Comics Face Off: DOOM PATROL #15 vs. DOOM PATROL #15

A friend of mine has apparently been doing some belated spring cleaning recently, which led to his appearing at Crimson Cup coffee house for the weekly meeting of our cartoonists' group with a box full of old comics which he plunked down in the middle of the table, inviting all present to go ahead and help themselves to whichever ones they wanted.  Thus it was that, as a result of this act of generosity combined with my pre-meeting visit to the comics shop about halfway between my apartment and the coffee house, that I arrived back home that evening with two different Doom Patrol #15's in my backpack.  Therefore, I thought it might be fun to compare and contrast the two.

 The one I got at the comics shop is the latest entry in the currently ongoing Doom Patrol series by Keith Giffen and Matthew Clark, of which I have written previously.  The other is from the most reviled incarnation of the team, the mid-80's series by Paul Kupperberg with art, on the issue under consideration here, by Erik Larsen.  Let's take a look at that one first.

"Hail To The Chief!" is, by no means, the absolute worst DP story I've ever read--hell, if I just wanted to take an awful issue and just totally tear it apart, I'd write about #13--but it's most certainly not good.  The rap on Kupperberg's Doom Patrol these days is that it had devolved into a third rate X-Men rip-off, and on the evidence of the few issues I've actually read, that assessment is pretty much on the money. All the unique elements that had made the original comic a fan favorite had either been forgotten or jettisoned .  The book had become, quite frankly, exactly the sort of super-team title that Grant Morrison would go on to parody in the Doom Force special a few years later.

Issue #15 consists of a group of thoroughly unlikable characters fighting amongst themselves until reluctantly coming together to fight off yet another attack by old enemies the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man and General Immortus.  This is also, by the way, basically the plot of #13, which points up yet another of this series problems. 
Perhaps the most outstanding thing about this issue is how ugly it is.  From the rather garish logo to Larsen's awful art, the entire production is, quite simply, an eyesore.
By this time, however, it appears that the writing was on the wall for this version of the Patrol, and with this issue Kupperberg begins the process of tearing down what he had built over the past year and change and setting things up for the beginning of Grant Morrison's run.  The story ends with the return of the presumed dead Niles Caulder, a.k.a. The Chief, and the ensuing final three issues of Kupperberg's run would introduce Dorothy Spinner, kill off Celsius and Scott Fischer, and leave Negative Woman powerless and Rhea Jones in a coma, leaving Morrison free to rebuild the team pretty much from scratch.
There are a few superficial similarities between the two Doom Patrol #15's.  They both center on the character of Niles Caulder, and much of each issue is taken up by a big fight.  Beyond that, however, there are a few huge differences.
The main one being that the new Doom Patrol #15 is good.  In fact, this issue and the previous one have been the best of the series so far.  Caulder has managed to give himself the powers of a Kryptonian, and, having been driven just slightly mad in the process, begins to  think of himself as something of a god and sets out to reshape the world in his own warped image, and guess who has to stop him.
While Giffen's best work has been done with a co-writer, most notably J.M. DeMatteis on Justice League/International/America, he proves here that he can craft a compelling story and witty dialogue all by his lonesome.  There are even a couple of laugh out loud funny moments with Ambush Bug, who has apparently joined the team and is funnier here than in his last mini-series.
As for the art, this Doom Patrol #15, pencilled by Matthew Clark and Ron Randall and inked by Clark and John Livesay, is far, far better looking than its predecessor.  There's not much I can say about the art in this series, except that it has consistently been quite good. I am, however, looking forward to next issue, which will be drawn by none other than Keith Giffen, while a guest writer handles the story chores.
So, what have we learned from this little exercise that we didn't already know? Not much, honestly.  We've simply confirmed our notions that the Paul Kupperberg Doom Patrol was pretty bad, and the current series is much better.
Still, writing this thing kept me busy for an hour.

Gotham City 14 Miles: Taking "Camp" Seriously

Elsewhere on the Wild, Wild Web, over at Comic Book Resources, Tim Callahan devotes the latest installment of his weekly column "When Worlds Collide" to a preview of the upcoming book Gotham City 14 Miles.  Edited by Jim Beard, the book is a collection of essays on the 1960's Adam West/Burt Ward Batman TV series.  The title comes from the sign just outside the mouth of the Batcave seen in nearly every episode of the series.  Callahan himself is one of the contributors to the book.  He's turned in an essay that analyses the series by way of Susan Sontag's famous 1964 essay "Notes On Camp".  Other contributors include Robert Greenberger, Chuck Dixon, Peter Sanderson, Paul Kupperberg, Will Murray, Michael D. Hamersky, Beard and many others.  

This looks like it could turn out to be a really fun, not to mention slightly informative, book and I'm looking forward to reading it.

Mighty Joe Robertson: An Overdue Appreciation (Dredging Up The Past Part II*)

(*For those keeping score at home, the 2005 interview with Nat Gertler has been retroactively dubbed Part I of this misguided exercise in nostalgia.
Recently, a conversation with Jonathon Riddle turned to the topic of black and African American characters in comics of the Silver and Bronze Age, and I repeated my contention that the most significant African American character in Silver Age Marvel Comics was The Amazing Spider-Man's Joe "Robbie" Robertson.  Jon asked if I was planning a blog post on the subject, and I mentioned that I had already done one back in 2007 on my earlier, now moribund blog The Word From On High. Jon suggested I repost it on Gutter Talk so he could read it, because, of course, going to that blog and reading the original posting would be just too much effort.
Seriously, though, I figure that the readers of the old Word From On High and the readers of this current effort are probably a different set of people, so I am re-presenting my post on "Robbie" Robertson for my newer readers, and while I was looking over the old blog, I found a couple of other old posts, such as the aforementioned Nat Gertler interview, that are still relevant and which I will be re-posting over the next few days.)

 Much has been made of Marvel's Black Panther, introduced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in Fantastic Four #52, being the comics' first Black super-hero. (He is sometimes referred to as the first African American super-hero, though this is incorrect. The Panther was T'Challa, a prince of the fictional African land of Wakanda, and not any kind of American. The first African-American hero is most likely The Falcon, introduced by Lee and artist Gene Colan in Captain America some years later) I believe, however, that the most important Black character introduced during Marvel's Silver Age was, in fact, Joe Robertson, a supporting character in The Amazing Spider-Man, where he served as city editor of The Daily Bugle, the fictitious newspaper for which Spidey took photos in his Peter Parker identity.

No fanfare or alliterative cover blurbs accompanied the character's debut in, coincidentally I'm sure, ASM #52. His first appearance in that issue lasted all of two panels and he was not even formally introduced to Peter Parker until two issues later. Following this rather unceremonious, to say the least, introduction, "Robbie," as he was known around the newsroom, soon became a mainstay of the wall-crawler's supporting cast. He was most often portrayed as the voice of reason gently countering Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson's frequent anti-Spider-Man rants.

You may be asking yourself what's significant about such a fairly minor character. If he were introduced in 2007, the answer would be "nothing." But you must remember that the character came on the scene in 1967. It was a time when Black characters in any entertainment were a rarity and positive portrayals of such characters nearly nonexistant. I remember watching a show on the cable channel TV Land a while back in which the stars of Julia, a sitcom that aired at about the time we're discussing here, reported recieving death threats because their show dared to feature an African American woman as its title character.

Thus, when you consider the media landscape into which Joe "Robbie" Robertson quietly stepped, you can begin to see my point. Here, almost unnoticed in the putative "children's" medium of super-hero comic books, Lee and artist John Romita were presenting to their youthful readers one of the few positive characterizations of an African American male available in any medium. He was no criminal or junkie, as Black men were most often depicted, if depicted at all, in the media of the day. Rather, he was an educated, professional, avuncular family man. His job at the Bugle put him in a position of authority over white people, including the comic's titular star, which I believe was a first for a Black character in any medium. Moreover, Robbie is treated as a friend, confidante and, most importantly, equal by Jameson, the newspaper's rich, white publisher.

Unfortunately, when histories or analyses of the Black characters in comics are written, Joe Robertson generally goes unmentioned. Much like the way character himself is portrayed in the comics, Robbie's impact on the medium was quiet but powerful.

Antagonizing My Readers--Further Thoughts On GenLost #10

I got a comment on my recent review of Justice League: Generation Lost #10 that, for some reason, felt I needed to respond to. Maybe I'm just in a bit of a combative mood this week. Perhaps I'm still a little tired and cranky after my 24 Hour Comics Day fiasco.

Anyway, the comment, left by someone who didn't leave their name, was:

"I think gen lost is wonderful. You're deeply in the minority on this. I really can't defend is anymore than just by saying that every 2 weeks it's an enormously satisfying read.
I thought a ton happened this past issue. I look forward to the next one..."

I'm in the minority?
Really?

I believe I've said in this and my other reviews of issues of JL:GL that, overall, I'm quite enjoying the series, though I like certain issues more than others.  I like the way writer Judd Winick is mixing humor and seriousness, and I'm really enjoying his portrayal of the new Rocket Red.

Most other reviews of the series actually seem to agree that the series as a whole is good, but not quite great.  I haven't, however, seen anyone else calling it "wonderful," which, I would argue, puts my anonymous commenter in a minority of one.

I realize that Winick is writing the series with the eventual trade paperback in mind.  That is, after all, how pretty much all periodical comics are written these days.  I'm not saying that's either good or bad; it's just how it is.

Anyway, I'm sure that in seven and a half months, when I sit down with a six pack of Blue Moon and a bag of Oreos to read this series from beginning to end, twenty or so pages where nothing happens won't seem so eqregious. By the way, I stand by my characterization of the "events" of this issue, which consist entirely of three different sets of characters standing around talking. When read as a whole, this issue may seem like a welcome respite; a bit of a breather after the escape from Checkmate and the confrontation with Max Lord in the previous few issues.

And maybe, I hope, by the time the series is finished, that scene in the Batcave will turn out not to be as utterly pointless as it seems to me now.

However, reading this issue on its own, I can't help but feel somewhat cheated. It also seems to me that for someone picking the series up for the first time with this issue, there's really nothing here to convince them to either pick up the back issues or come back for the next one.

24 Hour Comics Day Wrap Up

Bet you're all wondering how I did at 24 Hour Comic Day this weekend. 

After signing the official document releasing Packrat Comics from any responsibility should I die from sleep deprivation, I began drawing at about twenty minutes after noon. I was going strong for the first few hours, and was ahead of schedule after eight hours with nine pages completed.  Then I began to get tired and ran into some problems with the story.  By four a.m.,  I could barely keep my eyes open, and I decided that the story was a mess and couldn't be saved. I  actually fell asleep in my chair for a few minutes, and when I came to I decided to pack it in, abruptly ending the comic with page seventeen.  I reveal in the end that the whole thing is a bad movie that the characters Norm and Bill from my comic strip Wasted Potential have been watching, and end it with Norm turning off the TV.

There are a couple of good bits in what I did get finished, and some of the better jokes may show up in another project,  and since it did have an ending of sorts, I may actually go ahead and publish it sometime.  

Despite my failure to complete the challenge, I had a great time just hanging out with friends and the owners and regulars at Packrat.  Still, I think it'll be a couple more years before I try this crazy stunt again.

Nat Gertler Interview: Follow Up

I am always surprised by any evidence that people are actually reading and paying attention to what I post on this little blog; evidence such as the comment on my reposting of my 2005 interview with Nat Gertler from Nat himself.  He was succinct, asking simply "Got any follow-up questions?"

Well, after giving it a couple of minutes of thought, it turns out I did, and, since I still had Nat's e-mail address from that earlier interview, I sent them off to him.  Below are my questions and Nat Gertler's responses:

Nat Gertler Interview

(Tomorrow is the seventh annual 24-Hour Comic Day, a day during comics artists will test their creativity and endurance as they attempt to write and draw an entire 24 page comic story within a mere 24 hours.  Here in Columbus, OH, several such brave souls will gather at an event sponsored by Packrat Comics.

Back in 2005, when I served as Pop Culture Editor for a short lived free paper called The Atomic Tomorrow, I interviewed Nat Gertler, the founder of About Comics, the sponsor of 24 Hour Comics Day, for a feature article about that year's event. The full text of the interview was then posted on my blog The Word From On High.  In honor of this year's 24 HCD, I've decided to re-present that interview here on Gutter Talk.)