The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1530: The Last One #6, December 1993

Myrwann's story ends in the only way it could, really. Last weekend my brother was visiting. He's a professor of Classics at U Winnipeg. We were talking about myth, and he used the phrase "iterations of myth," or the tellings of tales as separate from the tales themselves, if such a thing can even be. Really, myths are only important in their telling - to whom they are being told, and when.

I saw Avengers: Endgame today. As with other iterations of myth, it told a story that speaks to us about who we are today, and how we deal with the adversity of today, using symbols we understand. It's not a new story. It's pulling on a millennia-long tradition of stories that have been teaching us since we were story-telling beings. Stories that will keep being told.

And that's where Myrwann ends, of course. This mythical being, this divine entity, could only really end by embarking upon an new beginning, a new iteration of their life amongst the humans.

"~dead at last."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1529: The Last One #5, November 1993

I realized today that I've been looking at this series from the wrong perspective. Or from the expected perspective, and I shouldn't have been. The series is, after all, called The Last One. The propensity of a series like this, in which human characters are gathered around this kind of ethereal character, the stories tend to be about the humans, rather than about the being themself. Neil Gaiman's The Sandman was performing this par excellence at the very same time that DeMatteis and Sweetman's series was running.

The end of today's issue made me realized that we're not really supposed to be paying too, too much attention to the people around Myrwann, to to the Last One themself. It's the story of what happens when a creature like this spends too much time around humans, experiences too many of their stories, and becomes corrupted and weighted down by them. As Myrwann experiences more, they become larger and larger, taking on corporeally the spiritual weight they also take on.

I'm making it a point to see about tracking down various minis that came out of Vertigo at this point. I have a whole bunch of them that I think I may pull out and read. Pretty much everything I've read from the publisher from the early 90s is absolute gold.

"And then I heard it, from high atop the Great Hill."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1528: The Last One #4, October 1993

The characters in the comic literally spend most of it talking about exactly what I was talking about yesterday: how do we apply human standards to the non-human?

Which is great, because I'm tired and don't feel like writing today. I started training for a new job this week at the Glenbow Museum, and while the hours aren't long, it's been some time since I've been out to work every single day.

Myrwann's housemates muse on their host's origins and the things they thought upon meeting the Last One. I honestly have no idea where the story's going, but I think Myrwann themself has realized that the divine and the mortal shouldn't spend quite this much quality time together.

There is one thing that occurs to me: the other characters only ever refer to Myrwann as "he" or "she," depending on how they perceive their host. They/them simply hadn't come into common use at the time. I love seeing how language changes.

"I mean...how do we know he's really helping us?"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1527: The Last One #3, September 1993

Although an angel, Myrwann isn't perfect, a result, perhaps, of spending millennia around humans. Much of this comic is about an alien entity interacting with we mere mortals, and the inevitable mistranslations, something that I've often thought about in terms of religion and our understanding of ostensibly divine beings.

Myrwann wants to save everyone they take in. That's undeniable - but what we might concern ourselves with is what "saving" someone means to a divine/alien being. This issue gives us a story of an angel wanting so much to save a human that they keep her alive even when death would be a mercy. Is it possible that an immortal being simply cannot fathom the idea that the release, or relinquishing, of life is something that a human might choose?

We humans go to great lengths to deal with our existential terror of nonexistence. Some go so far as to create vast mythical cosmologies and benevolent all-knowing beings, simply to assuage the personality's paralyzing inability to grasp that, one day, it won't be. Me? I'm agnostically optimistic, perhaps? It seems highly unlikely to me that there is an afterlife, but I'm also wise enough to recognize that the Universe is infinite and varied in ways that I don't have the sense or reasoning capabilities to imagine. If there is an afterlife, it's nothing like anything that anyone has ever imagined, ever. It's literally unimaginable.

It'll be interesting to one day find out, either way.

"So why did I remain there, in a nameless French village on the verge of extinction?"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1526: The Last One #2, August 1993

Things don't go well in today's issue.

See, that's the other thing about this very awesome wave of big gay comics that came out of Vertigo: they're very unhappy. Early Vertigo horror was often less about fear than it was about despair. The Vertigo creators were often exploring the depths to which one could plummet and still be recognizably human.

I'm concerned, in today's case, that the one doing the plummeting is, ostensibly, an angel.

Dan Sweetman is fucking chameleonic in this issue. He instantly teleports from 90's Beautiful Stories-esque line work to something resembling a 30s film storyboard look and back again, with insane and wonderful panel layouts that only slightly confuse sometimes, though I suspect that's the point.

I think I may have said this way back when I read some of the Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children issues, but I'm amazed that Sweetman and Louapre's work hasn't garnered more attention.

Hmmmm....

"And, no, it didn't come from Atlantis. It came from Lemuria."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1525: The Last One #1, July 1993

At this past weekend's Calgary Fan Expo, I hosted a panel on Queerness in Comics. One of the things we discussed was the wonderful explosion of queer comics that occurred in the early 90s, spearheaded, I'd argue, by the fabulous Vertigo Comics and their sainted editor Karen Berger. Last year at Pride I gave a talk about queer comics, and Milligan and Fegredo's The Enigma was a part of that presentation, also published by Vertigo. Today's comic is no exception, as Mr. DeMatteis and Mr. Sweetman tell a story of a bi-gender angel, the last of their kind left on Earth.

I've had this comic for a long, long time. After my brief hiatus from comics in the late 80s and early 90s, I started reading them again in '96, and rediscovered in my parents' basement my old comic collection. In there was the amazing, terrifying, Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children, all illustrated by today's artist. Once the collecting bug really hit me, I decided to track down all of Louapre and Sweetman's comic work, together or with other creators. The Last One was one of the first ones I found, ironically. But, somehow, until about 2 years ago, I only had the first issue. I remember having the others, or a few of them at least, but when I recently went back to look at my Vertigo titles, this issue was the only representative.

This reminds me that before I had exhaustively catalogued my collection, it went through numerous shifts. There was a point when I worked at a used book store, and the owner allowed me to trade in comics two-for-one. So I'd grab whatever I no longer wanted (?!) and trade it in for other stuff. This must have been about 1997, and I hadn't quite become the voracious collector that I am now. I can't for the life of me remember what I traded in, though when I left that job and started my own store, I actually bought most of my old employer's comics, so there's a good chance I still have all the comics I traded in, and the ones I got.

I'd forgotten about that. It seems Walter Benjamin was right about libraries after all.

"Don't worry. I won't throw you down the stairs. That's not what you need."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1344: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century #11, February 1981

There are a couple of cool things about this comic.

First, it's been in my collection for almost as long as I've been collecting comics. I think I've written of it before, but when I first started collecting, my Mum and Dad gave me a collecting kit for Christmas one year. It was a three-quarter length box and inside were some bags, some boards, a current price guide, and a grab bag of about 20 comics. This was one of them. I'm not sure why it's lasted. I know that there are comics that I have owned and then have traded away, or sold (before I was so adamant about my collecting), but this one hasn't, even though I've never really been that interested in it.

And that's where the second cool thing comes in. Every now and again I'll pick up a comic to read for the project, and I'll be surprised to find that it's written by someone I recognize. In the case of today's issue, it's written by a writer whose work I hold in high esteem, J.M. DeMatteis. His Brooklyn Dreams was an amazing work, so much so that I had it added to my reading list for my American Literature comprehensive exam. He's a writer who I keep meaning to delve into more deeply, but the problem is he is just so fucking prolific. I don't even know where to start. A bit of research has shown me that he actually has a substantial number of Man-Thing stories, so perhaps I'll start there.

What this means is that I've had this story kicking about in the collection for ages, but had no idea it was this good. I do vaguely remember reading it when I was very young, but I probably haven't opened it up in a good 30 years. Mr. DeMatteis apparently wrote a couple of other issues, so I'm going to see if I can find them as well. Though one was only published in Germany, so that might be difficult.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1221: Wonder Woman (1987) #164, January 2001

Phil Jiminez, ably assisted by DeMatteis and Lanning, takes over the reigns of Wonder Woman with this issue. Mr. Jiminez's art was, for me, the defining look of The Invisibles, the high-octane, ultra-violent American adventures - He is a disciple of Perez, so his panels are full and beautiful, but he's got a bit more of a page design flair, I think, a quality I was so happy to see displayed in today's comic. Mr. Jiminez is also openly gay, and has been writing and illustrating comics in the mainstream for a few decades now. When he took over Wonder Woman, he described it in the press as his dream job.

And rightly so, I think. Wonder Woman has long been a queer icon, idolized both for her glamour and her strength, and her refusal to be a victim, I think. She's one of very few characters I can think of who isn't born out of trauma; she's born of love, infused with life by Aphrodite when Hippolyta wished for a child. So I imagine that for a gay man to be able to tell her stories, to speak through her, must have been so rewarding.

Unfortunately, I only have two or three issues of this run, but I think I may track it down. Both Mr. Jiminez and Detective Comics's Greg Rucka have done acclaimed runs on this character that I'm intrigued by.

And that, I think, does it for Pride Month this year. The nice thing is I've discovered so many other comics to read that are nice and queer that I'll be able to do this again next year, and possibly the year after! I'm hoping to get a post out in the next couple of weeks thinking about what I've learned over the last month, and I'll include in that links to some of the books I've looked at, if they're still available.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1029: Man-Thing v.3 #3, February 1998

So, not quite a Christmas comic, really, but I couldn't resist that cover. Seriously. Man-ta Claus. Santa-Thing. Brilliant.

Can't say much about the story, except to say that I think this series is going to have to go to the top of my list of series to finish. The art and the writing are just wonderful. J.M. DeMatteis is a great writer, and I just haven't read enough of his work. This reads a bit like Rachel Pollack's Doom Patrol, a bit like Moore's Swamp Thing, and a whole lot like Gerber's original run on this title. So cool.

And a bit Christmas-y, I guess.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 653: Captain America v.1 #280, April 1983

They don't come much more iconic than Cap, really. It's all right there in the name. Where the previous characters I've looked at become icons through popularity, Captain America has his iconic status built right into the character. And that's actually what makes him so fascinating. I used to get a lot of flack from people for being a Captain America fan, especially one that lives outside the United States. But Cap brings out some of the most interesting questions about that nation, and the overriding one that has dogged its checkered history. It's the question of ideal versus praxis - what America was supposed to be, and what it has become. And, really, always was. Steve Rogers, both in his civilian and secret identities, spends a good deal of his time struggling with this, especially in the late 70s and early 80s. I've been meaning to read DeMatteis' run on Cap for a while, so perhaps this will spur me to track down the issues.

One thing that has been both surprising and unsurprising about a number of the comics I've read from this era is how clearly they are asking the same questions, and dealing with the same issues, that we are in our current socio-political climate. Today's comic revolves around a group called the "Coalition for an Upstanding America." Their poster has a picture of Cap accompanied by the words "America As It Once Was. America As It Could Be Again." So, basically the Orange Man's campaign slogan (not sure if I've mentioned it here, but I will not be using the President-Elect's name. Name connotes identity, identity connotes respect, and I have less than none for him). In the end , it's revealed that the Coalition is nothing but a sham, set up by a corrupt businessman who sees a way to turn a profit from the disenfranchised.

So there's that.

Zeck's art, like Perez a few days ago, is for me emblematic of my introduction to superheroes. Along with Crisis, the original Secret Wars, illustrated by Zeck, was one of the very first comics I ever bought at the Hasty Market just down from where we lived in Mississauga. Like Perez, he skirts the divide between realistic and stylized in a wonderful way. I read an interesting post on superheroes last night, one that noted that while it's great to see a character as mythic or godlike, in the end it's their identities as everyday people that draw us in. And the drawing of such characters draws us in further. If I see a musclebound impossibility (I'm staring straight at Rob Liefeld, wherever he is, right now), I can't imagine that person having the same kinds of problems or experiences I do. But when a character is drawn perhaps slightly impossibly, but still within a stylized realm of possibility for the human form, all of a sudden the superhuman becomes more relatable. I think that makes sense.

Who shall be our next icon?

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 434: All-Out War #1, October 1979 (War Week, Day 5)

This comic marks the first appearance, one of the few, of the Viking Commando, a viking warrior transported accidentally through time to the Second World War, and watched over by a Valkyrie maiden who wishes he was dead so she could carry him away for all eternity. After reading Robert Kanigher's fairly nuanced treatment of PTSD in Sgt. Rock yesterday, this odd little tale made for an interesting juxtaposition. Let's mix a war comic with vikings and see what happens. Very odd.

And then there's the story "Brother with Wings," about an African-American fighter pilot who has a couple of fortuitous interactions with the Haunted Tank - a tank that flies a Confederate flag all the time. While I appreciate the attempt at some subversion in this story, Lt. Bannister's quip that, having been rescued by the Haunted Tank, he's been "freed a second time" is just uncomfortable. Couple this with the depictions of Japanese soldiers in the comic, and all of a sudden it becomes starkly clear how far we've come in just under 40 years. The stories in this issue, were they conceived today, would communicate in a very different tenor, one hopes.

Unlike my foray into romance comics, I haven't found something that's really spoken to me yet. Yesterday's Sgt. Rock was pretty well done, but Rock's personality reminds me too much of Frank Miller's Dark Knight, and though the attitude may have been somewhat revolutionary in the 80s, it's cliche now.

Tomorrow we move on to another of the giant-size war comics DC put out in the 70s, and then we'll finish the week with a Vertigo re-think of the Haunted Tank. I'll be interested to see if there's any acknowledgment of the problematic celebration of the Confederacy that is all-but absent from these older comics. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 428: Weird War Tales #85, March 1980 (War Week, Day 1)

From Love to War - it's not always a long way to go.

This week I'll be looking at another of the minor genres in my collection, the war comic. I've always been disinclined to read war comics as I find the idea of recollecting in fiction the horror such occurrences wreak to be a bit repugnant. I've always felt the same about fictions about organized crime - hence my never having watched The Sopranos (I know, I know, it's soooo good).

But moving out of one's comfort zone is important, so here we are. And I'm easing myself into it gently with a bit of science-fiction-y strangeness from the pen of J.M. DeMatteis. DeMatteis wrote one of the few graphic novels I was able to put on my candidacy exam, the absolutely wonderful Brooklyn Dreams, and though he's not a writer I follow by any means, every time I read a comic he's written, I'm impressed. And he writes in so many genres with such ease. I often make note that I should make a concerted effort to read more of his runs on comics, but there's only so much time in a day, and that note has yet to be prioritized.

This comic is weird, is full of blatant criticism of American Imperialism, and moves along like the best of the Twilight Zone episodes that it resembles. I have to say, on the side of the art in the comic, there's some really dodgy caricatures of Japanese soldiers by artist Tenny Hanson. I was shocked to see such things in a comic from a more "enlightened" time, and the optimist in me noted that the Americans in the comic are also highly stylized and caricatured. If that's intentional, it goes some way to assuaging the treatment of the Japanese in the comic, but not far. When at artistic form has such a long history of utter mean-spiritedness, I think it's best to lay to rest and leave it at rest, rather than resurrecting it as this comic does.

I'm going to stick with my optimistic reading.

One of my favourite things about this comic is that it's got a very carefully hand-written name above the title on my copy. I kind of love this, that "Darryl Hogenoon" felt so strongly about this comic that he had to make sure people knew it was his. Darryl, if you're out there and ever read this, know that the comic has found its way into a collection where it will be loved for as long as I'm able.

So, more War comics tomorrow. I'm not sure this is a great genre to be reading while I'm marking undergraduate exams and looking for a job. Then again, maybe it is. Onward.