The 40 Years of Comics Project - Weekend Edition

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In an effort to not make me hate writing completely, I think my weekend comics will be blogged this way. Just a short note and some thoughts I had on each one.

Day 2419 - Generation Gone #1 by Ales Kot and Andre Lima Araujo. A cool concept, which I've come to expect from Mx. Kot. They are a writer that wears their Grant Morrison influence on their sleeve. Like me with Marillion or Ween. 3 hackers steal some code that causes structural changes in their bodies and gives them superpowers. And they're angry young people.

Day 2420 - Porn Star Fantasies #7 by Xenia Blue, Crystal Gold, Paradise, and Chuck Bordell. This series reprints the fictional stories that are back-ups in the "True Stories of Adult Film Stars" series. I don't know how much of the "True Stories" series is actually true. I like to think that most of it is, if embellished for creative reasons somewhat. The biographical pieces, almost to a fault, tell the stories of women who really like sex, but are told that it's not okay for young women to like sex. And then they discover the porn industry and their own power. I'm sure there's some shady as fuck stuff that is left out, but the takeaway is that, if true, each of these women entered this industry not because they were abused or broken, but because they were people who loved sex in a world that told them that women shouldn't.

Though maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic in that reading.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2417: Vixen Wars #3, 1993

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I know, I know. But after yesterday's superlative read, I wanted to bounce right over to the other side of the spectrum and read something truly, truly bad. As I noted in my previous review of this series, Vixen Wars is truly, truly bad.

Now, I'm trying to be a more positive person, so let's find some good things about the story. First, and foremost, the narrative features a society that has switched completely to non-lethal weaponry. In this issue, the action of which was pretty nonsensical, it's only the men who wield lethal bullets in their guns.

So that's one thing.

The cover is pretty nice, too. The most notable thing about Vixen Wars is its early feature of the work of Georges Jeanty. I honestly don't know how Mr. Jeanty feels about this early work, but the quality of some (only some) of the draftsmanship on the book points to the more notable, and mature, works that have come from a very talented artist.

I can't quite peg the political stance of the book. While women are in charge, they still all dress like they're on Playboy TV. The women champion non-lethal conflict, while the men are still cast as uncaring killers. Are non-lethal weapons good, or is the comic arguing that only final solution offering weapons can properly assert power?

Honestly, I don't think I care. I've got two more issues of the series, so I think they'll be on the upcoming docket. With comics that are bad, I sometimes just want to read them to get them out of the way. Trouble is I'd have to dedicate a ridiculous amount of time to the bad comics I have from the 90s, and it might just kill my love for the hobby. Variation it is then.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2411: Martian Manhunter Special #1, 1996

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 Publisher: DC Comics

Writer: Paul Kupperberg

Artist: Mike Collins

I fully admit I have not read a lot of the solo J'onn J'onzz material. When his solo series began back in the early 2000s, I checked it out, but it didn't resonate with me, even though the Ostrander/Mandrake creative team had done some amazing things with the Spectre. I wonder if the Manhunter is one of those characters who, because of his remarkable power set, is a difficult one to write dramatically. Much like Superman, J'onzz is virtually unstoppable. Granted, his Achilles' heel (fire) is a lot more accessible and prevalent than something like kryptonite. Having a more ubiquitous weakness allows perhaps for more drama.

But I don't know why he doesn't pull me in like some other heroes. He's cut from the same cloth as a well-done Superman, or Starman, or Wonder Woman. But, I think, some characters have yet to find their personal genre, and perhaps J'onzz is one of them. While we may have had some great stories, I don't think the character has found his great story yet.

Today's story was pretty good, some spacebound conflict in which the Manhunter gets embroiled. But, as with a lot of Paul Kupperberg's work, I found it to be a competent superhero story, but not a great one.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2410: Two-Fisted Tales #7, April 1994

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Publisher: Russ Cochran

Writer: Harvey Kurtzman & Ed Rock

Artists: Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Johnny Craig, John Severin

We're coming up to the end of Year 7, and, as I noted in the last post, this year has been difficult. Hell, the last couple of years have been difficult, but that's the same story that everyone has right now, so at least I'm not alone. But I've quit my delivery job, I'm having a go at writing full time, and I love it, and I want to get the project up and running again.

I don't read, or generally consume, media that has to do with war or crime. They're two human activities that I am pretty much against hallowing through art. Unless, that is, the art is decrying the darker natures that lead us to these pursuits. While I acknowledge that they're fertile places for stories to be told, the sometimes celebratory atmosphere of such tales makes me uncomfortable. But when Mike at the Purple Gorilla suggests something to me, I'd be a fool not to listen. And, of course, the tales in this comic don't celebrate war - they decry it and point to the horrible inequities and violence that grow from it.

That said, as much as the stories and art were fucking brilliant, it didn't resonate with me as much as the horror and sci-fi titles coming out of the company at the same time. I have a much easier time finding my metaphors in things that I can fully divorce from reality. In stories that take place in less-stylized settings, I sometimes have a hard time finding the piece of the tale that resonates with me. Perhaps that's something to keep in mind as I move on.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2355: Doctor Tomorrow #2, October 1997

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Publisher: Acclaim Comics

Writer: Bob Layton

Penciller: Dean Zachary

Cover Artist: Unknown, though suggested to be Butch Guice

I made a bit of a blunder this Remembrance Day and posted something on Facebook that hurt the feelings of a good friend of mine who serves in the military. Still trying to figure out how to apologize. But today's comic actually brings me back to something I raised in that post, and that's the rhetoric used to describe historical wars. Or, rather, recent historical wars, rather than all historical wars. The three-issue opening arc on Dr. Tomorrow is titled "The Glory War," and chronicle's the character's origins in the opening days of the Second World War. It's this notion of glory that set my blood boiling a bit this November. All we seem to hear about Remembrance Day is about the glory, about the honour, about the sacrifice, about how heroic it was that these brave young men and women gave their lives in defense of their country. And not just in the sense that some did not return from the battlefields - some did and still gave their lives. My Grandad was such a person, battered and scarred, from all that I can tell, from his experiences in WW2. Yet still, despite the cost in lives and lifetimes, we still revere these young people, we still only remember the glory, the honour, and not the fact that they were sent to die often for reasons that had nothing to do with what they were told. I'll stop there. That's not the point of this post. But that rhetoric of reverence for people who were sent, in some cases unwillingly, to war just rubs me the wrong way.

The character of Dr. Tomorrow appears first in the Acclaim Universe in 1941-42, as far as I can tell. Only a few years after Action Comics #1 goes on sale and kicks off the Golden Age of Superheroes. It's not a new device for installing a history into a newly-created shared narrative, but it's a good one. As we recognize various ages of comics, we also recognize how those ages work together to create the foundations of a shared narrative universe. When writing a story of the Golden Age of a setting, there are certain signs and signals that let us know what kind of a history is being installed. It's a superheroic history, of course, but that isn't just communicated by the captions and artwork - it's communicated in the way that the comic is in dialogue with the actual, "real world" history of the superhero genre. Like giving your hero an origin point near to the first big three DC heroes. In Gerard Way's take on Doom Patrol, he hints at a figure called the God of Superheroes, the Platonic form of all of the superheroes that have come since. By stationing Dr. Tomorrow so close to the early originals, the comic signals that he is to become a template figure for the shared universe moving forward, similarly to how Captain America has been positioned in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sadly, I'm not sure Acclaim's version of the Valiant Universe lasted long enough for any of this admitted speculation to come to fruition.

But we got a pretty cool comic series out of it. Oh, and today's issue is a tribute to Will Eisner and his early Spirit adventures.

"I made it a rule to never look into the future more than a year at a time."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2354: Doctor Tomorrow #1, September 1997

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(Yeah, yeah, 2 in a row. Contain yer excitement 😏 Going to try a bit of a format change for a while, see how it feels.)

Publisher: Acclaim Comics

Writer: Bob Layton

Penciller: Don Perlin

Cover Artist: Mike Mignola

I've had this one kicking about the collection for about 20 years now. I started finding Acclaim comics in the comic bin at a used bookstore in Kitchener, ON, that I'm sure has gone the way of most used bookstores nowadays. It's where I first found Quantum & Woody, and where I started poking my nose into the Valiant/Acclaim universe. I've always found the idea of a historically presented superhero universe, like Astro City, for example, and this series is a cool way for the Acclaim superhero universe, relatively new, to establish a history for itself.

I don't really know much about the series, having only read this issue, but I'm intrigued by the premise, though I have inklings already, of an ontological paradoxical nature, about what's going to happen.

Or, perhaps I think I do, except that I don't. Bear with me. The series is the brainchild of writer/inker Bob Layton. Each issue has a different art team, and is presented in tribute to a particular luminary of Comics' history. Today's is a paean to Jack Kirby. I'm missing a couple of the later issues, which I may try to track down in the next few days, but I noticed at some point that Mr. Layton's name does not appear on the final issue. And, being, as far as I can tell, a fairly open company about the ways things work behind the scenes, there's an explanation in the back matter of the final issue. According to this, Layton asked to have his name removed from the issue because he had differences with the editorial department over how the series should end. The editorial side had plans for a character from later in the series that must have somehow conflicted with Mr. Layton's, as the writer, original ending.

That got me thinking about The Eternals. Not the movie, but the mid-80s maxi-series from Marvel that dropped around the same time as Squadron Supreme. The last four issues of that series, originally helmed by Peter B. Gillis, were written by Walt Simonson. It's been a while since I've looked, but I imagine the excuse given for Gillis' departure is similar to that given for Layton's. I wondered, briefly, why this might be the case until I realized that by the end of the series, there would have been significant sales figures for previous issues, indicating whether or not it was worthwhile to continue the character/series somehow. And that continuity, the imposition of the shared narrative universe, on what looks to be a story with a definite end, has to cause some ruptures. Perhaps I'll look into it a bit more over the next few days as I continue Dr. Tomorrow's cool-ass history.

"Who is this mysterious man from the future who has joined forces with the allied march into Europe?"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2169: Eternal Thirst #4, 1990

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 Nazis and Vampires and Spies, oh my!

In an effort to return to semi-daily writing, I decided to return to alphabetically reading my collection, albeit alphabetical by publisher name, as that's how the collection is organized at the moment. Making my way through the A miscellaneous section has been interesting - some good stuff, some truly not good stuff. But that's how comics go, and I'd never want them to change.

Honestly, the thing that struck me most about this comic, one that tells the origin of the vampire spy on the cover at the hands of a Nazi scientist during the Second World War, is that swastika up on the cover. While I was working at the Glenbow Museum, I'd often take students on tours through our "Warriors" gallery. Amongst the swords and armour where definitely a few bits of Nazi memorabilia, and it fascinated the kids for some reason. I always tried to contextualize it for them, but sometimes kids just like things because they're not supposed to. I get it though. When I was growing up, the Nazis were a really great bad guy to have, because you could get away with doing anything to them and no one was going to complain. To a certain extent it's still the same, but now we have actual neo-Nazis on the world stage, much more in view than they used to be, and it's harder to use them as entertainment. For the kids at the museum, they haven't really connected the evil villains they might have some notion of with the violent lunatics who hijacked the American government for the last few years. Though, perhaps, that's a good thing. Leave them unburdened while we can, as the burden never leaves once you take it on.

Another interesting thing about today's comic is it features early work by Paul Pelletier, whose work on Mark Waid's Flash is amongst my favourite stories. It's cool to see where some artists and writers get their beginnings, and to see where they eventually end up.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2113: Next Men #7, September 1992

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Well, almost made it. I'll finish off my look at Next Men with today's issue, which really is kicking off the next section of the storyline, but is also the last consecutive issue I have. I may hold off from reading the rest of them, as I'm intrigued enough to track down what I'm missing. I recently read that Byrne has had the whole story planned out ahead of time, so I'm curious to see the end.

That said, my wrists have been bad this week. Briefly, this series is totally worth tracking down and reading. Excellent take on super-powered beings and how they work in "the real world."

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2110: Next Men #4, May 1992

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Okay, I'm in. This is a very cool story, and there's some really dark shit going on. A few days ago I noted that this series appears around the same time as the Image revolution, one that used the trappings of darkness to make their products seem cool without having, really, much substance. Byrne is going the other direction here, offering us a series that, because he drew it, hearkens back to the Copper Age stories, with some drama and some darkness, but that, substantially, seems to have a very grim back story. The discovery by Jazz and Bethany of a cave full of skeletons gives us a taste of the two aesthetics coming together, but there's a twist when the weird alien that we assume is responsible for the skeletons starts speaking and recognized the women.

As I say, I'm in. Byrne obviously has this story plotted in his head, and it shows in the consistency of not only the art but also the story. The beats are arranged very well, giving just the right combinations of intrigue, action, and relaxation. I'm excited to see what happens tomorrow.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2109: Next Men #3, April 1992

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 The chaos surrounding the Next Men has an outcome at the end of today's comic that I think I would have liked to see play out in our reality some time in the last four years. The final page of the issue has the Vice President of the US on a plane heading...somewhere...when all of a sudden, with no explanation, the plane blows up and he dies. If only Mike Pence had suffered a similar fate. I try not to wish death on people. I think that's a pretty karmically dodgy thing to do. But the current, and outgoing, American administration was, in my opinion, simply evil, demonstrating everything that is bad about the US, Capitalism, and organized religion, all useful ideas if deployed with kindness and generosity. The people in charge now don't know what those words mean

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2108: Next Men #2, March 1992

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I'm having to rethink my relationship with John Byrne. I've often found the arrogance I've perceived in interviews as very off-putting, a case of an artist buying their own hype, as I've noted before. And I do think that there's some of that there. On the other hand, again as I've noted, Byrne is a fantastic artist, and given the space that a creator-owned book allows, his writing's not too shabby either. I'm definitely on my way to being sucked into this story.

One thing I'm really appreciating is the Next Mens' inability to accept that the world they find themselves in is, in fact, the more real one. And this isn't communicated in exposition, but rather in the characters attempting something odd that, from their reactions, you can tell worked during their time in The Greenery.

There's also a much larger story going on, which is kind of cool. Often you'll have origin stories like this and then the characters just fuck off and become superheroes. This story is starting to read a lot less like superhero fiction and more like science fiction, so we'll see where things go as we progress. I've been surprised to this point. Hopefully that will continue.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2107: Next Men #1, February 1992

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Okay. Today's comic actually came from the recent collection I bought. There's not a lot more information revealed in today's comic. It's more a continuation of the escape that ends the previous issue. We're still somewhat in the dark about who the Next Men are and what and how they can do things. Having lived in a virtual reality all their lives, there are moments where the differences between the real world and the virtual world are pointed out. At one point Danny, the speedster, has to stop because he has blisters on his feet that he's never had there before. And Jack tries to "make" a weapon like the guns being used against the group out of thin air, perhaps suggesting that there was an aspect of wish fulfillment in The Greenery, their virtual prison.

Once again, brilliant layout work, and, given the era, a very different take on superheroes. It's worth remembering that this is the time of Liefeld and McFarlane over at Marvel and then Image, so Byrne's work here is not only reacting to that, but demonstrating, at least to me, a different way superheroes went during a traditionally pretty silly era.

I have the first 8 issues consecutively, so I'll probably make my way through those this week. More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2106: Next Men #0, February 1992.

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 I don't know if I mentioned it a few weeks back, but I bought a small collection from a seller on Kijiji. I allowed myself half of it and divided the rest up into three chunks that I'm "gifting" myself over the next few months. Today was the first chunk, and it contains a nice run of this comic. Except the issue I'm reading today is from my collection, and has been awhile. It reprints the preludes to the Next Men ongoing series from Dark Horse Presents.

I didn't know this when I sat down to read issue number one this afternoon. I was very confused by the events of the comic. Thank goodness the dark recesses of my brain managed to recall that I had a zero issue of the series, or I thought I did, and lo and behold, it appeared.

I've not been kind to John Byrne on this blog, but I have to give credit where credit is due. He's a really, really good comics artist. I just think he's one of those people, and you have them in every industry, who thinks he's more important than he actually is. He did some spectacular runs on some of the biggest superheroes, but that doesn't mean that his voice ought to be counted for more than newer, or less famous, voices. This is always the sense I get from him when I've read interviews. I really should just avoid reading interview.

The end of Byrne's Fantastic Four was one of the first Marvel comics I collected. Before I read Jonathan Hickman's run on the team, I always thought that Byrne got the super-family dynamic just right, though I'll admit it's been a while since I've read it. I'm curious to see how this particular team of Next Men (and Women) evolves. Given the artist's huge successes with team books prior to writing this one, I wonder if we'll see things that are familiar from Byrne's earlier team books, but refined through the lens of experience.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2103: Ghost #8, November 1995

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The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2097: Gen 13 #1 Encore Edition, August 1997

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The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2092: Ghost #4, July 1995

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The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2087: Neil Gaiman's Wheel of Worlds #0, April 1995

 Just how much involvement Neil Gaiman had in this comic is hard to determine, really, though the concepts definitely scream Gaiman. Lady Justice was one of the first comics I picked up as I was getting slowly back into the hobby in the mid-90s. I was drawn by the Dan Brereton covers, and Gaiman's name, but they never really drew me in. Having revisited the world of the Wheel of Worlds recently, it's a little more intriguing, though doesn't seem as fresh as it might have 25 years ago. I may well try to track down the Teknophage series, as the character is like an evil, flesh-eating Morpheus, and I'd love to know how his story spins out.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2038: Amazing Spider-Man #415, October 1996

 

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I'm having a bit of a pain day today, so I'll talk a bit more about the "Onslaught" crossover tomorrow. Which might be more appropriate because, really, not much happens to further the plot in today's comic.

And there's two Peter Parkers? What's that all about?

(Yes, I know it's the infamous Clone Saga. I'm being facetious.)

 So, I like Mr. Bagley's art - he of Thunderbolts can do no wrong. And, as far as superheroes battling giant robots, it did the trick. But not much else.

 More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2037: Generation X #19, September 1996

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I find it appropriate that I return to blogging (after a fucking month!) with a series of which I'm quite overly fond. I loved The New Mutants, and Generation X was a fantastic follow-up to the tales of young mutants that I grew up with. While the whole mutant metaphor is very useful for telling stories about marginalized groups, the onset of mutation, in puberty, also makes it a perfect vehicle for telling stories about growing up.

 So, a month off, and my wrists and thumbs are slightly better, but not much. The job I'm doing now is not super great for my pain, but it's a worthwhile endeavour, and I've had so many people tell me how appreciative they are for my efforts. Who knew that delivering groceries would be so fulfilling?

 That said, we're well into the Onslaught crossover here. I don't have all of the parts, but I figured I had enough to finally sit down and read a good, multi-title event. I think I probably got most of the parts of this crossover from my initial purchase of a comic collection from Cover to Cover Books when I was in the process of opening up my comic store. I started getting back into comics around the time that this crossover was happening, but I was much more into DC at the time.

The crossover itself is pretty great, and though there were subsequent problems, the Image-led reboots of The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and Captain America were not terrible. Once Liefeld left, anyway. My Marvel re-introduction actually came from one of the series that spins out of this crossover, the amazing, fantastic Thunderbolts. I'll say a bit more about the actual Onslaught event tomorrow.

I love Generation X, particularly this initial Scott Lobdell/Chris Bachalo run. Mr. Bachalo's sense of panel layout and composition is just amazing. He and Mr. Lobdell seem unafraid to be very explicit about the materiality of their medium, breaking the fourth wall constantly and placing a sometimes Greek Chorus-level of exposition and commentary outside of the action of the comic. It's hard to describe, but today's comic is introduced by a talking toad whom we follow from event to event through the comic. Have I mentioned at all that this is actually a very strange comic, quite unlike the rest of the X-titles from the same era? Probably why I like it so much.

So, I'm back, hopefully. We'll see if I can keep it up.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

A few more pieces on Chris Bachalo.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1997: Brigade #1, July 2000

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This, I think, is the last comic published by Awesome Entertainment. At least, it's got the latest cover date on it. With Awesome, though, that's not always an indicator of when the comic was actually released.

Brigade started off as an Extreme Studios team book way back in the 90s, and this reboot takes a similar tack in bringing together characters from various corners of the Awesome U and putting them in a situation in which they have to help one another. It's a bit contrived, but, honestly, would have made a really cool series had it had the chance to play out. I'm not totally familiar with Dash of the New Men, but her narration of this comic is really well done, as is her reticence at rejoining the superheroic lifestyle.

So what happens to the Awesome U after this issue? In some ways, the revision wave that began the whole thing sweeps across. Some characters are completely lost. Some find their way out of Limbo (that's a Grant Morrison Animal Man reference) and into new series, but not for many years after the dissolution of this wonderful shared narrative space. Bits and pieces of the world are carried along in these series, but none of them are as interwoven as the comics of the Awesome U were, which diminishes the series somewhat. In my humble opinion, of course.

There are a couple of other bits and pieces of the Awesome U I need to track down, most notably The Coven. Once I've got them, we'll pop back into the mystical side of the universe, but aside from that we're pretty much done. Sad, but immensely satisfying too.

More to follow.