The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1565: The New Teen Titans #15, January 1982

That strange pool that the Titans are in ends up devolving them - Starfire starts looking like a cat. I wonder if it's ever canonically addressed that Tamaranians are feline-descended? I really don't know a lot about the Teen Titans, especially this new version. I know that they were really big just as I was getting into comics, but I ended up going the Marvel route in the early days of my collecting. I never really found my way into DC until I started reading Animal Man, and that was much later on. It's kind of cool to be experiencing them now. George Perez's art is a revelation. His layouts are amazing, as is his attention to detail. I've no idea how he managed to do this on a monthly basis.

Rouge and Zahl get their comeuppance, and we get a nice wander into the sunset moment of the Doom Patrol survivors at the end of the issue that probably would have worked as a nice coda to the Doom Patrol series proper. In much the same way that characters come back from the dead, superheroes very often get "endings" that just turn out to be latest adventure in an unending serial. That's probably why Rita Farr has been such an interesting character as it took decades for her to return to life. There was an actual ending to her story for a while that seemed pretty solid. I'm not sure I'm articulating this properly. Every creative team wants to put a proper ending on their run, so we get moments peppered throughout a superheroic narrative that could serve as terminal moments for the narrative. But what happens to the emotional impact of such a moment when we know that there will be another comic the following month? I can understand writing an ending if a series has been cancelled or is finishing - but if you're writing an ongoing serial, an ending is just going to feel clunky.

Damn. That thought did not translate onto the screen as well as I'd hoped. I'll have to think on it a bit more.

"Quit makin' like some philosopher while they sneak right up on ya!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1564: The New Teen Titans #14, December 1981

Mento really is the worst. Today's portrayal of him even tries to be kind to the character, but he's still the worst. And the new costume is just not right.

Anyway, as the cover notes, the quest for the Doom Patrol's killers continues apace. At this point we know where they are, but not necessarily how to get them. What is required is another blast from the past, and one with a vested interest in Madame Rouge: the Brotherhood of Evil. I did a little research a few weeks back because I was curious as to what the treatment of the Brain and M. Mallah had been post-Morrison Doom Patrol. The two end up declaring their love for one another just before they blow up. But, as is the way in superhero universes, both characters return to life and start getting up to their old tricks again. I'm curious as to how their relationship was portrayed in this second life. I've yet to find the answer.

Madame Rouge is a pretty tragic figure, though at this point it almost feels like she's chosen to give in to evil, that she could have decided a different path. The character shows up again, most prominently in the New 52 My Greatest Adventure - but we'll get there eventually. Our current tale of vengeance concludes tomorrow.

"Eat your heart out, John Dykstra --"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1563: The New Teen Titans #13, November 1981

I just had a quick look back to see if I'd mentioned the idea that the Doom Patrol function somewhat hauntologically for a short while in the Seventies and Eighties. I posted about this a few years ago with regard to Barry Allen's presence in Mark Waid's masterful The Flash (which, I promise, I will get back to reading through soon - I promise!). In the same way that Barry Allen's spectre haunts Wally West's time as the Flash, so does the Doom Patrol haunt Changeling, specifically in his early days breaking away from the identity of Beast Boy, and its attachment to a traumatic past.

At this point in the Patrol's history, the originals, sans Cliff, are still dead. As I wrote yesterday, Cliff has gone back to his original body for some reason, and there's been no mention whatsoever of the other members of the New Doom Patrol. I get the sense that Wolfman and Perez recognized those characters as problematic for the Doom Patrol and chose to ignore their presence. Cliff Steele (who in some ways haunts the Doom Patrol itself) is tasked with finding Gar's lost adopted father, Steve Dayton (the version of whom that appeared in the TV series was by far the most sympathetic one. Dayton sucks). After little communication from Cliff, part of the team track him to Uganda, and discover the above! Cliff, while close to Gar, also reminds him physically, as opposed to solely in his memory, of the presence of his adopted mother, Rita Farr.

That's as far as I got with that thought. I'll likely come back to this, as the Patrol functions in this way until their re-debut in the Secret Origins annual.

The other neat thing about this comic is that the cover looks like it depicts a climactic moment, something you might not want to give away on the cover, but it's actually not. This happens fairly early in the comic. It's a nice touch, and shows a deft understanding of the workings of the medium. Little surprise, coming from the pair it does.

"It's a good thing I'm dead -- otherwise I'd barf!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1562: The New Teen Titans #10, August 1981

An interesting side-effect of the Doom Patrol television series is that I'm paying a lot more attention to Cyborg these days. He's a character I know, or knew, virtually nothing about, but he's made a pretty good addition to my beloved Patrol. What stands out for me about him in this issue is his friendship with Gar Logan. It's really nicely realized, and a testament to Marv Wolfman's grasp of characterization.

There isn't too much Doom Patrol in this issue. Gar has asked Cliff to track down his adoptive father, Steve "Mento" Dayton, and recounts to Cyborg, briefly, his history with the Patrol. Cliff appears briefly on a video screen, having tracked Dayton to Brazil, and is in his original body again. He thanks Gar for putting him back in the original, though no reason for his dislike of the old body is forthcoming.

For a long while in the 80s the Doom Patrol served mostly as back story for Changeling. The decision to not have him involved in the DP television series is strange, especially given the team's appearance in the Titans series. While they're supposed to be different versions of the team in different universes, the replacement of Gar with Vic is an odd choice. I'd be curious to understand why it was made. According to Jeremy Carver, he was told he had to use Cyborg along with the traditional team members. But why?

Not that I really mind, as Jovian Wade's performance this season was fantastic, and he meshed with the team nicely. We'll see a bit more of Cyborg over the next few days as the hunt for Dayton, and for the killers of the Doom Patrol, heats up in New Teen Titans.

"For fourteen people they didn't even know...the Patrol, and my mom--died...just like that."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 905: Vanguard Illustrated #6, June 1984

(A slight detour from The Avengers. I'm away camping over the weekend, so here's some preprepared posts.)

The early 80s really were a golden age for science fiction anthology titles. And so many major artists appeared in them. Today's feature story is an excellent short illustrated by George Perez and written by Joel Cavalieri. It skirts the edge of the science fiction genre cemented by the accompanying stories, though it's a lovely articulation of a Shadowrun adventure, predating that game by a few years, I think.

I've noted before that you're often getting a mixed bag with these anthology titles. Today's is a bit different. Though some of the stories seem to be continuations of serials (should probably have read the series in, y'know, order), I couldn't quite make up my mind whether they were, or were simply written to sound like they were. Reading them from the latter point of view was immensely satisfying. And that's perhaps a nice way to approach any random anthology title. Unless you know for sure, you never know if the story you've read was meant to be part of a larger story or just seemed like it. There's an excellent article on caricature by David Carrier in A Comics Studies Reader that posits that a single-panel comic is actually a part of a virtual series of panels, and our understanding of the single panel depends on our ability to see what has, or might have, come before, and what comes after. Such comics are possibly only because we have the gift of hypothetical thought. So could we consider a comic presented as a part of a series in the same way? And fill in hypothetically what might have happened before, and what comes next?

Though I may read a prior or subsequent issue and blow that theory out of the water. At least for this series.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 11: The Rampaging Hulk #8, April 1978

The Friday Magazine finally returns! My apologies for the weeks of absence. My recovery from surgery and work and all that stuff has just been mad, and the magazine was one of the things I felt could be set aside momentarily. But I'm hopefully back on track. We'll see next week I guess.

I'm glad that I had a magazine that fits with my theme week this week. The ever-awesome Steve Gerber pens a tale of Ulysses Bloodstone in this issue, hence its presence in my collection. But what I find most fascinating about this magazine is really the very fact of its existence. I've wrestled over the course of the week with why the Hulk is such a popular character. I simply don't understand the draw of this character. But in the 70s he had not just a monthly comic book, but a monthly magazine and a television series. The X-Men, whose popularity hit undreamt of peaks in the 80s and 90s, never had a dedicated magazine or television show. Yes, they had a gazillion different titles chronicling their adventures, but the magazine and the television show of the Hulk shows that the character was appealing to a much wider array of consumers than just the comic book fan.

In Thursday's review, I mused on the idea that the character's popularity comes from the idea that he represents a safe space in which to vent our most negative emotions without fear of damaging others, hence the lack of casualties whenever the Hulk rampages through a population center. If this is indeed the case, I could certainly it as an explanation for the more diverse media representation. The safe release of negative emotion is something that most, if not all, people can understand. In contrast, the exclusion and prejudice evinced toward the X-Men, though widespread, is not universal by any stretch of the imagination. So is this it, then? Does the Hulk articulate something universal about our emotions and how we handle them, or wish we could handle them? And given that it's savagely negative emotion that he embodies, what does this say of us? It seems that the wish fulfillment that the Hulk represents articulates some of the worst of our impulses.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 753: Justice League of America #200

A lazy Sunday morning in bed reading an oversized Justice League comic and having a bowl of cereal. While outside, it looks like it might actually be Spring (I fool myself, but sometimes we have to).

Today's comic follows in that long tradition of comics about superheroes fighting superheroes. I'm not sure where this particular subgenre comes from. Sometimes I think that it has a lot to do with why diverse religions have battled one another over the course of human history. We place our faith in something and can't possibly understand how someone else could place something so important and vital in something different. Everyone has a favourite superhero, one that we place our faith in, so it's natural (?) to want to know who'd come out on top. My god is stronger than your god, I suppose.

On the other hand, it might just come from the idea that we want to see the cool characters duking it out with one another. Yeah, when they fight a villain, it's cool. But villains, by their nature in these kinds of comics, will always lose. If it's heroes fighting one another, who's the villain? Who's going to lose? Such contests offer a bit more suspense.

That aside, this was a fairly standard early 80s DC comic. The artists jam on the issue was pretty sweet, bringing together some of the truly great DC artists of the last few decades. It was also a nice hearkening back to the original JLA case from The Brave and the Bold, though how it would fit in with Mark Waid's retcon in JLA:Year One, I'm not sure. Though I'm fairly certain that's not canon anymore anyway. Well, given DC's propensity for multiverses, it's canon somewhere, I'm sure.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 740: Marvel Fanfare #10, September 1983

Marvel Fanfare was, when I was first collecting comics, that book that sat off to the side from others, different because of its production quality and its purporting to tell stories a little more mature than the standard Marvel comics. I never really paid it much attention until a couple of issues made their way into the collection years back and I finally had a chance to read it.

At which point I realized it's pretty much a standard Marvel comic from the early 80s.

That said, the back-up in this issue is P. Craig Russell illustrating a story from The Jungle Book, and though Kipling's a bit dodgy sometimes, Russell's work is always worth seeing. The lead story, "Widow," however, is a kind of boring origin story for the Black Widow that appears to serve as set-up for the story in the next issue. Which I don't have. What I did like about the story is that this is the Widow in my favourite of her outfits. I wasn't a fan of the short-haired look that dominated the later part of the decade and much of the 90s. And this is definitely the version of the character that inspires the Scarlett Johansson version of the character. That could be her up on the cover there, really.

I'm feeling a bit aimless in the project again. Perhaps it's time to go back to alphabetical reading, though I'm just not feeling the Alpha Flight right now. Guess I've got a day to figure it out!

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 650: Wonder Woman #3, April 1987

So, um, this comic was amazing.

First, the Perez/Wein team is something I can't believe I've never read til now. Perez has always, always, meant superheroes to me. My first foray into the DCU was Crisis, pencilled by Perez in all 12 issues (I think). For me, Perez's style (or Phil Jiminez, or Darick Robertson) perfectly balances the realistic and the superhuman. They're not afraid to make these characters larger than life - they simply don't place them outside of Life.

But that's not the only thing. I know this is issue 3, and I don't know what the previous ones have been like, but the 4 of the 5 most interesting characters in this issue are women. And not just tiny spandex-wearing women (though WW wears it well!), but a university professor, her insecure daughter, and a brilliant reimagining of the Golden Age Wonder Woman's pal Etta Candy, now a military member (I have no idea how to talk about ranks and denominations in the military. It's a failing). Only Steve Trevor represents the male of the species, Considering that this comic is almost 30 years old, and was published by a major comics/entertainment corporation, that's pretty remarkable. Four fully-developed characters who are women in a superhero comic from the 1980s. I'm surprised.

However, this is where DC were at this point in the 80s. That decade gets short shrift because of some questionable fashion and political choices (Flock of Seagulls hair? Ronald Reagan?), but in comics you were getting things like Byrne's revamp of Superman, which, though I'm not a fan of Byrne, is really pretty fantastic. Frank Miller had change Batman forever, and Alan Moore had proven that superhero comics could tell stories on par with the literary. Over at Marvel, Roger Stern was telling incredible stories with the Avengers, and Mark Gruenwald was showing us a world where the Justice Leag...errr, sorry, the Squadron Supreme became a frighteningly convincing dictatorship. I think the only reason Perez's Wonder Woman doesn't get the same treatment as some of these other works is that the main character is a woman. Though the comic demonstrates a surprising equity in its characters, the culture that surrounded it did not.

I think I'm going to have to see about finding Perez's run on this title. It looks to be something special.