Gaze upon the unholy terror!!!!!! Okay, let's break down this cover - I posted it large so you can soak in the awesomeness. We have the Tenth in the background (I know that's who it is because I've read the comic, don't you know), with a tiny, tiny head and a seemingly featureless face, gargatuan shoulders and pecs, and a tiny yet rock-hard abdominal area. His hands, note, are bigger than his entire head! That chain appears to act as suspenders, and he appears to be wearing MC Hammer parachute pants because they seem to stretch from one thigh to another without going anywhere near his crotch. Given the state of the ladies, the lack of definition in the Tenth's nether regions is somewhat chortleable. Then we have Espy, the dark-haired young lady. She's wearing a strategically torn Nine Inch Nails T-shirt and a bikini bottom. I'm not entirely sure what she's doing with her hands - either she's striking a dramatic martial arts pose or stretching after a good nap. Then we have Zorina, nestled in some kind of machinery sprinkled with blood. She's naked, but note how the tiny wisps of fabric covering her manage to obscure where her nipples would be ... if she actually had nipples, which doesn't appear to be evident from this drawing. I mean, the fabric isn't even in the right place, so I'm not sure why it's there. Lose the fabric and don't draw any nipples! She's sleeping, which seems to confirm my theory that Espy is waking up from a good nap. It can't bode well when your main characters find the action in the book that boring. And then there's the cat. We'll get back to the cat.

Before we get to the boilerplate, I'll link to the ground rules for these posts. That remains the question as we pore over the horror that is the fourth issue of The Tenth: Does this do enough to make a first-time comic book reader want to come back to our favorite pastime? Or does the sheer suckiness make people want to visit Dr. Destiny's diner and shove knitting needles into their ocular sockets?

The Tenth #4 (of 4) is created and drawn by Tony Daniel, "developed" and written by Beau Smith, inked by Mario Alquiza, colored by Paul Mounts, and lettered by Steve Outro. To their eternal shame, it was published by Image, and is cover dated June of 1997. If you thought Tony Daniel's art on Batman was bad, consider this: Tony Daniel drawing Batman is like your favorite artist in existence compared to Tony Daniel on The Tenth. I'm tempted to scan ever single page and leave it at that so you get a full measure of the horror of this book, but as this isn't scans_daily and I'm not a complete douchebag, I'll be selective in what I show you. Your sanity will thank me.

Let's delve into this, shall we? On the first page, we get all the recap we're going to. I'd like to quote the prose, if you don't mind (all of this, mind you, is [sic]):

It's all been set in motion. When the bombs go off everything will change ... Transformation in others have already been made. Ones that you wouldn't believe. Once the bombs have gone off, the ultimate metamorphous will begin. One that is global. One that will bring on -- Darkk Earth. From that a new race will be born. One built in his twisted image. The image of the madman -- Rhazes Darkk! The outside world believes him to be a great benefactor. The truth is he is the very core of evil. A core that lies in the supposed utopia called Springdale. In reality Springdale is the new gates of Hell. Gates that will open acorss the world and lead everything to a global genetic holocaust.

Well, Smith used the correct form of "lie." That's something, right?

After that, I just don't know what else to say. But there are still 23 pages left! Oh dear. So we reluctantly turn the page. We see a comely young lass who we learn fairly quickly is named Espy - yes, she's named after the annual awards that ESPN bestows upon athletes (to be fair, this came out before those awards existed ... maybe they named them after her?) and she's on the radio to the Pentagon, trying to convince them to send a "task force." The person on the other end of the radio demands proof. Espy tells him "This is a very serious thing here!" which, shockingly, fails to move him. He does tell her that "Ms. Bahareh" is on her way, but unless the woman at the end of the issue is Ms. Bahareh (and I think she must be), that's all we hear of that. I do enjoy that the guy on the line - we learn later that he's General Greer - has part of an American flag on the lens of his glasses. I assume it's supposed to be a reflection of the one in his office, but it looks like it's just painted onto the lens. That would make Greer a hell of a lot cooler, I reckon. In the middle of this call, Espy gets interrupted by Zorina, who tells her where she is. Espy apparently thought Zorina was dead. Espy tells Zorina she's coming to get her, and she and her cat, Arusa, spring into action. This is Daniel's drawing of the cat:

Excuse me? Now, to be fair, in the rest of the book the cat looks like a cat, but that one drawing is simply hideous. If I were a cat, I'd sue.

So Espy reaches Corridor 12, Room 17, where Zorina is holed up, and she "unlocks" the door by destroying it. Apparently, she's telekinetic, as Daniel helpfully explains in the letters column (oh, we'll get to the letters column). Unfortunately, inside she finds ... the bad guys! Yes, Zorina was forced to call her and lure her to the room! You know I have to show the entire giant spread:

There's poor nipple-less Zorina, somehow attached to the cloak of ... is that Slash? Sure looks that way. Although that thing has better hair than everyone's favorite Gun or Rose. His name, apparently, is Blackspell. Then there's the chick in the middle. Now that's an outfit! The chick on the right is, surprisingly, not terribly well-endowed. I'm sure that's Daniel's nod toward the feminists reading the book! And I enjoy Espy's strategically ripped clothing - is that due to all the action, or is it a fashion statement? In 1997, one could never be sure. The guy in the chair, who's apparently Rhazes Darkk, explains to Espy (who is Miss Del Torro occasionally and Miss Del Toro at other times) that her powers are "god-given" but not the god she thinks ... he is that god! Well, that blows. We turn the page and suddenly we're in a dungeon, with more fairly awesome narration: "The vines. They carry the strength, the Earth's blood ... that will be used to release my own ... and in turn release ... the POWER ... the monster." We get a picture of a dude hanging by chains and vines talking to himself: "Dark [sic] must be stopped. I'm the only one left. The Tenth. There can be no more." Well, at least that explains who he is, if not why he's called the Tenth (I assume Smith and Daniel had already covered it). The blood, apparently, turns him into a monster, and he easily snaps his bonds:

Then he tears into "the servants of the Darkk" with this awesome turn of phrase: "Too many to go around. But just enough to go through." Let the mayhem begin! Meanwhile, back in Room 17, Daniel decides to give us a full-page drawing of Espy:

I hate to point this out, but man, her breasts are doing some serious gravity-defying there. It's not like she's wearing a push-up bra or anything. Anyway, Darkk tells her that she'll join his ranks and now that he has the Tenth, he can take over the planet blah blah blah. She, of course, is defiant, but on the next page, Blackspell tells her that she "will slut [her] powers out to his every command!" I'm not sure you can use "slut" in that way, but whatever. The rips in her T-shirt, notice, have magically woven themselves back together:

I mean, seriously: If you're going to tear her shirt, at least make the tears consistent! Darkk calls her a "shapely little morsel," which is apparently the last straw. She uses her powers to force Blackspell to release Zorina. This, apparently, causes her shirt to rip more. Of course. Darkk, of course, loves her "anger, rage" and "will to punish." Because he's, you know, evil. He zaps her with lightning from his hand and says, "Now I must tame you. Like a wild beast ... you must be harnessed." That Darkk - he knows what the ladies like to hear! Meanwhile, under the complex, the Tenth is coming for Espy. Back in the room, Darkk is still torturing Espy when her cat leaps toward him ... and pees on him. Would I lie to you?

Suddenly, he has no control over those three hotties who were ringed around him earlier. They tell him they're not his slaves anymore, just like that. Cat pee - it stops evil in its tracks! Then some armored dude who we haven't yet seen in this issue thrusts two big spears through Darkk's back (yes, I am using "thrust" deliberately, loading that sentence up with all the connotations the verb has - believe me, if Daniel isn't subtle, why should I be?) and tells him that he's strayed from the original goal and that "Gozza" has remained pure. Who's Gozza? Oh, we'll find out, my good readers. WE WILL FIND OUT! Darkk goes down and the three girls check him out, getting grossed out by his blue blood. He calls them "bitches," which is important in a page or two. But he's not dead yet! We can tell he's about to power up for some big finale, and Espy and Zorina think it's a good time to skedaddle. Before they can get out of there, Blackspell grabs Zorina, and we get this charming image:

Luckily for our heroines (and the fine reputations of Ms. McCarthy and Ms. Electra), the Tenth finally reaches the room, and Daniel really goes all out showing us his entrance:

You'll continue to notice that Zorina is still naked, but what I assume are blood spatters are covering up her naughty bits. That's what we like to call "classy." The Tenth rips Slash apart until his "inner vortex" is disrupted, and Blackspell (I guess) teleports out. The guy who stabbed Darkk is still there, ranting about how he's going to blow the whole place up. The three hotties happen to have two motorcycles, so they also make a break for it. Then Gozza shows up (well, as a holo-projection). He's a little boy with huge dragon feet. I kid you not:

He tells Darkk that Darkk created him to succeed him, and now he, Gozza, is fulfilling that destiny. He disappears and then, on the next page, the Tenth separates the head of the dude who stabbed Darkk from the rest of his body. This does nothing to stop the countdown, mind you. Darkk claims that he can destroy the Tenth because he created him, which sounds reasonable. We switch to the motorcycles, on which the three hotties are about to run down our heroines. Espy stops the bikes with her mind, which causes the riders to fly through the air and renders them unconscious when they hit the ground. Zorina, who is, I'll remind you, naked but also, I'll remind you, trying to get out of there before a frickin' bomb goes off, notices that the redhead has a nice outfit on. Because Daniel knows that the women just can't keep their minds off of fashion! When next we see Zorina, she is actually wearing Redhead's outfit. So she stopped, took a tight-fitting spandex outfit with no visible zippers or snaps off an unconscious girl and put it on ... all while trying to escape before a bomb goes off. Comics are, indeed, awesome.

The Tenth, meanwhile, is strangling Darkk. He says, "It's this simple, Grandpa Munster ... I'm gonna #%@¢ you up!" So it's okay to call women "bitches" in your comic, but you can't say "fuck"? Man up, Image! Before our "hero" can indeed #%@¢ Darkk up, Darkk apparently uses his lightning powers on him (it's a bit unclear) and the Tenth throws him away, seemingly into a portal of electricity (unclear, remember?). As the bomb comes closer to the end of its countdown (the severed head is still ticking away), Blackspell returns from wherever he is and takes Darkk and the three hotties (one now naked, if you'll cast your mind back to the previous paragraph) away, telling the hotties, "You're due for some heavy spank time!" If you never sleep again after this, blame me for bringing this comic to your attention. I'm sorry.

The bad guys whoosh out of there (somehow; it appears they go down into the ground, but then we see a streak of red light coming from the top of the building) and then we're back to our heroines, who are trying to convince the Tenth to come with them. He wants to stay for some reason, but Espy, it seems (it's, shockingly, unclear), uses her powers on him. I guess he says he "can't" leave because he looks like a monster, but Espy uses her powers to turn him back into a human? That seems to be the way it's going, because the next time we see him he's human. I'm going to run with that.

So the building explodes and we switch immediately to the Pentagon, where General Greer is taking to a Mr. Cardon about Gozza. Wait, in this comic the government can't be trusted and is working with a demon? How novel! They believe no one survived, but then a purple-haired lady with scratches on her cheeks (is this Ms. Bahareh?) shows up and tells them that three made it out. She tells them not to worry, though, because everything they need is in a briefcase she brought them, and that they now have "their Oswald." I assume she means Lee Harvey. I sincerely hope she's leaving the office, because why would she talk to them in this pose?

You don't suppose it's so we could see both her booty and some of her boobs, do you? And look at that waist!

Our final image of the book is of our three principals, heading out of town. They hear on the radio that a "terrorist act" wiped out Springdale and that a "nation-wide hunt" is on to find the suspects, i. e. them. Zorina sets up the next issue (the first of the ongoing!) by telling us that Blackspell still has her mother, and Espy says they're going to find her. The issue ends with this tag: "The Beginning." Say it ain't so!

But we can't leave without looking at the letters! They're all extremely laudatory, of course, because this comic is so FUCKING KEWL. But Daniel gives us some interesting feedback, including this nugget about Espy:

Espy doesn't really have super powers. She has the ability of telekinesis, which basically means she has the power to move objects without using physical force. This is a very real, however rare, condition that has been known to exist in people. Who knows, maybe YOU are a telekinesis and don't know it!

Emphasis mine, by the way. I guess Daniel watched one too many episodes of That's Incredible when he was but a lad. We also find out that The Tenth is going to be an ongoing due to the runaway popularity of the mini-series. Well, thank God for that. I bet that series was awesome.

This is a truly terrible comic. It's extremely ugly, poorly written, offensive to women (and probably dragons), insulting to the intelligence of anything smarter than a potato, and, frankly, dull. I mean, the Tenth barely fights anyone - he dispatches Blackspell in two pages, beheads the armored bomb thing off-panel, and holds Darkk up by his neck. The big explosion that takes out Springdale ought to be a full-page KA-FUCKING-BOOM, but it's half a page and is obscured by a couple of panels laid on top of it. For the final issue of a mini-series, there's very little drama. I mean, when I pulled it out of the long box, I knew it would be terrible, but I didn't realize it would be so very, very boring. I remember when The Tenth first showed up, and even though I was still reading the X-Men at their Roger Cruziest, I still couldn't bring myself to buy this. And I'm certainly happy about that.

But what about the first-time comic reader, picking up issue #4 of a four-issue mini-series? Do the creators do enough to bring back the first-timer? Well, Daniel's art is enough to drive a reader into a monastery, where they would shudder in a corner and take a vow of silence, and Smith doesn't do a great job either. We get a bare bones outline of the story so far, which is fine, and we know who each of the characters are, but we don't know, for instance, what Espy is able to do. She obviously can do something, but Smith assumes we already know she's telekinetic. Similarly, the deal with the Tenth is skimmed - again, I assume Smith gave us the lowdown earlier in the series, but it would be nice to get some idea about who he is and what he's doing and why he's called the "Tenth." And then there's the armored dude whose head is apparently a bomb. The first time we see him he's stabbing Darkk in the back. We never learn his name, but he's apparently fairly important. I don't ask for great literature in a comic like this, but a rundown of the characters and where they've been would be nice. Is that so wrong?

And so we reach the end of another horrible comic book. Not only is this lousy, it doesn't even offer a new reader any reason to pick up comics as a hobby. Some of the bad comics in this series have at least done that. No, this joins our honor roll of eye-bleedingly bad books: Untamed #1, Cyberforce #1, Demonslayer #2, and Objective Five #3. This is less laugh-out-loud hilarious than some of those other ones, but it does have its merits. Sheesh. Note that four out of the five (including this one) were published by Image. It's hard to believe they publish excellent, brilliant comics these days.

Who wants to admit to owning this? Come on, we're all friends here!

Zorina: Asking what we're all thinking!

12 Comments

• At November 21, 2009, Mister Chris wrote:

  I can't remember if I own this specific issue, but I do own a few issues of this series, and ...

• At November 21, 2009, Mr. M wrote:

  I do not miss the '90s.

• At November 21, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  Wow. Tony Daniel has gotten much, much better since those old days. I actually enjoyed his art on Batman, but ...

• At November 21, 2009, Beau Smith wrote:

  Greg,

  I'm sorry that we didn't manage to entertain you with The Tenth. To entertain is always the aim, I ...

• At November 21, 2009, Truth wrote:

  Yep, this one is pretty awful. The art seems to have filched everything that's horrible about Liefield-influenced art and taken ...

• At November 21, 2009, Wraith wrote:

  Beau Smith, presuming (which I do) that's really you reading and replying here on the Comics Should Be Good blog? ...

• At November 21, 2009, Beau Smith wrote:

  It's really me. I read Greg's stuff all the time as well as the other fun stuff here at ...

• At November 21, 2009, Omar Karindu, with the power of SUPER-hypocrisy! wrote:

  Quoted from my comment just a few posts below, in an eerie coincidence:

  "It's weird that, as bad as Liefeld's art ...

• At November 21, 2009, Mike Loughlin wrote:

  Maybe the cat pee was blessed by a priest.

• At November 21, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  " Maybe the cat pee was blessed by a priest. "

  Since it came directly from the cat, we have to ...

• At November 21, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Beau: I try very, very hard to not be personal, because most comics creators I meet are great people, and ...

• At November 21, 2009, Beau Smith wrote:

  Greg,

  "Even if I don't like everything creators do, I think it's great that people are always making the stuff. ...

Firestar #1 (of 4) ("Mark of the Mutant!") by Tom DeFalco (writer), Mary Wilshire (penciler), Steve Leialoha (inker), Tom Orzechowski (letterer), L. Lois (letterer), and D. Graziunus (colorist). Published by Marvel, March 1986.

Back in the early 1980s, I watched Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, just like all the cool kids (you know you did!). I did not, however, read comics back in those days, so I had no idea that Firestar was not an existing Marvel character. So here, years after she debuted on television, we get a mini-series showing her "origin" - mutants don't have origins per se, they have genes, but we still need to see the drama in their lives that make them turn to Professor Xavier or Emma Frost. This is issue #1, so it's probably more new-reader-friendly than issue #3, say, might be, but still - if you were a new reader, would you want to continue with Angelica's story?

We begin with a left hand. It's the hand of Angelica Jones, and two old hands are showing her that she has "the mark" because the lines on her hand converge to form an "M." Now, Angelica must not be too bright, because anyone who's ever looked at a hand can see that they all have "M"s on them, but Angelica believes her grandmother when "Nana" tells her she's special. We also learn this is Angelica's "thirteenth year." This becomes significant (well, to me) later on. Angelica's father - Bartholomew - tells her to get off to her new school, and once he leaves, we learn that Angelica's mother is "lost" - I'll assume she's dead, and not at the mall like Dilbert's father - and that Bartholomew's job keeps him moving. We don't learn what he does in this issue, unfortunately. We also learn that there's something wrong with Nana - in her words, she's "just an old woman who's starting to wear out." Gee, I wonder what's going to happen to Nana?

We switch to Angelica arriving at West Morris High School (which sort of exists) and deciding, without speaking to anyone, that she's a nerd. Of course, the older, trampier girls target her as a "loser," and Angelica doesn't dispell this idea because she keeps staring at her hand as if she's never seen it before. You NEVER noticed the "M," Angie? Really? DeFalco allows irony to creep into the story as the girl who's built like a brick shithouse has the nerve to call Angelica "fat." They quickly forget our heroine, however, because Cassie, the queen bitch (think Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls or, if you're old, Kim Walker in Heathers) has her sights set on Chuckie Belson, the blond football star - she tells her friends that she's devoted the entire semester to "putting [her] brand on that stallion." Okay, that just brings up a lot of weird images. She grabs Chuckie, but of course he sees Angelica, and because men in the Marvel Universe are POWERLESS when it comes to redheads, he ditches Cassie and says hello to our heroine. This is where I felt a bit icky. As I mentioned above, Angelica is in her thirteenth year. I'm sure DeFalco meant that she was 13, but her thirteenth year is technically the year that she's 12. We can argue that she oughtn't be in high school, but perhaps she's really precocious. Now, we don't have any idea how old Chuckie is, but he's a football star, implying he's not on the junior varsity, and he simply looks older - like 17 or 18. I know we're not supposed to feel skeevy reading as he puts the moves on Angelica, but it makes me uncomfortable. This was 1986, though, a (slightly) more innocent era, so I'll forgive DeFalco. It's just a bit weird.

We cut to Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, and DeFalco does a good job explaining what exactly Xavier is doing out there in Salem Center. If you're reading a mutant mini-series in 1986, you probably already know what Xavier is doing, but this was back when comics writers and editors didn't automatically assume everyone reading was a long-time comics nerd who could tell you if Mary Jan Watson was a natural redhead (she isn't, of course - didn't everyone read the original, suppressed Amazing Spider-Man #154, "MJ's Shocking Secret!", which was banned because it showed graphic depictions of MJ's bikini waxes?), so DeFalco makes sure that people reading this cold will know who Xavier is and why he's interested in Angelica. We also get a scene at Emma Frost's Massachusetts Academy, where Ms. Frost treats Hellfire Club guards poorly (she mind blasts a guy for getting some coffee because they might have missed the manifestation of a mutant, even though the entire process is computerized - her machine is called "Mutivac," which sounds like something to vacuum up any mutants it might come across - and therefore should probably be recording a manifestation) just to show how badass she is ... as if the dominatrix gear she's wearing didn't give it away. Then, with those introductions out of the way, it's back to Angelica!

In her class, the teacher has asked her about the Treaty of Versailles, about which Angelica knows nothing, as they didn't cover it at her last school. I again call bullshit, as if Angelica is really 13, she's just come from (probably) sixth grade, and I can't imagine any sixth-grade class covering the Treaty of Versailles. Even if she's transferred in from a junior high and she was in seventh grade before this, I still can't imagine a seventh-grade class covering the Treaty of Versailles. And why is she in a class with kids who are obviously so much older than she is (the evil girls again)? Oh well. She tries to make friends with the evil girls, but they shun her (like the Amish!) and as she sits there stewing, her mutant powers activate! We know this because Mutivac turns on just at that moment, plus we see red lines emanating from the carton of milk she's holding. The dude monitoring Mutivac tells Emma Frost that she's "emitting an incredible level of psionic energy for a first timer!" because she can't just be a garden-variety mutant - she has to be a super-mutant! DeFalco then gives us this deathless prose, accompanied by this image:

Yes, somehow DeFalco slipped a money shot past Ann Nocenti (the editor) and Jim Shooter (the editor-in-chief). And one involving a 12- or 13-year-old. Dear Lord.

The teacher who got, um, unloaded upon is the same one who put down Angelica because she didn't know about the Treaty of Versailles, so of course she's even lower in his estimation, even though she explained that the milk carton "just seemed to explode when [she] opened it." I'll bet. Anyway, Mutivac has lost the trace, but Emma's not worried - Angelica's psionic level will grow with each manifestation until they can find her. So a few months later, Chuckie catches up with Angelica and tells her she should enter the ice sculpture contest the school is having. Cassie, the queen bitch, watches this flirtation with narrowed, evil eyes. Later, as everyone sculpts happily, Chuckie runs toward the group, ignores Cassie, and bops on over to Angelica, complimenting her on her kicky beret. Cassie and her evil minions plot ... revenge!

The next day, right after Angelica leaves for school, her grandmother drops dead of a heart attack. We couldn't see that coming! Actually, we don't see her drop dead, we just see the beginnings of the fatal attack. Then we switch to Angelica being happy to underline the tragedy unfolding at home, but she's only happy for a panel until she sees that her ice sculpture has been destroyed. She stares at her palm, which causes Cassie to ask her why she's always doing that, and Angelica reveals that her "M" means she's special. The other girls, naturally, point out that they have "M"s too, which causes Angelica to believe Nana lied to her and also makes her angry enough to melt all the other sculptures. Chuckie shows up, tries to comfort her, but she runs away, leaving her hat behind. Oh, the hat! She tries to call Nana, but she melts the phone. This, of course, sets off both Cerebro and Mutivac. Xavier and Frost are on the scent!

Angelica hurries home, where she sees the ambulance taking Nana away. Man, she's having a shitty day. We switch quickly to her and her father standing over the grave, and Angelica tells him they have to talk. She shows him what she can do, and "sometime later" he sits in his room, head in his hands, thinking "My baby ... my angel ... is some kind of freak! A blasted mutie!" Hey, way to support her, Bart. Dialogue comes from off-panel, offering to help. It's Emma, of course. She goes into Angelica's room, tells her the "M" on her palm is special, and then tells her that her father has already arranged to send her to Emma's school. Just then, Xavier and Nightcrawler pull up in a "sleek limousine" and Chuck realizes that Emma is already there. "We arrived too late," he says. "We've failed!" He then says, as we reach the end of the issue, "That poor girl --! May God protect her!" Man, what a fatalist!

As a first issue of a mini-series, this does its job. It introduces Angelica fairly well, even with the holes in the story. DeFalco makes sure that we know who the opposing sides struggling for Angelica's loyalties are, and Wilshire's art is perfectly serviceable. I'm not terribly sure, if this was your first comic, that you would be back. It's pretty mediocre and does really nothing to showcase why comics are so cool. This feels like a prose story with some pictures, and really, the only nice blending of writing and art, unfortunately, is when the milk carton blows up. And that's (unintentionally, let's hope) hilarious.

Firestar #1 won't make you hate comics and everything they stand for, but it's also not the kind of comic that makes you think the artform is the greatest thing ever. But it sort-of introduces a cartoon character to the Marvel Universe (she first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #193, but this story takes place "before" that), so there's that. It could be a lot, lot worse!

29 Comments

• At November 14, 2009, Crusader k wrote:

  I was conflicted about this story. I believe in the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends that it had been established ...

• At November 14, 2009, Wraith wrote:

  Blllll-eccccccch, that sounds awful. I'm think Tom was a bit out of his element, here...

  Also, I think people unfairly ...

• At November 14, 2009, Crash-Man wrote:

  CLIMAX!

• At November 14, 2009, Omar Karindu wrote:

  As the ancient Mr. Burgas no doubt knows, "Mutivac" is a reference to the old "UNIVAC" computers of the real-world ...

• At November 14, 2009, Van GoghX wrote:

  Actually, I think 'Multivac' refers to Isaac Asimov's supercomputer in many short-stories he wrote. The 'vac' refers to vacuum tubes. ...

• At November 14, 2009, danjack wrote:

  Man, does Tom DeFalco write some of the most horrible comics EVER! This is just awful writing & the art ...

• At November 14, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Omar: My dad worked for Sperry Univac in the 1970s!

• At November 14, 2009, Omar Karindu, with the power of SUPER-hypocrisy! wrote:

  Multivac was a reference to the real UNIVAC series of computers, which were named so as an abbreviated for of ...

• At November 14, 2009, fit2print wrote:

  An exhaustively detailed, 2,000-word review devoted to a mediocre 25-year-old comic from a consistently mediocre (albeit hugely successful) publisher featuring ...

• At November 14, 2009, Ed Buskirk wrote:

  fit2print, you summed up my feelings about this site in general. While I've enjoyed many features on this site, I ...

• At November 14, 2009, Fielding wrote:

  Get a life, Burgas.

• At November 14, 2009, Daniel O' Dreams wrote:

  Wow what's with all the vitriol? I remember quite liking this comic as an 11 year old. No surprise it ...

• At November 14, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Sheesh, people. The entire point of this exercise is that I want to see if random comics are easily ...

• At November 14, 2009, Ed Buskirk wrote:

  I wasn't just referring to you, Greg, and I apologize for sounding holier-than-thou. It's true I only started reading this ...

• At November 14, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Ed: Yeah, I don't know how well superheroes work in appealing to new readers. They did to me back ...

• At November 14, 2009, The Mutt wrote:

  "An exhaustively detailed, 2,000-word review devoted to a mediocre 25-year-old comic from a consistently mediocre (albeit hugely successful) publisher featuring ...

• At November 14, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  I remember this mini. I thought it was OK, though I was underwhelmed by the story being so low-key until ...

• At November 14, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  The giant pink girl built like ten brick shithouses shouldn't be making fun of anyone's weight.

  This comic looks awful.

• At November 14, 2009, Brian D. wrote:

  Wait, Mary Jane isn't a natural redhead??

  Now my Sunday is spoiled...

  Nice review, Greg, even if this isn't a comic I ...

• At November 14, 2009, Van GoghX wrote:

  I still say 'Multivac' is a tip of the hat to Asimov. One author to another. Check wikipedia's entry for ...

• At November 14, 2009, chad wrote:

  this is the first i heard fire star got her own comic for she was created just for the cartoon ...

• At November 15, 2009, Mary Warner wrote:

  I thought the 'AC' stood for 'Analog Computer' (some computers WERE analog in the early days). It even ...

• At November 15, 2009, wwk5d wrote:

  Hey, maybe Ms. Brick Shithouse is all muscle.

• At November 15, 2009, sgt rawk wrote:

  I had this whole series. It gets weirder. It's half-romance comic, half superhero comic. And it's no worse than any ...

• At November 15, 2009, Tanzim wrote:

  Thanks for doing this column again Greg. I missed these.

• At November 15, 2009, Brian D. wrote:

  Mary, I love Hastings! The one we go to has an excellent graphic novels/TPB section, so I always end up ...

• At November 15, 2009, Mary Warner wrote:

  These weren't the three-in-a-bag books, although they had a ffew of those, too. These were single issues (in bags, ...

• At November 15, 2009, Bryan wrote:

  I like 25 year old superhero comics, even the mediocre ones.

• At November 15, 2009, LouReedRichards wrote:

  What the Mutt said.

  If you're bitching about Greg reviewing old comics maybe you should read the ground rules he posts ...

Case Files: Sam & Twitch #23 ("Fathers and Daughters Part 4 of 6") by Marc Andreyko (writer), Greg Scott (artist), Jay Fotos (shader), and Jimmy Betancourt (letterer). Published by Image, March 2006.

By 2006, the Decompression Era of Comics had blown its wad, so to speak, and many writers had moved on. Decompression is still with us and will probably never go away, but it's nice that writers have tried to get over the idea that every single story needs to fit into six issues. Marc Andreyko, however, didn't get the memo. This issue is ridiculously decompressed, to the point that a new reader might not even come back to the book. I can imagine this working rather well as a trade paperback, but as with everything in the Decompressed Era, reading it month-by-month had to be a grind.

The story is easy enough to figure out if this is the first comic you've ever bought. A woman is interviewing a murder suspect who provides some of the backstory. The story cuts back and forth between this and the two main characters and a SWAT team breaking into the suspect's house, which appears to take place at the same time. With this set-up, we get that a young star has been murdered and the suspect worshipped her and "needed" to kill her before she became "impure." He felt that she was being corrupted by the world. Detective Burke and Williams (the Sam and Twitch of the title) discover his secret shrine to the victim while the woman (she's a psychiatrist, we learn a few pages in) interviews the suspect. Finally, she asked how he killed her, and that's when we learn that he was making it all up. They didn't release cause of death so they could weed out the crazies like Sylvester, which puts the cops back at square one.

We get a few pages of crowds protesting at the house of the suspect and outside police HQ because they worship the star - Lacey - so much. Then a young man shows up and says he's the son of "Hanson Lyons" - the father of the murdered girl. When the cops interview him, Mitchell - the son - tells them that Hanson had a completely different family, and before he left to take up with "Jennifer" - presumably Lacey's mom - he killed Mitchell's sister, Hanson's first daughter. On that dramatic note, the issue ends.

So. Yeah. We get 12 pages of Sylvester getting interviewed and the cops finding his shrine, and he's not even the killer. One would think someone would have asked him immediately how he killed Lacey, as he's not exactly shy about claiming he did it. That would have, you know, cut the need to fill 12 pages with a red herring. There are three pages establishing that people worship Lacey more than God, which is fine, but nothing terribly insightful, and then five pages of Mitchell explaining that his father's the murderer. Ultimately, there's about three pages of real meaty information in this comic. The rest is filler. More than that, it's obvious and not particularly exciting filler. Some writers can pad their comics skillfully, but even a novice comic reader would wonder why nothing's happening in this issue. It's a bit vexing.

Whenever I come upon something that is obviously written for the trade, as this issue is, I wonder if the writer pitched it that way. Did Andreyko pitch this and have the Toddster say "We need it go six issues, man," or did Andreyko simply plan it that way? Unfortunately, "writing for the trade" is new-reader-unfriendly, as new readers want, I would guess, something to happen in the first comic they read. It's not even that this is a particularly packed issue in terms of dialogue where a lot of information is conveyed. So much of this could be cut it seems pointless to even publish this as a separate issue. For all I know, the total arc could be brilliant. But I do know that it could have been done in one fewer issue. A new comic reader might be intrigued enough to come back, as there's nothing really wrong with the book, but they might be gun-shy about committing three dollars to another chapter of a story in which nothing happens.

12 Comments

• At May 24, 2009, Jason Thibault wrote:

  I do remember experiencing the same feeling as you when I purchased the singles on a month-to-month basis. 4 weeks ...

• At May 24, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  "It seems like a million years ago since BM Bendis and Maleev handled these characters."

  sigh. I miss those good ...

• At May 24, 2009, Sleestak wrote:

  Norm!

• At May 24, 2009, Dean wrote:

  ... it seems like Bendis lost his edge when he stopped writing Daredevil.

  Tom, I'll go a step further and ...

• At May 24, 2009, Patrick wrote:

  I don't think saying it works in the trade is a particularly good defense, paying $15-$20 for something that takes ...

• At May 25, 2009, Ian A. wrote:

  Oh, whoa, I never knew Mariska Hargitay, Gary Oldman, and John Goodman were in a series together!

• At May 25, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Gary Oldman! Thanks, Ian. I didn't mention Hargitay and Goodman because I could not, for the life of ...

• At May 25, 2009, elbichoemboscado wrote:

  ¿Gary Oldman?

  That guy is for sure William H. Macy with a goatee.

• At May 25, 2009, Ian A. wrote:

  I don't think I've ever seen Bill Macy with a goatee (which is why he didn't register as an option), ...

• At May 25, 2009, Rob Schmidt wrote:

  I hate "decompressed" comics as much as anyone. But my vast experience with police work ("Homicide," "The Shield," "Law ...

• At May 26, 2009, Eric wrote:

  I don't think it's Oldman or Macy. I think it's Michael Jeter.

• At May 26, 2009, pmpknface wrote:

  That cover was in 2006? Looks like a reversed image of this pinup, which was blogged about HERE, that ...

Wolff & Byrd: Counselors of the Macabre #22 by Batton Lash (writer/artist), Derek Ozawa (art assist), and Melissa Uran (art assist). Published by Exhibit A Press, February 1999.

People often wonder why I torture myself with this experiment, as I've read plenty of really horrid comics, and what's worse, I've spent time writing about them instead of, you know, spending time with my children (when they're not watching the Wiggles), biking around the neighborhood so I'm not grotesquely overweight, fixing up the house, or something really important, like cleaning the wax out of my ears. Well, some of the bad comics are so bad that they're kind of fun, but every so often, you come across a comic like this, which is utterly charming, works beautifully as a single issue, cracks me up, gets in a mild shot at Alan Moore, and is something I've never heard of before. Seriously - this is issue #22, so it lasted quite a while, but it was completely off my radar. But I'm glad I got to read an issue, and it makes me want to get more! And there's a web site where you can check the book out, too!

So what's the deal with this comic? Well, it's right there in the title and on the cover: "Beware the creatures of the night - they have lawyers!" Alanna Wolff and Jeff Byrd are lawyers specializing in supernatural law, and in this issue, they get a doozy - a demon who has been possessed by a human! We begin with Wolff meeting a potential client, who claims he was possessed when he stole a bunch of electronic equipment. She doesn't take the case, but while she's at the police station, she hears about a demon that has taken over a church. She calls her partner, and they head to the church in the anticipation that the demon might need legal counsel. The cops are debating what to do about the hostages the demon has taken, when they hear hymns being sung. The SWAT team reports back that the demon is actually singing with the choir, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The police take the demon into custody, where he tells Wolff and Byrd that his name is Wasistlos, but before he can launch into a long speech about eating their entrails, he coughs and becomes quite pacific, telling them he has asthma. He says his name is Barry, and he lives in Coxsackie, New Jersey (stunningly, there's actually a town called Coxsackie - how'd you like to live there? - but it's in New York, not too far south of Albany), and he recently died saving a puppy from drowning. As his soul headed upward, he felt himself being pulled back down, and he ended up in the demon. Barry's innate goodness (he died saving a puppy from drowning, for crying out loud!) is keeping Wasistlos from taking control ... for now! Wolff and Byrd get him released because the police can't charge him with anything, but as he leaves the station, he gets served!

Apparently, the lawyer for Jerome Thornton, the guy in the beginning who claimed he was possessed, decided that Jerome was possessed - by Wasistlos. After Wolff told Thornton she wouldn't take his case, Zachariah Winkel stepped in and decided to blame the demon, hence the subpoena. Wolff can't say that Thornton is just trying to get out of the charge, because while she spoke to him, she was bound by lawyer-client confidentiality, so Byrd decides to track down whoever called up Wasistlos to sort out what's going on. As they talk, Barry sits outside the office chatting with Mavis the secretary. He sees a children's book and Wasistlos recognizes him as the guy who called him up from the pit. Wolff and Byrd are on it!

The action moves to court, and Wolff explains that Wasistlos couldn't have possessed Thornton, because he is possessed himself by Barry and is not on Earth of his own free will. Her witness (as demons are notorious liars, so who can believe Wasistlos if he says he didn't possess Thornton) is the children's author - a dude with a long beard and a very bizarre English accent named Alistair Mohr. He says that he was dabbling in the occult to discover if his inspiration came from Heaven or Hell. He conjured up the demon, which then stepped out of the circle and said hello. Mohr then fainted. Barry suddenly remembers that Mohr's robe brushed the pentagram, allowing him to leave, while Wasistlos remembers that Mohr mispronounced the spell and accidentally channeled Barry into him. As Mohr summoned the demon the same night Thornton was arrested, and Wolff has several witnesses who will testify that Barry was helping them at the same time Thornton was committing his crime, there's no way the demon could have possessed them. Case dismissed!

Except Winkel claims that the demon possessed the judge, and he's planning on filing an injunction preventing Mohr from sending the demon back to Hell (which is more to allow Barry to go to Heaven, but still). Wasistlos freaks out and is about to crush Winkel's windpipe, but Wolff talks him down by saying that if he drags them all down to Hell with him, she'll just tell all the other demons about all the good deeds he's done on Earth. Even if Barry was in charge, that would ruin his rep, so Wasistlos allows Barry to retake control, and Mohr performs the ceremony sending the two back where they're supposed to be. The final panel shows Wasistlos, about to torture the damned souls, explaining that it will go a lot easier if they have a song in their heart. Barry's goodness even rubbed off on Wasistlos!

This is a fairly impressive comic book. It tells a funny story with very little action, but Lash keeps things moving along, packing each page with information. In 21 pages, we get: Wolff's interview of Thornton, the "confrontation" at the church, Wolff and Byrd getting Barry released, a subpoena, Winkel convincing Thornton he's not to blame, Barry discovering the identity of Mohr, the "trial," the aftermath, the final page showing the fate of Barry, Winkel, and Wasistlos, PLUS two pages devoted to what I can only imagine are ongoing plot lines, with Byrd on a date that isn't going well and Wolff's sister sending an e-mail to their father. Lash does a fine job putting all this stuff in the book, but it never feels like there's too much to process, and it never feels rushed - we get a sense of each character, even someone like Winkel, who's an obvious parody. It's a funny book, but it's generally gentle humor - even the pokes at Alan Moore are light-hearted, and Winkel is a figure of ridicule, sure, but it's not mean-spirited.

Lash has a nice, cartoony line, but he also does a fine job making sure the book looks as "realistic" as possible - it helps when you're dealing with the fantastical to try to ground the book, and Byrd, for instance, looks like a real lawyer (Wolff's hair style is a bit crazy, but she looks like a lawyer too). Barry is kind of a goofy demon, but he fits with the tone of the book without being too cuddly. When Wasistlos takes control, we believe that he could do some damage - Lash does a nice job transitioning between the times when Barry is in control and when Wasistlos is in charge. Lash had been doing this for a while by 1999, so it's not surprising he's good at it.

For a first-time comic book reader, this has everything you could want. It tells a coherent, complete story, and the main characters are interesting enough that you want to see more of them. Plus, the hook of supernatural law has a ton of possibilities, and it doesn't feel like it would get stale, so you could easily pick up another issue and not worry about the joke getting old. Apparently Lash delves into the subplots a bit more in other issues, but I can't imagine it would be too difficult to figure things out. This is exactly the kind of comic that can lead to a regular hobby. It's a hoot.

I really may have to order a trade or two. It would be cool to read more of these stories.

7 Comments

• At April 26, 2009, Jackie Estrada wrote:

  Another special thing about this issue is that the lawyer Zachariah Winkel is based on Max Bialystok in "The Producers" ...

• At April 26, 2009, chroom wrote:

  I read an issue of this; Wolff and Byrd were defending the Toxic Crusader, I believe. I thought it ...

• At April 26, 2009, Da Fug wrote:

  I have 3 issues of this series and liked them well enough. I think I picked up a few ...

• At April 26, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  I found a couple issues of Supernatural Law in the cheapie bins, and they're totally awesome. I, too, should seek ...

• At April 27, 2009, OTL wrote:

  Wolff & Byrd used to run in Comics Buyers' Guide for a while; honestly, I'm a tad surprised you never ...

• At April 27, 2009, Batton Lash wrote:

  Greg:

  Many thanks for the kind words and wonderful review. My "mission statement" with the comic book was to make ...

• At April 27, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Sir: If you create good comics, I must call them such! I saw on the site that you're still ...

Wolverine #94 ("The Lurker in the Machine") by Larry Hama (writer), Chris Alexander (penciler), Mike Sellers (inker), Al Milgrom (inker), Richard Starkings (letterer), and Joe Rosas (colorist). Published by Marvel, October 1995.

Given the popularity of a certain self-healing, adamantium-laced, and, let's face it, delicious mutant in the cinema, I can't imagine anyone picking up their first comic and having it star him and not know a bit about him. Yes, parse that sentence, suckers! Anyway, say this is your first comic ever. You probably know a bit about Logan, right? But this is mid-Nineties Wolverine, so some things are a bit ... weird. You remember what I mean!

We open with a brief prologue that has nothing to do with the rest of the issue. Some guy called Cyber is flying somewhere on a fancy plane, expositing for us. He was busted out of the "hoosegow" by some people called "the Dark Riders," and their boss is transporting him to a mysterious installation. It's a creepy place strewn with skeletons, some tied to tall stumps, some lying on the ground. The first thing we notice, beyond the story (which, at this point, hasn't really gotten going yet), is the painful, painful art:

Check out those shoulders on Cyber! And the mohawk! And the posing chick! So many 'roids, so little time! Some dude called Jamil shows up, tells them he's "in the service of Candra," and leads them through a sandstorm to a citadel. End prologue! That was cool, wasn't it, Cyber?

We head to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters in Massachusetts, where a bunch of kids are hanging out. Four of them are playing foosball and arguing. One of them, called Jubilee, telephoned Wolverine a few days ago for some reason, but he hasn't shown up yet. Another one, a gray-skinned young man, implies that Wolverine is a bit nutty, and then there's a very weird exchange:

Can you do that in foosball? Why is the foosball so very big? It looks like a billiard ball, for crying out loud! And why doesn't it seem to affect Jubilee at all? Or maybe it does - check out her eyes in the panel where it hits her on the head. That's a concussion if I ever saw one! Yet no one checks her out? Man, these people suck. Of course, they're interrupted by the star of our show, heading in from the woods. Jubilee says she'd recognize that walk from a mile away - it's Wolverine!

You know, to step out of my "first comic ever" mode here, I've read a lot of comics with Wolverine in them. I don't think I've ever seen him ride a horse. So why does he walk like he's just gotten off of one? Anyway, Logan tears into a bird's leg (it's probably turkey, because it's too big to be chicken), scarfs down some milk, and tells Sean and Emma how he slipped through the estate's security. We also find out why he's at the estate - to be a "special guest lecturer on fighting skills!" Yes, Emma uses an exclamation point - she's really excited that Logan is there! But wait - Jubilee called him to ask him to come. Did she ask him to come to be a "special guest lecturer on fighting skills"? The text implies that she did, which seems odd, as that means Sean and Emma used her to do their job. It worked, of course, because Logan specifically says he came because Jubilee called, but it's kind of weird. Anyway, Jubilee and Logan have a brief exchange wherein we realize they have a relationship of some sort (obviously not a romantic kind), and then it's off to train!

The next morning, Logan and the kids are inside the "biosphere," which is where they train. Logan tells them: "Attitude is everything ... and the proper attitude is positive. You go into a fight to win. No retreat. No surrender." Okay, Rorschach! Husk (we never learn her real name in this issue) asks what happens if they want to capture, not kill, because they don't want to kill anyone. Logan replies, "Then don't get into a fight. Run. Never get into a set-to unless ya intend to win." Oh, that wacky Logan! Emma (or maybe Sean - it's hard to tell where the speech balloon is coming from, but the words don't have any ridiculous Irish affectations, so it's probably Emma) says that Logan's viewpoint does not reflect the attitudes of management, and Logan says he's heard that before, and it always changes when "the wolf is at the door." Emma and Sean debate the soundness of bringing crazy Logan in to train the kids, and then Logan tells Skin to get ready to fight. Skin asks him if he wants to throw down, and Logan replies:

Oh, that Logan! Always on the cutting edge of popular culture!

Logan schools Angelo, then fades into the forest and tells them to track him. "M" (we never learn her real name, either) is bored, the others think Logan is a freak, and Jubilee gets all mad at them. They do what they're told, however, and slink through the woods. Jubilee sees Wolverine standing still, and when he looks at her, his eyes are red. Huh? He motions for them to be quiet, then tells them all to back out of the room quietly and then run for the exit. He shows up in the control room demanding answers (to what, we're not sure yet), and when Emma and Sean say there's nothing out of the ordinary, he tells them to shut the place down and scan it. In the morning, Sean and Emma tell the kids they scanned it but found nothing. Emma thinks it's just Logan's paranoia acting up (we learn he's been living in the woods), but Jubilee and Angelo tell them they saw something in the biosphere the night before. Emma says they're just as paranoid as Logan, and Sean wonders if Logan is turning into a pooka (Harvey was a pooka, too, in case you're interested) and asks Angelo to tell them what they saw. He and Jubilee followed Logan to the biosphere and saw him battling ... something:

Jubilee says Logan was "all frizzed out like he was having a bad hair day," while Angelo says it was an "out-there forest spirit," and while Logan and this thing weren't "dukin' like Macho Camacho," they "was dealin', you know?" He also tells us something I didn't know - you can actually see angry waves coming off people:

Apparently, these "mucho bad vibes" from Wolverine were enough to scare the forest spirit off, and it fled, but not before it smashed through Angelo and Jubilee, causing them to experience a "creepy cold run up [their] spine[s]" that felt like "it went right through [their] souls!" Well, that sucks. Jubilee and Angelo check on Wolverine, who really is having a bad hair day:

He says the thing was a "token" and then decides it's time to leave. So he does. Back in the present, Jubilee says that she saw defeat in his eyes, but she couldn't say anything to him. Sean tells them that a "token" is a "wraith of the dead, or, worse still, of the living." Emma, in the typically idiotic way some people in superhero comics have, is skeptical, but the others aren't so sure. Sean says that Wolverine got it to leave because "a token cannot abide its own kind." Dum-dum-DUMMMMMMM!

Now, ignoring that this reads more like an issue of Generation X than Wolverine, do the creators give us any reason to return? Well, the story is kind of boring, especially because the "token" only appears in five panels and doesn't seem to be all that menacing. And, you know, how did it get there in the first place? The fact that Logan is going through his "feral" phase right now is obliquely addressed, and it's not that difficult to figure out, so kudos to Hama for that. However, as a single-issue story, which should be the best way to draw in new readers, there's a lot missing. The prologue with Cyber adds nothing, and although I understand that Hama is setting something up, perhaps it might be better served having it as part of a continuing story arc. It takes away from the main story, leaving Hama with less time to develop the whole idea of Wolverine showing up and finding something weird in the biosphere. Sean's final aphorism has less impact because we're not terribly impressed with the token in the first place, so the fact that Wolverine "is" one doesn't feel all that important either. It certainly sets up some interesting storylines, but this initial revelation falls kind of flat.

Of course, a first-time comic book reader might wonder what in the hell is up with the art. I have never heard of Chris Alexander, but he has that whole "Early Image Style" crap down pat, but it's a knockoff of the originals (Lee especially, of course), so it's just painful to look at. Everyone is posing all the time, the anatomy is mind-bending, and Wolverine's hair changes length panel-by-panel. The less said about the art, the better.

Ultimately, there's nothing memorable about this issue, but it doesn't approach the worst even Marvel had to offer in the mid-Nineties. You can see the nuggets of a good story here, but Hama never really gets us to that point. As for making people return for more comics - well, I can't say it would drive people away from comics forever, but it certainly isn't the best advertisement for what the art form has to offer.

Amen to that, Monet!

11 Comments

• At April 12, 2009, jazzbo wrote:

  I remember thinking Hama's run on Wolverine was very good at the time, but I stopped buying comics before this ...

• At April 12, 2009, Rob McMonigal wrote:

  I was getting Wolverine monthly at this time, and honestly, these issues weren't any better in context. The whole ...

• At April 12, 2009, Michael wrote:

  So, it's not possible to defeat an opponent by rendering them unconscious?

  Sadly, this would not be the last time we ...

• At April 12, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  I don't mind the story too much, since it obviously wasn't meant as much more than a way to boost ...

• At April 12, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  Jesus Humperdoo Christ, is that really how ridiculous Logan's hair got? I almost expect to see an afro pick sticking ...

• At April 12, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  Oh my stars and garters, this looks to be a dreadful comic.

  The "chomp" I can understand, but the "crunch" indicates ...

• At April 12, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  " The pogs reference, however, is brilliant. "

  Retconned in later tellings to say, " We ain't here to download iPhone ...

• At April 12, 2009, Grico wrote:

  We need to bring back POG references in comics. They would make any book better.

• At April 13, 2009, Lawrence wrote:

  My favorite part of the cover is that the only asian girl has big, round eyes and everyone else is ...

• At April 13, 2009, Richard J. Marcej wrote:

  Seeing the art from this comic just makes me feel so much better that I stopped buying most all mainstream ...

• At April 14, 2009, Ike Iszany wrote:

  OH. Now I remember why I stopped reading so many comics in the 90s. They should sue the editors for ...

Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy #6 (of 6) by Joe Kubert (writer/artist/colorist) and Pete Carlsson (colorist). Published by DC, August 2006.

I've been reading the Sgt. Rock comics from the 1960s, so it was interesting reading some from 40 years on. Kubert's art is as solid as ever, and there's a change in writing style from Kanigher to Kubert. As this is the final issue of a six-issue mini-series, it should wrap things up, right? But does it do a good job sucking us in and making us want to head back out into the comic book universe?

We begin with an odd dream. In a nine-panel grid, someone narrates that he was brought to a brave knight who would take him to a land of deliverance. The "knight" is Sgt. Rock himself, we can surmise, and the knights are fighting "dragons" and "a devil in human form," meaning Hitler (see above). We learn that Rock was captured and tortured, and that a baby somehow factors into the story (there's no baby in this issue, so I don't know if the baby is metaphorical or not). Then "David" (the dreamer) is woken up. There's your recap, fools!

Rock tells him that they're near Riga. Rock is in Latvia? What the heck? Riga is burning, and Rock says it's because the Germans and Russians have occupied it at different times during the war. We learn that they have to get to St. Peter's Church "inna old town" for a pick-up. They'll have to cross the frozen Daugava River to get there, because the bridge has been destroyed. Dang!

We also learn that Rock is the sergeant of Easy Company as they cross the river, and if you think crossing a frozen river in a work of fiction is dangerous, well, you've read fiction before! The ice cracks under David, and one of Rock's soldiers dives in a gets him. Rock asks him if his prayers are being listened to, and David assures him that God listens. As they head toward Riga, a snowstorm kicks up. Rock wants to "hunker down," but David sees visions of Jews being herded into trains, getting on ships but being turned away from supposedly friendly nations, and millions dying in ovens. David says he must tell the world of this "prophecy." They make it into Riga, which seems deserted, but the preternatural Rock knows that the Ratzis are watching! He chucks a grenade (unfortunately, there's only one mention in this book of "eggs" about the "hatch" or "fiery pineapples" or any of the other fun euphemisms Kanigher used in DC's war comics, but one mention is better than none!) and blows them to smithereens, but they know their cover is blown! Oh dear.

So the book begins its cat-and-mouse phase. Rock once again senses that the Germans are targeting them, and they dive into a house. A Nazi tells them that if they surrender, they'll live "as prisoners of war." He only wants "the Jew boy." This Nazi has never heard of Rock, apparently, because Easy don't quit! The Nazis throw a bunch of grenades (potato mashers, another great name) into the house, but Easy manages to get up the stairs before they explode. They begin to cross the rooftops toward the church as the Nazis shoot at them. They get down into a different house and leave behind some grenades, which the stupid Nazis overlook, getting blown up in the process. Stupid Nazis! They reach the church, where a dying Nazi is about to shoot David when a bunch of rubble collapses on him. Finally, they reach the church tower, where David asks if Rock and Easy are coming with him. Rock, like the rock he is, says, "There's a little thing like a war that's coming up this way from Italy. Me and Easy're gonna be here to greet our buddies ... an' give 'em a hand." Okay, beside his lack of basic geography knowledge (Easy is going to wait in Latvia for the Allies to fight up from Italy, across the Alps, and all the way through Germany just to get to them?), that's the Rock we love! The book ends with David flying away safely and Easy Company headed out for another battle in their endless war.

First, we have to ask if this is a successful comic book in terms of story. Well, as the end of a story, it's fairly anticlimactic. We have no idea what David's prophecy actually is, after all. I mean, it's obvious that it's about the Holocaust, and that's certainly fine, but it seems like this is somewhat late in the war (Kubert doesn't give us a date in this issue, and I don't know if he did earlier in the series, but the fact that Riga has changed hands several times and that the invasion of Italy has begun indicates it's a bit later in the war), and it's not like people didn't realize what was happening to the Jews in Germany by then. Maybe not the extent of the Holocaust, but what's David going to tell anyone that will make any difference? Everyone was already at war with Germany anyway. That's a strange hole in this story. I think the story would have been better served by an antagonist, too, as the action in this issue, although solid, feels fairly standard and even easy, by Easy Company standards. Maybe there was a big fight earlier in the book, but it seems odd to end the book without a bigger battle.

As a single issue, it works fine, as Kubert lets us know who the characters are (it's really just Rock and David, but Kubert does a good job with them) and what's going on. I'm not really sure how well it gets us to want to buy the rest of the series. If this happened to be your first comic book, you might want to get more comics in general, but this doesn't seem interesting enough to warrant going back and getting the first five issues. As I pointed out, there's no antagonist. Even if you knew he died (as he probably would have, being a stinkin' Nazi and all), if there had been an interesting antagonist, you might have wanted to go back and see what the deal was with him. But because it looks like this is just Easy accompanying David across hostile territory, it doesn't feel like a "must-read." I certainly wouldn't mind knowing what happens in the previous five issues, but I don't feel like I have to find out.

What this comic would probably do is make people find other comics. Kubert is a master at work, and he tells a story wonderfully through his art. There could probably be half the amount of words in this comic and it would work just as well. His soldiers are beaten-up veterans, his Nazis are stereotypically ugly (I don't have too much of a problem with that, it's just worth mentioning), and his action scenes are dynamic. Someone reading this as their first comic would be introduced to one of the greats of the industry, and if they started reading comics by tracking down books drawn by Kubert, they could do a lot worse with a collection. The dude should start a school on how to draw or something.

This is, weirdly enough, a single issue that doesn't work too well as a final issue of a mini-series, but does a good job telling a story and also is the kind of comic that could easily draw people into the medium. That's due to Kubert's wonderful art, of course, so although it's not a great comic, it's a great example of what you can do in the medium.

Let's hope this Joe Kubert gets more work. You really should check him out.

3 Comments

• At October 19, 2008, timbre68 wrote:

  That young Kubert does show some talent! Adam and Andy better watch their backs!

• At October 19, 2008, Bill Reed wrote:

  80-something Joe shows up his young Kubert sons every time he touches a pencil to a page, and I love ...

• At October 20, 2008, grphxkindaguy wrote:

  loved the art but the story did nothing for me...cliched and predictable IMO.

The Magdalena vol. 2 #2 by Brian Holguin (writer), Eric Basaldua (penciler), Batt (inker - "with Rick Basaldua, Sal Regla, Joe Weems, Billy Tan, and Tom Bar-or" - seriously, that's what the credits say!), Beth Sotelo (colorist - with Matt Milla), and Robin Spehar and Dennis Heisler (letterers). Published by Image/Top Cow, September 2003.

This comic is pretty bad, but it's not quite as cringe-worthy a comic as Cyberforce #1 or Demonslayer #2 or Objective Five #3 or the true paragon of craptitude in this series, Untamed #1. If only it had a little more turgid narration!

Let's crack this sucker open and bask in its glory. The handy recap on the inside cover reads, "For 2000 years, the famed Knights of Malta have trained one special woman in each generation to be the Magdalena - the official warrior/protector of the Catholic Church. For 2000 years, the Magdalenas have battled in secret, protecting humanity from supernatural menaces of all types."

Okay, I have to stop. There's so much wrong with that introduction that I must interject. The Knights of Malta, by the way, are real (here's their web site!), even though they were probably more famous when they were called the Hospitallers. So that's fine. They have been in existence (yes, technically they're still around) for slightly more than 1000 years, so the intro is only off by a millennium. 2000 years is stretching it a bit, given that the Catholic Church didn't actually exist until, at the very earliest, AD 200 (and that's pushing it). And given the Church's attitude toward women for most of those centuries, the idea that a religious order closely affiliated with the Papacy would train a woman to be the "official warrior/protector" of said Church is laughable. I know that the only reason it's a woman is so our heroine can run around in skimpy outfits, but if you're going to try to inject "realism" into this kind of comic, at least try to make it "realistic."

But let's get back to the recap! We learn that Patience, "a young beauty," has run away from a convent where she was raised. In New York, she meets a "wild woman" named Rowan. A Shepherd of the Knights of Malta named Kristof (don't you love the portentous names?) comes to "retrieve" Patience because the Knights believe she is the next Magdalena. Rowan is kidnapped, a "pagan menace marshals its forces," and Kristof takes Patience to Malta, where she comes across the Magdalena's traditional weapon, the Spear of Destiny, which has been shattered. So you're up to speed! Are you ready to move on?

On the first page we see a woman and a man, each holding a spear, divided on the page by another spear. The woman is obviously a Magdalena, although it's not clear if it's Patience or not (as this is a Top Cow book, all the women look alike except for the fact that some of them have long hair and some have short, and this woman and Patience have long hair, so it's impossible to tell). She represents the story of Longinus and the Spear of Destiny. As everyone has read DC comics in the past 20 years, I'm going to assume you know about the Spear of Destiny. It can only be wielded by a "maiden of the rarest pedigree," by the way. That's a handy way for the creators of this book to keep their heroine "pure" while allowing her to dress like a slut. The spear the man holds is the Spear of Lugh, who was king of the "golden race," "slayer of one-eyed Balor" (Lugh slew Balor with a slingshot, apparently, but when you're talking about myths, you get a bit of leeway). It would never miss its mark once thrown, and it had to be cooled in a cauldron when not in use. It was a "thing of strength and vitality, of power used wisely, it is the light that drives away the darkness." When the "old gods retreated," the spear was left behind, and one day it would reopen the "golden door" and bring the world to a "shining new dawn." Phew! Interestingly enough, this story is never again mentioned in the issue. I imagine it comes up in subsequent issues, but it's strange to start the issue this way when it has no relevance to this particular issue. Oh well. I do like that even when drawing Jesus on the cross, Basaldua can't escape the Top Cow directive to make everyone sexy:

Sorry if that seems blasphemous to you, but I didn't draw it!

Moving on, we're in Malta, in some kind of bunker. Kristof stands in the background, worried about Patience, who's undergoing some kind of ritual. He's speaking to someone named Mathias, who counsels, well, patience when dealing with Patience. In the foreground are worker drones wearing outlandish cybernetic outfits that always look ridiculous in comic books. Don't believe me? Have a gander:

But we've no time for mocking the worker drones! Our heroine makes an appearance! You know, when you're the warrior/protector of the Catholic Church and you fight supernatural menaces, I would imagine you'd want better armor than this:

If you're mesmerized by the silliness of that outfit, well, you're not alone. Patience herself comments on it later. Why doesn't she change into a more sensible suit of armor? Are you kidding? With those killer abs? You people are crazy! Anyway, she's narrating. This is where the book could have been gloriously awful, but it only approaches it. Think of Untamed #1 as the asymptote of glorious awfulness, while this is only the curve that is asymptotic to it (I love the word "asymptote," by the way). Patience muses that she wishes she had never left the convent. Then her only friend who wasn't a nun was kidnapped. Kristof promised to help get Rowan back if she would come to Malta, so she did. She picks up the spearhead (that's the Spear of Destiny lying shattered in front of her in the picture above) and pricks her finger (through her glove, I should add, because that spear is sharp!). "Suddenly," she narrates, "it all becomes clear." Outside, the monitors go blank, and Mathias says they should wait to go in, because what's happening might be for Patience alone. So let's see what she's experiencing!

"It is as if the scales have been lifted from my eyes," our heroine narrates, as she appears to be transported someplace mystical. She can see how "it all fits together," like "notes on a scale" which "chime and ring out in unbelievable harmony." According to Patience, it's the most glorious sound she's ever heard and makes her want to cry. As she's experiencing this rapture, the Spear is flying around her, reconstituting itself. That's not what she's talking about, is it? That would be weird if she's simply describing a bunch of wood turning back into a shaft. Anyway, the doors to the chamber open, and Patience steps out and tells Kristof and Mathias, "Yeah. Um ... I think I fixed it."

Note the knife holster on the boot. That's practical! Note also the thong. Yes, there will be buttcheeks in this comic. Because protectors of the Catholic Church are all about buttcheeks!

Patience says she's never felt better, and Mathias tells her she's feeling the same way the other Magdalenas have felt. But when he tries to take the Spear, Patience tells him it belongs to her now. Kristof tells her that "power held jealously leads only to corruption," but Patience tells him she's not turning something so powerful over to someone she doesn't know. She demands that Mathias tell her, and he acquiesces. They take a stroll through the garden and Mathias tells her that things exist in the world that "defy explanation" and are "truly evil." Like Twinkies! The Knights of Malta were formed "to combat the greatest dangers to the welfare of mankind." Well, actually, they were formed to provide care for pilgrims at the hospital in Jerusalem and later to provide an armed escorts for those same pilgrims who were visiting Jerusalem, but whatever. Let Mathias have his little fantasy. He goes on to tell her that "a great power" is "on the move," "which threatens to unmake the very world." Well, that sucks. He tells her that the Spear has the gift of foresight, and if she gives it to him, they can have all the answers. She says she'll do, and just like that, she's able to see the future! What does she see?

Well, that's clear. Mathias expresses his surprise and tells her that the Bright Hand is a "radical neo-pagan group." Man, I hate those guys! And they're not into "new age foolishness about communing with nature of finding your 'inner child.' " Apparently, they're "dedicated to restoring old gods to the world." Patience wants to know what "old gods" means, but before she can react, Mathias takes the Spear and kisses her on the cheek. Then he orders the guards to arrest them because they are in league with the enemy. So he's the Judas in the garden she prophesied the page before! Man, usually prophecies aren't so quickly realized or so specific. That's some good prophesying!

Those are some weird fingers on Mathias. I'm just sayin'.

The guards (that's them on the cover of the comic, by the way) attempt to arrest Patience and Kristof, but luckily they both have long sticks to fight with. Actually, it appears Patience still has the Spear. Wait a minute, what? Here's where it looks like when Mathias "takes" it:

I guess that's not Mathias' arm in the second panel, but what's going on in the panel then? Later, it does not look like Patience has the Spear, but then, when she fights, she has it back. But why would Mathias reveal that he's evil unless he already had the Spear? Shouldn't he have tried to get it by subterfuge before showing his hand? That doesn't seem smart. But I guess he didn't get the Spear, leaving it with Patience so she can fight with it. Maybe he's playing fair?

The fight means we get more narration! The "world slows down" for Patience, and "fear swells in her throat," but she chokes it back. Good for her! As she fights, she narrates something odd. "I trained since I was a child to be strong," she narrates. Okay. "To be disciplined," she thinks. Okay. She grew up in a convent, so discipline is probably important. "To know how to defend myself." Wait a minute. Why, exactly, would the nuns teach her to defend herself? They didn't know she was the Magdalena, did they? Wouldn't they teach her to devote her life to God? I guess it was a ninja convent! Patience, however, was never trained to fight like she's fighting now, as "the knowledge rises up from some hidden wellspring" inside her, and she senses "memories of battles [she] never fought." She loves the fight, and it allows her to forget everything, including the "ludicrous costume" she's wearing. I always love comics that are aware of the idiocy of how the characters (usually women) dress but do nothing to change it. That's feminism, man!

Mathias is standing apart from the group, and Patience finally decides that she's had enough of fighting (seriously: She says, "Enough of this!" as she cracks one last guard over the head) and chucks the Spear into a tree just by his head. As he reaches for it, she says, "Don't touch that! You are not worthy." As she says this, I think she kicks him. Look at this panel and tell me what happens in it:

Is that her foot? Anyway, she and Kristof stand over Mathias as the bad guy says that "this age is ending," and he's just welcoming it. What's the problem, man? But can we really pay attention to his words when Patience is rockin' the buttcheek?

I think not! Patience, perhaps angered by her wedgie, demands to know where Rowan is, and Mathias tells her that "anything worth having requires sacrifice," which makes our heroine grumpy, so she slams the point of the Spear into ... the ground next to his head. Oooh, way to scare him, Patience! She demands to know where Rowan is. I should point out that the lack of mid-section armor seems to have been a mistake:

We switch to Prague, where there's a ritual going on. Apparently, "there is a world beyond the one we know," and it's "strong and wise and most of all ... hungry." Plus, it's been "caged for too long" and "yearns for release." So some hooded dudes have a nice bonfire going with big ol' wicker men circling it. This other world "shall be free again ... to unleash its wild glory on a world grown fat and slow." One hooded dude calls for the sacrifice, and on the last page, we see a woman chained, wearing a sheer gown and a crown of flowers. I guess that's Rowan? I mean, it's kind of a weird ending. It's not all that dramatic, because we know Rowan is going to be the sacrifice, so it's not like it's an "Oh My God It's Rowan!" ending. If it's not Rowan and is someone else entirely (which I doubt), who the heck is it and why should we care? I'm going to assume it's Rowan (and no, I shouldn't care this much), but it's just a weird place to end.

So that's issue #2 of The Magdalena (well, except for the letters page, which includes somebody asking if the character is - wait for it - based on a real person). It's not good, in case you can't figure that out. But does it do a good job getting the reader into the story? Well, yes. We're not really lost at all in this comic, both because of the recap in the front and because Holguin gives us plenty of exposition. It's a bad comic, but it reads fairly well, in terms of being easy to get through and does what it wants to do. So it succeeds in that respect. But it fails in the other way a single issue should succeed - there's no reason to come back for more. It's a pretty dull story with generic characters, some fairly typical T & A art, and not even a terribly interesting hook - oooh, an ancient evil is going to destroy the world! How ... dull. Much like a lot of other Top Cow books - Witchblade, Aphrodite IX - this comic is just an excuse to show a ass-kicking chick with big boobs, rock-hard abs, and a thong. And isn't that all we really want from our comics?

16 Comments

• At October 12, 2008, Michael wrote:

  Geez, it's an offensiveness roulette wheel. Obnoxious and poorly-drawn cheesecake, madonna/whore metaphors, bad theology... there's something for everyone to hate ...

• At October 12, 2008, Randy wrote:

  Armor doesnt work that way! its not meant to be used as a bikini.

• At October 12, 2008, Goh wrote:

  In the Top Cow Universes it is.

• At October 12, 2008, Da Fug wrote:

  OT Psst. Hey, Burgas. In case you're not monitoring comments on Hatcher's post, just wanted to let ...

• At October 12, 2008, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  Honestly Greg, what happened?

  Enjoying life too much?

  Way too much quality comics being made?

  What ever made you decide to dive back ...

• At October 12, 2008, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Thanks, Da Fug. I did see that over on Other Greg's post. I'm dying to see it, given ...

• At October 12, 2008, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  Can you review Force Works #1?

  Y'know, with the pop-up cover?

  I mean the random way is fun and all, but every ...

• At October 13, 2008, Bat2supe wrote:

  A ninja convent that's priceless !!

  Sure, a ninja covent currently exists in the Top Cow Universe, as does the pin-up ...

• At October 13, 2008, Prof Richard Divall wrote:

  Dear Website.

  I found you by accident.

  Let us be very clear.

  The Knights of Malta were only founded in 1113 AD officially.

  There ...

• At October 13, 2008, Scavenger wrote:

  I want a nun off between Magdalena and Ben Dunn's Warrior Nuns.

• At October 13, 2008, Aqualad wrote:

  This comic makes me feel kinda funny.

• At October 13, 2008, Tyson wrote:

  In the Irish legends Lugh actually did have a spear, one that he didn't have to throw because it was ...

• At October 13, 2008, Jbird wrote:

  When people complain about the recent revamps of old Silver Age favorites, I have to point out that to those ...

• At October 13, 2008, Greg Burgas wrote:

  That's a good point, Jbird. I hadn't thought of that. I only started buying comics in 1988, but ...

• At October 16, 2008, Ted wrote:

  It's pretty laughable to think that of the Knights of Malta as some sort of secret conspiracy organisation, as it ...

• At December 9, 2008, lilpatience wrote:

  It is a comic book not nonfiction. It has something for everyone hot woman and a godlike looking man... I ...

Ka-Zar #14. "Revolution" by Mark Waid (writer), Andy Kubert (penciler), Jesse Delperdang (inker), Todd Klein (letterer), and Joe Rosas (colorist). "Ka-Zar the Savage" by Christopher Priest (writer), Kenny Martinez (penciler), Anibal Rodriguez (inker), Dave Sharpe (letterer), and Chris Sotomayor (colorist). Published by Marvel, June 1998.

As much as I appreciated the recaps Marvel put in the beginning of their comics back in the late Nineties, I have to admit they're a bit daunting if you were a brand new reader. I'm used to the silliness of comics, but let's take a look at how Marvel recaps what has come before this, the final Waid/Kubert issue of Ka-Zar:

Following the destruction of the Savage Land's Terraformer, Shanna absorbed the alien machine's power, making her the sole source of sustenance for the hidden jungle. Ka-Zar enlisted the aid of the High Evolutionary, thinking he might be able to help Shanna through her transformation to "goddess" and back to normal again.

However, the High Evolutionary became fascinated by Shanna's evolution. As he's helped her learn to control her newfound powers, the two have grown close, leaving Ka-Zar out in the cold. The Evolutionary plans to use his extensive technological means to create a new Earth in a pocket dimension, offering Shanna the chance to become its "mother earth."

Growing ever more distrustful of the Evolutionary's intentions with Shanna, Ka-Zar ransacked the scientist's subterranean lab in hopes of finding something to aid him in his inevitable battle to win back Shanna. Not really sure of what he was looking for, Ka-Zar stole the Evolutionary's sample of Isotope E.

When the Evolutionary arrogantly infused Matthew with a small portion of Shanna's power, Ka-Zar attacked him. Unfazed, the Evolutionary told him he couldn't come with Shanna and him to the new world unless he agreed to take a back seat to his relationship with Shanna. Faced with this ultimatum, Ka-Zar finally realized how desperate his situation is, bringing us to the present ...

Phew! I mean, it's certainly handy, and allows us to pick up this book fully aware of what's going on (Matthew is Ka-Zar and Shanna's son, by the way), but someone who has never read a comic before might chuckle. Even if you accept the prehistoric jungle in Antarctica, you might trip up over the "Terraformer" and the "new Earth in a pocket dimension" or even the High Evolutionary himself. But let's say you get past that. Now you're up to speed! So what goes on in the issue itself?

You know the story is complicated when the first page shows Ka-Zar and Zabu (his friend the sabretooth) contemplating Isotope E and Waid recaps again! We get eight narrative panels, as Ka-Zar tells us that the H. E. has stolen his wife and son, "thrust" them "up the evolutionary ladder" and linked them "to an extra-dimensional force that fills them with godlike power." We also learn that Isotope E is a "radioactive genebomb that could, if unwrapped, catapult [him] to Shanna's level ... and beyond." How? How dare you ask! It's a comic book, man! Ka-Zar has to decide if he will use Isotope E to fight back. Meanwhile, H. E. has "modified" some Savage Land creatures, and they're building the Terraformer anew. H. E. tells Shanna that Ka-Zar rejected his invitation to join them in the pocket dimension, but we're fairly certain he's lying. He's wearing purple armor - of course he's lying! We see Ka-Zar talking to various humanoid creatures in panels dropped in between the H. E.'s conversation with Shanna. H. E. then shows Shanna what the Terraformer does: it creates the MATTER MATRIX (you must say this with suitable portentousness), which will take them to the new Earth and the next evolutionary step. They will become "beings of sublime energy," and will be "recreated" on a distant world, where Shanna will "be at one with the land, the sea, the sky!" Shanna is suddenly hesitant, because while the power H. E. is offering is "intoxicating," she doesn't want to lose her humanity. As H. E. explains that this is no longer her world, Ka-Zar shows up. Shanna runs to him, but H. E.'s modified creatures block her path. He tries to explain how much he needs her, but Ka-Zar interrupts and gives him one more chance to give up. H. E., foolishly, asks him if he has "anything to fear from a bunch of angry savages," and Kubert gives us a bad-ass splash page with Ka-Zar saying "Yes" and the Savage Land forces arrayed behind him. What's the bad-assest thing about it? Kevin's hair:

The Savage Landers attack en masse, but Shanna gets dragged away by H. E.'s creatures before Ka-Zar can get to her. Shanna realizes that her new powers addled her mind, and now she really wants to stay with him. It's probably the hair! Ka-Zar claims that H. E.'s belief that they're all just "dumb brutes" will be his downfall. He hops on a pteranodon and attacks H. E., but our villain "modifies" a dragonfly so it's huge, and he hops on for an aerial battle! As they fight, H. E. starts to admire Ka-Zar, but our hero knows it's only a matter of time before he's defeated. At that moment, Zabu brings him a package, and when he opens it, it's Isotope E! Damn, that's cold! H. E. freaks out, because it will make Ka-Zar as evolved as he is. I guess. Ka-Zar says he'll "crack" the box open and "spread Isotope E to the four winds," which will evolve everyone on Earth to H. E.'s level. Given that that seems to be H. E.'s modus operandi, what's the big deal? For some reason, H. E. caves, saying he'll let Shanna and Matthew leave if only Ka-Zar gives him the isotope back. Before Ka-Zar can, however, his steed bucks him and he drops like a stone. H. E. catches the isotope, and Shanna tries to soften the soil to break Ka-Zar's fall. But it's not enough!

So we reach the true crux of the issue. H. E., wracked with guilt, offers to "evolve" Ka-Zar somehow so he can survive. Shanna is having none of this:

She wants to save Ka-Zar using that weird native medicine, like "naja root" and "bark from the Haruka tree." H. E. wants to use fancy "powers," but Shanna has come to realize that "there's no greater sin than tampering with the natural order." She wants to save him as a human being, because that's what he would want. If Ka-Zar had cancer, Shanna would probably want to save him by leeching him and chanting over his body! She demands that H. E. transfer her power back to the Terraformer, so he does, reluctantly. She also tells the Savage Landers that they should accept Ka-Zar as their king once more when he wakes up. Screw those democratic reforms! Three panels later, Ka-Zar wakes up. This cracks me up, even though I know it's unrealistic because it's a silly fantasy comic. He fell from a height of ... let's say 1000 feet. It certainly looks that high, if not more. He landed on the ground, and although Shanna used her powers to break his fall, he himself says it won't be enough. Shanna puts her crude poultices on both cheeks, his nipples (?), and his upper arm. This somehow cures the broken back he must certainly have, even if he's not dead. Yeah, okay. Let's not think about it too much!

So Ka-Zar feels no effects from falling from the height of the Empire State Building, and that impresses the High Evolutionary. He says he believed Ka-Zar was a "thuggish brute," but now he respects him. He has lost much this day, but "at least [he] has gained a new insight into the capability of humans ..." Well, good for him. Ka-Zar then narrates that H. E. returned to his lab "and was never heard from again." Oh, please. He's a Marvel character! Of course he'll be back! In an odd twist, H. E. takes off his mask and is revealed to be an ape. WTF? Now, this wouldn't bother a first-time reader, because they've already suspended their disbelief so much already, but when did H. E. become simian? He wasn't always that way, was he? Is Waid fooling with us, and this isn't the real High Evolutionary? Wouldn't that be just like Waid? Wikipedia doesn't help me, by the way. It mentions his appearance in this issue, but doesn't address his appearance. What's going on????

Anyway, the final two pages are wrap-up, as Ka-Zar narrates that things got back to normal, even though Shanna suddenly was unable to raise plants. Oh well. The story ends with Ka-Zar heading off with Zabu to do some manly hunting. But wait! There's more. The new creative team offers us a story behind this one, and all we have to do is flip the issue over!

Priest and Martinez give us a fairly simplistic story, as Priest is just setting up his run. Ka-Zar is on a subway, in between two dudes pointing guns at each other. He tries to take them out, and as he does, a gun goes off right next to his ear and some woman maces him. He takes out the bad guys, but can't understand what anyone is saying for some reason, plus he's blind and deaf from the gunshot and the mace (so how can he even hear what the other people are saying?). Then a cop shows up, but Ka-Zar decides he's a bad guy too, because he has a gun. Zabu shows up after someone pulls the emergency brake, and the two of them escape with the woman who maced Ka-Zar. Odd.

Then we're in the Savage Land, where Shanna and Matthew are communing with nature. After her experience with the High Evolutionary, Shanna can no longer feel nature, and she's upset. Suddenly Ka-Zar wakes up in New York, but he blacks out quickly and we're back in a flashback. Shanna tells Ka-Zar he needs to go to New York while she and their son go on a pilgrimage. Of course, there's a bad guy watching her, and he has nefarious plans! Meanwhile, Ka-Zar wakes up in New York in the mace woman's apartment. He's still blind and deaf yet able to hear voices, which still make no sense to him. The newspapers and television are all abuzz about the wild man of the subway, and how there's a manhunt on for him. Man, that can't be good. But we'll have to find out all about it next issue!

This is a fascinating example of how a comic book tries to draw in new readers. I've noted before how good Marvel was at this sort of thing back in the mid- to late-'90s, before, presumably, printing costs got too high and they cut things to the bone. A first-time comic book reader picking this up would, most likely, chuckle at the goofiness of the recap, but at least they would go into the story knowing what's going on. And the issue itself is a fairly straightforward showdown, and once you get past the silliness, it's the story of a woman who loves a man. How sweet! Even without the recap in the beginning, we get enough to the basics to follow along - the plot, ultimately, doesn't really matter that much, because all we know is that the High Evolutionary is a misguided but not evil dude who wants to do the right thing but doesn't know how and Ka-Zar is the hero and that Shanna will eventually come to her senses. Waid and Kubert do a good job with the adventure, and even if the love story is a bit simplistic, it's a nice summation of their relationship and sets up the rest of the book well.

Marvel even does something nice and gives the new creative team part of the book, so if you were buying the comic for Waid and Kubert, you could see what's in store for you after they leave. The biggest problem with the new story is the art, which is not very good. Kubert has always been a bit bombastic, but his work is stellar compared to Martinez, who shows the worst excesses of Nineties art with none of the pizzazz. Priest's story isn't bad, but is a bit nonsensical. He's deaf but he can hear people talking to him? And he can hear them, but not understand them? He's still blind from the mace after many hours? I've been tear-gassed, and a friend of mine, who was also gassed, got some in his eye. His contact lens melted, but he was able to see after a few minutes. So what kind of powerful mace did that woman spray in Ka-Zar's face? It's an interesting direction to take, and although the art isn't very good, it has a good hook. There's nothing to keep you from picking up the next issue unless you're just not interested in a Priest/Martinez book because you love Waid/Kubert so much. If you're interested in Ka-Zar, this works fairly well.

It probably works because Ka-Zar isn't that big a player in the Marvel Universe. Therefore, it's easy to get into his back story and get caught up. Based on what I read of the second story, I wouldn't have bought the next issue, but it wouldn't be because I had no idea what was going on. At least there's that!

12 Comments

• At October 5, 2008, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  You know, I miss the good ol' days when Brent Anderson drew Ka-zar for a spell.

  Those were the days.

• At October 5, 2008, HammerHeart wrote:

  Who doesn’t love Kevin Plunder?

  *raises hand*

• At October 5, 2008, Dan Bailey wrote:

  Whereas IIIIIIIIIIIIII miss the good ol' days when Val Mayerik drew Ka-Zar for a spell. One of my favorite artists, ...

• At October 5, 2008, Tom Russell wrote:

  I, too, wonder when the High Evolutionary became an ape. Not that anything's wrong with that-- apes are cool-- ...

• At October 5, 2008, Morten wrote:

  I actully think that wasn't HE, but one of his many creations, who somehow filled in for him or mascarade ...

• At October 5, 2008, Omar Karindu wrote:

  The HE's exposure to Isotope E in the Quicksilver series of the time had him physically and mentally shooting up ...

• At October 5, 2008, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Good to know, Omar.

  Tom: It's nothing really that stunning. I wasn't protesting the unfair practices of the government, ...

• At October 5, 2008, R. J. Sterling wrote:

  Okay, so the contact lens was damaged but didn't really MELT and flow away?

• At October 5, 2008, Greg Burgas wrote:

  No, it melted, R. J. It didn't flow away, but when he took it out of his eye, it ...

• At October 5, 2008, Grico wrote:

  Is the first Marvel Apes tie in? It's ahead of it time. Almost evolved you could say.

• At October 6, 2008, Greg Hatcher wrote:

  I tend to think of the Bruce Jones/Brent Anderson Ka-Zar as THE Ka-Zar, but from what I saw-- #1 to ...

• At October 6, 2008, Agent_Torpor wrote:

  Kubert adds a touch of well-drawn class to anything he touches. Even when the written material clearly doesn't deserve ...

John Jakes' Mullkon Empire #2 by Kate Worley (script), John Watkiss (penciler/inker), John Higgins (colorist), and Todd Klein (letterer). Published by Tekno Comix, an imprint of BIG Entertainment, Inc., October 1995.

I like John Watkiss, for the most part. He's not my favorite artist, but he has an interesting style, and he generally makes the issue he's working on at least interesting. Unfortunately, he's saddled with a rather dull story in this, the second issue of what I'm sure was a long-running and impressive epic "from the best-selling author of North and South and The Kent Family Chronicles," as the cover helpfully lets us know. It also doesn't help that Watkiss makes sure that every person in this book is wearing convoluted clothing (yes, clothing), so it's not as good as most of his work. This was fairly early in his career (right?), so I guess I can forgive it.

Worley helpfully provides us with a setting for this space opera, which is always good. The issue begins on Rugash, "a planet converted by Mullkon Enterprises into a galactic dump ... where the debris of a dozen worlds is sorted and assembled into monstrous packages, then slated for black hole 'disposal.' " There are a few things wrong with that introduction, even if it does tell us where we are and what's going on. First, "monstrous"? We never actually learn in this issue what the debris is and what happens to it, so the loaded word "monstrous" is troublesome. Does it just mean the packages are really flippin' big? If so, why use a word like "monstrous"? "Really flippin' big" would work just as well. "Monstrous" implies horrific packages that rise up and kill people in the night. I would have liked to see that in this issue. Second, why put quotes around "disposal"? We don't find out too much about the fact that the packages get thrown into black holes, so we have no reason to think they're not being disposed of. It's just weird. And doesn't bode well for the issue.

A couple of men are "disposing" of the packages when some kind of accident occurs. According to their supervisor, this accident means the "section will be hot for a month!" We see a double-paged spread of a bunch of debris on what looks like a lunar surface. It's never explained what the two workers were doing (where's the black hole?) or why the "section" will be "hot." In space, apparently, no one can hear you scream about details. The two workers speak cryptically about how this process "isn't all it's cracked up to be," but before we can find out what, the supervisor walks by, the two men clam up, and we never see them again in this issue. Confound it!

Our scene shifts to "Mullkon Keep," which is on another planet, presumably, as the accident on Rugash has sent "reverberations through space," but we never actually find out which planet it is. Too bad! We meet some of the Mullkons (I guess) - Rafaello and his father, who talk business. The father says they need to get the black hole business resolved quickly, to which Rafaello (Raf to his friends) responds they should stop "dumping into the anomaly." Dad doesn't think that's a good idea, even though Raf reminds him about "what happened at Vega Prime." What the heck happened at Vega Prime, Raf???? Don't be coy! Dad says they have to stay competitive, but Raf gets him to suspend activities until "Chang" puts his data together. We learn that Raf is the principal heir of the family and that he takes too many risks (according to Dad). Dad wants him to go to Rugash and deal with some "labor troubles," but Raf asks why he can't do it. Dad says he has to meet with the Vegan Federation's representative. They're tired of being forced to eat meat, man! Raf tells him to send Azore, who's the "only diplomat" the family has ever produced, but Azore is writing a history of the company. Okay, I get that it's "delicate work, not to be trusted to strangers," but can't he take a break? I mean, the guy could use a break for some carousing on Rugash, right? Poor Azore. He never gets to have any fun.

Dad continues to rant, telling Raf he ought to find a "fit woman" to produce a legitimate heir. Raf tells him "Joss and Karma" are quite enough for him. So he has kids already, but Dad doesn't think they're worthy? Jeez - sucks to be them. Always craving Granddad's approval, and never getting it! Raf suggests that Dad beget another heir, but Dad says he has enough offspring. Raf gets angry, because only one of them managed to breed. Apparently Raf's brothers - plural - are dead, having "played it safe" and "worked in the business end," only to die horribly in some kind of factory fire. Raf kind of accuses his father of killing them, but before it goes any further, a blonde girl enters as Dad storms out. The blonde girl - Karma? - asks Raf if "he and grandfather" were fighting again. Raf implies the fight was intentional, because now Dad will leave him alone for a week or so. The implication is that the girl is Raf's daughter, but it's not stated outright. Hmmm.

"Elsewhere in the keep," Dad finds a woman who is packing her, well, sex dolls. They're full-sized man-shaped things, and Dad isn't happy she takes the "disgusting things" wherever she goes. She assures that they're perfect attendants for a single woman. Charming. She calls Dad "Kai," so I will too. She also tells him she's going to "Zanadu" for "Karma's sake," because "someone must look after the social education of the younger members of the family." Kai wants her to be around for when Bambina returns, and he again mentions his business, which is why he can't do it. The woman tells him that she won't leave for a few days, so she won't miss Bambina. Kai also gives the woman a name - Lucretzia - so that's nice.

The mention of Bambina leads to a different planet, this time Cygnus 5, in the city of Cam, the home of Vale University. Bambina is walking along a street with two men and a woman. They've just graduated, apparently, and are partying, but the men have no more money. We also learn that Bambina's father, Karl, is dead. We're still not sure who is the child of whom, as this family tree seems kind of vast and tangled. Bambina offers to use her own money, and when she takes her friend to the ATM to get some, we find out she's been hiding the fact that she's a Mullkon from her college chums. She says she didn't want to spend her college days "defending" herself, so she hasn't even told her boyfriend, Colin, or her mentor, Sirrac. She swears her friend to secrecy.

We fast forward a day, and we're back at Raf's family quarters, where he's eating dinner with two young people. The girl is Karma, and she is the same blonde girl who was speaking to Raf earlier. The boy is Joss, as we soon learn. He thinks Aunt Lucretzia will sell Karma to the highest bidder, which gives us an indication about what kind of person Lucretzia is (as if her name didn't already). Joss says he's going to go to Rugash for Kai, but Raf doesn't think that's a good idea. He can't speak to Granddad, because he's already left. Raf says he'll stop Joss, but his son vaguely threatens him, so Raf backs down. Joss leaves, and Raf warns Karma to be careful on Zanadu, and be "mindful" of Lucretzia.

Back on Cygnus 5, Bambina is packed up and ready to head home. She says she won't be gone long, but before she can go, Colin comes in and tells her she'd better hurry if she wants to say goodbye to Sirrac. She wonders why, and he tells her there's a "state of emergency" on Vega Prime. When they reach Sirrac, she tells them an asteroid storm has destroyed a city on Vega Prime. She says that the storm may not have been a natural phenomenon - it may have been some kind of "space debris." Oh dear. Bambina says, unironically, that "if someone is responsible for this ... I only hope they pay dearly." You don't think her own family had something to do with it, do you? That couldn't be!

Bambina says she'll come back as soon as possible, and Colin tells her he may have to go to Vega to help Sirrac. She says she might join him there, too. Then we get an odd shift, as we go straight into a flashback. Bambina's dad, Karl, is captaining a ship, the Napoli, through the void. Karl is told that the drive command is off-line, and before they can switch to back-ups, something terrible happens and the ship starts to "chain." Karl manages to get the beginning of a message out about a reactor meltdown and sabotage, and then the spaceship explodes. Zounds! Why is this flashback here, you might ask? Well, on the next page we learn that Azore, who is working on his history, has been reading Karl's transmission. Raf shows up, and Azore acts somewhat guilty. I wonder why? They make small talk about the present and the past, and Azore mentions that the past can be somewhat disturbing. Raf tells him to come out and have a drink with him, and Azore agrees. Raf reminds him that Bambina is coming home, and he tells Azore that seeing her again should make him feel better. Azore stands with his back to Raf with an evil look on his face. What could it mean? We'll have to wait, because that ends the issue!

There's a big problem with this issue as a single issue. It's really boring. There's almost no action. we get the beginning scene, where the two workers have the accident. That's one page, and then we see the aftermath. Then we get the flashback, which is two pages. Other than that, it's 19 pages of people we don't know talking to each other about things we don't quite understand yet. Worley does a nice job letting us know who all the people are, but she fails to make the overall plot - black hole dumping causing something bad on Vega Prime, which is only what I infer from the writing - too comprehensible or interesting. It's just a lot of vague innuendo, and although I don't mind vague innuendo too much, there's too much of it. If you were simply picking this up on a lark, you're plunged deeply into a world that is extremely complex but not that interesting. Family soap operas set against a space epic background can work very well, but the main story ought to be more interesting. We don't really get enough information about the black hole dumping or what Azore discovered about the family's history to compel us to come back for more. Why should we wait for something to happen? There are plenty of other comics where things, you know, do happen!

As I wrote at the top, I like Watkiss's art. It's not bad here, although it's more sharp than his later work, which hurts it, I think. I'm fairly sure the first time I saw his art was in the issue of Starman he did, which came out a few months after this. In that one, as far as I can remember (I'm not digging it out of my long boxes), he was using a more shaded, smokey, ethereal style, which has characterized his art in most of the books I've seen him on. It seems to work better than the hard-edged sci-fi style he uses here. Heck, the cover (which is painted, so it's probably unfair to compare) is better than the interior work. Worley doesn't give him much to work with, as he is forced to draw people sitting around and talking a lot.

I don't ever recall seeing this on the stands, nor do I know what happened in subsequent issues or to Tekno Comix overall. In the back of the book, they have ads for a Gene Roddenberry-created comic and a bunch of books "created" by Neil Gaiman. And let's not forget Leonard Nimoy's Primortals! Fine entertainment from Tekno Comix! I guess this title in particular was supposed to appeal to sci-fi fans who might not read comics. That's cool and all, but I don't think this issue would make people care about finding the first issue or continuing the series. But that's just one man's opinion!

11 Comments

• At September 28, 2008, Michael wrote:

  Your opinion is pretty much borne out by the fortunes of Tekno, Greg. It bombed.

• At September 28, 2008, Kiki wrote:

  It didn't work as a single issue obviously, but you made it sound interesing enough that I'll look for the ...

• At September 28, 2008, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  I'm cool with Watkiss, and I do agree that this mini-series was very dull.

  Kiki: Yes, Kate Worley was involved ...

• At September 28, 2008, stealthwise wrote:

  I've read neither Nexus nor Dreadstar, but I think the latter also received some strong consideration for best space opera.

• At September 28, 2008, Greg Hatcher wrote:

  The one Tekno title that I think was a moderate success was Mike Danger, with Max Collins and Ed Barreto ...

• At September 29, 2008, Pedro Bouça wrote:

  Virgin Comics did pretty much the same... With similar results.

  Best,

  Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

• At September 29, 2008, Doug Atkinson wrote:

  Mr. Hero was fairly enjoyable, if not especially groundbreaking (although the use of steamtech did seem fresher at the time ...

• At September 29, 2008, Doug Atkinson wrote:

  (I realized after posting that Roddenberry had also been dead for a few years when the comic with his name ...

• At September 29, 2008, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Kiki: I would definitely say Dreadstar. Starlin is good at this sort of thing, as Captain Marvel in ...

• At September 29, 2008, slaz wrote:

  The Rick Veitch series about the big dinosaur tyrant enslaving the population of a city on wheels as it rolls ...

• At October 1, 2008, Blackjak wrote:

  Teknophage was one of the better ones... Bryan Talbot artwork for the first chunk too! Gorgeous!

  I liked Mr Hero, ...

Namor the Sub-Mariner Annual #2. "Body Doubles" by Ron Marz (writer), James Fry (penciler), Christopher Ivy (inker), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer), and Kelly Corvese (colorist). "The Gift" by Ron Marz (writer), Ron Lim (penciler), Terry Austin (inker), Kelly Corvese (colorist), and Michael Higgins (letterer). "Good Girl" by Ron Marz (writer), Tom Raney (artist), Ed Lazellari (letterer), and Gina Going (colorist). "Namor's Top Ten Villains" by George Caragonne (writer), Larry Alexander (penciler), Don Hudson (inker), Michael Higgins (letterer), and Ariane (colorist). Published by Marvel, 1992.

Remember these "clustered" annuals Marvel used to do, where they would take characters that were linked somehow and spread a grand story across several annuals? Well, this is the second part of a story called "The Return of the Defenders," which started in 1992's Hulk annual, continued in the Silver Surfer annual, and presumably concluded in the Dr. Strange annual. But how does this stand as a single issue?

Oh, it's not that bad!

Well, you can say what you want about pre-Joey Q Marvel, but the one thing the editors did back then (Terry Kavanaugh is the editor, Tom DeFalco is the chief) was make sure people could pick up a stray book and at least follow what was going on. Yes, it led to some egregious monologuing, but this is a comic in which a gamma-radiated "monster," a sorcerer, and an Atlantean trapped in someone else's body battle a demon while a silver-coated surfing dude flies through space, so "realistic" dialogue isn't really all that important. Ah, the curse of Bendis!

We begin in Los Angeles, at the Pan-Dimensional Publishing Building, the address of which is 666 (a shot at the DC offices in New York?). Kavanaugh helpfully lets us know that this issue takes place before Namor #25, in which, you might recall, John Byrne destroyed Namor's life. A security guard goes outside for a moment and is immediately killed. Upstairs, a mysterious man who is completely white (not Caucasian, mind you, but white) gets a message from his receptionist, Miss Schaff, who tells him that he has visitors. He tells her to send them in as we get the splash page: Miss Schaff is obviously not herself, as she looks a bit dazed and is completely surrounded by nasty little demons. Outside, the Defenders show up. In the first panel, we learn that the big guy is called the Hulk, and that he likes to be called "Bruce" or "Dr. Banner." We also learn that Namor's mind (we don't find out who Namor is until later) is in Rick Jones' body. We also learn that the group had some demonic encounters in the aforementioned Hulk annual, and that the security guard is actually dead. That's some good exposition! The sorcerer, whose name we haven't learned yet, tells the audience that Pan-Dimensional Publishing has a book called Spelling Made Easy that has been transforming readers into demons. Well, that kind of sucks. On that note, our heroes head inside the building.

Hulk wants to take the elevator up, but Dr. Strange (whose name we still don't know) suggests the stairs because it will not alert anyone to their presence. We finally learn his first name (Namor calls him Stephen) as he says they should split up. Hulk decides to take the elevator anyway by climbing the cables in the shaft. We get a quick page on which we check in with the Silver Surfer, who is identified in a footnote about his regular book. He's zipping around the universe, heading toward Earth, and he's being watched by a demon, who speaks to his "master," a pair of evil eyes floating in the void. According to the "master," the Surfer will unwittingly help "turn the Earth into a smoldering husk." Well, damn.

Back in LA, "Stephen" does some thinking. We learn he has astral senses, but they're being blocked by something. He enters a plastic surgeon's office and finds a nurse, who unfortunately has been transformed into a demon. She's clutching three scalpels in fist, making her look like a certain ubiquitous mutant. Before we witness the fight between them, we return to the Hulk, who's still climbing the cables. He's a bit peeved because his new shoes were shredded, and it's expensive to special order them in his size. He reaches a floor on which is a fitness center, and when he enters, he too finds a demon - a grotesquely large blue one. Hulk says "Oh man ... get off the 'roids before before somebody puts a saddle on you." I mention this because of something that appears later in the book. Meanwhile, the demon throws a huge barbell at the Hulk's head, saying "I'm here to PUMP YOU UP!" Believe me, young'uns, back in '92 that was Hi-larious.

Namor is checking out a floor that has, on one side, cubicles, and on the other, mannequins. I'm not terribly sure what it's supposed to be - the developmental office of a clothing line? Anyway, one of the mannequins is wearing some green swimming trunks, so Namor decides to ditch Rick's clothes and go with a more "classic" look. Luckily he's not in a body like, you know, mine, or he might keep the clothes on! At that moment, he hears the sounds of fighting on the floor above and correctly surmises that the Hulk is up there. He runs upstairs just in time to get a Nautilus machine thrown at him, followed by the Hulk. They all crash to the ground and share a tender moment that lets us know their true feelings for each other:

Hulk and Namor look deeply into each other's eyes!

But then the demon shows up, and Namor leaps into battle without thinking that he's in a puny human's body. The demon swats him aside, through a wall (which, surprisingly, doesn't kill him) and into a pool, where he's pinned beneath some debris. Yes, Namor is going to drown. Oh, the irony!

Hulk still cares! Awwwww.

On the page following this realization, we see an ad for Fleer baseball cards featuring 1991 AL Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens. I found it humorous that the Hulk tells the demons to lay off the steroids, and later in the issue there's an ad with Clemens featured prominently. Oh, even more irony!

Dr. Strange is fighting the demon and making jokes, but he pauses to exposit that the demon was once human. He also lets us know that in the Hulk annual, a lightning strike helped turn Marlo and Paris back into humans, but he doesn't want to rely on something that random here. So he stands behind his mystic barrier and tries spells on the demon. Back in the fitness club, Namor watches the Hulk battle the demon and realizes that nobody saw him fall in the pool. As he blacks out, he has a vision of Neptune, who tells him that he's always appreciated Namor's worship of him. He can't help him too much, but he can give Namor a small gift - Rick's body will be strengthened by water and can breathe underwater, so Namor is saved! He leaps out of the water and both he and the Hulk bash the demon into unconsciousness. They rejoin Strange and bash the other demon into unconsciousness. Strange yells at them because they might cause damage to the human host, but we quickly move on. Nobody wants to dwell on bummers, man! They reach the offices of Pan-Dimensional Publishing, where they find an evil sorcerer who's acting on the orders of a mysterious stranger. The stranger steps from the shadows and is revealed! It's the white dude, who calls himself "Shanzar, sorcerer supreme of the strange matter dimension." Well, that's handy. Of course, he also tells them that they should know his name, as the three of them met him in Incredible Hulk #370-71 (well, he doesn't tell them that, but Kavanaugh's footnote tells us). Oh, and he's also possessing Namor's body. Namor doesn't think that's sporting.

Shanzar, like any good villain, must explain his entire plan, and we learn that after he was thwarted in the earlier encounter, he began "exploring other realms." While exploring, he came upon a "disembodied elder being, a dark power hungering to be returned to the flesh." His body happens to be on Earth (of course - it couldn't be on an uninhabited planet on the other side of the galaxy, could it?) and this being told Shanzar to possess a body "hardy enough to sustain [him] for the week required to orchestrate the wild one's rebirth." Namor's body fit the bill! In return, the "wild one" will give Shanzar a permanent body, as he's burning out Namor's. He traps the Hulk and Strange, knocks Namor unconscious, and his sorcerer apprentice drags Rick's body away. Shanzar says they need one more demon to "complete a portion of the summoning," so he has to go. He leaves through a door and when the Hulk tries to follow, the aperture leads ... well, outside the building. Hulk crashes to the ground, and when Strange joins him, he asks the magician what's next. That sounds like a cue for something dramatic, and the sultry Silver Surfer provides the moment, showing up behind them and reiterating the Hulk's question. What, indeed, is next? Find out in Silver Surfer Annual #5!

Before I break the main story down, I should point out the three other stories in this issue. Ron Lim draws a story that takes place in 1943. Namor shows up at a castle on the Irish coast (it's probably just down the road from Cassidy Keep) and gives a woman named Siobhan a present. He's been visiting her and proclaiming his love for her for a while, we're led to believe, but she can no longer wait - she has a new lover! Worse, it's Baron Blood! Marz doesn't tell us much about the baron beyond that he's a vampire and he's an ally of the Nazis. So, you know, he's eeeeeeevil! Namor fights him until Siobhan tells him that she chose the baron because he makes her squeal like a rhesus monkey when they're in bed together. Oh, of course she doesn't say that! She just wants a companion, and because Baron Blood made her a vampire, they can be together forever. Namor gets grumpy and leaves. Siobhan fades into the darkness with Baron Blood. Oh, the tragedy! The next story focuses on Spitfire, who is shopping with Namorita (it's interesting to see minor characters in comics from years ago, as Spitfire has enjoyed a bit of a renaissance recently in Captain America and now Captain Britain and MI 13). A sleazy photographer accosts them and offers to shoot Spitfire for a magazine cover. Jacqueline - Spitfire's real name - was around in World War II, and now she's young again, but she's still uptight about her looks. Namorita convinces her to go, and she starts to enjoy it as she wears swimsuits and lingerie and other tiny pieces of clothing. Then the photographer tells her to take it all off, and she freaks out at him, beating him to a pulp. He thinks he took photos and can sue her, but his pictures show only a blur beating on him, so his plan is foiled! It's a cute little story, and it's always fun to see artists like Raney early in their careers. Finally the top ten villains story is one of those info-dumps where someone is updating computer files, and there's not much to say. Well, except that Namor needs better villains - #9 is "Doctor Dorcus." When one of your top ten villains is named "Dorcus," you need better villains.

But let's consider the main story. It's a fairly typical superhero story, and there's really nothing all that wrong with that. I will probably never live down the fact that I called Marz a "hack" on this here blog, but I suppose I used it incorrectly, because this is the kind of story I was talking about - Marz has always seemed to do these kinds of stories without ever really making an impact with whatever he was doing. I guess "hack" means he's a bad writer, but he's not, he's just kind of there. If you want a story about pan-dimensional demons trying to take over the world and some Marvel heroes trying to stop them and you want it to be competent, Marz is your guy. He gives us enough information to follow the book easily but still ties it into the first chapter of the story, and because Marvel heroes for the most part have one-dimensional personalities, it doesn't take that long for a decent writer to show them to us. Therefore, Namor is arrogant, Hulk is arrogant, Strange is arrogant ... oh, wait a minute, they're arrogant in different ways. Namor is regal, Hulk is sarcastic, and Strange is cocky. Marz does a pretty good job with those broad personality traits. And unlike a lot of poorly-written superhero comics, the exposition doesn't feel terribly forced. It's obvious, of course, but it's not obnoxious. This is what I think of as a typical Marz comic - it's mildly entertaining, but ultimately forgettable. Like every other pre-millennium pre-Joey Q Marvel comic, the writers and editors make sure that the characters are acting "in character" - therefore, Banner is the "intelligent Hulk" of the Peter David comic of this time, and, as I wrote above, Kavanaugh makes sure to let us know it's prior to Namor becoming "Wild Man Sub-Mariner" of the Byrne/Jae Lee stories post-issue #25 of the regular series. Things like that used to matter, and I still wish it did in both the Marvel and DC Universes. Oh well - water under the bridge.

Fry and Ivy give us typical early 1990s art, influenced by the Image guys, but I always thought they had better chops than a lot of the clones who were drawing at that time. Fry does a nice job with demonic stuff, and although he succumbs to the time period and gives us some mouth-spanning saliva, he generally does a good job. His characters are slightly cartoony but not unrealistic, and his anatomy isn't freakish except for the 'roided-up demon, which is kind of the point. Fry and Ivy did some freaky (in the best way) issues of Moon Knight around this time, but after that I have no idea what happened to them. Fry had some talent - I wonder why he never made a bigger splash?

This is actually the kind of book that might get someone into comics. It's not great, but it tells a solid, superheroey tale, it's entertaining, and it might make you wonder why the Hulk, for instance, isn't acting all brutish and saying "Hulk smash" and crap like that (if you remembered the television show, for instance), which might lead you to Peter David's Incredible Hulk, which is, of course, a great comic book. Or it might lead you to Byrne's Namor, which is not a great comic but a pretty darned good one. Or it might lead you to Dr. Strange, which I haven't read, but Roy Thomas was writing it at this time! Or it might lead you to Silver Surfer, which I also haven't read. But it might!

So: Not a great comic, but one that does its job and has a lot of potential as a gateway comic. Yay!

13 Comments

• At September 20, 2008, Kiki wrote:

  Hurray! I've missed Into the Back Issue Box. I can't add anything about this issue, since I never ...

• At September 20, 2008, Grico wrote:

  I'm glad to see this feature back. Its a fun one to relive random comics and see how they show ...

• At September 20, 2008, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  I remember the clustered annuals (or the quartet annuals), were nowhere nearly as bad as 20-plus annuals that linked altogether ...

• At September 20, 2008, Michael wrote:

  Evolutionary War and Atlantis Attacks. The mini-crossovers came out of that. Of course, they didn't always make sense; I'm pretty ...

• At September 20, 2008, Andrew-TLA wrote:

  Atlantis Attacks. Atlantis Rising was a rather horrific Fantastic Four-centered crossover.

• At September 20, 2008, Michael wrote:

  Has there ever been a Fantastic Four-centered crossover that wasn't horrific?

• At September 20, 2008, Ajit wrote:

  "and although he succumbs to the time period and gives us some mouth-spanning saliva,

  Not to defend the 1990s, but that ...

• At September 21, 2008, Random Stranger wrote:

  "Has there ever been a Fantastic Four-centered crossover that wasn’t horrific?"

  Art Adams's New Fantastic Four?

  For what its worth while the ...

• At September 21, 2008, John Trumbull wrote:

  That panel of Namor saying "Allow me" while stomping on a badguy is a Berni Wrightston swipe from the Batman ...

• At September 21, 2008, Mike Blake wrote:

  It was Dr. Dorcas, not Dorcus; did they really spell like that in the annual? He is best remembered ...

• At September 22, 2008, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Yeah, that's how they spelled it, Mike. Tiger Shark was #4 on the list, I think, and they do ...

• At September 22, 2008, kreetrapper wrote:

  It’s back, baby!

  Woohoo! Finally!!!

• At September 23, 2008, Casey wrote:

  Ha! I think I had the Hulk or Silver Surfer annual from this particular cluster. Good times...

(It's been a while since I've done one of these, so check out the ground rules for these posts here.)

Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #25 ("Reunions") by Gregory Wright, Steven Butler, and Pam Eklund.  Published by Marvel, June 1994.

                       

This is a "giant-sized 25 spectacular," as you can see by the cover, which means it costs 2 dollars and is packed with extra pages for you to enjoy the really weird Steven Butler art and too-big-for-its-britches Gregory Wright story.  I will say this about the comic: Wright wouldn't know what "decompression" is if it reared up and bit him on the ass, because this sucker is chock full of plot developments, characters, and big-time action.  This would be a whole year of Bendis comics if he decided to revive Silver Sable (no, that's not a suggestion, Bendis ... Bendis, did you hear me? damn - sorry, folks, he's off to revive Silver Sable!).  So let's break it down!  If you foolishly picked this comic up as your first-ever purchase, would you run screaming to the hills or dive right into the darkness of our habit?

On the first page, after we learn that Silver has been "relentlessly trained in multiple forms of combat," that she inherited her father's "professional soldier unit, the Wild Pack," that she founded "Silver Sable International, the ultimate mercenary force," and that she is the "leader of her beloved homeland, Symkaria," we see some dude taking his helmet off and warning Silver that she should have stayed out of the affairs of the Genesis Coalition.  When the helmet comes off, Silver whispers "Father," and on the next page, we get the splash page, with Silver staring at a white-haired gentleman with a moustache wearing a ridiculous battle suit.  How ridiculous?  Well, Butler doesn't give us a good look at it on this page, but we'll get back to it.  We switch to Bosnia, where U. S. troops are being attacked by "what appear to be" Hydra stormtroopers, with Bosnian officials denying any involvement with the terrorists.  As one of the brave Americans says, "We ain't equipped to deal with Hydra!"  Wow - cowardly and grammatically ignorant.  Good stuff!  On the next page, we see Baron von Strucker, who has a huge red cybernetic claw where his right arm ought to be.  Man, the Nineties rocked!  He's a bit miffed because Hydra is NOT behind the attacks, and it must be the work of the "accursed Genesis Coalition!"  Some flunkie suggests that if Hydra intervened and helped stop the Genesis Coalition ... and the baron thinks it's a great idea, because it will make them look like heroes while still masking their true intentions.  I'm surprised von Strucker didn't say, "I'm glad I thought of that!" while the flunkie watches, all sad because he doesn't get any credit.

                     

Back to Silver, where we learn that it's not actually her father, but her uncle Fritz.  (As a side note, Silver's father is named Ernst.  According to the Marvel Atlas Project, Symkaria is right next to Latveria, just south of Hungary.  Why do the brothers have German first names?  The family name is Sablinovia, which is a fine Slavic name, which makes the first names even more interesting.  Is there any explanation for this?  If the family is Slavic, giving the kids German first names would probably not go over very well.  I think about weird crap too much, don't I?)  He tells her some convoluted story about her father's murder at the hands of some guy named Trefkov and how he planned to get captured by Hydra and delivered to Trefkov because he never found her father's body and he wanted to find out what happened.  After months of torture (which includes an odd sadomasochist gay porn panel - right in a Marvel comic!), he decided something: "I came up with the plan for Trefkov to form the Genesis Coalition.  We would infiltrate the Nazi horror of Baron von Strucker's Hydra and steal from their ranks, waiting for our chance to obliterate them ... only to take their place.  Unknown to any, I was already sowing the seeds of destruction to the very organization I was creating from the inside!"  That sounds really complicated.  He is creating an organization that will infiltrate another organization, take it over, and then he would destroy the first organization.  Interestingly enough, Fritz never tells us how exactly he would destroy the Genesis Coalition once its objective had been achieved.  Oh well.  He tells Silver that he's on the verge of destroying Hydra with this action in Bosnia, because the world will retaliate against the real Hydra.  Meanwhile, he puts his helmet back on and we get to see his costume in all its Liefeldian glory:

              

He has the ubiquitous codpiece and the strange coils that don't seem to serve any purpose.  Shockingly enough, he doesn't have pouches around his thighs, but the black Captain America dude behind him (who's called "Battle Star") does, so that's okay:

                                      

Silver doesn't think much of this plan, but we'll get back to that.  The Genesis Coalition dude they've subdued gets to his feet just as foot soldiers burst in, and then we get a brief fight.  Fritz shoots energy from his hand (it's a comic book, so of course his armor can do that), Battle Star swats people aside like they're gnats (happily exclaiming that "it's been a while" since he "even broke a sweat!") and Silver jumps around kicking people in the face.  She grabs the bad guy (who's called Dmitri) and tells him he's in trouble for making her believe her father was dead (which must have happened last issue), but as he begins to say he wasn't lying about that, Fritz grabs his hair and completely fries the skin off of his skull.  Would I lie?

                                     

Silver gets pissed at this, and then gets even more peeved when Fritz tells her he needs to take her and the Wild Pack into custody to keep up the illusion that he's still working with Trefkov.  She finally agrees and lets the rest of her group know that they're going into the belly of the beast.  We get a brief shot of the rest of the group, which includes Sandman and Paladin and some dude we later learn is called Fin (he has a fin on his head, after all) and some tiger dude and a chick with long dreads who I think might be Monica Rambeau.  She has a blue costume with a gold star on the front, and later we see her briefly flying around with energy all around her.  I guess it doesn't really matter, because she has one line in the entire book and only appears in two panels.  Anyway, Silver and her bunch are transported to a submarine in the Black Sea, where Trefkov imprisons them.  Trefkov's speech patterns are awesome:

                                     

He explains that Hydra will show up in Bosnia and fight S.H.I.E.L.D. and the U. S. military, which will destroy them all.  How dastardly!  Just at that moment, Nick Fury shows up to save the day (remember, the regular U. S. troops are cowering in their foxholes), but he doesn't believe it's a regular Hydra operation.  At the same time, von Strucker shows up with "his new strike team, System Crash" (oh how I wish I were kidding about that name) and they prepare to take the imposters to school!  This confuses the soldiers, of course, because they don't know why Hydra is helping them.  Fury wants to check this out, naturally.

                

Back in the submarine, Silver is rescued by a Genesis Coalition soldier who suddenly blasts his two comrades and lets them out of their cell.  Their rescuer turns out to be the Foreigner, who was once married to Silver.  She claims that she knew he was there because she would never have allowed herself to be taken unless she had a way out, but it seems kind of random.  Even though they hate each other, they agree to work together to get out of their pickle.  So there's some more bashing, and then Basil (the Foreigner's real name; his mama didn't name him "Foreigner," you know - she was a fan of "Juke Box Hero," but not that big a fan!) shows Silver that her father is actually alive, hooked up to some sort of comic-book machine while they drain him of all his secrets and strategies.  Instead of being grateful that she's rescuing him, he says "Quiet, child!  Emotion makes you sloppy!"  Yeah, well, maybe she'll just leave you there, you crotchety old goat!  Silver takes her dad off the sub and then blows it up.  She heads for Trefkov's battle cruiser, which is hanging out over Bosnia as he watches the carnage below.  Fritz is a bit put out that Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. aren't killing each other, and he goes all Scooby-Doo villain on us: "We would have destroyed you if it weren't for Silver Sable and the intruders!"  Silver tells her team, who has shown up in Bosnia, to let Hydra go, and von Strucker decides to hightail it as well instead of turning on his "allies," much to the consternation of Fury, who wants to bash some Hydra heads!  Silver, meanwhile, lands on the battle cruiser and goes after Trefkov, ready to dispense some Symkarian justice!

              

She bashes him for a while, and then turns his own knife against him.  According to her, she's never killed in cold blood before, and even though she has waited years for this moment, it changes nothing.  Fritz, meanwhile, arrives and freaks out because they could have destroyed Hydra but she ruined it by showing up and killing Trefkov.  She tells him that "Father would never have planned an operation such as this, doomed to failure!" and he wouldn't have sacrificed the beliefs for which he fought.  She wants to help him, but before she can, the Foreigner shoots him in the back.  Man, that's a mistake.  You know how I'm allowed to make fun of my mother but you're not?  Well, apparently that holds true for shooting family members too.  Who knew?  Silver is about to kill Basil but she decides to let him go.  It's all over but the shouting, and she shares a tender moment with her father back in Symkaria as he recovers, and all's right in the world.  Awww!

              

Man!  Like I said, this is packed.  40 pages of non-stop action, most of it pretty darned silly.  I don't quite get why Silver is so angry at Fritz's plan, though.  It seems pretty solid if terribly convoluted.  His Genesis Coalition doesn't have to do anything, and Hydra, which I think we can all agree is pretty evil, gets wiped out.  According to Dmitri, the Genesis Coalition has outgrown him and he won't be able to take it down so easily, but it's not like he knew that, and even if it's true, at least Hydra would be gone, and maybe it would take a while for the Genesis Coalition to be as strong as Hydra was.  It's really never clear why Silver is so opposed to it.  I guess that gets in the way of all the action - Silver wouldn't be kicking so much ass if she actually agreed with Fritz!

              

As a story, this does its job.  We know exactly what is happening and why, the characters are clearly introduced, and even though it's a continuation of a longer story, we don't feel too out of it.  That doesn't change the fact that it's a pretty crappy book, with silly dialogue and obnoxious Image-y art that is so ridiculously busy it might give you a seizure.  Everyone has those big shoulder pads and pouches all over their costume and big hair, and they all grimace so very seriously all the time.  It's obvious that Butler knows how to draw, and it's just a shame that he, like so many of his peers, got caught in the early 1990s trend of making the art in comics as goofy and ugly as possible.  Sigh.

               

So that's the 25th issue of Silver Sable.  I don't think it would really cause someone to come back and read more comics.  It's not a terribly good example of what comics can do.  I kind of wish that Silver had used that sword on the cover.  That might have been something!

13 Comments

• At December 16, 2007, stealthwise wrote:

  Man is that art ever 90s-horrible.

• At December 16, 2007, ken wrote:

  Sometimes I think it would be better to eat these comics than read them.

• At December 16, 2007, Bat2supe wrote:

  90's,90's !!!

  Even Sandman got a costume with 2 left sleeves for his 2nd sand arm. LOL!

  I'd say the armor is ...

• At December 16, 2007, Jack Norris wrote:

  Couldn't take it. Had to start hitting "PgDn" about a third of the way down, skimming through this stupid plot ...

• At December 16, 2007, Ian Astheimer wrote:

  "Rob Liefeld’s evil influence"?

  I see feet.

• At December 16, 2007, StereotypeA wrote:

  Let's not forget the trend of girls having jackets with the sleeves rolled up and head bands.

• At December 16, 2007, Patrick Joseph wrote:

  You'll all be sorry when Marvel releases Essential Silver Sable Vol. 1 in about 10 years. The release of the ...

• At December 17, 2007, PC wrote:

  It's perfectly normal for the family to have a combination of a German name and Slavic surname. That area of ...

• At December 17, 2007, Fisk wrote:

  Sorry, PC but you're not right. It isn't common in Central and Eastern-Europe to have a German first name and ...

• At December 17, 2007, Dan (other Dan) wrote:

  But what about the Lil Sylvie story promised on the cover? That could be entertaining (although that's giving it ...

• At December 17, 2007, Greg Burgas wrote:

  The L'il Sylvie story was mildly entertaing, Dan. I just figured I had gone on long enough. Ironically, ...

• At December 18, 2007, Anonymous wrote:

  Sorry, Fisk, maybe I wasn't clear enough.

  Of course the first name is an indication of nationality, but what I meant ...

• At December 18, 2007, Fisk wrote:

  Now we agree on everything.

  If Symkaria is a Germanic nation the name is okay. But it is located south ...

The ground rules for these posts are here.  That's where they always are!

World's Finest #283 by Cary Burkett, George Tuska, and Frank McLaughlin (main untitled story); Bob Rozakis, "Novick," and McLaughlin (second story); Mike W. Barr and Gil Kane (third story).  Published by DC, September 1982.

                      

You know, with that cover blurb, how can this book not be awesome?  It's the freakin' Composite Superman, for crying out loud!  Poor Batman - he makes up half of the Composite Superman, but gets shafted in the naming.  How about Composite Super-Bats?

We begin as many comics from back in the day began (it's not as common today, although it still shows up occasionally): with a splash page showing our two heroes, a mysterious bad guy, and a menacing threat.  In this case Superman and Batman stand looking at the audience, with a shadow in the lower-right corner speaking the words: "Each time we've met I've defeated you!  Now I shall destroy you!"  Then we go back in time to set up the story.  Despite the fact that we know the bad guy is Composite Superman (unless the cover is lying to us), it's a fairly effective way to draw readers into the story.

           

So we're in space, on a "distant frigid planet" on which is placed an alien prison-compound.  A strangely-clad figure breaks loose, helpfully thinking, "The dissolvo-pellet my friends smuggled to me has destroyed the whole wall!"  Man, when I was doing a stretch in Chino all my friends smuggled in was porn.  This guy has real friends!  A few panels later, we find out his friends left him a space-cruiser!  Sheesh.  When I complained about all the porn, my friends helped break me out, but they left a Big Wheel® for my escape.  No Christmas cards for them!  In the next panel we learn that the ship can travel through time as well as space, and that the escapee has had years to plan the murder of Superman and Batman, so he can avenge his father.  That's sweet.  He cares about his dad.  (I didn't think this was our evil villain, but I guess he is.  It's not really that clear.)

              

We shift to a swanky yacht in Gotham City, where Bruce Wayne meets up with "Dan," an old friend.  They talk polo, and we also learn that Bruce has given up his responsibilities at the Wayne Foundation because his far more important job of Batman was keeping him too busy.  Dan wants him to play polo again, and even later, as Batman swings through the night, he considers it, because Dan uses his wealth to help others, so Bruce admires him.  Suddenly he sees Superman, who blows him off the roof.  Well, that's just not very nice!  Batman manages to tumble in the air, brace himself on the building, and leap toward a flagpole.  He holds on, even though it "feels like [his] arms are torn out of [his] sockets!"  Oh, boo-hoo, Batman!  When he gets down, he thinks, "If Superman has lost his mind, or fallen under some kind of spell, the whole world could be in danger!"  "Some hours later" in Metropolis, Superman is searching for some "super-weapons" that were stolen from his fortress in World's Finest #280, and Batman shows up.  He's holding a box that appears to hold a diamond ring, which leads us to believe he's going to propose to Superman, but when he opens it, it contains Kryptonite!  Oh, crap!  Superman uses his X-ray vision to confirm that it's really Bruce Wayne, and once he leaves, Superman manages to jump off the roof and recover when he falls out of the range of the Kryptonite.

             

Superman busts into the Batcave, threatening the Dark Knight.  Batman, of course, thinks Superman tried to kill him, and he counters by showing Superman his own box of Kryptonite (without opening it).  They argue, but before they come to blows, a shadow rises up and confronts them.  Batman says, "My ... God!  It's him!  Of course!  That explains everything!" and Superman says, "But he's dead!  We both saw him die!  It can't be him --" and we turn the page, and Superman continues, "-- not the Composite Superman!!"  C-S (it's tough typing Composite Superman) explains that he impersonated both of them (thanks, we figured that out) to make them feel "the pain of betrayal."  He wanted to confuse them longer, but they were unwilling to believe the worst of each other, so he decided to fight them.  Superman gets a great, bloodthirsty line in: "Since you've got super-powers, I don't have to hold back!  And this is going to be a pleasure!"  Man, Superman likes to mix it up!  C-S, however, is THREE TIMES STRONGER than Superman, so he knocks him down and grinds his face into the dirt.  He zaps Batman with his "Lightning Lad powers," but then his "timer-alarm" goes off, which means his powers are due to fade "in a few short hours."  Like a stupid villain (when will they learn?) he could finish them off, but leaves them alive to prolong their suffering.  He uses Phantom Girl's powers to pass through the walls, leaving them alone.  Superman remarks to Batman that he thought they saw the last of him when Joe Meach died.  I smell an informative reverie coming up!

                

Well, of course I do - it begins in the next panel!  Joe Meach, apparently, was the caretaker of the Superman Museum, and one day he's checking out the statuettes of the Legion of Super-Heroes.  The Legion gave them to Superboy by using a "duplicator" to "recreate" each "particle" in a Legionnaire's body and shrink it, to make "an almost living likeness" of each of them.  As Joe Meach goes to shut a window next to the display case, a bolt of lightning hits and releases "the latent power within them," giving Joe Meach all their powers.  Using his Chameleon Boy powers, he turns himself into a form of Superman and Batman so he can prove to the world he was better than all of them (we're told, helpfully, that this story took place in World's Finest #142).  Why he should be evil is glossed over, as is the reason his skin is green (Chameleon Boy powers, maybe?).  In the present, Batman picks up the expository thread by mentioning that he would have beaten them if his powers hadn't worn off, but some uncolored alien (seriously, he's in black and white) gave him his powers back so he could defeat Superman and Batman.  As his powers waned, Joe Meach lost his hatred of them (why did he have it in the first place?) and sacrificed himself to save them.  But who is this new Composite Superman?  WHO????

              

After a two-panel interlude which shows a Dr. Dundee reading a "medical report of Bruce Wayne" and fretting because he a) knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman, and b) has something "terrible" to tell him about that secret, which may have been betrayed.  But that's for next issue!  We go back to Superman, who is flying around hoping C-S attacks him.  Of course he does, and Superman gets C-S to chase him.  Superman tries to hit him with a Phantom Zone ray, but C-S can read minds, just like Saturn Girl, and he knew Batman was hidden there with the ray.  He smacks Batman and tells him he's going to take his time destroying him, but Superman comes in and, in an unintentionally hilarious panel, hits C-S while bellowing, "Keep your hands off Batman!!"  "He's mine, Composite Superman!  All mine!  Lois just doesn't understand!"  C-S uses his Element Lad powers to turn the ground to Kryptonite, then tells Batman to take Superman away, because he's not ready to kill him yet.  Sheesh, C-S, just get it over with!  He does use Star Boy's power to make Superman "super heavy," then torments Bats as he carries Superman away, taking his Justice League signal device and zapping him with lightning and Sun Boy's heat rays.  Composite Superman is a real prick, apparently.  When Batman gets Superman far enough away from the Kryptonite, Supes recovers, but runs like a scared clarinet player, and C-S says he can easily track him down and present him with Batman's lifeless body.  Superman, of course, hasn't fled, but hidden his thoughts so C-S can't read them.  His only hope, he believes, is to journey to the future and bring back the Legion of Super-Heroes.  But that will have to wait until next issue!

              

The second story is a simple two-pager, in which a mugger tries to beat up some guy named Ray Palmer.  Big mistake.  I'm going to assume the artist is Irv Novick, even though he's only credited by his last name.  The final story is a Green Arrow/Black Canary story, which gives us the particulars about our heroes by the title.  I love reading the status quo in the DC or Marvel Universe at any particular time.  At this time, Black Canary was "born on a parallel earth."  Oh, that makes sense!  Pre-Crisis DC was awesome.  An old woman has Black Canary tied up while she watches a video feed of Green Arrow agonizing over accidentally killing Slingshot.  Black Canary flashbacks to getting captured and how a stun arrow and a "deadly" barb-tipped arrow were exchanged and GA used the deadly arrow when he meant to use the stun arrow.  This begs the question of why he has a "deadly" arrow if he doesn't want to kill anyone, but we'll leave that alone.  The old woman exposits that Green Arrow killed her son, and it nearly drove him mad, and she figured a second death would finish the job.  Her hired punks drag Green Arrow to her, but it turns out he was faking his crippling dementia!  He fires a gas arrow and beats the punks up with his hands (he can't trust his arrows because they may have been tampered with) as the old woman runs for it.  She's grabbed by Slingshot (who's not dead, natch), who already has Black Canary by the throat.  He says "Mollinger" (the old woman) got him parole but then double-crossed him, so he'll let her go if he can fight Green Arrow one-on-one.  Of course GA says okay, and Slingshot lets them go.  GA says it's unfair because Slingshot has to shots to his one, but Slingshot doesn't care.  Mollinger tells them to shoot, and GA fires at Black Canary instead of Slingshot, ripping her gag off and letting her scream at Slingshot, knocking him insensate.  Black Canary asks how he avoided killing Slingshot, and Green Arrow tells her he realized the arrow was the wrong one, so he fired behind Slingshot, knocking the head off, and the ricochet knocked him out.  He asks Mrs. Mollinger to forgive him, but she says she can't, because her hatred is all that keeps her alive.  Green Arrow gets all philosophical, telling Black Canary that if you hate long enough, the only thing you end up is hating yourself.  That's deep, Ollie!

            

You'll notice what a dense comic book this is, as there's quite a bit going on.  That doesn't necessarily make it good, but it's something to remark on.  It's not a great comic, but it's charming in that pre-Crisis, post-1960s DC way, when their comics grew up just a little but couldn't escape the wackiness of the Silver Age.  Composite Superman is a goofy idea, but Burkett does a decent job with him.  It's a bit clunky, the way he lets us know all of the powers of the Legionnaires, but you know? it still reads better than "The Lightning Saga."  It's kind of nice to see the kinder, gentler Batman of these days, and it would be nice if writers could find a happy medium between him and the post-Crisis bleak Batman we all know and love.  It seems like the current Bat-writers are trying, which is kind of cool.  The Green Arrow/Black Canary back-up story is pretty darned good, and shows why Barr is such a underrated superhero writer and why Gil Kane is, well, Gil Kane (when he's not asked to draw aliens, of course).  There's a lot to like about this comic, and if you've never picked up a comic book before, you might laugh at the goofiness of Composite Superman, but Burkett certainly tries to give you your money's worth.  And for 60 cents, you need to get your money's worth, consarnit!

                                  

So, Greg Hatcher - how did Superman, Batman, and the Legion defeat Composite Superman?  Inquiring minds want to know!

10 Comments

• At November 18, 2007, Vincent J. Murphy wrote:

  "Why he should be evil is glossed over, as is the reason his skin is green"

  I always figured it was ...

• At November 18, 2007, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  Why he should be evil is glossed over,

  It's a standard DC rule, often showed by Jimmy Olsen - when ...

• At November 18, 2007, Freeform2 wrote:

  Ah, not as bad as modern comics but still not as new reader friendly... here is a villain who seems ...

• At November 18, 2007, Michael Grabois wrote:

  This C-S was Xan, the alien who gave Joe Meach his powers in the 2nd C-S appearance. Xan was just ...

• At November 18, 2007, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Whenever there's a Legion question, Michael will show up and explain it all! Thank you very much, sir, for ...

• At November 18, 2007, suedenim wrote:

  Actually, I think this kind of story is VERY new reader friendly in its own way. The new reader ...

• At November 19, 2007, Michael Grabois wrote:

  Don't give me TOO much credit, Greg. The only two things I remembered from this 2-parter were that the guy ...

• At November 19, 2007, Joker'sBoner wrote:

  What's the point of shouting 'Get out of the way you idiot!' AND firing the gun at the same time? ...

• At November 19, 2007, Apodaca wrote:

  We shift to a swanky yacht in Gotham City, where Bruce Wayne meets up with “Dan,” an old friend. ...

• At November 20, 2007, Paul wrote:

  Anybody have a picture of Amalgamax? He must be completely awesome.

If you're hoping I'll explain what's going on in these posts, you can always look here.

The Incredible Hulk #301 ("You Are Standing At The Crossroads!") by Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema, and Gerry Talaoc.  Published by Marvel, November 1984.

                      

Ah, the Hulk.  Ol' Rampager!  Angry Green Man!  You can always count on a Hulk comic to give you some big-time smashing, right?

Well, not if you're Bill Mantlo!  Mantlo cares not about your desire for smashing!  All he cares about is character development.  Hulk brood!

                      

Yes, it's issue #301 of The Incredible Hulk, and we begin with the Jolly Green Giant standing in a strange place.  In front of him is a tree with many hands pointing every which way, and all around are paths and mouths and, well, weirdness.  The dramatic narration reads: "From this place leads many pathways ... but no path leads home."  Well, that's clear, then.

                             

On the next page, the narrator helpfully explains, "He is in exile here, a bludgeoning, brainless brute banished from Earth ... before he could cause further harm to the world of his birth ... and before it could further harm him."  Dr. Stephen Strange, the "master of the mystic arts," who opened a doorway between dimensions and deposited the Hulk there.  Hulkster, it seems, had become savage, with no trace of his human alter ego, Robert Bruce Banner.  But humanity owed Hulk too much to execute him, so Strange exiled him.  And Hulk was angry.  Apparently, you wouldn't like him when he's angry.

             

So Hulk smacks the signpost of many hands.  Strange beings that look like the ball of seeds on top of a dandelion take him to task for smacking it, but they can't communicate with Grumpy Puss.  He inhales them all and blows them out, causing them some consternation.  He looks into what appears to be a pool of water, standing vertically, and a tentacle pulls him in.  It's tentacle porn in a 1980s Marvel comic!  The horror!  The creature tries to pull Hulk into its gaping maw (yeah, we know what that signifies), but Hulk begins to forcefeed it its own tentacles.  Oh, that wacky Hulk!  The creature doesn't like this, so it spits Hulk back onto the path.  The dandelion things are back, and they peer into Hulk's mind to try to communicate with him.  They form into a shape not unlike Bruce Banner, which makes Hulk really cranky.  As he swings ineffectually at the dandelions, a portal opens behind him, showing a city in flames.  Hulk sees the violence and destruction, which makes him all warm and fuzzy, and he goes through the portal and rests.

              

Dr. Strange is keeping his eye on Hulk, and through his thoughts, we learn that he chose several realities that might offer Hulk contentment.  However, "contentment" for Hulk means smashing everything around him, so Strange had to choose carefully.  If Hulk is disenchanted with whatever world he finds, a "fail-safe spell" will trigger his return to the crossroads, where he can choose again.  That's handy to know.  Thanks, Doc!

              

Hulk jumps up, ready to smash, but notices something different about the ruined city.  The people aren't real, but puppets.  Hulk doesn't understand this, and things that Hulk doesn't understand enrage him (add it to the list, I guess, behind puppies, Joe Morgan's utter lack of knowledge about baseball, Ann Coulter, blitzing on 3rd-and-long instead of playing base defense, Tony Stark constantly talking about his "honeys," nipple rings, and the fact that Angelina Jolie and Ben Affleck won Oscars before Jennifer Jason Leigh - those things make Hulk so mad!), so he starts with the smashing.  However, everything falls apart awfully easily, and Hulk doesn't get it.  He takes no pleasure in destroying such puny things.  Jets swoop in and bomb him with missiles that don't cause any damage, and when Hulk snags a plane in mid-air, he sees that it's held up by strings!  Hulk perplexed!

                 

He pulls on the strings and is instead pulled up in the air.  A giant face looms above him, and as the camera pulls back, we see that Hulk is hanging from strings held by a young alien boy.  The boy is ecstatic that his version of "Demolition City" came with a "real live monster."  Hulk's in some kind of board game!  Oh, that Mantlo irony!  The boy runs off to tell his friend about the monster, and Hulk starts to realize that he's in a toy.  That really bums him out, and thanks to Strange's "fail-safe spell," he vanishes from that reality and heads right back to the crossroads, "where he might choose again -- until the end of time."  Jeez, Mantlo, what a downer to end the comic!

              

There's nothing really wrong with this comic, but it's still not that good.  Mantlo does a fine job getting us up to speed on the Hulk and what happened in the previous issue, and why he's in this strange dimension.  We do actually get plenty of smashing, but it all feels hollow, because Hulk beats up dandelion thingys and then a lot of cardboard buildings and tanks.  And, of course, we end up right back where we started, so nothing really gets accomplished.  If you're a first-time comic book reader, there's nothing in here that will make you never pick up a comic again, but I'm not really sure you'd be inclined to come back, either.  Is this all there is?  Hulk gets angry, smashes stuff, and gets to do it all again next issue?  Set in the context of a longer story arc, I suppose it might work (and I have no idea how long Hulk spends in this crossroads dimension), but it's kind of a boring issue standing on its own.

              

As for Strange's scheme ... it sounds pretty good.  I wonder if Marvel has tried it recently?

14 Comments

• At October 21, 2007, Stephane Savoie wrote:

  Y'know, as a bonafide hater of Mantlo comics, I still look back fondly at the Crossroads Hulk stories. They ...

• At October 21, 2007, Michael wrote:

  I believe the Crossroads story went on for about a year before the Hulk returned to Earth in the pages ...

• At October 21, 2007, Ben Herman wrote:

  On the bright side, this storyline did *not* end with the Hulk returning home, bellowing that he was pissed off ...

• At October 21, 2007, Erik wrote:

  The Hulk and Alpha Flight changed creative teams with Mantlo taking over the Flight and John Byrne taking over the ...

• At October 21, 2007, Mark wrote:

  The only crossroad story that I remember clearly was the world where the Hulk was the weakest one there is. ...

• At October 22, 2007, HellRazor wrote:

  This story really illustrates why the whole "mindless Hulk" could never work for the long term.

  There just ain't much you ...

• At October 22, 2007, Rusty Priske wrote:

  Oh yeah, the big creative team switch.

  Before the switch we had a good Alpha Flight comics, written and drawn by ...

• At October 22, 2007, Doug Atkinson wrote:

  But then we got Peter David's Hulk...which wouldn't have happened if Hulk hadn't been in a slump at the time, ...

• At October 22, 2007, Jed Dougherty wrote:

  In reply to #7 above:

  Actually towards the end of the Crossroads stories, art chores were taken over by a young ...

• At October 22, 2007, sgt pepper wrote:

  So Greg, I understand that this might be a fun little exercise, but I think you've done enough to draw ...

• At October 22, 2007, Greg Burgas wrote:

  That's a good point, sgt pepper, and I don't plan on doing these forever. Mostly, by now, it's just ...

• At October 22, 2007, avengers63 wrote:

  Maybe this exercise makes another point entirely. Perhaps comics individual aren't good as a whole.

  If you take one issue ...

• At October 23, 2007, mrjayberry wrote:

  I kind of enjoy this feature. I don't comment much but new content is appreciated and it makes for some ...

• At October 23, 2007, Greg Burgas wrote:

  I think you're right, avengers63. It's kind of frustrating, though, because whenever I come across a comic that does ...

This time around - BKV and Cary Nord!  Comic book gold, right?  Well, read on!

As always, check out what I'm doing with these posts here.  With the time in between these posts, you may have forgotten!

Green Lantern and Adam Strange #1 ("We Rann All Night")* by Brian K. Vaughan, Cary Nord, and Mark Lipka.  Published by DC, October 2000.

                        

You have to love DC.  Here's a nominal crossover that, to be sure, advertises itself at the bottom of the cover as being part of "Green Lantern: Circle of Fire," but is listed as a #1 issue and doesn't explain that it's part of a crossover until the final page, when the covers and a brief description of each of the six issues is offered.  So if you just happen to pick this up and think it's a brand new #1 issue and therefore you're safe, you first get angry that it's not, and then DC says, "Hey, you?  Puzzled?  Well, that's because this is all part of an poorly-advertised crossover and you really ought to buy five other issues!  Ha, ha, sucker!"  And people wonder why the Big Two aren't drawing in new readers ...

Beyond that, how is the issue in intriguing newcomers?  Well, it's not ... completely awful.  We begin on the moon, in a big tower (it's the JLA Watchtower, but we never learn that in the issue).  Adam Strange (whose name we learn on the first page, which is helpful, even though his name is on the cover) is talking to a woman named Green Lightning.  She is bald and wearing a silver suit with a green lightning flash on the front.  She also has wings on the costume that cover her ears.  She looks, frankly, goofy.  But onward we forge!  Adam Strange says that his planet needs him but there's nothing he can do.  We learn that by "planet" he means Rann, which is 25 trillion miles away.  GodDAMN, that's far!  Green Lightning points out that the Justice League has spaceships, but Adam says they can't "endure" the trip to Rann, and the only way he can get there is with the Zeta-Ray, a teleportation beam.  The next beam is scheduled to hit New Zealand in two minutes, and the JLA transport tubes can only get him as far as Mexico.  (Why does Mexico have a transport tube and not New Zealand?  What the hell is wrong with New Zealand?  I once jumped off a platform in New Zealand with a big rubber band around my ankles.  Speaking of which, if you haven't been bungee jumping, man, it's awesome.  Seriously.  Scary as all shit, but awesome.  Find some bridge somewhere and take a leap.  You won't be sorry.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, New Zealand.  What a cool country.  On the east coast is the town of Napier, the architecture of which is almost completely art deco.  How cool.  So why no transport tube for NZ?  I think it's because the JLA is helping illegal immigrants sneak into this country using the transport tubes.  Man, that would be a cool comic - the JLA vs. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County's hard-ass cop!  Make it happen, Dan DiDio!)  Anyway, Green Lightning doesn't see this as a problem, because she's, you know, really really fast.  So she gets Adam to the Zeta-Ray in time, and the two heroes are off to Rann!  Yay!

               

Adam isn't happy when he arrives.  The city is ravaged by war, and he blames himself for abandoning them when they needed him.  He says that someone called "Oblivion" has crippled them, but Green Lightning looks around and notices that the Rannians are destroying the city themselves in a vicious civil war.  Adam says they just signed a treaty, but Green Lightning tells him that "Kyle" (whoever he is) mentioned that when Oblivion first appeared in his comic book, he caused the residents of a "nearby" planet (25 trillion miles is nearby in cosmic terms, I guess) to go insane.  Adam dismisses that because he saw Oblivion, but she points out that he's not really a resident.  He blusters that he is, but as we'll see, that's not exactly true.  He suddenly remembers his wife and daughter.  Oops!

        

Green Lightning takes him to Alanna's apartment, and he puts a new translator in because she's speaking Rannian.  She chastizes him for not knowing their native language.  Of course, she chastizes him by taking his gun, pointing at him, and saying, "You never have fit in here, alien!"  But she has a point.  Adam has lived there for years, at least long enough for his kid to grow up a bit, and he's never learned the damned language?  Testify, Alanna!  Of course, because she's a dutiful wife, she's only standing up to him because she's addled in the pate.  If she hadn't been messed with by Oblivion, she would have just said, "Oh, Adam - I don't care that you never learned our language!  You're just so dreamy with that little fin on your helmet!"  Adam tries to talk her down, getting the fact that their daughter is on Thanagar for some festival, before Alanna fires at him.  Luckily, Green Lightning zips him away, and when he tells her to use her ring to subdue her, she says she can't do it.  He decides to retreat to a wild spot on the planet where the Rannians fear to go.  Adam pushed all the monsters on the planet to this area, and the Rannians are scared of it.  Then he asks her what happened with her ring.  She explains that her mother is the Flash and her father was a Green Lantern before he died, and he passed the ring to her.  The "Rayner" side of the family wants her to be a GL, while the "West" side wants her to be a speedster.  According to her, a mental block means she can only use one power per day because she has trouble living up to both legacies.  Man, what a wuss!  But it explains some things, although we still don't know much about her.  From one thing she says later, we can guess that she's from the future, but we never find out what she's doing in our time.  Oh well.

              

Adam whines a bit that Alanna was right and he doesn't belong on Rann, because the people still think of him as primitive.  He's the "big lug who does the dirty work" that the Rannians are too smart to bother with.  As he's whining, someone might wonder, "Will Adam get a chance to prove he's a big hero?  Will Green Lightning get a chance to prove that she can use both her powers at the same time?"  Well, Vaughan must have read his Chekhov, because just as Adam's whining reaches a self-pitying peak, a giant cat-thing with what look like dragon paws and wings appears.  Oh dear.  Adam, shut up and fight!  Oh, wait, Alanna stole your gun!  Crap!  How can he fight the giant flying cat-dragon?  By throwing his jet pack into its mouth and counting on Green Lightning to save him!  This works out spectacularly well, and Green Lightning offers him some validation by telling him what a brave thing he just did.  They try to puzzle out why only Rannians are affected, and Adam has a brainstorm: Rannians can see just outside the visible spectrum, which might have something to do with it (he also mentions that Rannians have no body hair, which I guess means the head is not part of your body, because Alanna has a sexy head of black hair, and I just think it would be way cooler if Rannians had no hair at all - would Adam still find Alanna foxy, or would he, like Ross when he ditched Christine Taylor to go back to Rachel just because she shaved her head even though she was crazy in the sack and wasn't crazy elsewhere, like Rachel, ditch Alanna for someone with hair back on Earth even though Alanna wears a low-cut shirt and has a nice rack?).  He asks Green Lightning to increase her rate of perceptions to see things she normally wouldn't, and she spots emissions that are causing the madness.  They track them to a cave, where they discover ... a big green lantern.  Man, I hate when that happens.

             

Adam is confused because "Kyle" is the only person with a ring, and the lantern is a "ring construct."  Green Lightning explains that in Adam's time, he's the only Green Lantern, but in her time, there are new ones.  She wonders if Oblivion is a traitor in their ranks.  Adam theorizes that if Green Lightning runs at "near-light speeds," she could "bend [her] ring's waves to counteract" the lantern's crazy-making effects.  I'm not even touching the science!  She points out that it would require her to use both her powers at the same time!!!!  I'm shocked that that little plot point came back into prominence!  So Green Lightning tries it, and lo and behold! it works!  Everyone stops being crazy and Alanna is ready for some sweet, sweet Earth-man lovin'.  However, Kyle calls Green Lightning on her ring, tells them that he thinks they've found Oblivion, and he's on what's left of the planet Oa.  Apparently this is significant, because Green Lightning sees this as proof that he's a Green Lantern.  She and Adam fly off, with Alanna's blessing, to continue the adventure.  The story is "concluded in the second bookend of Green Lantern: Circle of Fire.  I know I can't wait!

              

Well, there's quite a bit going on in this issue, and it's not bad in terms of entertainment - Vaughan keeps the simplistic story moving, and Nord does a good job with Adam and the action, although both Green Lightning and Alanna are a bit slinky, which works for his women in, say, Conan, where the women tend to be slinky, but it seems a little out of context in this comic.  Green Lightning is always standing in poses where her breasts are sticking out or her hips are thrust weirdly sideways.  Where the story breaks down, of course, is the fact that it's a mainstream DC book, plus it's part of a (admittedly unadvertised) crossover, so we're expected to know quite a lot.  Vaughan gives us plenty of hints about Kyle and his role in this, but we have no idea where Green Lightning comes from, why Adam Strange is even in this issue (yes, he needs to get to Rann, but why is he even involved in the whole "Hunt for Oblivion" thing?), or what the entire plot has to do with Oblivion.  Why does he drive the Rannians insane?  It's the whole "He comes from a comic in which he drove some aliens nuts," but that seems a bit random.  I assume the idea of Green Lightning having two legacies to live up to is brought up again and Adam will prove that he's a "real hero," but that doesn't seem enough to base an entire comic on.  As a part of a crossover, it might work, but it doesn't really stand on its own as a single issue.

              

I don't remember this whole story at all.  I seem to recall seeing some of the issues on the shelves, but as I have rarely ever read Green Lantern, this thing passed me by.  I'm sure someone out there can tell us all if this entire story arc was worth the trouble, and what the heck Green Lightning and Adam Strange are doing in the entire grand scheme.  It's kind of fun, years after the fact, to look at who works on these book.  This is before Vaughan became a big name, Pete Woods drew the issue with Power Girl and the Emerald Knight (Kara has that great yellow and white costume that she had for a few years, before everyone whined for the hole over her breasts to come back), and Jay Faerber wrote the G. L. Manhunter and Firestorm issue.  Cool.  So what's the deal, Kyle Rayner lovers?  Was this story any good?

*Man, that's a bad pun.

7 Comments

• At October 13, 2007, davidwynne wrote:

  Is it me, or does Alanna appear to be holding her breasts in that last panel...?

• At October 13, 2007, Michael wrote:

  Well, God, wouldn't you?

• At October 13, 2007, Lothor wrote:

  "Green Lightning tells him that “Kyle” (whoever he is) mentioned that when Oblivion first appeared in his comic book, he ...

• At October 14, 2007, Jason wrote:

  It wasn't really good, especially at the end. It turned me off on BKV for awhile. The whole upshot was ...

• At October 14, 2007, Mike Loughlin wrote:

  My first two BKV comics were this one and the Teffi Holland version of Swamp Thing. I thought, "this guy ...

• At October 14, 2007, nadir wrote:

  i went back and looked over this story this morning. and just asked myself, why did (do?) i waste so ...

• At October 15, 2007, Lucion wrote:

  I like Green Lightning's costume. I dig the ear bolt wing things. Plus, not many women can pull ...

If you're new here, check out the ground rules.  If you're not new here, check them out anyway!

Witchblade #86 by Ron Marz, Keu Cha, and Jay Leisten.  Published by Image/Top Cow, July 2005.

                          

I guess I should have realized from that cover that this wouldn't necessarily be what I expected.  I had never bought a Witchblade comic, mostly because when I looked at the early issues it was all T & A, and who needs that, really?  But this book is devoid of that, and is not that bad.  Does it do a good job explaining things to new readers?  Well, no.  And that's where the problem is, frankly.

The story, however, is at least interesting.  Sara Pezzini shows up at the Museum of Natural History in New York, where she has been sent because an unusual murder has occurred.  We learn very quickly that this sort of thing is kind of her specialty.  The cop in charge, Frank Boyle, takes her to the body and introduces her to Larry Bethea, and Director of Security.  The victim is a security guard, and Sara notices right away that his head is missing.  It's way on the other side of the room, and Sara notices that the cut is very clean, so it's not some "PCP junkie with a machete" and the victim probably saw it coming.

              

She and Bethea go into the storeroom to look around, and Bethea tells her that when he was growing up in Harlem, he wanted nothing more to work at the museum, and he worked his way up from security guard.  Sara tells him that she doesn't know how to do anything else except be a cop, but before she can expound on that, they hear a sword being unsheathed.  As they hunt, a samurai dude with a big-ass sword who had been a statue moments before shows up behind them and barely misses killing Bethea.  Sara shoots him, but it has no effect, and then the samurai slashes her gun to pieces.  She grows some sort of armor on her arm and pulls his mask off, and there's no face!  Well, that's not terribly surprising.  As he brings his sword down toward her head, she stops the slash with that funky armor and is transported into the ghost's head.  There she learns that the samurai betrayed his master back in the day (let's say 1600, just for the fun of it) and took his sword, the "sword of blood."  This makes him invincible, but he also discovers that "the sword thirsted for blood, and I supplied it gladly."  He believed he had the power, but of course, it was the sword who really controlled him!  Even after his death, he was "held in thrall" to the sword, and now he's just a ghost slave of the sword, thirsting for blood.  We snap back to the present, and Sara fixes her power on the sword and causes the samurai dude to drop it.  The ghost flows out of the sword and disappears.  Bethea whacks the armor, and the threat is over.  Huzzah!

              

Sara takes the sword to an old Asian dude, who tells her she did the right thing.  She responds, "Gee, I'm shocked.  Mysterious old guy who won't even tell me his name knows all about the mysterious old sword."  He tells her that when it was forged, a shaman called a demon, captured its essence, and shackled it to the blade.  It gives the wielder great power, but it craves carnage, and the wielder is bound to the blade.  Sara leaves the sword with him, promising she'll be back with more questions, and leaves.  The mysterious old guy puts the sword under his counter and the issue ends.  How odd.

                       

This is a weird comic, because it tells a complete story but is strangely unsatisfying.  First, the samurai ghost dude is a lousy villain, because Sara barely fights him and easily defeats him.  Sure, he's wielding a demon-possessed sword, but he's no match for Ms. Pezzini!  That leads back to how she defeats him.  We have no idea what that thing on her arm is or why it helps her defeat the samurai.  I get that this is issue #86 of an ongoing series, so we should know what her power is, but it's still something to mention.  In comics where the characters might not be well-known, either the writer or the artist usually gives us a decent chance to figure out what the powers are.  Sara has some kind of thing on her arm that lets her beat ghosts.  More than Marz not explaining the powers of the thing, he doesn't even make it clear how she beats the bad guy.  There's a big flash and the samurai drops the sword.  He hung onto the damned thing for 400 years and a flash of light caused him to drop it?  Wow.  The whole story feels rushed, as Sara doesn't even do any actual police work, just pokes around a bit until the bad guy shows up.  The armor is in the storeroom, so that's a reason why it hadn't killed anyone before, but it doesn't make too much sense.  How did the museum acquire it?  How did they get it into the storeroom without it killing anyone?  How did it get out of the storeroom, and why didn't it go on a rampage once it got out?  And why did Sara get rid of the sword so cavalierly?  It feels like this could have been a two-parter that would have worked much better at explaining everything.

                     

That being said, a first-time reader might come back for more.  The idea of a policewoman investigating weird crimes is a nice hook, and the fact that she has this mysterious armor adds a bit to the draw.  It's interesting enough that a person might come back to find out more about this character, which is part of the point of a single issue, right?  So, although it's not a perfect comic book by any means, Marz does a nice job at least giving us an interesting premise with an intriguing main character.  I was pleasantly surprised not to see Sara wearing that armor with hardly anything covering her.  This isn't a very good comic, but it has a lot more potential than I would have guessed.

4 Comments

• At September 22, 2007, lilacsigil wrote:

  Someone recommended me the Ron Marz run on Witchblade (and only that run). As the hypothetical first-time reader that you ...

• At November 4, 2007, Samurai sword wrote:

  It looked horrible! The drawing was just not up to standard and the samurai's face was too western, not ...

• At November 4, 2007, Apodaca wrote:

  Wow. Most racist complaint ever.

• At June 7, 2008, chroom wrote:

  It's racist to point out anatomical differences? On average, Japanese have flatter faces than most other races. Would ...

Hey, remember those good times we had with Demonslayer?  Well, today's entry makes me almost nostalgic for that piece of garbage!

I might have to remind people about the ground rules for these posts, because I've been such a slacker recently.

Objective Five #3 ("Airborne") by Kevin Hoffer (story), Luke Lizalde, and Allen Martinez and Danny Miki.  Published by Image, September 2000.

                        

No, I have no idea why those people are falling on the cover.  Please don't ask such logical questions of this comic!

You know, the only good thing I can say about this comic is that it has a nice recap page at the beginning and it's easy to follow along.  Of course, that begs the question: Should you follow along?  Well, no.  I'd like to say how bad this comic is, but I thought I'd just explain it, show some "art" from it, and let you decide!  I want to point out that everything I quote from this book is exactly as it appears in the book.  I didn't want to use [sic] all the time, so just keep that in mind as you're reading, okay? 

Let's check out that recap, shall we?  We learn about "Lark, Alexis, DJ, and Simon," who were "on their way to a rave in the desert" when they became "inadvertent test subjects of a 'super-soldier' virus."  The Center for Disease Control found out, and Lark, Alexis, and DJ were "brought back to Atlanta (CDC Headquarters) for observation and testing."  As their DNA had been "enhanced" by the virus, the CDC recruited them "to eliminate bio-weapon threats around the world and at home."  But what of Simon?  He was "picked up" by his father's multinational corporation, which is of course evil (it's a comic book, after all, and all multinational corporations are evil).  The "Coxx Corp" (yes, Simon's last name is Coxx) "has a darker purpose: to turn Simon into the weapon they need to enact their plan for global control."  But that's not all!  "A killer" is out there, showing the world "the power of his viral creations."  The CDC, "with the help of the newly formed covert Objective Five team," hopes to eliminate the killer "before widespread epidemic and panic throw Southern California into chaos ..."  Phew!  Did you get all that?

We begin with the killer, whose face we don't see on the first page, but who narrates with some fervor: "My name is Daniel Myers.  I will show the world that they cannot be protected.  I will show them how vulnerable they all are.  I wll show them what they cannot see."  Testify, Daniel Myers!  We shift to John Wayne Airport in Los Angeles, where Agent Marcia Vaughn meets the Objective Five team.  We quickly see that the writers (I'll get to that) are not only good at overheated prose, but they aren't very good at writing dialogue that sounds like it's actually being spoken.  This book could have used some Bendis!  One example: "What are we doing all the way in he back?  We've already passed all the elevators in front?"  Okay, that's not a great example, but the question mark at the end is classic.  Once inside the "CDC Emcon Center," we learn more about the problem: "As we speak, there seems to ba a killer operating out there using previously unknown viruses, with similar effects on a variety of subjects.  The key here time folks."  The speaker sends the Objective Five team out to Newport Beach, but first, the speaker wants to talk to Lark.  We learn that Lark is Alexis' daughter.  Take a look at both Alexis and Lark:

    

Which is which?  You can't tell, can you?  Alexis is on the left.  Yeah, they're mother and daughter.  Anyway, the speaker puts Lark in charge of the team.  She says, "Look Lark, I know that you are the youngest of the three, but that does not mean anything."  Haven't the writers ever heard of contractions?  Lark's "psionic gift and adaptability are vital in this situaiton."  Her "ability to get into a persons head is the only advantage" they have.  Lark says she's ready, but she's not sure!

                

                            Who has the weirder lips?  You make the call!

We head back to Daniel Myers, whose face we finally see.  His narration is really odd.  "Kids these days don't really know the world," he muses.  "It's different than twenty years ago when the only interesting thing was the 'idiot box.'  Now they have this crap.  This goofy slime.  Six dollars for a smelly sticky substance with no purpose but to waste time."  He holds up a jar with some green slime in it.  He adds a few drops of his virus to the slime, thinking, "But time is a killer in itself.  Alas, I have the answer for these kids.  I'll institute my purpose."  If your head hurts reading this narration, you're not alone.  It's a fairly simple scene: Daniel adds a virus to a kid's toy.  The narration is what pushes this into the stratosphere of glorious crap.  He heads off to Newport Beach Middle School, where the Objective Five team is arriving.  The first spoken words are by Alexis, presumably (they're coming out of a car, so we don't know who's speaking, but DJ responds to Alexis, so I assume she spoke), who says, "The school the index attended."  I have, quite literally, no idea what the hell she's talking about.  That's the beauty of this issue!

              

They arrive just as school is getting out, so it's going to be hard to find the bad guy.  Lark "open[s] her mind" and searches, and she "hears" his thougts: "My mission will be complete.  The world will not underestimate my power.  This virus will show them."  Oh dear.  He leaves his jar of "goofy cacka" on a bench, and a kid picks it up and plays with it.  He gets some in his eye, which means he'll be dead soon.  Too bad, kid!  That will teach you to steal someone else's goofy cacka!  (I must admit, he doesn't die in this issue, so it's possible he survived, if they found a cure in time.)

           

We shift to what we soon learn is Coxx Corp, where Simon is beating on an employee, just kind of for the hell of it.  Check out his outfit:

              

His father interrupts and says, "Impressive, my boy.  You seem to becoming the man I could never have dreamed you could become."  Parse that sentence!  Holy crap, does nobody involved with this book actually speak English?  Simon's father explains that a former employee of theirs is loose with some bad viruses, and Simon needs to bring him in before the CDC gets him.  So there's another player in the mix!  Back in SoCal, the little kid, Joshua, doesn't feel well.  He says so to his mother, who says, and I quote (I couldn't make this stuff up!), "Joshua!  Please don't interrupt me when I'm doing my crosswords.  What is it?"  Awesome.  At least she wrenches herself away from her puzzles long enough to put the kid to bed, saying, "You get some sleep, so Mommy get some time to herself."  Yeah, Joshua!  While you're at school all day, Mommy is too busy fucking the pool boy to do her crossword puzzles, so she needs to do them now, you little bastard!  An hour later, Joshua is bleeding from his eyes.  When the CDC comes and takes Joshua away, then Mommy feels bad.  Too bad, Mommy!  It's your fault your kid is going to die!

              

                  You know who wears purple lipstick?  Negligent mothers!

At the CDC SoCal HQ, Lark tries to read Joshua's mind to discover what's going on.  All she gets is a full-page spread of, well, it's kind of hard to describe:

                 

In case you can't read the words, it says: "It's funny how what we really want, escapes us from the minute we are born to the minute we die of old age.  How simply by growing old we sadly revert to the helplessness of our youth ... never realizing exactly what we want to accomplish.  Just knowing that through it all we were spewing out whatever we can just for a distraction."  I, personally, have no idea what that means, but on the next page, Lark breaks contact and says, "I know where's going now!"  She interprets the message as an indication that the killer is "going after old people" because viruses work best against senior citizens and kids.  But if she's reading Joshua's mind, how would he know?  That's best left unquestioned!  She says, "Where's the closest retirement home?"  In the next panel, Simon drives his sports car (with none of its tires on the road, because he's driving so fast) as the caption reads "Hurtling toward the nearest retirement home."  Now that's a segue!  As he arrives as Crystal Bend Retirement Home and gets out of the car, it's worth quoting his thoughts in all their wonderful, insane glory:

"Control.  I am always in control.  I am the master of my own destiny.  I am not the pawn of my father.  I am my own man.  I'll show him.  I'll show him.  I am control.  I am the essence of power.  I am not my fathers employee.  Not a slave to do his bidding, I am more, so much more.  I walk my own walk now.  I step out a badass in my own damn right.  So they keep me alive.  So what.  I'm awesome now.  Nothing can stop me.  My suit.  Just a perk.  A perk of my father's wealth.  That's a small price now.  I am more than anything my father could have dreamed.  I am my own man.  I am control.  And everyone will see, that me, Simon Coxx is pure, freakin' power!  Now whose sorry ass do I have to kick?"

He says this last sentence as he enters the retirement home, looking for the bad guy.  He finds him rather easily and beats the shit out of him.  Check out the weird way he punches Daniel Myers:

                          

              

I split the page up, but the bottom example directly follows the first on the page.  In the third panel of the first scan, Daniel appears to be struck by no one, and in the third panel, he's falling as if he's been dropped from a great height.  I'd love to say Fuck the heck? but I think I've used up all my amazement about this issue long ago.  On the next page, Objective Five shows up, and Alexis says that someone found the virus killer first, and "that someone is now a bigger threat than our killer."  You have to love the outfits they wear as they burst into the retirement home:

                  

What exactly are Lark and DJ wearing on their pants?  It looks like solid metal bands around their thighs (you can see them much more clearly on the cover).  And you have to love Alexis sporting the thong-above-the-pants thing.  Those CDC operatives have to look s-e-x-y!

So it ends.  This is an amazingly bad comic book.  Looking at it from the standpoint of someone who's never read a comic, let's consider it.  We do get a story that's fairly easy to follow and keeps everything moving along well.  However, we have no idea what "powers" Alexis and DJ happen to have, unless Alexis' power is to be a MILF and DJ's is to look androgynous.  We also have no idea why the group is called "Objective Five."  What is the fifth objective?  What are the first four?  Plus, even though the book is fairly easy to follow, the writing and the art are so awful that if you are a first-time comic book reader, you are completely justified in laughing at us as the nerds we are!  I mean, with regard to the art, why does everyone have such a big head????

    

Kevin Hoffer, who came up with this story, has two editorials in the back of the book.  One of them promises that issue #4 will definitely be out in November, not October as scheduled.  I guess it's commendable that the creators at least try to placate their fans when the book is late!  Then Hoffer has another letter, about the team that puts this book together.  He talks about the various people who are involved, and what's fascinating about it is that he credits three different people for "research" about, presumably, the viruses.  I mention this because the credits at the beginning of the book list the penciller, Lizalde, first, then the two inkers, then the colorist, and finally Hoffer with the "story."  It's not clear if Hoffer actually wrote the script, but that's the closest we get to a credit for the writer.  Someone is credited with a "script assist," so I guess Hoffer is the writer, but I'm not terribly surprised the writer wants his "credit" buried way down on the list.  If only Lizalde had felt that way as well!

GodDAMN, this is a bad book.  Please let me know if you bought this so I can find out how it ended!  I mean, how can I live without finding out the fates of Lark, Alexis, DJ, and Simon Coxx?!?!?!?

I also wonder when Image became a good company.  Noble Causes came out in late 2002, so maybe that's it.  When did this kind of comic stop being their bread and butter?

13 Comments

• At September 1, 2007, Lewis wrote:

  *Makes a note to review this at some point in the future on ATFW*

  o/ Who's that guy with the biiiig ...

• At September 1, 2007, yo go re wrote:

  Take a look at both Alexis and Lark:

  Which is which? You can’t tell, can you?

  God, sometimes I can't believe ...

• At September 2, 2007, Mecha-Shiva wrote:

  Ears of an 80-year-old, indeed. And why do her pants look really shiny, as if they were made of ...

• At September 2, 2007, Sleestak wrote:

  I blame ALL OF YOU for destroying comics.

  90s sucked.

• At September 2, 2007, Apodaca wrote:

  Wow. I can't believe a company actually published that.

• At September 2, 2007, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  So Alexis was on her way to a rave with her mum???

  So is the kid lame, or is the mum ...

• At September 3, 2007, J to the AAP wrote:

  We also have no idea why the group is called “Objective Five.” What is the fifth objective? What ...

• At September 3, 2007, Greg Burgas wrote:

  I skipped commenting on the rave aspect of the comic, because I thought that just spoke for itself. When ...

• At September 3, 2007, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  But going to a rave with her mum?

  Do they both pop pills and then spend the night on opposite sides ...

• At September 3, 2007, jazzbo wrote:

  What about the cover logo itself? I thought the title was "Detective Five" from looking at the logo, even though ...

• At September 4, 2007, suedenim wrote:

  "I mean, with regard to the art, why does everyone have such a big head????"

  See, this is in Image Comics' ...

• At April 22, 2008, kevin hoffer wrote:

  Nice commentary guys. Cute. You missed some more glaringly obvious problems, but that's okay. You probably aren't ...

• At June 7, 2008, chroom wrote:

  With all due respect, Mr. Hoffer ... if you are in fact the man who wrote this book, then you ...

Let's see ... the rules of these posts are, as always, just a click away!

Web of Spider-Man #22 ("Profit of Doom").  Published by Marvel, January 1987.

                       

I have no idea who wrote this comic.  I have no idea who drew this comic.  There is nothing in this comic to indicate who wrote, drew, lettered, colored, or edited this puppy.  This is a comic book published by freakin' Marvel, and there are no credits anywhere.  Is it me, or is that just a tad strange?  If I had to guess, I would have said Alex Saviuk on art, because I know he did quite a bit of the series, but the hair on one of the characters looked vaguely familiar ... I did some checking, and discovered the credits: Len Kaminski and Jim Shooter wrote it, Art Nichols inked it, and Marc Silvestri drew the confounded thing.  Ah ha!  Marc Silvestri, you can never hide the way you draw hair, young man, even at the very beginning of your career!

So, one mystery solved.  That was fun.  What about the issue over which these fine gentlemen labored and for which they received no credit?  Well, we begin in Belfast, which looks, as a word balloon coming out of a car tells us, "like Berlin -- during World War II!"  Who says this?  Why, it's Peter Parker (although we don't know that yet), whos' driving around with a foxy blonde.  She's the reporter, he's the photojournalist, and I suppose they're going to get in wacky adventures in war-torn Northern Ireland.  Peter's "spider-sense" tingles, warning him of an attack by hooded bad dudes.  We learn that the reporter's name is Joy, and she covered the war in Beirut.  One of the bad dudes sees them, but before he can shoot them all to hell, Peter uses his flash bulb to temporarily blind the dude.  Before he can recover, the soldiers cut him down, which makes Peter sad.

              

The soldiers make Joy and Peter get out of the car and open the "boot" (or, as one of them explains, "The rear o' the car, man!  The troonk!") so they can make sure they're not "more of those bloody Black Hoods."  When they're satisfied they are actually reporters, the soldiers send them on their way.  On the next page we get some exposition, as Joy explains that she has to call "Jonah" at "Now" (which we learn later is a magazine), while Peter calls his Aunt May in Queens.  In the brief phone call, we find out that May is running a boarding home and she's losing tenants.  We don't learn any more about it, but presumably it's a long-running storyline.  Joy comes to get Peter and tells him they're going to track down the Black Hoods.

              

As they walk the streets, Peter asks her what she knows.  All she can say is that the Black Hoods have something to do with Roxxon.  We find out eventually that Roxxon is some kind of multinational corporation, which in the world of comics makes them evil.  Joy and Peter discovered that Roxxon was up to "illicit activities" in Appalachia, so Joy did some digging, and believes they're mixed up in this.  However, armored vehicles drive by at that moment, so they follow.  They reach an apartment complex which has an upper floor burning, and Joy narrates that if this is the work of the Black Hoods, she doesn't know what they're trying to accomplish - all they're doing is scaring the locals.  As Peter takes pictures, a suspicious-looking dude stumbles against trash cans near them, and when that draws the attention of a soldier, he begs them to cover for him.  Peter claims he knocked over the trash can, allowing the guy to escape.  They track him down, and he says he was hiding from the Black Hoods.  Liam (for that is his name) tells them that a month ago, his brother disappeared, and he believes the Black Hoods killed him.  He's been trying to prove it, and they're after him because of it.  He takes them to a pub, where some of the locals tell them more about the Black Hoods.  They simply bomb and kill, and never tell anyone - the police, the press - what they want.  They don't discriminate, either - they kill Catholics and Protestants, police, soldiers, and children.  While Joy and Peter learn all this, a suspicious patron leaves the bar.  As Joy speculates that Roxxon is behind this, Peter wonders how they would profit from all the death and destruction.  Silly Peter!  His spider-sense goes off again, and the Black Hoods show up and kidnap them.  Peter thinks to himself that he could easily take them out if he could act as Spider-Man, but he doesn't want Joy to get hurt.  If we hadn't figured out who he is by now, what with the "spider-sense" and all, this clinches it.

              

Peter and Joy end up in the Roxxon building, where the bad guy, Ian Forbes, explains his diabolical and dastardly plan, like a good Bond villain.  He shows them the "AK-X Antipersonnel Particle Beam Cannon," which Roxxon built for the American military.  When the Pentagon cancelled their contract, Roxxon was forced "to seek alternative methods to recover" their investment.  He gives them a demonstration, and tells them a nice fact: it tends to overheat an explode, with a blast radius of 500 feet.  Even the Pentagon didn't want that!  The board of directors tried to market it in the Middle East, but "thanks to the American government," Roxxon had to shut down virtually all of its interests in that region.  Remember the good old days when people thought the government WASN'T in bed with big business, even though they were?  So Roxxon tried the English government.  With the help of Duncan O'Neill, Agent 003 of the British Secret Service (man, Bond should have killed that dude!), they created the Black Hoods to create chaos in Northern Ireland.  With the help of key members of Parliament and O'Neill, who's been an employee of Roxxon longer than he's been a member of the Secret Service, they fan the flames until the government buys the AK-X.  Oh, the mad genius of such a scheme!  Forbes tells his goon squad to take them away, instead of, you know, shooting them in the head.  Sheesh.

              

Peter is trying to figure out a way to get away from Joy so he can presto chango to Spider-Man, and he gets his chance when Liam rescues them.  Yes, Liam, armed only with a club, managed to break into the Roxxon facility, maneuver past the guards, and rescue Peter and Joy.  Now that's security!  Joy and Peter want to get proof of Roxxon's plan, so Peter suggests they split up.  He goes alone, so he can change into his costume (interestingly enough, as he's changing, he's thinking that it's a good thing Joy suggested they split up, even though the word balloon is coming from his mouth).  He gets into his spiffy black togs and heads to the vast room where the weapon is housed.  He beats up some goons and manages to avoid the blasts from the AK-X when a bad guy fires it at him.  When he's taken care of all the bad guys, he asks one of them where Duncan is, but Duncan is fleeing on a helicopter that's about to land on the roof.  Spidey climbs the building and see Forbes about to get on the 'copter with Joy and Liam.  He springs into action and rescues the prisoners, but Forbes escapes.  Spidey throws a "spider-tracer" onto the helicopter and turns back to the prisoners.  A Black Hood is about to shoot Joy, but Liam comes up behind him and shoots him.  As they're about to leave, the Black Hood calls Liam's name.  No points for you if you figured out that it's actually Rory, Liam's brother!  Oh, the family drama!  Oh, the irony!  Spidey goes back and "rescues" Peter, and later, as the troops burst into the Roxxon building, Joy mentions that Forbes and O'Neill won't stand trial because they're too well-connected.  Peter's sense of justice is outraged by this, but Joy tells him life isn't fair.  As a coda, Forbes' helicopter explodes over the Atlantic Ocean, because he failed his masters at SPECTRE - I mean, Roxxon.  An executive says Forbes was just costing them too much with his scheme and they couldn't afford him any longer.  So a small measure of justice is served.

                   

This is pretty much a perfect comic book to hook a new reader.  It tells a story in one issue, it's uncomplicated, and we get enough information about the principals to be invested in it.  It's kind of a simplistic story, but that's fine.  We might expect to see more of Spider-Man, but what Kaminski and Shooter do nicely is show us Peter Parker as a hero as much as Spider-Man.  We get to see Peter in his job and how he tries to help people even when he's not swinging around.  We also get to see how difficult it is for people with secret identities to get away so they can put on their costumes.  It's nicely done by the writers, because most of the time writers don't really put much thought into the change - some deus ex machina comes up that allows the hero to slip away.  Of course, Joy is a pretty dumb reporter if she can't figure out that Spider-Man seems to show up a lot where Peter is, but that's something we have to deal with in superhero comics.  It's also nice to see that the English and Irish soldiers in the employ of Roxxon don't know who Spidey is.  Why would they, necessarily?  Sure, some people internationally would know who he is, but certainly not everyone.

              

As you can tell, the story is simplistic, but at least it acknowledges that there are more complexities to the world than just beating the bad guy.  The fact that the Pentagon wouldn terminate Roxxon's contract for the reason given is kind of laughable in light of what we know about the government's relationship with conglomerates, but the idea of a multinational corporation sowing the seeds of disaster in order to profit off of it is handled well, as is the fact that Forbes is above the law but not above the bottom line.  Even in a straight-forward story such as this, there's some nuances that make it more interesting than it might appear.  A first-time comic book reader would not be able to dismiss this as simple adolescent wish-fulfillment, even if they don't think the problems in Northern Ireland are handled all that well.

                            

All in all, this is certainly a comic book that would bring back readers.  It's clearly-drawn (Silvestri hadn't discovered the magic of cross-hatching yet, I guess), it's exciting, it hints at a broader story in Peter's life, and it has nice characterization.  It's a fairly standard comic book, but it's certainly interesting enough to make you wonder more about Peter's life.  And that's kind of the point.

20 Comments

• At July 15, 2007, Bill Reed wrote:

  The thing that gets me is how much seems to happen in this one issue. This would be a six ...

• At July 15, 2007, Will wrote:

  And meanwhile, Ultimate Power has managed to pack a full issue's worth of plot into just six issues of traced ...

• At July 15, 2007, EvilDeathBee wrote:

  I think that this is the first issue you've reviewed here that I bought when it first came out. (#15 ...

• At July 15, 2007, Cove West wrote:

  You know, I've been reading Marvel for almost 20 years now, and it wasn't until Brubaker's Cap that I first ...

• At July 15, 2007, Michael wrote:

  Ah, Roxxon. They even have their own on-staff supervillain to beat up pesky heroes snooping around. Anyone else remember Sunturion?

  I ...

• At July 15, 2007, Apodaca wrote:

  What the hell are Peter and Joy wearing in that last panel?

• At July 15, 2007, DanLarkin wrote:

  I bought this issue when it came out.

  Whatever happened to Joy Mercado? I always liked her.

• At July 15, 2007, Michael wrote:

  Dan Apodaca: They are wearing '80s clothes.

  Dan Larkin: I believe she was laid off during DeFalco's second run on Amazing. ...

• At July 15, 2007, Apodaca wrote:

  No way, man. Aside from her spandex pants, those are imaginary comic book clothes. The jackets don't look like any ...

• At July 15, 2007, stephen cade wrote:

  I liked this issue.

  The origin of the ROse was a highlight of Web.

  Probably the best issue they did--other than the ...

• At July 15, 2007, Chris Higgins wrote:

  Thats definitely Mark Silvestri on pencils.

• At July 16, 2007, SanctumSanctorumComix wrote:

  Apodaca,

  Actually, I think I had a jacket that looked a LOT like that back then.

  The jackets ended right at the ...

• At July 16, 2007, SanctumSanctorumComix wrote:

  Oh... almost forgot...

  that shirt he's wearing there...?

  Yeah... I had one like that too.

  A little "V" cut into the neck and ...

• At July 16, 2007, Apodaca wrote:

  Wow. I guess you people just wore really ugly clothes back then.

• At July 16, 2007, Bryan wrote:

  Just wait. In twenty years, everyone will be making fun of the clothes people are wearing now. "Can you believe ...

• At July 17, 2007, Apodaca wrote:

  Well, that's the thing. Plenty of people make fun of that style of dress now. I'll never understand people who ...

• At July 17, 2007, stephen cade wrote:

  I never wore my collar up--even in the 80's...

• At August 3, 2007, Chris wrote:

  Whoa! I never realised the troubles in Ireland had such a simple explanation! There's a lot of story in this ...

• At August 12, 2008, cooking wrote:

  ilqkh myfxale gszmdr msknf

• At August 13, 2008, water wrote:

  szlno bvkcqs

Of course, it wouldn't be nice of me to leave out what I'm doing with these posts!

Ragman #4 ("The Dream Killers") by Bob Kanigher and "The Redondo Studio," with a back-up story with art by Joe Kubert.  Published by DC, February-March 1977.

                      

Does anyone ever claim that the famous Superman holding Supergirl cover is an homage to this?  No?  Man, Joe Kubert was always getting the shaft.

I always thought that using "studios" for the art was a relatively modern sensation, but here we have a comic from 1977 doing it.  I assume the Redondo Studio had something to do with Joe Kubert.  Can anyone help explain the situation?

We begin with some purple prose, which isn't necessarily a bad thing: "Jeanne Wilson's face shone like a spring morning ... Her eyes glowed ... Her laugh was music!  Then -- the contents of a little white envelope lifted her to the clouds ... and toppled her into suffocating quicksand!"  We see Jeanne receive said envelope from a mysterious gloved hand, and then she dies.  Three "hyenas in human form" decide to dump her body into the river because if the cops spot her it will "raise heat" for them.  As they stand on the bridge, they see Ragman, who swoops down and dispatches them with ease.  But not without more purple prose: "The blazing eyes of Ragman cloud with sorrow ... as he kneels over the inert form of the dead young girl ... He moves the long hair out of the sightless eyes ..."  He says that she overdosed on stuff that's flooding the city, and unless the dealers are stopped, anyone could be next!!!!!!!!

        

There's a whole heck of a lot that's silly about the first three pages of this comic (what's the drug that kills Jeanne, who are the three hoods who are so scared about the death of one anonymous addict, why does this particular death spur Ragman into action?) but at least it sets up the issue - Ragman is some mysterious avenger who is going after drug dealers.  Fine.  On the next page Ragman is standing in the morgue, apparently by invitation, because the cops don't seem to mind, and the coroner tells the cop that he did an autopsy on a 12-year-old, and the cop says the drugs are coming into the city somehow, but they "can't get a handle on it!"  Ragman slips away to a "darkened junk shop" and enters, revealing his "civilian" identity of Rory Regan, "buyer of broken dreams and junk of which life is made!"  Kanigher never saw an exclamation point he didn't like, apparently!!!!

         

The next morning a woman named Bette and a young black kid named Teddy wake Rory up with the reminder that they're taking some of the kids from the orphanage to "Floating Funland."  Bette's though balloon before she enters the shop is: "Poor Teddy ... not able to see ... or to talk!  He's a brave youngster!"  I mention this because I'm going to keep track of how many times a character reminds us that Teddy can't see or talk.  It's rather humorous.  When next we see our hero, he's taking the ferry to Floating Funland, an amusement park built on an island in the harbor.  Rory tells Bette that he knew they'd make it, and Bette tells him it's only because they woke him, and it would have been a terrible disappointment to Teddy, because he "can't see or speak ... but he heard you promise ..."  That's twice in four panels that we're reminded of Teddy's issues.  They arrive at the park and meet Mr. Seriph, who built it.  He gives the kids silver coins and tells them to enjoy themselves.  I'm sorry, but maybe I've read too many comic books, but a person named "Seriph" just sounds sinister, despite the angelic connotations of the name.  The minute I saw that dude I didn't trust him.

                           

           "Their smiles ... and their sweet, sweet addiction to my drugs!!!!!"

The kids ride the roller coaster, circle the park in submarines, and have a grand time.  While they're on the submarines, Bette asks Rory: "See how Teddy touches the glass?"  Rory responds (say it with me): "Yeah, Bette!  Not being able to see ... or speak ... he uses his other senses as a supplement!  He can feel the water outside!"  When the exit the sub and head to the food court, Rory says to Bette, "Funny, Bette ... How much Teddy enjoys all this!  Even though he can't see or speak!"  That's four times in three pages, and twice in three panels.  Gee, I wonder if Teddy can see or speak?

              

     

              

Pop Quiz: What are Teddy's disabilities?  Cite your sources.  Also: is it just me, or does he look really creepy in that last panel?

As the ferry is leaving that night, Rory and Bette bask in the glow of happy kids and somehow don't mention that Teddy can't see or speak when suddenly a kid climbs over the railing at the top of the ferry and jumps in the water.  Rory dives in after him and manages to grab him, but his puny strength is no match for "the powerful harbor riptide" that "tears them apart" and drags "the boy like flotsam floating out to sea!"  Bette consoles him later, but that night, Ragman heads back to Floating Funland, where something smells fishy!  He's right on, naturally, as klieg lights blind him and "a cherubic smile and a cheery voice greet the Ragman's searing stare ..."  Yes, it's Mr. Seriph, and he throws a bunch of his silver coins at our hero.  Why?  Well, they give off an electrical charge and paralyze Ragman.  Like a true Bond villain, Mr. Seriph puts Ragman into a roller coaster car instead of shooting him in the head.  Why does he do this?  "The car will leave the track at its apex ... and land in the harbor!" he helpfully explains.  The car indeed flies out into the harbor, but Ragman wakes up in time to solve the entire mystery.  He spots one of the Funland submarines (through the windows of which Teddy was able to "feel" the water) and deduces that it operates off the track, and that's how they get the "stuff" in - they pick it up beyond the 12-mile limit and deliver it to Floating Funland.  Ragman gets out of the water and interrupts a transaction, "arms flashing like tireless steel pistons" as he "explodes like a raging inferno against the minions of greed and evil!"  He walks away from the unconscious bad guys, and the last we see of Mr. Seriph, he's sitting in a jail cell trembling because he's so scared of Ragman.  Ha!  Take that, drug pusher!!!!

              

The second story is a silent story that looks somewhat better because Kubert did the art, but it's not really noteworthy.  It shows three grave robbers who dig up a coffin with jewelry buried inside.  Ragman stops them, and they earn themselves an ironic death.  It's nice to look at, but that's about it.

           

So what can we learn from this relic of the past?  Well, comic book writing has gotten better, certainly, but does Kanigher give us enough information to follow the story?  Well, sure.  It's a perfectly fine story of a masked hero stopping a drug ring.  However, two things really weaken the story.  At no time do we find out if Ragman is super-powered in any way or if he's just a dude in a weird costume.  Personally, I know that later his costume is powered by souls, but we don't know if that's the case here.  He doesn't do anything supernatural to indicate that he's something more than a guy in a costume, and it seems strange that, with all the purple prose in this comic, Kanigher doesn't add something like "Ragman uses his strange grim power, given to him by the souls of the mournful dead that make up his costume, to uncover the wretched pushers who lurk in the children's happy paradise!"  We're left wondering.  A very minor point is that we're not sure what drug Seriph is pushing, exactly.  Ragman calls the drugs "the dream killers" and I guess we're supposed to assume the silver coins that Seriph gives out to the kids have something to do with it, but then what's the deal with the electrical charge the coins emit?  The interesting thing about these two points is that they could easily be cleared up with a couple of sentences.  In a comic where we're told four times that a minor character is blind and mute, it doesn't seem too much to ask.

                      

Kanigher does a nice job with Rory, however, and gives us a good feel for the comic book.  It's not a very good comic at all, but it does tell a story, features a weird hero with an interesting twist (Rory owns a junk store, which is kind of neat), and gives us a sense of both the hero and his alter ego.  I wanted a bit more information from Kanigher, but this would certainly be a good enough comic to entice people to come back.  Of course, as it turned out, this was the second-to-last issue of the series, but it probably deserved better.  Oh well.  Life, as they say, goes on.

              

(I put this up because I love that in 1977, we can get an advertisement based on The Maltese Falcon and people - presumably kids buying this - were expected to get it.  I also like "Petula Lorry," the "sniveling, shadowy henchwoman."  I mean, I was 6 in 1977 and was probably who this comic was aimed at, and I didn't know about The Maltese Falcon.  But I'm probably just an idiot.) 

20 Comments

• At July 1, 2007, sterg wrote:

  The Redondo studio, if memory serves, was a group of Filipino artists who worked for hire mostly for DC in ...

• At July 1, 2007, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  There was a terrific Ragman series in 1991 drawn by Pat Broderick, I think it was co-written by Keith Giffen ...

• At July 1, 2007, Lawwolfe wrote:

  Although I have absolutely nothing to back it up with, "The Redondo Studio" was probably connected to Nestor Redondo, the ...

• At July 1, 2007, jccalhoun wrote:

  I just googled Nestor Redondo studio and a few references came up but nothing terribly authoritative.

  Basically he was ...

• At July 1, 2007, Bill Reed wrote:

  Mr. Seriph is really Dan DiDio and I claim my ten dollars.

• At July 1, 2007, Anonymous wrote:

  Ragman, Ragman, does whatever a rag can!

  He's tough on crime and on stains!

• At July 1, 2007, Mantistotem wrote:

  Kanigher probably never wrote anything about Ragman's costume because, IIRC, that was a later development for the character (retcon maybe?).

  Originally ...

• At July 2, 2007, davidwynne wrote:

  Actually sounds like an okay comic, and the art looks really nice. The writing sounds pretty poor, but bsically of ...

• At July 2, 2007, Doug Atkinson wrote:

  Yes, the supernatural aspects of the character were added when he was re-invented in his early '90s mini-series. (One ...

• At July 2, 2007, The Mutt wrote:

  "Poor Teddy, pathetic wretch... doomed to a life of misery and degradation because he can't see... or speak. Say... you ...

• At July 2, 2007, Greg Hatcher wrote:

  Not only did Kanigher never meet an exclamation point he didn't like, he never found a plot point he couldn't ...

• At July 2, 2007, Greg Burgas wrote:

  I wasn't sure about the costume, as my first experience with Ragman was the Broderick mini-series, which brings it up. ...

• At July 2, 2007, Greg Geren wrote:

  Hey! I bought this comic brand new off the rack when it came out. As I remember Ragman's origin ...

• At July 2, 2007, "O" the Humanatee! wrote:

  Greg Geren is correct about Ragman's (original) origin; if memory serves, the "down-on-their-luck characters" Rory absorbed his abilities from were ...

• At July 2, 2007, Morgan wrote:

  Not to pick on Kanigher further, but his word choice in one of the spotlighted panels is pretty silly as ...

• At July 2, 2007, Richard wrote:

  "I always thought that using “studios” for the art was a relatively modern sensation..."

  Such studios were actually in place during ...

• At July 2, 2007, Aaron Kashtan wrote:

  Check this post, from Classic Comics forum regular MichikoS, for some information about the Redondo Studio and other related matters: ...

• At July 3, 2007, Greg Burgas wrote:

  I missed your comment, "O," but now I read it. Yes, I know that artists used studios way back ...

• At July 6, 2007, Moon Man wrote:

  For my money, overall, I would endorse most publications by DC and Marvel in the seveneties as "must-haves", when the ...

• At July 6, 2007, Phil Hester wrote:

  Nestor Redondo is one of the most underrated artists in mainstream comics. Ragman isn't up to his Swamp Thing standards, ...

Anyway, as usual, the rules of these posts can be found at this link.  This week's entry is a fond favorite to some people, but the first comic I've ever read starring the character.  Read on!

'Mazing Man #12 by Bob Rozakis, Stephen DeStefano, and Craig Boldman.  Published by DC, December 1986.

                     

'Mazing Man is spoken about in hushed tones around the Internet, as many people remember him fondly and with a wistful longing for the days when comics were more innocent and fun.  I, personally, have never read a comic with the character, and this presented a perfect opportunity.  Plus, I could consider whether it would be a good book for a first-time comic book reader!

                   

Personally, I wasn't the biggest fan of this comic.  It's a bit too cutesy, and although it has its charms, it just didn't do much for me.  But let's look at the two stories in this issue.  In the first story, Denton, who's a dog, is writing a script for his comic book.  His typewriter ribbon is shot to hell, though, so he needs to get a new one.  He and 'Mazing Man, whom everyone calls Maze (and so will I) and who wears a yellow bucket on his head, goes with him.  We learn something about Maze on the second page: he has money.  He gives it to Denton without expectation of repayment, and apparently has done so very often.  Denton and Maze head out into their neighborhood, which is apparently in Brooklyn, to find a new ribbon.  He heads to the store, but it's been replaced by a video store.  Denton remembers that he used to buy comics at a candy store and they occasionally carried office supplies, so he checks in there.  No luck.  He meets a new policeman who is very polite, unlike the one he remembers.  The typewriter store has converted to computer equipment, and the clerk digs up a box of ribbons in the back room.  Denton resists the urge to buy a computer.  Denton starts to feel melancholy because everything is changing around him.  He's about to turn 30 and he's feeling old.  As usual, Maze gets involved in an argument between two belligerent groups, and when Denton joins in, he gets his clock cleaned.  This leads to a final change - Maze has to type his script for him.  The story ends with a quote from St. Augustine:

Be always displeased with what thou art.  If thou desirest to attain to what thou art not ... always add, always walk, always proceed, neither stand still, nor go back, nor deviate.

Man, that St. Augustine could turn a phrase, couldn't he?

               

The second story is about Denton's thirtieth birthday.  Maze abducts Denton to his neighbor's apartment, where all his friends throw him a birthday party.  We learn that his sister is human, but not why he's, you know, a dog.  We also learn a little bit about his friend - one of them is pregnant, another keeps porn in his kitchen - and at the end, Denton gets a computer.  Maze gets him a scrapbook with pictures from his past so Denton won't be so upset about everything changing.  At least he can reminisce with his scrapbook!  This ends the issue, and, as it turns out, the series.  In the letters column, DC made some noise about bringing the series back, but all they could muster, apparently, were three specials in the next four years.

              

As I mentioned, I wasn't too impressed with this comic.  The art is charming and goofy and actually does a nice job of evoking a New York neighborhood and apartment building.  DeStefano gives the characters personalities and does a fine job with facial expressions throughout the book.  There's a lot of wonderful body language in the book, and DeStefano packs each panel with great details.  Despite the cartoonish quality of the art, the people look more real than a lot of comic book characters, and even 'Mazing Man, with his bucket and his boxer shorts on the outside of his clothes, looks like someone who put together a costume by himself.

              

The stories are simplistic and nostalgic, and although there's a nice wistfulness to them, they don't quite work for me.  (For instance, would a 30-year-old in 1986 really be that nostalgic for a typewriter?  It feels like Denton should be 50, not 30.  But that's just me.)  However, a first-time reader wouldn't have any problem with them as soon as he suspends his disbelief and stops wondering why this dog is wandering around New York talking to everyone (and, of course, there's that human sister of his).  Maze himself doesn't appear to have any powers, and from what we learn in the first story, he just likes to get involved and try to fix problems.  That's cool.  However, there's the suggestion that he's rich, plus there's the fact that he does dress up, so there's the hint of something deeper about Maze, but Rozakis never goes there.  What this book is for a first-time reader is a nice diversion, a way to connect, perhaps, with something from their past that mattered to them.  Denton is a bit young to be whining about how everything changes, maybe, but his nostalgia is heartfelt, and who hasn't indulged themselves in some self-pity now and then?  The birthday story is just a nice way to get all the friends together to bond.  It's nothing ground-breaking, but it's a comfort story.  That's really all Rozakis is going for.

              

A first-time comic book reader wouldn't necessarily need to learn the answers to the questions about the issue.  These are two decent stories that show many of the strengths of comic books.  That's good enough, because something like this might lead people to other comics.  It certainly won't drive them away.  If the stories are somewhat simplistic, they're still sweet, and they show a cute world with an anthropomorphic dog and a dude who wears a bucket on his head.  And what's wrong with that?

16 Comments

• At June 16, 2007, Norton Zenger wrote:

  I don't see anything wrong with a 30-year-old in '86 being nostalgic for a typewriter. I'm about that age ...

• At June 16, 2007, Greg Burgas wrote:

  I don't have a problem with Denton using a typewriter, just that he's so resistant to change. He seems ...

• At June 16, 2007, Alan wrote:

  Denton's not a dog - he has a dog-faced look about him, taken to cartoon extremes. I'm not sure issue ...

• At June 17, 2007, Lothor wrote:

  I've never spoken of Maze on the internet before now, but since I am speaking of him imagine I'm talking ...

• At June 17, 2007, MarkAndrew wrote:

  (For instance, would a 30-year-old in 1986 really be that nostalgic for a typewriter? It feels like Denton should ...

• At June 17, 2007, Greg Burgas wrote:

  Denton's NOT a dog? That's just weird. As for not being a good place to start, that's the ...

• At June 17, 2007, RAB wrote:

  Sorry, Greg, but Norton and Lothor are right. Nostalgia isn't a function of how old a person is, but ...

• At June 17, 2007, Apodaca wrote:

  Waitaminnit. Stuart Little isn't actually a mouse?

  How does he fit in that tiny car?

• At June 18, 2007, Barry wrote:

  "Wonder if the writers of the Stuart Little movie “borrowed” that from MM?!"

  Actually it is probably the other way around. ...

• At June 18, 2007, lauren wrote:

  As others have commented, in 1986, typewriters were still common. In all the office jobs I had, computers were ...

• At June 18, 2007, lauren wrote:

  As others have commented, in 1986, typewriters were still common. In all the office jobs I had, computers were ...

• At June 18, 2007, Lothor wrote:

  Barry, you'll notice I specified the *movie* version of Stuart Little, and I thought I specified in regard to the ...

• At June 23, 2007, Linkara wrote:

  I am curious, though - if the Frank Miller Batman and Carrie Kelly Robin aren't in the book, why are ...

• At July 2, 2007, pmorfnqowp wrote:

  Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! sscuqsvubnxvl

• At July 27, 2007, al wrote:

  what DeStephano has been up to since would fill volumes...very little as far as comic books go,(Instant Piano, Jingle Belle,Bizarro ...

• At August 13, 2009, Chris wrote:

  Wow! For the record, I was in love with the 'Mazing Man comic and bought every issue. I stopped buying ...

Today: a somewhat dark and depressing comic book.  Does that make it bad for new readers?  We shall see!

Hawkman #22 ("The Headhunter Part III: Blood and Lies") by Geoff Johns, Rags Morales, and Michael Bair.  Published by DC, February 2004.

                      

I am not terribly squeamish when it comes to comic books.  I have plenty of comic books in my possession in which one person does horrible things to another person, and I find many of them very good stories.  I am currently enjoying one of the bloodiest comics in the mainstream, Moon Knight.  I just wanted to point that out as we dip into Hawkman #22, which is a thoroughly bloody comic book and is rather unpleasant to boot.  I will get to my contradictory attitude at the end.

First, what about the first-time comic book reader?  What information do we get from this?  On the first page, above a panel with Hawkman facing off against six bad guys with a seventh leading them, we get a long explanation of who Hawkman is.  A long-time comic book reader would be (and has been) puzzled by the convoluted history of Hawkman, but Johns (or whoever wrote this) does as good a job as can be done:

Thousands of years ago, an Egyptian Prince and his Princess discovered an alien spacecraft from the planet Thanagar.  The ship was powered by a mysterious antigravity element they called Nth metal.  The unearthly energies of the Nth metal, enhanced by the strength of their love, transformed the souls of the Prince and Princess.  For centuries, they were reincarnated, life after life, destined to meet one another and rekindle their love ... until today ... Today they are Carter Hall and Kendra Sanders, archaeologists and adventurers.  The Winged Warriors known as HAWKMAN and HAWKGIRL!

Now, while that's certainly goofy, it at least tells a linear story that allows us to get right to the point: the main characters' names, their jobs, and their superhero names.  As a long-time comic book reader, I wonder what the hell happened to Shayera, but that's not important right now.  We're into the story.

                

We're in a graveyard, and Hawkman is facing off against what must be zombies, as one of them is dressed like an English soldier of the 17th century and another looks like an Old West gunslinger.  Their leader wears a mask and carries a bunch of shrunken heads, which appear to be talking to him.  Hawkman rushes his enemies, brandishing a double ball mace (or maybe it's a flail) and decked out with a sword and a different mace.  On the splash page, we get a taste of the bloodshed to come.  It's a very nice drawing of Hawkman among his enemies, as his swing of the mace somehow rips open the wrist of the gunslinger, wounds the gunslinger on the chest right above where his heart would be, chops off his other hand at the wrist, smashes a knight right in the face, shattering his helmet, and ends up behind Hawkman.  That, to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld paraphrasing Kevin Costner, is one magic mace!  Morales lovingly shows the blood spurting from all four wounds, too.

  

On the next page Hawkman decapitates a foe with his shield and explains to the readers, if we haven't figured it out yet, that the bad guys are already dead, so it's okay to slaughter them.  I wonder why the corpses he's fighting have blood in them, but maybe I'm thinking too much.  Hawkman loses his shield (presumably it's still lodged in the bad guy's neck), but kills another bad guy with his sword, then fires a crossbow bolt into another one.  The guy with the shrunken heads, meanwhile, is telling him not to "trade in [his] soul for civilization," whatever that means.  Finally, Hawkman kills all the bad guys, but Shrunken Head Dude is gone.  Covered with blood, Hawkman crashes to his knees.  He's bummin'.

             

The scene shifts to "St. Roch University."  We guess that this is the town in which Hawkman lives, but we don't find that out until later in the issue.  A group of students congregate outside of the office of "Professor Anthony Manus" (the Hands of Fate?) whinging about their grades (it's never explained why Carter is in Professor Anthony Manus' office, or if it's his alias or not).  A woman pushes her way through, muttering that she needs to talk to Carter.  She opens the door and finds a bloody Hawkman standing inside, clutching what appears to be a doll (or, because he's manly, an "action figure") and glowering.  "Class is cancelled," he says, and the kids scatter.  The woman, Kendra, enters and asks what happened.  Carter tells her not to touch him and then says, with a maniacal look in his eyes, that the Headhunter is right.  He says that despite his veneer of culture, he's a creature of violence, a warrior.  He implies that he and Kendra were an item, but he encouraged her to find her own path in life.  Apparently, they've discussed this before, because Kendra says she wasn't saying he was a monster.  He interrupts to say that this isn't about them.  He adds, "For the first time in a long time, I am simply awake.  For the first time in forever, I finally realize not who I am ... but what I am.  I belong in a different time.  A harder time."  Kendra says that she's his friend, and she's not going to let him go through what she went through when her parents were murdered.  We learn she was angry at everyone, but her grandfather saved her.  When she tried to commit suicide, he was there to give her hope.  Carter says he's glad her grandfather loves her so selflessly, because someone like him could never do that.  He smashes the window as he flies away, despite Kendra calling after him.  She picks up the doll, which we see is in the form of Hawkman, and yells at the curious students just for the hell of it.

             

Hawkman bashes a mugger on the head as he flies by, just to show he's bad-ass, but then we pick up Kendra's trail as she enters the "Voodoo District" of the city.  Boy, you don't suppose there's a mysterious black woman she's going to talk to, do you?  Well, of course there is!  Except this woman knows Kendra through her granddaughter, who told her Kendra was coming.  Kendra gives the voodoo chick, Miss Morrison, the doll, and Miss Morrison immediately knows that the Headhunter has returned to St. Roch.  She tells Kendra that he's not a man, and then she launches into a history of the town.  Apparently no one knows when the city was established, it just appeared one day.  St. Roch attracts "lost souls, oddities, thing that can't or shouldn't exist."  She explains that in the 1930s, explorers found the Jivaro tribe in Ecuador, and shrunken heads became a novelty for the rich.  A legend tells of a great headhunter coming to America to infiltrate the tribes here.  He wanted to find knowledge that would save his family from the commercialism of the outside world.  In 1937, he killed several prominent members of St. Roch society.  While he was here, however, his family and tribe abandoned the old ways and embraced the modern world, so he was left without something to protect.  Miss Morrison says that since then, every few years headless corpses are found in the city.  Kendra says he must be a hundred years old, and Miss Morrison says he's older than that.  Kendra asks what they can do, and Miss Morrison tells her they can only wait until he's not thirsty anymore and moves on.  Hawkman will have none of that!

            

We switch back to Carter, who's sitting on the roof of a building.  Suddenly the Headhunter appears next to him, carrying a shirt and tie.  He tells Hawkman to put it on, because that's his real disguise.  When Carter hesitates, the Headhunter realizes that he has embraced who he really is and is now ready to join them.  He tells Hawkman that progress and civilization will not corrupt Hawkman as it did his tribe.  Hawkman doesn't want to talk, just fight, and he leaps at the Headhunter, knocking him off the building and to the ground.  The heads tell the Headhunter to take Carter's head, but Carter bashes him with his mace.  The Headhunter lies against a car, and Hawkman flies into him and drives him right through it, destroying the car in the process.  I don't know why that particular panel is so ridiculous to me, as most comic book fights defy the laws of physics.  But it just is.

            

Hawkman pulls a head off of the Headhunter's necklace and crushes it.  Now he's just being mean!  The Headhunter shoves his scythe into Carter's side and tells him he won't steal any more memories.  As he's about to slice Hawkman in two, our hero grabs his forearm and snaps the bone in two.  He wrenches the scythe from the Headhunter's grasp and slices his head clean off, in full-page glory:

                    

As he reaches for the head, there's a bright light, and then the body, carrying the head, takes off like a rocket.  Seriously:

Kendra flies down to talk to Carter, who doesn't care what she knows about the Headhunter, just that he was an enemy.  Kendra tells him they need to get back to normal, and he says for him, "this is normal."  The final page of the issue shows him sticking a trident in one of DC's shark bad guys, leaving a lance in the shoulder of some white supremacist dude (there's a burning cross and hooded people in the background), and smashing some other guy's face in.  The last panel shows him carrying his mace covered in blood, as usual.  Meanwhile, several messages on his answering machine play over the carnage.  In the first, someone named "Ray" asks him to pick up the phone and says he's not going to "jump through it," he just wants to talk.  In the second message, the dean at the university informs him that he's been fired, and in the last one, Kendra wonders what's going on, as he doesn't leave his loft during the day and he disappears at night.  She asks, "What's happened to you?  What's happened ... to us?"  Oh, the drama!

             

Considered as part of a bigger story, this isn't bad.  The violence is unpleasant, but it doesn't bother me all that much.  It seems vaguely gratuitous, but not overly so.  I mentioned above that I enjoy Moon Knight, and that's pretty violent, but I think it's done better in that book.  But we're here to consider whether this works for someone buying a comic book for the first time.  Does it do a good job laying out the particulars of the Hawkman world?  For the most part, yes.  We learn about Carter's city and his job and his problems with adjusting to a world where warriors aren't really the heroes they used to be.  Johns fails to really give us the actual relationship between Carter and Kendra - are they former lovers, just friends, teacher and student?  We don't know.  He implies that they were once lovers, but we don't know.  The Headhunter's origin is explained, but we have no idea why he appears supernatural.  Miss Morrison implies that he is, but we have no clue why he's able to live so long or survive having his head cut off.  The issue also leads into a bigger story, which is fine if you're a regular reader, but might bother a first-timer who is looking for some sort of resolution.  It's a question of whether you're interested enough with what you've read so far.

               

The biggest problem Hawkman #22 has in drawing in new readers is how unpleasant it is.  To go back to Moon Knight: I like it, but I'm probably not recommending it for a new reader.  Hawkman does not act like a hero at all in this comic, and the bloodshed is a bit much.  If you're looking for a comic book with a superhero fighting bad guys, you're not going to find it here.  This is a thoroughly depressing comic in which the titular character basically goes insane.  Johns can spin it that he's "reclaiming his warrior roots," but he doesn't believe that, and neither does Morales, who often draws Carter with "crazy eyes" (Morales' art in the issue is very good, by the way).  It's not even that well-written a descent into madness, either.  Despite the fact that it's not a bad issue in a long-running title, it's not like Johns is writing King Lear or anything.  He takes the short cut to crazy, so a new reader might wonder why Carter goes so nuts so quickly.  Presumably Johns has been laying the groundwork in earlier issues, but it still feels somewhat abrupt here.  For someone who thinks that this is going to be a DC comic starring a superhero who does the right thing, this would be a big disappointment.  I'm predicating my opinions on the idea that people know that superheroes might not be for kids anymore, but they're still about, you know, heroes.  Johns is going for something completely different, and the problem with this book for a new reader is that it's too mature for kids but too immature for adults.  Therefore, it's frustrating to read.  And I doubt it would make someone pick up another comic book, unless they think Hawkman hacking bad guys up is kewl (and I guess a lot of people do think that).

           

For me, personally, I kind of liked this comic.  It doesn't do anything to help convince me that Johns isn't bloodthirsty (he was slaughtering people long before JSA, apparently), but it's a pretty interesting look at Hawkman.  I've always been daunted by the convoluted history of the character, so I don't know if this would make me go get the rest of the series, but it's not a bad comic.  It's just not terribly accessible to new readers, and its violence may turn many people off.  Or, you know, maybe not.

And no, I have no idea what's going on on the cover.  That's the Headhunter, with shrunken heads of Hawkman and Hawkgirl.  I don't know how he's levitating them.  He doesn't appear to have that ability in the book.  How dare you question a cool composition!!!!

5 Comments

• At May 27, 2007, Lucion wrote:

  My interest is piqued!

  Unfortunately, whenever I see an interesting comic featured in these columns it is usually something I will ...

• At May 27, 2007, Jon H wrote:

  More disturbing than the mere violence in this was the issue of Micronauts that showed a big device for industrial ...

• At May 27, 2007, Jon H wrote:

  Oh, oddly enough, Philadelphia has, or had, a 'voodoo store', which looked damned authentic. I believe the operators were black, ...

• At May 27, 2007, Andrew Collins wrote:

  God, was this really 2004? I remember the hype surrounding the 'streamlining' of Hawkman and I remember buying this issue ...

• At May 29, 2007, sharon wortman farnham wrote:

  To violent for me but that is the trend today violence and more violence.