The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2113: Next Men #7, September 1992

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Well, almost made it. I'll finish off my look at Next Men with today's issue, which really is kicking off the next section of the storyline, but is also the last consecutive issue I have. I may hold off from reading the rest of them, as I'm intrigued enough to track down what I'm missing. I recently read that Byrne has had the whole story planned out ahead of time, so I'm curious to see the end.

That said, my wrists have been bad this week. Briefly, this series is totally worth tracking down and reading. Excellent take on super-powered beings and how they work in "the real world."

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2110: Next Men #4, May 1992

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Okay, I'm in. This is a very cool story, and there's some really dark shit going on. A few days ago I noted that this series appears around the same time as the Image revolution, one that used the trappings of darkness to make their products seem cool without having, really, much substance. Byrne is going the other direction here, offering us a series that, because he drew it, hearkens back to the Copper Age stories, with some drama and some darkness, but that, substantially, seems to have a very grim back story. The discovery by Jazz and Bethany of a cave full of skeletons gives us a taste of the two aesthetics coming together, but there's a twist when the weird alien that we assume is responsible for the skeletons starts speaking and recognized the women.

As I say, I'm in. Byrne obviously has this story plotted in his head, and it shows in the consistency of not only the art but also the story. The beats are arranged very well, giving just the right combinations of intrigue, action, and relaxation. I'm excited to see what happens tomorrow.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2109: Next Men #3, April 1992

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 The chaos surrounding the Next Men has an outcome at the end of today's comic that I think I would have liked to see play out in our reality some time in the last four years. The final page of the issue has the Vice President of the US on a plane heading...somewhere...when all of a sudden, with no explanation, the plane blows up and he dies. If only Mike Pence had suffered a similar fate. I try not to wish death on people. I think that's a pretty karmically dodgy thing to do. But the current, and outgoing, American administration was, in my opinion, simply evil, demonstrating everything that is bad about the US, Capitalism, and organized religion, all useful ideas if deployed with kindness and generosity. The people in charge now don't know what those words mean

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2108: Next Men #2, March 1992

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I'm having to rethink my relationship with John Byrne. I've often found the arrogance I've perceived in interviews as very off-putting, a case of an artist buying their own hype, as I've noted before. And I do think that there's some of that there. On the other hand, again as I've noted, Byrne is a fantastic artist, and given the space that a creator-owned book allows, his writing's not too shabby either. I'm definitely on my way to being sucked into this story.

One thing I'm really appreciating is the Next Mens' inability to accept that the world they find themselves in is, in fact, the more real one. And this isn't communicated in exposition, but rather in the characters attempting something odd that, from their reactions, you can tell worked during their time in The Greenery.

There's also a much larger story going on, which is kind of cool. Often you'll have origin stories like this and then the characters just fuck off and become superheroes. This story is starting to read a lot less like superhero fiction and more like science fiction, so we'll see where things go as we progress. I've been surprised to this point. Hopefully that will continue.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2107: Next Men #1, February 1992

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Okay. Today's comic actually came from the recent collection I bought. There's not a lot more information revealed in today's comic. It's more a continuation of the escape that ends the previous issue. We're still somewhat in the dark about who the Next Men are and what and how they can do things. Having lived in a virtual reality all their lives, there are moments where the differences between the real world and the virtual world are pointed out. At one point Danny, the speedster, has to stop because he has blisters on his feet that he's never had there before. And Jack tries to "make" a weapon like the guns being used against the group out of thin air, perhaps suggesting that there was an aspect of wish fulfillment in The Greenery, their virtual prison.

Once again, brilliant layout work, and, given the era, a very different take on superheroes. It's worth remembering that this is the time of Liefeld and McFarlane over at Marvel and then Image, so Byrne's work here is not only reacting to that, but demonstrating, at least to me, a different way superheroes went during a traditionally pretty silly era.

I have the first 8 issues consecutively, so I'll probably make my way through those this week. More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2106: Next Men #0, February 1992.

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 I don't know if I mentioned it a few weeks back, but I bought a small collection from a seller on Kijiji. I allowed myself half of it and divided the rest up into three chunks that I'm "gifting" myself over the next few months. Today was the first chunk, and it contains a nice run of this comic. Except the issue I'm reading today is from my collection, and has been awhile. It reprints the preludes to the Next Men ongoing series from Dark Horse Presents.

I didn't know this when I sat down to read issue number one this afternoon. I was very confused by the events of the comic. Thank goodness the dark recesses of my brain managed to recall that I had a zero issue of the series, or I thought I did, and lo and behold, it appeared.

I've not been kind to John Byrne on this blog, but I have to give credit where credit is due. He's a really, really good comics artist. I just think he's one of those people, and you have them in every industry, who thinks he's more important than he actually is. He did some spectacular runs on some of the biggest superheroes, but that doesn't mean that his voice ought to be counted for more than newer, or less famous, voices. This is always the sense I get from him when I've read interviews. I really should just avoid reading interview.

The end of Byrne's Fantastic Four was one of the first Marvel comics I collected. Before I read Jonathan Hickman's run on the team, I always thought that Byrne got the super-family dynamic just right, though I'll admit it's been a while since I've read it. I'm curious to see how this particular team of Next Men (and Women) evolves. Given the artist's huge successes with team books prior to writing this one, I wonder if we'll see things that are familiar from Byrne's earlier team books, but refined through the lens of experience.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1784: Secret Origins Annual #1, 1987

For the first time in I can`t even remember how long, I have a brand-spanking-new computer, after having lost my former computer in our move. So I thought I`d try, once again, to get back on the horse and write in this blog every day. It`s good for me. I don`t know why I don`t just do it.

And to do this, we`re going to leap back into the World`s Strangest Heroes, The Doom Patrol! When we last left our intrepid crew, the New Doom Patrol had assembled, had a few adventures, a few guest appearances, Cliff had reverted to his original body and gone on some adventures with the Titans. Honestly, for my money, the best issue of the previous bunch of comics was actually one that starred The Brotherhood of Evil. If you`re a fan of Tintin, I urge you to find a copy.

The Secret Origins series is a bit hit or miss, and I realize now that it`s a vehicle to bring people up to speed on a particular character, rather than to tell a story about that character. When I originally bought this comic, I had no idea of the Doom Patrol`s history, having only recently begun searching for Morrison`s run in the late 90s. It served its purpose well then, filling me in on everything up to the beginning of the 1980s run. But reading it today, it was just kind of blah. We get a rundown of each character`s origin, as well as the origins of the two versions of the team, capped with a cliffhanger appearance by an old teammate. Of course, this leads directly into tomorrow`s comic, the first issue of Doom Patrol.

Honestly, I probably needed a bit of a recap since the last time.

Kupperberg`s run is a tough one to read, as he tries to make the team into a regular superhero team, forgetting that that`s only really the secondary reason the Patrol is together.

Oh, and we get a Captain Comet origin backup - it`s pretty cool, kind of riffs on Superman with slightly more Nietzsche. Comet is born to `John and Martha` as a comet streaks over the house. He grows up to be a future evolution of humankind, gifted with amazing superpowers. He`s even show outracing a train, taking the Superman analogy even further. But, unlike the Ubermensch, Comet does not attempt to replace regular humans, but uses his gifts to help us.

Which, sadly, is probably the most unrealistic thing about the whole story.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 58 - The Complete Rog 2000, July 1982

I can't for the life of me remember where I got this book. I got it recently, I know that, but where from has completely escaped me. I think it must have been a cheap bin somewhere, as I've made my feelings about the work of John Byrne known pretty clearly. That said, this also represents some very early Roger Stern work, so I suppose it has a place of some distinction in my collection.

Rog 2000 started out as a fictional robotic editor for a fanzine called CPL. It seems the character fairly oozed personality from the moment he was put upon the page, and a series of short stories, all collected here, followed.

Rog's adventures are silly. They know exactly what they are and aspire to be nothing more than an entertainment, a diversion. Rog hunts a slime creature, visits a "haunted" house, encounters a little old witch. There's no continuity, no recurring characters, no need to invest more than a surface read of the piece. Which, for me at least, is a very odd phenomenon. I as telling my classes today that we can certainly choose to read a piece of art with the express intention of an escapist, surface reading, but that there is almost certainly a deeper reading we can perform. I'm not sure if that's the case with Rog 2000. I mean, I sure one could, but I'm also fairly sure that there was nothing of the sort in the minds of those writing and drawing the tales within.

Seems like a terrible thing for someone who attempts to teach critical reading and thinking practices to say, but every now and again we have to acknowledge that, in some cases, there is only surface to some works of art. This doesn't make them bad...just simple.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 944: Avengers Annual #14, 1985

The Avengers's space adventure gets the double-sized crescendo it deserves in today's comic. Space adventure, ray guns, shape-shifting aliens (but not for long!), and a run-in with some unexpected friends. The events of this issue play (or played) a fairly major role in the status quo of the Marvel U for many years, at least until the Skrulls figured out how to reverse the effects of the Hyperwave Bomb - thence the Secret Invasion.

But the Avengers really gel well as a team in this issue. It's been a bit of a membership rollercoaster over the last year or so of issues. I'm not sure why the rotation changed so much, though it's likely because individual members had things going on in their own books. Iron Man and Thor, specifically, are notable in their absence, though Rhodey does end up on the West Coast team eventually. But I suppose this makes a certain amount of sense. It's not like membership in the Avengers is what we might consider a full-time job - as circumstances change, so too must the roster. What is incumbent on the team is that it still live up to the moniker of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

But what exactly does that mean? How does, or should, one measure might? Obviously power is a factor, but Captain America doesn't quite measure up to someone like Captain Marvel (the one from this run), or Thor. Where does Cap's might lay? So instead I think the mightiest is more easily understood as those willing to go our of their way to deal with the MAJOR problems that require a super-powered touch. Of course, then we run up against the problem of what constitutes a major problem - in New Avengers, Luke Cage sets the Avengers to doing some community service-style work, dealing with what he sees as a major problem. Perhaps we need to leave it to the chairperson of the team? For the Vision, it was all about creating an orderly world. For Cage, about the presence of the Avengers as a deterrent for urban crime. For the Wasp....and, really, for Roger Stern's run on the book...it's about the problems that are, inevitably, too big for any one hero, problems that require individuals who are willing to skirt the edge of death in order to do the right thing.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 923: Avengers Annual v.1 #13, 1984

This is going to be a short post. This comic was kind of disappointing. It's annoying, because it took a lot longer to read than a usual comic, and the creative team had me very exciting. But I think that the combination of Byrne and Ditko turns out to not be a particularly profitable one. What it ends up looking like is a combination of the worst aspects of both artists. Ditko's cooky messiness disappears under the clean lines of Byrne, and Byrne's dynamism is reigned in by some very static pencils on Ditko's part.

It's kind of a cool story, with an interesting array of Avengers, so I'm curious as to how this story would have played out in the hands of an artist who was used to these characters. But, sadly, in the hands of a couple of masters, it ends up looking a bit amateurish.

Back to the regular series tomorrow! To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 899: Avengers v.1 #234, August 1983

Basically a recap comic today. The Wasp and Captain Marvel listen to the story of the Scarlet Witch's life while the Vision lies comatose in the medical bay of Avengers Mansion. The Witch's tale is an interesting one, and given that she's never really been a top-tier character for Marvel, she's certainly been around for many of the major events of the Marvel U. What I do find quite fascinating about her, and about her brother Quicksilver, is that they're some of the very few mutants whose destinies haven't really been all that tightly bound up with Professor X and the X-Men. Aside from the brief stint with Magneto's Brotherhood, the Witch and Quicksilver have been much more a part of the Avengers lore. It's nice to see - the gathering of mutants around the X-banner smacks of ghettoization sometimes, so when we get to see that there are mutants who aren't drawn into the X-Soap Opera, it gives a better idea of the inclusion of the mutants in the general population.

Well, it did until Ms. Maximoff got rid of them. Most of them. But that's a story for another time, and about 20 years beyond the release of today's comic.

The very end of today's comic is a call to arms from Doctor Strange to the Witch, so we'll pop over to his title tomorrow, also chronicled by Roger Stern, to see what the Avengers get up to with the Sorcerer Supreme. To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 898: Avengers v.1 #233, July 1983

It turns out I didn't really have to read yesterday's issue of Fantastic Four. The crossover with the Avengers is more in service of the story being told in that series than the story being told in this one. Which means I'll more than likely not read the next issue of FF tomorrow, and instead keep on truckin' with the Avengers.

It is, however, always nice to see the two big New York supergroups teaming up. And of course when the Fantastic Four are in trouble, as they were in this particular tale, the Avengers are the first people they'd want helping them out.

I'm quite enjoying the focalization of this run of Avengers through Monica Rambeau. We're seeing a lot of action for the new Captain Marvel, but the most telling moment is when she's reflecting on the 6 hours since she became a full-fledged Avenger, rather than a trainee, the events of which cover the last 2 issues. It's that strange cognitive dissonance of reading comics that 3 months of publication time can equal 6 hours of narrative time. But she muses on whether or not this is considered a busy time for the Avengers (the kidnapping of the President, the pursuit of Plant Man, the arrival of Starfox, the mysterious barrier in Manhattan), a question that I've often asked myself when looking at the seeming non-stop action within these pages. Often I'll think that we need an issue between issues, one that's not part of the ongoing action, but that simply depicts each of the Avengers just chilling in their houses, or going to the gym, or, in this day and age, watching something on Netflix. We get some issues like that, but it takes a remarkable writer to narrate 20-something pages of story in which there's little to no action. If I can think of an example, I'll add it in an edit to this post.

So, a focus on the Scarlet Witch tomorrow. To be continued!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 897: Fantastic Four v.1 #255, June 1983

Off we go on a slight detour into John Byrne's Fantastic Four which, as I mentioned yesterday, is one of that artists few major runs that I quite enjoy. We'll get into my problems with Byrne some time, but not today.

We're in media res today, with the FF stranded in the Negative Zone and Annihilus in the Baxter Building, attempting to tear down the barriers between his universe and the Marvel U in order to destroy both. That whole cataclysmic destruction angle of villainy has always mystified me. Were I a super villain, I don't think I'd just want to blow everything up. I, by definition, am a part of everything. The nice thing in this situation is that Annihilus' very existence is built around the destruction of everything. He is the most nihilistic of nihilists, and certainly has a pure belief in the perfection of nothingness. It's a wonderful way to articulate the alienness of the Negative Zone, and of one of it's most powerful inhabitants.

But more to the point for us, a strange wall of force has been erected in downtown Manhattan - Daredevil slams into it in the early pages of today's comic in much the same way the Avengers discovered it in yesterday's. Neither the Man Without Fear nor the World's Mightiest Heroes know what it is, or what it portends, but I imagine as the crossover continues, the seriousness of the situation will make itself known.

Will our heroes triumph? (Yes, certainly). Will they suffer losses? (Yep, though not permanent ones. This is superhero comics after all). Will it be a cool story to read? Of course. To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 889: Avengers v.1 #191, January 1980

I've never really understood the Grey Gargoyle. I mean, I understand his powers (mainly because he takes the time to explain his entire back story to a terrified woman whose apartment he destroys in today's issue), but I've never understood how it is that he's considered so powerful. For those not in the know, his power is this: his right had turns anything to stone for 1 hour. But if he touches himself (insert joke here) he is coated with a flexible epidermis and gains super strength. The bit I don't understand is how this helps him take down the entire team of Avengers. I'm talking Ms. Marvel, Captain America, Iron Man. It just doesn't seem possible to me - which, I know, is a hilarious thing to say about a superhero comic. I get that it's a dramatic thing, but when you've got so many people with distance based powers, this dude should be easy.

One last issue in which Mr. Stern is plotter tomorrow, and then we'll head on into his run as writer proper. It's kind of exciting. I'm trying to remember if I've actually read his run all the way through. I'm sure I must have, but it was long enough ago that I don't remember it all. Except that we're going to have to deal with the ever-so-slightly-rapey Starfox for a while.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 888: Avengers v.1 #190, December 1979

The second issue of Roger Stern's early co-plotting of The Avengers takes on some issues that have been constant throughout the team's history.

(Oh, and just for completion's sake, I found out that Mr. Stern also co-plotted #167, but I don't have it. We'll have a look at it when I finally find it.)

The Avengers are summoned to a special tribunal to determine if they are a threat to national security, and whether or not more rather than less government oversight is necessary for the team. If you're thinking that this has echoes of Civil War, the comic or the film, you're not wrong, and it's certainly been an ongoing factor in the Marvel U for a number of decades. As with the Civil War series, it's really up to the reader what side you're on, and there's no easy answers as to which side is "right." We might, at this juncture, want to side with the Avengers because the person opposing them, the interminably obnoxious Peter Henry Gyrich is just so terrible that siding with him is virtually impossible. That said, he's not entirely wrong about the sensitive information the Avengers have, and the relative ease of access to said information. Superheroes aren't always the most reliable creatures, so entrusting them with potentially very damaging information or, often, technology, might seem like a bad idea.

But it's the way that Gyrich goes about it that is infuriating. Or is it? The more I think about it, the more I see this interfering with the Avengers as a demonstration of exactly the kind of "big government" that the American experiment (failed now, BTW) works against. Much conservative rhetoric in the US cries out against the interference of government in the day to day lives of its citizens (unless those citizens are not straight and white, in which case the government must keep a tight rein), so to see the government interfering with the ostensibly noble work of the superteam is decrying the overarching power of that government.

Or am I reading too closely, and from too contemporary a viewpoint?

Oh, and a giant stone creature impacts in Manhattan and crashes about downtown. As they do.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 887: Avengers v.1 #189, November 1979

I'm going to attempt another long-form reading over the next little while. We'll see how it goes, I suppose. One of my favourite runs of comics, and one that got me into the Marvel U in a big way, was the end of Roger Stern's run on The Avengers. The siege of Avengers Mansion by the Masters of Evil still ranks as one of my favourite superhero stories, full of drama and epic battles, and told in such a way that there really did seem to be high stakes involved. The aftermath of that story still resonates in the Marvel U, or did for a long while. So I've decided, since I'm pretty sure I have all of Mr. Stern's Avengers material, to read through as much of it as I can before getting (inevitably) cranky.

And we start here, about 40 issues prior to his taking over as regular writer. The regular run starts with issue #227, but Stern is given co-plotting credit on today's comic and the two that follow it. I'd initially thought it was because he was in the process of setting up stories for his own run, but a three and a half year lead time seems like a lot. Plus, he's the editor on the title at this point. More likely is that the story over the next few issues was the result of a conversation or collaboration between Stern, writer Steven Grant, and, according to the little credits box, Marc Gruenwald and David Michelinie. I suppose in an office-style environment like what the Marvel Bullpen claimed to be like at the time, such collaborations were more than possible.

What we're getting is the aftermath of a large battle, from Avengers Annual #9, and a restructuring of the team. This is also at the point that there was tight governmental oversight on the Avengers, an aspect of the story that continues to plague the team for at least the next decade or so. At least contemporary versions of the team have had S.H.I.E.L.D. for oversight, no less bureaucratic, but at least a little more understanding of the minutiae of superhero life than Peter Henry Gyrich.

The big part of today's comic is that Hawkeye, now a reserve member of the team, gets a job as a security guard, and faces off against Deathbird, a Shi'ar warrior.

There's one other interesting bit: at one point Hank "Yellowjacket" Pym gets a phone call from the Wasp, who is stranded in Las Vegas, in the aftermath of the end of the Omega saga, which we looked at a few days back. If there's one thing I can really thank this era of The Avengers for, it's for introducing me to the shared Marvel U. While such titles as Secret Wars or West Coast Avengers might have demonstrated the breadth of the universe, it was Avengers that was always best, like X-Men, at demonstrating the interpersonal interactions that show that it's not just a shared physical space, but a shared social space that the heroes inhabit.

So we'll make our way for a few days through comics that Stern collaborated on, or that were one-off writing assignments, until we get to the beginning of his run proper near the end of the week. To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 796: Marvel Team-Up #79, March 1979

One of the things I noticed this year at the con was a propensity for "mystery boxes." A couple of years back I bought one in the shape of a giant Lego figure head and it had some interesting stuff in it. This year, they were everywhere, in all shapes and sizes and patterns. And the comics people got in on the trend by offering mystery grab bags. This particular comic came out of a "15 comics for $10" grab bag, some of which was really cool, like today's comic, and some of which are probably going to be terrible. But I kind of love the terrible stuff in its own right anyway.

There's a great panel in this comic, very early on, at a Christmas party at the Daily Bugle. There's a bespectacled man in a blue suit chatting with Robbie Robertson, who says, "So tell me, ol' buddy. How does it feel to be a mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan TV network?" The man is quite obviously Clark Kent, who at this point in time was a news anchor on TV, rather than his traditional role as reporter. It's a nice touch, especially since the crossover between Supes and Spidey was only a couple of years off. This scene sets up a strange space in the Marvel and DC universes, as we're seeing a completely unmediated crossover (in that, there's no dimensional travel or anything) between the two comic book continua. And the DCU isn't even the only other fictional universe to cross into the Marvel U in this comic. While Conan and Red Sonja enjoyed a long run at Marvel, they were more often than not considered in their own fictional universe, yet there's a moment in this comic where Spider-Man notes the artifacts in the museum were recently discovered to "pre-date man's oldest recorded civilizations," thus suggesting that the Hyperborean age was somehow a precursor civilization to the Marvel superhero universe. Whether or not this ever became canonical I have no idea, but this blending of three very distinct universes into one story is quite a treat.

As I noted yesterday, I'll be reading some comics from the stuff I got at the con this weekend, probably a mixture of the old stuff that fills in the collection and the newer, indie stuff that I picked up in the Artist's Alley. Very exciting.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 770: Alpha Flight v.1 #27, October 1985

Wait! What?! Guardian was an imposter? It's actually the robot Delphine Courtney? And Omega Flight have taken out most of Alpha? I guess you can miss a lot in those 20-odd pages from last month. Well, except that, as I predicted, the Marvel summary machine works very well, so I don't feel lost at all!

We get to see, today, the inside of Shaman's medicine pouch, which looks very much like Byrne doing his best Steve Ditko Dr. Strange impression. Byrne, in a lot of ways, combines features of the two major Marvel originary artists, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, so it's appropriate to see something of an homage to him in this issue. I'd have liked to see more, but the needs of the story, apparently, override my desire for psychedelia! Who knew?

Sorry, I'm in quite a bit of pain today, and I can't really think of much more to say. We'll keep on with the Alphans for the time being, and we'll make some headway into Doug Moench's run on the series, though not in quite so coherent a fashion as Byrne's.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 769: Alpha Flight v.1 #25, August 1985

But who is it? Whose silhouette (negative silhouette?) is that on the cover? Can you guess? As I have a look at my database, I see that we're coming up to the last few issues of John Byrne's run on Alpha Flight, so the stops are being pulled out, and the horrible events of a year previous seem to have been reversed. Seem to have been, that is. It's Guardian, for those who aren't in the Alpha Flight loop. He famously returns from the dead in this issue with a strange story of having been thrust into the past and to the moon Ganymede, there to befriend some strange creatures who help him get back to his own time and place. It's moments like this that I kind of wish I had the rest of the story. I'm missing the next issue, and then number 28, which may is Byrne's final issue and a Secret Wars II tie-in, which means it's already on the list. Now that I think on it, that means I'm only missing 4 issues of Byrne's run on the title. Incoming writer Bill Mantlo is credited in this issue with "Creative Kibitzing," which I think may be the first time I've seen acknowledgment of the an incoming writer laying groundwork for their run on the series. I imagine it must happen a fair bit (I seem to recall something about Grant Morrison and his desire to kill off most of Paul Kupperberg's Doom Patrol), but it doesn't get credited that often. Nice to see.

What else? The team starts to get into Northstar's potentially terrorist past, though that's interrupted by their departed leader's return. Talisman manages to take out a supervillain all by herself, proving that she really is as powerful as everyone seems to think.

So, next issue is apparently a rematch with Omega Flight. Let's hope that the 80s Marvel tradition of having at least two pages of recap per issue is being upheld, so that I can read #27 without too much trouble.

To be continued!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 768: Alpha Flight v.1 #24, July 1985

The end of the second year of the title closes out the "Great Beasts" storyline as the Alphans travel to another dimension to rescue the soul of Walter Langkowski, and battle the last of the beasts. Snowbird fulfills her purpose on Earth (we should all be so lucky), and the team seems to have cohered in a way unlike their previous gatherings throughout the series. Though there is still much of the American superhero comic to Alpha Flight, there's also much of that is different. I made the comparison to Doom Patrol yesterday, and I think that a lot of that similarity is tied to the fact that we're seeing characters that no only are super-powered and thus more than human, but are also deeply flawed, and deeply disturbed by their experiences, which makes them very human. I was chatting with a friend about this very thing, the Marvel aesthetic of being unable to decide if their characters are gods or humans, and the fine line they tread in treating them as both. It makes me think back to the levels of story that Frye discusses in Anatomy of Criticism. Superman, ur-hero, is obviously the mythic hero, superior in kind to his fellows and to his environment. He chooses not to be, on occasion, but he still always is, Kent or no. The Marvel characters are created to straddle the line much more actually, in that they don't just show the qualities of both god and human, but embody them in a way that the DC characters often don't. Which is fine, of course. These difference of mythic aesthetic is what makes the characters and stories great.

We'll see, though, if the team is not a little more US-styled in its composition, whether or not the comic itself manages to maintain that quality that is setting it apart from other Marvel team titles of this era. I'm thinking, of course, of the X-Men and Avengers titles that are concurrent with this one. Avengers, of course, is large-scale superheroics, as they always have been, whereas the X-titles at this time are more allegorical. Alpha Flight, I think, if it bears resemblance to anything in the Marvel U at this point, it's to Goodwin's original Squadron Supreme, in that it deals much more explicitly with the consequences not just for the world, but for the weilders, of superpowers.

To be continued.