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[maybe some SPOILERS for Doomsday Clock #9 ahead)
I keep telling myself I have another deep-dive post on the whole Doomsday Clock thing, as a follow-up to this entry (and a bit more here) but it never really coalesces around much more of a center than “man, are you seeing this?” which, oddly enough, is sort of the tone of Doomsday Clock itself. “Man, are you seeing Batman fighting Rorschach? Man, are you seeing DC superheroes using swears?” You know, like that.
Issue #9, due out at your finer funnybook emporiums this week, is sort of the ultimate expression of that, where we finally get what we paid that admission price to see. It’s the DC Universe Super-Pals versus Dr. Manhattan, and I’d be lying if I said this isn’t exactly what I wanted from this comic book. I know they’re trying to say some heavy stuff about the political and society impact of superheroes in the DC Universe, a somewhat less subtle mirroring of one of the themes, itself not so subtly expressed in Watchmen. And they’re leaning hard on the anti-hero sentiment (again, as seen in the older series, and also, I’ve read Legends, thanks). And yes, we’ve got the President in here, too…we don’t see his face, but it’s Trump, tying these shenanigans to the here and now, versus the inherent weirdness of seeing Nixon as President in the original’s time frame of the late 1980s.
Hmmm…didn’t mean to do a whole “Watchmen is like this, but Doomsday Clock is like this” thing there, but it’s pretty much hard to avoid when discussing a series that on a very surface level is aping its inspiration while trying to shoehorn the format into a milieu for which it wasn’t really suited. The trappings are all there, the art is quite nice, it remains, as I’ve written before, oddly compelling almost despite itself, but it doesn’t feel right.
It certainly succeeds in not being like pretty much anything else DC has ever published…or it could be exactly like material DC has published, with characters forced to conform to a structure for which they weren’t intended. Even Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, as different from the usual comic book mold as it was, still felt like a natural extension of what had come before. Doomsday Clock feels like having your Star Wars action figures fight your Micronauts toys. Yeah, you bet it’s fun, but clearly the two lines were never really designed to be compatible.
I’m still interested…I’m looking forward to seeing the metatextual hoops the series jumps through where the Watchmen property is being used to explain DC’s real world New 52/Rebirth publishing initiatives (which, while not a fan of how we got to this point with a surfeit of reboots/relaunchs, I still contend is a clever aspect of the Doomsday Clock project as a whole). And, as a longtime Superman fan, I am very curious about Dr. Manhattan’s connection to that particular bit of DC’s continuity changes (hinted at very briefly, but More on That Next Time, I take it).
In conclusion, it’s all been worth it just for Guy Gardner is this issue.
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, either here or on the Twitters, due to my recent eye travails my ability to read at the pace I’m used to has been somewhat curtailed. I can read, but it takes a lot longer to get through a comic book than it used to. As such, the “to-read” pile at the secret Mikecave headquarters is beginning to pile up a smidgen, which is why I haven’t done a “this week’s comics” post on the ol’ site here in a while. By the time I get around to some of these comics, it’s more like “last month’s comics.” Which, granted, on Monday I did talk about a comic from a few decades ago, but, y’know, that’s different.
Despite all that, I have been trying to keep up with some comics…I’m current on all the Superman books, for example, and I’ve been reading the Detective issues leading up to #1000, and all the Hellboy stuff (though I think I’mm getting lost on some of the ongoing plot details again…I mean, I just reread ’em all back in 2013, guess it’s time for another go), and some others. And there are those I let stack up a bit before plowing through a bunch in a row (oh hello Flash).
But one comic I definitely kept up with was Mage: The Hero Denied (as you may have guessed I was leading up to, as per the image above), which would be the first on the stack to read every time a new one was unleashed over the last purt’near two years. Just when I got used to having a new one every few weeks, it’s gone again.
And even though it does come to a conclusion, I know I’m going to keep expecting a follow-up series in a decade or so. As I neared the end of this final issue, I kept expecting, I don’t know, something that stood out as a hint at more Kevin Matchstick adventures in our future. There’s a bit a dialogue that suggests, hey, maybe, but I’m pretty sure we’re done with Mage comics. BUT I’M STILL GONNA HOPE GOSH DARN IT.
So is it a satisfying conclusion? I think so…pretty much everything’s tied up, a plot point from earlier in the seies I kept waiting to come back to the forefront finally does, and all questions are answered about as much as you can expect them to be. And yes, there’s a fold-out. Wouldn’t be the last issue of a Mage series without one.
It’s hard to believe…I was going to say “hard to believe it’s over,” but it’s more than that. When I read the first Mage series, I was in high school. When the second Mage came out, I was managing someone else’s comic book store. This third Mage came out when I owned my own comic book store. I think it’s more like “I can’t believe something that was released and periodically returned during distinct phases of my life over a period of decades continued in a consistent and enjoyable manner and came to a conclusion on its own terms.” Not pithy, but it’ll do.
Okay, in fairness, I haven’t read this yet, but man oh man look at that cover by Michael Cho. That’s pretty swell. Even so, it was a hard choice to make as to which cover I wanted, since the “regular” cover was all Mister Mind-riffic:
I love the fact that the “serious” versions of Mister Mind DC cooks up still evoke the original design:
As to the series itself…it’s fine. Cap’s creator C.C. Beck would hate it (he hated pretty much all modern comics except Axa), but as far as current superhero comics go, it’s fun enough, and I liked the ongoing thing about Billy trying to come up with a superhero name for himself that isn’t just “Shazam” — a feeling I relate to since I really don’t like that’s what the character’s called now, as perhaps I’ve mentioned only about a hundred times on this site already.
But still…just look at that cover.
* Also, Flash came out this week…he’s got a lightning bolt on his chest, too. And there’s probably somebody else I’m forgetting. Look, there are lots of superheroes, I can’t remember them all.
DC’s latest Big Event Title is Heroes in Crisis, putting lie to the title of DC’s Final Crisis from a few years back. And as this sort of thing goes…well, first off, it’s surprising the first issue was only $3.99, in this brave new world of throwing $4.99 and up on the first issues of special events like this. (CUT TO three years later: “why couldn’t have this just been $4.99, instead of this new $7.99 price point they keep trying to push on us?”)
Anyway, there’s a place called Sanctuary where heroes go to recoup from personal difficulties and other issues, only someone’s broken the peace there and now there are piles of temprarily dead superheroes everywhere. I say “temporarily” because, well, you’ve read superhero comics before, if someone needs any of these guys for future comics, they’ll be back. Plus there are a couple of “deaths” that are 100% red herrings and will be undone over the course of the series.
It’s all pretty somber going, though the interaction between Booster Gold and Harley Quinn, a pairing one wouldn’t expect, is lively enough. Though, you know, still grim. This isn’t helping DC’s reputation amongst the fandom cognescenti, I’d imagine, but we’re still only on the first issue and in “set-up” mode…we’ll see where things go from here. Probably not going to turn out to be a laugh-fest, np. but I can see this heading in interesting directions.
Pictured above is the variant cover, and future variant covers will feature similar images of turning, or “crisis” if you will, points in characters’s lives. “Death of Superman” got me, because, well, you know. Another customer bought it because it had his birthdate on the cover…don’t know if he meant “Nov. 18th” or “July 17th” or possibly both, if it were perhaps an especially long labor.
I also saw comments here and there about Superman being way out of character in this, acting rather cold in his response as flies through the area and counts off the bodies. This didn’t bother me so much…I could read this as Superman waiting to mourn later, while focusing on getting this unpleasant job done now. Less agreeable was the bit where he couldn’t remember that one minor hero, which…c’mon, Superman remembers everybody.
MILD SPOILERS AHEAD:
A couple of things about this comic:
- Of the new Marvel first issues that came out this week, this seems to be the one of choice, outselling Deadpool (surprising), Doctor Strange (not so surprising) and Ant-Man and the Wasp (both of ’em, the mini-series and the Living Legends one-shot, inexplicably released in the same week and not confusing to my customers at all). I mean, that’s good, as Hulk’s sales have been fairly moribund of late and maybe the sorta “back to basics” nature of the new title may encourage readership.
- I suppose “back to basics” isn’t really the right term, here, as there’s been a pretty major change to the status quo of the character: as I understand it (having not read that Avengers issue that originally establishes this new twist) Bruce Banner can be seemingly killed, but owing to the nature of the Hulk side of him, he can be revived from whatever damage was dealt. You know, hence the title “The Immortal Hulk,” I guess. It reminds me a bit of Peter David and Dale Keown’s Hulk: The End one-shot from a number of years ago, where an ancient Bruce is desperately trying to die, while the Hulk refused to let that happen, and struggles to survive.
Anyway, it is back to basics in that we’ve returned to Banner turning into a more articulate Hulk (as he was in the early issues), a transformation triggered by sundown (also from the early issues), as well as a simplicity to the story. Not continuity heavy, not dependent on any of the larger Marvel Universe hoohar, a more-or-less done-in-one issue that establishes the premise and shows us what to expect tone-wise from this series.
Speaking of which, this is much edgier than your standard Hulk book…to the point where I’m concerned about having to explain to parents that maybe this, a Hulk comic for pete’s sake, isn’t appropriate for kids. There’s some pretty harsh stuff in here, such as that opening act of violence that triggers the plot, as well as what I believe is only the second use of the word “asshole” in a not-explicitly-mature-readers superhero comic (after an appearance in DC’s Final Crisis #1). Certainly I think the first in a Marvel comic (again, from the standard superhero line, not like the Max books or anything), which especially surprises because I seem to recall a time where “hell” and “damn” were verboten in Marvel books. At any rate, at a time when kids are particularly interested in reading Hulk comics, thanks to the movies, something like this can be a minor problem. Already went over it with some parents n Wednesday, looking to buy ’em for their funnybook-demandin’ offspring.
- Should note that I’m not a big fan of the two-page splashes, especially in current comics where there is an increasing shortage of storytelling space. However, in this issue, there are two two-page splashes in a row, as a payoff to the anticipation building throughout the issue, and they were very effective and welcome in this particular story. They had a way of really putting the reader inside the story, making you wonder what it would be like jn that position, with that POV, while establishing the sheer immensity of the very thing I’m very coyly not specifying by name but you can probably guess. (This week’s issue of Batman (#48) also had a nicely-used two-page image.)
- Oh, and it was a good comic, too. Did I mention that? It was quite well-done, effectively creepy and suspenseful…just maybe keep it out of Little Billy’s hands ’til he’s a bit older.
Of course when I heard the Brian Michael Bendis run on the Superman titles was going to begin with a six issue Man of Steel mini-series, à la the identically-titled mini from the mid-1980s that kicked off John Byrne’s brief tenure on the character, I pictured that this new iteration would be similar in structure. You know, “retell the origin,” “reintroduce the villains and supporting cast,” and so on. I mean, okay, we’re getting a little bit of that, except it’s a brand new villain (seen in that short story from Action #1000), and what appears to be a new supporting character, and we get a look at the Daily Planet and the folks there, and we get introduced to the mystery of Lois and Jon, and and and…yes, it is a reintroduction to everything, but more in the context of “here’s the latest adventure of Superman, whom we all know has been around a while” and not so much “FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNEW.” Pretty much the definition of a soft reboot, and, you know…it wasn’t bad. Nice dynamic illustration by Ivan Reis and Joe Prado (along with Jay Fabok), plenty of action and quieter moments, the classic costume with the trunks and without the collar (but with the new cuffs, which frankly I barely noticed)…this really did feel like a Superman comic, which is something the Superman comics only sporadically felt like since the New 52 relaunch. I hope this bodes well.
This book is certainly a slow burn…I know it’s all leading up to the eventual Superman Vs. Doctor Manhattan showdown, but in the meantime there’s a lot of characters from either fictional franchises occasionally bumping into each other and goin’ around and doin’ stuff and it’s a whole lot of shuffling pieces around to set up the eventual payoffs. A lot of Doomsday Clock‘s raison d’être is mimicking the style of the original Watchmen (the nine-panel grid, the awkward scene transitions where someone would say, like, “I need to reflect on that” and then there’s a mirror in the next panel, the attempts at world building, the overlay of “serious world politics” over superhero shenanigans), but it seems to me there was a whole lot more…plot progress issue-to-issue in the original than in this new series. I mean, yeah, sure, I get they’re trying to apply some level of mundanity to the usually over-the-top DC Universe, and continuing at this pace is part of that.
To be fair, this issue does seem to move things along a bit more, both with the main characters and with the background world events, and a character we’ve been waiting for to show up in this series finally makes an appearance (no, not Seymour). That payoff is mostly held back ’til next time, though (assuming it’s not all done off-panel).
I have been enjoying the back matter…this time, a “magazine” looking at the state of superheroes around the world. I think I’d almost enjoy more in-universe analysis of superheroes and their political/economic impact in this faux newsmagazine style without the accompanying comic story trying to use it as underpinnings for its plot. Or even the celebrity gossip mag that was in a previous issue…that was fun, too.
Okay, haven’t read this (or any of the other DC/Hanna Barbera crossover comics that came out this week) but the very idea of Jabberjaw being just straight-up drawn as a regular-looking shark, but still a goofball, interacting with Aquaman, is hilarious to me. I mean, he looks adorable. Jabberjaw, that is, not Aquaman…though I guess Aquaman is pretty adorable in his own right, with his certain je ne sais quoi. Wait, perhaps I’ve gotten a bit off track. Anyway, this comic looks pretty great…the “variant” cover (pictured above) is amazing. I mostly liked the previous batch of HB/DC crossovers, and this year’s assortment appears to be fairly quality as well. However, this particular one also has a Captain Caveman back-up by Jeff Parker and Scott Kolins, so I’m reasonably sure I know which of the one-shots this time around will be my favorite.
So there I was, reading the long-awaited final issue of Dark Nights: Metal, new this week from DC Comics, a series that has been a hoot-and-a-half pretty much all the way through, until I come to this. Here, at a gathering where one person has just given an inspirational speech, the others cry out their approval with the traditional cheer of
…by which I assume they mean “hear, hear,” the shortened form of the older phrase “hear him, hear him,” which makes it even more obvious that somebody must have screwed up somewhere. It’s very much an “editing by spellcheck” error, like the kind that was prevalent at the original early ’90s Valiant Comics, which never met a misused “it’s” it didn’t like.
I mean, yeah, okay, it happens. Everyoone makes mistaaks, but it’s especially embarrassing at the end of a highly-regarded, high profile event series for which they’re dinging you a fiver per copy. As these things go, it’s fairly minor…at least the pages aren’t out of order, or the cover doesn’t have an enormous spelling mistake in big red letters:
Anyway, I found that
Dark Nights typo distracting. Had it been, like, in someone’s word balloon, maybe I wouldn’t have been bothered as much, but there it is, in attention-grabbing bold letters, floating over the heads of the characters, poking me directly in my eyes. I know some people
do argue for the “here, here” spelling, but my calm and rational response is that they’re wrong and must be shunned forever.
As for the comic itself, aside from all that: loud and fun nonsense, that’s taking another shot at making a certain DC Comics second-stringer usable again, which may or may not work this time. We’ll see. Also, in terms of “introducing new characters and teams and leading into new comic book series,” I give it a 0.75 on the “Last Issue of Millennium” Blatancy Scale, which I think is more than fair.
From the Die Kitty Die Christmas Special by Dan Parent and Fernando Ruiz that’s out today, a close-up of a handful of titles on a comic rack:
That first one is Space something-or-other, which I thought was Force at first until, duh, I noticed there’s a rocket ship on the cover. That second one is The Bat, which can only be a parody of Spider-Man, I’m sure you’ll all agree. But that third one…that’s Capybara Girl, while being a clear take-off on Squirrel Girl, is totally a comic book I would read, given my life-ling appreciation of the world’s largest rodent.
I’ve written about Die Kitty Die before…Archie Comics artist Parent mixes a little satire of the comics industry with some very mild cheesecake and the occasional rude gag (like this issue’s pottymouthed Mrs. Claus) and a whole lot of silliness, all wrapped around the not-dead-yet title character, Kitty…who is also a witch, by the way. It’s cute and fun and despite appearances, not for kids…and it’s put the idea of “Capybara Girl” out into the wild, so it’s okay by me.
Got in really late this evening, so my post is just going to be a plug for Rick Veitch‘s newest release in his “King Hell Heroica” line, Boy Maximortal:
Yeah, okay, it’s been a while since the last installment (this Bratpack/Maximortal special, I believe?), but Veitch includes a brief recap of What Had Gone Before in the original mini, and you really should own all that stuff anyway. …There’s not that much, just the Bratpack mini (which has appeared in paperback with a slightly altered ending, if I recall correctly), and the previously linked Maximortal and Bratpack/Maximortal specials.
As for this book: it’s 100 pages long, in black and whie, with the “Boy Maximortal” material taking up the first half, and the rest of the book filled with a text piece about the history of the Heroica line, commission pieces and the like. Swamp Thing fans take note: some of the featured commissioned art has Swamp Thing in it.
The Maximortal story itself continues the peculiar yet effective mix of “superhero deconstruction” with a somewhat fictionalized and not terribly flattering history of the comics industry. Some of the players are only just barely disguised versions of actual figures from the business…you can probably guess who “Stanley Burr” and “Jack Curtis” are supposed to be. Veitch also incorporates a couple of anecdotes/character details into his story that may not necessarily be common knowledge, but hoo boy it was rough to see ’em just straight up presented here. It’s like how the story about Jerry Siegel working as a delivery boy after leaving Superman, and having to take something to DC’s offices, made its way into the first Maximortal series. It’s on that level.
The book is, I believe, Print-on-Demand, like his Rare Bit Fiends volume I mentioned a while back, and you can get your own copy here:
It’s a high-quality product, squarebound with crisp printing and a nice slick color cover, in case the “print on demand” thing has you worried. It’s also slightly smaller in size (in actual physical dimensions) than your standard comic book/trade paperback.
Anyway, it’s good to see Veitch returning to this material and advancing the story. It’s been 20 years, and I hope the folks who read these comics back then can find their way to this new release. But even more, I hope new readers discover this book and seek out Bratpack and that original Maximortal, and get their minds pleasantly twisted by what they find.
…so may I recommend the first issue of Mister Miracle, on the shelves of funnybook stores today?
I’m finally catching on to Tom King’s work…I’ve been reading Batman of late, I’ve been picking up those Vision “director’s cut” comics (collecting his 12-issue run two at a time), I finally got around to reading Omega Men, and they’ve all impressed me with their originality, their cleverness, their maturity and their entertainment value. King and artist Mitch Gerads continue these books’ commitment to the nine-panel grid in Mister Miracle, where it is almost like the ticking of a clock, each panel the same size and representing the same amount of story time, pushing the reader inexorably forward. This is a weird, almost nightmarish, but compelling take on the characters, where the inherent weirdness of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World is approached from an askew angle. Some familiarity with the concepts are required, but 1) most superhero comic readers have at least a slight knowledge of the New Gods; 2) the stuff you need to know is brought up in dialogue, and 3) c’mon, anyone picking this up is going to know Mister Miracle’s deal anyway.
There are some storytelling techniques that underscore the disquiet present throughout the narrative, but I don’t want to say more and spoil the surprises. Suffice to say this is a new take on Kirby’s creations here, replacing the standard (and usually great, don’t get me wrong) bombast with an unsettling tension.
Oh, and the cover stock is nice, too. Good ‘n’ sturdy. Would make a good coaster!
All in all, a nice way to honor Mr. Kirby’s memory, just in time for his 100th birthday.
Minor SPOILERS ahead:
So usually when I pick up an issue of DC’s recent “Rebirth” titles, since everything has two covers (at least) now, I’ll pick the cover with the image I like the most. I mean, duh, right? With Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, that decision is made easy by the fact that every biweekly issue has, as an option, a cover by Kevin Nowlan. I likes me the the Kevin Nowlan.
The comic itself I’ve been enjoying…well, quite a bit, actually. The focus right now is on the integration of former adversaries the Yellow Lantern Corps with the Green Lantern Corps into one big happy space cop family, and the subsequent bumps in the road, plus some subplotty stuff with GL Kyle Rayner hitting a rough patch with his paramour, the Yellow Lantern leader Sora. It’s actually all quite entertaining and very soap-opera-y in the best sense of the term, even if this book (like its companion title Green Lanterns more often than not seems to be about dealing with internal issues relating to the various Corps and their histories and not, say, punching Goldface. I mean, that’s fine, we had decades of punching Goldface, I’m not complaining. There’s just that Mike of Decades Ago who remembers reading Green Lantern before it got all complicated an’ stuff, and kind of missing those days once in a while, but understanding that’s just how it goes, sometimes.
Also, we as a people aren’t talking enough about Space Ape.
One of the very first things I bought on eBay (aside from the Swamp Thing Pencil Sharpener) was a still-sealed-in-the-box copy of Galaxian for the Atari 2600. No, not for the video game itself (though that did sort of kick off a brief nostalgia-fueled wave of Atari cartridge collecting, but that’s another story), but for the pack-in Atari Force comic book. You see, during the original wave of Atarimania, I acquired three of the games that had the AF comics, but never did get the other two. But then, along comes the eBay, and suddenly I can complete that set (along with finally getting a copy of Berzerk, a game I never got way back when as a friend had it and I could play it at his house).
I often thought about getting the other comics Atari had packed into their games. I mean, there aren’t that many of them, but I had my chance at getting Swordquest #2 and #3 without buying the cartridges, as the previous place of employment had ’em available singly at one point. And, basically, I just never got around to it.
But here’s Dynamite Comics, putting out a bunch of Atari-related comics, and as a retailer incentive they offered reproductions of the original pack-in comic from Centipede. Yeah, it’s a silly thing to want to have, but I’m glad I have it. It’s got nice art by Howard Post of Harvey and Star Comics fame, and, um, I may have liked it a little more than the new Centipede comic that it was the incentive for. I think I was expecting more High Fantasy (or at least Semi-High) like the old mini-comic, than the apocalyptic sci-fi war comic that we got. I mean, it’s not bad, and I’ll come back for issue #2, but I’m not quite sure I’m getting the setting…? It’s not Earth, but an alien world that’s just like a slightly more futuristic Earth, but they’ve heard of Earth and observed its broadcasts? Yeah, I know, that’s the thing that’s tripping me up about a dude standing along against the invasion of a space centipede. Hey, what can I tell you, I hit a bump, then I hit a bump.
Yes, I’m one of those people who bought the original Mage more-or-less as it was coming out in the ’80s (I think I started about halfway through and picked up the rest as back issues), then read Hero Defined in the late ’90s, and have been waiting for this ever since. I think that puts me squarely in the Mage “30+ Year” Club, patiently anticipating the arrival of the concluding mini. It’s very much the “old warhorse not impressed by these cocky new kids” story, but it’s Matt Wagner and it’s Mage and it’s great and it was sadly missed. And I was only half-joking about wanted “The Hero Disco-Dances” as the follow-up.
Okay, technically this isn’t from “this week’s comics” as per the tag on this post (but then again, the previous comics aren’t from this week, either), but I didn’t get around to reading it ’til last night and there you have it. Mostly, I just wanted to note the plot point (that Shadow has met Batman before, but “clouded his mind” to make him forget) makes all the previous Shadow/Batman crossovers canon. Well, “canon,” you know how DC is. And there’s a sequence showing other DC heroes being killed off, so that’s hard to reconcile. But, you know, close enough!
• • •
So long to Martin Landau of
Space: 1999 and
Ed Wood fame (yes, I know he did more, but I loved those the most)…Mark Evanier
re-presents an interview he did with Landau about his cartooning career. So long also to
George Romero…in whatever afterlife that may exist, let us hope that he and Bernie Wrightson are collaborating on one heck of a zombie movie.
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