The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1852: John Sable, Freelance #11, April 1984

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I mentioned yesterday how much I like the attention paid to some of the supporting cast in this series, and I'm really hoping that the character introduced today, Maggie the Cat, becomes part of this support. A cool character, a titled-lady who just happens to enjoy stealing gems. It puts me in mind of the one-shot companion of The Doctor Lady Christina de Souza (played by Michelle Ryan) in Planet of the Dead. Of course, for the sake of the narrative, Sable makes some decisions about Maggie that don't seem to be in keeping with his character. He manages to get himself drugged and defeated, but seems to be okay with it because he finds her intriguing. Regardless of whether or not she ruins the job he's on.

I was trying to read Sable in 6-issue chunks so that I don't get annoyed or jaded by it (know thyself, right?). It seems to be working nicely. As I mentioned a few days back, this isn't really my usual genre, but I'm finding the characters and the flow of the story so appealing. Maybe one of these days I'll get back to Alpha Flight and use the same method. I got snarky about Alpha Flight.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1851: John Sable, Freelance #10, March 1984

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This was my favourite issue of the series thus far, and it was completely atypical for Jon Sable's usual adventures. Instead of a Bond-style action piece, we instead get interactions between Sable and some of the members of his supporting cast. To me this indicates a moment in the narrative where the writer is starting to realize that he can tell larger stories, involving more than just the one fully-realized character in the series, Sable himself.

There's also a wonderful bit of queerness in today's comic, as Jon makes plans to go to a sporting event with a man he meets, unaware that the man in gay (gasp! Shock! But remember, it was the 80s). And while Jon shows a good deal of discomfort while the two are out, a short interaction at the end of the night, dispelling the rumour that all gay men are preying on all straight men, provides a satisfying conclusion to what I often assume is going to be a horrible, homophobic interaction. It was, as I noted the 80s after all.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1850: John Sable, Freelance #9, February 1984

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A small burglary becomes an imminent threat of nuclear war in today's issue. I think it's hard for people nowadays who didn't live through it to imagine how frightening the threat of World War III was in the 1980s. It kept me up nights, though I'm a bit more paranoid than most. But it was definitely something that was a worry, and the media of the time reflects this. Perhaps not so much in the superhero genre, but more realistic genres deployed either nuclear armageddon, or its threat, on a fairly regular basis. The reason for this was that it was a fear that was universally felt in North American culture, so it was one that we'd all be able to identify with when it was presented in a fiction. Verisimilitude for a dangerous time.

I enjoyed today's issue - it played like the end of an action movie, where the villain reveals their plan and the plucky hero finds a way out of what seems like certain death. The series is best viewed from this perspective, I think, as an action movie in serial form. What I wonder is if the genre can actually sustain a continuing serial narrative, though Jon Sable kind of avoids the problems that might follow serialization by having single-issue stories punctuated by the occasional two-parter. In doing this, the series avoids having any over-arching story and so allows the main character to exist in an almost permanent state of being present. Past and future have little to no bearing on present stories, with the exception of the four-part origin sequence a few issues ago. But if the character isn't being driven by events in the past (which seem to have been taken care of in the origin story), or being pulled toward events in the future (no over-arching story), then the existence in the Now of the character means we're always coming to his stories fresh, without the burden of past or future to weigh down the events we're about to witness. Whether the series continues like this is something we'll have to find out together.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1849: John Sable, Freelance #8, January 1984

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

I'm trying to think of a television series that resembles Jon Sable. I think the problem is that this is a genre that I generally don't pay much attention to, the action/crime movie or series. I think it's because I prefer a bit more high fantasy in my media, be it superhero, sorcery, or sci-fi. Sable's adventures, extraordinary as they may be, are still firmly rooted in the real world.

That said, with just a little bit of tweaking, I think Jon Sable could very easily stand in for Batman. The adventures in this series are very close to the Bat's more detective-oriented tales, and with the exception of the gun, Sable appears to have more than enough martial skills to don the cowl and be convincing. As I say, the series is a little more based in reality, but of all the superheroes, Batman is the one that in a lot of ways seems fairly close to reality too. By that I mean that he's just a very skilled guy who uses those skills to take down bad guys, much like Jon Sable.

Feeling a bit brain dead from no work and staying at home during the current disaster. Hopefully I'll have more interesting things to say about tomorrow's comic. Stay healthy, friends.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1848: John Sable, Freelance #7, December 1983

Before we get started, I'm going to be prefacing my posts with a link to the World Health Organization's suggestions for mitigating the spread of COVID-19. If you're not taking this as seriously as you should, have a look at these videos and information. This is a huge threat to life around the planet. Even if you're not in a high risk group, you likely know someone who is, and it would be horrible to be responsible somehow for their suffering or death.

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.

Back to the present and to New York City, and Sable is contacted by a witness whose official protection doesn't seem to be doing the trick. While the story itself is pretty good, there's a section where Sable, as children's author Flemm, runs into an old colleague and expresses some of his feelings about having a dual identity. It's interesting because we get to see a take on the idea of a mask on one's face, or a secret identity, that we don't usually get in superhero comics. To Sable, Flemm is the mask, and it's a mask he actually hates wearing. As he notes to his former fencing instructor, he's in it because there's so much money to be made, not because he actually likes writing books for kids. And this is understandable, given that the genesis of his worldwide success in children's publishing are stories that he told his own children before they were brutally murdered, along with his wife.

What does it say about Sable that he's willing to deal with that pain in order to make money? That said, he never once mentions the fact that the leprechaun stories he tells remind him at all of his children. Perhaps this will become fodder for another story, later down the line.

The last thing that occurs to me about this comic is that Sable definitely has something of James Bond to him. Specifically, at the end of the issue we find Mr. Sable in the arms of the lady he's been protecting for the last 22 pages or so. They don't appear to know one another very well, or have time to get to know one another very well, but by the issue's end, they're quite cozy. Ah, the Eighties. Remember, this comic came out before we really knew what AIDS was.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1845: John Sable, Freelance #6, November 1983

Sable's rise to fame as a bounty hunter is chronicled today, both in the pages of the comic and in the pages of the autobiography that Myke, our curious book illustrator, is reading. The origin of Flemm, Sable's nom de plume is revealed, and we get a few moments that are in some ways assuaging for me the rampant gun violence that permeates the comic. Sable hates the fact that he's a successful children's author! That, right there, is a wonderful character beat, and a sign that this isn't going to simply be a Punisher proxy, or simply an excuse for violent stories. Sable has a personality that isn't always in line with the badass bounty hunter/vigilante character for which he's known.

Further in this comic, Sable finally gets revenge on the person who ordered his family's deaths. I'm glad to see this dealt with early in the series, as a less-savvy writer could have used these deaths as a constant motivator and story point for years to come. Death, be it violent or peaceful, comes for us all, and those of us left behind have to figure out ways of dealing with it. Not dealing with it is a very lazy way of developing a character, I think.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1844: John Sable, Freelance #5, October 1983

Jon Sable's "Who he is and how he came to be" continues today in a setting with which I have almost no familiarity. Should you be interested in some of the background of the Rhodesian conflict, have a look here - really what a lot of these decolonization conflicts boil down to is that the white colonists basically ignored the tribal or societal lines that existed prior to their arrival and forced countries where there shouldn't have been countries, and once they were done with the continent and left, everything was basically a complete mess. That's a remarkably reductive way of looking at it, but not entirely inaccurate.

Jon spends today as a mercenary in the employ of the government trying to rescue an official's child who has crash landed in a war zone. I can't imagine the kind of chaos that surrounded many, if not all, of the African nations during independence movements. Invariably, unfortunately, they involved a good deal of violence. It does give us an interesting was of parsing Sable's skills, and it's nice to see a combat veteran in an American comic of this era who isn't from the shit show that was Vietnam.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1843: John Sable, Freelance #4, September 1983

Okay, so I had wondered if we'd get some back story on the odd mask (which many letter-writers do not like) that Sable wears, because it scares the bad guys. In the wake of his family's murder and the burning of his house, this bad ass hunter scrawls the mask on his face with the ashes of his old life and then sets out into the Rhodesian wilds to hunt and kill the men responsible. And boy does he.

This series is very violent. There's a difference between the stylized violence we see in superhero comics and the more realistic violence we see in a series like this one. In a lot of ways, I see Sable and its indie ilk as precursors of a sort to the rampant violence that takes over superhero comics in the early 90s. A character like Sable is explicitly defined as "cool," a suave, skilled anti-hero who isn't afraid to kill. The moral boundaries of heroism are tested in such a story. And while I agree that there is space for stories like this in the medium, we have to be wary of them not taking over the whole industry as they seemed to during the Image boom. A lot of good may have come out of that experiment, but, as my revamping of my storage system has made quite clear, a lot of bad came out of it too.

More of Sable's story to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1842: John Sable, Freelance #3, August 1983

I'm really, really hoping I can stick with this series. I really like Mike Grell's work, but the subject matter in this series is definitely moving in a direction that is antithetical to my beliefs. We find out that Sable gets his beginnings as a hunter in Africa, leading other hunters on safaris to bring down lions and elephants, etc. This is simply something I can't wrap my head around - never have been able to. What is the fun, the joy, in killing another animal? I can at least understand hunting for resources, but trophy hunting is simply cruelty, a way for a human being to feel powerful.

Again, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. Sable is an interesting character, and I'm curious to see how the contemporary story pans out. Sadly, this issue also gives us an example of fridging, in that Sable meets and falls in love with a gymnast who is subsequently, along with his children, killed in retaliation for Sable stopping a group of poachers. We never get any personality from the kids, but his wife seems to be a relatively full-formed character, introduced in the first couple of pages and killed in the last. All in order that Jon Sable become the character he is today.

So, hunting and fridging. I'm keeping an open mind.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1841: John Sable, Freelance #2, June 1983

Sable is an interesting character, somewhat different from the usual gun-toting vigilante archetype (see The Punisher), in that he actually wears a mask. It's not quite a full-on superhero mask, but one that instead is used to intimidate enemies. Part of my job at the museum is taking school groups on tours through various galleries, showing them the different kinds of things and ways in which a museum presents history and artifacts. I often take groups up to our "Warriors" gallery, as the kids all love weapons and armour. Actually, it's really off-putting how much the boys enjoy the guns.

But one of the things I like to point out is the intimidation factor of many of the pieces in the gallery. Armour and weapons can be very perfunctory or to the point, but so many of them are decorated, or have some element of aesthetic design factored into their appearances. And it's an aesthetic of fear, more often than not. If you can scare an opponent sufficiently, you either have an advantage in your conflict, or the conflict never happens as the opponent runs away. This, by Sable's own admission, is the reason for his battle mask. I imagine we'll find out a bit more about where it came from and why he wears it as we head into his origin story tomorrow.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1840: John Sable, Freelance #1, June 1983

My absolute favourite comic shop, Purple Gorilla Comics at the Crossroads Market in Calgary, had a great dollar bin sale a few years back, and I picked up a complete run of the first 20 issues of this series. Mike Grell's work pulled me in with The Warlord, so I figured, for such a great price, I'd pick up some of his other work. I'm not disappointed.

I've noted before that Grell, at least in Warlord, pays a lot of attention to both male and female physiques, and that attention is definitely on display here, though perhaps slightly less-unclothed. His attention to the story remains excellent, and I'm already sucked into the story. A bounty hunter whose day job/secret identity is a children's book author? Yeah, that's just weird enough to suck me in.

What I'll say right up front is that I have a good deal of trouble with characters that rely on firearms. I'm with Batman on this one that a gun is a coward's weapon (see his convo with Grifter in the JLA-WildC.A.T.s crossover). I'm attempting to see past it with this series, on account of my respect for Grell as a creator, but the more we aggrandize guns, the harder it becomes to phase them, and their violence, out of society. I'm a big picture kind of thinker ;).

More to follow.

More - Mike Grell was one of the first great discoveries I made in the early days of my project.