The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2409: Fantastic Four #144, March 1974

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Publisher: Marvel Comics

Writer: Gerry Conway

Artists: Rich Buckler & Joe Sinnott

Man, year 7 of this project has been a real shit show. But, y'know, I try.

Before I get to today's comic, for the last little while I've been working through my Superman comics chronologically. My oldest is an issue of Lois Lane from the early 60s. Let me tell you, and I say this as a great fan and admirer of what Superman has become, some of this early stuff is just...bad. I mean, the art is great, and the dialogue and narrative flow are expert, but the subject matter of the stories is just subpar. I think about 90% of the stories across all titles that feature Lois are somehow about her needing to marry a good man. Superman uses his powers to play some pretty mean pranks on various friends, and Jimmy Olsen is the irresponsible "pal" Superman could possibly have. So let's just call it all apocryphal and move on, shall we?

I'm going to be spending a lot more time writing for work, so I'm hoping this will inspire me to get back to the project on a daily basis. Today's issue is a pretty rad 70s FF, with Medusa filling in for Sue, and Doctor Doom seemingly meeting his doom at the end of the comic. I will say this - Ben Grimm is a giant pain in the ass in this comic. I find the Thing's characterization to be off-putting sometimes. Given the things he's seen, I always expect Grimm to be a more even-tempered and open-minded creature. He is these days, but in his genesis he was written as a very pig-headed and resistant character. Thank goodness someone came along and gave him a bit of nuance eventually.

Not much more to say, except that this comic and I share a cover date.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1988: Marvel's Greatest Comics #57, July 1975

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I can't remember which book I read it in, though it might have been Ronin Ro's Tales to Astonish, in which was discussed the fact that in the mid-Seventies, after Jack Kirby had left the company, that Marvel reprinted a lot of his old work without giving him any remuneration. I think today's comic is one of these, as the series appears to reprint much of the original run of FF.

I've read a couple of things by scripted by Stan Lee over the last little while, and I think the thing that gets me about his writing is that he seems to lack faith in the abilities of both the artist and the reader. So much of his captioning is simply a character explaining what actions have just taken place, even though, through either visual clues or context, a reader really ought to have been able to figure it out themselves. "I've been thrown from the cavern" shouts a character, for example, even as in the previous panel we've seen them hurtling toward the cavern opening, and in the panel in which they're speaking, we seek them being thrown from the cavern. Any time that there's dialogue during action sequences, it's pretty much all description of what the artist has just shown us. And the artist is Jack-frickin'-Kirby, so we don't really need someone holding our hand through the action. Kirby is pretty good at communicating visually.

That said, the melodramatic dialogue outside of battle, the soliloquy-style thought bubbles, these are all excellent examples of where Lee is actually a pretty great writer. He elevates simple interactions to the level of icon, reminding us that the people we're reading about, despite Marvel's attempts to place their heroes on a much closer level than their Distinguished Competition, are in fact operating at iconic levels. These are gods in human guise who just don't realize that they're gods. I think Lee's scripting brilliance lies in that aspect. He knows that superheroes are role models, and that they operate in a much simpler reality than we do. So the hyperbolic language offers a similar tool as ancient Greek tragedies did, albeit in a much different format and millieu. I've spoken before about how when we read a Wolverine comic, the lesson is not that we should go and slice our enemies into little bits. It's that we should, and can, react to problems with the same resolve, sometimes the same savagery, but not with the same actions - at least in the case of the very violent actions we see in superhero comics. Instead, it's the passion, the placing of such importance on situations, that we should be taking away. If we apply ourselves to our own problems with the strength that Ben Grimm applies himself in this issue, we may find those problems, metaphorically, are flung away into the ocean, much like the Thing's enemies in this story.

I've avoided a lot of the early FF, mainly because I've always found Lee's writing off-putting. But I may give it another go from this perspective. Add to this iconic level of storytelling the fact that the four members of the team are elemental proxies, and all of a sudden the importance of these stories is amplified. We mock Lee's bombastic dialoguing, but what he's actually doing is channeling a different level of storytelling into a popular medium.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

I had a lot of people ask me about Stan Lee when he died. Here's a post I wrote that says some things.

And, hilariously, here's a post from just over a year ago where I use almost the exact same opening line as I did in today's post. I need to be more original.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1935: Marvel Two-In-One #71, January 1981

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Featured creator Ron Wilson has shown up numerous times in the project, though I don't know that I've ever spent that much time thinking about his art. Mr. Wilson illustrated the Masters of the Universe comic produced by Marvel's Star Comics, but is better known for his tenure with The Thing, stretching over today's series and Ben Grimm's solo series from the late 80s. I used to have a fair chunk of that series too, but it's disappeared from the collection over the years somehow.

Mr. Wilson's work definitely hearkens to the 70s Marvel style for me - there's a lot of Rich Buckler in there, I think, though I'm really only beginning to appreciate some of the nuance that the artists of that period (the Bronze Age, I suppose) bring to the characters. There's much more of a cleaving to a "house style" during this era, so one has to look very closely to note the differences individual artists put into these characters. For Mr. Wilson, I say there's a lot of Rich Buckler there, but beneath that there's a fair bit of Kirby as well, though perhaps that has more to do with the house style than it does Ron Wilson's particular personal style.

What can I say about the comic otherwise? I really like the Marvel Two-In-One run from this era, especially when Tom DeFalco takes over. I've never really been a big fan of The Thing, but these team-up comics place him in interesting situations and remove him, for the most part, from the larger team dynamic within which he is usually presented. I think it allows us to see Ben Grimm for who he actually is, rather than as back-up for his more dynamic team mates. And it doesn't always work out well, as Grimm's derogatory attitudes toward Native Americans in the Marvel Two-In-One annual I reviewed here, attests. Ben gets better as the years roll on, as, one hopes, does the society that has produced his stories. I find that he's one of the Marvel heroes whose character development is most striking over the course of his existence. While some characters have remained pretty much how they were first portrayed (I'm thinking about Quicksilver, who shows up in this comic), the Thing undergoes quite radical shifts of his perspective. Can we make some preliminary suggestions over the relative traditional monstrousness of a character and their ability to grow and change? Is someone like Ben Grimm, as a result of his appearance, forced to shift and change his personality more than someone who looks stereotypically "normal?"

And just so we're clear here, Grimm then becomes a rather adroit metaphor for the very people whose uprisings I'm here supporting. And that's where our problems begin.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

If you're interested in Marvel's young readers output in the 80s, have a look at the Star Comics stuff I've reviewed.

And for some of the Thing's team-based adventures, here's the reviews of the Fantastic Four that I've posted.

The Giant Box of Comics Book Report: The Fantastic Four in The House of Horrors, Western Publishing, 1968

Let's dive back into the past, a mere 7 years since the fateful rocket ride that turned these unlikely (and, in some cases, totally unqualified) astronauts into the Fantastic Four. The Big Little Books are, to be fair, not very good. These are simple stories, never, I think, intended for an adult audience.

That said, some of the art is actually quite nice.

The format of the book is one page of text, one page of art, illustrating something that has happened on the preceding page. This puts the Big Little Books far more in the realm of the picture book than the comic. It's one of the fundamental ways of differentiating the picture book from the comic book - in the picture book, the picture illustrates a moment, rather than adding to the narrative in the way that the art complements the text in a comic book. Some picture books straddle this border, but then so do some comics. Is Martin Vaughn-James' The Cage a comic, or a very weird picture book?

I honestly find discussions like that pretty boring. I include this book in my comic collection, as it is a publication whose existence hinges fundamentally on a comic book.

Again, unfortunately, that doesn't mean it's very good. The art has a Jack Kirby quality to it, but it's not Kirby. I found, somewhere on the web, the suggestion that it was Gene Colan doing a Kirby style. But try as I might I can't find that article anymore. If I do, I'll pop a link in here somewhere.

Our story is literally the team following a villain, at what seems like a very slow pace, around a house filled with rooms that are only traps - nothing else, no kitchens or bedrooms. Just death trap rooms. And Dr. Weird is using these traps to try to convince the team to work with him? Every few chapters, he confronts them, asks them to join him, and when they refuse drifts off as a cloud of smoke. Then the FF face some more death traps, and then he asks them again. It was a bit difficult to get through.

So I suppose my recommendation would be that if you love the Fantastic Four, maybe you should check it out, at least for the art, but the story will only make you feel embarrassed for our usually much more competent quartet.

Preliminary Thoughts on Inflection Theory: Crossovers

I'm going to get back to writing about these interesting events, especially as they are now making their way into the televisual universes the comics have spawned.

Reading a crossover is sometimes like creating your own novel from pre-existing modules. For example, I'm reading Secret Invasion right now, and I'm including in it all the crossovers that I have. But I don't necessarily have to. I could read just the main series and still get the major events of the story. Add in the Avengers titles, you get a broader, more satisfying story. I would contend that this is the "necessary" reading of this crossover - without both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers, the main story doesn't quite make sense. It's still the same series of events, but more minutely. Add in ancillary titles, in my case the Fantastic Four and Runaways/Young Avengers mini-series, and the story is still broader, though still adhering to a particular chronological scale. I could, of course, choose to leave out the Runaways/Young Avengers book, and read only the "A-List" heroes (thought sometimes the FF slides down to that B-List). If I had more crossovers, I could read the crossover from a street-level perspective, perhaps the She-Hulk crossover, or the Spider-Man one. Or go international and add the Captain Britain title to see what the Skrulls did in the U.K. Each read of it would include different iterations of these events, interacting differently depending on which are mixed with which, telling the same story from a myriad of points of view.

So is this an inflectionary reading? Imagine Secret Invasion, the series, as a framework. It is a series of required moments in a sequence that constitute a basic story. Around this framework, depending on the tie-ins that one chooses, we inflect this framework story with detail - setting, genre, mythicness(?). And the particular inflecting texts we choose also inflect one another. Reading Avengers only turns the story into a Cold War, Tom Clancy-esque action-spy thriller (how's that for a specific genre?). However, the main series and the first three issues of Deadpool would be a very different reading experience. And that foundation would be inflected to become part of the kind of slapstick, meta-storytelling that Deadpool carries with it.

And then suppose we added Captain Britain and MI13? More spy thriller, international vibe, but also inflected by the meta aspect of Deadpool.

Is this fractal comics? Or is it more of a Deleuze and Guattari-ian rhizome? I suppose the entire history of the Marvel Universe is really one large crossover. That would be something to read.

But if we do go with that idea, that the entirety of the publishing history of the Marvel Universe, wherever that beginning point might be, is one prolonged crossover, the shared narrative universe, then inflection starts to bend genre. Allowing that the superhero, embodied by the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, and their ancillary titles to a certain extent, are the baseline, we can inflect the superheroic myth with other generic conventions.

This is something I've been working out in my brain for quite some time. One of the ways I consider my time in grad school is that I was developing a set of concepts and languages with which I could articulate this idea of an inflectionary reading of a shared narrative universe. I think I'll start working it out a bit more over the next few months.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1360: Fantastic Four #111, June 1971

I have to say, I'm enjoying trawling through 1970s superhero stuff. It's just so, so ridiculous. It's a little late, but here's a Stan Lee story in honor of The Man himself. A lot of people have been asking me about Mr. Lee's death, and if I'm upset by it, and my answer is, as most of my answers are, complex. I don't get broken up when celebrities die, even ones of whom I'm a fan. People die. One might say it's one of the defining traits of human beings. We're finite, and we rage against it, regardless of our spiritual beliefs. So Stan Lee died, at the age of 95, and well done him for making it that far.

The other thing is, I've never really been a fan of his writing. I've always found it a bit stilted. He could obviously come up with a story, and he could obviously come up with characters, but his melding of the two was not always seamless. To me, his characters always spoke like 20 year-olds written by a 50 year-old. Which, technically, they were.

All that said, there is literally no one, and never was, who was as big a proponent of the superhero story. Without Stan, I think there's a chance that superheroes would have faded away, or receded at least. But he understood exactly what they were, and what they stood for, and what they could stand for. He wrote tirelessly about social justice issues in this stories and columns, and, by all accounts, was wonderful to the fans he met. When a celebrity dies, we consider the effect their presence in the world has had on our own world. For me, Stan Lee inflects every single day. Without him, comics would not look like they do (the whole of the industry, I mean), and comics the way they are are what I think about on a daily basis.

I hope he's hanging out somewhere (well, you know what, a la Promethea, he is) with the other old guard greats who've left, with all the other creators to whom we who love the medium owe so, so much, that they've all buried their hatchets and they're filled with satisfaction over the wonderful worlds they've left for us to inhabit.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1101: Micronauts v.1 #16, April 1980

This comic brought back a very interesting memory. It relates to the toys that this series was ostensibly tied to. Much like the later G.I. Joe series (which I have just learned was actually a pitch for a covert strike force commanded by Nick Fury!), the writers had to walk a fine line between storytelling and advertising. By and large, I think, the Marvel scribes of the early 80s who did this did it very well. The early Transfomers, the afore-mentioned G.I. Joe, Starriors, Sectaurs, Star's Masters of the Universe, all were well-executed stories that just happened, occasionally to feature a character or vehicle that, lo and behold, was on toy store shelves around the same time.

The thing with Micronauts is that I never really had any of them. I remember seeing them as a young kid, and being vaguely aware of them, and of actually having a few, I think, but they were a very North America toy, I think, and I was arriving on these shores just as they were in decline. Or maybe I was just too preoccupied with Star Wars toys that I just ignored everything else.

Though I did like the He-Man figures. They were pretty cool.

Anyway, the memory was of a particular figure that I did have from the toy line, the Repto, a creature that appears as the greatest fear of Bug and his friend Jasmine. I had completely forgotten this toy until reading this comics, and then it leapt back into my mind. I have absolutely no idea what happened to it, or actually where it came from. But then there it was, bright as four-coloured day on page 7. Neat.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 996: Fantastic Four Annual #21, 1988

This is a very strange era for the Fantastic Four. Unlike the Avengers and their rotating membership, the FF have always been the core four, the original Marvel heroes. There have, of course, been slight shifts in membership over the years, but, for the majority of their existence, the Four have been Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny. However, around the same time that the Avengers are falling apart in their own title, Reed and Sue decide to quit the hero biz, and leave Johnny and Ben to recruit a couple of new members. Ms. Marvel, the Sharon Ventura iteration, and Crystal the Inhuman join the team, and the team embarks on some remarkably cosmic adventures. Having read over this issue, I'm kind of looking forward to reading them. I collected this version of the team as it was coming out, though, as with all comics at the time, once I discovered sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, the superheroes left my consciousness for a little while.

I like to think it was serendipitous, as it meant I completely missed the nonsense of the Image years, only returning to superhero comics with Grant Morrison's JLA.

An interesting story today, though, as with the previous installments, the High Evolutionary is doing something with seemingly no impetus. Honestly, the only thing I need to make these stories make any sense is for him to be giving some kind of reason for what he's doing in each issue. For some reason, he needs the terrigen mists of the Inhumans, and he fails to get them, and we don't ever find out why he wanted them. In some ways, this is kind of a cool mechanic, as it means that we're as lost as the heroes themselves - the Evolutionary isn't a Bond villain who monologues to the heroes. He's doing something he considers important, and those that oppose him are beneath his notice.

We'll just have to see how long that remains true.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 897: Fantastic Four v.1 #255, June 1983

Off we go on a slight detour into John Byrne's Fantastic Four which, as I mentioned yesterday, is one of that artists few major runs that I quite enjoy. We'll get into my problems with Byrne some time, but not today.

We're in media res today, with the FF stranded in the Negative Zone and Annihilus in the Baxter Building, attempting to tear down the barriers between his universe and the Marvel U in order to destroy both. That whole cataclysmic destruction angle of villainy has always mystified me. Were I a super villain, I don't think I'd just want to blow everything up. I, by definition, am a part of everything. The nice thing in this situation is that Annihilus' very existence is built around the destruction of everything. He is the most nihilistic of nihilists, and certainly has a pure belief in the perfection of nothingness. It's a wonderful way to articulate the alienness of the Negative Zone, and of one of it's most powerful inhabitants.

But more to the point for us, a strange wall of force has been erected in downtown Manhattan - Daredevil slams into it in the early pages of today's comic in much the same way the Avengers discovered it in yesterday's. Neither the Man Without Fear nor the World's Mightiest Heroes know what it is, or what it portends, but I imagine as the crossover continues, the seriousness of the situation will make itself known.

Will our heroes triumph? (Yes, certainly). Will they suffer losses? (Yep, though not permanent ones. This is superhero comics after all). Will it be a cool story to read? Of course. To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 321: Fantastic Four v.1 #340, May 1990

I find myself a bit dazed with the news of David Bowie's death. Of course, all things must pass, and numerous musical heroes of mine have moved on in the last few years. Bowie showed me that it was always cool to be current, to be a pop star. He showed me that sexuality and gender are fluids, not solids. And he sang and wrote some of the most beautiful, intelligent, and catchy music ever. A sad day, but hopefully he's hanging out with friends, having a drink, and being generally fabulous, wherever he is, if only in our minds.

So, sad news aside, welcome to a couple of weeks of dollar bin comics. (Actually, these are really Quarter Bin comics, as I've found a few places of late that actually sell comics for 25 cents!) It's an economic thing, really, as I've spent so much money on them in the last week or so that I can't really afford any more comics for a little while. But that's fine, since I'm making my way through some Walt Simonson Fantastic Four at the moment. I think that, once my "On the Run" series about The Flash is done (whenever that might be), I'll be doing a look at Simonson's tenures on The Avengers and Fantastic Four. The stories cross into one another, and he's certainly not afraid of taking on giant, somewhat confusing, cosmic tales.

First, the art. You don't need me to tell you this, or if you do, just go and find some of his stuff. Simonson's got one of the most distinct styles in superhero comics, and I have to say that having 5 issues of this run in which he actually handles art chores as well, he's even better than I'd previously known. He understands this medium so well. You're never questioning whether the characters are moving or still, never trying to figure out what order to read panels and bubbles in. It's some really masterful storytelling, and makes me want to read his Thor and everything else he's done. But that'll have to wait for a windfall of cash somewhere along the line.

It's cool to see the FF teamed up with Thor and Iron Man. I mean, if you're going to boogy on into the future to defeat a Celestial, you may as well take two of the most powerful Avengers with you, because, honestly, why wouldn't you? Though I've found Iron Man to be a bit underused in the last few issues. And, actually, speaking of underused, if I have to level on critique at this run so far, it's that Sue Storm seems to be reduced to a supporting character who says "Darling" a lot. I'm far to used to contemporary super-badass Invisible Woman, so this characterization of her is simply not sitting well. Maybe it'll get better as things move on, but, to be honest, Simonson's not on the title for that long. Sue needs some character, stat!

I'm going to keep reading this run, though not necessarily blogging it. I really would like to keep a proper assessment of it for the longer "On the Run" posts. But Art Adams does some of the upcoming art, which is ridiculously exciting. Maybe that one will have to have a "40 Years" entry.

More tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 303: Marvel Treasury Edition #13, 1976

I thought I'd give this one an extra-sized picture, since it's a Treasury edition. In the Seventies, Marvel predicted the appeal of over-size comics (a la Absolute editions) with this quarterly series. Many, like this, were reprints, but just as many contained original stories. Jack Kirby's adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey was Treasury-sized, and certainly showcased the artistic freedom this large format affords.

This particular issue is a reprint one, and not quite the Christmas-y comic I was hoping for. There's a series of bridging stories that visit the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Defenders, Champions, Daredevil, and Spider-Man during the Christmas season, but these are used primarily to introduce a fairly random selection of stories. We have the induction of the Vision into the Avengers, Daredevil's final battle with The Ox, a clash between The Hulk and the Silver Surfer, and a Spider-Man/Thing team-up. None of the stories are even remotely holiday-themed, which I'll admit I was a bit disappointed in.

That said, the stories that are presented are a lovely selection of some of the best Silver Age comics Marvel has to offer. We see luminaries such as Gil Kane, George Tuska, John Buscema, Marie Severin, Gene Colan, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Roger Stern, and Stan Lee plying their trades in the most early-Marvel way possible. I'll admit that, in the wake of the Quitely's and Cassaday's of the world, I forget just how good a lot of these older artists were at what they do, and that it's their innovations that give us the comics art that we see now. So in that sense, this was a lovely little Christmas gift to read.

More tomorrow!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 277: Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #1, July 2008

I'll admit, I'm drunk while writing this.

I'd meant to post Chase #1000000 today, but eleven o'clock rolled 'round, and after much wine and whiskey, I decided it would be best if I blogged a comic I'd read earlier, rather than trying to read another one in my current state.

I picked up the trade of this series today, so this first issue is actually contained in the book. I'd avoided most of the Secret Invasion crossovers, except for the Runaways/Young Avengers one, but it was cool so see this little interregnum in the story, and I look forward to rereading it the next time I make my way through the Secret Invasion story.

Both M. Aguirre-Sacasa and M. Kitson do a fantastic job (pun fully intended) on this series. Kitson really is an unsung hero of the superhero genre. His lines and depictions are always amazing.

That's all I have in me right now. Hopefully Chase tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 150: Fantastic Four #171, June 1976 (Two Weeks From The Dollar Bin - Day 14)

So let's finish off these two weeks with a good, old-fashioned superheroes versus giant gorillas story. And, really, that is all there is to this tale.

Though I'll note that whenever I end up reading an older issue of Fantastic Four, it seems to be one where Ben Grimm has somehow lost his powers (he's in an exo-skeleton in this one). Considering that one of the defining traits of his character is his constant struggle (read: whining) about being trapped as The Thing forever, he changes back with some shocking regularity over the course of their adventures. Though, and this'll come as a surprise to no one, the solution Hickman advanced in F.F. is my favourite one.

So, that's it for this cruise through my dollar bin treasures. I have to say that the variety of stories I read were fun, and I can't for the life of me figure out why some of these issues were actually relegated to the dollar bin. Some, of course, were in terrible shape, which somehow decreases their value (I've never really understood that mint-condition collector mentality), but others, I think , were simply victims of the proliferation of superhero comics and the difficulty inherent in trying to market something other than a costumed adventurer. Seriously, do yourself a favour and have a look for Halo and Sprocket. It's really good.

Okay. Not sure what we'll do next. I have some ideas for theme weeks, but maybe it'll be nice to get back to our regularly scheduled (whatever that might mean) program. See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 54: 1602 #8, June 2004

And so we come to the conclusion of Gaiman's early modern superhero epic. I think I have to say that it was a little underwhelming. The best bits involved Reed Richards, and those only took place in the last two issues. In this issue, Richards outlines a taxonomy of the sciences based around the metaphor the the Knights of the Round Table, each equal and each a part of a whole. A cool (actually, very cool) metaphor, and one that scholars and academics could benefit from, I think.

The climax of this tale is a letdown, frankly. There's so much that could have been done with an early modern approach to the superhero, and Gaiman teases out some of the implications with the Inquisition, with Clea's return to her realm, with Doom as a power in Europe. But the ending comes down to a fairly standard superhero trope: heroes and villains join forces to fix a problem with the spacetime continuum. How many times have we seen this? On the one hand, I suppose, that's the whole point, that we have seen these things before, and that they are all a part of the fundamental stories that Richards muses upon in the previous issue. And, in many ways, this is how we can forgive 1602 it's flaws, by considering that it is simply a superhero story (are they ever simple?) wrapped in an early modern setting. I think that the problem with this explanation is that the world Gaiman and Kubert create is so intriguing that to wrap it up in a superhero story seems somehow to quash its potential as a vehicle for stories. I've not read any of the subsequent series that spun out of 1602, but the fact that there is no ongoing series based on these concepts currently extant means that the potential of the setting was not realized.

Writers and artists cannot, of course, always be historians and scholars. But had Gaiman sat down with such people, co-wrote with them even, then this could have been an amazing alternate history piece coupled with the myths of the Marvel superheroes. We would also have needed an ongoing, or at least longer than 8 issue, run on the title. What's happening on the African continent of this reality? And South America? The title is problematically Eurocentric, even as the contemporary comics are problematically North America-centric.

Ah well. A pleasant, if flawed, deviation from the usual superhero fare, an experiment with, I would argue, inconclusive results. The characters are going to show up in "Secret Wars," so perhaps we'll see something spin out of that eventually.

The promised song will have a link here some time today, but probably not until later this evening. Recording a song is a lengthy process.

I'm not sure what to move on to tomorrow. I actually have a cool idea, but I'm also getting my exam questions this week, so my cool idea may have to wait until I have sufficient time to devote to it. Either way, see you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 53: 1602 #7, April 2004

There's an interesting moment in this series when the newly rescued Reed Richards is conjecturing about the nature of the universe within which he and his comrades exist. He posits that the fundamental principles of his universe are stories, that they exist in "a universe which favours stories. A universe in which no story can ever truly end; in which there can only be continuances." There's a couple of ways we can read this. First, it could be a purely metatextual moment, in which we, as readers, have the ironic stance of understanding that Richards is absolutely right, that their fictional milieu is a universe that deals in continuances. If that's the case, though, it flies in the face of what Gaiman has previously stated about the nature of stores, that they have beginnings, middles, and ends. Perhaps, in Richards' case, and coming as no surprise from me, it's not stories that his universe favours, it's myths.
The second way we can read this moment is of a character realizing the nature of his universe. It's slightly different from the metatextual moment, because rather than us having a realization about his reality, he himself is having a realization about his own reality, a realization that is separate from our understanding of reality as readers. When the Human Torch says "Ah yes...atomies and suchlike" in response to Reed's wonderings about fundamental principles, he is reflecting our understanding of our reality. We understand that it rests upon the fluctuations of the quantum foam. So Reed is realizing that his reality does not rest on that sub-atomic level of reality, but on the level of stories.
The third way of interpreting this is the most interesting, however. Perhaps here Reed is not making a claim about his own reality, nor is the comic pointing out a metatextual moment for us, but perhaps it is suggesting that our reality, the one in which we read the comic, is actually based on stories. I know, for the rationalists amongst us, it makes no sense. But if you consider that we place ourselves in narratives all the time, and that these narratives have a far more fundamental impact on our lived experience than the "atomies and suchlike," then we really could say that the fundamental principles of our existence, and thus our universe, is stories.

That's all I've got for today. Conclusion of 1602 tomorrow, and some music.

Detours on the Road to "Secret Wars"

It's been a while, but the Secret Wars are almost upon us. So let's move along the road the Jonathan Hickman's been navigating.

I call this section detours because, for me, it's the least coherent section of the Avengers titles run. It's sandwiched between the intensity of "Infinity" and the countdown issues that jump us 8 months into the future, and while the stories it tells do have resonances to the larger arc, they somehow don't catch one's attention quite so much. Perhaps it's just me.

Avengers v.5 #24 (24.Now, to be specific, though it also sports a giant "#1" at the top of the cover)(??) - A perfect jumping on point for new readers! I hate when they say things like that, especially with a comic like Avengers. Also, no it's not, so the #1 on the cover is super-disingenuous. The story within is not bad at all, though. A rogue planet heads for Earth, an Iron Man from the future comes back to warn everyone at a barbeque, and Tony Stark gets told that he won't be able to keep his secret much longer. Good foreshadowing, and the planet does get put to good use....eventually.

New Avengers v.3 #13 - 15 - three very, very grim issues of the series. We've heard for a year now that other Earths are being destroyed one by one across the Multiverse. These issues give us a look at the alternative versions of the Illuminati and how they failed, and against whom. There's also some interesting back story on the Black Swans, and though I feel I may have missed it, I'm still not entirely sure of their role in this whole saga. Perhaps that'll come to light some time in the next month or so. Or it's come to light, and I've just been reading too many comics to keep track. Also, Doctor Strange finally goes totally darkside, and it's pretty great to consider the ramifications. Oh, and shades of the Cabal at the end of issue 15.

Avengers v.5 #25 - 28 - An interesting counterpoint to the dying Earths in the New Avengers, here we see A.I.M. pulling an alternate team of Avengers from their world just as it is destroyed. They're almost spitting images of the very early Avengers, both in appearance and line-up, but, as often happens with these parallel dimension alternates, they're evil. It's almost like a Crime Syndicate version of the Avengers, which is ironic considering the New Avengers storyline that follows this one. I will admit that when it came down to the two versions of Banner here, I got confused both times I read it. And again, as with the rogue planet, there are ramifications that ramifications here that have only recently been picked back up as the titles come to their climaxes. I noted above that I feel like these stories are less coherent than those that have preceded and those that follow, and I think it's because some of them feel like they could have taken half as much time as they have. But, if we consider that "Secret Wars" is dropping at the same time as Avengers: Age of Ultron, perhaps the editorial powers that be dictated that these issues needed to be here. I could be being cynical there, but I prefer to think of it as being realistic.

New Avengers v.5 #16 (.Now, with the #1 at the top, just as disingenuous as the other one) - okay, I'll admit, the run of New Avengers that follows this one is really amazing. We're introduced here to the Great Society, a.k.a. The Justice League. I love stories like this that take barely-concealed versions of the characters from "the distinguished competition" and tease out the ramifications of conflict between Earth-Marvel and Earth-DC. Squadron Supreme leaps immediately to mind, but there have definitely been others. So this is our intro to the Society, and I think, of these detours, this is my absolute favourite story. But, fair warning, it's not a happy story.

Avengers v.5 #29 - part of the "Original Sin" crossover, though I really don't see how this and the stories that follow have anything to do with that event series (which, I'll admit, I read 3 issues of and then lost interest). But sin is the order of the day here. Captain America finally remembers the events of the very beginning of this saga, from New Avengers 1-3, and he and a remarkably impressive array of Avengers go to have a "chat" with Tony Stark. Who, it must be admitted, manages to hold his own against them for a bit, which really lets you know what a force to be reckoned with Stark really is. And then the lost Time Gem returns, and throws everyone into the future....but first, the Illuminati have some business to attend to.

New Avengers v.3 #17 - 21 - this is just such a great story. I'm not going to say much about it, because honestly of all the stories in these runs, this is the one I'd hate to spoil. Yes, the Illuminati fights the JLA, but they also talk to them. Hickman here deploys what are ostensibly the greatest and smartest heroes on Marvel and DC Earth, and pits them against the death of the Multiverse. Beautiful and tragic, just as you can imagine a story like this would be. More shades of the Cabal when a decision is made, finally. Again, though I call these stories detours (and, much as I like it, I think this story could have taken up a couple less issues), this story is not simply filler (and nor are any of them), but a meditation on how great heroes can often have come from remarkably different points of view.

Avengers v.5 #30 - 34 - the "Original Sin" issues of Avengers, in which Captain America's team that confronted Tony Stark is catapulted into various distant futures. There are a couple of things I want to say about this run of Avengers. The first is that Lenil Yu's art is terrible. Sorry, I know that's a really big thing to say, to completely disparage an artist's output, but I've never liked anything he's done, and for some reason he's still put on relatively large titles. What is it about him that makes him a superstar artist? Okay, I'll relent. His art is perhaps not terrible. But I don't like it. The other thing I'd like to say about this run is that grown-up Franklin Richards comes back! One of the greatest parts of Hickman's Fantastic Four run was the interaction between little Frank and older Frank. So to see him return, even for just a little while, is a treat. The time-travel story is cool, and gives us some notion of the future of the Avengers. We understand that with the destruction of the Multiverse, the Avengers are fighting to stop things from their present, but these issues also drive home the notion that it's the future they're trying to save as well.

New Avengers v.3 #22 - 23 - the shattering of the Illuminati. What rises in their place, over the course of the 8 hours that these two issue encompass, is probably the baddest of badass villain teams to have ever been presented in a Marvel comic. Any team that counts Thanos as a member is pretty heavy. But that's not the best part. The best part is the Illuminati surrendering to the workings of fate, the ways in which they all face what they've come to see as inevitable. And then their defiance in the face of that inevitability. Over the course of New Avengers, it's easy to forget that these characters are actually superheroes. Issue #23 reminds us of this, just before time starts to really run out.

The countdown begins next.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 50: 1602 #4, January 2004

Do you ever think about Doom?

I sometimes think that Doctor Doom is easily the most versatile and well-realized character in the Marvel Universe. Yes, he's a totalitarian dictator who believes only he is fit to rule, well, the universe. But that's not all he is, and it seems to me that the various investigations of his personality have fleshed out a character with far more depth than most of the heroes who oppose him. I'm thinking here of his turn at the end of the original Secret Wars series, his inclusion in the Future Foundation in Hickman's F.F., and now here, in 1602. Yes, he's a totalitarian dictator, but he, honestly, seems to wrestle with his hubris often enough to demonstrate that he's considered all the options and still come out with himself as the best one. I've not read any of the series that have focussed on the man himself, but as a major supporting cast member for so much of the MU, he's fascinating.

The intrigues continue in this issue, and we finally are given some clue as to the fate of the four from the Fantastick. This issue also really begins to highlight the differences between the world of 1602 and our own, aside, of course, from the existence of metahumans. North America is said to be home to some particularly large "leather wings," pterodactyls that seem to have escaped from the Savage Land. And there's a strange panel at the bottom of the fourth page depicting a torch-bearing mob (because there's always a torch-bearing mob) that is being scrutinized by a black cat with extremely large fangs. Gaiman and Kubert do a rather remarkable job of making this realization of difference a very subtle process. There's little to no metahuman activity in the first issue, and even when it does happen, it's fairly mundane because we're expecting it, so the trick is to make the world strange in other ways. The surrounding fauna and weather is a nice way of doing it, as well as the subtle historical changes (i.e., the survival of the Roanoake colony, Elizabeth's death a year early, Raleigh's death long before the actual date of his death).

There is a brief telling of the origin of Virginia Dare in this issue, involving (spoiler) her touching what looks like a floating infinity symbol that sparks her powers. Two things spring to mind: first, the Infinity Gauntlet and gems, and I can't for the life of me remember if that has anything to do with this story. Second, the repetition of the infinity symbol in The Multiversity: Pax Americana, which I was discussing with a friend yesterday, and which has absolutely no bearing on 1602 whatsoever.

Okay, we're past the halfway point, and things are getting exciting. More tomorrow!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 23: The 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time #2, December 2001

Still sick, but feeling a bit better. Today's 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time, as the cover might reveal, is this:

Shall I dare to disparage? This is not my favourite era of Jack Kirby art. I'm much more a fan of his blockier work in things like Devil Dinosaur and Captain Victory. I don't know if it's the inking (which, interestingly enough, the write-up inside this issue claims was inked by an unknown inker), but it seems sloppy. Not the clean lines I've come to expect from Kirby's art.

Regardless of that, this is the first Fantastic Four comic! Yes, it's dated. Yes, Stan Lee's dialogue (especially that of The Thing) is, well, Stan Lee's dialogue, but think about what came out of this comic. Everything Marvel. I've raved about Jonathan Hickman's run on Fantastic Four a few years back, and it would not have been possible without this awkward, but genuinely inspired, piece of superhero storytelling. And, of course, there's that original cover, that's been, in the musical vernacular, covered so many times, and that will pass into the iconic images of comics history, if it hasn't already.

Okay, still exhausted, but at least that was a little more coherent than my last few posts. Can you guess what the greatest Marvel of all time will be? I'm sure you can.