Fluit Notes

What Age Is It Now Anyway?

I’ve been talking about the ages of comics for the past three columns (if you think I’m being long-winded, you should see all of the stuff I left out).  Either way, I appreciate your perusal and participation.  So far, I’ve speculated as to whether or not Brightest Day and Heroic Age will launch a new age, sided with the broad consensus that there is such a beast as a Bronze Age, and struck out on my own to propose a Fourth Age from 1987-1996.  That leaves the issue of what do we do with the last dozen years or so.  Is it another age? 

If you’ve been reading along, then you already know that my answer is “Yes.”  However, I’ll readily admit that this is my own opinion rather than a widely-accepted theory.   

 There are two major arguments against this being a fifth age.  The first is “everything since **** is just one big age.”  There is some validity to that argument.  Indeed, every new age has had to overcome that perception. 

 Jeff-of-Earth-J had a great quote in response to the first column: "Modern Age" is a term I use for whatever the current age which has not yet been defined. For example, I used to say "Golden Silver and Modern," but now I say "Golden, Silver, Bronze and Modern." 

 This shows that, despite initial resistance, the idea of a defined age of comics can gain acceptance.  The argument would have been at one time, “everything since 1970 (the end of the Silver Age) is just one big age.”  Now, it’s more likely to be “everything since 1986 (the end of the Bronze Age) is just one big age.”  

 However, I argued that the years 1987 to 1996 have all of the features and characteristics of an age, with one notable exception- a widely agreed-upon name.  However, if we were to insert one of the suggested names, we would have Golden, Silver, Bronze, Iron and everything after.  In other words, “everything since 1996 (the end of the Iron Age) is one age.”  

 I’m glad to say that I’m not the only one who has considered this.  In 1997 and ’98, Wildstorm Studios produced a crossover between the X-Men and their own Wildcats.  The story would span several eras of time, reflecting the different ages of comics.  The four issues were the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Dark Age (one of the other suggested names for the Fourth Age) and the Modern Age. 

 The second major argument against this being a fifth age has to do with sales.  Figserello wrote, “Sales follow successful new storytelling fashions, so the two are interlinked.”  Indeed, the earlier ages are defined not only by peaks in creative output, but also by spikes in sales. 

 That causes a problem for the current age.  After all, current comic book sales pale in comparison with earlier ages.  The best-selling comics of today would be mid-level performers in the ’80s or in danger of cancellation in the ‘60s. 

  However, I don’t think that necessarily precludes the possibility of a fifth age.  For one thing, an age is not necessarily a direct comparison between peaks.  By that definition, the Silver Age wouldn’t count as an Age either.  After all, the sales of the Silver Age were one-fifth of the sales of the Golden Age.  Similarly, the Bronze Age peak may not have been as high as the peak of the Silver Age but it was still a peak compared to the years that had come between.   

On the other hand, the last fifteen years have given us a valley and a peak that help shape the ages of comics.  The years of 1997-99 had the lowest comic book sales in history.  They’re so low that I wouldn’t even include them in an age.  They’re kind of like the years between the Golden and Silver Ages (which saw great sales in other genres but the near-extinction of superheroes) and the years between the Silver and Bronze Ages (according to some definitions).  In contrast, the years 2000-2007 saw seven straight years of growth.  That’s something that hadn’t happened since the Golden Age (the Silver Age’s best stretch was 4 years).

 Another issue is that sales contrasts across eras are not apple-to-apple comparisons.  Silver Age numbers are based on the number of issues printed for returnable newsstand distribution and could be double the number of issues actually sold.  Current numbers are based on issues sold to the direct market- while ignoring subscriptions, newsstand distribution and international sales- and could be half of the actual number of issues sold.  I’m not saying that current comics sell as well as Silver Age comics.  They don’t.  But the gap isn’t as great as some observers would have you believe.  Plus, modern comics are also sold in trade paperbacks, a secondary market that extends shelf-life and raises readership. 

 The current age may not be as commercially successful as the Silver Age, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s not an age at all.

 I think it is.  I think the sales are part of the story (including the seven straight years of growth that I mentioned previously).  I think the expansion of the market is part of the story.  Comics have expanded into new genres, new formats and new territories.  The last decade has seen the explosion of manga, trade paperbacks and bookstore sections devoted to comics.  You can even buy comics in airport terminals. 

 Of course, it’s not only about sales.  It’s also about style. 

 Luke Blanchard asked (yes, I’m quoting Luke again; sorry, Luke), “Is there the same kind of contrast between superhero comics of today and of fifteen years ago as there was between the superhero comics of the mid-70s and those of the early 60s?”

 I think so.  Modern comics have very different features than Iron Age comics.  Comics of the early ‘90s were often fast-paced, action-packed affairs.  An actual story sometimes took back-seat to a sequence of fight scenes.  Comics of the mid-aughts were slow-paced.  They were deconstructed and fans would sometimes wait four to six issues for a big fight. 

Compare Jim Lee’s first issue of Wildcats in 1992 with Joe Casey’s first issue of Wildcats 3.0 in 2002.  Compare the “Reign of the Supermen” in 1993 with “World without a Superman” this past year.  Compare Joe Madureira’s X-Men in 1994 to Grant Morrison’s New X-Men in 2004.  They’re completely different animals. 

 And I’m not the only one who’s noticed.  John Dunbar made a good point when he discussed the history of Marvel comics in terms of its chief editors.  The comic books from the Joe Quesada era are as different from the Tom DeFalco era as the Jim Shooter era is from the Stan Lee era. 

 So yeah, I think we’re in the fifth age of comics.  Call them what you like: Chromium and Platinum (I haven’t given up on them yet), Dark and Prismatic (with a tip of the cap to Figserello), Iron and Modern.  But I think that they’re two very distinct and different ages, rather than one big “everything after.”

 And, yeah, I’m worried that we’re actually at the end of the fifth age of comics.  After the highs of 2007 (the best-selling year since the pre-crash days of ’95), we’ve seen two years of slight decline.  The industry isn’t back to the lows of 1997-’99.  At least, not yet. 

 Which brings me back to the subject that started this all.  I sincerely hope that DC’s Brightest Day and Marvel’s Heroic Age can reverse the trend.  I hope that new technology like Apple’s iPad can be a jump-start for the industry the way that the direct market was at the beginning of the Bronze Age.  I think things have been pretty good for the past decade.  And I’d like to see it keep going. 

 Thanks for listening, everyone.  The End. 

What Comes After the Bronze Age?

For the past two weeks, I’ve written articles about the various ages of comics.  It’s an admittedly academic topic, but one which fascinates me (and interests quite a few readers, judging by the number of comments generated by the past two columns).  The first column speculated as to whether or not DC’s Brightest Day and Marvel’s Heroic Age are the start of a new age (probably not, but I hope they at least lead to a resurgence in the current age which is beginning to stall).  The second column defended the existence of a Bronze Age, a term used to describe the third comic book boom.

In discussing the existence of a Bronze Age, I neglected to define it.  Happily, the Legion of Superfluous Heroes (otherwise known as the members of the Captain Comics Message Board) took up the task.  The discussion centered on two main theories.  The first is that the Bronze Age lasted from 1970-1986, starting with Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (sometimes in conjunction with other key issues of ’70-’71).  The second theory is that the Bronze Age lasted from 1975-1986, starting with the introduction of the all-new X-Men in Giant-Size X-Men #4 (with 1970-1974 serving as either a period between ages or a proto-Bronze Age).  Both theories shared a common end-date of 1986- the year that the Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars II brought significant changes in both tone and continuity.  Those weren’t the only theories- there are still those who reject the concept of a Bronze Age and others who offer a different end-point- but they seem to be the main ones. 

 This week, I want to move beyond that part of the discussion.  What comes after the Bronze Age? 

  One major view is that nothing comes after the Bronze Age.  Luke Blanchard wrote, “The last twenty years seem to me one long period.”  Jeff-of-Earth J described the ages of comics as “Golden, Silver, Bronze and something else.”  Wikipedia- a reflection of popular consensus- agrees.  It follows entries for Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages with one for a Modern Age, encompassing everything from 1987 until now. 

 I’m on record with another view.  I admit that I’m probably departing from the majority on this one.  But I think that the past twenty-five years contains at least two distinct ages, bringing us to a total of five. 

 I see several different factors contributing to the beginning of the Fourth Age (which, for now, will remain nameless).  One is the change in tone initiated by Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns.  Those two stories led comics to a different approach that was clearly distinct from the comics that came before.  Story-telling was darker and more mature, which is why one of the most popular names for this period is the Dark Age (a quick aside: those two features are not always the same thing though they’re often treated that way).  Those two works paved the way for other successful properties such as Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and DC’s Vertigo imprint. 

 Luke Blanchard is right when he writes, “I don't know that the post-Crisis DCU immediately got darker.”  It didn’t.  But the Silver Age didn’t happen over-night either.  The new Flash debuted in 1956.  Superman and Wonder Woman didn’t enter the Silver Age until 1958.  Green Arrow and Aquaman entered the Silver Age in different years despite co-starring in the same title.  Some people even argue that Batman didn’t enter the Silver Age until his “New Look” in 1964. 

  Another factor giving rise to the Fourth Age is the change in continuity.  This was especially apparent at DC.  Fans even developed a new lexicon of “pre-Crisis” and “post-Crisis” to refer to the many changes wrought by that series.  This became particularly evident to me when I recently read the trade collection of Superman: Man of Steel.  The changes to the character, the cast and the universe were far-reaching.  The changes were so significant that the editorial and accounting departments actually credited the writers with creating new characters (Marv Wolfman mentioned in a preface that he receives royalty checks for creating a new version of Lex Luthor).  In its way, the introduction of a new Superman in Man of Steel is as significant as the introduction of a new Flash in Showcase #4.  This time, the new Superman was followed by a new Wonder Woman, a new Justice League and a new Flash.  In a couple of years, Marvel followed with new titles for Spider-Man and X-Men. 

That leads us to several more factors.  The previous ages were all defined, in part, by an expansion of new characters, new titles and new companies accompanied by a noticeable increase in sales.  Well, that is certainly true of the Fourth Age.  The Fourth Age brought Dark Horse (1986), Malibu (1987), Valiant (1991), Image (1992), Topps (1992) and Malibu’s Ultraverse (1993).  Marvel and DC also expanded rapidly.  The result is that the early 1990s saw more new companies and more new characters than any era since the Golden Age.  Did all of these characters and companies succeed?  No.  But that was also true of the Golden Age.  Most of those characters were canceled quickly as well.  On the other hand, many characters from this period achieved popularity, longevity or jumped to other media (a category that includes Cable, Deadpool, Spawn, Hellboy, Witchblade, Static and Hitman). 

  The early ‘90s can also boast of publishing the most titles since the pre-Comic Book Code 1950s and achieving the highest individual sales since WWII.  Yes, you read that right.  The early ‘90s beat the Silver Age on several (though not all) peak markers.  I know that many older fans don’t want to give this era the status of an official age, but objectively, it stands out as much as the Silver Age did.

 Of course, all of this could be true and we’d still be dealing with only one post-Bronze Age era if not for another factor.  There is a very clear end-point.  In the first article, I mentioned that previous ages were characterized- not by the cancellation of one title such as Captain Marvel or X-Men- but by the cancellation of many titles and even the cessation of multiple publishers.  This was true of the Golden Age.  This was true of the Silver Age.  This was partially true of the Bronze Age.  And this was dramatically true of the Fourth Age. 

 The comic book market, propped up by speculator and investment buyers, collapsed in 1996 and 1997.  Almost all of the aforementioned companies went out of business or were sold.  Even Marvel, the biggest publisher in the industry, declared bankruptcy.  And both Marvel and DC slashed their titles until they were publishing between one-third and one-half of their peak numbers.  The shock to the industry was so significant that George cites it as the end of the Bronze Age (which didn’t have the cataclysmic ending of earlier ages).  And even Luke Blanchard seems to agree with me (phew! I didn’t want to disagree with Luke on everything) when he writes, “I suppose the speculator boom was a distinct period, since it brought with it new companies and characters which were wiped out when the boom collapsed.”

 That’s a beginning, a middle and an end.  That looks like an Age to me- the Fourth Age of comics. 

 

Is There a Bronze Age of Comics?

Last week, I wrote about the possibility of Marvel’s Heroic Age and DC’s Brightest Day ushering in a new age of comics.  Along the way, I discussed the previous ages of comics, the eras by which many categorize its history.  I received some excellent feedback and I’d like to respond in this follow-up column.

 

First of all, let me say thanks for the compliment, Jeff of Earth-J; the thoughtful reply, Luke Blanchard; and the exceptional reference, Turning Point.

 

Luke Blanchard wrote, “I'm always uncomfortable with attempts to continue "age" periodisation down to the present.”

 

You're not the only one, Luke.  Besides Turning Point (who posted in response to the initial column), there's also Maggie Thompson, the editor of Comics Buyer's Guide.  When they had their Bronze Age issue, she commented that she didn't believe in the existence of a Bronze Age.  As far as she was concerned, there's the Golden Age, the Silver Age and everything after (that’s a paraphrase, not a direct quote).

 

However, I think there are a couple of problems with that stance. 

 

The first problem is that the ship has already sailed.  Bronze Age has entered common usage.  I mentioned eBay in the first article; I recently typed “Bronze Age comics” into eBay and it came back with 2,253 results.  That’s more results than “Golden Age comics” and within a 1000 results of “Silver Age comics.”  I tried Google and got over 800,000 results including a very lengthy description on Wikipedia and several blogs that specifically focus on Bronze Age comics.  Retail sites use the term as well.  Capital Comics and House of Comics have entire Bronze Age sections (in addition to Golden and Silver Age sections).  The term exists and it’s here to stay. 

 

The second problem is what to use instead.  No offense intended, Luke, but I think your post illustrates this.  You rejected a historical categorization of comic books based on capital- “A” Ages but you then proceeded to discuss the history of comics based on a different set of ages.  It’s just that you used decades rather than the metallic nomenclature of Golden, Silver and Bronze Age.  Are decades the best way to categorize and understand the history of comics?  Maybe they are.  We certainly use decades for other facets of pop culture, especially music.  But maybe they aren’t.  A comic book in 1983 has a lot more in common with a comic in 1977 than it does with one in 1989.  The beginning and end-points of some movements coincide with the beginning or end of a decade, but not always.

 

On the other hand, I think there are advantages to using Age categorizations to comics. The main one is that it does a better job of reflecting the periodic nature of comics and conveying the movements within that history.  The history of comics isn’t a steady march over time, as a decade-by-decade survey might suggest, but a story of rises and falls. 

 

Some of the best evidence for the existence of a Bronze Age comes from people who don’t use the term, including those who were involved or who were there.  Mike Richardson, publisher of Dark Horse Comics, doesn’t subscribe to the notion of a Bronze Age.  But in his book, Comics between the Panels, he writes about a “creative revival” in the late ‘70s with Claremont and Byrne on Uncanny X-Men, Frank Miller on Daredevil and Walt Simonson.  Jon Cooke, the editor of Comic Book Artist, refers to Marvel’s “Second Wave” in the ‘70s including the origin of the new X-Men, Jim Starlin’s cosmic books and Mike Ploog on Ghost Rider.  Actually, many issues of Comic Book Artist are celebrations of the Bronze Age, despite the fact that Cooke doesn’t use the term himself. 

I wish I had the reference handy, but one of the creators of the time (I think it was Walt Simonson) even called the late ‘70s and early ‘80s “Marvel’s Silver Age” (Marvel’s real Golden Age being the Lee/Kirby/Ditko years upon which most of the company was built).  In addition to the previously mentioned creators, there was also Shooter and Perez on Avengers and Roger Stern’s Spider-Man. 

 

Then, there’s the 1981 article from Amazing Heroes that Turning Point posted for us.  The “Third Wave” that Michael Catron writes about is what we now call the Bronze Age.  He got a few things wrong.  He anticipated the possibility that DC’s Third Wave would inspire their main competition at Marvel to follow suit, as had happened in the early Silver Age when Marvel responded to the success of JLA with Fantastic Four.  But he didn’t notice that the tables had turned and that DC’s Third Wave was coming in response to Marvel’s Second Wave (as coined by Jon Cooke).  Specifically, the New Teen Titans were a response to the Uncanny X-Men.  However, he also got a few things right. He noticed that the advent of new publishers like Eclipse and Pacific were indicators that a Third Wave was already underway.  Indeed, Pacific and Eclipse (as well as other companies like First and Comico) played a similar role in the Bronze Age that secondary superhero publishers Archie, Charlton and Tower played in the Silver Age.  They were part of the creative resurgence that contributed new titles and new characters. 

 

Richardson’s Revival, Cooke’s Second Wave, Simonson’s “Marvel’s Silver Age” and Catron’s Third Wave are all terms for the same time period.  It’s the Bronze Age.  You don’t have to embrace the term in order to notice that there was a creative, cultural, and consumer ascendance.  The Bronze Age is a handy term for describing it.

 

 

 

The Stars of the Spanish American Style Part Three: A New Millennium

The X-Men’s loss was all of comics’ gain.  By the late ‘90s, Joe Madureira, Chris Bachalo, Carlos Pacheco and Salvador Larroca were all finding better or more interesting work outside of the confines of the X-Men family of titles.  Salvador Larroca’s stint on the Heroes Return mini-series had led to a regular spot on Fantastic Four Vol. 3 starting in 1998 (although, with Chris Claremont as writer, some fans were decrying the FF as an X-Men title in disguise).  Joe Madureira was a self-employed star, whose Battle Chasers was burning up the charts that same year.  Carlos Pacheco was gaining critical and additional fan acclaim as the artist on Kurt Busiek’s Avengers: Forever, also in 1998.  Chris Bachalo was the last to leave the X-Men but by 1999 he was working on another Vertigo book (the Witching Hour mini-series).  And in 2000 he followed Joe Madureira to Image’s Cliffhanger line with his own creator-owned series, Steampunk.

At this point, their career paths really began to diverge.  The success of Battle Chasers led to additional opportunities for Joe Madureira outside of comic books.  He got caught up in the video game industry and disappeared from comics for a little while.  He did conceptual art and design for Dragonkind, Trade Wars and Dungeon Runners.  He finished up Battle Chasers in 2001.  And in 2007-08, Madureira returned to comic books as the artist on Marvel’s Ultimates Vol. 3.

Meanwhile, Carlos Pacheco’s star kept rising.  The success of Avengers Forever presented Carlos Pacheco with the chance to choose his own projects.  He took over Fantastic Four as both writer and artist (following in the footsteps of Salvador Larroca again; their careers just keep crossing).  He stayed on the title for twenty-one issues, including an annual.  He also wrote an Inhumans mini-series.

In 2002, DC wooed Pacheco away from Marvel.  His first project for DC was a big one: he drew the JLA/JSA hardcover Virtue and Vice, working with writers David Goyer and Geoff Johns.  He then reunited with Avengers writer Kurt Busiek on the fantasy title Arrowsmith and teamed with writer Jeph Loeb for an arc on Superman/Batman.  The high profile projects at DC just kept coming.  Carlos Pacheco drew the first three issues of the new Green Lantern title, one of the biggest hits of the decade.  He then joined Kurt Busiek again on Superman, drawing the epic Camelot Falls story.  Finally, he pitched in on the company-wide event, Final Crisis, giving regular artist JG Jones a break by drawing issues 4 and 6. 

After drawing half of DC’s major characters, Carlos Pacheco was finally brought back to Marvel.  He’s currently the artist on Ultimate Avengers, the title that took over for Joe Madureira’s Ultimates Vol. 3. 

While Madureira and Pacheco were finding success in video games and at DC, the other two artists found themselves back in the X-Men fold.  Salvador Larroca returned in the year 2000.  He had developed a good working relationship with Chris Claremont on Fantastic Four and so he followed Claremont to Uncanny X-Men in 2000 (drawing most of the issues from #384-395) and X-Treme X-Men in 2001 (drawing the first 24 issues, plus an annual).  Then, when Claremont returned to Uncanny for the third time, Larroca was switched up to work with Chuck Austen on New X-Men in 2004. He was the primary artist with Austen and then Peter Milligan from issue #155 to 187 in 2006.  He returned Uncanny X-Men in 2007, working with writer Ed Brubaker on issues 487-491.  Finally, Larroca got to try his hand at a fourth X-Men title when he teamed with Robert Kirkman for an arc of Ultimate X-Men (issues 88-93, 2008).

Unlike most of the other artists, Larroca worked quickly.  He was often able to handle a second assignment at the same time.  So even as he contributed regularly to one of four X-titles, he also drew six issues of Namor in 2003, the four-issue Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra mini-series, the five issue Ultimate Elektra sequel in 2004 and six issues of Newuniversal for writer Warren Ellis in 2006.  After spending most of the decade drawing the X-Men, Larroca finally moved on to other Marvel stars.  He was one of the initial artists on Amazing Spider-Man’s Brand New Day and he’s now the regular penciller on Invincible Iron Man.

Chris Bachalo followed Salvador Larroca back to the X-Men.  He was the guest artist for two issues of Ultimate X-Men in 2002 (#18-19).  He drew the “Assault on Weapon Plus” arc of New X-Men in 2003 (issues 142-145).  He revisited the Age of Apocalypse in 2005, drawing the 10-year anniversary mini-series X-Men: Age of Apocalypse.  He returned to Uncanny X-Men that same year, drawing issues 464-468.  Then, he took over for Larroca on adjective-less X-Men with issue 188 in 2006.  Though he didn’t draw every issue, Bachalo remained the primary artist until issue 207.

Of course, it wasn’t all X-Men all the time for Bachalo.  He contributed six issues of Captain America in 2003.  Plus, like Larroca, he was one of the four initial artists named to helm Spider-Man’s Brand New Day in 2008.  Most recently, he’s worked on New Avengers and Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-Man. 

Those are the primary artists of the Spanish American style.  I won’t claim to have bought everything they’ve drawn.  Yet they were some of the main artists who drew me back in as a comic book collector.  I always try to keep an eye on what they’re working on.  And I generally enjoy what they’re doing. 

   

 

 

New Year Wishes

1. A year-long Wonder Woman epic by Jim Lee  

 

It worked for Batman and Superman.  Lee contributed to a Batman modern classic with “Hush.”  His Superman story (“For Tomorrow”) was also something worthwhile, even if it didn’t quite measure up to “Hush.”  It’s time to give Wonder Woman the same star treatment.  His work on other titles (including the Just Imagine Stan Lee creating Wonder Woman one-shot) shows that he would be a great fit.  Apologies to Gail Simone who has turned in occasionally interesting work on Wonder Woman for the past couple years.

 

2. A DC team title worth reading

 

I have several longboxes full of DC superhero teams.  Justice League of America.  The New Teen Titans.  Legion of Super-Heroes.  JSA.  Right now, they’re relics of the past.  Crossover complications, bad story-telling choices and just plain old mediocrity have knocked the DC team titles off of my pull list.  But these are characters that I care about.  And I’d like to care about them again.  So here’s hoping for a resurgence, a renaissance on the DC team titles.

 

3. More Jay Faerber

 

For the past couple of years, Jay Faerber has been one of my favorite comic book writers.  But, right now, I’m not getting a regular Faerber fix.  Noble Causes has concluded.  Dynamo 5 is on hiatus while they switch to a new regular penciler.  And the Pilot Season title Urban Myths has yet to appear again, despite assurances from Top Cow that they had plans for the concept.  I mostly want Dynamo 5 back and at its best or Urban Myths, but I’ll take a new addition to the Faerber-verse as well.

 

4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine

 

Buffy’s Season Eight is winding up with issue 40.  Joss Whedon’s experiment- continuing a television series as a comic book- has been so excellent that I want more.  A lot more.  I realize this wish is pretty close to happening but I’m spending an official wish on it anyway.  I also realize it’s probably more of a wish for 2011, as season eight will last into the fall.  While I’m at it, I wish for great things from Bill Willingham’s tenure on the Angel comic, more Spike mini-series, a Faith spin-off, a Dr. Horrible sequel (which I understand to be in the planning stages) and Fox to change their minds and renew Dollhouse anyway. 

 

5. A new New X-Men/Young X-Men comic

 

It may be too soon.  The poorly received Marc Guggenheim comic was canceled just this past year.  But, as great as it’s been to see these characters in supporting roles in the main X-book, I’d love to see them in their own title again.  Pixie.  Anole.  Armor.  Blindfold.  Rockslide.  Gentle.  These are cool characters and great additions to the X-mythos and they deserve their own spotlight, not the side of the stage in someone else’s show.

 

6. The end of Norman Osborn as the central figure in the Marvel Universe

 

I am so sick of this story.  I’ve done my best to avoid it, but it keeps bleeding over into other titles that I follow and otherwise enjoy, like Uncanny X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man and Mighty Avengers.  I just want it to go away.  Preferably, with precious few Siege crossovers in the titles on my pull list.

 

7. A new kids book for A, my 8-year old daughter

 

She was a huge fan of Marvel’s Power Pack series of mini-series.  Honestly, so was I.  But Marvel decided that they had run out of stories for the family, after teaming them up with the X-Men, the Fantastic Four (twice), the Avengers, the Hulk and Iron Man, plus a showdown with the Skrulls and a Year One origin story.  Now, with Power Pack gone, we’re struggling to find a new title for her.  The new X-Babies mini-series shows promise, but it’s not as good as Power Pack had been.  Come on, Marvel (or DC), give me something I can enjoy handing to my daughter.

 

8. Comebacks from the titles I listed in my “comics that should make a comeback” series of articles

 

That would be Generation X, Martian Manhunter and Star Wars: Empire/Rebellion for those who missed the articles in question. 

 

 

Mark Waid’s Ten Best Books

Last week, I wrote about one of my favorite comic book writers, Kurt Busiek.  This week, I’m going to write about another favorite, Mark Waid.  Waid has been every bit as important to me as Busiek.  The two of them are like twins in my mind- drawing me into comics in the mid-‘90s and giving me endless hours of enjoyment in the time since.  So, once again, here’s a happily random celebration of Mark Waid, in order of appreciation.  

 

10. JLA: Year One

 

Mark Waid is insulted by his detractors for being too much of a fan.  He knows the ins and outs of comic book history as well as anyone.  However, that doesn’t have to be an impediment.  And it can be an asset.  In Year One, Waid wrote a new origin for the Justice League.  After all, their history was no longer coherent due to the many revisions that had taken place over the years.  But this was no mere exercise in history.  Waid gave interesting personalities to his key characters.  Aquaman was truly a fish out of water.  Black Canary was competent and charming.  Martian Manhunter was humble and secretive.  And the Green Lantern and the Flash became fast friends.  Waid wove known events and new ones into one coherent narrative, showing the foundation and formation of the greatest team of superheroes ever assembled.  Plus, he and artist Barry Kitson brought in the guest stars by the bushel full.

 

9. Crux

 

Mark Waid took a short sojourn as a staff writer for CrossGen and while he may want to forget his experiences there, his books are unforgettable.  Crux was the closest CrossGen had to a superhero team yet they were also something incredibly different.  The cast was made up of Atlanteans who each had special powers, such as shape-shifting or speed.  But they were no team.  They were thrown together by fate, wondering why they were the last survivors of their people and trying to figure out what went wrong.  The real draw, however, was the interaction between the characters.  There was a sibling rivalry and a love triangle.  There was friction with the youngest- and smartest- of the group.  And, as the series progressed, there were plenty of difficulties and shifting allegiances with new characters.

 

8. Ka-Zar

 

Ka-Zar is an underappreciated classic.  Mark Waid teamed with Andy Kubert on this short-lived title.  Waid came up with the brilliant idea of reversing the standard Ka-Zar story.  Usually, Ka-Zar stories are about Ka-Zar or other heroes travelling to the Savage Land and experiencing the jungle in its full force.  But for this series, Waid brought Ka-Zar and the Savage Land to a very different jungle: New York.  We saw how Kevin Plunder (Ka-Zar) and Shanna dealt with the modern world in different ways.  And we got to experience the thrill of watching sabretooth tigers and tyrannosaurus rexes run around the streets of Manhattan.

 

7. 52

 

It’s hard to know how much credit to give to Mark Waid as this title was written by four writers working in conjunction.  But it would be an even bigger mistake to leave 52 off of the list.  With Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka, Waid helped put together one of the comics’ great epics.  52 featured interweaving stories focusing on some of DC’s lesser known characters like the Elongated Man, the Question, Will Magnus, Steel and Starfire.  It had plenty of classic moments, like “the rain of the supermen” and featured the full range of superhero comics.  It was simply a great read. 

 

6. Captain America

 

Captain America was one of the first ongoing titles to really be associated with Mark Waid.  He had two tenures on the title.  The first was with Ron Garney.  It had critical acclaim and growing sales as Waid re-examined what it meant to be a patriotic hero while also taking Cap’s powers away.  Unfortunately, the title was canceled to make room for Marvel’s Heroes Reborn launch.  When that was done, Mark Waid came back for a second stint and showed that you can go home again.  He matched Captain America up with classic villains like the Red Skull and the Skrulls and gave Cap fans something to cheer about.  He even made me, who wasn’t a Cap fan at the time, a reason to pay attention.   

 

5. Flash

 

This is the other ongoing title that really raised Mark Waid’s profile.  Waid identified with Wally West and poured himself into the title.  It was as if Waid was writing himself and the readers responded.  Wally West soon became the most popular Flash, winning fan polls as the best Flash ever ahead of his mentor Barry Allen.  Waid built a huge supporting cast of fellow speedsters: Jessie Quick, Max Mercury (who used to be Quality Comics’ Quicksilver) and his own creation Impulse.  He brought in guest stars and friends like Nightwing.  And he gave Wally a significant love interest, Linda Park.  Waid would leave Flash and come back for a second run that wasn’t as well-received as his first.  But that initial run made stars out of both Mark Waid and Wally West.

 

4. Ruse

 

Mark Waid has a reputation as a superhero writer.  But, like Kurt Busiek in last week’s list, Mark Waid has shown that he’s a great writer even when he switches genres.  One of Waid’s best books is the mystery title, Ruse.  Mark Waid introduced detective Simon Archard and his plucky assistant, Emma Bishop.  Their interaction was brilliant.  Simon was caustic and sarcastic.  Emma was hopeful and bright.  Together, they solved crimes that had mystical trappings but usually turned out to be surprisingly mundane.  Emma developed a rivalry with the baroness Miranda Cross, Simon relied on a rogue’s gallery of unlikely assistants and they both matched wits with Simon’s mentor turned villain Simon Lightbourne.  Ruse was a consistently entertaining and excellent book. 

 

3. JLA

 

Mark Waid followed Grant Morrison on JLA.  Morrison’s run was great and is rightly lauded, but Waid’s run is also great and is criminally ignored.  He started with an over-sized special, Heaven’s Ladder, with artist Bryan Hitch before taking over the regular title.  Mark Waid pulled from his interest in modern science, telling stories of time and space and atoms.  He pulled from his interest in fable and mythology, introducing the Queen of Fables as a new villain and Santa Claus as a new teammate.  He broke the team apart and put them back together again.  He exposed their weaknesses in order to showcase their strengths.  It was a tight, action-packed and often intense superhero story. 

 

2. Kingdom Come

 

Kingdom Come is one of the greatest stories in comic books.  Artist Alex Ross had the initial idea and Mark Waid developed it into a classic.  It’s a glimpse of a possible future in which the good heroes have given way to anarchy.  It’s the call of hope as the classic heroes come back to save the world they once abandoned.  It’s the clash of ideas as some who claim to be humanity’s saviors jealously protect their world from this superhuman help.  It’s a literary masterpiece, with Biblical allusions and prophetic foreshadowing, but also a comic book extravaganza with hundreds of heroes both new and old.  It’s a story that I re-read almost every year.  Thanks, Alex and Mark.

 

1. Fantastic Four

 

This is the book Mark Waid was born to write.  He poured himself into Reed Richards the way he once poured himself into Wally West.  He understood Reed better than any other writer, including his creators Stan and Jack.  He gave Reed a credible motive.  He gave the team a new modus operandi as imaginauts, adventurers of the imagination.  He took them to space, microspace, Heaven and Hell.  He wrote the greatest Dr. Doom story I’ve ever read in “Unthinkable.”  He had Johnny Storm grow up, while staying youthful.  He wrote a masterful tribute to Ben Grimm, and to Ben Grimm’s creator Jack Kirby.  He wrote one of the best comics ever.  Period. 

 

And that’s my list of the best Mark Waid books.  Of course, half the fun of writing a top ten list is finding out where others differ.  So go ahead and tell me what you think I got right and what books you think I should have included.

 

Comics that Should Make a Comeback: Martian Manhunter

It wasn’t easy to think of a DC title that should make a comeback.  They bring back their titles so often that I have more opinions about which concepts should be given an extended vacation than I do about which titles should come back.  But there is one very notable exception: the Martian Manhunter. 

 

I’ve been a fan of the Martian Manhunter since I was a little kid.  I had his action figure form the Kenner Super Powers line.  I was intrigued by his bald green head.  I was amazed by a character that had all of Superman’s powers plus invisibility, shape-shifting and telepathy.  I wanted to know more and more.

 

I grew even fonder of the character as I started to read about him.  He had a small part in George Perez’s Justice League of America that merely whetted my appetite (the great issue 200 was a Martian centered story).  The Giffen/Maguire Justice League was the main course.  Finally, J’Onn J’Onnz was a star.  He was a straight man in the center of chaos.  Yet he had a light side.  He was amused, even whimsical.  And he liked his cookies.  He was like Dean Martin- the coolest guy in the room, allowing others to riff around him but always in on the joke. 

 

Since then, DC has made a couple of attempts to make Martian Manhunter a solo star.  He headlined a pair of mini-series in 1988 and 1992, and then a one-shot in 1996.  Finally, they gave him his own series in 1998.  It was critically acclaimed if not a smashing sales success.  It was also a bad time to launch a new title, right in the middle of the late ‘90s trough.  The title strode along for three years until it was canceled after issue 36.  DC tried one more go with the Manhunter, giving him an 8 issue limited series in 2006. 

 

So why would I want to give a new title to a character who has a poor track record on his own?  I guess it’s because I’m convinced that he’s a great character, fully capable of being a star.  He’s been the best part of several team books.  His one ongoing series was really good, even if it didn’t garner the attention it deserved.  In the right vehicle at the right time, J’Onn J’Onnz could be a smashing success. 

 

DC has also shown that they’re pretty good at reviving old characters.  I did make fun of them a little bit earlier about doing it too often.  But they’re much better at bringing characters back to their roots than they are at giving them a new spin.  The 2006 Martian Manhunter limited series is evidence of the latter.  The very successful Green Lantern Rebirth series of 2004 and the fairly popular Flash Rebirth series from this year are proof of the former. 

 

In fact, that’s the model that I would choose to follow.  I would wait a couple more years (he was just killed in last year’s Final Crisis, after all) and then put a big promotional push behind the Martian Manhunter Rebirth.  I’d use that mini-series to reintroduce the character and build his new status quo.  And then, I’d jump from that mini-series into a new ongoing.

I even have an idea for what the new series should be like.  I think that Martian Manhunter should be brought back to what worked in the beginning.  When he was first introduced, he was an alien new to this world.  Things were strange, even wacky.  It’s not a stretch to think that the world might just be alien to him again.  He would see it with new eyes.  He is reborn, after all. 

 

J’Onn J’Onnz coped with this world by taking on a secret identity.  I think that’s the way to go again.  I know that secret identities are losing their cachet.  Hal Jordan and Barry Allen are now public heroes.  The X-Men no longer hide who or what they are.  But there are a few heroes for whom the secret identity is still an essential part of their character- such as Peter Parker as Spider-Man and Clark Kent as Superman.  This would work for J’Onn as well.  He could learn about the world through the eyes of his secret identity.  And you could give him an actual supporting cast, something that was attempted in some of the mini-series but never really caught on. 

 

One of the reasons why secret ids are in disrepute is that they are less and less believable in a digital age.  Yet I think that could be turned into an asset.  You could use that issue as a complication for the hero instead of as an impediment to the story.  Spider-Man stories often contain bits about how his superhero life complicates his private life and vice versa.  Martian Manhunter stories could show how difficult it is for him to maintain a secret identity.  He would have to use his full arsenal of powers- invisibility, shape-shifting and telepathy- to pull it off.  I might even introduce a new power, such as the ability to disrupt technology telekinetically.  There’s precedent for the Martian Manhunter to reveal new powers and there’s an in-story rationale: they’re part of his rebirth. 

 

 But why stop at one?  As part of their series, John Ostander and Tom Mandrake revealed that Martian Manhunter maintained several secret identities around the globe.  I wouldn’t want to go that far.  It’s hard to juggle too many roles and too many supporting casts.  Yet I would want room for at least one more.  It’s also been established that J’Onn J’Onnz has used other heroic identities, including Bloodwynd and the Bronze Wraith.  I would give him a new one.  I would have him learn about the superhero world as if he was a new hero. He would try to re-establish himself, without his former teammates knowing who he was.  I wouldn’t completely discard the classic look.  J’Onn would use his traditional identity to fight crime and supervillains on his own.  But he would use the new identity to try and work his way back into the superhero community, even joining a team that doesn’t currently have a title of its own (there has to be at least one, right?). 

 

That would give us three levels of stories:  the new secret identity and the street level detective work (go with what works), Martian Manhunter as a solo hero, and the new id trying to fit into the superhero club.  There’s the potential to tell all kinds of different stories, and for these stories to run into each other and conflict with one another.  And there’s potential for the Martian Manhunter to be a star.

 

At least, that’s my idea.

Creating Conflict: X-Men Utopia and Justice Society of America

The key to any story is conflict.  Without conflict, there’s no drama.  Without conflict, there’s no action.  Without conflict, there’s no story.  However, saying that every story needs conflict is easier than creating that conflict.  Sometimes, the conflict is over-simplified.  That’s why many critics deride the basic conflict of good vs. evil.  Sometimes, the conflict is forced.  That’s why readers will lament that a character is acting, well, out of character.  And yet, sometimes conflict is crafted well.  When that happens, it’s appropriate to point to out and congratulate it.

 

I read two comics in the last couple of weeks that did an especially good job of creating conflict.  The first is the introductory chapter to the Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men crossover Utopia.  The basic conflict begins with Simon Trask.  Trask is part of a family that is long known for opposing mutants.  He is currently the leader of an organization called Humanity Now! which advocates against mutant rights.  In the recent past, the number of mutants around the world has been greatly diminished by a magical event.  Trask sees an opening.  He actually has the opportunity to end mutantkind within his own lifetime.  Trask may be evil, but he is not stupid.  He knows that Americans won’t condone concentration camps or mass extermination.  Therefore his organization promotes the idea of sterilization- protecting humanity by preventing mutant population growth in a safe and humane way.  In order to spread his message and garner support for it, Trask organizes a march from the California state capital of Sacramento to the current mutant haven of San Francisco.  Again, Trask is not stupid.  He files all of the necessary paperwork for permits to assemble and march.  And he contacts the media so that the march will be filmed. 

 

Naturally, the mutant population is appalled by Trask’s proposal.  They completely oppose the idea of being forcibly sterilized.  A number of mutants decide to stand in Trask’s way.  They are led by Beast and Northstar and their numbers include students Anole, Glob Herman, Hellion, Pixie, Rockslide and one of the Stepford Cuckoos. The mutants take up position in the street, blocking Trask’s progress.  Northstar accuses Humanity Now! of spreading hate.  Beast tells them to go around. 

 

Simon Trask, however, does not do what we might expect of a villain.  He’s civil and rational.  He points out that they have filed the proper papers and that the X-Men have no legal grounds to stand in their way.   He insists that the X-Men end their illegal action and step aside. 

 

This infuriates the students.  Hellion, who has always been a bit of a hothead, leads a charge.  He becomes the aggressor and the previously peaceful marchers respond in kind.  The result is a full-blown riot between Humanity Now! and those who favor mutant rights, including mutants and mutant supporters. 

 

This is a wonderful set-up and a tricky conundrum.  The X-Men are morally right.  It is despicable that anyone should advocate forced sterilization.  Yet Humanity Now! is technically right.  They have the proper legal standing and the X-Men do not.  This little twist changes the traditional good vs. evil dynamic.  When it comes to the riot, the X-Men are to blame, not the hate-filled members of Humanity Now!  Pretty clever.

 

The Utopia crossover is an example of an external conflict: the X-Men vs. Humanity Now!  Yet some of the most interesting conflicts are internal in nature.  Since the days of Stan Lee, fans have been fascinated by teams that don’t get along with one another.  Whether it’s Johnny and Ben squabbling like siblings, Hawkeye challenging Captain America’s authority to lead the Avengers or Angel and Cyclops competing for Marvel Girl’s attention, internal conflicts have become key ingredients in most team titles.  This can be done well, as in the examples just given.  Or this can be done poorly, as former friends are forced into heated arguments for little reason (see Geoff Johns’ and Chuck Austen’s Avengers). 

 

Recently, I read a comic that did this well.  The second example of crafting a good conflict comes from Justice Society of America #30.  This is only the second issue by the new writer, Bill Willingham.  He had inherited a huge cast and a huge team.  In the past year, the team had already divided once over the question of whether or not to support the self-proclaimed god Gog.  That rift had apparently been healed.  However, there was some room to stir things up again.

 

The Justice Society was attacked by the combined forces of a new Injustice Society.  The bulk of the team went out to fight these villains.  However, a few stayed behind: new members who weren’t considered ready and former team leader Mr. Terrific who wanted to study some things in the lab.  The external conflict itself was fairly interesting as the Injustice Society was able to take down most of the JSA before the Flash brought in Dr. Fate as a ringer. 

 

But it was after the Injustice Society was defeated that things got interesting.  Some of the heroes suggested that they should track down the retreating villains and capture them so that they wouldn’t be able to wreak more havoc in the future.  Other heroes insisted that they needed to return to headquarters and tend to their own wounded.  Power Girl, as team leader, made the call.  She split the team into two.  Several of them, including Wildcat, Flash and Dr. Fate, would escort the wounded.  The others, including Power Girl and Magog, would go after the villains. 

 

Neither mission was successful as one would have hoped.  The proactive heroes were able to capture a few more of the villains, but not all of them.  Magog was especially upset that so many had evaded capture.  He blamed the other heroes, arguing that if everyone can come on this mission, they would have been much more successful.  Meanwhile, the returning heroes discovered that they were not coming back to a safe haven.  The headquarters had been attacked while they were gone.  The big fight was a distraction.  And Mr. Terrific had paid the price.  He was shot while everyone else was out.  Both Flash and Wildcat were upset with themselves for not getting back sooner.

 

The other group of heroes returned home, while Dr. Mid-Nite operated on Mr. Terrific.  Up to this point, Bill Willingham had been sowing the seeds of discord.  We saw that Flash and Wildcat were emotionally upset.  We saw that Magog was ready to point the finger of blame.  It was like watching two trains heading toward each other on the same track.  You knew that it was going to result in an explosion.  And it did.  Magog accused the other heroes of being amateurs for abandoning the mission.  Wildcat told Magog that he was new to the hero business and didn’t know what he was talking about.  The argument proceeded from there, and on the last page, the two heroes came to blows. 

 

This was a great example of a natural and understandable disagreement between two people.  It was true to both of their characters- opinionated, emotional and a little belligerent.  It was believable as a source of disagreement.  It’s likely that even the readers were divided in their opinions as to which side was right.  There was a great set-up and a great pay-off.  For me, this compares to the great internal conflict during Bob Harras’ Avengers when the team split over the decision to kill the Kree Supreme Intelligence.  It’s internal conflict at its best.

 

 

 

 

  

Assorted Batman Stories from the Past 28 Years

Last month, I looked at my collection of Superman comics.  I had so much fun writing about the not-quite random assortment of Superman stories and titles that I thought I’d do it again with Batman.  Once again, I’ve never been a consistent Batman collector.  I love the character (I once dressed up as Batman for Halloween as a little kid).  But by the time I started buying comics regularly, there were so many Batman titles that it was hard to know where to begin (of course, I didn’t have that problem with the X-Men- I just bought everything).  So here it is: an assortment of Batman stories that have caught my attention over the years.

Detective Comics #500 (March, 1981): I would have bought this out of a back issue box at some point.  I don’t remember exactly when, but I do remember why.  The promise of 7 “special stories.”  The list of prominent creators, including Joe Kubert and Walt Simonson.  The cover with its numerous guest-stars, including Hawkman, Hawkwoman and the Elongated Man.  Happily, the stories between the covers lived up to my expectations.  This issue falls right in the midst of the best of Batman.  Len Wein is one of my favorite writers, in general and on Batman, and this comes near the end of his tenure.  Jim Aparo is one of the artists whose style defines Batman for me.  Having those two as the creative team for the main story was exhilarating.  Everything else- Hawkman by Joe Kubert, Elongated Man by Mike Barr and J.L. Garcia-Lopez- was just icing on the cake.

Batman #436-442 (Aug.-Dec., 1989): Even though I like Batman (as I mentioned in my introductory paragraph), I’m more of a team fan, a Titans fan and a Nightwing fan.  And that pretty much explains why I bought these issues.  The first four are the “Year 3” story by Marv Wolfman and Pat Broderick, re-telling the origin of Dick Grayson as Robin.  The final three are part of the “Lonely Place of Dying” crossover with New Titans in which Bruce and Dick mourn for Jason Todd in their own ways while Tim Drake discovers their secret identities in an attempt to convince them that the world needs a Robin.  It’s great stuff.  I’ve probably re-read this short run more than any other Batman stories. 

Batman: Prodigal (Nov. 1994-Jan. 1995): I’ll admit it: I like Knightfall.  I thought it was a great, epic story.  But I don’t actually own it, as I borrowed it from a friend.  So we skip to this epilogue of a sort.  Dick Grayson was miffed that Bruce had asked Jean-Paul Valley to fill in as Batman instead of him.  So, now, shortly after reclaiming the cowl as his own, Bruce takes an intentional leave of absence so that Dick can have a turn.  It’s not always a great story as it jumps through four titles, with a varied quality among its creative teams.  But, as a Dick Grayson/Nightwing fan, it’s a story that always brings a smile to my face.  And, with contributions by Chuck Dixon and Phil Jimenez, it’s occasionally a very well-told and well-drawn story, too.

Batman: Thrillkiller and Thrillkiller ’62 (1997-98): I love this one.  It’s an Elseworlds story by artist Dan Brereton of Nocturnals fame.  It features a sexy romance between Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon as an adult Robin and Batgirl.  It’s a highly stylized noir story.  It’s just really different, and really good.  And the sequel, with Dick as Batman, Barbara as Robin and a gang of Joker ladies as the villains, is even better.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #83, Batman #563, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #120, Batman: Day of Judgment (March- November 1999): At this point, you might notice that my Batman collection mirrors my Superman collection.  They both include ‘80s arcs by favorite creators like John Byrne, Marv Wolfman and George Perez.  And they both include ‘90s events, as I dropped in on the titles to see what was going on.  These four issues represent a sampling of the big Batman crossover “No Man’s Land.”   I would have picked up these issues based on their cool covers (the new Batgirl by Tony Harris, Joker by J. Scott Campbell) or because they featured supporting characters like Nightwing and Robin.  I wouldn’t have picked up more because the few issues I did buy were either disappointing or misleading.  For example, the Joker doesn’t actually appear in the issue for which he’s on the cover.  The disappointment was more of a spillover effect because I was annoyed by the way in which Nightwing’s own storylines were being interrupted by the big crossover.  Even so, I kind of like the underlying story with Batman’s supporting cast caught in a modern wasteland, fighting against chaos and anarchy.

Batman #575-581 (March-September 2000): Once again, my Batman collection mirrors my Superman comics.  Only a couple of months after giving the Superman titles their first real chance, I did the same for Batman.  I was drawn in by the creative team of Larry Hama, whose work I had loved on Wolverine, and Scott McDaniel, who had been a star on Nightwing.  They started out with a bunch of done-in-one stories focusing on street level criminals, before moving on to a trilogy against new villain Orca.  I’m not entirely sure why I dropped the series after only half a year, but it’s possible the Orca trilogy had something to do with it.

Batman #655-658 (Sept.-Dec. 2006): And the correlation continues.  As with Superman, I gave the Batman line another chance as part of One Year Later.  This time, the creative team of Grant Morrison, whose work I loved on JLA, and Andy Kubert, whose work I loved on the X-titles, were the draw.  And the opening story, “Batman and Son,” featuring Batman’s son Damian as an annoyingly precocious adolescent, is incredible.  Plus, Morrison brings in Man-Bat as a second villain.  It’s hard to beat that.  And the Kubert art is simply gorgeous. 

Batman #663 (April 2007): I skipped most of the Batman fill-ins.  That’s one difference between my Batman and Superman collections.  But I actually picked up this predominantly prose story by Grant Morrison with illustrations by John Van Fleet.  This is probably the scariest Joker story I’ve ever read, beating even Alan Moore’s “Killing Joke.”  It’s downright creepy. 

Batman #666-669 (July to Nov. 2007): This is the story that broke me from my most recent Batman habit.  I loved the idea of an international gang of Batmen.  I just like international heroes and kooky ideas like this.  But the story fell apart for me somewhere along the way.  I was pretty much confused before it was done.  Grant Morrison is like a mad genius.  Sometimes, he’s genius (see the previous two entries).  Sometimes, he’s mad, as in crazy, and I have a lower tolerance for that than a lot of other readers. 

And that’s an assortment of comics from my Batman collection.  I didn’t mention everything, but that should give you a general idea of what I like and what I’ve bought.  It’s only about half the size of my Superman collection.  For some reason, I’ll try two Superman titles at a time, but only one Batman title.  And I have yet to hit upon a long run of collecting Batman, as I have with Superman over the past couple of years.  Of course, I also have a long run of Batman and the Outsiders.  But that’s another story.

 

The Many Paths of George Perez, Part One

I. The Early Years (1974-75)

 George Perez broke into the comic book industry in the summer of 1974 (which also happens to be the season and the year I was born) but his story begins a little bit before that.  Perez had graduated from high school and was working as a bank teller in 1972 and ’73 when a high school friend brought him to a comic book convention.  Perez describes himself as a self-taught artist, but he brought his portfolio along with him anyway.  He showed it to several editors and companies and received some fairly harsh criticism.  Marv Wolfman, then an editor a Marvel, said that he didn’t know anatomy or perspective.  Neal Adams, the head of Continuity Studios, told him to quit inking his own work because he obviously didn’t know how. ₍₁₎             

 Perez went home with the expressed purpose of proving his critics wrong.  He could draw anatomy.  He did know how to ink.  But by trying to prove them wrong, he ended up proving them right.  His anatomy, perspective, inking, everything improved as he worked harder on his craft. 

Meanwhile, at least one other person showed some faith in him.  Marvel artist Rich Buckler had also seen George Perez’s portfolio and remembered the young artist.  When he needed help on a project, he gave Perez a call.  George Perez completed two pages of a Deathlok story for Astonishing Tales #25, which was published with a cover date of August, 1974.  Buckler was happy with how that project turned out and continued to throw small jobs Perez’s way.  Perez even worked as an uncredited assistant for Buckler on Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3, which was published in November of that same year.  Perez describes that Fantastic Four story as his big break into the industry. ₍₂₎

Even though he didn’t receive a credit for the Fantastic Four story, Perez did garner the notice of the editors at Marvel Comics.  He was soon receiving work on his own merit.  Superheroes were in a bit of a slump at the time, and other genres like monster stories and kung fu were on the rise.  Perez got to do a bit of both.  He was assigned “The Sons of the Tiger” back-up feature in “Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu” beginning in issue 6 (November, 1974) and then the Man-Wolf series in “Creatures on the Loose” (starting with #33, January 1975).  Since one story was a back-up feature and the other title was bi-monthly, Perez was able to work on both series at the same time. 

 

II. The Marvel Years (1975-1980)

 After working as a professional artist for a year, George Perez received no less than three new assignments.  All of them happened to be team books, cementing Perez’s reputation.  His bi-monthly Inhumans series debuted in October 1975 and he took over both of Marvel’s preeminent team books, Avengers and Fantastic Four, in November (issues 141 and 164, respectively).  Perez also picked up a nickname, “Pacesetter,” due to his heavy workload.  The name appeared in Bullpen Bulletin pages, credit boxes and letter pages. 

 Despite his new nickname, Perez couldn’t keep up the pace.  He dropped Inhumans from his schedule after five issues (the first four and #8) and he needed fill-in artists on both Avengers and Fantastic Four by their fifth issues (March, 1976).  Marvel and Perez made the necessary adjustments.  Though he remained the regular artist on both of the big team books until the first half of 1978, he worked on a somewhat more relaxed schedule.  Perez would draw two or three issues in a row and then contribute covers for a couple of issues while other artists gave him a break. 

 George Perez became a comic book superstar.  In 1977, he and writer Jim Shooter presented classic Avengers stories in which the team fought Ultron and Count Nefaria.  Then, in 1978, they delivered one of the Avengers’ greatest epics, “The Korvac Saga.”

By the end of the decade, George Perez transitioned to more of a free agent than a team player.  Marvel temporarily pulled him off of his team books in order to draw Logan’s Run (January-May 1977), the comic version of the movie that they thought would be a big hit.  He finished up his earlier Man-Wolf story in Marvel Premiere #45-46 (December 1978 and February 1979).  He took a turn on Marvel Two-in-One, the team-up title featuring the Thing, for four issues in 1979 and two more in 1980 (56-60, 64-65).  He took a shot at Marvel’s newest and now greatest team with X-Men Annual 3 in 1979.  He even came back to the Fantastic Four for a pair of annuals (#14 and 15 in ’79 and ’80) and to the Avengers for a second run (issues 194-202 from April to December, 1980). ₍₃₎

George Perez was now Marvel’s go-to guy and jack of all trades.  Marvel’s editors and fans weren’t the only ones who had noticed.  In 1980, Marvel’s rival, DC Comics, came calling and Perez’s career took a new turn.

 

III. The Titans Years (1980-1985)

DC had big plans for George Perez.  The editors wanted him to work on two team titles for them, as he had earlier for Marvel.  One, they would assign.  The other, he would be allowed to choose for himself.  Unsurprisingly, they assigned him their flagship team, the Justice League of America.  Perez debuted as the regular penciler on that title with issue 184 in November of 1980 and would stay on, with built-in breaks, until issue 200 in March of 1982. 

However, George Perez surprised everyone with the team he chose for his second title.  Marv Wolfman had approached Perez with an idea.  The two were now friends from having worked together at Marvel on books like Fantastic Four Annual #14.  Wolfman was a fan of the Teen Titans and suggested that the two of them work on a revival.  Perez agreed and they approached the DC editors with their idea.  Their bosses were skeptical.  The title was considered a failure, as several earlier re-launches had already fizzled out.  But they had agreed to let Perez pick one of his own titles and reluctantly gave the go ahead.

 Wolfman and Perez’s “New Teen Titans” debuted with a cover date of November, 1980 (the same as Perez’s first issue of Justice League).  The new title was like lightning in a bottle.  By focusing on the character’s personal lives as well as their superhero adventures, the Titans became the new standard for story-telling.  It was compared favorably to the Uncanny X-Men, Marvel’s biggest title.  And it quickly grew into one of DC’s best-selling and most critically-acclaimed books.  DC dedicated their company calendar to the Titans in 1982.  Amazing Heroes named it one of the top ten books of that same year.  Britain’s Eagle Awards named it the best team book of 1984. ₍₄₎

 George Perez was on top of the world.  However, with the Titans’ incredible success assured, his attention started to wander.  While continuing to work on the Titans, he began to dabble in side projects.  He made a brief return to Marvel, drawing a Black Widow story for Marvel Fanfare #10-13 in 1983 and ’84.  He drew a couple of short stories for Pacific Comics’ Alien Worlds and Vanguard Illustrated.  And he contributed covers and half of the interior pencils to a revival of Wally Wood’s Thunder Agents in 1985.  It looked like he was on his way back to becoming a jack of all trades, as he was in his later days at Marvel.  But DC came up with a new project for Perez that would be one of the biggest challenges of his career.

 

IV. Crisis on Infinite Earths! (1985-1986)

DC had plans for a huge story that would cross over into every title and re-write their entire history.  There was only one artist for such a project, especially with Marv Wolfman also attached as the writer.  In 1985, George Perez began work on his magnum opus: Crisis on Infinite Earths.  He would draw all 12 covers as well as every single interior page.  He would even contribute extra illustrations for an inside cover and a letters page.

The story, co-plotted by Wolfman and Perez, has been accused of being shock and awe with little substance.  But the art was phenomenal, if not seminal.  Perez played with panel height and depth in a way that hadn’t been seen since Winsor McCay had been working on “Little Nemo in Slumberland.”  And he crammed more characters and more details into every panel than a fan could have imagined or hoped for.  Ron Goulart even held up Perez’s work on Crisis as the epitome of modern style in his book “The Great History of Comic Books,” also published in 1986. ₍₅₎ 

Perez finished up his work on Crisis with the two part “History of the DC Universe.”   He had already established himself as a star with his work on The Avengers and The New Teen Titans.  Now, he was the biggest artist in the industry.  The only question remained, “What next?”

 

V. The Wonder Woman Years (1987-1991)

 Whenever he was given the choice to decide the direction of his own career, George Perez always made surprising choices.  No one would have predicted The New Teen Titans to become a success, let alone DC’s biggest title.  In 1987, fresh off of Crisis on Infinite Earths, George Perez did it again.  Told that he could pick any title he wanted, George Perez asked for Wonder Woman.  It was a shocking request.  As comics had retreated to the predominantly male direct market, Wonder Woman’s sales had shriveled.  There were even rumors that the only reason DC was still publishing the title was to prevent the character rights from reverting to the William Moulton-Marston estate.  (That was only true of the Legend of Wonder Woman mini-series by Trina Robbins and Kurt Busiek that was published to fill in the gap while waiting for Perez’s Amazon revival.)  But Perez had a self-acknowledged feminist streak.  He wanted to prove that Wonder Woman could be a great title once again.  And, once again, his bosses at DC agreed to his wishes.  This time, however, Perez would be the writer as well as the artist.

 The new Wonder Woman debuted in February 1987.  The gamble paid off.   With Perez’s name attached, Wonder Woman became a big seller.  Its success was mentioned in house ads promoting other revivals, such as one for the Atom.  George Perez picked up an Eagle Award for his Wonder Woman cover art.  ₍₆₎  And Trina Robbins dedicated an entire section to the revival in her history book “The Great Women Superheroes.” ₍₇₎

 Yet George Perez couldn’t stand pat.  He was in too much demand.  And he was interested in too many other opportunities.  He continued as the writer and cover artist of Wonder Woman until January of 1992.  But he slowly stepped back from other parts of the book.  He initially drew complete pencils.  In 1988, he was often credited with contributing breakdowns that other artists finished.  By issue 25 (January 1989), he had fully passed off the penciling chores. 

  Meanwhile, he was lending his talents to DC’s other superstars.  He spent a short stint on a Superman title, drawing 9 of 10 issues of Action Comics from 643 to 652 (July 1989-April 1990).  He drew an arc of Batman, “A Lonely Place of Dying,” in issues 440-442 (July-September 1989).  And he made a triumphant return to the Titans, becoming the regular penciler for New Titans issues 50 through 61 (December 1988 to December 1989).  There was even a Secret Origins annual focusing on the Titans (#4, 1989) and the plans for a Titans Graphic Novel.  Finally, he was the driving creative force behind DC’s big crossover of 1991.  Spinning out of events from Wonder Woman’s own title, George Perez was the writer and artist of War of the Gods (Sept.-Dec. 1991).  ₍₈₎

 

George Perez was again manifesting the wanderlust that had marked the end of his Marvel years and his first Titans tenure.  This time, it would take him to entirely new places. 

(1): Sketch Magazine No. 10, November, 2001, George Perez: The Ultimate Team-Up, p. 4. 

(2): Comic Book Marketplace No. 86, October 2001, The Best of All Worlds, Part One: George Perez Interview, p. 20.

(3): The Perez Archives, by Andy Mangels, 2001, pp. 4-24. 

(4): The Eagle Awards web-site, Previous Winners: 1984, (http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/previousyears.aspx?YEAR=1984)

(5): Ron Goulart, The Great History of Comic Books: The Definitive Illustrated Edition from the 1890s to the 1980s, January 1986.

(6): The Eagle Awards web-site, Previous Winners: 1987, (http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/previousyears.aspx?YEAR=1987)

(7): Trina Robbins, The Great Women Superheroes, Kitchen Sink Press, April 1997.

(8): The Perez Archives, by Andy Mangels, 2001, pp. 30-68.

Images from Comicvine.com: http://www.comicvine.com/george-perez/26-2913/

The Best X-Men Comics of the 80's Part II

Part Two

Welcome back. Last week, I looked at the best X-Men stories of the ‘80s. Though I cut the list down to a top ten, I didn’t want to have to rank these stories against each other so I’ve been running through them chronologically. I’m up to 1986. So, without further ado, here are the best X-Men stories of the latter half of the decade.

“I’ve Gone to Kill the Beyonder,” Uncanny X-Men 202 (1986): I realize that this issue might not make a lot of “best of” lists, but it makes mine. Mostly, that’s because this issue has such a personal place in my own story. It’s one of the first comic books I ever owned. It’s my introduction to the X-Men and to superheroes in general. And it blew my young mind. So I have a nostalgic affinity for this comic book that others might not. Yet, even without that nostalgic affinity, I think that this issue holds up as one of the best. The main story is Rachel Summers’ (aka Phoenix II) plan to kill the Beyonder. She rushes off to confront him on Alcatraz. In order to have an uninterrupted conversation, the Beyonder sends a squad of Sentinels after the rest of the X-Men. Then, he gives Phoenix the power to kill him. But, if she uses that power, she won’t be able to save the X-Men from the Sentinels. She has a choice: kill the Beyonder and lose her friends, or save her friends and let the Beyonder live. The moral dilemma isn’t the only great thing about this issue. The battle between the X-Men and the Sentinels is a great one. Magneto is still trying to fit in as Professor X’s replacement. Colossus throws Wolverine at the Sentine ls in a classic “fastball special.” Rogue is thrown into a crowd of bystanders and nearly loses herself to all of the thoughts that she absorbs. And Storm flies an unarmed Blackbird against the Sentinels, refusing to be defeated even if she’s de-powered. Plus, there’s great art by John Romita Jr. who’s especially good at drawing super-machines such as Sentinels.

The Morlock Mutant Massacre (1986): The Massacre is the first-ever X-Men crossover running through issues 210-213 of Uncanny X-Men, also featuring multiple issues of both X-Factor and the New Mutants, and even spilling over into Thor and Power Pack. So it’s big. It’s also great. The X-Men have been antagonists, allies and even friends with the Morlocks, a group of mostly misshapen mutants who hide out in the sewers under New York. Suddenly, the Morlocks are under attack. The Marauders are acting like hunting parties, tracking down the Morlocks and viciously killing them without apparent cause. The X-Men and other heroes rush in to help stop, or at least, slow the slaughter. But this is no easy fight. Shadowcat, Nightcrawler and Colossus take serious injuries while Angel of X-Factor experiences the agony of having his wings impaled by harpoons. Even the kids are caught up in the mess. The young wards of X-Factor have ties to the Morlocks, the X-Men can’t completely shelter the New Mutants from harm, and Power Pack accidentally wanders into the fray. It’s a brutal, senseless tragedy and none of the teams emerge unscathed. There are also some great figh ts and great moments. Wolverine and Sabretooth have a pair of classic bouts, setting up what will become one of comics’ classic rivalries. And Thor uses his powers to wash out the tunnels, in one of those moments that remind you that he is indeed the god of thunder. The Morlock Mutant Massacre is the first X-Men crossover, and one of the best.

  Dazzler vs. Juggernaut, Uncanny X-Men 217 (1987): This is probably another surprise choice for the list, but it remains one of my favorites for the decade. After the events of the Morlock Mutant Massacre, the X-Men needed to fill out their ranks and replace injured members. They brought in former X-Man Havok, as well as new X-Men Longshot, Psylocke and Dazzler. Often when a new member joins a team, the series will feature that member in a solo story, showing the new member’s aptitude in a glorious victory. Indeed, Kitty Pryde was featured in that kind of a story in “Demon,” as mentioned in part one. This story is different. Dazzler is indeed given a solo story. But it isn’t a glorious victory. She happens to spot Juggernaut as he’s out and about. He’s not robbing a bank or doing anything. He’s even wearing civilian clothes. But Dazzler recognizes him. She figures that she can impress her new teammates and prove her worth to them if she can take Juggernaut down by herself. So she attacks. Juggernaut, meanwhile, happens to be a big fan of her music. He tries not to fight her, and even asks for an autograph. But Dazzler will not be deterred. Finally, Juggernaut decides that he has to defend himself. He fights back brutally and Dazzler is defeated. Filled with remorse and thinking h e’s killed her, Juggernaut gives Dazzler a proper burial. Dazzler, however, isn’t dead. She wakes up in a grave. And this is how she proves her worth. She slowly seeks out sounds that she can convert into energy. She recharges and is able to free herself. Shamefaced, she returns to the X-Men, still unproven and still desperate to succeed. It’s such a wonderful small story. It completely overturns our expectations and ends up being an excellent examination of both Juggernaut and Dazzler. And it’s a great fight as well.

Broodfall, Uncanny X-Men 232-234 (1988): This is the best Brood story ever, bar none. While all of the earlier Brood stories featured the X-Men going into space and facing the Brood out there, this story features the Brood coming to earth. That means that if the X-Men lose, the Earth loses. That makes the stakes a lot bigger and much more personal than in previous Brood stories. Furthermore, in this story, the Brood infect Wolverine with one of their seed. Wolverine has often been the focus of stories in which he has to battle his own inner demons. This time, he has to battle an inner demon that isn’t his own. This leads to one of my all-time favorite scenes in which the Brood-infected Wolverine stumbles into a revival meeting. Most of the congregation flees in panic. But not the revival preacher. He reaches out to Wolverine in compassion. Most readers remember the evil preacher Rev. Stryker from “God Loves, Man Kills.” I remember this counter-point, this moment of grace, and it’s a big reason why this is one of my favorite stories. Of course, there are also big battles, panic in the streets to make even Japanese monster movie enthusiasts happy, Brood beasts throwing cars around and more superhero action than you can shake a stick at (though why you’d shake a stick at it, I don’t know). This is definitely the highlight of the Marc Silvestri era of the X-Men.

Acts of Vengeance, Uncanny X-Men 256-258 (1989): Yup, I’m picking “Acts of Vengeance.” The main crossover is admittedly pretty awful but it resulted in some great tie-in stories, especially in the X-Men titles. There’s a really good Tigershark appearance in Wolverine, a Celestial epic in X-Factor and a Mandarin plot here in Uncanny X-Men. At this point in X-Men history, the team has disbanded and the various heroes are scattered around the globe. The Mandarin takes advantage of the situation and kidnaps Psylocke. He brainwashes her, body-switches her and transforms her into his assassin. And it’s up to Wolverine to stop her and save her. But this isn’t Wolverine at his best. This is a Wolverine, still reeling from his recent crucifixion. And this isn’t Wolverine with the X-Men at his back. He has a little bit of help from Jubilee, but otherwise he’s on his own against Mandarin, the Hand and a host of ninja assassins. It’s a great kung fu action story, with one hero facing impossible odds and the other hero the unwilling pawn of the enemy. Plus, the story serves as Jim Lee’s introduction to the X-Men. I know that a lot of X-Men fans don’t like this story. And I have a theory about that. They don’t like that the previously pretty in pink Psylocke was transformed into an Asian ninja assassin. And since they don’t like the result, they don’t like the story that brought it about. I tend to look at things from a different angle. I like the story. It’s tense, quick-moving and full of action. And, since I like the story, I therefore also like the result. Plus, I didn’t have a huge affinity for the pink Psylocke in the first place. So while this story may mark the “end of the good X-Men” for ‘80s X-Men fans, it serves as a wonderful fulcrum from me transitioning from one favorite era to another.

God Loves, Man Kills (1982): This is another X-Men story that is widely considered to be a classic. Like “Dark Phoenix” and “Days of Future Past,” you can hardly create a “best of” list without including it. And yet, I nearly did just that for the simple reason that I had never read it until recently. I was afraid that “God Loves, Man Kills” would have the intense earnestness that crosses the line into sappiness as so often happens with comics which deal with important topics. And, as a Christian and then a pastor, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a story in which a minister is the bad guy. I shouldn’t have worried or waited so long. Yes, “God Loves, Man Kills” is emotionally charged. Young kids are murdered. Mutants are persecuted. But artist Brent Anderson does a great job of using images to allude to historical events without becoming heavy-handed. Writer Chris Claremont does a great job of using crowd reactions to show that the issue may be more complicated than either Rev. Stryker or the X-Men are willing to admit. The real heroes of this story are actually two normal cops who don’t know who to believe but who still do their duty. Plus, the looks into Rev. Stryker’s background show that he’s a much more complex character than I was initially led to believe. His belief in the inhumanity of mutants led him to murder his own wife and child. He’s sacrificed more for his cause than anyone knows, and he’s gone too far down this path to back down now. If he admits that there’s a place in the world for mutants, then he’s also admitting that he killed his wife and child for no reason and it’s simply too difficult for him to admit that kind of mistake. “God Loves, Man Kills” is a powerful story resonating with all kinds of persecuted minorities such as African-Americans, Jews and homosexuals. It’s also surprisingly personal, emotionally complex, beautifully rendered and well deserving of a place on this list.

Those are the best X-Men stories of the ‘80s. Of course, there were more than eleven good stories in the decade. Stay tuned for honorable mentions and more mutant goodness.

Why Is Bishop a Bad Guy?

About a year ago, I wrote an article stating that Juggernaut should be a villain. Consider this the flip-side of that article. I think that Bishop should be a hero, and I’m somewhat chagrined that he’s not.

At one point, it used to be common for villains to turn into heroes. Villains would realize the fruitlessness of their endeavor- they’d realize that crime doesn’t pay. Or they’d realize that they just didn’t have it in them to commit crimes. Or they’d become friends with the hero, and sometimes even fall in love with the hero, and be wooed to the side of the good guys. Villains would reform. They’d be redeemed. And it was a good thing.

I liked what it said about humanity. That even the worst villains can have some good in them and can be brought over to the side of good. I liked what it said about heroes. That there was something even better than defeating your own opponent; there was the possibility of bringing your opponent over to your side. For those and many other reasons, I’ve always loved stories of redemption.

I liked seeing former villains Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch welcomed into the Avengers and become some of that team’s most steadfast members. Chris Claremont has a reputation for turning his villains into noble heroes- as he did most notably with Magneto- but the Avengers have the X-Men beat in this regard. Besides those first three, the Avengers also brought Black Widow, Wonder Man and Sandman into the fold. The Justice League of America didn’t have as good a track record, though Ice Maiden and Major Disaster would both become members. However, Justice Leaguer the Flash helped reform former Rogues like Pied Piper and the Trickster.

This isn’t just a comic book phenomenon either. I like that Buffy: The Vampire Slayer saw former foes Anya, Faith and Andrew become allies and even members of the team. My daughters love to remind me that Luke Skywalker knew there was still good in his dad Darth Vader. Even the bumbling fools of the Police Academy were able to convince their original nemesis, played by Bobcat Goldthwait, to stand on the side of law and order.

Yet lately, the direction seems to have been turned around. Instead of villains reforming and becoming heroes, we’re watching as heroes fall and become villains. The trend was started by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. They had noticed that villains had become heroes but never the reverse and set out to tell the story that had never been told. The result was the classic Dark Phoenix Saga, though it wasn’t yet the beginning of a trend.

The subsequent years saw a trickle of heroes falling into villainy. Yellowjacket fell out of favor after hitting his wife and staging an attack on the Avengers. Quicksilver spent some time as a bad guy again, even facing off against two teams of Avengers in a pair of Annuals. Even the Titans saw one of their own turn evil as Jericho was corrupted by the soul of Trigon and led the Titans Hunt. And, in perhaps, the most-reviled example, Green Lantern Hal Jordan went crazy when his hometown was demolished and destroyed the Green Lantern Corps. The hero-turned-heel was becoming a well-known trope, though it certainly hadn’t replaced the redemption story.

Yet, in recent years, I’m starting to wonder if maybe it has. And I’m not referring to the actions of Tony Stark and Zatanna. Though the actions themselves have been less than heroic, the stories have been more about exploring the moral choices that heroes have to make, and sometimes make incorrectly. They may have become anti-heroes, but they aren’t out and out villains.

However, that’s exactly what’s happened to Bishop. He’s an out and out villain. He’s the big bad guy in the new Cable series the way that Apocalypse was in earlier Cable stories or that Fitzroy had been in Bishop’s own series. He’s the person who shot Xavier. And now he’s trying to assassinate an infant. I could maybe accept it if we had been witness to a big Bishop-falls-from-grace story. But we haven’t been given that. It seems like one day Bishop was one of the good guys and then pow! he was one of the bad guys. It just doesn’t make sense.

And he’s not the only one. Scarlet Witch suddenly turned multiple-e eeeevil for Disassembled and House of M with nary an explanation. There are hints that Barry Allen is coming back as the bad guy for Final Crisis.

I don’t like it. I don’t like losing heroes I once looked up to and cheered for. And I don’t like what it says about humanity- that evil is more likely to overcome good than good is to overcome evil. I don’t mind the occasional fall-from-grace story. It is a part of the human existence after all- which is probably why I never had a problem with Hal Jordan as a bad guy. Whether or not the story was well-written, there was at least a story. But absent a story, or even a reason, I don’t like Bishop as a bad guy. It doesn’t make sense to me. And I want my hero back.

Ranking the Runs on Wonder Woman

Last fall, I wrote a series of in-depth reviews of the George Perez run on Wonder Woman that launched the second volume of that title.  One of the reasons why I wrote those reviews was that I had been re-reading those issues.  Well, I kept on re-reading the rest of the series though I no longer posted regular reviews on my process.  I’m all done now and I’m ready to rank the runs I read.  For the purpose of this list, I’m intentionally ignoring temporary or fill-in runs such as those by Christopher Priest, Brian K. Vaughan or Walt Simonson.  That leaves only six runs of any significance: George Perez, William Messner-Loebs, John Byrne, Eric Luke, Phil Jimenez and Greg Rucka.  Without further ado, it’s on to the rankings.

 

#1: George Perez, issues 1-62

What’s Good: If you read my reviews from last fall, then you already know what I think is good. First and foremost, there is the incredible George Perez art.  There’s such attention to detail, such beauty, such variety of panel and page construction.  But the George Perez run is not just about the beautiful art.  Perez also does an excellent job of world-building.  He crafts four separate environments for Wonder Woman, each of which has their own complexities, relationships and distinctiveness.  There is Olympus and the pantheon of the Greek gods; there is Themyscira, Paradise Island, and the Amazon women; there is Boston, Wonder Woman’s new home in patriarch’s and her friends that live there, Julia and Vanessa Kapatelis; and there is the U.S. military with its friends and allies and enemies, most notably Etta Candy and Steve Trevor.  Against the back-drop of these settings, George Perez alternates between epic stories with big villains like Ares God of War, the Cheetah and Circe and intimate personal stories such as the death of a friend in “Who Killed Myndi Mayer?” 

What’s Not Good: I have two complaints, one of which is minor; the other more significant.  The minor complaint is that, like a lot of ‘80s comics and television shows, George Perez’s Wonder Woman had a certain earnestness when dealing with social issues that sacrificed story for message.  The more significant complaint is that the run went on a little too long.  The last year, from issues 51 to 62, were confusing, especially when Perez tried to use Wonder Woman as an anchor for the “War of the Gods” crossover.

 

#2: Greg Rucka, issues 195-226

 

What’s Good: The Greg Rucka run on Wonder Woman is so good that I honestly went back and forth on whether or not I should rank it ahead of the George Perez run that started the series.  Rucka did a great job of updating Wonder Woman’s setting.  He gave modern looks to the Greek gods, including businesswoman pantsuits for Athena.  He developed the new Amazon power structure, with Philippus and Artemis in charge and the blacksmith Io as our window on that world.  And most importantly, he gave Wonder Woman an embassy staff, as any ambassador would have.  That resulted in both human and political perspectives to her activities.  The interactions in the embassy became a highlight of the title.  Rucka also did a great job of introducing a new nemesis for Wonder Woman in self-made businesswoman Veronica Cale, as well as other new threats such as Medusa, Maxwell Lord and the OMAC Project.

 

What’s Not Good: So what held me back from declaring the Greg Rucka run number one?  Well, first of all, he was building on the foundations that George Perez established.  It’s hard to ignore that.  For another, whereas Perez’s run went on too long, Rucka’s was cut off too short.  That’s not entirely his fault.  DC re-launched the book after Infinite Crisis.  But it does give the run a certain unfinished feeling as Rucka wasn’t able to deal with the repercussions of the stories he had written.

 

  #3: William Messner-Loebs, issues 0, 63-100 and Wonder Woman Special

 

What’s Good: When taking over a title after a popular run, it’s often a good idea to take the book in the opposite direction.  William Messner-Loebs did that.  Perez’s run, especially towards the end, was a little light on action and a lot light on fun.  Messner-Loebs emphasized both.  For action, there was a great outer space adventure in which Wonder Woman led a slave revolt.  For fun, there was a Joker story and a sub-plot about Wonder Woman working in a fast food joint.  The Messner-Loebs era was also noted for some great art: Brian Bolland provided covers throughout and Mike Deodato joined as the regular penciller for the latter half of the run.  Indeed, those later issues with Deodato aboard are considered the highlight of the Messner-Loebs run with the introduction of Artemis, Hippolyta’s betrayal of her daughter Diana and Artemis’ stint as Wonder Woman.

 

What’s Not Good: The run could be a little inconsistent.  Messner-Loebs took a couple of issues to find his feet as a writer.  Later, he created lame villains like Mayfly.  Plus, during the Artemis as Wonder Woman story, he tried to parody the then-current chauvinist heroes with massive muscles.  Unfortunately, that’s a subject that’s hard to parody without falling prey to doing the same things.  It’s a very good run, but it’s not near the level of either Rucka or Perez.

 

#4: Eric Luke, issues 139-152, 156-159

 

What’s Good: This is easily the most-underrated run on the title.  Eric Luke’s run is so underrated that it’s practically forgotten.  That’s partly because it’s so short.  Luke only wrote 18 issues over 2 years.  It’s also partly because Luke isn’t a well-known comics presence outside of this title.  He’s not a “name” writer.  Plus, like Messner-Loebs, Luke was paired with an excellent cover artist: Adam Hughes, who’s beautiful “good girl” covers brought more attention to the title than Luke’s stories.  But for all that, Luke turned in a very good run on Wonder Woman.  The best thing that Luke did for the title was to introduce a new set of villains.  He started with Devastation, whose origins and powers mirrored Wonder Woman’s even as she was her opposite in other regards.  Devastation looked like a little child but had the ruthlessness of a veteran villain.  Luke expanded from there showing that Devastation was but one child of Cronus, the elder god who was overthrown by Zeus.  Luke gave Cronus an entire family of accomplices, matching the earlier family of Ares.  Besides the new villains, Luke also introduced a new set of allies.  Rebuffed by her own gods, Wonder Woman looked for help from the other pantheons.  She found an ally, and a love interest, in Rama, an avatar in the Hindu pantheon.  This is what I loved about Luke’s run.  He expanded Wonder Woman’s world with new villains and new allies and new gods.  Personally, I think that Rama was the best love interest in the entire series, even if his appearance was brief.

 

What’s Not Good: Like Rucka’s later run, Luke’s time on the title was too short.  For Rucka, that meant that his run felt unfinished.  For Luke, that means that his run lacks scope.  He was really only able to develop the one major story with Devastation and Cronus.  He didn’t have the chance to explore other situations or feature other villains.  It’s hard to claim that such a short run with such a narrow scope should rank ahead of other runs that simply did more.  Plus, two of the most memorable stories of this era were written by others: Mark Millar’s fill-in one-shot focusing on Wonder Girl and Superboy, and Brian K. Vaughan’s two-part follow-up featuring Clayface.

 

#5: Phil Jimenez, issues 164-188

 

What’s Good: First and foremost, there is the Phil Jimenez art.  Jimenez carries a heavy George Perez influence.  The resemblance is so strong that Jimenez has occasionally completed Perez’s work and Perez completed some of Jimenez’s work on Infinite Crisis.  For Perez fans, there was a real nostalgic appeal to Jimenez’s presence on the title.  Jimenez also took a fanboy’s approach to the title which resulted in a lot of guest-stars, such as Batman and his allies in the opening arc “The Gods of Gotham,” Lois Lane in “A Day in the Life” and Superman in “Our Worlds at War.”  Later in his run, Jimenez also brought a level of fun that even surpassed Messner-Loebs.  It’s hard to beat the scene in which Trevor Barnes has to keep track of miniature villains, rampaging dinosaurs and Nazi spies.  Finally, Jimenez was the only Wonder Woman writer to really incorporate Donna Troy into the cast as Wonder Woman’s sister.  Perez used her as an occasional guest-star.  John Byrne gave Donna her own mostly separate story.  But Jimenez wrote that sisterly relationship better than anyone else.

 

What’s Not Good: Phil Jimenez’s fanboy approach had a bad side as well as a good.  The title was occasionally self-important and Jimenez didn’t always move the action forward.  This was especially apparent in the first arc, “The Gods of Gotham,” but it became an issue in the latter Skartaris story against Villains, Inc. as well.  Plus, Jimenez tried to introduce a new love interest for Wonder Woman in Trevor Barnes and didn’t handle it well.  Fans didn’t see why Wonder Woman would be interested in him.  And just when Jimenez started to give him some personality, Barnes would quickly revert to whining and complaining again.  Guest writer Walt Simonson would partially redeem Barnes after Jimenez left the title, but the relationship simply didn’t work the way Jimenez wanted to while he was writing it.  The title was also damaged by forces outside of Jimenez’s control, as crossovers like “Our Worlds at War” and “Joker’s Last Laugh” interrupted his big Circe story.  I could go on, but that’s enough to recognize that there’s a huge gap from the underrated Eric Luke run at #4 and the Jimenez run here at #5.

 

 #6: John Byrne, issues 101-136

 

What’s Good: I once read a comment by Mike Richardson, publisher of Dark Horse comics, in which he disparaged Byrne’s run on Wonder Woman.  I took umbrage at that comment, because there are a lot of good things about Byrne’s run.  Even so, Byrne’s run ranks at the bottom of the list.  What was good?  Byrne introduced a new supporting cast in Gateway City (a DC simulacrum for San Francisco) after the Boston cast had been mostly ignored by Messner-Loebs.  This supporting cast eventually resulted in a new Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) and a love interest for Wonder Woman (Mike Schorr).  Byrne also intended to raise Wonder Woman’s profile in the DC Universe, and had her fight other heroes’ villains such as Darkseid, The Demon and Doomsday (though not the real version of the latter).  Plus, I really liked the story in which Diana died, ascended to be a goddess and watched as her mother filled in as Wonder Woman.

 

What’s Not Good: A lot of things.  Convoluted explanations for other characters including Hippolyta’s time travel to become the World War II Wonder Woman and Donna Troy’s multiple lives torture at the hands of Dark Angel.  Art that often looked unfinished as Byrne refused to use an inker, resulting in many panels that had no backgrounds at all.  A supporting cast that was often annoying and occasionally overwhelmed the lead- which was especially the case when Byrne tried to establish a love relationship between Helena Sandsmark and Jason Blood.  Byrne’s run wasn’t all bad.  He did give us a new Wonder Girl and a World War II Wonder Woman, after all.  But it wasn’t all good either. 

 

More Recent Reviews: Wonder Woman, Wildguard and more…

Wonder Woman #21
By Gail Simone and Aaron Lopresti

I love this title. And I love Gail Simone. She “gets” Wonder Woman in a way that few others have gotten a character. It reminds me of Mark Waid’s take on Reed Richards. Unfortunately, while Gail “gets” this character, I didn’t exactly “get” this story. I talked to my wife about it after reading it and realize that I had almost no idea what was going on. I knew that Wonder Woman had teamed up with Beowulf and some claw guy, but I still wasn’t sure why or what they were trying to accomplish. I didn’t even realize that this was supposed to be one of DC’s alternate earths, with stand-ins for Batman, Robin and Oracle. I’m sure that was mentioned, or at least hinted at in the previous issue but it just didn’t sink in. So I had pretty much no idea what was going on. I liked the barbarian fights though, even without context. The good part of this issue was actually the sub-plot. Back on the regular earth, Diana Prince’s partner Nemesis has been given a new job- to spy on her. He’s supposed to find out what her connection is to the Amazons and if the Amazons intend any future hostilities. It’s a nice little maze to give to a secondary character. And I like the way that Gail is using the stories that came before her tenure to create interesting situations instead of just ignoring them, even though those stories were pretty awful. I was also amused in the way that Nemesis’ assignment eventually led him into a surprise confrontation with the sentient apes who have been allies of Wonder Woman. That’s where the interesting stuff is happening and I’m ready for Wonder Woman to be done with this other adventure so she can get back to it. With two more issues to go in the Beowulf story, that’s not exactly a good sign.

Wildguard Insider #2

By Todd Nauck

There are three main pieces to Wildguard Insider #2. The first is a short story featuring Lily Hammer, one of the heroes who made the Wildguard team at the end of the first mini-series. The second is a continuing series of comic strips that was originally published online. The third is a pair of “Where Are They Now?” profiles telling us about some of the heroes who didn’t make the cut during Wildguard: Casting Call. The first story is fairly decent. I enjoyed Lilly Hammer’s banter with the late night host and her attempts to get rid of her accent. I was intrigued by the ghosts that only she could hear. And I liked that she fell back into her Scandinavian accent once she started fighting and lost control of her emotions. Plus, to my surprise, I didn’t even mind that it was all a dream, as it showed us a very strong glimpse of Lilly’s hopes and fears. The strips were pretty good as well. There’s not a lot of action in them. It’s mostly a behind-the-scenes look at Wildguard as heroes deal with fan mail, angry fans who don’t think they deserved to be on the team and fines. We certainly learn a lot about Four- both her heroic past and her managerial style. As for the “Where Are They Now?” features, I enjoyed the Astro Girl story with Ray Height art. It had a lot of action and a really good pace to it. The Power Temp story wasn’t quite as strong, but with the rest of the issue as good as it was, I’m willing to give a two-page tale at the end a bit of a pass.

The Twelve #6

By J. Michael Straczynski and Chris Weston

Straczynski has taken a lot of flack for his work on established characters like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. I’ll admit that I’ve dished some of it out, too. However, when JMS gets to work on characters he’s created he’s once again one of the best writers around. The Twelve aren’t exactly his own inventions. They’re obscure heroes from the Golden Age of comics, which means that most fans had never even heard of them before. I hadn’t even heard of some of them, and I’m a Golden Age history buff. And that means that JMS gets to put his own stamp on them, updating them and giving them characteristics and inconsistencies and personalities and depth. So far, it’s been a wonder to behold. Each issue reveals a new layer for at least one of the characters. In this issue, we see further progress for the Laughing Mask- arrested for a crime he committed back in the ‘40s- and the Black Widow- as the original goth vixen. But the big changes are reserved for Rockman and the Phantom Reporter. The Phantom Reporter has been our narrator and our point-of-view character for the story so far. With this issue, we see him continue to struggle to adapt to his new surroundings and finally decide that the only way he can fit in is through his costumed identity. As for Rockman, we are finally told the truth about his origin. It’s a sad story, full of sorrow, and his superiors decide that he’s actually better off not knowing. Chris Weston is the perfect artist for this story, as well. He does a great job of drawing faces, differentiating them from one another and depicting a variety of emotions. And he’s able to bring intensity to every scene, even those that don’t feature fights or costumes or capes- even those that feature the Phantom Reporter slumped over his typewriter with writer’s block. So far, The Twelve measures up to JMS’ other original takes on superheroes, Rising Stars and Supreme Power.

Madman Atomic Comics #9

By Mike Allred

Madman has been maddeningly inconsistent. Mike Allred has intentionally turned Madman into an experimental comic. Some of the experiments have been admirable, such as the issue in which he drew every panel in the different style of artists he admired. Some of the experiments have failed fairly spectacularly. A few of the storytelling choices have been misguided- such as combining Madman’s first love and It! Girl into one person so that he can love two women at once. I think it was supposed to be romantic, but I found it to be revolting. However, a few of the issues have been, well, genius and that’s how I would describe this particular issue. The basic story is surprisingly simple. Madman, Mr. Gum and It! Girl are fighting these weird creatures from another dimension that look like windsocks with Rolling Stones lips on one end. It! Girl is knocked out on the first page and the other two heroes are left scrambling to fight the monsters and rescue the girl. Eventually, the other Atomics enter the story- some zooming in on a flying saucer and others walking home with the groceries. So it’s not that this is an amazing story. It’s that it’s told in an amazing way. I’m not sure I can even describe it in a way that does it justice. Basically, the story progresses in three different ways: the art depicting the action, dialogue of running commentary between Madman and Mr. Gum, and boxes of Madman’s thoughts. Each of these progresses the story in a different way. You can read just the dialogue and understand the story on one level. You can read just the inner monologue and understand the story on a different level. Or you can jump back and forth to get an even richer story. The art is as full of depth as the words. Each page is a double splash and the stores in the background show us how the fight is progressing down the street. There are full figures in action in the foreground, with usually multiple images of Madman and a wildly contorted Mr. Gum. And there are Easter Eggs in the background as Mike Allred pays homage to friends and stores. I found it to be an incredible issue, engaging on so many levels. But you do have to be in the right frame of mind for it. I talked to my wife about it and she complained that she wasn’t willing to work that hard to make sense of the story. Madman has become an experimental comic. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes it works for one person while not working for another. This issue, however, worked wonders for me.

Invincible #50

By Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley and Cory Walker

Another wow! Robert Kirkman has been building up to this issue for a long time and it was worth it. I’m blown away. This is what comic books are supposed to be about. Okay, enough gushing. What was so great about it? Well, there are the moments that make you gasp in fear, such as the scene in which Clarence Steadman turns off the subterfuge setting on the white room and Invincible sees that he’s up against an armada of undead soldiers. There are the moments that make you want to cheer, such as the scene in which Invincible flies away as fast as he can in order to get out of the range of the transmitter that’s messing with his inner ear equilibrium. There are the moments when the art takes your breath away and you just want to savor it, such as the scene in which Clarence Steadman uses the teleportation door to follow Invincible across the country. There are the moments that make you smile, such as Invincible’s declaration of romantic feelings for Atom Eve. And there are moments that make you laugh, such as Invincible’s half-brother’s reaction to that same kiss. “Gross!” Plus, there’s so much more that makes this issue great. Clarence Steadman has been like a father figure to Invincible ever since he own father was forced to leave the planet. Now, Invincible has to fight another father and you can tell that it hurts him. Then there’s the back-up story telling you the origin of Clarence Steadman. Kirkman makes you hate him and feel sorry for him in the same issue. That’s pretty impressive. And of course, there’s a Science Dog back-up story which is just plain ol’ fun. I just don’t have enough superlatives for this issue. But I do know that I can’t wait to read the next issue. And I also know that I want to read this one all over again.

Green Lantern Corps #25

By Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason

Unlike some of the other comics I read this past week, I don’t have much to say about Green Lantern Corps. It was just a good solid story. There was a lot of great action, as the Lanterns fight off the Black Mercy plants. There were a couple of nice twists. First, as Mother Mercy reveals herself and explains the origin and the purpose of these plants. And second, as Mongul makes his move against the Lanterns. The origin story gives you an entirely different perspective on the Black Mercy. You suddenly understand why these plants would exist in the first place, and how they were designed for good before Mongul misused them for evil. And the fight does a great job of demonstrating the resolve of the different Lanterns. Almost every Lantern gets a page or a scene which highlights them- Arisia, Soranik Natu, Kyle Rayner, and so on. It’s simply an exceptional use of an ensemble cast and an action story that’s well worth reading.

Chuck #1

By Peter Johnson, Zev Borow and Jeremy Haun

Almost every year, I find that one new show that becomes an immediate favorite. In 2004, it was Lost. In 2006, it was Heroes. And in 2007, it was Chuck. So I was pleased when I discovered that DC had obtained the license to publish Chuck comics through their Wildstorm imprint. This first issue was decent but not great. Some of the good stuff: there was an amusing opening in which Chuck dreamed that he and his friends were the cast of Gilligan’s Island. The writers did a good job of capturing the annoying yet amusing chatter of Chuck’s co-workers. The artist did a good job of capturing the feel of the tv show- as with Sarah’s sunny entrance- while also using the strengths of a comic book- such as showing a cross-section of the secret base. And they did a great job of making this a big story, by having several of Chuck’s former adversaries all escape prison together. Yet it wasn’t a perfect comic. The artist didn’t always do a good job of capturing facial likenesses, and I found myself occasionally confused as to whether I was looking at a spruced-up Chuck or his rival Blaine. Chuck’s almost precognitive flashes as the Intersect are a big part of the television show and they didn’t really capture the feel of that for the comic book. And I don’t think that the writers did a good job of showing the relationship between Chuck’s sister and her boyfriend “Awesome” in the limited time that they were shown. It made me feel like the understood some of the characters, but not all of them. Chuck #1 was a decent comic, but not a great one and not quite as good as I would want it to be.

Booster Gold #10

By Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz and Dan Jurgens

Put this in the same category as Green Lantern Corps. Good fun, plenty of action, solid story-telling, decent characterization- only good things to say but not a lot to say other than that. This issue is part of the “Blue and Gold” story in which Booster Gold uses his newfound access to time-travel to go back and save his best friend, Blue Beetle, from his death at the hands of Max Lord. The rescue hasn’t gone as planned. He saved Blue Beetle, sure, but now the two of them are flitting through time fleeing from both their allies and their enemies. Rip Hunter is still trying to track down Booster Gold for interfering with the time stream. And several time-travelers are trying to kill Blue Beetle, including Despero and a Blue Beetle dressed in black. The cover teases us that somebody will successfully kill Blue Beetle but we won’t be able to guess who it is. I did guess actually. I knew that Blue Beetle is basically a decent guy and he would sacrifice himself to save the time stream if that’s what was needed. And, not surprisingly to me, that’s exactly what happens near the end of the issue. However, that’s not quite the end of the story as Booster Gold is pulled one million months into the future in the wake of the Blue Beetle’s death. So I guess I did have something bad to say about this issue, after all: I guessed the ending based on the cover. But I really enjoyed the story that got us to that point. And truthfully, I had a feeling we were eventually going to have to get to that ending from the moment that Booster Gold first saved Blue Beetle several issues ago. So it’s not as if this issue failed to deliver on a surprise so much as it is fulfilled the story you knew it had to tell from the beginning.

Angel: After the Fall #8

By Joss Whedon, Bryan Lynch and others

I was really looking forward to the “First Night” issues- the three issues that would tell us what happened on the first night after the end of Angel season five and how the various characters came to be in the places they were in at the beginning of Angel: After the Fall. Unfortunately, the sum total of these issues has been disappointing. There have been a few gems in there, such as John Byrne’s story in rhyme of Lorne’s founding of a new sanctuary. But mostly, they’ve just been vignettes. Even though they’re short stories, I would have still liked each story to have a beginning, a middle and a end. Also unfortunately, the quality of each issue has been less than the one before. Which means that this third issue was the worst of the three. The art on the “Gwen” story was bad- Gwen looked different depending on the angle. The art on the “civilians” story was even worse. At least the art on the “Gunn” story at the end was decent, but it was still of “fill-in” quality rather than the excellence that we had been seeing earlier in the series. The stories didn’t have much meat to them either. Gwen almost makes out with a guy- who is supposed to be drawn as if the part was being played by Nathan Fillion, but Fabio Mantovani’s Nathan Fillion is drawn even more inconsistently than his Gwen. Then Gwen doesn’t make out with him. Then she gets her powers back. Then she accidentally kills him. The story explains how Gwen got her powers back, but not why she’s now one of the good guys. The civilian story is supposed to be a love story in the midst of the apocalypse. I would’ve liked for it to work, but it didn’t. Neither character is sympathetic enough for us to really care whether or not they find love. Again, the Gunn story is the best. We see how Gunn became a vampire. And we see that Gunn still hates other vampires despite being one of them. It’s a good, but not great, beginning for him. But it’s not enough to carry the issue on its own and would’ve been one of the weaker stories in the first issue. Oh well. Next issue brings us back to the story we started with, and hopefully the quality we started with as well.

Recent Reviews: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Justice Society of America and more…

It’s been a while since I reviewed a batch of new comics (since February, to be precise). So it’s about time I do it again.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #15
by Drew Goddard and Georges Jeanty:

Wow. Issue fifteen is the excellent conclusion to the “Wolves at the Gate” story by Drew Goddard. It has pretty much everything you would want. It opens with a death scene shown from the perspective of the person who’s dying and the unspoken declaration of love for Xander by Renee. As a Buffy fan, you feel great remorse for Xander. This isn’t the first time that he’s lost someone he loves to this crusade. There’s also a big fight scene between a cadre of slayers and an army of vampires. Goddard and Jeanty do a great job of balancing the big fight with individual battles within the larger melee, especially focusing on more familiar characters like Willow. So, yeah, there’s a witch fight between Willow and Kumiko which is probably the best magic-on-magic fight I’ve seen since the wizard’s duel in “The Fellowship of the Ring.” There’s another great fight between giant Dawn and Mecha-Dawn. Hey, if you’re going to Tokyo, you might as well have a scene that pays homage to Godzilla. That particular scene is made even better by the supportive commentary from Andrew, whose entire life has been leading up to this moment. Besides the great fights, there’s also plenty of humor and subtle character moments. My one complaint is that it was occasionally difficult to distinguish between Dracula and Twilight. Considering that one is the chief villain and the other a temporary but untrustworthy ally that was a significant detail. Even so, with all of the other good stuff going on in this issue, the best was probably the relationship between Dracula and Xander. We see that Dracula really does care for Xander. And we see Xander grow in his relationship with Dracula, finally standing up to him. Buffy is a great series and this was a great issue.

Justice Society of America #16
by Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham

I had been looking forward to the Kingdom Come story-line but lately, JSA has seemed a little slow. I suppose you could accuse this issue of being slow as well as the story isn’t progressed that far in the issue. But in this case, that’s not a problem as the issue itself is so well done. The basic plot is pretty simple. Magog has just been killed and in his place stands Gog. The Justice Society doesn’t know quite what to do. The real story is in their reaction. Some call Gog “a god.” Others are in disbelief. They follow Gog around as he gives gifts of life to the African natives. The heroes aren’t sure if they should stop him or help him. There are some great scenes including a stand-off between Mr. Terrific and Amazing Man as they debate the value of the scientific approach and the approach of faith. Yet the surprising heart of this story has to do with Damage. Johns opens the issue with a quick run-down of Damage’s life from his own point of view. We discover that Damage’s name is more than just a description of his powers. It’s also an apt description of Grant himself. He’s been damaged by a life history filled with abandonment and abuse. So it’s not surprising that Damage is one of the heroes most skeptical of Gog. It is surprising how Gog reacts to Damage: smiling and then healing him outside and in. There’s no big fight in this issue of JSA. But it’s a very good issue anyway, raising questions and issues in a way that is neither one-sided nor trite. And it’s definitely an issue that makes you want to come back for the next one, just to see how it will all work out in the end.

Noble Causes #34
by Jay Faerber and Yildiray Cinar

Noble Causes continues its excellent return from a planned hiatus with this issue. There’s a big battle with a giant Pharaoh. But the real battle is the inter-family squabble as the team is torn apart by the accusation that Frost tried to rape Surge’s girlfriend Amy. The argument shows the rifts that already exist in the family- that Surge has never really felt that he fits in, and that many of the others don’t really trust Celeste who’s proven to be unfaithful in her relationships in the past. Of course, that’s just the argument on the table. Jay Faerber lets the audience in on even more secrets. So while we’re captivated by the current arguments, we’re also salivating at the thought of future arguments that will occur when other secrets get out- especially the arrangement between Doc’s current wife Olympia and his former wife Gaia. There are a couple of other nice features worth mentioning. For one, Yildiray Cinar continues to show his flexibility as an artist, drawing intimate family fights with close-ups and impersonal fights verse villains from afar, and even mixing in a flashback scene with a real Bronze Age feel to it. The other nice feature was the way in which Jay Faerber is building his own little world. He’s previously brought Venture and the Firebirds into Noble Causes. Now, he builds connections to his other title Dynamo 5 by including Captain Dynamo in the flashback and featuring Dynamo 5 villain Bonechill.

Wolverine: Dangerous Games
By Simon Spurrier and Ben Oliver, and Rick Remender and Jerome Opena

I’ve been getting into Wolverine quite a bit recently so I’ve started ordering a lot of these extra one-shots without reading the solicitation information. I found out from X-Axis that this particular issue was going to involve fox-hunting. While Paul O’Brien of that site was pretty cynical about the likelihood that this would be more treatise than story, I was still willing to give the issue a chance. Unfortunately, O’Brien was right. There are plenty of tidbits explaining to us why fox-hunting is unfair, wrong and evil. The hunters are shown to be either stupid or evil. Even the dogs are drawn in a way that makes them look like demons. Spurrier does try to give us a couple of twists to make the story worthwhile. The main hunter had actually planned to get Wolverine involved because he thought that Logan would be a more compelling prey than the foxes. And the hippy who first gets Wolverine involved in the protest turns out to be a traitor working for the hunter. But while that does give the story something more to go on, it doesn’t elevate it above its trite roots as a treatise against fox-hunting. The quote by Oscar Wilde at the end of the story only confirms that this is little more than a morality play. The one good thing is the Ben Oliver art, which has a crisp Carlos Pacheco-like look to it. The back-up is a little bit better. Wolverine is in Thailand, protecting a monastery from a crime syndicate. There’s a glimpse of romance and a brutal battle. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but that set-up usually works for Wolverine and it does here as well. My complaint this time is that Wolverine is again shown to be a remorseless killer. I think that particular characterization is off. He does have honor and remorse, even if he has to occasionally set them aside in order to get the job done. He’ll kill when he must, but he doesn’t take glee in it (as he did in the fox-hunt story). As he was once known to say, what he does isn’t very pretty and he’s at least aware of it.

Rann/Thanagar Holy War #1
By Keith Giffen and Ron Lim

I enjoyed the first Rann/Thanagar War, which was depicted in one of the mini-series leading up to Infinite Crisis. Despite my growing disinterest in DC comics right now (or should that be decreasing interest?), I went ahead and picked this up hoping to be able to recapture some of the enjoyment I felt a couple of years ago. The issue certainly started out okay. Katar Hol, aka Hawkman, is infiltrating his own people of Thanagar. He opposed the earlier war and is afraid the religious undercurrents of his society might lead to a second war. Adam Strange, the human who has relocated to Rann, is Hawkman’s ally in this. However, Adam Strange has discovered something sinister on Rann. Whereas Rann had always been a society centered on science, after the last war the Rannians have begun to embrace religion. Hawkman and Strange worry that the two fundamentalist viewpoints will lead to another war. This is the point at which I started to have my first problem with this comic. The Rann/Thanagar conflict had previously been used as a metaphor for the wars between science and religion. While I don’t think that particular conflict needs to exist in the way that it does, I at least have to admit that it does exist. However, now the Rann/Thanagar war is being shown as a battle between two religions. Again, there is both historical and current precedent for that situation. But I don’t really appreciate that religion is being shown as an entirely insidious force while all of the science-minded people are shown to be both rational and ethical. It’s a little too narrow a viewpoint, even for comics. I much prefer the openness I saw in JSA. I wouldn’t write this series off just for that. After all, it’s early and the conflict may yet twist into something else. But I am admittedly leery at this point. That concern was joined by another as the story seemed to stall as it continued. Keith Giffen is working with a large cast. After introducing Hawkman, Adam Strange and the current conflict, he then proceeds to introduce the new Captain Comet (just “Comet,” sorry), Tigorr of the Omega Men, Prince Gavyn of Throneworld (Starman III) and others. Not all of these characters tie into the story immediately, though I suspect they will at some point. However, that made the issue a series of introductions rather than a story. Giffen would have been better off holding back on some of those introductions until the second issue so that more of the story could have been played out in this one. I did enjoy aspects of this comic. I liked the Ron Lim art and it certainly started out well. But I’m not sure I enjoyed enough of this issue to pick up the second one.

Star Wars: Rebellion 14
By Jeremy Barlow and Colin Wilson

At one point, Rebellion was the weakest of the Star Wars titles. That’s no longer the case. The current arc, “Small Victories,” has been the best of this title so far and one of the better Star Wars stories of the year. This conclusion continues the quality. The issue opens with an opportunity for Colin Wilson to show off. Being a Star Wars artist requires the ability to draw technology. Wilson does a great job here depicting multiple Star Destroyers in the midst of evasive maneuvers, a collision and a crash. Later on, Wilson will get another shot with a beautiful B-wing splash page followed by a second space battle. The story is just as strong. Luke, Leia and the other members of the Rebellion strike team are desperate to get off of the planet now that their main objective has been achieved. And there’s a tense moment as they debate whether or not to look for Deena Shan before they depart. As one pilot notes, they don’t even know if she’s alive or dead. Deena has become a real star in this story and Barlow and Wilson do an incredible job of portraying her. Wilson draws her with blood and tears while Barlow gives her dialogue with a powerful mix of tenacity and resignation. We know that the budding romance between Deena and Luke won’t work out, but it’s fun to see it start to blossom anyway.

Captain Britain and MI:13 #2
By Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk

After an excellent first issue, the second issue of Captain Britain and MI:13 is a bit of a step backwards. That’s not to say that it isn’t a good issue. It just isn’t as great as the first. The Leonard Kirk art is occasionally breath-taking. I loved the splash page of the Skrull armada and the picture of the Black Knight’s body being split apart. Plus, there are some great story moments. Faiza Hussain is turning into an interesting character. With Faiza in this book and Dust in Young X-Men, Marvel is creating a couple of very strong Muslim characters. And I appreciated that none of the current heroes were able to pull the sword from the stone. It was a good twist on the usual tale, and it fits what we know of Pete Wisdom and “John Lennon.” Unfortunately, the story does get a little complicated at points. Tink comes out of nowhere in this story and I’m not entirely sure how Oberon is supposed to fit in with Otherworld (the home of the Captain Britain corps currently being invaded by Skrulls). It’s possible these things make sense to people who have read Cornell’s “Wisdom” mini-series but they’re a little confusing here. However, the first issue was strong enough and there are enough good moments here that I’ll definitely be back for another issue. Plus, how could I pass up getting a chance to read about a super Skrull magical monster with all of earth’s mystical items at his disposal?

Wonder Woman Part II

Written by Chris Fluit

Friday, 26 October 2007

Issues 15-19: The Silver Swan and Circe With these issues, George Perez and Wonder Woman start to get back on track.  Back in issues 8 and 9, I was glad to see Perez expand Wonder Woman’s gallery of rogues beyond the pantheon of the gods.  Then, I was disappointed to see him return to the gods and myths again so quickly.  These are the stories I wish he had told then.  First, we meet the Silver Swan, then some people who change into wild beasts which in turn, leads us to meet Circe.  Even if these stories had preceded Challenge of the Gods, I would have some problems with Challenge based on the revelations that I didn’t like.  But I do think I would’ve liked Challenge better if it had followed these issues as I wouldn’t have felt quite as inundated with gods. Anyway, back to the issues themselves.  In issue 15, Wonder Woman’s publicist Myndi Mayer hosts a Wonder Woman fair designed to promote her client while also raising some money for charity.  Meanwhile, a few crooks decide that they’d rather take the collection for themselves.  And these crooks happen to be male chauvinists to boot, giving them an added incentive to rob this particular party.  One of the crooks has twisted a woman named Valerie around his finger.  He’s convinced her that he loves her, that she needs him and that Wonder Woman is a threat to all women everywhere because of the unattainable idealized image of women that she represents.  This woman is the Silver Swan, and she’s been so deceived that she doesn’t even realize she’s as beautiful as Princess Diana, or that Diana isn’t what these men claim she is, or that the man who claims to love her really doesn’t.  Valerie’s friend tries to warn Wonder Woman and to seek help for her friend.  And two Boston cops, Indelicato and Shands, catch wind of the problems and cause further complications. It’s not the best story, but it works.  It adds yet another complicating element to Wonder Woman’s life in the presence of the Boston police officers.  And it expands her rogues’ gallery.  However, the Silver Swan is a little too simplistic and naïve. Plus, her story is a little too “after-school special.”  It’s a problem that affects a number of late ‘80s titles, not just Wonder Woman.  For some reason, whenever the entertainment industry (and not just comics) tried to address issues of the day, the stories became really earnest.  This happened in New Teen Titans with issues like runaways, and in New Mutants with issues like watching too much television (I swear I’m not making that up).  And it happened in Wonder Woman with issues like co-dependency and domestic abuse.  It’s not that bad in these two issues.  We only get a hint of it here.  But it will get worse as the series proceeds.   Following the Silver Swan incident, Wonder Woman travels to Greece with Julia and Vanessa Kapatelis.  Julia brings Diana to the country where she was born, and introduces Wonder Woman to her parents.  I actually enjoyed the domestic moments in the early part of the story.  I certainly enjoyed it more than the odd “somebody is taking possession of all of the animals” mystery that’s being presented in the background.  Werewolves and were-sheep just don’t seem like natural foes for Wonder Woman.  It’s a good thing that the story keeps moving from there.  The “somebody taking possession of all of animals” turns out to be Circe, who is a natural foe for Wonder Woman.  Even though she is another mythical character, I don’t object to her presence.  She doesn’t have the connections to the Olympic gods in either the ancient myths or in this series, so she really is a distinct threat.  And, as a powerful magician, she’s a very different villain from what Wonder Woman has faced so far.  Also, I like how her introduction takes me from a blah “oh, she’s fighting werewolves” feeling to an “oh wow, she’s fighting Circe” feeling in an instant.  The phrase “Oh, snap!” wasn’t in use when I first read this story, but it certainly fits.  Issue 20: Who Killed Myndi Mayer? Sometimes, single issues take on a notoriety of their own and come to define the series that they’re a part of.  I think that this was the case with the New Teen Titans and “A Day in the Life.”  And I think that this is the case with Wonder Woman as well and “Who Killed Myndi Mayer?”  This is the issue that cemented that Wonder Woman isn’t just about mythical gods and magical creatures.  It’s also about real life, about real life people and real life problems.  We’d kind of known that for a while.  After all, we’d had normal people like Julia and Vanessa Kapatelis as windows into this world for a while.  But this is the issue that really brings this home. Myndi Mayer is dead.  Wonder Woman’s publicist has been shot.  Ed Indelicato and Michael Shands, the Boston cops that we first met during the Silver Swan story, are heading up the investigation.  We really get to know Myndi’s staff and Wonder Woman’s supporting cast as they’re interviewed about the incident.  And we really get to know Myndi Mayer as her past is slowly revealed.  We know about her more in death than we ever did in life.  We know about her troubled past, her passion for life and her use of drugs.  We learn about her bad taste in men and in business partners.  And we learn how Myndi’s own faults and excesses led to her own death.  She wasn’t killed by Ares or Circe or the Cheetah.  She died of a drug overdose, before being shot by an ex-lover.  This could have been an episode of Law & Order or CSI.  Or to be contemporary, this could have been an episode of Hill Street Blues.  But it wasn’t.  It was an issue of Wonder Woman, as Princess Diana and her circle are suddenly forced to deal with the same kinds of problems that many of us have to deal with such as the death of a friend.  Earlier, I noted that Wonder Woman could get a little simplistic and didactic when dealing with real-world problems like this.  And it does, but not here.  This particular issue is well-balanced, well-paced and true to life enough that it comes off as a story and not just a public service announcement.  There are a lot of good things about the George Perez run on Wonder Woman.  This issue is one of the best. Issues 21-24 and Annual 1: Cosmic Migration After the Myndi Mayer one-shot, we move on to four more solo issues.  However, all of these solo issues deal with a similar theme of transition.  Issue 21 picks up after the funeral for Myndi Mayer.  Wonder Woman has been recalled back to Paradise Island where she learns that the gods have decided to depart this realm.  This is sad news for Wonder Woman and the other Amazons as they have devoted their entire lives to serving the gods and worshipping them.  But this is good news for the readers as even a fan of myths like me resented their tendency to take over the title.  Issue 22 marks another significant change to the status quo.  The Amazons vote overwhelmingly to open up their island to outside visitors.  This will have a major impact for later stories.  For now, it means that Diana decides to reciprocate one of Julia’s earlier offers.  Julia had brought Diana to her childhood home, and now Diana is able to bring Julia to her childhood home.  The rest of the issue deals with updating us on the character’s personal lives, particularly in seeing how Vanessa is dealing with her grief in the wake of Myndi’s deaths, and in setting up some cryptic threats for future issues. Next up is Wonder Woman Annual 1 which depicts Wonder Woman bringing her friends Julia and Vanessa to Themyscira as the island’s first visitors in centuries.  Its part of DC’s Private Lives special, designed to give us a glimpse into the lives of these characters.  And in that sense, it’s successful, though it’s not like we haven’t had plenty of glimpses into their private lives already in this series.  We certainly get to know Paradise Island better, as well as the two Kapatelis women.  Also, there’s some great guest art by pencilers like Art Adams and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.  However, as with Challenge of the Gods, there are a few flaws which keep this annual from being as good as it could be.  For one thing, Perez has to work a little too hard at creating some sort of intrigue or threat to what is otherwise a pleasant visit by Diana’s friends to her childhood home.  Even worse, Perez crafts a connection between Julia Kapatelis and the Amazons.  Apparently, she had fallen off of a ship as a small child.  The Amazons rescued her, brought her to their island to heal and then sent her back to her parents.  As much as I dislike the Diana Trevor insertion, I like this one even less.  It creates a connection that was unnecessary and answers a question that was never asked.  Plus, it gives Julia a mythical connection which negates her ability to be the audience’s connection through one normal character.  Personally, I like to pretend that this revelation never happened. After the annual, we get to the fall-out from the departure of the gods.  Not all of the gods wanted to go, while other gods aren’t impressed at having been left behind.  As the messenger of the gods, Hermes has become very familiar with the mortal world.  And he doesn’t want to cut himself off from it.  Plus, there’s a hint that Hermes may be romantically interested in Diana and he’s not quite ready to cut himself completely off from her either.  Of course, things don’t work out as well for Hermes as he might expect.  He’s greeted as an eccentric or a lunatic, rather than an object of worship.  And his antics lead to the return of Phobos and Euryale, two of Ares’ children who had been left imprisoned.  Issue 24 features Wonder Woman’s battle with Phobos and Euryale and the giant Ixion the Assassin.  It’s a solid battle issue and a good change of pace after the multiple quiet issues that preceded it.  In that way, it reminds me of the first fight with the Cheetah in issue 9, another spurt of violence that followed several quiet issues.  It’s nice to see Wonder Woman let loose, something she hadn’t been able to do in quite some time. Issues 25-27: Invasion With the next couple of issues, the Wonder Woman title does one thing that it hasn’t done in a while and another that it hadn’t done yet.  The one thing that it hasn’t done in a while is to emphasize Wonder Woman’s military connections.  Wonder Woman has maintained her friendships with Steve Trevor and Etta Candy but they’ve pretty much wandered around as unrelated background characters since about issue 8.  The thing that Wonder Woman hadn’t done yet was to have a clear adventure with DC’s other heroes.  They’d been mentioned in passing in issue 8 as we were told how Wonder Woman’s involvement in Legends fit in, but she’d never teamed up in her own title or even met another superhero in these pages.  The Invasion story fixes that.  Invasion was one of DC’s big summer crossovers.  In this particular story, a large number of alien races including the Dominators, the Thanagarians and the Khunds all decide to invade earth together.  Invasion is not one of DC’s better crossovers.  But it actually comes out okay in this title.  We get to see Steve Trevor in action as a military man.  And we get to see Etta Candy in her natural role as a military administrative assistant, though she does get involved in the action, too.  It’s actually the involvement of her military friends in defending Earth from this invasion which draws Wonder Woman into this conflict and into connection with other superheroes.  There are some good moments in which she attends a meeting of the Justice League, ignores come-on lines by Blue Beetle and clashes with Guy Gardner over tactics.  And in issue 26, she teams up with Captain Atom before being tricked into fighting it out with him by a shape-changing Durlan.    Wonder Woman, as a title, could sometimes be a little light on action but with the fight against Ixion in issue 24 and then two straight issues of Invasion that certainly can’t be a complaint leveled at this stretch of comics.  Of course, they are followed up by a typical Wonder Woman reflecting after the big battle issue.   With the Invasion over, Wonder Woman brings Steve Trevor and Etta Candy as the third and fourth visitors overall to Paradise Island and the first man.  There’s a sub-plot keeping us abreast of Vanessa and her high school hijinks, and a leftover Khund to be defeated, but this issue is primarily a break after the big battle.  That’s pretty standard for Wonder Woman and also appropriate at this juncture. The one major negative at this point is the deterioration of the creative team.  The first significant departure actually came after the Silver Swan story when Len Wein left as scripter.  George Perez, who was already penciling and plotting the series, took over the dialogue chores too.  At first, the transition was fairly smooth as Perez stayed fairly close to the style that Len Wein had established.  But as the series progressed, the quality of the scripting declined.  Perez began to overwrite his narration in an almost Claremontian fashion and the dialogue became less crisp as well.  Then, after two years of penciling the series, George Perez handed off the art chores to Chris Marrinan.  Chris tried to stay close to George’s style for the title, but it was clear that we were getting watered-down imitation Perez rather than the real thing.  This was especially apparent on the quiet issues such as number 27.  Marrinan’s work is a little stronger on the action issues, but it would be a while before Wonder Woman would be a title known for its art again.   Come discuss this and other Fluit Notes colums at the Captain Comics Message Board.

Last Updated ( Friday, 26 October 2007 )

Trade Paperback Review: Alan Moore: Wild Worlds

Written by Chris Fluit

Thursday, 27 September 2007

Back in the 1990s, Alan Moore’s career took some unusual turns.  Moore had always refused to work for Marvel, a position attributed to Marvel’s lawsuits which had forced Moore to change the name of a classic British character from Marvel Man to Miracle Man.  Then, Moore had a falling out with DC as well.  DC’s loss was Image’s gain.  Moore wrote Wildcats for Jim Lee and Supreme for Rob Liefeld.  Eventually, Moore even developed his own world to play with under the Wildstorm umbrella: America’s Best Comics.  And in a roundabout way, Moore returned to DC when DC bought out Wildstorm.  But while Moore may be remembered mostly for those key series, he also wrote a few odds and ends along the way.  Earlier this summer, Wildstorm collected the odds and ends that Moore wrote for their imprint in one big trade: Alan Moore: Wild Worlds. Spawn/Wildcats (1996)  This is not a good opening story.  Even that’s being generous: this is not a good story period.  Moore’s story is so standard it feels like he’s working from a “paint by numbers” kit.  He starts with a three-page description of the nature of magic and the nature of the universe.  By the third page of the actual plot, Spawn has busted into the Wildcats’ Halo headquarters and is beating them up for no apparent reason.  The Wildcats are able to restrain him once Spawn realizes that these aren’t the Wildcats that attacked him.  Nope, he’s apparently been attacked by Wildcats from the future.  The future Wildcats then show up to explain where they come from and what they were doing when they attacked Spawn.  Then they convince the modern Wildcats and Spawn to come into the future with them in order to fight the evil despot.  Oh, and the evil despot of the future is Spawn.  It’s like Alan Moore had a checklist.  It’s a crossover so the heroes have to fight for no reason.  Check.  And then team up.  Check.  It’s like Alan Moore had a shopping list from other stories.  Here’s a little X-Men: Days of Future Past.  Here’s a little Terminator 2.  Here’s a little Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect.  It really is that obvious and that bad.  It’s so bad I’m amazed that Alan Moore’s name is on this thing.  The second issue is just as bad as Spawn and the modern Wildcats run around the “Future Imperfect” scenario.  The third issue is slightly better.  Apparently, even Alan Moore couldn’t keep that up for long.  With this issue, he starts to introduce a few twists from the Wildstorm universe.  The Gen13 guys are serving the future Spawn as his bodyguards.  The girls from Gen13 and Stormwatch are stuck in his harem, with their powers removed- a change which also takes away Fairchild’s beauty.  And the future Spawn has some inventive tortures from Greek mythology that he’s using on immortals like Jacob Marlowe.  It’s not typical Alan Moore genius.  But at least, it feels like he’s trying again.   The fourth issue also tries to be a bit more than a standard superhero crossover.  It plays with the idea of the time paradox- that the moment that set Spawn on the path to becoming this evil dictator was going into the future with the Wildcats.  It’s not the first time travel story to address the time paradox.  And it’s not the best example.  But again, it’s nice to see the attempt at something more than a fight-fest in the future.  However, even these little improvements at the end can’t save this story.  They only raise it from awful to mediocre and a story that starts out awful and ends up mediocre is still a bad story.   Wildstorm Spotlight 1 (1997) Now, this is the Alan Moore we’ve come to admire.  One of the things that Alan Moore brought to these Image comics was an almost open acknowledgement that these characters were derivative.  Yet he did so in a way that wasn’t dismissive.  Rather, he would use the Image characters to tell the kind of archetypal stories that he would have done if he was still working on Superman.  His Supreme certainly had that feel and with this story, Alan Moore brings the same sensibility to Mr. Majestic. Mr. Majestic is an immortal.  Even though he’s playing at being a superhero now, he will live forever.   With this spotlight issue, Alan Moore looks way into the future.  He looks to the death of the universe.  Majestic is one of the few beings left alive.  At the start of the story, they are down to the final nine.  That’s right- there are only nine beings alive in the entire universe.  Slowly, these characters also pass away.  Some choose to go- no longer wanting to live in an empty world.  Others choose to hang on as long as they can- to let the universe die around them and to go out with the very end.  It’s a very powerful story.  Moore introduces some truly unusual creatures.  He gives them very different insights into life, the death and the universe.  The story has a very somber feel, yet it doesn’t feel pessimistic.  The characters are resigned to their fate yet they’re not upset about it.  They even manage to find something resembling love before the end.  The story itself is evocative of Moore’s Superman masterpieces: “For the Man Who Has Everything” and “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”  It isn’t a knock-off of those stories.  It’s their peer.  This is the kind of story that prompts us to use the term “genius” for Alan Moore.  And it’s somewhat startling that we could go from something so bad like Spawn/Wildcats to something so good like Mr. Majestic with just the flip of a page. Voodoo: Dancing in the Dark (1999) For those who don’t know, Voodoo is a member of the Wildcats.  Her other name is Priscilla Kitaen and before the Wildcats found her, she was an exotic dancer.  Okay, she was a stripper who became a superhero.  We can thank Jim Lee for that one.  A lot of the other Wildcats characters had their own mini-series by this point- Grifter, Spartan, Warblade, Zealot- but not Voodoo.  So Alan Moore gave her one. I skipped out on this when it was first published because it looked like it was going to be more about Voodoo as a stripper than Voodoo as a superhero and that just wasn’t the kind of story I was interested in.  But I always wondered if I missed out on something more than the sex.  That nagging little voice was right.  There is a lot more to this story than just a superhero going back to being a stripper.   Admittedly, that’s where the story begins.  The Wildcats have disbanded.  They’ve gone their separate ways.   For Voodoo, that means going back to her earlier career.  She decides to set up in New Orleans and look for a job there.  She’s just off the bus and she already runs into some strange characters.  One of these strange characters brings her to a club where she can find work.  And she auditions, giving us the fan service scene that I had expected.  However, I’m already intrigued.  The unusual characters obviously have some connection to voodoo.  There’s more to them than meets the eye.  It almost felt like I was reading American Gods or Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.  It’s the same sort of set-up.  Ordinary person, in this case a stripper from out of town, meets some “gods” in the guise of not-quite-ordinary people. Indeed, that’s the direction in which Alan Moore takes the story.  Before long, Voodoo finds herself caught in a web of intrigue with ghost mansions, dead preachers and the gods of voodoo come to life.  And there’s a stripper murder mystery to tie everything together.  There’s still some sex, but less and less as the story goes along.  Voodoo keeps her clothes on for almost all of the last two issues.  I guess that some people may have been disappointed by that.  But I was kind of amused that Alan Moore took a fan service book down an Anansi Boys road and manages to make it work.   Deathblow: By-Blows (1999) This is the story for old-time Alan Moore fans.  If you’re at all familiar with his pre-DC work, you’ll probably enjoy this one, too. Deathblow was one of Wildstorm’s bigger characters.  He was a Punisher-like character who starred in his own title for a while.  Then, he was killed off as the major character sacrifice to the crossover gods at the end of “Fire from Heaven.”  He’s still dead.  But that doesn’t prevent Alan Moore from writing a mini-series about him. The story opens with a woman who pushes herself out of an egg-shaped pod.  She doesn’t speak.  She’s on an alien landscape.  And she has to fight for survival by killing off a predator even before she finds some clothes.  The only identification that she has is a set of dog-tags telling her that she’s Genevieve Cray, #08, a female.  And that’s the Deathblow connection as the original Deathblow was named Michael Cray. Genevieve wanders around this weird world.  She runs into other humans, all of whom share the Cray surname.  Some are little boys.  Some are super-cyborgs.  Genevieve now has to fight for her survival against these unnatural predators.  And when she sleeps, she has weird dreams that she’s a big, burly guy (whom some of us recognize as the original Deathblow).  Genevieve doesn’t know what’s going on and neither do we.  Instead, we’re left to figure out along with the characters.   As I noted earlier, it feels like old school Alan Moore.  It’s an odd, dystopic and unexplained setting.  We can make some guesses.  Genevieve must be a clone of Michael Cray, the original Deathblow.  But why are she and the other clones so different from one another?  Where are they?  And how did they get there?  Genevieve isn’t the kind of person to ask these questions.  Even so, Alan Moore sprinkles the answers in the edges of the story.  By the time, we’re done, we know what’s going on and Alan Moore has introduced a new Deathblow into the Wildstorm universe.  It’s not as good as the previous two stories, but it’s much better than the opening one.  And it has that old school feel that a lot of fans might enjoy. Wildcats 50 (1998) Alan Moore’s biggest work for Wildstorm had been on the flagship title Wildcats.  He introduced readers to the home-world of Khera and to a second team of Wildcats.  He exposed the dark underbelly of an otherwise utopian alien world.  He started a gang war and introduced villains who always seemed to be six steps ahead of the new ‘Cats.  It’s one of Alan Moore’s best works as he showed what could be done in a straight superhero story.  Yet only about a year after Moore was finished with the title, Wildcats was slated for cancellation.  Alan Moore came back to write a back-up story for the final issue.  It’s a coda to his earlier run, and it’s included here as a coda to this volume.   The coda is something of a love letter to fans of Moore’s work on Wildcats.  If you haven’t read that, then this probably isn’t going to mean much to you.  With this story, Moore takes one more peak at some of the characters that he created for the series or brought into prominence: Ladytron, Majestic and Savant.  He ties up one loose end- a villain who had kind of fallen out of the story.  And, just for fun, he creates a new loose end in its place- a villain thought to be dead who has apparently escaped and simply writes a letter to inform the Wildcats of his continued freedom.  As a fan of Moore’s Wildcats, I enjoyed this story.  Everybody else will have to wait for Wildstorm to collect Moore’s Wildcats run for this to make sense.  But it’ll be worth it.

Last Updated ( Friday, 28 September 2007 )

Trade Paperback Reviews: Conan, Wildcats and Wolverine

Thursday, 09 August 2007

It’s a testosterone trifecta.  This week, I’m reviewing three trade paperbacks.  Two of them feature strong, muscular men who like to get into scraps: Conan the Barbarian and Wolverine the occasional berserker.  The third features a team known for getting into a few scrapes of their own, Wildcats, and a woman who’s willing to give these boys a run for their money.  So get some popcorn ‘cause the fists, claws and swords will be flying, slicing and dicing.    The Chronicles of Conan, Volume 12: The Beast King of Abombi: by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Ernie Chan I’m a big fan of these chronicles, collecting the original Marvel series from the ‘70s.  I was downright distraught a year or so ago when it looked like Dark Horse might end the project with volume 10 instead of continuing to the end of Roy Thomas’ run.  Fortunately for me, Dark Horse has come back with volumes 11 and 12, while a 13th is on the schedule for November. I knew going in that I was probably going to enjoy this book, yet I wasn’t sure how much.  In the last volume, I had started to tire of the relationship between Conan and the She-Pirate Belit.  Although I wouldn’t go so far as to call him “domesticated,” Conan was at least starting to feel a little tied down.  To my surprise, “The Beast King of Abombi” became one of my favorite volumes in the entire series. It actually didn’t start out that well.  For a long time, Belit had talked about her desire to return to Asgalun, to claim the throne that was rightfully hers and to seek vengeance on the man that killed her father.  Finally, the time had come.  Belit was ready to go home and Conan was ready to go with her.  This promised to be a big story but it started out badly.  Roy Thomas spent so much time explaining the various factions that the story became bogged down in the minutiae of intrigue.  In his after-word (almost worth the price of admission on its own), Thomas admits as much.  He was trying to reconcile his own earlier depictions of Asgalun with a version written by L. Sprague de Camp.  The result was a story heavy-handed on exposition and full of confusion with little action or pace.  The flaws were corrected in the second part of the story.  Thomas made up for the lack of action in the first part with plenty in the second: swordfights, shifting allegiances and betrayals.  This is the kind of stuff I want to see in a Conan comic.  Even better, Thomas gave us a surprising conclusion.  Having achieved her vengeance and won her crown, Belit realized that she really only wanted the former.  She handed the crown off to a cousin and returned to her life at sea.  It was a surprising moment and easily one of Belit’s best scenes.  I had thought I was getting tired of the character but Thomas showed me there was something yet to see. From there, Roy Thomas moved on to a four-part tale- a fairly lengthy epic for comics of the day.  The story set Conan and Belit up against the aforementioned Beast King of Abombi.  This was one of the best Conan stories I’d ever read.  We see villages devastated and deserted.  We learn the origin of Ajaga, a man who had conquered Abombi due to his ability to talk to all manner of beasts and get them to do his bidding.  We follow Conan into battle.  We see Belit become captured.  We read as Conan finds a former ally in the black lion he had met in an earlier tale.  We watch Belit plan her own escape while Conan recklessly fights his way to her.  The heroes are constantly put into peril and there’s a real sense that one or the other might actually get hurt in one of these imbroglios.  Yet as much as Roy Thomas deserves credit for this particular tale, the real star is artist John Buscema.  He manages to capture the likeness of a wide variety of beasts- not only baboons, lions and snakes but also a velociraptor years before Jurassic Park made that particular species famous. There’s even one great scene in The Long Night of Fang and Talon Part One (the third part of the story) in which Conan fights a leopard.  Buscema strips away the backgrounds, and even the panel borders, so that we can see the full fury of the fight.  After that, we’re given a bit of a break with a one-part tale: Sea-Woman.  The Sea-Woman in the title is pretty much a siren straight out of Homer, though in this case the siren comes onto the ship instead of trying to woo the sailors from afar.  And again, the real star of the series is John Buscema.  In the afterword, Thomas mentions that Buscema always preferred drawing sensual women to warrior women like Red Sonja or Belit.  In this story, he gets to draw both: the alluring sea-woman and the forceful Belit.  Though the two women share many features in common, Buscema shows that he can draw women who are either soft or strong. Next up is a pretty bad story: Devil-Crabs of the Dark Cliffs.  Thomas even admits that it’s not very good so we’ll just move along to the story from the 100th issue super-sized spectacular: Death on the Black Coast.  Roy Thomas had already written several winners for this volume- the second part of the Asgalun tale, the Beast King epic and the Sea Woman solo story- but this might just be the best of the bunch.  It’s like Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” but with sorcery and swords. Belit decides to sail up a dangerous river because she believes there’s a city hidden inland.  Conan, as always, agrees to go.  The crew, despite their fears, stay by Belit’s side.  They survive giant snakes and the general dangers of the jungle.  Yet as they approach the hidden city, Belit becomes almost fanatical- willing to sacrifice the lives of her sailors for the promise of treasure within.  As the pirates begin to carry the jewels through the jungle back to the boat, Conan succumbs to the sleep of the lotus flower (for a pair of Homer references in the space of three issues).  He has a horrible dream about a race of winged men who devolve into demons.  When he awakes, he realizes that the dream was real.  The entire crew is slain.  Belit herself has been hung by a jeweled necklace that she had found in the treasure.  Conan, morose and sullen, seeks vengeance for his beloved.  He confronts a pack of hyenas, an earthquake and finally, the last of the demons.  He is victorious, but he has still lost more than he cares to lose.  He has lost the love of his life.  Conan places Belit on her boat and turns it into a funeral bier for her.  He watches it burn, then sink. And Conan, the manliest of men, sheds a tear.  It’s a powerful story.  My summary doesn’t come close to doing it justice.  It gives Conan depth that is rarely attempted, and rarely achieved.  Yet it manages to do this without skimping on the sorcery or the swordsmanship.  With a finale like that, it’s easy to see why the Beast King of Abombi is one of my favorite volumes in this series.   Wildcats: Nemesis By Robbie Morrison, Horacio Domingues Talent Caldwell and Matt “Batt” Banning   I tend to be picky when it comes to the Wildcats.  I like them as an action team, as first depicted by Jim Lee and then Alan Moore.  I’m not as thrilled with the noir version as depicted by Joe Casey.  That’s why I was reluctant to pick up this series when it first came out in single issues.  I wasn’t quite sure which version of the team I’d be getting.  I wasn’t quite sure if it would be any good.  So I resisted buying this trade for a long time.  Eventually I saw a copy in a 50% off box.  I couldn’t pass it up at that price.  And I’m glad I didn’t.  But I don’t mean to get ahead of myself.  This story is about a woman named Nemesis and her conflicts with the Wildcats over the years and in the present.  The story is told through two alternating lenses.  One is set in the present as Nemesis seems to be intent on kidnapping a young girl.  The other is set in the past, showing us important moments in Nemesis’ life from the past millennia. But again, I don’t mean to get ahead of myself. Nemesis’ name is Charis.  As revealed through the back-story segments, Charis was a member of the lower caste of Khera (the world from which the Wildcats hail).  Due to a heroic rescue on her part and some liberal ideas of Majestic’s about breaking down caste borders, she was the first lower caste member to ever be given a place in the Coda Sisterhood.  Majestic may have been able to place her in the Coda but he couldn’t make the Sisters like her.  She was ostracized.  In spite of that, she proved to be an exceptional warrior.  Charis was included in the task force sent to fight a Daemonite cell on Earth.  However, a member of the Brotherhood of the Sword betrayed the other Kherans (including the Wildcats) to the Daemonties.  Even worse, he framed Charis for her crimes.  Believed to be a traitor by her own people, Charis was forced to go underground.  Yet her new position gave her knowledge of Daemonite plots and schemes, allowing her to become a one-woman avenger: hence the name Nemesis.  Of course, the Wildcats don’t know her side of the story.  They consider her a traitor and a mass murderer.  And they want her stopped, especially when she apparently tries to kidnap and kill a little girl.  After thousands of years, a simple explanation isn’t going to stop anything.  And so we follow Nemesis as she fights both the Wildcats and the Daemonites, while trying to protect the little girl that everyone thinks she’s trying to kill.  Wildcats: Nemesis is a great fast-paced story.  It’s also one full of intrigue.  We don’t know Charis’ full history when this story begins.  There are plenty of times during the tale when we think that Zealot and Majestic may just be right and Nemesis is a mass murderer.  Williams does a great job of pacing the back-story segments so that Nemesis’ true nature and real mission are slowly revealed.  Instead of being interruptions, they prove to be essential to the present day situation, giving background to the battle and depth to all of the characters involved including many of the Wildcats. The use of two artists, one for the present day (Caldwell) and another for the past (Domingues) was also a smart move.  Both sections end up being beautiful in their own way.  Caldwell does a great job with the big action scenes.  Domingues does a great job with some of the softer scenes from the back story.  Yet each is able to handle the other side just as well.  Domingues gets fewer big battle scenes but still makes them work.  And Caldwell draws a touching scene between Nemesis and the young girl in her custody.  Of course, this is a Wildstorm title so there’s a little bit of cheesecake, but I prefer that to the ugliness that passes for art in a lot of other titles.   And that’s Nemesis- a mini-series I nearly overlooked but one that turned out to be one of the best Wildcats stories I’ve ever read.   Wolverine: Blood Hungry By Peter David and Sam Kieth   I’ve been enjoying collecting the trades of the Wolverine stories from Marvel Comics Presents.  These are stories I missed the first time around so they’re new to me, yet they’re also from the time that I started reading comics so they have a welcome, familiar feel.  This isn’t actually a Marvel Comics Presents volume, but it does feature a Wolverine story from later in the series.  It had been reprinted on the strength of two names: Peter David and Sam Kieth. Sam Kieth was probably the bigger star at the time.  In this story, he’s allowed to cut loose.  The people have exaggerated proportions, the panels are drawn from obscure angles and the art feels like it wants to burst right off of the page.  This is the Sam Kieth that I know from “The Maxx.”  For the most part that’s a good thing, but Kieth’s eccentricities sometimes turn into amusing quirks.  This is the infamous story in which Wolverine’s costume becomes so torn and frayed that it looks like he has telephone cords dangling from his arms.   Peter David seems to just be along for the ride.  There’s not much of a story here.  Wolverine is in Madripoor.  Cyber comes to Madripoor.  They fight.  Cyber poisons Wolverine.  Wolverine has a weird dream sequence.  Wolverine recovers.  They fight again.  Wolverine wins.  I’d guess that Kieth had a big hand in the plotting of this story which means that David’s main contribution is the dialogue.  That’s sometimes a good thing.  And it’s sometimes a bad thing.  In this case, it’s more of the latter as Peter is at his pun-iest for this tale.  There are some real doozies in here that seem to be taken straight from an Airplane movie or an episode of Cheers. Blood Hungry is a fun time capsule with art that’s bursting from the scenes.  I had a good time, laughing with the jokes, groaning at a few others.  But it’s more psychedelic than action-packed.  That’s okay if you like that sort of thing, but it’s certainly not an essential Wolverine story and it’s not as good as the other books reviewed in this column.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 09 August 2007 )

The Best of July (2007)

Written by Chris Fluit 
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
                                  Captain America 28

from Marvel, by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and Mike Perkins

I saw a recent headline that declared “Captain America Still Dead.”  Yup, Captain America died a couple of issues ago and his title has continued on without him.  And it’s still one of the best superhero comics on the stands today.

This issue intercuts between several storylines, giving us glimpses of each and moving them all along.  Two of those stories follow the three characters that are now at the heart of this book: Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier, Sharon Carter and Sam Wilson aka the Falcon.  These three characters are the people who knew Captain America the best and the story is about how they’re dealing with the after-effects of this tragedy.  The Winter Soldier is in his own story, trying to track down those responsible for Cap’s death and kill them.  Currently, he’s blaming Tony Stark aka Iron Man and that’s who he’s tracking down in this issue.  Sharon and Sam are the other central characters.  They’re still working for SHIELD and the Initiative, but they’re reluctant about it.  They want to find whoever’s responsible for Cap’s death but they’re not quite willing to go rogue in order to do it.  So instead of going after SHIELD, which is what the Winter Soldier appears to be doing, they decide to go after the Red Skull who was mixed up in all of this as well.

Besides the three central characters, we end up following a couple of other characters in sub-plots.  The first is Tony Stark, the former Iron Man and the current Director of SHIELD.  It makes sense that we spend time with Tony in two ways.  One, he was Captain America’s opposite during the Civil War and two, the Winter Soldier is currently trying to kill him.  We get some interesting scenes featuring Tony, especially one in which he gets into a bit of an argument with Professor Charles Xavier.  The other sub-plot features the villainous Sin. She’s the daughter of the Red Skull and had appeared earlier in this series with her boyfriend Crossbones.  Now, Sin is ready for a larger role and she starts to gather a new Serpent Society around her.

 Issue 28 is very much a transition issue yet it’s done so well that we don’t mind.  We want to know what’s going to happen next.  We want to know if Winter Soldier will be able to get close enough to Tony Stark.  We want to know what Sin is going to do next.  And we want to know how Sharon and Sam are going to take down the Red Skull.  It’s amazing that a book which has lost its lead character can be this good.  Amazing, yet true. 

 

Dynamo 5 #5

from Image, by Jay Faerber and Mahmud A. Asrar
 
This book is often compared to Noble Causes- which is understandable, given that they’re both written by Jay Faerber.  But I think the better comparison is another Image book: Invincible.  Really, it’s that good.  And I say this as someone who enjoys Noble Causes quite a lot and has even championed it over the years.  Dynamo 5 is better. 

Invincible is a book about a teenaged superhero and, as such, has been compared to the teenaged superhero by which all others are mentioned: the original Spider-Man.  Dynamo 5 is about a family bound by circumstances as much as by blood.  They’re a family, but not in the traditional sense.  And just as Invincible is the modern heir to Spider-Man, Dynamo 5 has the potential to be the modern heir to the Fantastic Four.  Honestly, it’s that good.  
 
The team features five half-siblings.  They share a common father, the great superhero Captain Dynamo, but they all have different mothers.  For some of the characters, the revelation isn’t that big a deal.  In fact, it’s kind of cool if you’re living in a foster home to find out that your dad is Captain Dynamo.  For others, the revelation is shocking, even devastating.  They had dads that they thought were their real fathers.  And now they know that their mothers weren’t faithful to their husbands. 

Issue 4 took a break from the action to give us a glimpse into those relationships and situations.  Issue 5 brings us back to the action, but not in the same way we had seen in the first three issues.  In those issues, the team had been gathered and mentored by Maddie Warner, Captain Dynamo’s widow.  She had proven to be a tough leader, setting aside her own grief at her husband’s death and her own shame at his infidelity.  But in this issue, she’s confronted with the possible return of Captain Dynamo.  And that means that she isn’t there for the team of teenagers as she was in their initial adventures. 

Suddenly, the kids are on their own.  It’s a necessary step.  We see which kids have already established a loyalty to Maddie.  We see which kids are ready to step up as leaders.  And, naturally, we see that not everything is at it seems. Captain Dynamo hasn’t returned.  Rather, he has at least one other child that Maddie didn’t know about and her mother just happens to be a super-villain.  Yup, things are getting pretty complicated. 

Dynamo 5 has it all: archetypical powers assigned to atypical characters, family connections and complications, plot twists, dynamic superhero action and astoundingly beautiful art.  This is the next Invincible and it’s new enough that it’s not too late to get on board at the beginning.  

 

GI Joe: America’s Elite 25

from Devil’s Due, by Mark Powers and Mike Bear

I’ll admit it: I was looking forward to this issue more than anything else in July.  That could’ve been a bad thing.  My expectations could’ve been so high that any book would’ve actually been a disappointment.  And while this issue wasn’t exactly what I expected, it also wasn’t a disappointment. 

This is the first part of a year-long epic called World War III.  At the end of the previous issue, Cobra Commander was in possession of all of the secrets of GI Joe and all of the military power of Destro.  And he was ready to wage war.  So I expected this issue to be the opening salvo of a war.  I expected attacks and explosions and things blowing up.  But that’s not what we got.  We did get the opening salvo of a war, just a different kind of war.

The issue opens with a couple of Joes taking out some Cobra snipers in Dagestan.  It then shifts back to headquarters for a great scene between General Joe Colton (the Joe in GI Joe) and one of his information guys running down the threat board.  It reminds me of the issue of Avengers in which Alan Davis joined Kurt Busiek on the title.  It’s a fanboy’s dream, seeing all of the villains up on a computer screen. 

From there, we jump to Darfur where a former Army Ranger is meeting with Cobra Commander.  We don’t know what’s going on quite yet, though the Commander talks about bringing justice into a region that the world has ignored.  And then, we’re on the move again, checking in on the sniper situation in Dagestan before moving to Scotland and the hand over of MARS (Destro’s military headquarters) to Cobra.  These opening pages are dizzying, but in a good way.  It feels like so much is going on and we’re flitting from one place to another.  And every scene brings something exciting and new, or potentially terrifying.  

The issue just keeps getting better from there.  Eventually, we learn what Cobra Commander is up to.  He isn’t planning to hit the Joes directly.  At least, not yet.  Instead, he’s arming factions in every conflict around the globe: in Dagestan, in Darfur, in Chechnya, in any place where people are ready to take up weapons.  But Cobra isn’t interested in outcomes.  He’s interested in chaos.  He’s arming both sides of the conflicts.  He’s inflaming the trouble spots around the world.  And he’s forcing GI Joe to spread itself too thinly around the globe even as they’re trying to expand and strengthen their presence at home.  Sound familiar, at all?  Yup, there are some interesting real-world parallels to this story, though Powers does a great job of not letting his fictional conflict become a direct analogy for the real world. 

While it wasn’t the explosive beginning that I had expected, it was still a great issue, building tension to a slow boil rather than starting out with a bang.  Plus, there are some great fan extras.  The cover features every single Joe to ever appear in comics, on TV or as a toy.  There’s a second copy inside, complete with an index.  And there’s an “identified threat matrix” in the back: five pages of entries regarding every Joe enemy ever used in the comics, complete with status updates such as deceased, in custody and at large.  The fan in me was drooling at the extras even as I was enjoying the story as a reader. 

Green Lantern 21

from DC, by Geoff Johns, Ivan  Reis and Oclair Albert

 I wasn’t always a Green Lantern fan.  From his appearances on SuperFriends, in Justice League of America and Justice League Europe, I always found Hal Jordan kind of boring.  I liked Kyle Rayner a lot better and would pick up the occasional issue of Green Lantern while he was the lead but I still didn’t collect the title on a regular basis.
 
Geoff Johns and Green Lantern: Rebirth changed my mind.  That was one of the best superhero stories I’d ever read.  And now, the Rebirth team is back together bringing us the next big epic in the Green Lantern saga.  So far, it’s shaping up to be every bit as good as that earlier story.

The basic premise is simple: Sinestro, the Green Lantern’s greatest foe, is putting together a corps of his own made up of those who cause great fear.  We’ve seen the gathering of the Sinestro Corps in back-up features for several months.  We’ve seen their spies at work in Green Lantern Corps.  And they finally initiated the war in the Sinestro Corps special, which would have been included in a Best of June column had I written one. 

Now, we get to see how the Green Lanterns react.  It’s not going to be easy.  They’re bandaging the wounded.  They’re replacing the fallen.  And they’re bickering with one another.  Some Lanterns still don’t trust Hal Jordan.  Some Lanterns are blaming each other for what’s happened.  Even the Guardians are divided with two of them breaking off from the rest.  The Green Lanterns would have their hands full with the Sinestro Corps even if they were at peak efficiency.  In their current state, they barely have a chance. 

Which is great story-telling.  We love to root for the underdog.  The Green Lantern Corps is so powerful that it’s hard to cheer for them in that way.  They have 7200 members, each of whom has an all-powerful weapon.  They should never lose.  But Geoff Johns has taken the Corps’ strength and turned into a weakness and in so doing he’s taken the concept’s weakness and turned it into a strength. They’re actually facing a foe stronger than they are.  They’re being forced to fact their greatest fears.  For the Green Lanterns to win, they’re going to have to overcome the very things they’re afraid of and come together as a team.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.  It was amazing just catching the opening of the story.  Now, we’ve gotten flashbacks as to Hal Jordan’s greatest fear and a cliffhanger ending in which we discover that Kyle Rayner has been co-opted onto Sinestro’s side.  It doesn’t get much better than this.

 

Spike: Shadow Puppets 2

from IDW, by Brian Lynch and Franco Urru

 The new Buffy: The Vampire Slayer series from Dark Horse is one of the year’s biggest hits, averaging more than 100,000 copies sold per issue.  That’s a good thing.  Of course, that has a lot to do with the fact that Joss Whedon- the creator of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer- is actually writing the comic book.  However, there’s another book out there that’s every bit as good as Buffy.  It’s not actually written by Joss, but it does feature his characters. And it’s so well Lorne that you can visualize it as an episode of an actual Joss-produced TV show.  It’s Spike: Shadow Puppets.

 I’ll admit that this is my first go at a Spike comic book so I don’t know if all of the earlier attempts are this good.  But I do know that this is one great comic.  Brian Lynch has the Joss patter down.  He’s got the quirky dialogue that we know and love from the tv show.  And all of the characters have their own distinct way of talking.  Spike “sounds” like Spike.  Lorne talks like Lorne. Lynch even goes so far as to have other characters make fun of Spike’s British lingo.  It’s great fun and it gives exactly the right feel to the book.
 
Furthermore, this mini-series is a sequel of sorts to one of the best episodes of the Angel TV show.  Smile Time was an episode in which some demons possessed the puppets of a children’s TV show and used their ratings to suck the life energy out of the kids’ who were watching.  Angel eventually shut down the operation, but not before being turned temporarily into a puppet himself.  It was a great episode, rich with humor and a little bit of pathos.

This mini-series is that good.  Smile Time is back.  They’re now big in Japan.  Lorne has gotten wind of it through his entertainment contacts and he’s asked Spike to go and check it out.  Which they do.  The first issue was a great buddy-movie as Lorne and Spike traveled to Japan.  It made me long for Spike to have a TV show of his own and I speculated about who would be in his supporting cast.  With this issue, Lynch begins to build a supporting cast around Spike.  He adds Beck, a pyrokinetic that Spike had previously saved from a monster asylum, George, a protoplasmic fish and the kind of character that’s a lot easier to do in comics than in TV and Tok Shinobu, a ninja. 

Of course, by the end of this issue, Lynch turns both Spike and Lorne into puppets.  We knew it was going to come, but Lynch manages to make it fun and unexpected anyway.  He hits all of the right beats.  He keeps the action going.  He lets the one-liners fly while he’s doing so.  And he adds quirky supporting characters and villains at every turn. 

Plus, Francisco Urru does a great job as the artist.  He manages to convey the likeness of the characters without being slavish to photo-realism, kind of like Georges Jeanty on the current Buffy comic.  And he does a great job with some of the action scenes, especially the opening one in which hundreds of felt ninjas doggy-pile on Spike.  This issue was great fun.  I only wish more people were checking it out.

 

Star Wars: Legacy 14

from Dark Horse, by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema and Dan Parsons

I’ve written about this series often, and it’s sometimes hard to think of new things to say.  But I still had to include it in this column because if I’m writing about “the best,” than Legacy qualifies.  This is a great title.  It’s set about 100 years after everything else in the Star Wars world, which puts it about 125 years after Return of the Jedi.  The world of Star Wars is already a rich one, yet Legacy takes it even further.  This is no simple line between the good guys and the bad guys.  Instead, Ostrander and Duursema have introduced multiple factions.  The Sith rule the galaxy openly.  Yet a faction of the Imperial nobility and military have rejected Sith rule.  That’s right, it’s the Empire vs. the Empire.  Meanwhile, the Jedi have been broken and are either in hiding or on the run.  One Jedi-in-training, has even become a smuggler.  Cade Skywalker, the heir to the great Skywalker legacy works on the wrong side of the law.

This issue furthers Cade Skywalker’s story.  He feels bad that he had betrayed a Jedi healer at one point.  And so he decides to break into the Sith prison on the capital planet of Coruscant and free the healer that’s been imprisoned in his place.  It’s not that Cade has embraced his lineage.  Rather, he simply doesn’t like having anyone own him, or having to owe anyone.  The issue gives us glimpses of the ruling Sith, the soldiers that fight for them and the seedy under-belly of Coruscant.  It’s almost like a Blade Runner take on Star Wars.

The Sith remain distant yet fascinating creatures.  Duursema has given them some great looks, from the leaders’ skull helmet to Darth Talon’s red skin and tattoos to Darth Nihl’s pale face and penetrating eyes.  These are some villains you can be afraid of.  Even the minor villains look good.  It’s amazing what blood red skin can do for a bad guy.

It’s also interesting to visit Coruscant’s criminal quarter, to see villainous versions of familiar races like Wookiees and to have the protagonist of our story deal with a Hutt on friendly terms. 

Plus, the art is beautiful.  I just can’t say enough about how rich and textured this book looks.  Duursema draws handsome men, beautiful women and incredible aliens.  She knows how to handle the quiet negotiations as well as the vivid light-saber duels.  I admire the art so much that I tend to read this book more slowly than others. 

Finally, there’s a great ending to this issue.  In some of the previous issues, there have been some hints that Cade might be ready to reclaim his Jedi heritage and forsake his criminal behavior.  But any hint that this book was about to transition to a traditional hero book was an intentional misdirection.  Cade’s rescue fails.  He manages to free the healer from his prison cell, but he’s caught trying to leave the compound.  And Cade may be a Skywalker but he hasn’t worked with a light-saber in years.  He’s defeated and we’re left with the sense that he’s about to become a pawn of the Sith.  This is another book that has it all: beautiful art, a rich universe, intriguing characters and a true sense that you have no idea what’s going to happen next.

 

Y: The Last Man 57

from Vertigo, by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and Jose Marzan Jr.

There may be some people who think that Y: The Last Man is a book about a specific science-fiction situation: the last man on earth.  It’s about a mystery: what killed all of the other men?  It’s about politics: what happens when all of the men are dead.  And, yes, Y: The Last Man deals with all of those things.  But like all great works of literature, it’s not really about those things.  It’s about the characters.  It’s about the characters living in that situation.  It’s about how they deal with it, how they respond, how they cope.

Over the past year, that has become clearer and clearer in terms of Y: The Last Man.  The previous arc answered all of the big mysteries and conspiracies.  We know why all of the other men died.  We know why Yorick survived.  We’ve got the answers.  But that’s not the end of the series because this series isn’t about the mystery.  It’s about the characters.  And while the questions may have been answered, the characters aren’t done dealing with it.  The mystery is solved, but their stories aren’t done. 

This is a great character issue.  It opens with Agent 355 and a scene which clearly indicates that she’s finished her mission and is ready to move on with the next stage of her life.  She buys a dress.  No more work clothes for her.  And since she doesn’t have any currency, she gives away her gun in exchange.  Yet even though the main mystery has been resolved, Vaughan knows that he has to give us a bit of tension to see us through to the end of the series.  In this case, that means we also catch a glimpse of an Israeli agent who is tailing 355.

Next up, is the title character and his long, lost love.  Yorick and Beth were reunited last issue in a scene that fans have been waiting to see for more than four years.  At first, things seem to be going well.  They’re having great sex.  But there are other, deeper issues that they haven’t addressed.  Yorick had proposed to Beth before the cataclysm and had never gotten an answer.  Beth finally answers.  She tells him, “Yes.”  However, while doing so, she also mentions that she had been planning to break up with him before the cataclysm.  Suddenly, Yorick is confronted with a truth that other people have been telling him for years: that the real Beth may not match the idealized version of Beth he’s been carrying around in her head. 

Beth was breaking up with Yorick because he was content with his life and unadventurous.  Now, with all that he’s been through in the past four years, Yorick has grown a lot.  He’s become the man that Beth always wanted him to be.  But that’s not what Yorick hears.  He hears that he wasn’t good enough when there were billions of guys to choose from, but that he’s good enough now that he’s the last man on earth.  Yorick gets dressed and storms off in anger.  It’s an incredible scene, full of emotional twists and turns.  It also demonstrates how nudity can be used to indicate emotional vulnerability instead of titillation. 

Finally, Beth has one more scene with Yorick’s sister Hero and the other Beth. She’s just revealed her secrets to Yorick and now discovers that Yorick hasn’t revealed all of his secrets to her. It’s a great conclusion, fracturing Beth’s illusions about Yorick just as she had previously shattered Yorick’s illusions about her.  Even though we know that there are Israeli agents about, the real tension that has to be resolved in the final three issues is this relationship.  Will Beth and Yorick be able to reconcile, now that their secrets are out in the open?  Or will they go their separate ways after years of searching for each other?  Sure, there are some plot points yet to go, but it’s the character questions that are really carrying us forward to the finish line. 

Discuss this article at the Captain Comics Message Board: Fluit Notes Last Updated ( Friday, 27 July 2007 )

JLA, Justice and the Art of Nostalgia

“The Golden Age of Comic Books is 12.” That’s a proverb I first heard from Captain Comics, though he credits it to Maggie Thompson, who may have picked it up in turn from someone else. There’s truth to that proverb. All of us carry with us nostalgia for the comics of our youth, for the comics that we read first, for the comics that came out when we were 12. That’s true of fans, which I doubt surprises any of us. Yet it’s also true of those who eventually become professionals. While fans may indulge their nostalgia to whatever level they desire, professionals are necessarily held to a different standard.

But should they be? Should professionals be held to a different standard than the fans? Should professionals be prevented from indulging their own nostalgia? Some observers seem to insist that the answer to both of those questions should be “yes.” Yes, professionals should be held to a different standard. Yes, professionals should be prevented from indulging in nostalgia.

I've noticed this attitude applied most specifically to writers of the Avengers. When Kurt Busiek was the writer of The Avengers in the late ‘90s, his work included a lot of references to the Avengers of the late ‘70s, the comic books that would have been published when Kurt was a teenager. He brought villains of that era back to prominence, such as Count Nefaria, the Taskmaster and the Scarlet Centurion. His Avengers line-up was very similar to the line-up of those years, including key roles for heroes like Hawkeye and the former Ms. Marvel. Anyone familiar with the Avengers of the late ‘70s could see  Busiek’s high regard for those comics.

When Brian Michael Bendis took over as writer of the Avengers, we saw a similar  phenomenon.  However, Bendis is 7 years younger than Busiek so his Avengers paid tribute to a later era- the Avengers of the mid-80s. Bendis has been very open about that, admitting that the line-up for New Avengers was based in part on the cover of Avengers 221 from 1982 and Scarlet Witch’s madness was based in part on the cover of Marvel Fanfare 6 from 1983.
 
Now, some fans complained about Busiek’s Avengers nostalgia during his run. And some fans complained about Bendis’ Avengers nostalgia during his run. Maybe it was the same set of fans in each instance. Maybe certain fans don’t want any hint of nostalgia in new comics and resent any of it. But it seemed to me that it wasn’t the same fans complaining in each instance. Rather, it seemed to be some of the younger fans who disliked Busiek’s work as it contained homages to comics from before their time. And it seemed to be some of the older fans who disliked Bendis’ work as it contained homages to comics after their time. Yet each group in its turn seemed to be insisting that comics professionals shouldn’t be allowed to express their own nostalgia.

I would disagree with that. I would agree that comic book professionals should be held to a different standard than fans. After all, fans only have to worry about pleasing themselves. If they want to indulge their nostalgia, or if they don’t, that’s up to them. However, professionals have a much greater responsibility. They do have a duty to please more than themselves. They have a duty to please others, to please a wider audience. Not that any professional will be able to please every fan every time out. There is the other proverb that says “you can’t please all of the people all of time.” Though it’s impossible to please everyone, the professional still has to try and please a larger audience. Therefore, a professional must be held to a higher standard. A professional can’t simply indulge every nostalgic whim that comes his way. The professional must tell stories that engage a wider audience. And that wider audience will include people who weren’t born at the same time, who don’t have the same experiences and who don’t have nostalgia for the same things.
 
But does that mean that a professional can never engage their own sense of nostalgia? I don’t think that the answer to that question is as clearly a “Yes.” I would agree that a comic book creator shouldn’t indulge their nostalgia, in the self-indulgent understanding of the word. But a comic book creator should be able to engage their own sense of nostalgia. They should be allowed to refer to the stories of their youth as long as the new stories aren’t dependent upon knowledge of the old. They should be allowed to be inspired by the stories of their youth as that has the tremendous possibility for making the new stories better. The love for the old stories can truly have a positive impact on the new ones. However, the comic book creator must engage his own sense of nostalgia in such a way that readers of different ages and experiences are brought along for the ride.

In order to illustrate the difference between “engaging” and “indulging,” I’d like to turn to two recently completed stories: Alex Ross’ limited series Justice and Brad Meltzer’s crossover The Lightning Saga.

Alex Ross is actually younger than Brian Michael Bendis (which means he’s quite a bit younger than Kurt Busiek) yet his tastes seem to skew older. It’s obvious from a number of Ross’ works that he harbors a soft spot for the comics of the Silver Age and a little bit into the early ‘70s. On some projects, Ross isn’t allowed to engage his nostalgia all that much. However, on his recent series Justice, he was allowed to let his nostalgic preferences shine through. Ross created a Justice League of

America

that clearly belongs to the late Silver Age and the early ‘70s. The line-up includes the original members plus those who joined throughout the ‘60s like Hawkman, Atom, Elongated Man and Metamorpho. The last inductees in Ross’ Justice are Red Tornado and Zatanna. Red Tornado began hanging around with the team in 1968 and finally joined officially in 1973. Zatanna also worked with the team on earlier occasions before officially joining in 1978. Ross also includes other heroes of the DC Universe as allies for the Justice League. Yet again, these other heroes and allies are characters who all debuted in 1970 or earlier. There are the Teen Titans and the Doom Patrol, but the most recent hero to appear in the series is John Stewart, who first appeared in real life in 1970. And as with his first appearance in real life, John Stewart is not yet a full-fledged Green Lantern but only a potential and a reserve. Ross leaves out heroes who came along later than that. The Titans don’t have Cyborg or Raven. The Justice League doesn’t include Firestorm. The list of other heroes doesn’t include Black Lightning. That doesn’t mean that the Justice universe is entirely identical to DC’s Silver Age. Ross goes ahead and incorporates both Plastic Man and the Captain Marvel family into the story, older characters from other companies who weren’t a part of DC’s continuity at the time. Yet even with those slight alterations, it’s obvious that as far as the limited series Justice goes, the DC universe stopped around 1970.

 

I don’t share Ross’ high estimation for that time period. I came of age a little later and I don’t hearken back to comics that   were made before I was born as Ross seems to do. Yet that difference in tastes didn’t prevent me from enjoying Ross’ series. Rather, I found it to be warmly engaging, rewarding of multiple readings and well worth my time. I suspect that if I shared Ross’ fondness for that era, I’d have enjoyed the story even more than I did.  

What made it work is that Ross’ story didn’t require the reader to love that era the same way that he did. We didn’t have to love all of the old stories. Rather, he did his best to make us love the new story he was telling right now. He introduced many of the characters as if they were new to us. His co-writer Jim Krueger artfully used different narrators for each issue as a way to help the reader understand different characters throughout the story. Ross created profile pages for the back of the book that would give us background and pertinent information for the prominent heroes and villains featured in that issue. The world that Ross and Krueger created included enough differences from the actual Silver Age to include fans of other eras. I already mentioned the incorporation of both Plastic Man and the Marvel Family into the Justice League, a nod to the one continuity world that DC introduced after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Also, the villains, although all dating from the Silver Age or earlier, banded together in a group that clearly referenced the Legion of Doom from the television series Challenge of the Super-Friends. Older fans should have been engaged by the older characters. Younger fans could have been engaged by the newer developments. Ross’ story had appeal for everyone, not just those that shared his sense of nostalgia. I don’t share the same nostalgia as Ross, yet I was still able to enjoy the story in its own right.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t as true of Brad Meltzer’s The Lightning Saga in Justice League of

America

. Meltzer is actually the same age as Ross; they were both born in 1970. Yet while Ross appears to yearn for the comics that were made before he was born, Meltzer takes the more common route. His stories have clearly been influenced by the comics of the early to mid-‘80s, the comics that would have come out when he was an adolescent and a teenager. His earlier story, Identity Crisis, had clear references to Justice League stories that were published between 1979 and 1981 when Meltzer would have been a pre-teen. That story did a great job of referencing those earlier works without relying on a comprehensive knowledge of them. That story engaged nostalgia without indulging it.

That isn’t the case with The Lightning Saga. The inspiration for this more recent story can be traced to a similar time period. In the Lightning Saga, Meltzer has a team from the Legion of Super-Heroes come back in time to our current era. The Legion team is clearly based on the line-up that was featured around 1980, including prominent characters of that time like Dawnstar and Wildfire while other characters like Dream Girl are wearing the costumes of that era. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As I’ve stated earlier, it should be okay for a comic book creator to engage their own sense of nostalgia. However, in this case, Meltzer forgot to include the audience. The Legion characters weren’t introduced well; some weren’t named at all. That forced the audience to rely on their own knowledge of the characters in order to understand who they were- a knowledge that isn’t universal. I suspect that Meltzer intended for this to be intriguing and mysterious. After all, the Legionnaires were acting a little oddly. But it didn’t come off as intriguing and mysterious. Readers unfamiliar with this version of the Legion wouldn’t know that these  characters were acting oddly. They would simply find them odd. Many readers were left confused. Unlike Ross and Krueger in Justice, Meltzer didn’t do the work necessary to make us know who these characters are or why we should care about him.

Also, while Ross’ Justice story was clearly influenced by one time period, it had enough facets of other time periods to appeal to a wider audience. Meltzer’s Justice League story featuring the Legion did not. I, at least, got the feeling that this was the one, true version of the Legion and all others that came before or after were somehow not as good. And that’s a problem.

I actually come pretty close to sharing Meltzer’s nostalgia. I’m only a couple of years younger than he is and the stories that serve as inspiration fit into my own personal Golden Age. I like this line-up of the Legion. But even as someone who has a similar sense of nostalgia, I felt left out of this story. I like more than just this line-up of the Legion. I want to feel engaged by the characters based on what they’re doing in this story, not based on how I might have felt about them 20 years ago. I can only imagine how somebody significantly older or younger must have felt. In this case, I think Meltzer went too far in engaging his nostalgia crossing over into self-indulgence.

Professionals should be held to a different standard than fans. After all, they have to get the fans to engage in their stories as well. This doesn’t mean that comic book creators can’t be influenced by the comics of their youth. But they must try to do so in a way that includes the wider audience. Busiek’s Avengers, Bendis’ Avengers, Ross’ Justice and even Meltzer’s Identity Crisis are all examples of how this can be done well. Unfortunately, Meltzer’s Lightning Saga is an example of how this can be done poorly.

The End.   

Discuss the Art of Nostalgia at the Captain Comics Message Board: Fluit Notes

Originally Published on July 20, 2007

Embracing the Inevitability of Change

I recently read this exchange in Robin Hobb’s novel “The Golden Fool”:

 

“Change isn’t a bad thing.”

“--- as it was wasn’t a bad thing either.”

“But change proves that you are still alive.”

 
I read that and I thought, “Wow.” It’s a sentiment I’ve agreed with for a long time, but rarely have I seen it expressed so clearly, so succinctly, so beautifully or so positively. 

Lately, I’ve been growing in my frustration with those who resist change. It’s not just a comic book thing, either. I witness this in my fellow sports fans: the attitude that things were perfect just the way they were twenty or thirty years ago, the attitude that any change or innovation is invariably a bad thing. I witness this in my professional life: the attitude that if only we could get back to the way things were when we were young then everything would be all right, the attitude that views any kind of change as something to fear. And I witness this in my fellow comic book fans. 

 
Sometimes, I want to jump up and yell, “You can’t fight the future. You can’t put things back the way they were. And why would you want to anyway?” 

 
Yet, despite my growing frustration, I love the way in which Robin Hobb framed the issue. She’s phrased it much more positively than I’ve been able to. Change isn’t bad. 

But that doesn’t make the way things were bad either. Both can be good. The way things were could have been good, yet the time for those things has still passed. We can affirm both the past and the future. Furthermore, change is a part of life. It isn’t a necessary evil to be endured. Its part of our vitality; its part of life, part of how we know we’re alive. If we’re not changing, we’re dead. After all, isn’t that the definition of a dead language? Not one that’s no longer in use, but one that’s no longer changing.

 

“I don't believe in the 60's in the golden age of pop
”You glorify the past when the future dries up” – U2, from “God Part II”

 
U2 phrases this slightly more negatively than Robin Hobb. Yet they still put their finger on part of the issue. This resistance to change is partly due to two factors: a glorification of the past and a lack of hope in the future. 

 
The glorification of the past is something we all do. We all look back at the things of the past through rose-colored glasses. We all think that the movies and television shows and music and comic books of our own youth were somehow perfect in a way that they weren’t perfect before and never will be again. That can be a good attitude, as long as it’s kept in proportion. It is okay to love the things of your own youth. It is even good and healthy and necessary. But we shouldn’t let that love can grow out of proportion. We shouldn’t begin to idolize or glorify the past to the extent that we denigrate someone else’s different experiences or to the point that we give up on the future. 

 
I think that’s part of the reason why Bono sings the line about not believing in a golden age of pop. Labels like that lend themselves too easily to glorification. “The Glory Years.” “The Golden Age.” “The Silver Age.” Labels like that reveal the idea of a time when things were perfect and good. And that so often leads to the attitude that the further we get away from that golden era, the worse things become. That so often leads to a lack of hope in the future. “Nobody will ever make a good album again. Nobody knows how to make a comic book anymore”—that sort of thing.

 
And that latter attitude simply isn’t true. There is a future of unlimited possibilities. I’m not suggesting that everyone has to like every new album or comic book that comes out. That future of unlimited possibilities is going to include quite a bit of bad stuff as well as good. But when we shut ourselves off to the possibility of something new being good, we’re saying a lot more about ourselves than we are about the future. We’re indicating our own lack of hope.  We believe that the future has dried up so we choose to drown ourselves in the past. But the future isn’t as bleak as we perceive it to be. 

 
“You know the good ole days weren't always good
”And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems” – Billy Joel, from “Keeping the Faith”

 
Billy Joel seems to confront this attitude as directly as U2, but again he phrases it a little more positively than they do. He recognizes that we tend to view the past through rose-colored glasses and he seems to be calling us to take the glasses off. Those good ole days weren’t always good. That golden age wasn’t quite as perfect as we remember.

 
I get this feeling a lot when I converse with fans of the Silver Age. There’s this attitude that comics were somehow perfect back then. They’ll complain that stories today are simply repeating stories from the past, but forget that the stories “The Secret of the Mystery Legionnaire” and “The Secret Power of the Mystery Super-Hero” appeared only two issues apart in Adventure Comics #305 and 307. They’ll complain about contemporary continuity gaffes, but forget that Stan Lee wouldn’t have had to invent the “No-Prize” in the first place if he didn’t have continuity gaffes of his own. That’s why I’ve been enjoying Mr. Silver Age’s recent Comics Buyer’s Guide columns about Silver Age Blunders. There were plenty of mistakes back then, too. 

 
That isn’t to say that the Silver Age is bad. The stories were fun and silly. There were great ideas and great characters. There’s much to love about the Silver Age. But the Silver Age wasn’t perfect. And it certainly wasn’t perfect in a way that every subsequent age is flawed. The Silver Age was flawed, maybe in different ways from subsequent eras, yet flawed nonetheless. The good ole days weren’t always good.

 
And tomorrow’s not as bad as it seems. I’m not going to defend every change. There are bad changes. There are changes made for good reasons that don’t work. Yet I will defend the general sentiment: change isn’t a bad thing. We don’t have to be afraid of the future. 

 
Who knows what the future will bring? It could bring something good as easily as something bad. It might bring new artists, new characters, new ideas. Isn’t that what so many fans loved about the Silver Age in the first place? I read the reviews of DC’s Showcase reprints. I noticed that one of the things that fans loved about the early Silver Age Superman was the number of new things that were introduced: new villains like Brainiac, new allies like Supergirl, new concepts like the Fortress of Solitude and the many shades of kryptonite. If change was a good thing in 1959 and 1960, then it’s certainly possible that change can be a good thing in 2007. It’s certainly possible that there are new villains worth meeting, new characters worth creating, new ideas worth sharing. It’s certainly possible that there’s something new to discover and yes, even to love. 
 

The future may be different from the past, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can even be a good thing. After all, change is one way we know we’re alive.

 

Discuss: The Captain Comics Message Board

Originally Published on: July 6, 2007

All of April (plus a little bit more from May and March

Here it is: a huge column reviewing seven weeks worth of comics including the entire month of April Due to work and travel, I hadn’t been to the comic store in that amount of time. And since I haven’t reviewed new comics since February, it seemed like the big pile of comics would be great fodder for a big column about comics. So hold on to your capes, it’s a quadruple-sized installment of Fluit Notes.

52 #47, 48, 49, 50, 51 and 52: And it’s done! I honestly enjoyed 52 and I’m glad I stuck it out all the way to the end. There were a few bumpy spots along the way. The art was inconsistent. For example, I didn’t really care for Giuseppe Camuncoli’s work on issue 47 or Darick Robertson’s work on issue 48, but I really liked the work of Joe Bennett, Justiniano and Eddy Barrows on the final issues. Barrows is much better here than he is on the Atom. Also, the story got spread a little thin in the middle, but they more than made up for it with some great story conclusions starting with the “Rain of the Supermen” at the beginning of this year. This set of issues had one ending that didn’t work so well for me. I just didn’t care for the Bruno/Batwoman stuff at all, especially as Bruno re-entered the story so near to the end. near to the end. But I did like the end of the Will Magnus story. I liked how he turned on Sivana, how he saved T.O. Morrow and how he used his own insanity in his favor. I just wish that he had shot all of the Metal Men out of a gun, as he does on the cover, instead of only Lead. The Black Adam conclusion was also momentous, even if it was padded by the unnecessary World War III mini-series. And I enjoyed the big Booster Gold conclusion. I wasn’t clamoring for the return of the multiverse but I still liked how the story was told.

 

Action Comics 847 and 848: Some fill-in stories are truly filler. Others, however, become classics. I’d put issue 847 in the latter. Dwayne McDuffie uses Jonathan Kent as a vehicle to tell a story out of Superman’s past. It’s a wonderful use of Clark's parents and an engaging tale in its own right.  Plus, Renato Guedes’ art is reminiscent of Tony Harris’ work on Ex Machina. Unfortunately, issue 848 is of the former category. Fabian Nicieza tries to tell a tale that raises questions of religious fervor and faith but it’s not as mysterious or as engaging as it’s supposed to be.

 

Amazing Spider-Man Free Comic Book Day Special: Spider-Man was one of the titles that I used to read in the ‘80s. When I get nostalgic for the comics I read when I was kid, I go back and read them. But I guess I just don’t need today’s Spidey to be the Spidey of yesterday. This issue simply didn’t scratch a nostalgia itch. I don’t think I even had a nostalgia itch for it to scratch. And without that, this is a pretty boring book.

 

Atom 10 and 11: This was a decent story. Eddy Barrows is getting a better handle on the art though I’m still looking forward to Mike Norton’s return. And I like how Gail Simone played with clichés. Ryan Choi finds his childhood love, only to discover that she’s not quite a lovable as he thought when he was a teenager. Plus, there’s a nice development in the relationship between Ryan and his father.

 

Astounding Wolf-Man 1: Free Comic Book Day Special:  I’m a huge fan of Invincible. I enjoyed The Walking Dead for a couple of years before getting bored. And I’ve even liked some of Kirkman’s lesser known works such as Tales of the Realm and Techjacket. So I was hoping for something really good. But this wasn’t it. It just wasn’t original at all. We’ve got the yuppie, workaholic dad who gets mauled by some kind of animal. We’ve got a few mysterious disappearances before the character figures out he’s a werewolf. And we’ve got a mysterious mentor who offers to help, and who happens to be a vampire. The text page hints that there’s a great mystery to this vampire and interesting questions to be asked about the characters but we don’t get that sense from the story. There’s just no hook here to make me want to read more.

 

Astro City: The Dark Age Book Two #3: After all of the recent complaints about books like All-Star Batman and  Ultimates that are interminably late, here’s an irregularly scheduled book that does it right. Kurt Busiek knows that Astro City doesn’t come out that often. He knows his readers may not remember every detail from the previous issue. But he doesn’t expect them to.  Throughout this issue, there are little lines of expository dialogue to remind you of the pertinent events. Royal is working for the Platypus. Charles is trying not to take graft while also trying not to tell Internal Investigations that his partner is corrupt. Charles’ wife left him. The Street Angel has gotten darker. And so on. Exposition can be overdone- it can weigh down a story- but that’s not the case here. Instead, it keeps the reader from constantly wondering what’s going on so that we get down to simply enjoying the story. And it is mostly enjoyable, though not entirely. As I feared, the Dark Age is a little too dark for what I want from Astro City. But there’s still the sense of wonder that I want to see combined with the average person on the street’s view of great events. It’s that combination that has made Astro City  and earlier works like Marvels so special.  As long as that’s here,  a book well worth reading. 

 

Avengers: Initiative 1: For a while, I was giddy happy while reading this book. I felt the same kind of joy reading that Cloud 9 felt when she was flying. I liked the new characters. I liked the older characters, like Justice and Yellowjacker. And I was having a great time with some apparently old-fashioned superhero action. And then MVP got his head blown off. I’ll admit that it was a shock, but that’s more because it was so out of tone with the rest of the story. It was also a blatant rip-off of Starship Troopers. I might be back for the second issue but I’m much more interested in the “new heroes trying to make it” than I am in “government cover-up” angle.

 

Batman 664: There’s some good stuff in here: the portrayal of Bruce Wayne as an international playboy who pretends to be James Bond, the Andy Kubert art, Batman’s compassionate offer of a Waynetech job to a prostitute, and the clarification that the Batman who dumped the Joker into a dumpster was an impersonator. I guess some people do miss the Bat-psycho and they’re living in Gotham. But there’s some stuff that doesn’t work as well such as Batman’s inner monologue in the closing sequence and the fact that it’s taken us this long to know for sure that Batman is being impersonated.

 

Birds of Prey 105: The awful Colossus mini-series from a couple of years ago turned me off of any Rasputin stories so this issue got off on the wrong foot with me. At least, Birds of Prey is starting to concentrate on a slightly smaller team. Plus, it was nice to see both the Secret Six as antagonists and Tora Olafsdottir as a central plot device. This wasn’t the best issue of Birds of Prey, but it was still okay.

 

Brave and Bold 3: This is what Mark Waid was afraid of: Brave and Bold is fun, but it’s also inconsequential. Any character development is done in the character’s own titles. Any tension is reserved for the big event books. So what’s left is a mostly gentle romp through the DC Universe featuring favorite characters in exotic locales. It’s fun. And George Perez is still a master artist. But it’s not exactly a riveting read. Plus, some of the connections feel a little forced (Supergirl’s intergalactic guide is Lobo?) and the title is starting to feel a little crowded. It’s not a bad book, but neither is it a “must-read.” 

 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2 and 3: A lot of titles are in contention as the best book of the month. This is one of them. Georges Jeanty has really grown as an artist from his days on Bishop and Gambit. He does a great job of capturing the character’s likenesses without being photo-realistic. And he does a great job of capturing facial expressions, which is crucial to this kind of book. But of course, the real star is writer Joss Whedon. Buffy is his creation after all. And Joss is having a fun time with the comic, giving us the kind of situations and scenes that a special-effects budget would not have permitted on TV. We get an overgrown Dawn, zombies storming a castle in issue 2, and an all-out witch battle in issue 3. Plus, we get the return of a few familiar characters such as Ethan Rayne, Amy and another that I don’t want to give away.

 

Countdown 51: Good first issue. Paul Dini manages to get me interested in the plights of Mary Marvel, Duela Dent and the Trickster. However, I wasn’t impressed with the comment by Jason Todd that Duela doesn’t even belong on this world. The whole who-belongs-to-which-world was a confusing barrier to a young Chris and while I may be able to make sense of the situation as an adult that doesn’t mean I want to.

 

Crossing Midnight 4, 5 and 6: Reading this series is like being grabbed by the collar, shaken up and not let go. When I’m reading it, I’m completely involved in it. I feel as if I’m as in-over-my-head as the twin leads of Kaikou and Toshi. These three issues give us a little bit of back-story for their mother, a spotlight on their father and a new mystical protector/master for Kaikou. Finally, in issue 6, we see what’s happening to Toshi as she learns that the imagination and the ability to lie may be the most dangerous weapons of all. 

 

Danger Girl: Body Shots 1 and 2: This is pretty typical Danger Girl: action, intrigue, and more than a little hanky-panky. I don’t mind the hanky-panky, but I ‘m glad that Danger Girl tends to be tongue in cheek about it. 

 

Dark Horse Free Comic Book Day Special, featuring The Umbrella Academy, Pantheon and Zero Killer:

The Umbrella Academy was an okay short story but it wasn’t good enough to make me all that interested in either the characters or the concept. Pantheon City was more intriguing, but it was really just a teaser. We don’t know much more than that it takes place in the future. It looks good but it’s hard to know for sure. Zero Killer is not for me at all. It’s violent and ugly. Some other people like reading that kind of thing, but I don’t.

Dreadnoks Declassified 3: Snake Eyes Declassified was excellent. Scarlett Declassified was even better. This was a muddled mess. In this finale, I finally figured out why: Amaury ends up killing Zartan and becoming the new Zartan. So we haven’t been bouncing around time. We’ve been alternating between Zartan and the man who will become Zartan. Maybe I should have known that before I started reading the story. But I think that maybe the story-teller could have communicated that to me more clearly. After all, that wasn’t the only thing that was confusing me. Half the time, I wasn’t sure if the story was taking place in the Australian Outback (the original home of the Dreadnoks) or the Florida Everglades (the new home of the Dreadnoks). It’s not a good sign when you can’t tell the difference between the desert and the swamp. 

 

Dynamo 5 #2: This was good. Really good. Better than Noble Causes good. Gotta-get-more good. The team is made up of the descendants of Captain Dynamo, but there are a couple of twists: each of the five characters inherited a different power, and each of the five characters is Captain Dynamo’s child by a different woman. Plus, the team is being run by the Captain’s widow, who isn’t mother to any of them. Suddenly, you’ve got a team that has a reason to work together, and even more reasons to not get along. Jay Faerber manages to come up with a few twists on convention as well such as giving the football player mental rather than physical powers. These characters have flaws, but they’re still mostly likable. And I have to mention Mahmud Asrar’s art. It’s absolutely gorgeous. He draws pretty women who look different from one another, muscular men and scary monsters. He draws fluid flight scenes and powerful fight scenes. And he’s a strong enough story-teller that he can handle quiet scenes like conversations over coffee and visits to a nursing home. Do yourself a favor and buy this book.

 

Ex Machina 27: Mayor Mitchell Hundred loses his powers just as a super-powered threat arrives in New York. Meanwhile, New York is suffering a severe power outage and the mayor’s office is scrambling to address the problem. Once again, Brian Vaughan manages to make the political side of things interesting. The super-villain problems complicate the real world problems rather than overshadowing them. Plus, somehow, Mitchell manages to remain charismatic even in the midst of the chaos. I love his line about blaming Canada for the power outage, and I’m a Canadian. 

 

Fables 59 and 60:  Fables #59 made me laugh out loud… multiple times. It’s a special one-shot in which Bill Willingham and two handfuls of artists answer readers’ questions with short stories. We find out the last thing that Jack did before leaving Fabletown, who’s been asking questions of the Magic Mirror and how Bufkin keeps getting into the liquor. It’s funny stuff, yet Willingham still manages to creatively tie several of the short stories together and occasionally reveal important character information. The next issue, #60, starts us off on a Flycatcher story. It’s not as great as 59, but it’s just an opening act so it’s got plenty of time to get better. 

 

Fantastic Four 544 and 545: I’m not a big fan of the Fantastic Four. I enjoy the title when it has a good creative team but I’m not so enamored with the characters that I have to get this title when it doesn’t. However, the early returns on the McDuffie/Pelletier era are positive. It’s not “the best FF ever,” but its well worth reading. I especially enjoyed the witty dialogue, particularly in the playful banter between Ben and Johnny. Other creators have written their relationship as if they’re enemies who would rip each other apart if Sue wasn’t there to intervene. McDuffie writes them more like they’re brothers. They enjoy teasing each other and trying to show the other one up, but they honestly like each other and would defend the other one from anyone else. Oh, and the Black Panther and Storm fit in well with the Black Panther providing tech support and tactics while Storm provides phenomenal power and a moral center—kind of like Reed and Sue.  And oh again, I liked the inclusion of new characters like Stardust (who I hadn’t met before now) and Gravity (who I liked a lot thanks to his first mini-series). All in all, good stuff so far from the new creative team on Fantastic Four. 

 

Firestorm 34 and 35: This was kind of a weird ending for Firestorm. Even though it was the final arc, the story spent a lot more time setting up a conflict with the New Gods that will presumably play out in other titles like Countdown. It’s almost as if Firestorm became a supporting character in his own book at the end. 

 

GI Joe 22 and 23: This was a great title about a year ago. Now, it seems to be marking time, focusing on secondary characters like General Rey and the Baroness rather than on the Joes themselves. That’s supposed to change with a gigantic issue 25 but for now we’re looking at decent but not great issues of GI Joe. 

 

Green Lantern 18 and 19: Daniel Acuna is miscast as a penciller. He’s a great cover artist, but it just doesn’t translate to interior pages. It looks too unreal, like a painting, and keeps you distant from the characters. That’s especially a problem in a story like this one, in which love and lust play such a central role. As for the story, I’m intrigued at the idea of a Star Sapphire Corps but I’m still not sure what they’re supposed to be about. 

 

Green Lantern Corps 11 and 12: Currently, I prefer the Spin-off Corps to the core title. Guy Gardner may be too crass to work as a solo hero but he’s a great fit for an ensemble cast. Sora Natu, with her surgeon’s perspective and reservations about the Corps, is a great new character. I was a little nervous about seeing so many Lanterns act out of character, but Gibbons didn’t leave us wondering for too long before revealing a very surprising cause.

 

Invincible 40 and 41: Yes! A double dose of Invincible. This is “probably the best superhero comic book in the universe.” I love how Kirkman juggles the supporting cast. The main action is on Invincible and a team of heroes fighting off an invasion from outer space, but we still cut back to earth to the heroes and the girlfriend left behind. The previously annoying Rexsplode is suddenly a sympathetic character, while you feel bad for Amber even at the same time that you want Mark to break up with her so that he can get together with Eve. Invincible does a great job of balancing action and relationships, of including a huge supporting cast while not losing sight of the lead, and of playing around with the fact that the title is part of a larger superhero universe (as with the Brit cameo in issue 40). It just doesn’t get any better than this. 

 

JLA Classified 37 and 38: I don’t Frank Halloran, the self-important nihilistic philosophy major who is the lead in these issues. But I do like his story. I’m intrigued by his struggle. He rejects the destiny of violence and villainy that Professor Ivo and Amazo have planned for him. But he doesn’t exactly embrace the concepts of virtue and justice. It’s an interesting Catch-22. If Frank was even slightly sympathetic, this story would be great. As it is, it works on an intellectual level but doesn’t quite engage me as a fan.

 

JSA Classified 24 and 25: The first issue is the conclusion of a Dr. Mid-Nite vs. a vampire story. It’s not great but it was okay. My big problem with the story is Pieter Cross’ insistence that there’s no such thing as vampires. That’s a reasonable assertion in our world. But in the DC Universe, a place populated by alien races and immortal Neanderthals, Pieter’s skepticism seems a bit extreme. Oh well, it was at least better than issue 25. I generally like Tony Bedard’s work but not this time. It was like somebody replaced my issue of JSA Classified with an issue of Checkmate. It looks like Alan Scott, but he’s morally compromised, breaking his word and spouting about the gray areas between right and wrong. And it’s not even that good a story. Blech! 

 

Justice 11: I really need to re-read this story all at once. The bi-monthly schedule has allowed Alex Ross to pencil every issue but it’s also made it hard to remember what happens from one issue to the next. At least after a couple of pages to get my bearings, I usually enjoy whatever issue I’m reading. The penultimate installment was no exception. There were some great moments, such as Rita Farr knocking out Giganta and Superman’s line “It’s my job.” However, this issue did get a little busy and confusing. This is one case in which less might have been more. 

 

Justice Leagues and Societys (JLA 7 and 8, and JSA 5): I have one complaint about JLA 7: the pages were printed out of order. I have another complaint: Brad Meltzer’s jump-cut style of story-telling made it difficult to figure out what the right order should be.  But that’s about it. Everything else was great. I love the line-up, incorporating members from all of the different eras and even a few new ones. I love the character moments, like how much Roy Harper respects Black Canary, and Superman telling Batman that it’s okay to have Hal and the others pick the new team. I like the Hall of Justice. I like it all. JLA has got to be one of my favorite books right now. And then there’s “The Lightning Saga,” the crossover with JSA. It’s hard to judge a crossover based on only the first two chapters but I do like what I’ve seen so far. Both Meltzer and Johns know how to mix character moments with action and suspense. On the one side, there’s more Roy Harper (yay!) and Brion’s half-apologetic half-boastful observation about how he has the combined powers of the rest of the team. On the other, there are some quick fights like Batman vs. Karate Kid and the training sequence of Hawkgirl vs. Red Arrow.

 

Loners 1 and 2: I like obscure heroes so I was intrigued by The Loners but not enough to come back for issue 3. Karl Moline inks his own pencils a little too darkly. And C.B. Cebulski hasn’t really given us a reason to like the main characters though the second issue was better than the first. But in the end, Loners just isn’t as good as I would want it to be. 

 

Madman Atomic Comics 1: I was disappointed. I wanted to like Madman. I wanted to like him like I like Hellboy and Nexus. I wanted to like him like I liked the Atomics. But this was not a good first issue. Basically, it’s a re-cap of all of the various Madman series and specials over the years. That’s okay, but it probably should have been a 0 issue or a prequel instead of the new number 1. Then, when the recaps were done, Madman got into a philosophical dream about whether we are who we are or who we think we are. I wanted “madcap” but I got “pretentious.” Blech. 

 

Mighty Avengers 2: I liked the flashback sequences in which Miss Marvel and Iron Man gather the rest of the team together. However, the main action sequence lacked any forward movement; the Mighty Avengers were in basically the same situation at the end of the issue that they were at the beginning. Also, others might find Bendis’ dialogue tics endearing but I find them annoying. This isn’t a bad title, it’s just not the right title for me.

 

Nightwing 131, 132 and Annual 2: Bride and Groom are really lame villains. Even the attempt to tie the Bride into the Salem Witch Trials fails to make her interesting. On the bright side, at least we’re getting to see the real Dick Grayson rather than the imposter we’ve been seeing in Outsiders and during the Devin Grayson run. Plus, I like how Marv Wolfman is building a neighborhood and a supporting cast around Dick. I’m just not sure it’s enough to get the side stuff right while the main action is so lame.  The Annual seems to have the opposite problem. It should be a good story. After all, it has a strong hook. It’s the story of Dick and Barbara - aka Robin and Batgirl, aka Nightwing and Oracle- and their on and off and on again relationship. We get to see what it was like when they first started to be attracted to each other. We get to see them first fall in love. We get to see them leave each other, hurt each other, but always care for each other. But this issue just doesn’t have the heart or the emotional oomph that it needs to convey the relationship. It answers questions. It just didn’t make me feel. At least, not as much as it should have. 

 

Noble Causes 29: I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. It’s the big showdown between the Noble family and the Blackthornes. And it’s great. The two families have become so intertwined that a quarter of them don’t even know which side to fight for. There are some great throw-downs and a surprising offer that puts at end to the shenanigans. Stories like this are the reason I started to love this title in the first place. My only complaint is Yildiray Cinar’s art felt a little rushed. It’s still better than the previous artist, and his talent stood out in certain panels and pages. It just wasn’t as consistently excellent as it had been in the previous issues. 

 

Runaways 25 and 26: It’s a new creative team, but it’s still the same old Runaways. Joss Whedon brings a little of his Whedonspeak to the dialogue but these are still the same characters that we’ve been following for forty plus issues over two volumes. And Michael Ryan is a good choice for the art- as with his run on Academy X, the kids look like kids without looking cartoony. This isn’t a drastic change for the title. It’s simply more of the good stuff we enjoyed under the previous team. 

 

Samurai: Heaven and Earth Vol. 2 #4: There’s not a lot I can say about this issue of Samurai that I haven’t said about others. It’s got beautiful art by Luke Ross reminiscent of Greg Land on Sojourn or Steve Epting on El Cazador. It’s got exotic locations, sudden betrayals and passionate love. It’s just plain ol’ great.

 

SHAZAM: Monster Society of Evil 3: I have to admit I’m kind of bored with this title. Just when I think it’s about to get good- as with the introduction of Mary Batson/Mary Marvel in the latter half of issue 2- it seems to take another step backward. In this issue, Mary is pushed to the sidelines while we spend the bulk of the book following Sivana, Attorney General of the United States.It’s bad enough that we follow the villain rather than the more interesting sidekick. It’s worse that Jeff Smith created such a distraction for himself: the political commentary didn’t really fit the rest of the book and would go right over the heads of the kids this book is supposed to be aimed at. I anticipated that this would be one of the best mini-series of 2007 but so far, it’s been a dud.

 

Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars: Three of the four Star Wars titles shipped during this month and a half; Rebellion was on hiatus and shipped one week too late to make it into the review.  

First up, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 15 and 16. John Jackson Miller recently quit his day job so that he could concentrate on writing full time and I have to say that it’s a good decision. Knights is one of the most consistently excellent books that I read month after month and the first issue, 15, is one of the best so far. Protagonist and failed Jedi Padawan Zayne Carrick has had a prophetic dream in which he foresees the Mandalorian army bombing the civilian population of Serroco. In this issue, he tries to share his knowledge with those who are in charge of the Republic forces. Unfortunately, his own reputation works against him. Zayne’s protestations are taken as proof that he’s insane. He’s arrested, and the civilian population of Serroco is devastated by the bombing. It’s one of the most tragic issues I’ve ever read. Even so, Miller manages to keep things from being too depressing by including some comic relief through Zayne’s companion Gryph. Yet, even while we’re laughing at Gryph’s antics, we’re still anxious for him to leave the planet and survive. Miller manages to drag the suspense out even further by dedicating the next issue to Zayne’s former companions Jarael and Camper, as well as one of the Jedi that killed Zayne’s classmates, 

 

Next, there’s Star Wars: Legacy 10 and 11. Knights is set far in the past. Legacy is set far in the future. It’s the story of Cade Skywalker, the latest in the great Skywalker lineage. Yet Cade has rejected his heritage and is leaving as a smuggler rather than a hero. Issue 10 follows a couple of bounty hunters who are trying to bring Cade to Imperial justice. It’s not a great issue- I don’t care for Colin Watson’s art- but there is a great revelation at the end. Issue 12 is much better. It marks the return of regular artist Jan Duursema who’s been doing great work on the Star Wars titles. It also focuses once again on Cade, who’s having visions of his forebears- such as Darth Vader and Mara Jade. Plus, it introduces K’Kruhk- last seen in Star Wars: Republic comic books and the Clone Wars cartoons- and the Yuuzhan Vong- alien adversaries from the New Jedi Order series of novels. 

 

Finally, there’s Star Wars: Dark Times 3. Dark Times isn’t quite as incredible as either Knights or Legacy but it’s still a good book in its own right. It follows the (so-far) surviving Jedi in the early days of the Emperor. One former Master, Dass Jennir, is being forced to learn how to be a smuggler instead of a noble knight. He still tries to work against the empire and injustices like slavery, but he’s sadly learning that there’s not a lot that he can do. 

 

She-Hulk 17: I liked the old status quo. It was great to see Jennifer Walters as lawyer to the capes. But I like the new status quo, too. She-Hulk (the character, not the title) felt shackled as a lawyer. Now, she’s free as an agent of SHIELD to punch things whenever she wants to. Yet Dan Slott continues to engage both worlds. We still get the quirky characters from the law offices while being introduced to a second quirky cast aboard the Helicarrier. A few highlights: the opening argument about wasting space on a splash page, Sidney complaining about the number of Helicarriers that have been destroyed over the years, and She-Hulk vs. a room full of Nick Fury LMDs.

 

Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes 28 and 29: I’ll admit it; I’m lost. With two dozen Legionnaires and now a dozen Wanderers, it’s hard to keep track of all of the characters. I’ve lost track of this title so much that I didn’t even remember we were in the middle of a Dominator war. And I had all of these complaints even before the new creative team in issue 29 which was an unfortunate step down. This version of the Legion has had its moments, especially in the first year and shortly after the addition of Supergirl, but lately it’s not been as good as I’d want it to be. 

 

Superman 661 and 662: I was about ready for the fill-ins to be done. I enjoyed the previous fill-in that focused on the Prankster, but this one guest-starring Wonder Woman wasn’t all that great. The good news is that issue 662 marked the return of the main story and series penciller Carlos Pacheco. I wasn’t a huge fan of the dystopic future that Arion showed Superman but I do like how it’s playing out after the fact. It’s not very interesting to set Superman up against threats he can beat by hitting them. Conversely, it’s very interesting to have a story in which Superman is forced to question the effectiveness of hitting things. I liked how Jimmy Olsen automatically rushed to defend Superman, while Superman investigated the problem by talking to Zatanna and then finding Sirocco. The latter course of action showed us that Superman is a lot smarter than we usually give him credit for. Plus, I kind of like Sirocco. It’s always nice to meet an interesting, new hero.

 

Teen Titans 45 and 46: This is what some observers derisively refer to as a “fight comic.” The Teen Titans fight the Titans East. Then they fight them some more. Then they fight them even more. It’s like the theme song to “The Itchy and Scratchy Show.” Characters who have been knocked out of the fight early in one issue come back later on, with the result that the whole thing just feels its moving in circles instead of forward. The Titans fight against Dr. Light was a classic. This was not. 

 

Wonder Woman 6, 7 and 8 and Amazons Attack 1: Back in the day, I used to be a theatre major in college and I remember some acting classes that talked about how heading towards something is a stronger motivation than heading away from something. I’ve seen that point illustrated in a number of works, including here. The new Wonder Woman title keeps looking back to the Maxwell Lord incident instead of ahead to whatever Wonder Woman wants to accomplish next. There’s some good stuff here. I think this arc is stronger than the first one. Donna has been moved out of the title so there’s less confusion. Wonder Woman is learning how to create and maintain a secret identity. She has an interesting partnership with the former Nemesis. And Circe makes for an interesting ally with the Amazons. But the good pieces just don’t come together as a great whole. Maybe it’s because I expect too much after Greg Rucka’s excellent run. Or maybe it’s because the title feels like it keeps on looking over its shoulder.   

 

World War III 1-4: Wow, World War III was really bad. So bad, I started skimming instead of reading bad. So bad, I told my wife not to bother reading it bad. World War III came about because a change of plans for 52. 52 was supposed to fill in the lost year, using several characters as observers. However, as the writers worked on 52, they discovered that the point-of-view characters had interesting stories in their own right so the title became more about them than the events they were supposed to witness. I fully endorse that decision. I enjoyed reading about the point-of-view characters and in my opinion, 52 struggled a little when it broadened the story beyond those six heroes. But the result of that decision is that a lot of the changes that were supposed to be chronicled in 52 weren’t going to be addressed in that title. Apparently, the solution was to include one event that would explain all of the changes and add this four-part mini-series to cover them. 

 

Unfortunately, it didn’t work. For one thing, the explanation becomes a punch-line. Why did Donna put on the Wonder Woman costume? World War Three. Why did Beast Boy quit the Titans? World War Three. Why did Amanda Waller start a new Checkmate? World War Three. Why did Jason Todd become Nightwing? World War Three. Instead of developing as a natural outgrowth of a story, the changes all seemed to be cobbled onto the big event. They become arbitrary instead of essential.  Another major problem is that the mini-series itself didn’t have a plot. It simply intercut scenes of various characters making important decisions with scenes of various heroes fighting Black Adam. The one never seemed to have anything to do with the other. There was no story there. Worst of all, John Ostrander chose to make the Martian Manhunter the narrator. However, the Manhunter’s inner monologue became very tiresome, even before the end of the second issue. And the whole point of the narration was to explain why the Manhunter turned dark for his most recent mini-series, a change that wasn’t particularly interesting in the first place. Ugh! World War Three is a clinic on how not to write a comic. 

 

X-23: Target X #5: I’ve reviewed this title before so I don’t have a lot of new things to say. The Michael Choi art is beautiful. X-23, despite her origins as a clone, is an interesting character as she struggles to be who she wants to be instead of who she was made to be. And there are some strong story moments such as X-23’s confrontation with Kimura and her surprising decision at the end of the story to go after Wolverine. 

 

X-Factor 18: This is the only X-Men spin-off that I’m still reading. So why has X-Factor persevered while New X-Men, New Excalibur and Exiles have fallen by the wayside? Peter David’s witty dialogue. The complicated ways that the stories fit together. It’s smart so that my brain keeps spinning with questions, while also funny and occasionally exciting. This particular issue is a good example of the convoluted stories that somehow pull together. The team feels like they have to do something even though Layla Miller tells them that the current conflict will resolve on its own. When they persist, she sends them on various errands that at first seem meaningless but tie together to bring them face to face with the X-Cell. 

 

X-Men, X-Men and more X-Men: Astonishing X-Men remains one of my favorite titles and issue 21 is no exception. When I handed the first stack of comics to my wife, she asked me if there was anything that she should read right away and I answered, “Astonishing X-Men.” The John Cassaday art is consistently beautiful. And Joss Whedon knows how to include all of the little things that make a comic fun. There are great moments of wit such as the Beast’s put-downs of Agent Brand, great moments of romance such as the scene between Kitty and Colossus, and it’s all set as the counterpoint to great moments of action, intrigue and surprise. 

Uncanny X-Men may not be quite as good as Astonishing, but it’s close. Issue 485 is the penultimate chapter of “The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.” I had been fairly impressed with the earlier issue in which Vulcan fell in love with Deathbird. I found it wholly believable that somebody as young and impressionable as Vulcan could be so turned around by a lover that he ends up fighting to defend the very thing he set out to destroy. Yet in this issue, Ed Brubaker pulls the rug out from underneath us again. Vulcan was only playing along and after he weds Deathbird, he goes ahead and kills D’Ken anyway. As if that apparent betrayal wasn’t enough, Vulcan then declares himself emperor by right of marriage. That is not a scene I’m likely to forget for a long time. Well done, Uncanny.

 

Unfortunately, it seems like there always has to be one weak X-Men title. Nowadays, it’s adjective-less X-Men by Mike Carey and Chris Bachalo.  It’s not that their run on X-Men is horrible. It’s certainly better than the two previous runs by Chuck Austen and Peter Milligan. But it certainly doesn’t measure up to the two other X-titles. Carey seems to have trouble clearly communicating who the villain is or what they want so the main conflict is usually confused. This is as true for issue 198, the second part of Red Data, as it was for the previous story. There are some nice moments like the budding flirtation between Iceman and Mystique, and I like the inclusion of newer heroes like Lady Mastermind and Omega Sentinel, but overall this is a pretty mediocre book at the moment. 

 

Y: The Last Man 56: Nothing much happens in this issue. For a lot of other comics, that would be a complaint. But not for a Brian K. Vaughan comic. Instead, Yorick and Agent 355 have some parting conversations that are really touching, and that shine a light on their personalities and their relationship. We also catch of a glimpse of several supporting characters who are close to tracking Yorick down. That’s a good thing when it’s his sister Hero and the second Beth. That’s not a good thing when it’s the Israeli agent Alter. Oh, and we’ve been waiting for those final three pages for four years. They literally made my wife cry.

Originally Published at CaptainComics.us, May 25, 2007
 

Different Variations, One Team

I thought I had a dilemma. I had heard that DC was going to publish a variety of covers for Justice League of

America

#7. The cover features the current team running towards the reader, while six portraits of previous eras serve as the background. Personally, I think it’s a great cover. However, I thought- mistakenly as it turns out- that DC was going to publish six different covers. I thought I was going to have to choose one of those covers. But how could I choose? The obvious answer is that I should simply pick the cover that shows my favorite era. But there lies the dilemma. I don’t have one favorite era. I have several.

 
Admittedly, it’s a pretty good dilemma to have. After all, the dilemma is borne out of liking several eras. I like the satellite-era Justice League that I grew up with. I liked that it was so big, that it felt like a league. I liked that it had room for all of the big guns, and that there was also room for newer characters like Firestorm and the Red Tornado. I like the Bwa-ha-ha Justice League. I like the second-stringers and the mix of humor and action. I could read those comics again and again. And those characters are every much as real a Justice League as the team I grew up with. I like the new classic era. I like the Magnificent Seven that Grant Morrison put together in the late ‘90s. I like the classic feel and the big threats and, well, the fact that it was really good. 
 

I was still left with the question of which cover to pick. However, that question led me to think about some other things. Why is it that I have several favorite eras when other fans seem to cling to one specific era as the best?

Maybe it has something to do with my own personal experience with comics. Most fans seem to have one point of entry. But I didn’t. I had multiple points of entry. And maybe that’s why I have multiple favorites. In order to explain, I have to tell a little bit about my own story.

 
Like a lot of others, I started reading comics as a little kid. My mom would give me Richie Rich comics as a way of keeping me quiet while we were on family trips. Eventually, she moved on to giving me Archies and then superheroes like the X-Men and the Teen Titans. Those are the comics of my youth, and they’ll always have a special place in my heart.

 
However, at some point, I started to think of comic books as kids’ stuff. I gave them up. It wasn’t just comic books. I quit reading Hardy Boys, too. I moved on to big stuff like “War and Peace” and James Clavell. The thicker the book the better as far as I was concerned. I left comics behind, even though my high school classmates still considered me “an expert” on comics.

 
I became an English literature major when I went to college. I kept reading the big books. I kept reading works with meaning and importance. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed reading those books and writing papers about them. Then one summer, I happened to have a roommate who owned a big collection of comics. I didn’t have anything to read for school so I borrowed his long-box. I would read dozens of comics in a day. I read hundreds over the course of the summer. And I discovered that I liked these, too. I still read the big books when school started up again. But comics were a great way to cleanse my mental palate and enjoy myself after reading something big and important. I finished reading my roommate’s collection. I borrowed comics from anyone I could: two more roommates, my cousin, a friend.  

 
Eventually, I had run out of comics to borrow and I had to buy some of my own. I bought some of the new comics that were coming out. And I bought back issues, trying to find those childhood dreams all over again. My collection grew- equal parts new and old. 

 
That’s what I meant when I said I had multiple points of entry. I had entered comics as a child. But I re-entered comics as a college student and adult. I had that initial discovery. And I had an age of re-discovery. That alone would explain two points of entry. Yet the age of re-discovery wasn’t a single point of entry. I bought new comics. I also borrowed collections from a cousin and friends, filling in the gaps of comics that had been published since I’d move on to thicker books. And I bought back issues. During one trip to the store, I might buy a run from the ‘60s. During another, it might be a story from the ‘70s. My one age of discovery encompassed every era. So I like them all.

 

How does the Justice League fit into all of this? I’m familiar with the satellite-era team from my youth. I don’t remember reading any of the comics. But those were the same characters featured in the SuperFriends and featured in the Kenner SuperPowers action figure line and I know them from those sources. So I have that nostalgic love for that team as the team of my childhood. If there was any one version of the Justice League that I’d describe as “the real Justice League,” it would be the satellite team of Superman and Batman and Firestorm. 

 
That first roommate I mentioned had a huge run of the Bwa-ha-ha Justice League. Those comics were some of the ones that I read on rainy days when I couldn’t go to work painting houses. Those stories were some of the ones that reignited my interest in and my passion for comic books and superheroes. Shortly after I started buying new comics on my own, Grant Morrison and Howard Porter re-launched the team with a new classic line-up. Those were the first JLA stories that I bought new. Those are the ones for which I remember the feeling of being so excited for a new issue to come out. Both of those eras are a significant part of my re-entry into comics. I hold them both on my own personal pedestals. And so I have three favorite eras of the Justice League.

 
That also means that I’m open to the new team and this new era. I’m used to liking different versions of the same team. I don’t dismiss the new team as not being the real Justice League. There’s lots of real Justice Leagues, and I’m ready to accept this one too if the stories are good enough. 

 
By the way, this isn’t just a Justice League phenomenon. I have multiple favorites of the Avengers. I was buying Roy Thomas and David Micheline and Bob Harras issues back-to-back. I have multiple favorites of the Titans, and the X-Men. I have more than one Golden Age. It leads me into the occasional dilemma, such as this one. But I tend to think that’s a good thing. 

And for the record: there are only two variant covers, not six, with each including three different eras and versions of the team.  I’ll be happy with either one. 

Back Issue Bargain Bin Reflections

Not that long ago, I bought a bunch of back issues out of a bargain bin: 100 comics for 20 cents each. I’m not quite going to review them all, but I would like to share some thoughts on a few series.

 

Infinity Inc.

 

This isn’t the first time that I’ve read Infinity Inc. I have quite a few of the earlier issues, from the single digits into the teens. So I had some idea of what I was getting: serviceable action stories. They’re not the best thing I’ve ever read and Roy Thomas is a little past his prime, but they’re fun and they feature a number of characters that I’ve grown to like. This time around, I bought a bunch of issues in the 20s and a few in the 30s. 

 

Unfortunately, I think Roy Thomas was starting to slip even more. There were some decent stories. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the introduction of Beth Chapel, who would become the new Dr. Midnight, and the re-introduction of Rick Tyler, who would become the new Hourman. They’ve always been noteworthy to me for having two of the worst costumes in a title renowned for bad costumes.  I expected to dislike the characters as much as their clothes. Yet I didn’t. I was actually sympathetic to both of them. I also thought that Roy Thomas did an admirable job of incorporating the fall-out from Crisis on Infinite Earths by writing a story in which Fury remembered a world that no longer existed. 

 

But for every decent story there was a bad one and, not just a bad one, a really bad one. One particular bad one was Infinity Inc. 22. An issue earlier, Roy Thomas had allowed the team to be spirited away so that they could participate in Crisis on Infinite Earths. This allowed Thomas to concentrate on the new heroes, Hourman and Dr. Midnight. With issue 22, Thomas picks up the story of the departed Infinitors. They’re on the Monitor’s monitoring station. And it’s an awful mess of a story. There are way too many scenes of the Infinitors standing around pointing out other heroes. Fury somehow mistakes the Earth-1 Wonder Woman for her own mother to, um, spell out the differences between Earth-1 and Earth-2. Hector Hall wonders why his parents, the Hawkman and Hawkwoman of Earth-2 are wearing older costumes. Older fans wonder why “continuity” is sometimes a dirty word and complain that DC’s multiple earth continuity wasn’t at all confusing. Well, Infinity Inc. is exhibit A. Roy Thomas seems to need to explain every costume change and every difference in continuity. It stops any story in its tracks, is really boring, and doesn’t even clear up that much. But that’s only part of the problem. Infinity Inc.’s rivals in Helix have also been spirited to the Monitor’s station. So they have an argument. A really long and pointless argument that fills up a lot of space but that doesn’t move the story along or tell us anything interesting about the characters. Plus, Helix is only a half-decent set of rivals. There’s one good character in there, Dr. Bones, though his rhyming scheme is incredibly annoying. There’re also a couple of awful characters, Baby Boom and Kritter. Finally, Thomas gets us back to Dr. Midnight and Hourman. Unfortunately, their story takes an uninteresting turn into a Crisis-inspired Civil War battle. Thomas may have written a great response to Crisis, with the Fury story, but he bungled his way through participating in it.

 

The other thing to note about these issues is that they happen to be Todd McFarlane’s entrance into the comic book biz. I’m not a big fan of what Todd McFarlane becomes but his style is very different on these early issues of Infinity, Inc. He’s not over-rendering musculature or warping facial expressions. His figures are actually fairly straightforward, following in the footsteps of Jerry Ordway who helped launch this title. However, McFarlane’s work on Infinity Inc. becomes noted for what he does with a page. McFarlane doesn’t simply illustrate the story. He works outside of the panels drawing symbols and icons and extra details. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about this. “It seems like Todd was bored with the story.” That might be true, though you’d have to ask Todd McFarlane for the truth. “These extra details distract from the real story.” That’s occasionally true. A few of the machines and extra links draw our attention away from what’s going on and create clutter. Yet I like the inventiveness of it. 

 

I’m reminded of later work by other artists. I liked how Chris Bachalo worked visual themes into his runs on Generation X and Uncanny X-Men, using apples and bubbles and crows to create a visual whole. One of my favorite issues of Generation X was one in which Jubilee was supposedly doodling in the margins and we got to see whimsical portraits of the other characters. Bachalo’s former inker Mark Buckingham does similar things on Fables, including icons at the top of each page and backgrounds behind the panels to help set the scene and remind us of the characters. Todd McFarlane was doing that as well. One of the best examples is the Fury story that I previously complimented. In the story, Fury remembers an adventure from her youth. The members of the Justice Society were going away to a state dinner and their children, who were all about ten years old, are left on their own. It’s a pretty good story as the young children wander around a big mansion, exploring and getting into a little bit of trouble. Yet it’s not a visually interesting story. McFarlane works outside of the panels, reminding you of the heroes that these children grow up to be and tying the past to the present. It works, augmenting the story rather than distracting from it. It doesn’t work every time, I’ll admit that. As I noted earlier, it can be clutter. But the bad issues are more the fault of the writer, Roy Thomas, than of the artist and his unique approach.

 

Wildstorm: The Kindred, Warblade, Wildstorm Rising and WildCore

 

I love ‘90s comics. If you’ve read my recent “Ranking the ‘90s Universes” column, you’d already know that. But at much as I love ‘90s comics, I acknowledge that there’s an absence of good villains. Whether it’s Ultraverse, Valiant or Wildstorm, all of the heroes seem to fight the same one or two villains. Those villains may be pretty good, but as a reader you get a little tired of seeing the same villains pop up in every story. 

 

For Wildstorm, the big villains are the Daemonites, an alien race that has been at war for millennia with the Kherubim and have a not-so-subtle resemblance to demons. The biggest Daemonite is Helspont. He’s actually a pretty good villain. He’s unrepentantly evil. He has a great look; his forehead forks in two and blue flame erupts from the centre. And his motivations are clear enough that he’s even sided with the heroes when it helps his cause, as happened in the third series of Majestic. But as much as I liked Helspont, I thought he was a little lonely on the villain side.

 

I bought these three series because of the heroes like Grifter and Warblade and Backlash. And in that regard, I got what I was looking for. The Kindred paired off Backlash and Grifter. They may have worked together previously on Team 7 but they don’t have fond memories of each other. They forge an uneasy alliance and it’s as much to see them rile each other as it is to fight the bad guys. Warblade features not only the title character, but also Ripclaw from Marc Silvestri’s Cyberforce. The two characters were established as friends in the crossover Killer Instinct and it’s nice to see them together again in a sequel of sorts. Wildcore came out several years later but it featured Backlash again, this time working with Zealot in putting together a team of mostly new heroes. I like seeing Backlash in this mentor role, and though I don’t know the new characters that well I was quickly growing fond of Brawl. So I was pretty happy reading adventures featuring some favorite characters and a few ones.

 

However, as much as I enjoyed reading about the heroes, these series surprised me in another way. They actually did a good job with the villains, showing that the Wildstorm world was more than just the good guys vs. Helspont. I thought that The Kindred would feature Backlash and Grifter vs. werewolves which while not the most original set of villains would be pretty fun. But the werewolves had a leader: Bloodmoon.  This was a new villain to me and I was impressed. He had a great look: a red and gold color scheme with a skull mask and several other skulls on his shoulders and belt-buckle. Plus he had a personal connection to the heroes as a former ally who had felt betrayed by Team 7. Warblade introduced another villain, Pillar, who admittedly had a Daemonite connection. Yet Pillar wasn’t content to follow Helspont’s lead. Instead, he was creating a rival, almost terrorist group. And he was trying to up his powers. The result was an interesting transformation into a glowing, green creature, sort of like a cross between Dr. Manhattan and the ghosts in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Finally, Wildstorm Rising was a big crossover. As such, it did feature Wildstorm’s big villain Helspont. But it also featured Helspont’s main rival, Defile. I’d read a few Defile stories before, but none that featured him so prominently. And I liked the way that he was contrasted with Helspont, his big Viking horns standing out against Helspont’s fiery head. The crossover gave me a new appreciation for Wildstorm’s second-best villain. Indeed, these stories as a whole gave me a new appreciation for the Wildstorm universe. They had more interesting and visually arresting villains than I had previously given them credit for.

 

X-O Manowar

 

I read a lot of other Valiant titles before I tried X-O Manowar. I’m just not that big a fan of the man in the metal suit. Whether it’s Iron Man, or one of the many variations such as Hardware or Prototype, I’m just not that interested. But I knew, from reading several of their other titles, that Valiant was a quality company. And I knew that a lot of good artists worked on X-O, such as Mike Leeke, Joe Quesada and Bart Sears. So when I saw a run of nearly thirty consecutive issues in a bargain bin, I just couldn’t resist.

 

I’m glad I bought them. And I’m glad I read them, though it’s hard to explain why. When I describe the premise of X-O Manowar, it doesn’t’ sound good even to me. Here’s the situation. A Visigoth barbarian in the year 400 is abducted by aliens. Aric serves as a slave on one of their ships for years. He eventually steals a suit of armor that they’ve designed for their warriors. The suit, the X-O armor, bonds to him and he manages to escape. Due to the vagaries of traveling space at faster than light speeds, he returns to earth in the year 1990 rather than 400. He uses the suit’s abilities to wrest ownership of a multi-national corporation. He thinks that will allow him to live a life of luxury but it results in as many headaches as it cures. And he occasionally fights things wearing his suit of alien armor. Yeah, that’s right. An ancient barbarian wears an alien suit of armor and runs a multi-national corporation. I told you that it wouldn’t sound good.

 

And yet it is good. It’s really good. The title doesn’t shy away at all from its lead character. He’s a barbarian and he deals viciously with aliens, villains and corporate slimeballs. He’s decisive. He’s forceful. He’s unlike any other hero. He’s not an anti-hero like The Punisher who knows that he’s stepping beyond the bounds of the law. He’s a barbarian trying to force his values on a very different modern world. I don’t know that I like Aric. But I am fascinated by him, and by what he’s going to do next. It’s hard to describe. Yet I know two things: it’s not like any other title I’ve ever read and it’s good. And when you’re buying comics for twenty cents a piece, that’s more than good enough.

( Originally Published at CaptainComis.us on April 6, 2007, Back Issue Bargain Bin Reflections)

 

One Year After One Year Later

It was a year ago this week. DC jumped into the future. All of their ongoing titles skipped ahead one year in time. It was a time for new creative teams, new situations and new storylines. And it seemed like it was going to be a smashing success. 17 of the 20 titles increased in sales by more than 4,000 issues. 16 titles came back with a second printing of the first One Year Later issue. There’s no question that One Year Later was the big hit of the month.

 

What wasn’t so clear was whether or not One Year Later would be a big hit for more than a month. Would this marketing stunt be a momentary blip on the sales charts? Or would it signal a serious increase in sales for DC’s ongoing titles? The answer is: a little bit of both.

 

However, before we get to the answer there is something that we should be aware of. In the current comic book market place, all titles are in a regular and constant state of sales decline. New readers are reluctant to pick up older, ongoing titles. And old readers are always dropping out- sometimes because of issues with the comics themselves but also sometimes because of real-world situations like getting married, buying a home and having kids. That isn’t to say that industry sales are in decline. There are always new titles to pick up the slack and industry sales have actually been going up for six consecutive years. However, the sales on any given ongoing title are incredibly more likely to go down than to go up.

 

The publishers are aware that this is the current state of doing business and they’re also aware of ways to combat, reverse or otherwise get around the general downward trend. The most consistently successful method for combating declining sales is to re-launch a title as a new number one. The second most successful method is a new creative team and the third most successful method is a new storyline. The One Year Later titles fall into these two categories. They all featured new stories and some of the titles also featured new creative teams. The fourth, and most infrequent, method of increasing sales is for positive growth via word of mouth. These are the titles that defy the pattern and go up in sales without any marketed or fabricated jumping-on point. There are only a handful of these success stories at any given time, but they do exist.

 

One Year Later was an attempt by DC to increase the sales on their ongoing titles with new creative teams, new situations and new stories. It was their attempt to offset the standard rate of attrition. And to some extent, it worked. Every single one of their ongoing titles increased in sales for the month of March over the month of February. That is an undisputed marketing success, at least for the short term. The long-term numbers are a bit more complicated. Quite honestly, they’re too complicated to classify in just one category.

 

No/Negligible Success

 

Three titles experienced almost no gain out of One Year Later: Green Lantern, JSA and Supergirl. Green Lantern and JSA actually dropped in sales from February, at least until reorders came in at a later date to give those titles a boost. However, they were both back down in April to slightly below where they had been in February. Supergirl had some scheduling problems and its first One Year Later issue didn’t show up until May. That May issue did receive a healthy jump in sales, but by the second One Year Later issue in July Supergirl had also dipped below its February numbers.

 

Why were these titles unsuccessful? I think the explanation is fairly simple. Green Lantern and Supergirl were relatively new titles, still in their first year. People who were interested in trying those titles would have done so six or nine months earlier. And if they weren’t impressed at that time, they were unlikely to come back so soon. Lateness may have also played a role though I think it’s a minor one. Green Lantern actually went up again that summer despite continuing lateness, and Supergirl continued to lose readers even when it managed to maintain a monthly schedule. As for JSA, DC had already announced that the title would be canceled and re-launched later in the year. Readers who were interested in trying it out were apparently willing to wait for the new number one rather than jumping on for one last arc of the old series. So I don’t think it’s surprising that these three titles saw no real success.

 

Minimal/Moderate Success

 

These are the five titles that were able to keep their sales up for 4 or 5 months before coming back down to their February levels. They are Blood of the Demon, Firestorm, Hawkgirl, Outsiders and Teen Titans. These are the titles that I actually think benefited the least from One Year Later. The titles in the earlier category didn’t have much of an expectation of success. These did. Yet One Year Later wasn’t even able to boost their sales for half a year.

 

Why not? I think that the answers are different for the different titles. Blood of the Demon was already on its way to cancellation. One Year Later was able to boost the numbers- every single post-One Year Later issue sold better than the February one- but not enough to save the title from the gallows. Firestorm’s numbers were already artificially inflated. That title had crossed over with Infinite Crisis and the Countdown to Infinite Crisis mini-series for several months. Sales were already significantly higher than they had been before the crossover. One Year Later was able to sustain this increase, but not for long.  As for Hawkgirl, I think that the readers rejected either the new direction or the new creative team. The sales numbers came crashing down and are now significantly lower than they were before One Year Later. In fact, they’re still falling and Hawkgirl is rumored to be in danger of cancellation.

 

I’m not quite as sure as to the reasons why Outsiders and Teen Titans were only able to achieve moderate success. They weren’t already headed towards cancellation, as were Blood of the Demon and Firestorm. They didn’t feature all-new creative teams that the readers rejected. My best guess is that these titles were affected more by outside factors. The titles in this category all lost their gains by late summer, July to September. I think that one of the reasons why these titles lost momentum, and the main reason in the case of Outsiders and the Teen Titans, is that everyone was moving on to the next big thing. By this point, DC had launched six new series out of Brave New World and re-launched JLA, Flash and Wonder Woman. I think that DC may have cannibalized their own sales, and eaten into the success of some of these One Year Later titles.

 

Strong/Significant Success

 

This is by far the biggest category. Nearly half of DC’s ongoing titles, eight of the twenty, can be considered to have experienced significant success due to One Year Later: Aquaman, Birds of Prey, Catwoman, Manhunter, Nightwing, Robin, Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes and Superman. All of these titles stayed above their February sales for at least 7 issues (Superman was the runt of this litter as the only one at 7). Some of them stayed up for as many as 10 (Catwoman and Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes were the two queens of this castle). Two of the titles are actually still up, although Aquaman only shipped 9 issues due to delays and Manhunter 8 due to a hiatus. And though these titles have now slipped below their February numbers, none of them are falling drastically as was the case with Hawkgirl.

 

What does this mean? I think that it means that One Year Later can be considered a success. I think you have to be impressed with a plan that raises the sales on most of its titles for 8, 9 or 10 months. I think that’s a pretty good success rate.

 

Resounding Success

 

Four titles can actually claim to have resounding success. These are the titles that are still up on their pre-One Year Later sales numbers. Some of them are close and may drop back down by this March. But some are still significantly higher than before by 15 or 20 thousand. The four titles are Action, Batman, Detective and Green Arrow.

 

So why were these titles so successful? Well, I might be a bit presumptuous in declaring Action a resounding success. Like Aquaman, Action only shipped 9 issues so far due to lateness. But considering that Action is still selling 17,000 more issues than it did last February, I think it’s safe to say that it will stay elevated for the full 12 issues and many more. I would suggest that there are three very good reasons why three of these titles are so successful. One, DC set up a situation in which one writer would handle the first four months of One Year Later before handing the titles off to new creative teams. That meant that those titles received not one, but two, boosts in sales. Two, those second creative teams featured some of the biggest names in comics: Paul Dini, Grant Morrison, Richard Donner and the Kubert brothers. And three, those titles featured two of comics’ biggest heroes: Batman and Superman. Superman’s eponymous title was the only one not to make this group, and it was also the only one to not change writers after four months. If there is a crowning success of One Year Later, I would say that it’s DC’s success in focusing sales on their two biggest characters.

 

However, that leaves one title unaccounted for: Green Arrow. Honestly, I know of no reason why Green Arrow should be more successful than Birds of Prey or Catwoman or Robin. I’m simply amazed that it’s in this category and not the earlier one. All I can do is tip my figurative hat and offer my congratulations to the people involved.

 

There you go. I would call One Year Later a success. It wasn’t a complete success as a few titles experienced almost no benefit and several others had lost any benefit by the end of the summer. And it wasn’t the biggest success of the year. It certainly doesn’t compare to new titles like 52 and Civil War, or to re-launches like JLA. But it was a success nonetheless, gaining significant increases in sales for ongoing titles despite all trends to the contrary.

(Originally Published at CaptainComics.us on March 2, 2007, One Year After One Year Later)

 

 

New Reviews: Birds of Prey, Exiles and more

It seems like a lot of the comics I read recently had something new going on: new creative teams, new story directions, that sort of thing. So here are some reviews of the first and second issues of something new. 

New Creative Teams:

 
Exiles #90 is the kind of comic that you know whether or not you’re going to like it before you even open the cover. It’s written by Chris Claremont and if his mannerisms annoy you then they’ll annoy you in this issue, too. There’s his sometimes heavy-handed exposition. Then there are his favorite supporting characters that he loves to use in every title, like Roma and Psylocke. But if you like those things (and personally, I’m fond of Psylocke), or if they don’t annoy you all that much, then you might have a good time. The story moves along at a brisk pace. There’s a bit of humor and a bit of action. And there’s a pretty good cliffhanger ending between Psylocke and Sabretooth who have a history going all the way back to the Morlock Mutant Massacre. Even so, this issue comes up short in several ways. Several characters oddly refer to the insect-like Timbreakers as “lizards.” We get a full sparring match to break up the conversation with some action, but a real fight takes place off panel. The best thing about this issue is easily the Paul Pelletier art. And while this issue of Exiles might not a be bad story, the dialogue and plotting issues keep it from being a good one.

 

Wolverine 50: This issue introduces the new creative team of Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi. Over the past two years, Wolverine has seen some great heights and some awful lows. Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s “Enemy of the State” story was one of the best Wolverine stories ever written.
Daniel Way’s “Origins and Endings” was one of the worst. Loeb and Bianchi fall somewhere in the middle. Bianchi is a better fit on Wolverine than he was on Green Lantern. His moody art fits the characters better and he gets in some real menacing panels of Sabretooth.  But I still don’t think that Bianchi is a great artist. Sabretooth looks chunky rather than muscular in the two-page spread which should have been the artist’s chance to show off. Loeb’s story is straightforward action as Wolverine discovers that Sabretooth is living in the Xavier Mansion as part of Rogue’s team of X-Men and goes in to smack him around. It’s a good all-out fight, though we’ve seen it before. In Loeb’s defense, this is the first real Wolverine/Sabretooth fight of the current series so it has been awhile. It’s an okay start, but not more than that.

 

New Story Directions:

 

Birds of Prey 102: I like this new direction. I like having Oracle draw on a number of different superheroines as she needs them. And I like that she has a new opponent in Spy Smasher who is trying to take her down by exposing her rather than by trying to beat her up. I think that the Calculator was a slightly better foe, but I’m okay with Oracle having more than one nemesis. I do hope that the title doesn’t stay with a rotating cast but that Oracle eventually forms a rapport with a new core team. And much to my surprise, I’m hoping that the current Manhunter becomes a part of that new team. I think that there’s a good relationship in there as Huntress would suddenly find herself in the role of the responsible one to the Manhunter’s loose cannon. I don’t need all of the characters to keep coming back. Judomaster is a place-filler and Big Barda is a great guest character but she’s too powerful to be a permanent part of the cast. Whatever direction this title is heading in, I can at least say that I’m enjoying the trip.

 

She-Hulk 15: First things first: I love Greg Horn’s homage to Jim Steranko’s work on Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD. I also love the way that this title approaches all of the new situations that are thrust upon it by the titles around it. Dan Slott does a great job of playing with a scene from Civil War while also keeping character issues from his own title in the spotlight such as Doc Samson’s insistence that She-Hulk also spend some time as Jennifer Walters. And while others may disagree, I love the way that this title jumps with both feet into the new direction of having She-Hulk as an Agent of SHIELD. It’s as if Dan Slott has said, “If this is the direction we’re going in then we might as well have a blast doing it.” And it is a blast- She-Hulk in a SHIELD uniform, She-Hulk para-gliding off the SHIELD heli-carrier, Agent Cheesecake, and the Abomination hanging out in a Horndogs restaurant. There’s a lot of wit in this issue, as there is every time that She-Hulk is at her best.

 

Mostly New Mini-Series:

 

Star Wars: Dark Times 2: The lead character is former Jedi Dass Jennir and his story is an interesting one. He’s a former Jedi, not because he chose to leave the order but because the order no longer exists. And now Dass has to try and make his own way in the world, falling in with smugglers and falling in love. Dass’s new life is a curious balance of trying to stay true to his old ideals while admitting that the old ideals no longer fit the new life. Welles Hartley and Mick Harrison are also doing a good job of building a supporting cast around Dass, surrounding him with interesting aliens. My only complaint has to do with the depiction of Darth Vader. I just don’t like the way that Vader is portrayed in most of the post-Revenge of the Sith stories, whether it’s in the novels or the comics. When we first meet Darth Vader in the movies, he’s a dark, dangerous foe. In Dark Times, and other stories of the same time period, Vader is often portrayed as ineffectual. Here, he’s brooding and indecisive rather than forceful and menacing. I understand that he’s still growing into his role as galactic bogeyman but I admit to preferring him as a full-fledged foe.

 

Samurai: Heaven and Earth Vol. 2 #2: What a great series! The art by Luke Ross is amazing. He draws beautiful landscapes and beautiful people. He captures multiple cultures and multiple emotions. And he makes you wish you were actually there. Ron Marz’ story has a lot going for it as well. The first volume established the depths of the bonds of love between Asukai Shiro and the Lady Yoshida. It’s a great romantic tale as Shiro crosses heaven and earth to get back his lady love. That tale continues in this volume. However, while the first volume featured a lot of driving action, this volume is mixing things up with a bit of twisting action. Promotional art for the second series showed the Sahara desert but Marz ended the first issue with a cliffhanger in which Shiro finds out that Lady Yoshida has boarded a boat bound for the Americas. But just when we think that we’ve abandoned one continent for another, Marz turns us right around bringing us unexpectedly to the third. At first, I was disappointed that we wouldn’t be going to Africa. Now, I’m disappointed that we won’t be going to the Americas. And yet, I can’t help but admire how Marz has twisted the story and the reader around.

(Originally Published,Feb, 02, 2007 at CaptainComics.us)