Meltzer's Justice League of America: Now that we've all calmed down, was the comic any good?

This summer, hot off the fun of my "debate" with Douglas Wolk about New Avengers, I asked Andrew Gardner, comic fan and intelligent British guy, to begin an e-mail discussion with me about Brad Meltzer's Justice League run. I thought it might be worth looking back at the series to see what we thought about it, now that all the hysteria and hype and disappointment had worn off. I proposed that we discuss the entire 12-issue run, and eventually post our conversation maybe on Sequart.org. But, due to our busy schedules, we never made it past a discussion of the first story arc, "Tornado's Path." Nevertheless, I think we had some interesting things to say about Meltzer's approach, and, for posterity, here's what we wrote:

Andrew Gardner: I really enjoyed [Justice League of America] #0. It looks lovely, the right artists for each era, with a nod to New Frontier at the start. I thought the yesterday/tomorrow pattern worked well, Meltzer setting his stall out early. The yesterday scenes were respectful of comic book history, and mostly felt like a fresh slant on familiar moments in league history. Rather like the logo, where the old seventies design is slightly updated to ensure the JLA letters run vertically. The tomorrow ones were intriguing, although how many come to pass we'll have to wait and see. There's a nod to the Dark Knight Returns in the Andy Kubert page. I notice Meltzer avoids the Morrison era, though. Howard Porter does draw a page, but the backdrop is from the start of the Mark Waid run.

This is obviously the story of the friendships behind the masks, and I thought Meltzer did a good job of portraying a convincing relationship between the big 3. This may not have been the Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman we're used to seeing, but that just added to the feeling that these were the hidden, private moments of great heroes, who can only indulge their friendship in private. Batman in particular feels like he can let loose his emotions in this setting, with the tantrums and tears of the little boy who lost his parents. Wonder Woman, perhaps a little predictably, gets to play mother. Who's Superman? Dependable, trusting, a little po-faced. But that tear of betrayal with the "damn you Bruce", or the sullen look after his death betrays his need for their friendship.

Some of the scenes in #0 worked better than others. Perez is a wonderful artist but struggled with the line "to have a family" (although who wouldn't) whereas Gene Ha does a superlative job conveying the grief on his page, from the fragile rendition of Ma Kent in the first panel to the way Bruce plays with Clark's Basketball trophy in the last panel.

Meltzer obviously got the Justice League of America gig on the back of Identity Crisis's success. I notice in interviews he talks about having planted the seeds of this incarnation of the league in that book, which retrospectively explains the Black Lightning/ Katana scenes in that book, as they seemed incongruous at the time. Meltzer seems comfortable with the pace and stylistic tics in his previous comic work, using a lot of familiar techniques - internal narratives in colour boxes, intercutting of simultaneous events, detailed slow-motion fight scenes, irrelevant subplots and lots.

Of broken.

Portentous.

Sentences.

I don't mind that, although I can sympathise with those who find it hard to take. As long as it services a good story, like I thought it did in Identity Crisis, and then I don't mind. So what happens in "Tornado's Path"?

The set up is ostensibly the Big Three of Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman (or Bruce, Diana and Clark if you prefer) choosing a Justice League line -up after their 'missing year'. This doesn't go to plan as the eventual roster of Hal Jordan, Black Canary, Black Lightning, Hawkgirl, Arsenal, Red Tornado and Vixen comes together by chance to foil a plot orchestrated by nattily dressed Solomon Grundy to take over Red Tornado's robot body, which involves John Smith being tricked into a human body by Felix Faust and his robotic body being spliced with Amazo by Professor Ivo. The Parasite and some minor villains controlled by baby Starros are thrown in for luck and nostalgia and it all ends with a sort of status quo, with Grundy dead (again), Amazo destroyed (again) and Red Tornado in his robot body (again). But surprisingly Vixen proves to be the pivotal route to victory, and Arsenal graduates to become Red Arrow. The League hands out shiny new membership plaques and build a new Hall of Justice in D.C. and a new Satellite in orbit, replete with a holodeck of all things. And Geo-Force turns up, although God knows why.

The pace is certainly slow compared to say, Morrison's JLA #1 or the Griffen/DeMatteus Justice League #1, but there's enough to hold the attention, at least in the first few issues. If all superhero comics were like this it would be pretty grim, but as an exception it's not so bad. Meltzer obviously knows how to write a successful thriller and it's admirable that he hasn't made many concessions to the flying cape genre, while remaining respectful of his antecedents.

I particularly liked the undercutting of the Big 3 playing superhero top trumps (as well as being a loving homage) by having all the action happen elsewhere. Life is what happens while we make plans and all that. He maybe pushes it a little. #1 to #6 takes place over only a few hours, and the Big 3 don't even stand up until #4! This is what they mean by decompression, isn't it? It probably doesn't help that 52 was running concurrently, perhaps posterity will reward Meltzer for sticking to his approach against prevailing trends at D.C.

Where the thriller element fell apart for me was at the most important bit, the end. There are two whodunits in this mystery - who's in and who's the villain. As far as the line-up is concerned, I enjoyed Meltzer toying with reader expectation, using the photo choices as decoys as well as revealing insights into the Big 3. The villains were less satisfying, toppling through the narrative like gaudy dominos until we reach the unsatisfying denouement. Red Tornado's back! Grundy's dead again!

Although this incarnation of Grundy gives the impression of Machiavellian intelligence with his sharp suit and Sisyphus references (most cringe worthy dialogue? Arsenal's retort), I thought he came across as the most over emotional Grundy yet; concocting a desperate scheme to maintain his new found intelligence. "What makes you think I have a heart?" is pure bravado interrupting a desperate barrage of punches no less vicious than those of his previous 'mindless' incarnations.

Some of the themes planted in #0 are nicely developed. The tension between Yesterday and Tomorrow appears everywhere. Like Geoff Johns, Meltzer has the grown up fanboy approach, wanting to remain faithful to the comic heritage he's devoured since childhood, but also wanting to carry the torch. "It's time to move on" says Superman at the end of #0, but the Tornado's Path is constantly tripping over the ghosts of JLA's past, with it's pick-and-mix-from-each-era line-up, classic villains, familiar locations, characters discussing heritage and lessons learnt. Grundy in many ways is the perfect villain for this piece, perpetually reincarnated for our reading pleasure. But whereas the heroes can cherish this endless cycle of rebirth where the very universe shifts from Crisis to Infinite Crisis to accommodate their existence, villains like Grundy and Ivo curse their fate and either fruitlessly attempt to become heroes or plead for their death.

I thought the biggest let down of the series was Ed Benes art. I don't necessarily want to criticise the artist himself, but I don't think it's a good match for Meltzer's words. Benes is an experienced superhero artist, comfortable drawing muscular men and women in tight garish outfits beating seven shades of daylight out of everything in sight. Black Canary's demolition of the Red Tornado clone in #3 demonstrates his familiarity from his Birds of Prey days. It's dynamic and exhilarating, and most of the action scenes benefit from his skill in providing clear sharp detail, and Sandra Hope's flowing inks only enhance the effect. But, as a cursory glance at the Ed Benes website shows, this is an artist whose work can sometimes drift into, lets be frank, superhero soft porn. He also, like many superhero artists, draws identical figures and faces for everyone, relying on the costumes to differentiate the characters. The result gives the impression that we're watching the cast of Baywatch in action, and the acting required by Meltzer's script is beyond them.

Arsenal and Green Lantern's relationship, an interesting one not really examined since the old Green Lantern/Green Arrow issues of Brave and The Bold, suffers from Benes inability to lend their dialogue any emotional weight. There's much made by Meltzer about their generational ties, an important theme in the story, and yes, there's an early reference to Hal being technically younger than Roy in #1, but their identical physiques and facial structures completely undermine the impact of their scenes together. The presentation of the Red Arrow costume in #7 and Hal and Dinah's tears are made laughable by a succession of panels where Roy looks more like he's lost his car keys than embracing his heritage and his future. Meltzer was far better served by Rags Morales in Identity Crisis and Geoff Johns gets great work out of Dave Eaglesham on this front.


Timothy Callahan: So, what's my take on "The Tornado's Path"? I'll add my thoughts by responding to yours, and your main points can be broken down and (over)simplified in this manner:

(1) It's a bit slow and decompressed.
--While the pace felt slow when the story was read in monthly doses, I think it works very well when read as a whole. And you say, "If all superhero comics were like this it would be pretty grim, but as an exception it's not so bad." You seem to be referring to the decompressed pacing, but I would completely agree with your statement if it was relating to the tone of Meltzer's JLA. That was the thing I found to be utterly grim. Perhaps it's Meltzer's attempt to shock us back into an emotional connection with these characters, but I actively disliked the sadistic violence and pain expressed in the "The Tornado's Path." When arms are ripped off and blood spurts across the panel, it's just a big downer for me. To me, it's all part of the unbearably serious, "oh, being a super-hero really hurts!" tone that permeated Identity Crisis. Reading Meltzer's approach to comics is a bit like going to a really cool dentist. No matter how much fun it might seem at times (and Grundy is cool, as are some of Meltzer's pet JLA additions), it still involves discomfort and downright suffering. And, unlike a trip to the dentist, Meltzer's JLA isn't even good for you.

--So I didn't mind the pacing so much as the relentless severity of each moment of the story. Yet, as painful as it was to read, I did appreciate Meltzer knocking me out of my normal, readerly ambivalence. I appreciate any comic book that can do that. I'm certainly fascinated by Melter's JLA, even if the tone turns me off during "The Tornado's Path." It's brutality (of portentious characters along with acts of violence) gives it that edge, and, yes if all superhero comics were like this, it would be grim indeed.

(2) The two main mysteries don't conclude in a satisfying way.
--I thoroughly enjoyed the use of Grundy in this story, so I can't agree that the mysterious villain turned out to be a disappointment. I not only enjoyed Grundy himself, as portrayed by Melzer, but I enjoyed the abject panic of message board posters who declaimed Meltzer for being the worst writer in the history of the universe for daring to give us an intelligent Grundy. It's not such a sin, especially since James Robinson established Grundy's reborn-with-a-different-mind-each-time history in his Starman series. It's a good use of Grundy, and while it may not have played by the rules of a true whodunit (nobody could have guessed a completely revamped Grundy was behind the whole thing), it works as a shocking reveal, and Meltzer plays it out appropriately.

--The other mystery: "Who will be chosen for the new JLA?" is not so much resolved in an unsatisfying way as completely abandoned with almost a footnote to indicate that it was ever important in the first place. I don't mind that the ending turned out to be that they just chose the group based on who helped out with the Grundy battle, since that's the way JLAs have formed in the past, but I do mind how much time Meltzer spends setting up the whole photo-and-discussion-of-strengths-and-weaknesses thing, only to render all of those pages (and pages and pages) of debate irrelevant by saying, "oh, we'll just go with the random bunch." Meltzer didn't have to spend so much time on those discussions if he just wanted to establish the dynamic between the Big Three (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), so the ultimate effect is that "The Tornado's Path" feels like a story that got derailed along the way. I'm fairly certain that Meltzer planned it all out, and he knew the team was going to be "randomly" formed, but it reads as if he changed his mind halfway through writing it. Here's one of those times where authorial intent doesn't help us in the analysis, because whether he intended it exactly the way it turned out or not, the total abandonment of the premise of the first couple of issues (the premise that this would be a team chosen for a reason) just seems sloppy. And what does Geo-Force have to do with anything? Sloppy.

(3) Even if the series is an attempt to move forward, it hinges too much on a convoluted legacy.
--This is the dilemma of the super-hero comic in the 21st Century. Neither Marvel or DC has a continuity that makes any kind of sense (in the big picture), and yet both companies have fans and creators who are obsessed with continuity, but only the continuity that they, themselves, care about. I'm sure there are people who care about every little continuity detail, but everyone I know seems to be willing to ignore the completely ridiculous things that have happened (the Clone Saga in Spider-Man, the relative ages of various heroes, Maxwell Lord) while expecting writers to adhere to the continuity that they, the readers, care about. Continuity should matter, since it's just internal storytelling consistency on a grand scale, but it can't matter in the Marvel and DC universes because the continuity is already corrupt beyond reason.

--So I don't think Meltzer's JLA is any better or worse at using or abusing continuity than any other comic book on the shelf. It's probably better just to think of this series as Meltzer's All-Star Justice League of America. Because that's basically what it is. It's his version of the Ultimate JLA story. His favorite characters fighting against really cool villains, with some of his favorite DC characters popping up. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that type of approach. It's apparent that Meltzer is a fan of the 1970s to mid 1980s DC Universe, and that's what he draws upon. Taking these characters and trying to make them more "realistic" by making every moment seem utterly serious and important may not work particularly well, but that's Meltzer's approach to fiction, apparently, and it isn't affected by his acknowledgement of the past.

(4) Ed Benes is the wrong artist for this series.
--Yes. Oh so true. First of all, you say "The result gives the impression that we're watching the cast of Baywatch in action, and the acting required by Meltzer's script is beyond them," and that about sums it up. But I'll add, second of all, it's such a strange choice to put an Image-style artist (and Benes, if anything, is a synthesis of Silvestri, Lee, and Liefeld) on a book which requires some serious emoting. Gritted teeth don't allow for much emotional range. It's like putting David Finch on an Avengers story in which the heroes are shown expressing their deepest feelings as they face their own Disassemble-ment (oh, wait, that did happen). If Meltzer is, as he seems to be, attempting to ground the superheroics in a kind of stylized, grim emotional reality, wouldn't a less glossy, less porntastic artist be more appropriate? (The answer is yes, and the proof is Gene Ha in JLA #11)

So after all of this, what's my overall verdict on "The Tornado's Path"? Well, let me evaluate it according to my Seven Standards of Good Comics:

1. Art which helps to tell the story (and does not detract from it or cause unwanted confusion)
--No. The art detracts, and does not add to the quality of the story.

2. Art which amplifies and accentuates the themes through visual symbolism
--No. The art is all about surface and neglects subtelties of characterization which would have symbolic meaning.

3. Stories which resolve in some way
--Yes. The story resolves!

4. Main characters who have more than one facet to their personality
--Yes, although the multiple facets themselves aren't very complex. (Red Arrow is cocky AND uncertain; Black Canary is tough AND protective, etc.) Meltzer seems interested in TRYING to add depth of characterization.

5. Something to say about one or more of the Essential Human Ideas (aka themes)
--Yes, although Meltzer seems more concerned with plot developments and individual character moments than he does with expressing a cohesive theme. Yet, I would say the dominant theme of "The Tornado's Path" is "maturity," which we see in Red Arrow's subplot, Geo-Force's subplot (such as it is), and even in the Red Tornado who is forced to grow up and accept the reality of his situation.

6. Narrative consistency (in character, plot, setting, and theme–jumps from one setting to another, for example, should be explained or alluded to)
--Yes. With the major exception of the Geo-Force stuff, everything makes sense in sequence.

7. Something new to say (about the medium, the genre, the characters, or the world)
--Yes, Meltzer has something new to say about the role of the JLA in the DC Universe (though he abandons that idea), and he wants to say something new about Red Tornado's search for humanity and Red Arrow's search for adult acceptance.

Five out of seven "Yesses" does not necessarily make a Good Comic, especially since some of the positives were marginal at best. Yet I would say that, with all of its flaws (the wrong artist, and the grim self-importance of the tone) Melter's first eight Justice League of America issues are, as a whole, examples of Good Comics full of Serious Flaws. The result is never dull, even if the whole thing doesn't quite work.

I'm Still Reading Comics

I've been absolutely overwhelmed with work and extra-curricular activities this month (like trying to help out my poor, video game deprived children), but I'm still keeping up with my weekly comics fix. I don't know how much longer I'll keep buying such a massive amount of comics each week, but for now, I'm still getting a ton of stuff each Wednesday. I'm now at the point where each comic I buy is not just a slice of entertainment or a piece of art, but a crucible upon which I test my willingness to keep up with this unbelievably expensive weekly hobby. So how do some of last weeks comics fare? Do they make me want to keep going? Abandon floppies in favor of trades? Give up on the whole medium entirely? Let's see.

COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY #1 is surprisingly good. I've been on a bit of a Steve Gerber kick lately, and if I had some more free time, I might be inclined to write about two other Gerber series I recently read: Omega the Unknown and Foolkiller. Both series are fascinating portrayals of New York as a corrupt urban jungle, and both series rise above their mainstream Marvel setting to ponder serious questions about violence and justice (in their own basically goofy but oh-so-serious ways). Gerber's Doctor Fate story in Countdown to Mysery has shades of such philosophy--it feels in many ways like a Bronze Age comic--and the artwork nicely matches the tone of the story. I don't really care about the hellspawn demons which propel the cliffhanger, but I'm going to stick around to see what Gerber does with this flawed Doctor Fate in an urban landscape. The back-up Eclipso story is also better than expected, and I'm curious to see how Darkseid fits into everything. I'll keep buying this one.

ARMY @ LOVE #7 continues Rick Veitch's satirical hijinx, and the characters continue to be completely incompetent and/or completely devoid of ethics. All of which is the point, but this book does not read well in monthly installments. (Although you have to respect Veitch's ability to both write and draw this comic on a monthly basis--how many creators can do that anymore?) This will probably read better in the trade--I'm positive it will, but I buy it to keep the series alive. That's possibly a stupid reason to keep buying it, but if we all stopped buying it, we wouldn't see what Veitch has planned for this series. Then again, he might not have much of a plan. It might just be the same satirical idea (America is a sex-obsessed, selfish, idiotic country--imagine if the military acted that way too) over and over. I think there's more to it than that. Then again (and I may have referenced this before) Vladimir Nabokov, as a professor, railed against satire, saying that if it's a good book, it doesn't matter if there's satire in it, and if it's not good, then it doesn't matter if there's satire in it either. Satire itself isn't enough to make a good book bad or a bad book good. I'm horribly paraphrasing his point, but I think my point here is that Army @ Love needs more than just its satirical foundation to sustain itself, and after seven issues, I'm not convinced that it has anything more. But I trust Rick Veitch enough to keep paying a few bucks a month to let him play around in this particular sandbox.

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES IN THE 31ST CENTURY #6 is by far the best issue of the short-lived series. It not only features a massive amount of Legionnaries, but it's got page after page of futuristic Green Lanterns, plus Starro the freakin Conqueror. This is honestly one of my favorite comics, and because DC releases collections of these Johnny DC titles in the smaller digest form (which makes the lettering and the artwork way too small for my tastes---that size is great for Manga, because it was created for that format, but shrinking standard American comics down to that size absolutely ruins the impact of the artwork), I will definitely keep buying it monthly. I wonder, though, if the comic will shift to mirror the "more mature" tone of the second season of the cartoon. Perhaps it will serve to fill in the gaps between Season One and Season Two, but then I'm not sure that it makes sense as a television tie-in anymore. (Viewers will pick up a comic with characters that look quite different than their cartoon counterparts this year.) We'll see.

The demise of IRREDEEMABLE ANT-MAN with issue #12 saddens me. I've been telling everyone how great the book is since the very beginning, but I guess I just don't have enough friends. It's Robert Kirkman's best Marvel work yet, and its demise is enough to make me doubt the current direction of mainstream comics. It was definitely different than anything else on the Marvel shelf, and that means it was a GOOD THING. Different is good, people. Don't hate.

JLA HITMAN #1 featured the best characterization of the Justice League that I've seen in years. This comic is a bit of a strange beast though. It's deeply linked to continuity, and nearly every two pages contains a footnote referring to a past issue of the Hitman series, but I don't see how it fits into JLA continuity. The Hitman actually tried out for membership during Grant Morrison's JLA series, and the characters didn't seem to know him back then, but in this comic they don't refer to the fact that he ever tried out. Normally, I wouldn't care so much about the inconsistency, but when the comic keep bringing up the past meeting between the characters, it becomes an annoying omission. I really, really liked this issue otherwise. It even makes the horrible Bloodlines event cool in retrospect (mostly by making fun of it).

UMBRELLA ACADEMY APOCALYPSE SUITE #1 is very good, by the way. I don't know much about My Chemical Romance, other than that song "Welcome to the Black Parade" or whatever it was called was pretty much my favorite pop song of last spring. I couldn't get enough of that sucker. I don't really seem to like the rest of the songs on that album, but many of my students do, and they mock me when I actually say the entire name of the band, instead of the hip abbreviation "MCR." Like I'm supposed to know that. I am ever so old. Yet, Gerard Way can write a playful comic, and Gabriel Ba's art is even more stunning here than in (the much greater) Casanova. This comic does feel like a mix of other influences, but since those influences are things I like, I don't mind AT ALL. Many others have pointed out the Mike Mignola, steampunk, Matt Fraction, Grant Morrison, european design, zany feel of the comic, and I know exactly what they're talking about, but to me, especially by the end of issue #1, the comic feels most like Wes Anderson's Royal Tenenbaums, but with aliens and superheroes. And that sounds just about right to me. I'll keep buying it if this quality keeps up, and then I'll probably pick up the hardcover collection too.

I've read a lot of other comics this week, but just based on what I've written about here, you can probably tell that I'm not giving up the weekly habit anytime soon. Luckily, I am so freakin' wealthy that I can keep up this insane fixation. As long as I'm willing to sell everything else I own on Ebay.

Ebay Action

My son and daughter want a Nintendo Wii, and to be honest, I would love to play it too. So we've decided to pool our resources and sell a bunch of stuff on Ebay to raise money. My son's getting rid of some good Playstation 2 games really cheaply, and I've got some quality stuff for sale: Kirby hardcovers, the Hunger Dogs graphic novel, a Moebius western, Marvel Masterworks books, Justice League toys, and even a really ugly Hulk t-shirt that's waaaay too big for me. If you want to contribute to the Wii fund and pick up some awesome merch while you're at it, check out the items HERE!

Bid away, my friends. Bid away.

Seduction of the Innocent with EIGHTBALL!

You must have heard, by now, about the high school teacher forced to resign after assigning Eightball #22 to a freshman. If you haven't read about this fiasco, Heidi covers it pretty well over at The Beat.

The case concerns me on quite a few levels, not the least of which are that I am (a) a high school teacher, (b) heavily involved in a "comics in the classroom" movement, and (c) of the mind that Eightball #22, reformatted in hardcover as Ice Haven is not only Dan Clowes's most accomplished work, but it's by far one of the best graphic novels of the past decade. So my initial reaction to a dude losing his job (and possibly his career) over it is: yeesh!

But here's something that concerns me: the teacher assigned it to a 9th grade girl, independently of the rest of the class. Eightball #22 is a masterpiece, but it's a strange choice to give to a Freshman, and a strange choice to give to a single student as a make-up assignment for missed summer reading. The work is a sophisticated tapestry of shifting narrative perspectives and graphic styles. It's as much about comic book history as it is about the characters or the town represented in the story. It's not an ideal entry into the world of graphic narrative for someone who is unfamiliar with the techniques of the medium.

I think it's too "adult" for that grade level, but not because of the supposed sexual content, but because of the narrative fanciness. It's most salient virtue is its style, and stylistic analysis is not what Freshmen are known for. So it seems like a weird choice in that regard.

Yet I could see myself, in my younger and more clueless days, possibly recommending Ice Haven to a 9th grader who I thought was interested in the medium. Hell, I actually have an Eightball promotional poster hanging on the wall of my classroom (it's the one featuring Clowes's "Death Ray" character, from the cover of issue #23). So although I have never actually given out a copy of Eightball to a student, I might have made that choice once upon a time. I might have been the guy pressured into resigning.

But I'm not sure I understand why he resigned. I'm sure he had excellent reasons, but I can't imagine that I would resign if I were in that position, because I don't assign a damn thing to my students unless I know exactly why I'm doing so. If I assigned Eightball #22, which, in theory, could have happened, then I would have plenty of reasons for it, most of which having to do with the national standards for English Language Arts. If I didn't have a good reason for assigning it, then I would not assign it! I don't know why, exactly, this teacher assigned the comic, but he resigned abruptly, so that automatically makes him seem like he's afraid of any further investigation. It then makes the whole situation seem more creepy, and that begins to corrupt the whole situation. If this case draws national media attention, and it may have (or it may soon), then for the whole country, we'll end up with a really bad equation: "comics=perversion," or more specifically, maybe, "comics in the classroom=lock your doors and hide your daughters."

It's just a bad situation for everyone involved.

Yet here's something else I can't help but consider: What are these parents protecting their kids from by labelling Eightball as "pornography"? Do they live in the same world I live in? Because let me tell you something about my world: In my ten years of teaching, this is the FIRST YEAR that I don't have a 9th grade student who is either pregnant or a mother. That's right. Every other year, I've had at least one (if not more) 13 or 14 year-old student who was already a parent (or a mom to be) in my class. In a world like that, it's dangerously naive to think that Eightball #22 is a corrupting influence. That isn't to say that kids shouldn't be protected. That isn't to say that we shouldn't help to prolong innocence as long as we can. But in the world I live it, Eightball #22 isn't the problem.

Geniusboy Live On Demand Radio--Episode 4

Episode 4 is finally here! Listen as Ryan and I provide some quick comic book reviews, recommend great Western films, discuss my mastery of the game Stratego, and talk about what we will not be watching this fall on television.

Go to our Geniusboy Live website at geniusboylive.podomatic.com to download the newest episode (or subscribe!). Or, if you prefer, just click on the title of this blog post to listen to Episode 4 directly.

The Answer!

The "Guess This Artist" contest from Monday? Not a lot of people tried to figure it out, but the answer is: DARWYN COOKE!

It's almost impossible to recognize this early work (his first published comic book work actually, from DC's New Talent Showcase), but it is indeed the same guy who now writes and draws The Spirit.

The winner of the contest was the Geniusboy Live podcast's #1 super-fan, Elliot. I'm sending him an original crayon drawing of Animal Man as his well-deserved reward.

Guess This Artist!

Still no new comics (my shop isn't getting last week's stuff until this week, ugh) so instead of talking about comics, I've decided to show you some. And play a little game.

Here's some lesser-known work by a major talent in the comic book industry. Take a guess and leave a comment below. These five pages are the ENTIRE story, by the way. Can you guess who (wrote and) drew this story???







First person to guess it correctly wins an awesome drawing done by me. I'll draw any character you want, on typing paper, using crayons, and then I'll mail it to you. I'll even sign it.

So, go ahead, guess away!

New Comics Snafu

I had planned on reviewing Infinity Inc. #1 this week, but my local shop didn't receive any of their new comics today. So, I'll be back Monday with that review instead.

The New Plan

Since I return to my teaching duties tomorrow, I won't be able to maintain the furious pace of one-post-per-day anymore. My new plan is as follows:

Every Monday, you'll get a new post where I write about comic book and pop culture stuff that's been on my mind.

Every Thursday, you'll get a new post where I review something released that week.

I'll also continue to produce Geniusboy Live On Demand Radio--The Podcast every two weeks or so, and I'll use that medium to talk about the stuff I normally would have blogged about over the summer.

Thanks for reading, and I'll be back on Thursday with a review of Infinity Inc. #1.

Burnout--Or Just End Of Summer Blues?

I've been reading various blogs and comics sites where people have been complaining about (or at least discussing) "event fatigue" and "comic book burnout" lately.

I can totally sympathize. I've been an avid comic book reader for over 20 years, and except for a one-month stretch in my late teenage years, I've been going to my local comics shop (depending on where I lived at the time) every Wednesday or Thursday to get my latest comic book fix. It seemed that everytime I started to drift out of comics, something new pulled me back in:

In the mid to late 1980s, Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Crisis and the reboot of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman (I'm going to count Year: One as a reboot--you may disagree), as well as the plethora of mythology-rich Marvel Handbooks and Who's Who issues, got me hooked on comics, deeply, but when the monthly stuff--Byrne leaving Superman, Perez shifting to just a writer on Wonder Woman, the stuff like Batman: Year Three and everything that followed for a while, seemingly everything at Marvel--became more and more bland, I became more interested in stuff like Grendel, Nexus, back-issues of Starslayer, Grimjack, and American Flagg. I read many of the Fantagraphics line, and whatever else the Comics Journal deemed worthy of a look.

The early 1990s brought Image, of course, and I was all for it. Even back then, I had eclectic taste, and I loved Hate and Eightball and Mister X and Puma Blues, but I also loved Liefeld's New Mutants, McFarlane's Spider-Man, and Lee's X-Men. So, like everyone else, I followed them happily and bought everything Image came out with during that first year or so. Just when I got sick of that stuff, which didn't take long, Vertigo came along with great stuff like Enigma, The Invisibles, and, my favorite at the time: Sandman. I didn't realize how much I had abandoned mainstream superhero comics, post-early-Image, but as I'm rereading Morrison's JLA run, I look at the house ads and I don't have ANY of those issues. "Millenium Giants"? No clue what that was about. And the same goes for Marvel. I don't really know anything about the Clone Saga, for example, except what I've read on Wikipedia, which seems to be more than enough. But Vertigo, and an occasional Tundra or Slave Labor comic (Madman! The Jam!) along with a Dark Horse issue or twenty (Concrete! Sin City! Hellboy!) sustained me throughout the decade. People often complain about the awfuless of...ugh...90s comics. They always say "ugh," right before "90s," and I'm sure they're right, in their own way, but I didn't read that stuff. My 90s was full of great comics by amazing creators.

In the 2000s, the mainstream superheroes sucked me back in. Hard. It's probably all Quesada's fault. I started picking up the Marvel Knights titles. Then I started getting more and more of the "regular" Marvel books and more DC titles besides just the Vertigo and Morrison or Millar stuff. Then, with Infinite Crisis looming and a Civil War on the horizon, I started buying almost everything from both companies. I wasn't interested in the crossover ideas necessarily, but both companies were bringing in more and more interesting talent to work on the titles. They both seemed to value the writer more and more, and say what you will about Bendis, or Johns, or Millar, or Ellis, or Morrison, or Brubaker, but they bring a strong personal style to their work, and I devoured it. And I've stuck with them for the past half a decade. I've read all the big events, and all the small spin-offs. I've read Veitch and Edwards Question and Smith and Dodson's Spider-Man/Black Cat and Morrison and Quitely's All-Star Superman and Bendis and Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man. And everything in between. And as disappointing as some of those series were, I've loved a lot of the comics each and every week.

But now, as we head toward the fourth quarter of 2007, I'm getting kind of sick of it all. Maybe it's the weak crop of titles last week, maybe it's the relentless mediocrity (at best) of Countdown. Maybe it's the long wait for the next comic book with art by Frank Quitely. Maybe it's too many weeks in a row with the volume set to 11. Maybe it's the end of summer and time for me to get back to my real job.

I don't know. But "comics burnout"? Yeah, I feel it. "Event Fatigue"? Yup. I'm nowhere near ready to "quit" comics, or stop my weekly trips to the store. But I'm a bit less enthusiastic. A bit more hesitant to shell out money on the single issues.

I wonder what's going to come along and save me this time.

Superhero Death Trap #9,923,501

Even with the mass-media saturation of superheroes these days, there's a general feeling among non-comic book readers that comics are filled with repetitive stories in which a hero is trapped by a villain, the villain spouts his or her evil plan, and the hero escapes at the last minute to save the day.

While this type of plot may be very common in James Bond movies, it's not prevalent in comics at all. I can't even remember the last time I read a story which featured any kind of superhero death trap.

So that's my question of the day:

What was the last comic book you read which featured a hero caught in a wonderfully elaborate death trap (or a death trap of any kind)?

Whatever Happened to that Legion Project?

Way back in March, I mentioned a scholarly book on The Legion of Super-Heroes that I was trying to put together. In that earlier post, I put out a call for submissions, and I don't think I've mentioned the project on this blog since. Did people fail to send submissions? Did I give up on it? Did the project die?

Nope!

It's very much alive. In fact, the almost-completed first draft (still waiting for one or two more essays) is nearly 400 manuscript pages of Legion coolness. The finished book won't be available until 2008 (just in time for the 50th Anniversary, as planned), but just to tease you, here's a list of a few of the chapters that you'll be able to read in what is tentatively called Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes:

• James Kakalios on "The Legion's Super-Science"

• Richard Bensam's "The Perfect Storm: The Death and Ressurection of Lightning Lad"

• Jeff Barbanell on "Shooter's Marvelesque"

• Scipio Garling on "How the Legion Transitioned Us from the JSA to the JLA"

• Sara Ellis on "Architecture and Utopia"

• Chris Sims on "The (Often Arbitrary) Rules of the Legion"

• Alan Williams on "Gender Identity and Homosexuality in the TMK Legion"

And dozens more!

The book is going to be fun, funny, informative, scholarly, and exciting. It will cover the major eras of Legion history, looking at the way the book reflected the culture of the time and predicted social changes of the future. It will explore historical trends, artistic trends, and storytelling trends in relation to the Legion's various creative teams. It will make you weep with joy.

I'm quite proud of how this book looks so far, and it's not even finished yet. When you plan out your budget for next Spring, set aside a few extra bucks for Teenagers from the Future. Trust me, you'll like it a lot.

Secret Upcoming Project--A Preview

I can't say much about this project yet, but when I mentioned how I'm working on a dozen different projects, this is one of them. The artwork for these two pages is by my friend, the amazing Todd Casey. Enjoy this very brief tease...

Countdown to Adventure #1: A Review

This was a pretty light week for comics, and although I enjoyed the relatively insubstantial first chapter of "Escape from Bizarro World" in Action Comics #855 and the Bart Allen memories from Teen Titans #50, the best comic I read today was one of the unlikeliest. Saddled with a text-heavy, crossover drenched cover, "The SPACE ADVENTURERS from 52 RETURN!," "The ORIGIN of FORERUNNER REVEALED!," Countdown to Adventure #1 turned out to be a nice, goofy opening to the eight-part series.

The lead story features the three characters from the "Odyssey" story that took place during 52. Since the end of that series, Adam Strange has been hanging out with his family, Buddy Baker, aka Animal Man, has been hanging out with his family (and doing some stunt work on a local movie set), and Princess Koriand'r, aka Starfire, has not been hanging out with anyone, really, since she's been strangely asleep in the Baker family's guest bedroom for basically the entire time. Ellen Baker insists that they call someone (like the Teen Titans) to let them know about Starfire's condition, but Buddy says that he knows Starfire would want to be left alone to heal. This doesn't really make much sense, and it's hard to believe that Buddy's year of hanging out with the girl somehow led him to believe that the best way to respond to a comatose space princess is to totally ignore the problem and assume it's what she would have wanted. If someone collapsed on your doorstep, would your first response be to pull them into your guest bedroom to sleep it off? And even if you did that, wouldn't you begin to worry after a few days of her not waking up? Buddy lets her sleep for WEEKS, and just smiles when his wife ridiculously complains that, geez, they might want to let the professionals handle this.

But the sleeping Koriand'r is a fun plot device, which allows writer Adam Beechen to include a scene where the once-and-hopefully-future-mullet-king Cliff Baker (young son of Buddy) tries to sneak a pervy picture of the sleeping Starfire to school so he can show off to his friends. The picture's confiscated before it can do any damage, but one can imagine the pre-pubescent sex comedy that might have erupted if Cliff's goal had been attained. Beechen wisely avoids letting the attractive high concept of Porky's meets Weekend at Bernie's meets Flash Gordon take over the book, and the entire hot-alien-princess-asleep-in-the-guest-room subplot gets derailed the moment Koriand'r wakes up (refreshed! and wearing short shorts!), confusing poor Ellen, who doesn't seem to know if she's more jealous of the vulnerable, sleeping Starfire or the flirty one who's awake in her kitchen.

But what about Adam Strange, you ask? He returns from his R&R, all jet-packed up and ready to go, only to receive an unexpected pink slip. In his absence, he's been replaced as Planetary Protector of Rann (that should probably be written in all caps--or at least you can say it in your head really, really loud) by, coincidentally, the star of the very movie Buddy Baker's doing the stunt work on. Talk about convergences! What are the odds? The best part is, this new guy sports the same jet-pack and head-fin style as Adam Strange, but his name is the oh-so-more extreme STEVEN "CHAMP" HAZARD. Imagine all those Carmine Infantino Silver Age Adam Strange stories, then add Rob Lefield and multiply it by the awesome, and you get Champ Hazard, Protector of Rann. Poor Adam doesn't stand a chance. The new guy's an American Movie Star. That carries a lot of cache on a planet billions of light years away from Earth.

When the two go at it like the alpha dogs they are, it's kind of hard to tell them apart, since they are wearing the same costume, but it doesn't really matter, because you know it's all a lead up to Adam Strange abandoning Rann to team back up with his ol' 52 pals (which will possibly happen, maybe, someday. But not in this issue). And with Rann protected by STEVEN "CHAMP" HAZARD, who needs the old sad sack anyway? (Whine, whine, whine...oh I lost my family but they came back to life, and then the planet disappeared and I thought I lost them again, and then I went blind for a year and didn't even get to see how hot Starfire was in person...and so on.)

As much as I'm mocking this book, I really did like it. Beechen knows what he's doing with these characters, and it's a fun, silly bit of comic book goodness. Ignore the fact that it's marketed as this uber-crossover title. It's not, really. The 52 stuff is backstory, but not necessary to understanding the characters, and the Coundown connection is irrelevant, because the second half of the book--the Forerunner story--is not very interesting. You don't need to read that part. Just stick to following the further adventures of Adam Strange, Animal Man, and Starfire. (My guess is that the next issue will feature all three characters getting kicked out of their houses--You can imagine the scene on Rann: Adam Strange comes home to find Steven Hazard's jetpack hanging on the coat rack as Alanna says, "sorry, honey, but he IS a movie star." While in the Baker residence, Ellen finally flips out and chases Buddy out of the house with a broom because he LET A HALF-NAKED ALIEN PRINCESS SLEEP IN THEIR GUEST ROOM FOR A MONTH.)

Good times.

And, maybe there's even hope for the Forerunner story. Next month she battles not just one Nazi but an entire Nazi Justice League! The fight we've all been waiting for.

Morrison Convergences: From JLA to Batman

I'm working on about a dozen different projects these days, in addition to regularly updating this blog and giving you weekly podcast greatness. I'll discuss some of my other upcoming projects in the days ahead, but one of the things consuming much of my time this month is the research for a second Grant Morrison book. Tentatively subtitled The Psychedelic Years, the book will analyze the author's work from the early to late 1990s, centered around his three major titles of that decade: The Invisibles, Flex Mentallo, and JLA. Today, as I reread JLA #16 (cover-dated March 1998), I was struck by an interesting convergence between the most recent, Grant Morrison-penned Batman issue, and this nearly ten year old Justice League story. I'm not surprised by the convergence, especially since I wrote an entire book about the recurring patterns in Morrison's work, but it was interesting enough to make me think about the way ideas and images are often recycled.

If you remember your 1990s comics, you'd recall that JLA #16 features the villain Prometheus (who had posed as the heroic Retro--winner of the "Join the JLA for a Day Contest) and his attempt to infiltrate the Watchtower and eliminate the League members one at a time. Take a look at his dialogue in this panel here. "I'm taking them down one by one," he says. "Ten Little Indians." This is, of course, exactly the premise (and Agatha Christie plot) that we see in the current Batman #668. The difference is in the execution, as the JLA story is full of superhero bombast and fisticuffs while the Batman story is all mood and suspense. Nevertheless, it's a clear example of Morrison returning to tell almost the same story after nearly a decade. (And, in both cases, the story seems to be one of the highlights of his run on the titles.)

Another convergence, from the very same JLA story, comes on the page immediately following Prometheus's Agatha Christie allusion. As you can see in this panel here, a crooked house appears, representing entrapment in Limbo (Limbo turns out to be Prometheus's base of operations, as he's a "crooked man," and in the issue #16 story, he teleports the angel Zauriel there for safekeeping). This image of a crooked house seems to converge with Batman #668 also, specifically with the J.H. Williams III cover. In issue #668, Batman is never literally shown inside a twisted house--the cover is a symbolic image, showing the hero trapped helplessly in a disorienting environment as the grip of the Black Glove threatens his life. The house is a metaphor, on the cover, of his current emotional state. It's not much of a stretch to connect that convergence with yet another: Arkham Asylum--a graphic novel predicated on the idea that a house (the asylum) is the fragmented psyche of Batman.

I don't know if Morrison directed Williams III to depict a type of crooked house on the cover of Batman #668, but the covergence remains. The patterns continue. To make a convergence of our own, let's recall the words of the multi-dimensional being Iok Sotot from Morrison's first major superhero comic: Zenith. He blissfully declares, "I love to watch the mindless patterns they make in spacetime."

Wolverine #56: A Review

Last week I listed Wolverine #56 as one of my most anticipated comics of the week. I said, "Jason Aaron is great. Howard Chaykin is great. Maybe, together, they will make a great story. It's gotta be better than the last Wolverine arc, right?" I was correct.

Jason Aaron is great. His Other Side miniseries was the best war comic of this decade (not that he's had a ton of competition in that genre lately), while his Scalped is the best Vertigo comic being published right now. If you're not reading Scalped, you're crazy. You are literally, not metaphorically, a lunatic, and you will probably end up in some sort of asylum if you're not careful. It's that good. It will keep you sane with its greatness.

Howard Chakyin is one of the all-time greats, for a variety of reasons, although as much as I love American Flagg! (and I do love it! I even own an original Chaykin page from the series, and I own very little original art--it's basically that page, a Cowan Question page, a Sienkiewicz New Mutants page, a Case Doom Patrol page, and a Quitely JLA: Earth 2 page. Those creators and those particular comics have deep personal meaning for me), and as much as I love his Shadow, I think Chakin's most beautiful work is on the Blackhawk miniseries. He may have peaked as a comic book artist in the mid-to-late 1980s, but I still love his art, and his chunkier, broad-chested and wide-hipped character work these days adds a sense of weariness to the heroes and the villains which inhabit the more recent stories.

The Aaron/Chaykin collaboration on Wolverine #56 produces the best single-issue Wolverine tale that I can remember, and one of the best self-contained Marvel stories I've read in ages. It's a fantastic issue. I've been quite disillusioned with Wolverine over the past year, and although I've been picking it up since Millar's excellent run, I haven't really been reading it all that attentively. I liked parts of the Guggenheim run, but it began to feel repetitive by the end, and the Loeb run was a bunch of meaningless revelations beneath some seemingly out-of-place Bianchi art. I would say that issue #56 is a return (albeit briefly, perhaps) to greatness for Wolverine, but I don't know that any issue of the series (in this volume or the last) has ever been quite as good as this one.

The story itself, at least in it's conceit, is reminiscent of Eisner's Spirit. Many of the great Spirit tales focused on a minor character, usually someone pathetic in their way, who crossed paths with Denny Colt, but the story was actually about the minor character's rise and fall (or just their fall from grace). Aaron and Chakin, in Wolverine #56, give us the story of the lonely and misguided Wendell, a man who may never have achieved greatness, but he has also never sunken so low as he has by the time of this story. Wendell shows up to work, awkwardly attempts banter with his colleagues, and then performs his daily task: shooting a giant machine gun into a pit. Inside the pit, of course, is a battered and bloody Wolverine. How he got there is irrelevant. Why Wendell (and the other employees) shoot him is irrelevant (to them). It's their job. And they have to do it every ten minutes to keep Wolverine from healing enough to climb out of the pit.

The story is a touch of Kafka, and a slice of The Twilight Zone, combined with that Eisnerian sense of pathos, and yet, it's a Wolverine story as well, as the title character uses his wits and his feral gifts to combat the unstable Wendell and earn his freedom.

Technically, this story fits into current Wolverine continuity, which is now mired in deep conspiracies and the shadowy machinations of some mysterious "Romulus" character. I'm not very interested in any of that, but I am interested in this single issue. It's a strange, off-beat Wolverine story that never worries about getting the character into costume. And even without a traditional fight scene, it manages to show what is so cool about a character who has been overexposed and underwritten for years.

Yes, Jason Aaron and Howard Chaykin can make a great comic book together, and they have. Pick up Wolverine #56. It's the only Wolverine you'll need for a while. And it's enough.

Geniusboy Live On Demand Radio--Episode 3

A mere week after Episode 2, Episode 3 of the Best Podcast Ever is now available for your listening pleasure. Join Ryan and I as we explore the genius of "X-Men: Endangered Species," ponder the greatness of Tiny Titans, revel in upcoming movie previews, attract another dubious sponsor, and discuss who would win in a wrestling match: Ryan or Millard Fillmore.

We now have a podcast page at geniusboylive.podomatic.com, so if you'd like to leave an e-mail for our podcast, or record an audio comment, check out the page there. You can also subscribe to the podcast via that page, so you never have to miss an installment!

Or you can listen to Episode 3 directly by clicking on the title of this blog post.

By the way, this episode is freakin' awesome!

Batman #668: A Review

Batman #668, by Grant Morrison and J.H. Williams III, is an excellent comic book. As the second installment of the three-part "Club of Heroes" story, it expands the story both inwardly and outwardly, creating a metafictional context for the Agatha Christie-inspired mystery while advancing the murderous plot.

The issue begins with a three-part sequence, labelled "Eight Years Ago," drawn in a generic 1970s superhero style. The conspicuous use of benday dots in the color scheme (along with the radical shift from Williams III's "normal style") indicates that this sequence takes place not only in the past, but it takes place in the "comic book past"--a time when stories, and the characters inhabiting those stories, were more simplistic. The Legionary's dialogue, "Ah, c'mon fellas, we're here to promote world peace and trade crimefighting methods" undescores the naive sweetness of the past. Since we have already seen the Legionary brutally mudered in the "present day" story of issue #667, this three-page flashback provides a brilliant contrast to the way things were (in regard to the past of these characters, and in regard to the past of Batman himself, who was just as corny in his 1950s comic book appearances) and the way things are today (with each character having gone through an off-panel revamp or two, as I described in my look at the previous issue, and Batman having remained a much darker incarnation of himself ever since the mid 1980s). Throughout the issue, Morrison and Williams III play with the resonance of the past on the events of the present.

Actually, Morrison seems to be playing with that theme throughout his Batman run. As much as his iteration of Batman is self-declared attempt to return the character to the Neal Adams "hairy-chested love God" version, and as much as Morrison explores the nature of Batman doppelgangers and variations, the dominant idea throughout all of Morrison's issues so far seems to be the legacy of the past. Batman had to deal with the consequences of his tryst with Talia, he's re-opened the "Black Casebook" which is his attempt to reconcile the supernatural and science-fictional elements of his history, and now, Batman's reunion with minor (some would say ridiculous) characters from his past has resulted in tragedy. Even the much-maligned prose issue featuring "The Clown at Midnight," fits into that scheme, since Morrison's Joker is terrifying exactly because he constantly reinvents himself with no regard for the past. He's a character without the weight of a consistent legacy, and that's where his evil derives.

Batman #668 fits firmly into that thematic structure, but that's not necessarily what makes it good. What makes it good is Morrison's use of Batman as as detective, the expansiveness of the implied mythology of these minor characters, and the stunning work by J.H. Williams III.

First, the detective bits. As I've mentioned elsewhere, Batman rarely uses his supposed detective skills. Even in Paul Dini's earlier Detective Comics stories, which are pretty good self-contained stories, the Riddler plays the role of the detective, and then Batman kind of explains what was really going on in the end. We don't see Batman doing much detecting throughout the course of the stories. And most writers ignore the detective stuff entirely, moving from one fight or pursuit to another, without much care in the small details of observation. Since those pieces are often ignored, it's nice to see Morrison taking advantage of that side of Batman. It's not like the issue is revolutionary in the way it shows these detective moments, but it's nice to see. Morrison gives us clues, like the number of times the Legionary was killed, and a card with a bit of Latin. He gives us chicken grease and a mysterious light source. These are conventions of the detective genre, nothing we haven't seen on television before, but they're conventions because they are an intrinsic part of that type of mystery story. And that's what Batman #668 is--beneath all the "legacy of the past" stuff and the metafictional representations of the "Batmen," drawn in the styles of various other arists--it's a mystery story. A good one. I don't know whodunit, but I'm curious to find out.

Second, Morrison and Williams III use the iconography of comic books (both verbal and visual) to create an entire mythology around the Club of Heroes--characters who made less than a handful of appearances in previous stories and were created to represent what their original name impled. They were the "Batmen of All Nations," and their characterization was a stereotypical as their costumes. The French Batman looked like Musketeer (hence his name), the Native American Batman wore feathers, the British Batman was a knight, etc. While Williams III draws each character in a way which implies that each of them has undergone revisionism (which I won't go into here, since I covered it in my review of #667), and thereby uses a visual shorthand to imply a depth of characterization (even a stereotypical one) missing from the Club's previous appearances, Morrison uses apparently throw-away lines of dialogue to refer to a world outside the story. The Musketeer refers to "those years in prison" and his "old adversary Pierrot Lunaire," the Legionary lost his city to "a madman called Charlie Caligula," and the Gaucho explains that "the blue scorpion is the calling card of the assassin Scorpiana." Yes, those are ridiculous character names that match the stereotypical portrayal of these "Batmen," but they imply the Morrison has created histories for these sad, doomed heroes. Scorpiana, Charlie Caligula, and Pierrot Lunaire will doubtful play any kind of role in the story (I doubt they are clues, although I don't know for sure), but just by mentioning them in the story, the issue feels larger, more expansive, and more imaginative. It's basically a locked-room mystery that takes place in the world between the imagined past, the "real" past of Batman, and the recontextualized present.

Third, Williams III is in top form in this story. The conceit of illustrating each character in the mode of another artist (or style) could be a disaster, and I can see how a reader might find it off-putting even in this issue, but I think Williams III pulls it off brilliantly. One could argue, perhaps, that it's a bit like watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with all the competing layers and character designs clashing against one another. But that's where its beauty lies. It's a self-aware approach to comic book art, surely, but the clash of styles acts not only as a visual shorthand (as I mentioned above), but it matches the lack of harmony within the Club of Heroes as well. They clash, both artistically and personally. It fits. But Williams III doesn't stop there, with his artistic playfulness. He uses a batwing design to frame a sequence, interrupted by the sillouette of a black gloved hand (representing the machinations of the mysterious villain). And in a virtuoso two-page spread in the climax of issue, he justaposes three layers: a six-panel top layer, with the final three panels falling off into the following page as the climactic image is revealed beneath; a glove-shaped panel as the middle layer, revealing the death of another victim; and two partly-obscured nine-panel grids as the bottom layer, revealing the romaticized, sweetly naive past of the victim. It connects the legacy of the past theme with the thriller plot and emphasizes the level of the threat while showing character reactions. All done with style and beauty. It's a remarkable two pages.

Morrison's Batman run has been interesting since the beginning, but his collaboration with Williams III has moved this three-issue arc into the top tier of Morrison superhero stories. Batman #668 is not only the best comic of the week, but I think the "Club of Heroes" will be remembered as one of the Batman highlights of the decade.

Unknown Comic Book Authors Of The Decade Of The 1970's

Hello, loyal readers! Richard Oldstate here. My good friend and ice-fishing companion Timothy has asked me to fill in for him during his trip. While I lack Mr. Callahan's encyclopedic knowledge of the comic book medium, I make up for it by being several inches taller. I also have much cooler facial hair. And so I begin:

The 1970's was a turbulent and exciting period in the comics industry. It was a boom period full of experimentation, both on and off the page. Many trendsetting authors and artists began their career during this amazing period, while others showed a brief flash of brilliance only to quickly burn out, like a light bulb with substandard filament.

Earl Somerlath (b. 1947) began his comic career, as many before and after, as a fan. He would read comics by the dozen and overwhelm editors with his frequent letters. No continuity error was too small, no typo too insignificant for one of Mr. Somerlath's scathing letters to the "editor" (quotations his). One particular nineteen page letter, which focused solely on the scientific inability of a dog flying a spaceship, greatly impressed a young publisher by the name of Hal Turtin. Mr. Turtin decided that Somerlath's strongly worded missives and obsession with historical minutiae would make him the perfect man to craft a series of more realistic super hero comics.

The first comic penned by Somerlath, The Amazing and Verified Exploits of the Super-Mustachioed-Man, was a gigantic success, selling over three hundred copies in the first year alone, a very impressive number for that era. The book, featuring the exploits of a gay 90's barkeep with a well kept handlebar moustache and the "most striking arm-garters south of 4th street," enjoyed an impressive (again, for the era) twenty-three issue run. Greatly enjoying the books many profits and yearning for more, Turtin convinced Somerlath to give one of the books many minor characters his own title.

The resulting title, The Ombudsman, attracted less success. Although fans and critics alike marveled at the realistic depiction of a 19th century Norwegian fishing village, they quickly grew tired of stories about maritime fact-checking and the ethics of journalism at sea. The title lasted only four issues.

The news wasn't all bad for Somerlath. The slight success of The Amazing and Verified Exploits of the Super-Mustachioed-Man allowed him to concentrate on more personal and less commerical works, none of which he ever completed. During this period, he also dipped his toes in the sea of Hollywood, penning unsolicited and unread scripts for Jaws 2, The French Connection 2, Bullit 2, Bullit 3, Murder on the Orient Express 2, and Kramer vs. Kramer 2.

Desperate for another hit to saving his dying company, Turtin again turned to Somerlath. Over a long weekend in Wilkes-Barre, the two hammered out the details for the the title that would surely set the world of comics on its ear. Thrilling Tales of Cunning!, as conceived by Turtin and Somerlath, would feature three stories an issue, each with a tale of everyday men and women overcoming adversity and defeating the bad guys with nothing but pluck, common sense and good, old-fashioned, American ingenuity.

Not much is known about the cross country trip Somerlath took after that weekend in Wilkes-Barre. He left Pennsylvania on Friday with his wife and two children. He arrived at his home in Sacramento the following Thursday. His wife and children were nowhere to be seen. He was a broken man who cried at the drop of a hat or the honk of a passing car's horn. He spent the next fourteen days locked in his study, writing.

When he emerged, he did not hold the Thrilling Tales of Cunning! script in his hands. He held something different. Something new. Something the world of sequential art had never seen.

Factual Tales of Cowardice was not the hit Turtin was expecting. Though exhaustively well-researched, this three issue anthology series disappointed fans and critics alike. The fact that every story ends with the de facto "hero" running away, being beaten senseless, or breaking down in tears as his wife and two children are set afire before his eyes by a gang of renegade bikers does become a bit off putting.

After the complete failure of Factual Tales of Cowardice, Turtin fired Somerlath and the two never spoke again. Somerlath self-published one title: Kat Fancy. This detective title, about an eighty-three year old, seven-hundred and four pound women who solved crimes from her sick bed with the help of her eleven cats, suffered from many of Somerlath's bewildering creative choices. Firstly, Somerlath, never an artist, chose to draw the book himself, which explains why he chose to set it entirely in the tiny sick room of a elderly, morbidly obese invalid. Every panel contains the same drawing of a women in bed, surrounded by cats. Secondly, Somerlath greatly undercuts any possible drama inherent in a detective story by writing in his introduction, "cats are the slowest of tamed beasts and are incapable of even the most rudimentary English. Their attempts at detection would be laughable at best. Please enjoy the following made-up, implausible story."

Somerlath never wrote another word after Kat Fancy. Today he resides in Oxnard, California and can be found sitting quietly at his great-niece's swim meets.

Another Trip, New Releases, and a Guest

I'm going to be out of town for the rest of the week, so no more updates until this weekend guest blogger Richard Oldstate will be taking over this blog for the next few days. I hope you enjoy his forays into comic book history.

My trip means I'll miss New Comics Day, which is always slightly disappointing (who wants to wait?!?!?), but this week is even more so with a bountiful array of cool comics being released.

Here are my Top Ten Most Anticipated Comics for This Wednesday. Buy them and read them before I do!

10) WOLVERINE #56--Jason Aaron is great. Howard Chaykin is great. Maybe, together, they will make a great story. It's gotta be better than the last Wolverine arc, right?

9) MARVEL ADVENTURES FANTASTIC FOUR #27--It's a Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with the Inhumans! I love the Inhumans so much. No doubt Black Bolt will spoil the meal with an off-color comment. That wacky Black Bolt!

8) BLUE BEETLE #18--This is one of DC's best serialized comics that actually has an ongoing story, character development, subplots, and all that other stuff they stole from Marvel (and rightly so). If you're not reading this, then it just might be THE BEST COMIC YOU'RE NOT READING. If you are reading it, then you are my friend.

7) ANNIHILATION CONQUEST STAR LORD #2--Rocket Raccoon in The Dirty Dozen in space. Yes!

6) ASTONISHING X-MEN #22--Am I the only one who regularly reads this title but has only a vague memory of what's going on? I think the X-Men are still in space, right? And Colossus is going to destroy the planet? Or did that already happen? Has it been a while since issue #21? I don't even know anymore. But it's still the best X-Men comic on the stands no matter what.

5) SPIRIT #9--It must be a good week when a Darwyn Cooke comic lands at the number 5 slot. As much as I'll miss Cooke when he leaves this title after issue 12, I'd much rather see him do his own stuff, actually. Will Eisner's ghost is too constraining for an artist of his caliber.

4) SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #33--I like this new direction of the Legion so far, even with my problems with the consistency of Calero's otherwise excellent artwork. I wish Tony Bedard had a year or two on this title to develop his approach fully, but it looks like he's going to be booted in a few months in favor of (probably) Jim Shooter. I am hoping for the best, but not-so-secretly fearing the worst when that happens.

3) THE ORDER #2--This is my impression of Matt Fraction: "I am Matt Fraction. I write comics that are AWESOME. Seriously." And, it's just so true. This comic is going to be great. I can taste it.

2) IMMORTAL IRON FIST #8--This is my impression of Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, together. "We are Ed and Matt. We write comics that are AWESOME, especially when we write them together, and double especially if they involve kicking and huge kung-fu tournaments." Oh, man, the only reason this comic isn't #1 is because of...

1) BATMAN #668--You may have heard that I think Morrison is pretty good, and I kind of like J.H. Williams III, especially when he's drawing, well, anything. This is going to be a great issue. The Club of Heroes! Death! Mystery! Romance! (Well, probably not Romance) Fanciness! Spectacle! Maybe I'll find a shop while I'm on vacation, read this in the store, put it back on the shelf, and then actually buy it from my local shop when I get home. No, maybe I'll buy two copies and give one to a homeless orphan to cheer him up. I'm sure this comic has the power to heal.