Comics Reader

Quarter Bin #31 "Catching up with Waid, Fialkov, Robinson, & Morrison"

2012-02-22T11:41:00.000-08:00

THE FLASH #150 (DC)
From July 1999:
This is the conclusion of the six-part “Chain Lightning,” one of Mark Waid’s final Wally West epics (before the “Dark Flash Saga,” which I’d never heard about beware doing a little research, and the poorly-received latter-day reprise of “The Wild Wests”). I tracked this one down because “Chain Lightning” was a story I was abruptly forced to quit when I weaned myself off comics in 1999, and I was always curious about how it ended. With art from Paul Pelletier, as it turns out. Pelletier was a favorite of mine, thanks in no small part to his work in SUPERBOY AND THE RAVERS, so it was nice to discover that he was another of the fine artists who worked with Waid on THE FLASH (there’s a laundry list). Anyway, also with a nod to CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, long before Geoff Johns wrote a sequel, during a time when fans might’ve believed that they had already heard all there was to know about that event. Wally’s predecessor and mentor, Barry Allen (and this was long before anyone suspected Barry himself would make a comeback) famously met his end in that story, and so “Chain Lightning,” which had already introduced Barry’s apparent evil twin, the original Thawne, built toward Wally finally facing that moment, with complicated results, and once again affirming that his legacy wasn’t to carry on Barry’s but to build his own. It’s certainly an interesting issue to read for any of the reasons you can gleam from these thoughts.

ELK’S RUN #1 (Hoarse & Buggy)
From 2005:
I first came upon the name Joshua Hale Fialkov when I was a part of the Digital Webbing community, and his name was already kind of legendary thanks to his work on this mini-series (I don’t know what happened to the publishing company Hoarse & Buggy, but ELK’S RUN could easily be published by Image or Vertigo today), which was his first published comics work. Today he writes I, VAMPIRE for the New 52. ELK’S RUN is something I’ve meant to read since I first heard about it, and so I’m finally making good on that personal commitment, and this issue is a fine reason to believe the rest of it is equally excellent. Fialkov remains someone I believe will make a huge impact on the comics landscape, and I’m happy to have been there at the beginning. Well, close enough.

JSA #1 (DC)
From August 1999:
James Robinson, still flush from his STARMAN success, helped launch the new adventures of the Justice Society along with David S. Goyer (and an opening push from Grant Morrison), lending Jack Knight and his gift for getting at the heart of the connectedness at the heart of a shared superhero community. The series continued, with another relaunch added in the mix, until the New 52, where it’ll soon be reborn, again under the auspices of Robinson, as EARTH 2. I thought, thanks to my recent experience reading STARMAN, that I should read at least the start of his JSA.

JLA #31 (DC)
From July 1999:
I’ve been playing catch-up with Grant Morrison’s JLA for the last several years now, finally reading the complete ONE MILLION and “World War Three,” and now the conclusion to “Crisis Times Five” (which curiously ran for four issues). As I indicated above, this is the story Morrison did to help launch the new Justice Society, which in Morrison’s hands is predictably more grandiose than written by anyone else. Mixing the imps of the 5th Dimension with Thunderbolt formally in the possession of Johnny Thunder, the League joins forces with the new Hourman as they confront Triumph, the DC equivalent of Marvel’s Sentry.

JLA CLASSIFIED #s 1-3 (DC)
From January-March 2005:
As I’ve said before, I was inexplicably avoiding Morrison during my transition back into reading comics around this time (it was SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY that convinced me back aboard), so I should have been enjoying these issues as they were released. Instead it took a few more years. One of my main hooks was experiencing Knight and Squire in some of their original modern tales, after Morrison bringing them back along with the rest of the Club of Heroes, and eventually the excellent Paul Cornell mini-series, and truth be told, although billed as an Ultramarines tale (they were a team Morrison introduced in his JLA run), the British Batman & Robin are more or less the stars of the story anyway, so that was pretty awesome to learn. There’s also clear foreshadowing for SEVEN SOLDIERS, plus the joy of reading Morrison writing the League again, which was assumed to be the hook in the first place, as well as art from Ed McGuinness. As it turns out, I was an idiot to avoid this the first time around, but the truth is, I probably appreciate it more now. By the way, nobody writes Gorilla Grodd like Grant Morrison.

Green Lantern #6

2012-02-22T10:50:00.000-08:00

writer: Geoff Johns
artist: Mike Choi

"I find it hard to believe I'm looking at the once great Starstorm."

I have no idea who the hell Starstorm is, but the magic of this issue is that Geoff Johns gets me to, for the history Sinestro suggests that exists between them as well as the fact that he helps facilitate a link forward in the chain that's been pointing at the next big story in Johns's Green Lantern saga.

Since before the New 52 relaunch, Sinestro's been on an improbable path of redemption, which has both benefited and baffled Hal Jordan, who on the one hand has lost regular status in the GL Corps and therefore is free to pursue his human life and Carol Ferris, but on the other is the only person Sinestro still trusts, and so he's constantly pulled back in to help out on whatever the Korugaran's latest quest turns out to be.

This issue, he stumbles on the fact that the Guardians are planning a "third army," and readers are given every indication that the mysterious Indigo Tribe will be involved (they'll be in the spotlight next time!). While Sinestro continues to clean up the mess of the yellow-ringed Corps that now bears a connection to himself in name only, we move ever closer to an advancement of the plot. Johns is a master of narrative and characterization, something few readers seem willing to grant him, and his Green Lantern comics are becoming more and more his crowning achievement. With each passing month, he seems to be revealing just how big his vision really is, and it's been years in the making.

Justice League #5

2012-02-22T10:35:00.000-08:00

writer: Geoff Johns
artist: Jim Lee

"Who the hell's Bruce Wayne?"

That's just a highlight of the conversation Green Lantern and Batman have during this latest issue of Johns and Lee's superior Justice League. All along I've been describing this series as the event book as an ongoing exercise, and this issue just confirms that all over again. I've read nothing much good from other commentators around the Web, but to me, that's just insane, because this is not only a definitive team book much less one starring the Justice League, but the best possible way to introduce each of the team's members to anyone curious enough to want a look.

This is the team's first adventure. They're all meeting each other for the first time, and so they're also figuring out what it means to be superheroes in a world where there are differing approaches (not to mention advantages) to doing so. The juxtaposition of Green Lantern and Batman is something few writers have really tried to work with (Frank Miller comes to mind), and here Johns is actually suggesting they're a lot alike. He would know about Green Lantern, so on the eve of his Earth One date with Batman, it's interesting to see exactly what Johns thinks of the Dark Knight (adding to what he already did, brilliantly in Flashpoint, by the way).

Add Darkseid to the mix, and you've got an iconic story in the making.

Action Comics #6

2012-02-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

writer: Grant Morrison
artist: Andy Kubert

"I promised an opportunity unique in all time and space, and I always deliver."

That's one of the opening lines of dialogue in this issue, and it's hard not to imagine that Grant Morrison wrote it with his audience in mind. Every now and again, even if it's just your reputation, it's okay for a writer like Morrison to remind the reader that he's fully aware of expectations.

This issue delivers. Early issues focused a great deal on Superman's formative days in Metropolis, his introduction to the world (and nemesis Lex Luthor), as reimagined by Morrison, tightening the lens on the most important aspects and breathing new life into them, taking the myth of the Man of Steel and making it that much more mythical. (That, by the way, is Morrison's style in a nutshell.) After the introduction of Brainiac and the bottling of Metropolis, the story took a swift turn into the relatively abstract, as Morrison attempts to give us the big picture without belaboring the point he was originally making. Now that we know who's in the driver's seat, this issue seems to be saying, it's safe to let loose.

The Legion of Super-Heroes has been a part of Superman and DC lore in general for decades, but few writers seem to realize what exactly that means. That's what Morrison corrects here, very quickly and very well. Most of the Legion's stories keep them in their youth; it wasn't until a few years ago, thanks to Geoff Johns, that they could be seen as adults, carrying on the same legacy that they helped created when they visited the young Clark Kent (there's a fine point made about that here, too). It's the adults Morrison employs as he surges ever forward in whatever he's got planned for Superman.

Really, who doesn't want to find out?

Quarter Bin #30 "Time of Your Life"

2012-02-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

MARTIAN MANHUNTER #35 (DC)
From October 2001:
Today it seems weird to even consider that Martian Manhunter has actually had an ongoing series, much less that it ran (only?) for a few years. Thanks to Grant Morrison’s JLA, J’onn J’onzz finally had a high enough profile where DC, after many decades, thought he could carry one even though he’s a green-skinned, bald alien whose costume traditionally features practically nothing but a blue cape. Writer John Ostrander chose a strictly cerebral approach from the start, and stuck with it to the end, a mere one more issue after this one, crafting story after story of the introvert’s continued battles with the ghosts of his past, namely unresolved conflicts with the dead Martians who were more often than not related to him (the superb 2006-2007 mini-series that sought to given J’onn a more modern look and perspective did pretty much the same). In the New 52 he’s been drafted into Stormwatch, but I figure Martian Manhunter would probably work best in a Vertigo title (maybe not as much the modern Vertigo), where the rich storytelling potential that persists around him could truly be exploited and appreciated, since very few creators seem interested in seeing what it would be like to see what he looks like in the mainstream (other than munching on Oreos). Anyway, Ostrander goes so far here as to see what he looks like in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World. Because nothing says popular appeal like Jack Kirby’s Fourth World!

IMPULSE #88 (DC)
From September 2002:
This was one of those books that were practically doomed from the start, after such a distinct and awesome and totally appropriate creative team of Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos helped introduce it. Any other combination was either going to have to try and live up to it, ape it as closely as possible, or actually try something else. For a while, trying to live up to it actually seemed to work, under the auspices of William Messner-Loebs and Craig Rousseau (who memorably gave us a bald Bart Allen), but I think after a while, aping was exactly what subsequent creators tried to do, which is what I found in here. I had to give up reading the book in 1999, so I lost track of what the series became, and only knew that it was eventually cancelled and morphed into Geoff Johns’ new vision of Bart in TEEN TITANS. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Todd Dezago and Carlo Barberi, except they’ve basically taken the Waid/Ramos template and all but made a parody of it. There are letters from readers in the back of the issue (the penultimate one of the series) calling it a young reader’s haven, but that wasn’t what the series was originally intended to be. I call this dilemma Harry Potter Syndrome, in that J.K Rowling makes it cool for kids to read again, and so publishers rush into accepting inferior product from other writers who only think they know how to write for this audience. Again, it’s not a bad issue, but for anyone with experience with earlier issues, it just doesn’t stand up. (Then again, when I say reinvention…well, I was going to use SUPERBOY #100 as an example, because I’ve written about that one in a previous Quarter Bin, #22 to be precise, but I’ve got a better one later this very column.)

IMPULSE #79 (DC)
From December 2001:
Slightly earlier in the title’s past we have a “Joker: Last Laugh” tie-in from Dezago that puts the focus on Max Mercury and a foe from his past. Normally I would have been extremely happy to read an issue that puts the spotlight on Max, because I quickly became a fan of the Zen Master of Speed from Mark Waid’s introduction of him in “The Return of Barry Allen” (these days I need to probably explain that this particular story isn’t what you might expect from that title, and I’ll simply implore you to read all of Waid’s Flash from this time). The problem is, Max is written the same way Bart is by Dezago, and it’s with no real grasp that it’s a character who used to be taken seriously, which is not to say Dezago doesn’t, but not in the same way as Mark Waid. It’s like reading a Will Payton Starman by someone other than James Robinson. Sure, it’s possible, but are you really going to care? Also, in regards to “Joker: Last Laugh,” I kind of feel bad for DC readers who had to put up with this particular crossover.

NIGHTWING #153 (DC)
From April 2009:
It was easy to tell back in 2009 that Dick Grayson would be a big hit as Batman, because the final issue of his first Nightwing series sold so much better than any other one probably since the earliest ones. I know I had a hard time finding it, for years, and even double-dipped on the one right before it because I was so convinced and confused about which one the last one actually was. Well, I finally corrected that and read the issue, from Peter Tomasi, the writer who took over from Marv Wolfman, who took over from Bruce Jones, who couldn’t possibly have hoped to follow in the footsteps of Devin Grayson (no matter what popular opinion says about her) or Chuck Dixon, especially since he was the first writer to try and toss out everything that had previously been established in the series. (Wolfman, who tried his best to tap into Dick’s history in other respects, came to closest to bringing the book back to its glory days.) Now, I love Tomasi, whether working on Green Lantern, THE MIGHTY, or even the odd BATMAN & ROBIN I’ve managed to read from him and Patrick Gleason, but he was not a good fit for NIGHTWING. This final issue is more awkward than I’d hoped (best sequence is the backup “Origins & Omens” feature that involves Barbara Gordon), but was still worth finally reading, knowing what was coming next, and certainly now that I’ve read Kyle Higgins’ excellent New 52 series.

NIGHTWING #s 84-85 (DC)
From October & November 2003:
Devin K. Grayson doesn’t get near enough respect, and here’s why in a nutshell: all the work Chuck Dixon put into crafting Dick Grayson’s first ongoing series, crafting a whole city of his own around him, Devin exquisitely deconstructed. To this day I don’t know if that was Dixon’s plan all along, if Devin was working from an outline she only had to embellish, or if and more likely she envisioned her own scenario that happened to beautifully complement what had come before, but the bottom line is, as much as I liked what Dixon did, I loved what Devin did that much more. Dixon introduced the character of Tad Ryerstad, “Nite-wing,” and a whole rogues gallery of corrupt law enforcers, and even introduced Blockbuster as Nightwing’s personal Kingpin, but it was Devin who realized that the character of Tarantula was necessary to bring it all together, someone who could work with all of Dick Grayson’s strengths and weaknesses (their relationship culminates in what fans at the time decried as an emasculating and humiliating “rape,” and then like a classic thriller pretty much everyone but Nightwing dead). These are some key issues in Devin’s run, which also included a coda in which Dick pretends to turn villain during the height of the “Villains United” lead-up to INFINITE CRISIS. If I had it my way, every one of Devin’s issues on NIGHTWING would be in collected edition form, and she’d be working alongside Higgins in the continuing adventures of Dick Grayson. If many fans still hold up Frank Miller’s Daredevil to be one of the peaks of comic book storytelling, Devin Grayson’s Nightwing was taking the precedent to the next level.

Cobra Annual 2012

2012-02-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

writer: Chuck Dixon
artist: SL Gallant

Normally IDW's Cobra series demands to be written by Mike Costa (with or without Christos Gage and most frequently illustrated by Antonio Fuso), who seemed like the only creator capable of providing the trademark character-based storytelling required to deliver the Cobra perspective from a truly compelling, psychological perspective. I've just learned that Chuck Dixon can do it, too. (This is the first time someone other than Costa or Gage, who left a few years ago, has written one of the company's G.I. Joe books with "Cobra" in the name.) Dixon wrote a Zartan origin that suggested to a certain extent that he might be qualified, but now he's stepped up fully to the plate. This is a sign that the company realizes more than ever that the Cobra books are the best thing it's got in this franchise. After "Cobra Civil War" spun out of G.I. Joe: Cobra (which was quickly relaunched simply as Cobra), it was easy to get that impression, but this has got to be the defining turning point. The story's not too bad, either, in case you were wondering. The new Cobra Commander is a completely new character, and his origin helps fit him in with everything Costa has done with the characters who used to be one-dimensional villains. I have to imagine that Costa himself didn't write this one due to his recently cancelled Black Hawks (which curiously lacked any real sense of character) work at DC. All I can say is, I hope IDW does more and more G.I. Joe stuff like this.

The Shade #s 2-4

2012-02-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

writer: James Robinson
artist: Cully Hamner, Darwyn Cooke (#4)

This is a book that has sadly become lost in the New 52 mix, launching a month after the big buzz captured everyone's attention, and even for me has proven difficult to find on a regular basis (which is why I've got three issues listed here). Robinson had one of the biggest critical hits of the 1990s in Starman, but he hasn't often pleased readers since. This was supposed to be his big return to form, and it actually is, like a mainstream version of the stuff Ed Brubaker has been doing for the last few years with books like Criminal, Incognito, and the new Fatale, an almost film noir kind of story featuring a comic book villain who's only now getting around to explaining how badly he's been misunderstood, possibly because he's just getting around to revealing his mysterious origins. Aside from Robinson is Cully Hamner, an artist in the same vein as Raphael Albuquerque who may have found his own American Vampire (though Darwyn Cooke provides the art for the "Times Past" issue that may be the one to convince readers that the series is worth following after all). This one's running for twelve issues, which may be long enough to find an audience, and also the exact point where that audience will start wishing that it had been an ongoing series. DC will probably breathe easy knowing they already settled on the best of both worlds. Welcome back, James Robinson.

Prophet #21

2012-02-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

writer: Brandon Graham
artist: Simon Roy

Perhaps one of the more intriguing comic book stories is the continuing saga of Rob Liefeld's career, from boy genius to Image co-founder to pariah and back to respected member of the greater comics community (in this case, a prominent member of the class of the New 52 at DC as well), still trying to work on the creations he brought to Image twenty years ago. I knew next to nothing about the Prophet concept before this was announced, and that's just as well, since as far as I can tell, you don't need to. Like someone took a look at Peter Jackson's Skull Island monsters in his King Kong and decided to make a comic book series about them, Brandon Graham has (theoretically) reshaped the series into a bid to reclaim humanity from its own mistakes, with a man named John Prophet waking up in the future with a plan to set things right again after the planet has been claimed by aliens who've done a fair bit of redecorating in the intervening centuries. More like Walking Dead than Spawn, this is exactly the kind of material that the company has become known for since its dramatic debut two decades ago, gradually becoming a haven for anyone looking for anything other than the mainstream. Most of the time, it's meant that Image has had to settle for significantly fewer readers than it once had, but a project like Prophet might help turn that around, with a peculiar mix of familiarity and the sense of the unknown mixing together for an experience that will no doubt prove compelling for fans interested in discovering the next big thing.

Quarter Bin #29 "The Future is in the Past (sometimes)"

2012-02-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

NEW GODS #7 (DC)
From August 1989:
The theme of this edition of Quarter Bin is pretty much spelled out in the subtitle; there's a lot of rich storytelling material waiting to be rediscovered in back issue bins, and as primary case-in-point we begin with Jack Kirby's perennial, in this iteration being co-written by comics historian Mark Evanier (no other name involved has immediate historic appeal). As with just about every other New Gods comic, much of the story in this issue reiterates the New Gods story, pivoting around Orion, spawn of Darkseid, raised by Highfather (the opposite is true of Mister Miracle). I begin to suspect that the problem this franchise constantly runs into is that the material isn’t inviting enough; either you already like it or you don’t, and probably won’t, either. It’s a problem of accessibility. This leads us to…

RETURN OF THE NEW GODS #13 (DC)
From August 1977:
A relaunch literally a few years after Kirby’s original Fourth World tales (spanning NEW GODS, FOREVER PEOPLE, and MISTER MIRACLE), this one features writing from Gerry Conway and an inexplicably redesigned Orion (looking a bit like Geo-Force, actually), and assumed that someone other than Kirby could make the franchise more reader-friendly. That may very well be the case yet, even if readers have since put up nearly-insurmountable barriers. John Byrne, at least in my experience, probably came to closest in a strictly canonical sense with JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD, while COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS, if read strictly as a Fourth World adventure, would probably do the trick, even if it has the actual FINAL CRISIS to compete with (and hey, it’s Grant Morrison, so a lot of readers assumed the end result was necessarily more significant in any respect than DC’s second weekly series, which I thought was criminally underrated to begin with). What the New Gods need (and what Morrison recognized, if apparently unsatisfactorily) is a strong connection to regular continuity (and again, even Kirby knew that, which was why he liked to sneak in connections to Superman, just not clearly enough; and this brings up another point, in that how awesome would it have been for the King to work on the Man of Steel directly?). Morrison’s answer was to bring Darkseid down to earth, grounding the signature figure of the Fourth World in a human frame. COUNTDOWN, meanwhile, embroiled a number of Earth-based characters in an adventure that ultimately led to the Fourth World, which to my mind is exactly what the franchise needs. If that connection had been more explicit, perhaps readers would have cared a little more. Anyway, RETURN OF THE NEW GODS was not the answer, obviously. There’s a bonus, though! If you possess a working time machine, you can find a handy way to be cast in 1978’s SUPERMAN (you will believe that Gene Hackman can pull off Lex Luthor), thanks to a contest printed in this issue!

ANIMA #0 (DC)
From October 1994:
Another veteran of the 1993 Bloodlines experiment (see also Quarter Bin #s 6 & 8, for Sparx and Argus), Anima was a teen punk enthusiast who became bonded with Animus, her own monster guardian (the 1990s were a great decade to feel nostalgic for the Captain Marvel dynamic of a surrogate character in some sort of partnership with a heroic figure; see also Prime and The Maxx) she could summon in times of need. Anima made a minor sensation and then disappeared completely, like most of the Bloodlines characters, briefly being considered part of DC’s teen line that included Superboy, Robin, Impulse, and Damage. The concept as outlined in this Zero Month issue probably would have fit her nicely in the Vertigo line of the time, except writers (and creators) Elizabeth Hand and Paul Witcover (and this may also help explain her fate, because, really, who?) probably failed to make it clear enough (the series, which had already run about half a dozen issues to this point, lasted about as many more). This is not to say Anima is actually worthless or hopelessly a product of its time. In fact, even considering how Hand and Witcover basically made it a period piece waiting to happen; only a few minor changes would be necessarily to drag it into the OWS era. Besides, comics could always use a few more female lead characters.

NEW TITANS ANNUAL #9 (DC)
From 1993:
The Bloodlines annual that introduced one of the few characters from the experiment to receive their own ongoing series, this was written, naturally, by Hand and Witcover, and follows the same basic outline as every other installment of the event: spinal fluid-sucking aliens unwittingly unlock powers in a random victim, and the resulting character either becomes a hero and helps the main characters or gets in their way. The New Titans were the latter-day New Teen Titans, getting long in the tooth from their Wolfman/Perez heyday but not yet decided on actually (or trying to) move on with their lives. The artwork doesn’t really do the Titans themselves any favors, nor Anima, but it does look good on the aliens, who could perhaps reappear one day, with a slightly more focused story and a more confident lead writer who could flesh them out a little, make them more distinctive…

SOVEREIGN SEVEN PLUS #1 (DC)
From February 1997:
Chris Claremont probably had the most precipitous fall in modern comics history, from writing the most popular comics of the 1980s (and a few years into the next decade) to be an afterthought whose new X-Men comics were completely overlooked a few years ago. That helps explain why everyone found his creator-owned DC work so easy to dismiss, even though I thought SOVEREIGN SEVEN to be some of the best comics I read during that time. The only problem I identify in hindsight is the same problem the New Gods have had for the past four decades, a problem of accessibility. He came up with a great concept, and a distinctive set of characters, but there was no real perspective in how the stories actually handled them. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. When a large audience is supposed to embrace it, the more deliberate the better (small audiences like insular worlds better), so that everyone has a chance to either latch onto a particular element and try and juggle all of it (again, large audiences are a diverse lot and more often than not are not actually united about the things they like about the one thing they all like). What’s so funny about this one-shot is that Claremont, who clearly would’ve liked to write him some Legion of Super-Heroes, approaches the Legion the way he should have the Sovereigns, with a very selective use from it, concentrating on Saturn Girl while his own team dances around her, with a soft focus on Network (without ever really explaining why readers should care as much about her as he does Saturn Girl). Having read SOVEREIGN SEVEN, I know that Claremont did spend a fair amount of time developing Network and lead character Cascade, and spent time showing how the other characters were unique, but what he failed to do was keep any of them apart long enough for readers to try investing themselves in any of them. That’s what truly makes Alan Moore’s WATCHMEN stand out from other superhero comics, in that he wrote about a team, but that team didn’t really hang out together during the series, and so Moore was able to write about the characters rather than the team, and readers have any number of narratives ready-made for easy consumption (even though the story as a whole assumes you can put all of it together). Then again, WATCHMEN was a twelve-issue maxi-series, and DC probably assumed, the same way that Claremont did, that SOVEREIGN SEVEN, being an ongoing series, wouldn’t have to follow the same rules. Pointedly, the New 52 uniformly puts character first. So, a couple of lessons: respect Claremont, let him write the Legion, and remember that character ought to trump most other elements in a story.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS QUARTERLY #2 (DC)
From September 1992:
Can you believe that there was a time when the Green Lantern franchise didn’t depend on Geoff Johns to carry a full slate of titles? When this issue was published, there was also GREEN LANTERN (the standard flagship) and GREEN LANTERN: MOSAIC, starring John Stewart, with the first Guy Gardner solo book on the horizon. It seems unbelievable now! It certainly was by 1994, when MOSAIC had been forgotten, QUARTERLY cancelled, WARRIOR (what GUY GARDNER transitioned into fairly quickly) barely acknowledging that Guy had once slung a green ring, and Kyle Rayner the last of the Corps (for a while). This one, then, is a great issue to stumble across; a sort of time capsule to what might have been an alternate version of the franchise’s fortunes, if only a few more issues here and there had been sold. The framing narrative is an incredibly unsubtle plug for MOSAIC (I myself have only ever read the first issue, which is something I’ve been trying to correct for the past few years now, but is difficult short of ordering from the Interweb to actually accomplish), a conversation between Hal Jordan and Stewart that catches the reader up on things the latter has been experiencing lately (and can it also be emphasized that Geoff Johns singlehandedly reintroduced Sinestro as an active participant in the Green Lantern saga after many years of near-neglect?) in his own book, leading into short stories involving Alan Scott (who had only recently returned to regular appearances in the pages of a short-lived Justice Society relaunch that as a result only helped remind readers who all those old-timers were who becomes victims of ZERO HOUR), G’Nort, and “The History of Sector 2814,” the plug on the cover that made me buy the issue in the first place. Yes, we get a tale of an 1800s American who becomes drafted into the Corps in the midst of a personal crisis, but I guess what I expected was a somewhat more literal history, detailing predecessors of Hal Jordan and Abin Sur, which leads me to one of my biggest points for this column: Star Wars fans have been accepting generic sci-fi drivel for years from creative minds other than George Lucas, badly filling in elements of the saga that don’t revolve around Anakin Skywalker, yet DC can’t be bothered to do a regular anthology of Green Lantern stories that look at all the interesting things that probably happened prior to the modern era? I mean, sure, we’ve had the sporadic Abin Sur tale, and Johns expanded on the Alan Moore prophecy of the Darkest Night, but there’s so much more that could be done, the first Green Lanterns, even so far back as the Manhunters, or simply fleshing out the rest of Sector 2814 (that’s one of my biggest beefs with the franchise, that sectors and their designations and representatives are mostly a crapshoot any writer can improvise at their will), at the very least. Anyway, Gerard Jones and M.D. Bright (one of my personal defining Green Lantern creative teams) provide the framing narrative, while other featured fellows include Roger Stern, Dusty Abell, Mark Waid (whose story is highly amusing, and together with IMPULSE just screams for Waid to write in this style more frequently), Ty Templeton, Doug Moench, and even Scott Lobdell.

Anyway, that’s it for this column!

Vengeance #6 (of 6)

2012-01-28T12:09:00.000-08:00

written by Joe Casey
art by Nick Dragotta

This was the conclusion of the series, and characteristically Casey plays fast and loose with events, maybe not really getting a sense of closure, and maybe that's because Marvel realized that they can probably keep this story going, sensing how special this experience really was, a wicked ride that takes a look at how things will be a few years in the future, when a new generation rises and tries to figure out what exactly all those familiar heroes you've followed have actually achieved in terms of the battle against evil. Only by using new characters could you explore this kind of question, and Casey does a fair bit of elaborating in this issue on his conclusions (at least so far!). As I've said before, this comic is like taking the superhero genre to the next chapter.

Nightwing #5

2012-01-28T12:03:00.000-08:00

written by Kyle Higgins
art by Eddy Barrows

I still can't believe that Nightwing actually has a writer again who cares enough about the character to spend a lot of time on a story that takes its time to unfold and has a lot to do and say about Nightwing himself, something that hasn't really been done since Chuck Dixon and Devin Grayson. I can't repeat enough that Kyle Higgins has achieved that. This particular issue almost reads like an episode of Fringe (maybe that was intentional), with a freak of the week adding a new layer to Dick's renewed ties to Haly's Circus, and the many secrets he never realized existed behind its tents.

Green Lantern #5

2012-01-28T11:59:00.000-08:00

written by Geoff Johns
art by Doug Mahnke

The improbable redemption of Sinestro continues this issue as he successfully convinces his bitter fellow Korogarans to trust him long enough so that he can clear his home planet of the scum that usurped his yellow-ringed corps. Neither his countrymen nor Hal Jordan are actually convinced that he's much better than the rogue Green Lantern who was rightly considered a villain for years, but that only makes things more interesting. A Sinestro who's allowed to be portrayed as a three-dimensional personality , who retains his backstory but can now operate once again as a hero in his own mind is so much more interesting than most characters in comics normally are. The story now shifts, at least apparently, to Hal's future with Carol, and whatever the Guardians are planning, which will probably lead into the next giant crossover event...

Action Comics #5

2012-01-28T11:54:00.000-08:00

written by Grant Morrison
art by Andy Kubert

After the clashes with Metropolis personalities in the first few issues, Grant Morrison takes the Superman story back to the beginning, very cleverly, I might add, by including Brainiac in the origins, something only Morrison, it seems, has been able to consider (Kevin J. Anderson wrote a book that didn't consider it, for instance, and neither did J. Michael Straczynski's graphic novel). I know believe that this version should be the standard. In the backup feature, Sholly Fisch riffs on Jonathan and Martha Kent's struggles at starting a family, which had previously been mentioned earlier in the main story.

Bottom line with this issue is that Grant Morrison starts out the new year by affirming that he's claiming the whole Superman narrative for himself, mixing the familiar ingredients in his signature mythological approach that elevates the material to a totally new level. It may be a little jarring to consider this chronologically with the episodic nature of earlier issues, but it's so important that it ultimately doesn't matter.

Quarter Bin #28 "We3 demonstrates my 2012 dilemma"

2012-01-21T07:56:00.001-08:00

WE3 (Vertigo)
From October & December 2004, March 2005:
The launching pad for this column is Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s tale of a trio of animals (a dog, a cat, and a rabbit) who are conscripted into military service via robotic enhancements that allow them to become precision killing machines. If you need a Grant Morrison project that demonstrates his ability to transcend whatever stereotype you may have of his work, this is it, a kind of grownup’s picture book, as it were (akin to Brian K. Vaughn’s PRIDE OF BAGHDAD), a fable about identity and determination that allows you to enter the minds of unusual protagonists. As you can see from the publication dates (and overlooking for the moment the erratic nature of the release schedule), this one’s more than five years old, and yet I didn’t read it for the first time until last year. My biggest excuse for this is that I was in the midst of my transition back into reading comics following my original millennium break (the summer of 1999, actually), and for some reason kept avoiding Morrison, first with NEW X-MEN and then BATMAN, even though I had thoroughly enjoyed his JLA. Perhaps it was because I’d never read INVISIBLES, which was at the time his most relevant work (and was the subject of rumors at the time suggesting that it could become a TV series), and so didn’t feel that I was big enough a fan to jump into projects that seemed geared toward his true admirers. Again, I was just making my way back into comics. I was even skipping ROBIN, even though I used to read that book religiously.

Long story short, not so long after WE3, I began to have a lot of reasons to care about Morrison, chief among them being SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY, and so eventually started delving back into his canon of work, and of course WE3 was one of the crown jewels. I was certainly aware that there was a trade collection available, but it wasn’t until I saw a bundle of the original issues conveniently collected together at Escape Velocity in Colorado Springs that I was finally motivated to read the story for myself. That’s what this column will be about, actually.

2012 is still only a few weeks old, and as regular readers of this blog know, I kept stating throughout last year that I had once again quit reading new comics, not because I fell out of love with them but for financial reasons, it’s a good idea. (Fortunately, that doesn’t mean that I can no longer write about comics!) I spent the entirety of 2011 cheating on that decision; though at least from my end it was obvious that I had drastically cut back from the habits I’d developed in the last few years. That leaves me with the decision I may end up making this year, which is to become the dreaded paperback reader, the one who waits for the trades, a division I have always kind of frowned upon, not just because I have always read the majority of my new comics in single issue form, but because that was always my preference, to be reading the new stuff as it was being published, rather than waiting months and months. Collections are certainly convenient, but in a certain sense, they can also be somewhat artificial. Writers don’t always write in story arcs, and in fact sometimes they write the random issue that really can’t be included in a collection that otherwise focuses on that arc; perhaps the collections from that series will eventually feature every issue, but they might become nonsequential, which technically violates the original intentions of the writer. Maybe that only really matters in a purely intellectual capacity (Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS was a particularly tricky one, consisting of seven mini-series that could be read individually, or in the specific sequence in which they were released, which is the way they’ve been collected), I don’t know.

Reading individual issues does allow you to feel as if you’re a part of something, while collections can have the connotation that you’ve merely joined up with something that’s already happened. You might as well call it the present versus past tense dilemma, and like I’ve said, maybe it doesn’t really matter, and that’s what I’ll discover this year. This blog spends time writing about “new” comics (which I’ll put in quotation marks for the moment, strictly for argument’s sake) as well as older ones, and that’s why I’ve got the Quarter Bin column clearly distinguished. Another thing I need to recognize is that I enjoy writing this column, which sometimes serves as a way (or an excuse) to rummage through back issues bins in search of comics from 1999-2004, from when I hadn’t properly (or couldn’t have, because honestly, it’s become easier) chosen a substitute method to continue semi-actively following comics while trying to maintain a more financially solid lifestyle. (At the time, there was also WIZARD, but reading about comics and actually reading them is not always the same thing.)

As for WE3, I’m now actually wondering if the trade collection isn’t, after all, the best possible way to read this one. I can only imagine what it was like to be reading this story as it was actually published, waiting issue to issue (probably somewhat similar to JOE THE BARBARIAN), because it’s definitely not your usual comic, whether you’re talking superheroes or what most people think of when they hear “graphic novel.” That’s why I called it a grownup picture book, because at their best, that’s probably what comic books really are, whether or not you consider the dominant superhero genre. People might tend to consider comics to almost be juvenile literature with pictures, but the best of them are far more sophisticated than the average book for that reading level. WE3 is proof of that.

Hopefully I’ll get to read stuff like that this year.

Quarter Bin #27 "St. Swithin, Grant Morrison, Batman, and people named Grayson"

2012-01-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

ST. SWITHIN’S DAY (Oni)
From March 1998:
I probably don’t need to make too fine an argument about Grant Morrison having a predilection for writing outsiders. Now, one could write quite an essay concerning the many different ways that Morrison has come to define “outsider,” but suffice it to say, this done-in-one story is an example of him attempting to place that impulse in a more ordinary setting, using contemporary characters and a holiday (that British folk will recognize, anyway). I happen to greatly favor comics that feature caption narration, and that’s exactly what this one does. You wouldn’t be able to differentiate it from the kind of graphic novels that the mainstream and comic book awards seem to prefer (for the sake of that mainstream credibility), and it’s one of those Morrison projects that makes you wonder what his work would be like if he took a few more steps away from superheroes every now and again (though I firmly believe that when all’s said and done, he’ll emerge as one of the most important comic book writers ever).

BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #10 (DC)
From August 1990:
The conclusion of Morrison’s five-part “Gothic” arc (which followed his ARKHAM ASYLUM and was the only other substantial Bat-work prior to what he’s been doing since 2006), which I have still yet to read in its entirety (I believe that all good things don’t need to be rushed, though it doesn’t hurt to get around to them). ST. SWITHIN’S DAY was one of those random Morrison works that are fantastic to find, while “Gothic” is one that I’ve been aware of for years but haven’t made a huge effort to read simply for the fact that in the grand scheme, it now merely represents what he can do if he only puts in a tenth of the effort he’s capable of achieving. When you’re making your way through a favorite writer whilst reading other writers and god knows doing what else, sometimes it’s okay to dial back the comprehensive appreciation (but again, only for so long!). Part of the reason I write this Quarter Bin column is to demonstrate my own path to discovery, not so much to explain everything that I find, so that anyone who’s reading this and wondering how it’s done needn’t be too intimidated. In other words, I find what I like, and so can you.

BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS #14 (DC)
From April 2001:
Like LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT, GOTHAM KNIGHTS was another book added to the Batman family of ongoing series that maybe could be considered extraneous (given that the Dark Knight presumably will always have DETECTIVE COMICS and BATMAN itself, and two is more than most characters will ever enjoy), though with Batman, usually a new title really is warranted, because it allows creators to approach his world from a fresh perspective. I picked this one up because it featured Devin Grayson and Roger Robinson, both of whom I consider to be wildly unappreciated, on the creative team. Grayson happens to be writing Nightwing (as she did in his own books for a number of years, the best writer not named Chuck Dixon or Kyle Higgins to do so) in this issue, and that was the other reason I couldn’t pass it up.

BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS #17 (DC)
From July 2001:
Grayson and Robinson are still at work, and still writing Nightwing (though with Batman in the mix), concluding their tale of Matatoa, a villain I would love to see resurface. (That’s what can be so interesting about different creative eras, in that interesting concepts a succeeding creative team or two decided to ignore can be easily brought back). Since GOTHAM KNIGHTS came about when I wasn’t reading comics, it’s always a nice title to sample from the back issue bins. Grayson gets a bad rap for trying to make Nightwing too vulnerable, but I think a writer who can understand how a character works and the most interesting things to do with them shouldn’t be shunned, but rather celebrated.

BATMAN #436 (DC)
From 1989:
Mar Wolfman begins “Batman Year 3” (following Frank Miller’s “Year One” and Mike Barr’s “Year Two”), focusing on Dick Grayson’s origins (famously inserting Tim Drake into the picture so that the new Robin would have a strong link to the Batman family’s past). Maybe call Kyle Higgins a little shameless for exploiting this particular impulse of some Nightwing fans, but this particular comic book background never gets old for me, Dick’s circus experiences evoking something that becomes less familiar to today’s youth with every passing year. Just imagine, fifty years from now, trying to explain this same story to a kid who has never even heard of the circus! I’m sure modifications will be made, just as DC has consistently done in the past, why a story like “Year Three” was even written in the first place, to update, with new significance, new context, new perspective, something we already know.

Quarter Bin #26 "Alan Moore's Supreme"

2012-01-05T15:49:00.001-08:00

No Image Comics character underwent a greater creative revision than Rob Liefeld’s Supreme, and that was all thanks to Alan Moore, who came onto the series with #41 and refashioned it as a Superman pastiche, which ran until #56, was rebooted for six more issues, and then unambiguously refashioned as Tom Strong when Moore launched his own America’s Best Comics line.

Without getting into the whole thing, and maybe leaving out the kind of interpretation found in the above paragraph, I’ll just jump into the issues I selected from the Escape Velocity back issues bins…

SUPREME #50 (Awesome)
From July 1997:
Moore’s run with the character now stretched at this point to ten issues, and this was actually the writer’s first pairing with Chris Sprouse (the duo would most famously collaborate on Tom Strong). The issue heavily leans on Moore’s interpretation of Supreme as a surrogate for Superman, and spends its time revisiting the storytelling style of the 1950s. For many readers at the time, these Supreme stories were an entirely unexpected gift from a creator who’d famously vowed to stop working for mainstream publishers the previous decade, and as such seemingly sworn off superhero comics.

SUPREME #55 (Awesome)
From December 1997:
In case you were wondering if the tone of Moore’s Supreme stories ever deviated, this issue might possibly elucidate the matter. It features what the cover promises is “the most controversial story you’ll read all year,” mostly because it posits an alternate timeline in which the South won the Civil War, and so everything in the modern day, until corrected, reflects a KKK dream come true. And actually, it’s not really heavy on nostalgia this time as a more innocent style of storytelling. This is not a comic Marvel or DC would have published.

SUPREME: THE RETURN #1 (Awesome)
From May 1999:
The most amusing element of this comic is the way Moore approaches the Clintons, still ensconced in the White House, when one of Supreme’s enemies tries to take over and finds out how domineering the First Lady could be. This was when everyone still assumed she had an easy path to her own presidency (and now we know). It’s not so much that Moore’s version was bad, because from these issues it certainly appears enjoyable, so much that Supreme as a unique character is utterly erased by Moore’s own motives to continue writing a character he denied himself a decade earlier. He is one individual who gives “ornery” new meaning. Just imagine if he didn’t find it so hard to play with others…

Fantastic Four #600

2012-01-05T15:20:00.000-08:00

writer: Jonathan Hickman
artists: Steve Epting, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ming Doyle, Leinil Francis Yu, Farel Dalrymple

When I make a mistake, I like to think I'm strong enough to admit it. I made a mistake. Hickman did have a vision after all, and it may be one of the biggest and most important in recent comics history. The Fantastic Four have stagnated for...decades(?), are were more or less irrelevant until he decided to let everyone believe that he killed off Johnny Storm (anyone who actually read the issue could tell that he wasn't even killed off in the issue), which got everyone talking about the franchise, allowing him to relaunch it (FF), let it evolve (similarly some of the things Dan Slott did in Amazing Spider-Man over the past year). Reed Richards established the Future Foundation, most notably. Since I haven't read most of the issue between "Three" and #600, I had to gloss over much of the climactic developments in the issue, but could easily appreciate everything Hickman did with Johnny, especially how much space he devoted to that element, so that it didn't come off as cheap or gimmicky. Bottom line, Hickman has finally entered the mainstream, and he's reshaping it in his image. Years from now, these are the Marvel comics everyone will remember.

Green Lantern #4

2012-01-05T15:10:00.000-08:00

writer: Geoff Johns
artist: Doug Mahnke

Since the New 52 relaunch, Johns has finally started writing the Green Lantern I expected since Rebirth, fully character-based tales that truly exploit the rich history of the franchise he inherited in 2005. Please do not misunderstand me: I greatly admire the spectrum corps concept he's been developing over the past few years, but as something that consumed his Green Lantern work almost exclusively during his time writing Hal Jordan, I always felt a little cheated. Ironically, instead of Hal, Johns has been concentrating mostly on Sinestro, a character he has done an excellent job fleshing out. This latest issue is no exception; hopefully most readers will feel a little sympathy for him in the cliffhanger...

Demon Knights #4

2012-01-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

writer: Paul Cornell
artist: Michael Choi, Diogenes Neves

This is one of the books from the New 52 that I had intended to sample a long time ago (y'know, relatively speaking), but didn't have a chance to given my altered circumstances (not the least of which being, I don't technically read comics anymore, or definitely differently than I used to). Finally, I found my opportunity. To my surprise, I came upon an issue that doesn't even feature most of the so-called Demon Knights (as far as I can tell, this may be the first issue that term is even used inside the actual book), but instead focuses on the backstory of Shining Knight, and his strange relationship to Merlin and prophecy. Paul Cornell has consistently impressed me as a writer, whether on Captain Britain and MI:13, Knight & Squire, or Action Comics. If all goes well, he will be the next important DC writer, in the same league as Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison. This issue is just the latest example for me.

Avengers: The Children's Crusade #8 (of 9)

2012-01-05T15:00:00.000-08:00

writer: Allan Heinberg
artist: Jim Cheung

This is the issue that finally delivers on the book's promise to not only continue Heinberg and Cheung's own Young Avengers, but the story left dangling by House of M, when the Scarlet Witch seemingly, irredeemably went off the deep end. Heinberg makes pointed arguments in her defense while advancing the plot to a climactic death(?). This is the definitive Avengers work in the new millennium, at least for me.

The Mice Templar Vol. III: A Midwinter Night's Dream #6

2012-01-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

writer: Bryan J.L. Glass
artist: Victor Santos

I confess to having begun taking this one for granted, partly because I never expected to remain of fairly solitary cheerleader for the Mice Templar. It's a rare Image book that I feel is completely worth reading on a regular basis, a grandly mythological work I can only compare to Oni's Wasteland (a series I will do my best to read again this year, now that new issues will be regularly published). This issue completely rewards readers for having stuck around the series, and certainly for believing there was still something left to say after the seeming fulfillment of young Karic's destiny. I might go so far as to call this the best issue to date.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz #4 (of 8)

2012-01-05T14:51:00.000-08:00

writer: Eric Shanower
artist: Skottie Young

I made a conscious decision early in the year to give up reading individual issues of Shanower and Young's Oz adaptations, even though I've been an ardent enthusiast in the past, simply for the fact that at some point, I'd like to own the complete collected editions (the same goes for Marvel's The Stand comics, which were left off the 2011 QB50 for that reason). Since the majority of L. Frank Baum's Oz books are out of print, these comics are my best opportunity to read them, and it quickly became apparent to me that it's a crime that they have become so scarce, since Baum's writing is so infinitely more clever than the Judy Garland movie everyone thinks about when Oz comes up in the popular imagination. All that being said, it was nice to read another issue.

Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes!

2012-01-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

writer: Grant Morrison
artists: Chris Burnham, Cameron Stewart

To my surprise, Batman, Inc. was another book that didn't exactly receive high marks from the greater Interweb community, even though those who rated it lower than I did (in the 2011 QB50) admitted there were some brilliants issues released in the past year. I suspect Morrison's marks were lower than his efforts in Batman or Batman and Robin because it's more difficult to see how individual episodes impact the greater story, now that Batman's back and basically falling back into the same web of intrigue that culminated in "R.I.P." That the Dark Knight has yet another genius mastermind after him shouldn't be a surprise, especially since this catch-up volume finally reveals just who that mastermind is (I won't spoil it for you here), which should actually be more satisfying to long-term readers than the nefarious Dr. Hurt. This special also includes a complete breakdown of the story to date from the series, in case you weren't, like me, primarily enjoying the innovative and refreshing superhero standalone adventures that were subtly building toward this moment.

Vengeance #5 (of 6)

2012-01-05T14:38:00.000-08:00

writer: Joe Casey
artist: Nick Dragotta

Despite its ranking in the 2011 QB50, I had only read one issue of this unique Marvel mini-series last year, though I instantly identified it as one of the more interesting things I've discovered in the House of Ideas. As I know understand it, Vengeance is a kind of culmination of Casey's work for the company (which case, I may need to track more of it down. Basically, this book is like a fresh take on the Marvel landscape, removing almost every recognizable element (except for the bad guys, and anyone who saw Captain America last summer will know all they need to about the Red Skull, who appears this issue) and allowing a true "next generation" to accept the reigns. In my wildest dreams, something like this would actually happen, or at least, Casey could write this book on an ongoing basis. Except the fanboy mainstream would absolutely never allow it. This is basically a Marvel version of the early Vertigo line.

Nightwing #4

2012-01-05T14:32:00.000-08:00

writer: Kyle Higgins
artist: Trevor McCarthy

I knew after reading the third issue (the first one I've read of the series) that I would be hooked, given half a chance. This second issue (which is the fourth of the series for anyone else) proved that out, and was a nice little tie-in with the Batgirl issue I previously read, as Babs pays back Dick's visit and they further hash out their present relationship. As anyone knows, they have a complicated history, and it's nice to know that the DCnU has made it a priority, even though it hasn't exactly been one for the past few years. For new readers, I'd like to think that this will help endear both characters as fully-dimensional.

Justice League #4

2012-01-05T14:26:00.000-08:00

writer: Geoff Johns
artist: Jim Lee

I have not seen a lot of love for this book in my recent travels round the Interweb, which is surprising and then not surprising, considering how highly I rated it in my 2011 QB50. This is an issue that starts putting all the pieces together, firstly by introducing Aquaman and Cyborg and then bringing the big bad, Darkseid, to the stage. With Aquaman joining Batman, Green Lantern, Superman, The Flash, and Wonder Woman, that puts the team together, and with Vic Stone finally activated in his funky new body arrangement, the origin of Cyborg is pretty much complete. As with prior issues, backup material is provided to flesh out members of the S.T.A.R. Labs team (including Vic's father Silas; Thomas "T.O." Morrow; erstwhile father of the Metal Men; Sarah Charles; and Anthony Ivo, erstwhile creator of Amazo).

Preview: Infestation 2

2012-01-05T14:16:00.000-08:00

written by Duane Swierczynski
art by David Messina

Perhaps you'll remember IDW's first-ever crossover event, the theoretically improbable Infestation (because the company's best-known assets are all licensed properties). Apparently they're doing it again. The preview I picked up at Heroes & Dragons in Colorado Springs may have actually sold me on this thing. At the very least, this kind of event is unique in comics, not just because it seems like it shouldn't exist, but because an entire framework has to be created from elements that don't normally exist in the individual titles. I don't know how they did it the first time around, but Infestation 2 ties into the whole cult of H.P. Lovecraft (a subculture I was tangentially exposed to in high school, but have never actually experienced for myself). Tie-in properties include Transformers, Dungeons & Dragons, Groom Lake, Weekly World News, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe, and 30 Days of Night. I believe I will have to try and check it out...

2011 QB50

2011-12-30T00:04:00.000-08:00

This year’s edition of my annual countdown of comic book favorites is slightly different in that the selection was notably compromised throughout the year. For the first time since the list began in 2006 I did not make regular trips to a store or have shipments delivered to my home during the calendar year, so that everything that appears this time is something I was either lucky enough to catch or tried to keep track of, and by necessity the selection was not what it once was, so that a book I desperately wish I could include (Oni’s consistently great WASTELAND, which shipped two issues in 2011), for instance, won’t be present. I will further elaborate in the entries below.

1. RASL (Cartoon)
Jeff Smith managed to release three issues (#s 10-12) this year, during which lead character Robbie dealt with personal matters and the recurring narrative of Nikola Tesla’s incredible career was once again revisited. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I haven’t been the greatest supporter of this book in the QB50 (it ranked at 50th its debut year, but moved to 10th and then 4th last year), especially since the greater comics community has given Smith’s new project (after his seminal BONE) a tepid response at best. His vision of parallel realities comes at an interesting time, considering that the TV show FRINGE started making it a focus in the second season, yet RASL stands apart for its incredibly stark, almost impressionistic approach, which attempts to drive home how desperate and yet determined Robbie is, which has consistently been contrasted with the tough breaks a genius like Tesla was forced to endure. I’ve got a feeling the complete story of this series will receive a great deal more interest than its episodic releases have.

2. BATMAN, INCORPORATED (DC)
Grant Morrison’s latest Dark Knight saga, picking up threads of a giant already encompassing “R.I.P.,” THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE, and various other stories, had only began as 2010 came to a close, landing it 22nd on last year’s list, but there were six individual issues and then just recently the LEVIATHAN STRIKES one-shot that collected the intended final issues of the initial run for this series, which will bring Morrison’s vision to a close. The thing that’s better than any of that is that these are some of the most fun superhero stories anyone’s told in years, which you could easily enjoy without knowing or caring about the bigger picture, and that’s exactly what I liked so much and wanted to follow throughout the early months of the year, the first ongoing series I tried to keep track of after abandoning regular reading in January for financial reasons. That’s how I knew I was really hooked, and that’s what you look for when determining what your favorites really are.

3. FLASHPOINT (DC)
DC’s big event of the summer that led to the much ballyhooed “New 52” relaunch was also possibly the best story to date from Geoff Johns, focusing on his vision of a Barry Allen who lost his mother at an early age and never really got over it, the worst part of his ongoing war with archnemesis Eobard Thawne, which led to The Flash ending up in an alternate reality where just about everything had gone terribly wrong, whether it was Wonder Woman and Aquaman going to war against each other or Superman being held captive by a secret government program or Thomas Wayne becoming Batman because it was his son who was murdered (and just why is it that few creators have ever considered the death of a child to be enough to create a superhero, anyway?), among many other changes.

4. JUSTICE LEAGUE (DC)
Johns, it seems, was only getting warmed up, because he also conceived the flagship of the relaunch, another reboot of the seminal superhero team that saw it coming together for the first time, only instead of everyone being a big happy family from the beginning everyone is getting to know each other for the first time, allowing Johns and Jim Lee to present iconic characters in new and striking ways, from Batman and Green Lantern to Superman and Wonder Woman arriving on the scene, and a new version of Cyborg’s origin. This is one of the best ongoing superhero titles ever.

5. ACTION COMICS (DC)
The quality of an ongoing series can fluctuate greatly, of course, depending on the creative team. Geoff Johns on ACTION COMICS led it to 3rd in 2007, 2nd in 2008, before he left and the title slipped to 46th in 2009 and 34th in 2010. Paul Cornell had started his run by the end of last year, and the quality began to shoot all the way back up, and so as he finished up his grand Lex Luthor story in the landmark and all-around exceptional (including various backup features from other creators) #900 (best single issue of the year), I was already set to rank the series near the top, even if I didn’t read too many issues, and then the relaunch took place and Grant Morrison took the reigns, presenting an entirely new vision of the Man of Steel that returns him to his iconic roots as few writers (except for Morrison himself, and of course Johns) have been able to do in recent years, certainly since the turn of the millennium. If Superman isn’t must-read, there’s a problem. Fortunately, that’s not a problem anymore.

6. GREEN LANTERN (DC)
Geoff Johns again, although I confess to having read only two issues of the book pre-relaunch this year (#s 66-67), which came at the end of the “War of the Green Lanterns,” which seemed a little like a blow-off quasi-event even before I knew that there was indeed something else to move onto. Yet Johns was one of the few writers to have the chance to continue writing an uninterrupted story in the fall, since he’d just given Sinestro one of the more improbable redemptive strokes in comics lore, returning a GL ring to his finger for the first time (excluding “Emerald Twilight”) in decades. While I’ve long been a fan of Johns’ Green Lantern work, I haven’t always ranked it very high (19th in 2007, 15th in 2008 and 2009, and then 5th last year). This is probably a career high for material in the actual GREEN LANTERN title, now that he’s concentrating on individual characters again, specifically Sinestro and Hal Jordan.

7. DEAR CREATURE (Tor)
This was a graphic novel that creator Jonathan Case released this year, a wonderful, monster-meets-Shakespeare tale, wonderfully literate and easily one of the more imaginative stories I had the privilege to read, which I’ve since seen in Barnes & Noble, and that may be testament enough to its broad appeal.

8. G.I. JOE: COBRA/COBRA (IDW)
I managed to read only two issues of Mike Costa and Antonio Fuso’s masterful comics this year, which began (3rd in 2009 and 2010) as a mini-series support book to IDW’s big G.I. Joe launch, and this year finally gained enough moment to drive the entire franchise, leading to “Cobra Civil War.” Thankfully I was able to catch G.I. JOE: COBRA #12, the issue where Cobra Commander is assassinated, but only #4 of COBRA, the relaunch that finally saw fit to eliminate the good guys from the title. I honestly don’t know why so many critics have a hard time giving this book (by whatever name) its due, because very few creators have been able to do as convincing and piercing character work as Costa (who started these efforts with Christos Gage) and regular artist Fuso. My biggest regret of the year was not being able to read every issue of this continuing saga.

9. JOE THE BARBARIAN (Vertigo)
The final issue of Grant Morrison’s minimalist, surreal saga of the hypoglycemic youth who really just needed a sip of soda to overcome his many troubles, or maybe just a reunion with his dad, was finally released, and it was worth the wait. This is another one of those comics that may read better as a whole than in its original installments, and may prove to be one of Morrison’s definitive works, similar to WE3, where the frenetic and eclectic approach seen in most of his other works is replaced for a more user-friendly result.

10. AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE (Marvel)
Ranked 32nd last year, this is the unappreciated follow-up to the 2005 breakout YOUNG AVENGERS from Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung, as well as unofficial (?) sequel to HOUSE OF M, which finally answers the question, Whatever Happened to the Scarlet Witch? When I finally got around to discovering it for myself, Heinberg’s Avengers was easily my favorite, most lucid Marvel comic book, a series that wasn’t afraid to let its characters loose, tell a meaningful story, and that’s exactly what CHILDREN’S CRUSADE recaptures, and although the release schedule is a little loose (out of nine issues, begun in 2010, eight have been released, with five this year, and I got #s 4 and 8 in 2011), which I suppose reflects my current reading capabilities just fine. Now I only hope that I’ll be able to catch the final issue…

11. COMIC BOOK COMICS (Evil Twin)
Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey previously collaborated on ACTION PHILOSOPHERS, this year finished up (with #s 5 & 6) this history of comic books, which became more interesting (not previously ranked) the less competition it had from actual comic books. Go figure.

12. BRIGHTEST DAY (DC)
Ranked 19th last year, but pulled up nicely with the handful of issues I was able to catch (later issues apparently sold really well and I was only belatedly able to catch the conclusion), with writers Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi finishing strong, although truthfully of all the things affected by the relaunch, I think this series was the hardest hit.

13. KNIGHT AND SQUIRE (DC)
One of my early favorites in the year didn’t even rank in 2010, even though half the series was released by the time 2011 came around. For some reason my appreciation for Paul Cornell really shot up once my comics reading slowed down. I caught #4 on release, but had to wait until the trade collection to finish the rest of the story, and I wasn’t disappointed. This is exactly what I like about DC, that it can have an incredible variety of storytelling without trying very hard, even with characters some might have been tempted to take too seriously considering their connection to Grant Morrison’s big new Batman concept. Cornell simply had some fun with a very British perspective on superheroes, and it was some of the most refreshing material I’ve read.

14. THE FLASH (DC)
I did a poor job of actually reading a Flash ongoing series, in either iteration, this year, catching #s 9 & 12 of the Geoff Johns book that ran into FLASHPOINT and then only the first issue of the New 52 version spearheaded by fast-rising talent Francis Manapul. I don’t know, it seems like every time Johns writes a Flash series, it takes me a while to actually appreciate it, even though he clearly had a big idea for Barry Allen and chose to spend his most recent experience writing the character solo preparing him for his biggest story, which is certainly not a bad thing, and allowed him to then continue concentrating on Green Lantern and some new projects. Manapul is at this point a far more interesting artist than he is a writer, and I have tended to prefer the writing to the art, no matter how good it is, in a Flash series. Maybe that’ll change in 2012. Who knows? Johns previously reached 30th on this series in 2010, but nailed the 2nd spot with his combination of THE FLASH: REBIRTH and BLACKEST NIGHT: THE FLASH in 2009.

15. ATOMIC ROBO (Red 5)
Another big loser in my reduced capacity was Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener’s fantastic robot monster fighter, who like Jeff Smith’s RASL also has a connection to Nikola Tesla (by cosmic coincidence). I was only able to catch their annual Free Comic Book Day appearance, which I guess was enough. I keep hoping that Robo will catch on in at least cult-sized way, because I think he’s at least good enough to become the next Hellboy. It doesn’t help that he’s Red 5’s only significant property. Previously ranked 20th in 2009 and 33rd in 2010.

16. MYSTIC (Marvel)
One of the CrossGen relaunches under the Marvel banner, my main interest was writer G. Willow Wilson, who wrote the two-time 1st-ranked AIR (2009 and 2010), cancelled well before its time. MYSTIC is a story about two friends who become separated by opposing fortune in a community that approaches magic in a very OWS kind of way, and is a very fun read.

17. NIGHTWING (DC)
Of all the launches in the New 52, this was the one I was most nervous about, considering Dick Grayson’s sketchy publishing history in a Nightwing book for the past five years, but I was pleased to discover that Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows have probably come up with the best material since Chuck Dixon and Devin Grayson (with Marv Wolfman coming in third and then maybe Peter Tomasi, the last writer in the previous series). I will be keeping my eye out for this one no matter if I’m reading or “reading” comics.

18. THE MICE TEMPLAR, VOLUME III: A MIDWINTER NIGHT’S DREAM (Image)
When everyone was going gaga over MOUSE GUARD, I had to scratch my head, because I knew there had to be something better than that, and lo, there came MICE TEMPLAR, which definitely was. Previously ranked at 29th in 2007, 36th in 2008, 14th in 2009, and 35th in 2010, Brian J.L. Glass has ably taken the reigns of his co-creation with Michael Avon Oeming, weaving a modern fantasy epic that’s as distinctive as the material it takes as inspiration is impressive, some of the most well-known narratives in literary history (you can read about that sort of thing in the back of every issue thanks to Jeff Turnham). The sole issue I read this year, #6, was easily enough to remind me just how awesome this work has become.

19. OZMA OF OZ/DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ (Marvel)
Eric Shanower and Skottie Young continue to provide the greatest service to modern readers in comics today by adapting the virtually forgotten original Oz tales from creator L. Frank Baum, and demonstrating just how ridiculously creative he really was, like the Tim Burton of his day (who better to make a new Oz film, right?), and though I read a combined two issues from the two mini-series published during the year, it was enough to keep the spirit alive for me. I’ve previously ranked their efforts at 33rd in 2009 and 24th in 2010.

20. THE SHADE (DC)
Another big victim of my 2011 reading capacity was James Robinson’s much-anticipated follow-up to STARMAN, which has apparently been getting terrible readership overall, which is itself terrible, because even just from the first issue, I could tell he was bringing his A-game, something he hasn’t done since JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE (which ranked 5th in 2009). Maybe DC erred by launching this beauty only a month after the big New 52 initiative, but for some readers, this was probably more anticipated.

21. STEEL (DC)
A one-shot released early in the year, written by Steve Lyons, this was ostensibly the opening salvo of the big Doomsday crossover, but was far better read as a refresher course on everything that made John Henry Irons special in the first place, something that’d been overlooked for more than a decade, and thankfully not after Grant Morrison’s new ACTION COMICS. Deserves to be remembered as such.

22. FANTASTIC FOUR (Marvel)
I wish I’d known that Jonathan Hickman really would be firing on all cylinders by #600, because I probably would have made a greater effort to read more of it (and maybe FF), given that he seems to have approached writing the series less like a comic book and more like a TV show. Any idiot could (and many did) have guessed that Johnny Storm didn’t necessarily die after the events of the much-hyped #587, but it took a lot of guts to actually write a lot about what actually happened to him upon his actual return. I was guilty of being a little prejudice against Hickman’s ambitions. It’s definitely something to consider when looking at 2012.

23. RETROACTIVE 1990s: SUPERMAN (DC)
I guess not everyone is as crazy for the classic SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL creative team of Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove, but for me, their reunion was easily the highlight of DC’s series of one-shots celebrating past eras. I loved most of 1990s Superman, but they were always some of my favorites, and their presence has been sorely missed.

24. ANIMAL MAN (DC)
Most people are perfectly willing to associate Grant Morrison with the best Buddy Baker material, and with good reason. It’s enough to say that Jeff Lemire is finally giving Morrison a run for his money.

25. AQUAMAN (DC)
A lot of people were hoping that BRIGHTEST DAY was a preview of sorts for some other franchises Geoff Johns could dig into, and he fulfilled some of that promise by tackling Aquaman in the New 52. Another series to keep an eye on in the coming year.

26. WONDER WOMAN (DC)
J. Michael Straczynski’s “Odyssey,” like his Superman story “Grounded,” ended up becoming a casualty to other commitments, and Phil Hester did his best to salvage it early in the year, and I think he was off to a good start, but I also didn’t have a problem abandoning it when I had to abandon a lot of stuff, not because of Hester (who I wish could enjoy far greater success than he does), but because I think Joe didn’t really consider enough material for the length of story he’d planned. Thankfully, Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang started fresh with the relaunch, and can potentially have the best run Wonder Woman has ever seen on their hands. Definitely a book to reckon with in 2012.

27. RETROACTIVE 1990s: GREEN LANTERN (DC)
Another returning pair that I was delighted to revisit was Ron Marz and Darryl Banks, who handled with a considerable amount of flare the debut of Kyle Rayner all those years ago, and so all those little touches that were signatures of their run were real fun to see again. The reprint at the back of the issue, surprisingly, was less enjoyable, now feeling considerably dated (at least in the unflattering style of swimwear some artists seem to favor, like Banks and Dan Jurgens).

28. FLASHPOINT: DEADMAN AND THE FLYING GRAYSONS (DC)
A mini-series that run with an intriguing mash-up last seen in NIGHTWING: YEAR ONE, this was a definite perk of FLASHPOINT, exploring odd bit of continuity that could easily have supported itself in an Elseworlds-style book (because that’s basically what the whole event was about, with fairly loose interconnection). J.T. Krul is easily one of the DC writers who received a notable downgrade in his stature after the big relaunch, which was a shame.

29. FLASHPOINT: HAL JORDAN (DC)
Another perk of FLASHPOINT is that it served as an unofficial tie-in to the Green Lantern movie also released over the summer, and this mini-series written by Adam Schlagman clearly had the pilot glimpsed in the movie on its mind, a what-if scenario that proved Hal would be a hero with or without the ring.

30. GREEN LANTERN CORPS (DC)
This is a series that has ranked consistently in the past, from 23rd in 2007 to 40th in 2008, 35th in 2009, and finally 21st in 2010, so always somewhere around the middle of the pack. There have certainly been moments I really enjoyed in the title, and Tony Bedard’s “Weaponer” arc certainly ranks among them. I made it a point to sample each of the Green Lantern titles in the relaunch, but I’m not sure I found any of them as essential as Geoff Johns’ work in the flagship.

31. GREEN LANTERN MOVIE PREQUEL: HAL JORDAN (DC)
Geoff Johns was one of the hands involved in this particular movie prequel, which reads like an alternate version of what was seen on the big screen. In case you hadn’t guessed, I was a big fan of the movie.

32. BATWING (DC)
This was a title I was excited about when I first read about the series involved in the New 52 relaunch, and the one issue I sampled demonstrated that Judd Winick and certainly artist Ben Oliver probably justified my faith in this spin-off from the Batman, Incorporated concept.

33. RETROACTIVE 1990s: JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA (DC)
Because hey, who’s really going to argue about new material from the team of Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire?

34. SPIDER-GIRL (Marvel)
The one issue (#4) I read featured “Kraven’s Next Hunt,” a spin-off from the incredible “Grim Hunt” saga that helped launch AMAZING SPIDER-MAN to 17th last year, and that was enough to land the whole series on this list.

35. STAR TREK (IDW)
IDW in general has done a really good job with its Star Trek comics (hitting 26th and 31st for various projects in 2009), and this new ongoing series seeks to reinterpret the original TV series through the lens of the J.J. Abrams reboot, which at worst is incredibly bold and certainly another book to keep an eye on.

36. SUPREME POWER (Marvel)
When I heard this dude named Kyle Higgins was being entrusted with Dick Grayson in the New 52, I became a little nervous, and started sampling the projects he was releasing in 2011, which included this latest iteration of the Marvel interpretation of the Justice League. Suffice to say, I liked what I saw.

37. ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN (Marvel)
The smartest thing Brian Michael Bendis ever did was introduce a new Spider-Man. It was the thing he absolutely needed to do after establishing that new record with Mark Bagley in the original Ultimate comics. This may be his superhero legacy.

38. VENGEANCE (Marvel)
For some reason, Marvel started releasing a bunch of off-beat mini-series that answered to nothing but themselves, and this Joe Casey ditty was among them. I’m still not sure I entirely understood what I saw, but I liked it.

39. WAR OF THE GREEN LANTERNS: AFTERMATH (DC)
It was Geoff Johns who received all the benefits of the story, but it was Tony Bedard who officially launched Sinestro into his bold new era in this two-volume epilogue to the crossover. Y’know, strictly speaking for the record.

40. AVENGERS 1959 (Marvel)
Howard Chaykin is an iconic creator I will try my best to cherish for as long as he continues producing new material. This is his offbeat look at a prior incarnation of the Marvel superteam, which includes the eclectic mix of Nick Fury, Kraven, Sabretooth, and Namora.

41. AZRAEL (DC)
Fudging just a tiny bit, including issues #15 & 16, one of which was actually released in 2010, rounding out David Hine’s strongest stories with Michael Lane (“Killer of Saints” got him 14th last year).

42. BATMAN/DETECTIVE COMICS (DC)
This entry is understood to represent material created by Tony Daniel, and so straddles pre- and post-New 52 alignments. Most readers seem to favor Scott Snyder these days, and so the natural order would seem to be the reverse of what I’ve detailed here, but Daniel continues to be my man for alternate Batman tales (his work previously reached 45th in both 2009 and 2010). He seems to have the most fun out of creators not named Grant Morrison (possibly because they worked together during “R.I.P.”), so it’s an easy call for me.

43. BATMAN AND ROBIN (DC)
Grant Morrison wasn’t solely responsible for last year’s rank of 18th (but he was for 2009’s 8th), but combinations of Paul Cornell & Scott McDaniel, Peter Tomasi & Patrick Gleason, and Judd Winick & Jason Todd helped to compensate for his complete absence in 2011. I haven’t read the book since the relaunch, though I remain pleased that Tomasi and Gleason (who were so good together in GREEN LANTERN CORPS and BRIGHTEST DAY) were tapped as creators, both before and after.

44. BATMAN: GATES OF GOTHAM (DC)
No fictional city in comics has received as much attention as Gotham, and it was again the subject of intriguing material from emerging superstars Scott Snyder and Kyle Higgins. I have a feeling that this story would have been more significant had it been told in an ongoing series, even the cancelled STREETS OF GOTHAM (would have been appropriate, anyway).

45. CHARMED (Zenescope)
My sister is a big fan of the late WB series, and so through her I’ve maintained a link to the Paul Ruditis comic launched last year. It’s not bad, really.

46. FLASHPOINT: ABIN SUR (DC)
I’ve always wondered why DC hasn’t found more excuses to tell stories revolving around one of the most famous characters in Green Lantern lore, the one who happened to famously die in his first appearance. Again, thanks to the movie released this summer, the company had excuse enough to populate FLASHPOINT with scenarios that would get around the awkward fact that technically speaking, Abin Sur is dead. In the altered reality of FLASHPOINT, he’s still Green Lantern. Then White Lantern!

47. FLASHPOINT: THE CANTERBURY CRICKET (DC)
Mike Carlin wrote this one-shot that introduced a new character into DC lore, one who will hopefully pop up again later!

48. FLASHPOINT: CITIZEN COLD (DC)
Before Francis Manapul there was Scott Kolins, another Geoff Johns collaborator who began as an artist and then branched out as a writer. I thought out of all the FLASHPOINT spin-offs, this would have a good chance of standing out, and at least for me, I wasn’t wrong. This one will probably be one of the more fun ones to read on its own in a few years.

49. GREEN ARROW (DC)
I’m cheating again, because the issues I’m referring to happen to straddle 2010 and 2011, specifically #s 7 & 8, featuring J.T. Krul and Mike Mayhew’s visionary Oliver Queen-as-Robin-Hood (more literally than ever before!) work, in the mystical forest where he teams up with Galahad, a character I thought had great potential. Hopefully at some point they can reunite, Krul and Mayhew, I mean!

50. GREEN LANTERN MOVIE PREQUEL: ABIN SUR (DC)
See above for the general prelude, but I was also pleased to find Michael Green (one of the writers involved in the movie’s screenplay, along with Marc Guggenheim, whose RESURRECTION I sorely missed during the year, and a few others) and Patrick Gleason involved in this one.

***

Complete listing of QB editions:

2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011

Action Comics #4

2011-12-28T09:27:00.000-08:00

writer: Grant Morrison
artist: Rags Morales

What reads like a perfection of comics various creators basically botched very recently (except Geoff Johns in Superman: Secret Origin), Morrison continues to spin Superman's earliest adventures in Metropolis in an entirely new and interesting light by reteaming Lex Luthor with Brainiac, while also making Metallo interesting again (as an unwitting dupe of Brainiac's invasion force) and reintroducing Steel as a hero who can ably represent himself (also in a complementary backup feature by Sholly Fisch), especially in an era that seems to have been consumed by technology that only pretends to have useful functions.

Justice League #3

2011-12-28T09:19:00.000-08:00

writer: Geoff Johns
artist: Jim Lee

I'm astounded that a Justice League book can be this good. I think I've said that a number of different ways already, calling it a monthly event book, for instance, and if that's still the best way to say it, then that'll work, too. This is better than Grant Morrison's widescreen JLA, better than Brad Meltzer's, so much more confident in the exploration not only of the team as it comes together, but how the individual members represent themselves. Too easily and too often team books concentrate on trite dialogue that gives token presence to individual members when they're really just homogenizing everyone into some adventure that's supposed to be big enough for the reader to overlook this fact. The best team books overcome this basic deficiency by actually delivering on big adventure, or instead relying on the relationship game (which Young Heroes in Love parodied). Johns has been doing so many event books recently that he's perfected the formula of writing various characters with unique perspectives while simultaneously building a bigger story around them. This issue we finally meet Wonder Woman, and the approach here is so fresh, so vibrant, it's an embarrassment to every other writer who has failed to capture that same spirit through the years, instead counting on reader familiarity that has actually robbed the character of her best qualities. The good thing is that Brian Azzarello seems perfectly capable of matching that tone in the Wonder Woman ongoing. This is the best kind of flagship title, because it absolutely deserves that distinction.

Nightwing #3

2011-12-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

writer: Kyle Higgins
artist: Eddy Barrows

Owing to the fact that I QUIT READING COMICS this year and it initially proved difficult to find issues of this particular New 52 launch, I was almost content not to read the new Nightwing book, which is basically heresy for me, since Dick Grayson has been one of my favorite comic book characters for as long as I've cared about superheroes. The previous Nightwing series took a turn for the eclectic once Devin Grayson was booted from the book, revolving through a number of writers who rebooted Dick's context so many times that it was difficult for any of them to truly get a handle on him, even Marv Wolfman, who came closest to establishing a feel that felt natural and not just distinct from what had previously been done. Higgins, as it turns out, matches what Wolfman attempted to do very nicely. I'd heard that Haly's Circus was going to be involved, but actually reading it is much like what readers were saying about Scott Snyder's Detective Comics (which was only partially accurate), getting into Dick's past in a real and meaningful way. Chuck Dixon originally set out to create a whole new world for Dick to explore, but that had been played out by the time Devin Grayson departed, and no one was able or willing to return to that world, so it's appropriate and gratifying that someone has finally and confidently begun exploring Dick's prior existence, the one Bruce Wayne basically interrupted (with the best intentions). I was one of those fans who loved that Dick had seemingly permanently gained the mantle of Batman, and so was distressed that the New 52 was booting him back into his loner's position, scared that he'd spin back into random and mostly meaningless adventures that would once again cause Dan DiDio to consider him expendable...I'm glad to report that this will not be the case, at least for the foreseeable future. This may be the best Dick Grayson in years.

The Amazing Spider-Man #673

2011-12-28T08:58:00.001-08:00

writer: Dan Slott
artist: Stefano Caselli

I still want to go on record as stating that Slott is easily the best option to go with as a successor to the team that wrote Brand New Day for a couple of years, as he's exceedingly imaginative, and that's important when you're writing a character with as big an ADHD problem and complete lack of introspection as the legendary Spider-Man, and so I initially welcomed Big Time with open arms. Perhaps my biggest problem is that I had to par down my comics reading around that same time (before QUITTING COMICS ALTOGETHER this year), and so never really got into the feel of what he intended to do past giving Peter a job that actually made sense. This is the first regular issue of the comic that I've read in 2011 (aside from a Free Comic Book Day edition). It happens to follow Spidey's first big crossover event (ever?), Spider-Island, and is in fact the epilogue. Everyone in New York (or at least the part that was affected) is transitioning back to their normal lives, and that partially involves setting up the new Scarlet Spider, and reflects on the continuing efforts to keep Peter and MJ apart for reasons that no longer seem natural.

X-Club #1 (of 5)

2011-12-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

writer: Simon Spurrier
artist: Paul Davidson

I remember the X-books playing around with the science-based X-Club a few years back (since I don't read them regularly, that's as much as I know without research), so I was excited when I saw this book announced, and then just as chuffed when I saw it at Barnes & Noble...The problem is that Spurrier seems to have decided that the best approach was to rip-off Atomic Robo. This would have worked better had Brian Clevinger actually been the writer (Clevinger writes the exceedingly clever Atomic Robo comics that no one reads for Red 5 and has actually written for Marvel, too), but instead Spurrier awkwardly writes the supposed geniuses of the X-Club without an ounce of integrity and instead with a parody of the usual posturing the worst comic book writers tend toward...Anyhoo, bottom line, huge disappointment, salvageable only by recognizing what it at least tried to be.

Tales of the Philosophy Corps

2011-12-27T15:49:00.001-08:00

I bought GREEN LANTERN AND PHILOSOPHY on May 21st. I know this because I kept the receipt as a bookmark. I started reading it that evening, and kept it around as light reading material for the remainder of the year. “Light reading” indeed; as the title suggests, this one’s got some heavy thinking in mind. Part of the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series edited by William Irwin, it was probably one of the more notable releases this year, timed to coincide with the movie that was supposed to explode the Green Lantern mythos into the mainstream consciousness.

That didn’t actually happen, and I can only imagine what anyone who didn’t realize that was supposed to happen must have thought if they happened upon this book. Maybe much the same as any of the others in the series, which mostly cover TV shows and superheroes with a prominent movie. For me, it was an awesome publishing event. Years ago I picked up a role-playing guide that taught me most of what I came to know about Green Lantern lore; this is like an updated version of that. Of course, it’s also about Green Lantern and philosophy.

A team of eighteen academics write a total of twenty articles (from “The Blackest Night for Aristotle’s Account of Emotions” to “Magic and Science in the Green Lantern Mythos: Clarke’s Law, the Starheart, and Emotional Energy”), comparing Green Lantern comics and how writers have presented emerald-colored heroics to historical thought about power from history’s greatest minds. Some of the articles delve pretty deeply into the comics; others use them as mere launching points for whatever they really wanted to talk about. The most astonishing thing is that there is fantastic amount of Green Lantern material covered, both famous and obscure, so that if you want to, you can read this book merely to gain greater insight into the franchise. I happen to not mind all the philosophizing, even if much of it isn’t very deep, and the quality of the essays can vary wildly, but I guess that’s to be expected from a group project.

Hal Jordan receives most of the attention, and his adventures from “Hard-Traveling Heroes” to JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE are covered, but a lot of the work Geoff Johns has been doing is also featured, making you appreciate all the more concepts like the emotional spectrum. None of this was authorized by DC Comics, but no one’s trying to redefine anything so much as think a little deeper. I got the feeling that Green Lantern was an ideal subject for this kind of project, considering the sheer breadth of the material, so it’s something of a shame that a movie had to be made for someone to authorize it.

Love that “No Evil Shall Escape This Book” is included as a kind of slogan.

Quarter Bin #25 "Bane and Superman"

2011-12-15T10:14:00.000-08:00

It’s kind of funny to be writing about Bane and Superman in one column (to be perfectly accurate, though, it’s because of the back issue bins at Escape Velocity in Colorado Springs and what I found on that particular day), since Bane was more or less created to be an evil version of Doc Savage, who is a precursor to Superman…

Anyway, let’s just dive in!

BATMAN: VENGEANCE OF BANE (DC)
From January 1993:

This is the first appearance of that hulking figure Tom Hardy will be playing in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES next summer. I’m so glad that Hardy is playing him, and that it’s Christopher Nolan and his creative team conceiving this incarnation of Bane, since it seems just about no one since Bane’s earliest appearances has been able to figure out just what Bane is supposed to be. Simply put, Bane is Batman’s opposite number, someone who got an exceedingly bad break and chose to handle it by perfecting himself. Where Bruce Wayne became a vigilante who tried to correct injustice, Bane (no real name has ever been given to him in the comics) chose to exert his resulting might to control rather than react (an interesting distinction, especially for the purposes of Nolan’s vision, since Batman was last seen crossing that line). Batman’s parents were murdered as innocents, whereas Bane’s father was someone who’d eluded the law, forcing Bane’s mother and then Bane himself as a newborn to face justice in his place. Batman grew up knowing the world firsthand; Bane grew up in prison and learned everything in books. This origin issue explains all this (there’s a sequel from after the “Knightfall” saga and Bruce Wayne’s return that sees Bane rededicate himself to more noble causes), plus introduces his relationship to the Venom toxin that for so many creators after Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan became almost the complete story of his character, his obsession and dependency on a steroid that fueled not only his strength but apparently uncontrollable rage (as if he had become a human-sized Hulk), something that was really only a problem, in this stage of storytelling, when he faced Jean-Paul Valley’s armored version of Batman. Presented here, Venom is something that was added to him after he’d already perfected himself, and so it became just another weapon in his arsenal, not the sole means for his strength or even the method behind his menace. It was his mind, and a conscious decision to seek out the one man who might rival him, as he’d learned in prison (again, before the Venom), that motivated Bane to take on the challenge of Batman. Perhaps after next year, DC will once again take him seriously, rather than let him wallow in minor titles and in circumstances that aren’t befitting a character like…Bane.

THE LEGACY OF SUPERMAN (DC)
From March 1993:

Following “Doomsday,” after the entire real world had become convinced of the tragedy of a legendary comic book character actually dying, DC had to be very careful about taking the aftermath seriously. There was the “World without a Superman” arc that looked at the effects on Lois Lane and the rest of Metropolis, as everyone braced for the vacuum caused by the death of the Man of Steel. LEGACY OF SUPERMAN came before the “Reign of the Supermen” arc that famously introduced four possible replacements or even reincarnations (who later became known as Superboy, Steel, Cyborg, and the Eradicator). Then-current and famous Superman creators looked back at other heroes, some of whom had been forgotten then, and some which actually remain forgotten today: Karl Kesel and Walter Simonson brought us to Project Cadmus (which later produced the clone who would become Superboy), where we met with the Guardian (Jim Harper), who met his genetically-engineered and only-theoretical replacement Auron; Roger Stern and Dennis Rodier brought back Thorn, a curious hero who didn’t even know, in her secret identity, that she participated in vigilante activity; Jerry Ordway and Dennis Janke handled Gangbuster, who was most recently seen in TRINITY; William Messner-Loebs and Curt Swan tinkered with Sinbad, someone I’d never heard of, and who was probably never seen again; and Dan Jurgens unsurprisingly featured Waverider and the Linear Men. Just imagine if the Superman books (which at that time included SUPERMAN, ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, ACTION COMICS, and SUPERMAN: MAN OF STEEL) had played with these heroes for a year…

SUPERMAN #164 (DC)
From January 2001:

If he were still writing for DC today, Jeph Loeb’s SUPERMAN would probably be collected today; instead readers might be forgiven to believe Loeb didn’t write the Man of Steel (after FOR ALL SEASONS, that is) until SUPERMAN/BATMAN. Then again, readers might still not appreciate it, since the general opinion for some reasons believes that Loeb isn’t much of a writer, and that’s a terrible shame, since he has a distinctive style that puts a deliberate focus on the inner life of the characters he writes. Frequent collaborator Ed McGuinness supplies some of the art in this issue, which features Jimmy Olsen, Bizarro, and the run-up to “President Luthor” (more on that in a moment), and so on the surface doesn’t feature a lot of introspective material. Except Loeb is one of the masters of captions, an art I hope isn’t as endangered as it currently seems.

PRESIDENT LUTHOR SECRET FILES AND ORIGINS (DC)
From March 2001:

Ah! And so we see that DC actually allowed Lex Luthor to become president! Perhaps one of the last great developments from the momentum the 1990s Superman creative teams produced, Luthor had been through so many epiphanies that he went from the traditional foe who had actually fatally poisoned himself with Kryptonite to a methodical and manipulative genius who still ended up getting his way, first by becoming his own son and then returning to reclaim his empire and solidifying his new power by forming an alliance with the Contessa, someone who literally took the fall for him, so that he could then take his false image as a legitimate businessman and benefactor to humanity to the next level, once he’d seen that Superman was still more beloved than he was. So he became President. This special outlines the whole process, as only the SECRET FILES specials could. But that was a different time. Today we once again enjoy a Luthor more closely tied to his origins (best illustrated by Paul Cornell, Grant Morrison, and Geoff Johns), since really, who would buy that Lex could ever become President? Naturally, a scandal brought him down, eventually.

SUPERMAN #176 (DC)
From January 2002:

After “Our Worlds at War,” what was at that time the biggest event of the previous decade, Superman famously modified his costume to replace the yellow in the S-shield with black, a symbolic gesture to represent the fact that even he recognized that the world was no longer a simple place. (It remains a great irony that this transformation occurred at the same time as 9/11.) Jeph Loeb is still writing our Man of Steel, this time with art from Ian Churchill; the story features a therapy session for Superman while he otherwise battles that era’s incarnation of General Zod, the continuing effects of “OWAW,” and a separation from Lois. At that time, DC was doing just about everything it could think of to try and make Superman relevant to readers again (which eventually led to Manchester Black), without resorting to a reboot. Turns out the reboot would have been easier, as long as everyone else joined in (*cough* “New 52”).

As a collection these issues represent what different creators and eras can have on characters, their presentation and potential, and still only covers about a decade. That’s one of the true virtues of comic books. Some fans may bitch and moan about it, but really, what other medium can so consistently allow such continual reinvention on so broad a spectrum with the same basic creations?

Comic Book Comics #6

2011-12-07T11:27:00.000-08:00

written by Fred Van Lente
art by Ryan Dunlavey

The last issue in the comic book series about comic books, their history and important trends, from one of my favorite creators, Fred Van Lente, who previously collaborated with Dunlavey on Action Philosophers. Here the duo try to peer into the future, looking at the art of the graphic novel, its surprising origins, as well as manga, and just why you buy comics the way you do, in specialty stores, rather than the convenience shops of years past. The thing that was great about this series was that it was remarkably insightful, compiling an incredible amount of information into an entertaining narrative that never felt like an academic exercise. Here's hoping Van Lente and Dunlavey collaborate again soon!

Justice League #2

2011-12-07T11:21:00.000-08:00

written by Geoff Johns
art by Jim Lee

The flagship of the "New 52" deserves that distinction in that it's like an event book as a regular series. In this issue, Green Lantern and Batman, whose close encounter began the series, now contend with Superman, who in the DCnU reckoning is almost a wild card for the first time, unpredictable. Here he's a being of immense power, whom Green Lantern is surprised to find capable of overcoming even the abilities of his ring. Batman, meanwhile, is just as formidable, thanks to his extraordinary mind. These are all strong-willed individuals, distrustful of each other. Yet they are destined to form one of the greatest alliances in comic book history. It's as if Johns is approaching the League the way Jeph Loeb famously did Superman and Batman alone last decade.

Lest you believe this is just about three particular heroes, bonus material helps introduce how this book will approach Wonder Woman, while Johns also continues introducing Cyborg, including a strong emphasis on his origins.

RASL #12

2011-12-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

written and illustrated by Jeff Smith

Alongside Grant Morrison's Batman, Inc., his "New 52" Action Comics, and Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, this is the book I've continually felt compelled to read following the 2011 decision to give up reading new comics (for financial reasons).

I've been a fan of Smith since Bone, one of the great fantasy epics of our time, and so when RASL launched a few years ago, I thought it was a great idea to give Smith's new baby a try, and I was immediately struck by how different it was from Bone, not that the art was much different, but that the tone was so much more demanding. It hasn't always been easy to see just where Jeff was going with this one, why it should be worth reading individual issues, since he's taken a very deliberate pace in his storytelling this time around. It's a mystery series at heart, trying to figure out just why Rob is jumping between realities, why he's on the run, and what it has to do with Nikola Tesla.

The Tesla link, once it was revealed, once the series really started to explore it, became my favorite element. Tesla is one of the great scientific geniuses, but he's sunk into relative obscurity since his death, eclipsed by his rival, Thomas Edison, and certainly Einstein, even though it could be argued that he accomplished a lot more than either of them, and could've done so much more had he not run aground of resistance. This particular issue expands on his troubles, and actually helps to explain the benefit of an episodic approach, cliffhangers that make the reader ever more curious about where exactly everything's headed.

In a lot of way, RASL is very similar to Fringe, and that's something I didn't really think about until now. I believe that I will have further occasion to meditate on that connection in the future.

By the end of the month, you'll see where the series ranks on my annual QB50 ranking. But you can bet it'll be among my favorites, regardless of how many comics I've read in 2011.

Green Lantern: More Star Wars than Superhero

2011-12-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

For a while, I kind of hoped that the fan community would help redeem Green Lantern. I thought it wasn't an unreasonable belief, since comic book fans have helped make the comic books themselves one of the most popular franchises in recent years, given the efforts of Geoff Johns as recently as Blackest Night, a cornerstone DC event.

Except comic book fans still flocked to Marvel films like X-Men: First Class and rejected Green Lantern as at best an irredeemable mess. I'm still surprised by this reaction.

I had dreamed about a Green Lantern film for more than a decade, envisioning how I myself would shape some of the defining stories ("Emerald Dawn," "Hard-Traveling Heroes," "Emerald Twilight") into a big screen epic, a trilogy that would take its place alongside Star Wars as a treasured experience. Fans in the 1990s had already begun to compare the two franchises, so it's not as if even now I'm proposing anything new.

The problem is that most fans today, as well as casual viewers, can only seem to think about Green Lantern as a superhero, when he's been demonstrated to be so much more, not the least by Geoff Johns, but throughout his publishing history. At best Spider-Man's "With great responsibility" line is the only true comparable superhero experience. Green Lantern is a space cop, not a superhero.

You might even think of him, of Hal Jordan, and the rest of the GL Corps, as an alternate band of Jedi knights.

Something George Lucas never got around to doing, even in his second trilogy, was exploring a Jedi who wasn't invested in some cosmic destiny. At worst, that's exactly what Hal Jordan represented, all the way back in Showcase #22, accepting the ring of the dying Abin Sur and being inducted into an intergalactic organization invested with patrolling the cosmos, one sector at a time, wielding an awesome ring capable of just about anything. On the surface, and especially on his home planet of Earth, Hal seemed to become just another superhero, except that his responsibilities often took him into space, facing threats that originated on other worlds, interacting not with other heroes but other members of the Corps.

Hal Jordan's secret origin as Green Lantern has nothing to do with some deep personal crisis or revelation, but rather his induction into something far greater than himself.

Just as Luke Skywalker stumbled into the heart of the fight between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, something that until that point had been beyond the realm of his wildest dreams, Hal learns that until he received Abin Sur's ring, humans were hardly considered noteworthy.

Luke, of course, learns that he has a far greater role to play than he imagined when he discovers that he's the son of Darth Vader, one of the most feared individuals in the galaxy, which goes well beyond training to become a Jedi. In Green Lantern, Hal struggles to overcome his personal problems, let alone figuring out what it means to be a member of the Corps, while events greater than him gradually reveal his connection to the threat of Parallax, a being representative of the fear Hal has spent his life trying to figure out.

The difference of the approaches Star Wars and Green Lantern take produce markedly different results, but they're far more similar than is at first apparent. Star Wars is an adventure experience, first and foremost, whether you talk about the first or second trilogies. The first, the original three films, is a lot more gritty, while the second represents a more slick production sense, that attempts to immerse the viewer in a sense of the scale of events. Think of it this way: Luke, Han and Leia are always running away from something, whereas Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme are always running toward something. All the same, events play out in parallel ways, in a dawning awareness; a struggle to accept identity; and finally, fulfillment of destiny.

Green Lantern compresses these arcs into a single story, and so proceeds with breakneck speed to introduce characters and situations so that Hal's acceptance of not only his new role but of himself is intertwined with a foe (Hector Hammond) who represents a completely opposite trajectory, something Star Wars had to achieve over the course of six films (contrasting Luke with his father Anakin). Hal in essence becomes a Jedi who doesn't know the conflict between the two sides of the Force (but his theoretical pal Sinestro will), who is instead simply trying to find his way into the apparently natural order of things.

What results is a film that tries to be cosmic and human at the same time, doesn't really treat the superhero at the heart of it as a superhero, choosing to introduce the idea of the responsibility of the power ring as something that erases doubt and difference, obscures the line between good and evil, without stepping outside familiar territory, but rather embracing it.

The funny thing is, it's only confusing if you allow it to be, if you approach Green Lantern as a film about a superhero, rather than as an exploration of mankind approaching its potential, which just so happens to include aliens who would rather be our friends and companions than enemies. Even Star Wars used aliens that way, and that's what I thought would help viewers distinguish what the movie really was, versus inappropriate and misleading expectations that only obscured the worth of the actual product.

For me, Green Lantern was more expansive than I had thought it could be, and so was far more than a movie based on some of my favorite comics. Maybe it didn't hurt that I already liked the ideas, not so much that I was familiar with them but that I had already thought about them. It was easier for me to like the film because I was prepared, and since I already liked the kind of movie it ultimately proved to be. For that reason, I still hold out hope that others will eventually come to view it as the kind of success I found it to be.

Quarter Bin #24 "Aztek"

2011-12-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

One of the more intriguing elements of Grant Morrison’s backstory is his involvement with the career of Mark Millar. Today it’s a moot subject, and there is no longer any kind of relationship, but as early as fifteen years ago, they were working under the same roof and in fact working very closely together, whether on THE FLASH or collaborating on an experimental superhero in the pages of AZTEK: THE ULTIMATE MAN.

Millar has become one of the cornerstone creators at Marvel while Morrison has been a DC man since departing NEW X-MEN (or, when Xorn was still known, and as an alternate version of Magneto). Millar’s best-known DC work is SUPERMAN: RED SUN, though he also wrote for Vertigo. Aside from Brian Michael Bendis, however, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better-established “architect” at the House of Ideas. He is also responsible for WANTED and KICK-ASS, among other projects, and for a time represented the next generation of comic book visionaries, no doubt a prospect that appealed to him, since that’s a role Morrison held before him and retains to this day, long after days he was supposed to pass the baton to Millar.

Well, they’ll always have Aztek. A hero who later claimed his payoff in Morrison’s JLA storyline “World War Three,” the erstwhile Ultimate Man was an attempt to create a modern hero, one who was trained into the role and given a clear purpose. His series ran from 1996-97, a mere ten issues, victim to low readership, another new character who failed to stick (and has yet to be resurrected in the new millennium, much less the “New 52”). I’m afraid I’m a part of his misfortunes, since I read the first few issues, but for some reason abruptly stopped, even though I’d thoroughly enjoyed what I’d seen. I can’t account for that decision now, but as I’ve repeatedly stated in the Quarter Bin column, one of the great joys of being a comics reader is that the past is always a part of the present, back issues being an obsessive hobby that rivals new releases for the modern fan.

I was cataloguing my comics, actually, when I finally got around to prompting myself to read more AZTEK. DC released a trade collection of the series, but once again I had other priorities, even though I was happy to see that it had not been entirely forgotten. The actual impetus was the letters column of an issue I had gotten back in the day, referencing an appearance by the Joker, which was said to be definitive. Knowing as I knew at that point how important Grant Morrison writing the Joker actually is, I felt I had to read it for myself. I made a trip to Escape Velocity in Colorado Springs and found a pretty good selection of the series, and that’s where the following comes from:

AZTEK: THE ULTIMATE MAN #3 (DC)
From October 1996:

This issue is probably an important one for fans to have read at the time, since it illustrates perhaps better than preceding installments how much thought Morrison and Millar put into their concept, which embraced not only the central hero and the peculiar city of Vanity, but an idea of the hero-and-villain community that went well beyond convention. The thing I’d originally admired about AZTEK was that it felt like the future Mark Waid had envisioned in KINGDOM COME, where heroes become more violent and less calculating. That thought is expanded in this issue, as Morrison and Millar shape the backstory for the figure Aztek previously defeated, a crazy mix of hero and villain, where it’s revealed that he was once a very clear-cut, actually stereotypical hero with a partner, who had her share of tragedy even before Aztek appeared, and so her mourning process, which is in itself unique to AZTEK, becomes a further mark of distinction for the series, even before we’ve properly delved into the central character’s own particulars. In hindsight, the creators are attempting an incredibly ambitious thing here, all the more for starting with a totally new hero. That is recipe for disaster.

AZTEK: THE ULTIMATE MAN #4 (DC)
From November 1996:

Let’s skip this one, because even I thought it didn’t help the series find an audience, like it was Morrison and Millar trying a little too hard to drag Vertigo into DC proper.

AZTEK: THE ULTIMATE MAN #5 (DC)
From December 1996:

Here’s another key issue, since it expands on Aztek’s origins, by introducing an inadvertent rival in the Lizard King, a predecessor in the line of warriors developed by the Q Society who believes he can replace our hero as the Ultimate Man. What he fails to realize is that Aztek is the culmination of the project, and therefore the only one who can fit the bill (until we learn that, like Luke Skywalker, there is another, who later briefly appears in Morrison’s JLA). The whole concept of Aztek hinges on the legend of Quetzalcoatl, a name grade school scholars may recall from the annals of Spanish exploration in the New World, and is perhaps a little more elaborate, or outside the realm of typical comic book storytelling, so that Morrison himself later simplifies everything to “Lex Luthor” in JLA.

AZTEK: THE ULTIMATE MAN #6 (DC)
From January 1997:

Here at last in the Joker issue. I guess I was a little surprised that the story is actually pretty tame, more subdued, less madcap than I had been expecting, maybe not exactly what DC readers were getting at that point (perhaps appropriately enough, the character had been neutered since his “Death in the Family” heyday to a shadow of himself, a joke in “Knightfall”); I mean, it’s pretty lunatic, but not exactly the psychological portrait in ARKHAM ASYLUM (the first decade of the new millennium is responsible, we must then assume, for a lot more of what we think about the Joker than we might previously have expected). Batman, for the record, does make an appearance.

AZTEK: THE ULTIMATE MAN #10 (DC)
From May 1997:

The finale, featuring Amazo and his creator Professor Ivo, locked in a complicated dance, is basically Aztek’s induction into the Justice League, which was probably intended from the start, but is kind of a letdown for anyone who might have expected closure within the character’s own book, even if it came to a premature end. (The letters column features a particularly insightful rant about readers failing to live up to their end of the bargain that is perhaps more noteworthy than anything in the rest of AZTEK; if you’re interested to know what it says, consider that your personal incentive to track down some of these back issues.) Even in the age of the “New 52,” it’s hard to see DC rolling the dice with another series like this, which tries to reinvent just about everything about traditional superhero comics, and that’s something of a shame. The fact that Morrison went back to the drawing board, reinvested himself in some of the more basic tropes, and that Millar has been trying to cater directly to a moviegoer’s perspective, can’t be a coincidence (or maybe it is and I just like to read too much into things; for the record, it’s a fun hobby all in itself!), after an experiment like this, a kind of spectacular failure. They both came away from AZTEK with a distinct perspective of where to go next, should they ever try again. In a way, it’s not hard to see how they couldn’t work together again.

Quoting Poe

2011-12-06T12:43:00.001-08:00

A lot of people don’t seem to believe that apparently disparate interests can co-exist, or can be adequately reconciled. There’s one stereotype, for instance, that readers of books can’t also be readers of comic books, or that if they somehow are, there are bound to be deficiencies in their critical thinking. Readers of comic books, for instance, probably need to rely on things like variations of ILLUSTRATED CLASSICS to appreciate the written word by itself, adaptations that translate known material to a form they can digest, that shares the same patterns.

All of this is to say, nah, I don’t believe that, not for one minute. Maybe I really am the rare readers who can appreciate Melville’s CONFIDENCE-MAN and, say, JOE PSYCHO & MOO-FROG, I don’t know. I only know that inspiration is inspiration, and sometimes, those lines can be blurred more than most people are apparently willing to admit.

NEVERMORE: A GRAPHIC ADAPTATION OF EDGAR ALLAN POE’S SHORT STORIES is a prime example. Poe is one of the giants of American literature, someone every school kid has some experience with, whether from “The Raven” or “The Tell-tale Heart,” both among the ten short stories, including a biography that highlights suitably unsettling aspects of his death, featured in this collection. A bevy of small-press creators come together to offer their interpretations of Poe’s works, some shifting the timeframes a little, but each of them remaining faithful to the original scripts, psychological tales that remain as compelling today as when they were originally published.

Perhaps the element that truly makes them pop is that the artwork is in black and white, a format that few fans seem willing to embrace (perhaps not so surprising, given that modern comics virtually pride themselves in the sophistication of their coloring).

Action Comics #3

2011-11-30T09:28:00.000-08:00

Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Rags Morales

I've been following this series from its launch EVEN THOUGH I'M NOT READING COMICS ANYMORE as a cornerstone of the "New 52." Morrison has gotten to do exactly what he wants to with Superman, as has the group of creators behind the DCnU, but it's hard to argue that anyone has done anything quite as revelatory as this one.

Aside from the new look (returning to the original concept, actually), Superman has been brought back down to earth as a strange visitor from another world, as if Morrison were revisiting the "New Krypton" story from a more confident perspective, complete with Lex Luthor conspiring with General Lane and Brainiac. This is a Superman who feels like he crosses the divide between Morrison's own All Star work and Geoff Johns' Secret Origin, two of the more definitive Man of Steel stories of the past decade.

The issue includes a look at the other Superman family titles from the "New 52," just in case you don't know which one's the flagship. If you're going to relaunch Action Comics, then Grant Morrison is the way to go.

Batgirl #3

2011-11-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Ardian Syaf

There may be two redemptions underway in this book: not only is Barbara Gordon reclaiming her mobility and heroic identity, but Gail Simone is finding a way to play to her strengths as a creator.

I didn't much care for Simone in Wonder Woman, and her cult work in Secret Six, for me, wasn't just irreverent, but irrelevant. With Babs, she seems to have found a purpose, combining her perspective with Batgirl's. This particular issue features a guest appearance from Nightwing, otherwise known as half of a schoolyard crush from earlier days. The beauty of the appearance is that it speaks both to a part of comics lore that many fans still admire (but perhaps, like Babs and Dick Grayson, don't actually need anymore) as well as the continuing evolution of both characters.

I hadn't particularly expected to care all that much for this particular element of the "New 52," but this is the kind of issue that can totally transform perspectives.

Green Lantern #3

2011-11-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Doug Mahnke

One of two books from the "New 52" I've been attempting to follow even though I'M NOT READING COMICS ANYMORE, Sinestro's bid for redemption has been riveting, especially since he's been trying to pin it on his biggest rival, Hal Jordan.

Since Green Lantern: Rebirth, Sinestro and Hal have had a chance to revisit their complicated relationship (Sinestro began as the Greatest Green Lantern, then traded in the green ring for a yellow one, and was the last fight Hal had before becoming Parallax), once they realized that the universe isn't actually all green and yellow. Sinestro now has Hal's ring, and has given him a manufactored replacement he himself controls, with the goal to liberate his home planet Korugar from his own corrupted Sinestro Corps.

Here's the rub, from this issue: "Emerald Twilight" featured Sinestro emerging from imprisonment in the Green Lantern Central Power Battery, a precursor to his plan to depower his own Corps by sending Hal into its equivalent Battery. Johns continues his Green Lantern saga by inverting the results...

I, Vampire #1

2011-11-30T09:02:00.000-08:00

Writer: Joshua Hale Fialkov
Artist: Andrea Sorrentino

Fialkov (Elk's Run) is one of the big new writers to be introduced to DC readers in the "New 52." To have him on one of the riskier launches is a mark of trust on the part of the company.

For me, this is one of those classic doomed-to-fail titles, like Simon Dark, something that tries to introduce something new to regular readers, succeeds in making something special of itself, but fails in making a connection with actual readers. The difference is that I, Vampire is making a bold move for Twilight Saga fans who may now be wondering what to read next, who might have a different take on the vampire romance concept, what might happen next.

The genius of the timing is that I, Vampire is part of a high-profile relaunch that has connected with the pop culture zeitgeist, and so has a better chance of succeeding than it first seems. Fialkov is a quality writer and this is his most visible gig so far. Given that Jeff Lemire's Animal Man is getting a lot of attention, that makes it that much more likely that another horror title will be able to succeed. Whe that other horror title is I, Vampire, it seems like good news for Fialkov.

Wonder Woman #3

2011-11-30T08:51:00.000-08:00

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Artist: Cliff Chiang

The biggest problem creators seem to have with Wonder Woman is the struggle to combine a strong presentation of her, her origins, and her ongoing heroic career. For instance: Gail Simone started out her run by revisiting Diana's origins, presenting a previously-unknown faction of Amazons who'd declared vengeance on the prepackaged savior, but quickly degenerated into generic tales that did nothing to explain why Wonder Woman should be relevant to readers. Joe Straczynski's much-hyped "Odyssey" cleverly revisited her training period, but eventually muddled it by forgetting when to advance the story. Greg Rucka got to make her controversial, and several creators after him ran with that idea, but none of them stuck around long enough for it to matter.

Azzarello has gone back to the idea of character by making Diana stick out from the rest of the Amazons, making her stand up for herself, and actually having her reject Paradise Island by her own choice. By making her a self-professed exile, he may have finally figured out what it takes to make Wonder Woman stand for something, by representing herself first and foremost. Chiang's art reflects a Greek influence more than the traditional comic book style, taking the edge off the traditional quasi-sexual look Wonder Woman normally sports.

In short, another winner of the "New 52."

Red Hood and the Outlaws #3

2011-11-30T08:43:00.000-08:00

Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Kenneth Rocafort

One of the more controversial "New 52" series, mostly because old readers assumed new readers would prefer to see Starfire as she was featured in the Teen Titans cartoon than how she's been presented in every comic book appearance ever (*cough*), and one of the books I was personally most interested in at least sampling (because I'M NOT READING COMICS ANYMORE).

This issue seemed like a great one to sample, since it dredges up what Lobdell presents as the happiest memories of main characters Red Hood (Jason Todd), Arsenal (Roy Harper) and Starfire (Koriand'r), three outsiders (but not actually calling them that probably helps make that point better at this point) struggling to move on with their lives. That Starfire managed to retain spoiled-princess-mode even in the worst possible circumstances should theoretically make her that much more interesting. That Arsenal is still defined in his own mind by a guy trying to overcome his worst moment makes more sense than his now increasingly tenuous ties to Green Arrow. That Red Hood can still manage happy thoughts about his time as Robin brings out so much more to his character than most writers and readers have considered in some time.

All this suggests that Lobdell is a perfect writer for all three, and that as a long-term deal, this is exactly what I hoped it'd be, one of the more intriguing developments of the "New 52," since all three characters have struggled in recent years to make a mark.

Freebies & Previews

2011-11-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

General Mills Presents: Justice League #1 "Unstoppable Forces"
From a box of delicious Reece's Puffs comes this mini freebie featuring a Justice League lineup of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, and Aquaman, all classic costumes, from writer Scott Beatty and artist Christian Duce. The story features Shaggy Man (I believe last seen in Grant Morrison's JLA, shaved), and isn't completely terrible, just a tad simplistic (why the team would drop a mountain on an enemy and assume that'd be the end of it is never really explained). By "isn't completely terrible," I do mean it's amusing, a nice little promo for kids (and people deliberately buying delicious cereal like Reece's Puffs, possibly for the express purpose of getting this comic or its three brothers) who might then get the idea to start reading comics.

Avenging Spider-Man Daily Bugle #1
Eleven pages pulled directly from the actual comic, plus four pages of pencil art and an extended note from Stephen Wacker. It should be noted that the writer for this series is Zeb Wells, one of the "Brand New Day" writers on Amazing Spider-Man, plus the artist is Joe Madureira, who was a huge deal during the 1990s. Personally, I think he might've been surpassed in his style by Rafael Albuquerque (Blue Beetle, American Vampire), and that the central gimmick of this book, that Spidey somehow has time between his ASM adventures and Avengers (hence the title), which is brought up in the script itself, might be something of a stretch to hang a whole new book on, but it's still nice that Marvel put this preview together (yay!).

Defenders/Avengers: X-Sanction Preview Book
Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson's Defenders is another team book for Marvel, which has been swimming in Avengers books (not to mention X-Men) for years now. Fraction's main task here is to sell the necessity for another team book, and so his focus is on selling the individual members and his passion for writing them. On that score, he actually does pretty good, except the actual preview of the book, which runs four pages, doesn't actually feature any of them, instead focusing on The Hulk...Sooo, a little confused on that score.

Avengers: X-Sanction/Defenders Preview Book
Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness reunite, and the story is much the same as the flipbook, with five preview pages that barely seem to be aware that it's Cable and not the Avengers who is the main character. The difference is that I'm more familiar with Loeb than Fraction, so there's a greater chance of me trusting that Loeb will eventually do what he says he will in this dealie, which sounds extremely intriguing, given that so few Marvel books seem interested in actually delivering a payoff to a great setup (in this case Cable's origins and his recent X-Men arc as Hope's guardian; the only other instance where something like this has happened is Avengers - Children's Crusade, which finally continues what House of M began).

Quarter Bin #23 "Icons - This could be your moment"

2011-11-28T10:38:00.001-08:00

DC 1ST – SUPERMAN/THE FLASH (DC)
From July 2002:

One of the things DC has periodically done is release a series of one-shots around a common theme (most recently with RETROACTIVE), perhaps most famously during “skip” week in the 1990s, and that’s the kind of thing that was most likely to escape my attention during the first time I retired from actively reading new comics, roughly 1999-2004. Ruffling through the back issues at Escape Velocity in Colorado Springs last year, I had occasion, then, to find a lot of things I had not previously known about, including the DC 1ST initiative from 2002. This particular issue caught my eye since it’s written by Geoff Johns. At the time, I had little experience with Geoff’s early work at DC (even though by that point, he’d been writing there for three years), having only really gotten a chance at the end of “Blitz” from THE FLASH in 2004, well after I’d read a lot about him secondhand. The Flash featured in this comic isn’t Wally West (or Barry Allen) but Jay Garrick, the franchise forerunner from the Golden Age, perhaps the character with the most sustained significance from the Justice Society era, mostly thanks to Mark Waid’s efforts, and as I was just beginning to realize, Geoff Johns as well (when I read the first volume of the Omnibus series that’s collecting all of Geoff’s Flash work, second one coming soon, I got to appreciate his attention to the whole family, not just Wally or Bart, in TEEN TITANS, as it may have seemed from an outsider’s perspective). Geoff’s Jay Garrick is concerned with his advancing age, and the effect on his relationship with wife Joan (something that he echoed in INFINITE CRISIS as he wrote Superman from Earth-2 and his aging Lois Lane), but he remains a vital figure, since he is only just racing Superman for the first time, in the present day. I’m not sure what other creators did in the rest of the one-shots, but it might have been natural to interpret the “first” as an actual first encounter, which would have been seen as Superman and Barry Allen’s Flash, whose races began the tradition, but instead Geoff, who was not quite in the middle of his Wally West tenure, chose to go with Jay, perhaps an indication for any current readers who may believe DC’s creators don’t have an appreciation for the past, thanks to the latest reboot. Geoff has, in fact, often been accused of adhering too closely to Silver Age sensibilities, but it’s rather his ability to blend those of every era, the distant, recent and present times that has allowed him to remain a relevant and vital creator.

JUDGMENT DAY AFTERMATH (Awesome)
From March 1998:

Alan Moore, Alan Moore…I’ll be writing a lot about him in the coming months, so I shouldn’t spend too much time here. What specifically he has to do with this book is that he became a key writer in Rob Liefeld’s Awesome comics line, a version of his Maximum and Extreme Studios, outbranched from Image for a couple of years, before Liefeld had to once again (as he has repeatedly done, more than any other Image founder) appease critics by crawling back to someone else’s house. Moore is best known for his work on SUPREME (and that’ll be a subject for another Quarter Bin), but he also pulled together a rare event book for an indy publisher, JUDGMENT DAY. This aftermath, however, really concerns the relaunch of the entire line, including a new Youngblood (a keystone of Liefeld’s efforts), Glory (basically Wonder Woman), New Men (basically the Challengers of the Unknown crossed with the X-Men), Maximage (basically Dr. Strange), the Allies (Justice League/Avengers), and Spacehunter. The effectiveness of introducing all these concepts is somewhat dubious now, since Moore only concentrated on Supreme, with some additional consideration given to Youngblood and the Allies, and Awesome otherwise pursued other projects (including KABOOM, which I will write about later), and so the thrust of this particular comic really boils down to Moore indulging some of his looser flights of fancy, reaching a somewhat common vein with Grant Morrison as concerns the uniting narrative about the Imagineer linking ancestral creators like Jack Kirby and Gil Kane, who provides the art throughout the special. As with many of Moore’s works, there is a heavy nostalgic feel, a resistance to current trends, though he clearly adopts their sensibilities…

PROMETHEA #27 (ABC)
From November 2003:

Alan Moore, this column, Part 2. The America’s Best Comics line was something he agreed to do for WildStorm, before it became an imprint at DC, and was basically his way of doing perfectly traditional comics outside the DC/Marvel system. Promethea herself was another Wonder Woman substitute, and is famously an early source for J.H. Williams III artwork, perhaps his most famous pre-Batwoman. In this particular issue, Promethea is reaching a climactic event in her career, a prophesied apocalypse, and as such has drawn other elements of the ABC line into her story, including Tom Strong (the Superman substitute). Moore’s writing is strikingly cinematic in this instance, would fit into any modern TV show or movie, yet there’s again the nostalgic bent that he clings to, always trending his themes (and characters) on things he loved as a child (with a few exceptions, like his Swamp Thing work, V FOR VENDETTA, and, one would hope, FROM HELL), updating them from a slightly more mature perspective. This being the only Promethea I’ve read to date, it’s extremely difficult to judge the series as a whole, and I have no idea how many more issues it survived, though I can’t imagine that there were much. The thing that really strikes the outsider perspective is that, contrary to the interior, the cover artwork recalls Superman meeting Spider-Man in the 1970s, both in the poses by our eponymous heroine and the visiting Tom Strong, as well as the modified logos for each character.

THE SPECTRE #21 (DC)
From November 2002:

Astute observers will note the host in this particular series for the Spirit of Vengeance would be Hal Jordan, post-DAY OF JUDGMENT, the lost Geoff Johns event from 1999, whose existing memory now rests in GREEN LANTERN:REBIRTH and GREEN ARROW: QUIVER, and virtually nonexistent otherwise. It’s weird to think now that Hal spent so much time outside of his role as GL, that he went from villainous Parallax (“Emerald Twilight, ZERO HOUR) to penitent villain (masterful FINAL NIGHT) to a soul looking for redemption and finally right back to where he started and for most readers, all it will boil down to at this point is that Parallax was the Fear manifestation planted inside the Central Power Battery by Sinestro, who infected him and ruined his reputation for a while. That DC kept the character in print for the entire time he wasn’t a Green Lantern never seemed to be enough for his fans, even though it was a truly remarkable decision on the company’s part, completely unparalleled in the medium. That he was once the Spectre ought to remain a part of his legacy. Clearly his creators in this series believed they were continuing the narrative of his life: J.M. DeMatteis resurrects Sinestro (so this issue is actually pretty historic) for the first time, a painful process that speaks to the heart of both Sinestro and Hal, their rivalry, something that did not actually remain dormant from the Silver Age to REBIRTH, as it might sometimes seem. If anyone other than Geoff Johns ever wanted to explore that relationship in depth (including the mortal struggle in GREEN LANTERN #50, second series), DeMatteis would get my vote.

THE PRISONER: BOOK A (DC)
From 1988:

Dean Motter is one of those visionary creators who only periodically seems to receive the respect he’s due, sometimes known for MISTER X, for instance, when critics and companies are in the mood. If anyone could have produced a sequel to the classic 1960s surreal, metaphysical, existential TV series THE PRISONER, it’s Motter, and so of course he did that, too, even though it’s been allowed to be forgotten. (Then again, when THE SIMPSONS did a parody of the show, no one seemed to understand that, either.) THE PRISONER was recently brought back to mind by a TV remake and comparisons to LOST, which would make now a perfect time to reprint this sequel. Until such time, however, I will have to content myself with its introduction, and hope I’ll be able to read the rest of it at some undefined point in the future…

ACTION PHILOSOPHERS! #7 (Evil Twin)
From October 2006:

Fred Van Lente is better known for his superhero work, but his fans know him best as the writer for this series, which revisits historic philosophers in clever summaries of relevant thoughts and experiences. This particular issue revisits early Greek thinkers including Aristotle and the Pre-Socratics. Some readers have taken to criticizing the series by saying it trivializes and distorts its subject matter (something Van Lente gets to handle a bit of in this issue’s letters column), but seriously, if you expect any one interpretation of someone else’s thoughts or experiences to be authoritative, then that’s your bigger problem, and so I say, ACTION PHILOSOPHERS is easily one of my favorite comic book discoveries. This wasn’t my first issue (I’d love to read ’em all, since Van Lente presents a lively and concise perspective), and I am more familiar with his COMIC BOOK COMICS (covering comics history) efforts, not to mention dynamite Hercules stories with Greg Pak, but it’s a fine indication that I have more than sufficient material to claim Fred as one of my favorite creators.

The biggest story of Barry Allen's life

2011-11-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

When Geoff Johns reintroduced Barry Allen in THE FLASH: REBIRTH, he refashioned Barry’s personal arc to include the murder of his mother by the Reverse Flash, something that haunted him his whole life, and was the driving story of FLASHPOINT. Readers of an earlier generation had a different narrative, one recently reprinted in SHOWCASE PRESENTS: THE TRIAL OF THE FLASH, which featured twenty-four key issues from the last years of Barry’s life prior to his death in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, which include THE FLASH #s 323-327, 329-336, and 340-350, all the way to the end of the series, from a period that spanned 1983-1985.

Written by Cary Bates with art from Carmine Infantino, THE TRIAL OF THE FLASH covers Barry Allen’s murder of Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash, and subsequent legal troubles, and actually omits a considerable amount of relevant material, including the original inciting event, Thawne’s murder of Iris Allen, Barry’s wife, in THE FLASH #275 (though helpful editor’s notes reference every issue that predates those collected in the volume).

On a par with “Death in the Family” as one of the most shocking stories of the 1980s, Barry Allen’s ordeals stretched on for years and led directly to his famous death, in a fashion Grant Morrison might have been thinking about when he so deliberately juxtaposed “Batman R.I.P.” with FINAL CRISIS, an emotional crisis followed by a character’s “death,” (though admittedly, Barry stayed dead for twenty-three years, far longer than any other revival has taken in comics, aside from Ed Brubaker’s sensational Bucky Barnes comeback story).

The trial story arc was almost doomed to remain a forgotten element of The Flash’s legacy, something Mark Waid fondly recalled and liked to reference, but firmly entrenched in the back issue bins. While Barry’s death in CRISIS was one of the most famous events in comic book history his trial gradually faded into obscurity, uncollected for decades.

The storytelling constantly tends towards the melodramatic, and feels incredibly dated, but the story itself is still remarkably compelling, and is no doubt the reason why it was finally reprinted, even if it’s in black and white; at nearly six hundred pages it’s unlikely and in fact nearly impossible for so much material to have been collected any other way, at least in one volume. Given the nature of the way it was written, this is the best way to read the trial experience and receive maximum impact.

Bates was able to write something like this because he knew that sales were down and that the character was scheduled to die (a fate referenced in the final issue a number of ways, including the concluding line, “And they lived happily ever after…for a while…” which is itself more than enough to mark the story as memorable) and be replaced by Wally West, who carried the mantle for more than two decades, in the process and with the help of Waid and Johns virtually eclipse his predecessor’s legacy. Predating in-continuity game-changers like IDENTITY CRISIS and CIVIL WAR, Barry’s trial marked a transition that left superheroes exposed to the problems of the real world for the first time. Given that his first appearance brought in the Silver Age (not to mention his meeting with the original Flash indirectly leading both to the event that killed him and the one that brought him back), the fact that Barry Allen helped make history again long deserved to be preserved in popular memory.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: THE TRIAL OF THE FLASH is arguably the most important reprint of the past few years, and it is also entertaining, enlightening (Barry murders Thawne as the villain is about to murder Barry’s second bride-to-be, and who even knew he had any other relationships besides Iris?), and full of classic encounters, featuring the infamous Rogues Gallery and an assortment of other foes, as well as a key moment in the ongoing war between the Flash and the Reverse Flash. While Sinestro may be an on-and-off member of Hal Jordan’s own Green Lantern Corps and General Zod may be another Kryptonian, neither has made it their life’s purpose the way Eobard Thawne has to make his foe’s life a living hell. If such a conflict led to such a moment as featured in this story, then it surely deserves to be memorialized.

***

Read The Trial as a Flashpoint!

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Quarter Bin #22 "Smattering of DC from 1986-2002"

2011-11-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

NIGHTWING SECRET FILES & ORIGINS
From October 1999.

DC’s SECRET FILES & ORIGINS specials were some of the best things the company did in the 1990s, and something I still wish they’d bring back. This one, obviously, spotlights Dick Grayson from a few months after I was forced to abandon comics for the first time (I should probably reiterate, because 2011 hasn’t exactly seemed to prove it so far here at Comics Reader, but for economic reasons I’ve “retired” from collecting new comics for the second time), just three years after his first series launched. As readers will remember, Dick assigned himself to the We-only-wish-we-were-as-good-as-Gotham neighbor Bludhaven, which was filled with police corruption so thick Chuck Dixon’s Dudley Soames beat Geoff Johns’ Hunter Zolomon by a few years as a police inspector who later turned into a villain (Soames becoming the subsequently underutilized Torque, while Zolomon became the new Reverse Flash). It was during this time that Dick sort of became DC’s Daredevil, with Blockbuster becoming Bludhaven’s Kingpin (with an epic payoff Devin Grayson got to script; it still kills me that her tenure still gets very little respect). The contents were typically stellar: beyond profiles of characters relevant to the series (including a new villain named Shrike who apparently had close ties to Dick) and a chronology from the rise of Robin to the most recent developments in the NIGHTWING series; to a couple of short stories, one of which is written by Dixon with art from Scott McDaniel (the blockbuster team from the earliest run on the book) and actually involves a nod to Jason Todd and two by Devin Grayson, one harking back to the Wolfman/Perez Titans and the other to Dick’s torturous history with women. In short, this is a perfect book for any fan of Dick Grayson, from 1999 and even in 2011, something that will remind readers just how much potential the character has, as well as his rich history.

SUPERBOY #100
From July 2002.

The final issue of the modern Superboy’s first series is perhaps a good indication that at least at that point he really was ready to take a break. The fun starts off with Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett reuniting one more time (they were the creative team who helped launch the character in 1993, as well as the series, and a return engagement hugely inspired by Jack Kirby at the midpoint of the series), marred only by Grummett’s decreased ability (or willingness) to replicate the style he’d made famous throughout the previous decade (he’s one artist who should either be absolutely consistent or completely change his style, because his work in this issue is almost painful to see). From there, the creative team that’d been working on the book in its final issues takes over, and consists of Jimmy Palmiotti and Dan DiDio as writers (and it’s worth noting that DiDio did begin his DC tenure as a writer, which makes his current efforts, which began a few years ago with THE OUTSIDERS not as much of a stretch as some fans might believe) and John McCrea somehow doing even worse art than Grummett-in-this-issue. Clearly the new team had attempted to push Superboy in a completely new direction, almost completely revamping him (which is something I hate for creative teams to do, ignoring someone else’s continuity and replacing it with something that isn’t as interesting but is superficially similar and in short not inspired in the least). The elements they worked with might have actually worked with only a few keys differences (first of which would have been a different artist), but as it is, this left Superboy free to be reimagined by Geoff Johns (who had retroactively-famously proposed his vision in SUPERBOY’s letters column years earlier), and in turn receive a complete reboot this year as part of the New 52, which was probably for the best.

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #65
From August 1992.

As I wrote about in QB #19, Dan Jurgens and his brief run with the Justice League is probably more memorable to me than for most fans, and a large part of that is the debut of a subsequently obscure character, Bloodwynd. I have a feeling that Dan’s whole run with the League was meant to hinge around the “Doomsday” story (which as of this issue was only about five months ahead), and so it was probably shorter than he’d intended, or at least readers like me would’ve hoped. Maxima, who’s apparently returning in the New 52 with a more alien look, is in the spotlight this issue.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #10
From February 1988.

From the early days of the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire run, it shows because the classic line-up isn’t even in place yet, but the spirit of the enterprise already well on display. There are four Green Lanterns featured in this issue, one of them being Hal Jordan, and all the others members who don’t really matter in the modern era (Arisia, who comes closest; G’Nort, who is actually referred to as Gnort in this early appearance; and Katma Tui, who was Soranik Natu’s predecessor as Sinestro’s successor). Features the Manhunters and is a “Millennium” crossover from Week 5 (so says the cover!).

SECRET ORIGINS #2
From May 1986.

From the post-CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS version of the New 52 reboot comes this dual origin for the original Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, and his subsequent replacement, Ted Kord, from Len Wein and Gil Kane. It’d be interesting what a modern creator could do with either one, because what’s presented here hasn’t exactly dated very well. Still, extremely interesting to have, including the Beetle publishing history included in the letters column.

STARMAN #80
From August 2001.

The final issue of James Robinson’s epic (before the Blackest Night resurrection issue) is something I felt like reading long before the Omnibus business I talked about a few months back (and in fact thanks very much to the Blackest Night issue, to link these parenthetical phrases). As expected from the style of the series, the issue deals with Jack Knight’s farewell to Opal and his supporting cast, and in Robinson’s own farewell note, THE SHADE series that has only now just been undertaken is referenced, in case you were keeping score.

Opening the Black Casebook

2011-11-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it’s no big secret that I greatly admire Grant Morrison as a creator. Perhaps the thing I admire most about him is his ability to synthesize stories from disparate or unusual elements, or otherwise his ability to approach storytelling from a unique perspective. Often, and certainly earlier in his career, Morrison tended toward the cultural fringe, and may or may not have exaggerated his personal connections to that element in order to promote his work. Starting in 1996 with the first issues of JLA, he began to tend toward the mainstream, as symbolized by his willingness to write mainstream superhero stories, though certainly from a continuing Morrisonian bent.

His ongoing Batman saga dates back to a request he received in 1995 to work on the Dark Knight, but Morrison didn’t actually begin until a decade later. He didn’t want to do the kind of material that other creators were doing, but rather approach the franchise from a fresh perspective, one that took in the entirety of Batman’s legacy, the disparate eras and characterizations that sometimes seemed to contradict not only each other but the general understanding of what Bruce Wayne had become following the deaths of his parents and his vow of vengeance on the criminal element. What intrigued Morrison most was embracing the most improbable elements, and this he took to mean material that was created during the 1950s and ’60s. He envisioned a rationale that would make this scenario work, the general grind of crime-fighting in the midst of villains with outrageous toxins at their disposal, and thus began his epic saga of Doctor Hurt, the Black Glove, and the Black Casebook.

This is one of the advantages of the DC approach as compared to Marvel’s, which has attempted to reconcile the same continuity decade after decade, while DC has periodically reinvented itself (such as the recent “New 52,” but stretching all the way back to the Silver Age, when the Justice Society was separated from the ongoing careers of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, whose origins kept shifting forward while their contemporaries eventually became their predecessors, and even a completely separate reality). (Some writers such as Allan Heinberg, who is admittedly an outsider as it is, break the Marvel rules with such concepts as the Young Avengers.) Where some will see obvious distinctions and styles, others like Morrison will see opportunities to exploit and interpret in new and interesting ways. (A character like the Joker, for instance, has been portrayed so many ways, he is sometimes described as literally reinventing himself, behavior that certainly suits him.)

BATMAN: THE BLACK CASEBOOK is a collection of stories Morrison helped formulate, most of which consist of ideas and characters he brought back during “Batman R.I.P.” and earlier adventures, and a few merely representative oddities. It is meant to give an authoritative and definitive archive to the origins of Morrison’s tales. Of course, it is also a reprint volume of old material. In that regard, it’s doubtful many modern readers will care much for its contents. As a window into Morrison’s mind, it’s at least worth investigating.

There are three key ancestor creators included, the most important of them being Bill Finger, who succeeded Batman creator Bob Kane as the character’s driving force (he was the original writer, it might be noted, and so shares a certain amount of credit with the artist Kane). The others are France Herron and Edmond Hamilton. I’ll talk about their individual contributions shortly. As a whole, they are more important, at least once Morrison brought their ideas together, than modern readers can truly appreciate. Sometimes it’s a little difficult to remember that comic book creators from decades past didn’t just create memorable characters or support a fledgling medium, but had stories that are actually worth remembering, too. That’s the crux of what Morrison realized, that writing comics isn’t just about coming up with ideas but borrowing from someone else’s legacy (which is much what writing in any medium is about).

1951’s BATMAN #65 saw Bill Finger introduce the concept of Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated. Clearly, he already had Robin at this point, so even the Boy Wonder was startled by the events that unfold, his sidelining and apparent replacement by Wingman, whom Batman is actually training to serve as a surrogate in Europe. The fact that Wingman was lost to time until Morrison started looking outside of Gotham City, as few writers had before him, for inspiration about how to expand Batman’s legacy doesn’t lessen the impact of Finger’s idea. What was a random story in 1951 became a part of a deliberate continuity in someone else’s hands. Finger himself inadvertently adds to that legacy in 1956’s DETECTIVE COMICS #235, in which Bruce Wayne reopens the murder investigation of his parents when he learns that his father once dawned a Batman costume (an anecdote I first read in Len Wein, Jim Aparo, and John Byrne’s forgotten UNTOLD LEGEND OF BATMAN, originally published in 1982). Next come 1957’s DETECTIVE COMICS #247 and BATMAN #112, in which Batman battles the psychological attacks of Professor Milo, clearly anticipating Morrison’s Dr. Hurt, but not as much as BATMAN #156 FROM 1963, in which Batman actually suffers from delusions he must shake off (an echo of Morrison’s complete saga to date, from “R.I.P.” to FINAL CRISIS to THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE, in which he suffers a mental assault or two and a dramatic journey that finally snaps him out of it). Of course, Finger also introduces Bat-Mite in 1959’s DETECTIVE COMICS #267, as well as the random “Rainbow Creature” story from 1960’s BATMAN #134.

France Herron has two key inclusions, one being the predecessor to Morrison’s Man-of-Bats in 1954’s BATMAN #86 and, more importantly, the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh in 1958’s BATMAN #113, basically uniting two of the three key elements that Morrison would later combine (other Batmen, psychological tests, and strange cases). Building on what Finger had done three years earlier, Herron introduces a Native American ally for Batman (later eras would find it easier to use existing characters from other properties, hence such associations as the Justice League and the Outsiders) and then a completely alien one, both of whom were inspired by the Dark Knight’s exploits. Batman himself finds his experiences on the alien world of Zur-En-Arrh almost unbelievable, and requires a token to ground his memories. Ironically, Morrison would later use Zur-En-Arrh as a kind of grounding element for Batman’s mind, not to mention borrowing the counterpart’s whole costume (which, if you knew none of this, you would have assumed was Batman simply creating a makeshift costume from rags, as indeed it looks in the updated appearance during “R.I.P.”), and “Zur-En-Arrh” as simply a nonsense phrase he concocted from some religious experience in his past.

Finally, there’s Edmond Hamilton. He does more than Finger or Herron could have by adopting wholesale the concept of other Batmen, beginning in 1955’s DETECTIVE COMICS 215, introducing Knight & Squire (whom Morrison would later update during his JLA tenure, adding them to the Ultramarine Corps) as well as Musketeer, Legionary, Gaucho, and Ranger, all of whom represent a given country. He brings most of them back in 1957’s WORLD’S FINEST #89 (which ironically features Superman adopting a second heroic identity while he’s processing his own identity crisis), which formally introduces the Club of Heroes, as well as John Mayhew. Whether inspired by Finger and Herron or not, Hamilton is clearly the biggest source of eventual inspiration for Morrison. Had he consulted with his contemporaries, Hamilton might have started the game earlier, if stories were written like that back then. (The reason I’m so keen to support BATWING from the “New 52” is that it takes the full weight of Batman, Inc. off of Morrison’s shoulders for the first time.)

The last issue in the collection is 1964’s uncredited BATMAN #162, another random tale that at least makes a reference to Batman’s permanent files, whether or not it’s directly related to Morrison’s overarching concept of the black casebook itself (could just be an irony), and happens to feature Batwoman, another part of the continuing Batman legacy.

A lot of “R.I.P.” was an echo of “Knightfall,” the famous trial Bane (soon to be seen in Christopher Nolan’s DARK KNIGHT RISES) put Batman through only a few years before Grant Morrison first began crafting his epic, so in the sense that the Dark Knight was put through a psychological trial was not in itself completely new, far from it, considering Batman’s co-creator was telling such stories half a century earlier. What sets Morrison apart is his willingness to take even the silly elements seriously, with a character many modern readers will only take seriously if the character himself is taken seriously (the continuing legacy of Adam West’s campy TV version), recognizing that Batman represents a considerable suspension of disbelief already. Assumed to be a great detective, a great athlete, a great hero, and a great inspiration, he has endured countless interpretations since his creation in 1939. Finger, Herron, and Hamilton all recognized that his legacy even in his fictional world would be great, and that the challenge to defeat him would be ever-present. Morrison simply brought all these elements together in a credible way.

THE BLACK CASEBOOK isn’t just a souvenir from “R.I.P.” but a testament to that enduring legacy. You don’t need to know that Grant Morrison borrowed many of the elements featured in its tales to enjoy them; rather, you can enjoy the fact that many writers have been greatly inspired by Batman over the years, and some of them have had certain common inspirations. Morrison is just the latest. A lot of readers tend to be intimidated by his work, so if anything, BLACK CASEBOOK is his own way of deflating some of that aura, by acknowledging that his Batman stories came from his predecessors, that all he did was bring all of it together.

Quarter Bin #21 "Chronos, Hourman, and Enginehead"

2011-11-02T15:43:00.001-07:00

This edition we’ll be discussing a few deliberate back issue discoveries, from series I only wish I’d read regularly, but absolutely do not deserve to be forgotten.

CHRONOS #11 (DC)
From February 1999.

Almost like James Robinson’s STARMAN, this was a series that took a completely different look at an established property. Chronos was originally a villain, but in this incarnation a time-traveling hero with his own complex mythology, which this particular issue, the final of the series, amply demonstrates. Writer John Francis Moore and artist Paul Guinan put together a comic that could have easily been a part of the Vertigo line in the modern era, but at the time was included in the regular DC universe, a mistake for a series that seemed to flaunt expectations and instead opt for style and substance. It would make a handsome addition to anyone’s trade paperback collection, if it were ever collected. Instead it remains a gem waiting to be discovered.

HOURMAN #24 (DC)
From March 2001.

Tom Peyer and Rags Morales were charged with another book that would have perfectly suited the tastes of STARMAN readers; I have the feeling that it didn’t because it featured a more traditional take on superheroes than Jack Knight was ever interesting in fulfilling. The Hourman featured in this issue is the human Rex Tyler, the traditional representation, but the one of the series was the short-lived robotic replacement from Grant Morrison’s DC ONE MILLION, who co-starred in JSA before its relaunch. This is one issue removed from the conclusion of the series, which the creators are careful to say in the letters column as being natural rather than strictly sales-mandated. Like CHRONOS, HOURMAN would make a fantastic series of trade collections if demand were strong enough to warrant it, but can instead remain a worthy find in the back issue bins.

ENGINEHEAD #5 (DC)
From October 2004.

Joe Kelly and Ted McKeever deliver one of the stronger mainstream superhero comics, which would probably suit the modern Image line far better than it could possibly ever have the audience it did have at the time. Six issues, possibly always intended to be a mini-series, and that was it, but ENGINEHEAD was just one of those books I knew as soon as I heard about it was worth checking out, and this was from just about the time I was starting to get back into comics, so it’s remarkable that I even heard about this one, and probably the only reason I ever heard about it. Otherwise, it’s a lost peculiarity at worst, and another buried treasure of the back issue bin at best.

DC has regularly attempted launches for unusual characters, new versions of old characters, and most of them will never have a shot at longevity. YOUNG HEROES IN LOVE is another one of these books, and there are so many out there. I don’t mean to suggest, as many commentators do, that these fringe titles are better than their mainstream counterparts, but that they’re worth supporting, even well after they’ve gone out of print. As far as comic books go, it’s almost more interesting that way.

A Game of Dreams

2011-11-01T11:39:00.001-07:00

Beyond a doubt one of the most famous and critically-acclaimed comic books of the past twenty years, Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN helped usher the Vertigo revolution and remains one of the most visible works of the medium.

Neil Gaiman himself has become a successful and popular novelist since the conclusion of SANDMAN in 1996, writing such acclaimed books as AMERICAN GODS, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, and NEVERMORE. I’ve read AMERICAN GODS as well as its sequel, ANANSI BOYS, plus his collaboration with Terry Pratchett, GOOD OMENS and short story collection FRAGILE THINGS, so I consider myself a fan of his work, but have never read SANDMAN the whole way through. When the series began in 1988, I was very far from being a member of the target audience (not the least because I was eight and wouldn’t become an actual comics reader for about five years). Even when I did start reading comics, SANDMAN was so far advanced, it didn’t seem like a smart thing to try and jump in, and not just because I read mostly superhero stories at that point, and the longer I didn’t read it, the easier it became not to.

As the years progressed, I couldn’t help but hear the continuous stream of accolades directed toward SANDMAN, especially as Gaiman’s reputation as a novelist expanded. I read the odd back issue I managed to come across without directly seeking them out, caught a reprint of the first issue, became suitably impressed, but still, there was a lot to this series, seventy-five issues and ten trade collections, all of which would have been easier to follow had I started in 1988 or been an eager collector of trade collections (the former of which we’ve already established, and the latter something I’ve been working on for a long time); so for the longest time I maintained my marginal experience of SANDMAN, despite a growing interest in its creator.

Stands to reason that I’ve since bought a trade, being the first volume, PRELUDES & NOCTURNES and gotten around to reading it. The Neil Gaiman I know from the books I’ve read is heavily interested in mythology, though not necessarily from a traditional approach. AMERICAN GODS, after all, deals with immigrants mistakenly bringing their old religions with them, sort of spiritual baggage that causes a link for these gods in unfamiliar and unappreciative territory (think how we view Greek gods as more narrative than spiritual entities; actually think that and read GODS BEHAVING BADLY, which is a fine little book from Marie Phillips which is being made into a film).

I knew from my experience with the first issue of SANDMAN that Morpheus begins his journey after being trapped in the world of man, with unexpected consequences for his captors and the greater world around them. The rest of PRELUDES & NOCTURNES, the first eight issues, originally published between 1988 and 1989, describes his escape and reclamation of the things that were stolen from him, the totems and tools he needs to perform his job as representative of Dream from a collective known as the Endless that oversees all human affairs.

Since I had no real experience with the series, I didn’t know what to expect, the tone of it, except my prior experiences with Gaiman in other stories. I didn’t quite expect a horror series, and possibly it’s not very reflective of the series as a whole, given the comments from Gaiman and editor Karen Berger included in the volume, but clearly the initial style was hugely influenced by the horror comics of decades past. Possibly as a tenuous link to its origins within the greater DC universe, the first batch of issues draws heavily from established continuity, whether Doctor Destiny, whose criminal career is revealed to have a debt from the entrapment of Morpheus, or the Golden Age Sandman, Wesley Dodds (who would gain his own Vertigo series, SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE, possibly as a direct result of Gaiman’s SANDMAN). Even Martian Manhunter makes an appearance, briefly.

By the time perky Goth chick Death appears in the eighth issue, the horror stylings and pace have slowed, and Gaiman finally starts to settle in to an examination of his central character’s possibilities, and not strictly his particulars. Needless to say, that was probably for the best, and helped SANDMAN attain a kind of timeless, expansive quality.

The first volume is worth a look. I have a feeling that the other nine are more involving. I’ll get around to them eventually.

Karl Kesel is a Mad Genius

2011-10-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

Just here plugging Karl Kesel's new web project, Mad Genius Comics, which currently features "Johnny Zombie Christmas," a take on the 12 Days of Christmas (so, in poem form!).

I've been a fan of Karl Kesel since his Superman work in the 1990s, and generally of zombies since they first walked onto the scene (feel free to laugh at that). I love that he's taken a kind of Shaun of the Dead approach to "Johnny Zombie."

Definitely something to keep an eye on!

Green Lantern: A Reappraisal

2011-10-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog will already know that I loved this past summer's Green Lantern, now released on home video. The reappraisal in the title of this post isn't intended to suggest I've changed this opinion, but that I continually hope others might change theirs.

I've suggested previously that Green Lantern may have suffered because of its ambition, to introduce a whole franchise to mass audiences and be expansive about it, and that is a statement I will stand by. I think another problem is that it's such a hard property to reconcile with the other big screen superhero adventures audiences have enjoyed to date, a little more context is needed to understand it and what it was meant to accomplish.

The movie is similar in many ways to The Departed, the Martin Scorsese gangster flick about a dualogy centered on Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon working opposite ends of a case that hopes to bring down Jack Nicholson. DiCaprio is the good cop who is disguised as a bad thug; Damon is the bad thug disguised as a good cop. The parallel structure of the storytelling continues throughout the film; as Damon grows in confidence and unfluence, DiCaprio unravels to a breaking point. Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) and Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) are set about a similar trajectory.

Hal is the privileged son who keeps screwing up his life because he lacks full confidence in himself. Hector is the privileged son whose life keeps getting screwed up because he has failed to earn any respect in his life. Both pivot their emotional lives around absent fathers and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), a potential love interst neither truly deserves, because they themselves won't allow the possibility.

Hal of course becomes a hero, and Hector a villain. The difference truly comes when Hector embraces his new role, and Hal doesn't.

Green Lantern is a different hero from what audiences have traditionally been presented in that he is thrust into a tradition and alliance. It's his ability to understand this that sets Hal apart, and the failure of the audience to do the same that spoils the film's chances of being considered a success. Hal's real allies are Carol and Tom (Taika Waititi, who deserves a shoutout for his scene-stealing role), not his GL Corpsmen Sinestro (Mark Strong), Tomar-Re (Geoffrey Rush) or Kilowog (Michael Clarek Duncan), but that's just for now (but don't tell anyone!), and his relationships with them are as important as anything else in the story.

His relationship with fear is also why the villain is the "big gas cloud" Parallax, why the climax involves willpower more than anything, because that's what Green Lantern is all about, both the concept and the film (wisely).

If The Departed is about identity, then Green Lantern is about self-knowledge. It's a superhero film but it's also a comedy and a drama and a sci-fi epic. And it handles all these aspects so well it's confusing to anyone who thought superheroes were only one-dimensional (even after The Dark Knight), who counted on them to be flashy action flicks with colorfully-dressed individuals colliding in big explosions.

So, I beg for further consideration of one of the year's best films.

Quarter Bin #20 "Another Flashpoint"

2011-10-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

I became something of a eager cheerleader for Geoff Johns’ FLASHPOINT this summer, enjoying not only the alternate reality and the ways it shed new light on familiar characters, but how Johns shaped everything around Barry Allen, The Flash.

Do you want to know something funny? There was another FLASHPOINT more than a decade ago that did exactly the same thing.

I became aware of this other FLASHPOINT by digging through the back issue bins at Heroes & Dragons late in the summer. That’s one of the great things about comics, how you can discover something totally new about a character you thought you already knew everything about, because creators in this medium are constantly and fearlessly reexamining and reinventing the mythology (which is I suppose another reason why I prefer DC over Marvel, because of its willingness to do this on a near-constant basis, as evidenced most famously recently by the “New 52”).

During the 1990s, DC made a habit of this instinct with its series of Elseworlds specials, many of which focused on Batman and Superman (naturally), which more or less culminated in KINGDOM COME (though for some fans, SUPERMAN: RED SON is a more recent exemplar), alternate versions of familiar characters from a post-CRISIS era missing multiple realities. SUPERBOY and THE KINGDOM introduced the concept of Hypertime, and that was the first chink in the armor and dignity of Elseworlds, and then 52 came around and brought back the traditional concept of multiple earths that had come to symbolize the greater DC approach to storytelling, and became a heavy feature of COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS. When Elseworlds more or less became mainstream, it lost all forward momentum as an independent entity (let that be a lesson to Marvel’s Ultimate line, but that’s really a completely different story) and disappeared from the publishing schedule altogether.

Before that happened, however, before the most recent FLASHPOINT altered reality to a kind of event Elseworlds, there was another FLASHPOINT. Officially:

FLASHPOINT #s 1-3 (DC)
From December 1999 to February 2000.

Considered the first regular format Elseworlds mini-series (KINGDOM COME had been prestige format; even THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS might be considered a retroactive Elseworlds tale), this FLASHPOINT also featured Barry Allen, deep in the heart of Wally West time, after Mark Waid had successfully transformed him into one of DC’s hottest characters, and before Geoff Johns formally claimed him for the next five years. Written by Pat McGreal and featuring art by Norm Breyfogle (not to mention covers by Stuart Immonen) , the original FLASHPOINT examined an alternate timeline where Barry was paralyzed early in his career, which resulted in a drastically altered reality in which he struggles to make science instead of The Flash to be his lasting legacy.

Before I talk too much about it, though, I want to return to the subject of how I ended up discovering it. I say “discover” because until I found it in the back issue bins, I hadn’t been aware of its existence, since it was originally published during the early period of my first and most permanent (at the time) break from comics, which began earlier in 1999 and lasted roughly for the next five years. Though I tried to keep tabs of the major developments during that time, something like FLASHPOINT would have been hopelessly unnoticed, something only active readers would have been aware of, especially since it didn’t feature Batman or Superman.

I didn’t know what I’d found, obviously. I bought only the first issue, even though the first two were available. After reading it, I felt like a fool, because the storytelling and art were timeless, just as relevant in 2011 as when they were originally published. Frantically, and because at the time I only had access to Escape Velocity on the other side of Colorado Springs, I hoped I might find the remaining issues, but to no avail. At the next opportunity, I revisited Heroes & Dragons, and as I’d hoped, the second issue was still there, but then, only that one. The third and concluding chapter remained elusive. I visited the Internet in hopes of remedying this, but it appeared that I would be out of luck. That issue was either unavailable or prohibitively priced. I believe some readers were mistaking one FLASHPOINT for another at that time. A little while later, though, I tried again. This time FLASHPOINT #3 was reasonably priced. I didn’t hesitate. Soon I’d read the whole story.

There are several intriguing elements to FLASHPOINT, not the least that it features Barry Allen, and Wally West only in a marginal capacity. It pivots around the assassination of JFK; actually, in this Elseworlds tale, Kennedy lives, because Barry saves him, at the cost of his own paralysis. While a part of the reader (assuming they’re as happy as I am for Kennedy to receive a second lease on life) is happy at this change in the timeline, there’s also a permeating sadness that the Fastest Man Alive has been confined to a wheelchair (not specifically for the first time in comics lore; consider THE FLASH ANNUAL #7 from 1994, part of a year that featured Elseworlds across all the annuals), that he still makes a difference in the world, but from a position of impotence. His partner in science is none other than Vandal Savage, a specter over most of the stories, since he is most traditionally depicted as a villain. Those expecting McGreal to spring his villainy in a typically over-the-top manner will be pleasantly surprised. It’s the restraint of the tale that truly brightens it.

Pat McGreal is not a creator I was previously overly familiar with, so FLASHPOINT serves as a touchstone to a brilliant career that has otherwise been obscured by the passage of time. That alone is reason enough to publicize the existence of this other FLASHPOINT. The book itself deserves recognition. As popular or talked-about as The Flash has been in the past twenty years, it’s a franchise that has remained remarkably restrained in spinoff material (which makes the fact that Geoff Johns made his FLASHPOINT all the more remarkable). When the existence of something like the 1999-2000 FLASHPOINT becomes known, it’s understandable but lamentable that it has been allowed to sink away from memory. I don’t know whether the competing FLASHPOINT will compound that error or make it easier to overcome. If someone creates another FLASHPOINT a decade from now, maybe the legacy will lift them all up together.

Until such point, it may simply remain a treasure of the back issue bins.

The New 22

2011-10-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

Confession time: this reformed Comics Reader comics junkie has been relapsing in the past month, thanks to the dastardly “New 52” from DC Comics. I’ve made several trips to Heroes & Dragons, and even bought some comics at Barnes & Noble (the evil remainders from the loss of Borders). Heroes hasn’t exactly made (or perhaps been in the position to) a solid effort to support the “New 52,” so there are notable omissions from the comics I intended to at least sample, including NIGHTWING, RED HOOD & THE OUTLAWS, WONDER WOMAN, and BLACKHAWKS). I’ve heard plenty about the supposed controversy surrounding “sexy” Starfire in OUTLAWS, disappointment that DC didn’t take the opportunity to align their comics version of the character with the cartoon variation kids enjoyed last decade. Maybe I was concentrating too much on Jason Todd finally getting his own series, but I never saw this one coming. If none of those kids picked up an actual regular DC comic in all the time since TEEN TITANS animated itself on the small screen, “New 52” would never have made a difference. Starfire in OUTLAWS is perfectly consistent with the character as comics fans have known her since her debut. Why should that have changed? Because some Internet commentators wanted to draw attention to themselves?

Anyway, so as suggested, I bought twenty-two new comics over the past handful of weeks, not all of them from the “New 52,” so let’s dive in without further adieu.

GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS #1 (DC)
Kyle Rayner debuted eighteen years ago in the aftermath of Hal Jordan’s descent into Parallax. Writer Tony Bedard, charged with launching a new series featuring Kyle, figured it was a great time to remember the circumstances fans first got to know him, as a recipient of a ring from the apparent last Guardian of the Universe, Ganthet. The thing I’ve liked about Bedard (career highlight: THE GREAT TEN) is his sense of context and continuity, not just continuity itself, but how it fits into a given story. Here he continues the same general continuity the Green Lantern franchise enjoyed before the “New 52” reboot, with a story about various members of the spectrum corps (Red Lanterns, Sinestro Corpsmen, Star Sapphires, and the Indigo tribe) losing their rings, which come into the possession of Kyle Rayner. Naturally, none of them are very happy about this, and just as he was eighteen years ago, Kyle is just as confused by events. I heard this comic referred to as a reboot of Kyle’s origin, which it isn’t (though, sadly, the iconic NIN shirt is gone), since it clearly moves a different story along, a new one, which expands and develops things we’re already familiar with. That’s what makes Bedard so valuable a commodity at DC, that he’s able to do this with a wide variety of characters most creators and readers wouldn’t even have considered briefly, certainly not in the way he does. I look forward to the day his skills are widely appreciated. Being a part of the “New 52” certainly can’t hurt those chances.

FAME: CONAN O’BRIEN (Bluewater)
Formerly the home of indy superhero comics, Bluewater has reshaped its identity in recent years as the biographer of choice for pop personalities, hoping to carve out a niche in a crowded market. Like the above title, I got this one at Barnes & Noble. Conan is certainly a remarkable figure, a cult favorite among humor aficionados and subject of the latest TONIGHT SHOW controversy. Most fans are already familiar with the outlines of his career, including his stint as writer for THE SIMPSONS, but this is a nice summary of his life to this point.

THE SHADE #1 (DC)
As an earlier blog indicated, I’ve become a fan of James Robinson’s STARMAN, and so eagerly anticipated an announced Shade follow-up mini-series, though I had no idea when it was scheduled to be launched, being somewhat out of the loop these days. As it turned out, earlier this month, which I found out with perfect timing. The Blackest Night STARMAN #81 issue was a great reminder that Shade is a worthy and engaging subject in himself, and this first issue of his own book more than supports that belief, both supporting his mystique and subtly pushing at its boundaries. Given that this will be a full twelve issues, one might almost wonder why DC didn’t make it a part of the official “New 52” slate, given that it’s hardly likely all fifty-two titles will survive to even that length, but I guess “optimism” was the word of that particular day.

AQUAMAN #1 (DC)
The subject of so many attempts at ongoing series that a cornerstone of DC became a very public joke (as Raj on THE BIG BANG THEORY says, “Aquaman sucks”), it’s a wonder this guy was tapped by none other than Geoff Johns to be his next big project, beginning in the pages of BRIGHTEST DAY. Here, as in that book, we have ample reason to believe Johns knew exactly what he was doing, since once again he seems to have grasped what so many writers before him failed to, and that’s the intrinsic worth, and not just the mythology, of the character. That is to say, Johns understands what Aquaman is, what he’s about, and his potential as the star of his own series, not just as the dude who talks to fish and is associated with an underwater kingdom. So many writers have attempted to do everything but (the cosmetic changes Peter David created were a good effort, but didn’t really affect the intrinsic perception that Aquaman himself wasn’t interesting), even replacing him with an heir (Tad Williams did a good job to that end, to little credit), it’s refreshing that someone the caliber of Geoff Johns is finally taking the direct approach, while Aquaman actually has some momentum (both from BRIGHTEST DAY and a key role in FLASHPOINT).

ANIMAL MAN #1 (DC)
Jeff Lemire is the latest of the fresh faces to be called up to the big leagues, and this book absolutely has the feel of Grant Morrison’s own ANIMAL MAN, a piercing look into the character’s greater potential, not just “dude who can mimic animals.” Ever since Morrison, DC has had some idea that Buddy Baker is a worthwhile property, and since 52 he’s been the subject of perennial efforts to keep his name in the air, even the subject of a “last days” mini-series that was mildly intriguing, but seemed to take him back a step, keeping the focus on his apparent Starfire obsession and off his potential. Lemire seems to have done everything possible to take Buddy back to the land of Morrison, short of actually copying the metaphysical ambitions. Instead, he seems to have discovered that Animal Man, at his best, may in fact be ideal material for horror.

MARVEL SEASON ONE GUIDE (Marvel)
This was a freebie (always nice!) advertising the company’s 2012 slate of “season one” graphic novels, which seem to be as much about giving readers a starting point for Marvel’s most popular characters as providing a spotlight for creators they might expect to join their “Architects” in the future, including writers Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Anthony Johnston, and Cullen Bunn. I’m not convinced these things are going to be anything but fairly standard origin rehashes, based on the previews, which is kind of disappointing, but the idea may yet be worth keeping in mind, especially for a company apparently convinced, Ultimate comics aside, that continuity is something that fits in a comics bin.

SEVERED #3 (Image)
Scott Snyder is a writer everyone seems to have become excited about. Whether in the pages of AMERICAN VAMPIRE, DETECTIVE COMICS, or the “New 52” BATMAN, he’s being hyped as the next big thing. This is a more modest-sized work, but has a ton in common with AMERICAN VAMPIRE. Co-written by Scott Tuft, it’s another urchin’s tale of running into unexpected danger, and on that score is a little disappointing to see so directly reflected in other work, no matter how engaging this particular iteration may be.

AVENGERS 1959 #1 (Marvel)
Howard Chaykin is one of those veteran-of-many-decades creators who just keeps working, seemingly any way he sees fit (DIE HARD: YEAR ONE was a recent favorite), regardless of how little acclaim he unjustly seems to enjoy these days. This book is set in the Marvel proper, so features Nick Fury as he’s been traditionally depicted (how confused fans of the movies and comics must be, far more than those disgruntled Starfire fanatics!), so no Ultimate Samuel L. Jackson here, and comes packaged with a bunch of known historical figures, including Victor Creed (Sabretooth), Sergei Kravinoff (Kraven the Hunter) and Aquaria Nautica Neptunia (Namora), a sort of full-Marvel version of Jonathan Hickman’s S.H.I.E.L.D. As usual, Chaykin dives right into his adventure, all fast and loose, allowing the clash of male and female impulses drive his scenes without concern to unwarranted feminist complaints. Any time there’s new Chaykin, there’s cause for celebration. Anytime an Avengers project doesn’t follow the Bendis Expansion Principle or cater to the upcoming and extant film work, it’s got to be worth applauding.

VENGEANCE #3 (Marvel)
Joe Casey must be some kind of madman, since he’s unleashed this madcap superhero adventure and nobody seems to have noticed. “Madcap” is the only way to describe it, and “madman” is the only way to characterize Casey, since there’s no other explanation possible, for work of this quality that has gone completely under the radar. VENGEANCE is one of those comics that hopes readers will somehow be able to keep up, because it proceeds at a breakneck speed, exactly how real superheroes in the traditional comic book sense would probably be operating, with all typical restraints finally loosed. The “Brand New Day” Doctor Octopus is featured here, along with a slew of new heroes. All of it would probably make more sense if I’d read the first two issues first. But the energy is catching.

STAR TREK #1 (IDW)
Mike Johnson and Stephen Molnar make an ideal team to begin the further adventures of the J.J. Abrams-verse, adapting episodes of the original STAR TREK TV series, beginning with “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Introducing Gary Mitchell into this reality is the most interesting aspect of the issue, since this new Trek needs at least one character to draw upon to work properly. It’s a little disappointing that the comic ends up feeling episodic, especially since it’s the first new adventure featuring characters who spent most of their time defining themselves in a fast-paced quest, but if Mitchell is to be our anchor, it’s at least appropriate.

THE FLASH #1 (DC)
I was disappointed to learn, initially, that Geoff Johns wouldn’t be continuing with Barry Allen into the “New 52,” but FLASHPOINT was such a seminal story for the character, it would almost have been a backwards step for Johns to try writing the way he had since FLASH: REBIRTH, since Barry had finally overcome the death of his mother. Francis Manapul, who was Johns’ artist on the last relaunch, instead gets to drive Barry along a kinetic new arc, one that hues to the spirit of the character’s latest incarnation without needing to be mired in the same morass writers not named “Mark Waid” or “Geoff Johns” could sometimes tend to recently. If the “New 52” is all about getting to the heart of its featured characters, then this book is, as it should be, a prime example.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 (Marvel)
For the second time, the Ultimate line ended a major event with the death of Spider-Man. The difference this time is that it appears to have stuck, with Brian Michael Bendis continuing his adventures with the name, but this time with a different face underneath, the much-publicized Miles Morales. I often seem to criticize Bendis as being something of a hack, but the truth is, I’m simply not invested enough in Marvel to follow his stories, not because they’re too dense but because they require more love for the characters he uses than I have to give. His Ultimate Spider-Man was always an exception; Bendis alone seems to have understood the potential of this line, and that’s no doubt a prime reason for why he’s most identified with it. The chance to redefine Spidey, then, must have been irresistible, after more than a decade setting a new record in more ways than one (not just the Lee-Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR count, but overall dedication to a single character), to add to his legacy by replacing the iconic Peter Parker in the only venue readers would have accepted it as anything but temporary. So how is Miles in reality? His seems to be a story ripped straight from LOST, a youth caught in the middle of a struggle between father figures (or, Walt between the dueling Michael & “Mr. Locke”). This could very well define Brian’s legacy.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1 (DC)
Peter J. Tomasi has gone from editor to one of DC’s most important writers, so it’s no wonder that he’s among the prominent names of the “New 52.” Relaunching the title that sheds a little more expansive light on the Green Lantern mythology, but putting the focus on Guy Gardner and John Stewart, Tomasi uses the opportunity to take a look at their character in ways that haven’t been seen in a while, not just as members of the Corps, but as humans who had regular lives and concerns outside of their identities as role models and heroes. There’s also a quintessential galactic mystery they join their colleagues in discovering, but it’s nice to see Gardner and Stewart receive some attention.

RED LANTERNS #1 (DC)
I had a goal to read all four of the Green Lantern offerings from the “New 52;” this was the one I was most skeptical about, since I wasn’t sure the Red Lanterns deserved their own series above some of the other spectrum corps (how interesting would it have been to follow Saint Walker on a monthly basis?). Peter Milligan, like Geoff Johns, seems to have appreciated Atrocitus as a worthy tragic figure, though, and in this issue even suggests an origin for a human member of this vengeful corps, which may prove the greater hook for the series, once the early issues play out. There’s definite potential in this one.

GREEN LANTERN #1 (DC)
Geoff Johns, the incredibly busy man that he is, stuck around one of his signature series after the big reboot, with the improbable redemptive arc for Sinestro continuing, as he offers a unique bargain with Hal Jordan by the end of this issue. Hal, meanwhile, also does a good job of screwing up his ring-free prospects, including a date with Carol Ferris that ends badly. It may seem redundant for viewers of the recent movie, to have this relationship misfire again, but in the comics, they’ve been apart literally for decades, even though in their first appearances Hal and Carol promised to be typical comic book romance material. Well, all those other relationships eventually ended up in marriage, while this one hasn’t. I have a feeling that Johns is driving at an eventual happy culmination. The one criticism I’ve had of his Green Lantern work is that he’s often had Hal a slave to the latest crisis, but with “War of the Green Lanterns,” he was once again stripped of his duties as space cop, forcing him to resume a normal life. Geoff understands character too well (see his work with Barry Allen) for this to be a coincidence.

SUPREME POWER #4 (Marvel)
Kyle Higgins was announced as the writer of the NIGHTWING “New 52” relaunch, which I initially found underwhelming, since I’ve been a big fan of Dick Grayson for as long as I can remember. If he wasn’t going to be Batman anymore, and reclaimed the Nightwing identity, then I hoped DC would continue to show him the same support he’d gotten as the Dark Knight, when he was written on a monthly basis by Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder, and Tony Daniel. Who’s this Kyle Higgins, anyway? So I eventually found out. Higgins had a number of projects he was working on recently, including this latest iteration of Marvel’s Squadron Supreme. Published under the MAX line, this one’s an adult read, as mainstream superhero comics go, but Higgins seems to have concentrated all his attention on the characters in the story, their psychology. It’s a good indication that Dick Grayson is in good hands.

MISTER TERRIFIC #1 (DC)
This was one I was tremendously excited about, since Michael Holt is one of the most important characters of modern DC comics who hasn’t until this point gotten his own book. Imagine my slight disappointment, then, when writer Eric Wallace spends a cursory among of time establishing Holt’s undernourished backstory, and instead plugs him almost directly into a fairly generic adventure. This isn’t to say that I’ve lost faith in Mister Terrific as a lead character or this series in itself, but that as introductions go, it was probably the least impactful of the “New 52” I’ve had a chance to read. There’s also the whole future son thing and the Power Girl/latent Justice Society connection which prove fruitful, the real upsides of this debut.

BATMAN: GATES OF GOTHAM #5 (DC)
Kyle Higgins again, plus Scott Snyder (again!) revisiting Gotham City’s past, plus famous fathers like Thomas Wayne. As an origin for the Architect, it’s certainly one of the more compelling projects the Batman mini-series pool has developed in recent years, something Paul Dini easily could’ve done in STREETS OF GOTHAM (which I say as a compliment), and serves as a credit to both Higgins and Snyder.

INCREDIBLE HULKS #635 (Marvel)
The last time I read a Hulk comic, it was when Jeph Loeb finally revealed the secret origin of the red version in the franchise’s other ongoing series (strange that there was finally more than one), and I’ve been no great devotee of the jolly green giant, believe me. This issue was really no different, but what made it special was that it was Greg Pak’s last, and through his and Fred Van Lente’s work with Hercules and Amadeus Cho, I’ve come to be a great admirer of Pak’s efforts. There’s a lot of celebratory essays in this one, expounding his legacy on the title, and I confess that I felt kind of bad not having read some of the truly memorable adventures I found recounted. Well, there’s always tomorrow. In the meantime, cheers, Greg Pak!

COBRA #4 (IDW)
One of the bad things about having cancelled my Midtown subscriptions is that I’ve effectively cut off my link to the best G.I. Joe book being published, which was recently relaunched without the enemy’s name in the title. Writer Mike Costa (who began these efforts with Christos Gage, but has been flying solo for a while now) and iconic series artist Antonio Fuso continue their great psychological games with Major Bludd, another key but often underrepresented member of the brood, as the search for the new Cobra Commander continues in the midst of the Cobra Civil War. The impact of this series, through its several incarnations, is so great that it forced the tie-in Civil War arc across IDW’s Joe line, even though its has yet to receive its critical or popular due. I remain an enthusiastic champion, no matter if I read it regularly or not.

WONDER WOMAN #614 (DC)
Phil Hester concludes J. Michael Straczynski’s “Odyssey” in the final issue of the series (I was interested in but missed the “New 52” relaunch). Though still laden with bluster rather than intrigue and development, Hester’s version of the story is more rewardingly detailed, which just begs the question of what he might have done if he’d had free-reign on the franchise. Maybe some day.

SPIDER-MAN: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY (Marvel)
Reprinting ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #33 (in which the Venom saga begins), ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #97 (in which the Ultimate Clone Saga begins), and ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #1 (in which the last reboot began), this is a fine sampler of Brian Michael Bendis’ work as I was indicating earlier, and was no doubt printed with exactly that retrospective aspect in mind.

I have also read and enjoyed ACTION COMICS #1 (with Grant Morrison in full force refashioning the Man of Steel for modern times), BATWING #1 (with truly exceptional art from Ben Oliver), JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 (Geoff Johns and Jim Lee going All Star, as I’ve stated in the past), DETECTIVE COMICS #1 (Tony Daniel introducing a creepy new Batman villain in the most effective way possible), STATIC SHOCK #1 (featuring Scott McDaniel unleashing his full creative force), and STORMWATCH #1 (Paul Cornell melding Martian Manhunter with WildStorm’s Finest).

But, I’m a recovering addict. Really!

Quarter Bin #19 "Bloodwynd"

2011-10-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

God, so sometimes it must seem like I yack on about Grant Morrison constantly, so I’m just going to briefly mention him here: in his book SUPERGODS, Morrison briefly mentions the character Bloodwynd as one of those forgettable members of the Justice League before his epic 1996 relaunch. For a lot of readers, that’s probably exactly what they think of Bloodwynd, a superhero who if he’s appeared in the last decade at all, it’s for a minor appearance as part of a forgettable alliance of supernatural figures.

SUPERGODS is replete in popular opinions (which is pretty weird, since Morrison’s reputation is basically as something of a cultural contrarian), so it’s a safe bet that he nailed Bloodwynd’s legacy (the fact that he mentioned him at all is more than two versions of the official DC ENCYCLOPEDIA managed), which for me is pretty sad, since at this point I am probably the character’s biggest and only fan.

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #61 (DC)
From April 1992.

This is Bloodwynd’s debut, along with Dan Jurgens’ debut as the successor of the Giffen/DeMatteis era, which is mostly known for its eventually participation in the “Doomsday” event. Maybe it’s because I have more experience in Jurgens’ League than the famous “Bwahaha” days, but my interest in Booster Gold and Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) can be traced directly back to this run, not to mention my interest in Fire, Ice, and even Guy Gardner. Along with Superman, Maxima, and Bloodwynd, they comprise my classic Justice League line-up. Bloodwynd, and the central mystery he represented, was an integral element of this chemistry, with Beetle driving himself crazy trying to figure it out. Where Morrison saw a useless figure, there is a classic example of how comic book creators used to introduce new characters, by drawing out their origins, rather than coming right out and explaining everything about them.

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #63 (DC)
From June 1992.

By necessity, Bloodwynd served as a deus ex machina in his early appearances, the wild card villains hadn’t counted on. Maybe that was more annoying than Jurgens realized. It’s always hard to introduce a new character, whether in their own book or as additions to an established team. Countless heroes have faded into obscurity this way. Since there was no effort in the early days to do anything with Bloodwynd other than be featured in the Jurgens League, history was almost doomed to repeat itself.

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #74
From May 1993.

Though prominently featured on the cover, Bloodwynd has already been virtually forgotten by his own creator, Dan Jurgens, who at this point has been juggling the aftermath of “Doomsday,” which reshaped the League prematurely, leading to a rebuilding process that basically never came to an end, until Zero Hour ushered in a whole new line-up (the crux of this incarnation was later featured in EXTREME JUSTICE, a book that never got the respect it was due).

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #76 (DC)
From July 1993.

It also didn’t help that when his origin was finally revealed, Bloodwynd became hopelessly entwined with Martian Manhunter. This one’s the first of two issues that explain how J’onn J’onz had unwitting been masquerading as Bloodwynd since the character’s first appearance, with the real deal trapped inside the distinctive red gem emblazoned on his chest (for those who won’t immediately track down their own information on the character, Bloodwynd was an African American hero whose costume was entirely white, with the gem and a black cape making up the rest of it; he definitely had immediate presence). Readers apparently didn’t read this story in its entirety, since years later most of them still seemed convinced that Bloodwynd was in fact Martian Manhunter. All the momentum that Jurgens had built in the early days of his run, besides, were already over. The mystery of Bloodwynd had lost its impact.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #66 (DC)
From July 1994.

Once “Doomsday” ran through DC, the League books in general suffered, through no real fault of their own. Morrison later proved that fans really liked the big guns, but previous to that, the franchise enjoyed something of a Justice Society period, which reached a culmination in the epic “Judgment Day” arc, which killed off Ice (temporarily) and basically pushed everyone to their limits, forcing characters like Booster Gold and Blue Beetle to finally grow up in the process. But although he participated, Bloodwynd was an afterthought, whatever role he might have had usurped by that era’s Amazing Man (who dominates the cover for this issue, though Bloodwynd is one of several figures featured in a negative image seen battling the arc’s villain).

Featured in the pages of SHOWCASE on his own, Bloodwynd might have interested some people for a brief time, but he was quickly identified as belonging to a bygone era before long, and was quickly erased from the ongoing continuity. The fact that nobody seems to fondly recall Dan Jurgens as a creator of the Justice League can’t possible help matters, or the fact that Jurgens himself abandoned the character, even after finally revealing his origin about a year too late, and never seemed all that interested in revisiting him, even after returning in a full-time capacity to DC.

Why care about Bloodwynd, then? As a character with gothic potential (forged in redemptive fire from his slave heritage), he remains mostly untapped, while many similar characters with less direct magnetism have gotten second and third chances since. As a member of the Justice League, he is, with all due irony, second only to Martian Manhunter as someone with considerable power and an outsider’s perspective. He didn’t just keep to himself to maintain his mystery, it’s because that’s the way he was naturally, but he also had a fierce dedication to his teammates, whether they always appreciated it or not. He’s not the Spectre, bent on some holy mission, but he is a kindred spirit of vengeance, someone who is ideally suited to comment on the complexities of our modern times. There’s so much that could be done with him, and it just seems as if no one has bothered to notice. A good writer can do some exceptional with anything, but with material this rich, you’d think someone would have bothered by now to remember Bloodwynd exists.

Mired by his own publishing history, Bloodwynd has remained in comics limbo for years. But he doesn’t have to stay there.

Graphic Novel Review: Dear Creature

2011-10-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Creature is a graphic novel by Jonathan Case and was recently published by Tor Books. I would have to say I strongly recommend it.

Like a strange mix between the work of Jeff Smith (BONE, RASL) and Grant Morrison (JOE THE BARBARIAN, WE3), it's the tale of a sea mutant who comes to love Shakespeare and a woman who's been placing the Bard's plays in soda bottles and setting them into the surf. Case's art style (he covers all the creative bases here) is both realistic (the human characters) and cartoonish (Grue, our fearless sea mutant, and his crab friends), without seeming disjointed in the least.

In fact, Grue's love of Shakespeare results in his speaking in iambic pentameter (there's a great bonus feature about this for those who might need a refresher), and in fact the story almost seems like something Will might have written in modern times. Of course, it's also a monster story, from the monster's perspective (shades of David Maine's brilliant novel MONSTER, 1959, concerning King Kong). This is not your typical graphic novel material, and that's half the charm.

Almost as if he was inspired as much by comic books as the recent spate of computer animated movies (the best of them, like Pixar without the outright commercial bent), Case seems to have sidestepped all the usual handicaps creators tend to bring to the table when they work in the comics medium but don't do superheroes. He doesn't do arcane, or slice-of-life, or quirk-for-the-sake-of-quirk. He's got a genuine piece of inspiration behind this project, and it's all the more refreshing to have it in graphic novel form, rather than in monthly installments, so you have all seven chapters at once.

Like I said, there's a strong BONE vibe here, without the cuddliness and the fantasy elements, just a clash of cultures, a romance, and a great story. Also, Case has a great sense of humor.

Probably one of the best things you'll read in 2011.

A Serious Place on Serious Earth

2011-10-04T22:59:00.000-07:00

I don’t want to mince words when I say Grant Morrison is the most important writer of modern comics.

Many, many fans would tend to argue, Alan Moore, as if it were perfectly obvious, Alan Moore the creator of WATCHMEN, of many, many projects that have become legendary, crossed over from comics to movies (even if he himself never seems remotely satisfied with the results), whose mystique is so great he can get away with disavowing his legacy and everyone will respect him more for having done so. Moore can do less these days and get away with it, call his shots, determine exactly where he wants to publish, and he has a guaranteed audience, ready to proclaim his next project another unabashed success. Is Morrison so lucky?

Still, I say that Grant Morrison is more important. He’s a writer whose material remains so maddeningly obtuse he has as many detractors who say he’s a self-obsessed hack as those who proclaim his genius with every new piece of work. I will begin my defense by admitting that at this point, the only authority on the mind of Grant Morrison is Grant Morrison himself. Where Alan Moore’s passions can be traced back to the pleasures of his youth, Grant Morrison continues to mystify in the ways he assimilates not just ideas but whole metaphysical mythologies, combining superheroes with the divine without so much as a backward glance. He made himself God in ANIMAL MAN. It was only fitting.

Today, however, I intend to concentrate on three works: VIMANARAMA, THE MYSTERY PLAY, and ARKHAM ASYLUM. It’s fair to say that only the last of these is actually well-known. Most fans associate Morrison with ANIMAL MAN, DOOM PATROL, THE INVISIBLES, JLA, NEW X-MEN, WE3, ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, or his ongoing epic Batman saga, sprawled across the last half-decade. There are other notable works, SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY, THE FILTH, and smaller projects (but Grant Morrison doesn’t really do small, does he?), like KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND, JOE THE BARBARIAN, SEAGUY, even his latest Superman project, the relaunch of ACTION COMICS. For brevity’s sake, a little constriction is necessary.

Because he’s remained in the realm of monthly comics for so long, and even backpedaled, it seems, from his early ambitions (ZENITH, a complete deconstruction of superheroes), there’s a tendency to assume that Morrison has gone soft, given in to the demands of mass audiences and assured work. But perhaps it’s necessary to understand what he’s done before to fully appreciate what he’s doing now.

VIMANARAMA is like a Hindu JOE THE BARBARIAN. The central hero is a man named Ali, who frets about the bride his father has found for him, throughout a crisis that could easily result in the end of the world, even as he and this bride, Sofia, work side-by-side against cosmic-scale forces that at the very least threaten to overwhelm them. Ali has felt like an underachiever his whole life. The art of Philip Bond is a cheerily cartoonish contrast to the real world concerns Ali handles, underscoring the human scale of the story even as events spiral into surreal proportions. For anyone who wonders if Grant Morrison truly has his feet grounded in reality, VIMANARAMA should probably stand as proof-positive.

THE MYSTERY PLAY, meanwhile, is lavished with the painted work of Jon J Muth, an unpretentious, neatly stylized counterpoint to the work of Alex Ross, himself renowned for making superheroes seem real. Here, Muth is given the challenge of grounding another surreal Morrison tale, about a murder mystery and a series of figures that seem to see the world in terms of metaphor, who can’t quite distinguish fact from fiction. It’s an ideal primer for anyone still struggling to make sense of Grant Morrison’s ultimate ambitions as a writer. For someone often accused of overly complicating his stories, Morrison is surprisingly effective at minimalism, and that impulse is on full display in THE MYSTERY PLAY. It’s easy to view this graphic novel as something an artsy Hollywood director might have conceived.

Perhaps the template for everything you ever needed to know about Morrison, ARKHAM ASYLUM may still yet prove to inform his enduring legacy. Created in the wake of Moore’s WATCHMEN and Frank Miller’s DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, it’s a graphic novel adventure that thrusts Batman headfirst into his psychological demons, in the one place where they will best find company. The ringmaster is the Joker, but instead of taking center stage, the Clown Prince instead gives way to the story of Amadeus Arkham, the founder of the asylum, and an exploration of sanity itself. Fittingly, the art by Dave McKean is the most unhinged of anything featured in a Grant Morrison story.

The edition of ARKHAM ASYLUM I read contains the script and commentary from Morrison himself, and adequately represents both his creative process and inspirations. In some ways it’s like a deconstruction of a work of deconstruction. It’s a story of almost as much minimalism as MYSTERY PLAY, with much of the narrative as suggested as the imagery Morrison draws on from his own experience. You don’t need to be versed in Batman lore to understand it; in fact, you can almost read it as a standalone adventure in psychology. This is not a Batman you’re likely to find anywhere else. Those who were turned off by Miller’s brusque Dark Knight in ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER (it seemed to be just about everyone) might be surprised to find their hero even less forgiving of his foes here, even if the Joker is needling him at every opportunity. Isn’t Batman supposed to be noble, as close to human perfection as humanly possible? That’s how Morrison himself has written him in recent years.

Yet in ARKHAM ASYLUM, even Bruce Wayne’s father, traditionally depicted and most notably in Christopher Nolan’s BATMAN BEGINS as a paragon of virtue, comes off as an unyielding perfectionist, ashamed that his son was frightened by a piece of entertainment, moments before he and his wife are murdered in Crime Alley. Batman remains trapped by these deaths, even in the throes of his ideal in Arkham, ignoring his weaknesses while simultaneously failing to hide them (even if those who hear his confessions fail to comprehend them). As the founder of the asylum realizes his own insanity, Batman must either overcomes his weaknesses, or admit that he has finally come home. The man who fights crime in the guise of a bat has finally come to a reckoning. Commissioner Gordon tries to dissuade him from going to meet this fate.

The minimalism of ARKHAM ASYLUM doesn’t stand up to the same scrutiny as THE MYSTERY PLAY. Morrison by necessity plays fast and loose in this story, allowing its distortions play by their own rules. For once, the idea of Batman can’t hide behind an audience that’s in on the joke. It’s why Morrison can get away with all those layers he can’t pretend the readers will fully understand. The layers don’t matter, only the central conceit, that madness and sanity are a duality as necessary as Harvey Dent’s ability to choose his own destiny, no matter how he reaches it.

Taken together, VIMANARAMA, THE MYSTERY PLAY, and ARKHAM ASYLUM (wistfully subtitled A SERIOUS HOUSE ON SERIOUS EARTH), represent the central challenge of Morrison’s stories, to either accept that the world is more complicated than we can known, or that even the most ridiculous behaviors are still recognizably human. Clearly he intends for his readers to accept both, and so he continues to tell his stories. He’s already tripped the light fantastic, working in a medium where that’s an everyday occurrence. But Grant Morrison simply wants to see just how far down the rabbit hole really goes.

Quarter Bin #18 "The Victorian"

2011-09-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting things about comics, which I hope I’ve alluded to in the past, is that it’s a medium that’s so much harder to reach a consensus on than a lot of others, especially as the years advance. Movies are built to be mainstream, but even the independent scene isn’t terribly difficult to follow, depending on regular distribution. Music, and when the public thinks about music it’s generally mainstream (it’s when you talk about individual tastes and different regions you can begin to appreciate how insane the music scene is for most artists). Books are almost built for the mainstream, too, even in the digital age, where readership is all about visibility, but books are something you can easily track down, through any number of channels, both in physical stores and online catalogues. TV is perhaps most analogous to comics, in that you begin with the major networks, broadcast free and with regular channels of advertisement, and then you get into the jungle of cable, which in recent years has done a better job of defines itself with original content, whether with reality programming that has influenced the networks, or in the scripted material that reflects what the networks do best, but in ways they can’t. But the more cable has expanded its viewership, the more diluted the potential viewership becomes. No one wins when everyone wins.

But that’s not exactly what this is about. Even if most shows with high visibility are now released to some home entertainment platform, there are many more, from the past and even from the present, that have slipped through the cracks, and potentially live only in the memories of the fans they were able to capture on original broadcast. It’s kind of like that with comics. There’ve always been major publishers with high awareness in the market, and also the smaller ones, who maybe get exposure and maybe don’t, publishing comics the vast majority of readers will never hear about. Try flipping through one of those Diamond catalogues and honestly admitting you’ll be able to espouse the merits of every publisher and comic contained within them. How many of those comics are even in ten percent of actual, physical comics stores?

And it’s not just new series being launched, forever destined to remain in single-digit issue counts. Sometimes, a series can be published for years, even decades, without that majority of readers ever being aware of them, and it’s not just because most people associate superheroes with comics, or even the graphic novel crowd, and will never bother with anything else. There are far more comics, with limited availability, than even an inclusive catalogue can adequately represent. Most people will assume, if they think about it at all, that comics being published through such limited means, will probably not be very good, and maybe they’re right. The vast majority of creators who transition from an independent publisher to Marvel or DC will still have come from a company like Image, which can afford to set obvious standards in its output, and not from some obscure series or company.

Which brings me to contradictions like THE VICTORIAN. Now, granted this was a book published by a respected small-press label like Penny Farthing, but even that wasn’t enough to truly get it noticed, not even when a respected creator like Len Wein took over writing duties. I only heard about THE VICTORIAN from Diamond (naturally), thought it looked interesting at the time, something like an indy STARMAN (appropriately enough), but never thought in a million years I’d have the chance to actually physically come across it, unless I went digging on my own. (There is certainly satisfaction in the hunt, but the majority of consumers operate on the belief that anything worth finding should be easy to find, and this principle doesn’t necessarily consider exclusivity as a factor.) Not long after this discovery, actually, I came across the reprint volumes of Dean Motter’s MISTER X, which even the reprints and constant glowing praise from his peers couldn’t rescue from the same obscurity it had already existed in on original publication (for a while, Dark Horse began to support Motter, and I’ll be getting back to these efforts here at Comics Reader at some point).

Fast-forward a few years, and I was randomly digging through the back issues at Escape Velocity, and had recently rediscovered that Diamond catalogue and remembered THE VICTORIAN. I didn’t think it would be likely, but I decided to check and see if the store actually had any copies. Turns out it did. So:

THE VICTORIAN SOURCEBOOK (Penny Farthing)
From December 1999.

THE VICTORIAN #1 (Penny Farthing)
From March 1999.

THE VICTORIAN #23 (Penny Farthing)
From April 2004.

Escape Velocity actually had a few more issues, but I contented myself with this small handful, just to see if the reality of the book matched my expectations. The SOURCEBOOK covers the first six issues of the series, and isn’t actually a very good introduction, featuring bad editing that jumps around key points without specifically letting the reader understand the appeal of the endeavor. The first issue, however, is plenty amazing. The twenty-third issue, two issues before the conclusion of the series, is more than enough to convince anyone that this really was a special book, like Y: THE LAST MAN, or a comic book version of LOST.

THE VICTORIAN is the product of Trainor Houghton’s imagination, though to my knowledge he never actually wrote a single issue of the series. Marlaine Maddux was the original writer, before Len Wein came aboard. To describe THE VICTORIAN is like presaging the current steampunk fad: a secret society from the 19th Century produces competing individuals who find themselves in our modern era, one who wants to reshape the world to his specifications, and the other, our title character, who will do anything to stop him. The cast of characters who help both of them are quickly developed in the first few issues, and remain important to the end.

I tracked down THE VICTORIAN, ACT V: SELF-EXSOULMENT, published in 2008 (previous collections were released in 1999, 2002, 2003, and earlier in 2008), so I could see how it concluded, and once again I was not disappointed. If this book had been published by Vertigo, or even IDW, for instance, it’d have greater readership, even now. Instead, and I can’t speak completely for how it was received by the greater comics community, it went almost immediately to obscurity. General fans wouldn’t have known it existed, and, doubtless, all the major awards went to other comics, either popular ones or graphic novels.

THE VICTORIAN is a great comic, and it deserves wide recognition, but it will probably never come. I could explain its pleasures in greater detail, and perhaps get a few more readers interested, but that would be like saying it’s enough to feed a few homeless people, and let the rest fend for themselves (which is not in any way saying charity is wrong). It’s frustrating when a national publication (when it was a national publication) like WIZARD spent all its time doing everything that the regular comics reader would already have been able to find out on their own, and let the comics scene otherwise slip completely out of focus, because that’s exactly what it’s like in general. The Internet was supposed to make everything so much more accessible, and it’s only made culture feel a lot more like cable television, if even that, just a lot of people clamoring for attention, and getting a lot of small audiences and no audiences as a result. You’d think a bad economy that was supposed to shrink the comics market would have made this easier, but that’s exactly the opposite of what’s happened. DC undergoes another relaunch, IDW blossoms into a new Image or Dark Horse, and everything else remains pretty much exactly the same (oh, and WIZARD ceases publication).

Until recently I worked in a national bookstore, and I took great pride in maintaining the comics section, marveled (no pun intended) as new product constantly surged into the warehouse, and the collections not printed by Marvel or DC had just as much room to fill. Not everything was represented, naturally. There still seemed to be more enthusiasm for manga, a greater sustained presence for complete runs of a series. That’s a different story, a different gripe. But there are so many comics, and so little effort at maintaining a constant, representative presence, it just boggles the mind. Why can’t someone have a store that can hold all these graphic novels, not just new releases and the perennial reprint favorites, but those that give a true face to what comics can and have accomplished over the years? Why can’t a book like THE VICTORIAN, or MISTER X or WASTELAND, be found easily?

People will say economics, and believe that covers the whole story, the whole necessary explanation. I don’t believe that’s true. I believe it’s simply because no one wants to put the time and energy and enthusiasm necessary to help something like a graphic novel store succeed. I’m not talking about a comic book store, where most people will think about new releases or back issues, or the places in big markets that can afford to inventory all of these things, in significant quantities. I’m talking about a place for readers who just want to read what comic book creators have produced over the years, both the stories a lot of people know, and those most people don’t. Is that really so impractical? Are we really at a point in our cultural evolution where it’s impossible to attract large audiences to quality material? I know digital seems to be the way to go, but it can’t and it shouldn’t be the only way to go. Even if it’s just collectors swapping fond memories, what about a store, or a series of stores, where old trade paperbacks go to be resold? Have you ever been to a used bookstore with a huge graphic novel section?

Again, economics, pipe dreams, the American Dream. I believe in comics, not just the ones everyone knows, the ones everyone awards, but the ones everyone ought to be reading, whether or not they’re still printing fresh material, stuff like THE VICTORIAN. Yeah, I found it, but it should be easier, a matter-of-course, for something like that, not simply forgotten, but enjoyed by new generations.

It would be nice.

Stars be my destiny

2011-09-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I’m not sure I’ve made perfectly clear here at Comics Reader is that I’m, relatively speaking, a ZERO HOUR baby. To be a little more clear, my experience as a comics fan began roughly at the time of the 1994 “Crisis in Time” event that saw every book DC published at that time, including a slew of new launches, basically reboot with #0. If that sounds familiar, then you know your New 52.

ZERO HOUR was its own flashpoint, and doesn’t get nearly enough modern credit, and maybe I say that because I was just getting into the chance to read comics on a regular basis at that particular point in time. It was Ron Marz and Darryl Banks’ GREEN LANTERN that served as my most consistent gateway at that time (which was only appropriate, since, at least in 1994, ZERO HOUR served as the culmination of Hal Jordan’s story, following “Emerald Twilight” and the dawn of Parallax), but so much of what I later came to admire about comics came about because of this event, it became increasingly difficult for me to forget about it. My brother got the complete set of zero issues, something I was infinitely jealous about, and would sneak looks at them whenever I got the chance. Like the New 52, DC used the opportunity to vet new and retooled concepts (FATE obviously didn’t stick). The more I caught up with these efforts, the more I became convinced, as I still am, that PRIMAL FORCE was one of the great unsung creative efforts in comic book lore. I somehow managed to avoid STARMAN, though; no matter how much critical acclaim it garnered (much the same way as I never considered reading SANDMAN during its original run, something I’m still trying to make up for, even though I’ve come to deeply admire Neil Gaiman as a writer and especially novelist) I remained a committed dilettante to James Robinson’s opus.

It probably didn’t help that STARMAN was best known for its deep mythology and sense of history; I already had GREEN LANTERN, and was getting ready to obsess over Mark Waid’s FLASH, which, even with “The Return of Barry Allen” and “Terminal Velocity,” was only getting warmed up. Robinson, besides, was playing with a legacy that meant nothing to me; Ted Knight hadn’t truly been relevant in decades, and none of the subsequent attempts until ZERO HOUR had occurred anywhere near my experience. Even the emotionally jarring experience of brothers David and Jack Knight meant little to me, since Jack was always planned to be a rebel, and I liked my heroes pure back then. I saw nothing at that time that dissuaded me from believing that I would receive any comparable pleasure from STARMAN as I knew from Kyle Rayner and Wally West.

I sampled Jack every now and again, but it never seemed to be the right sample. In STARMAN #38 (the resulting reaction had nothing to do with guest artist Dusty Abell, a talent sorely missed these days), a new version of the Justice League Europe is used as cannon fodder for characters I couldn’t properly appreciate in a vacuum, and poor Amazing Man, a hero with an unfortunate name but fond personal memories from EXTREME JUSTICE, was unceremoniously among them. All told, I read a total of five issues over the course of the book’s first five years, though the trend, excluding the zero issue, actually looked remarkably promising in 1998. I just stopped making the effort, and when I quit comics the next year, didn’t even think twice about it again, for a good long time.

Eventually, I bought the SINS OF THE FATHER collection of the book’s first arc, and that read pretty well. When DC “resurrected” some long-cancelled series during BLACKEST NIGHT, I found that STARMAN #81 was actually one of the specials I was looking forward to most. I tracked down STARMAN #80, the actual final issue, and enjoyed that. I think part of the problem was always that I didn’t care one way or the other about James Robinson himself. His work has proven to be consistently erratic over the years, in that he has never been one of those writers who suddenly becomes ubiquitous (though STARMAN did alone him to do just that, for a while, and just outside of my experience). I knew about THE GOLDEN AGE, his famed Justice Society effort, but didn’t read that until years later. I read his Superman books but didn’t feel very inspired, much as I’d feel about his JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA material, except for JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE. CFJ was one of my favorite books, consistently, during its initial release, and Robinson did me a favor without even knowing it with the essays he included each issue about his love for the characters he’d chosen to use in the story. Here was finally my entry-point James Robinson experience!

Okay, so at this point I hope you are aware that Borders, the second-largest bookstore chain in the US, finished its liquidation process this month, and thus is no longer in business. This is particularly relevant to me, since I worked for the company during its final five years of existence. Anyone who’s ever worked during such a liquidation perhaps will share the temptation to begin carving the place up for the resulting bargain prices while at the same time experience paranoia at losing out on particular targets. One of mine was STARMAN OMNIBUS VOLUME 5. Luckily, as you might assume, I was able to get it.

The star attraction, as it were, of this volume is the space epic “Stars My Destination,” which basically unites every member of the Starman legacy. Having never read the series regularly, it was certainly quite a gamble, considering the volume covers #s 47-60, but Robinson provides remarkably candid commentary to both the period in general and issue by issue. In short, I became compelled to read the rest of the omnibus collection (which, practically speaking, probably won’t happen too soon), and am now a fan of STARMAN. These issues don’t spend too much time developing Jack Knight, but that’s okay. Hey, so when does that MIST book get underway, James? Hopefully soon?

Anyway, I’m just glad to finally close this particular ZERO HOUR loop.

Quarter Bin #17 "Nightwing and other legacies"

2011-09-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

Amidst the eternal partisan bickering between DC and Marvel fans is the debate about which company has amassed a greater legacy. Marvel fans are cocky about the fact that they’ve had the superior sales number for years now, and can point to a remarkably consistent continuity dating back to the dawn of the Marvel Age in the 1960s as proof. DC can still argue that it’s been around longer, and that Batman and Superman are still more iconic than Spider-Man and the X-Men.

Me, I still like to talk in derivatives. Deadpool, the wisecracking “Merc with a Mouth,” is in some respects the mutant version of Spidey (as if the mask isn’t, well, a dead giveaway), who is in many ways a knockoff of Robin, the Boy Wonder sidekick of Batman introduced decades earlier. Robin is also known as Dick Grayson, who in later years evolved into the character known as Nightwing (who has just completed a second and very successful run as a replacement Batman, thank you very much). The one thing, beyond smart aleck humor, that Spidey and Dickey have in common is that they were both originally intended to be reader surrogates, someone young fans could identify with. Both have gone a long way toward growing up, however, and much as the median age of fans has gone up, so too has the base age of Misters Parker and Grayson.

When Mark Waid envisioned the future of the DC Universe, he paired Grayson with his sometime Teen Titans love Starfire, and even gave them an offspring, who looked a lot like mommy and went by the name Nightstar in her own crime-fighting career. When he revisited the Kingdom in 1998, he made it a point to spend some time with young Nightstar. I’ll begin this column’s issue commentary with a few of these KINGDOM spotlight spinoffs, more comics I caught up with years later…

THE KINGDOM: SON OF THE BAT (DC)
From February 1999.

Waid had no idea that his seminal KINGDOM COME would not actually endure as a symbol of DC’s future. How could he? When Magog finally appeared in regular continuity and actually got his own ongoing series, fans responded with apathy. What’s more, Grant Morrison decided to capitalize on the obscure scion of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, daughter of the Demon, Ra’s al Ghul, reshaping him as Damian and the other star in BATMAN AND ROBIN (along with…Dick Grayson!). Waid had previously fashioned the youngster as Ibn al Xu’ffasch, which very cleverly translated as, well, “Son of the Bat,” but…didn’t necessarily roll off the tongue. Still, as Waid envisioned him, his future was bright indeed. He was indeed the heir apparent, but he couldn’t quite figure out, even as an adult, to which legacy, to his father, or perhaps to his grandfather. What’s more, he carries on a romance with Nightstar. Egad, could this dude’s life be any more complicated?

THE KINGDOM: NIGHTSTAR (DC)
From February 1999.

Hah! Ibn, you have it so easy! The daughter of Dick Grayson and Starfire is even more angst-ridden! She’s haunted by the legacy of death her family seems to dwell in, constantly fearful that she, too, will lose her parents. (Still, she’s got great genes!) Moreso than with Ibn or any other legacy of KINGDOM COME, Nightstar represents an organic continuation of DC continuity, at least as far as the New Teen Titans go (Dick has since been better linked to Babs Gordon, the once and future Batgirl, naturally), and as such, always stood as the most likely of any future comics prognostications to actually happen (I’m looking at you, Marvel 2099, though unlike virtually everyone else by the end of that extended experiment, I actually enjoyed it more than its more contemporary counterparts). Needless to say, I’d read an ongoing Nightstar series, even today. For anyone who isn’t strictly interested in THE KINGDOM and its obsolete Hypertime outcome, this is something you can still easily read and enjoy. (For anyone who actually is, you’ll find a whole alternate explanation to the origin of Magog, including just who Gog is, which conflicts with the one Geoff Johns later established in the pages of JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA. But, after all, this was originally Waid’s tale.)

THE KINGDOM: KID FLASH (DC)
From February 1999.

The Flash was surprisingly tangential to the overall story in KINGDOM COME, despite the fact that Mark Waid was at the time best known for writing the continuing legacy of the speedster (it was even unclear whether the Mercury-esque figure he and Alex Ross depicted in the 1996 mini-series was Wally West or Jay Garrick). He seemed to make up for that when he got around to THE KINGDOM, and specifically this one-shot, which now stands like a lost gem in the Mark Waid/Flash firmament. Kid Flash in this instance is Iris West, the daughter of Wally West, who has a brother named Barry who’s perpetually disgruntled over the lack of affection they’d gotten from their father, and has rejected the chance to inherit the mantle. Not that Wally has stopped running. In fact, that’s all he ever does, to the point that he’s completely overlooked his daughter’s eagerness to follow in his footsteps (hah!). This whole issue is about Iris trying to get through to him, like a microcosm of Waid’s efforts to establish Wally’s own credentials in the regular FLASH series. As comics fans of 2011 know, Waid did eventually write about Wally West and his two children, but sort of like the immediate follow-up to KINGDOM COME, he was met mostly with disinterest. Funny how things sometimes work out.

One of the themes I routinely return to in this blog is the great exodus I undertook from comics reading in 1999, and how that has regularly provided me with material to revisit for the first time. In some respects, the KINGDOM comics I just wrote about were part of the run-up to this event (Countdown to Schism!), since although I was certainly interested in what Mark Waid had to say about the further adventures of his seminal KINGDOM COME work, I didn’t have the money to read all of them on original release. As I’ve suggested this column, Nightwing/Dick Grayson has been a character I’ve followed throughout my comics experience. His attainment of an ongoing series in 1996 was one of the most important developments of that experience, and something I necessarily had to try and forget when I stopped reading. Nightwing was hot for a short period following the debut of that series, but he was never going to be someone, say in the pages of Wizard magazine, fans in general would breathlessly await the latest storylines concerning. He was always going to play second-fiddle to those he most closely resembled: Batman, Spider-Man, even Daredevil. Aside from the fact that he used to be Robin, Dick just wasn’t in himself an icon. That helped make it easy for Dan DiDio to at one point consider him possible cannon fodder during INFINITE CRISIS. (No, seriously!)

Still, Nightwing comics kept getting written. Chuck Dixon had launched NIGHTWING as writer, and was still at it three years later, and wouldn’t leave the book until 2002. His successor, Devin K. Grayson, was still at it by the time I came back in 2005, but had run afoul of the fans by apparently emasculating Dick in her Tarantula storyline. Anyway, here’re some comics from the limbo period I eventually tracked down:

NIGHTWING: OUR WORLDS AT WAR (DC)
From September 2001.

OUR WORLDS AT WAR was an otherwise forgotten crossover event that symbolized the kind of comics DC was attempting to make at the time, that broke all the rules the previous decade had established, thereby theoretically making it safe for new fans, made famous by the black background amended to Superman’s famous shield, and the incidental timing of the fallout issue released soon after 9/11. Nightwing got his own spotlight special, written by Dixon, in which Dick and Barbara Gordon become entangled in a mostly unrelated plot filled with mind-bending time-travel. See what I mean about Starfire?

NIGHTWING #65 (DC)
From March 2002.

Dixon’s still writing, sharing the Dick Grayson spotlight with the “Bruce Wayne: Murderer?” crossover event, one that’s been completely forgotten. Completely miring these efforts is artist Trevor McCarthy, whose cartoony style is a worthy successor to Scott McDaniel and precursor to Phil Hester, at least as far as the Nightwing sequences go, but is completely out of place otherwise. I’m reminded, however, that it was as much letterer John Costanza as Dixon and McDaniel who set the tone for the series, whose style Willie Schubert continues to evoke this issue.

NIGHTWING #69 (DC)
From July 2002.

Dixon has a different artist this issue (William Rosado, for the record), but is still hip-deep in crossover, this time “Bruce Wayne: Fugitive” (of course it’s related to the other one, silly). It’s actually Dixon’s penultimate issue on the book, before his “Nightwing: Year One” arc some thirty issues later.

NIGHTWING #71 (DC)
From September 2002.

Devin Grayson’s debut! Having previously written a Nightwing/Huntress mini-series, not to mention the BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS ongoing title, Devin wasn’t a completely unknown commodity, but judging from letters column comments, she wasn’t an entirely trusted one, either (must have made the backlash all that much easier). I will go on record as saying I probably prefer Devin Grayson’s Nightwing work to just about any other run, including Chuck Dixon’s, which had previously set the standard (and was probably Dixon’s best work).

NIGHTWING #96 (DC)
From October 2004.

Well into Devin’s run, the offending event has already taken place, Tarantula has killed Blockbuster, and everyone’s primed for the big NIGHTWING #100 (which I did get to read upon release!). Serialized comics storytelling just doesn’t get any better than Devin’s Dick Grayson, especially how she managed to so easily transition Dixon’s work into a crescendo that eventually saw Dick “mobbed up” (how these comics have never been collected is one of modern comics’ biggest crimes) and witness to the destruction of his adopted (if horribly named) hometown during INFINITE CRISIS.

NIGHTWING #150 (DC)
From January 2009.

From Grayson there was a succession of writers, including Bruce Jones (never got a chance to find his groove), Marv Wolfman (actually did some interesting things), and Peter Tomasi, who had the chance to illustrate the transition from Nightwing to Batman, as this issue helps explain. This is not, however, the last issue of the series. That bugger proved to be a hell of a challenge to find. At the time, I had just lost Heroes & Dragons as my regular comics supplier, and had not yet chosen Midtown-online as its replacement. I relied instead on a combination of trips to Escape Velocity (never a strictly regular occurrence) and my friend Daniel to stay on top of “Batman R.I.P.,” by far the most important event from that period. I remained obsessed with reading the final NIGHTWING for the next several years. I already had this one.

I have other Nightwing adventures to write about in later editions of Quarter Bin, including, yes, the holy grail I’d sought for so long...

Knight and Squire and Zombies!

2011-09-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

Let me just state for the record that I loved CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI13. That being said, I kind of prefer Paul Cornell being a DC writer.

While most readers who’ve followed him since the switch know Cornell for his Lex Luthor arc in ACTION COMICS, there was also KNIGHT AND SQUIRE, based on characters created by Grant Morrison, seen previously in the Club of Heroes and, believe it or not, the Ultramarine Corps (actually having made their debut in 1999’s JLA #26 as one-page replacement members). One of the original international Batmen, Knight now has the distinction of being a de facto charter member of Batman, Inc., and with the imminent debut of BATWING, officially the first of them to have his own book.

KNIGHT AND SQUIRE was a six issue mini-series that straddled 2010 and 2011, and as such bumped into the comics partition I’ve valiantly attempted to enforce this year. I caught a few issues here and there, but always knew this would be something that would be a natural addition to my trade collection. Cornell obviously had a blast writing it, and was granted liberties not usually available to comics creators, including the chance to totally immerse himself in an outright British style, which happened to necessitate a running commentary/translation at the end of every issue, in which he explained the origins of characters and phrases as they related to British history and pop culture. I’m a sucker for extras, which is just another reason I’m glad the letters column has been reinstated as an institution, but any time a creator actually has the space to talk about their project (early issues of AIR allowed G. Willow Wilson essay space; James Robinson got to talk about the characters he’d chosen in JUSTICE LEAGUE: A CRY FOR JUSTICE), I feel a little more included.

The book itself is jokey, but it also takes itself seriously, and comes off feeling like a giant tease for a greater comic detailing a whole comics line, really, of the characters Cornell ends up chronicling (in many ways, almost like [forty-five], Andi Ewington’s innovative graphic novel). Knight and Squire, obviously, are a British Batman and Robin, but there’s also Jarvis Poker, the British Joker, whose role increases dramatically as the story progresses (eventually involving the Joker himself); Hank the Incredibly American Butler; the Time in a Bottle enchanted pub where heroes and villains can interact peacefully; the resurrected Richard III; and many other amusing details. The fact that Cornell was allowed to write this book is just another testament to the creative freedom available at DC. His work on CAPTAIN BRITAIN was easily one of my favorite Marvel projects, but it always felt a little hamstrung. Combined with his expansive work on ACTION COMICS, with KNIGHT AND SQUIRE Cornell has easily demonstrated himself to be one of the most inspired writers in comics today, and has two New 52 books (DEMON KNIGHTS and STORMWATCH, both of which seem like DC versions of CAPTAIN BRITAIN) to prove the company’s continued interest in him.

For the record, the trade collection does feel the need to tack on “Batman” to the title, even though the mini-series got off without it. If you feel you need any such excuses, I won’t get in your way, but you’d be doing yourself a favor catching this one. Cornell, it should be noted, is ably assisted by artist Jimmy Broxton, who also contributes to the reprinted extras pages with amusing fake ads for such products and services as Mad Hat Harry’s Felons of High Barnet and Hexo Magic Seasoning. You’ll just have to read it to get it, I guess…

Quarter Bin #16/the life story of the Flash

2011-09-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

On this special occasion, this flashpoint, I’m bending the rules a little, talking about back issues and new comics at the same time, and while the New 52 is technically the impetus, the subject, once again, is really Geoff Johns, a man whose impact on comics is still only emerging.

The Quarter Bin contribution (which for the record actually set me back two bucks in this particular instance) is AVENGERS #58 (473) from November 2002, as well as STARS AND S.T.R.I.P.E. #12 from July 2000. These are among his earliest notable titles, relatively speaking (Johns actually began writing comics in 1999), but both adequately demonstrate the penchant he’d pursue into 2011. As I’ve detailed previously, I was not actively reading comics during this period, so early Geoff Johns has always been something of a wash for me. I wasn’t even totally sold on him after GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH, so what exactly am I supposed to say I know?

STARS AND S.T.R.I.P.E. is the first ongoing series Johns launched, a sort of pastiche to the Golden Age that dragged it kicking and screaming into the 21st century, updating a couple of obscure characters who might otherwise have deserved to be consigned to comics limbo. Combined with the relaunch of the Justice Society, STARS was an indication that Geoff had no qualms looking to the past for inspiration, even if he wasn’t slavishly devoted to the specifics of what he looked at. By the time he worked for Marvel, however, I had a much different impression of what kind of creator he actually was.

In short, there was one particular moment that got noticed by the Internet community circa 2003, and if you know what I’m talking about, great, because otherwise I don’t want to confuse the matter here. Suffice it to say, but my first real impression of Geoff Johns boiled down to the opinion that he was a new breed of writer that equated salacious and immature material as an appropriate way to write modern comics. I’ve never been much of a Marvel fan (though I’ve worked on that in recent years), and so combined with the fact that I wasn’t actually reading comics at the time, I took it for granted that this was still the case, and that I wanted nothing to do with the career of Geoff Johns.

All of this is to say, at least in the case of AVENGERS #58, I probably couldn’t have been farther from the mark. Even with the big movie and all the momentum headed into next summer, I will probably never be much of an Avengers fan (a bad experience with a much-hyped Kurt Busiek relaunch probably didn’t help), but I know enough about the team and its importance to Marvel lore (especially under the auspices of Brian Michael Bendis, who’s done everything in his power to elevate the team to the level of the X-Men franchise). There’s definitely a core team of all-star Avengers, but most of its membership seems to have consisted of the same general mediocrity that the Justice League regularly devolves into, despite the perennial efforts to concentrate on the heavy hitters.

Periodically, the Avengers get that same kind of treatment (now would not be one of those times, since everyone and their mother has been a member in the modern era of one incarnation or another). At least as far as my impression of AVENGERS #58 and Geoff’s overall ambitions seem to have been, it would seem Geoff Johns was very much a proponent of the all-star iteration. This particular comic is part of a greater epic which sees the world on the brink of a fantastic crisis, with the team called on to lead the world in a very overt manner, with most of the onus falling on Captain America, something he seems incredibly reluctant about (in fact, prior to Ed Brubaker, Steve Rogers was very much a Hal Jordan kind of guy, bucking authority; CIVIL WAR was his last great, or perhaps greatest, moment in that regard).

It makes me wonder what kind of impact Geoff might have had at Marvel if he’d made a stronger commitment. Don’t get me wrong; I’m extremely glad that he’s basically become the face of DC. The thing is, his departure from the House of Ideas left the door open for Bendis to swoop in and assume control of the Avengers, which has become a series of crossover events that have arguably done nothing but weaken the concept of the Avengers Geoff apparently worked hard to strengthen, including the moment I will continually refer to as the most infamous moment of modern comics, “No more mutants,” the most gratuitous and backward development that still has yet to be untangled (and even the Young Avengers’ efforts in that regard has since been overlooked, since Bendis has done such a great job of obscuring the message).

I’m not here to argue the top writer between DC and Marvel. I’m not a Marvel guy, so maybe Brian Bendis really is awesome, and his work is worthy of being at the forefront of the industry’s top publisher. All I know for sure is, I infinitely prefer Geoff Johns, and I have new reasons every year to affirm that belief. FLASHPOINT has lately confirmed it all over again.

As with any success story, there’s always a backlash that seeks to undermine that popular by saying it’s not actually earned (and so, you might say, my opinion of Bendis). The critics will say Johns milks Silver Age nostalgia, and writes in generalities, barely covering the minimum requirements for storytelling by glossing biographical material for entire issues at a time. To me, that kind of writing is endlessly fascinating. Any writer who can get inside the head of a fictional character has more than done their job by my book. I don’t just want to follow a lot of action, or some twisting adventure. I don’t care if I’m reading something I’m infinitely familiar with, or something brand-new. It takes a great fool to imagine something new, after all, but a greater fool not to acknowledge something that already exists.

FLASHPOINT, ultimately, isn’t really about some flashy event with an alternate reality or launching some bold new era, but rather the culmination of the story Geoff has been telling with Barry Allen since FLASH: REBIRTH. Where most fans saw only a character who’d met a noble end two decades ago, a favorite member of a distinguished superhero lineage, Geoff saw potential. He didn’t just see the man who’d idolized Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, but a figure who could live out the fantasy so many other comic book superheroes could never touch, someone who could revisit the greatest tragedy of his past, and find out the consequences of interfering.

I honestly don’t know if the death of his mother was a touchstone event for Barry prior to Geoff Johns, because the reference material I have readily available doesn’t even mention it, but that’s what Geoff has been meditating on since Barry’s return, his extreme guilt, and incredible rage upon learning the truth, that it was his mortal enemy, the Reverse Flash, who caused it. No other writer has shaped a whole crossover event on such a personal story, and stuck with it (there was Hal Jordan’s insane quest in ZERO HOUR, and the Scarlet Witch in HOUSE OF M, but mostly, it’s usually just everyone reacting against some inciting event). I would argue that FLASHPOINT #5 is ultimately the most emotionally satisfying denouement for such an event.

I’ve been seeing a parallel with the TV show FRINGE throughout FLASHPOINT, perhaps even its very nature (as Barry and Thomas Wayne would themselves argue, given the chance), and for this, this is a very good thing. A great story will always take inspiration from the most appropriate sources, no matter the original medium. FLASHPOINT is a different kind of comics event because it tells a different kind of story, and without Geoff Johns, that wouldn’t have been possible. He understood that Barry Allen had at least one other great story in him, and it had nothing to do with all the things others had previously believed were obvious. He took a look at Barry himself, and never looked back.

The more I read FLASHPOINT, the more I realized I would have to read the whole thing. I really wasn’t supposed to. As I’ve been trying to make clear throughout the year, 2011 is supposed to represent a break in reading comics for me. I’ve come to blame FLASHPOINT for the zip line that has strung me along the last few months. I know the New 52 is upon us, but in many ways, I’ve now reached the break line (if I can manage it). Barry’s back in the blocks. Here’s the rest of the stuff I should not have bought:

MYTHICA
This is a “rough cut” preview for a local indy project Escape Velocity had on display on its counter, from the mind of Matt Campbell. Its concept is actually not that bad, but I worry that Matt might be confusing the actual storytelling with a more generic adventure narrative than he really needs. Anyway, worth a look.

RETROACTIVE 1990s – GREEN LANTERN (DC)
Ron Marz and Darryl Banks back together is a reunion I’m very happy to experience, even if it’s patently nostalgic. Kyle Rayner very much became my Green Lantern, and this is the team that helped make that possible. Coupled with a flashback to Kyle’s relationship with Donna Troy (how’s it she has never had her own series?), one of his many failed relationships (which also include Jade and Soranik Natu). Even the cover was absolutely classic!

RETROACTIVE 1990s – THE FLASH (DC)
Brian Augustyn, who was a regular collaborator on the book during the decade, was tapped for this one mostly because Mark Waid is engaged elsewhere these days, but this is an interesting look at what he might have done on his own (then again, my blackout from just about the end of that period might have overlooked Brian’s brief solo run, apparently alluded to in a note). There’s also a Mark Millar flashback, for the record.

RETROACTIVE 1990s – SUPERMAN (DC)
I couldn’t possibly be happier that the SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL team of Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove, rather than Dan Jurgens (who otherwise would have been the obvious choice) was tapped for this one. I always felt they didn’t receive the recognition they deserved. This tale more than demonstrates that neither has lost a step. How about a comeback?

JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 (DC)
The book I’ve been calling a de facto All Star series was not a disappointment, and hey, is also written by Geoff Johns, featuring Jim Lee on art. A sort of answer to Lee’s more official All Star effort with Frank Miller, we get to enjoy the often-overlooked dynamic between Batman and Hal Jordan (with some terrific insights, I might add), plus the reintroduction of Cyborg, Vic Stone, whom Johns has been itching to use more extensively for a while (if the FLASH OMNIBUS was any indication), and a really unusual look at Superman, too. I may have to officially call this a can’t-miss book.

RETROACTIVE 1990s – JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA (DC)
The infamous team of Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis/Kevin Maguire is back together again! (Remember all the nostalgia tours last decade?) Also, please note Multi-Man, also seen in CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE!

RETROACTIVE 1980s – SUPERMAN (DC)
I was extremely confused why a bunch of ’90s elements were featured in this one, until I actually read it. Pretty clever, Marv Wolfman (though, really, who would argue that John Byrne didn’t deserve this one?). I’d been avoiding the older decades in these retro specials mostly because I was less familiar with them (and thus reading them would have been less enjoyable), but that was a clever ploy to trick me into this one, I must admit. Worth it.

FLASHPOINT – ABIN SUR: THE GREEN LANTERN #3 of 3 (DC)
I don’t know much the conclusions to these individual books will affect the New 52, but wouldn’t it be awesome if White Lantern Abin Sur actually did pop up?

FLASHPOINT – DEADMAN AND THE FLYING GRAYSONS #3 of 3 (DC)
I love the conclusion to this one, just so horribly appropriate.

FLASHPOINT – CITIZEN COLD #3 of 3 (DC)
As the event itself progressed, it became easy for me to forget that Cold was originally one of my motivating factors to be interested, because Geoff spent almost his exclusive focus in the main book on Barry Allen, with most of the rest on Thomas Wayne (which again, made that ending so powerful). Not surprisingly, our good Citizen doesn’t get away with his deception, but reading a Rogues book is always fun. Shouldn’t there be an ongoing by now?

FLASHPOINT – HAL JORDAN #3 of 3 (DC)
What a poignant and tragic ending. That was another benefit, for sure. I didn’t read the Wonder Woman or Aquaman titles, but I have to figure theirs were appropriate, too. I took a look at the conclusion to PROJECT SUPERMAN, and that one had a similar conclusion. This whole event was good for that whole Elseworlds vibe. Wouldn’t it be nice if Elseworlds came back?

FLASHPOINT – KID FLASH LOST #3 of 3 (DC)
This is another one I wish I knew how much the conclusion actually affects the New 52. Do I consider this the death of Bart Allen? I guess we’ll just have to find out. I like the nod Max Mercury receives, though. I still hope for more sustained Max goodness!

WAR OF THE GREEN LANTERNS AFTERMATH #2 of 2 (DC)
Tony Bedard concludes one era of Green Lantern lore with a cliffhanger! Still, it was fun to see the dynamics of the Corps at a climactic occasion, and there were some clever developments and moments. What’s to become of Ganthet?!?

BATMAN INC. #8 (DC)
Almost overlooked this one (for some reason the latest issue was a shelf below the other one), but I made a vow to read every issue of this book, and so was glad that I finally spotted it. Clever digital shenanigans and a demonstration of Bruce Wayne’s business sense, something that was necessary for the whole Batman Inc. concept that the character has made integral to both aspects of his life. Only Grant Morrison could have told a story like this.

ACTION COMICS #904 (DC)
The last issue (before the first one, as Mike pointed out on the other side of the counter!), written by Paul Cornell, ostensibly wrapping up the latest Doomsday story, but really making a final statement on the Man of Steel in this particular era, plus revisiting Lois & Clark, perhaps for one last time, at least for now!

The Challengers of the Unknown must live!

2011-08-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

It’s easier to find a movie, say, or a book, or some music act that most other people seem to be overlooking or undervaluing, than a comic book. I don’t mean a series that doesn’t sell very well, or something from the indies (which by definition is swimming against the current). Most serious comics fans will usually know better than filmgoers seeking out the latest blockbuster or whatever moves them specifically, book buyers seeking out their own familiar commodities, or music lovers grooving on their favorites, just what exactly is available. Sometimes it’s merely a matter of not having enough funds to cover everything that looks interesting in the comics shop, or a lack of general availability, that prevents certain titles from being read. Most comics that sell worse than others usually suffer from a lower profile, or perhaps a lack of a galvanizing creative direction, which again circles back to the fact that there are many comics published on a weekly basis, and very few readers capable of actually buying them all. There are certainly really good books that seem to sell not so much really well for reasons that don’t sound quite that good, but again, that may simply be that they just don’t have the buzz, or that most the buzz is going elsewhere, and whatever remains simply isn’t enough, or that unwarranted bad buzz or an inexplicable lack of buzz swallows perfectly worthy projects whole…

I could probably talk circles around that, so let’s just move on. The point of this introduction is, it can sometimes be a little difficult to understand how a really good comic book can be overlooked, given the kind of community exists around this medium (and inversely, really easy to understand, given the community as we all know it). I mean to talk about Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN book, originally published as a mini-series 1991, and eventually reprinted as CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE!, after the team had become famous for such works as BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN and SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Still, I’d wager that very few people know this story even exists, and it’s a darn shame.

Loeb has in recent years distanced himself from comics work, having achieved a great deal of success with such recent efforts as SUPERMAN/BATMAN and HULK, not to mention to epochal collaboration with Jim Lee on the Batman story arc “Hush,” partly as I would assume to the fact that many fans have found it increasingly difficult that he has any real talent, beyond a massive amount of hype. I find this to be a terrific travesty, because to my mind, Jeph Loeb is easily one of the finest writers of modern comics, capable of finding an inner monologue to any given character, whether iconic or obscure, and maybe it’s just because that’s exactly the kind of skill I admire in a writer, but that’s not by far a bad attribute. Those fans claim he’s horribly formulaic and predictable, that his stories always feel less inspired in their conclusions than in their blockbuster setups. I would perhaps counter-argue that any good story ought to have an ending worth talking about, especially if the rest of the story was as compelling as everyone made it seem, but maybe that’s just me being difficult and contrary again. If it seems too “comic booky,” then maybe it’s the creator’s way of making the reader think about the medium in a more serious way. That’s exactly the kind of ending CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE! concludes with, with a villain that only really appears at the climax of a story that had spent all its time examining the individual members of the Challs, as they’re affectionately known, as they perhaps never have been before.

Along with Loeb, of course, for this story, is his most famous collaborator, artist Tim Sale, whose most recent claim to fame was his work on the TV show HEROES, which turned out in later seasons to be more unfortunate than it first seemed. Sale initially provided the finished paintings of a clairvoyant artist in the early episodes, and it was a clever link for a series that otherwise shunned comic book conventions. Then, of course, Sale’s art reappeared in the second season, well after that original character had been killed off, and like the series as a whole, Sale’s continued participation was viewed in terms of stagnation rather than inspiration (or perhaps, continuity!). Aside from what now appears to be an aborted project (CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE) begun a few years back, Sale, too, has all but vanished as a regular comics presence.

It does seem appropriate, that Loeb and Sale might have ended in without much ceremony their comics careers, since their Challengers work was equally overlooked. Readers of this blog might recall that I originally discovered, or at least started reading it, thanks to a series of quarter bin raids that forced me to track down the rest of the story. Appropriately, I found a dirt-cheap used copy of the trade collection. I can honestly say that this earliest Loeb-Sale effort is, in my opinion, their finest. I wish I could then properly explain how it was left to and remained in obscurity, except that really good things usually fail to find a really big audience.

This was Loeb’s first comic, even! I confess to still not have all that much experience with his screen work, from before or after, but the remarkable maturity and complexity on display in …MUST DIE! is enviable by any standard, in any medium, clear in some ways that Loeb was not at the time concerned with conventions. He tackled a team of heroes who for decades were viewed as Fantastic Four knockoffs, even as they remained something of a DC underground favorite, as with many Jack Kirby creations, popping up every now and again, rebooted past the conclusions in MUST DIE! for later appearances, though it’s probably been about a decade or more since the last time. In the first issue of the eight-issue mini-series, Loeb and Sale reduce the team of four plus one (members Prof, Rocky, Ace, and Red, along with assistant June) to three, after blowing up Challenger Mountain and most of Challengerville, not to mention Prof and June. For the remainder of the series, Rocky, Ace, and Red, having disbanded, redefine themselves, growing apart, and assume the civilian lives they left behind when they originally “cheated death” and started “living on borrowed time.” (When you think about it, the Challs would have made a picture-perfect 1980s TV show, and then 2000s summer blockbuster.)

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE! deserves to be remembered as a comic book classic, and ought to be part of the perennial reprint parade, prepped for an Absolute edition, and lauded loudly as the first genius pairing of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, as well as its definitive legacy. What many creators struggle for many years to accomplish with a given franchise they managed in eight issues, and in many ways, it’s almost better that the Challengers belong to obscurity before and after, since there really aren’t any fans to argue with over such a monumental story. If the team must be remembered for something, this more than earns such a distinction. It’s a calling card for potential, proved to be exactly that for Loeb and Sale, for what a comic book could do, and what even C-level characters can accomplish. What more could you ask for?

Quarter Bin #15 "American Splendor"

2011-08-18T15:11:00.000-07:00

I do seem to write most about superhero comics, but that’s not all I’m capable of processing. For instance, let’s swing the other way and spend some time with the one guy who probably did the most to give readers a completely different concept, Harvey Pekar.

Technically springboarding off:

AMERICAN SPLENDOR #1-4 (Vertigo)
From November 2006-February 2007.

Most people will know about Pekar through the movie of the same name, the 2003 AMERICAN SPLENDOR starring Paul Giamatti (the big role that helped ignite his leading man career, after years of standout supporting roles). Noting that it came out in 2003 is kind of big for me, because that’s by no means the year I first saw it. It’s another of those things that’s a little of a mystery to present me, but for some reason, even though I was always a fan of Giamatti, I grew more and more hesitant to see the movie the more critics gushed over it. It was only Giamatti, in fact, who finally convinced me to give it a chance. The truth was, I’d never heard of Harvey Pekar before, and to suddenly have all this praise going to a guy who for all intents had been completely invisible a year earlier just seemed like typical critic bullshit to me, gobbling up the peculiar new item on the block just because it was exotic and seemed to prove some point or other, and otherwise probably wouldn’t have been noticed at all. You might recall that for a while, Pekar became quite the hot commodity, writing pieces for a variety of high profile publications, putting comics storytelling in places it wasn’t typically seen. I found at least that interesting.

Anyway, I finally did get around to seeing it, and while preparing to write this piece, I watched it again, and it strikes me almost as a junior cousin to MAN ON THE MOON, the 1999 Jim Carrey movie about avant garde comedian Andy Kaufman, in which Giamatti happens to costar. You may recall that one of Kaufman’s most infamous public appearances was on David Letterman’s old NBC show back in the 1980s, in which he had a confrontation with professional wrestler Jerry Lawler (there was coffee involved). Pekar was a regular on Letterman’s show, and may have made his biggest pop cultural mark on his last appearance, in which he finally rethought his participation. I assume there was a certain amount of appeal in telling the story of how exactly that happened, just who this Harvey Pekar really was. The Letterman connection interests me, anyway.

In many ways, Pekar really is another Kaufman, a social oddity whose sensibilities don’t easily translate, which is funny, because he tried to make a living (never really happened, though) talking about his everyday problems in comics form, one of the first true independent voices, who got to have his chance at the limelight thanks to the underground movement that grew out of the 1960s scene that also gave us R. Crumb, someone Pekar knew personally (and no doubt facilitated his ambition more than he ever appreciated).

In a lot of ways, Pekar’s comics are a direct predecessor to the Twitter generation, whose ilk includes bloggers like yours truly and the Facebook crowd. (Imagine Harvey with a smartphone!) While he tended to write about only the depressing episodes and thoughts that reflected his general pessimistic outlook on life, Pekar still managed to chronicle his life in a way that had previously been reserved for biographies, all in comics form (since he couldn’t draw his own, Harvey relied on a vast network of illustrators, including Crumb). He originally published his comics out of his own pocket. Obviously by the time of the movie, there was interest in providing him with slightly wider distribution. DC imprint Vertigo handled Pekar’s graphic novel THE QUITTER, and then the new AMERICAN SPLENDOR I eventually got my hands on.

It’s funny about that, too, because a friend of mine gave me those, and I was originally reluctant to read them, because as you can tell, I don’t typically read comics that don’t feature superheroes (I admit it!). Pekar’s writing isn’t the most eloquent, and his episodic storytelling can border on the trivial if handled incorrectly. In many ways, it’s like reading a comic book TV show (which does make you wonder if Pekar wasn’t subconsciously drawing on television for inspiration, or why no one has thought to turn AMERICAN SPLENDOR into a small screen project; HBO released the movie, I might add), a sitcom or one of those dramas that would probably get high critical praise but generally terrible ratings. The film itself is a mix between documentary, some static animation, and typical movie storytelling. You could turn Harvey’s life into a cartoon, or even a comic strip, and still not lose much in translation. One might almost imagine PEARLS BEFORE SWINE’s Stephen Pastis drawing inspiration from Pekar.

As you might imagine, “American Splendor” is a pretty ironic epitaph for this enterprise, but in the end, is pretty reasonable, too. Harvey Pekar was a man who very much trusted his worldview, and despite his own cynicism managed to make a real mark, simply by telling his own story, one mundane anecdote at a time.

Heroes and Dragons and Vampires

2011-08-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

Last week I had my first opportunity to visit Heroes and Dragons in probably two years. This particular comics shop used to have two locations in Colorado Springs, both sides of town. I was a regular from practically the moment I moved into town, having quickly determined that it was the most convenient store in town (I had two other options; Bargain Comics, which later became Escape Velocity, was always close second). When the recession forced it to consolidate and basically stay on the other end of town, I sniffed back a few tears, said goodbye to another great era of my comics experience (did I ever mention the horrible irony of three different stores either moving or closing during my original period reading comics? I miss thee, Zimmies and Ray’s 3Cs, and still wish All About Comics and Hobbies had stayed put, and probably not renamed itself The Keep, which was another horrible irony), but was prepared to move on. Not in the way that I “have” moved on this year, “quitting” reading comics for the second time, but onto Escape Velocity and Midtown Comics.com.

I don’t want to sound too flippant, because I really did miss Heroes and Dragons, was sad to see it go, and kept obsessing on a way to visit its new location, no matter how impractical it seemed. (Should I mention here that I am differently-mobile, in that I don’t drive, and rarely take the bus?) I had some personal time to eat up thanks to Borders going out of business, so I took a vacation last week, stayed with my sister, and that happens to be on that end of town. I timed my visit for Wednesday. As if you have to ask why.

I’ve got to say, I don’t think the move was as terrifically beneficial as the owners thought it would be (not that, in some ways, it wasn’t necessary, thanks to draconian and increasingly elitist mall financial practices). It may be actually, that business is actually quite good, but I arrived only a few hours after the store had opened, timed so that the new product should have been put out already. (Okay, so the clerk had lots of boxes clearly sitting out in the open, and seemed to think his time was better spent with aerobics; I’m being literal here.) Still, I wasn’t greeted with great comparisons considering my recent experience with Escape Velocity. I was generally appalled. The store seemed only tangentially interested in new releases. I don’t know if it reorders more furiously than it initially orders, or if “Richard Simmons” was even lazier, relatively speaking, than he seemed, but suffice to say, I was disappointed. The trade collection, meanwhile, was basically exactly the same as it had been two years ago. Yay for consistency! Boo for complacency! That’s a matter of business, too, but come on! Anyway, I did end up with several great back issues, though, which I will write about in a future Quarter Bin, and the new RASL, which brings me to the concluding portion of this latest post. You know the drill.

DC COMICS: THE NEW 52 (DC)
This is the official preview of the September relaunch (next month!), complete with the JUSTICE LEAGUE excerpt from Geoff Johns and Jim Lee that leads me more and more to consider it a de facto ALL STAR JUSTICE LEAGUE, which only makes me feel better about it. Anyway, aside from the fact that the giant stack of these freebies was sitting away from customer reach on the counter, I was very happy to find it available.

GREEN LANTERN #67 (DC)
The concluding chapter to “War of the Green Lanterns.” I know I’ve previously stated that, aside from the other exception I’ve talked about elsewhere, I decided I could wait for the collection to finally read this arc, but c’mon! It was there! In so many ways, stripping Hal of the ring is absolutely the smartest thing Geoff could have done. Next to giving it back to Sinestro. Suffice to say, I’m a happy Emerald Reader.

RASL #11 (Cartoon)
Along with BATMAN, INC. this is the book I’ve deliberately continued to read in 2011, and I’ve been darn lucky to find each new issue of both. This one was particularly serendipitous, since I’d overlooked the particular shelves it was located on, even though I’d tried to be as thorough as possible, trying to find the magic I ultimately decided simply wasn’t there anymore (then again, maybe a store like Escape Velocity can give me that magic on a sporadic basis, and Heroes simply can’t). Jeff Smith’s follow-up to BONE continues to dazzle at least this reader. To October!

SUPREME POWER #1 of 4 (Marvel MAX)
Kyle Higgins, writer of the forthcoming new NIGHTWING series, came to my attention during a recent visit to the Comic Book Resources message board as someone far more worthy of my attention than I’d previously considered. I was able to find this particular example of his recent efforts to confirm this newfound faith.

FLASHPOINT #4 (DC)
I love how the “Captain Thunder” family is used this issue. I’m also glad that I’ve managed to read every issue so far of this event book. One more to go!

MYSTIC #1 (CrossGen/Marvel)
Surprisingly or not, I never got into the original CrossGen experiment. Most attempts to build an entire comics line at the drop of a hat usually tend to create a bunch of comics that are patently ripping off something else, or otherwise trying too hard to duplicate, well, something else, all with the guise of “being something different.” I’ll admit CrossGen had art that was basically the complete opposite of what originally put Image on the map (which has now been converted to Comics Characters Welcomed), but in my experience, when writers try to write new stories with an artificial impetus like “create new comics line,” the results aren’t pretty. Dark Horse (and many other companies) has discovered that the more times you, say, recreate Doctor Solar, the more likely you’ll actually create something perhaps worth looking at. That may be the case here, too. Besides, the real reason I bought this one was AIR writer G. Willow Wilson. Maybe the original MYSTIC actually was awesome, or even comparable to this experience. Maybe my sister has been having me watch too much CHARMED lately (very disappointed Heroes didn’t have that comic, or IDW’s G.I. Joe, which Escape Velocity doesn’t carry, even though the COBRA books are some of the best comics I’ve ever read; which is another irony, because the IDW preview for its acquisition from DDP was among the last comics I bought at the old location; please stop me if I’m referencing far too much to keep up with). Anyway, Wilson does not disappoint. The one thing I will absolutely say positive about Marvel in 2011 is that it is giving G. Willow Wilson money to write comics. Thank you, Marvel.

SUPERMAN #714 (DC)
The final issue before Reboot City concludes “Grounded” and is basically J. Michael Straczynski and/or Chris Roberson’s answer to “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” I thought that was a nice touch.

WAR OF THE GREEN LANTERNS AFTERMATH #1 OF 2 (DC)
Please, as if I was going to pass up this opportunity. Written by Tony Bedard, too, who will have my everlasting gratitude for penning the classic GREAT TEN, hopefully one day to receive its proper appreciation as a masterpiece. Need I go on?

Which brings us to one final note, something I bought at Wal-mart:

GREEN LANTERN SUPER SPECTACULAR
This is a magazine-format collection of several issues from the would-be movie icon’s past, the second edition (I skipped the previous one I’d found at Escape Velocity), including “Nor Fear” from GREEN LANTERN #s 1-3 (the first time I’ve read the whole story, since for some reason back in 2005 I wasn’t prepared to read Geoff Johns doing GL on a monthly basis, something that didn’t last even a year), plus an Alan Moore story from GREEN LANTERN CORPS ANNUAL #2 featuring a previous version of Abin Sur’s grand undoing, and the same (ALL STAR) JUSTICE LEAGUE preview I talked about earlier. I like something like this being available for wide consumption. The comics industry will never recover in my eyes until you can find issues of the books you’ll actually want to read at places like Wal-mart and Toys R Us. I won’t hold Sam’s Club to the kinds of packs they used to have. I will one day blackmail them.

Quarter Bin #14 "Genesis"

2011-08-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

For some reason or another, I can no longer explain, but back in 1997, I originally only read the first and fourth chapters of the GENESIS crossover event. This was back when DC was doing annual crossover events that typically played out weekly in the main title, and spread into the ongoing series then being published during that month. I don’t think there’s a lot of respect going around for those events these days. Readers are more used to sprawling mini-series that play out over half a year and involve not just crossovers but spinoff mini-series, stuff like that, and there’s been plenty of backlash, because since CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS and SECRET WARS, there seems to have been an event, several events, every single year, and it’s always a struggle to keep up with, whether because of the sheer number of books or the basic cost.

Anyway, I’m not really going to talk about crossover events in general, but GENESIS specifically. Or rather:

GENESIS #s 1-4 (DC)
From October 1997.

These event books were typically assigned to some of the big-time creators, the ones who happened to be hot at that time, such as Dan Jurgens with ZERO HOUR (1994), Mark Waid’s UNDERWORLD UNLEASHED (1995) or Grant Morrison’s DC ONE MILLION (1998). John Byrne, who wrote GENESIS, had been a creative force since the 1980s, with THE MAN OF STEEL chief among his DC credentials. During this particular period, he was involved in WONDER WOMAN and JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD, both titles being mythology-rich, which was appropriate, given that GENESIS was itself another attempt to bring, well, Jack Kirby’s Fourth World back into relevance.

The whole reason why I’m talking about it today is not that it’s somehow relevant again (even Morrison couldn’t do that with the epic FINAL CRISIS) but because I was always bothered by the fact that I didn’t read the whole thing. Flashforward to a few years ago and a trip to Escape Velocity, then known as Bargain Comics, which at that time had a whole space devoted to displaying bagged collections of original-issue runs for famous story arcs. There it was, the whole set, all four issues, plus the original teaser preview.

Byrne, it should be noted, spares no such thing as subtlety with this one. That’s usually the kind of thing I go for, but big epic tales certainly have their attraction, too, and very few comics properties have that to quite the same degree as Kirby’s Fourth World, the only successful, original mythology to have ever been attempted, and come back to repeatedly, not because the publisher wanted to, but because fans continually demand it. Trouble is, few fans regularly support the Fourth World, which includes Darkseid, Orion, Mister Miracle, and Mother Boxes that “ping.”

You probably have to be familiar with a lot of it to make any sense of GENESIS, and even then the story’s remarkably light, probably one of the thinnest of its kind even from that era (in contrast, Neron juicing old villains with bigger powers really doesn’t seem that cheap an excuse). The short of the short of it is that there’s a “Godwave” that’s supposed to explain superpowers, and its contracting makes said powers all wonky for a little while, and then cause some changes around the DCU (a clever way to doing some spring, or in this case fall, cleaning). It makes sweeping generalizations that really don’t hold to much scrutiny, but then, it’s far more about the Fourth World than about any of the many superheroes it brings together (and even then, the available characters seem to be a thin lot, and they really don’t do all that much except react for four issues).

In that sense, it’s pretty disappointing, but for those who do care about the Fourth World (Highfather dies in the FOURTH WORLD book during the month, an event that is barely mentioned in GENESIS), it remains a pretty entertaining and noteworthy event, one that makes even less sense for modern readers than to those who experienced it upon release, and not just because the New Gods have lain dormant since FINAL CRISIS, but still worth the effort for anyone who might nonetheless be curious, an odd link in a chain that still has great potential.

Given another opportunity (since JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD really was better than GENESIS might suggest), I’d be more than happy if John Byrne were interesting in another visit.

Gone in a flash...!

2011-07-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

The biggest news for me personally in recent weeks was that Borders, the company I’ve worked for over the past five years, has gone into liquidation. In a matter of months, it’ll have passed into history. There’re any number of things I could say about this, but for the purposes of this particular column, I’ll limit myself to comics experience I was able to enjoy during that time. Perhaps most notably, I found myself increasingly in charge of a small corner of the comics retail experience, quite by accident.

I began working for the company in the fall of 2006, opening a new store in Burlington, MA. At first, I as just another employee, and since this was the first time I had ever worked in a bookstore, it took time for me to establish a role for myself, to become comfortable. Some of my earliest contact with the comics in the store were the regular supply of new issues we received in our magazine shipments. I took care to manage these as best I could, but I also enjoyed reading them on breaks, which was a marvelously unique experience (I can’t imagine the wicked temptation working in an actual comics shop might kindle).

At some point, when it became necessary to reorganize certain areas that had gotten wildly out of order, I realized I could take control of the graphic novel collection, too. I became quite interested in this. I started reading a lot of those, too, some like DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and WATCHMEN that I was naturally aware of but had never actually experienced before.

Within about a year, I transferred to a different Borders after moving to Colorado Springs. Things were different here. The graphic novels hadn’t been maintained in any serious manner for some time, and I didn’t feel qualified to correct this right away. In time, however, I had enough support, the right moves were made, and I was finally able to bring them back under control. It was a greater revelation. The new order was perhaps a greater order than I’d accomplished in my other store, and I began to take greater pains to keep it so. I became, essentially, a guardian to the graphic novel collection, sometimes zealously so. The comics kept coming in with magazines, and at some point, I became sole guardian, as it were, of the magazines (somewhat more officially, it should be noted), and so was able to maintain the available issues at my leisure.

Retail can be a funny beast, sometimes completely unaware of the difference between supply and demand. Space was a constant issue, with the graphic novels. I had to innovate in order to find space for all of them. I began appropriating more and more display areas, all around the general area where comics were ordinarily be found. I became a fanatic. I didn’t exactly foster readers, but I at least made it easy for anyone to know what I thought might be worth checking out. It was fun. The displays continued to grow, and it became somewhat ridiculous (within reason). I had virtually turned a whole section of the bookstore into a comics shop. (If only I had real power! Or loyal customers!)

Anyway, then Borders went into bankruptcy, and for some reason or another couldn’t avoid liquidation. So there ends that.

Earlier this year, I had a fortuitously-timed employee appreciation discount when THE FLASH OMNIBUS BY GEOFF JOHNS VOLUME ONE was released. You may know this particular ditty comes at a fairly hefty price, oversized hardcover that it is, collecting more than a dozen comics. The period of 2000-2001, as readers of this blog may remember, was notable in my comics experience in that I was not, as such, reading comics, so Geoff’s run came at a time when I couldn’t really appreciate it. I was still high on all the work Mark Waid had done (even though his last story, involving Cobalt Blue in “Chain Lightning,” seemed to fall on deaf ears), and couldn’t imagine anyone else capturing the world of the Scarlet Speedster quite so vividly. I kept track of comics during my time away, though, and heard all these amazing things about what Johns was doing, and in 2004, when I was segueing back in, his FLASH comics were among the first things I read, even though I didn’t make an effort to be very expansive about it. Even by 2005, when I was officially back, I didn’t seem all that interested in following his efforts too closely.

Let me just step aside for a moment and note for the record that Geoff worked on THE FLASH for five years. This is incredibly unusual. Waid had about six years of interrupted time (by Mark Millar and Grant Morrison) on the title, and worked in conjunction with Brian Augustyn for some of that. Unlike his work on JSA, which he spent shared some of the work with James Robinson, Johns wrote THE FLASH on his own. It was his first big assignment after STARS AND S.T.R.I.P.E., the book that ushered Geoff’s comics career.

He’s been writing Green Lantern since 2005, and has so thoroughly revolutionized that character and the franchise around him that Hollywood finally took the gamble that a wide audience might actually be out there for a property even comics fans have only moderately cared about (for the most part). Geoff’s work in this regard is exactly comparable to what Mark Waid did with The Flash.

So what exactly did Johns did with the same character? THE FLASH OMNIBUS is a clear indication that he had no intention of replicating Waid’s work. He de-emphasized the mythology of the Speed Force and Wally West’s considerable family of speedsters (though in Geoff’s own TEEN TITANS reboot Bart Allen receives a remarkable upgrade that no other writer has been able to capitalize on, with the possible exception of Marc Guggenheim), and instead found a way to represent the reality of life for someone whose main attribute is the ability to run really fast. In effect, now that Waid had matured Wally, Geoff was able to push him into his own confident adventures.

In another departure from Waid’s impulses, Johns chose to bring villains squarely back into the fold, new ones, figures who were familiar from stories that predated Waid in the same series, but most notably the Rogues, characters who had been famous foes of Barry Allen, the second Flash, but who had basically remained dormant for decades. Geoff infused Captain Cold, Weather Wizard, Mirror Master, and others with a considerable of amount of depth that exploded their possibilities, something clear from the very beginning, though he himself wouldn’t fully realize the potential of all this for a few years. For an outsider, it seemed like he was losing himself in everything but his main character. In reality, Geoff understood better than anyone the potential of what he was writing.

A lot of commentators like to say that he prefers to resurrect old ideas at the expense of newer ones, that he’s guilty of submerging the future of comics in a fanboy’s fantasy that forever chains it to the past, limiting the potential for new readers. He brings back Barry Allen after a few decades, reversing one of comics’ seemingly permanent and perfect deaths, and forgets completely about Wally. Where’s the sense in that? The fact is (the Flash Fact), Geoff understands Barry as a character, and has done more with a few stories than most writers working for years will ever accomplish with other characters, realizing the heart of their potential. He found a narrative, a singular voice, for Barry, that had been overlooked before, wasn’t even possible given the style of storytelling when Barry was last in action. If you’ve got that, why worry about anything else?

As I attempted to do, prematurely, a few months back, I bought some comics from Borders, from the last rounds that will ever be delivered, and so will round out this week with my thoughts on those:

THE FLASH #12 (DC)
Cover date July 2011.

Somewhat appropriately enough, the final issue of the current FLASH series, with Johns at the helm, leading directly into FLASHPOINT, the first time the franchise has carried a major crossover event. With details having emerged about the “New 52,” we now know that Geoff has technically ended his run with The Flash, once again, at least for now, which is something of a disappointment, but it can’t be said that he hasn’t devoted a significant amount of his career with one Scarlet Speedster or another. I spent five years working for Borders, and Geoff spent five years writing Wally West. I know how that time passed for me. I can only imagine what it’s like to write a single series for that length of time.

GREEN LANTERN #66 (DC)
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #60 (DC)
Cover date July 2011.

I made a conscious effort to refrain from reading or collecting any of the “War of the Green Lanterns” comics in recent months, knowing that if I read any of them, I will probably want to read all of them, and since I’m “not” reading comics these days, I wanted to wait until the eventual collection to read this latest epic. Well, this was a good enough excuse to break that rule. As far as I can tell, it’s a more than appropriate arc to finish on (at least to the “New 52” fresh start), and works extremely well with GREEN LANTERN AND PHILOSOPHY, a book that was released in conjunction with the new movie, and which deals at some length with the work Geoff has been doing in developing the core concepts of the franchise.

BATMAN #711 (DC)
Cover date August 2011.

I’ve heard some people refer to Tony Daniel as a hack writer. Those who have been following this blog know that I think otherwise. I’m extremely glad that he’ll have the chance to continuing creating Batman stories in DETECTIVE COMICS come September. He has all the potential to succeed Grant Morrison as the next architect of the Dark Knight.

TEEN TITANS #91 (DC)
Cover date March 2011.

Okay, so I didn’t always notice when a series stopped shipping. Toward the end, we received fewer and fewer new comics. I liked to maintain as full a rack as possible, and so that’s why this book stuck around for so long. Which is just as well, because it becomes my only real experience with J.T. Krul’s Titans, which famously integrated Damian as a member. A fairly decent experience, overall, but not really on par with Geoff’s, or Mar Wolfman’s. There is, however, a nice moment where Bart Allen remembers the death Marc Guggenheim was editorially directed to end his run with, which is a nice touch, given what I’ve written earlier.

SPIDER-GIRL #4 (Marvel)
From April 2011.

Along with “One Moment in Time,” “Grim Hunt” was an excellent representation of a mature Spider-Man, so I kept this particular comic around since it was basically a follow-up I kept hoping customers would snatch up. They never did, obviously, but that just allowed me to, finally.

FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LAST STAND (Marvel)

This one was only shipped a few weeks back, and is a repackaging of #s 574 and 587-588 of the series recently replaced by FF, including the famous conclusion to “Three,” and therefore the infamous death of Johnny Storm. I wrote about that particular issue a few months back, and my opinion of its individual worth remains basically the same (the lack of emphasis on Johnny is baffling, except to say that his death was somehow a completely natural outcome of the story, at least in Jonathan Hickman’s eyes). The difference is that this special edition puts the whole thing into a far better context. The Fantastic Four were always something of a Marvel indulgence, a willingness to believe that it somehow made sense that these four characters really did make sense as superheroes, and not just as a makeshift family. Reed Richards, even in the movies, is portrayed as a little too singularly motivated by his pursuit of science for this to completely jive, so the forging of the Future Foundation and a complete break with its origins is actually something of a genius move on the part of Hickman. If other writers actually maintain and expand on the idea, it might even make sense! So I was glad to have had the opportunity to buy this one, certainly.

The fate of Borders, in the end, simply adds a new wrinkle into the continuing evolution of my comics experience. But things are always changing…

Quarter Bin #13 "Grant Morrison's Back Pages"

2011-07-21T13:36:00.001-07:00

I’ve been writing about my experiences reading and following comic books throughout the year, and have touched on my devotion to DC and relative aversion to Marvel, and some of the reasons why. I guess this column might explain a little more about that, and why it came to be.

As I’ve noted before, I didn’t actually start out following superheroes by reading comics. I watched them on TV originally, from the Adam West BATMAN to SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS to SUPER FRIENDS to THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO to THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY. Some were cartoons, some were merely cartoonish, some were original concepts, some were interpretations of established material. Sometimes an action figure would come with a comic book, but my experience with superheroes was almost exclusively on the screen rather than the page. One Christmas I got some ACTION FORCE comics (repackaged G.I. JOE, in other words). My sister somehow came into possession of THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN MARVEL graphic novel, and a very impressionable younger version of myself was completely blown away. Jason Todd made the newspaper when readers were given the chance to kill off Robin, a character I was familiar with, but not as much as I thought.

In other words, I became enamored with and involved in the concept, but not the reality. In many ways, that’s the DC recipe. Every generation of DC readers seems to have its own starting point (which will soon include the “New 52,” come September). It does tend to anger longtime readers (even the second Robin, only a few years into his career, experienced a radical reboot thanks to CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, which probably led directly to his infamous destiny), but it creates endless possibilities, comics that carry unexpected depth, creators who constantly have the opportunity to push both themselves and the medium. We would never have had WATCHMEN if DC hadn’t absorbed another company into the fold, and Alan Moore been given the opportunity to play with a few new characters (in a roundabout way).

Marvel doesn’t really have that. Fans are expected to care about the same characters in much the same context for decades, and while that has inarguably created the most loyal fanbase in comics, it’s resulted in homogenous stories that rarely push the envelope, even when that’s the point of the current storyline. (Ironically, DEATH OF CAPTAIN MARVEL may be the only Marvel story to ever fulfill such an ambition.) Readers invariably find superhero adventures in a strictly comic book sense, the stereotype everyone expects, and the movies that result invariably reflect exactly that kind of storytelling, even when they try (the X-Men franchise) not to.

Grant Morrison famously broke the fourth wall during his acclaimed run on ANIMAL MAN, a classic DC character who at that time was published through the Vertigo imprint. Morrison’s most famous Marvel work was with NEW X-MEN, which was basically repudiated the minute he left the company. His mutant work was a kind of extension of the superhero comics he did with JLA, widescreen storytelling that pushed the boundaries of past glory and made way for future greatness (in other words, the DC mandate). For whatever reason, Marvel experimented with it for a few years, and then went back to what it does best. I’m not saying there isn’t real talent, in the past or present, at the House of Ideas. I would suggest that this talent is relentlessly constrained by a creative mandate that routinely shatters potential in favor of what can best be described as the comfort factor.

There are some back issues I’m getting around to talking about, that serve as the crux of this argument. The first of these is by all accounts an almost throwaway experience I stumbled upon by accident, during a random search in Midtown’s online catalogue for Morrison material:

SECRET ORIGINS #50 (DC)
From August 1990.

It’s the final issue of a series that recounted the, well, secret origins of DC characters, a tradition that’s continued throughout the years, in one form or another, most recently in backup features for weekly comics 52 and COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS. The letters page for the issue serves as much as a memoriam for a cancelled book as a testament to the opinion at the time that the series really had run its course, which is incredibly strange to me, because out of the six stories within it, there are two that were timeless enough that I couldn’t believe my luck at having basically rediscovered it twenty years later. The second is the Morrison piece, but the lead is a prose effort from Dennis O’Neil which revisits Dick Grayson’s Haley Circus days.

Marvel partisans like to boast about two things, that the origins of their favored heroes are distinctive, and that those heroes are invariably uniquely identifiably human. What they tend to ignore is that DC started that same trend earlier. They like to try and obscure this fact by proclaiming Superman to be unapproachably alien, even though his Kansas connection has always been stressed more than his Kryptonian, or that Batman is a fortunate son of unobtainable privilege, even though he’s always been portrayed more as a tortured soul than as a trust fund elitist. These “World’s Finest” scraped together their current lives from personal journeys almost more epic than anything they will ever experience as crime fighters. Fans actually hated SPIDER-MAN 3 because it delved too deeply into Peter Parker’s angst, and the complicated nature of his origins. There’s a reason Christopher Nolan crafted BATMAN BEGINS the way he did. Bruce Wayne is more interesting to him than the Dark Knight.

Dick Grayson is a character who’s been around for decades, and the longer he’s been around, the less relatable his origins have become. I suspect fewer kids in the 21st century dream about running away to the circus than those in the 20th. Yet his story remains intriguing, the more writers have had to explain the appeal (even recent TV shows like HEROES and THE CAPE have tried, in their own ways), as they’ve begun grafting a separate narrative, Deadman’s past, onto it (notably in FLASHPOINT, but also Chuck Dixon’s NIGHTWING: YEAR ONE). I’ve got a great ambition of my own, to attempt my own version.

Then Grant Morrison reinterprets the famous “Flash of Two Worlds” story, which is a more direct version of that same archetype, reconnecting a new generation to a seminal yet increasingly distant milestone. At its heart is the meeting between the first two men to assume the identity of The Flash, Jay Garrick (Golden Age) and Barry Allen (Silver Age). Jay was, when this story was originally presented, a fairly generic member of a lost generation, while Barry literally represented a new one, having personally ushered it upon his introduction. Symbolically, the two inhabited twin cities, one of which had mysteriously vanished years ago. Barry crossed the divide, met his inspiration, and basically introduced the multiverse, a version of DC which embraced different eras side-by-side. Heroes that had been well-known during WWII but who had been discarded over time, most of whom were members of the Justice Society, came back, and their absence had to be explained. The more years that passed, the harder this became. Quite notably, the Society is absent from the “New 52.” I wonder if DC isn’t planning a new version of history to explain it all over again.

Anyway, the most clever aspect of Morrison’s version is that he tells it in the form of a child’s experience of this meeting (we find out later that this narrator is in fact Gar Logan, future Beast Boy of the Teen Titans, who operates alongside Wally West, the eventual third Flash). Kurt Busiek chose a reporter in MARVELS, but it’s Morrison, in this comparatively obscure comic, who truly understands the best possible perspective for such a tale (it might be argued that JOE THE BARBARIAN is his recent attempt to tell this story all over again, in a bit more literary style). The boy isn’t really impressed with superheroes until he goes along for the wild ride himself. Morrison himself has represented for me the ideal comic book writer, perhaps because I experienced superheroes first on the screen rather than the page. I understood the basics long before I read comics. I wanted to be dazzled when I finally did. Grant Morrison understands dazzle. That’s what he does. He doesn’t necessarily do superheroes (which is why most of his early work didn’t really feature them, and why his current work does), but stories that expand the possibilities of his craft. Once he caught everyone up on his style, he could do whatever he wanted, and readers would pay attention. Clearly a lot of readers don’t understand it, which is why for every fanatic there’s someone who claims he’s simply overrated. Even those who love him don’t uniformly get him. They recognize that he’s doing something special, but probably couldn’t explain him if they tried.

There’s also:

SEBASTIAN O #s 1-3 (Vertigo)
From May-July 1993.

Morrison has a reputation for being subversive, which you can understand if you’ve at least sampled THE INVISIBLES or THE FILTH. Perhaps his most concentrated effort in this regard is SEBASTIAN O, which is like his version of V FOR VENDETTA, about a cultural deviant who is actually quite deeply culturally immersed, attempting to wake people up, destroy corruption, even if the reaction he invariably finds is at best confusion. It would have made an excellent satire a decade later, when homosexuals finally started to creep into the mainstream, but Morrison is someone who has consistently skirted widespread awareness (which is probably okay by him), been just on the other side of the zeitgeist. I like to think his breakthrough is inevitable, and that his legacy will eventually eclipse Alan Moore’s, even though just at the moment it seems unlikely.

If Sebastian isn’t good enough, there’s:

DC COMICS PRESENTS: MYSTERY IN SPACE (DC)
From September 2004.

Part of a series of tribute books honoring the legacy of then-recently deceased iconic editor Julie Schwartz, Morrison writes Adam Strange, an intergalactic hero and perfect match for Morrison’s gonzo style, for one of several stories in the one-shot. It’s a wonder, or perhaps a gift for those who read this comic, that other than 52, he hasn’t otherwise worked with the character. More than the outsized possibilities of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, Strange is a character uniquely suited to Morrison’s sensibilities, and has rarely been handled so perfectly.

Taken together, these are comics Grant Morrison won’t often by identified with, but are perfect examples of his unerring gift to elevate the medium at every opportunity, comics that also serve to illustrate the potential DC has consistently strived for and in fact accomplished through the years. Most of this blog talks about DC comics, so you know that I read plenty of those, but I don’t always get to write about Grant, even though he has become my favorite comics writer.

The good news is that I’ve got plenty of other Morrison comics to write about.

Capping The Cape

2011-07-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

Maybe I don’t have a lot of right to do this, because I’ve been writing this blog throughout 2011, and THE CAPE had its brief run during this time, but I’d like to take this opportunity for another spirited defense of an overlooked superhero gem.

To understand how THE CAPE failed for NBC this past season, you probably have to understand how HEROES gradually became a failure, after starting with a bang back in 2006. HEROES was the next big genre TV hit after LOST became a sensation a few season earlier. You have to remember that by the 2006 season, LOST had started to grate on some viewers by refusing to give its answers quickly, and this was before the 2007 season, which was famously truncated by the writers’ strike. When HEROES came around, it seemed prepackaged with all the answers needed to retort the genre, big-concept questions LOST had raised, telling a complete arc over the course of its first season, which gained more buzz and acclaim as it went along. Exactly how that momentum was, ahem, lost over the course of the next three seasons is usually explained by a growing complacency and lack of genuine inspiration. Not being a partisan of usual public opinions, I’ve had other ideas. In fact, I grew to love the show more the longer it was on. But the fact remains, viewers became tired of this particular approach to superheroes on TV, and NBC’s thought process, by the time THE CAPE was announced, became a little obvious.

THE CAPE was basically the reverse of HEROES (just as HEROES had kind of been the reverse of LOST). Where the characters on HEROES never wore costumes and the villains were never permanently pegged as such (much to the chagrin of those who became tired of Sylar), THE CAPE had a costume almost from the start, and an archenemy sooner. In many ways, THE CAPE was less an answer to HEROES and more a continuation of the experiment begun by THE FLASH two decades earlier, an expertly conceived and produced superhero adventure, with most of the sensibilities most people think of from this particular genre. Like Dick Tracy and Batman, THE CAPE developed a rich rogues gallery, even within the abbreviated time it had, relying not just on the main heavy, but introducing many more, with varying roles.

How exactly this failed so utterly and swiftly is no real surprise. Like THE FLASH before it, THE CAPE asked a great deal of its audience, to accept tropes most of them had already avoided by not reading comics in the first place, asking for a commitment and to believe and accept certain leaps of faith that usually require something extraordinary, some spark either in casting or concept, that’s not necessarily related to the property itself. And even then, a cult following is needed almost instantaneously, or a convenient connection to the cultural zeitgeist. I could explain all that with examples, or simply say THE CAPE obviously had none of it. All NBC thought it needed was HEROES without the HEROES mindset, which is not exactly what Tim Kring was thinking when he saw the opportunity LOST created, just as SMALLVILLE didn’t come into existence simply because of “No Flights, No Tights.”

Anyway, I keep getting carried away. I like comparative analysis, obviously. The point is, THE CAPE is far better than its failure suggests, more nuanced, far cooler, entertaining almost to a fault. Sometimes it even takes itself a tad too flippantly. And the groundwork is laid in every episode for something greater, a rich tapestry that would have been something truly special, if the opportunity had been there.

I’m taking the liberty to talk about it because THE CAPE was released on DVD last week, and so those who overlooked it originally have a second chance, and this is a show that rewards dedicated viewing. You’ll see how the writers reveal that Orwell is Peter Fleming, a.k.a. Chess’s daughter well before they do (and well before the show ever had the chance to truly cash in on this connection). You’ll even see how Vince Faraday’s boy hangs out with Goggles’ son, without anyone ever calling attention to it. You’ll marvel at how awesome Vinnie Jones is as Scales. If this is the show’s legacy, then it is already a good one. Like THE FLASH before it, you won’t care that practically nobody cared about THE CAPE. Because you will. And it only means TV will have a chance to do it again, because now another fan will have something to work off of, a predecessor, a precedent.

To round out this week’s feature, I’ll discuss the comics I bought at Escape Velocity over the course of two visits. I get to talk about GREEN LANTERN, the movie, because DC has been supporting it a great deal, sometimes in ways that weren’t so obvious. Like THE CAPE, there’s success even in failure, so long as there are those willing to embrace material that rewards those who cared.

BATMAN INCORPORATED #s 6-7 (DC)
First, we visit with the one series I’ve tried to continue following in 2011, Grant Morrison’s continuing Bat-masterpiece. These particular issues continue to reward the long-time reader, with the first one being a kind of status marker for the whole journey, while the second is an exceptional example of the work Grant’s been doing with this series in particular; it’s like SCALPED on crack, or if you haven’t read that Vertigo series but have noted Native American writer Sherman Alexie, like a superhero version of THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO FIST-FIGHT IN HEAVEN. (It’s even more awesome than it sounds.)

BATMAN AND ROBIN #25 (DC)
Judd Winick doesn’t get a lot of respect, except from DC, which has not only retained him as a writer despite that, but cherished the groundbreaking work he’s done for the company, notably with the character of Jason Todd, whom he revisits for the conclusion of a three-issue guest stint in this title.

FLASHPOINT #s 2-3 (DC)
Gotta say, I’m really loving FLASHPOINT, Geoff Johns’ continually masterful grasp of character. We all know by now that this event book is basically his goodbye to Barry Allen, but he’s making up for whatever hard feelings that might have to those who wish he could’ve repeated his Hal Jordan magic by giving Barry’s his biggest-ever story. For a character who was killed off almost three decades ago, , was best known for ushering the Silver Age, a rogues gallery, and not even for an innovative trial that was well ahead of its time, this is perhaps more remarkable than anything Johns has done with the Green Lantern franchise. He’s succeeded in making Barry a compelling character with a story that is distinctively his own, whatever the context. And to then spin variations of known characters around this, especially the big revelation of what happened to Superman in this reality, that’s far more than anyone could have expected, no matter the hype.

FLASHPOINT: CITIZEN COLD #1 (DC)
The Rogues were well-established before Geoff Johns broke into comics, but it might be argued that no one has done as much for them as he has for the past decade, and FLASHPOINT seems designed to do even more, especially this book, which finally gives one to an individual member. Scott Kolins further proves his elevation as a creator on this one.

FLASHPOINT: DEADMAN AND THE FLYING GRAYSONS #1 (DC)
Given that Deadman, after starring in BRIGHTEST DAY, and Dick Grayson, after starring in half the Batman titles the past couple of years, are among the “losers” of the DC reboot, this one’s perhaps more important than it would have otherwise been, and maybe specifically intended to be a kind of consolation gifts for their fans.

FLASHPOINT: THE CANTERBURY CRICKET (DC)
I somehow knew from the moment I read about the Flashpoint titles, that I would find this one intriguing. I suspected, unless the character were somehow a variation of a character I hadn’t been thinking about at the time, that Cricket was a new creation for the event, and we know that I love to give new characters their due. “Canterbury Cricket” was beyond unusual. Well, Mike Carlin confirmed my faith, easily. Needless to say, I hope Cricket finds his way into the DC Universe proper.

FLASHPOINT: HAL JORDAN #1 (DC)
FLASHPOINT: ABIN SUR #2 (DC)
GREEN LANTERN MOVIE PREQUEL: HAL JORDAN (DC)
GREEN LANTERN MOVIE PREQUEL: ABIN SUR (DC)
Okay, so the titles are a little repetitive, but obviously these are the books I was talking about earlier. Two of them have a direct connection to the movie, while the others have an unexpected link, and serve as a testament both to the movie and Geoff Johns’ work with the franchise over the last five years. Before it, there’s no doubt Hal’s involvement would have been different, and it’s doubtful that Abin Sur would have been involved at all. You have things like Darwyn Cooke’s NEW FRONTIER that also embraced Hal’s character seriously, but otherwise Hal’s importance, and his backstory, have mostly been downplayed over the years. The movie prequel Hal book is as close to an adaptation as DC and Warner Brothers have apparently considered. That’s both the blessing and curse of the strong SECRET ORIGIN tie-in. I figure the movie’s success, as I’ve suggested, could’ve been greater if fans other than of comics could have seen the scope before walking into the movie theater. But there’s always next time.

SUPERMAN #712 (DC)
The more “Grounded” (and “Odyssey” over in WONDER WOMAN) dragged on, the less interesting it became. So it’s good that there’ve been interludes, even completely unscheduled ones like this issue, which resurrects a lost Kurt Busiek tale involving Krypto (who has a grizzly cameo in FLASHPOINT #3, by the way) and the aftermath of Superboy’s death during INFINITE CRISIS. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Busiek’s run on SUPERMAN from a few years back (though stories like “Third Kryptonian” were enough to convince me his take wasn’t completely alien to my Man of Steel sensibilities), but this is a nice reminder of the many things that’ve been missing from Superman comics recently.

That’s all for this time. I swear (I swear!) that this recovering comics addict hasn’t completely relapsed, that these trips to Escape Velocity really were basically anomalous (I really only want to read the final two issues of FLASHPOINT now, and hope that my finances are better in September so I don’t miss out on all the potential awesomeness).

In conclusion, let us also begin the hype for Frank Miller’s HOLY TERROR!

Comics Reader Special: 52 Pickup

2011-07-13T13:32:00.000-07:00

As everybody should know by now, DC is rebooting its entire line in September. Longtime readers will find this somewhat familiar (Zero Month following ZERO HOUR, naturally), but the observation that a lot of people seem to be missing, or maybe I’m just not reading closely enough, is that the biggest news here is that the lineup won’t necessarily be interconnected anymore. Some of these series are continuing from titles and characters as you might have known them in August, where others are clearly going with a fresh start. That’s a fair bit more radical than the reboot itself, given that DC, even with frequent company-wide crossovers that’ve sometimes led to reintroductions (with MAN OF STEEL being the most famous example) has pretty much stayed with the same basic status quo since the dawn of the Silver Age (with various explanations eventually adopting the Golden Age into that mix from an otherwise clean break that allowed Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to continue leading the charge). DC hasn’t exactly been Marvel, which has more or less maintained every one of its stories from the introductions of all its characters to remain in continuity, but with one Crisis or another, great pains have been taken in the past to explain how everything fits neatly together.

Well, not anymore! How this actually works in reality versus how it reads now, not to mention whatever impact the conclusion of FLASHPOINT has, won’t really be known until September. This is no Heroes Reborn, though. Every single series is starting from scratch.

Of course, for readers of any particular series, all that’s almost beside the point. Most readers will never read every title; never have, never will. DC’s ambition is to give every potential reader something interesting to discover, and with a selection this wide, it’s a good bet that the success rate will be pretty okay. Every series seems to have a fairly substantial premise, which is a good thing, either an established legacy or some unique hook, rather than multiples and duplicates of a given theme seeking to dominate through numbers and popular trends. Yes, there are a lot of Batman titles. Green Lantern is represented widely, and so is the name “Justice League.” (One of the biggest losers of the reboot is the Justice Society, and then maybe Tim Drake.)

For me, I found the mix of creators to be pretty interesting, almost exactly as intriguing as the titles and characters involved. Without further adieu, a ranked listing, from the series I’m salivating to read, to those I probably could do without…

1. ACTION COMICS
This is the no-brainer winner for me, Superman written by Grant Morrison. Actually, any title written by Morrison would have found itself in this spot, but the Man of Steel and Morrison have done well by each other (ALL STAR SUPERMAN, FINAL CRISIS: SUPERMAN BEYOND) in the past. Superman hasn’t been written with consistency since Geoff Johns was on this title. He’s due for the flagship position again.

2. MISTER TERRIFIC
When you’re at the threshold of a fresh start, you always want to find that one title that captures all the potential of this creative surge. Mister Terrific (who has at least one classic story behind him, “The Fourth Reich” from the pages of JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA) is exactly the kind of character poised to capitalize on this opportunity. He’s been around for about a decade, but he’s been a kind of buried secret for most of that, and as a more cerebral character than superheroes are usually known for being, and with almost exactly only that going for him, he’s got a lot to prove, just like the whole reboot. I don’t have a lot of history with writer Eric Wallace, but artist Roger Robinson has been a favorite for years, and I’ve been waiting for him to find that one project that finally puts him into the spotlight. DC has J.G. Jones on covers, so you know right there that I’m not the only one with expectations.

3. GREEN LANTERN
This is seems to be the one title DC is holding close to the vest. Other than the creative team (Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke), there is very little known about the plans for this one. Given that it’s Geoff Johns, though, and the wave of momentum that he and the property, despite the relative failure of the movie, are still riding, it’s a can’t-miss.

4. STATIC SHOCK
I didn’t really read Milestone back in the day, and I’ve never seen the cartoon series that really put this character on the map. I’m excited for this one because of Scott McDaniel, a creator I’ve been following for more than a decade, and who I’m glad has stuck with DC long enough to perhaps have found his next great project.

5. SUPERBOY
No offense to Geoff Johns and other creators who’ve worked on this character in the past decade, but Superboy never worked better than in his earliest days, when he was a vibrant new concept, a knockoff Superman who eventually realized that he wasn’t even close to being Superman, and so settled into being himself. Scott Lobdell is mounting a big comeback in the DC reboot, and this is probably going to be his best bet for success.

6. RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS
I shouldn’t speak too soon! He’s also working on this one, which was easily the most pleasant surprise. I’m been clamoring for a Jason Todd book since last summer, when the Judd Winick LOST DAYS book came out along with the UNDER THE RED HOOD animated movie. Comics fans have a complicated relationship with resurrected characters, but regardless of the impact to “A Death in the Family,” which after all is now a generation or two in the past, bringing back Jason was one of the most brilliant moves possible, considering how much more he’s worth alive than dead, all the potential and implications of “Batman’s failure” being in play again. He’s been used so sparingly since, it’s only enhanced that potential. This is exactly the book those who’ve been waiting have been waiting for, especially the additions of Starfire and Arsenal into the mix. Wounded souls, outlaws, superheroes. This book has the chance to be revolutionary.

7. GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS
The Green Lantern books, like the Batman books, receive something of a shuffle, with Tony Bedard shifting into the “C” book (not in terms of quality, but so far as spin-off weight). I think the concept for this one, replacing the more generic EMERALD WARRIORS, works beautifully with the momentum Geoff Johns brought to the franchise, and just as well with Bedard’s mythology-rich approach.

8. WONDER WOMAN
I haven’t actually read a whole lot of Brian Azzarello, so this is more in testament to my faith in the concept, which weds the “Odyssey” arc with an actual reboot, which the title probably needed to begin with. Few writers seem to appreciate just how special Wonder Woman is, how strong the concept is, and what exactly to do with it. This one seems to understand all of it. If Azzarello nails it, the story of the reboot rests here.

9. BATWING
DC has done surprisingly well with international concepts, even if its readers rarely seem to notice. Judd Winick, another underrated element of this book, is returning to the Batman family with another left field contribution.

10. JUSTICE LEAGUE
Technically speaking, the flagship of the relaunch. It’s not that I don’t have faith in Geoff Johns or Jim Lee, both of whom are legends in the comics field, but that I can’t help but wonder how long either one will stick around, and how quickly all their work will come to naught. That’s the real tradition of the Justice League, as Grant Morrison and Brad Meltzer can attest. Johns stuck around the Justice Society for years, though. There’s a good chance he’ll repeat that here. If he does, we’ll at least have a really good book for a fair number of years.

11. GREEN LANTERN CORPS
Peter J. Tomasi somehow became one of DC’s elite writers without hardly anyone even realizing it, and the GL Corps is one of his signature projects.

12. BLUE BEETLE
I could’ve cared less for Blue Beetle as a member of the Teen Titans, or to a lesser extent, his role in JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST. Jaime Reyes is a strong standalone character with almost as strong as sense of the legacy he continues, which he’s broadly extended . Now he’ll be written by Tony Bedard. Happy to see this one as part of the lineup.

13. LEGION LOST
Written by Fabian Nicieza, who’s been doing some terrific work for DC, with art by Pete Woods, one of the least likely superstars in comics, based on a cult favorite story from the Legion’s past. This one’s a sleeper, but hopefully destined to be one of the best surprises of the reboot.

14. STORMWATCH
Paul Cornell takes something of a step back with the relaunch, but he’s still fairly prominent with this new take on a classic Wildstorm concept, with Martian Manhunter along for the ride. Should be interesting.

15. DETECTIVE COMICS
I don’t really know why Tony Daniel and Scott Snyder flopped books, but my allegiance remains with Daniel, who’s quietly establishing his own iconic take on the Dark Knight.

16. BATMAN AND ROBIN
Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason are one of the classic creative teams at this point. It seems right that they get a chance to reboot their run on this book with a revamped pairing, rather than having to try and live up to Grant Morrison’s iconic original concept. Actually says a lot about them that they’ll get to handle to handle the reunion between father and son.

17. SAVAGE HAWKMAN
Hawkman’s had a number of series, but this feels like it’s the first one that attempts to follow the character in his most basic and appealing context. Happens to be written by Tony Daniel.

18. DEMON KNIGHTS
I have high hope that Paul Cornell will be able to unleash his full potential on a book like this, just completely cut loose.

19. BLACKHAWKS
Writer Mike Costa is half of the team that brought us the brilliant G.I. JOE: COBRA series, which eventually forced IDW to shape its whole Joe line around it. Seems like he’s going to be kicking it DC style this time.

20. NIGHTWING
Hate the art I’ve seen for the cover (sorry, Eddy Barrows!), but I have to stick by Dick Grayson, especially when the series seems to be taking a character approach, which is always good for this character. Still, he’s Nightwing again…?

21. THE FLASH
Even if he apprenticed under Geoff Johns, Francis Manapul essentially has the same problem Johns has on JUSTICE LEAGUE: history. This book did not need a reboot so soon, and it really did not need to lose Johns so quickly. I expect either unexpected awesomeness, or another Flash book lost to deferred momentum.

22. FURY OF FIRESTORM
Love Firestorm almost as much as Blue Beetle, but I wonder if the magic will be with this series as much as the last one.

23. SUPEGIRL
I’ve been in awe of Michael Green since “Lovers and Madmen” from BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL, but he hasn’t really had a chance to shine since. This Supergirl reboot is kind of like the Superboy and Wonder Woman ones I’ve already written about, digging back into the core concept and seeing how vibrant it can really be. Sterling Gates wrote the character pretty well, but Supergirl probably shouldn’t be that identifiable, as least as reintroduced by Jeph Loeb (kinda wish he were involved in the reboot).

24. RED LANTERNS
Long-announced, still a big question. Will these guys really make for an interesting series?

25. LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES
Paul Levitz is the master of the Legion. That much is pretty undeniable at this point. He was the Chris Claremont of the Legion before Claremont was the Claremont of the X-Men. Here he seems to be working with an even more clear break from previous continuities than before.

26. BATWOMAN
Kept getting delayed so long, DC finally figured out that this was the best possible opportunity to finally start publishing this book. Kate Kane and J.H. Williams III will always be worth the wait.

27. JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK
Less quirky than previous attempts at this kind of a team, and that will probably work in this book’s favor. The most Vertigo of the post-Vertigo projects. Might be another sleeper.

28. ANIMAL MAN
It’s surprising that with all the things DC has done with Animal Man in recent years, this is the first time he’s actually gotten another series. Sounds like Jeff Lemire got the concept right.

29. BATMAN
A lot of the appeal for Scott Snyder’s Batman was that he was using Dick Grayson. Will it work as well with Bruce Wayne?

30. SUPERMAN
Two Superman books, neither featuring a classic interpretation (making Geoff Johns pretty much the last writer to do so). George Perez has an uphill battle. Never-ending?

31. AQUAMAN
The most obvious spin-off from BRIGHTEST DAY is a tall challenge, but Geoff Johns is the most likely writer to figure out how to make this character compelling. If he can pull it off, he’ll have revolutionized DC all over again.

32. JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL
On the one hand, Booster Gold lost his own book. On the other, he’s the leader of the team! I’m glad Dan Jurgens is still in the mix, but I’m most excited to see just how August General in Iron (THE GREAT TEN) gets used, almost as excited that he’s being used at all!

33. GREEN ARROW
Another character with a bad track record (J.T. Krul, however, seems to have figured everything out already). Assuming his momentum isn’t totally lost in this reboot, could stand a shot at redemption.

34. CAPTAIN ATOM
Will he be able to sustain a compelling series? J.T. Krul will find out.

35. TEEN TITANS
A team and a book that has faded into irrelevance, and shockingly, Tim Drake’s only appearance in the reboot, the first time he hasn’t had his own book since 1993. Scott Lobdell has his greatest challenge with this one, but he could pull it off.

36. O.M.A.C.
Jack Kirby’s legacy makes it into the reboot, and it’s not with the New Gods! Dan Didio and Keith Giffen have their work cut out for them, with the unenviable task of finally making that whole OMAC thing DC’s been working on finally stick.

37. VOODOO
You can almost see “Witchblade” written on this one, given that Ron Marz has spent most of his recent comics past with that franchise. Could be awesome. Total mystery otherwise. A true “Zero Month” prospect.

38. RESURRECTION MAN
There’s a cult of readers who salivated over this one like I did for Morrison and Superman. One of the best surprises of the relaunch. Not many characters like this receive a second chance, even one who has a hard time staying dead. (Hmm. Apparently quite literally.)

39. SWAMP THING
I know Alan Moore created his legacy with this character, but I’m still not all that convinced, having not read much of even that legendary run, that Swamp Thing makes a compelling character to follow.

40. DEATHSTROKE
This is a character who had a long-running series back in the 1990s, but that’s practically a lifetime ago. This might be awesome. Or it might be a huge mistake.

41. BATGIRL
I kind of hate to say it, but I think I prefer Babs as Oracle. This feels unnecessary.

42. FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E.
I loved Grant Morrison’s Frankenstein in SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY. But I’m not convinced he’s as awesome otherwise.

43. BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT
I’m still not convinced I should care about David Finch’s Batman.

44. I, VAMPIRE
Could be really interesting. Could be a huge waste of my time. These books tend to be cancelled on me far ahead of their time.

45. SUICIDE SQUAD
DC’s A-Team/Thunderbolts/Give-Me-a-More-Compelling-Set-up.

46. GRIFTER
Dropping Grifter into this seems to be a little premature.

47. CATWOMAN
I don’t know. I loved Catwoman in Paul Dini’s Hush stories. But at least Judd Winick is doing this one. Could be more entertaining than I’m giving it credit for.

48. BIRDS OF PREY
Black Canary paired with a new character has possibilities. The onus is on Starling to be interesting.

49. HAWK AND DOVE
BRIGHTEST DAY gives and it takes. Sterling Gates and Rob Liefeld were not given the most posh assignment of the group. Hank Hall is a great character, but he’s a better villain than he is a hero. Unless this book quickly makes that transition, it’s kind of pointless.

50. ALL-STAR WESTERN
Maybe this will be the western that makes westerns interesting. But I never really bothered with Jonah Hex before, either.

51. MEN OF WAR
Kind of superfluous, after BLACKHAWKS.

52. DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS
I have nothing against this one, except the tradition of these anthology books falling apart after a time. Still, glad that Deadman gets to open the series. Should’ve gotten his own book, though…

All this translates to my gut instincts about the books I would absolutely want to read sight unseen, to those I wonder about, whether I would be interested upon seeing them, or if they have a realistic chance of remaining published in a year’s time. I’m no prognosticator, though, and clearly some of the ranks are based on my interests as they are now alone. One way or another, this is a list of fifty-two books, and has ambition written all over it. I applaud DC just for having the guts to do it.

Quarter Bin #12 "Blue Marvel"

2011-07-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

One of the pitfalls of being a comics reader is that you can sometimes develop impulses that don’t always pan out. As some of the previous editions of Quarter Bin have indicated, I have an instinct to embrace obscure characters, superheroes other fans have all but ignored or dismissed, or just plain forgotten about. I look at them with a mixture of nostalgia and potential, for both what they’ve accomplished and represented in the past, and what they might still have to offer in future stories.

Comics readers often like to connect with other comics readers, to share their passions and opinions, to discover things they’ve previously overlooked. I’ve been a registered member of the Comic Book Resources forums for more than a year now (though “Tekamthi” only has about 200 posts to show for it). Every now and then, there’s a topic that intrigues me, such as when Blue Marvel was brought up.

Wait, so who’s Blue Marvel? The topic of this column, actually:

ADAM: LEGEND OF THE BLUE MARVEL #1 (Marvel)
From January 2009.

Blue Marvel, as it turns out, is exactly the opposite of what I’ve been talking about. There certainly are a number of characters with great potential but very few comics to show for it, but Blue Marvel isn’t one of them. Maybe it’s the writing in the issue I tracked down, which seems to be written almost as a parody of generic comics, so bad you’re left to wonder if Kevin Grevioux weren’t in fact trying to establish a bold new hero but sabotage him.

Blue Marvel is a black superhero, and Lord knows there’s history enough with DC and Marvel struggling over how to do that. Most of the successes are variations on established characters. You also have someone like Black Panther, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would take him seriously. His name is “T’Challa,” and he hails from the African nation of “Wakanda.” If Marvel were to call do-over on any of its creations before seriously supporting them, Black Panther is that character. He’s as insulting as he’s supposed to be empowering. You also have Luke Cage, but the only way he’s ever been successful is either as a team-up buddy or as a member of Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers (uh…one of them). I still don’t know exactly what his deal is, other than as the superhero equivalent of blaxploitation, Marvel’s Shaft. I’d take the company’s commitment to him more seriously if he’d at least had one ongoing series to his credit, just one attempt, or even an association slightly more positive than “Sweet Christmas!” Or maybe even a movie deal.

Hey, Blade had Marvel’s biggest success at the movies, to that point. Still doesn’t have his own series. Moon Knight gets more respect. Moon Knight!

Getting to the specifics of Blue Marvel is beyond the point. Not worth dignifying. At least DC has shown considerable support for its Milestone characters (Static might count as the most recent important new character for either DC or Marvel), despite apparent reader apathy. Mr. Terrific, who just about counts as the only version of that character worth mentioning, will be part of the big relaunch, with his first series. Very excited about that one.

Beyond the racial issues, which only compound the disappointment I have for Blue Marvel, I guess the point is, discovering the undiscovered can sometimes be more complicated than it seems. Sometimes a character is undiscovered for a reason, and for a creation like Blue Marvel, the reason is exceedingly obvious in hindsight. So for Comic Book Resources members, or for comics readers in general, let this one serve as a warning for this particular character. But keep the faith alive. Comics have plenty of treasures to discover.

No Evil Shall Escape My Sight

2011-06-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

It still bothers me, that GREEN LANTERN was something of a box office disaster. I’ve since learned that plans for a sequel have not been consequently scrapped, so there’s that much, and anyone who saw the ending of the movie knows that one of the big complaints has theoretically already been addressed to that end; Hal will have a definite, physical foe to fight, and it’ll be Sinestro (I would also bet on Star Sapphire).

Given the rather extended partisan rant I went on in the last Quarter Bin, it should be no surprise that I generally favor DC over Marvel, not simply out of loyalty, but on basic philosophical levels, which seem to extend between the comics and film realms as well. Where Hollywood sees a rather extended and rather extensive success story from Marvel’s properties, I see a series of movies that more often than not take the cheap way out, and the successes are almost always by accident. For every FANTASTIC FOUR (which itself still managed to produce a sequel), a conceptual failure that was easily on the same level as two Hulk failures (which again, is, financially, on a fairly relative scale), audiences have embraced two Iron Man movies and a Thor that have neither of them been that much better. I’m still trying to figure out just how THOR became a success (at this point, I’d embrace the FANTASTIC FOUR model, or the anticipation for AVENGERS), but everyone knows that Robert Downey, Jr. saved IRON MAN from collapsing in on itself. In fact, almost every single Marvel movie has contradicted the assertion that a strong villain is necessary to make a successful superhero film. Every villain a Marvel movie has featured has been, in some way, either a complete joke or a conceptual nightmare, or for all intents and purposes perfectly ready to confront Adam West in a slanted camera angle. (The rare exception to this rule has either been outright rejected, as Thomas Haden Church learned the hard way in SPIDER-MAN 3, or misused, as Ian McKellen routinely was, when he wasn’t talking, in the X-Men trilogy.)

When DC does a villain, and Joel Schumacher not particularly factored into this equation, you have a character who thematically fits into the rest of the picture, without any real compromise. Heath Ledger’s Joker was already legendary before anyone had properly experienced him in THE DARK KNIGHT, and still ended up producing box office records. Kevin Spacey took what even Gene Hackman reduced to a joke and made Lex Luthor menacing in SUPERMAN RETURNS, a true reflection on the humanist outlook for a movie that also failed to properly fill out the regular superhero spandex. Peter Sarsgaard and the voice of Clancy Brown (!) represented unusually cerebral adversaries for a hero with one of the most unlimited powers in comics and movie theaters, but as GREEN LANTERN stressed again and again, it was willpower that was bound to win the day.

Just not the hearts of moviegoers. Everyone’s been attempting to explain the failure of the movie, but very few people were attempting to make it a success. Aside from an uptake in popularity at comic book stores, Green Lantern is a property that meant absolutely nothing to mainstream audiences, a concept that was either thoroughly illustrative of its native medium, or hopelessly dominated by it. Now it seems we have our answer. Why there was no novelization available prior to the theatrical release is one of the great oversights in recent marketing. To assume anyone who might have cared would simply read up with some of the trades doesn’t begin to consider that no single Green Lantern story has ever properly conveyed the scope of the concept, which is why the movie had to moderately tweak certain aspects. To simply say, Geoff Johns’ SECRET ORIGIN covers the bulk of what anyone needs to know, kind of misses the point. Peter Jackson didn’t have a huge success on his hand with the Lord of the Rings trilogy because there was a huge population hopelessly devoted to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien (that would be the case with Harry Potter, or the Twilight Saga), but because he unexpectedly produced a landmark fantasy experience, something no other filmmaker had done before him, or has managed since.

GREEN LANTERN was expected to succeed because of its unique scope, and the fact that most comic book movies tend to be something of a success these days. It was an unknown property with something remarkable to contribute.

But, it was also a comic book movie, with something entirely new to say about comic book movies. Just imagine if Star Wars had originally been a comic. “Come see this awesome new sci-fi movie! It was originally a comic!” Putting aside that many, many imitators quickly proved that George Lucas really did have a singular, unduplicatable vision, Green Lantern as a property developed over many decades a rich tapestry that is completely unrivaled in comics. One might say that if it hadn’t been for the fact that DC did it as a comic book first, a movie version of this mythology would have been inevitable anyway. Anyone who watched Jackson’s movies and wondered what someone else might do with magic rings and complicated histories might objectively look at GREEN LANTERN and easily interpret it as a natural reaction, even if it’s taken a decade to reach. Did anyone object to Sauron being a disembodied eye for nearly the full length of three films, or the fact that even in the conclusion of that story, this main villain never so much as looked Frodo directly in the eye?

I may not be very coherent about this, may not even be very objective, and that’s because I’m just so damned confused and disappointed. I would perhaps sum up GREEN LANTERN’s failure as asking too much of an audience from a property that has existed for decades but in a form that few fans of even its original medium ever bothered to follow. I’m extremely happy that, one way or another, this film does in fact exist, and my own enjoyment of it cannot be dampened by the general reaction of others. Hey, I have a rich history of liking movies other people rejected out of hand, for reasons that are even harder for me to understand. I can handle this. It’s a matter of expectations. With this one movie, I had the idea that Green Lantern would finally come to be embraced on a scale I imagined it always deserved. I wanted a Green Lantern movie back in 1994, when Hal Jordan was a crazy man and one of DC’s biggest villains. I always saw the cinematic potential, even when I myself would never have envisioned quite this way.

I made another trip to Escape Velocity last week, and have planned another this week, and while these are still purely exceptions, I will write about the comics I bought in future columns. I hadn’t even planned on such an extended rant directly solely on GREEN LANTERN, but rather something that would have segued into more direct comics talk, including some relevant material to a starter topic like the movie. Better luck next time…

Quarter Bin #11 "Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating..."

2011-06-23T13:08:00.001-07:00

At a time when Marvel is attempting to breath new life into its Ultimate line (or at least reinvigorating ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN) and DC has launched FLASHPOINT and announced a complete reboot of its regular line, now would be a great time to look at another famous comics remaining. Or rather, let’s just imagine…

Okay, whether that was actually clever or not, this week’s column is a look back at Stan Lee’s brief visit to DC from nearly a decade ago, and is prompted specifically by:

JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE’S SECRET FILES & ORIGINS
From March 2002.

JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE’S SHAZAM!
JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE’S BATMAN
JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE’S GREEN LANTERN
Circa 2001 and 2002.

Clearly, not the complete set of JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE CREATING…(which I’m surprised didn’t become a perennial reprint collection, or not), but the SECRET FILES & ORIGINS (have I mentioned before that I wish DC would continue publishing these?) covers the whole field, and gives plenty of reference for the rest of it. I’m not here to argue that these comics are classics, but that they are certainly interesting material, and part of my own interest in them comes from the fact that they were originally released during the 1999-2004 period where I wasn’t reading comics regularly, though I was at least following important developments from a distance. Anyone familiar with the rivalry between DC and Marvel, and Stan Lee’s own prominent role in that feud, will be as surprised today as they were a decade ago that these books happened at all (or maybe not as much, with the increasingly desperate-to-participate Stan working on all kinds of crazy projects in recent years, and only Boom! seems to have been smart enough to temper it).. Fact is, true believer, they did. Excelsior!

Unlike he’s sometimes liked to popularly acknowledge, as Jack Kirby and Steve Dikto might attest, Stan worked very prominently with a battery of famous artists on these books. SHAZAM! was done in collaboration with Gary Frank (slightly ahead of the curve that eventually brought Frank to his greatest heights with Geoff Johns and Superman), while Joe Kubert worked on BATMAN and Dave Gibbons on GREEN LANTERN. Similar blockbuster collaborations could be found in the rest of the set. I chose the particular ones I did because they particularly interested me, Green Lantern simply because through just about every incarnation (including the Tangent Comics variation with the Chinese lantern) never really disappoints, Batman because he seems the least likely to fit the Marvel mold, and the other version of Captain Marvel for reasons I can no longer clearly remember (I ordered these comics last fall, and that’s when I originally read them).

I feel compelled at this point to ruminate a little further on some of those points. What exactly separates a DC concept from a Marvel one? No one but Stan Lee could possibly understand that better, and that’s a little of what made this experiment so interesting. Movie patrons this summer have been getting a crash course, too, even if they haven’t always realized it. I’m thinking right now of the relative failure of GREEN LANTERN versus how audiences have generally embraced, say, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, which to me is a travesty of justice, and here it’s not even specifically a matter of comic book publisher partisanship. The difference in quality and depth, to me, is clear, the actual execution and worth of the films undeniable. GREEN LANTERN is superior.

How do I reach that conclusion? Everyone’s been talking about how socially relevant FIRST CLASS is, whereas GREEN LANTERN comes off almost like a generic geek offering, suitable only for fans, impenetrable otherwise. (What a pity it is that Ryan Reynolds was already a known commodity! Anyone else in that performance would have been a breakout, and this is coming from someone who admired Chris Hemsworth’s turn in THOR, but there is no comparison in terms of how valuable these star turns are as complete packages.) But where FIRST CLASS is a constantly flawed film, GREEN LANTERN is in full control throughout its running time. Even the apparent flaw of villains can easily be explained if you care to. Where Parallax turns out to be the ultimate test of will, Hector Hammond is the test of character. Without either of these opponents, Hal Jordan’s arc would be incomplete, just as he needs his friends Carol Ferris and Tom Kalmaku to support him. There are so many storytelling echoes in this film, so many affirmations of what the audience is supposed to take away from the experience. Where FIRST CLASS is ultimately hollow and functional, GREEN LANTERN is immersive and soulful.

In other words, where FIRST CLASS pays lip service to its intentions, GREEN LANTERN is well-rounded; it does exactly what it sets out to. How this translates to my perception of the difference between Marvel and DC is simple enough. Stan Lee, and his collaborators, famously created a whole world of superheroes defined by their flaws existences, and that has always been interpreted as more relatably human than the larger-than-life figures DC introduced earlier, the archetypes too distance from everyday experience to be continually relevant.

Another way to say that, as the movies bear out, at least as I see them, is that Marvel is really good at origins, while DC sets its characters on journeys. Think about it: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS is an origin movie, just like BATMAN BEGINS was, or even SPIDER-MAN, or GREEN LANTERN. What do you really get from this experience? You watch the pain that creates Magneto, the ambitions of Charles Xavier, and the alienation of your regular batch of mutants, and how all these elements colliding produces a clash of philosophies. That’s great and all, but in the meantime you also get some generic villains (I love Kevin Bacon, too, but even he couldn’t possibly salvage a group of baddies that also included a wooden Emma Frost and Nightcrawler stand-in with no personality). In other words, there’s no story here, just some points that need to connect, like watching mad Norman Osborn transform into Green Goblin, just so Spidey has a villain to physically defeat. That’s the kind of storytelling that may look “great” in live action at the movies, but it’s also what makes most people find it very hard to respect comics in general. And what’s more, they begin to associate that kind of work as inherent to superheroes, and they reject anything that contradicts it.

Time and again, you see a Marvel character with only a semblance of future potential after the origin has gotten out of the way. Why do you think it’s so hard for a good Hulk movie to be made? Because once you get past the origin, you basically end up exactly with the kind of stories the TV show had to do, a version of THE FUGITIVE. The Hulk isn’t really a hero at all. The only thing interesting about him is Bruce Banner. Without Banner, you basically have a villain, or a mentally handicapped superhero, who can’t help himself inflicting all kinds of mindless destruction all around him. “With great power comes great responsibility,” but aside from the moment he realized he should be a superhero, Peter Parker has nothing to separate himself from the villains he eventually pursues, and even after that, he only barely seems to realize the gravity of the role he has assumed. He spends most of his time avoiding that responsibility, actually, when you think about it. Most Spider-Man writers don’t, naturally. Captain America is a steroids metaphor, but I guarantee you won’t see Steve Rogers presented like Barry Bonds in his new movie. Where do you go with a character like that and actually be honest about it?

The reason the X-Men movies are now repeating themselves is because without that rivalry and that social metaphor, the writers have constantly demonstrated that there’s very little else to do with them. They can’t be seen as regular heroes, which otherwise they obviously are, so they have to either become painfully generic and dull down the impact of the same stories, or they have to repeat themselves. There’s nothing different about FIRST CLASS than the first X-MEN, expect a greater focus on Magneto, and even less probing look at Xavier. Everything has to fall in place without a lot of examination or everything falls apart.

GREEN LANTERN, on the other hand, represents a DC comic book just as perfectly. The origin is just another step in the development of that character. Why is Hal Jordan such a perfect selection to represent the Green Lantern Corps? Because even before he received the ring, he had his own problems. Bruce Wayne wasn’t just a spoiled little rich boy, but the son of a philanthropist, who looked for real solutions to the problems he saw all around him. Putting a suit of armor on him wouldn’t make him Iron Man. (Part of the charm of the Robert Downey, Jr. superhero experience is that it subverts as much as supports the Marvel method, actually, something that’s a little more apparent in the second film.) Superman’s home world was lost, and he was adopted by very humble humans. His journey isn’t just about the cape, but about coping with a whole existence that is ripe with storytelling potential. Hal lost his father early on, and never really came to grips with it. His story is ably depicted in the movie, and the superhero layer just another excuse for character growth. “You have the ability to overcome great fear.” It’s just a metaphor. He doesn’t believe in himself, but he’s been proving himself wrong all his life. He just needed other people to believe in him.

To then see what Stan Lee, who comes from a completely different school of thought, work with something like that is fascinating in its own right. Stan sticks by his own formula pretty religiously, but it’s clear he works with a few more tools than he’s used to. These are comics worth revisiting for that reason. They’re at once instantly disposable and compelling at the same time. Just imagine someone else working with this stuff, they seem to say, without anyone involved realizing it. More than the Green Lantern variant, it’s Batman who is most revealing. In many ways, it’s Stan grafting the idea of Spider-Man onto Batman. Can the two coexist? Well, just imagine…

Green Lantern thoughts!

2011-06-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

Loved it. Let me repeat, loved it. You can find my review on my Examiner profile page.

Green Lantern in theaters today!

2011-06-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't exactly written a ton of things about Green Lantern since beginning the Comics Reader earlier this year, but of all the comic book properties out there, this one has always been my favorite, so yeah, I'm extremely excited that it's gotten the Hollywood treatment. The critics I've read so far are somehow finding the movie more difficult to stomach than Thor or X-Men: First Class, both of which I found uninspired and undercooked, but I haven't actually seen it yet. Oh, and most critics are so full of themselves they can only very rarely see the actual merit of a film, rather than whatever opinion is most convenient to hold.

I will check back in with my own thoughts.