"Talented Newcomers"

Something struck me as rather odd while I was reading the Bullpen Bulletins page in an old issue of The Incredible Hulk, and it wasn't the fact that  for some reason I was taking a break from re-reading one of my favorite comics to read a page of self-serving hyperbole, especially from a period when Marvel didn't really have a whole lot to blow its own horn about.  It was actually a somewhat peculiar turn of phrase I encountered in one of the items on the page.  I forget exactly what issue it was, but it was from 1994 during the period when the Hulk was leading the Pantheon and the book was being drawn by Gary Frank.  Anyway, the item in question was a promotional blurb touting an upcoming series called Conan The Adventurer which was to written by Roy Thomas and drawn by "talented newcomer" Rafael Kayanan.

"Talented newcomer."  Those are the exact words used.  I have a slight issue with that wording.  It isn't the word "talented."  I suppose that's a matter of personal opinion, although I've never been much of a fan of Kayanan's work.  It's calling Kayanan a "newcomer" that seems to me somewhat strange.  

By 1994, Rafael Kayanan had been working in comics for over a decade, including relatively lengthy runs on The Fury of Firestorm (beginning in 1984) and Captain Atom, taking over both of those books from Pat Broderick.

Upon thinking about this for probably longer than I really should have, I've concluded that this is a case of Marvel attempting to pretend that other comics publishers didn't exist.  Most of Kayanan's work up to that point had been, as I noted above, for DC.  He'd also done some work for independent publishers First and Eclipse as well as an outfit called Tiger Comics.  His first work for Marvel had come only about a year earlier.  So, as far as Marvel was concerned, I suppose that at that point in time it was technically accurate to refer to a ten year veteran of the comics industry as a "newcomer."

I'm still not convinced about the "talented" part, but that's just me.  Actually, though, that cover from the first issue of Conan the Adventurer isn't half bad.  In fact, its one of the better pieces of art I've seen by Kayanan.  Maybe he just preferred the sword and sorcery stuff to super-heroes, so he put more into those comics.  Perhaps I'll check out an issue or two his Conan work if I happen to come across it in a quarter bin at some point in the future.

(Near) Total Recall

Its funny the things that stick in your mind, isn't it?

A while back, I did a piece on the career of Tony Isabella, and in it I mentioned that he was responsible for what I still to this day think is one of the funniest lines I've ever read in a comic book in Welcome Back, Kotter #3.  I went on to quote that joke. However, since at the time I did not own a copy of the comic in question and it had been over thirty years since I'd read it, I had to rely on my memory.  

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, I just acquired another copy of Kotter #3 at Gem City Comic Con this past weekend.  So I decided to go back to that earlier post and check how accurately I'd actually remembered the passage.  It turns out I did pretty well.

I had the line as "There are a million stories in the Naked City.  There are almost as many in Brooklyn, but here we keep our clothes on.  It makes it easier to conceal weapons that way," which is pretty much verbatim.  I only left out two words.  The last part actually reads "It makes it a lot (italics mine, added for emphasis) easier to conceal weapons that way."

Not bad for a middle aged guy, huh?

Now if I could only remember where I set down my coffee cup.

The Pope of Comics

Congratulations to my Catholic readers--if there are any who haven't been put off by my occasional references, when appropriate to the subject at hand, to my unashamed atheism and liberal politics.  Most Catholics I know are staunch Republicans and refused to even vote for one of their own for President back in 2004 because he belonged to the wrong party.  Not to mention that more than a few of them actually belief in God.

Sorry, got sidetracked again.  Happens a lot. Maybe I should hire myself an editor.  Anyway, as I was about to say, there's a new pope as of two days ago.  This is the fourth time during my lifetime, including twice in 1978 alone, that the cardinals of the Catholic church have gathered to select a new leader for their little cult. (If I had any Catholic readers left, they're gone now)  The first two times, I actually sort of cared.  Though, in retrospect, I don't think I ever really believed, I was raised as a Catholic and attended mass regularly until the mid-1980's when I went off to college and got away from parental influence. Plus, I did think that it was kind of cool that the second pope chosen in '78 was one of my people--a Pole.  

The history of the papacy during the past four decades has been one of precedents and historic firsts.  The election of John Paul I to replace the late Paul VI (I remember reading a satirical headline in National Lampoon that declared, "John Paul Elected Pope; George, Ringo Miffed") was pretty much business as usual for the church, until JP I, in turn, died a mere 33 days later.  Though the reign of Pope John Paul I was by no means the shortest in history, it is, according to Wikipedia, in the top ten.  John Paul I's tenure of little more than a month was followed by the election of the first non-Italian  pope in more than something like four hundred years.

I suppose you could call it ironic that one of the shortest papacies was followed by the second longest papal reign in Catholic history.  John Paul II served for over twenty-six years.

After JP II's death in 2005, he was followed by Benedict XVI, a German with a somewhat questionable past.  (He's in his 80's and from Germany...you do the math.)  After an eight year reign marked by all sorts of controversies, Benedict broke centuries of precedent by becoming the first Pontiff to leave the office standing up for almost six hundred years.  

The new pope, Francis I of Argentina, continues the tradition of breaking with tradition by being the first from the "New World" of the Americas, and the first from the Jesuit order.

What the bloody hell, you may be screaming at your computer screen by this point, does this poorly researched treatise on recent religious history have to do with comics, which is what this damned blog is supposed to be about?  Well, John Paul II, during his quarter century plus reign, became one of the most popular popes in history.  Not only was he beloved by Catholics, but he made quite an impression on non-Catholics as well.  He also ended up making a few appearances in comic books over the years, including two that recounted the story of his life.

The first of those was published in 1982 by Marvel as part of the short-lived line of hagiographic comics produced in co-operation with the Catholic church that also included the Mother Theresa comic I wrote about last year.  (...and, relevant to the new pope, I believe there was also a book about St. Francis of Assissi, after whom the new pontiff renamed himself)  I have not actually read this comic, but the cover blurb promises "The Entire Story! From his childhood in Poland to the assassination attempt!"  The Life of Pope John Paul II was written by Steven Grant.  Grant's other credits from the decade include the 1986 Punisher mini-series, among other, more typical mainstream comics fare.  (The Pope and the Punisher...Now there's a team-up I would've loved to see.  I mean, if Frank Castle can meet Archie Andrews, then why not?

The second sequential retelling of John Paul II's life, The Life of Pope John Paul II...in Comics!, was published in 2006.  As it came out after John Paul II's death, I imagine the latter volume offers a more complete picture of the pontiff's life. 

In addition to those two biographies, the Comic Book Data Base lists a handful of other appearances by John Paul II in some perhaps surprising titles.  These include Vertigo's Kid Eternity, DC's Wonder Woman, and Marvel's Thor.  I don't know the nature of his appearance in Thor, but its interesting to imagine one of the foremost representative of Christianity meeting one of those "other gods" inveighed against in the First Commandment.

On a completely different note, and totally unrelated to anything I've written here so far, there's one thing I've been wondering as I mentally composed this post.  Why do popes take a new name when they get elected?  Why couldn't I, if I became pope, just be Pope Raymond I?

Vibe? Really? What's Next?

One comic that came out last week that I didn't buy, nor have any intention of buying or reading, is Justice League of America's Vibe, the JLA prefix having been added, or so I've read, to forestall action legal action from Vibe magazine.  I have, to my surprise, read several positive, if not exactly glowing, reviews of the debut issue.  However, what really puzzles me is why DC would want to revive one of the least loved characters it has ever published.  

My theory is that it all began with a drunken bet between Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns.  After downing a few too many, Johns began boasting: "Look what I did with Green Lantern.  And Aquaman.  Aqua-freakin'-Man, f'Chrissakes.  I'm a freakin' comics god.  I can take any lame character and make it a freakin' bestseller.  G'wan! Gimme a character."

DiDio thinks for a few seconds, then says, "OK.  How about Vibe?"

"Who?"

"You know.  Vibe.  From back when Conway f***ed up the JLA." 

"Oh. Right. Vibe.  Are you freakin' serious?"

"Hey, man, you said any character."

"OK, then.  Vibe. Look out, 'cause I'm gonna make him a freakin' star."  At which point, Johns falls off his barstool and passes out.

Now that's all speculation, of course.  What is true is that with the revamping of Vibe and the resurrection a few years ago of Jason Todd, DC has brought back two of the most reviled characters of the 1980's.  This leads me to wonder who could be next--Danny Chase, perhaps?

 

Yes, I said Danny Chase.

I was recently reading through the letters columns of some old issues of The New Titans (I read the stories as well, of course, and may be writing about them later), and it seems that absolutely no one liked the little brat.  The only half-hearted defense of the character that I read expressed no great love for him, but simply excused his obnoxiousness as a realistic portrayal of the behavior of thirteen year old boys.   Having been a thirteen year old boy, I can vouch for that.  Oh, I, of course, was a perfect angel, but all my peers were jerks.

Anyway, given DC's the lack of new ideas in most of DC's comics these days, it probably is only a matter of time 'til we see old Danny again.

Reading the Sunday Paper

This has absolutely nothing to do with comics, but I wanted to comment on a couple of things I read in Sunday's Columbus Dispatch. 

The first is a note of a linguistic nature to one Ms. Caroline Whitacre of THE Ohio State University (that should make Gordon Gee happy), who is quoted in an article on the possible impact of the looming mandatory federal budget cuts known as sequestration:

I'm pretty sure, in fact I'm fairly positive that "cooperativity" is not an actual word, at least not in English.  
I find myself wondering if the writer of the article failed to realize this, or if she ran with the quote as she got it in the interest of journalistic integrity or objectivity or some other outmoded concept like that. (By the way, for those who may have trouble recognizing it, that last bit was sarcasm.)

On the editorial page, I was shocked, and not in the Claude Rains in Casablanca sense, but genuinely surprised, to read bow tied conservative commentator and well known baseball fan George F. Will actually endorsing unashamedly liberal Ohio senator Sherrod Brown's notion that financial institutions that might be considered "too big to fail" should be broken up.  This is clearly not easy for George.  Witness the rhetorical gymnastics he performs in order to convince his conservative readers, and perhaps himself as well, that government stepping in to break up big businesses is actually perfectly compatible with the tenets of the Grand Old Party:

"By breaking up the biggest banks, conservatives willl not be putting asunder what the free market has joined together.  Government nurtured these behemoths by weaving an improvident safety net, and by practicing crony capitalism.  Dismantling them would be a blow against government that has become too big not to fail."

Seriously, you don't often see someone bending that far backwards outside of a limbo contest.

Getting to what is ostensibly the topic of this blog, I did read the Sunday comics.  Rather than launch into yet another diatribe about the sorry state of modern newspaper comics, I'll simply state that out of over 30 strips, only one elicited so much as a snicker from me, and it wasn't Judge Parker.  It was, in fact, Agnes, by Columbus, Ohio's own Tony Cochran.

Super Sunday III: Jay's Big Day

(I actually wrote this post some time ago and was holding on to it in order to post it last Sunday as part of my sort of annual--I skipped last year altogether--"Super Sunday" feature, in which I would talk about an old Superman story while the rest of the nation was pretending to be interested in a football game that most of them were probably only watching to see the commercials.  However, when the time came, it completely slipped my mind, so, rather than wait another year, here is the Gutter Talk kind of almost annual Super Sunday post one week late:)
The other day, I was rereading Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' classic Superman tale "For The Man Who Has Everything" and, when I got to the end, I realized something about this story.  Not only is it one of The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told (which just happens to be the name of the book I was reading it in), but it is also THE single greatest Jason Todd/Robin II story ever.
Let's face it, when you get right down to it, poor old Jason didn't really have a whole lot of shining moments in his brief career as Robin.  He was, and remains to this day, in my mind at least, a character most notable for having died.  Specifically, its the way he was killed off that made him noteworthy.  I am not, you realize, referring to the Joker savagely beating him with a crowbar then blowing him up, but to the infamous phone poll that left his fate up to the readers.  Given the way that the character was handled, or rather mishandled, in the Batman books, its perhaps fitting that his sole shining moment occurred in a Superman annual. 
Jason is the real hero of "For The Man Who Has Everything", after all.   Superman spends most of the story in a trance, and gets distracted at a crucial moment in the climactic battle with Mongul.  Wonder Woman just manages to get herself beat up.  Batman is pretty much useless.  He does manage to pry the Black Mercy off of Superman, but then ends up getting ensnared by it himself.  Therefore it is left to Jason to free Batman and face down Mongul, throwing the parasitic plant at the would be world conquerer, ensnaring him in his own trap.
Yet, after risking his life to save not just his friends but the whole damned world, Jason gets no credit or gratitude.  No "Good job, chum" from his mentor Batman; no "Uh...thanks for saving my life back there" from the guy he saved from getting pounded into pudding by an angry yellow alien. Even Dave Gibbons doesn't give the poor kid any respect.  Despite his major role in the story, Jason's barely even on the cover, mostly obscured by the UPC symbol. 

Full Disclosure

A couple of days ago, in my speculative post about the upcoming Before Watchmen: Dollar Bill one-shot, I issued a blanket condemnation of the previous Before Watchmen efforts as rehashes of what Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons did in the original Watchmen.  In the interest of, as I titled this post, full disclosure, and total honesty (which, as Billy Joel reminds us, is such a lonely word and hardly ever heard) I feel obligated to reveal to my readers that I based that statement on hearsay and anecdotal evidence gathered from reviews, solicitations and other on-line sources. The only one of the bunch that I've actually bothered to read was the first issue of the Minutemen series, which, while it provided new biographical details about the members of the eponymous super-team, did in fact include a fair amount of rehashing.  I liked Minutemen #1, but not really enough to commit to spending four bucks a month on it over the course of half a year.

I did briefly possess copies of the first issues of Ozymandias and Comedian, which were given to me by a friend, until I fobbed them off on some poor unsuspecting fool at a White Elephant gift exchange last month without bothering to actually read them.   When I flipped through Ozymandias, it seemed, from the art, to be simply a retelling of Adrian Veidt's life story from Chapter XI of Watchmen.  Having read that chapter, and in fact the entire graphic novel, more times than I can readily remember, I didn't feel I needed to read that issue.  As for the Comedian book, I just couldn't get past that hideous cover and thus didn't even open it.   I mean, just look at the damned thing over there.  Disgusting, ain't it?

I've got to wonder if whoever commissioned or designed that repulsive cover image actually thought it was going to help sell the comic.   Is that even the function of comic book covers anymore?  Is there such a thing these days as a casual reader who might be induced to pick up a new comic because of the cover image or copy?  Or are most new comics pretty much pre-sold to a dwindling community of fans and collectors who'll buy the damn things no matter what the publisher slaps on the outside?

The Dark Knight Rushes

(Note: I composed this post before hearing the news of the shootings during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado.  I gave some thought to not posting this, as perhaps some people might find a somewhat snarky post about DKR to be inappropriate at this point in time.  Of course, this piece has nothing to do with that tragedy,  just as it is likely that  the tragedy had nothing to do  with DKR.  The shooter was obviously a very deeply troubled individual and the film that happened to be on the screen when he chose to launch his assault was probably completely immaterial.  Nonetheless, I sincerely apologize to any who might find fault with the timing of this post.)
One of the most astounding traits of the American people is our nearly limitless capacity for outrage.  We are able at the drop of a hat to get ourselves all bent out of shape at the most trivial of provocations.   This quality is not limited to the pundits of the extreme right, though they tend to be the most vocal about and thus garner the most mainstream media attention for their lunatic rantings.  The latest case in point concerns our old friend Rush Limbaugh, who worked himself into a lather on his show a couple of days ago over the fact that the villain in The Dark Knight Rises is Bane, whose name just happens to sound like Bain, as in Bain Capital, the suddenly controversial firm headed by Republican Presidential nominee-to-be Mitt Romney back in the 80's and 90's.

"Do you think that it is accidental," Rush bloviated, "that the name of the really vicious fire breathing four eyed whatever it is villain in this movie is named Bane?"  

(I know that films based on comics often take a lot of liberties with the source material, but does DKR's Bane really have four eyes and breathe fire?  If so, I have got to see this movie!)

While I am familiar with the concept of rhetorical questions, this one deserves an answer.  It is not "accidental" that the film's villain is named Bane.  Few screenplays are written by accident.  It is, however, completely coincidental that the villain's name sounds like the name of Romney's former employer.  

It has, of course, been repeatedly pointed out elsewhere in cyber-land that the character of Bane was created in 1993, long before Mitt Romney even got into politics, much less thought of running for  President.  More germane to to this so-called controversy, however, is that DKR director Christopher Nolan apparently conceived of his Batman films as a trilogy right from the start.  Therefore, it is likely that he had the whole series, including Bane's appearance in the final installment, mapped out before the cameras even rolled on Batman Begins.  That film hit theaters in 2005, three years before Romney's first, unsuccessful quest for the GOP nomination.
Anyway, Rush seems to think that people are going to see this film and come to associate Mitt Romney with a comic book super-villain.  Maybe he's got a point.  After all, I believe it was legendary showman P.T. Barnum who said that no one ever went  broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people.  (...which sort of sounds like it could be Rush's motto, come to think of it.)  And aren't the voters of this nation so easily misled that four years ago they were tricked into electing a Kenyan-born Muslim Socialist to be their leader?

Because of Rush's comments, Chuck Dixon, writer of Vengeance of Bane, the character's debut appearance, has felt the need to defend himself by asserting that he and VoB artist Graham Nolan are two of the comics industry's staunchest conservatives.

That got me to wondering about something.  If Nolan really is the rock-ribbed Republican that Dixon says he is, how did he feel about drawing Hawkworld, a comic with a unabashedly liberal point of view?   He probably, I suppose, viewed it as just another job.  There's certainly no indication in the issues he drew that he was giving the assignment any less than his best effort. 

I've noted before that there seems to be something almost inherently right wing in the very concept of the super-hero.  This sort of makes me wonder why I remain a fan of the genre.  According to a quiz that I recently took on Facebook, my own political views would appear to be more in line with those of the Presidential candidate of the Green Party.

It Ain't Necessarily So

Just because I feel like playing Devil's Advocate this afternoon, I want to address one other aspect of the advanced criticism of "Before Watchmen" that showed up again and again across the Wild, Wild Web.  That is the notion that prequels to Watchmen were going to automatically suck because Alan Moore wasn't writing them, which seems to carry with it the assumption that any follow-up to Watchmen that was done by Moore would have been brilliant.

That  ain't necessarily so.

It is entirely possible that a Watchmen sequel by Moore and Dave Gibbons could have been awful, and a bad sequel by the original creators would have done more to damage the reputation of the original than anything done by a bunch of hired guns.

I can, just off the top of my head, come up with a long list of sequels  to classic works by the original creators that didn't even come close to matching the brilliance of the originals.

Need I mention the Star Wars prequels?  I'm sure that even a lot of hardcore Star Wars fans would prefer that I didn't.

Then there's The Dark Knight Strikes Again, which, while it may have charms of its own for certain readers, comes nowhere near matching the sheer visceral gut-level impact of The Dark Knight Returns.

While I've never read them, I've heard that the sequels to the novel MASH, and there are quite a few, are fairly awful, and all of them are written by Richard Hooker, the author of the original.

One of my favorite Superman stories is "The Super-Cigars of Perry White" from Action Comics #436.  The story was written by Elliot S! Maggin and drawn by Curt Swan.  A couple of issues earlier, in a story I've never read, Daily Planet editor Perry White had apparently aided Superman in overthrowing a dictator on an alien world.   In gratitude, a pair of teenagers from that planet are dispatched to Earth to bring a gift to Perry.  Without telling White, they substitute his normal cigars for stogies that will give him any super-power that he can think of while he is smoking them.  On a trip to New York City, accompanied by Clark Kent, to accept his latest Pulitzer Prize, awarded, I believe, for reporting on that same extraterrestrial civil war that he and Superman had intervened in, Perry uses his newfound powers to aid the Man of Steel in rescuing the very plane he and Clark are traveling on and defeating a nameless criminal driving a nuclear powered super-tank.  Only after deducing that he was gaining any super-power that he asked for and asking for the power to know where his powers come from does Perry learn the source of his mysterious new abilities. Realizing that he has only one super-cigar remaining, Perry locks it a wall safe concealed behind his framed Pulitzer Prize certificate in case of a later emergency.

One thing that I love about this story, aside from its sheer brilliant silliness, is how absolutely politically incorrect the very concept is.  You just know that "The Super-Cigars of Perry White" would never get printed today.  Given the political and social climate of the last couple of decades, no comics publisher would dare to present a story that even hinted at any positive effects of smoking.  Hell, I'm a little surprised that it got past editor Julius Schwartz's desk even back in 1974.

Anyway, to get back to my point in even mentioning this story, in 1982, after a few years away from the Superman titles, Maggin returned as of Superman #376 with a story entitled " The Ozone-Master Comes Calling!" which was a direct sequel to "The Super-Cigars of Perry White."  Perry White is attacked in his home by the eponymous Ozone-Master in order to prevent Perry from publishing incriminating photos in the Planet.  From his hospital bed, he directs Superman to bring him his last super-cigar from the wall safe in his office.  Perry uses the powers granted by the alien stogie to temporarily restore himself to full health and aid Superman in bringing the Ozone-Master to justice.  

While just as politically incorrect as its predecessor, Superman #376 possesses none of the original's goofy charms.  Instead, it is a fairly bland Superman tale, pretty typical of the stuff that DC was cranking out in the half decade prior to John Byrne's 1986 revamp of the character in The Man of Steel.
Well, I think I've managed to make my point and I got to talk about one of my favorite comic book stories.  All in all, a good day at the keyboard.

Friday Evening News & Rants: June 15, 2012 Edition

This is the first installment of what may just turn out to be a regular feature.  It all depends on whether or not there's any news that I deem worth writing about or commenting on.

CAKE banner designed by Chicago artist Laura Park

My readers in Chicago (and I'm told that I have at least one occassional reader in the city) who couldn't make it to Columbus for SPACE have another chance to hang out in a roomful of small press and alternative  comics artists, writers and publishers this weekend when the inaugural edition of CAKE--the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo--takes place this weekend. 

Ok, the acronym doesn't quite work.  I guess they were trying to have their CAKE and eat it too.  

In case you're wondering, the answer is yes.  My main purpose in reporting this item was just so I could make that dumb joke.

Full details on the show, the exhibitors and the line-up of panels can be found at the CAKE web-site.

In mainstream comics news, DC recently announced the cancellation of four of its original New 52 titles.  This was paired, because the company remains inexplicably obsessed with the number 52, with the announcement of four new ongoing series to replace them.  

The new books, all debuting with zero issues as part of DC's line wide "Zero Month" event celebrating the first anniversary of the New 52 reboot (not to be confused with 1994's "Zero Month" that followed the end of the crossover mini-series Zero Hour), are Talon, yet another Batman related title springing out of the recent "Night of the Owls" storyline; Sword of Sorcery, an anthology book anchored by a revival of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld; Team 7, a revival of an old title from co-publisher Jim Lee's Wildstorm imprint; and The Phantom Stranger. The cancelled series  whose spots on the schedule these new titles are taking are Justice League International, Voodoo, Resurrection Man, and Captain Atom.

The bad news, as far as I'm concerned, is that, despite his exit from Green Arrow and the cancellation of Captain Atom, J. T. Krul continues to draw a paycheck from DC Comics. 

To the right of these words is a cropped version of Krul's photo from the DC web-site.  He appears to be either angry or in pain.  You don't suppose he just read one of his own Green Arrow comics, do you?

Irrational Geographic

I learned something about myself that I hadn't realized previously while rereading an old comic book.  Until just recently, I had not known that I was a New Englander. 

This revelation comes courtesy of Challengers of the Unknown #83, published by DC in 1977 and written by Gerry Conway.  The story, "Seven Doorways to Destiny!", is a sequel to Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson's "The Lurker in Tunnel 13" from Swamp Thing #8.  This time its the Challengers' turn to face the Lovecraftian horror known as M'Ngala, which holds the small mining town of Perdition in its thrall, with some assistance from Swampy himself. 
In the Swamp Thing story, Wein doesn't  get too specific about Perdition's exact locale, though there is a reference to Swamp Thing shambling through "...a snow swept Appalachian wood."  On the splash page of Challengers #83, on the other hand, one of Conway's captions refers to "...the small New England town of Perdition."  However, subsequent references  to Perdition location throughout the remainder of the issue place it in Pennsylvania, which is more consistent with Wein's description, but seems to indicate that, on Gerry Conway's map at least, Pennsylvania is in New England.
I was born in Pennsylvania and spent the first two and a half decades of my life living in various small towns around the northwest corner of the state, yet in all that time I never knew that the state was part of the New England region.
That would be because it isn't.  I have also occasionally seen Pennsylvania referred to  as being a Midwestern state, which is also wrong.  If I remember my grade school geography correctly, the Keystone State is in what is called the Mid-Atlantic States region, which, I believe, though its been several decades since I've cracked open a geography textbook, runs from New York to the Mason-Dixon Line. 
I've read quite a few letters columns from the Bronze Age wherein the editors encourage their young readers to justify their choice of reading material to their comics disdaining peers and/or parental units by pointing to the things that they can learn from reading comics.  It doesn't exactly bolster that argument if the things that impressionable young kids are learning from comics are just flat out wrong. 
Of course, maybe its not wrong.  Maybe, on Earth-1 prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Pennsylvania was up in New England.  I'm sure that's what the editor of Challengers probably would have said if someone had called him on the point.
On a totally different note, isn't "perdition" another word for "hell"?  You've got to wonder why anybody would give that name to a town.  For that matter, why would anybody name a town "Desolation"? (from Green Lantern #77)  What were the founders of those towns thinking?   Ok, Perdition and Desolation are fictional towns and their names were chosen, I assume, by Len Wein and Dennis O'Neil to reflect the tone and themes of the story at hand.  However, isn't their a real town, I think its in Michigan, called "Hell"?  So, again, what were the founders of that town thinking and why would anyone want to live there?

Potpourri for 1000, Alex (A Hodge-Podge of Seemingly Unconnected Random Thoughts)

Here are a few things that have been on my mind over the past few days.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked the rhetorical question, "What does Sheldon Cooper (of The Big Bang Theory) think of DC's New 52?"  That was meant as a joke, but, having a fairly mindless job that allows me to ponder such things as I perform my menial tasks, I found myself thinking more about the question and coming up with  a partial answer.  Sheldon strikes me as someone who doesn't deal well with any sort of change, so I assume that he was quite distressed by the initial announcement.  However, as Green Lantern seems to be his favorite character, he was most likely at least partially reassured by the fact that that character's continuity has escaped the reboot essentially unaltered.

Speaking of Big Bang Theory, I was watching an older episode in which Leonard states that he has 2600 comic books in his apartment.  For a serious geek of Leonard's age, that number actually seems kind of small to me.  Perhaps he was referring to the comics that he actually keeps at home, with the bulk of his collection stored elsewhere.

Moving on, then, based on what I've read so far, it seems to me that DC's relaunch isn't so much a bold step forward into a new future for comics as a giant leap backwards to about the early 80's.  Co-publisher Dan DiDio has apparently recently announced that Crisis On Infinite Earths and all subsequent "Crisis-level" events never occurred. The upcoming Justice Society series will be set on Earth-2.  The Huntress may once again be the daughter of that parallel world's Batman.  On Earth-1, if that's what they're calling it, Barbara Gordon is Batgirl again and Supergirl is once again Superman's Kryptonian cousin (although that retro move actually occurred a few years ago). Over in Superman, Morgan Edge looks like he will once again be a major supporting player and there are hints that Clark Kent may once again be taking a job as a TV news anchor sometime in the near future.  Edge is now a bald, goateed African-American man, but other than that minor cosmetic change, he  appears to be the same character who was a thorn in Kent's side throughout the Bronze Age.  Now, if Clark were dating his childhood friend Lana Lang, who was also his co-anchor on the nightly newscast, then it would be 1983 in Metropolis all over again.

I can only fervently hope that DiDio's revelation that all stories with the word "Crisis" in the title never happened includes Identity Crisis.  If any story ever needed to be negated by editorial fiat, it's that one.  I would love to see Ralph Dibny show up alive somewhere with his girlfriend Sue Dearborn. With the apparent exception of Buddy Baker, it seems that super-heroes aren't allowed to be married in the new DCU.  Most famously, the marriage of Clark and Lois Kent has been retconned into oblivion, while in Flash, Barry Allen isn't even dating Iris West anymore.  But, as far as I'm concerned, they don't need to be married as long as they're alive.  

By the way, it sort of reveals what a huge geek I am that I actually know Sue Dibny's maiden name, doesn't it?

I've found myself wondering if, in this new continuity, Batman has yet caught up with the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne.  In the pre-COIE continuity, Batman found Joe Chill fairly early in his career, and, though  the details changed, in the post-Crisis DCU he also encountered Chill fairly early.  However, after the DC Universe was destroyed and restructured for the second time in Zero Hour, it was decided that not only had Batman never found his parents' killer, but it wasn't even Joe Chill.  I was unaware of the change, though, until I read "Public Enemies," Jeph Loeb's first storyline in Superman/Batman.  The change was undone soon after "Public Enemies" in what was basically a throwaway line of dialogue toward the end of Infinite Crisis.  Now, with the latest restructuring of the DC Universe in the wake of Flashpoint, the issue may once again be up  in the air. 

I recently ran across this old interview on-line in which Denny O'Neil, editor of the Bat books at the time, defends the initial continuity change thusly: "It was done because we thought that Batman's motivations--and therefore his saga--are stronger if he never learns who killed his parents."

I have to disagree with Mr. O'Neil here.  To me, it makes Batman a stronger, and saner, character if he discovered and caught the Waynes' killer and still continued being Batman.  He becomes less of a revenge driven psycho and more the public spirited crimefighter that I feel he was meant to be.  Bruce Wayne's being Batman, after all, isn't really about finding his parents' killer, or revenge, but about making sure that no one else ever has to go through the ordeal that he did.  It's about helping other people, not making Bruce Wayne feel better.

Finally, it appears that DC may not hate me as much as I'd initially thought.  They are sort of giving me a Christmas present.  As of December's issue #4, J.T. Krul will no longer be writing Green Arrow.  He cites some mysterious new project as the reason for his leaving, but I honestly don't care as long as he's gone. The new writers will be Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens, who will continue as penciller with George Perez inking.  

I still have a few reservations.  I'm assuming that Giffen and Jurgens' working relationship will be similar to that of Giffen and other collaborators, with Keith plotting and Dan writing the dialogue.  Unfortunately, dialogue is, to me, the weakest of Jurgens many weak points as a writer.  Also, from what I've read, it seems that the Green Arrow of this new series isn't quite the same character I fell in love with back in the 70's.  Apparently, he's closer to the character as portrayed on TV in Smallville than the O'Neil/Adams version. I only saw a couple of episodes  with Green Arrow in them, but I wasn't exactly thrilled with their depiction of one of my favorite characters.  Still, I do plan on picking up Green Arrow #4 the first week in December (provided that it stays on schedule) and I will, of course, report my impressions to you here on this blog.

Well, it certainly feels good to get all that off my chest.  Now, I've got some old Firestorm comics to re-read so that I can tell you all about them. 

Talk to you later.

What Would Sheldon Think

Thursday night on CBS is the fifth season premiere of The Big Bang Theory.  Last season, as you may know, ended with Raj and Penny getting drunk and sleeping together.  This will, it most likely goes without saying, result in comical complications and hilarity, as is its wont in such circumstances, will undoubtably ensue.  Of course, if not handled right, fans may one day look back at this as the moment that BBT "jumped the shark."

All that aside, however, what I'm really curious about is this:  What does Sheldon think about DC's "New 52"?

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.

Random Thoughts on the DC Relaunch at the Halfway Point

DC is only half way through the rollout of their New 52, but I think that as far as I'm concerned, it's over.  The only titles that I was really interested in checking out, because of the involvement of Grant Morrison and Keith Giffen, two of my favorite creators, came out the first week. 

I'll admit to being a little curious about Blackhawks.  I've always liked the Blackhawk concept, and I'm kind of wondering how DC has brought it back into the modern DC Universe and what the connection, if any, is between this new series and the classic World War II team.  Still, I think I'm going to wait until the reviews are in before I decide whether or not to pick up an issue. 

Maybe if I've got three bucks burning a whole in my pocket in a couple of weeks, I'll spend it on Superman #1 to check out the present day new incarnation of the Man of Steel and how it compares to the version in Action Comics. 

I'd actually considered buying Green Arrow #1, even though, being written by J.T. Krul, I knew that it was going to suck, simply because I have every other Green Arrow #1 that DC has published over the past thirty years.  Fortunately, however, I came to my senses in time.

I flipped through Hawk & Dove #1, and promptly put it back on the shelf.  There may be a decent story somewhere under Rob Liefeld's art, but I have no desire to find out.  Liefeld's drawings are....well, they're Liefeld's drawings.  If you like his work--and the fact that he continues to get work attests that he must still have some fans out there somewhere--then you'll like it in Hawk & Dove.  If you have taste, then you won't.  

I'd already decided, because of Krul writing it, that I was going to pass on Captain Atom, and this preview of the first issue confirms for me that I've made the right choice.  Apparently, Krul has never actually read a Captain Atom comic before.  He has, however, seemingly read quite a bit of Firestorm, as that is who he seems to think he's writing.  Not only is Captain Atom drawn with Firestorm-like flames popping out of the top of his head, but on the second page of the preview, in the course of battling an erupting volcano, Krul has Cap transmute the lava into snow.  Since when can Captain Atom transmute matter?  Since NEVER, that's since when, because he isn't friggin' Firestorm.  The new DCU already has a Firestorm comic, and it doesn't really need another, especially not one written by J.T. Krul. 

I did decide to check out the new Batgirl, based on Gail Simone's writing it, but by the time I went back to the Laughing Ogre to pick up a copy, they were sold out of it and several other New 52 books.  I suppose this bodes well for the success of the relaunch.  I wonder, though, who's buying these books.  Is it the new and/or lapsed readers that DC hopes to attract or is it just the same folks who come to the Ogre week in and week out?  More importantly, how many of the people who snapped up those first issues are going to buy subsequent releases? 

If DC is really hoping to attract new readers to comics, then I think that redesigning Superman's costume might have been a bad idea.   Not only is the new look kind of hideous, but won't people who know Superman only from his appearances in other media be expecting him to look like the guy they've seen on TV?  It also occurs to me that this theoretical new reader might be slightly confused by the presence on the stands of both a Batgirl and a Batwoman comic.

There's one thing I'm wondering about future developments in OMAC that I didn't mention in my post on the first issue.  I'm curious to see if the presence of Mokkari deep in the bowels of Cadmus means that OMAC is going to come into conflict with Darkseid.  Now I don't think Mokkari had any connection with Apokolips in his previous incarnation, when Jerry Ordway brought him into The Adventures of Superman in the 90's, but the character was introduced in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby in the early 70's as a servant of Darkseid.  I also hope his partner Simyan shows up sometime as well.

Anyway, to wrap up this rambling and disjointed post, I'll be sticking with Action Comics and OMAC for a while, so for me the relaunch was pretty much a wash.  I was buying two DC books before the change, and I'll still be buying two DC books, just different ones.  It's basically a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

Thoughts On A Comic I Haven't Actually Read

I considered picking up DC Retroactive: The Flash--the 70's, mostly since, not owning a lot of Flash comics and none from the 70's, I figured that the reprint included, unlike the ones in the Green Lantern, Superman and Justice League volumes, would be one I didn't already have.  No such luck, however.  It turned out that the reprint was of DC Comics Presents #2.

This seems like an odd choice for a couple of reasons.  The main one is that DCCP was a Superman book.  It was DC's second and most successful attempt at creating a Superman team-up, after briefly converting World's Finest Comics to that format in the early part of the decade, and Flash was the guest star in the debut two parter.  That's another reason this seems like an odd choice, as it is the conclusion of a two part story.  However, back in the 70's most DC comics were written with sufficient recaps of previous issues that the story can be read and understood on its own.  Finally, there's the fact that "Race to the End of Time" was written not by longtime Flash scribe Cary Bates, who wrote the new lead story, but by Martin Pasko.  Of course, this sort of balances out the fact that the reprint in DC Retroactive: Superman--the 70's, accompanying a lead story by Pasko, was written by Bates.
Still, "Race to the End of Time", along with "Chase to the End of Time" in DCCP #1, is one of my favorite Superman stories by Pasko and well worth reading if you haven't already.  However, I'd recommend getting the trade paperback that was released a few years ago containing all of Superman's races with the Flash, which includes both parts.  (That's if you're just interested in the older tale, of course, as I note in the title of this post, I haven't actually read the new story, so I can make no recommendations as to whether its worth reading, though reviews I've read on other blogs have been quite positive.)
Bates, of course, was the logical, in fact the only, choice to write a 70's Flash story, as he wrote the character's title for the entire decade.  It seems to me that when comics fans talk about long runs by writers on a single series, such as Chris Claremont's sixteen years on Uncanny X-Men or Peter David's twelve year stint on Incredible Hulk, Bates' fourteen year run on Flash is hardly ever mentioned. Perhaps that's because, unlike Claremont and David's runs, which brought their respective titles to new heights of popularity, Bates' tenure ended with the book's cancellation and the title character's death.  Still, that era seems to be fondly remembered by fans today and fourteen years doing anything is an achievement worthy of some recognition. 

A Comic I'd Like To See

I was on my break from work, sitting outside smoking and reading a comic book, when I was struck by a thought that I immediately decided to share with the readers of this blog.  That's what blogs are for, after all; to allow people to share any idle notion that pops into their empty heads with the entire world.  Al Gore must be so proud.

Anyway, the comic I was reading was Grimjack #16.  I was re-reading this issue because I finally managed to lay my hands on a copy of #17, which contains the second part of the story begun in this issue.  On page two, a face drawn by Tim Truman struck me as particularly Kirby-esque.  In fact, the character bore a very strong resemblance to Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth.   

This observation, in turn, led me to think that a Tim Truman drawn Kamandi comic would be really cool.  In fact, considering his work with various alien races in Grimjack and Hawkworld, including species of evolved hawks and lizards, I can't think of any artist better suited to render Kamandi's post-apocalyptic world of intelligent, talking apes, bears, tigers, and other animals (other than Jack Kirby himself, of course.)

Who would write this dream comic?  Well, Truman himself would do fine, but I would really like to see his frequent collaborator, and one of my favorite writers, John Ostrander take a crack at the Last Boy On Earth.

Beards and Blurbs

This cover, drawn by Mike Grell for Green Lantern #94, is notable, to me, at least, for the question mark shaped cover blurb floating in the air by Green Arrow's right elbow.  It reads:

"GREEN ARROW WITHOUT A BEARD? WHY?"

When I first bought this issue, as a ten year old in 1977, the blurb attracted my attention, yet while, even then, I did think it kind of an odd thing to emphasize, I didn't find anything else especially noteworthy about it at that time.  Back then, I had only read a few Green Arrow stories and was unaware of the character's history, either within the fictional DC Universe or as a fictional character in the real world.
In 1977, Green Arrow had been around for 36 years.  For most of that time, up until Brave and the Bold #85 in 1969, he had been clean shaven.  When I look at that cover today, I'm struck by how, in such a relatively short time, the beard had become such an integral part of the character's iconography that the editors of Green Lantern thought that its absence was sufficient hook to get someone to pick up the issue.  You must also take into account that back then, the comics industry was still working under the assumption that most of their readers were young children and that the readership turned over about every five years.  Thus, the blurb appears to be aimed at readers such as I was at the time, that is, kids who'd recently discovered comics  in general, and Green Arrow in particular, and didn't know that Oliver Queen hadn't always had that beard.
The industry, and the audience, has changed a lot in the thirty four years since this issue hit the stands.  Such a blurb might not be as effective today with an older audience more aware of the histories of these characters and the fictional universes they inhabit.   On the other hand, by this point in time, Ollie has had the beard for over forty years, far longer than he went without it, so its absence today would be even more noteworthy than it was in 1977, especially to long time GA fans.

On the Cost of Comics

DC Comics seems to be pretty pleased with themselves recently.  

I'd wager that if you've been to a comics shop or visited a comics news site in the past few weeks, you've seen this image:

The company has been going to great pains to make sure we know how much they care about us and how they're showing it by pricing all their regular books at $2.99 across the board.  Honestly, I'm not all that impressed.

For one thing, all of the DC books I buy are already $2.99.  Doom Patrol was more expensive for the first few issues, but DC dropped the price when they dumped the Metal Men back up stories after #7.  I didn't really mind the extra buck in that case, because the Metal Men stories were worth it.  I hope we get to see more Giffen/DeMatteis Metal Men stories someday.

Anyway, the second reason I'm not all that impressed with DC "Drawing the Line at $2.99" is, and here I risk sounding like the grumpy aging fanboy that I am, I can remember when new comics cost a quarter.

I can't help thinking what my dad would think about the cost of comics these days.  I remember one time when I was a kid and he gave me a dollar to buy some comics, and was a little angry at me when he found out that I spent the whole dollar on just one comic book.  That book was an issue of Adventure Comics, which had just converted to DC's Dollar Comic format. 

Of course, back then, you got a hell of a lot of comic book for a buck.  When DC first began the Dollar Comic program, they were  64 page books with no ads.  In addition to adventures of some of my favorite characters such as Green Lantern, the Elongated Man and Deadman, that issue of Adventure was also my first exposure to the New Gods.  Although this was long after Kirby had moved on from the feature, I could still see something special in the concept.

Besides, I don't really buy that many new comics anyway.  Most of the comics I've bought in the last couple of years have been 70s and 80s back issues from bargain boxes.  I think someday soon I'm going to have to track down another copy of that old Adventure Comics.   

Gonna See My Smilin' Face On The Cover of the Doom Patrol

As you've perused the racks of new releases at your local comic book shop over the past couple of weeks, you've probably noticed that DC is in the midst of one its line wide cover theme months. The covers of all DC Universe titles this month feature images that, as Ian Satler wrote in the "DC Nation" column last month, "...highlight the iconic nature of each character", or group, as the case may be.   Pictured here is the cover of the most recent issue of Doom Patrol, featuring core Patrol members Robotman, Elasti-Girl and Negative Man joined by....Bumblebee?

Bumblebee?  Seriously?

And she's even shown larger than Larry or Rita, though she's supposed to be only about six inches tall.

Apparently, she's a member of the team, and she has been part of the cast of this current series since the first issue, but, to be frank, she hasn't really done much.  I suppose its possible that writer Keith Giffen has plans  for her down the line, but so far she's really more of a minor supporting character than a functioning member of the team. 

If the editors wanted to feature someone besides the three original DP members on this "iconic" cover, how about Ambush Bug?  Since he showed up in the book, the Bug has contributed more to the team than Bumblebee has.  He has used his teleportation powers to take the team to where the action is and provided several of the series' funniest moments to date. In fact, he's been far funnier in Doom Patrol than he was in the entirety of his most recent mini-series.  I, for one, hope he sticks with the team for a while more.

And maybe next time DC does one of these cover stunts, Irwin Schwab will get the spotlight he deserves.