The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1994 - 1996: Kaboom #1 - 3, Sept. - Nov. 1997

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I decided to do these three comics together for two reasons. First, I'm falling terribly behind on my blogging, and this is an easy way to get back on track. Second, it's basically a single story told over three issues, so it's easier to talk about it all at once.

Kaboom is a part of the Awesome Universe, like Fighting American and The Coven, that isn't directly controlled by Alan Moore. I'd left it for a little while to read because I was worried that it wouldn't hold up to the standard set by Moore's work in this setting, and by some of the other writers/artists who contributed characters and stories to the shared universe. It was a pretty good series, but not a great one, I'd say. Jeff Matsuda's artwork is super-kinetic, very much like reading an anime adaptation or a manga. There's a few artists whose work really nicely demonstrates the influence of Japanese comics on North American production, and Mr. Matsuda is definitely one of them.

As for the story, it's a pretty standard origin piece. Teenager gets powers, turns out there's people who want to kill him as a result. But as I say, Mr. Matsuda's art gives it a bit of a boost, including some really great, and weird, designs for The Nine, agents of Scarlett, the villain who wants to remove "the mitts" from Geof Sunrise's hands. Shenanigans ensue.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

Mr. Matsuda's work has  shown up a couple of other times in the project.

Mr. Loeb, however, has shown up quite a lot.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1891: Awesome Preview, 1998

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This'll be one of three times that I'll be reading the story "Glory and the Gate of Tears," reprinted one more time from Awesome and then once from Avatar (plus a preview of it from Avatar). As I've noted in my posts on the various covers that this incarnation of Glory commands, it's a bittersweet tale to read because it's got so much promise. I know that much of that promise is fulfilled in Promethea, so that's nice, but I feel that Glory would have brought a very different aesthetic to the exploration of the World Tree and the Sephiroth. Where Promethea exists in a superheroic world, I'm not sure I'd class her as a superhero. But Glory definitely is - she's got the comics to prove it.

I'll talk more about this story tomorrow.

The Fighting American preview is quite cool - it's just Stephen Platt's pencils and I love seeing stuff like this. His work is super-detailed. I can't imagine being the inker for this work. That said, the Dogs of War mini was my least favourite of the Awesome Fighting American stuff. But his pencils are gorgeous.

The Re-Gex preview is Beowulf's story, but without dialogue. I think this story is reprinted in an issue of The Coven, in the Re-Gex zero issue, and potentially in one of the Re:Gex preview issues that I do not have. Maybe this one is reprinted almost as much as the Glory story. As I've said over the last couple of days, Re:Gex is interesting, but ultimately goes nowhere.

First day on a new job today.

More to follow.

And here's the flip cover:

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 1888: Re:Gex #0, December 1998

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 The only other full issue of Re:Gex is, as far as I can tell, simply a repackaging of a number of short stories previously published elsewhere. I am torn over this.

I think the main story in today's issue comes from the Wizard World convention preview, while the story of Scarab's early years was a back up feature in The Coven. Similarly, Beowulf's 4-page tale is from both the Awesome Preview, though reproduced without dialogue there, and also from The Coven #5, with dialogue, as a back-up feature.

I'm totally fine with repackaging like this. If you publish stories as back-ups in comics that readers may not have picked up, it's nice to get all these little bits and pieces under a single cover, and under the title of the series one is collecting. However, I think that's a good thing to do if you're actually producing new content to go alongside this reprint issue. That was never the case with Re:Gex, unfortunately.

As I was going through the GCD, there was a note on one of the comics I was looking at for Awesome that made reference to something called the "Awesome Implosion." Likely a reference to a well-documented event in the 70s in which DC reduced their number of published titles for a time, Awesome underwent a financial crisis in late 1998 - early 1999 that shifted their publishing schedules and art teams, and eventually led to their collapse. Brigade, published in early 2000, was Awesome's last gasp. It could be that Re:Gex was simply a casualty of this implosion, though I also wonder when you're getting 4 or 6 page stories whether or not those responsible for the comic are simply incapable of producing enough work to fill a full comic. In yesterday's issue there's even a note that the comic was shot from pencils, rather than having the series inked, and though it's passed off as a choice made by the creators, I think it may have had something to do with hitting deadlines as well, which Mr. Liefeld is notoriously bad at.

Anyway, that was Re:Gex. I don't think I like where it was taking the Awesome Universe, and I wonder how it would have stood up against Alan Moore's stories if both had had a chance to flourish.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1887: Re:Gex #1, September 1998

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I bought this comic years ago, when it came out, actually. I'll admit that I was probably drawn in by the semi-nude Genie on the cover, but I also knew virtually nothing about Mr. Liefeld and his history in comics at the time.

 

I admit that when I read this comic this morning, there were parts that I had literally no memory of. It's got an interesting, if very X-Men, vibe to it, though 3 pages devoted to Genie showering is a bit much, Rob, you horny devil. It's set in the Awesome Universe, given Avengelyne's appearance at the end, and appears to be trying to add another hidden history to the setting. As I say, intriguing, but aside from 2 or 3 little 4-page stories in preview issues, and a cobbled together zero issue, this is all the Re:Gex we get. I'm very surprised the Liefeld hasn't tried to start this series up again. His thing these days really seems to be rebooting his own series over and over and over.

Though, were that to happen, I cannot imagine I'd be picking it up. Jeph Loeb's words are good, but Liefeld's art is Liefeld's art. Genie's boots are just the worst.

More to follow.

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 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1869: Fighting American:Rules of the Game #3, March 1998

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The series ends with an appearance by another couple of old FA villains, Double Header and the Buzz Bomber, as Flagg and S.P.I.C.E. (whose name I'm getting sick of typing) make their way to the mastermind behind the bounty on FA's head, Round Robin. The final fight is a bit anticlimactic, but it serves the purpose of convincing John Flagg that Fighting American is needed back in the world.

Which is what his military bosses had hoped would happen when they hired Robin in the first place.

I think that if the Awesome Universe had continued, I'd have loved to see some interactions between FA and Supreme, or Doctor Night. This universe had so, so much potential, which is, I think, why I'm so obsessed with getting all of their titles, even the ones that are kind of sub-par. Which is not really a fair thing to say, because the really good titles are really, really good, so even the sub-par ones are pretty fantastic comics.

Fighting American, in this incarnation, is a very interesting character, and I think having used the retirement story line for Captain America could have been cool. We see it to a certain extent in the MCU - after Civil War, Steve Rogers really isn't Captain America again, aside from being in the costume at the end of Endgame. I'm sure there's other moments, but even if he's in the costume, he's not really Cap again. Really, he ceases to be Captain America when America ceases to support him. It's the old argument about the character, really. Does he represent the U.S. as it is now, as a patriotic hero that embodies what the country is at the moment, or does he represent what the U.S. could have been if it hadn't been bogged down by corruption, white nationalism (accidentally typed "shite" there!), and capitalism? For me, Cap, at his best (see Gruenwald's work in the 80s), is the dream of America, rather than its reality, and those are always the best stories to tell with him, the ones that question where things went wrong, and whether or not that spirit of freedom and innovation can survive in the urban sink that America has become.

I wonder if perhaps a book on Captain America is about due, given the awful, awful turn the country has taken in the last few years.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

For more on the writer of this series, have a look at the other Jeph Loeb comics I've read.

I wrote a piece for Sequart on Steve Gerber's Captain America that I'm pretty proud of too.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1868: Fighting American:Rules of the Game #2, January 1998

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I'm not sure exactly who a battle between a septuagenarian and an adolescent girl is appealing to, but it ain't this guy. I'm not exactly a fan of superhero vs. superhero battles at the best of times (the Civil War series being an obvious exception, though not the mediocre film of the same name) - it's trite and cliched and moves the story along in ways that could have easily been accomplished without resorting to violence. So at the end of yesterday's comic, when S.P.I.C.E. turns on Fighting American, I rolled my eyes and got ready for an annoying read today.

It was still kind of an annoying read, thanks to S.P.I.C.E.'s hackneyed dialogue (what 90s teen calls someone "Pops"?), but was mitigated somewhat with the reveal that she had been taken over by another of FA's old foes, Invisible Irving. I still don't like her character, but at least she wasn't taking on Fighting American out of some misplaced need to boost her superheroic ego.

This issue manages to make Fighting American distinct from his patriotic forebear in one very important way: he is totally fine with killing his opponents. Hotsky Trotsky gets a shield-spike through the chest, and Irving is fried by a joint attack by FA and S.P.I.C.E. It's probably for the best, as they were Russian stereotypes perhaps most wisely left in the 50s with the original run.

There was a flip comic in today's issue, a 5-page preview for a series called SWAT!. From what I can tell, it's two normal teens with lots of hardware store equipment who are hoping to take on supervillains in their town. Or something. And it seems to have never materialized as a series, if the GCD is to be believed. Again, it's probably for the best, as the lead male character, Lee, espouses some attitudes toward women that would be more at home with FA's enemies in the 50s than they would be in the more progressive (somewhat) 90s.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

Rob Liefeld's business practices have made his movement through publishing companies something of an industry joke. He starts out with Extreme Studios, as part of Image Comics.

After this, he founds Maximum Press, the direct precursor to Awesome Entertainment.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1867: Fighting American:Rules of the Game #1, November 1997

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As FA only lasted 8 issues with Awesome, I figured I'd just read them all. The great thing about today's comic is it's one of the earliest collaborations between Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness, who go on after Awesome folds to write a really, really good run on Superman in the early 2000s. McGuiness' art has a kinetic feel to it that works very nicely with the acrobatic maneuvers of both FA and S.P.I.C.E.

Who is a character I dislike immensely. She's meant to be a snarky 16-year old, or is programmed to be, anyway, and she definitely acts like it. The problem is that unless they're quite mature, a 16-year old girl isn't really the best choice for a superhero. And that word there, choice, is the key. Who in their right mind would create an android that is a, and I quote, "weapon of mass destruction that is built like a sixteen year old girl"? Is there some thinly-veiled teen angst rearing its head here? And even if one built such a device to look like a girl, why oh why give it the personality of one. I know that it's an attempt to link a character who is from a different time with the time within which the stories are set, but there must be better ways.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

I haven't read a lot of Captain America for the blog, but I have had a few thoughts.

And here's some stuff about comics from the era in which Fighting American was first published.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1866: Fighting American #2, October 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.

As a follow-up to some of the things I said yesterday:

First, I fucking love the Awesome Universe. Once Alan Moore revamped it, it became a place where we could both question and celebrate some of the greatest superheroic characters ever created. I've no doubt that, had Rob Liefeld managed the company a bit better, it could have grown into one of the greats. Having Moore and Jeph Loeb as two of your primary writers, how can you go wrong?

Second, it turns out that Marvel, in the 90s and during "Heroes Reborn," started failing as a company, and asked Liefeld to take a lower pay rate for his work on Captain America. Liefeld refused and left, taking his stories with him, one of which turned into this series. Perhaps that's my big problem with Liefeld. It's the same problem I have with John Byrne. They think so much of themselves, rather than recognizing that they are people doing a job in an industry with thousands of others. Just because you're lauded for a little while doesn't mean you have carte blanche for the rest of your career.

Today's issue attempts to mimic Alan Moore's model of Supreme, giving us a flashback sequence mid-comic. It doesn't quite work as well, as the flashback is drawn by Stephen Platt, in his own inimitable style, rather than in the style of the era within which the flashback was set. The same thing happens with Moore's Glory from Avatar. In order for these flashbacks to work in the way that the writers want them to, they need to be era-appropriate. That's how Awesome was building its universe and its history at the time. Platt's art, which I actually love, screams 90s, so it's hard to imagine that the story he illustrates is taking place in the 50s.

That said, I'm sure lots of people had no problem with it whatsoever. Taste is a very personal thing.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

Fighting American was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and was, uncommonly for the time, creator-owned. I've had a fair bit to say about Jack Kirby. 

And here's a post on Youngblood that I think goes some distance to explaining my fascination with the Extreme/Maximum/Awesome characters.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1865: Fighting American #1, 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 editorial at the back of this comic is a full page of Rob Liefeld whining about how Marvel Comics wouldn't allow him to publish this comic. Every time I try to give Liefeld the benefit of the doubt, I run across something where he's just the worst.

Let's be very clear: the Awesome Entertainment stable of characters, with possibly one or two exceptions, are thinly-veiled knock-offs of DC and Marvel characters. This is especially the case in the post-Judgment Day universe within which this character makes his appearances. Supreme is Superman. Glory is Wonder Woman. Fighting American is Captain America. It's not hard to see this. Now, don't get me wrong. Marvel should not have shut this comic down the way that they did. No one is going to mistake this mediocre comic for the Waid/Garney Cap stories that were being published around this time. Liefeld seems to be angry about the "Heroes Reborn" initiative being shut down by Marvel, but here's the thing - they were really pretty crappy stories. Even after Liefeld left Captain America, the James Robinson stuff afterward is just awful.

Having said that about the Awesome characters, I honestly don't see anything wrong with it. These are simply paeans to some of the greatest mythic characters that North America has managed to produce from its hodge-podge culture. The problem comes once again to the idea of corporate copyright, or perpetual copyright. A company like Marvel truly believes that Captain America belongs to them, which shows a complete disregard for the way that stories work in our culture. Once it's out in the world, no one "owns" it anymore. It's simply a story that we transmit, and in that transmission we sometimes adapt the story in order that it suit our particular needs. Which, to me, is what Liefeld and company were doing here. If he couldn't tell the stories he wanted to with Captain America, why not simply tell them with a version of the character?

I have feelings about corporate ownership of stories. It just feels wrong.

More to follow.

Related Posts and Further Reading

Have a look here for some more of my thoughts on the Awesome Universe, the good and the bad.

And if you'd like to read more of my thoughts on Rob Liefeld, or at least stuff that mentions him, be warned: I am just not kind to him. 

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1500: Superman #167, April 2001

Day 1500! Quite a landmark, and now getting to that point where I can't really conceive of what the amount of comics I've read looks like. 1500 is probably about 6 long boxes, which is a huge amount of comics. Can't wait to see what the next 1500 are like.

One thing we have to deal with in Superman comics from the early 90s to the early 2000s are the diamond numbers in the top corner. At some point in the 90s, after the strange experiment that was the weekly run of Action Comics, DC's Superman editors decided that they could tell larger stories if the 4 main Superman titles were interrelated. So yesterday's Adventures was diamond number 2001-11, meaning it was the 11th issue of Superman titles that year, and should be read in that order. You'll note that today's comic is 2001-14. Numbers 12 and 13, then, would have been issues of Action Comics and Superman: Man of Steel.

To me, it's a very odd system, and for a long while it kept me out of Superman comics. I resented the idea that I had to buy 4 series, plus assorted specials, in order to keep up with a single character I loved. There's no way I could afford to buy one Superman comic a week and try to keep up with my other favourites. So for a long time I didn't read any Superman comics unless I knew I wouldn't be required to get every other Superman comic in order to understand them. Of course, once my store came along, that ceased to be a problem. For a little while, at least.

Which brings us to today's comic, only a day into my Joe Casey Adventures read-through, and we're at the flagship title under the exceedingly capable hands of Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness. This is another run of 2000s Superman I might track down. McGuiness' art is phenomenal, and Loeb, I think, is at the top of his game with this run. That aside, we're going back to Krypton, or a strange version of the planet that exists inside the Phantom Zone. And Superman #167 is where the adventure starts.

There's a couple of moments where Lois talks about actually meeting one's parents when they were young, and the difference between hearing about it and seeing it. She notes that being able to meet these younger versions of our progenitors would likely save so many people so much therapy. She's not wrong. But even that moment (and I remember it with my own son) where a child learns that their parents are just people, just as screwed up as any other person, is vital and important, and signals a significant shift in such relationships. And with Superman's fantastical, and tragic, past, the shift in his personality, if such things were possible in comics really, should be marked. I guess we'll see over the next few weeks.

"Hey, I figure if you can get me to wear this outfit, the rest is cream cheese."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1026: Superman v.2 #165, February 2001

This is one of my favourite Christmas comics. It features Superman, whom I adore, stars what I think is the best line-up of the JLA ever, and has art from Arthur Adams and Ian Churchill, two of my favourite over-the-top superhero artists.

It's also a timely piece of reading, or perhaps would have been last Christmas too. Superman is pondering the decision of the American People to elect Lex Luthor as President. The comparison was brought up numerous times last year after the Orange Man was elected, but it rings a bit false for me. 45 is so obviously a puppet of a much more sinister manipulator, whereas Luthor is actually the brains of his own operation. I think I'd have a hard time saying which is worse, though.

This issue is a "jam" issue, in that each 3-4 page vignette is illustrated by a different artist. It demonstrates quite nicely the way that the Man of Steel can translate through a number of different styles, from Liefeld's early-Image to Wieringo's Manga-meets-Disney. And the issue also highlights an oft-forgotten side of Clark's personality - his sense of humour. Each of the presents he bestows upon the JLA are amusing in a way particular to each member. Except Wonder Woman's, which perhaps betrays Clark's deeper feelings for her than for the others.

Welcome to Christmas at the Giant Box of Comics! To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 43 - Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, 2005

Before I talk about the graphic novel this week, I need to show you something. Today's featured creator is Inker Dexter Vines. What I want to show you, for those who might not understand what an inker does, is an example:

What we see here are Ed McGuinness's pencils on the left, and an inked version of the page by a Deviant Art member named "dubbery" on the right. What an inker does on a comic, essentially, is controls light and darkness. The common misconception is that an inker simply traces over a penciller's work, and while there is that aspect to it, a delineation process, the control over light and shadow, over how prominent or not a particular piece of the art will be, these are important considerations in storytelling. And this is what Dexter Vines does to great effect in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.

I'll be honest: I love this book so much. McGuiness and Vines' Superman is easily one of my favourite interpretations of the character, and the Batman-Superman interaction in this comic is handled with such love and grace by writer Jeph Loeb. Though the look of the book can be considered a bit cartoon-y, in that McGuiness errs on the side of the stylized, rather than the realistic, the dialogue by and between the two main heroes is measured and thoughtful. We may be looking at a stylized version artistically, but a realistic one verbally. Or something. I just think it captures, from both a verbal and visual perspective, something really fundamental about these characters, and about their relationship with one another. And to capture the nuance of a relationship is a special feat.

Onward.

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.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 135: Challengers of the Unknown #6, August 1991

I'm not particularly familiar with the Challengers of the Unknown. They've always struck me as more testosterone inflected version of the Fantastic Four. Kirby's creation of the two teams seems to vaguely support that. This series is interesting, though, as it is refashioning the Challengers' history, taking them out of the explorers of strange phenomena paradigm that they've been in since the 50s, and seemingly placing them more definitively within a superheroic universe.

Of course, that's what I get from reading a single issue three quarters of the way through a series. So I could be completely wrong, but I don't think so.

The Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale team has been quite a critical darling since their early work (of which this is a good example), though I occasionally find that I don't really like Tim Sale's art. I'm not entirely certain why, and I think perhaps it comes down to that ephemeral notion of taste. It's just not to my taste is all. Loeb's writing is not bad, kind of middle of the road superhero storytelling, though I've really appreciated his work on television series that I've watched. He does manage to bring his comic book sensibility to those shows, which works nicely for serialized, and often fantasy-based, television shows.

That's all for today. See you tomorrow.