This is a back issue feature, which features all these this edition:
The Filth #6,
Green Lantern (1990) #1 and 46,
Green Lantern Corps #38,
The Helmet of Fate: Zauriel #1,
The Invisibles #6,
Justice League America #74,
JLA Classified #45,
JSA #81,
Legion of Super-Heroes #0,
Marvels #1,
The Mighty #1,
Millennium #5,
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere #3,
Starman #46,
Adventures of Superman Annual #5,
All Star Superman #1 and 5,
Sweet Tooth #13,
Tangent: Superman's Reign #12,
Wisdom #1, and
New X-Men #149.
The Filth #6 (Vertigo)
From 2002.
I have previously owned the entire
Filth collection. When I purged a vast amount of my things two years ago, this and
Supergods didn't survive, despite my professed great admiration for Grant Morrison. There are limits to everything. When I originally read the complete
Filth, I was in a different place. I was still in the midst of figuring out what exactly it was I liked about Morrison. Turns out, I like it best when he's not trying so hard to be weird. Stuff like this and his current
Nameless are
definitely Morrison trying hard to be weird. And the thing about
Filth is even when I reread this particular issue, I had some thoughts about what helped make it seem
less like Morrison trying hard to be weird, but now I've forgotten. So again I'll walk away from it and not wonder whether I'm missing something crucial. I guess it's supposed to be social commentary, and not
necessarily about, well, filth, and maybe how some people really do try too hard. And so maybe Morrison took on
Filth in full irony. I think I read once that it is or
was his personal favorite, and at one point I described it myself as possibly the
Invisibles experience condensed...Still, obviously personally, I've backed off from it, and I think Morrison has done a lot of stuff since then that's far superior, not just
Joe the Barbarian and
Annihilator, but...I mean, even
Seven Soldiers is in some ways
Filth repackaged. Made better. Moving on...
Green Lantern #1 (DC)
From 1990.
It seems odd to think today that Hal Jordan ever had a problem being the headlining Green Lantern act. I mean,
other than everyone who wants the cinematic Green Lantern to be John Stewart (mostly because of the animated Justice League adventures where
he was). And yet there was a considerable period where
Green Lantern had in fact been retitled
Green Lantern Corps, and this particular reboot was all about Hal taking back the spotlight. It was also the debut of the white temple look, which Geoff Johns later retconned as the first indication of Parallax taking control. The Hal in this issue is drawn directly from the
Green Lantern/Green Arrow era. I mean, Hal was regularly depicted as bucking authority and reluctant to be a good little Green Lantern, which was the whole reason Guy Gardner and John Stewart had rings to begin with, but this was making it not just a phase, but a defining part of his character. Sticking around,
being Green Lantern, and still fretting about all that. And this was the beginning of the modern era, too. The franchise was in fact about to begin. Guy and John both got their own ongoing series before long, and they were in this issue to assert their continuing presence from the start. And to think, fifty issues in and everything would change...
Green Lantern #46 (DC)
From 1993.
I don't know who decided to begin a new Green Lantern on the heels of Superman's big death-and-return saga, but they were a genius. How often does that happen, linking one such event to another, however tangentially? Mongul and Cyborg Superman incidentally destroy Coast City at the end of "Reign of the Supermen," which is Hal's city, and it drops him off the deep end. In this issue, it looks like he might be able to get over it. He gets his revenge on Mongul, he's the one who gets to defeat the other major villain of the big Superman climax. And it still ends up resulting in "Emerald Twilight," the end of Green Lantern as it had existed as a property since the dawn of the Silver Age...and yeah, eventually, Hal's big redemption and the return of everything, supersized...But at this point, the next issue is the last Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up (in its original combination; strangely even upon Hal's return it's never happened again). To me, this moment has always stood as about as iconic as "Emerald Twilight" itself. The original
Green Lantern trade collections of that time never included it. There were separate "Emerald Twilight" and "New Dawn" (the start of the Kyle Rayner era), and then "Emerald Twilight"/"New Dawn" collections. And this major component of the story was left out. Every time. I don't know, did the "Reign of the Supermen" collections include it?
Green Lantern Corps #38 (DC)
From 2009.
This is from the Tomasi/Gleason era that kicked off the series, the best non-Johns Green Lantern comics from that time, and enhanced in hindsight by their later collaboration in
Batman and Robin, which was a definite amplification of their efforts. So good, in fact, that I tend to forget what their
GLC was actually like, other than the distinctive presence of Soranik Natu (this issue she tries to erase her just as distinctive face tattoo because it's a constant reminder of her father...Sinestro). The Guardians are ramping up to going totally insane, executing bad guys, with the Corps somehow having a problem with that. But it's that cover that is the best thing about the issue. Not
totally relevant to the contents, but it's strong Pat Gleason all the same, before Gleason truly came into his own (again,
Batman and Robin). It's not my favorite cover from this selection of back issues, however. We'll get to that.
The Helmet of Fate: Zauriel #1 (DC)
From 2007)
This was a part of the late Steve Gerber's last big project, an attempted reboot of Doctor Fate. Gerber's legacy will arguably always be Howard the Duck, which luckily these days once again means a good thing. I read the complete
Helmet of Fate at the time of its original publication, so it was good to revisit. Zauriel was one of the less obscure characters featured in this kind of condensed
Seven Soldiers (the issue recaps every other encounter to that point, which was actually the last before the intended big payoff). Zauriel was a Grant Morrison creation from the pages of
JLA, a literal angel, a surrogate Hawkman (several reboot attempts from that period had soured that particular character, who would need a dramatic comeback within Geoff Johns'
JSA in order to become relevant again), and his story is ably recapped in the issue as well. He got a new incarnation in the New 52 in the pages of
Phantom Stranger, but it's not quite the same.
The Invisibles #6 (Vertigo)
From 1994.
You know what's ironic? Every time I randomly come across a back issue of
Invisibles, it's always from the
Say You Want a Revolution collection, the first volume of the series. And that's awful, in a way, because
Say You Want includes the most of what I've read from one of Grant Morrison's early seminal works. And darn it if I don't want to read something else from it!
Maybe there's a message in that?
In the meantime, I'll instead talk here about the On the Ledge feature in the back of the issue, the Vertigo press page that speaks about the Paradox Press experiment, which today is known, if for anything at all, for
Road to Perdition, which later became a Tom Hanks movie. But this hype feature also references Jerome Charyn in Paradox Press's stable of writers. Years later, Charyn became a favorite writer of mine, and it amused me to learn that he sometimes dabbles in comics, and apparently, so I learned here, he was in fact part of the Paradox Press experiment. The result was published in 1995,
Family Man. I will read that at some point.
Justice League America #74 (DC)
From 1993.
This issue is the reason there are fans who think Bloodwynd was in fact Martian Manhunter all along. That's because at the end of the issue, that's exactly what it seems like. Apparently all those fans never read the
next issue, which explains what's really going on (maybe comics just shouldn't try and confuse readers so often...). Bloodwynd's always been a favorite of mine. He's the Dan Jurgens creation
not named Booster Gold, and for my mine, infinitely more fascinating. And yet he's got a scant publishing history, and it was Grant Morrison himself who explained why in the pages of
Supergods, calling him a example of the worst the '90s had to offer. But then Morrison himself dragged Bloodwynd back into comics in the pages of
The Multiversity.
And you want to know the
saddest thing about Bloodwynd? This is his only spotlight cover, and you can't even see his face! Okay, that's a total lie. That face is splashed across
Justice League America #88. But still! I've said all along, he's a great character. Time to help everyone else realize that, I say.
JLA Classified #45 (DC)
From 2007.
Speaking of Martian Manhunter,
this is my favorite cover from this selection, and it was instantly one of my favorites at the time of its original publication, too. The contents are pretty good, part of the "Ghosts of Mars" arc that was part of the foundation of the character becoming one of my all-times favorites. The material at that time was the strongest in the character's history. And it's absolutely, so far as I'm concerned, the basis for the new ongoing series.
JSA #81 (DC)
From 2005.
This is pretty far into Geoff Johns'
JSA, but I figure if it's before the
Justice Society of America reboot (where I read every issue), but it's a good issue to randomly read because it puts Stargirl, Courtney Whitmore, in the spotlight, who was also the first character Johns ever wrote for DC, in the pages of
Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. The issue, in fact, delves deeply into Stargirl's world, so it's almost a complete reprise/update of the prior series, so all around it's a nice one to have chosen (there were several others available), if not randomly sampling one of Johns' formative arcs (I've done that; it's not as easy to be satisfied that way) then to definitely catch it at its best.
Legion of Super-Heroes #0 (DC)
From 1994.
One of my ambitions is to own the complete Stuart Immonen Superman. I'd
planned to chronicle the run here at Comics Reader, but I don't have that kind of readership, alas. Anyway, Immonen made his mark at DC, originally, within the pages of
Legion, and he was suited to that in the original clean look he had at this time in his career, before he talked himself, or allowed others to talk him, into a busier look. I sampled the Legion books (including
Legionnaires) a lot during that time, and I'm certain now that I had this in my collection (until an earlier purge than the one referenced above), so I had already begun appreciating Immonen before I realized it. But I didn't stick around
Legion, so I in fact officially discovered Immonen in the pages of Superman comics. Just so you don't wonder, I don't intend to track down the complete Immonen Legion, too...
Marvels #1 (Marvel)
From 1993.
One of the most famous comics of the '90s, this was also the epitome of Marvel's self-mythologizing, not just a character, but its entire line, the fictional version of Stan Lee, as it were. I've always wanted to read it. The first issue, it turns out, is not wildly impressive. Photographer Phil Sheldon is a wimpy lead character, not exactly the Norman McCay of
Kingdom Come. Devised to be an everyman observing Marvel's giants from street level, Phil Sheldon is instead a Jimmy Olsen/Peter Parker who otherwise has nothing interesting going for him, just a random romance. Yes, there are three other issues to the story, but I'm not as interested, now, to read the rest of the story. The depictions of Namor, the Human Torch, and Captain America are a mixed bag. The Human Torch is easily the superhero who comes off best. But if later superheroes are treated more like Namor, who blows up the realism of the approach, it kind of ruins the concept. And anyway, it was as much if not more so the art of Alex Ross that made
Marvels such a sensation.
Curiously,
Marvels, other than the stories of mini-series of Jeph Loeb (incredibly,
Captain America: White is finally,
finally on the publishing schedule, with a September debut, after the preview released in...2008), remains the lone example of Marvel taking an actual sober approach to superheroes. Other than random issues of Ed Brubaker's
Captain America, further examples just don't exist. And that's why I'm a DC guy.
The Mighty #1 (DC)
From 2009.
Until
Batman and Robin, this was my first indication that Peter Tomasi would be a truly exceptional writer.
The Mighty is one of those rare creator-owned projects published under the DC banner (Chris Claremont's
Sovereign Seven was another...and I can't think of a third), and it's also one of the best alternate Superman stories ever told. Curiously, at the time there was considerable competition. Mark Waid's
Irredeemable was one, and
The Life and Times of Savior 28, from J.M. DeMatteis, was the other. Yet
The Mighty jumped out from the pack. There was talk of a movie adaptation. IDW later put out the trade collection. Turns out from this revisit, it really stands up. So next time I have an opportunity to pick up the complete collection, I just might...
Millennium #5 (DC)
From 1987.
This was the Manhunters event, the third big DC crossover event after
Crisis On Infinite Earths and
Legends. But as I now realize, maybe it was also an attempt to capitalize on the New Age guru sensation, because that's what's going on in this particular issue, and it confuses me, otherwise, a great deal, to see that going on in the middle of a big DC crossover event. And so even though it's the big Manhunters event that helped establish them, I've probably read about all I need to from it, I really have. Because it's baffling. I guess I perhaps should have known how confusing it was, because I already knew
Millennium featured the big Manhunters story as a story of infiltration. Which otherwise, conceptually, makes little sense in Manhunters context.
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere #3 (Vertigo)
From 2005.
As the title suggests, this is a Neil Gaiman story, actually an adaption of his first novel, the career shift that helped establish him as a cultural phenomenon. Comic books fans will always consider Gaiman's legacy unquestionably to be
Sandman, but readers at large, and movie audiences, wouldn't know him unless he'd made the transition to prose. It wasn't until
American Gods, arguably, that he had his true breakthrough. I remember when
Neverwhere was released. I never got around to reading it myself, so I figured sampling the comic book adaption might give me an idea what it was like. And I guess it's really obvious that Gaiman hadn't yet shaken himself out of the comic book mode, because if this issue of this adaptation is any indication, he wasn't quite ready yet. It's too busy, too unfocused. The main character becomes lost in the shuffle. In
Sandman, the main character was
always lost in the shuffle, and in
that context, it made absolute sense. But Gaiman eventually figured out that in books, the rules are different. Unless you've got something to say creatively. With
Neverwhere, I don't think he did.
Starman #46 (DC)
From 1998.
Starman is another thing I want to read in total at some point, ideally catching up with the rest of the omnibus collections (I've read the fifth volume) because James Robinson provides extensive commentaries in those. I picked this issue at random because it was a "Times Past" issue, so there was no chance of catching a story midstream, and because "Times Past," as well as the "Conversations with David" issues, was one of the best things about the series, the reasoning behind which is actually explain in this issue's letters column. Although of note is acknowledging original artist Tony Harris's departure from the series. He later collaborated with Brian K. Vaughan on
Ex Machina, and Robinson managed to muscle his way through the rest of the series even though it got progressively less fun as, well, time passed. Because this issue also acknowledges the death of original editor and DC icon Archie Goodwin, who was also the reason the series happened at all. So this was an excellent random issue to sample.
Adventures of Superman Annual #5 (DC)
From 1993.
From the
Bloodlines event that attempted to present an entire new generation of superheroes, perhaps rightly criticized, so I later discovered, as trying desperately to cash in on the budding Image phenomenon. But I found a bunch of characters I loved from it, including Sparx, who would go on to costar in
Superboy and the Ravers, one of my all-time favorite comic books. What's fascinating about Sparx, and was hardly capitalized on outside of this debut, is that she comes from a whole family of metahumans, who apparently needed to activate their powers (presumably no two alike). Donna Carol "D.C." Force somewhat rashly, along with the dubious consent of her Uncle Harry, chooses the alien parasites going around activating new superheroes during
Bloodlines. Also in this issue is Superboy, and this is actually at the end of the "Reign of the Supermen," literally, apparently taking place just before the final battle with Cyborg Superman.
But as much as I love Sparx, the most amusing thing in this issue is an add for
Zero Hour way,
way in advance. I mean, Superboy didn't even have his own series yet, and
Superboy #8 was released the month every DC title started interacting with the event. Moving on...
All Star Superman #1 and 5 (DC)
From 2006.
Wait, they
sold me a FCBD release? Unscrupulous merchants! Actually, that's pretty common in the back issue trade, alas. Anyway, this is what is commonly considered one of Grant Morrison's definite works. And I liked it just fine at the time (in the annual QB50s, it went from 12 to 37 to 17 from 2006-2008, always playing second-fiddle to Geoff Johns'
Action Comics, among other material).
What strikes me about it now, especially
All Star Superman #5, which ties in with what I'll be talking about a few comics later (the last one, in fact, to assure you that this is not an infinite list of nonsense), is how Morrison handles the villain, who in this case is Lex Luthor. The whole idea behind
All Star Superman was to create an iconic, and perhaps to say
definitive, version of the Superman mythos. Which makes this Lex Luthor all the more interesting. This Lex is strictly interested in his Superman obsession because he sees himself as a world-conqueror Superman has blocked from fulfilling his ambitions. I'm not sure how I should feel about that. I like nuanced characters. I
love Geoff Johns' Lex Luthor in the pages of
Justice League. This is not that Lex. He's in fact about as brilliant as
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan's eponymous villain, with clear holes in his logic and not nearly as threatening as he seems. Which is to say, all bark and no bite. Where Morrison's Superman is meant to be exactly the all-powerful Superman that everyone has always the character is and therefore completely unrelatable...his Lex is in fact all but the exact opposite.
Which is actually kind of fascinating, when you think about it...I've never reread the complete
All Star Superman. That could be interesting.
It's also worth noting that the issue also features a promo section for a WildStorm reboot, the one that Morrison was supposed to be a significant part of, writing both
WildCATs and
The Authority. I know Keith Giffen ended up writing the latter almost immediately. The
WildCATs experiment was even more brief. I didn't even remember about that one. There was also a Garth Ennis
Midnighter series. Which surprisingly didn't really catch on. You'd think it would somehow be completely natural. But this was pretty much the end of WildStorm, so maybe the whole thing fizzling out isn't so surprising after all.
Sweet Tooth #13 (Vertigo)
From 2010.
This was one of Jeff Lemire's early signature works, along with the earlier
Essex County. I remember when it launched, and it was impossible for me to think of it as anything other than the comic featuring the boy with the antlers. I never read it. Later, I finally did come to appreciate Lemire's brilliance (
Descender), so I figured I'd finally sample
Sweet Tooth. Turns out it's pretty interesting. Not having gotten into it originally, I really had no idea what the boy was doing having those antlers. Turns out it's a little like the second season of
Dark Angel, a TV series I happen to love a great deal. I don't know if Lemire had
Dark Angel in mind, or
The Island of Dr. Moreau, or something else I don't currently know about. Either way, I guess this is to say, I really ought to read more Lemire.
Tangent: Superman's Reign #12 (DC)
From 2009.
Convergence brought back a lot of old concepts and eras, and I was happy to see Tangent Comics among them. This was an idea from the '90s that sought to recapture the feel of the dawn of the Silver Age (and, I guess,
Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating...) by taking familiar names and reimagining them. I loved it. When it was revisited in the pages of
Tangent: Superman's Reign, I loved it all over again, even though there was a significant attempt to broaden the appeal by bringing in the more familiar versions to sort everything out. Since the writer is Dan Jurgens, it features somewhat blunt storytelling, not exactly what you might have seen out of Tangent Superman in the pages of
Convergence: The Flash (if you even knew clue one about Tangent Superman to begin with). I don't remember reading the conclusion to the mini-series originally. Although I didn't really miss much, other than the sacrifice of Tangent Batman. #sadpanda
Wisdom #1 (Marvel)
From 2006.
Paul Cornell's
Captain Britain and MI13 was one of the series that made me a fan of Marvel (the other was
Incredible Hercules) for a few years, just something with a vibe I'd never seen from the company before. It made me an immediate fan of Cornell, who I was happy to later read within the pages of
Action Comics and
Knight & Squire, not to mention
Saucer Country. Then he went back to things more British-centric, like
Doctor Who.
Wisdom, as in Pete Wisdom, was
Captain Britain's predecessor, with a sterling reputation but otherwise something I knew nothing about. I assumed it was a story
about Pete Wisdom. But as it turns out, it's basically as deliberate a predecessor to
Captain Britain as you can get, the exact same approach with only a variation of the cast of characters. So I guess I didn't miss anything
wildly different. The other notable thing about
Wisdom is artist Trevor Hairsine, whom I later enjoyed in the pages of
Divinity.
That's worth noting about
Wisdom.
New X-Men #149 (Marvel)
From 2003.
And now we've reached the end. While discussing
The Filth, I discussed that I have a more complicated history with Grant Morrison than it can sometimes seem. While discussing
All Star Superman I was able to get into a little of how I don't necessarily always agree with his creative choices even when I don't find them particularly weird.
And
here's where I concede a point to Marvel. Maybe they weren't wrong to retcon Morrison's X-Men run. This issue is late in the run and is just after Xorn, the mutant healer, was revealed to be Magneto all along. Morrison's Magneto is little different from Morrison's Lex Luthor. They're both evil. End of story. In fact, as of this issue Magneto has all but won. Like he does in
Final Crisis, which is far different context but also wildly unpopular with fans, Morrison writes a story in which the bad guy manages to win. Whereas the story in comics never really advances, the X-Men in particular have tended to be stagnant (except when
House of M forced them to advance to a more ludicrous point than even Morrison managed), so to see
New X-Men reach a point like this must have been disconcerting to Marvel, not
because Morrison revealed Xorn to be someone else all along, regardless of who that was, but because of what happened next.
Morrison's last X-Men arc was "Here Comes Tomorrow," his version of "Days of Future Past," presenting an outcome fraught with mutants everywhere. Yes, the mutants "win," but at great cost. This is the opposite of what he'd done with
JLA, the model by which he'd been brought in with great fanfare. Except Morrison always goes for what he sees as the big picture, and
his big picture is just about bigger than anyone's except maybe Geoff Johns. So having him do X-Men was probably a mistake to begin with, if Marvel wanted something more safe than it turned out to be.
And putting all that aside, back to Tony level, yes I had become a fan of Grant Morrison through
JLA, like a lot of other fans, but when I had to break from comics at the start of the millennium, I found it difficult to get back into him, once I started reading again. I remember seeing
New X-Men on the stands when I started wading back in 2004, and although I knew what was going on, I didn't want to read it. Even when Morrison helped kick off
JLA Classified, I skipped that, too. I only came back with
Seven Soldiers, and then in a very big way. Once I understood that Morrison's scope was bigger than anyone else's, at the time, I gave him the time of day. And I've rarely been disappointed since.
