Absolute All-Star Superman

Comics College is a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the comics medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work.

Strap yourself in, kids, because this is going to be a big one, as we run through the lengthy and considerable career of one of mainstream comics’ biggest stars, Grant Morrison.

Why he’s important

If nothing else, Grant Morrison is a writer with a definitive vision. A big believer in the power of the superhero genre to inspire hope and change, his stories often — despite his considerable ability to frighten and disturb – are optimistic affairs, suggesting that even in one’s darkest moments, things are never as bad as they seem. That he can frequently pull this type of sincere optimism without seeming saccharine or winsome is a testament to his skill as a writer.

Morrison is not always an easy writer to read. He’ll frequently break the fourth wall, indulge in non-linear storytelling or throw out obscure references. He expects his readers to meet him halfway and often a bit of work is required to suss out exactly how everyone moved from plot point A to B. Usually this type of effort is rewarded, however, as at his best his writing blends surreal, dense and sometimes elliptical storytelling with a fondness for humanity and a yen for crafting likable, fully rounded characters.

Note: In culling this list together I decided to skip over some of Morrison’s single-issue stories, anthology contributions and unfinished projects (like those two issues of The Authority). Otherwise we’d be here all day. Feel free to yell at me about it in the comments section.

Where to start

Doom Patrol Vol. 1: Crawling From the Wreckage

Morrison’s most well-known and beloved work is easily All-Star Superman, and thus makes as likely and new-reader-friendly a place to begin as any. Working with his best and frequent collaborator Frank Quitely, Morrison penned a loving mash note to the Silver Age, Weisenger-era Superman that didn’t ever once come off as nostalgic sentimentality. In many ways, All-Star Superman is a thoughtful treatise on the fragility and splendor of life, with Morrison asking readers what sort of legacy they’d like to leave behind for friends and family after they’ve gone. The series is available in two softcover volumes, or you can buy the whole shebang in one expensive Absolute edition.

Personally though, I feel that Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol features not only some of his best writing ever, but it’s also one of the best, if not the best, superhero comic of all time. Teaming up with artist Richard Case, Morrison created a comic that reveled in playful sense of surrealism and absurdity. New, bizarre ideas and characters seemed to spring off every page — Paintings that eat cities! A villain that has every super power you can’t think of! — only to be tossed aside to make room for the next big notion. But it’s all grounded by the main cast of characters who, despite their odd appearances and complex problems, remain very sympathetic figures. The series has been collected in five six easy-to-find trade paperbacks: Crawling From the Wreckage, The Painting that Ate Paris, Down Paradise Way, Musclebound, Magic Bus and Planet Love.

From there you should read

Flex Mentallo Man of Muscle Mystery Deluxe Edition

After his run on Doom Patrol concluded, Morrison spun-off one of his creations from the series, Flex Mentallo, into a self-titled four-issue mini-series. The comic followed the “Muscle Man of Mystery” as he tried to find his former friend and fellow crimefighter, The Fact, while also focusing on a burned out rock star calling a suicide prevention line who may or may not be imagining the whole Mentallo storyline. Working again with Quitely (who does some of his best work to date here) Morrison lays out his entire feelings about the superhero genre and why he’s so sweet on it. As manifestos go, it’s a pretty sterling one. Though it’s long been out of print, it’s scheduled to come out in a deluxe hardcover collection early next year.

Morrison’s other great superhero project is the wildly ambitious Seven Soldiers of Victory. The idea was to create a loosely interconnected series of comics, each starring a semi-obscure character from the DC Universe: Klarion, the Guardian, Mister Miracle, the Shining Knight, etc. It all builds up towards an epic battle against a nefarious enemy from the future, the catch being none of the characters ever meet (at least not for more than a few seconds). Really, it all comes together a lot better my meager description would suggest and features some great art from folks like Doug Mahnke, J.H. Williams III, Frazier Irving and Ryan Sook. The whole blessed extravaganza has been collected in two hardcover volumes.

At the same time Morrison was pushing the dada envelope in Doom Patrol, he was cheerfully breaking the fourth wall in Animal Man.The series started off as a familiar second banana character revamp, with art by Chas Truog, but quickly became something deeper and stranger as main character Buddy Baker started fighting for animal rights and inadvertently found his world literally coming apart at the seams, with the end result being a meeting between the character and his creator. The entire storyline is collected in three volumes: Animal Man, Origin of the Species and Deus Ex Machina.

While I disagree somewhat, many consider The Invisibles to be Morrison’s definitive work. Certainly it’s one of his most fondly remembered works and the one that won him a decidedly devoted audience. A superhero/spy story that draws on countless conspiracy theories, the Invisibles follows a clandestine group of operatives who work at overthrowing a shadowy Illuminati-type group that manipulates humanity and history behind the scenes. The first half is excellent, but it begins to falter somewhat in the second half before gaining steam again, perhaps in part due to the fact that Morrison fell gravely ill while writing the series. You can read the whole thing via seven volumes: Say You Want A Revolution, Apocalipstick, Entropy in the U.K., Bloody Hell in America, Counting to None, Kissing Mister Quimper and The Invisible Kingdom.

Rounding out Morrison’s collaborations with Frank Quitely is We3, a surprisingly effective sci-fi revamp of The Incredible Journey with a cybernetically outfitted (and incredibly dangerous) rabbit, cat and dog on the run from the military that wants to “decommission” them and trying to find their original owners. In a rather neat feat, Morrison manages to give all the animals speaking parts without ever having them lose their animal nature or resorting to easy sentimentalism. As violent as this book can be, it’s hard to reach the end with a dry eye.

And then you should read

Seaguy

The Filth was Morrison’s follow-up to The Invisibles and something of a flip side to the latter’s more positive, rebelling against the status quo attitude. I think it’s a more successful book though it certainly has its detractors. It’s about an average schlub of a man who (re)discovers he’s actually the member of a super-secret organization devoted to maintaining the “status q” known as The Hand. Or maybe he’s a pedophile who’s starting to hallucinate because he can’t handle the fact that his beloved cat is dying. Morrison keeps readers guessing the true nature of the story’s “true” reality all the way up to the end and beyond. It’s one of the writer’s densest, most challenging books to date largely, but a hell of a ride, largely due to the considerable artistic abilities of Chris Weston.

Seaguy and its sequel, the yet-to-be-collected Seaguy: The Slaves of Mickey Eye, is an energetic, dystopian superhero fable dealing with a scuba-outfitted hero who slowly comes to realize the seemingly perfect, amusement-park world he’s living in is a facade hiding lots of nefarious goings-on. It’s a fun, affecting ride, largely abetted by the cheerfully clean styling of Cameron Stewart. Morrison has promised a third and final Seaguy series but as of yet nothing has been announced.

Morrison must have a deep fondness for Oscar Wilde. How else to explain Sebastian O, which re-imagines the author of The Importance of Being Earnest as a witty assassin, wrecking havoc on the establishment that sent him to prison decades ago? It all wraps up a little too quickly, but longtime collaborator Steve Yeowell and Morrison manage to spin a clever and occasionally disquieting steampunk ode to Wilde and his contemporaries as well as giving a fat raspberry to the voices of censorship and repression.

One of Morrison’s most recent Vertigo books is the just-collected Joe the Barbarian, a charming fantasy story about a boy who, in the midst of a diabetic seizure, imagines himself transported to a fantasy kingdom where he is “the chosen one” who can save their world (Notice a pattern here? Morrison’s big on the ability of imagination and fantasy to transform everyday life.) Despite the Vertigo label and seemingly convoluted storyline, this is one of Morrison’s most direct, straightforward works ever and his first and only all-ages styled book to date. He and artist Sean Murphy do such a fine job here that you wonder why he doesn’t try his hand at this type of thing more often.

Though the bulk of his work has been done for DC/Vertigo, Morrison spent some time a decade or so ago at Marvel. The most notable fruit of his labors there was his run on the New X-Men, where he shook up and in some cases completely altered the status quo on the long-standing, convoluted superhero soap opera series, laying lots of established back story to literal waste and giving a hipper sci-fi edge to the proceedings, all while re-emphasizing the adolescent angst that gave the series’ its heart. It all suffers quite a bit from the revolving door of artists that came in to handle various arcs or fill-in issues (Igor Kordey’s best work is certainly not represented here). But still, there are some great ideas at work here and some really stunning sequences, usually involving Frank Quitely (there he is again). The best way to experience the series is probably through the latest three-volume set of omnibuses (omnibi?).

Further reading

Final Crisis

Morrison teamed up with Duncan Fegredo for Kid Eternity, a three-issue prestige-styled mini series that was yet another dark revamping of a long-forgotten superhero character, in this case a boy who could summon classic (and dead) characters from history just by saying the word “Eternity.” Teamed up here with a hapless stand-up comedian, the series is basically Morrison’s take on Dante’s Inferno, as the pair wend their way to hell and back in order to save the Kid’s mentor and possibly the human race. It’s a bit muddled at times, but still entertaining.

Having attempted a convoluted mega-crossover series with Seven Soldiers, Morrison got the chance to try something similar with DC’s A-listers in Final Crisis, one of those super-duper “event” stories that plague superhero comics these days. Morrison basically dares to ask the question “What if Darkseid really won?” and then goes on to explore how the Superman and friends manage to pick up the pieces and restore order and justice to the universe. It’s kind of a mess — the divergent elements don’t cohere very well, part of which may be due to the fact that artist J.G. Jones was replaced early on in the series by a variety of artists, including Doug Mahnke. And I recall being very irritated at figuring out at the end that I needed to read some of the tie-in series in order to figure out what was going on. Still, all that tie-in stuff has been included in the collected edition, so maybe it all reads better in book form.

Morrison first made his name in 1989 with Arkham Asylum, a heavily-hyped standalone graphic novel that teamed him up with a pre-Cages Dave McKean. The book had Batman wending his way through the titular mental institution, combating various villains and Jungian archetypes along the way. At the time (and despite the strong sales) it was derided by some fans as being needlessly convoluted and self-important, but I think it’s held up rather well over time, though it does perhaps take itself a bit too seriously.

Those looking for a more straightforward Batman story should check out Gothic, which was originally serialized in Legends of the Dark Knight. The story, featuring some nice art by Klaus Janson, pits the caped crusader against a seemingly immortal killer named Mr. Whisper who’s secret origins may tie into Wayne’s own personal history. It’s one of Morrison’s most simplest and straightforward stories ever and perfect for those who are just looking for a nice Batman story without all the surreal frou-frou.

If you haven’t guessed yet, Batman is clearly Morrison’s favorite superhero. Or, at any rate, he’s the superhero he’s spent the most time with, having not only done the previous two books but also having written the eponymous Batman series from 2007 to 2010. Here he attempted to incorporate every single aspect of the character’s mythos from the past 70-odd years, from the silly to the profound. Again, it’s hard to fault his ambition, but it’s clear certain artists weren’t on the same page as Morrison or weren’t capable of matching his vision and thus the quality and tone vary wildly. Morrison’s run is collected in Batman and Son, The Black Glove (the best of the bunch, with some great art by J.H. Williams III), The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul (another multi-series crossover Morrison took part in), Batman R.I.P. (where everything comes to a head), and the coda, Time and the Batman, which also re-explains some events from Final Crisis.

Morrison hit the ground running from his Batman run with Batman and Robin, which imagines first Robin Dick Grayson taking over the Batman role in Bruce Wayne’s absence, joined by Wayne’s cocky illegitimate son Damian. This was a deliberate attempt to harken back to the goofy TV show and carefree era of the 60s, while maintaining a bit of menace and gravitas. Overall it’s a more successful run than Batman, though, once again, there are some really awful stumbles depending on who’s handling the artistic chores. You can read the whole thing in  Batman Reborn, Batman vs. Robin and Batman and Robin Must Die!

The whole saga came to a head in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, which found Bruce Wayne traveling through time — here a caveman, there a puritan — but still solving crimes and righting wrongs. Honestly, the whole thing feels a bit perfunctory and is not one of Morrison’s better works.  Much better is the series it led into, Batman Inc., which finds Wayne expanding his superhero empire around the globe. So far that series has been pretty solid and though it’s currently on hiatus, there’s no reason to suspect the quality will dip down once it returns.

Even further reading

Vinanarama

Morrison went Bollywood with Vimanarama, a three-issue mini-series he did with Philip Bond about a nebbishy British Asian man who finds himself battling ancient giant monsters bent on destroying the world as well as juggling various personal crises, most notably his impending arranged marriage. On the whole this is slight and more than a bit silly (deliberately so), but it has a devoted fan base among Morrison devotees.

Along with New X-Men, Morrison worked on the series Marvel Boy with artist J.G. Jones. The short-lived comic featured a surly Kree warrior as its anti-hero, who, after having his ship destroyed and friends killed, felt little love for humanity and was more than happy to carve a giant “F.U.” into the New York landscape, in between battles with a villainous armored millionaire who craves his technology. After X-Men, it’s probably Morrison’s best work at the House of Ideas.

Apart from the X-Men, Morrison didn’t get to handle to many of Marvel’s iconic characters, though he did get to offer his take on the FF with Fantastic Four: 1234. This short, slight story features some nice, moody art by Jae Lee as the Richards family find themselves beset with doubt, with Doctor Doom moves in for the kill. The best part in the whole thing is Sue Storm’s verbal takedown of Doom.

Finally, there’s Skull Kill Krew, which Morrison worked on with Mark Millar and Steve Yeowell. The comic, about a group of misfit anti-heroes hell-bent on destroying the Skrulls hiding in society (and presumably plotting world domination) adopts a cheerfully amoral and anarchistic tone as the group merrily goes about slaughtering aliens left and right (and in the end decimates an entire town). The defiant, tongue-in-cheek attitude isn’t for everyone certainly, but there’s something to be said for a superhero comic that comes off as having an attitude without seeming like a cynical marketing ploy.

Millar and Morrison also collaborated on Aztek the Ultimate Man, an original superhero character blessed with a magic suit of armor and given a quest to save the world from … well, you know the drill. N. Steven Harris’ angular art gives the whole thing an off-kilter, claustrophobic edge, which works to the story’s advantage, considering it takes place in an allegedly “sick city.” Beyond the simple “hero saves world” plot is a nice running commentary on the uber-violent, “dark” superheroes that were all the rage in the 1990s that gives the series a little kick.

Aztec’s final fate is revealed toward the end of Morrison’s run on JLA, better known as Justice League of America to simple souls like myself. Morrison took over the then moribund-title in 1997, attempting both a back to basics approach by bringing in heavy hitters like Superman and Batman and giving the series an epic scale by having them face off against some seemingly staggeringly tough opponents. It was an enormous success and garnered a new group of fans for Morrison that had previously found his work alienating or confusing. In retrospect, however, the series suffers a bit from repetition: each plot involves the JLA facing being painted in a corner, either by a super villain or a universe-shattering event, only to come through at the last possible second. The series was also a slave to the vagaries of various plot threads going on in other books, which can be irritating (Superman’s blue and electric! Now he’s normal again! Wonder Woman’s dead! Now she’s not!). And then there’s Howard Porter’s art, which is serviceable at best. The entire run is collected in four oversize volumes, the fourth of which collects also collects JLA: Earth-2, a stand-alone story where the heroes face evil versions of themselves. It’s far, far better than the bulk of the rest of the JLA material, perhaps due in large part to the fact that — you guessed it — it was drawn by Frank Quitely.

Ancillary materials

Morrison teamed up with Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka for 52, a year-long, weekly series that juggled various plot threads to reveal what was going on in the DC universe after the events of Infinite Crisis. It’s a bit all over the place, but still entertaining. One of the most fun parts is trying to figure out what sections were written by Morrison.

Remember Virgin Comics? At one point they planned a multi-part animated Internet-0nly series based on the classic Indian text the Mahabharata, to be written by Morrison. It all fell apart when Virgin collapsed, but you can read Morrison’s lengthy story pitch and some of his initial scripts in 18 Days, published by Dynamite. The book also features some lavish illustrations by Mukesh Singh that, combined with Morrison’s conceptual ideas, make you wish the project had come to fruition.

An enormous amount of Morrison’s early work, especially his work for 2000AD and other British comic magazines, has yet to be collected in the states, including Big Dave, Bible John and the New Adventures of Hitler. Some of these are available online in various illegal fashions. Probably his most notable early work is Zenith, another epic superhero saga starring a snotty youth who would rather be a pop star than fight crime. It’s a bit too jam-packed, though it settles itself out a bit as it goes on, and you can see a lot of his initial ideas on the superhero genre being laid out here. Eclipse published two volumes of Zenith but those have sadly long since fallen out of print. Supposedly a collected edition will be coming out from 2000AD sometime in the near future but I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting, as Morrison and the publisher have supposedly been at loggerheads about who truly owns the rights to the character.

One early Morrison comic that did get reprinted here in the states was St. Swithin’s Day, which Oni released only to let fall back out of print again. The comic, featuring some lovely art by Paul Grist, follows a sullen teenager who may or may not be plotting to kill Margaret Thatcher (Morrison has gone on record as saying the comic is at least partly autobiographical). The whole thing’s terribly earnest, but sweet in its own way and worth tracking down.

Fans of the classic British TV show The Avengers will want to check out Steed and Mrs. Peel, in which Morrison and Ian Gibson dream up new adventures for the classic spy duo. It’s pretty amusing, but really only if you’re a fan of the source material. BOOM! plans to re-release these comics in January.

Finally there’s Dare, a modern politicalized rethinking of the classic British Dan Dare sci-fi comic done with artist Rian Hughes. As with The Avengers, it helps to be familiar with the source material. Dark but still entertaining, the comic is more of a showcase for Hughes’ considerable talents work than for Morrison’s writing. The story can be found in the Hughes collection Yesterday’s Tomorrows, which is well worth tracking done because Hughes is such a masterful artist.

Avoid

The Mystery Play

Don’t let the subtitle to Supergods fool you. The book is not really about “What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human.” Instead what you get is a rambling, warmed-over, rather problematic (to put it mildly) look at comics history, along with some rather self-aggrandizing reminiscences by Morrison. On the other hand, it is a good place to find out more about a number of events the author has hinted at in various interviews, particularly a transcendental experience he had in Katmandu. More than anything, though, this book was in really bad need of a good editor.

The news that Morrison was going to return to Superman in Action Comics as part of the new DC revamp was heralded by many, but so far the series has proven to be something of a disappointment, feeling tired and rote where it should be vibrant and fun. Perhaps it will improve as it progresses …

Morrison can be a little too “on the nose” sometimes, and that’s absolutely the case with The Mystery Play, a graphic novel team-up with Jon J. Muth that reeks of symbolism and allegory to the point where you want to scream “Enough already.” The story takes place during the modern re-enactment of a medieval mystery play, see, only God gets murdered in the first act. The rest of the book is more of the same painfully obvious allusions that cause the reader (or me at any rate) to wince inwardly when reading them.

That “on the nose” thing also plagues  Kill Your Boyfriend a “youth on the run” comic with Philip Bond that despite its apparent desire to shock and awe seems a bit too overly familiar and annoyingly cute. You don’t necessarily have to “avoid” it but I’d recommend saving it for last.

Next month: Jessica Abel

"I throw him a growl I've brought all the way from Africa"

I was going to open with some snotty Wow, the holidays went by super-quickly! comment, but then I read the first issue of Justice League in seven weeks. Sometimes DC gets ahead of itself; sometimes it’s a little behind.  Happens to the best of us — sometimes you do two solicitation roundups in three weeks….

Anyway, with the January solicitations, the New-52 books each turn five issues old. Series wrapping up their first arcs this month include Blackhawks, Batwoman, Animal Man, and the Deadman feature in DC Universe Presents.  (Not to worry about the latter, because there is a lot of Deadman in these solicits.)  I’m not sure why five issues is such a wonky number for story arcs — there are five-issue miniseries all the time and they collect just fine. Still, I expected most of the New-52 books to take six issues for their introductory stories, and most of them may yet do that. Only a few books look to finish their first arcs after December’s issue #4s (Hawkman and Frankenstein, probably OMAC, maybe Batgirl), and those plus this month’s are barely an eighth of the relaunched line. It makes next month’s solicits more intriguing, I suppose.

Regardless, we live in the now (as it were…) so — onward to January!

JUSTICE LEAGUES

When I saw the solicit for Justice League #5, I thought it was another indication that Geoff Johns and Jim Lee were telling a more decompressed story, as issue #1 threatened. Accordingly, I imagined that Cyborg would be ready to go at the end of the issue, with the big Darkseid battle taking up an oversized issue #6. However, I was pleasantly surprised that issue #2 was such an improvement over #1. It moved more quickly, it brought together more of the future Leaguers, it kicked off Cyborg’s origin in earnest, and it teased another big Parademon fight. Plus it worked in a Gorilla Grodd reference, which I wouldn’t have expected so soon in the New-52 DCU. So now my mood has swung more to the manic side, and I am expecting the big fight to start in #5.

When a solicitation threatens that “[o]ne of these heroes will not make it out alive,” as Justice League Dark #5′s does, normally you think it’d be Mindwarp, the least familiar of the group. However, I then realized it could be a trick question, since that group includes Deadman — who’s not going into whatever-it-is alive….

CREATIVE TEAM SHUFFLING

I know that Tony Akins’ two-issue fill-in on Wonder Woman was planned, in order to give Cliff Chiang some flexibility, but the solicitation copy makes it sound like the issues come at least at the end (if not in the middle) of WW’s first arc. Maybe there’s some shift in the story’s tone which a different artist might help reinforce. By the same token, I can’t wait to see Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone’s guest-shot on The Shade #4.

Part of me is ready to give Green Arrow another shot, what with the three issues from Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens and the upcoming Ann Nocenti Era, but part of me just thinks that this version of Ollie is almost too boring to fix. If anyone needed to lose his fortune, stop shaving, and go all #OccupyStarCity, it’s him.

Static Shock #5 is the first written entirely by Scott McDaniel, following the mysterious (but apparently amicable) departure of John Rozum. Walt Simonson pencils Legion of Super-Heroes #5, and contributes to THUNDER Agents #3.

THIS AND THAT

“Aquaman stranded in the desert” was actually a cliffhanger from 1985′s DC Challenge miniseries, and I want to say Aquaman killed a bird and drank its blood in order to get the liquid he needed to stay alive. Or maybe that was Watchmen; I always get those two confused. (They were both twelve issues….) Still, I bet the All-New, All-Hardcore Aquaman would totally rip out a bird’s throat with his teeth.

Considering he’s not part of the Doom Patrol, and his assistant is apparently a New-52 reworking of an old DP enemy, Robotman’s New-52 origin (as revealed in My Greatest Adventure #4) probably won’t feature the classic team. In fact, from what I saw of the New-52 Robotman in MGA #1, it looks like the Doom Patrol has gone the way of the original Teen Titans. Maybe the MGA feature is testing the waters for yet another Doom Patrol revival?

The “seduction of Damian” subplot described in the solicit for Batman And Robin #5 sounds good, although it seems like Grant Morrison covered similar ground when Damian faced his mother and the rest of the League of Assassins back around issue #12 of the previous series. Likewise, I look forward to Gail Simone’s Batgirl take on the old “female hero fights female villain who controls men’s minds” story, but I kinda want her to drop in a reference to Marsha, Queen of Diamonds.

SYNERGY

There have been plenty of guest appearances so far, but is the OMAC/Frankenstein intertitle crossover the first for the New 52? It may depend on how you categorize the connections between Superman and Stormwatch and/or Stormwatch and Demon Knights.

Speaking of which, only Hawkman can see “horrifying visions of the dead,” and so he “question[s] his own sanity?” Maybe he should talk to Grifter about that.

The solicitation for I, Vampire #5 — featuring a Batman appearance — makes me think I was right about the series’ vampires-vs.-superheroes aspect. That’s not a bad thing (apparently the original character met Batman in the pages of Brave and the Bold, as discussed below) but I wonder how much the series will go to that well.

I was surprised (synergy again!) to see Deadman figuring prominently into Hawk & Dove #5.  While they all were introduced in the late 1960s, I always associated Deadman and Hawk & Dove with different generations.  See, I keep forgetting that Hawk and the late Dove were teenagers back then, and adjunct members of the Teen Titans as well. And not to digress, but I have been thinking about the ways in which that generation of characters has been taken out of the New 52.  While I never put Hawk in that group (or the new Dove either, but I’m not sure how old she’s supposed to be), he should be there. Thus, DC hasn’t completely eliminated the Original-Titans generation from the New 52, because there’s Nightwing, Hawk, and Red Arrow. I should be satisfied with that, right?

(Again, not to digress.)

COLLECTIONS

Prior to the new I, Vampire series, the only exposure I had to this character was in the good-natured mockery of Tales of the Unexpected’s “Architecture & Mortality.” However, I have to say, I am totally ready for the omnibus I, Vampire paperback, reprinting the serial from House Of Mystery and Brave and the Bold vol. 1 #195. Ironically, while I am most interested in it as a rare example of main-line ‘80s DC doing a non-superhero story, I’m very curious to see the Batman team-up….

Hardly surprising considering the artist’s role in the New-52 relaunch, DC collects the original Karl & Barbara Kesel/Rob Liefeld Hawk & Dove miniseries (5 issues!). I didn’t read the miniseries when it came out (and still haven’t), but now I am curious to see what a strong inker like Karl Kesel did with a relatively-new penciller like Liefeld. I do remember thinking that regular-series penciller Greg Guler meshed with Kesel better.

For those who might have missed it the first time around, the Batman: Year One hardcover is well worth getting. Even if you have the original issues or an earlier collection, the hardcover (and maybe a 2007 paperback, but I’m not sure) features new coloring by Richmond Lewis which really makes David Mazzucchelli’s work pop even more. Plus, the hardcover is more durable, and you will want to look at this book a lot.

The Batman Vs. Bane paperback is a curious thing to me. The Bane of the Demon miniseries was better as a Bane story than as a Bruce-vs.-Bane rematch, mostly because it introduced Bane to Rā’s and Talia al-Ghūl, and (shall we say) gave them some non-Batman options. I don’t remember much about the Batman/Bane special except that it was a tie-in to the infamous Batman And Robin movie, and as such probably confused the heck out of anyone who might have known the character only from that. I understand that (as it happens) this paperback is meant to tie into The Dark Knight Rises, so DC is interested in the more villainous side of Bane, but it might also consider collecting “Tabula Rasa,” a nice little arc from Batman: Gotham Knights #s 33-36. Written by Scott Beatty and drawn by Mike Collins & Bill Sienkiewicz and Roger Robinson & John Floyd, it features Bane’s uneasy alliance with, and unexpected connection to, the Darknight Detective.

This month’s pleasant reprint surprise is Showcase Presents Young Love Volume 1 — more to come, I presume! — which I feel somewhat obligated to buy considering I have dinged DC previously for not reprinting its romance books. Still, I would probably have bought it anyway, just to see some non-superhero work from artists more closely identified with the caped crowd. No doubt some of the stories will be “so bad they’re good,” but on the whole it should be a fun read.

Here’s hoping that sales of the Xombi paperback — a bargain at $14.99, cheaper than the individual issues’ retail prices — are enough to make DC want more elegantly-crafted goodness from John Rozum and Frazer Irving. Xombi was just getting started when the New-52 came along, and I don’t want Rozum to have left Static Shock in vain.

AND FINALLY…

The “Batman: Black & White” line of statues has been pretty appealing so far, even if most of them are outside my price range. However, it’s going to be hard to turn down the Sergio Aragones one. What a great expression!

* * *

Well, that’s what jumped out at me this month. What looks good to you?

Stan Lee

Legal | Stan Lee’s Guardian Project, introduced last year at New York Comic Con, has sparked a lawsuit from a Hollywood manager who claims he was cut out of the venture, which transformed National Hockey League mascots into superheroes.

In the lawsuit, filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, Adam Asherson contends the project, now co-owned by NBC Universal, dates back to 2003, when he was introduced to the idea by fellow manager Anthony Chargin and Chargin’s client Jake Shapiro. Asherson, who had a relationship with Lee, says he suggested the legendary comics writer would be the “perfect” partner for the endeavor. They pitched Lee on the project, called Defenders, which focused on the National Football League, with plans to expand to Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the NHL. For unspecified reasons, the NFL deal never came together. However, six years later The Guardian Project emerged with the involvement of Chargin, Shapiro and Lee — but without Asherson.

Asherson claims Guardian Media Entertainment, SLG Entertainment, Chargin and Shapiro have breach an oral joint-venture agreement, committed promissory estoppel and fraud, and breach fiduciary duties by leaving him out of the NHL agreement. [Hollywood, Esq.]

DC Comics

Publishing | Time Warner is planning to launch an evaluation of its “office footprint in the New York metropolitan area and develop a long-range plan to meet our future needs,” an undertaking that leads Glenn Hauman to wonder whether DC Entertainment’s publishing division could end up following the rest of the company to the swanky new headquarters in Burbank, Calif. [Deadline, ComicMix]

Creators | Pádraig Ó Méalóid talks at length with Kevin O’Neill about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1969, Marshall Law and much more. [The Forbidden Planet International Blog]

Creators | Kate Beaton continues her whirlwind media tour for the Hark! A Vagrant! collection with a stop at National Public Radio. [NPR]

Comics | Ethan Kaye looks at “10 Bizarre DC/Marvel Parallels,” from the Doom Patrol and the X-Men to Winter Soldier and Red Hood to Millennium and Secret Invasion. [Topless Robot]

Green Lantern vol. 2 #100

News of The Flash’s cancellation has led to speculation that the title, whenever it returns, will pick up its original numbering. Considering that Wonder Woman was renumbered last year to reflect the accumulation of all its various incarnations, and Adventure Comics resumed its original numbering as well, Flash might not be the last title DC renumbers.

Today I’ll look at Flash and several other DC titles which could get this treatment in the next several years.

* * *

First, though, let’s consider Wonder Woman. Last year, the 45th issue of WW Vol. 3 was dubbed issue #600, thereby implicitly treating the current series and its predecessor as direct continuations of the original 1942 series. The math was pretty straightforward: Vol. 1 went to issue #329, and vol. 2 went to #226, so that left the 600th issue to vol. 3′s 45th. (329+226+45 = 600.) Volume 2 did have two irregularly-numbered issues, #0 (part of 1994′s “Zero Month,” which the rest of us called August), and #1,000,000 (for DC One Million, naturally).

That last detail tells us we shouldn’t include out-of-sequence numbers — or, if we want to be even more anal, we can assume that those were the only #0 and #1,000,000 issues Wonder Woman will ever have. This is not necessarily true, as we’ll see below; but either way, the outcome for WW is the same.

Wonder Woman’s renumbering also includes only the core series. With WW you might say well, duh, but keep in mind that other long-running features have branched out into separate but contemporaneous titles. While renumbering shouldn’t incorporate Annuals, Specials, or the run of a distinct spinoff, it should include any title which, for all intents and purposes, represents that feature in its ordinary form. As Andy Griffith once said, you can change the name of a rose, but you can’t do nothin’ about the smell.

Anyway, we’ve got enough of a foundation to start the math, so let’s jump into it, shall we?

* * *

THE BIG NAMES

While we hear a lot about DC’s “Big Three,” the Flash and Green Lantern make a strong argument for a “Big Five.,” Those features (along with the Justice League and Legion of Super-Heroes) are all part of what I’ve called DC’s “foundational” titles, in the sense that DC will publish those books lo, unto the end of time. Accordingly, if I expect DC to renumber any more titles, I expect to see Flash and GL at the head of the line.

The Flash. There have been five ongoing Flash series so far, with a sixth likely after Flashpoint ends. They include Flash Comics (1940), The Flash (1959, 1987, and 2010), and The Flash: Fastest Man Alive (2006). Because the original Flash Comics was an anthology (featuring Hawkman, Johnny Thunder, and Black Canary, among others), there was also All-Flash, a Golden Age spinoff for those who just wanted super-speed action.

Anyway, the question of renumbering has come up a couple of times across the various Flash series. Barry Allen’s first solo book picked up the numbering of Jay Garrick’s Flash Comics, and Wally West’s solo title resumed its old numbering after Flash: FMA folded. Wally’s series had #0 and #1,000,000 issues, but again, we’re not counting those. The 2007 continuation of Wally’s series also began with an All-Flash special issue, but just to keep things simple, I am not inclined to count it either. However, I am including the Flash: Rebirth miniseries, because for all intents and purposes, it was “the” Flash book in the absence of an ongoing series.

In simpler form:

1. Flash Comics: 1-104; The Flash ‘59: 105-350
2. The Flash ‘87: 1-230
3. The Flash: FMA: 1-13
4. The Flash ‘87, redux: 231-247
5. Flash: Rebirth: 1-6
5. The Flash ‘10: 1-12

Folding all those series into the original numbering, the upcoming Flash #12 would be #628. If DC is inclined to renumber at the next hundred-issue mark, it would have to wait 72 more issues (i.e., six years) for issue #700. Alternately, settling for issue #400 of the first Barry Allen numbering would mean waiting just 32 issues past the current #12. Finally, if DC wants to get creative and doesn’t care much about whether it can defend the inclusion of Annuals, Specials, Secret Files, out-of-sequence issues, Blackest Night: The Flash, Flashpoint, and/or the Life Story Of The Flash graphic novel, it can reach about 690 issues without much trouble.

Ultimately, though, I don’t expect DC to go for #700 that quickly. I think if it’s going to happen, it’ll happen at the regular monthly pace, with the 2010 series picking up with #13 after Flashpoint.

Green Lantern. We’re currently on GL Volume 4, but unlike Flash, we’re not so much concerned with the first series. Because Alan Scott’s solo title ran for just 38 issues (over about 8 years), it may not have been as big a deal for DC to pick up its numbering in the Silver Age. For whatever reason, Hal Jordan got a new #1 in July-August 1960. Not surprisingly, most of the GL comics published since then have been about Hal and friends, so we’ll deal only with them.

Hal’s first series (1960) was canceled at issue #89. After that, “Green Lantern” became a backup feature in The Flash for several years. The series resumed in 1976 with issue #90, was retitled Green Lantern Corps with issue #201, and ended with 1988′s issue #224. Again Hal got a short feature, this time in Action Comics Weekly, before GL vol. 3 started up in 1990. That series, which switched out Kyle for Hal around issue #50, ended with issue #181 (and included #0 and #1,000,000 issues). Green Lantern: Rebirth followed in 2004, and the current series is at issue #64. Here’s the chart:

1. 1960/1976: 1-224
2. 1990: 1-181 (with #0 and #1,000,000)
3. GL: Rebirth: 1-6
4. 2005: 1-64

By my count, last week’s issue #64 is the 475th issue of Green Lantern since the Silver Age. That puts issue #500 just over two years away, so DC has time to ponder whether it wants to renumber.

Green Arrow. Despite his Golden Age background and Silver and Bronze Age prominence, the first Green Arrow #1 didn’t appear until 1983′s four-issue miniseries (by Mike W. Barr and Trevor Von Eeden). That led not to an ongoing, but to a backup series in Detective Comics, which lasted until the Bat-books changed editors in 1986. Indeed, the success of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight helped facilitate Mike Grell’s GA miniseries The Longbow Hunters, the next title in what people were still calling the “Dark Knight” format.

Publishing notes aside, Grell and artist Ed Hannigan then launched 1988′s Green Arrow ongoing, which for our purposes lasted to issue #137 (with a #0 issue), but which actually ended on the next month’s issue #1,000,000. Ollie died in #101, passing the codename to Connor Hawke; but Ollie came back in 2001′s GA Vol. 2 (or Vol. 3, if you count the miniseries), by Kevin Smith and Phil Hester. The 2001 series lasted 75 issues and was relaunched after a few months as Green Arrow/Black Canary. That, in turn, lasted 32 issues (the last few as simply Green Arrow) and was itself relaunched following the infamous “Rise And Fall” storyline coming out of Justice League: Cry For Justice. The current Green Arrow book, launched in 2010, reaches issue #10 this week. Thus:

1. 1988: 1-137 (plus #0 and #1,000,000)
2. 2001: 1-75
3. 2007: 1-32
4. 2010: 1-10

That gets us to issue #314, which puts the series exactly three years from #350 and a little over seven years from #400.

THE TEAMS

The Justice League of America. The JLA is a little tricker, because one could argue that the change from Justice League of America to Justice League International was significant enough to warrant keeping the series separate.  Although JLI was renamed Justice League America about two years into its ten-year run, I am finding it hard to think of the first issue of that series as the 262nd of Justice League of America. Nevertheless, this is a prime example of DC always publishing a certain feature, and once a Leaguer, always a Leaguer, I guess.

With that in mind, we’re on the fourth JLA series. The third, of course, was the initials-only JLA (1996). Interestingly enough, there have been two #0 issues in the feature’s history: the “Zero Month” jumping-on point used by Justice League America, and the various-artists issue (written by Brad Meltzer) which preceded the current series. That means we should amend the above rule about ignoring out-of-sequence issues, and only ignore the first such issues. I consider JLA ‘06 #0 to be the first issue of the series anyway.  Here is the summary:

1. Justice League of America (1960): 1-261
2. Justice League/International/America: 1-113 (with #0)
3. JLA: 1-125 (with #1,000,000)
4. Justice League of America (2006): 0-55

If memory serves, there was some fan discussion about renumbering the current series even before it started, since the first issue of JLA ‘06 would have been the 500th issue of Justice League of America. While that didn’t happen, it makes the math easier: JLA #600 is only 44 issues away.

The Teen Titans. When it comes to renumbering, this feature is almost a victim of its own success. The original series ran for 43 issues (1966-73), plus ten more in 1976-78. As with the Golden Age Green Lantern, though, those 53 issues were soon eclipsed by the mammoth success of 1980′s New Teen Titans. That series (retitled Tales of the Teen Titans with issue #41) ran for 58 original issues before yielding to NTT vol. 2 as part of DC’s mid-‘80s “hardcover/softcover” program.  NTT vol. 2 (itself renamed New Titans with issue #50) then ran to issue #130, including a #0 issue. Although the originals were always welcome in the “New” group, NTT’s success made a pretty clear distinction between the two. It would therefore be a little awkward to suggest folding the latter’s numbers into the original’s.

Complicating matters further are two late ‘90s attempts to recruit younger characters. Dan Jurgens’ 1996 Teen Titans series ran for 24 issues with an almost entirely new group of teenaged heroes; and Peter David and Todd Nauck’s Young Justice (1998) ran to issue #55 (with a #1,000,000 issue early on). After that, the Titans universe pretty much split into two tracks: the original set of third-generation heroes, and their fourth-gen successors. For the oldsters, 1999 brought The Titans (preceded by a JLA/Titans miniseries), which lasted 50 issues. Eventually, both Titans and YJ were cancelled in favor of new Teen Titans and Outsiders books. Outsiders was then cancelled and relaunched and Titans was brought back, but the latter has since been revamped pretty radically, using Deathstroke and a band of supervillains.

In this respect, it’s all become a big cluster which doesn’t lend itself to simple renumbering. If you just focus on books called Teen Titans, you get the original group, the Jurgens team, and the current title, none of which have much to do with each other. Trying to consolidate the lineage of New (Teen) Titans is easier conceptually, but how do you count the “Villains For Hire” stuff in the current series? For that matter, where does Young Justice fit? (Personally, I’d like to include it, but it’s a tough call.)

Just to be complete, here’s the Titans chart:

1. Teen Titans ‘64/’76: 1-53
2. New/Tales of the Teen Titans ‘80: 1-58 (-91 in reprints)
3. New (Teen) Titans ‘84: 1-131 (with #0)
4. Teen Titans ‘96: 1-24
5. Young Justice: 1-55 (with #1,000,000)
6. JLA/Titans: 1-3
7. Titans ‘99: 1-50
8. Teen Titans ‘03: 1-93
9. Titans ‘08: 1-23 (-33 after revamp)

Combining all the “Teen Titans” titles gets you to #170; or #225 with the Young Justice issues.  Combining all the “New Titans” titles is a little tricker, because including the Tales reprints would be double-counting the first thirty-odd issues of NTT Volume 2.  Anyway, the current New Titans issue would be #275 and counting (or stuck on #265 without the “VFH” issues).  That sounds about right for a thirty-year-old feature; but regardless, renumbering any or all of the various Titans books raises too many questions.  The original concept has changed sufficiently over time that each new series deserves to stand on its own.

The Legion of Super-Heroes. Not least because it has returned to the original-recipe version of the team, LSH looks like a good candidate for renumbering. The feature was a staple of Adventure Comics (with a few appearances in other Superman titles), but it settled eventually in Superboy. That book was later renamed Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, then just Legion of Super-Heroes, and finally (when it entered the hardcover/softcover program a la New Teen Titans) Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes). LSH Vol. 2 (the “hardcover”) lasted 63 issues, giving way to vol. 3′s “Five Years Later” setting. The Legionnaires spinoff was introduced as part of that setting, but both Legion books were rebooted during Zero Hour, adopting a “biweekly” format and keeping their original numbering.

When both LSH and Legionnaires were cancelled, the Legion book itself went on hiatus for a while. Filling the void were two miniseries: the year-long Legion Lost and the six-issue Legion Worlds. After that was another relatively short-lived series, called simply The Legion; and then the whole thing was rebooted a third time (thus, the “threeboot”) under Mark Waid and Barry Kitson. That series lasted fifty issues, but the originals were making a comeback over in Justice League, Justice Society, and Action Comics. Said comeback culminated in the Legion of Three Worlds miniseries, and now we have LSH Vol. 5. Here are the numbers:

1. Superboy/LSH/Tales: 197-325 (reprints thru -354)
2. LSH v.2: 1-63
3. LSH v.3: 1-125 (with #0 and #1,000,000)
4. Legionnaires: 1-81 (with #0 and #1,000,000)
5. Legion Lost: 1-12
6. Legion Worlds: 1-6
7. The Legion: 1-38
8. LSH v.4: 1-50
9. Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds: 1-5
10. LSH v.5: 1-13

Picking up from the Superboy numbering, excluding the Tales reprints, and counting the extra #0 and #1,000,000 issues, yields a current issue number of #720. (Taking out Legionnaires and the three miniseries would yield #615.) That’s about six-and-a-half years away from #800 (or, alternately, eight years from #700). Even though Legionnaires started out (before Zero Hour) telling its own stories, for simplicity’s sake I would put all of Legionnaires in the renumbering mix. As convoluted as the Legion’s history has been, for the most part it’s stayed consistently in one book (Legionnaires and the current Adventure Comics notwithstanding), so renumbering looks pretty simple.

The Doom Patrol. Not much complication here.  The DP’s original book took over the numbering of My Greatest Adventure, lasting through issue #121. 1987′s Volume 2 eventually found its way into Grant Morrison’s hands (and then to Vertigo), lasting through #87. Volume 3 lasted 22 issues, John Byrne’s present-day reboot lasted 18, and the current series is set to go through #22:

1. MGA/DP vol. 1: 80-121
2. Vol. 2: 1-87
3. Vol. 3: 1-22
4. Vol. 4: 1-18
5. Vol. 5: 1-22

That gets us up to #270, but at the rate Doom Patrol is going — two 22-issue series separated by an 18-issue one — it’ll take a couple more volumes to reach #300.

LONG SHOTS

Jonah Hex. Of all the series I’m discussing here, this is the one I least expect to see renumbered. However, it is one of DC’s steady sellers, and might get some sales bump from a big anniversary issue.

Back in the ‘70s Jonah left Weird Western Tales for his own 92-issue series, and wandered through a post-apocalyptic future (and a couple of Vertigo miniseries) before finding new life in the current series. While there is every possibility that the latter series will surpass the original’s 92 issues, let’s just see what the numbers say:

1. Vol. 1: 1-92
2. Hex: 1-18
3. Two-Gun Mojo: 1-5
4. Shadows West: 1-5
5. Vol. 2: 1-62

By my count, that would make the current issue of Jonah Hex #182, a year and a half away from #200. That’s an attainable goal, and I give JH an outside shot at renumbering.

Justice League International. Yes, we’ve been over this — but upon further reflection, I wonder if a new JLI series isn’t at least in the talking stages once Justice League: Generation Lost wraps. In fact, DC would have a couple of options for renumbering, because there have been a couple of different JLI series.

The first one, of course, was the post-Legends title which was renamed Justice League International with issue #7, and Justice League America with issue #26. The JLI cast was reunited twice since then, in a JLA Classified arc (which wouldn’t count for our purposes, since it was part of a separate and distinct Justice League book) and in the miniseries I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Justice League.  Adding Generation Lost’s 24 issues to JL/I/A’s 113 (remember, don’t count #0) and the six-issue ICBINTJL gets us to #143, only 7 issues from #150 and 57 from #200. It would also leave the main JLA book at #442, or 58 issues from #500.

The other avenue involves the renamed Justice League Europe, whose last seventeen issues came out as Justice League International. That series ended with #67, so adding JL:GL’s 24 issues yields #91, tantalizingly close to #100. However, the big problem with this route is the connection between the old JLE/I and the current miniseries. Although Captain Atom and Rocket Red were associated with the JLE for its first few years, JL:GL has more members from the American branch. Therefore,  I’d feel more comfortable with the first option, but I think DC would be more inclined to include the original JLI in a JLA renumbering anyway; and a new JLI series would probably never be renumbered.

BRIGHTEST DAY ALUMNAE

Aquaman. With a new Aquaman series already announced, let’s look at the King of the Seven Seas’ various titles. Vol. 1 lasted a total of 63 issues, including a 7-issue ‘70s revival. Following that were a series of miniseries before Vol. 2 debuted in 1990. That book didn’t last long, but Vol. 3 (written mostly by Peter David) lasted to issue #75. Vol. 4 lasted 57 issues, the last 18 subtitled Sword Of Atlantis.

1. Vol. 1: 1-63
2. Miniseries #1: 1-4
3. Mini #2: 1-5
4. Vol. 2: 1-13
5. Time & Tide mini: 1-4
6. Vol. 3: 1-75 (with #0 and #1,000,000)
7. Vol. 4: 1-57

Note that I am not counting a couple of Aquaman Specials or the Atlantis Chronicles miniseries. Even so, if DC decides to renumber Aquaman, the last issue of Vol. 4 would be #221. It’d give DC seven-and-a-half years (and, as with Doom Patrol, probably two more volumes) to think about #300.

Hawkman. It’s not so much that no one likes Hawkman, but it does seem like he’s best taken in small doses. The character started out in Flash Comics before being revived in 1962. A tryout in Brave and the Bold and a few appearances in Mystery In Space led to his own title in 1964. Of course, he became a regular member of the Justice League, appeared in various short features, and had a three-issue run in the ‘70s Showcase revival; but as far as ongoing series go, I was surprised to see a pretty big gap between the end of Atom And Hawkman in 1968 and the Shadow War Of Hawkman miniseries in 1985. I wasn’t even alive in 1968, but I was in high school when Shadow War came out.

Anyway, from that point, things picked up for the Hawks, albeit in a good-news/bad-news kind of way. A 1986 series lasted 17 issues, and the Hawks returned to the Justice League. However, 1989′s Hawkworld miniseries threw existing continuity out the window. The Hawkworld ongoing debuted in 1990 and ran for 32 issues. Six months after it ended came Hawkman Vol. 3, which (among other things) tried to use Zero Hour as a continuity fix.  After Vol. 3 ended, DC put the Hawks in limbo for several years. 2002′s Vol. 4 spun out of JSA, running five-and-a-half years and ending as Hawkgirl.

1. Vol. 1: 1-27
2. Shadow War: 1-4
3. Vol. 2: 1-17
4. Hawkworld miniseries: 1-3
5. Hawkworld ongoing: 1-32
5. Vol. 3: 1-33 (plus #0)
6. Vol. 4: 1-67

It all adds up to issue #183, fairly close to #200 if DC wants to go that way. I can’t see Hawkman #200 doing much for the readership, though.

Firestorm. Even speaking as a longtime Firestorm fan, I think it’s improbable, albeit not impossible, for the character to score a new ongoing series in the wake of Brightest Day. If it does happen, it would be the character’s fourth series since his 1977 debut. The original series ran just five issues, but soon afterwards ‘Stormy got a backup feature in Flash and co-creator Gerry Conway started using him in Justice League of America. A second series, originally called Fury Of Firestorm, debuted in 1982 and ran for a very respectable 100 issues, ending as simply Firestorm. After that, the character made various appearances here and there, eventually being killed off (or so it appeared) during Identity Crisis. That facilitated 2004′s Volume 3, starring Jason Rusch as Firestorm and running for 35 issues. Thus, the first issue of the still-hypothetical Vol. 4 would be #141 — close enough to #150 if DC is trigger-happy; or five years from #200 if it wants to think things over.

* * *

Where would all this math leave these various series? Here’s a rough timeline, with other series’ big numbers for comparison.

2012: Firestorm #150, Jonah Hex #200, Hawkman #200
2013: Green Lantern #500, Detective Comics #900
2015: Doom Patrol #300
2016: Firestorm #200, Justice League of America #600
2017: Flash #700
2018: Batman #800, Superman #800, Wonder Woman #700, Aquaman #300, Green Arrow #400, Legion of Super-Heroes #800, Adventure Comics #600
2019: Action Comics #1000

As I’ve been arguing over the past few weeks, big issue numbers tend to equal stability. By the same token, though, that stability has to be somewhat well-founded. Renumbering Firestorm, Jonah Hex, or Hawkman to issue #200 doesn’t carry quite the same weight as renumbering a title like The Flash or even Green Arrow which has, for all practical purposes, been published in perpetuity across the decades. In fact, it points out that those lower-numbered titles haven’t produced the amount of issues you’d expect from decades-old features. I mean, the Silver Age Hawkman is almost fifty years old and is only one issue closer to #200 than Jonah Hex, a character ten years younger.

So should there be a 200- or even 300-issue threshold for renumbering?  Probably.  Wonder Woman and Adventure were renumbered because their roots go back to the Golden Age, and besides they are/were pillars of the DC superhero line.  Firestorm and Hawkman, as entertaining as they may be, just don’t command that kind of respect.  At least not yet.

In any event, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the less-prolific series being renumbered. In a couple of years, Green Lantern will be eligible for #500, and I’m willing to bet DC makes it happen. A few years after that, JLA #600 and/or Flash #700 may be the last titles renumbered — unless DC has gotten serious about Sgt. Rock….

Doom Patrol #22

The solicitations for DC’s May titles hit earlier today, bringing official word that five DC series have been canceled. Doom Patrol, JSA All-Stars, Freedom Fighters and R.E.B.E.L.S. join The Outsiders on the chopping block. They follow Azrael, Batman: Streets Of Gotham and Batman Confidential, which met their ends in March.

Looking at the most recent month-to-month sales figures for DC that Mark-Oliver Frisch analyzes on The Beat, it’s not surprising to see any of these titles ending. Probably the biggest surprise, if you were looking just at the numbers, is JSA All-Stars, which looks to be selling better than other monthly series not getting the axe, like Booster Gold and Power Girl. I bet many of the characters in it will find their way back to the flagship JSA title.

Freedom Fighters co-writer Jimmy Palmiotti commented on the cancellation of the book on Twitter, noting, “If a book doesn’t break even or make a profit, it gets cancelled and opens up the door for another title,” he said. “Wait for the big picture. things get cancelled and others get green lit. the nature of publishing.”

Doom Patrol, Freedom Fighters, Outsiders and L.E.G.I.O.N./R.E.B.E.L.S. have all ended before — despite their name, Doom Patrol has been resurrected four times since the original series ended — and no doubt they’ll all be back again somewhere down the road.

Iconic cover artist Dave Johnson has announced that he’s joining the online group Comic Twart. Spun out of online camaraderie on Twitter among a group of comic artists, Comic Twart is a site where those artists draw a new piece based on a theme each week. Johnson joins a murderer’s row of comic artists that include Francesco Francavilla, Mike Hawthorne, Mitch Breitweiser, Dan Panosian, Chris Samnee and Evan Shaner.

This week’s theme over on Comic Twart is Doom Patrol, and Dave’s submission on the left is the first of the bunch. Go to the site to see what the others turn in!

Thor the Mighty Avenger #8

Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy on Wednesday based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on what we call our “Splurge” item.

Check out Diamond’s release list for this week if you’d like to play along in our comments section.

Chris Arrant

With $15 worth of dingy bills and loose quarters, I’d go my local comic shop and start with Thor: The Mighty Avenger #8 ($2.99). Probably the pick of the week in some circles (even for a square like me), it’s a celebration of what Langridge and Samnee accomplished – and although it’s the last issue, there’s that FCBD issue on the horizon. I’d also pick up two number ones -– Casanova: Gula #1 ($3.99) and Daredevil: Reborn #1 ($3.99). With my last $4, I’d be hard-pressed to pick between Thunder Agents #3 ($2.99) and Infinite Vacation #1 ($3.50), but would probably pick the latter –- Nick Spencer’s on both, but Christian Ward’s art makes Infinite Vacation #1 worth the buy.

If I ended up in a comic store with $30 in my hand, I’d probably throw back Daredevil: Reborn and Infinite Vacation #1 until reviews or money next week, and pick up Oni’s Sixth Gun Vol. 1 ($19.99). I’ve been meaning to try this series for awhile, and the guys over at the iFanboy podcast have been talking it up for some time now.

As for the splurge, it would definitely be the New Avengers Premiere Vol. 1 hardcover. At $24.99, this six-issue collection is a great buy—especially when you consider it’s a hardcover. I’d love to find out it had some extras in it, but even without it I love Marvel’s Premiere printing quality.

Graeme McMillan

Infinite Vacation #1

It feels like another slow week this week, but my $15 will end up going towards the first issue of Nick Spencer’s Infinite Vacation (Image Comics, $3.50), the first Chris Roberson issue of Superman (#707, DC Comics, $2.99) and Marvel’s “Ha, bet you feel silly for buying it first time around for $3.99 per issue” three-issue collection of Wolverine: Wolverine Goes To Hell Must-Have (Marvel Comics, $4.99), which I’ve heard enough good things about to make me risk $1.33 an issue for second time around. If only I had 50 cents extra, I’d throw in Casanova: Gula #1 (Marvel/Icon, $3.99), but it’s not like I didn’t read these stories the first time around (But, oh! That coloring! That lettering! It just looks new again in these reprints).

If I had $30, I’d probably look at adding the similarly complimented Avengers Academy: Meet The New Class Must-Have (Marvel Comics, $4.99), the final issue of Paul Cornell’s Batman & Robin run (DC Comics, $2.99) which has been good enough to make me wish that Cornell was sticking around for a bit, the first issue of Andy Diggle’s Daredevil: Reborn (Marvel Comics, $3.99) to see whether it’s all been worth it, and then probably go for a little Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #6 (DC, $2.99) to see how the first storyline ends.

Splurge-wise, its all about Marvel’s Avengers: The Coming Of The Beast hardcover ($19.99), collecting the storyline that brought Hank McCoy to the team that appreciated him the most. Steve Englehart and Tony Isabella awesomeness for (just) under $20? Yes, please.

Chris Mautner

Casanova Gula #1

If I had $15:

Everything Graeme said about Casanova goes double for me, especially as I think this particular story arc is arguably the best thing Fraction has written. It’s definitely on my pull list for this week.

After that, if I’m not feeling too wounded that Alan Moore refuses to join my online Scalped fan club, I’ll pick up the seventh issue of Dodgem Logic, Moore’s ongoing magazine about various and sundry non-comics related things.

Beyond that, it’s a pretty short week, filled with plenty of nothing I’m that interested in. Certainly if you haven’t read the first Casanova collection yet, there’s a new $15 trade out that I heartily recommend.

Brigid Alverson

If I had $15:

I would pick up the second volume of Cross Game ($14.99), Viz’s coming-of-age manga about a boy whose family runs the local batting center and his relationship with the girls who live down the street. I haven’t read the whole first volume, but the first chapter struck me as really sweet, in the way manga can be sometimes. And baseball will get me thinking about spring. Viz is publishing this in omnibus editions that combine two of the original Japanese volumes, so that’s a lot of reading for the money.

If I had $30:

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth - Gods

I would add in Uncle Scrooge: Like a Hurricane ($9.99), because BOOM! does a nice job with these trades and I haven’t read one in a while. And then B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Gods #1, as it’s starting a totally new storyline.

Splurge:

It’s a splurge because I already have it in single issues, but I would really like to have the trade of The Sixth Gun ($19.99). It’s a great story, well done, and the sort of thing I’m likely to re-read, so add that to my list.

Michael May

If I had $15:

Like Graeme and Chris, I’d buy Casanova ($3.99) again to see the new printing. And like Brigid, I’d check out the launch of the new BPRD mini-series ($3.50).

If I had $30:

I’d put back Casanova (trade-waiter) and grab The Sixth Gun ($19.99) instead. I’ve been wanting the collection of Oni’s supernatural Western since the series was first announced. Glad to hear from Brigid that it’s worth the wait.

Splurge:

The definition of “splurge” to me is “something expensive that I don’t really need.” That describes the Doom Patrol: Brotherhood collection ($17.99). I like the Doom Patrol concept, but have never read Keith Giffen’s take on it and have no idea if it’s really my thing. I’m also guessing that the second collection in the series isn’t the best place to start, but curiosity gets the best of me and if had some unspent Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket, I’d check it out.

The Sixth Gun

JK Parkin

If I had $15:

I’d start off with Secret Six #29 ($2.99), which concludes the story that was started in Action Comics, pitting the team against Vandal Savage and Lex Luthor. I’d also grab the second issue of Heroes for Hire, which had a fun start, and the latest Justice League: Generation Lost. That leaves me room for two more $3 titles, so let’s add the last issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger and Thunder Agents #3 … although if I had just 50 more cents I probably would have gone with the other Nick Spencer title this week, Infinite Vacation.

If I had $30:

…which seems like a good place to start. Let’s add in Infinite Vacation #1 ($3.50), as well as the new Daredevil miniseries, Daredevil: Reborn #1 ($3.99). I also like the idea of these cheaper “Must Have” editions that Graeme pointed out, so I’d add in the Wolverine one as well ($4.99). That doesn’t leave me much room, but I’ll throw in the Unwritten #21 ($2.99) and borrow 50 cents from Chris Mautner this week.

Splurge: Although I already have the singles and don’t need the trade myself, I would also recommend the Sixth Gun trade paperback for anyone who hasn’t check it out yet.

Thor: The Mighty Avenger #1

Hello and welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, where the Robot 6 crew talk about the comics and graphic novels that they’ve been enjoying lately.

Today’s guest is Zom from the Mindless Ones blog. To see what Zom and the rest of the Robot 6 team have been reading, click below.

*****

Sean T. Collins

Love and Rockets: New Stories #3

I took last week off from What Are You Reading?, but in my defense, it was for good reason. For starters, I had a computer meltdown and an unrelated blog malfunction that really bollixed up my reading and reviewing schedule. On the positive side of the coin, however, I launched a whole new blog for myself! You can find it at seantcollins.com.

And that’s where you’ll find my latest slate of reviews for my increasingly inaccurately named “LOVE AND ROCKTOBER” project, wherein I’m reading my way through all of Los Bros Hernandez’s Love and Rockets collections.

Love and Rockets: New Stories #3: With Jaime Hernandez’s “Browntown”/”The Love Bunglers” suite, we reach the latest Locas story–the darkest, and one of the best, to date.

Heartbreak Soup: Switching over to Gilbert Hernandez’s end of the series, this is our introduction to the small Central American town of Palomar and its fascinatingly randy inhabitants. Things take a turn for the bleak right at the end.

Human Diastrophism: Beto rains destruction down on the town in the form of a serial killer, an earthquake, a plague of monkeys, a team of hitmen, and some extremely dangerous ideas.

Beyond Palomar: Contains Gilbert’s masterpiece, Poison River, and the more lighthearted but still substantive Love and Rockets X.

I also took a brief break from LOVE AND ROCKTOBER to review Mome Vol. 20: Fall 2010, the strong anniversary volume of the Fantagraphics flagship anthology, which came out this week.

Click the links for full reviews!

Michael May

Birdhouse

I read Vernon White’s Birdhouse this week and enjoyed it for its uniqueness. It’s constructed like a fairy tale – a ruthless king keeps his daughter trapped in the castle until she marries a particular nobleman – but it’s also very current. People wear contemporary clothing, live in modern houses, and (for the most part) hold twenty-first century values. The king’s men don’t carry swords; they wield handguns and rifles. The plot itself also breaks cliche by putting the princess in charge of her own destiny. She needs help to escape, but there’s no one prince that she’s relying on to break her free. Instead, she seeks assistance wherever she can get it, which adds the unfortunate complication of putting innocent people in danger from her father’s agents. It’s a fascinating story and I’m sure I’m going to want to reread it sooner rather than later.

I do have a couple of issues with the book though. Though it’s a fast read, it could have been faster. It’s extremely decompressed to the point of distraction. Dialogue doesn’t always flow smoothly because each speaker gets her own panel to talk in, making the reader pause for an awkward beat between sentences. There could also be a lot more expression in the characters’ faces who are often quite wooden. It’s not that they have NO expression, but they’re limited to two or three emotions in what should have been a powerful, moving story. As it is, it’s interesting, but it had the potential to be even more.

Tim O’Shea

I’m curious to see where Jim McCann’s gonna take the Hawkeye & Mockingbird characters as the Widowmaker miniseries gears up; but before that can happen we had to read the latest issue of Hawkeye & Mockingbird (#6, and now the series is in undefined hiatus). As an old school fanboy, I crave anytime a writer puts Clint Barton and Steve Rogers in the same room; the character’s shared history is rich and McCann captilizes upon those dynamics effectively in this issue.

Superboy

Kudos to my pal Dugan Trodglen for pointing out to me the Jeff Lemire/Sweet Tooth vibe to the layout of Superboy 1. Lemire is writing the series, while Pier Gallo is the artist, but I’m fairly certain Lemire is suggesting some layout advice, judging by the opening sequence and later the one page with six panels wrapping around a circular shot of the Kent homestead. As Lemire notes in his recent piece for DC Source: “I saw how all of the themes that I loved exploring in Essex County and The Nobody could also be present in Superboy…small town life, community , family…it was all there. Only this time instead of filtering it through the metaphor of hockey, I could filter it through the metaphor of the super hero.” I really hope this is the start of a long, successful run for Lemire and Gallo.

A few weeks back I got into a Twitter discussion with my pal Johnny Bacardi’s about The Doom Patrol and he made me want to reconsider the series yet again with this week’s issue 16. What brought me back was Bacardi’s admiration for Keith Giffen’s ability to effectively mesh all the incarnations of the Doom Patrol into this current ongoing. I just had to snag this latest issue after it opened with Ambush Bug doing an informercial featuring Danny the Brick (yes, the one remaining bit of Grant Morrison and Brendan McCarthy’s Danny the Street character). When I was younger, I never got Giffen’s art. There was an ugliness to it that warded me off. Now as I’ve gotten older, I realized my younger self expected all great art to have the clean antispetic nature of John Byrne. Fortunately now I can properly appreciate the gritty nature of Giffen’s art–particularly when inked by Al Milgrom. I agree with Bacardi’s tweet from this week: “Just read DOOM PATROL 16- another excellent issue. Giffen and Milgrom get their Kirby on. I wish more people bought that book.”

Just to shock long-time readers of this column, I actually enjoyed Morrison’s Batman & Robin 16. The nonchalant banter between Batman(s) and Robin, as well as Alfred’s line (acknowledging the return of Wayne): “I presume we have permission to cheer.” provided for some great comedy (as did Gordon’s return to the police station).

If you want to see how the hot dogs get made, or at least good metaphorical hot dog comics be sure to read former Marvel editor Nate Cosby’s tumbler account. He’s doing a multi-part behind the scenes breakdown of comics he helped edit. So far he’s done SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE #5 & AGENTS OF ATLAS #1. The Atlas breakdown is an eye-opener in terms of understanding what a pain in the ass Jeff Parker was to edit. Seriously though, as a longtime Parker fan, it was nice to read about the struggles of getting a series I greatly loved from concept to actual execution. It’s like a DVD commentary track, if read aloud.

Chris Mautner

This week I read Unexplored Worlds, the second collection of pre-Spider-Man comics drawn by Steve Ditko. This handsomely designed volume mainly collects work Ditko did for Charlton, a mix of sci-fi, western and post-code horror stories. Ditko is in fine form here. The early, awkward stuff that graced Vol. 1 is by and large gone; he seems more sure of himself here, full of verve, dramatic angles and odd hand gestures. In some stories, you can see the groundwork being laid down for what was to come in a few years — there’s a sequence where a guy travels to another dimension where you can see the beginnings of Dr. Strange.

But the writing! Oh, gloryoski, it’s absolutely terrible. You can’t even enjoy it on a “so bad it’s good level.” It’s just plain awful. Editor Blake Bell all but admits as much in his introduction, where he notes that the stories don’t come to a conclusion so much as stop. It’s as though the writer suddenly realized “Whoops, I’m on the last page … Ok, the evil alien and the heroic space pilot shake hands and become friends. The end.” That actually happens more than once. In fact, there’s a bunch of sci-fi stories in the middle of the book that are almost identical in their cookie-cutter nature. Two of them actually use a joke about honeymooning at Niagra Falls as a rim-shot close out.

So, ultimately, it’s a book really best enjoyed by serious Ditko/Golden Age fans. All other comers will only be irritated by the material Ditko talents had to work with. No doubt he was too.

Brigid Alverson

Sasameke

Sasameke is a soccer manga with an unusual look: It’s drawn in a stylish, linear style with very little toning and big areas of white. The effect is enhanced by the large-scale format that Yen Press has chosen for it; the big pages show off the are nicely. The setup is standard-issue manga: Hotshot soccer player goes to train in Italy but comes back three years later with his tail between his legs, having failed at the sport. His companions include a sweet girl, a badass girl, and an alpha male who is the star of the soccer team. A nice sense of humor and fluid art keep this from becoming just another shonen manga, and the hefty volume (over 400 pages) should allow plenty of room for the story to develop.

It’s been a very manga week, as I am also reading Tokyopop’s How to Draw Shoujo Manga book. Stop yawning! It’s true that most HTDSM books consist of page after page of character designs — blond schoolgirl, dark-haired schoolgirl, blond hot guy, dark-haired hot guy with glasses — but this was written by the editors at Hakusensha, which publishes several manga magazines, and it’s the most nuts-and-bolts art instruction book I have ever seen. It’s really a manual for people who want to enter Hakusensha’s manga competitions, and it covers everything from the correct paper size for manga submissions to the importance of thumbnailing the whole story before starting to draw it. It’s not big and glossy and colorful, but it’s actually quite a good art instruction book, and an interesting read as well for the fan who wants to know how the sausages are made.

Zom

It’s hardly a secret that the Mindless Ones have a sweaty obsession with Grant Morrison so I won’t dwell on Return of Bruce Wayne or Batman and Robin. They’re not perfect, but for my money they’re the most ambitious superhero books on the racks, in part because they trade in that rarest of fictional commodities: atmosphere. I’m not going to spend too much time on Bullet Proof Coffin either as Sean Witzke covered it on this column a couple of weeks ago, except to say that it’s as much a demented psychological thriller as it is a deconstruction of the genre and an autopsy of fan obsession. I know there are readers who don’t like going to those places, but they’re missing out on some of the best comic art I’ve seen this decade. Matt Seneca talks on his latest podcast about the nineties being a golden age for “acid house” superheroes, a kind of hallucinogenic What If for the genre – Bullet Proof Coffin is a shambling resurrection of that sort of thing, and a very welcome one. I’m also mindful that I should probably keep my mouth shut about Orc Stain, again covered by Sean, a comic that reads like throbbing organic graffiti, and tragically shifts criminally low numbers. If H.R. Geiger had a sense of humour, a passion for colour and wasn’t completely mental he might produce comics like James Stokoe’s. Or maybe not. But your dad’s Fantasy Orc Stain ain’t.

POWR MASTRS

Talking of strangely compelling comics I’ve been rereading C.F’s POWR MASTRS in preparation for the release of the third volume later this month. It’s a mesmerising series that contrary to what you might have heard isn’t a) drawn by an exceptionally talented 5-year-old, or b) merely an exercise in dry formalism. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with formalism per se, formal experimentation for its own sake has it’s pleasures, but to describe POWR MASTRS in that way would be inaccurate, although it would be equally inaccurate to suggest that it isn’t very arty comics. In my view the book’s minimalist, naïve style isn’t designed to distance the reader from the work in an effort to foreground the craft, but to impart a vibrant creative energy similar to the sort of thing Frank Miller was going for in the Dark Knight Strikes Again. C.F. goes much further than Miller, the entire story has a dreamlike quality, albeit one grounded by internal logic. Ostensibly a questing narrative stocked with genre archetypes, POWR MASTRS is if anything further away from traditional Sci-Fi than Orc Stain is from Middle Earth. C.F. is committed to that most traditional of genre concerns, world building, but the world he’s building has much more in common with the surreal fantasy landscapes of our childhood imaginations than it does with most contemporary genre efforts. Which isn’t to say that the comic is childish, far from it, just that it’s more directly in touch with the weird qualities of unexpurgated imagination, and consequently all the more fascinating and haunting because of it.

In other books, I’m really enjoying Thor: The Mighty Avenger. You wouldn’t know it to look at the blog, but like most of my fellow Mindless Ones I tend to find superhero comics rather dull. Not because I’m not a fan of the genre, quite the opposite, it’s precisely because I have such high hopes for superhero books that most titles leave me cold. On the face of it then it might seem strange that I would champion a comic which some might be tempted to describe as conventional, but there’s an uncommon elegance to writer Roger Langridge and artist Chris Samnee’s efforts that I find immersive in the slack jawed sense of the word. The book works a gentle magic: the art is accurate and beautiful without being ostentatious, and the writing deftly combines familiar tropes from outside the genre – fish out of water, odd couple, love triangle, journey home – with more traditional superhero genre fair. The aforementioned gentleness permeates the refreshingly continuity light plot, which while focussed and economical lacks the brow beating insistence of most contemporary entertainments, so much so that the quiet wonder of Samnee’s rainbow bridge seems curiously emblematic of the whole venture: magical, meandering and understated.

New Teen Titans #13

Many times we superhero fans talk about the “need” to read certain prior issues and/or storylines. Blah blah blah, every issue is someone’s first, etc.

Well, I’m here to tell you … if you’re a fan of Silver Age DC, or of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s New Teen Titans, and especially if you’re a fan of NTT‘s Garfield Logan, you need to read the original Doom Patrol. Having just finished Showcase Presents The Doom Patrol Volume 2, which reprints the back half of the DP’s original series, I can say honestly that my eyes have been opened. I never really “got” the appeal of the Doom Patrol before I read this collection — but I get it now.

What’s more, those old stories shed new light not just on what the DP meant to its fans, but on what Wolfman and Pérez were trying to do with Titans.

SPOILERS FOLLOW for some decades-old stories …

* * *

Before we begin in earnest, I have to say one thing about Doom Patrol’s dialogue: it has not aged particularly well. It tries desperately to be hip, and it does have a certain ding-dong-daddy-o rhythm, but it could make Bob Haney’s Teen Titans sound like David Mamet. Flipping randomly through SPDPV2, I find Robotman exclaiming

Hold it, Brain-baby! I understand you were responsible for creating this ape genius — so [lifting Monsieur Mallah over his head] here’s a Father’s Day present for you! Catch!

Vernacular aside, though, I was impressed with writer Arnold Drake’s ambition. Silver Age DC superhero books mostly deserve their reputation for standalone stories which, in comparison with their Marvel contemporaries, tend to be rather bland. Issue #110 (cover-dated March 1967), from which came the aforementioned bit of dialogue, would have shared newsstands with (among others) a Gardner Fox/Sheldon Moldoff Penguin story in Batman #190, a John Broome/Carmine Infantino Green Lantern team-up in Flash #168, Leo Dorfman and Pete Costanza’s “Jimmy Olsen’s Weirdo Wedding” in Jimmy Olsen #100, and Bob Haney and Irv Novick’s “A Killer Called Honey Bun” in Teen Titans #8.  Meanwhile, Marvel was offering a Stan Lee/John Romita Vulture/Kraven team-up in Amazing Spider-Man #49, Lee/Kirby introducing Blastaar in Fantastic Four #63, more Lee/Kirby with “the Growing Man” in Thor #140, and a Hercules/Sub-Mariner guest-shot in Roy Thomas and Don Heck’s Avengers #40.

And Doom Patrol looked more like a staid DC book than a swingin’ sample of House of Ideas “Pop Art” — but on the inside, it was different. While there were standalone stories and a nominal amount of two-parters, Drake connected the issues with continuing subplots, fleshed out the characters’ histories with backup features, and combined everything into a more complex narrative. For example, over the course of the series, Rita “Elasti-Girl” Farr was romanced by billionaire and part-time superhero Steve “Mento” Dayton. The two ended up not only married, but the adoptive parents of young master Logan. None of this comes particularly easily, especially Gar’s adoption, but neither is it all angst. The B-plot of Doom Patrol #120 is a lighthearted romp showing the family getting into trouble while out on the town.

Nevertheless, in hindsight DP #120 is awfully bittersweet, because issue #121 closes out the series quite dramatically. The bare bones of this issue are probably familiar to most DC fans: as editor Murray Boltinoff* and artist Bruno Premiani break the fourth wall to argue against Doom Patrol’s cancellation, the team sacrifices itself to save the tiny fishing village of Codsville, Maine. In the context of the series, though, Doom Patrol #121 caps a star-crossed love story, between Niles Caulder (the DP’s “Chief”) and the team’s arch-foe Madame Rouge.

Seems that Mme. Rouge was only evil because the Brain and Monsieur Mallah got to her first and performed brain surgery to amp up her bad side. Discovering this — and acting in no small part on their shared attraction — the Chief had secretly administered long-distance corrective treatments. Before long, she was living at Doom Patrol headquarters, but she had become her old allies’ number-one target. Indeed, issue #119′s apparently-unrelated story (involving a “guru” brainwashing the DP) turned out to be a ploy to re-evil-ize Madame Rouge. This time, though, pulling the strings was Rouge herself. In a triumphant transmission to the Doom Patrol, she declared “I am my own master now! I weel gather my own forces! Zen our march begins! And ze first target is [the Chief]!”

“But I thought she liked the Chief!” pondered Robotman.

“She loved him, dope!” explained Elasti-Girl. “Once in her whole evil life, she loved someone!”

“And now,” continued Negative Man, “she wants to kill him for uncovering her weak spot!”

It took a couple of issues, but she made good in DP #121. The issue is one high-pressure event after another, starting with Rouge’s murder of the Brain and Monsieur Mallah. When she strafes Doom Patrol headquarters with napalm-spewing helicopters, it forces the government to evacuate the team, and thereby avoid further damage to innocent bystanders. The Patrol’s departure is greeted with jeering hecklers, taunting the heroes for retreating; but the group merely relocates to a heavily-fortified Caribbean island (perhaps Oolong’s inspiration?). They’re barely off their plane, however, when Nazi frogmen (working for Rouge’s ally Captain Zahl) blow it up and storm the island. Zahl’s submarine is equipped with special weapons which immobilize our heroes, and Zahl himself broadcasts their putative humiliation to the world.

Zahl offers the Doom Patrol a choice: save themselves and he’ll destroy Codsville, Maine; or sacrifice themselves for Codsville’s fourteen fishermen. Zahl and Rouge (who really doesn’t want Caulder dead) are counting on the average person’s innate selfishness to make the choice for the Patrollers — but of course, the Doom Patrol would rather sacrifice themselves than be responsible for the deaths of innocents. The rest is tragic superhero history: Caulder’s island is destroyed and the Doom Patrol with it. The final pages of DP #121 feature Steve Dayton vowing to hunt down Rouge, Zahl, and anyone who helped kill his wife and her friends; and the issue closes with Boltinoff challenging Doom Patrol’s readers to work a “miracle.”

Now, I knew going into these Doom Patrol reprints that the original series would not end well. Naturally, that knowledge was itself mitigated by the team’s various revivals. Regardless, I was still moved by the grim inevitability of DP #121′s ending. Throughout the series, Drake and Premiani put the Doom Patrol through the wringer on a regular basis. Much of DP #121 was no different. This time, though, I knew the Doom Patrol wasn’t getting out alive; and I appreciated how its original fans must have reacted to the series’ end.

I was also pleasantly surprised at how directly New Teen Titans picked up from the end of DP #121. With Gar Logan a main cast member, Steve Dayton and (the rebuilt) Robotman made occasional appearances, and Wolfman and Pérez had revealed that Dayton and Robotman hadn’t stopped looking for the Doom Patrol’s murderers. The Titans pick up the search (on behalf of a wounded Gar) in November 1981′s issue #13, with Robin, Cyborg, and Kid Flash having followed Robotman’s trail to Zahl’s base in Africa. Since it includes two sidekicks who knew the Doom Patrol personally, as well as a “robotman” who has become one of Gar’s best friends, this group of Titans is especially significant. When Kid Flash finds (as Wolfman describes him) a “torn and mangled” Robotman, strung up unconscious with a “Trespassers Will Be Executed!” sign around his neck, it shakes the speedster to his core.

More shaken, though, is Gar himself. Having just been brought back from pretty-much-dead by Paradise Island’s finest science, and being confronted with the thought of bringing his friends’ (and stepmother’s) killers to justice, Gar turns deadly serious, eventually teaming up with the also-not-dead Brain, Monsieur Mallah, and a new Brotherhood of Evil, all of whom want to kill Rouge and Zahl. I used to think Gar’s rage was somewhat forced, like Wolfman and Pérez felt they needed to do something a little different with the character. Now that I’ve seen him as a Doom Patroller, though, Gar’s anger is more understandable, as the product of years of repression under a brash façade. The Doom Patrol’s demise not only deprived Gar of friends and family (again), it alienated his stepfather from him.

Still, New Teen Titans #13-15 stands on its own. It’s a neat, compact arc with epic aspirations, involving two sets of super-foes, a rogue state, a flying city, a (rather far-fetched) “de-evolution chamber” — which, actually, wouldn’t have been out of place in Drake and Premiani’s Doom Patrol — and, as usual, some nifty George Pérez artwork. The fact that it seeks to enlighten readers about one of DC’s cult classics might seem at first like nostalgia for its own sake.

However, in retrospect, I can see a lot of Drake’s Doom Patrol in Wolfman’s Titans. For one thing, with regard to Gar’s constant wisecracking, I never realized how close Wolfman came to Drake’s dialogue.** (I might have had a problem with it, but it was best-suited to Gar.)  More to the point, though, it’s no accident that Wolfman made Gar best friends with the Titans’ “robotman” (not least because Gar made the connection himself more than once). I used to think that Wolfman’s work on Fantastic Four, and specifically the Ben/Johnny relationship, informed Vic and Gar’s relationship; but now I wonder how much Wolfman’s affection for Doom Patrol’s “freaks” influenced how he wrote the sometimes-outcast FF. I daresay there’s as much Arnold Drake as there is Ben Grimm in Victor Stone’s early adventures.

In “death,” of course, Doom Patrol became a touchstone for DC’s superhero line. The current Legacies miniseries uses the DP’s sacrifice to divide the lighthearted Silver Age of the ‘60s from the darker days of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Certainly the Doom Patrol’s demise sent a clear signal to DC’s readers that “dead means dead,” because it took almost ten years to create a new team (and revive Robotman and Negative Man’s energy being in the process). Today, death is a cliché, DC’s attempts to the contrary notwithstanding — but (at the risk of invoking another cliché) what made the Doom Patrol’s deaths meaningful was the way they lived their lives. At the end of New Teen Titans #15, Rouge and Zahl are dead, and the Titans’ temporary alliance with the Brotherhood of Evil is over. The Brain gloats to Gar that his enemies’ end was “glorious … so glorious.”

Gar replies, at the start of one of Wolfman’s typically James T. Kirk-esque speeches, “Glorious? Y’know, Brain, I guess that’s what separates the good guys from the bad guys. You actually believe killing accomplishes something positive.” Later, tearfully reunited with Dayton, Gar continues, “… I once thought when this ended, it would end all my memories of the Doom Patrol.  But it doesn’t, you know. I think without the hate clouding my mind — that they’re brighter in my heart than ever.”

I’m glad at last that I can appreciate Gar’s (and Marv Wolfman’s) memories more fully.

* * *

* [According to this Amazing Heroes article, “Drake had included himself in the script, but, according to Drake, DC Publisher Irwin Donenfeld ordered him removed from the story because Drake had left to work for Marvel after a dispute over his page rate with Donenfeld.”]

** [Wolfman also used a lot of Gar’s Doom Patrol backstory, including his evil guardian Galtry and his high-school sweetheart Jillian, in the Tales of the New Teen Titans issue which expanded on Gar’s origins.]

Starman Omnibus

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading? Today’s special guest is STORM, who works at San Francisco’s Isotope Comics, is the creator of Princess Witch Boy (the second issue of which will be available at APE this year), reads Heroic Tarot with X-Men cards and is a member of Writers Old Fashioned.

To see what STORM and the Robot 6 crew are reading this week, read on …

*****

Tim O’Shea

Any comic that sports Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez inked by Dave Gibbons warrants first mention in my stack of reads for the week. I’m starting to doubt I will stick around for all 10 issues in the Len Wein-written miniseries, but issue 4 of Legacies does probably sport my favorite page so far. Imagine a page in which Garcia-Lopez first 30+ villains
(some of which despite reading DC Comics since the late 1970s I cannot ID). I’ve never been a big reader of DC’s war comics, but I have to admit I got sucked into the “where are they now/character reunion” setting of a 1976 Easy Company gathering. I found the back-up story with Joe Kubert art to be far more engaging than the main tale.

Thunderbolts #147

It stinks that two Jeff Parker books come out in the same week, because it restricts the number of times I can praise the writer in a month. This month marks the second to last issue of ATLAS I get to enjoy–and Parker’s throwing a few surprises in the mix. I have to admit I have not taken the time to appreciate Gabriel Hardman’s striking sense of layout–until this issue. Thunderbolts 147 blindsided me with some unexpectedly great all-out brawl scenes. Anytime Luke Cage and Purple Man end up in the same room, John Walker/U.S. Agent’s always been a pretty lame character over the years (read his Wikipedia entry and I think you’ll agree) but I think Parker has perfectly cast Walker as the warden of the Raft, allowing him to narrate this issue in particular.

Request to CBGB editor Ian Brill, I’m loving issue 2 of CBGB as much as the first one, but given that I’m not well-versed in CBGB history–I don’t recognize all the musicians. Sure I recognize the Ramones and Blondie, but I’m really dying to know who the guy performer in a tutu was. Any chance for some footnotes, Ian, or is that intentional for some reason? I don’t know if Scissor Sisters’ Ana Matronic has an interest in writing more stories for this project, but I hope she does as I enjoyed her debut.

Pouring through the used copy of Essential Avengers 4 that I recently picked up, even though I’ve read many of these tales in different 1970s reprints over the years I still had a blast. Getting to see the artists of this period (Avengers 69-97) you are treated to alternating runs of the Buscema brothers (Sal and John) as well as a few issues by Neal Adams. Seeing these issues in black and white allows me to appreciate the art on another level. John Buscema may have been partial to non-superhero stuff, but damn was he good. Also I’ve always been a fan of the Vision and this run of issues offers a lot of him–including the wacky premiere of his rarely used synthetic mask (aka human disguise) in issue 79. Reading the Thomas/Adams stories, I find myself wondering why Adams and Thomas never re-teamed again more recently for a limited series at Marvel or DC. I imagine it may be that Adams prefers to write and draw his own stories, but who knows.

Sean T. Collins

This week I took a look at a couple of short story collections from the small press and a pamphlet with a sordid past. Click the links for full reviews…

Curio Cabinet

Curio Cabinet by John Brodowski: A compellingly creepy blend of the intimate and the epic, the horrific and the sublime.

The Airy Tales by Olga Volozova: I’m not sold on the shaky, overly ethereal art here, but these made-up fairy tales capture the weirdo illogic of the stories you remember from childhood.

Al Burian Goes to Hell by Al Burian: Student work by a longtime zine-maker gets unceremoniously and unauthorizedly re-released by his unscrupulous former publisher. The weird story behind the book is a lot more interesting than the book itself.

Tom Bondurant

Like Tim, I enjoyed the backup story in DC Legacies more than the feature, and the feature was pretty good on its own. However, the backup highlights the main problem with an official retelling of DC-Earth’s most current history — namely, the degree to which the story is faithful to what “really happened.” Personally, I thought the final fate of Sgt. Frank Rock was a clever way to appease both those who prefer he died in battle and those who liked his later superhero-universe appearances. The “Rock of Easy Company” did die by the last bullet fired in World War II, and his son went on to interact with Superman et al. In fact, my continuity-oriented concerns with the story had to do more with seeing the Losers as old veterans, because they were killed off twice in the summer of 1985. Crisis On Infinite Earths did it with shadow-demons in war-torn Markovia, and the more traditional Losers Special revealed their (apparently post-Crisis) battlefield deaths. Wikipedia says Gunner and Sarge were brought into the present in Birds of Prey, but that would still be after Legacies’ Bicentennial reunion.

Still, all that is beside the point to a great extent, because DC can use about half-a-dozen cosmic events to claim that history was reordered thusly. What matters is the story, not the continuity, and this was a nice little vignette. Indeed, one of Legacies‘ larger goals has to be the establishment of an overall theme for DC’s super-characters, and as long as it hits the high points I think it can take a mulligan or two on the fringes.

I’ve been big into the phone books again — I read the first few issues of Essential Captain America Vol. 5, just to see how the book got from the Falcon/Red Skull subplot to Jack Kirby’s last hurrah; and it was OK, nothing special. I have all the Kirby issues in color, so I can wait on Vol. 6. I’ve also been reading Essential Defenders Vol. 5, featuring J.M. DeMatteis/Don Perlin stories from the early ’80s. Mostly these are standalone issues or short arcs featuring a classic team of Dr. Strange, Nighthawk, Valkyrie, Son Of Satan, and occasionally the Hulk and/or Namor. Again, nothing special, although I did like issue #92′s “Eternity … Humanity … Oblivion!”

Now I’m going back and forth between Essential Defenders and Showcase Presents The Doom Patrol Vol. 2. So far the latter is very deeply invested — almost painfully so — in “hip lingo” from the mid-to-late ’60s. I remember some of that from Vol. 1, but I don’t remember it being that bad. I expect the dialogue will improve before too long, because (as Legacies reminds us) the book won’t exactly have a happy ending….

STORM

MEATCAKE COMPILATION by Dame Darcy (Fantagraphics)

Meatcake Compilation

Dame Darcy is an enchantress. Whether she is singing sea shanties in her band (Death by Doll) or making handmade dolls, this amazing comics creator weaves a magick spell on you! Nowhere does she do this better than in her amazing creator-owned comic book Meatcake!

Meatcake is a tour de force showcasing the most primal of passions! It is an issue of Creepy edited by Edward Gorey! It is a Gothic soap opera as written by Victorian lolitas! It is a celebration of love and hubris, beauty and decay! There is no other comic in the world that offers a titillating parade of mermaids, ghosts, sailors, sirens, faeries, witches and wolfmen in intriguing and compromising situations! You will be dazzled, you will be entertained, but above all, you will be enchanted!

The Meatcake Compilation features selected stories from Meatcake issues #1 through #11.

STAR WARS: LEGACY by John Ostrander and Jan Duursema (Dark Horse)

I have a healthy amount of love for the Star Wars franchise (meaning I like the movies with which I grew up) and I think it’s great that there’s a title out there for almost everyone (I know quite a few 7 year olds who think that Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures is the coolest thing ever), but none of them grabbed me until this one. The reason for this sudden selective Star Wars obsession? The art of Jan Duursema. Two years ago, I glimpsed an image of Cade Skywalker on the cover of Star Wars: Legacy and took it home. After devouring that issue, and falling in love with yet another anti-hero, I searched out back issues that week.

Star Wars: Legacy gave me a universe with which I was already comfortable and pushed it 125 years into the future. The story (plotted by both John Ostrander and Duursema, with script by Ostrander) was fresh and I grew to know and love the characters and political intrigues as much as the art. However, if an issue was without Duursema’s pencils, my enjoyment diminished greatly.

Star Wars: Legacy ended last week with issue #50. It was a bittersweet issue because the cancellation came rather abruptly and more than a few plotlines were left dangling. My sadness was somewhat alleviated by the news in the letter columns of a new six-issue series titled War which will continue where Legacy left off, but I need to know if John Ostrander and Jan Durrsema will be a part of it before I get too excited. At any rate, I recommend checking out the trades of this fantastic series.

AVENGERS ACADEMY by Christos Gage and Mike McKone (Marvel)

Avengers Academy

This book is getting overlooked in the sudden onslaught of new Avengers titles and it deserves more attention than it has been getting. When I first heard about the concept I was intrigued. Sure, a training program by “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” for upcoming superheroes sounded cool, but what about the Young Avengers, New Warriors, Young Allies or all those kids that were in the Initiative? Why weren’t they being used? Why did we need a bunch of new characters? And seriously, what was up with their names? Hazmat? Mettle? This is a joke, right? Mostly, I was just upset that all the new kids I had just gotten to know in Avengers: The Initiative were being scuttled.

Well, after three issues I can assure you that the Powers That Be knew what they were doing. This book is a gem. Thanks to the deft writing of Christos Gage (whose Avengers: The Initiative was quite the pleasure to read) and the stunning artwork of Mike McKone, I am happy to say that Avengers Academy is an entertaining and enticing read.

Thanks to rotating narrators each issue, I have been getting to know the new characters and Gage has been winning me over with their respective challenges and perspectives. Gage’s decision to combine established heroes with new characters seems similar to how George Pérez and Marv Wolfman approached working on New Teen Titans in 1980. While Tigra, Quicksilver, the Wasp (Hank Pym), Speedball and Justice don’t have quite the cachet that Robin, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash had, they certainly have enough years of continuity between them to mine for future stories. In particular, Quicksilver has already become morally compromised to the wiles of one of his students.

Marvel comics have always explored the gray area between good and evil and Avengers Academy is receiving the full inheritance of that tradition. Now if only former guidance counselor Trauma could show up as a series regular. Gage, you hear me? Make it so!

STARMAN OMNIBUS VOLUMES 1 – 4 by James Robinson and Tony Harris (DC)

Call me late to the party if you must, but I never read Starman in single issues. There were a few times I picked it up out of curiosity (like the issues where the Mist’s daughter hunted down random members of Justice League Europe and when the Will Payton Starman returned) but I never had a chance to read the full tapestry of Starman until now.

What a great yarn by James Robinson and what beautifully rich artwork by Tony Harris! I am awestruck by the complexities that Robinson manages to give each character, especially with such a large cast. Everyone gets a chance to shine in Starman (That was an accidental pun, but now that I’ve caught it, I’m leaving it). One would expect that a story that weaves together aspects of every age of comics together in one telling would, by nature of the beast, collapse in upon itself. However, one would be wrong.

Yes, this is a superhero book. There is punching and fighting and elements of the supernatural and pseudo-science. You can just as easily learn about the past and present of the DC Universe by reading this book as you can about analyzing the relationships between fathers and sons. However, at its essence, Starman is an exploration of human choices, an investigation into free will and destiny, and a celebration of life from generation to generation. Kudos to DC for presenting this modern day classic in such handsomely vibrant volumes. They make reading this masterpiece all the more enjoyable.

Doom Patrol #121

(This starts out cynical, but it gets better.)

DC’s superhero line is essentially an intellectual-property farm. Every new issue cements the company’s hold on its existing characters and/or introduces new characters for future exploitation. If, by some chance, a particular story turns out to be Art, so much the better. The important thing is to maintain those property rights.

Accordingly, it’s rare that a character is “retired,” a la Jack “Starman” Knight or Tommy “Hitman” Monaghan, when his story has reached a stopping point. A little while back I wrote that maybe the New Teen Titans had reached their own peak at the end of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s original run. Originally I wanted to revisit that, and list a few more titles which perhaps might have benefited from similar retirements.  Let’s do that, at least briefly….

High on my list was DC’s 1986 Captain Atom relaunch, written by Cary Bates and Greg Weisman and pencilled by Pat Broderick. This version boasted a nifty high concept: framed for treason and blasted 18 years into the future, Cap finds his worst enemy has become both his boss and his kids’ beloved stepfather. In fact, most of the world thought Nathaniel Adam had died in disgrace, so he was blackmailed into becoming both Air Force intelligence agent Cameron Scott and the latest all-American superhero. Accordingly, Captain Atom combined spy-flavored superheroics with multiple levels of intrigue, and for fifty issues it was pretty fun stuff.

However, Bates, Weisman, and Broderick’s successor Rafael Kayanan were all gone after issue #50, and the book was canceled with #57. If that’s where Cap’s story had ended, that would have been fine … but as most of you probably know, Captain Atom was supposed to become Monarch, the villain of 1991′s Armageddon 2001 crossover event. I’m glad that didn’t happen, because I like Cap as a character; but this is part of the reason I say DC might have left well enough alone after issue #50.

Following 1991′s Armageddon: The Alien Agenda miniseries, in which Cap fought the “real” Monarch, Cap became a semi-regular Justice Leaguer, splitting off eventually to form the much-mocked Extreme Justice. Several years and a handful of guest appearances later, he sacrificed himself to save the Earth in the first arc of Superman/Batman. Yadda yadda yadda, this blasted him into the WildStorm universe, he learned he was really Monarch all along, he came back, now he’s in Justice League: Generation Lost.

And I still like him as a character. I even bought that WildStorm miniseries. I think that when done right, he is a very smart, down-to-earth guy and a good reader-identification character. Nevertheless, much of what made those fifty issues of Captain Atom interesting has been rendered moot by that mega-story’s resolution. (Indeed, the short-lived Breach series was apparently a stealth revamp of Captain Atom, so much so that Infinite Crisis revealed that Breach himself would have been one of Cap’s multiversal counterparts.) Now Cap is a much more generic superhero, because by and large DC hasn’t found any new hook upon which to hang him. In hindsight, retirement might have suited him better.

That said, I do think that an espionage-oriented writer like Greg Rucka or Ed Brubaker could do wonders with Cap even under his current status quo. Rucka’s recent stint co-writing Cap’s Action Comics co-feature wasn’t really an indication of his fit for the character.

And that, in turn, reveals my own reluctance to let a favorite character fade away. Another title on my list was Doom Patrol, which I first knew as a title which ended with its stars martyred. For most of the 1970s and ‘80s, the original Doom Patrol was defined by its sacrifice, such that a Wolfman/Pérez tribute story in New Teen Titans featured the late Patrollers only as memories. Even after the New Doom Patrol debuted in 1977′s Showcase #94, they only had a few more guest appearances (1978 and 1983 Supergirl stories, a 1982 Superman team-up, 1985′s Crisis On Infinite Earths) over the next ten years. 1987′s Doom Patrol vol. 2 lasted 18 issues on the newsstand before being “canceled” (again, with the deaths or “forced retirements” of most members) in favor of a switch in both format and marketplace.

Therefore, I was going to make the case that the original Doom Patrol had been satisfactorily retired via their 1968 sacrifice … but I would have had to distinguish the original DP from Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s no-less-entertaining version which started in vol. 2′s issue #19. I would also have had to discount Keith Giffen and Matthew Clark’s work on the current Volume 4. Although I like it a lot, it’s basically the original four Patrollers plus, among others, a couple of Morrison and Case’s characters. Saying that DC shouldn’t have brought back Rita, Larry, and the Chief would have deprived me of some mighty fine comics, past and present.

Similarly — and speaking of Rucka — at first I wasn’t convinced that his work on Gotham Central flowed that smoothly into making two of its stars into superheroes. Both Reneé Montoya and Crispus Allen are in demonstrably different places today. Still, for the most part Rucka has guided both characters into new roles, and I think that has helped ease my skepticism. I am glad that Rucka and co-writer Eric Trautmann were able to bring their Checkmate characters to a nice stopping point (I didn’t read the Bruce Jones issues), and I’m glad that DC has (mostly) gone back to them when it’s subsequently needed Checkmate.

Thus, part of me wants to establish a hard and fast rule that some books belong to some creators, regardless of work-for-hire or the conventions of a shared superhero universe. I don’t want to say “only Gail Simone should write Birds Of Prey,” because for many years it was written by Chuck Dixon, and it’s now prepping for an arc by John Ostrander [see sheepish comment below]. (Justice Society and Teen Titans do seem to have floundered since Geoff Johns left….)

Again, though, the Doom Patrol shows us that there are ways to bring one era to a close without salting the earth for the next creative team. The Morrison/Case run was successful not just for its unique characters and plots, but because it was able to take a fresh look at the original team’s “freakish” nature. Odds are it is not enough simply to ape a previous creative team’s work. For a revival to be worthwhile, it needs to be justifiably different. There are exceptions — institutions like Checkmate, the GCPD, and the Suicide Squad, are part of the structure of the DC superhero universe, and are defined at least in part by their particular functions — but even those still leave room for new interpretations and new perspectives.

Finally, I cannot help but note the irony that for some of the titles and characters I’ve talked about, including Captain Atom, The Question, and Checkmate, their second incarnations are really my main reference points. The shared superhero universe can abuse its characters, but it can also offer them new opportunities and the chance to honor their pasts by building constructively on them. (Of course DC claims it does this unfailingly.) The question, as always, is one of proper stewardship; and whether DC will choose cultivation or exploitation.

Strange Sports Stories #4

Every March, college basketball fans carefully study the NCAA brackets to see which teams have the best chance of making the Final Four. Every year, certain teams seem like locks, and this year won’t be much different. The high seeds will include perennial powerhouses like Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, and Duke on the men’s side; and Connecticut and Tennessee on the women’s. The lowest seeds are, inevitably, those teams who are satisfied just to be included (fingers crossed for William & Mary — they’re so close!). That leaves the vast middle populated by a number of familiar names: Old Dominion, Winthrop, San Diego State, Siena, et al. You’re never surprised to see them, but they don’t make it every year. However, every now and then one of these teams becomes more of a fixture; and nowadays fans would probably be surprised if Gonzaga or Butler failed to make the tournament.

Naturally, comparing DC’s superhero line to the field of 65 isn’t especially precise; but there is the notion that a title or character can shake off that Cinderella status and become a perennial player in the Big Dance. DC has been working pretty steadily towards making its characters more “familiar” to the general public, and to a certain extent that means putting familiar favorites in its lineup. With that in mind, let’s examine the staying power of some venerable DC books and separate some pretenders from contenders.

* * *

Justice Society of America is a good example. For a little over ten years, the JSA appeared in All Star Comics #s 3-57 (Winter 1940-February/March 1951), until it fell victim to superhero comics’ first great extinction. Over the next twelve years, though, the JSA went from being a relic of the Golden Age to an annual Silver Age tradition. Brought back in the pages of The Flash #137 (June 1963), the JSA first teamed up with their Earth-One counterparts two months later, in Justice League of America #21 (August 1963). The team-ups continued through 1985, and gave the Justice Society annual exposure.

No doubt this contributed to the JSA’s own mid-‘70s feature, which headlined a revived All Star Comics. Picking up with issue #58 (January/February 1976), it lasted until issue #74 (September/October 1978). From there the JSA moved into Adventure Comics, albeit for only six issues (#s 461-66, January/February 1979-November/December 1979).

JSA #1, August 1999

Nevertheless, DC wasn’t done with the Justice Society. A little less than two years later (cover date September 1981) it launched the WWII-era All Star Squadron. A-SS wasn’t quite a JSA title, although many JSAers appeared in it; but it’s probably close enough for our purposes. Furthermore, it spun off Infinity, Inc., a team of present-day next-generation superheroes. All Star Squadron lasted 67 issues (until March 1987) and Infinity lasted 53 (March 1984-August 1988). Because the reality-altering Crisis On Infinite Earths hit the Earth-2 books pretty much where they lived, All Star Squadron was followed by the new-continuity-friendly Young All-Stars. It ran 31 issues (June 1987-November 1989).

By this time, though, DC basically was done with the Justice Society. Indeed, in 1986 it published the Last Days Of The Justice Society Special, in which most of the familiar JSAers were packed off to another dimension. They’d never die, but they also wouldn’t be interacting with the rest of DC-Earth. Thus, when Infinity stopped chronicling the youngsters in 1988, and Young All-Stars wrapped up its wartime tales in 1989, the prospects of a Justice Society revival looked dim.

Well, maybe not. 1991′s retro-styled Justice Society of America miniseries (eight issues, April 1991-November 1991) led to a short-lived ongoing series, set in the present day (ten issues, August 1992-May 1993). Unfortunately, September 1994′s Zero Hour killed off many of the original JSAers, apparently closing the book on the original super-team.

Again, though, not so fast — because another legacy of Zero Hour was James Robinson and Tony Harris’ popular Starman series, whose frequent references to the Golden Age arguably laid the groundwork for the Justice Society’s return. After the surviving JSAers teamed up with the Justice League (JLA #28-31, April-July 1999), the new team began coming together in August 1999′s JSA Secret Files and JSA #1. Written initially by James Robinson and David Goyer, then-newcomer Geoff Johns took over early on and stayed with JSA pretty much through the end of its initial run (issues #1-87, August 1999-September 2006). The book went on a brief Infinite Crisis-related hiatus before its relaunch as the current Justice Society of America (February 2007). These titles have also produced spinoffs, namely JSA Classified (issues #1-39, September 2005-August 2008) and the current JSA All-Stars (February 2010-present).

Admittedly, sales of Justice Society have slipped significantly since Johns left, such that some now wonder why DC is publishing a second JSA title. Still, the Justice Society now enjoys over ten years of fairly-continuous publication. While that’s something it’s never before had, the earlier 1976-89 period of revivals, anthology features, and alternate takes shows a similar reader interest.

Teen Titans Year One #3

Compare the JSA’s history with that of the Teen Titans, another team book with Silver Age Justice League connections. It too had a brief 1970s revival, but after the runaway success of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s New Teen Titans in the early 1980s, its publication history has been a lot less fragmented. The original run ended after fifteen years (and two volumes) with New Titans #130, December 1995. From there an entirely new group of Teen Titans had the spotlight for two years (#s 1-24, October 1996-September 1998), but many of them were brought into the larger Titans fold by Devin Grayson and Phil Jiminez’ 1998 JLA/Titans miniseries (December 1998-January 1999). Around that time, the Titans books essentially split along generational lines, with the fourth-generation sidekicks forming Young Justice (56 issues, September 1998-May 2003) and the older folks going into an adjectiveless Titans series (50 issues, March 1999-April 2003). These books were then relaunched in 2003, with most of Young Justice (and some older Titans) going into the current Teen Titans series, and a few of the older Titans forming a new group of Outsiders. To me, the current Titans book has basically taken the place of that Outsiders title (although there’s now another Outsiders, to confuse the issue further) — but with most of the Titans now in the Justice League, Titans itself is about to have a radical makeover.

The upshot is that both Justice Society and Teen Titans have become fixtures on DC’s schedule, but the latter has had an easier time staying there. In fact, neither Teen Titans nor Titans have been critical favorites for a while, and neither is a particularly strong seller. (To be fair, neither is a particularly bad seller.) It’s the kind of circumstance which suggests that there will always be an audience for these titles, so DC might as well publish them, even if the Titans book features a lot of unrelated supervillains.

Somewhere in between is the Doom Patrol. Under creators Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani, the DP lasted over four years (My Greatest Adventure #80 through Doom Patrol #121, May 1964-September/October 1968) before being killed in their book’s final issue. You’d think that would put a damper on revivals, and for the most part you’d be right. Almost nine years passed before a rebuilt Robotman joined three (mostly) new characters in the New Doom Patrol (Showcase #s 94-96, August/September 1977-December/January 1978).  This group made occasional guest appearances around the DC line for the next few years.

Doom Patrol

Probably one of the more memorable guest-shots was the Doom Patrol homage in New Teen Titans vol. 1 #s 13-15 (November 1981-January 1982). Robotman, Mento, and Beast Boy/Changeling were the only Patrollers participating, but the spirits of their late colleagues hung heavy over the Titans’ battles with Madame Rouge, General Zahl, and the Brotherhood of Evil. I’ve often thought that the Teen Titans connection helped get the next Doom Patrol revival off the ground, but Doom Patrol vol. 2 #1 didn’t appear until cover-date October 1987. By one measure it wasn’t especially successful, lasting only eighteen issues before being semi-canceled (and killing much of the team in the process). However, DC only took the book out of its newsstand line, and the direct-sales-only Doom Patrol #19 appeared the next month with a new team of characters, guided by the new creative team of Grant Morrison and Richard Case. They all stayed until issue #63, and the book continued (under writer Rachel Pollack) until issue #87 (February 1995).

That run of seven-plus years was followed by an almost-seven-year drought before Doom Patrol was revived once again by writer John Arcudi and artist Tan Eng Huat. DP vol. 3 lasted 22 issues (December 2001-September 2003), but barely a year passed before John Byrne launched the controversial Vol. 4. Byrne treated the original Doom Patrol as entirely new characters, thereby ignoring all their previous appearances. Fans didn’t like it, but it still lasted 18 issues (August 2004-January 2006). The time-twisting effects of Infinite Crisis and an explanatory appearance in Teen Titans tried to straighten everything out, so that now the original Patrollers are all alive, and their histories are (mostly) intact. Accordingly, we’re now on Vol. 5 (August 2009-present), written by Keith Giffen and penciled by Matthew Clark.

I don’t know that the Doom Patrol’s longevity is self-perpetuating like the Titans. I suspect it’s more of the “let’s take a stab at a decent idea” school of thought, which may help explain the various Justice Society revivals.

* * *

That’s all fine for those current series, but what about titles which might be on the bubble? Aquaman will have a spot on DC’s dance card at least as part of Brightest Day, but the character seemed ripe for a revival pretty soon after the last regular Aquaman series ended.

Aquaman #49, Jan/Feb 1970

Aquaman’s Silver Age streak was pretty solid, from August 1955′s Adventure Comics #215 (August 1955) to March/April 1971′s Aquaman vol. 1 #56. The Sea King lasted for almost six years in Adventure (to #282, March 1961) and followed that with short stints in Showcase (#30-33, January/February 1961-July/August 1961) and Detective Comics (#s 293-300, July 1961-February 1962) before getting his own series in January/February 1962. After a hiatus of about three-and-a-half years, another couple of stints in Adventure (#435-37, 441-52, September/October 1974-July/August 1977) led into his own series (#s 57-63, August/September 1977-August/September 1978). When Aquaman was canceled again (as part of the “DC Implosion,” I think), he went back to Adventure for a couple of years (#s 460-78, November/December 1978-December 1980), then to a rotating backup in Action Comics (#s 517-21, 527-30, 536-40, March 1981-February 1983).

For most of this period, of course, Aquaman appeared fairly frequently in Justice League of America, so it was probably pretty natural for him to head up the no-outside-interests “Detroit League.” Although domestic troubles eventually made him give up the League, he was pretty prominent in the book for about a year and a half (#s 228-43, July 1984-October 1985).

Aquaman then appeared in a series of miniseries and specials, including 1986′s 4-issue Neal Pozner/Craig Hamilton miniseries, 1988′s “Missing Peace” special, Keith Giffen and Curt Swan’s 5-issue revised origin (1989), and Peter David and Esteban Maroto’s 7-issue 1990 Atlantis Chronicles (which, for obvious reasons, focused more on Aquaman’s ancestors). Another ongoing series followed (13 issues, December 1991-December 1992), overlapping slightly with Aquaman’s involvement in Justice League Europe (issues #37-50, April 1992-May 1993). Peter David returned to the character with another revised origin, 1993′s Time And Tide miniseries (4 issues, December 1993-February 1994), followed six months later by another ongoing series (77 issues, August 1994-January 2001). Aquaman was apparently killed as part of 2001′s “Our Worlds At War” crossover, but it looked pretty dubious at the time. Sure enough, the “Obsidian Age” storyline (JLA #s 70-76, Late October 2002-February 2003) got him ready for the most recent Aquaman ongoing (#1 was cover-dated February 2003). This series saw the original Aquaman, Arthur Curry/Orin of Atlantis, succeeded by one Arthur Joseph Curry; and the book became Aquaman: Sword Of Atlantis for what would be its final eighteen issues (#s 40-57, May 2006-December 2007). Along the way, Orin died, and has been seen most recently as part of the Black Lantern Corps (although a mysterious “Aquaman” had a cameo in Final Crisis).

It’s been a couple of years since Sword of Atlantis ended, but Aquaman remains one of those characters who never strays too far from DC’s consciousness. The promise of his involvement in Brightest Day seems like part of the same trend, and fits pretty neatly with DC’s practice of promoting its characters’ most familiar versions. I’d be surprised not to see a new Aquaman feature spinning out of Brightest Day, and I expect DC to promote the heck out of whatever involvement Geoff Johns has with it.

Also thanks to the Black Lanterns, Aquaman’s JLA teammate Hawkman has been fairly visible in Blackest Night. (One imagines his and Hawkgirl’s story would be continued similarly in Brightest Day.)  The Silver Age Hawkman enjoyed a solid run in the 1960s, from initial appearances in The Brave and the Bold #s 34-36 and 42-44 (February/March 1961-October/November 1962) to a six-year run which included Mystery In Space #s 87-91 (November 1963-May 1964), Hawkman vol. 1 #s 1-27 (April/May 1964-August/September 1968), and Atom and Hawkman #s 39-45 (October/November 1968-October/November 1969).

Hawkman, by Kyle Baker

Justice League appearances notwithstanding, though, the Winged Warrior had to wait some nine years for his own feature, this time in World’s Finest Comics (issues #253, 256-59, 262, 264-70, and 272-82; October/November 1978-August 1982). After that it was about three years before the Shadow War Of Hawkman miniseries (4 issues, May-August 1985) 1986′s follow-up Hawkman Special, and the subsequent Hawkman ongoing series (17 issues, August 1986-December 1987).

And then … well, DC decided to get creative with Hawkman, mucking about with his history in 1989′s three-issue Hawkworld miniseries. Hawkworld naturally became an ongoing series (32 issues, June 1990-March 1993) and together with its Hawkman relaunch (34 issues, September 1993-July 1996), lasted over six years. On its merits the series (written by John Ostrander and William Messner-Loebs) were probably pretty decent. However, continuity tangles frustrated professionals and readers alike, and for the next few years Hawkman was quietly ignored.

Enter Geoff Johns, once again, cutting this particular Gordian knot in JSA #s 22-26 (May-September 2001) in preparation for the most recent Hawkman ongoing series. It starred Hawkman from issues #1-49 (May 2002-April 2006) and switched to Hawkgirl for the rest of its run (May 2006-September 2007). As fate would have it, though, Jim Starlin produced 2008′s Hawkman Special, in which readers learned that yes, everything they know is wrong.

I am considerably more pessimistic about another Hawkman revival. For one thing, it looks like DC wanted to kill Hawkman and Hawkgirl back in Final Crisis. For another, considering Hawkman’s convoluted history, I cannot for the life of me fathom why DC would want to throw in another twist. Surely Hawkman’s publishing history does not indicate that readers have the patience to keep up with all these changes. Kyle Baker produced a very entertaining Hawkman strip for Wednesday Comics, but that had the advantage of being relatively short and focusing on how Hawkman could fly and hit things real hard. That bare-bones approach may not carry over well into a regular ongoing series. Therefore, apart from more frequent appearances in Justice Society and/or Justice League, I’d say that for the moment, Hawkman’s bubble has burst.

There is never any particular push to reinvent or update the Demon, and the larger DC line doesn’t seem to require his continued presence. Accordingly, his publication history depends more on the whims of particular creative people than on editorial dictates.

The Demon #1

The original Jack Kirby series ran for sixteen issues (August/September 1972-January 1974) and was followed by a series of backups in Batman Family (#17, April/May 1978) and Detective Comics (#s 482-85, February/March 1979-August/September 1979). Following the occasional guest spot in books like Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, and Blue Devil, next up was Matt Wagner’s miniseries (four issues, January-April 1987). After that were 1988′s Cosmic Odyssey miniseries, an Action Comics Weekly arc (issues #636-41, January 24, 1989-March 7, 1989) and a Detective Comics guest-shot. The latter was written by Alan Grant, who with artist Val Semeiks produced Etrigan’s second ongoing series (59 issues, July 1990-May 1995) soon afterwards. However, aside from a couple more Batman team-ups and other assorted appearances, it was eight-and-a-half years between the end of that series and the Demon: Driven Out miniseries (six issues by Josh Dysart and Pop Mhan, November 2003-April 2004). John Byrne and Will Pfeifer’s Blood of the Demon ongoing series followed that (nine issues, May 2005-January 2006), and the character has appeared subsequently with Catwoman in Wednesday Comics. Thus, Etrigan hasn’t really established himself as a perennial part of DC’s schedule, and I doubt fans are expecting to see him there in any given month. If he were a basketball team, he’d probably be happy with the NIT.

Finally, let’s look at the Spectre, a Golden Age hero whose modern interpretations have focused more on his religious aspects. The Spectre has been part of a few recent Big Events, including 2005′s Day Of Vengeance miniseries which led into Infinite Crisis, 2008′s Final Crisis: Revelations miniseries, and the current Blackest Night. DC acts like it wants to do a lot with him, so let’s see what it’s actually done.

The Spectre’s original adventures were in More Fun Comics #s 52-101 (February 1940-January/February 1945). He was also a member of the Justice Society in both the Golden and Silver Ages. In the late ‘60s he appeared solo in Showcase #s 60-61 and 64 (January/February-September/October 1966) and a year later received his own short-lived title (ten issues, November/December 1967-May/June 1969). The mid-‘70s saw the well-known Michael Fleisher/Jim Aparo Adventure Comics series (#s 431-40, January/February 1974-July/August 1975), followed up in a three-issue Dr. 13 arc in Ghosts (#s 97-99, February-April 1981).

Adventure Comics #439

The ‘80s, ‘90s, and ‘00s each had their own ongoing Spectre series. The first, written by Doug Moench, ran 31 issues (April 1987-November 1989); the second, written by John Ostrander and drawn by Tom Mandrake, ran 63 (December 1992-February 1998); and the third, written by J.M. DeMatteis and featuring the Hal Jordan Spectre, ran 27 (March 2001-May 2003). That last series was prefaced by both the Day Of Judgment big-event miniseries (5 issues, November 1999) and a transitory arc in Legends of the DC Universe (#s 33-36, October 2000-January 2001). Therefore, except for three years around the beginning of the ‘90s and eighteen months towards the end, the Spectre was on DC’s schedule pretty regularly for over sixteen years (1987-2003).

It didn’t stop there. After Hal went back to being Green Lantern in 2004, detective Crispus Allen got the call in 2005′s Infinite Crisis. Crispus/Spectre then starred in 2006′s Crisis Aftermath: The Spectre miniseries (3 issues, July-September 2006). That was followed almost immediately by an arc in Tales of the Unexpected (8 issues, December 2006-July 2007) and roles in Countdown To Mystery’s Eclipso arc (8 issues, November 2007-June 2008) and the aforementioned Revelations miniseries (5 issues, October 2008-February 2009). Certainly DC has found ways to use the character for much of the past twenty-two years.

Nevertheless, I’m not sure that either Hal/Spectre or Crispus/Spectre ever really caught on with readers. Of course, many readers probably preferred Hal as Green Lantern, and many might have wondered why DC killed Crispus instead of simply creating a new character. Still, barring some special underpinnings for the character coming out of Blackest Night, I’d say the Spectre’s frequent spots on DC’s schedule are coming to a close. These days the Spectre looks like a team with a decent seed which, for whatever reason, exits the tournament prematurely. Believe me, I’ve rooted for plenty of teams like that — and I have all the Hal Jordan Spectre issues to prove it …

* * *

In the end, though, the more a publisher falls back on familiar standbys — even familiar standbys given radical makeovers — the more conservative that publisher becomes. Presently, DC’s superhero lineup is pretty wide-ranging, and includes a lot of those familiar features. If, as mentioned above, DC intends to go more conservative now so that it can expand with new titles later, that’s fine. Brief interruptions notwithstanding, DC will never stop publishing Action, Detective, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, or Justice League, because they make up the publisher’s superhero foundation. The books we’ve talked about today aren’t quite on that A-list, but they each have some degree of dependability which keeps landing them on DC’s schedule.

However, like March Madness, part of the fun of superhero comics is unpredictability. It leads to the joy of discovery and the chance to see the familiar through new eyes. I didn’t expect to like “Architecture & Mortality” more than the Spectre stories in Tales of the Unexpected, but I ended up looking forward to each “A&M” installment a lot more. Since the Green Lanterns and Kentuckys will always be around, and the Aquamans and Wake Forests will have their days, what’s really special is watching the mid-majors elbow their way into the upper reaches.

(That probably makes Deadpool this year’s George Mason, but thankfully this isn’t the Marvel column …)

Doom Patrol by Matthew Clark and John Livesay

Over on his MySpace page, Doom Patrol artist Matthew Clark shares some promo art recently inked by John Livesay (found via Periscope Studios).

Metal Men

I was pretty excited to hear that the Justice League International team supreme of Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire were reuniting to do a ‘Metal Men’ back-up feature in the upcoming Doom Patrol series by Giffen and artist Matthew Clark … and now seeing a preview of Maguire’s work whets my appetite to see more.

And let’s not forget that they’re also appearing in DC’s Wednesday Comics series, with art by some other legendary creators, José Luis García-López and Kevin Nowlan. It’s going to be a good year for the six (seven?) elemental robots this year.