The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 993: The Punisher Annual #3, 1988

As I said yesterday, I'm not a huge fan of the Punisher in general. I've seen the character handled well, but more often than not he's simply a psychopath who sees the world in black and white - not a particularly realistic worldview, but sadly one that many people in the real world share.

This comic is just weird. It's a full-on action movie for a little while, and then it becomes a science fiction movie, and the switch is really jarring. Perhaps this has always been my problem with the Punisher - he doesn't really fit into the Marvel U properly, and I don't think he ever has. Likely this is because he's a "hero" in his own title, but shares almost nothing in common with any other character published by the company. Even Wolverine, who is known for his "berserker" side, doesn't kill indiscriminately like Frank Castle does. And before anyone takes issue with that word indiscriminate, what I mean is that he punishes criminals without really thinking about the consequences of that punishment. The young girl Frank rescues in today's comic, who turns out to be the daughter of the drug dealer he's out to kill, is a perfect example. She see's her father as a good man. There's no doubt, though, that the father does some horrible things in order to be seen as a good man. But now that he's dead, a good man killed by a maniac in a skull shirt, what's to become of the daughter? The Punisher doesn't ask these questions, and is thus not a great addition to the Marvel U, IMHO.

That said, I haven't read a lot of Punisher comics, so perhaps they do deal with this at some point. But, honestly, isn't it about time we stopped celebrating people who run around with guns? I'm amazed that we're going to be getting a Netflix series, regardless of how amazing John Bernthal is in the role.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 13: Men's Adventure Comix #1, April/May 1995

Where to even start with this one.

There's an in-house ad partway through this magazine that shows a comic store employee forcing Vertigo titles on a young man in the shop, claiming that it'll "put you in touch with your feminine side." The ad is set up like an old Charles Atlas ad, and the cure to these "feminine" comics is Men's Adventure Comix. I'm sure there's a touch of irony in there. The editor calls himself "The World's Most Politically Incorrect Comic Book Editor," but the trouble with such an assertion is that, these days, we see people who actually wear that kind of label proudly. It's a fine line that this magazine treads, and not always on the best side.

The artwork is, undeniably, excellent. Mark Texeira's painted stories are always amazing, and Kevin Maguire's secret origin of Hericane is lovely to behold. The stories are definitely of the pulp variety, as the front cover advertises. The Western feature "Slim & Nun" evokes old school European comics, both in presentation and subject matter - it's the story I could most see showing up in Heavy Metal. There are a few superheroic tales in this issue. "Hericane" is amusing and takes in the ridiculousness of the superhero with no apologies. "Action Figures" skews slightly more toward the Image-style comics that were popular at the time of the magazine's publication. The characters wear costumes that are completely unnecessarily skimpy, and engage in over the top violence. It was the 90s. The final story of the issue, "The Origin of Miss Adventure" is well-rendered, but the take on radical, and not so radical, Feminism in the tale is thoroughly problematic, painting Feminists as butch lesbians who want to dissuade all women from ever having anything to do with men ever again. The writers probably could have stood to do a bit more research.

So, pretty much a thoroughly sexist comic. No surprise, really, though occasionally in publications like this you wait to see a hint of self-awareness peeking through the cracks (pun intended). If they're here, they're tough to catch.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 787: Black Panther #1, November 1998

I'll fully admit that leaving Black Panther to be the last comic I read in my couple of weeks highlighting Black creators is purely a case of leaving the best, in my opinion, for last. I love this run of comics, even though I don't actually have them all. When Marvel Knights premiered in the late 90s, I'd already been reading Quantum and Woody for a bit, so Christopher Priest's use of his ridiculously (but in a good way) post-modern storytelling style wasn't a shock, but I certainly wasn't sure how it was going to translate to mainstream superhero comics. I was pleasantly surprised, as I think many were. If you haven't guessed already, Mr. Priest is my featured creator today. And, as I've noted before, I think that his run on Black Panther is one of the most under-rated superhero comics of all time. It's funny, it's remarkably smart, it's beautiful to look at, and it tells a story in a way that, barring Q&W, I'd never seen before in comics.

Our narrator is Everett K. Ross, described in the editorial at the back as "king of all white-boys." He's a government agent assigned to liase with T'Challa while he's in the United States investigating the death of a child in connection with a charitable foundation he set up. The first issue is a cacophony of images and little sketches that Ross is telling his boss/girlfriend about losing his pants, hunting a rat with a handgun, and a visit to the Panther's rooms (in a poor neighbourhood in NY - T'Challa refuses to stay somewhere swanky while investigating the death of a poor Black child) by the Devil. Literally.

What one ought to draw from that brief and under-stated description of the first issue is that Mr. Priest is not interested in any kind of white-washing, be it with characters or situations. It's also, or it was in my experience, one of the first comics to actually treat the Panther as a king of a foreign country, and specifically as a king of an African country.

I'm sitting here trying to think of things to say about this comic. Here's the thing: just go and read it. I know there was a remarkable amount of noise over Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze taking the reins of the Panther, but Priest was there with an Black-centric version of the character years and year earlier. In an interview with the New York Daily News, Priest says of his focal character "I realized I could use Ross to bridge the gap between the African culture that the Black Panther mythos is steeped in and the predominantly white readership that Marvel sells to,"and the comic does an amazing and wonderful job of taking that African culture, and the Black culture that the comic comes to be steeped in, and showing the "predominantly white readership" how foolish and biased their views of those cultures are. It's an important comic, in my opinion, and, thankfully, also a really, really good one.

Last thoughts: I've, as is always the case with a themed reading, read some really good comics and some really bad ones over the last couple of weeks. What this little sub-project has definitely done for me is helped me to recognize a small portion of the diversity that has always been a part of the comics, even if it hasn't always been a visible part of the comics. Which, I suppose, is one of the reasons I did this.

Onward.

(I should also add that the cover date of this comic is the same as the date my son was born, which makes the comic very special to me.)

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 687: Ghost Rider #5, September 1990

When we next encounter the Rider, it's possessing a new host, the conveniently-named Danny Ketch. Over the course of this issue, some of the concerns I brought up about the previous issues are resolved. Ketch, musing upon the nature of the being that inhabits him, notes that it's basically a force for good, and that it never kills, only punishes, the guilty. This is a bit different from Johnny Blaze's understanding of the character, and of that iteration of the character, who purports not to care if it kills innocents or not.

Perhaps this is why we see such characters as Ghost Rider and the Hulk undergo such significant changes in this era of Marvel. Once Bruce Banner gains control over his monstrous alter-ego, or once the Rider becomes more like the Spectre and less a demon, the characters fit more comfortably into a superhero universe, and, indeed, a superhero comic book. The current television version of Ghost Rider, the Robbie Reyes iteration on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., shares some of Ketch's qualities, in that is pays little attention to the innocent. It does, however, kill the guilty, putting the character much more on a footing with the Punisher.

Speaking of whom - the Punisher guests in this issue, and it's an interesting juxtaposition to see two distinct spirits of vengeance, so to speak. One is fueled by his desire to keep anyone from undergoing the pain he endured, a more psychopathic version of Batman in some ways, and one acts as a fundamental law of the universe, punishing those who somehow are "deserving" of punishment. These two takes on the vengeance motif quite nicely sum up a spiritual versus rational take on the nature of reality. If you're a spiritual person, one who believes in purpose, destiny, providence, then there are immutable ethical laws of the universe. If you're a rationalist, then you believe that we make our own ethical strictures, our own best ideas of how to live in the world, and follow them.

I think there's probably something to be said about the three iterations of Ghost Rider, the varied mores by which it conducts itself, and the time periods in which each character comes into existence. But knowing as little about the character as I do, I don't feel quite qualified to comment. One more look at Ghost Rider tomorrow, and then Onward! to something else.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 142: The Eternals: The Herod Factor, 1991 (Two Weeks From The Dollar Bin - Day 6)

Look at that cover.

Just look at that cover.

Now, I like Mark Texeira's artwork. His work on the Marvel Knight's Black Panther series is amazing.

But just look at that cover.

That there epitomizes everything you can say about Marvel Comics in the early 90s. The desperate attempt of a major comics company to emulate the rock star artists that they alienated and who left to form Image Comics.

I had given up comics at this point in time. I missed the Image explosion by about 2 years, so my knowledge of early-90s Marvel, or early-90s comics, is pretty sketchy. And I think I like it that way. I've, of course, gone back and tracked down some bits and pieces from this era. This Eternals comic was actually on my list, as I have a soft spot for the Eternals. Their links to Von Daniken's work, and to ancient mythologies obviously draws me, but it's really pretty bad. You can see some of the lovely Texeira art poking out from underneath, but he really seems to want to be ToddMcJimLeeLarson. There some really brutal violence and over-reactive poses here.

I can see the 90s being a source of much amusement over the course of these 40 years.