Fluit Notes

Newish Number Ones: Generation Lost, Mystery Society and S.H.I.E.L.D.

Justice League: Generation Lost (DC)

by Keith Giffen, Judd Winick, Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan

 

I wanted to like Generation Lost.  The original Justice League by Keith Giffen, J.M. De Matteis and Kevin Maguire was one of the titles that drew me into comics.  I have fond memories of these characters and their adventures together.  A great title featuring these characters would have made me giddy.  Even a good title would have made me happy.  Unfortunately, this isn’t a particularly good title. 

 

There are two major flaws with Generation Lost (and yes, I realize that was also true with two of last week’s reviews).  The first has to do with the writing.  Judd Winick’s dialogue is poorly constructed.  The awkward phrasing keeps taking me out of the story.  It doesn’t flow naturally.  I keep hearing echoes of Chazz Palmintieri’s character in “Bullets over Broadway”: “people don’t talk like that.”  You might think that’s a minor problem but it affects everything else.  It makes the characters less believable.  It makes their disagreements feel forced.  It keeps the reader distanced from the story instead of engaged in it. 

 

The other major issue I had was with the basic threat.  The big villain of this series is the recently resurrected Max Lord.  Unfortunately, the story isn’t sure what kind of villain Max Lord is supposed to be.  In the opening scene, he mentally controls two police officers, forcing them to shoot each other.  At that point, he’s little more than a street thug, albeit one who seems to take pleasure in inflicting pain.  However, in the main story, he constructs a machine that will amplify his powers so that he can affect every mind in the world at once.  His big plan is to make the entire world forget who he is so that he can operate behind the scenes without being hunted down for his former crimes.  At this point, he’s the master calculator and world conqueror. 

 

It’s like we’re reading about two different villains.  In one scene, he’s cruel and capricious.  In the other, calculating and conniving.  Now, it’s possible to combine those traits into one truly awful villain, someone who is both Lex Luthor and Joe Chilll, such as the Wild Cards’ Puppetman.  Unfortunately, Giffen and company don’t pull it off.  Why would Max kill the two cops when he could simply make them forget who he was and walk away?  Why draw extra attention to himself with a couple of unnecessary murders before pulling off his big plan?  There’s no common thread or character trait between the two scenes. 

 

Instead, consistent characterization is sacrificed for the needs of the story.  We need a dramatic opening scene so we’ll have Max Lord kill a couple of cops.  We also need a big master villain so we’ll have Max brainwash the entire world.  Max Lord changes as the story dictates.  If he’s already doing that in the first issue, it doesn’t bode well for the longer series. 

 

Mystery Society (IDW)

by Steve Niles, Ashley Wood and Fiona Staples

 

It’s one of those ideas that we’ve seen before: paranormal investigators uncovering the secrets of the world.  Often, they’re working for the government, as in X-Files or Warehouse 13.  Occasionally, they work on their own as private contractors, as they do here.  Yet Steve Niles and company take this familiar concept and make it seem fresh and new.  The Mystery Society is fast-paced, frenetic and fun. 

 

The stars of this series are a married couple named Nick and Anastasia Collins, though Nick also goes by the name Nick Mystery.  We meet Nick first.  He’s dashing and debonair, like a modern Errol Flynn.  He seems to be in complete control of the situation, even as he’s being walked into prison.  Anastasia is smart and beautiful.  She’s also fully capable of kicking some butt, as she does when an intruder invades their apartment looking for Nick.  Their playful banter is reminiscent of Nick and Nora Charles, though it’s updated to the 21^st century when a couple is allowed to be a little more direct about sex.  Most importantly, they’re interesting individually and as a couple.  You feel like you wouldn’t mind spending some time in their company or reading about their adventures.

 

This first issue jumps right in by telling us about their adventures.  A reporter asks Nick about the origin of the Mystery Society.  Nick replies that origin stories are boring and tells the story that got him in trouble with the authorities instead.  I happen to think Nick is right.  I’ve read enough origin stories to share the opinion that most of them are boring.  That’s why second issues (and second superhero movies) are often better than the first.  Niles sidesteps that potential flaw with a wink to the audience and leaps into a straight adventure instead.  Yet, by doing so, he provides a tease that the mystery of the Mystery Society’s origin may just be a story worth telling one day after all.

 

In this particular adventure, Nick infiltrates Area 51.  There are smoke bombs, giant robots, rope climbing, more giant robots, ice bombs and oh yes, playful banter with Anastasia over their com system.  Meanwhile, Anastasia is dealing with her own aforementioned fight scene, giving us a double dose of action.  There are also a couple of nice twists at the end, including a scene in which the test subjects that Nick rescues may just have to rescue him. 

 

It’s not always fair to make comparisons, but the first issue of Mystery Society is every bit as good as BPRD.  I’ll definitely be back for more.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. (Marvel)

by Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver

 

“S.H.I.E.L.D.” is one of those ideas that could be really good or it could be really bad.  The basic premise is that S.H.I.E.L.D., the directorate that protects Earth from all kinds of threats (and no, I’m not going to bother with the acronym), has been around a lot longer than any of us imagined.  It didn’t start in the 1960s.  Or even in the aftermath of World War II.  Instead, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been around for centuries and its former members include such luminaries as Leonardo da Vinci.  Inserting superheroes and a modern spy agency into the history of the world could be awkward or ham-fisted.  But the promotional art for the series showed that it could also be really cool- especially the ad showing the helmet of Galactus sitting on da Vinci’s worktable.

 

The first issue starts slowly.  A young man is recruited off of a New York sidewalk in 1953 by two men in brown suits.  The scene moves at a leisurely pace: one page of establishing shots, one page in the car, a third page on the streets of Rome.

 

The fourth page contains the first big reveal.  Leonid, the young New Yorker, is introduced to a man in a strange helmet.  The helmet guy brings him into a very early elevator and the elevator descends to the Immortal City.  It’s a beautiful cityscape, stretching down as far as the eye can see and featuring architecture from every era and culture.  As Leonid descends into the city, Hickman and Weaver slowly draw us into the story as well.  Leonid is introduced to the high council of S.H.I.E.L.D., more guys in funny helmets.  They are going to tell him the hidden history of the world. 

 

At this point, I’m still not sure what to make of S.H.I.E.L.D.  The story has been more weird than quirky- off-putting instead of intriguing.  Plus, not much has happened before we’re promised a big exposition dump.  I’m not looking forward to a lengthy explanation of the history of the world. 

 

Then I turn the page and my mind explodes.  Hickman and Weaver aren’t going to tell us the history of the world.  They’re going to show us.  Hickman and Weaver teach us the full potential of that simple lesson taught in every Creative Writing 101 class.  We see a Pharaoh in ancient Egypt beat back a battalion of the Brood.  We see a soldier in ancient China face off against a Celestial.  Each hero utters the same simple phrase, “This is not how the world ends.”  It’s both prophecy and defiant declaration.  It encapsulates human bravery and institutional perseverance.  With each scene, my estimation of S.H.I.E.L.D. increases.  I’m being drawn in, almost against my will.  This is masterful stuff. 

 

And that’s only half the story.  The second half gives us Leonardo da Vinci, Galactus, the Night Machine, gravity boots and a pertinent connection between the past and the present.  By the end, I’m practically out of breath.  SHIELD is ambitious, brilliant and beautiful.  I can hardly wait for the next issue. 

Astro City’s Season of Discontent

I wish I didn’t have to say it.  I wish it wasn’t true.  A title that I have long championed is in the midst of a prolonged slump.  Astro City: The Dark Age has gotten so bad that I’ve stopped handing the single issues to my wife when I’m done reading them.  Oh, I’ll finish the story out.  I’ve come this far after all, and I’ve only got two more issues to go.  But my enthusiasm for this story has long since waned. 

 

So what’s the problem with Astro City’s Dark Age? 

 

Well, the most obvious answer is that it’s too long.  Even the title sounds long; the latest issue to hit the stands was Astro City: The Dark Age Book Four #3.  Ouch.  The Dark Age was planned as a 16-issue epic.  Let that sink in for a moment.  That’s longer than the two previous Astro City epics combined: Confession lasted 6 issues, The Tarnished Angel 7.  That’s longer that either of Kurt Busiek’s big epics for Superman or the Avengers: Camelot Falls lasted 10 issues, Avengers Forever 12.  Remember that several of those epics were also criticized for dragging on too long.  In retrospect, The Tarnished Angel and Camelot Falls read much better as completed stories.  They fit together very well when one doesn’t have to worry about delays between issues.  And maybe that will be the case for The Dark Age when all is said and done.  Yet both of those earlier stories were completed in roughly a year and a half (April ’98 to Jan ’00 for Tarnished Angel; Sept. ’06 to Jan. ’08 for Camelot Falls).  In comparison, Astro City: The Dark Age is closing in on its fifth anniversary.  The first issue is cover-dated August 2005.  The final issue is scheduled for an April release and a June 2010 cover-date.  Sixteen issues, almost five years- that’s a long time for any story. 

 

Of course, almost nobody minds if a great story takes a long time.  Sure, there will be some readers who complain about the wait.  But those complaints are kept to a minimum as long as the quality is kept high.  That means that the obvious answer can’t be the only one.  And, to be honest, I wouldn’t be writing this article if I didn’t think there were additional answers.  I think Astro City’s Dark Age has problems in terms of format, perspective and tone.  I think that the length of the story exacerbates those problems and is caused by them.  And I think that’s the real problem.

 

First, I think that Kurt Busiek is struggling to tell two stories at the same time.  On the one hand, he’s trying to tell the story of two brothers, Charles and Royal Williams, who were orphaned.  It’s a very personal story, showing us how the tragedy of their youth impacted the way they interacted with the world as adults.  On the other hand, Busiek is trying to tell a historical retrospective, filling the reader in on the changes to the superhero community through the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.  Early on, those two stories meshed together well.  We saw the world through the eyes of Royal and Charles and the changes we noticed were the ones they witnessed.  That’s a wonderful technique.  Many of the best stories combine the personal with the epic, from Star Wars to Babylon 5. 

 

However, as The Dark Age has progressed, those two stories have diverged.  Charles and Royal have been going through their own changes and the shifts in the superhero community are no longer the ones that they witness directly.  In some cases, the two stories have only tenuous connections.  In other cases, they’re not related at all.  If you’re following and fully engaged in the story of the Williams brothers, the historical perspectives feel like interruptions.  They take you away from the main story.  Unfortunately, the scenes that tell you what’s happening in the superhero community are often more interesting than the story of the Williams brothers.  The superhero changes come with greater significance and frequency, while the story of the Williams brothers seems to drag on.  Astro City has always been good at giving us a glimpse of a greater story.  But, in this case, we rarely want to return to the story we’re supposed to be reading.  It seems tedious by comparison.  The historical retrospective is simultaneously interrupting the main story and making it look bad.  And, oh yeah, that’s a big reason why The Dark Age both is long and feels long.

 

Second, I think that Astro City has lost sight of two of the features that made it great.  One of Astro City’s strengths was its view-from-the-street perspective.  Another was its sense of joy and wonder.  These also happen to be traits that it inherited from Marvels. 

 

Marvels introduced Phil Sheldon, a New York City photographer who took pictures of superheroes.  We saw their world from his perspective.  Astro City had that same perspective.  We saw what a superhero world was like from the point-of-view of a hotel doorman, a woman riding the bus, a father new to town and a public defender.  Astro City did more than that.  We also watched through the eyes of a superhero daughter who wanted to experience real kindergarten, a cartoon lion and a busboy-turned-sidekick.  But even when the protagonist was a superhero, Astro City always managed to keep that view-from-the-street perspective.  We followed a superhero’s dreams in one issue and his date in another, not his battles. 

 

The Dark Age has gotten away from that.  Charles and Royal Williams started out as view-from-the-street protagonists.  They were a beat cop and a minor criminal, and we saw the world through their eyes.  They’ve moved on from there.  But even in the second book, they were relatable as regular guys.  One was a flunky in a super-villain mob.  The other was a newbie in a paramilitary organization.  Yet they moved on from there as well.  The further they’ve moved up the food chain, the further they’ve moved away from the readers.  We can no longer relate to their position, their obsession or their lust for vengeance.  We’ve lost our point-of-view characters.  And, as a result, we’ve lost interest.

 

Astro City was also one of the books that brought a sense of wonder back to comics after the hard-edged approaches inspired by Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns.  It had joy.  It had awe.  It reminded us of what it was like to be a kid dreaming of flying.  It reminded us of how cool it would be to be a superhero.  It also had depth and maturity.  We felt sad for Samaritan even as we wanted to be him.  But we still wanted to be him. 

 

The Dark Age has lost some of that sense of wonder.  It isn’t gone completely.  There are still those cool moments when we can imagine what it would be like to be a superhero.  But that joy is often overshadowed.  The Dark Age has a more pessimistic view, evidenced in its title. This darker tone creates a disconnection for fans looking for that sense of wonder that Astro City once championed.  It creates a further disconnection for fans who don’t happen to think that Ghost Rider and the Punisher heralded the demise of superheroes.  The Blue Shield and Street Angel are cool characters yet The Dark Age sometimes seems to discourage us from liking them or even being fascinated by them.  In a way, The Dark Age is like a grumpy old fan yelling at those young kids to get off of his lawn.  It expresses discontent, when what we used to love about it was its sense of wonder.

 

That isn’t to say The Dark Age has been all bad.  I’m impressed by its creativity.  Kurt Busiek has introduced a whole slew of characters, many of whom represent the milieu of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.  I already mentioned Blue Shield and Street Angel.  Hellhound has a great Ghost Rider vibe.  The Apollo 11 would fit in well with Marvel’s Cosmic comics.  There’s Simon Magus, Starfighter, the Green Man and Mirage. 

 

Astro City’s Dark Age also has a wonderful design sense.  Alex Ross has contributed some of his best covers for this series.  I appreciate the way that each Book has had its own cover dress.  I liked the two or three color palettes for the covers of Book Two.  Plus, I think that artists Alex Ross and Brent Anderson have done a great job of designing the characters.  Simon Magus has a great look.  The Blue Shield is certainly memorable.   And I loved the use of neon in the costume for Mirage.  There’s no question that Astro City has continued to be wonderful to look at it.  It’s a feast for the eyes.  It’s just too bad that the story has so many shortcomings in terms of plot, point-of-view, tone and length. 

 

Who knows?  Maybe I’ll change my mind if I re-read this epic.  As I noted earlier, it worked for The Tarnished Angel and Camelot Falls.  But, for now, I’m deeply disappointed in The Dark Age.  

 

 

 

Five First Issues of CyberForce

 Fifteen months ago, I took a look at five first issues of Wildcats and Youngblood.  It was appropriate at the time as both of those original Image titles had recently come out with new number ones.  Jason Marconnet, aka Lime Coke, enjoyed those articles so much that he asked me to do a similar survey with other Image or ‘90s titles.  It’s taken me fifteen months to get around to it, but never let it be said that I let down a reader.  So, for Lime Coke, for me, and for everyone else, here are reviews of five first issues of Marc Silvestri’s creation CyberForce, and it’s spin-off StykeForce.   

 

CyberForce #1 (1992)

by Marc and Eric Silvestri

 

Welcome to the Image Revolution!  Marc Silvestri was one of seven artists who left Marvel Comics in 1992 in order to take control of their own careers and start their own company.  Silvestri had already established himself with popular runs as the regular penciler on Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine.  He even contributed art to the famous X-Men arcade game that debuted out in 1992, helping to define the look of the X-Men for a generation of fans. 

 

For his initial Image title, Marc Silvestri stayed in his comfort zone.  He created a new team called CyberForce.  However, his new team had a lot in common with his old team, the X-Men.  There are five characters featured on the cover of the first issue and each of them bears a strong resemblance to one of the X-Men.  There are a few key differences- Stryker has four arms, Ripclaw is a Native American- but the initial resemblance is- dare I say it- uncanny.  Silvestri even calls his characters “mutants,” though in this case they are also cybernetically enhanced (hence the name, CyberForce). The familiar building blocks aren’t necessarily a problem.  Other characters have grown from imitations, parodies or homages to become fully realized creations such as Captain Marvel, Cerebus, Savage Dragon and The Authority.    

 

Marc Silvestri and his brother Eric craft an interesting world and a strong opening story around these central characters.  That includes some interesting supporting characters.  The first character we meet is Velocity, a teenaged girl on the run from a private military who is rescued by CyberForce’s Ripclaw.  There’s a superficial resemblance to the X-Men’s Jubilee- teenage girl, runaway, befriends the gruff guy with the claws.  However, Velocity has different powers (speed) and a different back-story (she was abused).  We also meet two boys, Chip and Timmie.  Chip is a teenaged genius.  Timmie looks like a little boy, but he’s actually an android.  These younger characters also help give CyberForce their own identity.  They’re more like a band of refugees than a superhero team.

 

Silvestri also introduces a strong cast of villains.  The first is Ballistic, a cybernetically enhanced bounty hunter who is trying to capture Velocity.  Then there’s a reference to Gammerung, either a person or an organization, dedicated to killing mutants.  Next up is Mother May I.  She’s the head of Cyberdata, the organization that claims to have created all of the cyber-mutants and that still wants to control them.  Mother May I is a cyborg herself, with a unique blue Cleopatra look.  She’s one of the best villains in any of the early Image titles.  Finally, Ballistic comes back with an as-yet-unnamed squad of mutant villains who all work as enforcers for Cyberdata.

 

These different villains and supporting characters show that the world of CyberForce is nearly as multi-faceted as our own.  One of the other secondary characters is Bluestone, a mutant running for political office (although there’s some confusion in that he’s running for mayor on one page and then called a senator on another).  That gives us a whole range of mutants and political perspectives- those who are open and attempting to engage in public life, those who are in hiding, those who want to kill them and those who want to capture and control them.  It makes for a much, more complex and interesting world than many other superhero stories.  Altogether, it’s a great introduction to new characters, a new team and a new world.

 

CyberForce #1 (1993)

by Marc Silvestri, Eric Silvestri and Scott Williams

 

Unfortunately, the second CyberForce #1 isn’t as good as the first one.  The main problem is that it’s really a continuation of the recently completed mini-series.  The initial Image titles were all popular.  Some of them were set up as ongoing series from the beginning.  But most had been planned as mini-series.  Youngblood stayed with the original numbering as it extended from a mini-series into an ongoing.  On the other side, Savage Dragon and CyberForce opened up the ongoing series with a new number one. 

 

Yet, despite the new number one, this issue of CyberForce is really part of a continuing story.  Its fine as an installment of a larger story if you’ve already read the initial mini-series and the zero issue that was published in-between.  But it doesn’t really work as a first issue.  The previous first issue shared back-story such as the abuse Velocity experienced as a child.  But that was presented as new information for the reader, even if it’s in the past for the character.  In this issue, the characters also make numerous references to earlier events.  The multiple references make this issue exposition-heavy.  Plus, some of the references are oblique, telling you that something happened in the previous stories but not what.  As a reader, you definitely feel as if you’ve missed something. 

 

This is especially true of a scene in which Stryker apparently attempts to recruit Ballistic into CyberForce.  Stryker explains what happened- they removed an implant that was forcing Ballistic to work for CyberData.  But the scene works much better and carries much greater emotional weight if you’ve read the previous story.  It’s a good piece of Ballistic’s overall arc but it’s an awkward introduction to the character for a new reader. 

 

Another problem is the sub-plot in which Ripclaw is experiencing bad dreams. The visions feature two other people- a man with long green hair and a woman with big red hair.  By the end of the issue, it’s revealed that the green-haired guy is Warblade, from Wildcats, and the red-haired girl is named Misery.  In the back, there’s an ad for an upcoming crossover between CyberForce and Wildcats in which misery splits the two men and the two teams. 

 

It isn’t a bad thing to have a B or C plot setting up storylines down the road.  However, this issue of CyberForce doesn’t really have an A plot.  The other part of the story is a training exercise, helping Velocity acclimate to the team.  The result is that one plot looks back at the previous story and the other plot looks ahead to an upcoming crossover.  Nothing of importance actually happens in this particular issue.  It’s truly a middle issue and not a first issue.  Yet, even as a middle issue, it fails to deliver anything on its own.

 

Codename: StrykeForce #1 (1995)

by Marc Silvestri, Brandon Peterson and Josef Rubinstein

 

Image was wildly successful and many of the initial titles launched spin-offs.  Youngblood led to Brigade, Wildcats to Stormwatch, Savage Dragon to Freak Force.  And yes, CyberForce led to a spin-off team, Codename: StrykeForce.  After clashing with Heatwave over leadership of CyberForce, Stryker struck out on his own.  His new team would be less defensive and more proactive (now where else have we heard that one?).  They would be more like a black ops team, taking the fight to the villains on their own turf.  They would also get paid.  That contradiction aside, this is a very strong opening issue. 

 

The first scene echoes Stryker’s introduction in CyberForce #1.  In that issue, he was assigned to watch Bluestone, the mutant political figure running for mayor.  Stryker saved Bluestone from assassination.  In this issue, Stryker has been paid to watch out for “President Bill” as he listens to a speech by Mikhail Gorbachev.  And yes, once again, Stryker stops an assassination attempt.  It’s a great heroic moment for Stryker, and a strong introduction to the lead character.

 

This first issue also does a good job of introducing the other members of the team.  Their introductions are spread throughout the issue as Stryker calls on them at certain junctures of this mission and the next.  That keeps the reader from being overwhelmed by meeting an entire team all at once.  Marc Silvestri had used a similar effect in the first issue of CyberForce- introducing each member of the team one at a time- but the technique is even more effective here as they’re all connected to one main incident. 

 

First up is Icarus, who flies and looks a lot like Nate Grey.  Then there’s Anvil, one of my favorite characters in the world of CyberForce.  He’s short and squat, built like an anvil and hard as iron.  He’s sort of a mixture of the Thing, Puck and Wolverine but he’s not any one of them.  He is truly his own character.  There’s Bloodbow, an albino, elven archer.  There’s Tempest, the token girl, who apparently has weather powers.  And there’s Killrazor, a villain who’s willing to work with the good guys for a price. 

 

There’s also a super-villain.  In one sense, he’s like every other super-villain, berating his henchmen and cackling about plans to conquer the world.  But Silvestri and company at least try to drape him in mystery.  He refuses to mention his name, telling a group of hostages that they don’t need to know and insisting that all of his lackeys call him “sir.”   It doesn’t make the boss as memorable as CyberForce’s Mother May I- that’s also the downside to not having a name- but it’s at least an attempt to make him different.

 

I also like the Brandon Peterson art.  He does a good job of weaving Silvestri and Jim Lee influences so that this title fits in with the general Image vibe.  His characters are a little more muscled-up than Silvestri’s but that fits the tone of this team.  And he does a great job with panel lay-out and story-telling.  There’s a great contrast on two pages- one which very clearly depicts Gorbachev giving a speech and another which coyly hides “President Bill” in Stryker’s shadow.  There’s also some good action scenes with planes, missiles, submarines and torpedoes.

 

CyberForce had more of a team feeling than StrykeForce.  This is like Stryker and the Jordanaires.  But other than that, it’s a very well done first issue- possibly the best in the batch.

 

Strykeforce #1 (2004)

by Jay Faerber, Tyler Kirkham and Marco Alquiza

 

We go from arguably the best first issue to arguably the worst.  I apologize in advance to all involved.  I’m a huge fan of Jay Faerber’s creator-owned work at Image (Noble Causes, Dynamo 5, Urban Myths) but this Top Cow mini-series is a turkey.  And Tyler Kirkham is a good artist on other titles but it’s hard to defend his work here. 

 

The main problem has to do with the company itself.  It had been a dozen years since CyberForce had hit the stage and nine years since they launched the successful StrykeForce spin-off.  In the meantime, a lot of other things had happened for Marc Silvestri.  CyberForce became a victim of the superhero glut.  There were a lot of titles and a lot of teams.  And CyberForce struggled to remain as popular as the X-Men and the Wildcats or as relevant as Gen13. 

 

Meanwhile, Marc Silvestri expanded his little corner of the Image universe by adding new artists, new characters and new titles.  One of those artists was Michael Turner.  And one of those new characters was Witchblade.  Witchblade was more of a supernatural superhero than CyberForce.  She became very successful, arguably the most popular “bad girl” in comics.  Silvestri slowly transitioned his output to cater to those fans.  CyberForce and StrykeForce made way for Witchblade spin-offs like Darkness or imitations like Aphrodite XI.  The imprint became known as Top Cow and Top Cow became known for “bad girl” art. 

 

By 2004, comic books had bounced back.  The time seemed right for a resurrection of Top Cow’s superhero characters, most of whom had sat on the shelf for several years while Silvestri’s imprint focused on “bad girls” and “good girls” like Witchblade and Tomb Raider. 

 

Unfortunately, Top Cow’s house style infiltrated their newest superhero title as well.  It’s not that the earlier superwomen had been ugly.  Cyblade was drawn to be beautiful and Velocity was cute.  But they pretty much received the same treatment as the guys, and they at least wore full costumes.  That wasn’t the case this time around.  Jay Faerber introduced four new characters to this version of Strykeforce, including two women.  One was Sly who had the power to turn invisible.  Naturally, she could only turn herself invisible and not other objects.  Like her clothes.  Which meant that she spent half of the issue walking around naked.  The other woman was Tia Katana.  Her power was a magic tattoo from which she could draw a sword (or technically, a katana).  However, in order to reach her sword, she had to wear next to nothing (or occasionally nothing) on her torso.  Apparently, just to make sure she was consistent, she also wore next to nothing on her lower half.  That there were in-story reasons for the two women to spend the whole issue half-naked or half the issue completely naked isn’t a defense.  In actuality, it makes it worse.  It shows that they thought they needed an excuse. 

 

It’s such a major flaw that it undercuts an otherwise decent story.  Stryker and his team are hired to rescue some corporate executives who are being held as hostages in the mountain jungles of Peru.  They’re successful.  But they’re wanted by the FBI for being independent operatives.  And the FBI has planted a spy on the team.  That’s a good set-up for a good story.  It’s too bad that Strykeforce couldn’t get out of its own juvenile way.  And Top Cow wonders why it developed its reputation. 

 

Cyberforce #1 (2006)

by Ron Marz and Pat Lee

 

The latest first issue of Cyberforce serves as a retroactive lesson for the 1993 first issue.  By this point, Cyberforce has a long history and Ron Marz has to let the readers know some of that history in order for this issue to make sense.  Then, this is also the first issue in an era when most stories are written, at least partially, for the trade.  So Marz has to look at setting up a longer story over several issues.  That means that this issue has to simultaneously look backward and forward while still being a satisfying issue on its own.  That’s the test that the 1993 issue failed.  But it’s a test that this 2006 issue passes with flying colors.

 

In terms of looking backwards, Marz gathers the three female members of the team for a dinner party.  They’re wearing evening gowns and drinking wine- showing that female characters can look sexy and beautiful, without being exploitative.  They’re drinking to the end of Cyberforce.  The team is fractured and devoid of any future.  The women are agreed: it’s best to end the team now.  There’s just one last piece of business: Ripclaw has gone rabid.  They feel that they need to clean up their own mess, and kill off their own teammate.  The scene certainly shares exposition- for example, we learn that Velocity and Ripclaw had become lovers- but it does so in a way that resonates emotionally.

 

In terms of looking forward, Marz uses the sub-plot to do that.  Marz opens with a scene from a far-space station.  The sentries complain that there’s nothing to do out here on the edge of civilization before being run over by a massive armada.  That oncoming armada hangs over the rest of the story.  How can a dispirited and disbanded Cyberforce stand up to such a force? 

 

Then, the story is satisfying in its own right.  At least one major bit of action is completed in this issue.  The rabid Ripclaw attacks and the three women of Cyberforce- Ballistic, Cyblade and Velocity- fight to take him down.  The rabid Ripclaw appears to have won.  Ballistic and Cyblade have been taken out of the fight.  Ripclaw has Velcoity at his mercy.  He threatens to kill her, or rape her.  And then, another claw bursts through his chest.  The rogue Ripclaw falls to the ground and another Ripclaw is revealed behind him.  The rogue was a faulty imitation.  The real Ripclaw is back and he just might be able to help the women defeat the alien armada that they don’t even know about yet. 

 

That’s both a complete incident- the defeat of the rabid Ripclaw- and also a tease of a larger story yet to be told- the gathering of Cyberforce and the battle against the alien armada.  That makes for a great first issue. 

 

Pat Lee’s art is also perfect for this story.  It’s a little dark and rough around the edges, wonderfully matched to the story of a shabby super-team on its last legs. 

Trade Paperback Observations: Shaman Warrior

Shaman Warrior

by Park Joong-Ki

 

I have a mild interest in manga.  I’ll read it from time and time, and not just “Lone Wolf and Cub” though that’s the only series that I’ve followed extensively.  But I’m not devoted to it.  I don’t find it to be some panacea for the deficits of North American comics.  Sure, there’s a wide range of genres.  But that’s true as well of North American comics for those who are willing to look.  There’s also a range of quality: there’s good manga and great manga; there’s bad manga and awful manga. 

 

Shaman Warrior doesn’t fit any of those categories.  First of all, it’s technically not even manga.  Its official term is ‘manwha’ because it comes from Korea instead of Japan (though the difference in sensibilities is about as minimal as the difference between American and Canadian comics).  Secondly, it’s neither awful nor great.  It’s mediocre.  It’s got the potential to be really good.  But it doesn’t quite get there. 

 

Honestly, I’d love to have been the editor on this book.  I realize that sounds a little egotistical, claiming that I know what’s better for Shaman Warrior than its creator and its original editor.  Yet I couldn’t help thinking, “I wish this book had done this differently or this instead; it would have been so much more interesting.” 

 

The first problem is the pace.  Shaman Warrior is supposed to be an action book (as if you couldn’t tell by the title) yet it moves at a glacial speed, especially in the action scenes.  Comic book fans complained about the decompressed story-telling of U.S. comics but Shaman Warrior puts most of those to shame.  It took ten pages just to set up the opening scene: shaman and bodyguard walk into dusty outpost, give money to beggar, sit down in bar, overhear local ruffians picking on somebody weaker than them, verbal confrontation between bodyguard and local ruffian, local ruffian taunts shaman, then bodyguard starts the initial action sequence.  That’s right, it took ten pages to set up a bar fight. 

 

Unfortunately, the fight scene itself moves even slower.  The whole fight lasts 80 pages.  Literally.  It doesn’t all take place in the bar.  The shaman’s bodyguard beats up the local ruffian.  Then they’re ambushed outside by a whole bunch of local ruffians.  Then, the leader of the local ruffians jumps in.  In a way, it’s more like two fight scenes back to back, one with the gang of ruffians and a second with the leader.  Yet it’s still 80 pages from the first punch to the quiet aftermath.

 

The second problem is that we have no vested interest in the characters who are a part of the fight.  Sure, there are great panels of muscles flexing and swords flashing.  But why should we care about who wins and who loses when the only thing the hero has done is give a couple of coins to a local beggar and the only thing the villain has done is be aggressively rude to his waiter?  There’s a conflict there, but not one to sustain our interest for 80 pages.  A fight needs to be about something.  That’s why Kazuo Koike and Gojima save their big 100 page fight scenes in Lone Wolf and Cub until we’re 20 volunes in and already emotionally vested in the characters.  That’s why Peter Jackson shows the women and children cowering behind the battle lines in The Lord of the Rings and has characters make comments like “I’m fighting for the Shire.”  There’s a reason for the character to fight and there’s a reason for us to care who wins. 

 

Park Joong-Ki doesn’t give us a reason to care until after the fight is over.  That’s when he gives us a flashback showing us the relationship between the shaman and the warrior.  That’s when we see the shaman receive orders from the general.  That’s when the shaman makes the bodyguard promise to watch over his child if he should die while on the mission.  Unfortunately, Joong-Ki doesn’t give us those character motivations until we’re already over 100 pages into the book.

 

Shaman Warrior would have been a lot stronger if the fight scenes were shortened (I’d cut them in half, 20 pages for each phase of the fight and 40 pages overall is enough) and if the character motivation scenes were intercut with the fight scenes.  Naturally, you don’t want to open with 20 pages of exposition anymore than with 80 pages of a single fight scene.  Yet by cutting back and forth between the present-day fight and the earlier character scenes, the author could have given us the action we crave at the same time as he gave us a reason to care. Knowing that the shaman is on a mission for the general would add tension to the fight with the local ruffians: they’re getting in the way of something with military and possibly national significance.  That way we would know that the shaman and his bodyguard have to win. 

 

I had another problem with Shaman Warrior though this particular observation may be more about me than it is about the book.  It might even have something to do with my own cultural inheritance.  A Korean might not have had the same confusion.  The issue is that the gender of the shaman isn’t clear at first.  The shaman is hooded, shadows cover the face.  When the hood is removed, the shaman has long hair and fine features.  The main villain- who turns out to be a rival shaman- also has long hair, fine features and large round earrings.  As a North American, those characteristics strike me as feminine.   I thought the shaman and the rival were both women, though I was never entirely sure. 

 

I actually liked that possibility.  I mentally toyed with the idea that this was a world in which only women could have the powers of a shaman- kind of like Red Star where the men are soldiers and the women are sorcerers.  It would have been an interesting premise for a sword and sorcery comic.  And it would have given an added dimension to the relationship between the shaman and the bodyguard.  There could have been an unrequited love simmering beneath a soldier’s devotion. 

 

Unfortunately, Park Joong-Ki didn’t take that path.  The scene with the shaman’s child struck me as especially feminine with long hair pulled back into a pony tail and shirt half open.  But in the next scene, the rival shaman specifically refers to the hero of the story as “he.”  That removed any doubt and confusion, not but my interest.  As I mentioned earlier, I couldn’t help but think the story would have been more interesting the other way. 

 

However, the problem is more significant.  After being let down in my momentary hope and expectation, I realized that Shaman Warrior doesn’t include any women at all.  It’s not just that the shaman and his rival are both men.  There are no women.  The baby’s mother is never shown or even mentioned.  This is kind of odd, considering that the baby is a newborn who doesn’t even have a name yet.  The shaman discusses naming the baby and his plans for how to raise the baby, but doesn’t bother to mention why the mother is out of the picture.  That kind of information could add to the character’s depth and motivation. 

 

Perhaps I’m not being fair, judging Shaman Warrior based on what it could have been instead of what it was.  It’s not a habit I want to encourage.  But that’s Shaman Warrior.  It scratches the surface of something interesting but is so caught up in 40 page fight scenes (there are more of them later in the book) that it never does anything with them.  I haven’t even covered every incident of missed potential.  Why does the beggar later try to kill the shaman?  Was he some kind of spy?  What’s the significance of the shaman having the eyes of a tiger or a wolf?  How does that relate to his powers?  I started skimming through the fight scenes, wishing for them to be over in the hopes of finding characterization, motivation and answers. 

 

Shaman Warrior isn’t an awful book.  It’s beautiful and it has great potential.  But it left me wanting more than it delivered, instead of wanting to read the next volume.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

A Month of Trade Paperback Reviews Part Three: B.P.R.D., Batman and more…

B.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth and The Soul of Venice

by Mike Mignola and others

B.P.R.D. is one of the few spin-offs that may be even better than the parent title. The Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense comes out of the world of Hellboy. The main stories take place after Hellboy has left the Bureau, focusing on the friends and teammates that he left behind. Secondary stories occasionally take place earlier in the chronology, while still focusing on the solo adventures of the co-stars. It works really well. Rather than reading like the Knights of the Round Table without King Arthur, the other characters of this world are given a chance to shine. The group truly becomes a team of equals rather than a supporting cast. A lot of different artists contribute to these volumes. Each reader will have favorites and others that the reader doesn’t enjoy as much. For me, I wasn’t impressed with Derek Thompson’s work and didn’t think Scott Kolins’ style was the right fit. Yet I loved Ryan Sook’s take on the characters and I thought that some of the very different approaches, such as that of Adam Pollina, brought a fascinating new look.

Batman: Hush Vol. 1 and 2

by Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee and Scott Williams

Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee each have their share of detractors so I heard a lot of negative reactions to Hush when it first came out. As a result, I went in with fairly low expectations, more out of idle curiosity than general interest. To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. I was very impressed. This was a great Batman story, every bit as good as Strange Apparitions that I reviewed last week. Jeph Loeb does a great job of using each issue to focus on one or two villains or supporting characters while still moving the overall story forward. We get a great succession of villains, from Killer Croc to Poison Ivy to the Joker. We get some great scenes with Batman’s sometime teammates like Huntress and Superman. And there’s even a little romance with both Catwoman and Talia making their advances on Batman. I think that Loeb even does a good job with some of the smaller scenes. I especially appreciated the inclusion of Lois Lane and the depiction of Clark Kent. The Jim Lee art is also great. It’s big and bold as it should be for a story like this. Lee also does a great job of using a second style of softer charcoal drawings for depicting flashbacks. That isn’t to say that Hush is perfect. I have a few minor complaints. I didn’t like Lee’s new costume for the Huntress when I first saw it and I still don’t; it’s completely ridiculous. And this story takes place while Lex Luthor is supposed to be President of the United States, but that’s more a fault of DC in general than of this individual story. Yet, despite a few quibbles here and there, I was very pleased with Hush.

New X-Men Vol. 1-6

by Grant Morrison and others

I don’t think anybody has the same reaction to Grant Morrison’s New X-Men that I do. I think that I can best describe it by discussing German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht believed in the theatre of ideas- that the role of a play was to educate more than it was to entertain. Brecht would intentionally disrupt his audience’s willing suspension of disbelief so that the audience would think about his work critically and intellectually. It’s an interesting approach but it often came at the expense of story and characterization. There’s a reason why, out of Brecht’s many plays, The Threepenny Opera is the only one that’s still performed regularly. I feel like Grant Morrison’s X-Men is like that. It’s about the ideas- they come at the reader fast and furious on almost every page. But the effect, on me at least, is that I become focused on evaluating the ideas instead of enjoying the stories. I don’t know if this was intentional on Morrison’s part, as it was for Brecht. I just know that I spend so much time noticing the ideas that the story becomes secondary and my enjoyment of that story is diminished and interrupted. Plus, the flaws in Morrison’s work stand out to me more because I am primarily engaged critically and intellectually. It’s an interesting approach but it almost backfires in terms of entertaining the audience.

Yet, I found I was being drawn into the story almost in spite of myself. Even while I evaluated the quality of the ideas, groaned in response to some faulty characterization or an unnecessary ret-con, I found that I couldn’t wait to read the next volume. I wanted to see how the X-Men would deal with the many changes they were experiencing. I wanted to see how the new students would be integrated into the school. I wanted to see what happened next. There were still moments that pulled me out of the story- Jean Grey letting Fantomex escape because she thought he looked sexy is one such moment- but as I read I found that it was easier for me to get back into it. I was able to focus on the things that I was enjoying and worry less about the things I wasn’t. Reading these trades gave me an appreciation, even an admiration, for these stories that I didn’t have when they first came out.

This was especially true when the series switched to Chris Bachalo and Phil Jimenez as the regular artists instead of Frank Quitely and Igor Kordey. I’ve come to appreciate Frank Quitely from his later work on Sandman: Endless Nights and All-Star Superman but his distorted anatomy is often ugly and distracting. Yet, I eventually got used to it and I thought it worked very well for his later stories such as Riot at Xavier’s. Chris Bachalo does a great job on his arc. I even liked Fantomex just a little bit. And Phil Jimenez is great. I don’t usually associate Jimenez with the X-Men but he was a great fit.

So what about the ideas? There are some that I really like. The introduction of secondary mutation is a strong step forward. Having Professor X out himself as a mutant mutant publicly is a step that should have been taken years ago. And Morrison has some great ideas for new powers, such as the mutant with a sun for a brain and the hive mind telepaths. There’s also a nice blend of ideas from other sources. Morrison brings in the school atmosphere and leather uniforms from the movies (though some of Quitely’s designs are too bulky). He explores some of the same territory as the Wild Cards novels, bringing in the ideas of mutants with deformities or minimal powers (called Jokers and Deuces in the Wild Cards universe). He also takes some ideas introduced by earlier writers but then explores them more fully- such as having Cyclops flirt with a telepath who has a dark streak in her. Altogether, Morrison does a great job of establishing mutants as a minority, complete with their own sub-culture and atmosphere. Of course, there are also ideas I don’t like- Professor X killing his twin in utero, the unnecessary ret-con of the Weapon X program as the Weapon Plus program and the almost anti-human stance taken by Jean Grey and others. But now, with the perspective of time, I find that there’s more about Morrison’s X-Men that I like than dislike.

World without a Superman

by Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern and more

World Without a Superman is the middle act of a larger story, following on the heels of The Death of Superman and leading up to The Reign of the Supermen. That makes it an occasionally quiet story. Yet those quiet moments are actually the ones when this story is at its strongest. Lois Lane’s quiet grief, the way in which Jonathan and Martha Kent reach out to her, Supergirl’s confusion- these are the best parts of the story. The story suffers, however, when it strays too far from these central supporting characters. I don’t find the denizens of Underworld or the Newsboy Legion and Cadmus clones nearly as interesting as the writers seem to. I understand their presence- they each bring action and tension to the story in terms of a flood and a grave robbery- but they shouldn’t have been allowed to take over the story as much as they did.

Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape

by Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturgges, Tony Akins and Andrew Pepoy

Jack of Fables isn’t quite as good a spin-off as BPRD, but it’s still much better than I expected it to be. Willingham and company do a great job of introducing an eclectic supporting cast, bringing in the stars of Nursery Rhymes and forgotten stories to complement the star of Nursery Rhymes and Fables. The characters are distinctive, even in the short time that they’re introduced. The plot is interesting as well. Jack was kidnapped and confined to a prison neighborhood. But Jack doesn’t like to be confined. He leads the Fables in an escape attempt which, naturally, doesn’t go nearly as well as planned. And yet, it doesn’t go as badly as could have been expected either. Jack is crazy enough to be brilliant in his own way, and random enough that his enemies don’t know what to do with him. There are also some great little touches that make the book an even more enjoyable experience. I especially appreciated the next issue blurbs which contained Jack’s bragging about what he expected to happen in the next installment. It was intentionally inaccurate at times as things didn’t always to the way Jack would have wanted them to, yet it did a great job of informing us about Jack’s character which is more important in the big picture.

Buffy Omnibus Vol. 5 and 6

These two volumes of Buffy coincide with seasons four and five of the television show, as Buffy and her friends start new lives in college. There are some wonderful short stories, particularly in volume six, focusing on Buffy’s memories of Angel and her relationship with Riley as well as supporting characters like Giles, Jonathan, Willow and Tara. There are also some excellent longer arcs. Writers like Jane Espenson (of the tv show) and Christopher Golden do a great job of filling in the summers between the seasons. We get to see characters react to big events and process them, without wallowing in looking backwards. The stories become excellent bridges, showcasing the changes that characters go through from one season to the next. Some of the highlights are Faith’s forays into Buffy’s dreams and Willow re-defining her relationship with Xander as more than a sidekick in volume five, and Giles’ struggles to find a place in life now that he’s no longer a librarian and the insertion of Dawn into earlier stories in volume six. Unlike most licensed properties, we learn a lot about these characters as we delve into under-explored aspects of their lives. There are some also great villains like Vraka, the big demon who becomes an ally of convenience in “The Blood of Carthage,” the rogue agent of the Council who wants to kill Angel in the Buffy/Angel crossover and the Japanese vampire who has an interesting connection to a missing slayer of the 19^th century in “False Memories.” There are a few missteps. I enjoyed the Oz story but the art on it was a little choppy. Some events and characters are inserted awkwardly as the comics try to keep pace with the show- Tara and Anya in particular seem to appear out of nowhere. Yet these volumes work really well as a collection, capturing the feel of seasons four and five while telling stories that are all their own.

Whew! That’s a lot of reviews. I hope you can stand one more week of this…

500!

With the current countdown to Uncanny X-Men #500, I thought it would be fun to take a look at Marvel’s previous 500^th issues for Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and the Avengers.

Amazing Spider-Man #500

by J. Michael Straczynski, John Romita Sr. and John Romita Jr., December 2003

I really liked this comic book. I think it had some nice moments. And I think it accomplished exactly what it set out to do.

A lot of that has to do with me. In 2003, I was not a regular reader of Spider-Man. For that matter, I don’t know that I’ve ever been a regular reader of Spider-Man but I hadn’t even been an irregular reader of Spider-Man since I was a youth in the mid-‘80s. So I happily ignored the Clone Saga and John Byrne’s Chapter One and all of the bad stories that Spider-Man struggled through. And I blissfully ignored the early stories by Straczynski and Romita. However, I did notice that their run was causing a lot of discussion. Some Spider-Man fans seemed to hate it. They hated that there were new characters and supernatural guest-stars and a potentially new mystical origin for Spider-Man. From my perspective, it seemed that they hated that it was new. Meanwhile, other Spider-Man fans seemed to love it. They waxed eloquently about the dialogue and the characterization and the art. And the fans who seemed to love the new Straczynski Spider-Man were fans whose opinions I respected. My blissful ignorance was beginning to become slight curiosity.

And then Amazing Spider-Man #500 arrived on the stands. It was an anniversary issue with a lot of promotion behind it. There were a lot of issues lying around and it seemed like a good jumping-on point. Plus, there was the awesome J. Scott Campbell cover with Spider-Man and Mary Jane swinging over the heads of a whole host of villains. I’ve loved Campbell’s work before and his Joker cover had even enticed me into buying an issue of Batman’s No Man’s Land. That Campbell cover became the final enticement I was looking for. I bought Amazing Spider-Man, the first issue of Spider-Man that I had bought in over 15 years.

The issue opens with two scenes being told concurrently. The one scene is of Spider-Man standing off against a squad of police officers in full riot gear. The other scene is Peter Parker’s recollections of his start as Spider-Man. It’s a nice scene, re-telling Spider-Man’s origin while keeping some tension in the present. The scene then transitions into a battle between Spider-Man and the swat team. While Spider-Man’s body fights on, his mind is brought on a journey of discovery, remembering significant fights from the past. We’re treated to quick scenes in which Spider-Man squares off against the Sandman, the Vulture, the Lizard and Electro. Spider-Man relives other important moments in his life, such as the time that he was trapped under a great weight by Doctor Octopus and the death of his first love Gwen Stacy. The mental/mystical journey finally brings Spider-Man into a great battle with all of his former villains at once.

Now, remember, I’m not a life-long Spider-Man fan who’d been reading the title for decades. I have never read The Master Planner Saga or the Death of Gwen Stacy. I was aware of both of those stories thanks to fan discussions and “best of” lists, but that was about it. So those scenes didn’t appeal to me on a nostalgia level as they may have for some other readers. But I enjoyed them even without that. The scenes were constructed well enough, and tied together fluidly enough, that I didn’t need the nostalgia buzz in order to appreciate them. On the other hand, I wasn’t exactly a new reader to comics. I’d been reading comics for years and was well familiar with Spider-Man’s history and origin. So it wasn’t like I needed a primer on who he was or where he came from. Yet, even though I didn’t need a re-telling of Spider-Man’s origin, I enjoyed it as I read it. It wasn’t presented as something you needed to know. It was presented as something that Peter Parker was thinking about and reflecting on during an important time in his life. So I neither felt talked down to nor taken for granted. I found that to be a pretty compelling- and rare- balance.

And all of that led to four moments that were truly excellent. The first is the aforementioned battle against all of Spider-Man’s former villains at once. It’s simply a great double splash page, intentionally cluttered and rich with images to look at. I remember poring over it for a long time, trying to see how many of these villains I actually knew. That double-splash page was immediately followed by another great moment. Spider-Man has often been presented as a lone hero, who lacks the adulation of the public and the respect of his peers. That’s not the case here. Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, the Thing and Thor show up to help put an end to things. And when they do, they listen to Spider-Man, take his lead, and treat him as an equal. It was an especially gratifying scene after the opening stand-off with the police.

Both of those scenes were about Spider-Man- his relationship with villains and with other heroes. But the true star of Spider-Man is not the guy in the mask. It’s Peter Parker. The closing two moments were about Peter and they were even better than the ones about Spidey. The third excellent moment was a gift from Dr. Strange in which the master of mystical arts gave Peter the opportunity to spend five minutes with his deceased uncle Ben. It was a truly touching scene in which they talked about guilt, forgiveness and responsibility. And it’s a scene that has always defined Spider-Man for me. I’ve heard writers and editors explain that Spider-Man is motivated by guilt over the death of his uncle. But I agree with Straczynski: Uncle Ben isn’t a source of shame for Spider-Man he’s a source of inspiration. Spider-Man isn’t being driven by guilt into doing the right thing, he’s inspired to use his power responsibly because that’s the kind of person his uncle raised him to be. Finally, having said good-bye to his uncle, Peter Parker returns to his apartment and says good-night to his wife. Straczynski and Romita Sr. give us a short scene, only two panels long, which sums up their relationship and their love. It’s a great moment to end on as Peter professes his love for Mary Jane and she professes her love for him. Gwen Stacy may have been his first love, as we were reminded in montage of past moments, but MJ is his true love, his wife and his best friend.

This was a great issue. I liked it at the time and I think it’s even better flipping through it now, years after the fact. Plus, it did what it set out to do. It convinced me, somebody who didn’t read Spider-Man on a regular basis, to start. I bought the following issues and soon went back and bought trade collections of earlier issues.

Fantastic Four #500 by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo,

September 2003

For Fantastic Four, Waid and Wieringo took a different approach than that of JMS and JRJR on Amazing Spider-Man. The 500^th issue is the culmination of “Unthinkable.” Rather than trying to create an intentional jumping-on point for new readers, Waid and Wieringo aimed for crafting a classic conclusion to an epic story. New readers and returning readers, who tend to pick up anniversary issues like this, are entering in the middle of the story. But they’re entering into the middle of a story that is epic, tragic and dynamic. And that may be a better way of presenting a series that slowing down to get new readers up to speed.

“Unthinkable” is the story of Doctor Doom. Long the chief foe of the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom “has recently abandoned his technological prowess for the study and mastery of witchcraft.” Or, so says the summary at the beginning of the issue. Doom, driven by his rivalry with Reed Richards as well as his own pride and jealousy, has finally admitted that he can’t beat Reed’s technological know-how and scientific savvy with his own. So Doom has traded it all in that he might beat Reed in other arena, one in which Reed has no expertise: magic. What the summary didn’t mention is that in order to initiate this change, Doom had to sacrifice the one woman he had ever loved. The story started several issues ago with Doom murdering his former love in exchange for sorcerous powers. Doom’s thirst for vengeance has now reached the point at which he is willing to sacrifice everything he is and everything he’s ever cared about in order to beat Reed. It was a jaw-dropping moment that kicked off one of the best Fantastic Four stories ever.

But that was just the start of the story. In part three, Doom won his victory over Reed Richards. He imprisoned Reed in an arcane library and banished Reed and Sue’s son Franklin to Hell. Literally, Hell. The two cliffhangers at the end of issue 499 were so incredible that, even though I was on a family vacation and well away from my usual comic book store, I had to go out and buy a copy of issue 500. I simply couldn’t wait to find out what happened until I got back home. “Unthinkable” was a better blockbuster than any summer movie I saw that year. And I read the final part in issue 500 in my hotel room. And then I read it again.

Now that I’ve told you how much I loved it, and how good it is, I should probably tell you a little bit about it. The issue opens with a scene in which Dr. Strange attempts to free Reed Richards from his prison but fails. Reed quickly realizes that Strange can reach him but not free him and comes to the solution for his situation. He asks Dr. Strange to teach him to be a sorcerer. It’s a quick and powerful scene, showing two reasons why Reed is better than Doom. He actually has friends and loved ones who care about him and are willing to risk their own lives to free him. And he’s willing to admit that there’s something that he doesn’t know. He’s willing to learn. That’s why Reed has always been the better scientist than Doom. His pride doesn’t prevent him from assuming his own brilliance. It doesn’t stand in the way of him exploring the unknown. Writer Mark Waid has understood Reed Richards better than any other writer, including his own creators Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and that deep understanding is on display here.

Next up, Waid and Wieringo showcase the villain. Doom has defeated the other members of the Fantastic Four. He’s busy torturing them, while also holding Reed and Sue’s youngest daughter Valeria as a hostage. Then, we return to Reed Richards in action. He learns what he needs to, and as much as he distastes magic, Mr. Fantastic manages to free himself. He then begins a quest to find out what Doom has done to the rest of his team and his family, which are one and the same. There are two kinds of action: twisting and driving. Twisting action involves unexpected changes to the story, things you didn’t see coming. Twisting action can be thrilling. But there’s also driving action. Driving action is heading towards an ending that you can see coming, and it is the anticipation of that event that carries tension and emotional resonance. In the previous issues, Mark Waid gave us plenty of twisting action, particularly with the human sacrifice that started the story and the banishment of Franklin Richards to Hell. This issue is all about driving action. From the moment that Reed asks Dr. Strange to teach him sorcery, we know that we’re heading towards a confrontation between Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Doom. Every scene with one or the other increases our tension and anticipation. It’s like sitting on a hill watching two trains approach each other head on while on the same track. You see it coming. You know what’s going to happen. That’s what makes it incredible. And that’s Fantastic Four #500.

In order to up the stakes, half-way through the issue Waid has Dr. Doom defeat Dr. Strange and remove Reed Richards’ only ally. Now, it really is going to be a confrontation between the two of them alone. As we get closer to that confrontation, artist Mike Wieringo starts to draw the story bigger. He uses bigger panels, seemingly spilling over the side of the pages. He draws closer close-ups, so that we can see the resolve on Reed’s face and the anger in Doom’s eyes. The colors get bolder, as well with bright pinks and reds and vibrant greens. And then, Waid gives us the twist. Reed doesn’t use his new-found sorcerous powers to attack Doom. He uses them to free his family, once again reminding us of why Reed and Doom are different and why Reed will always be better than Doom.

The Fantastic Four fight Doom together. It’s a great battle, with some huge splash pages by Mike Wieringo and some great lines by Mark Waid, including Sue Storm-Richards’ adamant declaration, “GIVE ME MY SON!” We see the F.F. work together as a team, as a family. When one falls, another is immediately there to defend them or take their turn on the offensive. And finally, when it seems like Doom might still win after all, Reed Richards is able to free himself and deliver the finishing blow. It’s the moment we’ve been waiting to see all issue. For that matter, we’ve been waiting to see it since the start of the story. Let’s be honest, some fans have been waiting for that moment since the early ‘60s.

With Dr. Doom defeated, Reed and the rest of the Fantastic Four move on to the more pressing issue of freeing Franklin from Hell. Yet such an accomplishment doesn’t come without a price. The denizens of Hell won’t give Franklin up so easily, putting Reed in the position in which he must allow the demons to take Doom in Franklin’s stead. It’s a weighty decision, yet one that Reed makes justly. And this is the moment at which epic becomes tragic. Doom stretches out from Hell while Reed watches, touches him and uses his sorcery to disfigure Mr. Fantastic. The Fantastic Four emerge victorious, but not unscathed. And, we’ll learn in future issues, that Mr. Fantastic’s physical disfigurement are nothing compared to Franklin’s emotional scars after spending so much time in Hell.

Fantastic Four is truly a fantastic issue. Everything a great conclusion should be: epic, dynamic, tragic and not easily forgotten.

Avengers #500 by Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch,

September 2004

About a year after the success of Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man #500, Marvel Comics had the opportunity to celebrate another 500^th issue: The Avengers. While Fantastic Four #500 was the finale in a four-part epic, Avengers #500 would be the first-part in a new four-issue tale called alternately “Disassembled” or “Chaos.” The issue would also feature the debut of a new creative team, Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch. And, unknown to most readers at the time, Bendis and Finch’s duty would be to take apart the current Avengers team in order to make room for a re-launch of the title as New Avengers.

The issue opens with a quiet scene as the Avengers enjoy a meal together. They banter over their food, displaying the quick dialogue that Brian Michael Bendis is famous for. They tell stories about former foes, interjecting into each other’s speeches and finishing each other’s lines. The quiet scene doesn’t last long. By the bottom of the second page, the red lights come on and the mansion’s automatic defenses alert the  team to a security breach. The breach is quickly identified: former Avenger Jack of Hearts, thought to be dead has returned. Current Avenger Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man goes out to investigate. Jack of Hearts has survived. But he’s been badly injured. And apparently, he’s no longer able to contain his explosive powers. The quiet scene is now most definitely over. Jack of Hearts explodes. The mansion is destroyed. The grounds are on fire. The Avengers pick themselves up out of the rubble. They quickly discover that Jack’s explosion has killed Ant-Man as well.

From that opening tragedy, the story then shifts to other Avengers who weren’t at the mansion at the time. First, there’s Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, who suddenly finds himself drunk while addressing the United Nations despite not having had a drink in years. The Black Panther and Yellowjacket are both witnesses and targets of his rage before the Scarlet Witch steps in. The confrontation is set aside when they both receive the Avengers alarm.

The story returns to the mansion where Captain America has arrived to help coordinate the relief effort. Unfortunately, he can only watch as a quinjet approaches and is crashed into the already burning mansion by the Vision. At the time, the scene seemed fairly well-constructed with alternating panels between the quickly-approaching quinjet and close-ups of Captain America as he watches it come down before treating us to a big explosion on a two-page spread. Unfortunately, as beautiful as the scene may be to look at, it also exposes a flaw in the story that will become more and more evident as the story progresses: these Avengers don’t know how to respond to a disaster. We had already caught a brief glimpse of this flaw earlier as the Avengers who had been present at the mansion pulled themselves out of the rubble. The Wasp tried to give them instructions, but the others were sarcastic or slow to respond. It seemed forgivable, in light of the very recent explosion. But in this scene, Captain America seems to be paralyzed in the face of a threat. When he notices the crashing quinjet, he even begins to give an instruction before trailing off. He doesn’t bark out, “Everyone get down!” as someone with his leadership and experience would be likely to do. He simply stares, and does nothing. Even after the crash when other Avengers ask him for direction, Captain America says and does nothing. It’s always dangerous to tell an author how a story should have been written. Yet these are the Avengers, veterans of 500 issues, and they’ve faced disaster a time or two before. They’ve lost headquarters before, such as the barge that they lived on for a time. They’ve responded to disasters before. They’ve been attacked before. Though they may be dazed at first, they should know how to respond. They’re professionals. They’re the best. Yet, in this story, the Avengers are incompetent. Instead of a disaster forcing them to draw together, it causes them to squabble. Instead of responding quickly and decisively, they pause, they hem and haw. This level of incompetence will become ridiculous before the story is out. Here in issue #500, it’s already noticeable and a reason for concern.

Back to the story: The Vision steps out of the burning wreck of the quinjet. He gives a short speech- while the Avengers wait him out, of course- and then falls apart. Five Ultrons emerge from his collapsing body, and finally the Avengers attack. It’s actually a decent scene as the Avengers discuss strategy and wonder whether or not these disparate events- the Jack of Hearts explosion and the Ultron invasion- might somehow be connected. The scene takes an interesting turn, however, when She-Hulk begins to lose control of her powers and her faculties. She begins to “hulk out” as her cousin the Incredible Hulk used to do and in her rage, she pulls the Vision apart, destroying him. The other Avengers are in shock, allowing the She-Hulk to quickly defeat them. And the story ends as it began, with the death of an Avenger.

There is one last scene, however. A quick coda in which apparently two people are talking to each other about whether or not they should simply kill the Avengers or continue to toy with them as they’ve been doing.

Honestly, it’s not as bad an issue as I remember. There are the bookends of death which, although I may not like that favorite characters are being killed off, is an effective story-telling device. Furthermore, though the transformations of Iron Man and She-Hulk are unexplained, that’s intentional at this point. That’s the mystery, the hook to get the reader to want to buy the issue. There are enough hints that there’s a reason for these transformations- becoming drunk without drinking, and becoming a raging She-Hulk- that at this point, most readers would be content to let the mystery play out. Plus, the art is pretty good. David Finch provides us with several big explosions. He handles large settings like the interior of the U.N. He does a good job of varying the angle of view during the Ultron fight so that it seems frenetic as a fight should. And quite a few of his panels do a good job of capturing emotion, including one of Tony’s rage and another of a soldier’s shock at the death of the vision.

There’s a reason why I was excited to read issue 501, despite the few flaws in issue #500. The real problem with “Disassembled” is not the opening issue. Rather, the problem is that the flaws in the opening issue, which are minor at first, become more and more significant as the story goes along. We could forgive a temporarily stunned Captain America if he was competent from here on out. But, instead of overcoming this obstacle, Captain America becomes less competent as the story continues. The mystery behind the transformations is never explained satisfactorily. And the connection behind all of these events- a possibility that is suggested in this issue- is unsatisfactory as well. “Disassembled” is a bad story. But issue #500 is not a bad opening act.

And that’s it for the five hundreds. There was a Thor #500 as well, though the current Marvel regime doesn’t count it- probably because it happened before their watch, but possibly because Thor inherited it’s numbering from Journey into Mystery so there haven’t actually been 500 issues of Thor. I didn’t include it simply because I haven’t read it. But I did include the ones I have read: one great, one very good, and one better than I remembered.

The End.

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?

The Best X-Men Stories of the 1990s, Part 4- Honorable Mentions, continued

 We’re not done yet! At least, I’m not. After three columns and sixteen great X-Men stories from the 1990s, I still have a few more to go.

X-Babies, X-Men #46-47, 1995: Before he became a writer for the X-Men, Scott Lobdell was a stand-up comic. This story is a reminder why. It’s hilarious, with a great situation, great comedic characters and some great lines. The basic story features the X-Babies, miniature versions of the X-Men who are creations of Mojo made to entertain his television audience empire. However, the X-Babies escape from Mojo’s world and wind up in New York. They’re kids. But they’re immensely powerful kids who think they’re adults. And that makes them a big nuisance. The X-Men are brought in to control the chaos. Meanwhile Mojo’s minions Gog and Magog are sent in to bring his entertainment slaves/stars back into the fold which means that there’s a genuine threat in addition to the kiddie chaos. 

The kiddie chaos is great with some of the X-Babies spouting lisps and all of them getting into trouble of one kind or another. The genuine threat is pretty good, too. Mojo may be an overused villain by this point, but Gog and Magog are fairly new, interesting and powerful. Plus, this issue features some great characterization for the actual X-Men. Bishop had always been suspicious of Gambit, thinking that the Cajun would become a traitor to the X-Men. But in this issue, they start to hang out together in an odd-couple buddy-movie pairing that really works well. It works so well that they’re later given a mini-series together. That relationship really starts here, right in the midst of what is probably the funniest X-Men story ever written. Humor, action and great characterization: it’s hard to ask for more than that.

Warriors of the Ebon Night/Quest for the Crimson Dawn, Uncanny X-Men #329-330, 1996: I’m a big fan of the Joe Madureira run on Uncanny X-Men. There are a lot of good stories in there, several of which already made the top ten. One of my other favorites is this little two-parter. In the previous story, Psylocke was injured by Sabretooth as he escaped from the mansion. In this story, Wolverine and Archangel set off on a mystic quest to find a potion that will heal her. It’s a simple enough story, but it’s all of the extras that Scott Lobdell and Joe Madureira throw in there that makes it so much fun. Wolverine fights ninjas, which is always fun. Dr. Strange shows up as a guest-star. There’s a great new character in Gomurr the Ancient- a small, elderly man who also happens to be an excellent martial artist. And even Angel gets into the swing of things with some open hand combat himself. Plus, there are the great visuals. Madureira gets to draw a ninja made of steam. The way that the light shimmers off of this ninja looks almost electric. It’s masterful. It’s not a big epic, but it’s beautiful to look at and fun to read which is why Ebon Night/Crimson Dawn remains one of my favorite X-Men stories of the decade.

Know Thy Enemy, Uncanny X-Men #337, 1996: It seems like the worst crossovers have the best epilogues. That was true of “X-Tinction Agenda” which was immediately followed by the excellent “Too Many Mutants” (Uncanny X-Men #273). It was true of “X-Cutioner’s Song” which was followed by “Song’s End.” And it’s true of “Onslaught” which was followed by “Know Thy Enemy” and “Man.” This particular issue, “Know Thy Enemy,” focuses on the team as they pick up the pieces after the disastrous events caused by Onslaught. There’s a scene in which Wolverine gives advice to Charles Xavier, a wonderful reversal of their usual roles. There are scenes with J. Jonah Jameson, Graydon Creed and Bastion, setting up some of the stories for the coming year. But the heart of the issue is a simple scene in Scott and Jean’s home, which had been converted from a boathouse into their private living quarters. The scene takes place in the kitchen as Jean prepares breakfast. Slowly, other members of the team wander in. Some, like Quicksilver, are planning to say good-bye. Others, like Psylocke, are simply looking for company. As the teammates slowly gather together, they begin to talk about their experiences. They talk about missing teammates. They talk about their feelings- why Joseph doesn’t want to be called Magneto, how Psylocke is still afraid after her earlier injuries, and so on. But more important than any one question or any one conversation is the fact that the X-Men are simply spending time together. They’re friends. They’re family. And, despite all of the dangers they’ve faced, they enjoy each other’s company and a bit of normality over a plate of pancakes.

Operation: Zero Tolerance, Uncanny X-Men #346 and X-Men #65-69, 1997: The X-Men crossovers tend to be stories that I either love or loathe. They’re either among my favorites- such as “Fatal Attractions,” “The Phalanx Covenant” and “The Age of Apocalypse” all of which made my list of the top stories of the decade- or else I think they’re awful- such as “X-Tinction Agenda” and “X-Cutioner’s Song.” “Operation: Zero Tolerance” is one of the few crossovers that holds the middle ground. It’s very good, but not quite good enough to make the top ten. Similar to “The Phalanx Covenant,” the main X-Men are taken out of the picture and “Operation: Zero Tolerance” focuses on lesser characters. In this case, the X-Men are quickly captured by Bastion’s Sentinels and Iceman- who escaped the initial onslaught- is forced to try and put a new team of X-Men together. I really like the band of oddball mutants that he gathers together. Spider-Man, in a nice guest-appearance to start the story, urged Marrow to seek out the X-Men in Uncanny #346. So that’s one. Iceman finds another in Cecelia Reyes, a doctor who wants to be doctor and not a mutant on the run. Unfortunately for her, Bastion’s Sentinels don’t give her that choice. Iceman, often the least-respected X-Man, rescues her and convinces her to help at least temporarily. And finally, there’s Maggott, who doesn’t have as much as role in this story as the other two. I think it’s great to read about Iceman and Cecelia on the run from Bastion. And I think it’s great to read about Marrow’s quest to find the X-Men in order to ask them for help after having earlier sworn to kill them. I’m a big fan of redemption stories and “Operation: Zero Tolerance” represents Marrow’s first step down that path. The tie-ins in Wolverine and Generation X are pretty good too. Wolverine features the captured X-Men attempting to escape and Generation X first shows Jubilee in captivity and then the rest of the kids on their own after the adult X-Men are defeated. My complaint, and the reason why this story stayed out of the top ten, is that the overall story seems a little drawn out. The covers illustrate my point: issues 66, 67 and 69 all feature a variation of the same scene in which Iceman faces off against Bastion. I really like the characters spotlighted, both the old ones like Iceman and the new ones like Marrow. And I like the story. I just wish it was a little tighter.

Reunion/The Sky is Falling, Uncanny X-Men #356-357, 1998: The Chris Bachalo run on Uncanny X-Men was remarkably short. He drew only 11 issues on the title, in just over a year. But as a big fan of his work on Generation X and on this title, I had to include at least one of his stories. This little two-parter is probably his best. I think that Bachalo must have really liked to draw the X-Women. His work seemed to especially shine on stories that featured Rogue or Phoenix. This particular tale is actually a reunion of the five original X-Men, called in to investigate a disturbance in a small town in Alaska. Another thing that I really liked about Bachalo’s work was the way in which he would use specific images to create a visual theme and unity for an issue. Writer Steven Seagle gave him the perfect opportunity with this story, featuring a Native American Crow God as the tormentor of the town. Bachalo had previously drawn birds for the Rogue-centric story “Blackbirds” in issue #353. Now, he had the opportunity to do it all over again, plastering the pages with crow creations. It was a visual smorgasbord. Steven Seagle’s story was pretty fun, too, with a Scooby-Doo type mystery and the old gang back together again.

Children of the Atom, Uncanny X-Men #360 and X-Men #80, 1998: My fondness for this two-part crossover is based mostly on my memory of anticipation. This was a story that promised big things. It featured the return of Colossus, Nightcrawler and Shadowcat to the regular team after their years of service on Excalibur. It featured a brand new set of villains. These villains had interesting appearances, conceived mostly by regular artist Carlos Pacheco. They had interesting and powerful abilities. They even claimed to be the real X-Men. And though the X-Men could deny it, they couldn’t deny that these new villains seemed to have a connection to the team. Each of these mutants seemed to bear a remarkable similarity to one of the X-Men. Several even seemed to be the combination of current or former X-Men. So there was a cool mystery- who are these new X-Men, where did they come from and what is their connection- if any- to the real team? And there was a really cool fight between two equally matched sides. X-Men #80 featured one of the best team vs. team fights since the X-Men went up against the Marauders in the late ‘80s. Yet despite the excellence of these two issues, the story always reminds me more of unfulfilled promise. Some of that has to do with my own expectations. I was disappointed that Excalibur was canceled in order to facilitate the return of the three X-Men to the main title. After this reintroduction story, the Excalibur trio ends up being underused in Uncanny X-Men except for a few Alan Davis stories in 1999. Plus, the new X-Men never become the rivals I wanted them to be. In fact, they’re never used again. That’s probably because the end of the mystery is slightly confusing. It seems like the enemies were constructs created by Cerebro. But how Cerebro was able to create constructs outside of the confines of the Danger Room is never really answered. And why Cerebro decides to test the team in this manner is unanswered as well. Perhaps those questions would have been answered had the titles not shifted creative teams later that year. As it is, the story promises a lot- the return of several X-Men, the introduction of a new team of villains- and even delivers in the short-term. But the title is unable to follow through on the promise in the long-term, leaving this story short of the greatness that would’ve gotten it into the top ten.

 

And that’s going to have to be it. I could have probably included even more stories but I had to draw the line somewhere. Besides, twenty-two stories including honorable mentions, makes for a fairly sufficient list of the best X-Men stories of the 1990s.

The End.

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

A Sojourn Review, Part Two

In part one, I looked at some of the reasons why Sojourn was CrossGen’s most successful title and then reviewed the prequel and the first 18 issues. By the end of the 18^th issue, Arwyn had successfully retrieved two of the five arrow fragments that she needed to complete her quest. However, in gaining the second fragment, she had lost her comrade-in-arms Gareth who had been thrown off of a cliff by the orc captain Bohr.

Issues 19-24: The Desert Spiders of Oudubai

Ron Marz likes to break up his longer story arcs with done-in-one tales. He did this most effectively in issues 12 and 13 with a confrontation between Arwyn and Neven and then a spotlight story on Bohr. Now, he does it again. Issue 19 takes us back in time telling us the tale of how Arwyn first fell in love with Darian. It’s a touching tale, made more poignant because Darian and their daughter died in the opening sequence of issue 1.

Following that excellent solo story, Arwyn continues her journey south from the cliffs of Ankhara, passing through some scrubland on her way to the desert country of Oudubai. She meets some highway robbers and manages to defeat them, but it still seems like her quest is becoming more and more dangerous.

Then, Sojourn makes its first major mis-step. When Arwyn arrives at the border town of Aldinal Gareth is there waiting for her. This is the same Gareth whom we and Arwyn saw thrown to his death at the end of issue 17. Gareth’s death had been a significant moment for this series. Arwyn’s quest had already proven dangerous with the death of the dragon in the second arc. But that death hadn’t affected her- or us- as personally as the death of Gareth. His death brought an emotional impact to the series that hadn’t been there before. Yet here he was, sitting and drinking a beer as if nothing had happened.

This non-death was bad enough for the individual title of Sojourn. It was also bad for the larger company. CrossGen had never promised that everybody who died would stay dead. The sigil-bearers were powerful beings who would often escape death. Sojourn itself opened with the resurrection of Mordath. But there was an initial sense that most of the characters who died would stay dead. Scion’s Ethan lost a brother. Meridian’s Sephie lost a father. That sense was irrevocably removed at this time. It wasn’t just Gareth’s survival. Characters in several other books died at this time only to come back a couple of issues later such as Javi in Negation and Thraxis in Crux. And for some characters, especially Thraxis and Gareth, the explanations were weak and improbable.

I had liked Gareth and was saddened by his death. His improbable return disappointed me so much that it took me a little bit to get into the next story. However, subsequent readings showed me that this story wasn’t as bad as I had initially thought. Furthermore, it’s Gareth’s return that makes this particular story so much fun. For the first three arcs, Gareth flirted with Arwyn, pursued her and seemed to be falling in love. Arwyn didn’t reciprocate his feelings at all. She rebuffed him and called him names. But with Gareth’s apparent death, Arwyn realized that she had been developing feelings for him. Arwyn’s anger at his return was anger that he had put her through so much emotional distress. Yet despite their reunion, Ron Marz contrived a way to keep the two characters apart. Marz introduced Cassidy, a thief and a former lover of Gareth’s. Suddenly, the roles are switched. Cassidy is openly flirting with Gareth while he tries to keep her at arm’s length so as to not offend Arwyn. And Arwyn is angrily jealous even though she can’t openly admit that she even likes Gareth. This particular love triangle is so much fun that I have to forgive Marz for bringing Gareth back from the dead. I just wish that he hadn’t handled it so improbably.
 

Issues 25-30: On Land and Sea

 

Issue 25 marks the debut of a new writer, Ian Edginton. Ron Marz’s duties at CrossGen had been expanding and after two years on the title, this was the assignment that he chose to give up. However, Marz left Edginton a nice little spider-web to unravel. At the end of the Oudubai arc, Bohr had finally captured Arwyn and was leading her back to Mordath’s fortress. Meanwhile, Cassidy had apparently betrayed Arwyn and stolen the arrow fragments- now numbering three- for herself. Edginton treats the conundrum as an opportunity. He opens with a solo story in which Bohr tells Arwyn about Mordath’s history from the orc’s point-of-view. Then, Bohr’s platoon is beset by vicious desert lizards. The orcs are devastated. Bohr and Arwyn are the lone survivors. Through the battle, they gain a begrudging respect for each other and Bohr agrees to let Arwyn go.

 

After that opening one-shot salvo, Edginton began to put his own stamp on the title. Overall, it was a move sideways as some of the changes worked well while others didn’t. One move that worked was Edginton’s decision to give Mordath a more active role. Throughout Marz’s run, Mordath was confined to his central fortress while his orc minions did the dirty work. Edginton creates a coup against Mordath. The coup fails, but it spurs Mordath into leaving the fortress and taking the fight to his enemies. It was a good move. However, it was accompanied by two bad ones. The big Mordath moment came in issue 26 and it wasn’t a good idea to follow the new reader friendly highly promoted and discounted issue 25 with an issue that focused on the villain instead of the hero. It’s understandable in that issue 26 was a scheduled artistic fill-in, but it still undercut some of the momentum that the previous issue had created. The other mis-step was more significant. Edginton introduced a pair of sorcerers who were setting themselves up as rivals to Mordath’s rule. The idea is interesting. It gave us a villain meddling in Arwyn’s life as a counterpoint to Neven. And it added an extra threat to Mordath. Unfortunately, the two sorcerers debated and acted from afar, undoing the energy that had been gained from putting Mordath in motion.

 

Edginton’s arrival did bring another positive change in terms of pace. Sojourn, like most of CrossGen’s books, was accused of moving too slowly. I always thought that the complaint was unfair as more real change tended to happen in a CrossGen series than in one from another publisher. Yet that didn’t stop Edginton from proving me wrong and picking up the pace. His first story arc had Arwyn, Gareth and Cassidy hiring a boat to take them from Oudubai in the south to Skarnhime in the north.  In the space of four issues, he included a pirate attack, a shipwreck, a mad scientist, a living island, a second shipwreck and an island full of beautiful women who happened to be dragons. It still makes for a trade-friendly six-issue travel arc, but it seems like more than that.

 

Meanwhile, Greg Land continues to shine as the series artist. The introduction of Cassidy had given him two beautiful women to draw on a regular basis. And with these last two arcs, Land was given a chance to delve into exotic locations as well. First, he drew an enchanting desert and then, he drew an exciting sea. And of course, it didn’t hurt that the new writer had him draw his second harem of the series.

Issues 31-34: The Cold Wastes of Skarnhime

 

This is the end of Sojourn, though not the end of the story. With this arc, Arwyn and her allies reach the cold north of Skarnhime. It’s home to the fourth fragment of Ayden’s arrow (though we’ve been to all five lands as readers thanks to Bohr and Mordath’s journeys to the forests of Grimbor) and a race of trolls that are cousins to the orcs.

 

By this time, Ian Edginton has shifted the focus a little. The big complications no longer center on the relationships. Arwyn has her quest, while Gareth and Cassidy have each other. I like this resolution. Sojourn could have dragged the romantic triangle on for a long time, but didn’t. Instead, they played with it for an arc or two, then resolved it and moved on to new complications. The new complications, however, are not of the romantic sort. Rather, they’re political. The new sorcerers reach out to Arwyn as an ally against Mordath. Meanwhile, Mordath re-enlists an orcish witch who had helped him three hundred years earlier. And the trolls of Skarnhime seem as ready to oppose Mordath’s rule as the winged Nubians of Ankhara. The political landscape seems to shift every couple of issues as characters find new allies in unlikely places and these are the complications that keep the story moving forward.

 

Unfortunately, that forward movement is cut short. CrossGen filed for bankruptcy and Sojourn ended on a cliffhanger. Arwyn defeated an abominable snowman at the end of issue 33 but apparently blew herself up in the process. Issue 34 focused on Mordath’s movements and on the surviving couple of Gareth and Cassidy. The series ends, not only with Arwyn’s quest unfinished but with the heroine of the story supposedly deceased.

 

There are a couple of ways to look at this ending. The obvious one is disappointment. Though Sojourn was never the most innovative of fantasy tales, it was still a great driving epic story. It’s disappointing that the story didn’t end, that Mordath was never defeated let alone confronted. It’s disappointing that things just sort of stopped. But there’s also a sense of relief. Some of the other CrossGen titles had more warning of their end. Most of those titles rushed to unsatisfactory ending and didn’t finish well. Perhaps it was better for Sojourn to be cut off abruptly then to try and wrap a three-year epic up in a single issue. At least our imaginations can finish the tale. 

 

Anyway, Sojourn was easily CrossGen’s most successful title. It was the company’s best-seller for years and even experienced a successful transition between writers. Plus, it was a good, fun read that was simply gorgeous to look at. There’s nothing wrong with that.

 

The End.

  Originally Published at CaptainComics.us, on June 15, 2007

Discuss this column at the Captain Comics Message Board

A Sojourn Review, Part One

From 2000-2003, CrossGen was the most exciting publisher in the field of comic books. By the end of their first year, CrossGen had leaped over scores of independent companies to become the fifth largest publisher in the country. By their third year, they had passed Image and were challenging Dark Horse for number three. And then it all fell apart and the company folded in 2004. But for a while, CrossGen was the company with the bulk of the buzz. They were trying new things that are now taken for granted- like a comprehensive trade paperback collection. And they were jumping into new genres with titles like Sojourn, the fantasy epic that also happened to be CrossGen’s best-selling title.

 

What made Sojourn so successful? Two things: filling the right niche, and Greg Land. To understand the first, you need to know a little bit about comic book theory. In his pivotal book “Understanding Comics,” Scott McCloud spent some time explaining the issue of genres in the marketplace. At one point, comic books encompassed all of the genres, which he represented with the letters A through Z. However, some of those genres were more successful than others so the publishers and the retailers began to concentrate on the most successful ones. That meant that the other genres, D through Z, fell to the wayside. Readers of those other genres- though not as numerous as fans of genres A through C- were abandoned by the market. Eventually the comic book marketplace had evolved until it was only catering fans of one genre, A. The publishers knew that they needed to reach out to fans of other genres, but the question remained how to reach out to fans of genre B when your audience is comprised entirely of fans of genre A. Scott McCloud posited that the solution was to make books that were AB, crosses between the successful genre and the outreach genre. And that’s exactly what CrossGen was trying to do. They entered into fantasy and sci-fi, mystery and kung fu, but always with enough of the trappings of superheroes that it would still appeal to the audience that already existed.

Sojourn was one of the most successful books of this type. It was positioned as a bridge book. It served to introduce comic book fans to fantasy and fantasy fans to comic books. That did mean that it wasn’t the most original or innovative fantasy epic on the market. Hardcore fantasy fans dismissed it as derivative. And it was- Sojourn was the typical fantasy epic, with species straight out of the Lord of the Rings- but it was supposed to be. It was the introductory fantasy epic, not the masters-level opus. And while it may not have been the most original fantasy epic when compared to novels, it was also the only fantasy epic in comics. Sojourn was similarly dismissed by hardcore comic book fans. After all, Sojourn wasn’t exactly at the cutting edge of comics. But it wasn’t supposed to be. Sojourn was going off in a different direction, trying to attract fantasy fans to a new medium. And in that, it was successful. Sojourn wasn’t a book for everyone. But it perfectly filled the niche that it was designed to fill, bridging the gap between comic books and fantasy.

Of course, the plan is only part of Sojourn’s success. The other part is obvious even to the untrained eye. It’s artist Greg Land. Land had built up a small fan following while working on Birds of Prey and Nightwing for DC. Indeed, I was already aware of him and excited that he had signed at CrossGen. But his work on Sojourn catapulted Greg Land to the top of the class. His women were breathtakingly beautiful. His orcs had all the texture of real beings and his dragons looked like living, breathing creatures. And did I mention that his women were breathtakingly beautiful?  Sojourn may have been the right genre at the right time, but Greg Land’s art was the real star of the show.

 

Prequel and Issues 1-6

 

The Prequel is a great set-up for the rest of the story. It gives us the historical situation that makes an epic fantasy epic in the first place. It tells the story of Mordath, a human who allied with the orcs of Grimbor to conquer all of the five lands. It tells the story of the other races who banded together to oppose Mordath, and of Ayden the hero who finally defeated him. It ends three hundred years later as two mysterious strangers resurrect the tyrant. It was a great issue, especially for those who were already fans of CrossGen’s universe. We knew of one villain who had a sigil, the CrossGen symbol of power- Uncle Ilahn in Meridian but he was opposed by his own niece, Sephie, who was becoming a powerful hero. This would be the first title in which the sigil would be entirely on the side of evil. That would make the odds overwhelmingly against the hero of the tale.

 

We meet that hero in the first arc. Her name is Arwyn. She used to be a member of royal archers. But in the first issue, Mordath’s armies destroy her hometown and her family, wiping out what they think is the last resistance to Mordath’s rule. However, that very act causes Arwyn to vow vengeance. In the first story, she picks up two unlikely allies. The first is Neven, a mystical stranger who offers her the use of Ayden’s bow for her quest. The other is Gareth, a rogue she meets while trying to escape from Mordath’s dungeon.

 

Looking back, the first story isn’t that special. It is a fairly standard by-the-numbers fantasy epic. We have a hero. She’s given a quest, a sidekick and a mystical adviser. But what makes it work is that we know the impossibility of the task. The real question isn’t whether or not Arwyn can complete her quest. The real question is whether or not she can defeat the undefeatable.

 

Issues 7-12: A Dragon’s Tale
 

With the second story, Arwyn and Gareth begin to pursue her quest. At Neven’s insistence, Arwyn is tasked with gathering the five fragments of the arrow that Ayden used to defeat Mordath three hundred years earlier. These five fragments have been scattered to the five lands and reuniting them is supposedly the only way to defeat the resurrected Mordath. Arwyn and Gareth set out to find the closest fragment in Middelyn.
 

Along the way, they’re waylaid by a pretty woman who happens to be a dragon. This is the point for me at which the story begins to get good. Arwyn doesn’t simply fight the dragon for the fragment and then move on to the next stage of her quest, as we might expect. No, Arwyn tries to circumvent the quest. She makes a deal with the dragon. She’ll give the dragon Ayden’s bow, a very valuable treasure and currently the key to her quest, if the dragon will defeat Mordath for her. With that deal, writer Ron Marz shows us that Sojourn isn’t going to be the straightforward fantasy epic that we’d been expecting. He also gives Greg Land the opportunity to draw a gorgeous battle in which the dragon attacks Mordath’s fortress.
 

The new plan doesn’t actually work. Mordath defeats the dragon. Chastened, Arwyn and Gareth retrieve the first fragment from the dragon’s horde and resume the quest but not before getting a scolding from Neven in issue 12.

 

Issues 13-18: The Winged Cliffs of Ankhara

 

The second arc ended with a done-in-one issue in which Neven confronted Arwyn concerning her resolve for the quest. This third arc opens with another done-in-one issue. However, this issue doesn’t focus on Arwyn. Rather, it focuses on Bohr, the orc captain who has been given the task of recapturing Arwyn. Bohr takes a break from his pursuit in order to go home for the death of his mother. This is the second time that Ron Marz has shown us that he’s not going to play be all of the rules. Bohr becomes a sympathetic character, even as he resumes his pursuit of our hero.
 

The bulk of the third arc takes place in the land of Ankhara.. This land is populated by a race of winged Nubians.  The Ankharans are fiercely independent and have been resisting Mordath’s rule. Arwyn and Gareth find themselves caught up in the resistance. At first, Arwyn resists joining the resistance. She wants to find the fragment and get on with her quest. She’s done denying her destiny, especially after Neven’s lecture in issue 12. But Gareth reminds her that her destiny is in opposing Mordath, not just in completing the quest. They determine to further the rebellion, which leads to a pair of unexpected outcomes. One, Arwyn’s role in the rebellion leads her to discovering the second fragment of Ayden’s arrow, which is good for her. Two, Gareth is captured by Bohr and thrown off of a cliff, which is bad for him.

 

Sojourn seems to be getting better and better. This third arc is even better than the second, which was in turn even better than the first. Greg Land’s art is getting better as well. His orcs are developing even greater individuality and emotion. Plus, with this arc, he gets to draw a host of muscular men and beautiful women as the story includes both Ankharan warriors and a royal harem. As for the story, Gareth’s apparent death gives it a gravitas that we hadn’t felt before.

  Originally Published at CaptainComics.us on June 8, 2007

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)