Submitted for your consideration: the remarkably unsettling Die Duckomenta – Disney-inspired art pieces.
(via pal Andy)
You are currently browsing the archives for May, 2004
Justice League of America #200.
Justice League of America #200 is one of my favorite superhero comics, bought off the stands by a 12-year-old me back in ’82. The plot (involving the return of the alien warriors from the team’s origin story in issue #9 from ’62) basically pits the original members of the JLA (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc.) against the team members that joined later. The battles between the heroes are separated out into chapters, each by a different and appropriate illustrator: Atom vs. Green Lantern by Gil Kane, Flash vs. Elongated Man by Carmine Infantino, Green Arrow & Black Canary vs. Batman by Brian Bolland, Aquaman vs. Red Tornado by Jim Aparo, and more — there’s not a clunker in the bunch. Each chapter features at least one full page drawing of the heroes confronting each other…a nice showcase for each artist to strut his stuff. The framing chapters and wraparound cover are by George Perez. It’s 72 pages, no ads, and well worth your time should you happen upon a copy.
This is the quintessential superhero comic anniversary issue, the one by which all others should be judged: it features 1) plenty of artists*, 2) all the characters regularly associated with the book, 3) a more or less stand-alone story (if you haven’t read the original origin story, it’s recapped), and 4) a nice reflection on the history of the book and what makes it unique (both within the story itself and in the essay by writer Gerry Conway, printed on the inner covers). Too many anniversary or “special” issues seem to be the culmination of the previous year’s plotlines…which I suppose is fine for that title’s regular readers. But, there are some people, like me, who like to pick up the larger special issues to sample other titles or characters and would rather get a self-contained story instead of “the senses-shattering final chapter!”
And yes, before you ask, the Gil Kane chapter does feature one of his patented “haymaker punch/receiver of punch flung backwards, head over heels” shots. It wouldn’t be Gil Kane without it!
* Okay, you don’t have to have “plenty of artists” for a good anniversary book, necessarily, but it certainly adds to the appeal of this particular comic!
Uncanny X-Men #175.
1. I don’t know if I could have picked a worse issue of Uncanny X-Men to have been my first than issue #175, which I bought off the stands over 20 years ago. I don’t mean “worse” in terms of quality (it was fine, certainly better than the dire X-Men comics we’d see in the 90s), but worse in terms of “easily accessible to someone who has never read X-Men before, ever.”
Yeah, I know that seems to be a little late for a comics fan to be getting into the X-Men (I’d just entered my teenage years), but for superhero comics I was (and sorta still am) a diehard, incorrigible DC fan, so experimenting with those Marvel Comics was still fairly new to me back then.
But, you know, even for being the last part of an ongoing story (well, as much as a “last part” as any X-Men story seems to get), I didn’t have much problem getting into the narrative, understanding the basics of the characters and their relationships, and so on. Of course, that was almost certainly because of Chris Claremont’s writing style, which has the characters declaring their abilities and attitudes to each other, ad nauseam. Plus, X-Men as a whole was a heck of a lot less complicated back then, though I recall that people were complaining in ‘zines of the time about how convoluted the whole X-saga was. If they only knew what was coming….
Anyway, during the course of my workday on Saturday, I ended up glancing through a copy of #175 and started feeling nostalgic for the time when I was a young bright-eyed comics fan, and not the jaded and bitter old fart I’ve since become.
1. As for that exclusive Spider-man hardcover Barnes & Noble is carrying…I expect it’ll have the same fate as all the other Marvel books at our local Barnes & Noble. It’ll sit on the shelf, unsold, getting progressively more shopworn as it gets manhandled by kids or read for free in the B&N coffee nook, until it finally gets tossed on the discount table.
1a. We also have a Borders within spitting distance of our store…but it seems like half its employees are also customers of ours, and we get all kinds of referrals to our store from there, so I can’t really complain.
2. Saw three superhero-related trailers last night…the new Spider-Man 2 trailer is one of those Walt Disney-style trailers that seem to show you the entire movie. The film looks okay to me…better than the first one, anyway. Catwoman got a few snickers, as expected, and no one knew what to make of Constantine (which may be an entertaining movie, so long as you don’t expect it to have any semblance to the comic whatsoever).
3. Sad news: according to this post by J. Michael Straczynski, actor Richard Biggs (who portrayed Dr. Stephen Franklin on Straczynski’s Babylon 5) suddenly passed away Saturday morning. He was a far too young 43.
If you liked my “Things Not to Say to Comic Shop Employees” (from here, here, and here), then you may enjoy Stuart Immonen’s “50 Reasons to Stop Drawing at Conventions.”
"More action than ever!"
Swamp Thing #24 (September 1976)
When we last left Swamp Thing, Alec Holland has regained his humanity with the help of his scientist brother Edward Holland, and Edward’s beautiful companion Ruth. This issue (by the entirely new creative team of David Anthony Kraft, Ernie Chua, and Fred Carrillo) kicks off with the newly-human Alec having a nightmare about his fiery origins as that muck-encrusted mockery of a man. Ruth comes into his room and wakes him, and Alec relates to her his doubts about being able to adjusting to a renewed life as a human being. “Where do I start?” asks Alec. “Start with me, Alec — start with me.” Oh dear.
In the meantime, a gentleman by name of Soloman Smith collects Sabre from the local pokey:
…which raises some questions. See, Sabre was in an awful state at the end of the previous issue, “his body burned beyond recognition” — which apparently only needed a few bandages and a sling to help him heal. And, “shortly thereafter” according to the captions, Sabre is up and around with this group of winners:
Anyway, these representatives of the the super-criminal group COLOSSUS want Swamp Thing in order to learn about Alec Holland’s secret project, the bio-restorative formula, and create an army of unstoppable swamp-thing soldiers. However, another of COLOSSUS’s agents, Thrudvang the Earth-Master, is apparently running loose in Oregon:
So Thrudvang is super-strong, not very bright, and apparently has the telekinetic power to move earth…you know, create giant divots, open up chasms, etc. Anyway, we get a brief sequence of Thrudvang demolishing some loggers and their bigrig, followed by a short flashback to the Earth-Master’s origin (created by the COLOSSUS labs).
Back to our heroes…Alec and Ruth are heading out to the grocery store, after saying goodbye to Alec’s brother Edward. As they drive off, the romantic triangle subplot begins in earnest as Edward thinks to himself: “Alec and I have always been rivals. While he won all the research grants, government chemistry contracts and recognition, I went completely ignored. Now, he’s back from the ‘dead‘ and already the pattern starts anew — with Ruth! Well, it’s not going to happen again, Alec…not again!”
After shopping, Alec and Ruth are putting groceries in the car when Alec starts experiencing sudden sharp pains:
Alec refuses to see a doctor (probably a good idea, since he is legally dead and all), and thinks to himself about how those pains felt like the discomfort he had when, as the Swamp Thing, he had to regenerate a lost arm.
We then get a quick scene change to the remarkably-recovered Sabre talking with Solomon Smith, letting him know what the rest of COLOSSUS did not…that the Swamp Thing has now reverted to human form, and that Alec Holland had better be captured before Thrudvang finds him.
Unfortunately, as Alec and Ruth drive home, Thrudvang does find them, homing in on the homing transmitter still lodged in Alec’s shoulder (as mentioned last issue). Using his earth-moving powers, Thrudvang demolishes the car, and Alec and Ruth are thrown from the wreckage.
And here is the closest scene in the issue to what we see on the cover:
…except for the whole Thrudvang-talking thing, since inside the comic itself he doesn’t say a word. By the way…what kind of name is Thrudvang, anyway?
So Alec recovers the unconcious Ruth and hightails it, with the slow-moving Thrudvang in pursuit. Jumping over a chasm suddenly created by the big yellow guy, Alec depends on his speed and his enemy’s own apparent lack of cognitive abilities to elude him…unaware of the homing device embedded in his body.
While in hiding, Ruth wakes, and Edward’s fear suddenly comes true as Alec and Ruth completely ignore the immediate danger and start gettin’ it on, only to have a not-so-surprise guest:
So then there’s a bunch more running around and goings-on, ending with Alec leading Thrudvang over a rope bridge, pulling out a previously-unmentioned pocket knife, cutting said rope bridge, and sending Thrudvang to his doom.
The story ends with Alec and Ruth in an embrace, as Alec ponders his uncertain future and the troubles he has seemingly brought onto his loved ones following his cure.
We then get this promise:
…which never happened, since this was the last issue of the series. Rats. Though, as an aside, 20 or so years ago the Overstreet Price Guide did include the nonexistent issue #25 in their listings for at least a couple editions. Anyway, Alec Holland’s story picks up again in Challengers of the Unknown #82 (1977), which I’ll probably look at here in the near future.
Now, the combination of Alec’s body pains with the new more superhero-y direction of the series had made me believe that a possible eventual goal was to have Alec gain the ability to switch back and forth between human and Swamp Thing form. And a cape and some nice boots. Well, okay, maybe not with the costume.
As I mentioned here, these stories involving Swamp Thing regaining his humanity are officially ignored in the character’s continuity, as per an editorial reply in the letters column of Saga of the Swamp Thing #6. However (and I must warn you, this will officially be the Geekiest Thing Ever) I always figured there was a way to keep these stories in continuity, given what new things we learn about Swamp Thing in Alan Moore’s run.
Okay (spoilers ahead), we learn in that run that Swampy was never Alec Holland, but rather an Earth Elemental that used Alec Holland’s mind as a template for itself. So, therefore, in the issues I discussed, clearly the Swamp Thing couldn’t be cured of his condition and turned back to human form, since he was never human to begin with. We also learn that the Swamp Thing has the ability to generate human-like forms out of plants (introduced in Swamp Thing 2nd series #56, elaborated much later in Mark Millar’s run). Given that, perhaps we can assume, in the process of the “cure” in #23 of the original series, the Swamp Thing, still believing himself to be Alec Holland at his core, subconsciously constructed a human body for himself.
So there, a 30-year-old bit of Swamp Thing continuity is resolved. Who says I’m not cutting-edge?
The winners of the Demo giveaway have been announced…they’re all top-notch, but my favorite is the Special Prize Winner at the very end.
New comics this week:
- Seaguy #1 is just as absolutely mad as I was hoping. We’re plopped right down in the middle of an established superhero “universe” — it all seems completely insane, but it’s no more nutty than the stuff we accept with regularity in X-Men or Superman. This is probably as close as a long-time comic reader like me (or most of you, for that matter) will come to sharing the experience of someone who has never before read a comic book perusing an issue of, say JSA.
- Justice League: Another Nail #1 (speaking of crazy continuity) picks up where Justice League: The Nail left off…or rather, glossed over, as the Green Lantern Corps/New Gods war that happened off-stage in the last series is detailed at the beginning of this new series. The art of Alan Davis (with Mark Farmer) is as great as it always is. Makes one wish he’d draw a good comic series on a regular basis.
- I think the new Invincible (#12) took me all of about two minutes to read, but that’s okay, because the emotional impact of this story more than made up for its apparent brevity. I want #13 in my hands by next week, Kirkman!
- Also picked up the new Demo (#6) — darn you, Larry Young, for getting me hooked on yet another comic series! (That sound you hear is the evil laughter of Big Larry.) Yes, it’s good. Do I need to tell you that?
Geek talk alert: so I’m chatting with pal Corey, pal Ian, and pal Dorian about the Spectre today. I’m still pushing for the quite-possibly-soon-to-be-late Sue Dibny to be the new Spectre. Pal Corey suggested Arthur Curry, Jr. (yes, that’s right, the deceased Aquababy – “I’m the Spiwit of Vengeance!“). Pal Dorian wants a fresh start…a brand new character as the Spectre. I believe pal Ian suggested former Robin Jason Todd, but I think we’re all holding out the possibility that he may come back (re: events at the end of Hush). Pal Corey also said, joking aside, that it could be Adrian Chase, AKA Vigilante…pal Dorian believes that might involve a little too much back story, but I think a page of flashback might be enough to get folks up to speed.
Yes, I know that’s extremely geeky. Whaddaya want from a comics weblog?
Boris Karloff Thriller #1 (October 1962)
Long day at work, so I think all I’ll do today is post this cool cover. Neat, huh?
Kid Colt Outlaw #117 (July 1964)
Greg over at Viper Comics recently posted a great Kid Colt Outlaw cover, so I thought maybe he’d like to see another one. Hmmm…Kid Colt got a little off-topic every once in a while, didn’t it?
