The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1890: Lionheart #2/Coven v.2 #4, December 1999

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The second, and final, piece of what was meant as a 3-issue mini-series guest-stars The Coven, whose series I really ought to get around to reading. I'm close to finishing off those series, so maybe soon. It turns out that Lionheart has shown up in The Coven, so I'm in some ways coming to the character backwards. Which doesn't appear to matter much, honestly. What I do find interesting is that Lionheart is, for all intents and purposes, a spin-off from The Coven, but since I didn't know that, I've read it as a series that stands by itself. I'm not sure what the overall effect of this is, aside from the fact that I wasn't expecting The Coven to show up, as I might have if I'd read their series, and met Lionheart there, first.

 

And speaking of The Coven, today's issue is a flip book with the final issue of Awesome's second series featuring that team. I've read bits and pieces of the series, so I wasn't completely lost, and this short tale is a story of Fantom and her experiences during the Second World War. The story is a reprint of Fantom's tale from the Coven: Black and White, which is, as far as I can tell, also reprinted in Coven: Dark Origins. The 1999 Awesome output comes at a time when the company is beginning to seriously flounder, and the reprints speak to this. It's difficult to really consider this issue as a proper part of the second volume of The Coven - it's previously released material and doesn't move what narrative might have been happening in the second volume forward at all. But I'll have more to say about that when I actually read the series.

 

At the end of this issue, Lionheart actually develops some armour from her powers, the pieces of which fit over the exposed skin her costume leaves. So at least she's not just giving everyone a free show when she's in her superpowered form, though I still don't really understand why her costume wouldn't go underneath the armour plates as well. Surely all that magical metal is stil cold.

 

I'll probably mention this when I get to their series, but I think the magical underworld of the Awesome Universe that Churchill and Loeb were crafting fits very nicely with the Silver-Age-esque superhero world of Moore and company. *sigh* What could have been...

 

More to follow.

 

Oh, and here's the flip cover:

 

 

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1889: Lionheart #1, August 1999

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Where, oh where, to begin? I have a number of feelings and thoughts about this comic.

 

One of the letters in the back of the comic asks if artist and creator Ian Churchill is a particularly religious individual, given that this comic opens with an extended sequence in the Garden of Eden, and the first pages of The Coven feature the killing of Abel by Cain. Churchill's response is that he has an interest in many religions, and sees the Bible as an important collection of really great stories. Totally my point of view too - they are great stories, in that they are both interesting and kerygmatic, they are designed to teach us something. That's why stories like the Biblical ones stick around for such a long time. There's something fundamental that they're trying to teach us. The trouble is that there's a good deal of reticence in updating those lessons for the modern era.

 

Which might be what happens when they get adapted into superhero stories like this one.

 

So that's one cool thing about the comic. I've waxed lyrical about Ian Churchill's artwork previously. I find his artwork, both the men and the women, unreasonably sexy. He's also extremely (see what I did there?) good at page construction, at action sequences, and, unlike many of his contemporaries, at facial expression. And, to add to that, this is a totally intriguing story. Pity it only gets the two issues.

 

But. And there's always a but. Why is Lionheart's costume the way it is? Her nemesis, who calls himself Blackheart, wears full on armour and a cape (that's him in the top left), and, as far as we can tell, has been empowered by the same force that gives Lionheart her powers. But it doesn't seem to have left him semi-nude. In the middle of an ice cave in the Alps. So, while I do appreciate the aesthetic quality of Churchill's women (second only to Art Adams in my book), we once again fall prey to the male gaze that demands that female heroes not only are badasses who can save us, but who are also eye candy to satiate a socially-constructed quality in some human males. I like to think that things have progressed somewhat, but I also haven't stepped foot into a comic shop in months, so I don't really know what current trends are looking like for lady superheroes.

 

So mostly a really good read, with some questionable visual representation of the female lead. And, that said, I should point out that personality-wise, Lionheart/Karen Quinn is a really nicely fleshed out character thus far. I'm curious to see what tomorrow brings.

 

More to follow. 

Further Reading and Related Posts

A bit more on Mr. Churchill. I really do love his work a lot.

And a few posts in which I consider the links between religion, mostly Christian, and comics.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1870: Awesome Holiday Special, December 1997

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In much the same way I wrote a series on the minor works of Steve Gerber, I think it would be worthwhile to do the same for Alan Moore. He's had so many series that just never went anywhere, and for the most part they were going to be amazing. There was a recent interview with Leah Moore in which she described her father's deep love for superheroes and the damage that was done to this love by his time in the comics industry. It's actually quite sad that someone who so obviously loves superheroes so much got treated the way he did by virtually every major superhero publisher in North America. No wonder he's so bitter.

The reason I bring this up is that there's a Youngblood story in today's issue that is the prelude to the 2.5 issues we end up getting of his reboot of the team. As I was reading the story, told in the voice of team leader Jeff Terrel, Shaft, I was amazed at how Moore's voice in the story was so different from his voice in any of his other stories. I know this seems like an obvious thing to point out, but a lot of writers have one voice when they write - their own - and they simply layer it over whatever character they're writing. But one of Moore's great gifts is to give each character their own distinctive voice, to the extent that I'd be hard-pressed to point to a comic that is actually written in Moore's own voice. Like Foucault said, the author isn't a person, it's a function, and at the best of times that function includes an erasure, or subsumption, of the author's own voice.

But there's more than just Moore in this issue. I have to say, at the end of the comic, I was left smiling and feeling pretty good, which is exactly what one wants from a holiday comic. I'm actually surprised that I haven't read this one already, but I'm glad that I was able to leave it until I was reading Fighting American. The FA story in this issue is about S.P.I.C.E., written and drawn (almost exclusively in full page panels) by Mr. Liefeld. It's not bad, but not great, but also takes place after the Rules of the Game series I just finished, as FA is in the process of putting the Allies back together.

What else? Both the Coven and Kaboom stories were good enough to make me want to track down their respective series. Honestly, I'm not that far off from having everything that Awesome produced, and, as I've said before, I just love the hell out of this universe. Back to FA's final Awesome outing tomorrow. Then maybe Youngblood?

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

Though I missed it this year, I'm usually pretty good about reading holiday-themed comics (though apparently I have two different tags for them?)

And if I'm going to dive into Youngblood, you can find what I've previously said about them here and here.

The Faces of Glory - Glory v.2 #0, March 1999 [Churchill Variant, Awesome Entertainment]

I'm prefacing this cover with the fact that I am actually quite a fan of Ian Churchill's work. He's done a couple of Supreme and Superman pics that are quite lovely and, if I'm totally honest, quite sexy. To me, he's a nice mesh of the Liefeldian, the Jim Lee-ian, and traditional superhero art.

That said, this cover is really bad. What we have here is Glory's original costume, not the one that we see in the actual story, but it really seems to be more of a bad sexy cosplay of the original costume. Again, I really do like Mr. Churchill's work in general, but this cover just isn't doing it for me.

This cover is one of 6 variants, and the only one I have from Awesome Entertainment. Some of the variants were distributed by premium comics distributor Dynamic Forces, so these will be even harder to come by. But I guess that's the thrill of the hunt.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 167: X-Men Chronicles #2, June 1995

I've got much the same thing to say about this issue of Chronicles as I did yesterday's. Though this issue was published as the AoA crossover was winding up, it depicts a moment in the alterna-X-Men's history that sets up the series that we're going to be looking at. This is the tale of both Weapon X and Jean Grey, and Gambit, leaving Magneto's team and taking up the rebel cause for themselves. Between last issue and this one, Sabretooth has somehow joined the team, which may or may not be explained in the series proper. That, honestly, isn't one of the important moments in this team's history, so perhaps it won't be explored at all. As I mentioned yesterday, it's not the whole of the continuity that's important in this crossover. Just the major points. It also speaks to the fact that the AoA is a temporary measure. If it had happened and been a reboot of the universe, rather than a crossover, I'm sure we would have had a Marvel Saga-style series filling us in on all the pertinent historical information.

This, in a nutshell, is my problem with crossovers. They are never going to lead to anything more than a slightly altered (if only for a month or two) status quo. Even supposedly major reboots like DC's "New 52" merely gave us a younger version of the same old universe. I understand the desire to keep things relatively based in "reality," a problematic statement if ever there was one, but imagine the story possibilities if Marvel had taken an idea like Age of Apocalypse, and made it their primary universal continuity for 5 years. Sure, bring back the old Marvel U in the year 2000, but keep this continuity going for a while, just to see how their characters make out in such a different setting. It could be that this is the failing of the corporately-owned superhero: he or she requires the status quo setting in order to be effective. Only a truly well-realized, and fundamentally archtypical, character can exist, and retain continuity, in vastly different settings.

Maybe.

Tomorrow and Wednesday we'll be looking at the two Tales from the Age of Apocalypse specials. Both were published well after the AoA finished, and tell "untold" tales. I'm not entirely sure they narratively preface the main series(es), but as they're afterthoughts to the series proper, we'll look at them now since they're not going to speak directly to those series. Considering what I've been saying about the sparseness of the history presented, it really does feel like there's a lot of prologue to the AoA. See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 163: Cable #20, February 1995

This is one of my favourite comics. But it's one of those ones that I always forget until I've decided to re-read the AoA crossover.

I'll start with the cover. This is literally the most action that happens in this whole issue, but that's not the most interesting thing about it. This is also a rather poignant gathering of fathers and sons, and sets up very nicely the attention given in this issue to the relationships that define the characters and how they treat them in these, their final moments.

And that's what this comic basically is: a collection of final moments. While, for the characters, the outcome of Cable's mission to the past is not a foregone conclusion, it really seems here that the whole universe is ending (though let's perhaps say the whole timeline, or continuity. The universe continues, albeit in a different fashion). Thus what we are given here is final thoughts and words between characters with whom, as long-time X-readers, we have grown close. Cyclops and Phoenix finally reveal the truth of their future adventures to Cable. Angel and Beast, who've been there from the beginning, have a tender moment. Rogue and Gambit (a couple I've never really got) have a moment. Rather than beating a problem into submission, each of the characters is instead given the opportunity to do what probably any of us would do when faced with the certainty of our own demise. They say the things they probably shouldn't have waited so long to say.

Jeph Loeb is one of those comics writers that, I find, often disappears into his work. He's a competent writer, and though I've never been as blown away by his work as by someone like Moore or Gaiman, I've also never been disappointed by it. It's only when we look to his collaborations with artist Tim Sale that we begin to really understand how much he gets the structure of the superhero narrative, and I think that's why he disappears into his stories. This'll take a bit more thought, I think, but I'm going to keep my eyes on Loeb as I read through. Brilliance in art has two distinct outcomes. The first is the innovative, what we might call the literary in the written work, where a work is atypical, pushing boundaries both structural and narrative. The second, though, is the disappearance of the artist into the work. Grant Morrison is always front and center in his stories. His style is an intrinsic part of his storytelling. With someone like Loeb, his style is subsumed by the tropes and structures of the superhero tale, or is the tropes and structures of the superhero tale. Someone like Kurt Busiek has a similar handle on this kind of story. Mark Waid, perhaps, straddles the two different ways. We have artists whose work is stereotypically superheroic, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Loeb is amongst those creators whose writing is stereotypically superheroic, with definite emphasis on the good.

Speaking of art, this issue is drawn by one of my favourite artists: Ian Churchill. I've caught flack for liking his work so much, as he's of that school of hyper-sexualized, super-defined bodies. His women are tall and slender and buxom beyond all reason, and his men have 12 packs instead of 6 packs, along with muscles on top of their muscles. But, like Loeb, I think Churchill captures something essential about the stereotypicality of the superhero. These are ideals given 2-dimensional form. While most of his characters are unbelievably ripped, I can imagine that he would spend the same amount of time and hyper-realism on more typical characters. I've just yet to see it. I came to his work when he did an issue of Moore's run on Supreme, and his art style meshed perfectly with the highly symbolic world of the Pearl Paragon. His work here is no less wonderful, and it's a treat to see these hyper-realized characters having conversations rather than fights. How does the superheroic body function in repose, in tender situations, rather than in violent conflict? Churchill gives us an all-too-brief look.

So the universe crystallizes, even though we haven't read the final issue. Perhaps the crystal wave is moving backward through time, so the present (1995) day X-Men are hit by it before those trapped in the past. We'll find out their fate tomorrow. See you then.