The 40 Years of Comics Project - Weekend Edition

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on the importance of being vaccinated, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

In an effort to not make me hate writing completely, I think my weekend comics will be blogged this way. Just a short note and some thoughts I had on each one.

Day 2419 - Generation Gone #1 by Ales Kot and Andre Lima Araujo. A cool concept, which I've come to expect from Mx. Kot. They are a writer that wears their Grant Morrison influence on their sleeve. Like me with Marillion or Ween. 3 hackers steal some code that causes structural changes in their bodies and gives them superpowers. And they're angry young people.

Day 2420 - Porn Star Fantasies #7 by Xenia Blue, Crystal Gold, Paradise, and Chuck Bordell. This series reprints the fictional stories that are back-ups in the "True Stories of Adult Film Stars" series. I don't know how much of the "True Stories" series is actually true. I like to think that most of it is, if embellished for creative reasons somewhat. The biographical pieces, almost to a fault, tell the stories of women who really like sex, but are told that it's not okay for young women to like sex. And then they discover the porn industry and their own power. I'm sure there's some shady as fuck stuff that is left out, but the takeaway is that, if true, each of these women entered this industry not because they were abused or broken, but because they were people who loved sex in a world that told them that women shouldn't.

Though maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic in that reading.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2416: M.O.M.: Mother of Madness, July 2021

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on the importance of being vaccinated, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 Late by a day. A less than auspicious beginning to Year 8, I agree.

Whatever.

M.O.M.: Mother of Madness is one of the coolest, smartest, beautifulest (?) comics I've read in fucking ages. The brainchild of Emilia "Khaleesi" Clarke, ably assisted by Marguerite Bennett and Leila Leiz.

Given that this book deals very explicitly with the male gaze, I feel slightly bad mentioning off the top how gorgeous this book is. Like, seriously a beautiful comic. I'm a fan of J.H. Williams III, and the way that he fuses different styles of art in his panels and layouts. Ms. Leiz has a similar approach, though very much her own style. From Connor-esque cuteness to Ashley Wood levels of scratchiness, the books visual aesthetic matches perfectly the narrative that it complements.

This is a story about a woman who, through absolutely no fault of her own, gains superpowers that are triggered (word used purposefully) by the aspects of her self for which she has been criticized. When fearful, she gains super hearing. When sad and crying, she gains super healing. There's a lot of fourth wall breaking in the story, and this is a comic that is utterly, utterly self aware. "You sat through 22 Marvel movies. You can give me 5 pages" says our focal character as she is giving us some pretty heavy back story. Through this self-awareness, we can see the vital and driven message that the creators are directing us toward. It's not subtle. The pages are peppered, uncomfortably, with off-hand remarks from male-identifying people in the story. Horrible remarks. Despicable things to say, and to do. I felt that one of the most depressing things about this comic is that it's set about 25 years in the future, and toxic masculinity seems to be alive and well.

But M.O.M. isn't going to stand for it.

Oh, and for more woman-y goodness, as far as I can tell the entire book, from editorial on down, was done by female-identifying people. It shows. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but when you've got a comic like this, or Womanthology, it shows. There's a different, wonderful quality to the creation.

I'm late to this game, as the series came out last year. There's two more issues, I'm going to get them this week. Honestly, if you enjoyed Bitch Planet, this comic is the next one to read.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2097: Gen 13 #1 Encore Edition, August 1997

 For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2003: Freak Force #1, April 1997

  For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

 

 I got nothing for this one. It's a story about a bunch of characters, only a couple of whom I recognize. I'd been trying to read comics by the founding Image partners, and Erik Larsen's stuff has always eluded me. He's dear to me for having done a cool little run on Doom Patrol in the 80s, but none of his other stuff has ever really grabbed me.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2002: Moriarty #1, May 2011

 For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

 

 Just a short one today, though this comic was really quite excellent. It's the first part of a mystery story involving the one-time nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, fallen on hard times because, like it or not, he needed Holmes to keep him interested.

The story is cool, the art is wonderfully atmospheric. I really appreciated that when Moriarty went out in disguise, I could still always tell which character was him. That might sound like a little thing, but it speaks volumes of the artist's understanding of how comics work.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1977: Cyberforce/Hunter Killer First Look, May 2009

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

This is one of those comics that I had very little context for, and thus was not entirely sure what the heck was going on. I know Cyberforce vaguely, mostly from a two-issue Steve Gerber series, but the Top Cow/Ballistic Studios output is really not something with which I'm very familiar. That said, Mark Waid is a pretty savvy guy, so his name attached to a project is usually a good sign. But the art by today's featured artist, Kenneth Rocafort, is a real treat. It's lovely when you get a good artist and a good writer paired - one can often assuage one with the other if there's a lack, but every now and again you get a nice match. Like this one.

 Not much else to say, I'm afraid. Like I say, I don't know the characters or shared universe very well, so the events that take place are contextless, mostly. Can contextless events be considered a story?

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1976: Crimson #1, May 1998

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

 When the three Cliffhanger titles debuted, I picked up the first issues of each of them. Danger Girl was okay, but really was just showcasing J. Scott Campbell's ability to draw beautiful women. Battle Chasers was okay, but I really just couldn't see past Red Monika's boobs. I don't think anyone else could either.

Crimson, by today's featured creator Humberto Ramos, was the most low-key of the three titles, and the one that I was most interested in. And it's the longest-running of the three original titles, ending at issue #24 in 2001. That said, I only have the first few issues. I find that I have moments of buying comics where I'm after far too many at once, and sometimes I have to make hard decisions. On the other side of things, I haven't bought a new comic in almost 6 months. Once Squirrel Girl ended, I just couldn't see the point.

Anyway, this comic is absolutely loaded with diversity. Taking place, as it does, in the grimier parts of New York City, we see a vast array of characters from numerous different backgrounds. I'm wrestling with whether the depiction of Joe in the comic is okay or not - he's given some Native American trappings, but it's hard to tell if the character is actually Indigenous or not. Guess I'll have to read more. But, yeah, for a comic from the 90s, this is a remarkably diverse book. I guess this is what happens when we have comics that aren't just written and drawn by white guys for white guys. A comic like Crimson, like many of the queer comics I've reviewed, looks much more like the world I see outside my doors than a lot of mainstream comics. How any of the insane Comicsgaters could possibly think that this weakens the medium somehow is just beyond me.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1948: Troll Halloween Special #1, 1994

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

(Sorry, dropped the ball a bit. Last day of Pride Month, figure I should finish this up ;D)

 

 

 

 

 It betrays in me a prejudice that I was surprised to see a comic from early Extreme Studios that was written by a gay man. Then I really thought about the kind of spandex-clad hypermasculinity on display in a lot of these titles' art, and I thought about that time that Riptide scandalously posed for a porn magazine, and how similar, if not in execution then in stylization, a lot of this work is to Tom of Finland. (Definitely, absolutely 100% NSFW)

So there's that. Today's featured creator is Andy Mangels who, in his Wikipedia picture, has the most epic of mustaches. A quick poke about my collection reveals that he's the writer one of The Maxx's other appearances outside of his own title, which is an interesting niche for someone to inhabit. That story was in Gay Comics #24, which I reviewed a while back. Perhaps Maxx is one of those characters I'm going to have to track down a bit more. Anyway, a surreal little tale, as one might expect from a crossover of The Maxx with Extreme Studios' Wolverine clone. I'll admit, I come to like Troll later in his history. Alan Moore's re-writing, and then Brandon Graham's look at his future, all make these zany adventures from early Image slightly more sinister, and slightly more poignant.

That said, there's always going to be something sinister in a story that involves The Maxx and his cohorts. The Maxx, the series, is very dark, as was the super-awesome cartoon that used to air on MTV.

For Mr. Mangels, I am actually surprised that I haven't got more of his stuff in the collection - he seems much more familiar than just 2 issues in all these comics. I'm certain I'll run across more stuff as I fill in the gaps in my database information.

 

(Oh, and it's inked by Pedi, who did one of the best issues of the old Supreme series!)

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Links

If you like Troll, here's one of his few other solo comics, another seasonal outing!

And if you want to get an idea of what this character actually is, read the masterful future saga that is Prophet.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1931: G.I. Joe #8, 2002

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

 

 

 I've gone on record (well, I've said it a couple of times) that the old Marvel G.I. Joe series is really, really good. Larry Hama brings just enough authenticity and grittiness to a war comic based on science fiction toys - not unlike what happens with Marvel's Transformers, or even their Star Comics Masters of the Universe series. I think with a toy-related comic, you have to be very careful to balance good stories with advertisement, otherwise the comics can become quite tedious. When I originally collected Transformers, this was the impetus to stop for me - it just seemed like ever month became an ad for the latest toy, which didn't really reel me in. Today's issue, though still attached to a toy line, is far enough removed from the franchise's heyday to allow for some interesting storytelling.

I have some other, and IMHO better, examples of the work of today's featured creator, Jamal Igle, in the absolutely stellar Ahoy Comics series The Wrong Earth. I was going to read an issue of that for today's comic, but I think with a series that well-wrought, I want to do the whole thing as a series over the course of a couple of weeks. So instead, we'll have a look at a much earlier piece by Mr. Igle. He shares art chores on this issue, and while his and Mr. Kurth's art meshes well, it's easy to tell the two apart. One of the things I really appreciate about Mr. Igle's work is that he lavishes as much attention, as far as I can tell, on facial expression as he does on body language. We communicate as human beings in so many ways, and often it's a little off-putting in a comic when we see body language, verbal (print) language, and facial expression not quite meshing. But looking through the Igle-pencilled sections of this comic, the characters all evince different faces and expressions, and through that personality. This comic is dripping with a kind of personality in each character that, despite it's awesomeness, the original series doesn't quite attain.

To that point, I'm quite excited that I have the first 10 issues of the series, though I think this is the only issue that Mr. Igle helps out on. It'll be interesting to see if the things I'm picking up on today continue throughout the series without his artistic talents.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

Larry Hama is a pretty fascinating guy, and I'll definitely feature a bit more of his work when I get to my series on creators of East Asian descent. But here's a couple of places he's already shown up in the project.

The only other G.I. Joe piece in the collection is a neat promo piece that I reviewed here. Get your ABBA ready!

 

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1928: Curse of the Spawn #3, November 1996

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

 

I hadn't realized when I sat down to read this comic that not only is Dwayne Turner, artist of the issue, a Black man, but so is Alan McElroy, the writer.

 

And this comic is very, very angry. Mr. McElroy's style of writing is very descriptive, perhaps something that comes from his other writing work in film. It reminds me a great deal of Don McGregor's work for Marvel in the late 70s, almost a poetic accompaniment to the apocalyptic landscape through which our numerous characters journey. Dwayne Turner evokes the landscape viscerally. This is Hell come to Earth, and humanity really has no chance of surviving. The question of the comic is whether or not the new Hellspawn will accept this and play his part, or if he'll rebel, like many do.

 

But angry. There is a scene in which the Spawn character, Daniel Llanso, is fighting some human soldiers, and the prose that accompanies it is worth considering, especially given current circumstances: "He's been spit on his entire life by cops, soldiers, men in various uniforms. Now he has the power to make them pay for the pain, the misery, the humiliation. It all comes down to this." I often wonder, when taking in any work of fiction, at what points are we actually seeing a glimpse into the author's self, whatever that might be. A good writer will always bring something of themselves to a work, but a great writer knows when to hide and when to be heard. I wonder how close that particular passage is.

So yes, an angry comic, but one also that drips with passion. The subject matter is the end of the world, and the setting is rendered in detailed, organic art, accompanied, as I say, by this poetic exposition. There is a palpable feeling of building to something, to a meeting of all of these players at a conflict that likely will decide the fate of the planet and its peoples. And I'm pretty sure I have the next part, but it'll have to wait for a bit. I'm not optimistic for humanity's chances.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Links

I read the first issue of Curse of the Spawn from a very different perspective.

Here's a piece I wrote about Spawn for CBR. The Al Simmons version of the character is one of the most prominent Black superheroes around.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1922: Ant v.2 #7, June 2006

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

So you'd have to be blind, willfully or otherwise, to not see or know what is going on in the United States at the moment. Sorry, not at the moment - basically since its inception. In the years since the ascendancy of the Trump presidency, the precarious position of People of Colour in the U.S. has never been more on display to the world, and to the citizens whom it affects.

A lot of the rhetoric I'm seeing from white people about the rioting and unrest in the U.S. is either whining about how bad things are, or asking POC "what can I do, I don't understand." And the most common response is that we educate ourselves and stop leaning on the very people this cultural disparity is impacting to either help us understand or assuage our "white guilt." The former is vital, the latter a deep insult. As allies, or comrades as I prefer, we need to understand that our place in this struggle is to stand behind those on the front lines and say "I've got your back, I am 100% in support of you, but I will not supplant you." One of the best ways I've read of to do that is to make sure that the cultural contributions, the importance of POC in the Western world, is plain and clear for all to see.

A few years back I had a similar notion, in the wake of yet another racially-motivated killing, and I made the effort to post about comics with Black creators. I'm going to do this again. Yes, it's repeating myself, but it's also one of the few ways that I know I'm qualified to help, as much as this might help, in combating the horrendous waves of racially-motivated violence that seem to be sweeping across the planet. I'm going to start with Black creators for a while, but then I'm going to move on to creators from other visible, and sometimes not, minority groups. It's important that we recognize that though it often looks like it, the Western world was not constructed by white people alone, nor should it be a haven solely for them.

So let's get started, shall we?

The first thing I ought to say is that just because I'm highlighting these comics in support of what is perhaps one of the greatest and most necessary cultural revolutions to be waaaayyy overdue, it doesn't mean that I'm going to simply offer glowing reviews. Some of these comics, I'm sure, will not be my cup of tea, and I feel that I have to be objective about that, despite my previously-stated goal of celebrating the contributions of Black creators. Not all comics are good ones, regardless of who creates them. (Oh, and I'm doing them alphabetically, so that no creator seems to be prioritized.)

I'm torn about Mario Gully's Ant. I read a bit of the back story, and it actually seems to be a neat consideration of escaping into fantasy, and perhaps also of mental illness, using the superhero as a way out of a difficult situation. What I glean is that Ant herself is a fantasy concocted by a young African American girl whose living conditions are, as they are for many young POC, deplorable.

There's some problems with the book, as(s) you can probably tell from that cover. It's very "fan-servicey," though only having one issue of the series, I don't know if that's something that is ever addressed. But there's one really important thing about this series that I really think Mr. Gully himself should let you know. From Newsarama:

 “I was convicted of robbery and sentenced to one year and probation. The event was a turning point in my life. I used to draw portraits and hot chicks on envelopes for commissary. One day around day #6 of 358, I was depressed about where my choices in life put me. I was looking out the barred window and a single ant crawled in from the outside of my window seal. I said to myself ‘Man, I wish I were an ant! Then I could crawl right out of this place and start my life all over!’ Well, I couldn't pull that one off, so I decided to make a homemade comic book about it. It got around and I had a little audience with my cellmates. Really built up my confidence about drawing. That's when I realized that one day I could be a comic book artist. I sent out my first submission from the county jail. I hope one day my story can be an inspiration to anybody out there who has a dream. You can do it if you want it bad enough. I was determined to do something positive with my life after that.”

It is a well-documented fact that young Black males make up a ridiculous percentage of the people incarcerated in the United States. But even here, under the unyielding thumb of systemic racism, we see creativity, talent, and a desire to contribute something positive. Ant has also got to be one of the few superhero comics that features an Black woman as lead character. It was really difficult to find, in my own collection, Black female creators (though I did find a few), so it's great to at least see a lead character representing that important demographic.

Okay, enough for today. The posts over the next little while might be a bit longer than usual, but that's because this is a long-overdue, or perhaps a long-running, conversation. And I think it's important for us, as comics fans, to consider where our hobby and our passion fits into this important moment of social change in the world.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Links

If you need to get up to speed on what's going on in the U.S. right now, here's a CBC article. I know it might be Canadian bias, but I always feel like the CBC does a good job reporting on stuff like this.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1911: Youngblood #8, March 2009

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

 

 

 

And that's it. Shaft and Cougar rescue Scion from her virtual prison, Diehard stops Stormhead's attack, and a deranged Spacehunter makes planetfall - and then nothing. The entire story disappears in favour of a Rob Liefeld helmed reboot where the team hang out with Barack Obama, and the original lineup is basically reinstated. No word on how Badrock stops from crumbling, no word on how the planet survives the impact of a crazed killer from space.

 

I honestly just can't understand Liefeld's decisions when it comes to this team. Indeed, I've just read an article in which he now reveals that the doesn't own the rights to the team anymore, which is why the most recent series simply stopped as well.

So how do I sum up Youngblood? The same way I always do - they're a crap team, a Teen Titans riff that is eventually given the chance to shine in the hands of excellent creators, until their original creator decides that they're popular enough for him to jump on the coattails, at which point the series tanks. I'm glad to see that characters like Doc Rocket, and later Suprema, have made a significant enough impact to be included in later iterations of the team. Indeed, that might be one of the motivating factors for me to have a look at the two series that follow this one, in 2012 and 2017 respectively.

But for now, I think we're done with them. I was going to read the older stuff I have kicking about, but I think I'd rather get back to my alphabetical indie creators. I think I need something a little less mainstream, and a little less inevitably disappointing. I honestly can't think of too many other forms of media where a story gets cut off in the middle like this. The occasional television series, I suppose, but this is truly one of the great drawbacks to producing serialized narratives - there's always the chance that the serial simply won't run long enough to contain the narrative.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1910: Youngblood #7, January 2009

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

As we near the end of this iteration of the team, everything that's old is new again in a lot of ways. The Televillain didn't get much chance to be a villain in his initial appearances in Supreme, but Casey and Donovan are playing him to the hilt at the moment. It's cool to see some of the uses of his powers, rather than simply being able to travel through television signals and insert himself into broadcasts. In today's issue he uses his remote to actually rewind action in the real world as it's happening. He also appears to have trapped Scion in a virtual version of the Oprah show, and if she's not rescued soon she'll simply vanish into the ether. I don't recall the Televillain being quite so murderous in his other appearances, but perhaps he's realized that TV is much more violent in the modern era, and he's adapting.

I have to hand it to the creative team with regard to the number of plot threads they're keeping up in the air. At no point do things get confusing, and it never feels like too much is going on in the story. The comics from which Youngblood originally springs were not quite like this. A few of my reviews of Supreme from this era (which I re-read last night) note that entire battles sometimes took 2 or 3 issues, with no other story content to break up the fight. Or there were simply jumps from one place to another without any context or delicacy to the shift. I've read a few interviews with Liefeld, and even he admits his story-writing skills were lacking at the time of the original Youngblood series. I guess once we get to the final issue of this series, we'll find out if he's grown much. I don't recall being particularly impressed by it.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1909: Youngblood #6, November 2008

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

Just to add on to a thought I had yesterday, I don't think that this current Youngblood series is delving deeply enough into the ways in which we're shaped by celebrity culture, but this is certainly not to say that writer Joe Casey isn't capable of such depth. Have a look at G0dland, for goodness' sake. So what we have in Youngblood, instead, is simply intelligent entertainment, rather, I suppose, that didactic entertainment. Though, in a lot of ways, all entertainment is didactic.

I've decided to read the rest of my Youngblood comics from the collection after I'm done this series. I'm curious as to how much of each iteration of the team is included in this later (but not latest) series. There's obviously a lot of Alan Moore's influence, with the use of the Spacehunters, the Televillain, Johnny and Doc, and the shared history that was set up in the Awesome U. But we also get characters from the older iterations, some of whom are only just now getting the proper character development one might expect of an almost 20 year old superhero. As with Prophet, the retroactive reading of various Youngblood series will be enhanced by the brilliance of the comics that follow them.

It also makes me curious, however, about the series that follow this one. I know that there was a revival of the title a few years after this one crashed, but I've no idea how much of the previous continuity is included in that revival. As part of the Extreme Studios initiative at Image Comics, the later series also takes on legacy numbering, so there's a chance it will also take on legacy aesthetic. That said, some of the other comics to come from this era, all legacy numbered, took the various Extreme heroes in some pretty interesting directions. I've waxed lyrical about them in previous posts about Youngblood, so I won't link again, but, honestly, just go read the Keatinge Glory or the Graham Prophet. Just really bloody good.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1908: Youngblood #5, September 2008

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 Seemingly out of the woodwork a new Youngblood team is assembled for network television, even as our heroes (the old Youngblood, that is) decide it's time to stop the rampage of the Televillain. I wasn't around comics for the introduction of Youngblood all those years ago, but I hadn't realized that the celebrity aspect was such a huge part of the initial idea of the team. I quite like how it's all playing out in this series, especially with the added threat of the Televillain. Though I don't think the series is delving as deeply as it could, we're getting a nice little surface commentary on the ways in which we're programmed, pun intended, by television and celebrity. It's something I've always had a difficult time understanding, the cults of celebrity that grow up around particular people in the public spotlight. And much like Shaft's Youngblood team, some public figures realize what a joke the whole celebrity industry is and step away from it. They often tend to be the ones that we respect all the more, as I'm sure the case will be for Shaft's team.

Brain's a little sleepy today. That's all I got.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1907: Youngblood #4, July 2008

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

 

 

One of the things I really love about this project is that I get to go back and re-read stuff that I haven't read in, in this case, over a decade. In 2008, when this comic was coming out, I'd quit my job as a gas and hydro meter reader and was preparing to re-enter university in the coming Autumn. In fact, given comics publishing dates, there's a good chance this one came out as I was being inundated with reading from my classes. Which is probably why I don't remember it that well.

 

Joe Casey definitely has a long game in mind while writing this series, proof of which comes from not least the proclamation that, as of next issue, "phase 2" begins. Sadly it only gets 4 issues, but what a four issues it's likely to be. The new Spacehunter has just crash-landed on Earth with a warning, Leonard and Waxey Doyle jump back in as support characters, and the team finally flips the bird to the government who have been manipulating them, and gets on with the job of being superheroes. In fact, at the end of the issue, Shaft himself says this - that superheroes are not meant to be manipulated or scripted - they're meant to stand in the front when no one else is willing to. The rest of the team seems to be on board.

 

I noted Alan Moore's command of character in his brief Youngblood series - Casey isn't quite there. Johnny seems to have virtually no personality, unfortunately, though that may be from all of the recreational pharmaceuticals he's "tested" on himself. We're getting a little bit of Doc and Cougar, but the focus is definitely on Shaft, and Badrock a little bit. Actually, Badrock's story is really fascinating - I don't remember how it turns out, but it's not the story I was expecting from him. Something is going drastically wrong with this powers.

 

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1906: Youngblood #3, April 2008

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

Well, as the above cover attests, Image's oldest superhero has fallen.

Youngblood v.1 #1 is an important comic. Now, this is not because it's a good comic. In fact, it's well-known throughout the industry as being a particularly bad comic. Rob Liefeld's artwork has, of course, gotten better over the years (though it's still not my cup of tea), and I think he's finally, for the most part, acknowledged that he needs a scripter, if not a writer, to achieve some level of good story. Youngblood #1, however, suffers from what I can only imagine was an over-inflated ego that believed it could do everything. All that said, it's an important comic because it was the first Image comic published. I mean, honestly, you can grab it for less than a buck most places, as it was extremely (see what I did there?) overprinted and, as I say, was really not very good.

But what comes out of it is pretty fantastic, as I've been saying for the last few weeks now.

Today's issue deals with the aftermath of Shaft's death - not necessarily how each of the team members deals with this blow, but how it's going to be presented in the reality show. This, I think, speaks again to what I was talking about yesterday, the idea that those in charge seem to think that they know how those in their charge should be acting, thinking, and feeling. It's an attitude that sees people as cogs in a machine, rather than human beings who have an almost infinite range of experience, and reaction, to life.

(Sometimes I read back over these posts, and I think, "Y'know, Tom, you aren't really talking about comics here are you?")

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1905: Youngblood #2, February 2008

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

The show continues, and Badrock discovers a problem with his usually impervious derma.

I quite like that there's an undercurrent, mostly from the heroes, of explicit knowledge that this reality show angle is going to blow up. There's a slightly more-archetypal story going on here that I really, really recognize. It's that moment when someone thinks that they have a handle on a situation because they've done all the research and tested everything with focus groups and done all the brand marketing and other bullshit...but they've never taken into account what it's actually like to work on the front lines where all of that research etc. means absolutely nothing. In a much less-superpowered milieu, I've seen it in stores and institutions I've worked at - the higher-ups think that their new ideas and initiatives will very easily be implemented and will make everything wonderful, but they have no experience of how things actually work on the sales floor or in the classroom, and they get crabby when someone who does know how things work tells them their idea is a bad one.

We are definitely seeing this in Youngblood, and it's thoroughly unsurprising that it's the U.S. government that is refusing to listen to people who, quite simply, know better. That idea that just because you're in a position of authority you somehow automatically know better than those in your charge is so frustrating. It completely discounts particular kinds of knowledge. Just as I was leaving academia, there were conversations about FanAcs, or fan academics, and how much authority such people should be afforded in discourse about fandom. To me, the only difference between myself as a fan and/or academic and a "FanAc" is that I've had the benefit of getting a language with which to have detailed conversations about the subject, whereas a FanAc has not. But a good, well-trained academic can recognize when someone is talking about something for which they don't have the words and then supply those words to the person. It's called teaching, and it's something that, in my experience, a lot of academics need to spend a lot more time thinking about and doing.

Well, that went off the rails into a rant about academia. Sorry.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1904: Youngblood #1, January 2008

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

 

 

 

Taking a break from our alphabetical investigation of the small press, just for a week or so.

 

There's a text feature on the inside front cover of this comic that gives a brief history of Youngblood, outlining their status as government agents and celebrity superheroes. There's a brief note about a revival of the team that "collapsed under its own weight," the only real nod to the Moore/Skroce team and what happened to them. Though, later in the issue as the team fights a giant robot, Shaft notices something familiar, and I'm wondering if the tech is Big Brother-inspired. Leonard Doyle is, sadly, absent from the team.

In that vein, along with Leonard, Suprema and Twilight are also missing. I know Suprema shows up in at least one issue of Bloodstrike that I've got that came out around the same time as the relaunch of all of these Extreme Studios titles. Glory, Prophet, Supreme, and a host of others got reboots, and really good reboots around this time. Prophet, amongst the rest, went on to have a respectable run and told an absolutely amazing story. It would have been lovely to see where Youngblood under Casey and Donovan's capable hands would have gone, but, as I've noted in previous posts about the series, in issue #9, partway through a storyline, Liefeld pulls the plug and gives us a really lame issue, and then the series fizzles.

But I don't want to go into the series just waiting for it to end. There's some excellent stuff happening here, stuff that, while it owes a great deal to the previous series, charts its own directions and narratives. I'm excited to read it again, as I haven't since it was first published. The team is reassembled and the celebrity aspect is pushed - the idea is that the government wants to be able to export superheroes the same way that they do Hollywood stars. I get the sense it's just not going to work out that way.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

Joe Casey is among my favourite writers - his run on Adventures of Superman is probably one of the best Superman stories I've read.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1772: We Stand on Guard #4, October 2015

A few years ago, while I was still at McMaster doing my MA, I met a Tolkien scholar from Montclair State who was friends with my supervisor. We met a few more times before I moved to Calgary, and though they were few, both the professor and his wife became good friends. Sometimes, I find, you can meet a person once or twice and you just know that they're your people.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised to receive a package from them just before Christmas that contained the full 6-issue run of this incredible title. I'd chatted with my friend about it a few times when it came out, but I couldn't afford to read it. I'm so glad, and grateful, to have the opportunity now, because it's excellent.

The thing it really drives home, though, is how much international politics have changed in the last few years. Today's issue is from 2015, and the letter column mentions Presidential candidate Scott Walker suggesting a wall between Canada and the U.S.

(Oh, for those not in the know, this series, set about 100 years in the future, is about the U.S. invading Canada for its fresh water. A scenario that is far too close to home these days.)

5 years ago was a very different world in North America. Trump was still a joke, a piece, I thought, of performance art, with no chance of getting elected. How wrong we were.

Canadians, I recommend you try this title out. Yes, there's a lot of snow, but there's a lot of snow in the country right now, so it's not like it's completely untrue. The Quebecois character speaks only in French, so if you're not up on your other official language, get a translator. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how well I understood the French dialogue. Perhaps all that time in grad school wasn't a complete waste.

More to follow...
(New year, new sign off)