The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1930: Detective Comics #761, October 2001

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 Shawn Martinbrough, today's featured creator, is not a familiar name for me, though he's got a few mentions in my collection, mostly for this particular run of Detective Comics scripted by Greg Rucka. He also did the art for Creeper #1000000, part of one of my favourite DCU crossovers, DC One Million.

If I might digress for just a moment, writer Mr. Rucka is a great proponent of diversity in comics. Two characters who show up in this issue, Crispus Allen and Renee Montoya, are two of the best POC characters I've read, with Ms. Montoya also getting a shout out for her queerness.

But back to Mr. Martinbrough. I got most of this run of Detective while I was running my comic store, and I've actually not read much of it. Batman, for me, is one of those really overdone characters, much like Wolverine was at Marvel in the late 80s and all of the 90s, so I don't tend to read Batman stories unless it's a favourite writer or a key story from the DCU. This, I'm finding, is a mistake, as we have wonderful runs on the character throughout his history that ought to be considered on their own merits, rather than on blanket thinking about the character. So when I opened up today's comic, it didn't quite look like I expected it to. The art reminded me very much of Michael Avon Oeming's work, and numerous outlets describe Mr. Martinbrough's work as "film-noir" influenced, which I can definitely see. But there's also the stylization, into a Darwyn Cooke-kind of place, that still gives the comic, despite its darkness, the feel of a superhero comic. I think sometimes writers and artists forget that Batman, though unpowered, is still one of the greatest superheroes to have come out of American culture. And even when he's on his darkest cases, we shouldn't forget that. Martinbrough's art manages to bridge these two worlds nicely, and has honestly pushed me over the edge into tracking down a bit more of this run. Rucka is always a draw, but when he's paired with artwork this good, how can I say no?

Though I've not read it in a while, I can also see how Mr. Martinbrough's art would work wonders on the Creeper installment of DC One Million, and it also appears he did the art for the short-lived series as well. There's a few short-lived series from DC at that point that I've made an effort to track down (Chase, Chronos, Vext) - they seemed to be willing to experiment a bit with their shared universe, and I think they produced some really spectacular comics that just didn't resonate with the wider readership. Creeper has definitely just made that list.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

I've read a fair bit of Mr. Rucka's work for the project, if you're interested in some of my other thoughts on his work.

And, despite my previous statements, I've read a ton of Batman stuff for the project. Peter Milligan's Detective run is really quite excellent.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1219: Detective Comics #863, May 2010

Batwoman's final issue of Detective (too soon, too soon) packs a nice little punch. I have, of course, read all of these comics before, when they came out, but I noticed so much more in this story arc ("Cutter") than the last time. All three issues are this wonderful study in parallels. One that stood out to me for especial notice this month was one panel in which we see an interaction between Batman and Commissioner Gordon, and then immediately next to it is a panel depicting an interaction between Batwoman and Maggie Sawyer. From two straight while males to two gay white women is a pretty great change to see, and certainly one that Rucka and Jock are very clear about pointing out. I will say that having re-read this series, I'm even more curious about Rucka's much-lauded Wonder Woman.

We do leave a bit of a cliffhanger here for the other feature in Detective, the one that I haven't talked much about: The Question. But I think I'll leave that story for now, until I've managed to track the rest of it (if it exists) down.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1218: Detective Comics #862, April 2010

One of the reasons I decided to include the blog part of this project, rather than simply reading a comic every day, was that if I thought people were potentially reading, I'd feel more compelled to do this every day. And, for the most part, it's worked. I don't really know how many read this, but I enjoy, for the most part, airing whatever little idea has crossed my mind while reading a particular comic. So when I miss a few days, I feel very guilty. The trouble is I've been experiencing some bad joint pain for some time now, and typing is one of the worst things for it. So please don't think that my missing a few days in a row is a sign of my boredom with the project. It's more about the pain.

Now on to the comic.

I don't think I like Jock's art work in this run. I know Williams had left to go and work on the Batwoman series, but the shift in art styles is quite jarring. Jock reminds me of a more mainstream Ted McKeever (whose work I'm rediscovering, and who we'll see some of in July), which is super-different from Williams' style(s). That said, this is a choppy story, both narratively, and technically. The jumps from Bruce to Kate, the cutting nature of both villains, perhaps the choppy art is fitting. Tomorrow's our last issue for this run, so we'll see.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1217: Detective Comics #861, March 2010

An unfortunate thing happens shortly after this issue in Batwoman's history: the New 52. For those not in the know, this was a line-wide reboot of DC Comics. After #863, Batwoman departs the title, ostensibly for her own series, but only a zero issue is published before everything is rebooted. And, for some reason, I never followed the reboot. Honestly, the New 52 left a sour taste in my mouth about DC that I've only recently got past with the Young Animal titles.

So we get a sort of team up between the Bats, though they don't really interact much in today's issue. They're pursuing different cases, as far as I can tell, but you know with these sorts of things, everything will likely come together.

Then again, maybe it won't. Mr. Rucka is a pretty smart writer, so perhaps the ending I'm expecting won't be the one I get.

Here's hoping. More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1216: Detective Comics #860, February 2010

Today marks the last issue of Detective illustrated by J.H. Williams III. I want to say something about his art, because it demonstrates so perfectly the way that comics communicates with its audience. Williams' art style is constantly shifting throughout the series. Whenever a character is in costumed regalia (thus far on Batwoman and Batman), they take on a much more realistic mode than the characters do when they're in their civvies (trying to embrace the Army-speak of Kate and her Dad). It's almost as if, in embodying a mythic principle, the costumed characters become more real than the reality they inhabit. Which is, of course, exactly what happens with superhero comics.

No more J.H. Williams, but more to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1215: Detective Comics #859, January 2010

When we last saw Kate, she'd just found out that her twin sister might not have died in the terrorist attack that claimed her mother's life.

I guess you really do have to have some bizarre tragedy in your past to dress up and do what these Gothamites do.

Today's issue deals quite explicitly with Kate's queerness. As I noted in my earlier reviews, Kate's affectional preference is gestured toward but never made the focal aspect through which we experience Kate's life. That's what Batwoman is. But today's issue chronicles young Cadet Kane's parting with the U.S. Military, ironically upholding the values for which the Marines ostensibly stand, but being discharged for her sexuality anyway. Remember, this is set in 2003(ish), so DADT was still a thing.

We also get "the moment." The Bat-moment. Kate fends off an attack in Gotham, and is leant some assistance from a scowling man in a cowl. And as he leaps off into the moonlight, the myth takes root in another person.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1198: Detective Comics #858, December 2009

A good bit of background on Kate in today's issue. A friend of mine wrote his Master's thesis on representations of trauma in female superheroes, and he looked specifically at Batwoman as a way of thinking through reactions to trauma. Everyone in Gotham is traumatized. That should be clear to even the most casual of Bat-fans. To throw yourself at the kinds of monsters that prowl those streets, you have to be damaged in some way. Though said throwing is also a way of addressing said damage.

There hasn't been much on Kate's life outside of the Bat in the last few issues. We do have an interesting moment in flashback where Kate worries that her twin sister (!) is telling a boy that Kate likes him. She stresses that she doesn't even. It's not blatant, but it puts me in mind of when those sorts of thoughts start to cross one's mind. I've read many reports where gay people have said they'd known from a very early age. I don't know how early early is, but I probably started having inklings around 11 or 12. I could just never quite understand why anyone would limit themselves based on gender. Weren't we always told it's what's on the inside that counts?

We'll take a break from Detective Comics for a bit, though we will return to Ms. Kane's adventures later in the month. Tomorrow we'll have a look at some other badass gay icons.

More to come...

(Edit: I was thinking that I didn't really address the idea of trauma in this comic very well, and it's such an important piece of the puzzle that is Kate Kane. It's definitely not my strong suit from a theoretical perspective, so take any of this with a grain of salt! We'll see her striving for an ordered existence in the military, one that focusses her hurt until that existence clashes with her sense of what is right. And then she sees a symbol - Batman. She takes up that symbol to channel the pain of what she went through into something just. What's important about Kate's story is that it doesn't come out of the Batman story, in the way that Robin or Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) do, nor is it a story that serves to solely push forward Batman's story. It is a story that comes to the Batman story, a character with enough similarity of purpose to Batman's mission that she too comes to emblematize what it is that Batman does. In Kate's story we get a perspective on the difference between law and justice from a vantage that the Bat-titles, in my limited knowledge of them, rarely do: that of the military. There's a clash coming between Kate and her father that will touch on this, and I think we'll have a bit more to think about when we return to the title, as the final pages of this issue feature Batwoman testing some of Alice's DNA for...well. That would be telling.)

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1197: Detective Comics #857, November 2009

Apologies, but nothing really leaps out at me about today's comic. Which is a bit ironic, given that a large portion of the comic is given over to Batwoman leaping out of one plane and onto another. It's a pretty sweet action sequence, and showcases Williams III's ability to do the widescreen superheroics of something like The Authority, but with an incredible painterly eye. The cover is interesting, showing more of Alice than of Kate, but the comic itself reflects that, in that much of this issue focusses on the antagonist.

One more look at Batwoman tomorrow, a peek into her past. More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1196: Detective Comics #856, October 2009

There are two ways I'd like to think about queerness in this comic.

First, there are three lycanthropes in this issue. These characters were servitors of the previous leader of the Crime Religion, but were disillusioned when Batwoman defied their prophecy. They now hold her in some regard, and turn out to be allies in the battle against Alice. But I think their presence in a comic that is helmed by two lesbians is a little more symbolic. In story, they are form-shifting members of an underground society - a description one might easily ascribe to some kinds of queerness. And even more basically, the idea of shifting form, of being fluid between identities, is intrinsic to the idea of queerness.

Second, Batwoman and the Question used to go out. I can't believe this hadn't occurred to me before. It's revealed that, before either of them became the superheroes they are, Kate Kane and Renee Montoya dated. We enter their joint story after the fact. They're civil, but I think there's still some hurt feelings. So what's really interesting is that theirs are the two stories we're getting in this comic. I haven't said much about the Question's story. It's a gritty tale of human trafficking, and though a really good story, it pales in comparison to J.H. Williams's art. Is there something to this pairing? I feel like there's something to the fact that we're able to follow both women's stories, rather than experiencing their continuing narratives through only one focal character. And there is acknowledgment of the shared history in each others' tales. In yesterday's issue, one of the hallucinations Kate suffers is the Question coming to her rescue. Again, it's something I'd have to think longer on. Have we ever seen this kind of a story told with a heterosexual superhero pairing? Did Green Arrow and Black Canary every have a period of separation like this? And what is the idea of a shared focalization doing to our reading of a story of a broken-up couple?

(Even reading that back to myself, I'm not sure how much sense it made! But, as I noted in my intro to this month, queering is about breaking down binaries - in life and in theory!).

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1195: Detective Comics #855, September 2009

I'd forgotten how relatively long a history Batwoman had by the time she took over Detective. Introduced in the collborative series 52, she played guest roles in both 52 Aftermath: Crime Bible (an amazing series starring the other queer lady in this comic, the Question), and in Final Crisis. But Detective is her first starring role, and it really is glorious.

We get a full introduction to Alice, the new leader of the Religion of Crime, who seems to be styling herself on a mix of Alice from Wonderland and the Joker. I was at first a little put off by this - why do we have to give Batwoman her own version of the Joker? Why not give her her own iconic villains. But then I realized that this is what a comic set in Gotham does. It pits traumatized people against homicidal maniacs and hopes for a positive outcome. So of course Kate Kane has to have her version of the iconic Gotham villain, who is the Joker.

We get a brief glimpse of Kate's background in this issue, but only through the lens of Alice's hallucinogenic poison, so the images don't make too much sense. Terrorists and a kidnapping? (I know that answer of course, but I'm trying to build the suspense for you!). Along with this revelation, there's some really nice interplay between Kate and her father, the Colonel. Much like Bruce Wayne has Alfred (another of the icons of Gothamic existence, the reliable aide), Kate has her father, an army (I think) colonel. He stays on comms with her, gets her intel, and co-ordinates operations. And he's a bit of a badass himself. But in the midst of combat, he still has a moment to call Kate "baby," and tries to calm her. I'm trying to think it we've seen another version of this relationship in superhero comics, the parent that backs up the superhero's mission. I'll have to give this some thought.

The queerest thing about this issue was its absence, if you see what I mean. One of the conversations we have about representation is that queer characters have had, in the past, the propensity to become representatives, rather than representations. In that, a character comes to stand for the entire queer community, and the narratives woven around these characters tend to focus solely on their queerness, and the queer world within which they exist. Something like this is not an option in a long-form superhero narrative. You can't just tell one kind of story. So where we had an explicit acknowledgement of Kate's queerness in the previous chapter, this one says nothing of it. The character's queerness is simply not a factor in this part of the story.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1194: Detective Comics #854, August 2009

This is one of those comics that I could just sit and gush about. Everything about the Kate Kane Batwoman is fantastic, from her narrative construction to her incredible depiction by J.H. Williams III.

Who, by the way, is on my very short list of artists that I actively will collect.

Kate makes her way into the DCU by way of 52 and 52 Aftermath: The Crime Bible - her story in 52 is shepherded by Greg Rucka, who also tells her tale here. But here's why she's really, really important: she's an openly lesbian woman headlining one of the oldest superhero institutions in the world. Next to Action Comics, Detective's about as far back as superheroes go. So putting a queer woman in this title, without the euphemisms or typical tropes, is huge.

Speaking of the typical tropes, Batwoman manages to avoid them. She's not the poster child for lesbians. In fact, the first instance of her non-heteronormative sexuality that we see is her being dumped by a woman for not taking the relationship seriously enough. This is a woman who has trouble keeping all her identities on track, be they superhero or girlfriend. It's one of the things I appreciate most about Kate, her difficulty in balancing her lives. There's an excellent article by George Gustines that was in the New York Times called "Out of the Closet and Up, Up and Away," about gay superhero parties at the Stonewall Inn. One of the interviewees talks about how the superhero really makes a great metaphor for closeted queer people. Kate isn't closeted, but Batwoman is definitely her most certain self, the one that knows what she's doing and how to do it. Sometimes it's not so much the masks we take off that reveal our true selves, but the ones we put on (ask any drag artist). This seems to be the case with Kate, and really with most of our superheroic myths. As the old saw goes, it's really only Superman that takes off his mask to reveal his true selves. Everyone else puts one on.

I'll stop there for today. We're going to be spending a few days with Detective, so I'll gush about Batwoman some more tomorrow.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 470: Final Crisis: Secret Files, February 2009

There are two covers to most of the comics in the "Final Crisis" crossover. I really love the trade dress on these covers, the red bars slowly dissolving into black. But, having seen some of the other covers, which, like the cover of the Revelations hardcover, share the vertical titling but not the bars, I kind of wish I had those. Primarily, in the case of this cover, because the alternate would be a gorgeous portrait of FC villain Libra, rather than this godawful Jim Lee Wonder Woman. I don't actually remember where I read it, though it was likely Morrison somewhere, but a suggestion was made that Wonder Woman's costume doesn't really work when you strap it around a large bosom. The original H.G. Peter design was instead placed on a body that was slight up front, but featured the broad shoulders of someone who had spent her life in athletic training. A swimmer or weight lifter's body, rather than a supermodel's. Regardless, even if we account for the aesthetic shift of Western culture to privilege tiny waists and ample bosoms, there's no need for a picture of the greatest female superhero of all time to focus, literally front and center on both the cover and the picture, on her breasts. I would have bought the comic anyway.

(As an aside, Wonder Woman features in exactly none of this comic.)

Now, that said, it's not really a great comic. The lead feature is by Len Wein, whose name will forever be revered for his contribution to comics of the Swamp Thing. His story offers an origin for the mysterious Libra, one that, really, we probably could have done without. Mother dies, Father starts drinking, beats child, child grows up to become supervillain. Yawn. I think I'd have preferred not to know. Throughout this origin story, he seems somehow pathetic, rather than intimidating, as he is when we first meet him at the beginning of Final Crisis. And for all of his talk of balance, I don't see it played out through the story. I was close to only reading the Morrison and Rucka-penned sections of this issue, but then I remember that the larger project is reading comics, not just Grant Morrison comics.

Greg Rucka contributes a page from the Crime Bible to this issue, though I won't say much about it, as it's reprinted at the very beginning of today's graphic novel. Morrison gives us a short piece on the nature and history of the Anti-Life Equation, which is good, as over the course of its history, it's been a bit nebulous. Which, I suppose, is fitting for a god-weapon. We also get a sketch-book section from Morrison and J.G. Jones which doubles as a metatext of Nix Uotan's sketches, which we get a glimpse of in the early issues of the series when we follow the fallen Monitor into the real world(ish). Notable here, and actually in the Superman Beyond series, is that we get a glimpse of Doc Fate, mystic champion of Earth-20, and focal character in Morrison's later DCU epic Multiversity. I love seeing these things playing out over the course of decades. It speaks to the kind of creative vision that DC has been sorely lacking in the last few years. If you're going to set things up, you have to have some idea how you're going to knock them down before they simply crumble by themselves.

Tomorrow we'll move back into the story proper, and get a ground-level view of the end of the world.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 10 - Final Crisis: Revelations, 2009

In laying out my lineage of the link between religious writings and comics, the utilization of words and pictures to communicate sacred stories, I touched briefly on the remarkable creation by Greg Rucka in the late 2000s DCU of the "Crime Bible." I've the inklings of a paper on it in my head, but that's not what I'll get into here.

There were numerous mini-series that comprised the "Final Crisis" event, and at the time it seemed to me that they were actually completely separate stories, all culminations of a sort, that were conveniently grouped under a single event banner. I'm still mostly convinced that that was the case. But FC:Revelations at least meshes this climactic confrontation between The Question and the Religion of Crime quite nicely with the events of the greater crossover. Having not read the Legion of Superheroes tie-in, or the Flash Rogues tie-in, I don't know how much they bring to the larger tale, but Revelations brings a more street-level view of the ascension of Darkseid to the DCU. That might be a strange thing to say about a comic that features both God's spirits of Wrath and Mercy, but our focal character of Renee Montoya keeps things nicely grounded. And the story also shows that while the (New) gods may move in mysterious and abstract ways, their presences are more viscerally demonstrated by the mortals whose lives they touch. We do not talk to our gods, but only to the texts through which they ostensibly communicate with us, and Rucka's tale of the Crime Bible across a number of years explores this notion quite beautifully.

I will note that I'm not a big fan of Philip Tan's art in this series, or at least of one particular aspect: every prominent female character had D-cup breasts. I'm seriously not sure how the Question manages to stay upright. Batwoman, who in most other depictions I've seen is illustrated as lithe and athletic, here falls into the voluptuous (at least chest-wise) cliche of superheroines. Even the brief flashes of Supergirl late in the story show her with some breasts of Power Girl-stature. Now, this is certainly not to say that there are not, in the DCU as in reality, women who have chests this large, nor is this in any way a denigration of those who do possess such breasts. But the proliferation of them in this graphic novel took me right out of the story every time they were there. Like Batwoman, Montoya is usually depicted as being a relatively slight and athletic character. To suddenly see these volleyball-sized protuberances on her was completely off-putting. Aside from this, Tan's art was nicely evocative of the end of the world aesthetic of Gotham in the days of anti-life.

As Final Crisis #3 skipped over, with the Flashes, the initial wave of anti-life, it's nice to see it filled in in this story, and to see that the Crisis isn't simply a battle of gods, New, old, and superheroic, but also a tale of people dealing with a world that is ending.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Reading the Bat in Morrison's Final Crisis

There were those who loved Final Crisis, and those who hated it, much as there always is with crossover events. I loved it, but, as we've seen over the last few weeks, I'm biased. As such, I've decided that, rather than simply read the Batman comics that take place around Final Crisis, I'm going to read through FC as a part of my read of Morrison's Batman.

However, I'm going away for a bit over the weekend, so there'll also be a pause of 4 days in the read. I'll set some pre-read comics (always a necessity in a project like this) to post, but they won't be Morrison or Batman-related. And, maybe, it's good that we take a break where we do.

For anyone interested, this is the read order I'll be following over the next little bit. Only Final Crisis: Revelations is not written by Morrison, but I have to say that one of my favourite products of this era of the DCU is Rucka's "Crime Bible." I actually used it, and Revelations, in my MA Thesis.

So it'll look like this:

Batman #701
Final Crisis #1, 2, 3
[4 Day Break]
Superman Beyond #1, 2
Final Crisis: Revelations (should be the weekly graphic novel next week)
Final Crisis: Secret Files
Final Crisis: Submit
Final Crisis #4, 5
Batman #682, 683
Final Crisis #6, 7
Batman #702

You'll note that two of the Batman comics come well after the number we're up to, and they were published almost 2 years later. They fill in spaces between "R.I.P." and Final Crisis, and I'm not certain why they ended up being published when they were. Either Morrison hadn't figured out how Bruce got to where he gets, or he had, and people wanted to know so they published it. I'm unsure.

Once we hit Batman #702, that'll be the end of Morrison's run on that title (with the exception of the 700th anniversary issue). On to Batman and Robin, probably my favourite take on the team and the characters. But first, it's time for the end of the world...onward? 

Also, here's a much more comprehensive reading order, going back years before Final Crisis was ever published. One day...

The 40 Years fo Comics Project - Day 255: Hackmasters of Everknight #7, May 2001

I've long been a fan of Knights of the Dinner Table. I think anyone who's been a gamer for a substantial part of their lives has to appreciate KODT on some level, because, even if you don't have a gaming group made up of a rules lawyer, a fool, a rogue, and a "serious" gamer, the situations that the KODT crew find themselves in offers a reflection of us, the gaming public, in all our glorious weirdness.

Hackmasters is a neat little offshoot of the KODT main series. I'm not 100% sure of the genesis of the series, and how it links in with KODT Illustrated, in which we actually see the adventures of the main group of characters, but it shares the same humour, the same over-the-top "gaming" style, and even boasts a pretty good art style, better, for sure, than that of its parent magazine.

Stand out moments in this comic for me: the interviews for a new thief, now that "Lefty" has passed on, in which Catwoman, Black Cat, The Saint, and Bilbo Baggins from the Bakshi LOTR show up, amongst others, was pretty great. Catwoman's guest appearance is especially amusing considering that Greg Rucka is the guest scripter for this issue. I know. I was shocked too. The other thing that really struck me about the book was the hilarious deployment of all the standard fantasy game tropes: the evil brother to a party member who is the main villain, the elderly teacher taken prisoner, the villainous hench...person who turns out to have an intimate and unexpected relationship with one of the heroes. Ah. Memories.

So, all in all a nice little amuse-bouche of a comic. Onward, comrades!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 237: 52 #4, May 31, 2006

One of the things that's always struck me as I read 52 is trying to figure out which of the writers wrote each section. I'm sure that it's been broken down somewhere, but I think it's far more fun, and more indicative of one's immersion in the medium, to be able to pick a writer out by considering the situations and dialogues each of the characters takes part in. I'm pretty sure Rucka writes the Question and Renee Montoya stuff, but only because I've read subsequent treatments of these characters (and Batwoman, who'll be debuting in one of these issues eventually) by him. I imagine Waid writing the Steel sections, but he and Morrison have very similar superhero storytelling aesthetics, so it's a bit tricky there. I'm going with Johns for the Booster Gold stuff, mainly because Booster seems to be a character from the era of superheroes that Johns privileges. And, and I hate to say it because I've enjoyed some of his writing, but the Booster stuff is the stuff I enjoy least in this comic. I'm not sure about the Ralph Dibny stuff - perhaps Morrison, by dint of the fact that Ralph is enmeshed, at the moment, with a cult that has grown up around Superboy. Again, though, both Morrison and Waid have treated this idea in their own separate writings. I don't know about the Black Adam stuff. I'm also going to ascribe it to Johns, as he's a far more brutal storyteller than the others, and Black Adam has, so far, been fairly violent.

Let's have a look online, and see what we can find.

Just a sec. Gotta google this stuff.

Apparently, there's no real consensus. Most assume that Morrison wrote the Animal Man stuff that will come later, and that Rucka did the Question stuff. Keith Giffen provided layouts, and there's some conjecture that he contributed to the storytelling, most likely Booster. But it really looks like they may have bounced the characters around, depending on the situations within which each character finds him or herself. Which makes sense, really, given that each writer has a different forte.

That's the first chunk of 52 that I'm going to look at. Tomorrow I'll either return to early-eighties Canada with Alpha Flight, or pick up the AD&D comics again, since I've just procured enough of the issues I was missing to continue with that. We'll find out on the morrow. See you then!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 236: 52 #3, May 24, 2006

Rather than give a general overview of this comic, I'm going to instead focus on a couple of panels. In literary studies, we're often told that a whole analytical paper can be hinged upon a particular sentence, or even word, in an imaginative work. I have, in my undergrad, actually written on individual words and the ways in which we might interpret a whole work or section of a work based on that interpretation. This is called, or is a facet of, close reading, the fundamental tool of the literary critic.

Close reading in a comic is slightly different, because we have to look at both the narratological qualities of the art and words and also the semiotic qualities of the form. I'm going to look more at the former than the latter today.

Here's the first panel I want to consider:

Thus far in the series (as short a distance as that is), all we've seen of Booster Gold is a money-hungry, endorsement-seeking, future-mining dick. He's always been one of my least favourite heroes in the DCU, mainly for the above-stated reasons. Here, however, we see him taking a slightly more serious approach to things. When his information about the future starts to prove itself unreliable, rather than whining and moaning, he realizes that there's a good chance that something has gone wrong with time. In the wake of a universal crisis, such an assumption is not an unfair one to make. It's smart of the writers to give us a little more depth in Booster at this point, especially considering he's one of our focal characters for the series. The more prevalent characterization would have worn thin had it not been tempered by this side of the character. There's a reason he's been on the Justice League, and a reason he hasn't been shut down by any of the other heroes: he does actually care. It's just that the caring is buried deep, deep, deep beneath a shiny capitalist veneer.

Here's my favourite panel in the whole issue:

Continuity-wise, it's often difficult to say what adventures have happened to this point, and which have been retconned out of existence. Steel is, as far as I know, keenly aware of Luthor's criminal dealings. He was a member of the Justice League (during the Morrison years) when Lex was involved with the Injustice League, and thus knows that the act of caring President is just that with Lex. Their whispered exchange, the tacit acknowledgment of one anothers true feelings, is a lovely little moment. Neither can act on their true feelings, but that doesn't mean that neither can't make those feelings known. At least to each other.

52, as I've repeatedly called it, is an experiment. As the series progresses, I feel like the creative teams take the results of the early parts of the experiment and apply them to the later parts. My recollection is that the later parts of the series are far better, that the creators realize what they can do with the format, and what they don't need to do with the format. I suppose we'll see. So, that's a tiny little close reading, not terribly in depth, but what I was feeling like talking about today. See you tomorrow!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 235: 52 #2, May 17, 2006

One of the problems with telling a weekly, long-form story is that, in some instances, you have to tell stories that aren't really stories, but just he mundane things of life. While there are certainly superheroics in this issue, they're the stuff of life for these characters. The little revelation of the spray-painted S-shield on Sue Dibny's grave was intriguing, but the Booster stuff was lame, and the Montoya stuff just seemed gritty for the sake of being gritty. I really love Renee and Charlie's relationship later in the series, but this cloak and dagger-y stuff they do at the beginning is less interesting to me.

Just a short review today. What's interesting about the backup feature in this issue is that while ostensibly being a fictional narrative about the DC Universe, it's actually the real-life story of the DC Universe, in that it talks about all the reboots the continuity has undergone that were reflected in the publishing decisions of the company.

That's all for today. #2's are always a bit of a letdown. See you tomorrow for #3.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 234: 52 #1, May 10, 2006

I actually picked up the next issue of Alpha Flight this morning, and was about 4 pages in when I remembered that I'd decided to take a break from that comic. And what better way to pass a week than with DC's first foray into a weekly comic, 52.

52 picks up right after the events of the ridiculous clusterfuck that was Infinite Crisis. I call IC this because, rather than a nice, compact, followable event series, Infinite Crisis was a series of mini-series and one-shots and preludes and hints dropped in every comic leading up to it that, unless you were buying every single title DC was publishing at the time, made no sense whatsoever. I'm a strong proponent of the notion that an event series ought to tell a coherent story, and if there's crossovers or ancillary series, those series should enhance the story, but not be necessary to the enjoyment of the main title. Infinite Crisis did not do this. It's the same as with Marvel's Secret Invasion, which would have made absolutely no sense if I wasn't already reading the Avengers titles that crossed over into it.

Anyway, after the events, whatever they were, of IC, all DC comics jumped ahead one year. 52 is the story of what happened that year, week by week.

This issue gives introduces us to the six main characters with whom we're going to take this year-long journey. They're all B-list heroes (though Booster Gold certainly does not see himself that way), so it's kind of a cool ground-level look at the aftermath of one of these world-shaking crises. Steel's sections, helping with rescue efforts in Paris and chatting with the rescue workers, is particularly well-handled, as is Ralph Dibney's story. Dibney, it should be noted, is still reeling in the aftermath of the Identity Crisis mini-series, and the revelation that his wife Sue turned out to be a murderer. Of all the stories in 52, Ralph's is by far the most poignant, and probably the most well-realized. Though, having said that, the Renee Montoya/Question storyline is really pretty great too.

I admit, I only ever really picked up 52 when it came out because of the creative team. Though I'm not a big fan of Geoff Johns' subsequent mangling of the DCU, at this point he was riding high on a pretty fantastic run on Green Lantern. Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, and Greg Rucka are all amazing writers, and really any one of them on a title is reason enough to read it. All three? Sold. Add Keith Giffen on layouts, and you've got what promises to be a truly solid piece of work.

I guess over the next little while, we'll see if that promise is fulfilled. I've re-read 52 in its entirety only one other time, aside from when it was coming out, and I don't actually remember my reaction. I think the plan, at least for the foreseeable future will be to do a week of 52 and a week of Alpha Flight. The runs I have of both are quite lengthy, so this'll be a nice way of breaking them up. I know I said I was going to dive into the pile of "to read" comics sitting on my floor, but 52 called out to me, and I answered.

So. Week one sees Booster's knowledge of the future proved false, a bit of a crisis for him. Black Adam asserts his command and vision for Khandaq. Renee drinks a lot, Ralph wants to kill himself, Steel is heroic, and The Question commandeers the Bat-Signal for his own mysterious purposes. What will next week bring? Find out tomorrow!