On The Horizon: Infinity Man and The Forever People

I have, for reasons that are primarily financial in nature, taken a break from purchasing new comics in recent months.  However, while looking over J. Caleb Mozzocco's monthly rundown of upcoming comics from DC at Everyday Is Like Wednesday, my attention was caught by one particular item that might just be enough to pull me back to the Laughing Ogre for at least one Wednesday a month.

The second week in June sees the release of Infinity Man and the Forever People #1.   This is yet another updating of one of Jack Kirby's Bronze Age concepts by Dan Didio, Keith Giffen and Scott Koblish. That's the same team responsible for the late OMAC title.  Given the success, or, rather, lack thereof, of OMAC, that might not really be something to brag about.
I enjoyed OMAC quite a bit and it was widely hailed as one of the best  books of the original New 52.  Sales, as is too often the case, did not match the critical acclaim and the series met a premature end after eight issues in the first wave of New 52 cancellations.
With just the limited information provided by the solicitation to go on, there are a couple of things about this new series that strike me as interesting or curious.  The first is the title of the book itself, which gives top billing to the Infinity Man.  In Kirby's original series, Infinity Man played a very small part, appearing in less than half, four out of eleven to be exact, of the issues.  He was, quite literally, a Deus Ex Machina, showing up at the end of an issue when the Forever People touched their living computer, Mother Box, and shouted a magic word in order to mop up the bad guys and get the Forever People out of whatever mess they'd gotten themselves into in the preceding twenty pages or so.  Infinity Man was never much of a well rounded character in his own right.  He spoke in cliched heroic platitudes and displayed little personality beyond a selfless nobility and devotion to the Foerever People.  His true nature and origins were never explored, though perhaps, if the book had continued past its eleventh issue, they might eventually have been. The series was, to be honest, much better off without him in my not so humble opinion.  Giffen and Didio have a lot of work to do with Infinity Man if they're going to develop him into a character worthy of star credit.
Secondly, as I looked over the cover, this little detail caught my eye:

It appears that in this new series, Giffen and Didio have made Serifan a woman.  While I don't really think this is such a major change to the original concept and won't make too much of a difference, I do predict howls of outrage all over the Wild, Wild Web from Kirby purists.  For me, it all comes down to how its handled, and I generally have pretty high expectations of Keith Giffen, so I'm somewhat optimistic.
That is, I'm optimistic for the creative success of Infinity Man and the Forever People.  Commercially, I honestly don't expect it to do much better than OMAC.  That series managed to match the eight issue run of Kirby's original series, so my prediction is that Infinity Man and the Forever People will do the same and last a whole eleven issues before being cancelled.
Giffen has been doing the best art of career in the past five years or so, and his stories are always entertaining, so I'm sure that Infinity Man and the Forever People will be worth reading however long it lasts.

Two TPBs of Note Coming From DC in May

This May will finally see the release of the far, far, far overdue collection of the first twelve issues of John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake's brilliant take on DC's original Ghostly Guardian as Spectre Volume 1: Crimes and Judgments (although it is listed among DC's solicitations for April).  If you're at all interested, here's a link to a post I wrote about this book when it was first announced back in August. If you missed this excellent series when it was being published some twenty years ago and have failed to snap it up from the  back issue bins in the ensuing two decades, now is the moment to make up for lost time and discover one of the best comics DC has ever produced, especially since I'm guessing that if this volume sells well enough, the company will have no choice but to do what they should have done way back in the 1990s and release the entire series in trade paperback.

Also due in May is Showcase Presents Super Friends Vol. 1, a 448 page trade paperback reprinting in black and white the first 34 issues (out of a run of 47 issues) of the somewhat belated (the comic debuted in 1976 while the TV show began airing in 1973) comic based on Hanna-Barbera's Super Friends Saturday morning cartoon series, which was, in turn, very loosely based on Justice League of America. 
While the stories in this volume are generally deemed to exist outside of mainstream DC continuity, that seems to have been something that was decided retroactively.  Unlike later TV tie-in comics, the late E. Nelson Bridwell approached the tales in this book as if they were, in fact, taking place in the DC Universe.  The stories contain numerous references to events and developments in other DC titles of the day.  This series did have a lasting effect on the DC Universe.  It is in these pages that many of the international super-heroes who would go on to comprise the membership of the Global Guardians are first introduced, many in the same issues that introduced the Wonder Twins into the comic a few months ahead of their TV debut.  The Guardians would go on to play a major role in Keith Giffen's Justice League tales, particularly in Justice League Europe.  Continuity concerns to the side, the main selling point of this volume is over 400 pages of fun, all-ages super-hero adventures written by Bridwell with art, for the most part, provided by the legendary Ramona Fradon.
By the way, note the cover of the Showcase Presents volume, which was originally commissioned for a tabloid sized Super Friends one-shot that preceded the ongoing series.  For the most part, its by Alex Toth.  However, you'll notice that the Superman head is by someone else (it looks like Curt Swan, if I'm not mistaken, which would make sense as he was the primary Superman artist at the time.)  DC  once again, as they had on Jack Kirby's Fourth World comics a few years earlier, felt the need to "fix" Superman's face to bring it in line with their other Superman titles.  That's somewhat odd, in this case especially.  After all, Toth had done the character designs for the cartoon so it was his version of Superman, and the other Justice Leaguers, that people were presumably buying the comic for.  Also, if I'm remembering correctly, they left the Superman faces inside the comic alone, so I'm not sure what the thinking was behind meddling with the Man of Steel's visage on the cover.

DC Solicitations Confirm April Release of New Volume of "Secret Origins""

From the "Great Minds Think Alike" Department:

"What this DCU needs more than a Secret Origins title is a "Lost Years" one, filling in the blanks of what happened between the origins and the stories of September 2011.--J. Caleb Mozzocco on Everyday Is Like Wednesday on Tuesday, echoing a point I made on Saturday.

Anyway, as I reported, or, perhaps more accurately, repeated (from an item on Bleeding Cool) on Saturday, DC will indeed be releasing the first issue of a new volume of its venerable Secret Origins title in April.  Confirmation of this came Tuesday with the on-line release of the publisher's solicitations for the month.  As I predicted in my previous post, the new series will follow in the tradition of its two past incarnations and commence with an account of Superman's beginnings.  Also included in the debut issue will be the post Flashpoint origins of Supergirl and original Robin Dick Grayson.

Also In April--"Amazing Spider-Man" Returns

It has been some time since I purchased or read a new Spider-Man comic.  However, I am tuned in enough to the zeitgeist that I am aware of the whole "Superior Spider-Man"/Doc Ock in Peter Parker's body story line that has been the character's status quo for the past year or so.  Nobody, I'm sure, was naive enough to think that this state of affairs would last forever.  Thus, in a development that will shock absolutely no one, I read recently on the Hero Complex blog that Peter Parker returns to life and his super-heroic career in April and does so in a brand new Amazing Spider-Man #1.

This will be the third ASM #1 that Marvel has published in the character's fifty two year history.  The first was, of course, the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko original from 1962.  The next one came in 1998 when Marvel tried to revive the ailing Spider-Man franchise in the wake of the almost universally poorly received Clone Saga.  The second volume of Amazing Spider-Man lasted for 58 issues until the series was returned to its original numbering with #500. From that point, the series continued until last year's 700th issue, although #'s  700.1 through 700.5 have popped up in the interim between then and now.

Considering Marvel's tendency to screw around with the numbering of its series in order to try and produce at least a temporary bump in sales, I predict that this latest volume of Amazing Spider-Man will last exactly 49 issues.  By then, it will be time for another trumped up anniversary issue and the series original numbering will re-emerge yet again with #750.

Check back here in two to four years, depending on what kind of games Marvel plays with the scheduling, to see if I'm right about this one.

New "Secret Origins" Series Likely On The Horizon for April

Recently, I ran across an interesting news item on Bleeding Cool.  Although I've been unable to find any confirmation of this information from any other source on-line, let alone DC Comics itself, that really doesn't matter, at least as far as this post is concerned.  What is important for my immediate purposes is that I have an opinion on the matter that I wish to share with the world.

Secret Origins is a venerable title with a long and storied history in the annals of DC Comics.  It first appeared on a 1961 giant sized one-shot reprinting several then fairly recent origin stories, including those of the Flash, the Challengers of the Unknown, and Martian Manhunter among others.  

The first ongoing Secret Origins series appeared over a decade later in 1973.  This series, which lasted a mere seven issues, like the earlier one-shot, consisted entirely of reprints of previously published material.

After another decade and change, in 1986, following in the wake of its continuity altering maxi-series Crisis On Infinite Earths, DC launched a second regular Secret Origins  series.  Unlike the earlier editions, this series consisted of new material retelling the classic origins of iconic DC characters taking into account changes brought about by the Crisis.  In one instance, the series debuted a new character, the "Golden Age" Fury, meant to take the place of the Golden Age Wonder Woman, who was retroactively wiped from existence when Earth-2 ceased to exist as a result of the Crisis, as the mother of the Infinity, Inc. member also known as Fury. 

Anyway, as reported on Bleeding Cool, it appears that DC is set to launch a third volume of the venerable title this coming April.  Like its immediate predecessor, which existed to clarify and codify the changes of Crisis On Infinite Earths, this rumored new Secret Origins series would feature original material relating the origins of DC Comics' stable of heroes taking into account the changes brought on in the wake of Flashpoint and the re-creation of the DC Universe as the universe of the New 52.  I would assume that the series will begin, as the previous two volumes of Secret Origins have, with a retelling of Superman's beginnings.

This is, as far I'm concerned, a step in the right direction.  At this point, the history of the New 52 DC Universe remains somewhat unclear.  We have had a few stories, such as Grant Morrison's run on Action Comics, the initial storyline of the new volume of Justice League, 2012's spate of Zero issues, and the currently ongoing "Zero Year" in Batman, that take place approximately five or so years ago, at the beginning of the current age of heroes, and then a big black hole between those tales and the ones set in the present day.  A new Secret Origins series would go some way toward filling in that gap.

However, I really think that what DC needs is something more along the lines of 52.  I don't mean a weekly series, though if some anbitious creative team wants to give it a go, they're welcome to try.  You'll remember that in the wake of Infinite Crisis, DC bumped its timeline forward a year, and 52's ostensible purpose was to fill the readers in on what had happened during that missing twelve months.  Something like 5, though I hope DC could come up with a better title, is needed to fill in the missing time between Superman and the Justice League's early days and now.  Hopefully, the new Secret Origins, if it does indeed materialize, will go beyond the basic origin stories tell some of those heretofore unrevealed stories of the "lost" years.

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.

Green Arrow Volume I: Hunter's Moon Preview

As I noted earlier, next month sees the release of Green Arrow Volume I: Hunter's Moon, the far too long overdue collection of the first six issues of the Mike Grell's Green Arrow series. Since I happen to own the issues that comprise this forthcoming trade paperback, I don't have to wait until next month to review it for you.
With the advent of Green Arrow's first ongoing series, Grell continued in the new direction that he had established for the character in the Prestige Format mini-series The Longbow Hunters.  Grell's Oliver Queen was, as editor Mike Gold termed it, an "urban hunter," who had left behind the fictional Star City for Seattle, Washington, eschewing the boxing glove arrow and other such gimmicks in favor of plain old pointy tipped shafts. Furthermore, Grell banished many traditional elements of the super-hero genre, including colorful costumed super-villains, from the book's pages.  Actually, this last wasn't all that much of a departure from tradition in Green Arrow's case.  If you look at the Silver Age adventures collected in the character's Showcase Presents volume, you'll see that his opponents were more often common street thugs, bank robbers and mobsters rather than maniacal super-villains.  Another indicator of the less, shall we say, "comic booky", for lack of a better term, direction of the book, and one that's so subtle that I didn't actually notice it until it was pointed out to me, is that nowhere in these stories is Oliver Queen actually referred to as Green Arrow.
While Grell's new approach was, for the most part, popular with readers, at  least the majority of those who took the time and trouble to write in to the letters column, there was some scattered opposition to the supposed changes that Grell had made in Ollie's character.   For my part, I consider what Grell did with Ollie not so much change as evolution.  I can plainly see how the character Grell is writing is, in fact, the same anti-establishment defender of the common man defined by Denny O'Neil over a decade and a half earlier.  Grell's version is older and more world weary, if not wiser, and with an outlook on life somewhat hardened by time and experience.
Grell structured the Green Arrow series, for the most part, as a series of two-part stories with the ocassional four parter about once every year.  Thus, Hunter's Moon, reprinting as it does six issues of the series, contains three separate stories.  It is the first of these, "Hunter's Moon," from which the volume's title is taken.
In this inauguaral two parter, a notorious child murderer is released from prison after eighteen years pending a new trial.  Somehow, despite his house arrest and constant police surveillance, he manages to get out to terrorize his sole surviving victim and the only eyewitness against him.  Ollie becomes involved when that survivor, Dr. Annie Green, turns out to be the therapist that he and Dinah Lance, a.k.a. the Black Canary, go to in order to help her deal with the trauma she experienced in The Longbow Hunters.
This story gets the new series off to a strong start, picking up on plot threads from The Longbow Hunters and cementing the new direction for Oliver Queen's adventures Grell established in that mini-series, including, most controversially, the character's newfound willingness to kill when he deemed it necessary.
The second two parter, "The Champion," begins with a top secret space shuttle exploding, causing an experimental biological weapon to fall to Earth somewhere in the vicinity of Washington state.  Oliver is recruited by agents of the Soviet Union (you remember them, right?) to find the vial containing the biological agent before the Chinese, their partners in the secret experiment, can get to it.  The Chinese have recruited to work for them the nerdy looking but nonethess deadly killer for hire introduced in The Longbow Hunters, Eddie Fyers. (Although for some reason, Grell spelled it Fyres in that series.)  While this is a good and exciting story, the premise seems more suited to Jon Sable, Freelance than to this version of Green Arrow.
The final two parter that comprises Hunter's Moon is "Gauntlet," which returns Oliver to the urban jungle to investigate a series of gay bashings that turn out to be related to a gang called the Warhogs which is attempting to expand its terrotory into Seattle.  This is a solid story that is squarely in the Denny O'Neil Green Lantern/Green Arrow tradition of putting Ollie in situations taken from the news of the day.
"Are you still?  A good guy?" Annie Green asks Oliver in the first issue.  The answer is an unqualified yes, and in Hunter's Moon, Grell has put him in three very good stories.  I definitely recommend this forthcoming volume, and hope that it sells well enough to convince DC to reprint the remainder of Grell's eighty issue run on Green Arrow. 

Superman: Dark Knight Over Metropolis

For most of the company's history, DC Comics' two top heroes, Superman and Batman, have teamed up on a regular basis in a shared title.  However, there was a relatively brief period in the wake of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths revamp of Superman in John Byrne's The Man of Steel mini-series, when DC's official editorial stance was that the Man of Tomorrow and the Dark Knight should, by virtue of their differing personalities and methods of operation, have a more adversarial relationship.  Man of Steel #3 depicted the "first" meeting of the two in the new continuity and served to solidify the new status quo in the Superman/Batman relationship.  However, blame for the dissolution of that long running friendship and partnership cannot be laid solely at the feet of Byrne.  Hints of the new direction could be seen as early as the final issue of World's Finest Comics (#323 cover dated January 1986), which ended with the former "World's Finest Duo" parting on somewhat less than congenial terms.
Due for release later this month, the trade paperback collection Dark Knight Over Metropolis collects two meetings of the erstwhile "World's Finest Duo" from this period.  The earliest of these, and the one from which this volume's Art Adams drawn cover is taken, is "Skeeter", written by Byrne with pencils by Adams inked by Dick Giordano, from Action Comics Annual #1, which came out during Action's brief stint as a Superman team-up book.  The story has Batman reluctantly calling on Superman for help when he confronts a situation he is forced to concede that he cannot handle by himself; vampires overrunning a small Louisiana town.
The core of the book is "Dark Knight Over Metropolis", three part story that ran through the trio of Superman titles cover dated June 1990.  The first installment in Superman #44 is written and penciled by Jerry Ordway with inks by Dennis Janke. Part two from The Adventures of Superman #467 is written and penciled by Dan Jurgens and inked by Art Thibert.  Roger Stern wrote Action Comics #654's conclusion with art by Bob McLeod and Brett Breeding.  Investigating a mysterious death in his hometown of Gotham lands the Dark Knight in Superman's territory and smack dab in the middle of the Man of Steel's ongoing plotlines.  In between following up leads to the case that brought him to Metropolis, Batman aids Superman in protecting Clark Kent's Daily Planet colleague Cat Grant from attacks by such second rate villains as Chiller and Shockwave (Where, you almost have to wonder, was Bolt?) when Grant is targeted for death by the organized crime outfit Intergang after daring to agree to testify against former Galaxy Communications chief and Intergang operative Morgan Edge.
Also stated to included in the collection are the issues of Action and Adventures that immediately precede the "Dark Knight Over Metropolis" story.  While the events of Action  #653 are a direct prelude to those issues, Adventures of Superman #466 contains only a few panels directly pertaining to the Intergang sub-plot.  The issue's main story is most notable for being the debut of Hank Henshaw, who would go on to infamy as the Cyborg Superman in the post Doomsday "Reign of the Superman" epic.
The ending of "Dark Knight Over Metropolis", does contain, as the Collected Editions blog states, "...an important event in post-Crisis continuity."  It also serves to wrap up a dangling plot thread dating all the way back to Superman #2.  Furthermore, that aforementioned "important event" signaled the beginning of the softening of relations between DC's two top crime fighters.  Eventually, the two would again become good friends and even come to have shared adventures in a communal title.  However, in the post Man of Steel continuity, instead of being presented with that friendship as a predetermined fact, readers got to see it grow and evolve over time.  "Dark Knight Over Metropolis" signalled the true beginning of that evolution.
I  would definitely recommend that you read these  stories. However, I suspect that if you're willing to do a little digging through back issue boxes you might be able to pick up the individual issues for  somewhat less than the cost of the upcoming trade paperback.

What DC Expects People To Pay Good Money For In October

Following in the well worn footsteps of  fellow comics bloggers J. Caleb Mozzocco and Tom Bondurant, I now present my take on some of the items that DC Comics will be shipping out to your friendly neighborhood comics shop in October that look even halfway interesting or worth checking out.

The list of things that could possibly entice me to buy an Aquaman comic is very, very short.  The credit line "written by John Ostrander," however, would most definitely be up near the top.  One of comics' finest writers returns, if only briefly, to the company where he did most of his best work with October's Aquaman Annual #1.  According to Bondurant, if sales of this issue warrant, it could lead to an ongoing series featuring Aquaman's former teammates The Others.  If so, DC could do a lot worse than let Ostrander stick around to write it.
Earth 2 #16 may be the last issue of the series I buy.  Its writer James Robinson's swan song, and my decision to continue with the book will rest entirely on whose name replaces his in the credit box.

Justice League 3000 #1 offers up yet another reunion of the classic Justice League International creative team of Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguire (Attorneys at Law--sorry couldn't resist.)  However, I'm not expecting a JLI style BWAH-HA-HA fest, as there seems precious little room for that brand of irreverent humor in the New 52.  This title replaces Legion of Super-Heroes and involves the members of the Justice League seemingly thrown into the far future.

I thought Damian Wayne was dead.  Apparently, he gets better by October when the first issue of the six part mini-series Damian: Son of Batman ships.

Adventures of Superman #6 is a decided "NO!", at least in these parts.  The issue is written by J.T. Krul, and regular readers of this blog will be familiar with my longstanding and passionate contempt for everything the man has ever written.

Green Arrow Volume I: Hunter's Moon collects at long last the first six issues, comprising three two part story lines, of Oliver Queen's first ongoing series written by Mike Grell, with art by Ed Hannigan, Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin.  Even though I am one of the world's biggest GA fans, I won't be buying this.  You see, sometime during the two and a half decades that it took DC to deem these stories suitable for reprinting, I went ahead and aquired the contents of this book in individual issue form.  (And I picked them up Packrat Comics for a buck apiece, thus paying less than half what DC is asking for the collection.) Still, the fact that this book exists after all this time makes me happy.  I certainly hope future volumes are in the offing. 

Meanwhile, in issue #24 of the ongoing Green Arrow series, writer Jeff Lemire introduces the New 52 incarnation of Grell creation Shado.

Speaking of Green Arrow, he and ladylove Black Canary also show up this month as guest stars in the trade paperback The Joker: Clown Prince of Crime, reprinting for the first time the entire nine issues of Joker's eponymous series from 1975.  This is another one I'll be leaving on the shelf.  I've read about half of the issues to be reprinted here, and despite a laundry list of top talents of the day that includes Dennis O'Neil, Martin Pasko and Elliot S! Maggin on the writing side, and Ernie Chan, Irv Novick, Dick Giordano and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez at the drawing board, those stories just weren't very good at all.

 Ever since the publication of Sandman #1 a quarter century ago, series writer Neil Gaiman has assured us that there's more to the story of Morpheus' capture by Roderick Burgess than we were shown in that issue.  In years' since Sandman #75 rolled off the presses, he has repeatedly assured us that someday he would share that tale with us.  Someday has come, just in time for the Silver anniversary of Sandman #1's publication, as the first issue of The Sandman: Overture, a six issue mini-series that finally lifts the veil of secrecy that has long shrouded the events that weakened the Dream King sufficiently to allow Burgess' spell to entrap him, comes to comic shops in October.  The only question in my mind is whether I wait for the collection or buy it in installments.  I guess that really depends on just how excited I am about new Sandman material after all this time.   My gut reaction is to wait for the trade.  We'll see how I feel, and how much disposable income I have, in October.

As I said above, whether or not I actually purchase any of the above comics depends on a combination of my mood and my financial well-being.  However, I'm highly likely to tell you all about whatever I do purchase on this blog when the time comes.

New Sunday Comix Jam Collection Debuting at SPACE

Not Quite Final Cover

This year marks ten years that Columbus cartoonist group Sunday Comix has existed, and to mark this event I baked a cake for our tenth anniversary meeting.  I also helped put together, with fellow SC member Canada Keck, who, to be honest, is doing most of the work, a new collection of the jam comics we do at our meetings.  The cake is gone now, but The Sunday Comic Jam-iversary will debut at SPACE this coming weekend. In addition to the comics, I've written a history of the group that will appear in the back of the book, accompanied by photos from our meetings. 

Also at the Sunday Comix table will be our earlier jam comics collections Sunday Gold and Blue Sunday, the more story based jam Jamtastic Foray and the fundraiser anthology for the Hero Alliance, A Bowl Full of Happiness.  In addition comics by various of our members who don't have their own tables will be on display and for sale.  Sunday Comix members  with tables of their own include Max Ink, Michael Neno, Alex Heberling and Michael Carroll and probably a few others I'm forgetting at the moment.

I'll be spending some time at the table, and I look forward to seeing some of you there.

To whet your appetite for the new collection, here's a couple of the jams that will be included:

Click to enlarge--Read and enjoy!

Click to Enlarge--Read and Enjoy!

Card Game

Once again, DC Comics seems to be living by the old cliche that there is no such thing as bad publicity.  The latest flap involves the authorship of a segment of the company's digital Adventures of Superman anthology.

It seems to me that Orson Scott Card; of whom, until this week, I knew nothing other than his name and the titles of some of his books that I'd never read and now likely never will; has joined the club of creative individuals, which includes Steve Ditko and Dave Sim, whose extreme and unpopular political views have overshadowed, and at times overtaken, their creative output.  In Cards case, it is his outspoken stand against gay marriage rights that has lowered him into pariahship. Thus, DC's engaging of this controversial author to script a tale of its flagship character has been met with much outrage in the world of Internet opinionating.  There is an on-line petition, although likely too late to do any other than symbolic good (yet I've signed it nonetheless), urging DC to reconsider its decision to hire Card, and a few retailers have announced their intent not to carry the print edition of the comic when it ships in May. 

When contacted by The Advocate, a spokesman for DC spewed out the following half-assed, have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too, corporate double speak statement that seems to be trying to split the difference between defending the decision to hire Card while simultaneously distancing the company from his more controversial views:

 “As content creators we steadfastly support freedom of expression, however the personal views of individuals associated with DC Comics are just that — personal views — and not those of the company itself.”

Now, I figure that someone at DC must have realized that this controversy would occur.  Thus, it seems highly likely to me that, following the above stated dictum that there is no such thing as bad publicity, the prospect of the expected outrage drawing media attention to DC and this particular comic, which is exactly what has happened, may have played some part in the decision by the company to hire Card.

As I probably was not going to anyway, this controversy and my discovery of Card's true colors hasn't influenced my decision about whether or not to purchase or read Adventures of Superman.  It has, however, pretty much wiped out whatever vestigial desire I may have harbored to read anything else the man has written.

Stuff I'll Probably Be Throwing My Money Away On Next Month

Last week I wrote that I'll probably be picking up Before Watchmen: Dollar Bill in February to see how Len Wein and Steve Rude flesh out the story of one of the more minor characters from Watchmen.  Well, while preparing for that post, I took a peek at what else DC was offering up for sale next month, and I thought I'd share with you some preliminary impressions of a couple of items that will most likely be finding themselves a home in my comics boxes or on my bookshelves.  

Another book that I've written about previously that I'm planning to get is Hellblazer #300, which brings to a close the Vertigo imprint's longest running title and last remaining of the six existing books that formed the original core of the line on its launch in 1993.  As I've speculated on numerous previous occasions, the loss of the adventures of John Constantine to mainstream New 52 line combined with the forthcoming resignation of founding editor Karen Berger seem to bode ill for the future of Vertigo.

Then there are the two ongoing comics that I have been purchasing regularly since their debuts eighteen and ten months ago, respectively.  The first is Action Comics, though #17 may be the last issue of that title for me, as it marks the end of the story line begun by Grant Morrison in #1 and the writers departure from the title.  I've only read one comic by incoming writer Andy Diggle, but I did like it, so maybe I'll give his run a couple of issues to see how it goes.  That's a decision I'll put off until March, however.

Next up is Earth 2.  While the book hasn't been quite as good since the plot actually kicked in as it was for the first couple issues when writer James Robinson was setting up his alternate world and introducing the major and minor characters, its still one of the best super-hero comics I've read from DC in quite some time.  This issue also promises the introduction of the New 52 version of Dr. Fate, which I'm sort of curious to see.

I have made no secret on this blog of my longstanding and slightly unnatural love for Oliver Queen, a.k.a. the Green Arrow.  Because of this, I desperately want the character's eponymous monthly comic to be good.  However, in its New 52 incarnation, the closest Green Arrow has come to anything that I might want to read on a sustained basis were the three issues written by Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens.  DC, I'm sure, wants Green Arrow to be worth reading as well, which is the best spin I can put on the fact that in February the book is getting its fifth creative team in the year and a half since the New 52 relaunch.  

The new writer is Jeff Lemire.  I've not read anything he's written previous, but I've yet to find a reviewer who's had anything all that bad to say about any of it.  As I did with Ann Nocenti before him, I plan to give Lemire one story line to impress me.  

Another reason I'll be picking up up Green Arrow #17 is that I'm somewhat intrigued by the the actual text of the solicitation, which reads:

"As Ollie struggles to come to terms with the loss of his fortune, his company and his heritage, he discovers a shocking truth about his father that ties to his time stranded on an island before he became Green Arrow."

The second part of that sentence seems to indicate that Lemire, most likely at the direction of DC management, is planning to move the book in a direction more in line with the story of the CW's TV series Arrow.  I have mixed feelings about that, as, while the show is not really bad at all, I'm not overly fond of it, however, if DC really wants fans of the series to sample the comics, then I suppose its not such a dumb move.  

It's the first part of the description that has really piqued my interest, though.  I've always preferred poor Ollie to rich Ollie, partly because that's how I first encountered the character, but mostly because its in that era that the best Green Arrow stories were told.

Above, I mentioned having read only one comic by Andy Diggle and having liked it.  Well, that comic was Green Arrow: Year One.  Based on that mini-series, I'm thinking that once Lemire moves on, and given this books track record that will probably happen sooner than later, DC should give Diggle a shot at writing GA's exploits on a regular basis.  While I liked Year One, at the time I read it I sort of consigned it to an alternate history or something like that, despite it being the new "official" version of GA's history, because I couldn't quite see the Oliver Queen depicted therein becoming the character I'd been reading for the past few decades.  However, I can see him becoming the New 52 Green Arrow, thus making Diggle a natural to continue his adventures in the monthly book.

Lastly, there's Crisis On Multiple Earths Volume 6, the latest in the series of trade paperback collections of the meetings of Earth One's Justice League and their counterparts in Earth Two's Justice Society that were an annual tradition in the pages of Justice League of America from 1963 until 1985 and the merging of all of DC's alternate worlds in Crisis On Infinite Earths.  These have always been some of my favorite comics of the Silver and Bronze Ages and, quite naturally, I already possess the first five volumes in the series.  The latest edition covers the years 1981 to 1983 and includes the first of the JLA/JSA "crossovers" to actually crossover into another title, winding its way through three issues of Justice League and two issues of the World War II set JSA book All-Star Squadron, thus making it the longest of the JLA/JSA team-ups. 

Compared to amount of new comics that I buy most months, that's actually quite a long list I've compiled above, and I'm sure I'll be writing about at least one or two of them here in the future.

Why "Before Watchmen: Dollar Bill" Just Might NOT Suck

Some, such as J. Caleb Mozzocco in his first post of the year at Everyday Is Like Wednesday, may mock, to me, Before Watchmen: Dollar Bill sounds more promising than any of the other BW mini-series or one-shots published or announced so far.  Unlike some of the previous efforts, it won't, in fact it can't, be a mere rehash of what Alan Moore did with the character in Watchmen, because there's really nothing there to rehash.  In Moore's original graphic novel, Dollar Bill is a mere cypher. He's little more than a name and a costume.  That's not a knock on Moore, though.  Watchmen is bursting with fully realized, three dimensional characters.  Dollar Bill just doesn't happen to be one of them.  He's not so much a character in Moore's tale as an object lesson.  He's the Minuteman who gets killed while stopping a robbery thus causing the others, especially Nite Owl, our point of view character in the 40's super group, to realize that crime fighting isn't a game and that they can get seriously hurt or even die.

Therefore, Dollar Bill writer Len Wein, together with artist Steve Rude, has a unique opportunity not afforded the other Before Watchmen writers to create a mostly original character and craft a tale that truly expands and enriches the world of Watchmen in a way that they wouldn't be able to in stories about Rorshach or the Comedian or any of the other major characters in Watchmen. 
Whether Dollar Bill, and Wein, can live up to that promise is something we'll have to wait until February to find out, and I think that I might just go ahead and pick this book up.  If nothing else, with Steve Rude drawing it, it will at least look good.

At Least They're Not Letting J.T. Krul Write It..

In keeping with my usual practice of bringing you yesterday's news today, you might be interested to learn, in the unlikely event you haven't already heard, that DC has cancelled its longest running title--or, rather, its longest running title that has never been rebooted or renumbered--Hellblazer. 

Dan DiDio pulls the trigger on Hellblazer

Actually, I held off writing about this development until I could figure out exactly what, if anything, I had to say about it.  After all, there are plenty of comics news sites where you can get the bare facts.  I like to season my posts some opinions, analysis, and insight, no matter how poorly reasoned or ill-informed.

Anyway, enough of this meta-crap.  Let's get to the pontificating...

We should have seen this coming.  

After all, it was almost two years ago, I believe, well before the advent of the New 52, that DC announced that the mainstream DC Universe would be reclaiming all of the Vertigo characters who had originated there.  This immediately led to questions concerning the future of Hellblazer, as John Constantine was the only such character whose adventures were still being chronicled in an ongoing monthly comic.  Doom Patrol and Animal Man, two more of the six titles that formed the original core of the Vertigo imprint, had long since migrated back to the main line, and Swamp Thing was in publishing limbo.  

However, when no announcement of Hellblazer's impending end was immediately forthcoming,  it seemed as if the venerable title would remain unaffected.  Even when Constantine was eventually reintegrated into the mainstream DCU with the New 52's Justice League Dark, Hellblazer continued and for more than a year now, DC has been giving readers two different versions of John Constantine on a monthly basis.

That ends in February, when Hellblazer comes to an end with its 300th issue, to be replaced in March by Constantine, a comic set firmly in the world of the new 52.  

Its my guess that DC was planning something along this line all along, and was simply waiting for the series to reach the milestone tricentennial issue before pulling the plug.  

I definitely plan on picking up the final three issue story line "Death and Cigarettes", which, by the way, is the perfect name for a story about John Constantine and I'm sort of surprised no one's used it before this.  I will also probably grab at least the first issue of the new series, just to see if its any good.  However, I'm not holding out much hope that it will be.

It's not that, as has been decried by some other on-line opinionators, that the new writer, Robert Venditti, is an American.  He will not, after all, be the first American to chronicle the character's life.  While, as I wrote last week, Brian Azzarello's first storyline may have  ultimately disappointed me, he did, despite not being British, manage to capture the essence of Constantine's personality.

It seems to me there's a double standard here.  Fans react with indignation to the idea of an American writing John Constantine, but I don't recall ever hearing of anyone having problems with the very British Alan Moore writing Swamp Thing, a series set mostly in the southern United States,  or with any of the other Brits, from Neil Gaiman to Paul Cornell and including Garth Ennis, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis and James Robinson, who have written comics with American characters and settings. 

What matters, far more than the nationality of the writer, is whether they can tell good stories regardless of where they are set or where the characters hail from. Besides, as I say in the title of this post, at least they haven't handed the new book to one of their staff hacks such as Krul, or Dan DiDio or Geoff Johns.

My doubts about the new Constantine title have to do with Max Lord.

I have, for some time, been of the opinion that the reason that characters like Maxwell Lord and Amanda Waller have so poorly handled in recent years, including in OMAC, a New 52 title I otherwise enjoyed, is that, as originally conceived and written by their creators, these characters do not fit neatly into the black and white categories of hero or villain, existing instead in a grey area between the two, and it seems to me that, under  the leadership of Dan DiDio, there is apparently no room in the vast DC Universe for moral ambiguity.  Now, there is no more morally ambiguous character in all of comics than John Constantine.  This aspect of his character is, to me, what makes him interesting and, I believe, the secret to Hellblazer's longevity.  If that part of Constantine's character is ignored or played down,  I'm sure that his new comic will not have nearly as long a run as it predecessor.

Free Comic Book Day Comics Part 4

I shall attempt to keep my remarks short, as I begin to grow weary of this series and am glad to see it come to its conclusion. I have a mere two free comics yet to cover, and I have been saving what is perhaps the coolest Free Comic Book Day offering ever for the very last.

That is not to imply that the first comic under consideration this day, Antarctic Press' Zombie Kid, is bad. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact.  Not, strictly speaking, a comic, per se, Zombie Kid, designed to resemble a handwritten journal with one or two illustrations per page, in the manner of the popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, tells the story of Bill Stokes, who, along with his mother, became a zombie as a result of an experimental virus she picked up while a volunteer for a medical test.
Being a zombie is not without certain drawbacks, especially when you're attempting to keep your transformation a secret and continue with a relatively normal life as a typical middle school student, complete with tests, school bullies and everything else that entails.  Still, Bill finds that there are certain advantages to his current condition, especially in regards to his ambition to be a champion professional video gamer.  For example, he notes that his reflexes have greatly improved and that he is able to stare at a TV screen for hours at a time without blinking.
It is Bill's dreams of gaming glory that set up the conflict of the main story here, as he schemes to get out of going on a class field trip which all his friends are looking forward to but that conflicts with a video game tournament that he badly wants to enter and win.
Overall, Zombie Kid is a well written and illustrated book that is perfectly pitched to appeal to its obvious target audience of teenage boys.

They, whoever "they" might be, say that "You get what you pay for," and with Free Comic Book Day comics that is, unfortunately, all too often the case.  I've encountered quite a few that aren't even worth the cover price.  On the other hand, there's Archaia Entertainment's free sampler for 2012, Mouse Guard, Labyrinth and Other Stories: A Free Comic Book Day Hardcover Anthology.
This is a beautifully put together full color fifty page hardcover book featuring complete, albeit short, stories, not just snippets of longer tales, previewing six of Archaia's graphic novel series; Mouse Guard,Labyrinth, based on the Jim Henson film; The Dapper Men, Rust, Cursed Pirate Girl, and Cow Boy.  I really can't believe that Archaia was just giving this book away.  For a product of this quality, I would happily pay around five dollars.  I'm not just referring to the book as mere physical object, either.  The contents reflect some of the best, in both writing and art, that the comics medium has to offer, and all of them are definitely worth reading more of. I certainly hope the investment  Arhaia Entertainment made in producing this truly unique Free Comic Book Day giveaway pays off for them in terms of increased sales of the featured books.
That wraps up Free Comic Book Day for this year.  I'll be back soon with posts about comics I actually paid for, and maybe some I wish I hadn't.

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?

Free Comic Book Day Comics Part 3

I'm sure no one's going to be too disappointed if I skip the lengthy, rambling preamble this time out and get right to the comics.

I was in college when Voltron debuted back in the mid-80's.  While I enjoyed the series, mine was more of an ironic, detached appreciation.  I was laughing at it, whereas fifteen or even ten years earlier I would have bought into the premise unquestioningly.  Thus, I don't have the same nostalgic attachment to the show that people that much younger than me might.   Still I can tell a well written and drawn comics story when I read one, and VIZ Media's Free Comic Book Day offering, Voltron Force: Shelter From The Storm, written by Brian Smith with art by Jacob Chabot, presents the opening pages of what looks to be a very well done graphic novel.
Shelter From The Storm picks up several years after the events of the cartoon series with the original Voltron Force training a trio of new recruits to eventually take their places.  On a training exercise, the newbies encounter a runaway robeast created by the team's arch-nemesis King Lotor.  I would definitely consider reading the full graphic novel, though unless you're a real diehard Voltron junkie, I might recommend checking it out of the library.

The free comic from Red 5 Comics, with previews of the cover featured Atomic Robo, as well as NeoZoic and Bonnie Lass, and including stories featuring pirates and dinosaurs, seems shrewdly calculated to appeal to readers' inner child.  Nonetheless, it does hit most of the right buttons.
The titular Atomic Robo of the lead story is a robot created by Nikola Tesla in the 1920's who today leads a globe spanning scientific troubleshooting organization known as Tesladyne. In this tale, Robo is tricked by his old enemy Dr. Dinosaur, a super-intelligent talking dinosaur, naturally, into unleashing a super evolved dinosaur, or Futuresaurus Rex, intended by Dr. Dinosaur to destroy him.   While I didn't enjoy this quite as much as last year's Super Dinosaur free sampler, I can see that Atomic Robo has the potential to be a lot of fun.
I believe that in one of last year's posts in the wake of Free Comic Book Day I expressed a preference for free comics that give you complete stories rather than teasers continued in something you're expected to pay for.  This sampler from Red 5 contains a mix of both of those.  The Atomic Robo story is complete in this issue, while the other two stories are merely the beginnings of longer tales.
NeoZoic posits a world where dinosaurs never died out and have existed side by side with humans, giving rise to an organization called the Predator Defence League whose mission is to protect humanity from the beasts.   This eight page preview provides just enough  of a glimpse into that world to leave me slightly confused about just what's going on, but somewhat curious as to what the deal is.  Adding to the confusion is the art, done in sort of an Americanized Manga type of style.  The story features three female characters and they are all drawn with basically the same face.  The only thing differentiating them is hair and skin color.  If this were a black and  white comic I'd have been totally lost.  This is definitely a comic I'd want to check out from a library before shelling out any of my hard earned cash for it.
Bonnie Lass chronicles the adventures of the daughter of a famous pirate in what appears to be some sort of alternate history present day.  Bonnie and two of her companions have gotten themselves captured by some sort of cult or something looking to retrieve an object she stole from them.  They end up being rescued by probably the last person Bonnie wants to save them. With its cartoony art and irreverent tone, Bonnie Lass looks like it might be the most fun of the three series previewed here.

Finally for today, we come to Donald Duck Family Comics, presenting two vintage stories by legendary "good duck artist" Carl Barks.  The first deals with yet another scheme by the nefarious Beagle Boys to hijack Uncle Scrooge's money bin, while the other details Donald's efforts to be free of the nightmares which plague him whenever he tries to get some shuteye.  Rounding out the issue are a series of one page strips by Barks featuring Donald and Scrooge.
As to the question of whether the full books that this comic is promoting are worth buying, the answer seems pretty self-evident to me. Any collection of Barks' duck comics would make a worthy addition to anyone's bookshelf.
You know, its kind of funny, to me at least, that two of the best comics for young kids this Free Comic Book Day, this one and Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley, come from Fantagraphics, a publisher not exactly known for its kid friendly fare.  That they both contain material written and drawn over a half century ago is not so surprising to me, however, as I'm rapidly turning into a cranky old man who thinks everything new sucks.
I've still got two more free comics to write about, but I'll get to those next time. 

Free Comic Book Day Comics Part 2

The three books I'll be looking at today are all flip books, so it'll be like getting double the reviews for your money.  Not that you pay anything to read this blog, nor should you.  If you had to, I could honestly think of several dozen blogs or other forms of reading matter far more worthwhile than this one for you to blow your paycheck on.  

Actually--returning, however briefly, to my topic--of the nearly dozen free samplers I picked up on Free Comic Book Day, the majority of them featured previews of two or more series or graphic novels.

By the way, you may be wondering how I came away from the day with so many books when I only visited three shops.  True, all the stores I went to did have a limit of one, or at most, two comics per person.  However, my last stop on the tour, Packrat Comics, had a deal wherein if you threw a buck or two into a jar for donations to a charity that aids wounded veterans you could snatch up as many comics as you liked.  It was for a good  cause, and I do have to find stuff to write about on this blog somewhere, so I tossed two George Washingtons into the kitty and grabbed anything that I hadn't picked up at the Laughing Ogre or Comic Town that looked interesting or that, at the very least, I thought I might be able to get a halfway entertaining bad review out of.

To digress yet again, isn't it the bad reviews that are more fun to read than the good ones, especially if the reviewer really despises the comic, movie, or TV show in question? Its the same basic appeal that American Idol held for people, at least until Simon Cowell left.  We were all slightly embarassed by Paula Abdul's tearful gushing over any sixteen year old Whitney Houston wannabe with even a moderately decent singing voice.  What we really wanted, what we tuned in for, was to see mean old Simon make that poor little girl cry. 

Now, I don't know how entertaining my first review is going to be--that, as always, is for the you, the people I'm seeking to entertain, to decide--and I sincerely hope no one cries, especially not the "title character." Atfter all, there are few sights more pathetic than that of a washed up actor/"pop culture icon" on his knees and bawling like a damned baby. That said, however, I really have nothing at all nice to say about BlueWater Comics' Burt Ward: Boy Wonder.
The concept is similar to last year's BlueWater freebie, The Misadventures of Adam West, in that it features the actor transformed by magical/super-scientific means into a younger version of himself from when he was at the height of his popularity and becoming the swashbuckling crimefighter he only pretended to be in front of the TV cameras.  In this case, Ward is walking a couple of dogs in L.A.'s Griffith Park out near where the exteriors for the Batcave where filmed back in the 60's. Before he really knows what's happening, he finds himself chasing some masked stranger who kind of resembles the original Red Hood (that's the man who became the Joker, not Jason Todd) through a teleportation device which, oddly for a denizen of a world in which such things don't exist outside of science fiction, he instantly recognizes as such.  Then the story does a reverse Wizard of Oz as the art goes black and white when Ward emerges from the space-time warp on Pluto in the distant future, forty years younger, a hell of a lot thinner, and still in pursuit of the mysterious masked stranger.
Whereas the Adam West book had a certain campy charm, not entirely unlike the TV series that made West famous, Ward's book is just this side of unreadable. I  shall not be paying for any more of this story, nor do I recommend that you do so.
That wasn't so bad, was it, Burt?
The flip side of the BlueWater book is Wrath of the Titans.  This is set up like a children's picture book, with full page illustrations on one side and text on the facing page describing in tediously painstaking detail exactly the scene depicted in the illustration.  Ok, obviously I am not the target demo for this book, but this seems to me the kind of book that would make even the most dim-witted kid feel that he was being talked down to. Needless to say, this one's a pass  as well.

We come now to the Bongo Comics Free-For-All 2012, featuring "Tales From The Springfield Bear Patrol" in which the titular semi-official law enforcement body consisting of Homer, Barney, Karl and Lenny rise up to save the town from a horde of marauding ursines set loose by a vengeful TV traffic reporter.  This is a very funny story typical of the Simpsons style of humor.  I'm sure I don't have to tell you what I mean by that, as the TV series has been running since the dawn of time---first there was the Big Bang, then, after a word from the sponsor ("The universe brought to you by GOD Brand Supreme Deity.  Accept no substitutes---OR BURN IN HELL!"), there was the first episode of The Simpsons.
This half of the book also includes a short autobiographical piece by Sergio Aragones.
Flip this book over and you get SpongeBob Comics Freestyle Funnies. The main story has SpongeBob reading the latest issue of his favorite comic book, Merman Comics, to Squidward, who just wants the little yellow pest to go away.  Eventually, SpongeBob gets the message and leaves without finishing, leaving Squidward, to his chagrin, obscessed with learning how the story.  The story includes pages from the comic book adventures of Merman, a parody of Aquaman, and those are drawn by comics veteran Ramona Fradon, who pencilled many of the real deals exploits back in the Silver Age.  The story overall is excellent, but the real treat is seeing all too rare new art from Fradon, which looks just as great as it did back when she was the Sea King's regular artist. 

Finally, we have a preview three of DC's comics for younger readers.  On one side there's an excerpt of Superman Family Adventures, written and drawn by Art Baltazar and Franco, the same team responsible for the late, much loved Tiny Titans. From the little taste we get here, it seems that this new series has all the charm and energy of their previous effort.  I may not actually buy this.  My niece Alison was a huge fan of Tiny Titans, and she'll probably get this as well, so I'll read her copies.
The other side spotlights two titles based on shows appearing on Cartoon Network, Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Young Justice.  Even though the GL story is written by Baltazar and Franco, I'm not quite taken  with it.  It borrows too heavily from the post-Rebirth Geoff Johns mythos for my taste. I'll skip this one.
I can't really say anything about the Young Justice sampler.  At a mere six pages that don't tell us what the full story is about, there's just not enough here for me to decide whether or not I'd ever want to buy this comic.
So, I'm only about halfway through my FCBD haul.  Next time: Barks, robeasts, and Dr. Dinosaur.

Free Comic Book Day Free Comics Part 1

So, what exactly is the point of reviewing comics from Free Comic Book Day?  The big day was a few weeks ago, and those comics aren't widely available right now, so its not like I can urge you to go out and grab your own copy if you didn't already.  However, FCBD comics are essentially promotional items whose intent is to get you to start following an ongoing monthly series or perhaps to interest you enough to invest a huge chunk of change in a hardcover reprint of some obscure but supposedly "classic" old comic.  Therefore, the rating system I shall employ here shall be simply "buy" or "don't buy" based on whether I would for a second consider laying out the cash for the item being flogged by the free comic.  Of course, there are degrees of "don't buy", there being comics that I would consider checking out of the library if I ever get around to paying off my heavy fines, and books that I wouldn't give a second look to. 

I almost wish I'd been alive back in the early 1940's so that I could have followed Crockett Johnson's wonderful classic comic strip Barnaby, chronicling the misadventures of an adventurous and mischievous little boy named, of course, Barnaby and his bumbling but well-intentioned fairy godfather Mr. O'Malley, when it first ran in newspapers.  I've seen very few examples of the strip, but have loved what little I've been able to get my hands on.  That includes Fantagraphics' FCBD offering,Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley, which includes the first two strips, featuring the meeting of the two principles, and the beginning of a long storyline in which Barnaby, his friend Sally, and Mr. O'Malley set out to investigate mysterious goings on at a supposedly haunted old house and find it occupied not only by a ghost who happens to be an aquaintance of O'Malley's but also by gangsters who are using it to stash the loot from the coffee shipments they've been hijacking.  These gems are but a taste of the first of five hardcover volumes to be published annually over the next five summers reprinting the entire ten year run of the strip.  I'm going to rate this one a "buy".  Sure, each volume's probably going to cost something like forty or fifty bucks, and I might not be able to afford it right away, but I'm definitely going to have to seriously consider picking up at least one of them at some time in the future.

By the way, you might recognize the art style in the cover image up above. After Barnaby, Johnson went on to write the children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon and its several sequels, which are every bit as delightful as his comics work.

Though there is precedent for it--Dell published Peanuts comics in the 50's and 60's, many of them drawn by Jim Sasseville, Charles Schulz's assistant on his short lived second strip It's Only A Game--the idea of Peanuts material being produced by anyone but Schulz seems today almost like sacrilege.  The strip was not just his life's work, it was his life, and when it ended, so did he.   That's why the preview of the new Peanuts book from Boom Studios kids imprint Kaboom is definitely in the "don't buy" column.  The writers and artists of the new material do a somewhat passable job of imitating Schulz's style of art and humor, but when they are presented alongside classic strips by the man himself, it becomes sadly obvious that something is missing, and that something is Schulz's soul.

The flip side of the book is a preview of Kaboom's Adventure Time series.  While I can see the appeal of the series to some people, it's not really my cup of tea.  Again, it's a "don't buy", at least for me.

Hermes Press, an outfit I'd never heard of before, offered up My Favorite Martian, reprinting an issue from Gold Key's adaptation of the fondly remembered 1960's sitcom featuring Ray Walston as the titular extraterrestrial "Uncle Martin" and Bill Bixby as the only Earthling privy to Martin's true nature, which ran fifteen issues, a long time by Gold Key standards, with most of their TV adaptations lasting only three or four issues, if that.  The story, "Destination Mars", tells of Martin's efforts to hitch a ride back home on a NASA space probe bound for the Red Planet.  It's actually a lot better than I expected from a Gold Key TV based comic.  The art is by veteran comics illustrator Dan Spiegle.  He doesn't quite capture Walston and Bixby's likenesses, though he gets it close enough that you can tell who they're supposed to be.  

This is a teaser for Hermes' hardcover reprinting of the entire series.  I wouldn't mind reading more, but I'm not sure I'd want to read it more than once, and I don't really want to spend fifty bucks on something I'm going to read once and then sell to Half Price Books.  So, My Favorite Martian: The Complete Series is a "don't buy", though I would check it out of the library.

I hit several stores on Free Comic Book Day and came away with nearly a dozen free comics, so this is just the first of several parts.  In the next installment, I'll look at free comics from DC, Bongo, and Bluewater.