Comic Book Resources Articles

Catching up on some of the things I've written for CBR lately.

I think I have to start writing more critical analyses for my personal site, as I'm not really afforded the opportunity by these news articles.

Check these interesting things out, and not just because I'm paid by the hit on the site ;)

Crisis on Infinite Earths Fan-Edit Brings In Even More Classic DC Universes

 

The Avengers Meets Blue Monday in Marvelous MCU Mashup

 

Eternals Star Gemma Chan Shares Photo to Commemorate Filming Wrap

 

Cats, Rambo and Hellboy Lead 2020 Razzies Nominations

 

Record-Setting World's Largest Firework Video Is Absolutely Terrifying - this video is really freaking cool.

 

I Am Not Okay With This Mixes Teen Angst & Super Powers in First Trailer

 

Star Wars Fans Launch Petition for JJ Abrams' 3-Hour Rise of Skywalker Cut

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comic Book Resources Articles

Finally getting back to writing for CBR, now that I have a computer that was actually made this decade.

Why Oliver Queen Isn't on the New Crisis on Infinite Earths Logo

Chadwick Boseman Wants Nothing To Do with a Marvel/Disney+ Series

Justice League: Warner Bros. Had Whedon Shoot Nearly 80 New Script Pages

Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County Christmas Epic Will Bring You to Tears

Crisis on Infinite Earths Rap Recap is the Supercut You've Been Waiting For

What Were We Reading When Humans First Walked on the Moon?

(First, and foremost, today is my 23rd wedding anniversary. She remains the love of my life. Well, she knows she shares me with comics. Happy Anniversary, my love.)

To paraphrase The Beatles, it was 50 years ago today. Neil Armstrong’s momentous step down the ladder ushered in what was hoped to be a new era of human exploration of space. Suffice to say, that didn’t happen, we’re still planet-bound, although NASA is saying we’ll be back there some time in the near future. Unfortunately, I’ll believe it when I see it.

For me, one of the best ways to put myself into another era is through comic books. I’ve a relatively deep knowledge of them, and looking at trends and events from various historical periods tells one a lot about the industry and the readers at the time. So in celebration of the 50^th anniversary of this incredible human achievement, I think we should have a look at what was going on in comics at the same time.

The first thing to bear in mind is that the cover dates on old comics were not actually the dates of publication. More often than not, these were the dates upon which the comic should be removed from shelves, freeing up space for incoming product. Before 1973, cover dates were about 2 months in advance of publication dates. What this means is that comics published in July of 1969 likely bore a September 1969 date. To be safe, I’ve had a look at comics published between August and October of that year, but I’ll focus on September.

Honestly, the biggest thing, I think, is the first appearance of Sam Wilson, the Falcon and eventual-Captain America, in Captain America #117, cover dated September. Sam has become a fixture in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but we should never forget that he was so important to the Captain America title that “and the Falcon” was added to the comic’s title between issues 134 and 222. Although there are some problems with early depictions of Sam, specifically some stereotyping that reads quite uncomfortably in contemporary times, he represents something very important as far as African-American representation in superhero comics. Note that, unlike many African-American superheroes, he did not have the word “black” in front of his superhero name, unlike Black Panther, Black Goliath, Black Racer, etc. Instead, he is just “The Falcon,” and he becomes Captain America’s best friend. Bearing in mind when this happened, just 1 year after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Sam really is a major step forward for representation at a time when the conversation around diversity and representation was virtually non-existent. 

There were some other notable first appearances by characters as humans took their first steps on an extraterrestrial body. Along with The Falcon, September-dated comics saw the first appearances of Sauron (Uncanny X-Men #60), Titanium Man (Tales of Suspense #69), and Digger, a host character a la the Crypt Keeper (Tower of Shadows #1).

In Justice League of America #73, cover-dated August so likely on stands June – July, fans were introduced to the Superman of Earth-2 for the first time, reasserting that the Golden Age happened on a parallel world introduced 8 years earlier in the pages of The Flash. The story continued over into the September issue. The Earth-2 Superman, of course, comes to play a pivotal role in many major DC events up to the present day.

Marvel’s horror/fantasy title Tower of Shadows debuted with a September cover date, featuring work from luminaries such as Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, and Bernie Wrightson. The title lasted 6 years, shifting to Creatures on the Loose as of the 9^th issue, and, later in the run, featured John Jameson, a one-time astronaut, in his new guise as “Man-Wolf.” Other comics released this month include the second issue of the underground magazine Bijou Funnies (though whether or not undergrounds used the same dating system as mainstream comics is unknown), Marvel’s My Love #1, featuring art by John Romita, Sr. and John Buscema, and, famously, the first issue of Warren Publishing’s Vampirella. Thor #168 pitted the God of Thunder against the World-Eater himself, Galactus. The Brave and the Bold #85 saw an update of Green Arrow’s costume, thanks to artist Neal Adams. This marks the first depiction of Oliver Queen with his trademark beard and his Silver Age costume.

Along with the Falcon, Vampi and Green Arrow are characters who have weathered the last half century quite well, only rarely, if at all, being out of print in the past 5 decades.

While perhaps not a huge year for comics, there were definitely some memorable titles and characters to have come from this momentous month. As Armstrong and company gamboled about in the lunar dust, Sam Wilson took his first flight in Marvel Comics, Vampirella terrorized and titillated horror fans, and Green Arrow left behind his Golden Age self. One wonders, 50 years from now, what moments and characters from this year will resonate when we celebrate the 100-year anniversary of our first steps on another world.

Other Things You Might Like Reading:

Captain America of Earth-H!: The Earth-H Files - Captain America and "The Red Skull"

The 60s - When Veronica Met the Devil: Giant Box of Comics Breaks the Law! - Veronica in "The Devil You Say?"

The Earth-H Files - Green Arrow in "An Arrow in Time"

From Wonder Woman v.1 #267, May 1980.

Giant Box of Television: Arrow Season 2

Most of the write-ups of Arrow cite this season as being the high point of the show thus far. Criticisms of seasons 3 and 4 note sloppy storytelling, or trying to pack too much into the show, or mishandling of relationships, but many see season 2 as a near perfect superhero series. Having just finished the whole series (well, up to the current episode), I'm not sure I agree, but I'm also not sure I disagree. I think season 2 is the tightest story arc. The flashbacks to the island impact directly on the contemporary storyline, showing us the descent of Slade Wilson into the Mirakuru-fuelled madness that leads him to put his hands around Starling City's throat. Other flashbacks in other seasons have thematically attempted to follow the main storyline, but this is the only one that has seemed like we were watching one large story told in a non-linear manner. So, for that reason alone, I can understand the privileging that season 2 receives.

It's also where Oliver starts to become a hero, rather than a murderer, the ramifications of which are still being felt on the show. Though the Mike Grell run on Green Arrow that inspired the series shows the character indiscriminately killing, it's hard to reconcile this kind of a "hero" with the larger DCU, which, thankfully, starts to show up a bit more in this season. As I watch the current season (5), I'm conflicted about the character of Oliver Queen. Should he get away with the wholesale slaughter of season 1, simply because he's decided that he's going to be a hero and stop killing? This is obviously what the season 5 villain Prometheus is also asking, which makes us beg the lovely question as to who is really hero and who is really villain in this piece.

But in season 2, Oliver was trying very hard to be a hero, and by the end of the season, he's there, I think. The other great thing about this season is that the supporting cast comes nicely into focus. They spent much of the previous season getting to know one another, but now they're becoming a family. Oliver and John's relationship is one of the nicest homosocial pairings on television, and Felicity Smoak, who for some reason catches a lot of flak from reviewers, is adorably dorky, fiercely intelligent, and super-sexy all at the same time. And don't think Oliver's not noticing.

Villain Slade Wilson is just great. I don't know if it was intentional, but the character bears a lot of similarity to the depiction of Deathstroke in the Teen Titans cartoon from a few years ago. He's brutal and lethal, but also charming and charismatic. He serves as a perfect foil for Oliver in this season, demonstrating the void that remains when someone gives themselves up to despair and death, a lesson that Oliver has to learn in order to emerge on the other side of the season as someone, or something, else.

Giant Box of Television: Arrow Season 1

I was recently inspired to go back and watch Arrow from beginning to...well, not quite end, but to where it's up to now. I didn't get on board with Arrow right away as I was quite annoyed by the idea that they were going to attempt a superhero television show without superheroes. There had been a clear communication from the creators of the show that this was not going to involve all of the things that make a superhero universe wonderful and weird, but rather would be an action show about a guy with a bow.

Thank goodness they got over that.

Once Flash had started on the CW, and I loved it, I decided I should probably familiarize myself with the characters from Arrow  who were popping up every now and again. I'm very glad I did, for many reasons, not least of which is that Stephen "Oliver Queen" Amell is seriously one of the most attractive people on television.

Season 1 of the series is dark. Very, very dark. But it manages to balance that darkness with some deeply human moments, and some very funny moments. Oliver, at this point, has just returned from what the intro to the show calls "5 years in Hell," the end of which we're just now seeing in the current season. It's probably not a stretch to consider this entire season to be a depiction of a man dealing with PTSD in a very extreme way, but one that channels his demons and pain into something better. It also wonderfully sets up a good deal of the moral greyness that follows the character throughout the series, as even now, in the 5th season, the characters are still dealing with the ramifications of Oliver's indiscriminate killing during his first year back in Starling City.

Green Arrow has never been one of my favourite comic characters. Much like Daredevil, I always saw him as a sort of Batman-lite, and in many ways he's treated that way in this series. In fact, some storylines are lifted directly from Batman's corpus (season 3's conflict with R'as al Ghul, for example), and it's easy to watch the show from the perspective of it really being a Batman show. But Oliver Queen has some very different personality traits to Bruce Wayne. Particularly, in this season, we see his deep loyalty to his family, and his eventual acceding to the opinions of others in his mission. His supporting cast grows and develops over the course of the season too, going from background figures in the series to fully-fleshed out individuals all their own. It strikes me that the creators of the series probably initially envisioned it as simply a Batman story but with a green costume, but the characters surround "The Hood," including Starling City, changed it into something else.

Unlike their filmic counterparts, the Arrowverse television shows understand that superhero comics can vacillate from light to dark literally in the space of a panel. There are still cheesy one-liners, sometimes completely out of place, but that's what a superhero universe is. It's simpler than our own. And vastly more complex (fans of DC's pre-Crisis continuity know what I'm talking about). But it's never one or the other, and Arrow does a wonderful job of representing that.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 411: Green Lantern #90, August 1976

With this issue, it had been 4 years since there had been a Green Lantern title in publication, which, to me in the present, seems insane. Not that I've ever been a particular fan of Hal Jordan (more a Kyle Rayner fan, myself), but the Green Lantern name is A-list, and the fact that there was a time when he was out of print is bizarre.

This is a pretty good tale, of aliens and mistaken identity, but suffers for its being a follow-up to the O'Neil/Adams run on the title. Of course, Adams is replaced with Grell here, who eventually comes to redefine the character of Green Arrow, who co-stars with Lantern for a little while.

I wonder if anyone's ever explained why the rhyme Green Lantern repeats each time he charges his ring is necessary. I can't remember if it's part of the Geoff John's GL reboot of the 2000s, but in this issue its a pretty fundamental part of the story, in that the ring won't recharge unless the rhyme is not only spoken, but completed. While GL is, for the most part, a science fiction character, this uses of rhyme smacks of magic, a nice link to the powers of the original Green Lantern.

I'll do some research, and find out. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 300: World's Finest Comics #269, July 1981

300 days!

Not that I want to give the impression that I can't commit to anything, but I'm surprised that I've managed to do a consistent 300 days of posting to this blog. As the old saying goes, "Practice makes perfect," and this amount of writing is certainly great practice. But after 300 days, I'm only in the early stages of my journey toward perfection, I think.

From sentient viruses to being buried alive. It seems this stack of comics from the dollar bin is demonstrating Jungian synchronicity. As I noted yesterday, the idea of a virus that takes over one's body is amongst my greatest fears. Perhaps the greatest, at least in terms of irrational terror, is of being buried alive. I'm quite claustrophobic, and what happens to Batman in the cover story of this issue is just about one of the worst things I can imagine. Thank goodness he remains more calm and collected than I would in the same situation.

This issue, arriving 4 years before the tumult of Crisis, offers a showcase of some of the best artists of the last years of the Silver Age. Rich Buckler is a great exemplar of the DC style of the late 70s and early 80s. Trevor Von Eeden, in the "Green Arrow" story in this issue offers one of the more realistic depictions of breasts that I've seen in superhero comics (it's the little details that matter). In the "Hawkman & Hawkgirl" story, Alex Saviuk gives Shayera Hol wonderful muscle definition, showing us that it's not only the male superheroes that have to be "ripped" in order to do the job they do. Of all the art in this issue, the Saviuk/Rodriguez stuff in this story is probably the best. Don Newton's "Captain Marvel, Jr." work offers a nice combination of the more realistic art toward which DC moves in this era and the stylized art that's characterized the Marvel Family work through its existence. In particular, Newton captures facial expression in a way that many comics artists cannot.

The writing is less impressive than the art, unfortunately. Gerry Conway is a capable writer, and his deployment of the 70s address to the protagonist in the caption box is effective, but the story as a whole is relatively tame. The same goes for the rest of the stories - tame. It's hard to feel like there's really anything at stake in any of these adventures, hence my concentration on the art, rather than the writing. Oh, and if I can just offer an opinion here, too, this version of Green Arrow, roving reporter for the Star City "Daily Star" is a complete dick. As a poor woman relates the story of her incarcerated brother, GA is trying to decide if she's a "10" or an "11." Total. Dick.

What I actually found the most interesting about this comic was the inside back cover, which features "The Daily Planet Feature Page." The creator profile on this page is for one Laurie Sutton, a woman who scripts the "Adam Strange" adventures of this era. It's always great to hear of women working in the industry at this time (and at any time, really). Mainstream comics still struggles with the "boys club" mentality, though greater strides are taken with each passing year to quash that notion. In the late 70s and early 80s, however, I imagine the idea of a woman working prominently in comics was even less likely, so to see Ms. Sutton profiled is lovely. I'm curious to read some of her Adam Strange stuff.

We've almost worked through the dollar bin comics I recently procured. It's probably time I pulled out my holiday comics and read one or two, in the spirit of the season.