"Let There Be...LIFE!" (Fantastic Four Annual #6)

Geez, I just realized that it's been nearly a month that I've been doing this new blog, and I have yet to write anything about a Marvel comic.

Well, I suppose it's time to rectify that oversight, and if I'm going to write about a Marvel comic, I might as well pick one of the greatest single issues they've ever published, as well as my personal favorite story from the seminal Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run on Fantastic Four.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Fantastic Four Annual #6, featuring a story entitled, with typical Stan Lee bravura, "Let There Be...Life!"

Stan the Man himself sums up the story this way in a blurb on the splash page: "Featuring: The Glory of Birth, 'Neath the Shadow of Death!", which neatly distills the essence of the tale into a handy catch phrase.  From a continuity and historical standpoint, it is notable for including the first appearance of Annihulus, the Living Death That Walks, and the birth of Franklin Richards.

Sue, whose pregnancy was revealed in the previous year's annual, is in the hospital preparing to give birth, but there are complications.  It seems that the cosmic radiation in her blood that granted her  and her three teammates their fantastic powers is now endangering the lives of both her and her soon to be born child.  Reed is frantic with worry, but he has discovered that there is a rare element that can save his family, though it exists only in the treacherous anti-matter realm known as the Negative Zone.  Dismissing Reed's entreaties that this is something he must do alone, the Thing and the Human Torch join him on an excursion into the Zone to retrieve the element, which, they soon discover, just happens to be in a vial which the evil Annihulus just happens to wear on a chain around his neck. 

Reed and his companions now must defeat Annihulus, retrieve the precious rare element, and get back to their own dimension in time to save Sue and the baby.

What makes this my favorite FF tale is that it epitomizes the very quintessence of the Fantastic Four concept.  When The Comics Journal listed its choices for the Top 100 Comics of the 20th Century as that century drew to its close, Lee and Kirby's Fantastic Four was the highest ranking super-hero comic on the roster, and this issue demonstrates why it deserves that honor.  If FF isn't the best super-hero  comic ever, I'm at a loss right now to tell you what is.

For all the cosmic bluster of such apocalyptic stories as this one and the Galactus Trilogy, Fantastic Four was, and to this day remains, at its heart, the story of a family.  While the threat of Annihulus is a menace on a cosmic scale, the real stakes here are personal: Reed battles Annihulus not to save the universe, but the people he loves most. This juxtaposition of the everyday against the outlandish; the perfect balance of the human and the cosmic, is what made Lee and Kirby's Fantastic Four stand out not only from the books of the "Distinguished Competition", but the other comics in the Marvel line as well. Only here was that delicate balancing act acheived. Thor by  this point was a full-on cosmic tale of gods and demons with the human elements provided by Thor's human identity of Don Blake and his hopeless lusting after nurse Jane Foster having long since fallen by the wayside, and The Amazing Spider-Man offered tales of an all too human young man struggling with the realities of supporting himself, dating, and taking care of his frail old aunt, who just happened to put on a costume and fight super powered nutsos every once in a while.

Another thing that's interesting about this story is that it was published during what is generally considered a fallow period in Kirby's creative career.  According to most accounts, the King was really unhappy with how Stan had mucked up his original concept for issues #66 and 67 and was simply marking time by this point until his contract with Marvel was up. Despite that, here he gives us some of the finest work of his career, and a true high point of the Silver Age.

The best, and cheapest, way to read this story is by picking up Essential Fantastic Four Volume Four, which contains not only this tale, and  the earlier annual announcing Sue's pregnancy, but the controversial issues #66 and 67, as well as many others, which, even if Kirby was "hacking it out" during this period, as the conventional wisdom would have it, still stand head and shoulders above the other super-hero comics of the day.

Just WRONG: Justice League of America #147

To be honest, the story contained in Justice League of America issues #147 and #148 is one of my favorite of the annual pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths teamings of the League and their Earth-2 counterparts, the Justice Society of America.  It features the JLA and the JSA teamed with the 30th century heroes the Legion of Super-Heroes facing off against old Legion foe Mordru and veteran League enemies the Demons Three in a quest for a trio of mystical objects that spans time, space and dimension.  This type of wild, far-fetched epic is everything I love about super-hero comics.
However...

There is a sequence early on in the story that just makes me cringe.  The best word to describe it is "icky."
As the 147th issue of Justice League of America begins, the JSA are guests aboard the League's satellite headquarters after having captured the Psycho Pirate, who fled to Earth-1 in an attempt to elude the Society, a story related in the JSA's own feature in the recently revived All-Star Comics.  Just as the Earth-2 heroes are about to head back to their own dimension with their prisoner, Green Arrow, not wanting this reunion of the super-teams to end too soon, shoots the infamous boxing glove arrow at the controls of the dimensional transporter, shutting it down. As the machine needs an hour to warm up again, the Society members are forced to hang out for a while longer.
Now comes the creepy part.
One member of the JSA, Power Girl, seems delighted with the delay.  She's hanging all over Earth-1's Man of Steel as she purrs, "I'm beginning to really like this place!  It has a much nicer brand of Superman, y'know?"  Kal-El is, understandably, a little uncomfortable with this, but offers to show her the JLA's trophy room anyway.  As they head off, Black Canary snipes, "Incredible! And I used to call you a fast worker, Oliver!"  Ollie's response is "*CHUCKLE* I guess they've got Women's Lib on Earth-Two, too, Pretty Bird!"
Thankfully, a giant disembodied mystical hand invades the satellite right at that moment and spirits members of both teams away through time to the 30th century..
Power Girl was essentially the Earth-2 analog of Supergirl.  Like Supergirl, she was the cousin of that world's Superman, who was essentially the same person on Earth-2 as he was on Earth-1, unlike, say, the Flashes or Green Lanterns, who shared only their heroic name and super powers in common.   In essence, she's coming on to her cousin.
Like I said: "icky"
The sexist language notwithstanding, Ollie's reaction is taking the whole "liberal" schtick a bit far. He might be OK with it, but even when I first read this as a kid, I found that whole sequence disturbing.  Fortunately, it's only three panels long in a story spanning two double sized issues, and is thankfully not revisited.

Back Issue

Even if I hadn't come right out and said it in my last post, you might just get the impression as you read this blog that I harbor a certain fondness for the comics of the 1970's and 80s, the era often referred to as the Bronze Age.  If you share this particular affection--or should I say "affliction"-- I would recommend that you do two things:

1. Keep reading this blog.
2. Check out a magazine called Back Issue.

Back Issue is published by TwoMorrows Publishing, who put out a whole line of comics related magazines and books, with perhaps their best known being The Jack Kirby Collector, devoted entirely to the career of the King of Comics.  BI's particular niche happens to be the aforementioned Bronze Age,  and each issue is centered around a theme which unites most of the articles, although a couple of non-themed pieces are usually included.  For example, the latest issue, whose eye catching Joe Kubert drawn cover is shown here, focuses mainly on war comics, although that is rather broadly defined to include super-hero comics set during the second World War. Among the features are articles on Lynda Carter-era Wonder Woman comics, Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle's early 80's revival of Blackhawk, the Unknown Soldier, Marvels WWII super team The Invaders, a little known Marvel war comic called Combat Kelly and the Deadly Dozen, and, of course, Sgt. Rock, as well as such non-thematic pieces as an essay on biographies of comics creators and a look at Marvel's short-lived line of religious themed comics. Other recent themes have included issue #34's  look at "cosmic" comics, which featured a Jim Starlin Warlock cover, and  the following issue's focus on super-villains, including an examination of the classic "Kraven's Last Hunt" storyline in the Spider-Man titles and an article on Kobra that inspired me to write my own. The tone of the articles is a mix of loving tribute and critical analysis.  Thankfully missing is the snarkiness too often found on many web-sites and blogs when Bronze Age comics are discussed.

DC Super Stars #10 or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bronze Age"

The 1970s and early 1980s, the period known to comics fans and historians as the Bronze Age, is often dismissed as a low point in the history of comics.  The rap on the era is that the mainstream comics of the day were bland, uninspired, and unimaginative.  However, I find just the opposite to be true, and Bronze Age comics are among my all time favorites. Part of this is because I was a kid at the time, and these are some of the first comics I ever read, but even today, as a middle aged man with slightly more sophisticated tastes, I can still enjoy these stories for their wild imagination and, in some cases, inspired silliness. With sales of comic books slipping on the news stands, and the direct market either not yet existing or still in its nascent stages, publishers, in order to lure readers, seemed willing to  throw almost any wild concept up against the wall to see if it stuck, experimenting with all kinds of styles and genres and twists on old concepts.  This is the era of "relevance" in Green Lantern/Green Arrow; Jack Kirby's Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth, The Eternals, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Devil Dinosaur; Kobra; Tomb of Dracula; Conan the Barbarian; The Warlord; Prez; The Green Team-Boy Millionaires; Swamp Thing; Howard the Duck; the Super-Sons, and dozens of others, many rightly forgotten but many that have come to be considered classics.

Now, although it's generally agreed upon that the Bronze Age came to a screeching halt with DC's universe realigning mini-series Crisis On Infinite Earths in 1985, there is a little dispute as to when it actually began.  Quite a few people date the beginning of the age to the publication of Giant Size X-Men #1 and the debut of the "All-New, All-Different" X-Men in 1975, while others have it beginning right on the heels of the Silver Age when Jack Kirby left Marvel to create the Fourth World over at DC.  For the purposes of this and future discussions of the Bronze Age, I'll be going with the latter  start point.  I read one article that termed the interim between the end of the Silver Age and Giant Size X-Men the "Weird Age," but for my money, it was all pretty weird. 
Just tonight, thanks to Mike Carroll, who brought this to our regular Wednesday night meeting of cartoonists, I read what just might be the quintessential Bronze Age comic: DC Super Stars #10, featuring Strange Sports Stories.  In front of reprints of sports themed stories from Strange Adventures and Green Lantern, which has GL sparring with an alien boxer, the issues sports (pun fully intended) an all-new lead story entitled  "The Great Super-Star Game," written by Bob Rozakis, with art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin, which tells the tale of a baseball game between teams consisting of super-heroes and super-villains.

The story starts with married villains Huntress and Sportsmaster having a little spat.  Convinced that villains can never win against heroes, she's ready to switch sides.  Sportsmaster comes up with a plan to prove that villains can win--at baseball, if nothing else.  Huntress is to recruit, or, more accurately, kidnap, a team of super-heroes, while Sportsmaster gathers together a roster of villains.  After shanghaing Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Plastic Man, Uncle Sam, Robin, and one other who's slipped my mind, the villains bring them to a baseball stadium filled to capacity with a crowd of hostages to face off against a team of villains that includes the Joker, Lex Luthor, Amazo, the Tattooed Man, and the Matter Master, among others. 
By the eighth inning, the villains are behind, but Sportsmaster is determined to win, even if he has to cheat. Though both sides had agreed not to use their super powers, he encourages the villains to break the pact and use any means they have to in order to prevent the heroes from winning.  Of course, with the villains using their powers, the heroes are free to use theirs as well, and ultimately, they emerge victorious.  At one point, Green Arrow draws his fabled bow to shoot down a baseball that had been given wings by the Matter Master, thus preventing the villains from scoring a run--a sequence of panels that pretty much epitomizes the sheer brilliant goofiness of this entire story. 
Now to save space, the story skips straight to the eighth inning, but, for those who really have to know, a text page gives a full play by play of the entire game.  I can just imagine reading this aloud in the style of a real play by play announcer, and in fact, I did do my best Harry Carey impersonation on the first inning. HOLY COW!
Big thanks to Mike Carroll for sharing this with me.  I may just have to track down a copy of this gem for myself, as it truly embodies just about everything that critics hate, and that I love about the comics of the Bronze Age.

Stewart the Rat

In 1980, after being unceremoniuosly bounced from Marvel Comics and his greatest creation, Howard the Duck, and in the midst of a battle with the so-called "House of Ideas" for ownership of said creation, writer Steve Gerber once again teamed with HTD artist Gene Colan, joined by inker Tom Palmer, to create the graphic novel Stewart the Rat, published by Eclipse Comics.  A few years ago, the book was reprinted by About Comics, and that edition, the cover of which appears below, is probably easier to find if you're interested in reading STR. As one of the earliest graphic novels, its probably worth checking out for that reason alone.
 Beyond reuniting the creative team, Stewart had other similarities to Howard.  Both featured an talking animal struggling to get by in and understand the world of humans, as well as a strong vein of social satire informed by Gerber's somewhat skewed world view.

 Although, whereas Howard was a displaced refugee from a world of talking ducks, Stewart came to be as a result of the manipulation of human and rodent DNA by a brilliant but socially inept geneticist, who commits suicide after Stewart's creation.  Stewart is taken in by a sympathetic human woman who feeds him, clothes him and puts him to work on her ranch until an attempt on her daughter's life by a disco dancing zombie, under the control of an ex-boyfriend turned self-help guru, leads to Stewart becoming the daughter's bodyguard.  It is truly as bizarre as it sounds.  Unfettered by editorial restrictions or the Comics Code(Stewart's first words are "What the fuck?"), Gerber let his imagination run wild, creating a range of bizarre would be assassins, all satirizing a then current trend, and Gerber's powers of observation and biting wit are as sharp as ever as he dissects the zeitgeist of the dawning decade of the 1980's.

It pretty much goes without saying that the art in this book is beautiful, as you can see from the example to your left. Colan's art is always gorgeous and Tom Palmer is one of the best inkers in the history of comics.  He could probably even make Rob Liefeld's pencils look good. Together, both here and on their other collaborations such as Tomb of Dracula, Colan and Palmer produce an absolutely stunning product.  One of Colan's forte's is drawing beautiful woman, and Gerber, both here and previously on HTD, wisely takes advantage of that by hooking his protagonist up with attractive female companions.
The book's fatal flaw is that it's too short.  Forty-eight pages was alot back then, to be sure, before graphic novels were common and when regular monthly comics contained a paltry seventeen story pages, but this story really could have benefited from maybe fifteen or twenty more.  The real problem is the pacing.  Gerber spends most of the book introducing the characters and setting up the situation, leaving only the last ten pages for a somewhat rushed conclusion. Perhaps if he'd had a few extra pages, or if this had been the first issue of an ongoing or even a limited series, Stewart the Rat might have developed into one of Gerber's finest works, as there are a lot of good concepts and characters here just begging to be fleshed out. As it is, however, STR is merely a failed attempt to make lightning strike twice and a minor footnote in the history of comics and the careers of its creators.

My Favorite Comics: Batman #280

From time to time, when I feel like posting here but am stuck for something to write about, I'll be digging through the boxes of comics in my living room closet and pulling out one of my favorite comics, either an individual issue or maybe an entire series or storyline, rereading it and telling you all about it and just why I like it. Now, I will freely admit that in many cases, especially with many comics from the 70s and 80s, the reasons that the comic may be one of my favorites will have less to do with the merits of the story itself than with how old I was when I first read it or the circumstances under which I first aquired it. Such is the case with the comic I'll be discussing today.
My upcoming trip to Cleveland for Genghis Con has got to thinking of an earlier journey to that area, my first, in 1976.  My family lived in Linesville, Pennsylvania, a comatose little town in the Northwestern corner of the state near the border with Ohio.  When it came time for my father to trade in his 1968 Chrysler Newport for a brand new Chrysler Newport, he, for reasons that were never made clear to me, went to a dealership in Euclid.  Perhaps that's where he'd purchased the first Newport.  I honestly don't know, and, sadly, can't ask him, since he died in 1979.  Anyway, one day Dad packed the entire family; himself, mom, my brother and three sisters and me, into the old Newport to drive to Euclid to buy a new car.  Before getting underway in earnest, we stopped at the drugstore in Linesville, where we kids were allowed to pick out a comic book to read during the trip.  The ones that I remember are my older sisters choice of Isis #2, based on the live action Saturday morning kid's show then airing on CBS, and my own purchase of Batman #280, featuring a story entitled "The Only Crime In Town" written by David V. Reed and drawn by Ernie Chua and Frank Giacoia. It's the memory of that family outing, plus the fact that this was the first Batman comic I ever actually owned, that make this issue one of my favorites.
That's not to say that the story itself isn't good.  It is, in fact, a very clever little mystery tale concerning a plot to steal a collection of rare gold coins. 

The story begins at 12:55 a.m. as the Caped Crusader comes across a gang of criminals breaking into a safe.  He swings in to foil the robbery and is surprised when, precisely at 1:00 a.m., the perps simply surrender.  Later, Commissioner Gordon reveals that during the previous week, not one major crime had occurred between the hours of one and two a.m.,  with one exception, and the man who pulled that job was murdered "mobster style" the next day.  Apparently, the Batman deduces, there is a "crime curfew" in effect, but is baffled as to why or who would have the muscle to be able to enforce such a restriction. 
The next morning, the Gotham papers are full of news of the curfew, and that night, a coin dealer who's in town for a numismatics convention is robbed in his suite at the Gotham Plaza hotel during the curfew hour.  The next night, Batman is tipped off to another crime that's slated to pulled during the curfew.  The victim is another coin dealer.  Batman captures the crooks, ties them up in a closet with the loot, and tells the press that they got away.  You see, he figures that the purpose of pulling the jobs during curfew was to get publicity, so he lets it appear that the second crime succeeded so that he can find out why. Batman has also noted that among the list provided by the victim of what was supposedly stolen are extremely rare coins from the "Leopold Saxony Collection," yet those coins are not among the the loot Batman recovered, and several coins from that same collection were also "stolen" in the first robbery.
The next day, Bruce Wayne consults with lovely blonde numismatics expert Nola Roberts, and learns the history of the collection, as well as the fact that the remaining coins are owned by a collector who lives in Gotham. That night, the owner of the remaining coins, rightly assuming that he's the next target of the robbers, hires an armored car to transport them to safekeeping. The robbers, however, plan to hijack the truck, take the drivers place and take delivery of the coins themselves, but are stopped by the Batman.  As the stunned victim looks on, Batman reveals the identity of the robbers and the secret behind the "crime curfew". 
This story was also one of my first exposures to the "dark avenger of the night" Batman that had been re-introduced in the comics a few years earlier  by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, though Reed's version of the Caped Crusader was not as grim as that of other writers. Still, it was a far cry from the campy humor of the 60s Batman live action show and the harmless goof in a Batman suit who hung out with the Super Friends in their early Saturday morning adventures

Genghis Con

For as long as I've lived in Columbus, up until two years ago, the weekend after Thanksgiving meant Mid-Ohio Con, then the new owners of the show, having no respect for tradition, went and moved it to the first weekend in October.  This year, however, if you're really missing going to a comics show that weekend, you can head over to Cleveland and check out the first, hopefully annual, Genghis Con on Saturday, November 28 at the Beachland Ballroom. 

Actually, this show sounds to be less like MOC, with its emphasis on mainstream and super-hero comics and  special "media" guests, and more akin to Columbus' own Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo, or SPACE, which features independent and self-published creators hawking the work they have poured their hearts into.

Now, I'd be telling you  about show anyway, 'cause it looks to be a pretty good one, but it just so happens that I just got an e-mail from GC promoter Scott Rudge, and my humble request for a table, for which Rudge is charging not one red cent, has been accepted.  I'll be riding down with fellow exhibitor and SPACE organizer Bob Corby, armed with copies of my books reprinting the first two years of my strip, Wasted Potential, which I will once again attempt to foist on the unsuspecting comics readership.

A little more info on the con is in the official press release below, and here's an article that  appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Then, of course, there's the show's web-site.    

GENGHIS CON CELEBRATES RICHES OF MIDWEST INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING
Comic Show Features the Unknown Work of Local Graphic Storytellers

You won’t find Superman, expensive back issues or fading Hollywood celebrities at Genghis Con, a comic book convention organized to showcase the work of independent artists and writers from the Midwest. The event will be held at the Beachland Ballroom on Saturday, November 28, 2009 from 12:00 noon to 6:00 pm. The convention will feature the talent of approximately 50 graphic storytellers from around the Midwest whose work does not fit into the normal perception of what a comic book should be.

For 70 years the part of the country known as the “rust belt” has provided the world with an incredible abundance of creative talent in the art of telling stories with pictures. This form of communication has reached its pinnacle of popularity in the form of the beloved comic book. Many of the biggest names in comics today hail from the Midwest.

Comic readers are familiar with such Ohio natives as Brian Bendis, Brian Vaughn, Fred Van Lente, Harvey Pekar and Jeff Smith. These and many others from around the Great Lakes are the modern personalities shaping graphic storytelling as we know it today. The common thread through each of these current and rising stars of the industry is they began their careers creating and publishing their own material.

Like their famous brethren, the participants of Genghis Con use skill, imagination and craftsmanship to create engaging, original graphic storytelling art. Their work, however, remains largely unpublished outside of the creator’s own trips to the local copy center. Genghis Con exists to bring this creative talent together in one place and to provide a venue for interaction with potential readers who may not have any other opportunity to see this work.

The organizers of Genghis Con are committed to creating an event which is unique in many ways. Early in the planning stages, the convention organizers decided to break most of the rules of a normal comic convention. These changes include eliminating the dealer’s room and the endless rows of fading TV celebrities. Perhaps the most radical difference is participants will not be charged for table space as they are at other comic conventions. The organizers feel this will free the artists from feeling the pressure to “make up their costs” and allow them to focus on promoting their work.

"We are not doing this to make money,” says Scott Rudge, one of the Genghis Con organizers and owner of Astound Comics in Westlake, Ohio. “We want the creators to use the money they save on renting space to offer inexpensive copies of their work. This benefits both the artist and the audience in a way not seen at a typical comic con. We want those attending the convention to feel comfortable interacting meaningfully with the creators and we hope to do that by making the communication of ideas as inexpensive as possible.”

To further break down the barriers between the artists and readers, Genghis Con attendees will be able to build their own comic book containing the work of each artist at the show. This book will be included at no additional charge with normal admission of $5.00.

“We are looking for creators who use a comic book style format to tell their stories, but we also have accepted some ‘zine and poster artists,” says Rudge. “While we may have some of the next generation of mainstream stars displaying their work, we are also looking forward to offering the work of those who have no interest in promoting their material beyond the desire to simply tell a story.”

The call is out for artists wishing to participate in Genghis Con. Artists are welcome to submit samples of their work for consideration. The organizers of Genghis Con will be accepting submissions until November 15^th. For complete details and submission guidelines, creators should go to the event website, www.thegenghiscon.com.