superhero comics.  That alone makes #54 unique.

The third issue, meanwhile, was Waid's final one (until All Flash #1 in 2007, which kicked off the era recently resurrected in Convergence: Speed Force) after his long, historic tenure.  By this point he'd been transitioning away, giving more and more responsibility to Brian Augustyn, and so maybe it's not surprising that there's not really a farewell message here, as I would have expected.  I took a break from comics in early 1999, when Waid was working on his last great Flash arc, "Chain Lightning," a story whose conclusion I finally read a few years back.  The truth is, I thought for years that Waid left after "Chain Lightning," that it was his big goodbye.  Turns out he lingered.  The issue instead is a pretty random Captain Marvel team-up.  I consider this disappointing.  Or maybe the disappointment was Waid's.  Either way, he did return to the character (fans always considered that work disappointing), but by that point Wally had become a Geoff Johns guy.  Which turned out pretty well, until Johns decided he was more of  Barry Allen guy...

Flash Gordon #1 (Dynamite)
From 2014.

Flash Gordon is one of those characters most people know but don't really know much about.  He's a space adventurer in the vein of Star-Lord, the currently popular model as seen in last year's popular Guardians of the Galaxy flick.  And he's more or less fallen completely by the wayside.  So of course he gets a revival.  The question is, does the revival remind us what makes Flash Gordon unique?  Not really.  Very quickly, we're dumped in the middle of an adventure, Ming, all of that.  Which is fine.  if you like random adventure stories set on alien worlds, then this is your thing.  But if you want a reason to care for Flash Gordon specifically again, this may not be.  Because otherwise the character has become as equally random as the story he's in.  I personally don't see this as a particularly good development.

Footprints Vol. 1 (Soup Dad)
From 2014.

If you ever wanted to find out what it would be like if Alan Moore wrote Hellboy in the same general style he did Watchmen...Footprints follows Bigfoot in much the way the early issues of Fables followed the Big Bad Wolf.  You don't know why Bigfoot became a private investigator except that the story felt like putting him in that role.  And then he has to solve the mystery of what's been happening to the cryptoid community.  Tries to make bold statements about the 20th century.  Fails.  Scott Snyder provides an introduction, although he unwittingly reveals what kind of experience you're really headed for when he begins by explaining how he used to watch a bad Bigfoot special on TV all the time, and he got hooked on it.  That's what this basically is.

FUBAR: FCBD Edition (Alterna)
From 2013.

Soldiers in various eras blah-blah-blah random monsters!  And that's basically all this is.  If you like random monsters, I guess you'd probably like this more than I did.  And as for all those acronyms...FUBAR = F***ed Up Beyond All Reason (it's a military term, naturally), FCBD = Free Comic Book Day.  Which incidentally is this Saturday!

Fun Fun Comics #1 (Fun Fun)
From 2013.

Deliriously funny stuff from Michael D. Koch (presumably not related to the Derek Koch I got to know from Paperback Reader, who actually probably would like stuff like Footprints), a collection of some old indy comic strip material filled with terrific gags and wacky situations that are kind of what Family Guy tries to do (which is not to say that Family Guy fails so much that Koch does it better).  His noble work continues, weirdly enough, at a site called Fun Fun Comics.  Later in the collection, Hamlet tries to warn Mel Gibson about the talking skull.  But of course it doesn't matter.  I guess I'm just a sucker for this kind of stuff.  And what about Michael Bolton?  As everyone who's seen Office Space knows, Michael Bolton sucks.  But that's hardly the last word on him.  Probably you should read this to find out more...




The Fuse #1 (Image)
From 2014.

I may have sold The Fuse short.  This is because I know the writer, Antony Johnston, from something that I love, the recently concluded post-apocalyptic epic Wasteland, and so when Fuse launched a little over a year ago, I wasn't quite ready to dive into another Johnston project.  I mean, Wasteland happens once a lifetime, right?  And Johnston launched another series at the same time, Umbral.  The thing is, Umbral is a lot more like Wasteland than Fuse.  What they all share is Johnston's knack for world-building.  But where Wasteland and Umbral set up years-long stories, Fuse is, basically, a procedural set on a space station (the title is the name of the station).  I actually liked what I read when I sampled Fuse previously, but again, I wasn't ready to make another commitment.  Reading the first issue for the first time, after the end of Wasteland, I think I'm ready.  This is good stuff.  And so I will be correcting my oversight first chance I get.