What's In A Name?

In January, Marvel Comics will release Miracleman #'s 1 and 2, beginning a semi-monthly series reprinting the seminal early 80's stories by Alan Moore that are credited by many comics historians with giving birth to the so-called Modern Age of super-hero comics. At least I think these are the Alan Moore stories.  The solicitation credits "The Original Writer" and Mick Anglo, the man who created the character as a substitute for the original Captain Marvel back in the late 50's.  Apparently the plan is that once the reprints of the stories by TOW and his successor Neil Gaiman ("The Un-Original Writer"?) are exhausted, Gaiman will at last be given the chance to continue and conclude the story begun over two decades ago and interrupted by the demise of publisher Eclipse Comics and the long legal battle over the rights to the character.
There are a couple of interesting things about the solicitation for these books.  The first is that, as noted above, the name of Alan Moore, who is well known to have written these stories despite the solicit's coyness, does not appear in it.  By the way,  I am unable, nor do I actually feel the need, to  restrain myself from observing at this juncture that I find the reference to Alan Moore as "The Original Writer" somewhat ironic in light of the longstanding  suspicions/allegations/rumors concerning the actual originality, or lack thereof, of these comics and a couple of other of Moore's best known and well regarded works from the mid-1980's.
The omission of Moore's name in the solicitation is apparently in accordance with Moore's request that Marvel and DC no longer use his name in publicizing reprints of work he did for them back when he didn't think they were the source of all evil in the universe. Marvel, I would assume, was only to happy too comply with Mr. Moore's wishes if only to avoid the backlash of negative publicity that greeted DC's flagrant flaunting of the writer's preferences in publishing its series of prequels to Watchmen.  
This development is, as I said, interesting, although, given Moore's highly publicized contempt for the mainstream of the American comics industry and the reverence with which his every mood swing is regarded by comics fans, hardly surprising.
What I find somewhat more interesting, and slightly curious, is that Marvel Comics has chosen to re-present these stories under the title Miracleman.   That was, you may remember, the name under which the comic, originally presented in Britain as "Marvelman", appeared upon its first publication within the United States in order to head off any threat of legal action by the very same Marvel Comics in whose hands the rights to the character now reside.  One of the supposed advantages of Marvel's aquisition of those rights posited at the time of said aquisition was that the deal would at last allow the early stories to be presented in America under their original title.  I can, and shall proceed to, only speculate as to Marvel's reason for this decision.
It might be that since the comics were  originally published here under the Miracleman title Marvel may believe that most people know them by that name and might not recognize them if they were presented as Marvelman.  However, I find that unlikely, as the real world story behind these comics, including the name change and the years of litigation over the rights, are today perhaps more well known than the comics themselves, which have been out of print for over two decades.  This is certainly true in my case.  All I know about these stories comes from what I've read about them, not from reading the actual comics.
More likely to me is that Marvel chose to keep the Miracleman designation in order to avoid confusion with other similarly named characters appearing in the mainstream Marvel Universe, namely Captain Marvel and, in particular, Marvel Boy.
On the other hand, I find the most likely reason to be that, as Timothy Callahan observed in the third and final installment of his 2009 series of "When Words Collide" columns at Comic Book Resources tracing the origins and history of the Marvelman/Miracleman comics, by the time that Neil Gaiman took over as writer from Alan Moore, the series had been known as Miracleman for some time and Gaiman was very clearly writing about a character named Miracleman.  Callahan wonders whether "...the name "Marvelman" would even make sense for the character Gaiman writes..." and notes that "The word 'miracle' appears repeatedly, and the god-like status of the character makes him more than just a marvel." It is very likely then, that Gaiman will continue in this vein when the narrative resumes.
Regardless of what they are called or why they are called that, the return of Miracleman/Marvelman to print after so long a hiatus is to be celebrated.  As I said before, I have never read these comics, although I just might now, I recognize that, both for their value as stories and for their importance to the development and maturation of the comics art form, in particular the super-hero genre, these comics most definitely deserve to be in print and available to all.

Grant Morrison's "Supergods" Reviewed

Ok, let's start right off with the one major problem with Grant Morrison's Supergods: Our World In The Age Of The Superhero. (At least, that's the subtitle on my copy of the book, which is apparently the British edition.  It's amazing what you can come across at Half-Price Books, ain't it?  [My copy of Scott McCloud's Making Comics carries the warning "Uncorrected Proof: Not for Sale" on the back cover.]The American edition carried the tag "What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God From Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human."  The AV Club called that "ponderous."  I kind of agree, but as the entire book tends to be a little ponderous, perhaps its totally appropriate.  Still, I prefer the British version of the title.)  There are, as you might have inferred from my parenthetical asside just now, some other smaller problems with the book, but only one that really bothers me.  Its a problem I've noticed, but chose to overlook in most cases, in other histories of the comics, but find a little more egregious in this case.

I don't think that I've ever read a history of comics that didn't include at least a couple of factual errors.  I am usually forgiving of  these because most of those books are written by "outsiders" with a particular thesis to prove or agenda to advance, little things like research or accuracy be damned.   Morrison, however, is an industry insider and a self-professed life long fan, so such errors are somewhat harder to overlook, especially when they concern properties on which the author built his considerable reputation in the business. 

Now that I've got the nit-picky stuff out of the way, let me say that I quite enjoyed this book, actually.

Morrison does have his special thesis to advance in this book, which is equal parts history of comics and autobiography of Morrison himself.  That only makes sense, as for the past twenty-five years or so the two have been intimately intertwined.  

Morrison's thesis is that we all have the potential to become superheroes, and, with the aid of 21st century technology, in fact already are, and that tales of fictional superheroes have been there for us over the decades to show us the way.  To be honest, there's really nothing startlingly original in Morrison's theorem.  It's really just another variation on the old "superheroes as modern mythology" trope that's been with us for ages.  Morrison, however, does manage to bring to the table an understanding of psychology, alchemy, and magic as well as a knowledge of world mythologies that goes beyond the Greek/Roman pantheons that are the traditional basis for the metaphor.

The main appeal of Supergods, especially for Morrison's fans, is Grant's breathless, hyperbolic prose, most on display during the comics history parts of  the narrative.  He details the real life history of superheroes in the same mythopoeic terms that he applies to  their fictional adventures. Here's a sample from the very first page of the first chapter:

"From the beginning, the ur-god and this dark twin presented the world with a frame through which our own best and worst impulses could be personified in an epic struggle across a larger-than-life, two-dimensional canvas upon which our outer and inner worlds, our present and future, could be laid out and explored.  They came to save us from the existential abyss, but first they had to find a way into our collective imagination."

"Ur-god and his dark twin...?"  Couldn't just say Superman and Batman, could you, Grant?  That passage, besides setting the tone for most of what's to come, also serves as a fairly succinct synopsis of Morrison's central theme.

When he turns this same technique to his own life story, its just as fun to read, for the most part, though it at times comes off as immodest self-aggrandizement.  Of course, we long time fans expect that. Though I suspect it might put off mainstream readers, who are at least part of the target audience for this book. 

As I said above, the narrative can get somewhat ponderous, as when Morrison discusses his infamous "alien abduction" in Kathmandu, during which he was supposedly shown the true nature of reality by a bunch of fifth dimensional silver blobs.  This was actually part of the book I was looking forward most to reading.  However, before it was done I was waiting for Grant to get back to talking about writing Flex Mentallo, which, unfortunately, he never did.

Despite its over 420 page length, I burned through Supergods in under two days, and it would have been less if I hadn't taken time out to go to my job and sleep.  That is due, I suppose, not only to my intense interest in both of the books main topics, Grant Morrison and superheroes, but to the frenetic pace with which Morrison leads us through our journey of seven decades.  Though, as I said, the book gets bogged down when it should have been its most compelling, for the most part its an exciting and involving read. 

If you're a fan of Morrison, I recommend this tome in no uncertain terms.  If you're not quite the Grant-o-phile that I am, its still worth reading.  If you're someone who doesn't read comics, but might be curious about them (or if you know such a person), I could think of worse places to start your journey into their 2D universe.

Marvel Graphic Novel #4: The Coming of the New Mutants and the Beginning of the End of the Bronze Age

While the Bronze Age is generally considered to have ended  with the publication of Crisis On Infinite Earths in 1985, certain avatars of the new age began to appear as soon as the early 1980's.  One such was Frank Miller's initial run on Daredevil, which presaged the darker tone of the so called "Modern Age" of comics.  Another was Marvel Graphic Novel #4, introducing the New Mutants and heralding the transformation of the X-Men from a single comic into a "franchise". 

It strikes me that the cover price of $4.95 was a bit much for a 48 page comic in 1982, even if that comic was bigger than the standard monthly periodical and printed on nicer paper.  The contents don't really seem to merit this "deluxe" treatment and price tag.  "Renewal" is a fairly standared and somewhat formulaic super-team origin.  We are introduced to each of the five future members of the team that would come to be known as the New Mutants as they discover their mutant gifts, as well as their mutual foe, a rogue member of the Hellfire Club named Donald Pierce who seeks to destroy them.  Then the scene shifts to the Xavier Academy, where Charles Xavier, also known as Professor X, believing the X-Men to be dead, is reluctant to expose any more young mutants to that kind of danger.  Convinced by his old friend Moira McTaggert of the continuing relevance of his vision of peace and friendship between mutants and humans, Chuck overcomes his doubts and sets about uniting these aforementioned young mutants to defeat Pierce.  He then convinces them to stay on at his school so that he can teach them to control their newfound mutant abilities and use them for the benefit of all mankind.

Chris Claremont's typically dialogue and caption heavy script is fairly routine and by the numbers while the art by Bob McCleod is pretty representative of the Marvel house style at the time under editor-in-chief Jim Shooter.  In short, other than the format,  this is a fairly typical Marvel comic of the era, and while it might not have been quite worth five bucks thirty years ago, the two dollars I paid for it at Half Price Books a couple of months ago seems like a pretty good deal.

Calling B***S*** on DC

A few weeks ago, in a Comics Shop News cover story on DC's New 52 that pretty much just regurgitated the company's press releases, I ran across this little gem of particularly egregious self-serving corporate double speak attempting to rationalize the decision to restart their two longest running titles with new first issues: "Counting issue numbers is focusing on the past, not the future."  Now, it struck me that if the editorial poobahs at DC really believed the swill that their public relations hacks apparently expect the average drooling fanboy to swallow whole without questions, then why are they even bothering to number the new series?  If issue numbers really are as irrelevant as they say, then why not, instead of  52 new #1s, simply put out 52 new "November 2011" issues?   If they really want to shake things up and usher in a new age of  comics, then why not just eliminate issue numbers altogether?  This would drastically alter not only the new comics market, but the secondary collectors and back issue scene as well.  Just as DC's previous launches and relaunches of its super-hero books have ushered in the the beginnings and/or endings of the various historical ages of comics; with Action Comics #1 and the debut of Superman ushering in the Golden Age, the second Flash's first appearance in Showcase #4 heralding the arrival of the Silver Age, and the conclusion of Crisis On Infinite Earths sounding the death knell of the Bronze Age; so is there potential, most likely doomed, sadly, to remain unrealized, for the latest relaunch to truly change the landscape of American comics. 

Of course, it doesn't seem as if DC is really all that interested in changing things quite that much.  In fact, the whole relaunch, rather than being the harbinger of a bold new era in the industry, seems pretty much like business as usual.  I read an article somewhere on-line, and I wish I could remember where so that I could link to it, that referred to the 90s and the first decade of the new millennium as the "Age of Reiteration," marked by the two major publishers endlessly revising, revamping, rebooting, reconfiguring, relaunching, and rejiggering their tried and true, shop worn old wares.  The DC relaunch just might, therefore, in spite of itself usher in a new era by virtue of being the logical and inevitable end result of that process, thus forcing the publishers to find new methods to temporarily increase interest in the same old super-hero tripe.  

I doubt it, however.   The comics industry is in a rut.  "Business as usual" has kept the comics industry's head just barely above water for the past quarter century. The so-called "Modern Age" of comics has lingered like a bad odor since the mid-80's, longer than any of the previous ages, and the publishers seem to lack the vision to come up with a truly viable alternative to the old ways.   This probably isn't the last renumbering we'll see.  Despite all of DC's vociferous protestations that they in no way ever intend to revert to the old numbering, I can't imagine that in about eight years they'll be able to resist hyping the 1000th issue of Action Comics.

'Tec Support: The Seeds of "Knightfall"--Detective Comics #480

While notable for being one of the first two Batman stories drawn by the late Don Newton (Batman #305 hit the stands that same month), "The Perfect Fighting Machine" from Detective Comics #480 is, in truth, an entertaining but rather unremarkable tale.  According to writer Dennis  O'Neil, however, this obscure little story helped spawn one of the biggest event story lines of the 1990's.  Within the pages of 'Tec #480 lie the seeds of "Knightfall."
But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let me tell you about the story first.
The tale begins in medias res, with Batman already locked in a life or death struggle with a silent, hulking brute who appears to be kicking the living crap out of him.  As he's getting tossed around, Bats thinks, "He's creaming me...and I don't even know his name!"  As the taciturn killer is strangling him, Batman decides it's a good time to try and make friends.  He chokes out the words, "Wh-Who are you?", cuing the inevitable flashback.
In the next panel, we are taken back in time six weeks to find a homely, fat schlub being harassed by a trio of young punks who break his calculator and make him drop his ice cream cone.  Slinking away in tears, he is befriended by a stranger identifying himself as Ivan Angst, who offers to buy the poor kid a new ice cream cone.  Angst is soon revealed to the reader as the leader of a terrorist organization known as Mercenaries, Incorporated, whom Batman has been after for several weeks.
While Batman is bedridden with a fever of 104 degrees, Angst, with all purpose mad scientist Dr. Moon, begins the process of transforming the poor nerd he befriended into a the "perfect fighting machine" of the story's title through a series of surgeries and hormone treatments which render him super strong, nearly invulnerable, and unable to feel pain.  Moon later refers to him as a "gork," which, the doctor explains, is "...medical slang for a living, breathing vegetable!" Angst has plans to create an army of such perfect soldiers. When the process is complete, he decides to test his prototype against the "perfect opponent," the Batman, and issues a challenge to the Caped Crusader via a classified ad in the Gotham newspaper.  Despite not being fully recovered from his illness, Batman accepts the challenge, and the story shifts back to the present where Batman is still struggling to survive the relentless onslaught of Angst's perfect soldier.
Just as he's about to deliver the killing blow, the would be assassin falters and collapses.  Moon declares, "As I feared! The strain was too great! His whole system is collapsing! Not being able to feel pain, he didn't realize anything was wrong--until it was too late!"  The dying giant turns to the one man he believed to be his friend, Ivan Angst.  But Angst, calling him "...an experiment--that failed!", refuses.  Enraged, the "gork" turns on Angst as the cowardly Dr. Moon flees.  Batman attempts to pull him off Angst, but he fails.  The "perfect fighting machine" kills Angst before dieing himself, with neither Batman nor the reader ever having learned his name.
Back in 1993, while the "Knightfall" story line was running in Batman and Detective Comics, Dennis O'Neil, then editor of the Batman titles, and Julius Schwartz, editor of 'Tec at the time #480 was published, were in Columbus as guests at the annual SF con Marcon.  They also did a signing at the now out of business local comics shop Central City Comics that Saturday.  I got my friend Dave Alkire to give me a ride out to the shop, and gave him my copy (I've long since aquired another) of 'Tec #480 so he'd have something for O'Neil and Schwartz to sign.  When Dave handed O'Neil the book, the writer told us a little story about it.

Denny hadn't felt that the seventeen pages allotted to him for this story had given him sufficient space to fully explore the premise.  Thus, he eventually returned to the idea, reworking it and expanding it.  This new story was called "Venom," which appeared as issues #16-20 of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight in 1991.
"Venom," of course, introduced the titular strength enhancing drug, which was later used by the villain Bane, the prime mover behind the events of "Knightfall."  This story eventually gave us Jean-Paul Valley, a.k.a. Azrael, as the replacement Batman after Bane break's Bruce Wayne's back.
So, "The Perfect Fighting Machine," a little known seventeen page story from the late 70's, is indirectly responsible for giving us not only this:

...but this, as well:

Furthermore, the success of "Knightfall" may have had a hand in inspiring such later abominations as "Emerald Twilight," the story that introduced Kyle Rayner as the new Green Lantern even as it transformed Hal Jordan in a cosmic powered mass murderer. (The latter is  the abominable part.  I actually liked Kyle as GL.)

Despite all that, I still like "The Perfect Fighting Machine."  In fact, I like it even more knowing the unheralded role it played in comics history.  I say "unheralded" because, other than hearing it from Dennis O'Neil himself, I've never come across this info in any comics magazine or on the web.  For all I know, I may be first person, even after all this time, to write about this. 
That's kind of cool, actually, if it's true.

Morrison and Quitely's "Flex Mentallo" To Be Reprinted At Last

Until recently, I was unaware that lurking amongst my accumulation of old comic books was a genuine, rare, highly prized and much sought after collector's item: the four issues of Flex Mentallo by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely.  Since its publication in 1996, the series has never been reprinted, mostly due to legal conflicts with Charles Atlas Ltd., the company responsible for the famous ad "The Insult That Made A Man Out of Mac," which pitched their mail order bodybuilding course and on which Grant Morrison based the origin of Flex Mentallo which appeared in Doom Patrol #42.  When the story was called for to their attention, Atlas sued DC for trademark infringement.  While the case was settled in DC's favor, with a ruling that Flex's origin was parody and thus not an infringement, DC apparently agreed never to use the character again. Of course, to me at least, this doesn't seem to mean that they could not reprint the character's earlier appearances.  In fact, the Doom Patrol story line featuring the character has been collected in trade paperback, but the character's eponymous mini-series has remained in limbo.  In the meantime, as I learned just a few months ago, the series has become somewhat hard to find and the few copies that are available are fetching a "pretty penny" (as my mom might say) on ebay.  I was one of the lucky ones who had the foresight to buy the book when it came out, and I, for one, would never part with my copies. I think that  probably a lot of people who've read this book feel the same way and that may be a big part of why the series has become so difficult to find.

Through repeated re-readings, Flex Mentallo has come to be my favorite comics work by Grant Morrison.  It represents a highpoint in the careers of Morrison and Frank Quitely both individually and as a team.  I'll admit that I don't entirely understand it, but I love it.  (Which I suspect is how my mom feels about me.)
The series tell the story of Flex Mentallo, a formerly fictional super-hero created by a young boy named Wallace Sage and brought into the real world by Sage's psychic power.  Flex discovers that one of his fictional cohorts, the Fact, has apparently also become real. His search for the Fact leads Flex to a mysterious terrorist group called Faculty X and ultimately to the group of archetypical super-heroes known as the Legion of Legions.  Meanwhile, a suicidal young musician named Wallace Sage, who may or may not be the same Wallace Sage who created Flex, has taken an overdose of pills and called a suicide hotline.  He delivers a rambling reminiscence about his childhood and the comic books he read when he was a kid. 

In many ways, Flex Mentallo is the quintessential Grant Morrison comic, encapsulating most of the themes that have run through much of his work before and since, from Zenith to Final Crisis.  Here he explores the nature of reality, the untapped potential of the human race, the power of imagination, the history of comics and his unabashed love for the medium and combines them with elements of autobiography and super-hero adventure.  That sounds like a lot for one four issue story, but Morrison pulls it all together and makes it work somehow.
This series is central to an understanding of Morrison's career. It is the bridge between his work on Doom Patrol, Animal Man, and The Invisibles and his later, more mainstream work on JLA and New X-Men.  As Morrison himself told author Timothy Callahan in an interview for the book Grant Morrison: The Early Years, "So, you can see me re-engaging with super-heroes in the Flex Mentallo series...the last page of that is me preparing for the Justice League, I think."
I haven't said much about the art, but it's beautiful.  This series was the first time I saw Frank Quitely's work, and as far as I'm concerned this is the best thing he's ever done.  Honestly, his work since has been somewhat hit and miss for me.  For example, while I generally like his art, I absolutely hated his issues of The Authority.  Of course, it didn't help matters that Mark Millar's scripts were pretty awful.  Here, though, Quitely's art is near perfect, with just a hint of cartooniness that really serves the story well.

That this series has remained out of print for so long is truly a shame.  Fortunately, that's about to change.  Last month, DC's Vertigo imprint announced that Flex Mentallo will, at last, be reprinted. A hardcover edition of the story aincluding unspecified "bonus material" is slated to be released sometime this fall.
Even though I already have the mini-series, I might just give some serious thought to buying the collection.  In large part, it really depends on just what the "bonus material" turns out to be.  Also, if I do get the book, I'll have a spare copy that I can then loan out to friends to introduce them to this baffling, yet entertaining and thought provoking story.

"Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods" DVD Review

It was two days before payday and I really couldn't afford to spend twenty bucks on an impulse purchase, but when I saw a copy of the Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods DVD on the front counter at the neighborhood comics shop, I could not just leave it lying there.  Despite having to live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the next couple of days, I have no regrets about buying this movie. 

Through interviews with Grant himself and many of the writers and artists he has collaborated with the film traces Morrison's career in comics from his early days at British publication Warrior up to his recent work on Final Crisis and Batman.  Among those interviewed are many of his most important collaborators such as artists Steve Yeowell, Phil Jimenez, Jill Thompson, Richard Case and Frank Quitely; writers Mark Waid, Warren Ellis and Geoff Johns; as well as authors Tim Callahan (Grant Morrison: The Early Years) and Doug Woolk (Reading Comics), and that listing only scratches the surface of those who director Patrick Meany talks to in the movie. The filmmakers also managed to track down Morrison's childhood friend Gordy Goudie.  His recollections, combined with Morrison's candid reminiscences and anecdotes and insights from those colleagues and experts make Talking With Gods the most complete picture yet presented of  one of the most important writers of the modern age of comics.  Even with as much as I have read over the years about Morrison and his work, I still learned things about him that I hadn't previously known from watching this documentary.  For instance, I had not previously realized the extant to which his greatest work in my opinion, Flex Mentallo, incorporated elements of autobiography.  

It should go without saying that Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods is must-see TV for fans of Morrison, however it should also be seen by anyone interested at all in the medium of comics and how it has developed over the past couple of decades.  Morrison and his work, after all, have been an integral part of that development.

But, hey, don't just take my word for it, check out this clip from the film. 

The Once and Future Atom

So, I was just over at the DC Comics web-site checking out their previews of the books coming out this week.  The hype for Titans #30 promises that "...Ray Palmer guest-stars as he continues his investigation into Ryan Choi's murder." Ryan Choi, you may remember, became "The All-New Atom" after Ray Palmer , the Silver Age bearer of that name, disappeared at the end of Identity Crisis.

A while ago, I came across an interesting post by Chris Sims in which he notes that what he calls "regressive storytelling", that is the practice at DC of abandoning newer versions of characters such as Firestorm and the Atom in favor of the "classic", mostly Silver Age, version, has made the DC Universe less racially diverse. After all, most Silver Age heroes were white men.

Now, in the case of the Atom, not only has DC brought back the white guy, but then they go and kill off the new kid to boot?  

Racial issues aside, there are about a dozen Flashes (an exaggeration), over seven thousand Green Lanterns (not an exaggeration), and two Batmans (or is it Batmen?), so why does there have to be only one Atom?

Amen, Brothah!

Just wanted to call your attention to the post "Mag Has A Mini-Rant" over at The Comic Treadmill.

If he hadn't said it, I would have.

The Unbearableness of Being Dr. Light--Part 2

Welcome back for the second part of my look at the history of the four DC Comics characters who have been known as Dr. Light.  This retrospective was inspired by the following question posed by one of my readers in a comment on an earlier post:

Didn't Doctor Light die in Suicide Squad? I know comic book characters never STAY dead, but still... Also, I thought there was a female Doctor Light who used a similar-powered suit as a hero. She served in the Justice League for awhile. What happened to her?

In part one, I covered the Golden Age Dr. Light, an obscure foe of the first Dr. Mid-Nite, looked at the "second" Dr. Light, actually the fourth one to appear in comics, whose heroic career was cut short by a freak lab accident, and traced the career of Arthur Light, the most well known and longest lasting of the four Dr. Lights, from his earliest efforts to destroy the Justice League of America to his death and resurrection in the pages of Suicide Squad.  In short, after several hundred words, I'd managed only to answer the first part of the commenter's question.  In this installment, I will bring the bio of Arthur Light up to the present and review the career of the female Dr. Light.

If you haven't read that earlier opus, click here and do so while I take a few deep calming breaths so that I may attempt to write about Identity Crisis, one of the worst comics ever, without barking and foaming at the mouth.  Forgive me if I might get one or two details wrong in my summary of the story.  I'm writing about it from memory, since I really didn't want to read the damned thing again.   

The Unbearableness of Being Dr. Light--Part 1

Its time once again to answer questions posed to me by my rabid readers via their carefully considered comments.  My recent rantings on the overall distastefulness of Identity Crisis and the general lameness of Dr. Light moved one reader to inquire:

"Didn't Doctor Light die in Suicide Squad? I know comic book characters never STAY dead, but still... Also, I thought there was a female Doctor Light who used a similar-powered suit as a hero. She served in the Justice League for awhile. What happened to her?"

This query inspired me to do a little surfing on the wild, wild web and digging through back issue bins at the recent Mid-Ohio Con in order to cobble together a  retrospective on the four characters from DC comics who have borne the name of Dr. Light over the course of the company's seven and a half decades of cranking out funny books.  The most surprising thing I discovered in my investigations is that there have, in fact, been four characters calling themselves Dr. Light, whereas I had previously been aware of only three.  Since we are dealing here with a quartet of  characters and a time span of over sixty years, this expository essay may just tend a little toward the longish side.  Therefore, I shall be dividing it into at least two parts.

Dr. Light: Ok, He WAS Lame, But So What?

Coming near the end of writer Bob Haney's long tenure on The Brave and the Bold, issue #147 teams Batman and Supergirl in a story written not by Haney but by relative newcomer Cary Burkett.  I can only speculate as to why this issue is not written by Haney, however I do know that there were conflicts toward the end of Haney's run between the writer and new B&B editor Paul Levitz that would eventually force Haney off the book.  It may be that Levitz wanted a Supergirl team-up and Haney either refused to do it or didn't do it to Levitz's satisfaction.  If Haney did refuse, I'd speculate that it was because he had already planned the story that would appear just three issues later in #150 featuring Superman.  It does seem almost redundant to me to have team-ups with two so similar characters in so  short a span of time.
However, my purpose in writing about B&B #147 was not going to be to talk about how badly DC treated Bob Haney, but how badly DC treated Dr. Light in Brad Meltzer's awful Identity Crisis mini-series.  I saw another review of this issue on-line and, remembering that Light was the villain of the piece, decided to write a post about how the doctor wasn't always lame and how the revamp of the character in Meltzer's story was unnecessary, not to mention a really bad idea and  an equally bad story.
After rereading B&B 147's story, "Death-Scream From The Sky", I realized that I couldn't do it.  Oh, I still feel the same way I always have about Identity Crisis. It is and shall remain for all time one of the worst comics ever published.  However, I am now forced to admit that Dr. Light really was pretty lame.
In B&B #147, his scheme to blackmail Gotham with the threat of a laser attack from a hijacked satellite is pretty generic, having been tried by a host of other villains ranging from the Parasite to Kobra, and Batman barely breaks a sweat taking out him and his henchmen.  A couple of years earlier, in Teen Titans #44, Light tried to take revenge on the his old enemies in the Justice League of America  by defeating their sidekicks in the Titans, but ended up getting his ass handed to him by wannabe hanger-on Mal Duncan , an even lamer character than Light, wearing a second hand Guardian costume.
In these stories, the heroes, at least, take Light seriously.  Batman tells Supergirl that Light is "more deadly than a dozen rattlesnakes."  The writers, for their part, do their best to make Light a real menace, though they don't quite succeed. 

By the 80's, things had changed. Dr. Light's inherent lameness was acknowledged and even embraced. In the Batman and the Outsiders/New Teen Titans team-up Marv Wolfman and Mike W. Barr portray Light as a craven, cringing coward.  His backstory in Secret Origins was played for laughs, paired in that issue with the origin of the even lamer  and far sillier Legion of Substitute Heroes, and John Ostrander used him mainly as a punchline in Suicide Squad.

As I've said before, there's really nothing wrong with having one or two easily defeated comic relief villains to provide the heroes a little breather between the real world-beaters.  Besides, the point I'd intended to make in this post is still a valid one.  If DC really had to make Dr. Light into a badass mofo, there had to be better ways to do it than a clumsy retcon that turned him into a brutal rapist and had Zatanna psychically violate him and the rest of the JLA as accomplices.  

It just amazes me that DC actually approved this piece of crap instead of shouting "Are you freakin' crazy!?! We can't print this garbage!!!" and having security escort Meltzer out of the building. I, for one, prefer to pretend the whole mess never happened.  That would be a whole lot easier if nearly everything that's happened in nearly every DC title for the five years since didn't spring directly from it.
Still, I hope that someday DC will choose to just ignore Identity Crisis.  However, it seems far more likely that instead they'll eventually publish an even worse story to explain it away.  Now that's something to look forward to.

Ravage 2099: Worst Comic Ever?

Worst Comic Ever?

I recently inadvertantly aquired a copy of the first issue of Ravage 2099, the first, and some say, the worst title in Marvel's short lived line of comics detailing the adventures of super-heroes in a dystopic future world, most of whom, with the exception of Ravage, were riffs on current day Marvel heroes.

Inadvertantly? Well, the Half-Price Books store across from the Graceland shopping center here in beautiful Columbus, Ohio often sells bundles of old comics consisting of 15 or 16 issues bagged together.  I picked up what was labeled as a "variety bundle", and since the bag was sealed I could not see what all was inside.  The books that I could see were two issues of Comico's Justice Machine, a series I have been collecting and reading recently, and it was, after all, only two bucks, so I picked it up.  Unfortunately, the bundle contained only five JM's, two of which I already had.  The rest was mostly a lot of crappy Marvels, mainly from the 90's.

When Ravage 2099 is mentioned, it is usually as an example of the quintessential bad Marvel comic of the 90's.   So, is it?

Well, it's certainly bad.  The script is by Stan Lee, and it is among the worst things he's ever turned out.  (And let's remember that, with the exception of post-Ditko Amazing Spider-Man, when Stan isn't working with an artist with a strong creative vision of his own such as Ditko or Kirby, Stan's writing has never really been all that good.) Ravage's transformation from corporate pawn to rebel vigilante is too abrupt and utterly unbelievable. The issue's villain, an evil executive of the corporation that rules most of the future  world of 2099, is just laughable. He goes around casually killing people who happen to be in the room while he's monologuing about how evil  he is because they now know too much.  ("Hello.  My name is Anderthorp Henton. Oh, dear. I'm sorry, but you know too much now and I must kill you." ZAP!)

The art really isn't that bad. Paul Ryan is a decent artist  who tells a story well. He's certainly nowhere near as bad as some who were drawing paychecks from Marvel and DC back then. (You know who I'm talking about, Liefeld. Yeah, you  too, Larsen.)
For a more complete overview of the issue, check out this post from the blog Again With The Comics.

Bad as it is, however, I certainly wouldn't say that Ravage 2099 epitomizes the absolute nadir of Marvel's 90's output.  

On the other hand, 1997's Uncanny X-Men #346, which I was also duped into purchasing, certainly comes close. The story, if it can be called that, by Scott Lobdell, is merely an excuse for a protracted fight scene punctuated by really bad dialogue.  The alleged art by Joe Madureira is even worse. Imagine, if you will, Rob Liefeld trying to draw in Manga style and you begin to get an idea how bad it is.  

Just about all this issue is missing, and that would truly make it a prime exemplar of the typical bad Marvel  comic of the era, is a shiny foil enhanced cover.

Which, by the way, Ravage 2099 #1 has.

OOOOH! Shiiiny!

When Beards Collide: GA Meets The Warlord in Green Arrow (Vol.2) #'s 27/28

If you look at a drawing by Mike Grell of Green Arrow and one of his sword and sorcery creation The Warlord, you will immediately be struck by the strong resemblance between the two characters.   Travis Morgan, the Warlord, is basically a somewhat taller Ollie Queen with longer, and whiter, hair.  Thus, once Crisis On Infinite Earths established that the Warlord existed in the DC Universe (something which Grell had firmly resisted during his tenure on the book), it was perhaps inevitable that the two would someday meet, and only fitting that Mike Grell would be one to introduce them to each other.  He would be abetted by another artist familiar to Warlord fans, Dan Jurgens, who drew Green Arrow #'s 27 and 28, and was one of the artists who followed Grell on The Warlord.

The only question was how Grell would make it work.  With The Longbow Hunters, Grell established a somewhat more realistic millieu for Green Arrow, banishing all the more outre and fantastic elements of the mainstream DC Universe.  His Arrow operated in a shadowy urban jungle where super powers just didn't fit in.  How, then, could such an environment comfortably accommodate a character who'd spent the last several years fighting demons and wizards in an extra-dimensional fantasy land?

Naturally, Ollie traveling to the Warlord's land of Skartaris was out of the question. Travis Morgan had to come to Seattle, where Green Arrow and Black Canary lived during the Grell days. Thus Green Arrow #27, a story entitled "enter..." in a nod to the catchphrase "Enter the Lost World of The Warlord" which adorned Morgan's old series, begins with a shadowy figure strongly resembling Oliver Queen having himself a drink at a Seattle dive bar. The place is frequented by all manner of low lifes, including a mohawked punk recently released from prison after being nabbed by Green Arrow and looking to get some revenge. All he ends up getting is pinned to the bar by a knife through his hand.

This is just the first of several encounters with people Ollie has pissed off since he's been in Seattle.  These are interspersed with scenes of Ollie and Dinah Lance, a.k.a. the Black Canary, at home, to show that however much this shadowy stranger may look like him, it isn't the Green Arrow.  

Following an encounter with a mob boss whose brother-in-law the actual Green Arrow had a run in with earlier that evening, Morgan, after taking out the guys goons and putting a couple of bullets into his Rolls-Royce, learns just who all these people really want to kill.  Thus, later that evening, as Ollie and Dinah are asleep, there's a knock at their door and Ollie opens it to find himself staring into his own face.  "Whatever you've been doing to piss these people off," Morgan tells Ollie, "KNOCK IT OFF!" He then flattens Ollie with a punch to  the jaw. 

That's where "enter..." exits.

 "Siege" begins in #28 pretty much right where the previous issue left off, with Ollie on the floor rubbing his jaw after being popped by an angry Warlord.  Morgan soon joins him on the floor after making a careless sexist remark to Dinah.  Then, after the violent greetings, its time for the bonding. Morgan proceeds to fill Ollie and Dinah in on some of the details of who he is and where he comes from.
It seems that after two decades of playing Conan, Morgan got an itch to see what was up in the real world. So, after emerging in Alaska, he hitched a ride on a military transport and apparently spent an unspecified amount of time wandering around the country taking in the many ways the world had changed, and the many ways that it hadn't, during his time in Skartaris.  Finally, he'd grown disillusioned with late 80's America and decided to head back home.  Thus, he was on his way back when he was sidetracked by Ollie's enemies.

 Meanwhile, Eddie Finster, the mob boss Morgan assaulted in the previous issue, decides that Queen needs to be taught a lesson.  To do that, he sets off a bomb at a power plant to create a blackout and calls in a bunch of low level thugs to go on a crime spree in order to preoccupy the police, while he leads an assault on Ollie and Dinah's home.  After they, with Morgan's help, deal with the threat, their new friend decides not to stick around to talk to answer any questions from the authorities and heads back for the road to Skartaris.
All in all, these two issues make up a fun, if somewhat formulaic, action  story featuring a team up that fans of Mike Grell must have been just aching to see. Grell managed to make Travis Morgan work in Ollie's world, but its a somewhat uneasy fit.  Because Grell's Green Arrow took place in a more or less "real world" setting where the fantasy elements that were the heart of The Warlord were verboten, these two issues' guest star is never once actually referred to as "The Warlord," only as "Morgan." Even in #28's credit box, Mike Grell is credited with creating Travis Morgan, not the Warlord.  Furthermore, when he's telling Ollie and Dinah about himself, never once is Skartaris mentioned by name and Morgan is somewhat vague on the exact details of just what he'd been up to for the previous two decades.  Grell is depending on the reader bringing that knowledge to the table.  That's not to say you can't enjoy the story without that knowledge.  I once described this story to a friend, and it turned out he had read and liked it, but  hadn't realized that the man every one thought was Oliver Queen was, in fact, the Warlord.  However, to really appreciate the story fully, it helps to have read at least one or two issues of The Warlord. Besides, that was a really good comic, too, so its worth checking out. (There's a recently published Showcase Presents volume that allows you to check out a big chunk of the early issues for not a whole lot of money.)

The Essential GREEN ARROW

Our own special brand of "March Madness", the four week long salute to the Emerald Archer dubbed GREEN ARROW MONTH, kicks off in earnest today with a look at the history of the Battlin' Bowman and some of the pivotal publications that have shaped Oliver Queen's character as we know and love him today.

The character first saw print in the 73rd issue of More Fun Comics.  He was the creation of Mort Weisinger, best known as the editor who guided Superman's destiny through the end of the Silver Age, and artist George Papp.  With issue #77, he took over the comics covers from previous star Dr. Fate. For fifteen issues of  Leading Comics, he was one of eight members of The Seven Soldiers of Victory. (GA's sidekick Speedy and Star-Spangled Kid's sidekick Stripesy were members of the team, but Crimson Avenger's pal Wing, even though he took part in the team's adventures, was not considered a member. My guess is they did it for the sake of the alliteration. Eight Soldiers of Victory doesn't have the same ring to it.) Eventually, all the super-hero features in More Fun moved over to Adventure Comics, and Green Arrow continued to appear there until 1960.  At the same time, his adventures also saw print in World's Finest Comics, where they continued until 1964.  After that, for many years the only place to see GA was in Justice League of America, where he became the team's first new member in the fourth issue, and the occasional team-up with Batman in The Brave and The Bold.

I'd wager that before 1969, no one would have called Green Arrow their favorite super-hero.  The conventional wisdom on the Emerald Archer's early adventures is that he was basically a bland, second rate Batman knock-off.  A billionaire playboy entrusted with the care of an orphaned young boy, Oliver Queen fought crime from his Arrowcave, rode around in his Arrowcar, was summoned to the scene of crimes  by an Arrowsignal, and used a variety of "trick arrows"  similar to the gadgets housed in the Caped Crusader's utility belt.  While Green Arrow, along with fellow Weisinger creation Aquaman, is one of only two DC heroes outside the Trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman whose adventures continued to be published in the fallow period between the post war decline of super-hero comics and the start of the Silver Age with Showcase #4, Green Arrow's Wikipedia entry hints that his endurance is more likely due to the influence of his creator than to his popularity. Some of the few stories from this period actually worth taking note of were drawn, and in a couple of  cases written, by Jack Kirby.  One of these stories provided Green Arrow with a new origin which supplanted the Golden Age origin and remains, allowing for some revision and updating over the years, the origin in force today. 

Beginning in 1969, writer Denny O'Neil and artist Neal Adams, working separately at first, then finally collaborating, got a hold of Ollie and began to transform him from a bargain basement Batman into an interesting and unique character in his own right.  In a story entitled "The Senator's Been Shot" from The Brave and The Bold #85, Neal Adams updated the archer's look with a new costume and his now familiar goatee.  Next, in Justice League of America #75, O'Neil wrote the story in which Oliver Queen loses his fortune and his company and took the first steps to becoming a liberal leaning defender of the downtrodden as well as beginning his long running relationship with the Black Canary.  Next, in the award winning Green Lantern/Green Arrow series, O'Neil and Adams cemented the character's new direction in a set of stories that featured the title characters travelling around America confronting not super-villains, for the most part, but the various social ills plaguing the country in the late 60's and early 70's.

Following the cancellation of GL/GA, Green Arrow returned to being a back up feature, appearing behind the main story in Action Comics, World's Finest Comics, and Detective Comics. He was also a member in good standing of the Justice League during this time, as well as returning for a  brief time to his co-starring role in the revival of Green Lantern. 

In 1983, Green Arrow appeared for the first time in his own self title comic book. The four issue mini-series was written by Mike W. Barr and drawn by Trevor Von Eden.  

1987's The Longbow Hunters, written and illustrated by Mike Grell, launched a new direction for the Emerald Archer as he moved to Seattle, got himself a new costume and a new attitude, and abandoned the "trick arrows." This led to  an ongoing series which Grell wrote, but only occasionally drew, for 80 issues.  During his run as chronicler of GA's adventures, Grell also wrote an update of the Kirby origin for Secret Origins #38. He followed that up with a "Year One" style tale of Green Arrow's early adventures in Green Arrow: The Wonder Year.

Shortly after Grell's departure, in Green Arrow #0, Ollie met a young man named Connor Hawke. He was soon revealed to be Oliver's son and would take up the mantle of Green Arrow following Queen's death in #101. Hawke would continue in that capacity until that Green Arrow series ended with #137 in 1996. 

Next, film maker Kevin Smith, in his first work for DC, launched a new Green Arrow series by bringing Ollie back from the dead in the ten part story line "Quiver".  Smith left the title after the fifteenth issue. Smith's run was followed first by a six part story by novelist Brad Meltzer, then a lengthy stint by Judd Winick.  That series ended in 2007 with #75, which featured Ollie proposing to Dinah Lance, a.k.a. the Black Canary.

After a four issue Black Canary mini-series in which Dinah finally accepts Ollie's proposal, the two were married in The Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special, which in turn led into the currently ongoing Green Arrow/Black Canary series.
In 2007, Ollie's origins were retold once again in the six issue series Green Arrow: Year One.

And that pretty much brings us up to the present.

I hear that the Green Arrow/Black Canary series is set to change its title soon to simply Green Arrow, and that a new storyline called "The Fall of Green Arrow" promises big changes in the Emerald Archer's life.   Given that these big character changing event stories, ala "The Death and Return of Superman," "Knightfall," and, worst of all, "Emerald Twilight," are rarely any good, and sometimes just awful, I'm honestly not optimistic, but I'll wait and see.

Oh, Bloody Hell! One More Thing...(90's Comics V)

Yea, I know I said I was done, but I was re-reading the earlier posts, and when I got to the part in the first part of this interminable series where I mentioned the various "new universes" that sprang up during the 90's, I remembered that I had intended to mention Milestone, the one such start up universe that produced some really good comics, as well as inspiring the animated Static Shock.  An especially egregious omission now that the Milestone characters are making a comeback, this time incorporated into the mainstream DC Universe.

This time I'm done for real.  Honest. (Maybe)

Comics of the 90s Part IV: Postscript

Continuing to beat a deservedly dead horse, I present what I promise is the final installment in my series on the comics of  the 1990's.  If you missed any of the previous parts, you might want to check out parts one, two, or three before continuing. (or not)

First off, I'd like to  thank everyone who commented on the series, especially part one, which is  the most commented on post I've done on this or any of my previous blogs.  One comment on that post, concerning the definition of the term "mini-comic" may possibly lead to a post attempting to sort that out sometime in the future.
For now, I wrap up the series with a list of addenda, apologies  and self-justifications.
Here in the age of   Web 2.0, re-writing and revising are pretty much things of the past.  Bloggers like myself usually just whip out a couple of hundred words and hit "publish." Perhaps if I'd allowed myself some time to polish the posts, I wouldn't have omitted some comics that I should have mentioned. 

For example, as soon as I finished the first part, I immediately realized that I had failed to mention Rich Watson's Rat, even though I've felt since I first saw it that this is one of the best comics I've ever read.  Here's a link to a review of the comic which will give you some idea of why I feel that way (it's one of several books reviewed in the column so you'll have to scroll down a bit).

Another wonderfully talented small press creator  I should have mentioned is Pam Bliss.

Responding to my post on independent and self-published comics on the Sunday Comix e-mail group, Max Ink suggested a list of additions that included Mark Oakey's Thieves and Kings, Scott Roberts' Patty Cake, Seth's Palookaville, Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library, and Alex Robinson's Box Office Poison. I haven't read the first three comics he mentioned, and you may call me a Philistine if you wish, but the work of Chris Ware, genius though he may be, just doesn't do anything for me. Box Office Poison, however, I have read and definitely should have mentioned.  Perhaps it's because I didn't read it until the trade paperback collection was published in 2001 that I failed to include it among the comics of the 1990's.
In my post on DC's 90's output, I gushed on and on about Grant Morrison, yet I failed to mention the Doom Force special. Morrison and a cadre of artists including Keith Giffen, Richard Case, Walt Simonson, Steve Pugh, Ken Steacy and others, serve up a dead-on and wickedly funny parody of the "hot" comics of the early 90's, particularly Rob Liefeld's X-Force. 
Also on Sunday Comix e-mail group, my friend Russell Merritt suggests that my list of good Marvel comics of the 90s should have begun and ended with Marvels.  I admit that I went out of my way to give Marvel the benefit of quite a few doubts and some of my choices may be a little questionable, such as, for example, Kevin Smith's Daredevil run.  I mean, I liked it, but then again, I like Mallrats. In fact, if pressed, there's only one comic I mentioned among the Marvels that I'd really be willing to go to bat for--to wave in front of someone's face and shout, "Dude! For Pity's Sake, just READ IT!"--and that's Alan Davis' Clan Destine. Of the twelve issues published, Davis wrote and drew the first eight, and those issues truly do deserve to be mentioned with the 90's best super-hero comics.
Russell also mentions that Groo The Wanderer technically wasn't a Marvel comic, since Marvel didn't own it and it would move before the end of the decade to Dark Horse and eventually to Image.  However, Groo was a good comic and was being published in the 90s, which were the only two criteria for making the survey, and I included it with the Marvels because it began the decade at Marvel/Epic, and it had slipped my mind until Michael Neno mentioned it when I solicited suggestions from the Sunday Comix group prior to writing the Marvel installment.
And that, I believe, is that;  the end, at last of my week long look back at the comics of the final decade of the 20th Century. I hope you enjoyed it.

And Now For Marvel: Good Comics of the 90s Round III

(For those of you who haven't been keeping up with my recent on-line activity, this is the third in a series of posts looking back on the comics of the 1990's. Part One focused on the era's independent, alternative and self-published comics, while the second installment turned its eye on DC's 90's output. And now, at last, the time has come to look at Marvel Comics in the Clinton Decade)

The notion that the 90's was the "worst decade EVER" for comics is, sadly, pretty much true in Marvel's case. I really had to strain my brain to come up with the meager offerings listed here.  No other publisher, other than Image, of course, embraced the flashy, exaggerated, over-rendered "Image Style" that was inexplicably "hot" at the time as wholeheartedly as Marvel did.   Though it would be inaccurate to accuse Marvel of jumping on the Image bandwagon, as it is highly likely they would have trod that dark path had Image never existed, since they were headed that way anyways.  You must remember that the founders of Image all made their names and developed their trademark styles while toiling at Marvel, and probably would have stayed there if Marvel had been willing to pay them what they felt they were worth.  After all, despite all the high minded statements bandied about back around 1992, the so-called "Image Revolution" was not about artistic freedom or creator's rights, but about money.  Which is not to say that's a bad thing; comics is, after all, a business. But let's call a spade a spade, shall we?

Anyway, out of a decade of mostly dreck, I've come up with a pitifully short list of Marvel comics of the 90's actually worth reading.

Freakazoid Supes

Going back one more time to that list of 10 Worst 90s Character Revamps that provided the spark for my recent focus on the comics of that decade, you'll notice that at No. 5 is Superman during the brief, but not brief enough, period when they completely changed his powers and costume.  I was reminded that I used to refer to this version of the character as the "Freakazoid Superman", after the Steven Spielberg produced Warner Brothers TV cartoon of a couple of years earlier.  These two images should illustrate why:

Hilarious as Electric Supes was,however, Freakazoid! was, of course, much funnier. Not to mention a better super-hero story, as well.

90's Comics Part II: DC

Here we go with the second installment of my look back at some of the highlights of the final decade of the twentieth century in the world of funny books. As I explained in my last post, the whole thing began when I e-mailed some friends of mine a link to a list of Worst 90's Character Revamps which featured such gems as Azbats, Electric Blue Superman, Zombie Punisher and Alien Shapeshifting Guy Gardner.  (Personally, I would have found a spot on the list for Heroes Reborn, especially Rob Liefeld's execrable Captain America relaunch.)  This led to responses labeling the 90s  "...the worst decade EVER..." for comics and "..sad."  As the guy who initiated this round of 90s bashing, I felt that it was thus my duty to point out that were actually some good comics published during that decade, and I compiled a list of over fifty titles.  In the first part of this post, I covered the independent, self-published and small press books of the era, and today I turn my attention to the "big two," DC and Marvel. 

Actually, since there are so many DC books I want to talk about, I'm going to concentrate on those today and come back later with a, sadly, much shorter post on Marvel in the 90's.