Reading Comics #93 "The Annotated Sandman Volume 1 #2"

(via vertigocomics.com)

My reading of Leslie S. Klinger's Annotated Sandman continues:

In the second issue of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, the reader gets a better idea of the comic book origins of the series, as well as its precedents, specifically in the appearances of Cain and Abel, who at one time served as hosts for House of Mystery and House of Secrets, respectively.  Klinger, as with the first issue and no doubt in many to come, is good to provide the exact details.  Somewhat curiously he also provides the complete biblical text for the famous siblings, possibly to catch any reader unfamiliar with them up to speed.  It is odd to think that so overtly religious figures would appear in comics that were otherwise not particularly religious, but this was also a time when Hollywood was routinely basing many of its high profile films on incidents from the Bible.

One way or another, it's a nice twist not just for the story at hand but on the relationship between the two.  You may recall that Cain slew Abel, the first murder.  They're the embodiment of the issue's title, "Imperfect Hosts" (that's something I neglected to mention with the first entry), which Klinger also explains in one of his notes.  The naming of individual issues in a series can often be a thankless art, but that's another thing that doesn't go overlooked in this project.

Recently liberated from nefarious clutches that kept him a prisoner for seventy years, Morpheus is trying to reclaim his life, and he needs figures like Cain and Abel to do it, to give him back some of the power that has basically been stolen from him.  A little like the Horcruxes in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga, tokens that Voldemort used to impart a portion of himself for safekeeping, Dream specifically has three items to retrieve: a pouch of sand, a helmet, and a ruby moonstone.

What's interesting about the early Sandman is its more direct ties to DC lore.  At the start, of course, there was no Vertigo, and so Sandman was more or less merely a quirky DC title.  It was a new vision of a character who'd existed since the Golden Age, Wesley Dodds, who was subsequently featured in the Vertigo series Sandman Mystery Theatre as well as in Mark Waid's Kingdom Come.

In this issue, one of the more obvious links to the mainstream is the appearance of Doctor Destiny, an old Justice League villain who also appears in Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum from the same period. We in fact visit him at Arkham in the issue, but he's not a very imposing figure at the moment.

Morpheus next visits another old DC host, Lucien, who was once Mr. Raven, and current custodian of Dream's home, which has suffered much in his time away.  He moves on to the Hecatae, Gaiman's embodiment of the Greek Fates (with apparently an abundance of other incarnations), who give him clues as to the current locations of the items he seeks.

Perhaps none of this is what you'd expect from a series that has been lauded long and loud, and yet it's exactly what it needs at this point.  As with many Gaiman stories, it's something of a travel narrative, a journey the main character takes in preparation of something greater.

Reading Comics #92 "The Annotated Sandman Volume 1 #1"

(via vertigocomics.com)

If any mainstream comic book besides Watchmen will ever be acknowledged as a literary classic, it'll be Neil Gaiman's Sandman.  Perhaps one of the first signs is the existence of Leslie S. Klinger's The Annotated Sandman, which is now the version of the series that I hope to read in its completeness.  As the title suggests, this is Gaiman's comic book, reprinted in its entirety, with annotations from Klinger, who is an old friend of Gaiman's.  It is reprinted in black and white, but Sandman is a series that is more than capable of selling itself with or without color.

My previous experience reading the series is wholly incomplete.  I've read the first regular collected volume, Preludes and Nocturnes, as well as the first issue itself, and barely anything beyond that.  It's another series that I kick myself for not reading when I originally had the chance, because it was still in regular ongoing print when I was reading comics for the first time in the 1990s.  Still, this is a malady that can be corrected these days.

This series of posts will feature my thoughts as I read through at least the first volume of The Annotated Sandman, with thoughts both on Gaiman as well as Klinger.  (The second volume was released last November and the third is scheduled for January next year.)

It strikes me, first off, that Klinger provides something of a historical archive with the note on the cover of the first issue, since I would probably have never known without seeing the issues themselves that Sandman was originally subtitled Master of Dreams.  Few comic book readers ever think about life after the single issues (although famously, The Dark Knight Returns was originally just The Dark Knight, with different subtitles for individual issues), although of course the collection culture has grown over the last decade.  What we'll have in a few decades more, especially as it becomes more and more standard to have and to keep collections in publication, is a disconnect between the readers of the original series and the story as it emerges in history.  (Which means that the sometimes bitching I do about DC's lack of a letters column really doesn't matter all that much.  I find even myself not really caring about that feature as much as I once did.)

Another key feature of Annotated Sandman that I want to put on record before I forget is that each page is numbered, and more than that, each page of each issue is also recorded.  It's a continuing pet peeve of mine that this is less and less standard, whether in a single issue or a collection.  So that's something that this work absolutely gets right.

I also want to detail the approach I will be taking as I read the collection.  This is not my first time reading an annotated work.  Whether it's history books or Susanna Clarke's excellent Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, a work of fiction that cleverly incorporates notes into the narrative process, I've done plenty of trying to read a main text and the extras meant to further illuminate it.  The trouble is that editors don't usually know how to present the notes.  Sometimes they crop up at the bottom and sometimes they're stuck in the back (which is incredibly laborious unless you develop a method).  Here, though, the notes are presented alongside the pages they reference.  (This is a hugely oversize volume width-wise.)

I intend to read the page and then read the notes, which reference the exact panel in question.  So far it seems to work, and keeps me at a measured pace, not to mention putting a greater emphasis on just what Gaiman accomplishes page to page.

A lot of Klinger's notes are historical in nature, at least in this first issue, explaining what Gaiman might have taken for granted as far as the knowledge of his readers is concerned.  Some of it also points readers in the direction of where characters are headed, where they pop up again.  Some of it simply explains the arcana incorporated into the narrative, the particular tapestry the characters who trap Morpheus, otherwise known as Dream of the Endless Ones, rely on in order to believe they have an understanding of things.

As far as the story of the issue itself goes, Dream is trapped for seventy years, drastically affecting his ability to regulate that human activity, with a particular effect on several subjects who end up suffering from the "sleepy sickness" that you might know from the excellent Robert De Niro/Robin Williams film Awakenings (which is duly noted by Klinger).  This will be at least my third time reading the opening chapter of the saga, so at this point I'm developing a familiarity with it, almost a fondness, the dopey stupidity of the men who think they have any bargaining space with Morpheus, who finally frees himself when a guard finally falls asleep in his presence.

In an odd sort of way, Klinger's notes will force me to read the collection in much the way it was originally presented, issue by issue.  This first one is forty pages, but subsequent ones are the more tradition twenty-four.

This should be fun!

Django Unchained #1 (Vertigo)

writer: Quentin Tarantino
artist: R.M. Guera

(via vertigocomics.com)

I have not yet seen Django Unchained the movie (though rest assured when I do I will probably enjoy it, as Tarantino is a favorite).  Reading this comic, which adapts the complete script regardless of what actually made it into the film, then becomes my first experience with it.

Apart from anything that can be said about the story, it suddenly occurs to me what sets Quentin Tarantino apart from other filmmakers.  Plenty has been made about his influences from watching and obsessing over other movies, but the aspect I will choose to emphasize here is his writing.  Actually, it may be more obvious reading him in comic book form than watching him in his movies that Tarantino approaches his storytelling very much as a storyteller.  I'm not talking about the nonlinear way he presented Pulp Fiction, but simply in the way he crafts scenes in general, the way he progresses his narratives, even when you're talking about a lengthy dialogue scene like the opening act of Inglourious Basterds, when Lanza reveals how he's come to know what the French farmer refuses to admit outright, that he's hiding a family of Jews under the floorboards.  (If by some chance you've never watched a Tarantino movie, much less that one, it's perhaps the best possible way to enjoy his craft.)

As I said, that becomes apparent when reading this comic.  I figure I will try my best to read the rest of the mini-series adaptation, as it now seems just as relevant as seeing the movie itself.

Interestingly, by complete coincidence I was able to enjoy the first comics work from Tarantino and artist R.M. Guera (best known for his exceptional work in Jason Aaron's Scalped) when they first collaborated for some "deleted scenes" first published in Playboy (see? it really is possible to read Playboy!) from Basterds.  Perhaps at some point it will be liberated from its obscurity, included in some special edition of that film or something.  (Feel free to tell me if this has already happened.)

My advice, then, is to enjoy the movie and this adaptation, too, because it will be well worth your time.

Cobra #20 and 21 (IDW)

writer: Mike Costa
artist: Antonio Fuso, Werther Dell'Edera

(from unleashthefanboy.com)

The Oktober Guard saga concludes.  Turns out the reports of Ronin's demise (mainly, here at Comics Reader) were greatly exaggerated.  Instead of dying she's taken prisoner and begins a grueling interrogation experience, allowing us to learn more about the Guard in much the same way Mike Costa has explored characters from both the Joes and Cobra previously, proving there's no end to this successful character formula.  While she's enjoying that, Flint puts an extraction team consisting of himself, Lady Jaye, and Chameleon, heading into Russia to put an end to this messy affair.

Except their efforts won't be enough.  They end up captured, too, and it falls to Clockspring, another character like Ronin and Chameleon original to Costa's adventures, to make an awful deal to find resolution.  He turns to the Joes' prize informant, Tomax Paoli, formerly a key member of Cobra, and by the end of #21 we find out just much of a deal with the devil has really been made, and is the true payoff to the Oktober Guard arc.  Not only does it further emphasize the abilities of and rivalry between the Joes and Cobra, but it draws a lovely bow around Costa's efforts to date.  #21 is the final issue of this particular incarnation.  In April G.I. Joe: The Cobra Files will launch, the latest iteration of the series.

In a lot of ways, Cobra in its various incarnations can be described either as the saga of Paoli (and his late brother Tomax) or Chameleon, although it's really both.  It's their journey and relationships with the two key organizations that Costa has used to define his approaches to them, intimate and personal but filled with intrigue.  Like Chuckles in the original stories, Clockspring finds his best definition in relation to one of them.

I've long held that Cobra is one of the best comics on the market, and Costa continues to earn this faith.  Anyone who still hasn't experienced it should at least acknowledge IDW's remarkable commitment to keeping these efforts in print on an ongoing basis.  If it had been a fluke, the first mini-series would have been the end of it, or maybe the second mini-series, which was turned into the first ongoing series in the run.  This is the end of the second ongoing series, leading to a third in just a few months.  Though Cobra is in the title, Costa has never allowed the stories to feature mustache-twirling villains.  He's a writer filled with nuance.  He's one of the best.

Reading Comics #91 "Geoff Johns on Olympus"

Some of my readers might believe this Comics Reader obsesses over Grant Morrison.  This is not strictly true.  I obsess over Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns.  This is an important distinction.  I've obsessed over both of them for about five years now, which is a drop in the bucket of Grant's career and about half of Geoff's.

Grant and Geoff are similar in a lot of ways, the way they revere continuity and build on it, how they've been DC's top writers and world-builders for years.  Otherwise they're very different writers.  Grant has made a career subverting expectations.  Geoff has slowly emerged as a writer who must live up to them.  He's accomplished this in a number of ways.  His first major project was JSA, which was an extension of what first brought Geoff attention, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., his first legacy book.  He spent years writing the Justice Society and eventually brought his run to its logical conclusion, integrating the DC superhero legacy project Kingdom Come (written by Mark Waid, with whom Geoff and Grant as well as Greg Rucka collaborated on the seminal 52) with the Society's continued existence as a team dedicated to securing their successors' futures.

His next notable work was an extended run on The Flash, where he became the second most notable writer of Wally West's adventures (after Waid).  Years later Geoff returned to that particular franchise, revitalizing Barry Allen, the classic Silver Age Flash.  Yet as far as individual superheroes go, he will at least at this point always be known for Green Lantern, which he's been working on since Rebirth in 2004.

There have been other projects, like Hawkman, Avengers, Action Comics, and Aquaman, not to mention the events Day of Judgment, Infinite Crisis, Blackest Night, and Flashpoint, as well as another extended run on a legacy team, Teen Titans, but what really distinguishes Geoff from Grant is that he has very rarely done work outside of the superhero genre.

One such project was Olympus, a venture from DC and Humanoids that he wrote with Kris Grimminger in 2005.  A few weeks ago I randomly found it available at Escape Velocity in downtown Colorado Springs and figured I couldn't possibly pass up the opportunity to read it.

As the title suggests, Olympus deals with Greek mythology, from before the time Rick Riordan and Sam Worthington brought it back into the mainstream with Percy Jackson and the new Clash of the Titans.  Reading it, I'm reminded of Geoff's Hawkman, as well as his current Aquaman, like a blending of the two.  Structurally, it's very similar to the films A Perfect Getaway and Into the Blue, the latter of which was released the same years, the former four years later.  Students part of a college archaeological program have taken a field trip to Greece when they find themselves caught in unexpected circumstances, first treasure hunters who mistake their boat for the one some rivals are aboard, and then the ramifications of discovering Pandora's Box at the bottom of the sea.

Classic monsters like the Cyclops and the Minotaur attack them as mayhem ensues.  The artwork of Butch Guice keeps the action grounded yet engaging.  It's really the opposing views of sisters Sarah and Rebecca that drives the story.  Sarah is similar to Shannon from Lost (you can view Olympus as the version of that series that some fans may have preferred if you'd like; Lost began the fall before Olympus was released), while Rebecca is a bit like Locke (though without the "Don't tell me what I can't do!" attitude; she does support, however, the professor leading the field trip who may be losing her job when they get back).

There is something of a plot hole in the character of Deems, who seems to be a lot more significant than he turns out to be, while the ending is more suggestive than conclusive, but otherwise there's so much here to enjoy, either in relation to the material I'm familiar with from Geoff's career or Greek mythology or just the story itself.  Well worth checking out for a comprehensive appreciation of Geoff Johns as a standout comics talent.

Batman Incorporated #6 (DC)

writer: Grant Morrison
artist: Chris Burnham

(via dccomics.com)

To most fans at the moment, Scott Snyder is the Batman writer of record.  I won't begrudge them that, because he's the one driving the crossover arcs.  I've struggled with this in the past.  I still don't particularly think Snyder rates as high as fans think, but he's at least kept Batman in high profile stories that his fans will probably remember.

However, I will have a problem with the instant crisis the Court of Owls provided the Dark Knight, just something that appeared and proved in Snyder's mind to be a defining struggle.  I don't necessarily believe that Batman should have a problem like that come about so easily.  It's akin to what Grant Morrison has been doing in Batman Incorporated, and in this issue particularly, which features a climactic battle whose impact is probably cheapened by the stuff Snyder has been doing.

Batman's final duel with Leviathan, the culmination of Morrison's 2006-2013 run with the character, ought to be a pretty big deal.  I guess it's cool that Morrison doesn't mind being upstaged, because he was certainly in the spotlight previously with stories like "Batman, R.I.P," which is echoed so directly in this end game that it may be exactly what Morrison wants, because it's not really about Batman and his final confrontation with Talia al Ghul, but their son, Damian, and where he ultimately ends up.

The most shocking thing to me in the issue is the apparent demise of Knight, the English Batman that Morrison brought back starting with the Club of Heroes arc prior to "Batman R.I.P."  It's a sequence that puts Knight's Robin, Squire, in mortal jeopardy, allowing Knight a heroic rescue that sees him replace her in the cross-hairs of the juggernaut who by the end of the issue has bested Batman himself.  Damian, the current Robin on probation for his own safety, is on the sidelines trying to make the decision to intervene.  Earlier in the rebooted series, Morrison teased Damian's death, so he's certainly not above doing whatever he wants in this book, because he knows he can pretty much get away with anything, and that's because of the Snyder effect.  The focus is elsewhere.  Fans will only take notice again probably with the final issue, to see how Morrison concludes his epic.

Six issues remaining.

Quarter Bin #47 "Resurfacing Cerebus and Others"

Disclaimer: Comics featured in "Quarter Bin" are not necessarily from an actual quarter bin.  This is a column about back issues.

Aquaman Secret Files 2003 (DC)

From May 2003:

I don't have an extensive history reading Aquaman, but I've generally kept tabs on the character during the midst of my comics experience.  Perhaps the most notable stories of the past twenty years came from Peter David, who famously had Aquaman lose a hand and grow his hair out, so that he was more distinguishable from DC's other heroes.  Amazingly, the lost hand stuck around for years after David's run, and was even referenced when the character resurfaced in Brightest Day a few years ago.  After David, the character went back in search of direction, which at one point even included an assist from Savage Dragon's Erik Larsen.  It became pretty random.  Now, before recent years when a series was relaunched it was because a publisher was just trying to draw attention to a character whose visibility had been shrinking but who otherwise was still relevant enough to justify their own book.  Aquaman got that treatment, again, around the release of this Secret Files release.  Things did not really improve for the character, though.  By the end of the series a few years later Aquaman had been killed off and replaced pretty unceremoniously (although the Tad Williams issues of Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis are well worth reading).  The problems can be found here.  Apparently someone had the idea that Aquaman should be a fantasy character.  This is a problem, because Aquaman has always struggled for mainstream credentials.  You will never find mainstream credentials for someone like Aquaman by attempting to shape his stories into a niche genre.  Comics are already a niche genre, especially those featuring superheroes.  To ask a large pool of fans to care about a character you're suddenly limiting that much more in his appeal, without making him more compelling, is a recipe for disaster.  The one thing I learned from this special is that Vulko, a character Geoff Johns has been using in his current and far superior Aquaman, is an established supporting character.  But he's one, along with Mera, that Geoff uses far more effectively, along with everything else.  

Cerebus #262 (Aardvark-Vanaheim)

From January 2001:

One of the things I'm pretty mad at myself as a comics reader is that I didn't read Cerebus when I had the chance.  Cerebus is perhaps the most iconic indy comic that never went mainstream, a step below Jeff Smith's Bone and two behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It's most famous for creator Dave Sim's vow to run it for three hundred issues, which he kept.  Part of the reason why it has more limited appeal than its more famous indy kin is that Cerebus was not about anything in particular, but rather whatever Sim wanted to explore.  The main character, like Groo, began life as a parody of Conan the Barbarian, an aardvark warrior of all things.  I had a chance to read some of its final issues as they were released, but at that time I was just getting my access to comic books, and wanted to reconnect with the superheroes I used to enjoy.  But don't feel bad, Cerebus fans.  I also skipped out on the final issues of Bone as well as Grant Morrison's New X-Men and Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man.  I was pretty much an idiot.  What it means for me as a reader today is that I have a chance to revisit Cerebus for the first time, and this is the very first issue I've ever read.  As I expected, Sim's concept of narrative is pretty loose.  This issue is part of the extended "Going Home" arc (it ran from #232 to 265).  Based on this tiny experience and what I know of the complete series, it may be worth arguing that Cerebus is the most cerebral, philosophical, literary comic book ever created.  I have every intention to eventually read the whole run.

Avengers: The Children's Crusade - Young Avengers (Marvel)

From May 2011:

Young Avengers from original creators Allan Heinberg and Jimmy Cheung was the best comic book Marvel published at the time.  It was a mix of old and new school, and a rare instance of attempting to create a new generation, or a new New Teen Titans if you will, wholesale and actually succeeding.  When Heinberg and Cheung reunited for The Children's Crusade, I expected everyone to be as pleased as the original series was beloved.  Yet it was met with massive indifference.  Now it has some historic importance, since the Scarlet Witch's return in the pages of Children's Crusade led to her considerable role in AvX and subsequent X-Men lore such as featured in All-New X-Men.  This particular issue from the Children's Crusade period was a one-shot that harks back to the original Young Avengers, with a strong focus on Iron Lad, who happens to be the younger version of the classic Avengers foe Kang the Conqueror.  The struggle between these two was a key element of the early days, but the longer the team stuck around the more the focus shifted to other characters, whether the emerging relationship between Wiccan and Hulkling or Patriot's growing ambivalence toward a continued superheroic career.  Yet Iron Lad's conflict remains fascinating and could easily support its own continuing story.  At the very least this special is worth reading to see how interesting it really is.  Because of things that were happening to me as Children's Crusade was being released, not only did I not read every issue (notably missing the finale), but I had no idea this even existed, so I was glad to discover it.  With a new Young Avengers series just begun, it'll always be worth looking back at what came before.