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 2353: Valiant FCBD 2016 - 4001 A.D. Prologue

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I honestly hadn't intended for there to be months between posts anymore, but, y'know, holy shit life gets in the way sometimes. I've been channeling a lot of my creative energies into music over the last few months, managing to compile three full albums of music that I hope to somehow release to the world once I figure out a good way to do so. And comics have fallen by the wayside.

Sort of.

I've kept up with the reading, and since we last met I've made my way through most of the Harris Comics content in the collection. I've come to appreciate Vampirella a bit more now - I made the classic mistake of seeing what she looked like and assuming that was the be-all and end-all of the character. It's shocking to realize, only every now and again thankfully, how much that kind of thinking, especially with regard to women, has been intrinsically programmed into my psyche. I've been thinking a lot lately about the ways that I have to deprogram myself from the toxically masculine behaviours that were performed as the norm for me when I was still learning how to human. Going back to school helped in a big way, but moments like this remind me that I have to remain vigilant.

So, yeah, Vampirella's a kick-ass lady who uses her scantily-clad appearance to stop enemies in their tracks, giving her the opening to kill the hell out of them. And she's battling in an America that's been, in some ways, taken over by all the creatures of the night that we fear. And her boyfriend's a creature-hunting congressman. It's all pretty great and ridiculous, and just good comics.

After that, I decided to dive into the Valiant/Acclaim publishing universe. There's a couple of longer runs in there that I skipped over, and will perhaps start on tomorrow, but I'm glad I did my overview first, as the Valiant/Acclaim universe is one with which I'm only tangentially familiar. I was a fan of the Acclaim Comics iteration in the early Naughts, but only, sadly, as that line was imploding. Quantum & Woody still ranks as one of the best superhero stories I've read, and I only wish Mr. Priest and Mr. Bright had been able to finish telling their story. I'll talk more about that soon, I hope. All that said, I'm going to be a little more on the lookout for Valiant/Acclaim stuff when I'm doing my dollar bin or TPB buying. I've managed to read bits and pieces across about 4 different iterations of this universe, as far as I can tell, and each of them have been really quite good. I think I used to link Valiant to Image too much, as the most prominent Valiant exposure I've had was their crossover with early Image in Deathmate. But where Image was over the top and grandiose, Valiant took a different route. I wonder if anyone's ever compared them with DC and Marvel at the beginning of the Marvel Era? Valiant takes the Marvel route of grounding its heroes in the "real" world, and it works almost too well. There's a series called Armorines, about, you guessed it, an armoured Marine squad. The characters are really well done, and there's some excellent commentary on U.S.-Cuban relations, from a diasporic point of view even (!), but it's still very pro-military in a way that just doesn't sit right with me. I've noticed this in only a few comics as I've been going through the collection, but there's definitely ones written so much farther right on the political spectrum of where I sit that it becomes noticeable. The key, I suppose, is to appreciate that the belief in that particular ideological perspective has created what amounts to a wonderful popular work of art. The artists behind the work all obviously feel strongly about the material they're presenting, and that's fabulous. Indeed, I get that feeling from all of the Valiant/Acclaim books - but again, they promote a "Bullpen" atmosphere in their back matter, so perhaps I'm simply buying into the rhetoric that Stan Lee perfected back in the 60s.

Ah, voluminous. I really ought to try to get back to daily writing.

More to come.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2143: Midnighter #7, February 2016

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Fucking Prometheus. I mean, it's only fitting that he show up, given that his defeat of Batman in Grant Morrison's JLA is one of the great defeats of the dark knight. Also given that Midnighter has very similar abilities to both Prometheus and Batman, this confrontation was perhaps inevitable. But how Prometheus sets our hero up is brutal. Truly, truly brutal. I loved it, and it firmly cemented Midnighter as one of the great characters in the DCU.

I know that the character of Prometheus has undergone a number of changes and shifts of identity in the years since Morrison introduced him (back in the late 90s), but this iteration of the character seemed to be the exact model that was first introduced, an anti-Batman so to speak, and I was glad to see that origin maintained. The New 52 was an interesting experiment, and it gave us some really excellent comics, but I also think it messed around too much with the origins of characters, and those origins, very often, are what define the character more than anything they go through subsequently. For instance, let's imagine that we actually knew the Midnighter's real name and origin. All of a sudden, rather than a forward-facing force for justice, Midnighter would be a backward looking character reacting to their origin. Batman, for example. To me, this would severely detract from the character. I hope we never find out. I was very much against the Wolverine: Origin series back in the day too - why do we need to know where the character came from? Isn't it what they do now, in "present time," that is important? A curious conversation. Do we need to know the origins of our heroes? If we transfer the question to our lived existence, the sad truth is that the more we know about our heroes, the less we tend to like them. People are, simply, people. But superheroes aren't always meant to be people - more often, they're meant to be legends. And the truth behind a legend is always going to be more disappointing that the legend itself. Just ask King Arthur. Or Jesus.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2138: Midnighter #2, September 2015

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The opening of the previous issue shows someone breaking into a satellite called The God Garden (I'm convinced it's the remains of the creature the Authority dispatches in #12 of the original series) where lots of scary technology is being kept. Said tech is stolen. Today's issue features someone who has somehow acquired some of that tech, and is set to take revenge on a corporation whose negligence resulted in the death of someone she loved. The Midnighter steps in to stop her, but, as it turns out, only because he disagrees with how she's doing it, not what she's doing. And once he stops her from killing the corporate leaders, he goes on to severely injure them, and offers the tech-enhanced woman help, rather than simply incarceration.

This is a nice twist. Basically, Midnighter is a violent, gay Batman. He's awesome and charming and very, very scary. But he also has a unwavering moral compass, not often present in pseudo-sociopaths (except maybe Dexter), and, somehow, a desire to help not just those who are recipients of crime but also the perpetrators. The Authority was always a very socially-conscious comic, and it's nice to see later writers keeping that aspect of the characterization.

Also, this issue features what I think is 100% the best use of Midnighter's computer brain that lets him famously see the outcome of any fight before it's happened. Sadly, it's during an argument with his partner.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2137: Midnighter #1, August 2015

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 Warren Ellis' Stormwatch, in which The Midnighter makes his debut, and The Authority, are amongst my favourite superhero comics. Setting aside, for just the moment, the problems we now face in taking in Ellis' work, he and artists Tom Raney and Bryan Hitch created perhaps one of the best politically-inflected superhero books of the current era. Stormwatch uncovers, in a much different way than Ellis and Cassaday's Planetary, a superheroic history for the Wildstorm Universe (which is likely all moot these days, sadly), while The Authority depicts superheroes doing all of those things that I've never understood them not doing in less...um...brutal superhero stories.

Anyway, this series is great. I laughed out loud, I was surprised, I was entertained. Equal parts brutal superhero story and gay dating narrative, I'm saddened that it only runs 12 issues, but very happy that I have them all. This run was part of the large collection I bought last October, though I only opened up the chunk I'd set aside in the last few days. I'm intrigued at jumping back into this particular corner of the DCU, especially since my last exposure to this character was when he existed in a separate continuum from the mainstream DC heroes. I know he's had some run-ins with Dick Grayson prior to this series, but I'm curious to see him versus Batman (which I'm sure will never happen), or standing up to Superman. Or hitting on the Martian Manhunter. I think that'd be right up The Midnighter's alley.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1978 - 1987

Ugh. Life just gets tough sometimes, doesn't it?

Here's what I've been reading. Some really great comics and creators, actually. I'll try to do another feature on Latinx creators in the near future, one where I don't fall apart halfway through :D.

(Gotta just mention this one - apparently Robin was licensed to Nabisco, so could not be used in this story, hence The Protector joining, and sometimes leading, the Titans in this story.)

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1945: Batman #13, January 2013

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I am notoriously anti-Batman. While I'll admit that there are some amazing runs on the character out there, Peter Milligan's amongst the best. But there's such an overabundance of the character in comics and other media. I feel the same way about Wolverine. I think that it's the fact that these are characters who skirt the edges of anti-heroism so closely that they fulfill the inner belief that we all have a badass inside us who is willing to do whatever it takes to save the day. To me, mediocre stories of these characters, of which there are many, are similar to action films - lots of kicking and punching and little substance.

Which is why it's nice to get writers on a project who care more about telling a story than they do about satisfying a weirdly-strangled bloodlust in so many comics fans. Scott Snyder tells the main story in this issue, a nice return of the Joker piece (there must be a number of them - perhaps I'll try a comparison some time). I've heard nothing but great things about Mr. Snyder's run on this character. Perhaps when, or if, work picks up again, I'll have to invest in the trades. But today's featured writer is Mr. Snyder's co-conspirator on some of the Batman stuff, James Tynion IV. This comic is only one of two pieces I have by Mr. Tynion, which actually highlights an interesting disparity in my collection. Much as I have with music, I find I've stuck myself in an era with comics. I don't buy nearly as many, nor do I know the writers and artists who are popular now. Gah. That makes me sound old. That said, Mr. Tynion's tale of Harley in this issue is lovely. Her relationship with the Joker has always mystified me - it can only work if Harley is truly, completely insane, but more often than not she's portrayed that way. In Harley I actually see something of the fan of Batman who simply buys everything to do with Batman because he's BATMAN!!! - there's no critical interrogation, just adulation. But Harley sees past that, eventually, thank goodness.

Anyway, Mr. Tynion is another of my peeps, a bi dude, and it's so, so nice to see more and more representation - I find these days that I ruminate a lot on my early life, and the way I had to hide, and in a lot of ways fully deny, a whole side of my self. I'm not hidden about it anymore, though there are still times when I feel I have to be careful - starting a new job is always a stressful time. But as more and more people in the spotlight are open about being bisexual, I feel like I regain a little bit of what I lost as a kid.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

For another truly amazing Batman run, have a look at John Ostrander's tale of Simon Petrarch, the Batman!

And, of course, there's Grant Morrison's epic run on the character.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1941: Afterlife with Archie #1, December 2013

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Let's just put it out there, shall we? I'm no fan of Riverdale. I thought the first season was a touching tribute and melding of Twin Peaks and Archie Comics, two giants in the establishment of American media. I do not like the direction the show went with Jughead, though creator Roberto Aguiree-Sacasa, today's featured writer, has a history of making Juggie's story a strange one. Witness Afterlife with Archie.

Now, I should also say that I have emotions surrounding this series as Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa left us, mid-story, to go and work on the aforementioned Riverdale and it's increasingly dubious seasons. Mid-story. That's a tough one to forgive, especially given it's the success of this comic that helped him to secure the position of Chief Creative Officer at Archie Comics. It gives me the same feeling as when Neil Gaiman all but abandoned comics after Sandman. Now, it is possible that, in Gaiman's case at least, he had told the story he wanted to in comics, and good enough. Admittedly, his occasional returns to comics haven't ever quite had the same magic as The Sandman. But it's the mid-story bit that really gets me with this series.

And let me be clear: this is easily one of the best series I've ever read. It proves that the Archie characters can translate believably to any genre, as far as I'm concerned, and Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa and his artistic partner-in-crime Francesco Francavilla pull it off beautifully. There's just enough Cthulhu stuff, blended nicely, with a great premise that, despite what I said earlier about Jughead stories, is really perfect. Who else but Jughead, with an appetite to shame the gods, is better suited to be a flesh-craving zombie? It's a truly creepy and inspired piece of writing, though I have been told by people from other countries that it didn't impact them as much as it might those of us who grew up reading Archie. In a lot of ways, it's a comics readers' comic.

So where do I end up standing? Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa, who brings his talents as a playwright to these comics we love dearly,  writes great comics. He's been involved in some projects I've enjoyed, amongst them my beloved Man-Thing, but I'd really like to know how the truncated storyline, "Betty, R.I.P." turns out. Understandably.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

If you're interested in more of Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa's work, have a look at these posts.

And if you're an Archie fan, here's all the stuff I've had to say about that venerable gentleman and his publishing empire.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1937: Papercutz Free Comic Book Day #11, 2017

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I'm not entirely certain how this comic found its way into my collection. Every now and again I find stacks of FCBD comics in our free lending libraries around Calgary. I usually take one or two, and I think that must be the origin of this piece.

Today's featured creator is cover and interior artist Alitha Martinez, one of the few Black women I could find represented in my collection. I read Jada Pinkett's Menace for my last look at Black creators, and I'm sure there must be more Black women in the industry, but the sad fact of the matter is that, as with most things in Western society, there is a systemic bias against POC, and Black women often feel the brunt of their dually-oppressed existence.

The Barbie stories in this comic are parts of larger graphic novels from Papercutz (who I just found out is an imprint of NBM, a really great publisher of European comics and of excellent erotica). What I do like about the comic is that it eschews the traditional Barbie look for something a little more relatable to the people who are going to be reading the comic. The first story, the one illustrated by Ms. Martinez, also features a prominent Black character as Barbie's more pragmatic foil. Of late, I wonder who it is that decides on the skin colours of characters in comics. I wondered about this a few days back with The Atom special, and the fact that literally every character, foreground, background, or otherwise, was white in a comic illustrated by a Black man. Is it the writer who decides? Or is the character description relatively vague and the artist decides? Or there's no guide, so the colorist decides? I have to believe that with newer comics like this Barbie one, there is a concerted effort to include diverse representation. The lack of it in older comics is simply a very blatant example of the racism that permeates not only comics, but culture.

Ms. Martinez's career in comics is relatively brief, compared with some of the other creators I've looked at, but she's made a mark in some really important comics, some of which I own and had no idea she was involved with. From art assists on the Christopher Priest-helmed Black Panther to work on the new(ish) line of Archie comics, she appears to be climbing through the ranks quite agilely, a feat we should be thoroughly impressed with given the oppressions with which she has likely had to deal. One of my favourite pieces of her work is this cover for Betty and Veronica #264. Just beautiful.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

I've only read one issue of the Priest Black Panther for the project, and here it is, with Ms. Martinez's art on the backgrounds.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1858: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #4, February 2013

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Not going to lie, I had goosebumps at the end of this issue. The climax of this four-issue story manages to capture the magic of the television show in a palpable way. Though the previous four issues have been mostly humour, wrapped around the occasional action sequence, in the background there have been the main tenets of the series popping up, lessons of love or friendship or caring. But during the final battle with Queen Chrysalis, these tenets crystalize into Twilight's support from her friends, which translates directly into magical power.

At one point, Twilight, imbued with magical energies, says "We fight because we know about things worth fighting for! Love! Friendship! We have things that you can't hope to have!" For me, this is the main thrust of the series. The world right now is in a very difficult place, and you can see that it is dividing people into two groups. You have the ones who hoard supplies, or raise prices on essential items. These are the Queen Chrysalis people, the ones who will never know (well, hopefully one day they will) that there are greater, better things to fight for than possessions and wealth. The other group are the people who are trying to mitigate the spread of the disease, despite personal difficulty, and who are willing to help when the situation warrants it. Hopefully, when (if?) the worst of it passes us by, those will be the people who rise to the top and help us forge a new way forward.

Though, sadly, I won't be holding my breath for that to happen.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1857: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #3, January 2013

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Just a short one today. I'm tired and the isolation is getting to me. Perhaps the best joke in the series so far is just how tired of the Cutie Mark Crusaders Queen Chrysalis is getting. One almost imagines that if the ponies had just waited for a little bit longer, the changeling queen would have sent the talkative tweens back to Ponyville just to get a bit of peace and quiet. Has anyone ever told a story where the kidnappers return their hostage due to extreme annoyance?

They probably would just kill them, I guess. Which would make this comic much, much darker were it to happen.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1856: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #2, December 2012

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I think that for me, like most who grew up in the 1980s, the revival and incredible popularity of My Little Pony was a surprise. More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that said revival was an incredible wellspring of creativity and positivity that resonated with so many people, and not just in the demographic the show was ostensibly aimed toward. I count myself amongst those drawn in by these multi-coloured equines. One of the things that I most appreciate about the series, televisual or comic, is their focus on making the stories inclusive for all audience members. The pre-pubescent girls to whom the series is marketed likely have no idea who David Bowie is, or who Doctor Who is, yet the show and the comic are rife with references to them, and to numerous other pop culture moments and giants. Later issues of the series take their story titles (and premise-ish) from Fringe, which I think is one of the great television shows of all time.

I remember taking my child to see Monsters, Inc. when they were very young, and I was thoroughly impressed with the attention paid to entertaining the parents who inevitably were stuck in the theatre with all of these little children. This is obviously an economic move, in that if a parent knows they're likely to be entertained by a childrens' cartoon, they're more likely to take those children to see one at a movie theatre. But I think it also shows some respect toward those parents who utilize their disposable income to support an industry that had basically ignored them up to that point. And if post-secondary teaching has taught me anything, it's that children's media can be every bit as complex as any other media if the people producing it are thoughtful, and are invested in their work.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1855: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #1, November 2012

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I've always been a Fluttershy kind of guy. Something about her quiet and cheerful demeanor that masks a fierce rage beneath, often provoked by threats to ones friends and family, reminds me of someone.

It's my wife, BTW.

How's everyone doing with the isolation? I'm surprised, actually, at how hard I'm finding it. On the other hand, my job involved walking around all day and talking to people. This is a bit of a shift. Thank goodness for my incessant hoarding throughout my life that has prepared me with more stuff to do than I can possibly get done in one pandemic. At least I'll be ready for the next one.

Too soon?

Today's comic is a wonderful adaptation of a wonderful cartoon. Though I've not watched the entire series, the first couple of seasons were entertaining and moving, and both preached and practiced an ethos of friendship. The comic follows suit, and makes wonderful use of the medium of comics to expand our view into Ponyville and its environs.

Am I tempted to keep reading this series? Yes. Yes I am.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1814: Eternity Girl #6, October 2018

So, it all works out in the end. I mean, of course it does.

Caroline isn't Caroline anymore. Looking back, we can see Madame Atom's assertion that "Chrysalis" was the only name of Caroline's that mattered being prophetic - through the events of the series, the series as chrysalis, really, Caroline has transformed into something else.

Also, I will have to go back and see if I missed any explicit references to Dani, Caroline's friend, being trans. That adds something else to the story, another perspective on transformation. And, really, it's perspective that this series comes down to. The old saw is that our lives really can be better if we simply change our perspectives. I'm having trouble with that these days myself. What does it take for a person to change their perspective in such a way, to go from wishing only to die to being an agent of change in the universe? I would very much like to know.

This was a great series. Truly great. Sonny Liew did some insane things with panel construction and page layout, as well as offering some really emotional moments in the narrative itself. The series also convinces me that I should be reading anything Mags Visaggio writes. And you all know how much I love a good hunt.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1813: Eternity Girl #5, September 2018

Okay, just who the heck is Madame Atom? At first I pegged her for a Virgil-style guide to Caroline's Dante, but she literally beats up a Lord of Order, one of the fundamental forces of the universe, in this issue. That seems a bit powerful for a recently-dead super-villain.\

There is some discussion that it is Chaos's turn to reign in the universe, and I'm now wondering if this whole thing is simply a ploy by the forces of Chaos to bring about destruction and ruin. Is Madame Atom one of the Lords of Chaos? If so, I hope it's Shivering Jemmy.

The series continues to impress - I wondered if any of Caroline's time with Madame Atom was hallucinatory, but I think that's the wrong question to ask. Or rather, it doesn't matter if they are or aren't. They're obviously happening at a higher level of reality, something part way between metaphor and reality. It kind of nicely sums up the ways that metaphor, or language, can actually have a palpable affect on reality. I used to tell my students that, that it really was like magic. Only a few of them believed me.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1812: Eternity Girl #4, August 2018

Iterations upon iterations upon iterations.

Throughout the series Caroline has been told by her mysteriously-resurrected nemesis that she is stuck in a cycle, that every time she dies, she is simply reborn into suffering again. It's this aspect of the story that I'm reading as a metaphor for comics, of course, though the views of the different cycles that we get in today's issue also gives some sense of the scope of the misery that Caroline has endured.

There's even a version in the style of Peanuts. Guess who keeps missing the football, pulled away at the last second?

The other thing I love about this issue is we get to meet the Never Man, definitely one of my favourite superheroes now. His power is that he can reach into alternate realities where the event he's trying to counter never happened. He appears to be an old comrade of Chrysalis, and we even get to see a few different iterations of him. I think I'm going to be sad to say goodbye to these characters when the series ends. I've grown quite fond of them.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1811: Eternity Girl #3, July 2018

Location questions and hallucination questions become more interesting in this issue. The actual Lords of Order show up, though I can't actually identify them with any of the established characters from mainstream DC. Further, these Lords are reacting to Caroline's quest with Madame Atom, which I'm still not convinced is not a hallucination. I suppose it doesn't really matter if it is or isn't - it's the actions Caroline is taking, metaphoric or otherwise, that interests the Lords.

This issue we see forces beginning to move against Eternity Girl, both metaphysical and physical, whose impetuses are for a greater good outside of Caroline herself. There is something to the clinically depressed person that causes myopia. Though Caroline has been told outright that the only way for her to die is for the universe to end, and that everyone else will die too, she still pursues the path. Depression can become overwhelming, to the point that it's hard to see that other people have lives and worries and sadnesses too.

There is also something to the notion that, from Caroline's perspective at least, when she dies, so does the universe. It's the same with all of us, really. We experience existence from a singular point of view that will never repeat exactly, so when we die, that particular perspective of the universe dies as well. I guess we'll find out whether it's a personal or a public universe that is scheduled for demolition in the series.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1810: Eternity Girl #2, June 2018

I had meant to address the world upon which Eternity Girl takes place yesterday, but I forgot, so we'll do it now.

At the end of Milk Wars, Caroline appears to slip out from her brief origin stories and into the main series, exiting the story through a panel that offers no clues as to location. It's fair to assume that she exited into the DCU that had been restarted at the end of the crossover, and Madame Atom, Chrysalis' nemesis and guide toward death, implies as much in today's issue. However, in the first issue of the series, we see Caroline sitting in her living room in front of a television that is quite clearly playing an episode of The Batman Adventures, notable for its unique aesthetic. So where exactly is the story of Eternity Girl taking place? Madame Atom makes reference to the forces of Order and Chaos in today's issue, further cementing the link between Element Girl (who was a champion of Order) and Eternity Girl, but also with the DCU itself. We can assume that the Lords of Order and Chaos operate in all realities, so perhaps Eternity Girl is taking place on another of the DCU Multiverse worlds, but the explicit links tend to point one toward the prime DC universe.

All of this could be moot, of course, since the story is about someone dealing with depression and suicidial thoughts, not about superheroes and their world. Well, except for the fact that superheroes and their world are the root cause of Caroline's depression. What's interesting is that, at this point, it's hard to say if Caroline's mission to end the universe with Madame Atom is anything more than a hallucination or fantasy that is helping Caroline figure out how to die.

The real truth is that the story is all of these things, all at the same time. Like any good story, it is its multi-facetedness that makes it excellent.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1809: Eternity Girl #1, May 2018

This one is just so good.
We first meet Eternity Girl in the pages of the Milk Wars crossover (which I would love to see in the Arrowverse). Chrysalis (her hero name)'s story is told to us in two-page back-up features in each of the issues of the crossover, though she demonstrates something close to self-awareness at the end of the series, and manages to escape from the gaps between panels and into the world. Which world is an excellent question though.

There are certainly aspects of the character of Eternity Girl that align with Urania Blackwell's Element Girl, and part of me wonders if she had been the original character intended for this story. Element Girl goes through a very similar story and process in an issue of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, but Eternity Girl delves much more deeply into the processes that begin to overrun a person in the throes of depression. Caroline (Eternity Girl's name) admits to throwing herself off a bridge once a month, even though she knows she can't die, just in case, for some reason, this particular time works. Those who suffer from depression, and who have had suicidal thoughts, will perhaps recognize in this story a metaphor for their own mental wanderings and wonderings.

The series is also, however, about comics and comic book heroes. Frye once noted the stagnation of comic strip characters, and Eternity Girl is dealing with that idea head on. The only way Caroline can die is by ending her universe, thus halting the cycle of death, decay, and rebirth that she appears to be trapped within. That cycle is something that well describes the "life" of a superhero, and is something that Grant Morrison chats with Animal Man about in the final issue of his run. Eternity Girl hasn't quite come to the realization yet that her reboots are for the entertainment of readers, but the language being used to describe her experience of life is equally applicable to the experience of the life of a costumed hero.

Not a happy series, by any stretch, but a great one, I think.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1772: We Stand on Guard #4, October 2015

A few years ago, while I was still at McMaster doing my MA, I met a Tolkien scholar from Montclair State who was friends with my supervisor. We met a few more times before I moved to Calgary, and though they were few, both the professor and his wife became good friends. Sometimes, I find, you can meet a person once or twice and you just know that they're your people.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised to receive a package from them just before Christmas that contained the full 6-issue run of this incredible title. I'd chatted with my friend about it a few times when it came out, but I couldn't afford to read it. I'm so glad, and grateful, to have the opportunity now, because it's excellent.

The thing it really drives home, though, is how much international politics have changed in the last few years. Today's issue is from 2015, and the letter column mentions Presidential candidate Scott Walker suggesting a wall between Canada and the U.S.

(Oh, for those not in the know, this series, set about 100 years in the future, is about the U.S. invading Canada for its fresh water. A scenario that is far too close to home these days.)

5 years ago was a very different world in North America. Trump was still a joke, a piece, I thought, of performance art, with no chance of getting elected. How wrong we were.

Canadians, I recommend you try this title out. Yes, there's a lot of snow, but there's a lot of snow in the country right now, so it's not like it's completely untrue. The Quebecois character speaks only in French, so if you're not up on your other official language, get a translator. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how well I understood the French dialogue. Perhaps all that time in grad school wasn't a complete waste.

More to follow...
(New year, new sign off)