The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 28: Doctor Who Summer Special, 1980

Thinking about it, it's entirely possible that I actually brought this comic with me when we moved to Canada in 1980. We emigrated in July of 1980, so there's a good chance I'd been bought the Summer special to read on the plane. I'm going to have to headcannon that one - my memory doesn't stretch that far back (except in those strange, dream-like flashes that accompany early memory - this is one of those comics that helps me to understand Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library," in that I can almost hear and see myself as a six year old, based on my knowledge of how they act - I have very vague remembrances of the woman sitting beside me, upon whom I think I vomitted - I remember being at the very front of the 747, moved there because my Mum needed a crib for my youngest brother, barely 6 months old - my Mum, who travelled to Canada, a month behind my Dad, with a 6 year old, a 3 year old, and a 6 month old, is as close to a superhero as any of us are every going to see - how many times have I opened this comic in the last almost-40 years?).

The special reprints the first adventure of the Doctor in his weekly comic, and I just love this story. I've been reading it for so long that it's ingrained on my brain. Reading it again, encountering the Iron Legion again, after so many years, was like meeting up with old friends, and you pick up a conversation like no time at all has passed. I missed Morris, and Vesuvius.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 10: Doctor Who Weekly #1, October 1979

I just realized that I didn't do my magazine last Friday. Must be that memory thing that happens with age.

Today's magazine has got to be one of the oldest inhabitants of the collection. Not, necessarily, by it's actual age, but by the amount of time it's spent with me. The first issue of DWW I ever got was #19, but my Mum and Dad managed to track down a few back issues for me and have them sent to us in Canada in early 1980. I'm still trying to track down one or two to fill out my run of the weekly series - perhaps the Calgary Expo this weekend will bear some fruit.

Speaking of, I know I say it every year, but I'll try to do a full write-up of the con next week. I'm presenting a paper on Sunday afternoon, if you're about.

Today's inaugural issue features the first part of "The Iron Legion," one of my absolute favourite Doctor Who stories - imagine Rome never fell, and rampaged across the galaxy at the behest of demonic aliens for millennia. It's good and epic and everything that the television series was unable to be in those early days. It's amusing, and slightly unnerving, to me that one of the articles in this issue notes that the series began "16 years ago" and here we are in 2017 celebrating it's 50+ anniversary! There's something wondrous about the fact that this show has managed to stay around for over half a century, especially given the ridiculousness of its premise. But then, I'm a guy who love superheroes. Ridiculous premises are par for the course.

I read a few issues of this series a while back, but perhaps I'll put it on deck for my Friday magazines to come. Might be interesting to take a look back not just at old comics, but at comics that have been with me for a really, really long time.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 668: JLA #60, January 2002

As with music, I often find myself realizing that I'm stuck in a particular era. Not that I can't appreciate, or even love, the comics that come out now (witness the perfection that is Squirrel Girl), but when I go back and read the JLA from the end of the last century, I realize that this is what I imagine when I imagine the perfect superhero comics. Morrison's, and then Waid's, JLA encapsulate for me perfectly what this team is about. Much like Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four, this run of the world's mightiest heroes focuses not only on their world/universe-saving exploits, but also on their interpersonal relationships, on their navigation of being amongst the most powerful creatures on the planet and also being people, with lives, thoughts, and beliefs.

Waid's very short follow-up to Morrison ends with this lovely little Christmas tale, being told to Woozy Winks' son by his "Uncle Plas." The devil Neron decides to co-opt Christmas, and hands out awesome toys to children with the caveat that they must be used for evil, rather than good. Santa is trapped in Hell, and it's up to the JLA to rescue him. While this might sound a bit exploitative, and the scenes of Santa beating the heck out of little demon elves is a bit much, the final sequence, in which Santa defeats Neron by offering him a gift without requiring a deal (Neron's M.O.) is a nice reminder of how we, that being those secular amongst us, might incorporate Christmas into our lives.

I've been raised in the tradition of Christmas - being born in, and moving to, countries whose foundations are solidly in the Christian tradition, it's hard to avoid that. Part of me wonders if celebrating Christmas without the religious connotation is tantamount to cultural appropriation, but then I grab some Christmas cookies, turn off the critical voice in my head, and enjoy the warmth and love that radiates this time of year. I get the feeling that Christ, either the mythical or the real one, would have been okay with people using his birthday (not really) as a reason to be extra loving and kind to one another, regardless of faith. He'd probably have even got a kick out of today's comic.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 311: Age of Ultron #5, June 2013

Happy New Year!

So, the conundrum is do we accept that time unfolds as it should, and move forward, or, given the requisite technology, do we decide that time can, and should, be re-written?

One of the things that comics, and Marvel comics particularly, do quite well is to dwell on the question of how much responsibility should come with great power. And by power, one might well mean Hulk-like strength, or simply a genius intellect. Does one have a responsibility to use these gifts in the service of humanity? Does one have a responsibility to make decisions based on factors that these gifts make apparent? That second one is where I've found Marvel comics of late have dwelt. Hickman's entire run on New Avengers was this question wrapped up in spandex. This issue of Age of Ultron also asks this question, couched in the question I opened the post with - while Nick Fury takes the heroes into the future to confront Ultron, Wolverine asks the question of whether or not it might make more sense to just re-write time, given that they have the tools to do so.

The trouble with asking this question is that it leads to the larger moral questions that might crop up in such a situation in the real world: if we can do this, shouldn't we go and kill Hitler and save millions of lives? Of course, then come the ramifications - what would the world look like without the Second World War having happened? Are we willing to give up what we have now, risk our very existences, to stop a madman from attempting genocide just shy of a century ago?

It's an impossible question. Which is why we have superhero comics, to ask these very things.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 310: Age of Ultron #4, June 2013

"He controls from the future!"

Bendis and company make us realize that the Singularity, should it ever arrive, might well be the most horrendous of moments in human history. One of my favourite science fiction writers, Robert Charles Wilson, released a book a few years back called The Chronoliths, about what seemed to be an invasion, more prophetic than violent, from the future. And why not? If the technology is there, why not rule from a place that a less technologically-advanced society can't access?

I'm certainly not saying that this is a new idea - we've seen it a number of times in comics. Morrison's Seven Soldiers, Hickman and Pitarra's The Red Wing, situations where the movement backwards and forwards through time offers opportunity for conquest. What differentiates Age of Ultron slightly is that Ultron is conquering from the future but knows that the conquered also have the capacity to travel in time. For his plan to succeed, it's not a matter of attacking somewhere without similar technology, but of not letting that place/time know from where it's being attacked.

And so, spoiler alert, Luke Cage and She-Hulk die to get some damning information. Which, in turn, leads to a concept fairly alien to us, if not also to the characters who want to attempt it: the erasure of an idea.

First, let me just say that the suggestion of the historical erasure of an idea by an imaginary person is just a lovely little bit of reality-play. Looking back at the Morrisonian revelation to Animal Man, without Ultron, these characters, these particular iterations of these characters, would not exist, in that the comic series, which itself defines the existence of these imaginary people, would not have happened. Now, this is a paradox that they themselves will likely realize - erasing Ultron from existence will necessarily erase the timeline they inhabit, and there will, I'm assuming (it's been a while since I've read the series), be debate over the ramifications of such an action. This is where something like literature emblematizes that Frygian notion of the imaginative being somewhere where we work out different iterations of society/reality, and in this case, where we work out situations and problems that are, for the time being, purely theoretical. What does time travel look like? What problems and opportunities will it present once we understand how to do it?

Okay, I'm rambling now. It's like when I was teaching last term and trying not to spoil books that I knew my students hadn't finished. But in this case, I won't bow to the pedagogical pressure. We'll get to it when we get to it, over the next few days.

2015 has been insane. A year ago I was in the depths. Now, I've crawled out of them, and stand facing the peaks I've been glimpsing in the distance for some time now. 2016 is going to be interesting. See you there.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 309: Age of Ultron #3, May 2013

Ick. Not sure this is a great plan, Cap. But at least we get to see a couple of the heaviest hitters in the Marvel U in the spotlight. Luke Cage is all set to be a new superstar, once his Netflix series gets released. She-Hulk is a great character who gets all too little attention, so to see her volunteer for so dangerous a mission (being sold to Ultron as an infiltration) is great. We get to see the different way that she deals with the powers associated with a Hulk, rather than her angrier cousin.

There's some great debate about Hank Pym in this issue, and having just watched the Ant-Man film, Pym is on my mind. He, Tony Stark, and Reed Richards can all be accused of letting intellect get in the way of their better judgment, but it seems to me the Pym is the only one who is ever really vilified by his peers, based around his creation of Ultron (and his propensity for spousal abuse, but that seems to problematically recede into the background sometimes). It's interesting to me that they lay that Burden on Stark in the second Avengers movie, but I think that's because we're going to have to see him as a villain in some ways once Civil War hits.

Well, depending on whose side you're on, I guess.

But back to this crossover. While Cap's plan seems a bit dodgy, other players in the Marvel U are taking things a bit more cautiously. As with Black Widow and Moon Knight in the previous issue, we're given a glimpse of Chicago, and the Red Hulk, Black Panther, and (colour-free) Taskmaster. Here, as they try to retrieve a piece of an Ultron for study, we see a less blatant attempt to understand and take down the robotic despot. Whether this, or the Fury files, will be of any help to the falling heroes remains to be seen.

Tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 308: Age of Ultron #2, May 2013

Did I mention that this comic is bleak and despairing?

Don't believe the cover. Black Widow and Moon Knight are looking a lot worse for the wear in the interior. As the surviving New York heroes listen to Peter Parker's story, and wonder if the whole world has been overrun, BW and MK scavenge through the wastelands of San Francisco. If it's not the whole world, it seems that the North American continent, at least, is Ultron territory. It puts me in mind of the Age of Apocalypse, though for some reason this is much scarier. I think it's because rather than an alternate life under a despotic ruler, the Age of Ultron is simply death under a creature that sees humankind as a plague. There's no mercy in Ultron, no vain hope for a shred of humanity - we know Apocalypse is brutal and cruel, but he has respect for beings other than himself if they prove strong. Ultron just wants everyone and everything dead.

Bendis is stretching his legs in this issue a bit. A 10-issue series, not giant round of summer tie-ins - he can tell a story at his, and its, own pace. So he does. The comic is divided into two stories, basically. In San Francisco, a secret Nick Fury base is occupied by two deep cover superheroes. Fury always has a plan, so we're offered that hope. In New York, Spider-Man tells his tale of being kidnapped and almost sold to Ultron, and something sparks inside Captain America, who claims to have a plan.

Here's the thing, Cap. We're only two issues into a ten issue series. That's pretty much a guarantee that your plan isn't going to work. Sorry.

But it does tell us that, despite being pushed to a place that, likely, none of them wanted to go, they still have hope. They still embody one of the fundamental qualities of the superhero - that they can always find a way to save the world. I guess the question is what is that world going to look like once it's saved?

More tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 307: Age of Ultron #1, May 2013

If there was any doubt as to the tone of this series, it's put to rest almost immediately as Hawkeye skewers his way through the first few pages. It's interesting, in so many cases, to see what particular creators think is the line beyond which these altruistic characters will kill. There's always so much controversy about The Punisher (and rightly so), but at some point in each characters existence, we've seen the moments where they are pushed to the same place, the same mindset, as Frank Castle. Perhaps it's that moment of moving from a situation of policing and enforcing to a situation of survival.

As I said yesterday, Age of Ultron is one of the darkest superhero stories I've read. As far as crossovers go, it's a gentle one. There are tie-in issues, none of which I've read, but they're definitely not necessary for one's enjoyment of the main story. Bendis and company tell a solid, coherent tale over the course of these 10 issues, though, spoiler alert, the ending leaves some things slightly open, so it's not quite a complete story.

It's a question I ask fairly regularly - is it possible to have a "complete" story in a serialized format like the superhero narrative? Even something self-enclosed, like All-Star Superman, leaves story threads hanging because that's the nature of the genre, isn't it? Maybe, just maybe, something like Straczynski's Rising Stars manages to tell a self-enclosed superhero narrative, but even that leaves an opening, not for the particular story that's been told, but for the notion that these stories are told over and over again. It's one of the reasons that the Arthur myth translates so nicely into comics, a la Camelot 3000 - it's a story that is not simply destined, but designed, to be told again and again.

Which doesn't really answer the question, but offers a perspective on it. Age of Ultron ties up its major threads, which really distinguishes it from the usual crossovers somewhat. What I think is quite special about this story is that, initially, it sets itself up as an out of continuity tale, but then, later on, we realize that it's set squarely in the mainstream Marvel U, and that makes it all the more terrifying. Part of me wonders if this wouldn't have been an interesting setting to do the same sort of thing that Secret Wars did this last year or so, suspending the main titles and offering in their place Age of Ultron mini-series. Committing to this setting for an extended period would have been a bold move for Marvel, but not, I think, an unprofitable one. And by "unprofitable," I mean that it would have definitely given writers and artists some room to explore different facets of these characters (the ones who've survived, at least) before reassembling the Marvel U and moving on to tell, and retell, the old stories again.

This series is going to offer some interesting perspectives on causality and retconning, so I'm looking forward to getting further and further in. If I can lay hands on the crossover issues for a reasonable price, I'll perhaps insert them where necessary. The Age of Ultron is not a happy age. But it shows us what our heroes are made of, and what they'll sacrifice, communally and personally, to maintain the status quo.

Though, to paraphrase a question Ultron asks in the film of the same name, what's so great about the status quo? Why keep things the same, when things can change?

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 306: Avengers v.4 #12.1, June 2011

I got Avengers: Age of Ultron for Christmas this year, and my wife and I have just finished watching (she'd never seen it before) so I thought that a fun thing to do for the next 9 days or so would be to read the "source material" (in that they share a name) written by Brian Michael Bendis and Bryan Hitch a few years back.

Re-reading the Bendis-era Avengers is a feat I've not yet attempted. He wrote the series for just shy of a decade, during which time there were numerous crossovers and, at times, multiple series. That's a lot of comics. And throughout that time, rumours flew of something called "Age of Ultron," but whether it was a story arc coming up, or a crossover event, none, save maybe the creators, knew. Bendis ended his run on the title in 2013, passing the torch to Jonathan Hickman. And then a few months later, Age of Ultron began. To call it one of the most nihilistic superhero stories I've read is to do it a disservice. Bendis, Hitch, and friends do everything they can to dismantle the Marvel Universe, to push its heroes to their breaking points and then see what happens beyond that. This issue, written 2 years earlier, is where it all starts.

One thing that is always for certain when you see "Hitch" and "Neary" on a comic is that you're in for a treat for your eyeballs. The two work so remarkably well together, and create such dynamism and expression in these characters. Though perhaps not quite as remarkable as their work on The Authority, this comic is very pretty to look at. It does seem in some ways like a fill-in issue (which, I guesss, it was), or a prelude to a story that really should have come a lot sooner. While I was willing, on the strength of his previous stories, to give Bendis the benefit of the doubt, the wait for Age of Ultron was a bit long, and this comic got forgotten in the interim.

But I've re-read it now, and will continue on through Age of Ultron for a few more days. A spaceknight crashes to Earth. Spider-Woman investigates, is captured, then rescued, and for some reason, the spaceknight morphs into Ultron. And Tony Stark tells the rest of the team that, basically, it's the end of the world.

All endings are beginnings, however. Tomorrow we'll have a look at what is born from the end of civilization. Be warned - it's not pretty.