The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1357: The Brave and the Bold #138, November 1977

This is another one of those situations in which the first time I saw this cover was literally seconds ago when I downloaded it from the GCD. My copy of today's comic is one of the ones in the collection that lacks a cover. A long-time reader will know that, for me, condition is not really a problem. If I can read the story, I'm happy with the comic.

Well, in theory. In practice, as with any comic, sometimes the stories do not make me happy. This one didn't. As I was reading it, I felt like the whole thing was taking place on Earth-H. All of the dialogue sounded like every single one of those Hostess ads, to the point that I now wonder if Bob Haney actually wrote them. The villain of the piece is a rival escape artist who manages to get the best of FUCKING BATMAN AND MR. MIRACLE!!!

The setting, the inside of an exploding volcano, is neat, but obviously super-stretching the bounds of reality. Everyone in the comic, and the comic itself, would have been burnt and crispy well before getting into the inevitable tunnels that seem to permeate all volcanoes in media.

I'd felt this morning that it had been a while since I'd read a good old superhero tale. I'll try again tomorrow. Second time's a charm?

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1166: Detective Comics #643, April 1992

This issue marks the last Peter Milligan script and the last Jim Aparo art on this title. Well, for the time being, anyway. A nice little story that was creepy and interesting, and eschewed the more mystical side of Gotham that Milligan's run has expressed. This is simply a short story of obsession gone awry. And, in a few ways, it's a critique of those who focus their study too much on the minutiae. Not like anyone I know, certainly.

I've enjoyed Mr. Milligan's early Batman stuff. It's an interesting read when considering he was writing Shade at the same time - the subject matter of the two runs interweaves without ever actually connecting. But it would be mad to think that Shade and the Idiot never met one another. Or that the madness that overtakes the killer in today's comic couldn't have sprung full-formed from the forehead of the American Scream. Aside from an occasional cameo, Shade steers clear of the DCU proper, so these Batman stories could be seen to fill in the ways in which Shade's adventures across the US affect Gotham City.

What was that about paying too much attention to the minutiae?

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1165: Detective Comics #640, January 1992

The Idiot and his root wind down in a fairly typical Batman style, I think. Were this a weirder comic, things wouldn't have wrapped up quite so nicely but, again, that's what Milligan is doing over in Shade. I'm curious as to whether or not The Idiot ever shows up again - the ending is left fairly open.

I really am convinced that Mr. Milligan was working out in this story what would happen if Shade gave in to the baser instincts of the body he inhabits in this particular era - that of a convicted murderer. The body does take over once or twice in the series. More that that, though, I could see this as a view of how Shade might move through bodies were he to care little about who or what he inhabits.

One more Milligan 'Tec (that's what the fans call it) tomorrow, and then on to something pretty different.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1163: Detective Comics #639, December 1991

Back with a proper entry finally.

Peter Milligan and company continue an excellent run on the Bat-titles, this time crossing over between the two books to tell a weird little story about "The Idiot."

A few years back I picked up a set of books that were all writings about the Arctic and the Antarctic. The Antarctic is a very interesting case in literature, as it's a continent, a landmass, that has no native literature. Unless there's something buried deep beneath the ice, there's never been a literature-producing society there. So all we have are writings by people from outside of the area, unlike just about everywhere else on the planet. One of the writings that really took me, the author of which I can't remember at the moment, told the tale of a "Third Man" out on the ice with two explorers. It wasn't that there was actually someone there, but the isolation and desolation of the endeavour created such a synergy between the two men that it seemed as if a third person, or personality, was accompanying them on the ice. The piece is very clear that this really felt like another presence to both of them.

"The Idiot Root" appears to be relating a similar story, except that the third man is a fifth man, and the first four aren't Antarctic explorers, but four people who have suffered severe mental trauma. Unlike, perhaps, the gestalt entity of the explorers, however, the Idiot (derived from Id) wants to be real, and isn't afraid to kill to get there.

Batman has other ideas. There's a wonderful moment in today's comic wherein Batman is attacked by young followers of the Idiot and there's almost panic in the internal monologue as he tries to figure out how he, of all people, can fight children without hurting them.

I should note that this comic actually contains another comic, a Sonic the Hedgehog story as a 20-page insert attached in the middle of the comic. Strange choice of placement, given the remarkably dark nature of today's issue, but it is interesting in that I think it must be the very first Sonic comic. Sonic now is a venerable institution at Archie Comics, but this one is accompanied by an ad for the very first Sonic game, back before the nightmare of Sonic '06. That said, I didn't read it, as it wasn't the comic I had selected for today. I will note that there is another comic in there, though, and I'll read it at a later date.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1161: Detective Comics #638, November 1991

So, my parents are here and it's been busy. I'll try to get back to proper blogs when they've left.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1153: Detective Comics #633, August 1991

We come to a break in Mr. Milligan's Bat-works now, with a cool little story that, unlike the previous ones, actually involves someone with superpowers. The mistaken identity trope is played out in a very novel way in this tale. I've no idea if the pro/antagonist of this piece has any other appearances, or if he was created just for this story, but it was a neat device.

I'm still not sold on Batman. I don't know what it is, but he's just too goddamn grim, I think. Like, lighten up, just a bit, every now and again. Isn't that why there is a Robin? So that there's a little light in the Dark Knight's world? But we see that so rarely, I think. Perhaps it's just that I haven't been reading sustained runs of the title. And these are guest-written stories as well, meaning that they're not likely to have any of the character development stuff that the regular creative team would probably handle.

I was mentioning how little interest I have in Batman to a local comic shop owner the other day, and noting how happy I was to find Milligan's stuff, as it's a bit different from the usual Bat stuff. He looked at me and said that with 80 years to choose from, there's bound to be something to enjoy in there. Which makes so much sense.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1152: Detective Comics #632, July 1991

There's a wonderful twist in today's comic that very nicely deals with an aspect of the generational trauma of the Holocaust in a way that I've not seen done in comics, though I'm sure it has. The trauma I'm speaking of is the trauma of the collaborator. While there might be those who say that this trauma is deserved, it's difficult to say unless one is in a particular situation whether or not one would break. The character in this story is revealed to have betrayed a resistance group to the Nazis under torture, and has tortured himself for 50 years since.

In our present time, we're seeing a lot of men revealing, or having revealed, damning behaviours for which they are, rightly, being called to account for. The conversation I'm not hearing, and maybe it needs to not happen for a little while, is how do these men, should they truly want to, recuperate their lives and reputations? How do they make amends? Today's comic raises a similar question: how long should someone punish themselves, or be punished, and what constitutes the kind of restitution that is required?

I'm sure I could have articulated that more clearly, but it's late and I'm tired. One more Peter Milligan Detective tomorrow.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1151: Detective Comics #631, July 1991

It's cool to see the legend of the Golem cropping up in comics. The link between superheroes and the Golem is made most explicit in Michael Chabon's The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but I think it's an idea that's been around much longer than that. Let's not forget that Superman was created by two young Jewish men reacting to what they saw happening in Europe. There's always been a lot of the created protector to the Man of Steel, and thus to all his children.

Peter Milligan is drawing on some very cool ideas in his Bat-tales. He wrote three issues of Batman not long before this Detective stuff, and he's so far delved into Illuminati-style shenanigans featuring the Founding Fathers, Irish angry ghost stories, and now Jewish mysticism. Which, honestly, is totally why I decided to track down some of his work outside of Shade. I know, from Shade, that Milligan's got a weird mind. I'm just not so sure why it's taken me this long to start reading his stuff.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1150: Detective Comics #630, June 1991

Today's issue has Batman tracking down another vigilante who is wanted by the FBI. This vigilante, known as Stiletto, actually only preys on bad people, but the fact that he pushed past Batman's rule of no killing puts him in the Dark Knight's sights.

There's some interesting moments where Batman is reviewing information about Stiletto and almost, almost feels sympathetic to his cause. But then the killing part comes up, and all bets are off.

So, a good tale with at least on gruesome murder (a wheelchair-bound crook gets super-glued upside down to a ceiling - truly chilling visuals), and Batman gets to confront what he might have, or may yet, become.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1149: Detective Comics #629, May 1991

I'm in the process of rediscovering a couple of things. The first is Batman, about whom I've been somewhat disparaging over the last decade or so. I have similar feelings about Batman as those I have about Wolverine - there's just too much. Back when I had my comic store, I think there were about 10 monthly Bat-titles being published. At some point you hit a saturation point, I think. We have, as consumers, to be able to take in and assimilate information into our lives, but a constant stream of new information doesn't allow this process to occur. Even with stories, we need this. We need to be able to mull a story over in our heads before having it supplanted by a new one. I have found this to be exceedingly hard with Batman. I've only ever collected the title while Grant Morrison was running it, at a point when there weren't actually that many Bat-titles, and even then it was occasionally difficult to keep up.

The other rediscovery is of writer Peter Milligan. I was first exposed to his work in his short and wonderful follow-up to Morrison's Animal Man, and then I discovered the sheer brilliance that is his revamp of Shade, The Changing Man. I've never been disappointed by Milligan's work, though it hasn't captured me the same way many other writers have. I'm working to remedy that, and I thought I'd start with his Detective Comics run. As part of the "British Invasion" of the late 80s, he brings a very different narrative aesthetic to the Dark Knight. As with Gaiman, Moore, Morrison, Ennis, Ellis, Jenkins, all those guys, I'm fascinated by the reworking of the intrinsically-American myth by a literary mythic tradition that is vastly older. Today's story, "The Hungry Grass!" could easily have been a Hellboy story, interweaving Irish folk tales into the gritty urban fabric of Gotham City. He does five more issues in this run, and then bounces around the Bat-titles for a bit. I'm going to do my best to find his early stuff, and then start exploring later works and, perhaps, some of his early British output. Always exciting to start researching a new writer.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1031: Adventures of the Outsiders #43, March 1987

I wonder if Charles Dickens knew what he was handing to the world when he composed A Christmas Carol? The story is told and retold so many times, and always, always works. Is it just that we can all relate too much to the closed off person who is reminded of his links to humanity? Grim thought for this time of year, I guess.

This was a strange comic - I'm not sure if what the Outsiders do here is at all ethical - they basically gaslight an old man into confessing secrets he knows about a mobster. It's less physically violent than an old-fashioned superheroic brawl, but it's also less honest. The team is not, as far as I could tell, doing this to help redeem a man who has spent much of his life covering up crimes but rather to arrest the crime boss he works for. The accountant who serves as the Scrooge stand-in here is incidental in many ways. They get the information they want from him, and then are surprised that, having experienced "3 spirits," the old man confesses his crimes to the police and turns himself in. It's as if the notion of the man redeeming himself never even crossed their minds. All but Halo, who says she feels bad tricking the man this way.

All in all, a strange Christmas story. It calls back to its original for sure, but doesn't quite grasp the same spirit of fellowship that Dickens was, ostensibly, looking for.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Bi-Weekly(?) Graphic Novel Number 60 - Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast, 1994

Do note the entry change - not even going to pretend to be weekly at the moment!

I've been on a bit of a Starlin kick of late. I'm getting more and more curious about the strange cosmic stories that were told in the later 70s by contemporaries of Steve Gerber, and Jim Starlin is one. The stuff he's doing in Epic Illustrated that I'm reading at the moment is really neat, but I'd like to see it in a more superhero-focussed universe. His Warlock is apparently the way to go.

This Batman story is not one of his more cosmic ones. Or at all cosmic, really. In fact, this story is so cemented in the real world that Ronald Reagan himself makes a cameo. And not one of those cheesy, seen-from-the-shadows cameos, but a full on interaction with Batman. Which is really pretty great and pretty silly all at the same time. Which, really, is a great description of superheroes, Batman included, in general.

Much is made in the introduction of this perhaps being the very first "story arc" in comics. I'm not sure I buy the rationale - mainly it revolves around editor Denny O'Neill's decision to change the front cover logo for the four months that this story ran. Though on second thought, perhaps I'm underestimating the role that cover dress plays in the marketing, and in the selecting, of comics. It's one of the sad truths of the hobby that we often will judge a book literally by its cover.

Regardless, the story inside is pretty good. It's Batman and Robin at a time when they were poised very dangerously between the blue and grey clad detective of the 70s and the trauma-oozing avenger of the late 80s. It looks beautiful! I'm beginning to see why people say Jim Aparo is one of the great Bat-artists. He makes their movements look believable and superheroic all at the same time. That's a pretty awesome feat. It's a bit politically conservative for my tastes, but I'm coming to realize that Batman in the 70s and 80s really was a conservative hero. I wonder if that's why I've never really taken to him, until he was given over to the control of a mad Scotsman?

One thing that did strike me about this story is the end. So, SPOILER ALERT!!!

Batman leaves the KGBeast sealed in an abandoned tunnel deep beneath the subways and sewers of Gotham. And then tells the law that they won't have to worry about him anymore. He basically leaves the Beast to die of starvation. Which is pretty grim, even for Batman. I looked into it, and he's said to have actually told the police where to find the guy before he died, but just reading this collection, Batman's very, very dark at the end. Reminds me of the protrayal of Oliver Queen in the Arrow TV show. In which the Beast, in his civilian iteration, is a friend of the main character.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 753: Justice League of America #200

A lazy Sunday morning in bed reading an oversized Justice League comic and having a bowl of cereal. While outside, it looks like it might actually be Spring (I fool myself, but sometimes we have to).

Today's comic follows in that long tradition of comics about superheroes fighting superheroes. I'm not sure where this particular subgenre comes from. Sometimes I think that it has a lot to do with why diverse religions have battled one another over the course of human history. We place our faith in something and can't possibly understand how someone else could place something so important and vital in something different. Everyone has a favourite superhero, one that we place our faith in, so it's natural (?) to want to know who'd come out on top. My god is stronger than your god, I suppose.

On the other hand, it might just come from the idea that we want to see the cool characters duking it out with one another. Yeah, when they fight a villain, it's cool. But villains, by their nature in these kinds of comics, will always lose. If it's heroes fighting one another, who's the villain? Who's going to lose? Such contests offer a bit more suspense.

That aside, this was a fairly standard early 80s DC comic. The artists jam on the issue was pretty sweet, bringing together some of the truly great DC artists of the last few decades. It was also a nice hearkening back to the original JLA case from The Brave and the Bold, though how it would fit in with Mark Waid's retcon in JLA:Year One, I'm not sure. Though I'm fairly certain that's not canon anymore anyway. Well, given DC's propensity for multiverses, it's canon somewhere, I'm sure.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 665: The Outsiders #5, March 1986

Another Dickens-style Christmas tale. The more I think about it, the more I'm a little troubled by the idea of using fear as a means of changing someone. It's a form of torture, really, isn't it? In today's comic, Halo recognizes this as she witnesses Eben Mudge, aged accountant, collapse sobbing to his knees when his past is replayed for him. It is fair to be utilizing moments of shame from the man's past to squeeze information from him? It's not even that the Outsiders are trying to save the man, or offer him some kind of redemption. They're simply interested in getting information from him in order to shut down a mob boss. Though the eventual outcome is a changed man, that's certainly not what the Outsiders expected going in.

An odd story, then, about Christmas torture that ends up redeeming someone, but perhaps casting our ostensible heroes in a pretty bad light.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 623: The Brave and The Bold #192, November 1982

A lovely little tale of Batman's mentoring of Superman, a pre-Crisis tale in which young Clark and Bruce know each other, and so Bruce has no qualms, no hesitation in removing his cowl and revealing himself to a time-displaced Superboy.

I miss this version of Batman, prior to the Millerian reinvention, a man who, though grim, though darker than his fellows, still betrays some optimism, some trust, who is not the paranoid figure that Batman becomes in the decades following this story.

It's a weird morning, this morning. I went downstairs to pick out a comic, and I knew I needed to read something with Superman in it. There's this wrestling I do when I'm feeling betrayed by the world, when I'm shocked by the events that transpire, by the triumph of hatred. I'm a queer man, yes, but I'm also a middle-aged white man, and that puts me, unfairly, in a privileged position. And whenever I rail about unfairness in the world, it comes from that position of privilege. I have to be aware of that whenever I express the kind of shock and disgust I feel this morning, looking south. That there are people for whom this kind of shock and disgust is a fact of daily life. That there are people who live in fear of their lives every day in a way that I will likely never understand. So I wrestle with my place in the conversation. The best I can do is to be not just an ally, but a comrade. To echo the words of Superman in All-Star, that you are stronger than you think, all of you. And, together, I still firmly believe that we can make the world better for everyone.

Today, more than usual, onward. Ever onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 99: Adventure Comics #435, September-October 1974

Coincidentally, this issue's Spectre story is also written by Michael Fleisher. I hadn't realized this until I took the comic out to read it and opened to the first page. I like it when coincidence like that occurs.

The artwork in the first story ("The Man Who Stalked the Spectre") is by Jim Aparo, and is, unsurprisingly, really amazing. The off-kilter angles, the supremely-expressive faces, the dynamism of both characters and backgrounds. I'm slightly reminded of Ditko's frenetically-moving panel constructions, but this is more refined, less jumbled, perhaps. The motion of Aparo's panels is less roller coaster and more ghost train.

The story, set in New York (which is a bit of a rarity in the DCU) is pretty run of the mill, and honestly seems like it is taking place in a non-Gotham/Metropolis/Central City version of the DCU. There's a single reference to Superman, but this is only to accuse a reporter of looking like Clark Kent (which he really does). In fact, it's hard to say what might distinguish the story as being a "Spectre" story instead of simply a story about a vengeance-seeking ghost. We see the action from the focal viewpoint of the Kent-esque reporter, and in doing so get none of Jim Corrigan's internal thoughts on being the Spectre, which might have elevated the story from ghost story to Spectre story. It's an interesting choice to make, for sure, but in some ways moves us into the sort of frame of reference that has worked really well for Kurt Busiek in Astro City, but is less-successful in this particular tale.

The second feature, an Aquaman story, is really bad. Black Manta is poaching from farms surrounding Atlantis. Aquaman beats him up and then turns him back over to his flunkies, warning them never to come back. Aside from the Mike Grell art, which was really actually lackluster, there's little to recommend this story.

Sometimes comics that are old are just that - old. Not all of them can be nostalgic celebrations of the earlier eras of the superhero. Some of them are simply mediocre comics that happened between some really good ones. I get the inkling that more were mediocre than not, and that we see the older stuff through rose-coloured glasses sometimes. I've had a similar conversation about Barry Allen and Hal Jordan as Flash and Green Lantern, and how so many people revere them, but that they really only achieve any kind of iconicity after they've died and been replaced. We get swept up in the reverence that their replacements have for them and are tricked into thinking that we had that reverence too. Wally West will always be a better Flash than Barry Allen. Anyone watching the current series knows they're actually telling Wally's story, not Barry's. Barry functions to inspire the character of Wally, but it is Wally that makes the Flash into a top-level hero. Much of Barry's career was relatively mediocre.

Inflammatory words if ever there were any. See you tomorrow for day 100. Now I have to figure out what special comic is going to get the treatment.