The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1891: Awesome Preview, 1998

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This'll be one of three times that I'll be reading the story "Glory and the Gate of Tears," reprinted one more time from Awesome and then once from Avatar (plus a preview of it from Avatar). As I've noted in my posts on the various covers that this incarnation of Glory commands, it's a bittersweet tale to read because it's got so much promise. I know that much of that promise is fulfilled in Promethea, so that's nice, but I feel that Glory would have brought a very different aesthetic to the exploration of the World Tree and the Sephiroth. Where Promethea exists in a superheroic world, I'm not sure I'd class her as a superhero. But Glory definitely is - she's got the comics to prove it.

I'll talk more about this story tomorrow.

The Fighting American preview is quite cool - it's just Stephen Platt's pencils and I love seeing stuff like this. His work is super-detailed. I can't imagine being the inker for this work. That said, the Dogs of War mini was my least favourite of the Awesome Fighting American stuff. But his pencils are gorgeous.

The Re-Gex preview is Beowulf's story, but without dialogue. I think this story is reprinted in an issue of The Coven, in the Re-Gex zero issue, and potentially in one of the Re:Gex preview issues that I do not have. Maybe this one is reprinted almost as much as the Glory story. As I've said over the last couple of days, Re:Gex is interesting, but ultimately goes nowhere.

First day on a new job today.

More to follow.

And here's the flip cover:

The Faces of Glory - Awesome Preview, 1998

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Not exactly a Glory variant, but it's a Glory cover from the Awesome era of the series, and actually reprints, albeit in black and white, the entirety of the zero issue.

As I noted in my previous post on this topic, Brandon Peterson is the perfect artist for Glory. He manages to capture both the fantasy and superheroic aspects of the character in the few bits and pieces that we get from him.

This is the Awesome Comics Awesome Preview, published 1998 with a cover by Brandon Peterson. There's a flip cover of Rob Liefeld's Re: Gex, a series that just never materialized, and that has one of the dodgiest pairs of boots I've ever seen on one of the characters. Have a look. Keeps him from having to draw proper feet, I guess.

The Faces of Glory - Glory v.2 #0, March 1999 [Peterson Variant, Awesome Entertainment]

The Glory variants are proving harder to track down than I thought they would. I guess I was under the impression that since there were so many published, they'd be a bit easier to get. But perhaps I'm not taking into account that the series, and the ridiculous amount of covers, were not as popular as they might have been. No big deal. I don't mind the hunt.

The Peterson cover of the Awesome series gives Glory a weapon and armour that I don't think we ever see her using, at least not in these few issues. It reminds me of Armor from Grant Morrison's New X-Men, and is kind of a cool look, though I always feel like those random spikes on armor might actually do more to harm the wearer than protect them.

This is the Brandon Peterson variant of the Awesome Entertainment zero issue. Peterson was the artist for the interior of this issue as well, but was replaced with Marat Mychaels in the Avatar series. For my money, Peterson's the proper artist for this fantasy series.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 319: Age of Ultron #10, August 2013

Bendis does something quite lovely here in returning the tale right back to where it began in Avengers 16.1. After the insanity of the previous 10+ issues, it's nice to see Ultron get what's coming to him. What's interesting, though, is that we experience this cathartic moment, this, and I won't be shy about it, vengeful moment, for something that Ultron has not yet, nor ever will do.

It's a very interesting facet of fiction, and particularly of time travel fiction, that our linear perspective of the narrative is not the same perspective of the characters that we've read the linear narrative about. Ultron perpetuates one of the most brutal genocides the Marvel U has ever seen, and we, you and I, witness it first hand, follow the adventurers through their attempts to fix this, only to wind up back at the start, before all these events, which is also the end.

Now, that said, the original iteration of 16.1 does not feature the defeat of Ultron, so we're left with the notion that there was an "original" timeline that was rewritten - in many ways this mirrors the set-up of DCs crisis-rewritten universes. There's always some holdover, someone or thing that remember the previous continuity, serving the function of keeping all those old stories in continuity, but also of acknowledging the long-time reader's emotional investment in those stories.

All this is to say that Ultron gets his ass handed to him, which he deserves, and everyone gets to live. I'm curious as to whether or not anyone's ever dealt with Wolverine and the Invisible Woman having lived through and remembered all of the events of AoU. You'd think that those two, at least, would be suffering some serious PTSD. But, as with many shattering events in superhero universes, they likely let it slide from their shoulders and their minds, and get on with their lives. Their abilities to cope with trauma are also super, it appears.

I know I said this was the end of the AoU, but there's actually an epilogue comic, written by none other than Mark Waid, and I happened to find it today while I was out comic hunting. So we'll actually finish up Age of Ultron tomorrow, and then get on to some quarter bin treasures. See you then.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 318: Age of Ultron #9, August 2013

There are two moments that really stand out for me in this comic. The first is the opening splash page depicting the result of two Starkguard helicarriers crashing into New York City:

That there is some rampant destruction.

The second is Wolverines'(s) decision to kill himself.

That third panel there, where a Logan who's experienced two different ends of his world stares at the sun (rising or setting), and, without movement or voice, makes peace with the fact of his death. I'm fairly outspoken about my opinion that Wolverine is one of the most over-used characters in the Marvel U, but this is a moment where he is utilized brilliantly, and the character shines through the grimness of the story. Wolverine very rarely considers himself heroic. I think that he is here.

I don't want to say anything more today. These two sequences are amazing, and there's that whole pictures:words ratio thing. We'll finish up the Age of Ultron tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 315: Age of Ultron #8, July 2013

Before I get to today's comic, I just wanted to mention another one I read while having breakfast. I picked up a box of comics at a flea market this weekend (which I'll write up a post about shortly), and it had a relatively large run of Marvel Two-In-One in it. Issue #86 was utterly great. The team-up is the ubiquitous Thing and Cain Marko, aka The Sandman. The two are usually at each others throats, but this time they sit at a bar and have a beer while Marko tells the Thing his life story. I can't help but wonder if this is the comic where the Sandman turns things around and becomes a good guy, though I feel like I've seen him taking on Spider-Man much later than the 1982 cover date on the comic.

Anyway, that's a much more pleasant situation than Wolverine and the Invisible Woman find themselves in in AoU. Much of this issue is devoted to the interrogation of these two, to see if they're clones sent to infiltrate Tony Stark's security force on behalf of Morgana Le Fey. You had to know that things wouldn't be even remotely okay once Hank Pym was killed. An interesting moment occurs when Stark has accessed their memories of the previous timeline, and he notes that it will take him his entire life to sort it all out. His primary concern is not the apocalypse of Ultron that he sees, but the fact that Wolverine and Sue have gone back and "broken" the timeline.

Emma Frost points out to him that they're all alive, instead of being dead, which one really ought to see as a bonus, but that futurist in Tony Stark is more than likely looking ahead to try and figure out exactly what ramifications this reset of the timeline will have.

What's interesting is that it's not the first time Le Fey has been involved in this kind of reset. The opening of the Busiek/Perez Avengers run puts her in command of the world, or much of it, as well. In fact, off the top of my head, aside from Ultron and Apocalypse (well, and Doom in Secret Wars, I guess), I can't think of too many other super villains whose plans for world domination have actually succeeded, if only for a little while. One wonders why she isn't considered in the ranks of those same villains more often, though perhaps its the relative importance we, as a culture, place on the scientific rather than the irrational. The other three use technology, though vastly advanced, to cement their place at the top. Le Fey uses magic, and we just don't cleave to that kind of thinking much anymore.

Alright. The next couple of days will look into the world of the Stark/Le Fey war. I'm curious to get a broader (even a slightly broader) look at this timeline. See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 313: Age of Ultron #7, July 2013

Okay, sorry, but it's going to be a short one today,  regardless of the fact that there's some interestingly complex time travel stuff going on here. I'll deal with it a bit more tomorrow perhaps.

Wolverine and the Invisible Woman return to the present, only to find it substantially changed. Inevitably, they get into a fight with their former teammates who don't know who they are.

Shenanigans ensue?

More tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 312: Age of Ultron #6, June 2013

One team in the future, trying to defeat Ultron. One team in the past, trying to kill Hank Pym.

What I'm finding quite interesting is that the plans of the two greatest tactical minds in the Marvel U (being Captain America and Nick Fury) are complete failures that end up getting some beloved heroes killed.

And if you've ever had an inkling to see Captain America beheaded, this is your comic.

I think that the fact that it's Wolverine's plan that ultimately has the most success (though we'll have to see how that all goes in the next issue) really says something about our superheroes. It's the same conundrum I was faced with when I watched Man of Steel. There's something in the zeitgeist these days that wants to bring our heroes, our gods, down to our own level, which somehow always comes around to killing. It's sad to me to see our heroes reduced to our level - having fictions in which the characters were opposed to killing was really one of the things that brought me into comics in the first place, to have something that somehow escapes the savagery of our bloodlust.

I don't think this murderousness of our superheroes is a long-term problem. We just live in a time when it seems the only way out of lots of our real world problems is the taking of lives. I look forward to a time when our superheroes return to showing us why that's not the final solution.

More tomorrow. It'll probably be pretty dark.