Crisis Time

In the sixties and the eighties summer comics meant special "annual" editions of popular comics -- thicker books with 50% to 100% more pages.

In the last decade or so summer has presaged multi-part, continuity shattering, event comic series by both major publishers. Of course this year is no different. This week DC released the first issue of Final Crisis, the seven part series that promises once more to change everything.

We've learned by now that comic book change is no more radical than political change. No matter what the promises, the word "change" usually means more of the same. I don't expect that this year will be any different. Heroes will die -- until they come back to life. (What choice do the majors have but to continually resurrect their fallen heroes when EVERY comic creator working today REFUSES to create new characters for them if they cannot own their creations.)

While I find Grant Morrison's interpretation of the DC universe interesting, it troubles me to see it canonized. I don't really understand how all these plain-clothes New Gods came to walk the Earth after Jim Starlin vaporized every one of them and set the stage for a new theological dynasty just a month or two ago. I also don't know how Detective Turpin can fail to recognize Orion -- much less the odd name Kalibak, considering his fight to near death with Kalibak in the original New Gods series. I find it less than amusing that Grant has decided the Guardians have codified the crimes of the universe like the California Highway Patrol. I could hardly care less about this Society of Super-Villains uniting under Libra, especially when it includes fourth rate characters like Mirror Master (I am SO afraid). And what makes anyone think that the death of Martian Manhunter will lend any drama to the story when it happens in a single panel. Any hero deserves a more protracted death scene than that, and any writer with the least understanding of drama knows that a struggle of some sort is required if a death is to have any punch.

No matter. What will be will be. When this is all over, it will have no more lasting effect than the last big event, and DC will not feel the least bit bound to abide by its outcome, so let them kill Superman for all I care. We know they are all coming back sometime in some future reboot and comic book history will forever be as elastic and mallable as communist political history, with characters continually airbrushed in and out of the artifacts of the past.

1985
Full disclosure -- by 1985 I was an adult in my late twenties. I owned a car, a house. I was in a commited relationship and even had a loving pet who depended on me. I was knee deep in the second horrific term of President Reagan and had already lost several loved ones to AIDS. (Where do you think they GOT the name, the AIDies?) So there is absolutely no nostalgia in my soul for the innocence of the mid eighties.

Still I found Marvel's mini series, 1985, incredibly charming and I'm more than willing to give it a fair chance.

I love the focus on real people on the real Earth, and I can honestly share the astonishment and wonder of the little boy at seeing villains and heroes of his fantasy life in the flesh.

But, hey. I read comics and I am on my way to senior citizenhood. My suspension of disbelief and appreciation of fantasy is way beyond dispute.

Action 865
You know I don't give a whit for the Toyman. I generally find the re-engineering of a character's origin dull beyond comprehension. But for some reason I really enjoyed Geoff Johns' reinterpretation of who Toyman is; his explanation for other, perhaps misguided takes on the character; and even the reintroduction of Cat Grant.

(See, I told you no one and nothing dies in comics. Sooner or later it all comes back. Here is one element of the perfect example. After years of simply building upon the John Byrne re-boot of Superman, and slowly, gently re-introducing the characters and stories of the silver age, DC has almost completely returned Superman to the continuity of the late seventies. Now all we need is the re-revival of the Lois Lane/Lana Lang rivalry over Superman. Or would that be in poor taste considering that Lana knows Superman is married to Lois as Clark? Is there a Mephisto in the DC Universe?)

Brave and Bold

Can I tell you all how much I LOVE DC's new Brave and Bold series?

I have a secret. When I settle down on the couch to read the week's comics, I sort them by how excited I am to read them. The one's I'm most excited about are As; the ones I'm less excited about are Bs; the ones I think are a bit dull and maybe buy out of habit are Cs. Then I read them in that order: The As that same night, Bs over the next few days, and Cs I may not even get to before the next week.

The Brave and the Bold is one of those comic magazines that I snarf up enthusiastically and it always makes the A pile because it is executed brilliantly.

Until recently the art was by George Perez, now Jerry Ordway, but both of them are solid artists who are excellent at telling a story, draw the human form well and create wonderful compositions on the page. They are at the top of their craft in the super suit world.

But Mark Waid's stories for this book have been even better! Mark respects each and every hero who dances across the pages of the book, understands what makes them unique and intriguing and lets them show us these traits. Plus he has strung together a dozen or so pairings - some odd, some not so odd - into a great, unified, nonstop story from the very first issue until the twelfth.

I know that Marvel Team-up used this same concept a few years back, but the stories there didn't move nearly so fast.

If excellence alone drove sales, this would be the best selling book by any company. I hope this never ends!

Bat Lash - RIP

As I was starting to collect comics in a big way during my early teens, I had the good fortune to live in a town with a used book store that sold used comics at about half the cover price. (This was before the comic specialty stores proliferated and prices of old comics were higher than cover price.) It allowed me to reach back in time five or six years and buy magazines I'd missed during the time I was focused completely on the Superman family magazines. It allowed me to discover the wonderful experimental comics of the late sixties, especially from DC.

Bat Lash was one of those comics, and I had the further good fortune to find a complete run of the short lived series.

Mind you I have a deep aversion to the western genre because during my childhood we watched television as a family on a single black and white TV, and my father watched all the westerns -- Gunsmoke, Bonanza, the Virginian, the Texas Rangers, etc. It meant I missed the youth oriented shows of the era like Land of the Giants, Laugh-in, and Get Smart. Over the years I tired so much of the formula that I find it difficult to read or watch anything remotely like a western. (The same is true of doctor, lawyer and detective shows, which wore out their welcome in my mind in the seventies.)

What I loved about Bat Lash however was first the lovely, sketchy artwork of Nick Cardy, and second the whimsical nature of the stories. Bat didn't set out to do good. In fact he was generally no good -- self-centered and conceited. He tried to avoid trouble, but trouble kept finding him, and in the process of escaping it, he almost accidentally managed to help out a few folks around him.

I was hopeful that DC's new Bat Lash series might recapture some of that magic. After Sergio Aragones, who was responsible for much of the original tone, was involved, and John Severin was drawing it. John style is much tighter than Nick Cardy, but still he is a master and is particularly adept at westerns.

Unfortunately the six issue mini-series that finished this week is -- in constrast to the original -- leaden and dull. Six issues to tell an origin story that might have filled a few pages if told in the pace of the original series. Six issues sqaundered. Six issues and no fancy, no magic. Now Bat Lash will slip into limbo, perhaps for another forty years, perhaps forever, and the opportunity to revisit all the original fun is lost.

Can someone explain to me how it is possible in an era that in many ways prefers its entertainment to move faster and faster and constantly change, comics and television stretch out simple plots for months and years? Isn't this counterintuitive? Am I the only one who feels cheated?

Starting Over

This blog has been inactive for too long. The difficulty has been that my time is too limited to devote to long discourses. So I've decided to take a new tack here. One posting a week about one comic published that week -- the one I find most inspiring either because I love it or I hate it.

Although I suspect I will eventually be disappointed, I'm excited for now about Marvel's Secret Invasion, despite my general dislike of stories based on suspicion of shape shifters.

When the first issue came out, and the seventies Marvel heroes climbed out of their rocket, I assumed that all of them were the real heroes, and that all the horrid things Marvel has done to these characters over the last few years could be wiped away as it is revealed that the characters we have been reading were imposters.

(One might also assume that the seventies set were the Skrulls and that they had been manufactured several years ago and kept on ice until now, when they broke free, thinking they were the real deal. But you can see I am biased against many of the transformations Marvel characters have undergone in the last few years.)

Of course now that the second issue is out, it has been revealed that while some of the seventies set may be the real heroes, some are not. So Marvel is now in position to tease us for the next few months, making us wonder which heroes will be retro-ed and which will be left in their present sad state.

As a Steve Rogers fan, my hope is that the Captain America that landed last issue will be the real deal. He, Thor and Hulk are my favorite Marvel heroes, and a Captain America that is not Steve Rogers is just a temporary and poor substitute.

(By the way, my fondness for these three is not necessarily due to the stories they have been featured in over the years. I has more to do with their potential, and I suppose their appearance. Over the coming weeks, I expect to have an opportunity to explain that in more detail.)

Considering the condition of this country today, there has never been a better time for telling Captain America stories. Since 9/11 Marvel has tended to put Steve in the role of combatting terrorist inspired antagonists, but I think they have missed the mark. I think that a Steve Rogers, who grew up during the FDR era, would be more liberal, and more likely to be alarmed by the recent actions of his government in suppressing dissent, breaking international law and violating human rights. I think he might be more likely to equate our actions to the villain he fought against during the second World War and be inspired to speak out against his own government in defense of liberty at home and abroad. I think his patriotism is more nuanced than his costume. We caught a glimmer of this during the Civil War series in his dissent against hero registration. In fact the biggest tragedy -- should the Civil War Captain America turn out to be a Skrull imposter -- would be that the amazing speech Captain America made in defense of civil liberties during CW would not have been made by Steve Rogers.

My previously mentioned dislike of stories based on suspicion of shape shifters is, in fact, due to where this story line inevitably leads. It leads to a response very much like the one our country has taken in the last seven years. It leads to fear inspired -- or perhaps only fear advantaged -- intrusions on privacy, suspicion of and intolerance for dissent. I am by no means the first to say this, but in our rush to protect our freedoms, we destroy them ourselves.

Shortly after 9/11 I saw the following quote, offered in a program that had nothing whatsoever to do with the events of the day, but so timely that I wrote it down.

"...And the art of life is to save enough from each disaster to be able to begin again in something like your old image."
Murray Kempton
“Part of Our Time”

This is America's challenge in the 21st century. We have stumbled up until now. I hope that we will pick ourselves up and correct our errors. And I hope that Steve Rogers will return to lend his voice to that cause and that course.