The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1094: Nightcrawler #12, January 2006

Sadly, I think this is basically a truncated version of what would have happened had this title been given a chance to see a proper run. Nightcrawler is visited by Mephisto, who wants the Soulsword, and offers to resurrect Kurt's brother in exchange. The previous issues have hinted that there was a greater power behind the various things that had happened to Kurt, and they don't come much greater on the side of evil than Mephisto. I can imagine that the confrontation between the two, had we had much more build up, would have been wonderful, as would the resolution to the Kurt/Christine conundrum.

But, alas, that's not what we got. What we did get was a really great three stories, a taste of how things might have been, and further proof that Roberto Aguirre-Sacassa is one of the best writers working in comics right now. (If only he'd get another fucking issue of Afterlife with Archie out.)

And any time you get to read an extended run of Darick Robertson's art, you should do it. He understands this medium (and, if I'm correct, this character in particular) very well.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1093: Nightcrawler #11, December 2005

We come now to one of those disappointing moments in the curtailed life of a cancelled series. It's obvious, from the dialogue and from the lack of closure in the story, that there's more to the mystical war that is being set up. Sadly, tomorrow's issue is the last one, and as far as I can tell, Aguirre-Sacasa never continued the story he was setting up here.

A pity - a good, novel take on the X-Men, or on an X-Men character, is rare. It's what ended up driving me away from that section of the Marvel U - it never seemed that the situation of the characters changed very much. Yes, they moved from base to base, city to city, but it was always the persecution angle that drove the stories (as far as I could see, anyway). And while that is a vital part of the franchise, it can't be the only thing. Setting Nightcrawler up as the resident mystical investigator for the X-Men added some wonderful nuance to the team and their part of the shared universe. Whether his propensity for the outre lasts into other incarnations, I don't know.

But let's not seal it up quite yet. Still one more issue to go, and, who knows? Maybe we'll get some closure yet.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1092: Nightcrawler #10, November 2005

Kurt's odyssey continues, and the secret he glimpsed in the throes of his coma is revealed.

I admit, I was a bit confused at this point. I haven't followed the X-Men for a long, long time, and even though this is a 14 year old comic, it's still an era of the team with which I'm not familiar. So I wasn't sure why the Soulsword wasn't with Illyana or Kitty, or how old Illyana was meant to be at this point, and then when did Amanda Sefton take control of Limbo - is is even the same Limbo that Illyana ruled? Probably, given the Soulsword link.

Anyway, I had questions for about a minute, then I just let it wash over me and accept that I can't know all things. Sometimes reading an X-Men comic is very Zen.

Oh, and Man-Thing is in the comic. I hope he's in tomorrow's too!

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1091: Nightcrawler #9, October 2005

One of the things I really appreciate about Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is that he appears to love Man-Thing as much as I do.

I kind of just want to leave it at that.

Of course, what I mean is that poor old Ted Sallis shows up in this issue, which means next issue should be even stranger than the last couple, and that these issues are potentially going to have to be relocated to my Man-Thing collection. Man-Thing is one of those characters who has only had sporadic ongoing series since his creation, but has appeared in a vast amount of titles. Usually he acts as a proxy for the hand of the universe in guiding heroes, which is how, in his own title under Steve Gerber, he always functioned best. I'd always thought it might be cool to read Ted Sallis's long, strange career through those guest appearances, and get an idea of what kind of "ongoing" adventures he's been through.

I'll be adding this issue, and presumably tomorrow's, of Nightcrawler to the list.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1090: Nightcrawler #8, September 2005

These last couple of issues have been strange, but not for the reasons you might think. Yes, there's some hallucinatory madness in the prior issue, and this one is dotted with flashbacks, but it's the actual context for the story that's strange. And not even really the context, but our exposure to it. Nightcrawler is attacked and made ill by Vermin, a particularly gruesome creature. We come in after the attack, during Kurt's delirium and, in today's issue, as he travels to Germany to uncover something hidden about his past. With Christine Palmer and Wolverine in tow. It's strange that we don't see the battle that pushed the hero on this kind of journey. It's a relatively common superhero trope - the hidden history, but we're often given the context of a battle in which the secret is teased to the hero. Here, instead, we skip the battle because Kurt comes upon the secret in the aftermath.

Let me put this to you, as it's just occurred to me:

The second book of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene features a character known as the Palmer, a guide and companion to Guyon, the knight who emblematizes temperance. Kurt, here, is accompanied by a woman whose last name is Palmer and a man who isn't encased in metal, but who has metal inside rather than out. Are Aguirre-Sacasa and Robertson riffing on The Faerie Queene? Or am I an ex-Grad student who misses analyzing texts?

You Decide!

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1089: Nightcrawler #7, August 2005

Sorry I've been dropping the ball so many times. Life is a bit weird at the moment.

A surreal trip through Kurt's mind, X-Men via David Lynch, perhaps? I'm excited to return to the Aguirre-Sacasa/Robertson Nightcrawler. This is a great series.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1053: Nightcrawler #6, April 2005

Nightcrawler's brief adventure in the New York subway system comes to a less-gruesome or depressing end than one might expect. We actually see some conscience being demonstrated by a politician, the mayor of New York city to be precise, and there's only one minor bought of fisticuffs in the issue that basically turns out to be a misunderstanding between the living (Nightcrawler) and the dead.

At one point in this issue, Kurt notes that something that the ghosts are doing is just like something out of the film The Grudge. Whether he's talking about the original or the Hollywood remake, I'm not sure, but while the scene might well be similar, the tone definitely is not. There is nothing of Japanese horror to this series, which is fundamentally a horror-superhero series. In Japanese horror, for the most part, the afterlife, or other world, or however we might consider it, is in no way sympathetic to the living. I've yet to see a Japanese, or Japanese-inspired in the case of the remakes, film in which the ghosts are actually just misunderstood and basically friendly. No, inevitably, they're angry and remain angry, and destroy all the living who cross their path. It's a good thing, I guess, that Nightcrawler can teleport out of that path.

If I'm honest, and this is certainly not to be derogatory, the series is like a superpowered version of Scooby-Doo. Thus far, including Kurt, we have three characters who are what I would term "main cast," all of whom are involved in some way in the mysteries that Nightcrawler is tasked with solving. Though, so far, there's no talking dog.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1052: Nightcrawler #5, March 2005

Another short one I'm afraid. Reeling from some medication side effects this evening. Some cool bits in this little ghost story that Aguirre-Sacasa and Robertson are putting together, not least of which is the revelation that Wolverine really digs musical theater. Honestly, the rest of the issue could have been blank and that one little exchange between him and Storm would have been perfect.

Again, I'm really enjoying the heck out of this series. I just seem to be reading it at a time when my body is going to crap.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1051: Nightcrawler #4, February 2005

What is it about Darick Robertson's art? It's at once cartoony and macabre, and off-putting combination, though perfect for the tone of this Nightcrawler series. Robertson manages the stylization of someone like Kelley Jones merged with the superheroness of John Romita circa The Avengers, a style that just slightly caricaturizes (almost) everyone in the book. I say almost because Nightcrawler himself is portrayed with almost an angelic, innocent beauty about him, a very interesting choice to make considering his demonic appearance. Nightcrawler himself makes an interesting case for us in refuting the Socratic (?) idea that one's outward appearance reflects one's inward. Of all of the X-Men, Kurt has long been the focus of this kind of metaphoric use - Othering through visual differentiation. A huge part of his narrative arc, which we also see in this series with his use of an image inducer to hide his true appearance. Is there some way we could theorize this through ideas surrounding drag. But rather than release a flamboyant person within, Kurt's drag disguises that very person. In his Nightcrawler "form," he's swashbuckling, gallant, acrobatic. In his normative disguise, he's very plain. There's actually a story in the first issue of Girl Comics that has Nightcrawler portrayed in a very feminine manner. I'll have to think on this a bit more as I read through the series - is Nightcrawler a feminized character? What exactly does that mean, and why?

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1050: Nightcrawler #3, January 2005

I'm afraid you'll have to forgive a short post tonight. I've done something horrendous to my wrists, and it's amazing how many things you actually need those for.

This issue was every bit as good as the previous two. I'll have a few things to say about Darick Robertson's art tomorrow, when I (hopefully) feel better. Getting older sucks.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1049: Nightcrawler #2, December 2004

Aside from a daring underwater sort-of-rescue, this issue is a bit slow. I muse fairly often on idea of seriality, and how that either helps or hinders a story. In this case, the space between issues seems a bit of a hindrance. Though we do have the little cliffhanger at the end, just enough enticement to bring the reader back next month, I think these first two issues would have worked much more effectively as a double-sized issue. Kurt travels to Limbo to see Amanda Sefton (who is routinely described in secondary sources as his "lover/foster sister," which is a little off-putting) when he suspects that there might be something magical involved in the killings. There's a nice moment where Kurt displays his ignorance of magical knowledge as he asks if the killings might be magical or...perhaps the occult. Sefton says she doesn't know what he's talking about. Much of the magical theory I've read holds to the idea that the force itself is not good or bad, just the use to which it's put. That is, the magician is the one who decides morally how the force is going to be used. Which sound a lot like I'm talking about Star Wars now.

Despite its slowness, I'm really loving this series. The mixture of Robertson's semi-stylized art and Aguirre-Sacasa's talent for dialogue and narrative is really quite fantastic. It's a pity it only lasted 12 issues, but I will definitely be tracking down more of RA-S's work. He's a pretty fantastic writer.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1048: Nightcrawler #1, November 2004

A few weeks back a friend of mine was looking to part with his comic collection, and, of course, thought of me. Thus I have inherited a huge collection of X-Men comics, which is really very exciting. And when you come across a series written by the mind behind Afterlife with Archie and illustrated by Darick "Transmetropolitan" Robertson, you just read it. You don't even question.

This series kicks off nice and dark with the deaths of 13 children. I find that these solo X-Men series are pretty good for stuff like this, touching on the darker aspects and areas of the Marvel U. The main X-Men series is a bit too popular for dark stories like this one, but a Nightcrawler series is perfect for it. Given his demonic look, Kurt is a good fit for this story, which seems to have some ritual aspects to it - do the X-Men often interact with the mystical side of the Marvel U? Tangentially, perhaps, but not to as great an extent as they used to. I also think that a psychiatric facility for children has to be one of the most creepy settings possible - something that the New Mutants film that's coming out this year seems to be embracing.

Storm sends Kurt off to investigate, giving Nightcrawler a chance to shine outside of his team-based adventures, a welcome chance, I think. I'll be reading the first 6 issues of the series this week, then we'll take a break for a bit and then read the last 6 issues. The collection rearrangement is just about done - everything is now arranged by publisher so I don't have to go through every single box to find the things I'm looking for.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 624: Space Beaver #2, January 1987

Yes, it sounds like a naughty comic. But it's not. In the tradition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Space Beaver is a hard-boiled sci-fi comic that I picked up in a quarter bin last week. And it turns out it's a very early work by Darick "Transmetropolitan" Robertson. And it's pretty great.

As I read through, I was trying to see in this art the finely detailed work that made Warren Ellis's seminal sci-fi series so lovely to look at month after month, but the art style is remarkably different. We see these kinds of things occasionally, though more often than not there's a through line in an artist's work. Early Kirby isn't exactly the same as late Kirby, but there's similarities. I don't see them here, which is kind of fascinating.

The other cool thing about this comic is that, unlike many indie comics in the 80s, it lasted for a fair number of issues. I'm curious to see where it goes, should I actually be able to find any more issues. Oooo...the hunt it on!

Onward.

The First Few Issues: Early Writings of the Giant Box of Comics

(This is the last of my old writings that I've found so far, so probably the last of the First Few Issues until I find something I wrote in crayon about my old Doctor Who Weekly magazines.)

Transmetropolitan, by Warren Ellis and Darrick Robertson
Overview and review of issues #28 - 30, by Tom Miller
Rating: 5/5 

The first thing you ought to know is that I'm not going to give anything away here. Not a thing. I hate reading reviews that tell you the entire plot of the (insert medium here ) that you're interested in, thus negating any reason to bother with it. That's what I'm going to try to do: give you a reason to bother with Transmetropolitan.

What you should know: Transmet has been going for 30 issues, 12 under the Helix imprint, and the rest in Vertigo. At the outset we meet Spider Jerusalem, a journalist of the near future and apparently some great fame. He is called back from a self-imposed exile on a mountain under threat of contractual breach, just the first thing to piss him off. And therein lies the key to Transmet. Things piss Spider off. Lots of things. However, unlike the majority of human beings, he does not let them slide off his back like water on a duck.
He says all the things you ever wished you could say, or thought of an hour after the fact, or were just too damned polite to utter aloud. And he says them better than you or I ever could. And he says them to all the people who've ever deserved it. The police, the government, the fanatically religious and just plain idiots. Along the way he manages to step on toes he perhaps shouldn't have, the ramifications of which are just now being felt. The early issues are collected in trade format. Back on the Street (issues #1 - 3) chronicles
a race riot in the city. Lust for Life (issues #4 - 12) is a series of stand-alones and one short multi-parter and includes my personal favourite issue, in which Spider spends the whole day watching television. Year of the Bastard (issues #13 - 18, Winter's Edge 2 story) is the beginning of a particularly ugly presidential campaign, and contains some truly chilling sequences. These books are followed by the six-part "The New Scum," the
ending(?) to the presidential arc, and a series of stand-alones that lead to .....

Lonely City: This story arc stands out for me as the best of 1999. I kid you not. I read a lot of comics, too many perhaps. When I finished issue #30, the last part of the story, I had chills. The same goes for the previous two issues. #28 makes a perfect jumping-on point for a new reader as we are given brief introductions of the main players in the series. It shifts into high gear with the most savage beating this side of Preacher that explodes into another race-related story. Determined to find out why the police insist on covering up this crime, Spider and his assistants harass officers of the law and attend volatile demonstrations. Anyone familiar with Ellis' writing will understand what kind of witty banter this involves. And it's always a treat to see Spider pull out the old Bowel Disrupter. The arc in general is perhaps not quite as verbose as the majority of Transmet, and has plenty of action and intrigue, another reason it makes such a good place for a new reader to start. "Lonely City" is an overview itself, a taste of things that have been and things to come, a brief glimpse into the world of Spider Jerusalem and the madness that surrounds him.

A quick word on the art. In Vertigo books you can generally count on some weird, pseudo-surreal art in a story that sometimes doesn't make a lot of sense. And that's what we like about Vertigo, but it's not so in Transmet. Darrick Robertson's art is deceptively simple. The characters look like comic-book characters, in a style that could easily fit into The Flash or JLA. My opinion is that Robertson's true genius lies in his backgrounds. I spend hours (seriously) pouring over his city shots,just to see what he's crammed onto the
billboards and ads. Amazing.

So now you're thinking "Damn, if I'd wanted to read an essay, I'd have stayed in school," but fear not, I'm done. If you're a fan of Warren Ellis and you're not reading this book, you should be, if only so you can gain a little more insight into the cool character that Jack Carter transformed into in Planetary #7. If you're not a fan, read the book anyway. It ranks as one of the most thought-provoking, touching and hilarious comics this addict has ever read.