Blog 2.0

30 DAYS OF NIGHT ONGOING #9
30 DAYS OF NIGHT ONGOING TP VOL 02

ABSALOM GHOSTS OF LONDON GN
ACTION COMICS #12
AGE OF APOCALYPSE #6
ALPHA GIRL #4 (MR)
ANIMAL MAN #12
ARCHIE ARCHIVES HC VOL 06
AVENGERS ACADEMY #34
AVENGERS VS X-MEN #9 (OF 12) AVX
AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #10

BATMAN NO MANS LAND TP VOL 03 NEW EDITION
BATWING #12
BEASTS OF BURDEN NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH ONE SHOT
BLACK KISS II #1 (OF 6) (MR)
BEFORE WATCHMEN NITE OWL #2 (OF 4) (MR)
BOYS #69 (MR)

CAPE 1969 #2 (OF 4)
CLASSIC GI JOE TP VOL 15
COURTNEY CRUMRIN ONGOING #4

DAREDEVIL #16
DARK SHADOWS VAMPIRELLA #1
DEADPOOL KILLS MARVEL UNIVERSE #1 (OF 4)
DEADWORLD WAR O/T DEAD #1 (OF 5)
DEFENDERS #9
DETECTIVE COMICS #12
DIAL H #4
DISGAEART DISGAEA OFF ILLUST COLL SC
DOCTOR WHO NYAN TARDIS BLUE T/S
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS DARK SUN TP VOL 01

EARTH 2 #4
EPIC KILL #4
EXTINCTION SEED #3 (OF 6)

FIRST X-MEN #1 (OF 5)
FLASH ARCHIVES HC VOL 06
FURY MAX #5 (MR)
FUTURAMA COMICS #62

GARFIELD #4
GI COMBAT #4
GIRL GENIUS TP VOL 11 HAMMERLESS BELL
GREEN ARROW #12

HARVEST #1 (OF 5) (MR)
HAWKEYE #1
HIGHER EARTH #3
HITMAN TP VOL 07 CLOSING TIME
HOUSE OF MYSTERY TP VOL 08 DESOLATION (MR)
HYPERNATURALS #2

INFECTED #1 (OF 4)
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #522
IZOMBIE #28 (MR)

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #12

KUNG FU PANDA TP VOL 01 EVERYONE IS KUNG FU FIGHTI

LADY DEATH (ONGOING) TP VOL 02 (MR)
LOONEY TUNES #208
LOVE AND CAPES WHAT TO EXPECT #1 (OF 6)

MEGA MAN TP VOL 03 RETURN OF DR. WILY
MERCILESS RISE OF MING #3
MICHAEL KALUTA SKETCHBOOK SERIES SC VOL 02
MIND MGMT #3
MIND THE GAP #3
MONDO #3 (OF 3) (MR)
MUPPETS #2 (OF 4)

NEVERLAND HOOK TP (MR)
NEW X-MEN OMNIBUS HC NEW PTG
NINJETTES #6 (MR)

PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR VOL 2 #1
PETER PARKER SPIDER-MAN #156.1
PLANET OF THE APES ANNUAL #1
PUNISHER BY GREG RUCKA TP VOL 01

RASL #15 (MR)
RED LANTERNS #12
ROBERT JORDAN WHEEL OF TIME EYE O/T WORLD #28
ROUTE DES MAISONS ROUGES TP VOL 01 (MR)

SHADOW #4
SHINING FORCE FEATHER OFF DESIGN WORKS SC
SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 #4
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #239
SONIC UNIVERSE TP VOL 03 KNUCKLES RETURNS
SOULFIRE VOL 4 #1
SPAWN #222
STORMWATCH #12
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE VOL 2 #1
SUPERBOY TP VOL 01 INCUBATION
SUPERMAN ACTION COMICS HC VOL 01 SUPERMAN MEN OF S
SWAMP THING #12
SWEET TOOTH #36 (MR)

THE LONE RANGER #8
THE SPIDER #4
THIEF OF THIEVES #7
TMNT RETRO COLLECTOR AF ASST
TRANSFORMERS REGENERATION ONE #82

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #13 DWF

WARLORD OF MARS #20 (MR)
WARLORD OF MARS TP VOL 02 (MR)
WORLDS FINEST #4

X-FACTOR #241
X-MEN #33
X-MEN FF TP
X-MEN OPERATION ZERO TOLERANCE HC

This list is a copy of the list posted at memphiscomics.com. Arrivals at your LCS may vary.

I have a small Fluit Notes tradition: during vacation, I like to take a corresponding break from comic book articles and write about genre TV shows instead. In the past, I’ve written “Best of” lists for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Farscape, Babylon 5 and Lost. This year, I take a look back at five seasons of Chuck, the spy comedy that recently came to an end.

Season One

Chuck vs. the Intersect (1): Wikipedia describes Chuck as an action-comedy-spy-drama. That was both the attraction and the problem. For viewers like me, it was an interesting genre mash-up: a combination of workplace comedies like The Office, spy adventures like Alias and quirky romances like Moonlighting. Chuck could be hilarious one moment and exciting the next. Yet some viewers and critics were confused by a show that defied categorization. USA Today consistently called for the show to dump the BuyMore. I think they were way off base. The workplace hi-jinx grounded Chuck in an ordinary world that the rest of us could relate to while also providing some of the show’s most memorable moments. Plus, the on-again/off-again relationship grew into the real heart of the series, providing an emotional core that sustained it for five seasons.

Chuck vs. the Tango (3): This episode is notable mostly for being the first to run separate stories for the BuyMore employees and the spies. However, that’s more of a historical footnote. The reason why I enjoyed this episode- and remember it so fondly- is that it expanded Chuck’s role in the spy world. It showed that spying would be about more than accessing the Intersect or the occasional fistfight. Chuck had to infiltrate a fancy auction, pretend to be the debonair Charles Carmichael for the first time and, yes, dance the tango.

Chuck vs. the Wookie (4): Chuck was a show about friendship as much as it was about romance. This episode showcased the friendship between Chuck and Morgan, while contrasting it with the working rivalry between Sarah and guest-star Carina. Carina’s flirtation with Morgan was the highlight of the episode and it led to some remarkable recollections in later seasons.

Chuck vs. the Truth and Chuck vs. the Imported Hard Salami (8 & 9): One of the ways the creators of Chuck amped up the romantic tension was by occasionally introducing other love interests. Chuck has such low self-esteem at the beginning of the series that he finds it hard to believe anyone would be interested in him romantically. The result is that he misses early signals and that he’s easily distracted from Sarah when he finally notices them. This two-part story featured Rachel Bilson as a deli chef who names a sandwich after Chuck.

Chuck vs. the Nemesis (10): Matt Bomer returns as Bryce in this critical episode. As Chuck’s old college roommate and Sarah’s former spy partner, Bryce is the connecting link between the two of them. He’s also the perfect spy- suave, confident and competent- everything that Chuck is not. As a result, Sarah is attracted to him and Chuck feels inadequate because of him. Every time Bryce returns to the series, Chuck is forced to step up his game becoming more of a spy and more of a man.

Season Two

Chuck vs. the Seduction (2): In season two, the CIA has decided to use Chuck as a full-fledged agent and not just an asset. Throughout the season, Chuck is trained in new skills and dropped into new situations. In this episode, he is taught the art of seduction by master spy Roan Montgomery, who is played by John Larroquette. The training forces Chuck to confront his emerging romantic feelings for Sarah, even though they aren’t yet comfortable as a couple.

Chuck vs. Tom Sawyer (5): Chuck is at its best when the spy stories and the store stories intersect. In this episode, we learn that BuyMore co-worker Jeff Barnes is a former Missile Command champion from 1983. To everyone’s surprise, this has made him the target of a global terrorist and Chuck has to protect his friend without revealing his CIA connection. Eventually, we discover that Missile Command contains the codes to actually control a missile platform and that Chuck has to beat Jeff’s old world record in order to prevent global catastrophe.

Chuck vs. the Gravitron (8): At this point, I realized that I could have picked almost every episode from season two. This was easily the most consistently entertaining year for Chuck. I particularly enjoyed the Jill trilogy in which Jordana Brewster played Chuck’s ex-girlfriend. The storyline combined great character moments and wonderful plot twists. The final episode in the arc, Chuck vs. the Gravitron, contains a very memorable scene of Chuck and Jill on the Ferris wheel. There’s a lot of tension as the audience knows things that the characters don’t and there’s plenty of heartache for the same reason.

Chuck vs. the Delorean (10): One of the best things about Chuck was that it was fun. That seems to be out of fashion these days, when dark shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad get all of the acclaim, but that humorous side helped Chuck craft its own identity. In this episode, we learn about Sarah’s mysterious past when her dad, a con artist played by Gary Cole, arrives and embroils the team in a con against a sheikh with possible terrorist ties. The con and the upside-down relationships resulted in a trunk full of funny moments and lines.

Chuck vs. Santa Claus (11): The character Chuck is a geek everyman for geeks everywhere. The show Chuck played up those connections by offering numerous tributes to fan favorite shows and movies of the past. This Christmas episode included a hilarious send-up of the original Die Hard movie. Yet, more than that, this episode showed how the series was able to use humor and tension as dramatic counterpoints. At the end of the episode, Chuck watches Sarah kill a terrorist- a shocking moment that shatters his impression of her.

Chuck vs. the Suburbs (13): The writers on Chuck had a lot of fun playing with the “will they or won’t they” angle of Chuck and Sarah’s relationship. In this episode, Chuck and Sarah go undercover as Suburban newlyweds. The scenario offers a possible preview of their future to come. It exposes Chuck’s interest in Sarah and reveals Sarah’s reluctance to be committed to any relationships. It also results in a major moment for the show as this particular suburb is a front for the terrorist organization Fulcrum, once again combining romantic comedy with serious spy tension.

Chuck vs. the Dream Job (19): Chuck was building a reputation for great guest stars but they outdid themselves in this episode with two classic actors in two memorable roles. Scott Bakula appears for the first time as Chuck and Ellie’s long-lost father. And Chevy Chase appears as a computer executive who wants to woo Chuck away from the CIA. This episode contains surprising revelations and difficult decisions, making it an engrossing example of Chuck at its best.

Chuck vs. the Colonel and Chuck vs. the Ring (21 & 22): The final episodes of season two were a heart-racing affair. Chuck and Sarah are finally ready to declare their love for each other and run away from the CIA. But they’ve picked the worst possible time. The CIA is looking for them. They’re looking for Chuck’s dad. And Ellie is planning her wedding to Awesome. The contrast between Chuck’s spy life and family life has never been stronger. Plus, Morgan begins to step to the fore. He’s slowly been growing from comic relief into an important character and in this episode, he surprisingly saves Ellie’s wedding from disaster. We’re also treated to the much-anticipated return of Jeffster!- Jeff and Lester’s awful band that first appeared in Chuck vs. the Best Friend.

That should do it for part one. Come on back for part two and the best of seasons three through five.

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

When I think of how amazingly versatile comics are, I think of publishers like Archaia Entertainment. They’ve just published six graphic novels – none involving superheroes, no two remotely alike, and all of them beautifully done.

Leaping to the top of the list is Judge Bao & the Jade Phoenix ($14.95), by Patrick Marty and Chongrui Nie. Here’s the back story: Judge Bao (999-1062 CE) is an actual historical Chinese jurist famed for personal integrity and his implacable antagonism to corruption. Emperor Ren Zong gave Bao enormous powers to wander the country to root out corrupt officials and right wrongs for the peasants. Bao is a folk hero and symbol of justice in China and the many tales about him have been adapted to various media, including comics, TV and movies.

Including in France, where Marty and Nie have done a number of black and white, pen-and-ink graphic novels in a landscape format. Archaia has reprinted the first of these, and may the comic-book gods grant it’s not the last.

Marty has done a terrific job on Jade Phoenix, although I don’t know if it’s an adaptation of an existing tale or an original extrapolation. He captures the social mores, attitudes and milieu of a wealthy, burgeoning Middle Kingdom in the early 11th century. Well, I think he does, because while human nature is constant across history and geography, various societies are not – and this one is practically alien to 21st century Americans. (For example, Bao – for all that he’s the hero – sentences innocent people to be beaten with sticks who interrupt in court. And that is considered perfectly acceptable.)

One aspect that should prove familiar to American readers is that Bao’s entourage is a sort of super-team of the past. Bao is the brainy leader. Bodyguard Zhan Zhao is like Batman, in that he is master of all weaponry and martial arts; able to defeat multiple ninjas and swordsmen alike; ready to infiltrate secret meetings; capable of traveling swiftly by foot, horse or rooftop – and like Bruce Wayne, irresistible to the ladies. The team also includes a one-man CSI who is both forensic accountant and pathologist, a couple of comic-relief characters and, like most every Western or 1940s superhero, “the kid” – a sidekick that doubles not only as the reader’s POV but someone to whom Bao can explain the plot (so the readers may overhear).

But as good as Marty is, the real star is artist Nie, who makes this book absolutely unforgettable. His work is highly textured; it’s a combination of rapidograph, brush and scratchboard that is amazingly photo-realistic, yet flexible enough to stretch from action scenes to character studies to exaggerated, freeze-frame theatricality. I’ve seen a lot of comics, but few as beautiful and finely crafted as this.

On the opposite end of the content scale is“The Dare Detectives: The Snow-Pea Plot ($24.95), by Ben Caldwell. Caldwell is a toy designer, animator, illustrator and game artist and his experience in the first two categories is on full display here.

The Dare Detectives are a trio of incompetent private sleuths in fictional Enderton City’s Chinatown, made up of a brainy, impatient Hispanic girl named Maria; a strong but childlike lummox named Toby and a snarky, anthropomorphic rabbit named JoJo. If that sounds kind of odd – and I’ll grant you the bunny – this team is actually a classic, based loosely on the Superego, Ego and Id. (Think Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the Three Stooges or even Spock, Kirk and McCoy on “Star Trek”.)

So despite what looks like a off-the-wall cast has long-established and familiar story mechanics buried in its structure that allows us to jump right into the action. And “action” is no metaphor: Animator Caldwell never allows the forward motion to slow, while still telling us everything we need to know, and providing a coherent cartoon world for these characters to inhabit. Meanwhile, you can see toy designer Caldwell in the strong, flexible look of not just the main characters, but even minor ones, like the pandas who are blue-collar henchmen for the chief bad guys, the terrier who is the team’s police contact and the Mr. Magoo-like Chinese restaurateur who is their landlord.

To be honest, “Dare Detectives” is probably aimed at younger readers. But it’s still among my top three of Archaia’s latest releases, and more important for the purposes of this review, emblematic of the publisher’s wide range of content.

I’ll be reviewing the other four books in this column or on my website, but rest assured that the only thing these books have in common is quality.

Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.

As promised, time for the answers to my DC Silver-Age quiz of two weeks ago.   Not as many hardy souls posted in response this time around.  Luke Blanchard and Prince Hal took excellent stabs at it, and Randomnole came through with one solid answer.

I was impressed with the high number of correct answers these gents provided.  Many of the questions I deliberately chose to play on common misconceptions, with the expectation that many would follow the path of those mistaken notions.  However, neither Luke nor Hal were taken in by most of the tricky ones.  And the single poser that Randomnole addressed was nailed spot-on before anyone else provided the correct answer.  So good on all of them!

That said, no-one got all of them correct, nor did they as a group.  The right response to one of the questions eluded everyone.

That takes care of the commentary; now, on to the answers!

ANSWERS TO THE SILVER-AGE CHALLENGE---DC EDITION II:

1.  Of the five services of the U.S. Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard), which one did Wonder Woman join as Diana Prince?

Diana (Wonder Woman) Prince was a lieutenant in the United States Army.

Both Luke Blanchard and Prince Hal got this one correct---but Luke arrived at the right answer through a means that I hadn’t considered.

In 1966, Wonder Woman editor Robert Kanigher undertook an interesting experiment with the series.  Beginning with issue # 159 (Jan., 1966), the adventures of the Amazing Amazon were given a retrofit, evoking the early roots of the character.  Wonder Woman’s origin was retold, as well as her first encounter with Steve Trevor.

Regular artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito mimicked the style of Harry G. Peter, the super-heroine’s Golden-Age artist, and depicted the characters in their 1940’s fashion.  Trevor was again a captain and wore a World War II-vintage Army aviator’s uniform.  The hair of Diana's queen-mother changed from blonde to black, as it had been back in the ‘40’s, and her name returned to its original spelling of Hippolyte—with an “e”.

Subsequent stories depicted Wonder Woman assuming the identity of Diana Prince, a U.S. Army nurse, matching the events told in Sensation Comics # 1 (Jan., 1942).

Kanigher’s “blast from the past” experiment ended with issue # 165 (Oct., 1966).  The following issue resumed telling Wonder Woman tales in the modern style.  (But with typical Kanigher confusion, some elements of the retro period were retained, such as there being a real Diana Prince, who appeared in issue # 167 [Jan., 1967].)

I had forgotten about this period in the Silver-Age Wonder Woman’s history when I ginned up the question about Diana’s military service.  Luke didn’t, though, and from it derived the correct answer.  And it counts.  It meets all the criteria I set down for correct responses.

The source of the correct answer I had in mind stemmed from the first Silver-Age rebooting of the Amazing Amazon’s origin, which was seen in Wonder Woman # 98 (May, 1958).  In the next issue, # 99, the story “Top Secret” tells how W.W. assumed the identity of Diana Prince, and it concludes with her being awarded a commission as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. 

How do we know she is in the Army?  Because she is assigned to Military Intelligence, an Army command.

2.  What was the name of the asteroid where the ancestral home of Bron Wayn E7705---the Batman of 2967---was located?

Baltorr.

(Chuckle!)   I’ll bet this one had a lot of you going back through my recent Deck Log archive entry on the Superman of 2965, to see if I had named it in the section that discussed World’s Finest Comics # 166 (May, 1967).  Well, I didn’t.

This was one of the more straight-forward questions.  The only way to learn the answer was to go through that story, which provided the origin of the Batman of the thirtieth century, and find the one panel in which the name of the asteroid is mentioned.  Something which Prince Hal obviously did, because he got it right.

3.  Who starred as Green Lantern in the Earth-One series about the Emerald Crusader?

Another straight-forward one which both Luke and Hal got right.  It was Charles “Good Time Charlie” Vicker, whom we met in the two-part epic told in Green Lantern 55-6 (Sep. and Oct., 1967).  Charlie ended up trading in his TV-star status for a power ring, when he became a Green Lantern himself.

 4.  Speaking of television shows, what was the name of the television programme regularly hosted by Lana Lang for WMET-TV?

Among her other on-camera duties for WMET-TV, Lana Lang hosted the television series I Remember Superboy, as seen or mentioned in a few issues of Lois Lane, such as # 55 and # 60 (Feb. and Oct., 1965).

Luke answered this one correctly, and Hal agreed.

5.  In what story/issue did Superman first meet Adam Strange?

This is where I started to get sneaky.  I figured most would jump on “The Planet That Came to a Standstill”, from Mystery in Space # 75 (May, 1962).  This is the story in which Adam Strange first met the Justice League of America.  But Superman missed out on that adventure, appearing only in flashback.  So while Adam got to hobnob with the seven other JLA members, he missed out on getting the Man of Steel’s autograph.

The two didn’t meet until the sequel to MiS # 75---“Decoy Missions of the Justice League”, from JLA # 25 (Dec., 1963).  Before someone cries foul, yes, I know that Superman didn’t enter the story until the last few pages, and most of his interaction was with Adam Strange’s “aural image”.  But the last panel clearly shows the Man of Steel together with the actual Champion of Rann enjoying their defeat of Kanjar Ro.

Prince Hal nailed this one.

6.  What story/issue marked J’onn J’onzz’s last Silver-Age appearance with the Justice League of America?

Hal did what I figured most folks would do---go to the last issue of JLA produced by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky and count back until hitting the last Fox/Sekowsky tale to include the Martian Manhunter.  That was, indeed, JLA # 61 (Mar., 1968).

But I couldn’t fool Luke.  He accurately recalled that there was one later appearance of J’onn J’onzz with the Justice League that took place in Action Comics # 366 (Aug., 1968).

The story “Substitute Superman” winds up a multi-issue arc in which the Man of Steel is believed to have died from the lethal “Virus X”.  As it turns out, on the rocket transporting his dying body to our sun, Superman gets better.  Upon returning to Earth, he discovers that the world already believes Superman to be cured and  “he” has been performing his usual super-feats all over the globe.

The mystery is cleared up when it’s revealed that the heroes of the Justice League have been posing as the Man of Steel, until a replacement Superman from the bottled city of Kandor could be chosen.

7.  Speaking of the JLA, per the by-laws of the Justice League, what was the schedule for its regular meetings?

This is the one that neither Luke nor Hal got right.  I’ll let Wonder Woman herself explain the by-law scheduling regular meetings of the Justice League . . . .

I cannot accept Luke’s answer of “monthly” because it is entirely possible that more than one month, perhaps several, go by before a regular JLA meeting convenes.  If an emergency meeting brings the members of the League together, then twenty-eight days later, there is another emergency meeting, and then yet another emergency meeting two weeks after that, obviously more than one month would go by without a regular meeting.

I am kind of curious as to where Hal got his “last Saturday of each month” notion.

8.  In what story/issue did Bizarro № 1 with his classic reversed “S-shield” insignia first appear?

This is where Luke showed his real Silver-Age expertise.  He not only sidestepped the pitfall but gave the correct information, citing the exact story.

Frankly, I was relying on one of the many continuity errors that cropped up in DC stories in the 1970’s to trip folks up.  You see, in every Bronze-Age retelling of Bizarro № 1’s origin, it is depicted like this, from  Superman # 306 (Dec., 1976) . . . .

You see how the scenes show Bizarro № 1’s “S-shield” emblem reversed at the moment of his creation?  That’s a significant error.  For, as Luke knew, when the first Superman Bizarro was created, in Action Comics # 254 (Jul., 1959), his chest insignia was exactly like the real Man of Steel’s.

(And before anyone asks, the first Bizarro---the one of Superboy, back in Superboy # 68 [Oct., 1958]---also wore the proper “S-shield” emblem.)

The “S” insignia of Bizarro № 1 and all the other Superman Bizarros did not become reversed until several Bizarro-related stories later, in Adventure Comics # 293 (Feb., 1962).  And it wasn’t because of a sudden inspiration by artist John Forte.

In “The Good Deeds of Bizarro-Luthor”, Bizarro № 1 and his family are exiled from Htrae by the rest of Bizarro society for the very fact that the S-insignia on their costumes is perfect.  And as we all know, “is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World.”  The solution, which takes the Big Doofus № 1 twelve pages to figure out, is to outfit himself and all the other Superman Bizarros with new costumes bearing the backwards-S emblem.

As Luke also knew.

9.  Speaking of Bizarros, what did the Bizarro-Flash have as a chest insignia?

This was the only question Randomnole chimed in on, but he was the first to get it right.  The Bizarro-Flash’s chest insignia was the silhouette of a gavel inside a white circle.  Randomnole also did the rest of my job for me; he named the story source---specifically, Lois Lane # 74 (May, 1967)---and the reason.

Now, there’s something interesting to add.  On the previous question, I beat up the folks behind the Bronze-Age DC stories, as I so often do, for their sloppiness in making continuity mistakes.  But I have to point out a rare case when somebody actually did his homework.

The Bizarro-Flash did not appear again in a DC comics for another sixteen years.  Then he popped up for a bit part in Superman # 379 (Jan., 1983).  Incredibly, given the latter–age DC’s usual inattention to detail, the Bizarro-Flash was given the proper costume, down to the gavel insignia.

And they got it right again for Bizarro-Flash’s next and last appearance, in DC Presents # 71 (Jul., 1984).

Go figure.

10.  What was the last story/issue to show Hector Hammond as a normal man, before he enlarged his own brain?

This was probably the sneakiest question of the bunch, and it’s the only one that Luke fell for, I’m afraid.  But it didn’t give Prince Hal any problems.  He knew right off that it was JLA # 14 (Sep., 1962).

In his first appearance---“The Power Ring That Vanished”, from Green Lantern # 5 (Mar.-Apr., 1961)---Hector Hammond was a rather dashing, but completely normal-looking villain. 

Hammond showed up next in JLA # 14 as one of the five criminals enlisted by villain Mister Memory as part of his plot to destroy the Justice League. 

True, as Luke accurately noted, this was the issue in which Hammond used his evolution meteor on himself, to become a big-domed but immortal “man of the future”.  As Luke also pointed out, when Hammond appeared next, in Green Lantern # 22 (Jul., 1963), they took the change a step further by showing that a side-effect of turning himself immortal had eventually rendered Hammond immobile.

Unfortunately, Luke missed one earlier panel in JLA # 14.  The one depicting Mr. Memory briefing his five villainous cohorts on his dememorising scheme.  Here, we see a normal Hector Hammond for the last time.

In other words, Hammond did not turn himself into a future man between Green Lantern # 5 and JLA # 14.  He actually did it between the pages of JLA # 14 itself.  Just as Hal answered.

In the final tally, Luke got five out of ten correct, or 50%.  An excellent score, given the fact that he was the first to provide answers.

Prince Hal got seven of ten right, or 70%, also remarkable.

Randomnole only answered the one, but he was the first one to get it right and it was one of the toughies, so he deserves praise, as well.

I hope all of you found some of these answers enjoyable.  That’s the whole point.  Not to show how much you may not know about the Silver-Age adventures of our heroes, but to inspire that “Hey, wow!  I didn’t know that!” feeling when you see the answers posted here.

That’s the part that’s fun for me, when I put these quizzes together, and I hope they’re fun for you, when you read them.

AIRBOY DEADEYE #3 (OF 5)
ALL STAR WESTERN #11
ALTER EGO #111
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #690
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #29 (MR)
ANGEL & FAITH #12
APPLE SELECTION SC VOL 02
AQUAMAN #11
ARAGONES GROO THE WANDERER ARTIST ED HC
ARCHIE #635
ARCHIE CLASH OF THE NEW KIDS TP
AVENGERS #28 AVX
AVENGERS WEST COAST AVENGERS TP FAMILY TIES
AXE COP PRESIDENT O/T WORLD #1 (OF 3)

BACK ISSUE #58
BART SIMPSON COMICS #73
BATMAN INCORPORATED #3
BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #11
BEFORE WATCHMEN COMEDIAN #2 (OF 6) (MR)
BPRD HELL ON EARTH EXORCISM #2 (OF 2)

CAPTAIN AMERICA #15
CAPTAIN AMERICA AND IRON MAN #634
CROSSED BADLANDS #10 (MR)
CROW MIDNIGHT LEGENDS GN VOL 01 DEAD TIME

DAREDEVIL BY MARK WAID TP VOL 01
DARK AVENGERS #178
DARK SHADOWS #6
DC COMICS PRESENTS WONDER WOMAN ADVENTURES #1
DEADPOOL #58
DEBRIS #1 (OF 4) (MR)
DEJAH THORIS & WHITE APES OF MARS #4 (MR)

ELEPHANTMEN #41 (MR)
EVERYBODY LOVES TANK GIRL #1 (OF 3) (MR)
EXILE PLANET O/T APES #4 (OF 4)

FF #20
FLASH #11
FURY OF FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MEN #11

GEARHEARTS STEAMPUNK GLAMOR REVUE #3
GFT BAD GIRLS #1 (OF 5)
GFT JUNGLE BOOK #4 (OF 5)
GFT SWIMSUIT SPECIAL 2012
GFT WONDERLAND ANNUAL 2012
GHOSTBUSTERS ONGOING #11
GODZILLA ONGOING #3
GOON #40
GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES #4 (MR)
GREEN ARROW TP VOL 01 INTO THE WOODS
GREEN LANTERN #11
GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #11
GRIFTER TP VOL 01 MOST WANTED
GRIM LEAPER #3 (OF 4) (MR)
GRIMM FAIRY TALES #75

HAUNT #25
HAWKEN #5 (OF 6)
HELLRAISER #16 (MR)
HIT-GIRL #2 (OF 5) (MR)

I VAMPIRE #11
INCREDIBLE HULK #11
IRRESISTIBLE #1 (OF 4)

JOHN CARTER GODS OF MARS #5 (OF 5)
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #11

KEVIN SMITH BIONIC MAN #11
KEVIN SMITH BIONIC MAN TP VOL 01 SOME ASSEMBLY REQ
KISS GREATEST HITS TP VOL 01
KOLCHAK NECRONOMICON HC
KULL TP VOL 03 THE CAT & THE SKULL

LEGEND OF OZ THE WICKED WEST #5 (MR)
LOCUS #618
LORD OF THE JUNGLE #6 (MR)

MAD PRESENTS BATMAN #1
MANHATTAN PROJECTS #5
MARIE SEVERIN MIRTHFUL MISTRESS OF COMICS SC
MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #4
MASS EFFECT HOMEWORLDS #3
MIGHTY THOR #17
MMW FANTASTIC FOUR TP VOL 08
MODERN MASTERS SC VOL 28 ERIC POWELL

NATIONAL COMICS ETERNITY #1
NEAR DEATH #10
NEW DEADWARDIANS #5 (OF 8) (MR)
NOWHERE MAN #4 (OF 4)

PLANET OF THE APES #16
PREVIEWS #287 AUG 2012
PROPHET #27

RED HULK TP HAUNTED
RED SONJA WITCHBLADE #5
REED GUNTHER TP VOL 02
RESIDENT ALIEN #3

SAVAGE HAWKMAN #11
SCALPED TP VOL 09 KNUCKLE UP (MR)
SECRET AVENGERS #29
SNAKE EYES & STORM SHADOW #15
SOULFIRE GRACE #1
SOULFIRE POWER #1
SPACEMAN #8 (OF 9) (MR)
STAN LEES MIGHTY 7 #3
STAR WARS BLOOD TIES BOBA FETT IS DEAD #4 (OF 4)
STAR WARS DARTH MAUL DEATH SENTENCE #1 (OF 4)
SUPER DINOSAUR #12
SUPERMAN #11
SUPERMAN FAMILY ADVENTURES #3

TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #75 (MR)
TEEN TITANS #11
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #12
THOR DEVIANTS SAGA TP
TMNT MICRO SERIES #6 CASEY JONES
TRANSFORMERS AUTOCRACY TP
TRANSFORMERS MORE THAN MEETS EYE ONGOING #7
TRANSFORMERS ROBOTS IN DISGUISE ONGOING TP VOL 01
TRIO #3
TRUE BLOOD ONGOING #3

ULTIMATE COMICS HAWKEYE BY JONATHAN HICKMAN TP
ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #13 DWF
UNCANNY X-FORCE #28

VENOM #21
VICTORIAN SECRET GIRLS OF SUMMER #1
VOODOO #11

WINTER SOLDIER #8
WITCHBLADE #158
WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #14 AVX
WONDER WOMAN ODYSSEY TP VOL 01
WONDERLAND #1

X-MEN LEGACY #270 AVX
X-MEN STEVE ROGERS ESCAPE FROM NEGATIVE ZONE TP
X-TREME X-MEN #1

This list is a copy of the Comics & Collectibles list posted on Facebook. Arrivals at your LCS may vary.

“The Legionnaire Who Killed”

Editor: Mort Weisinger  Writer:  Edmond Hamilton  Art: Curt Swan (pencils); Sheldon Moldoff, George Klein (inks)

“Talking head” stories, as a rule, don’t go over too well in comics.   One of the strengths of the comic-book medium lies in its ability to depict super-hero-type action in fantastic environments, and when a story doesn’t deliver that, many fans feel cheated.  This was especially true back in the Silver Age, when the readership tended to be younger.  We didn’t want psycho-drama; we wanted to see Green Lantern kick Sinestro halfway to Alpha Centauri.

That’s why a story like “The Legionnaire Who Killed” proved to be so remarkable.  It was a tale almost completely bereft of action and posed no physical threat to Our Heroes.  Yet, this masterful drama by Edmond Hamilton gripped the reader from page one and didn’t let go until the last panel.

I need to speak for a moment about Edmond Hamilton and the Legion of Super-Heroes.  Largely, it is Jim Shooter whom the fans credit for more sophisticated stories, stronger characterisation, heavy emotional drama, and overall, elevating the Legion series from a juvenile level.  To be sure, Shooter took the Legion to its highest point, but most of the things he gets credit for bringing to the series actually started in the Adventure scripts that came out of Hamilton’s typewriter.

Such Hamilton stories as “The Lone Wolf Legionnaire”, “The War Between Krypton and Earth”, “The Super-Moby Dick of Space”, and “Hunters of the Super-Beasts” introduced the first believable nuances of romance, obsession, and, what the young readers probably most identified with, feelings of alienation in the teen-age heroes.  Hamilton also wrote the first true Legion saga with his two-part Starfinger tale.

Yet, none of those other tales displays Hamilton’s literary skill as much as “The Legionnaire Who Killed”.  It is no accident that this tale consistently makes most Silver-Age fans’ list of favourite Legion stories.

One look at the cover of Adventure Comics # 342 shows that this will not be a run-of-the-mill Legion story.  The focus is on seldom-seen Legionnaire Star Boy, holding the body of the outlaw he has killed.  On the dead man’s chest is a large smear of blood.  This was a real eye-opener in those days.  Any trace of blood was virtually taboo then.  Whether hero, villain, or fringe character, all wounds, no matter how grievous, were almost always depicted with nary a drop of the red stuff.

The story proper opens with a scene of the Legionnaires not on currently on missions enjoying a rare moment of relaxation.  Except for Star Boy, who wanders among his pals too busy mooning over Dream Girl to join in the fun.  Though Star Boy had been established as a Legionnaire since his first appearance in a Superboy story back in 1961, it wasn’t until Adventure Comics # 317 (Feb., 1964) that he had any real participation in a Legion story.  This was the same issue that saw Dream Girl’s debut as a character and a Legionnaire.  At the end of that tale, Dream Girl resigned her membership, and the fans were left with vague hints that Star Boy had taken more than a professional interest in her.

Adventure Comics # 342 confirmed it.  The boy from Xanthu was carrying an Olympic-sized torch for the girl from Naltor.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one.

Travelling to the jungle planet of Karak to meet his parents, Star Boy is told by explorer Jan Barth that he has just missed their departure.  And that’s the good news.  The bad news is Kenz Nuhor, from the planet Naltor, has just landed with blood in his eye.  He’s stuck on Dream Girl in a big way, but since falling in love with Star Boy, she doesn’t even know Nuhor is alive.

Overcome with jealousy, Nuhor aims a ray gun at Star Boy.  Jan Barth draws his own pistol, but Nuhor blasts him, fatally.  When Star Boy attempts to use his mass-induction power, it is reflected back by a special shield Nuhor is carrying.  The weight of his own legs increased tremendously, Star Boy crumples to the ground.

Nuhor takes a few seconds to gloat; then he’s distracted by Dream Girl’s arrival in a space cruiser.  This gives Star Boy time to grab Barth’s ray gun and fire it at Nuhor, killing him.  (One wonders why Nuhor, being from Naltor himself, didn’t see this coming.)

That is the only bit of standard comic-book action in this story, and it’s over by page five.

It’s a clear case of self-defence, and Dream Girl’s eyewitness testimony gets Star Boy off the hook with the Science Police.  But that’s the least of his problems.  When he gets back to the Legion clubhouse, he is informed by a group of grim-faced Legionnaires that he will stand court-martial for breaking the Legion code against killing.

As the current Legion leader, Brainiac 5 will prosecute, while Superboy volunteers to act as Star Boy’s defence counsel.  The Boy of Steel disagrees with the absolute rigidity of the Legion Code.  He’s invulnerable, but most of his fellow members are not, and he feels that the Code should be amended to permit Legionnaires the use of lethal force if necessary to protect their own lives.

Brainiac 5 appoints Saturn Girl to head a presiding board composed of herself, Chameleon Boy, Ultra Boy, Element Lad, and Duo Damsel.  And Star Boy is hauled off to a detention cell.

The next day, the trial begins in earnest.  There is no dispute of Dream Girl’s testimony, but when Star Boy himself takes the stand, Brainiac 5 goes right for the jugular.  He points out several instances in the past where other Legionnaires’ lives were in jeopardy and they were able to use their super-powers to save themselves without killing.  Brainiac 5 demands to know why Star Boy didn’t do the same thing.

I did, protests Star Boy, but Nuhor’s shield reflected my super-power back on me.  There was nothing else I could do, he insists.

Then Brainiac 5 produces an exhibit of the scene on Karak, with figures of Star Boy, Nuhor, and the surrounding landscape. 

“Yes,” confirms Star Boy, “this miniature scene shows everything just as it was the moment before I fired the ray gun!”

“I ask that you direct your super-power,” says Brainiac 5, “at the model tree’s foliage, just over the model Kenz Nuhor’s head!”

Star Boy does so, and before the eyes of all present, the limb of the model tree breaks from the super-heaviness and falls on the model of Kenz Nuhor.

“If you had directed your super-power at the real foliage,” Brainiac 5 points out, “it would have pinned down Kenz Nuhor without need to kill him!”

It is the most masterful moment of the trial---not only for the characters in the story; it’s an eye-opener for the readers, too.  Leafing back to the actual scene at the beginning, it’s all there:  Star Boy, Nuhor, the near-by tree, the foliage overhead.  The opportunity to use the tactic suggested by Brainiac 5 was right there, before Star Boy’s---and our---eyes.

The prosecution rests.

As the defence counsel, Superboy knows he’s up against it.  He spends the night reviewing thousands of video-tapes of the Legionnaires in action, looking for something that will give him a chance to overcome the damning evidence presented at trial.  Finally, just before the court-martial reconvenes, he thinks he’s found it.

Appearing in court, Superboy challenges the validity of the charges.  There is a precedent, he states.  Another Legionnaire has killed in self-defence---and that Legionnaire is the prosecutor himself, Brainiac 5!  Superboy runs a video-tape of Brainiac 5 gunning down a man to save his own life.

The Legion’s leader is unfazed.  For Superboy has made an error worthy of one of Jack McCoy's assistants on Law & Order.  He failed to watch the end of the tape, which shows clearly that the “man” Brainiac 5 shot was a robot, a fact known to the Legionnaire when he pulled the trigger.

“Your ‘precedent’ is of no value, Superboy,” rules Saturn Girl.

The defence rests.

The Boy of Steel does some out-of-the-box thinking.  During the final summations, he tries a final desperate deception intended to prove his point that the non-invulnerable Legionnaires should be permitted to take lives to save their own.

And Brainiac 5 sees right through it.  However, it provokes him into making a startling statement during his closing argument.

“I agree with Superboy that a change in the Code to allow the taking of life in self-defense should be studied in the near future!”

Star Boy leaps up and shakes his defence counsel’s hand.  “I’m cleared!”  But, to paraphrase the old punch line---“Not so fast, Kallor!”

Brainiac 5, showing that he has the soul of Hamilton Burger, continues, “No change that may be made in the future alters the fact that Star Boy broke the Code as we have it now!  You’ve seen the evidence!  I demand the extreme penalty . . . expulsion from the Legion!”

Then Superboy addresses the board.

“Will you expel Star Boy, shatter his career, just because he defended himself from a ruthless murderer?  Think . . . you may be in that position yourselves some day!  I ask you to acquit him!”

Now, Star Boy’s fate is in the hands of the Legion membership, all of whom have seen and heard all the evidence, either in the courtroom or via distant monitors.

In retrospect, it’s not a surprise that the script singled out Star Boy as the centre of the drama.  That could only have been Mort Weisinger’s hand in it.

Between Adventure Comics # 247, the debut of the Super-Hero Club, and Adventure Comics # 300, when it became a regular series, the Legion was little more than a plot device.  Continuity was minimal, largely because there was little need for it---the Legionnaires existed merely to move things along.  And whenever a super-youth was needed for a Superboy story, it was a convenient excuse to make him a member of the Legion.  This hap-hazard fashion of membership created particular difficulties later, when the Legion got its own series and the characters had to be dealt with on a regular basis.

One of the more prominent problems was the presence of too many members with Superboy-level powers.  Besides the Boy of Steel himself, there was Mon-El, Supergirl, and Ultra Boy.  That was a headache for story plotting, since it was virtually impossible to come up every month with a menace that any one of those four couldn’t whip by the end of page two, while the rest of the Legionnaires sat around, playing Spaceopoly ®.  Since Superboy’s appearance was mandated, that meant that Mon-El and the others were almost always tied up on “missions at the other end of the galaxy.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, then there was Star Boy, another hold-over member from the “Hey, let’s make him a Legionnaire; we’ll never use him again, anyway” days.  When introduced in Adventure Comics # 282 (Mar., 1961), he too had Superboy-style powers.  Unlike the others in that group, Star Boy had never been more than a one-shot character, and no doubt, Weisinger would have preferred just to forget he ever appeared.

He certainly tried to.  Nothing was seen of the boy from Xanthu for over three years.  But then the #%$@#$!! fans starting asking about him.  So, in the letter column in Adventure Comics # 308 (May, 1963), Mort explained that Star Boy was away on a “detached service” mission for the Legion.  His face began to appear on Legion monitor boards, and finally, with a radical change in his super-powers, he joined the regular cast.

I suspect that it was his lack of a true Legion history that marked him for disaster.  Even after being added to the Adventure Comics cast, Star Boy rarely appeared.  He didn’t have even the modest fan base that the other, longer-running Legionnaires did.

Or so Mort thought.

The voting sequence takes only two pages, and it is about as static a scene as one will ever see in a comic-book adventure.  But it is as much of a cliffhanger moment as the Fatal Five showing up in Metropolis.  At first, it looks good for Star Boy.  The other members who are invulnerable agree with Superboy’s views on self-defence and vote “not guilty”; and the female Legionnaires---except for Saturn Girl, who was always something of an ice queen---are on Star Boy’s side because of his romance with Dream Girl.

His advantage erodes, as more Legionnaires weigh in.  It stands 9 to 8 for acquittal, when the last two Legion votes are tallied.  For the record, they are Matter-Eater Lad’s and Invisible Kid’s.

Guilty.

Guilty.

By a vote of 10-to-9, Star Boy is found guilty of breaking the Legion Code and is expelled from the Legion.

If Mort Weisinger believed he was getting rid of a “nothing”character in dumping Star Boy from the Legion, he very shortly found himself woefully mistaken.  So much mail flowed in about “The Legionnaire Who Killed,” it filled two monthly letter columns.  Nearly all of the fans applauded the overall story, but they were similarly overwhelming in angrily taking DC to task for expelling Star Boy.

As Mort himself stated, in “The Legion Outpost” of Adventure Comics # 346 (Jul., 1966):  “We seem to have stirred up a real hornets’ nest with ‘The Legionnaire Who Killed.’ And most of the letters are against conviction for Star Boy.”

Either Weisinger had underestimated the popularity of the character, or Edmond Hamilton had invested Star Boy with such a genuine pathos and humanity that the fans readily sympathised with him.  It was probably a bit of both.

In any event, Hamilton produced an impressive story.  The last place a Silver-Age DC fan expected to see a courtroom drama was in a Legion story.  One of the most powerful aspects to the tale was the fact that Hamilton did not fall back on the usual comic-book contrivances of having the accused hero’s crime turn out to be a hoax, or the result of a frame-up by an enemy.  No, Star Boy actually committed the killing for which he stood court-martial.  The question was---was Star Boy’s act justified or not?

This engaged each reader on an ethical level, according to his own opinion on the subject of a hero’s use of deadly force in self-defence. 

A “code against killing” had been de rigueur for DC’s super-heroes since 1940, when Jack Liebowitz and Whitney Ellsworth sought to shield the company from the “morality police” of Fiorello LaGuardia’s reform movement.  Superman and his fellow DC cape-and-tights brethren would no longer kill, a prohibition which continued on to the Silver Age.  The ban frequently resulted in some contrived situations, bending the scripts over backwards to avoid having a DC hero kill a foe, no matter how deadly a threat the villain posed, even to the very world.

To many readers, a code against killing represented one of the ideals of the Silver Age and they accepted the plot contortions.  To others, such a thing seemed impractical.  Not that they wanted wholesale bloodshed, but certainly, it was permissible for a hero to use deadly force to save his own life, or those of innocents, if there was no other way.

But what happens when the ideal conflicts with necessity?  That was the crux of Edmond Hamilton’s story.

It’s been over forty years since Adventure Comics # 342 hit the stands, and the topic is still being debated by comics fans.  “Thought-provoking” was not an adjective that one applied often to Silver-Age DC stories, but “The Legionnaire Who Killed” offered it in spades.

ACTIVITY #7
ADVENTURE TIME #6
ALABASTER WOLVES #4 (OF 5)
ARTIFACTS TP VOL 04
ASTERIX OMNIBUS SC VOL 04
AVENGERS ACADEMY #33 AVX
AVENGERS VS X-MEN #8 (OF 12) AVX

BALTIMORE DR LESKOVARS REMEDY #2 (OF 2)
BATMAN BEYOND UNLIMITED #6
BATMAN EARTH ONE SPECIAL PREVIEW EDITION
BATWING TP VOL 01 THE LOST KINGDOM
BATWOMAN #11
BEFORE WATCHMEN SILK SPECTRE #2 (OF 4) (MR)
BIRDS OF PREY #11
BLACKSAD SILENT HELL HC
BLUE BEETLE #11
BPRD HELL ON EARTH DEVILS ENGINE #3 (OF 3)

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY TP LIFE OF BUCKY BARNES
CAPTAIN ATOM #11
CAPTAIN MARVEL #1
CARBON GREY VOL 2 #1 (OF 3)
CATWOMAN #11
COBRA ONGOING #15
CONCRETE THREE UNEASY PIECES ONE SHOT
COUNTER X TP X-FORCE RAGE WAR
CREEPY PRESENTS RICHARD CORBEN HC

DANGER GIRL GI JOE #1 (OF 4)
DAREDEVIL #15
DARK HORSE PRESENTS #14
DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER MAN IN BLACK #2 (OF 5)
DARKNESS #105 (MR)
DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #11
DOMINIQUE LAVEAU VOODOO CHILD #5 (MR)

ENDERS GAME FORMIC WARS SILENT STRIKE PREM HC
EXTERMINATION #2

FABLES #119 (MR)
FANTASTIC FOUR #608
FATIMA THE BLOOD SPINNERS #2 (OF 4)
FF BY JONATHAN HICKMAN TP VOL 02

GFT MYTHS & LEGENDS #18 (MR)
GHOST RIDER TP COMPLETE SERIES BY ROB WILLIAMS
GLORY #28
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #11

HELLBLAZER #293 (MR)
HELLRAISER TP VOL 03 (MR)

INFERNAL MAN-THING #2 (OF 3)
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #521

JACK DAVIS DRAWING AMERICAN POP CULTURE HC
JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #59
JENNIFER BLOOD ANNUAL #1 (MR)
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #641
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY PREM HC TERRORISM MYTH
JUSTICE LEAGUE #11

KISS #2

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #11

MARS ATTACKS #2
MARVEL ZOMBIES DESTROY #5 (OF 5)
MEN OF WAR TP VOL 01 UNEASY COMPANY
MMW GOLDEN AGE MARVEL COMICS HC VOL 07

NEW MUTANTS #46
NIGHT OF 1000 WOLVES #3 (OF 3)
NIGHTWING #11

PROPHECY #2

RACHEL RISING #9
RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #11
RED SONJA #67
RESET #4 (OF 4)
ROGER LANGRIDGES SNARKED #10

SAGA #5 (MR)
SECRET HISTORY OF DB COOPER #5
SECRET SERVICE #3 (OF 6) (MR)
SHOWCASE PRESENTS RIP HUNTER TIME MASTER TP VOL 01
SIMPSONS COMICS #192
SKULLKICKERS #16
SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 #1 2ND PTG
SMURFS GN VOL 12 SMURFS VERSUS SMURFS
SONIC UNIVERSE #42
SPIKE COMPLETE SERIES TP
STAR TREK ONGOING #11
STAR TREK TNG DOCTOR WHO ASSIMILATION #3
STAR WARS DARTH VADER GHOST PRISON #3 (OF 5)
SUNSET HC (MR)
SUPERGIRL #11
SUPERNATURALIST SC

THE SPIDER #3

ULT COMICS ULTIMATES BY HICKMAN PREM HC VOL 02
UNCANNY X-MEN #16 AVX
UNTOLD TALES OF PUNISHER MAX #2 (OF 5) (MR)
UNWRITTEN #39 (MR)

VAMPIRELLA #19

WAREHOUSE 13 TP VOL 01
WARLORD OF MARS DEJAH THORIS #13 (MR)
WOLVERINE #309
WONDER WOMAN #11

X-23 TP VOL 02 CHAOS THEORY
X-FACTOR #240
X-MEN #32
X-O MANOWAR (ONGOING) #3

YOUNG JUSTICE #18

Comics & Collectibles (Memphis) posted this list on Facebook. Arrivals at your LCS may vary.

Upcoming Comics for Your Reading Pleasure

PREVIEW-PALOOZA!

By Andrew A. Smith

Contributing Editor

2012 has been a pretty good year so far in comics. But what’s coming this summer may put  what’s come before in the shade. A number of publishers were enthusiastic enough to answer our call for a summer roundup, so here we go …

VALIANT COMICS

Perhaps the feel-good story of the year is the return of Valiant Comics. Launching in May with X-O Manowar #1 – which is on its third printing – the new/old publisher has continued with one new title per month through the summer, plus a surprise guest star in September.

A new version of Harbinger already debuted in June, by Joshua Dysart (Unknown Soldier) and Khari Evans (Carbon Grey). And Bloodshot  (by Duane Swierzynski, Manuel Garcia, and Arturo Lozzi) begins this month, with our lethal protagonist trying to figure which of the voices in his head is his own.

“Bloodshot #2 goes on-sale in August,” said Warren Simons, Valiant Executive Editor, “and the book might as well come with a fuse.  It's quite possibly the most action-packed comic I've ever edited.  But it's not all about exploding planes and gunfire and corrupt agencies hunting a hero who's hunting himself.  Duane Swierczynski has added a brilliant wrinkle to Bloodshot's powers, something that is visualized wonderfully in the issue.  And the action by Manuel Garcia is beautiful and kinetic and something that only comes together when the guys are putting their hearts into the project.  I went over the book again last night and can't wait for it to go on-sale.  Keep matches away from this one.”

Next, August brings the welcome return of Archer & Armstrong, this time by writer Fred Van Lente.

“Archer and Armstrong don't meet until about three quarters through the first issue of the book named after them,” Van Lente said, “and that meeting is what I'm most looking forward to. We're taking time and care in establishing these characters – the martial arts master raised on a fundamentalist compound and the immortal strongman from the ancient city-state of Ur – and they're not going to like each other at first, just because that's the convention of the buddy genre. Opposites don't always attract. Instead we're going to take the time to build this relationship and show how it's one of the best in comics history and one of things Valiant fans remember so fondly about the original line.”

And did I mention a September guest star? That would be fan favorite Ninjak, in X-O Manowar #5. But that’s not all:

“X-O Manowar #5 will be a pivotal issue for Aric,” said writer Robert Venditti. “Having finally escaped The Vine's slave pens, he'll return to Earth only to discover that everything he has ever known – everything he fought so hard to get back to – is gone.  But he'll also learn that a whole host of new adversaries exists, and they're far more formidable than anything he has faced before.  For anyone who has been wanting to pick up the series, but has been unable to track down the earlier issues, this will be the place to jump in.”

IDW PUBLISHING

IDW has emerged as one of the top five publishers in recent years, and 2012 is a good demonstration as to why. Among their many summer offerings, fans can look forward to The Crow #1 in July (with a story related to the upcoming movie) and Star Trek: The Next Generation: Hive #1 in September (featuring Hugo Award-winner Brannon Braga).

And there’s so much more, Chief Creative Officer/Editor in Chief Chris Ryall answered personally, with so much enthusiasm that I’m simply going to get out of the way and let him talk:

Mars Attacks (June): “Every now and then, a creative team fits so perfectly on a licensed title that it's hard to envision anyone else doing as much justice to that book,” he said. “Johns Layman and McCrea are exactly that team here, absolutely nailing the bleak humor, absolute carnage and insane personalities a book like this needs to succeed.”

Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom (July): “Mark Waid and Chris Samnee, the same team currently working on Marvel's best title, Daredevil, are applying their many strengths to a wonderful Rocketeer tale. This is the first feature-length Rocketeer story we've done, and this team not only does great comics, they also nail the adventure-serial feel of Dave Stevens' classic strip.

Godzilla: Half-Century War (August): Tour de force gets overused at times, but in this case, since James Stokoe is writing, penciling, inking, coloring and lettering this entire miniseries, it's as apt as can be. And anyone who's seen his insanely detailed work in the Image book Orc Stain knows that this one's going to be something special.”

Doctor Who (September): Andy Diggle and Mark Buckingham, both guys I always wanted to work with for more than just the one-off cover or script, are re-launching the good Doctor's series, so you know it's not only in the hands of guys who know the character inside and out, but they are also two of the more exciting, talented guys working in comics today. As good as the covers for the book will be, to paraphrase the description of the TARDIS, this one is ‘even better on the inside.’”

Locke & Key: Omega (November): “After an August noir-influenced one-shot, Locke & Key: Grindhouse, that's full of black comedy, nasty and hilarious French-Canadian criminals, and an homage to classic crime comics, Locke & Key closes in on the final storyline of the epic tale Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez have been telling. Bad things have been happening to the Locke family since the start, but hoo-boy, that ain't nothin' compared to what's to come in this now-seven-issue final story.”

Judge Dredd (November): “I've been wanting to work on a Judge Dredd comic for decades, before I ever envisioned a career in comics, and this one's off to a ripping start. If only I could share those details here, but we're keeping the creative team under wraps for just a bit longer. Suffice it to say, it's a team that fully ‘gets’ Dredd, and is going to stack up nicely next to the 35 years of great comics that the 2000 AD folk have produced.” 

ARCHIE COMICS

Some other old friends are returning at Archie, where the original MLJ super-heroes have returned once again under the “Red Circle” banner. The “New Crusaders” debuted online May 16, with six new pages posted each week for subscribers. It’s by writer Ian Flynn (Sonic the Hedgehog) and artist Ben Bates, whom Paul Kaminski, Red Circle’s Executive Director of Editorial, described at the time as “our best guys on our top book.”

This new incarnation of the Crusaders has allowed the original characters to age normally, but will feature their children and protégés, including new versions of Comet, Fireball, Fly-Girl, Jaguar, Steel Sterling, and The Web (all led by the original, but still formidable, Shield). The title crosses over into print with New Crusaders: Rise of the Heroes #1 in August.

Not that the regular Archie line is standing still. The Occupy Movement hits Riverdale in Archie #635 (in July), with a lovely variant cover by Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother). Jaws should drop for Archie #636 the next month, when Sabrina’s magical cat Salem gives Archie, Betty, and Veronica a sex change so they can see how the other half lives. I am not making this up.

But perhaps the best Archie product this summer won’t be from Archie at all – Archie Archives Vol. 6 arrives in August from Dark Horse, featuring stories from 1946. Which is a natural segue to …

DARK HORSE COMICS

            “I've got a lot of stuff coming this summer than I'm kind of in love with,” said Scott Allie, Senior Managing Editor. “The Creep from John Arcudi is something I've wanted to publish for a long time, and I was really pleased that Mike Richardson and I were able to talk John into bring back his old Dark Horse Presents character.” That character strongly resembles Rondo Hatton, the actor who turned his disfiguring acromegaly into a movie career. The Creep is a four-issue mini-series begins in September with a cover by Mike Mignola, with a zero issue in August with a cover by Frank Miller.

Michael Avon Oeming’s The Victories, a five-issue mini-series beginning in August, “is the sickest, craziest superhero comic in a long time,” Allie continued. “The last time I got excited about a superhero comic was Umbrella Academy, and this could not be more different than that, but it's fun.

“We're also making Eric Powell's The Goon monthly again,” Allie said, “which is like our greatest possible gift to humanity. Eric's doing his best work ever on the title, really beautifully drawn, and great, unforgettable stories. And spinning out of the Whedonverse, we have a new Spike series, by Victor Gischler and Paul Lee, which digs into the character in a way we've never been able to do in the comics. I'm really proud of that one. Victor and Paul have become a surprisingly great team.”

“That's just off the top of my head. I've got a lot coming …”

… which should be mentioned. For example, a new Ghost series, by Kelly Sue DeConnick (Captain Marvel) and Phil Noto (X-23), debuts in August with a zero issue. And a new B.P.R.D. mini-series arrives in September, courtesy of Arcudi and artist Tyler Crook.

NBM PUBLICATIONS

Meanwhile, NBM has already scored this year with P. Craig Russell’s eye-popping The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde Vol. 5: The Happy Prince. But they’re not done yet.

“NBM releases a small, but very select number of titles, so it really isn't very difficult to get enthusiastic about all of them,” said NBM Publicist Stefan Blitz.  But he did pick out three that excited him in particular.

“The first is Lovers’ Lane: The Hall-Mills Mystery, the latest volume in our ‘Treasury of XXth Century Murder’ series by the inimitable Rick Geary. I'm a sucker for true crime stories, and a new volume from Rick is always worth celebrating.” Geary’s latest – which I certainly recommend – is in NBM’s June solicitations and has an Aug. 1 release at Amazon.

“The other two books are from two cartoonists doing their first work with NBM,” Blitz said. “Taxes, The Tea Party, and those Revolting Rebels: A Comics History of the American Revolution by Stan Mack is a wonderfully executed, funny, and informative look at the birth of our nation, and Margreet de Heer's Philosophy: A Discovery in Comics is a charming and extremely accessible examination of the history of Western philosophy through both famous thinkers and their doctrines. Each of them is truly a special labor of love.”

ONI PRESS

Oni Press’s editors are proud of this summer’s releases – especially Crogan's Loyalty in June, and Guerillas Vol. 2 and Xoc: The Journey of a Great White in July – and aren’t afraid to show it.

“The third book in Chris Schweizer's historical adventure series, Crogan's Loyalty might be my favorite thing from Professor Schweizer yet,” Editor in Chief James Lucas Jones said. “Yes, it shares the same painstaking attention to detail and historical accuracy with Chris's other Crogan tomes, but the sibling rivalry between two brothers fighting on opposites sides of the American Revolution adds a familial element that's new fodder for Chris's always engaging characters.”

Charlie Chu, another editor at Oni chimed in: “Guerillas Volume 2 is the second in Brahm Revel's trilogy about jungle combat at the height of the Vietnam War. Not only is Brahm one of the best cartoonists and storytellers in all of comics, this is a no-holds-barred story about attack chimps with machine guns. What's not to love?”

Jill Beaton, a third Oni editor, had more to add. “As an avid shark enthusiast, I was really excited to work with Matt Dembicki on his book Xoc: The Journey of a Great White,” she said. “With equal parts narrative and environmental message woven into a single compelling story, Xoc highlights both the instincts that have served the shark population for thousands of years and the current dangers they face from human encroachment on the seas. A great book and a call to action!”

IMAGE COMICS

Image is another publisher that seems to be exploding with new titles, new ideas and new creators. Once again, I’m going to shut up and let someone else talk – in this case, PR and Marketing Director Jennifer de Guzman:

Creator Owned Heroes (by Steve Niles, Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Phil Noto, and Kevin Mellon, in June): “The COH team is celebrating the spirit of independent comics with original stories and great art, as well as articles and interviews. With the boom in creator-owned comics that we've seen this year, this is the perfect series to let readers know what independent comics are all about.”

The Red Diary/The Re[a]d Diary (July): “I think sometimes people can forget that comics is a medium capable of experimentation and innovation, but Steven T. Seagle is not one of those people. When he saw a French-language graphic novel by his frequent collaborator Teddy Kristiansen, he didn't wait for an English translation; he wrote his own dialogue and narrative, creating a new story with Kristiansen's sequential art.  Paired with the actual translation, Seagle's ‘remix’ offers a startling example of how the same image can evoke very different meanings, while still maintaining the same core themes. In the case of The Red Diary/The Re[a]d Diary, those themes are art, mortality, and identity.

Fatale Volume One: Death Chases Me (June): “Beautiful, haunting work by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips that offers a horror-bent version of the noir genre and a complex and human – but also inhuman – femme fatale who pushes the confines of her archetype. This first volume is set in 1950s San Francisco, with all the atmosphere that setting conjures.”

It Girl and the Atomics (August): “A spin-off of Mike Allred's Madmen, It Girl is series about a comics super-heroine whose power to take on the properties of anything she touches make her a formidable foe of any baddies lurking in Snap City – or they will be once she figures out the whole crime-fighting thing! Jamie S. Rich and Mike Norton are a perfect team, matching witty writing with top-notch, fun art.”

And there’s more! Man battles machine in outer space in Planetoid, beginning in June. Wild Children, “a story of magic, passion, and disinformation,” is a one-shot in July. Also in July are Harvest #1 (crime thriller about organ trafficking), Revival #1 (psychological horror story in rural Wisconsin), and Hoax Hunters #1 (where the legends are real). In August, Howard Chaykin returns with the sexually charged mystery Black Kiss II, and Think Tank, a “science-action thriller,” also debuts.

Lastly, I’d be remiss in not mentioning The Walking Dead #100, which arrives in July. Early reports indicate that orders for the issue – which has nine variant covers – may be over 300,000.

Finally, several publishers didn’t make our deadline, but that’s no reason to leave ‘em out – especially since they include the Big Two!

DC COMICS

June saw the debut of the controversial “Before Watchmen” project, but with the names attached – Brian Azzarello, Amanda Conner, Darwyn Cooke, J. Michael Straczynski, etc. – it’s obvious these books are meant to be the best DC can do. That’s reason enough to keep an eye out for The Comedian, Dr. Manhattan, Minutemen, Nite Owl, Ozymandias, Rorschach, and Silk Spectre.

Also, DC revives some old concepts with the new National Comics beginning in July, and The Judas Coin HC in September. In the former, each standalone issue will feature a new take on a classic character, beginning with Kid Eternity, Looker, and Rose & Thorn. In the graphic novel, the legendary Walt Simonson follows one of the 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas from DC’s past (Golden Gladiator, Viking Prince, Captain Fear, Bat Lash), to the present (Two-Face) to the future (Manhunter 2070). A new Phantom Lady (with Doll Man) debuts in August.

But DC’s biggest news is a “zero month” for The New 52 titles in September. The “zero issues” will feature tales from each character’s past – but some will be the final issues,  which will be replaced on the schedule with four new titles. Look for Phantom Stranger, Sword of Sorcery (starring Amethyst and Beowulf), Talon (from the “Court of Owls” in Batman), and Team Seven (Cole Cash, Alex Fairchild, Dinah Lance, John Lynch, Steve Trevor, Amanda Waller, Slade Wilson).

MARVEL COMICS

The big news at Marvel continues to be its blockbuster crossover, Avengers vs. X-Men, scheduled to conclude in September. But even with AvX tying up most of the major titles, Marvel’s got some other surprises up its collective sleeve.

For example, July will see a number of debuts, including Captain Marvel #1 (arising from AvX), Hit-Girl #1 (of five issues), Infernal Man-Thing #1 (of three), Powers: FBI #1, X-Treme X-Men #1 (starring Dazzler and three familiar X-Men from another dimension), and the so-weird-it-must-be-good Space Punisher #1 (of four). Oh, and Sabretooth returns in Wolverine #310, because I suppose he must.

August brings another bunch of debuts, including First X-Men #1 by Neal Adams (starring Logan and Sabretooth), Gambit #1 (hey, girls, he’s sparkly!) and Hawkeye #1 by Matt Fraction and David Aja (for which you can thank the Avengers movie).

August is also Spider-Man’s 50th anniversary, which will not only be celebrated in Amazing Spider-Man #692, but also some “continuations” of long-discontinued Spider-titles, such as Peter Parker, Spider-Man #156.1, Sensational Spider-Man #33.1 and 33.2, and Web of Spider-Man #129.1 and 129.2. Look for fabled Spider-names like Roger Stern and Tom DeFalco to contribute.

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT

Dynamite is another publisher that seems to have an avalanche of new titles every month. This summer will be no exception.

June saw the beginning of the company’s first crossover; Prophecy will somehow team up characters like Athena, Dracula, Dorian Gray, Pantha, Purgatory, Alan Quatermain, The Reanimator, and Vampirella. If you’re wondering where Pantha came from, her new series also begins in June.

And while July is fairly quiet on the Dynamite front, August is replete with new titles. Look for a revival of Frank Frazetta’s Thun’Da, a title called Damsels (which resembles Vertigo’s Fairest), and a Dark Shadows/Vampirella mini-series.

Andrew “Captain Comics” Smith has been writing professionally about comics since 1992, and for Comics Buyer’s Guide since 2000.

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Who the heck is Gwen Stacy?

That is likely to be a question a lot of movie-goers will be asking as they watch The Amazing Spider-Man, premiering this week. For the answer, we have to go back to the early years of Spider-romance, even before the Wall-Crawler’s most famous girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson.

Emma Stone stars as Gwen Stacy in Columbia Pictures' The Amazing Spider-Man, also starring Andrew Garfield. Photo by JaimieTrueblood. Copyright 2012 Columbia Pictures Industries Inc.

For the record, Peter Parker’s first steady (after his debut in 1962) was Betty Brant, who had dropped out of high school to work as J. Jonah Jameson’s secretary at The Daily Bugle. He also enjoyed some mild flirtation with a chick named Liz Allan (occasionally “Allen”), who was technically the girlfriend of Flash Thompson, Midtown High’s football star and Parker’s personal bully.

But Parker’s social life really kicked into gear when he went to college, beginning with Amazing Spider-Man #31, at the end of 1965. Flash followed him to Empire State University on a football scholarship, and in his first class Parker met Harry Osborn (son of the Green Goblin), who later became his best friend. In that same issue he also met a cool blonde named Gwen Stacy, described (by Harry) as “the ex-beauty queen of Standard High, as if you couldn’t tell.” In a foreword to Marvel Masterworks Vol. 16, which reprinted the story, co-creator Stan Lee described her as “a dramatic new love interest, a girl destined to play a major role in Peter’s life, the stunning, star-crossed Gwen Stacy.”

Mind you, this was almost a year before Parker met Mary Jane, the niece of his next-door neighbor. Aunt May had been trying to set him up with MJ for years, but Parker had always dodged, thinking she was probably a dog. But Parker’s friends had seen her, and it was a running gag that everyone knew she was va-va-voom except Parker! That finally ended in Amazing Spider-Man #42, when Parker (and the readers) finally saw Mary Jane, and heard her famous (and accurate) line, “Face it, Tiger! You just hit the jackpot!”

Parker and Stacy didn’t hit it off at first, but eventually became an item. Stacy was brainy, beautiful, patient, loyal and also, like Parker, interested in science. She was the perfect girlfriend – too perfect, as it turned out.

In Les Daniels’ Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics, 1970s Spidey writer Gerry Conway said “Gwen was a bit of a stiff, actually.” Writers struggled mightily to make her more interesting. She left town, and came back. She loved Parker, but hated Spider-Man. Her father, a retired police captain who suspected Spidey’s secret identity, was introduced. But no matter what the writers did, readers liked Mary Jane better. Even when they deliberately sabotaged MJ’s looks by giving her a bad haircut!

 “We always intended that Gwen would be the one Peter would marry,” said Stan Lee in the Daniels book, “but for some reason or other, Mary Jane always seemed to have the most personality.”

In 1973, the Spider-writers gave up, and -- SPOILER ALERT! -- had the Green Goblin toss Gwen Stacy off the George Washington Bridge to her death.  (This is why Spider-fans start chewing their nails every time a girl is on top of a bridge in a Spider-movie.) That left the field open for Mary Jane, who eventually married Peter Parker in 1987.

Of course, this is comics, which means back story is being modified – or ignored – all the time. In various media, Mary Jane (and sometimes Gwen and Harry) appear in Parker’s high school years – or even in junior high, like in the“Ultimate Spider-Man comic books, or the Young Adult novels starring Mary Jane. Currently the Parker-Watson marriage has been erased and forgotten (as well as a child the couple once had). And believe it or not, one 2004 story established that Stacy had sex – and twin children – with Norman “Green Goblin” Osborn before her death! Thankfully, that story has dropped into the memory hole as well. And in the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie series, Gwen (Bryce Dallas Howard) appeared as a love interest after Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), reversing the original order.

The upshot is that in any given Spidey cartoon, movie, novel or even comic book, you will see variations of Peter Parker’s wide-ranging cast, popping up at different times and in different combinations than they did back in the swinging ‘60s.

But you, loyal readers, know the original Gwen Stacy story – whatever variation of it shows up in The Amazing Spider-Man.

Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.

7 WARRIORS TP (MR)

ADVENTURE TIME MARCELINE SCREAM QUEENS #1
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN BY RAMOS POSTER
AMERICAN VAMPIRE LORD OF NIGHTMARES #2 (OF 5) (MR)
ANT-MAN SEASON ONE PREM HC
ATOMIC ROBO REAL SCIENCE ADV #4
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #5
AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #9
AVX VS #4 (OF 6)

BAD MEDICINE #3
BATGIRL #11
BATGIRL HC VOL 01 THE DARKEST REFLECTION
BATMAN #11
BATMAN AND ROBIN #11
BATMAN ARKHAM UNHINGED #4
BATTLE BEASTS #1 (OF 4)
BEFORE WATCHMEN MINUTEMEN #2 (OF 6) (MR)
BIG JOHN BUSCEMA COMICS & DRAWINGS HC
BLOODSHOT (ONGOING) #1
BROKEN PIECES #3
BTVS SEASON 9 FREEFALL #11
BULLETPROOF COFFIN DISINTERRED #6 (OF 6) (MR)

CALL OF WONDERLAND #2 (OF 3) (MR)
CAPTAIN AMERICA #14
CASANOVA TP V3 AVARITIA (MR)
CHARISMAGIC #6
CHEW SECRET AGENT POYO #1 (MR)
CLASSIC MARVEL FIG COLL MAG #175 MOCKINGBIRD
CLASSIC MARVEL FIG COLL MAG #176 TIGER SHARK
CLASSIC MARVEL FIG COLL MAG #177 NICO MINORU
CLAUDIO ABOY SEDUCTION PORTRAITS OF DESIRE SC (MR)
CONAN THE BARBARIAN #6
CREEPY COMICS #9
CROSSED BADLANDS #9 (MR)
CROW #1

DANCER #3
DARK AVENGERS #177
DARKNESS ORIGINS TP VOL 04 (MR)
DC SUPERHERO FIG COLL MAG #109 ROBOT MAN
DC SUPERHERO FIG COLL MAG #110 GRIFTER
DC SUPERHERO FIG COLL MAG #111 AQUALAD
DEATHSTROKE #11
DEFENDERS #8
DEMON KNIGHTS #11
DEMON KNIGHTS TP VOL 01 SEVEN AGAINST THE DARK
DOCTOR WHO 100 PG SPECTACULAR

EERIE COMICS #1
ENORMOUS ONE SHOT #1
ESSENTIAL WEB OF SPIDER-MAN TP V2

FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #33
FANTASTIC FOUR BY JONATHAN HICKMAN PREM HC V5
FRANKENSTEIN AGENT OF SHADE #11

GAME OF THRONES #9 (MR)
GARTH ENNIS JENNIFER BLOOD #14 (MR)
GHOSTBUSTERS ONGOING TP VOL 02
GI JOE VOL 2 ONGOING #15
GOD AND SCIENCE HC RETURN O/T TI GIRLS
GREEN LANTERN THE ANIMATED SERIES #4
GRIFTER #11
GUERILLAS TP VOL 02

HARBINGER (ONGOING) #2
HEART TP (MR)
HELLBOY LIBRARY HC VOL 05 DARKNESS CALLS WILD HUNT
HOAX HUNTERS #1

JEWISH IMAGES IN THE COMICS HC
JLA TP VOL 02

KEVIN SMITH BIONIC MAN #10
KIRBY GENESIS #8

LEGION LOST #11
LIFE WITH ARCHIE #21
LIL DEPRESSED BOY #12
LOCKE & KEY HC VOL 05 CLOCKWORKS

MARVEL UNIVERSE AVENGERS EARTHS HEROES #4
MASSIVE #2
MEGA MAN #15
MMW AMAZING SPIDER-MAN HC VOL 14
NEIL GAIMANS MIDNIGHT DAYS DLX ED HC
NEW AVENGERS #28 AVX
NEW MUTANTS #45

OCCULTIST TP VOL 01
ORCHID TP V1
OVERSTREET COMIC BK PG V42 HC & SC

PANTHA #2
PATRICIA BRIGGS ALPHA & OMEGA CRY WOLF VOL 01 #8
PETER PANZERFAUST #5 (MR)
PHANTOM COMP SUNDAYS HC VOL 01 1939-1942
PLANETOID #2
PUNK ROCK JESUS #1 (OF 6) (MR)

QUEEN SONJA #30

RAVAGERS #3
RED SONJA OMNIBUS TP VOL 03
RESURRECTION MAN #11
REVIVAL #1
RICHARD STARKS PARKER THE SCORE

SAUCER COUNTRY #5 (MR)
SCARLET SPIDER #7
SHADE #10 (OF 12)
SMOKE AND MIRRORS #4 (OF 5)
SOULFIRE FAITH #1
SPACE PUNISHER #1 (OF 4)
SPACE WARPED TP
SPARROW AND CROWE #1
SPIDER-MEN #3 (OF 5)
SPONGEBOB COMICS #10
STAR TREK ONGOING TP VOL 02
STAR WARS KNIGHT ERRANT ESCAPE #2 (OF 5)
STRAIN #6 (OF 12) (MR)
SUICIDE SQUAD #11
SUNSET FIRST LOOK ONE SHOT (MR)
SUPERBOY #11
SWAMP THING #11

TAKIO #2
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES COLOR CLASSICS #3
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING TP VOL 02
THE LONE RANGER SNAKE OF IRON #1
TRANSFORMERS REGENERATION ONE #81
TRANSFORMERS REGENERATION ONE 100 PG SPECTACULAR

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES BY KOMARCK POSTER
ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #14 DWF
UNCANNY X-FORCE #27
UNCHARTED TP
UNITED FREE WORLDS HC

VALEN OUTCAST TP VOL 01 ABOMINATION
VAMPIRELLA ARCHIVES HC VOL 05 (MR)
VENOM #20

WALKING DEAD #100
WALT DISNEY UNCLE SCROOGE HC V1 POOR OLD MAN
WILD CHILDREN ONE SHOT (MR)
WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #13 AVX

X-23 TP VOL 02 CHAOS THEORY

YOUNGBLOOD #72

I copied this list from the Comics & Collectibles list on Facebook. Arrivals at your LCS may vary.

I couldn’t help it.  That's just the way my mind works.

During a recent bit of chatter over on the message boards, I was reminded of a couple of pieces of Silver-Age trivia that I’ve carried around in my brain for a half-century, and it started me thinking about tossing another quiz at you folks.  Before I knew it, I had the requisite list of ten posers.

Before I could do anything with them, the estimable Craig “Mr. Silver Age” Shutt posted his annual Silver-Age Trivia Challenge.  I look forward to his quiz every year, and every year, my forehead gets flattened another millimetre or so from slapping it and exclaiming, “Of course!” when I read the answers.  That’s what makes Craig’s annual puzzlers so enjoyable---it’s not so much a matter of what you know or don’t know; it’s more like connecting the dots.  His questions provide one end of the connexion and you have to come up with the other.  That gets the brain neurons firing. 

Craig’s challenge wasn’t any different for me this year; I’m rapidly coming up on needing a smaller hat size.

If you haven’t already done so, stop right here, and go click on the thread to his quiz and test your mettle on a real Silver-Age master’s work.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

Back?  Good.  Fun, wasn’t it?

Now for the amateur production.

Hopefully, your brains haven’t burnt out from tackling Mr. S.A.’s questions.  Actually, I’m hoping a lot of you are the crazy types whose moods get whetted for more after something so challenging.  Which is why I’m going ahead with my own quiz, instead of writing an article on the Legion Espionage Squad or something.  As with my last two efforts, I’ve selected questions with two qualities in mind for the answers---they elicit a sense of “Wow, I didn’t know that!”, and they defy an easy Google-search.

The rules are the same as always.  All questions, and the answers you smart folks will hopefully provide, come from the Silver Age, as I define it---the fall of 1956 through to the end of 1968.  If your answer doesn’t come from a comic book published during this period, then it doesn’t count.

You guys are a sharp bunch.  That, combined with the fact that I’m rapidly approaching geezerhood, means that one of you may come up with an answer that I missed because I forgot to take my slug of Geritol to-day.  As long as it’s substantiated by information from a Silver-Age comic, I’ll give you credit for a correct response.

You’re free to use any resource you want to determine the correct answers.  As I said, I’ve attempted to make the questions relatively immune to search engines, but a fertile mind can accomplish wonders.  Each correct answer earns you ten points.  Incorrect answers cost you nothing.  After all, this isn’t Jeopardy!; all you win here are bragging rights.

Lastly, this particular quiz is limited to the DC universe.  You Marvel mavens will get your shot the next time around.

All set?  As always, I’ll start off with a lob . . . .

1.  Of the five services of the U.S. Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard), which one did Wonder Woman join as Diana Prince?

2.  What was the name of the asteroid where the ancestral home of Bron Wayn E7705---the Batman of 2967---was located?

3.  Who starred as Green Lantern in the Earth-One series about the Emerald Crusader?

4.  Speaking of television shows, what was the name of the television programme regularly hosted by Lana Lang for WMET-TV?

5.  In what story/issue did Superman first meet Adam Strange?

6.  What story/issue marked J’onn J’onzz’s last Silver-Age appearance with the Justice League of America?

7.  Speaking of the JLA, per the by-laws of the Justice League, what was the schedule for its regular meetings?

8.  In what story/issue did Bizarro № 1 with his classic reversed “S-shield” insignia first appear?

9.  Speaking of Bizarros, what did the Bizarro-Flash have as a chest insignia?

10.  What was the last story/issue to show Hector Hammond as a normal man, before he enlarged his own brain?

I’ll be back with the answers in two weeks.  Good luck!

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

I’ve never been a fan of Daniel Clowes, but a recent art book has changed my mind.

Not that I don’t admire Clowes’ craft and skill – I do, I do. He’s the writer/artist of the Ghost World graphic novel, and the screenwriter of the 2001 movie (starring Thora Birch, Steve Buscemi and a teenage Scarlett Johansson). His writing is nuanced, subtle and open to interpretation; his artwork is detailed, meticulous and professional. Everything in a Clowes story is thought through and has meaning, from the size, shape and placement of word balloons to the use, or non-use, of color (both indicating any number of things, from chronology to emotional state). These are all good things.

What puts me off about Clowes’ work is that a major element – often the entire point – is the inability of some human beings to form genuine emotional connections with each other. His protagonists are usually sad, damaged loners who are socially maladroit and painfully unhappy. I have shied away from Clowes’ work because it usually depresses me unutterably.

Of course, that’s catnip to English majors, especially the ones who have become literary critics. Clowes is a huge favorite of the literati. His 2007 work “Mister Wonderful” was serialized in The New York Times Magazine, and he is a frequent cover artist for The New Yorker. This makes Clowes somewhat in demand in cultural centers like NYC and Hollywood, which is pretty unusual for a comic-book artist.

Which all leads to the inevitable coffee-table book, The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist (Abrams ComicArts, $40). The editor, Alvin Buenaventura, takes an unusual approach with the book (which almost seems a requirement, given the subject matter). Instead of writing endless pages analyzing Clowes’ career and work, he has collected (or possibly commissioned) a number of essays about different Clowes stories or chapters in the artist’s life. Some names are familiar to me (Chris Ware, writer/artist of Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth; Chip Kidd, award-winning book designer and writer), but most appear to be literary critics of some kind. This brings a more high-falutin’ brand of review and analysis than you usually find associated with comics, and forced me to re-examine my assumptions about, and antagonism to, Clowes’ work.

In fact, it converted me. Now that I understand so much better what he’s doing, I may be ordering such collections as #$@&!: The Official Lloyd Llewellyn Collection, Art School Confidential, The Death-Ray, Ice Haven and Wilson. After reading Modern Cartoonist, you might feel the same.

Or you might just monologue about it and remain sad and lonely all your life, before dying quietly of cancer. In which case you might be IN a Daniel Clowes book.

Elsewhere:

The opposite end of the comics spectrum from the adult work of Daniel Clowes is kids’ comics, which all but vanished in the 1980s and ‘90s. Fortunately they are making a huge comeback, with top-notch writing and art from some very talented, dedicated pros.

But that very quality sometimes makes today’s all-ages titles hard to distinguish from the vast majority of comics, which are aimed at teens and up. That’s where A Parent’s Guide to the Best Kids’ Comics: Choosing Titles Your Children Will Love (Krause Publications, $16.99) will come in handy.

This book from the publishers of Comics Buyer’s Guide (where I am a contributing editor) may be the first of its kind, and it arrives none too soon. There are some terrific comics out there that kids and parents both will love, but are as well drawn as any adult book and could miss their audience – titles like Amelia Rules!, Bone, Courtney Crumrin and Mouse Guard.

And, of course, there are more cartoony books for very young ages, and everything in between. How can a parent tell what is appropriate for what age?

That’s where Kids’ Comics comes in. Library professionals Scott Robins and Snow Wildsmith have selected and reviewed 100 of today’s best books, color coded and grouped according to grade level (pre-K through eighth grade). Each title gets full-color illustrations; a summary; lists of related material, educational tie-ins and awards; plus suggestions for what the child should read next.

I was impressed with all of it, especially the balance between educational and recreational reading. I’m not a parent, but if I was, I’d want this guide handy for browsing Amazon or trips to bookstores and comic shops with the young’uns.

Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.

Central to the origin of the Legion of Super-Heroes was the premise that the inspiration for the thirtieth-century teen-age super-hero club came from the twentieth-century exploits of Superboy.  Regarded as “the greatest super-hero of all”, the Boy of Steel was inducted into the Legion in Adventure Comics # 247 (Apr., 1958).  Four years later, the Legion graduated to a regular feature in Adventure, eventually taking over the lead and then the entire magazine.  Adventure Comics would be the Legion’s home through the end of the Silver Age, and Superboy stayed for the whole ride, participating in nearly all of those adventures in the far-flung future.

The presence of the Boy of Steel, though, was a subtle reminder of a question never addressed or even mentioned throughout the series:  what did fate hold for his adult self, beyond the present-day adventures we read about in Superman and Action Comics?  Implicit in the thirtieth-century setting of the Legion was the fact that the full events of Superman’s life had already been recorded.  From the Legion’s standpoint, it was ancient history. 

Rare and tantalising hints were dropped from time to time.  For example, we knew, thanks to Adventure Comics # 369 (Jun., 1968), that Superman would eventually marry.  But to whom, Legion fans were never told, nor if his marriage would produce children.

Furthermore, the Legion tales curiously ignored the big question---why was there no Superman operating in the thirtieth century? The original Man of Steel may not have survived for a millennium, but he would have had descendants, wouldn’t he?  What happened to them?  Why was there no Caped Kryptonian protecting the Earth of the future? 

Superman editor Mort Weisinger probably got a lot of letters asking these questions.  Followers of the Legion in Adventure Comics tended to be quite vocal.  And Weisinger was responsive to this.  The Legion of Super-Heroes was more fan-interactive, perhaps, than any other series produced by DC.

So, if the readers wanted to know about a Superman in the thirtieth century, then, by gum, Mort was going to tell them.

To make sure they didn’t miss it, Weisinger made it the cover feature of Superman # 181 (Nov., 1965), introducing the Superman of 2965. This version was so different from the original man from Krypton, assured the cover blurb, that we “wouldn’t believe our eyes!”

As far as what had happened between the time of our Superman and that of his distant descendant, writer Edmond Hamilton zipped through all of that on the splash page:

Though Superman is the mightiest man on Earth, even he cannot live forever!  Someday he will marry and have a son, Superman II, who will replace him and carry on as mankind’s foremost crusader for good.  And so the torch of justice will be passed on through the ages, from father to son!  But how will the Superman of 1,000 years from now differ from his great ancestor?

The Superman of 2965 is the twentieth in the Superman line, each of his nineteen predecessors having served his turn as the Man of Steel (much in the same way that Lee Falk's the Phantom was a hereditary calling). Physically, he resembles the original, but, as drawn by Swan and Klein, is not an exact double for the 1965 Superman. Actually, he looks more like the adult Mon-El we will see in Adventure Comics # 354 (Mar., 1967).

Superman XX possesses all of the original's powers, undiminished over the centuries. The difference is in his weakness. This Superman is immune to all forms of kryptonite; however, a chemical fall-out from an inter-galactic war a century earlier had settled in the seas of all of the planets. The now-tainted sea water is deadly to him. Even a simple splashing of sea water makes him stagger. A complete immersion immediately paralyses him and will kill him within minutes.

His secret identity is Klar Ken T5477, a reporter for the Daily Interplanetary News.  By the time of the thirtieth century, printed news is obsolete.  To keep up on current events, folks watch the ultra-news, beamed into their homes via holograph.  As part of his disguise, Klar wears “telescopic spectacles”, routinely used by reporters of the day to aid in locating news.

His circle of friends includes colleague Lyra 3916.  Lyra, a pretty brunette, is the Future Superman’s “Lois Lane”.  However---in one of those “dramatic differences” from the 20^th-century format---she despises Superman as a conceited oaf but carries a torch for Klar. A not-so-dramatic difference is Jay L3388, an eager cub reporter for the ultra-news service and Jimmy Olsen-analogue.

The reporters take their assignments from a computer editor called PW-5598. This computer was designed by Per Wye T7357, a descendant of Perry White.

This first story opens with the Superman XX being deputised by the Federation of Planets to act as a lawman with unlimited powers on all member worlds.  This ceremony is a traditional one for each Superman in succession, no doubt extending from the similar twentieth-century event when the original Superman was made an honorary citizen of all member countries by the United Nations.

Though clearly, from other elements already in place, the twentieth Man of Steel has been operating as a super-hero for some time before this, the deputising ceremony marks the official start of his career.  It symbolises the moment when he officially assumes the mantle of “Superman, champion of the universe”.

(For the record, his first mission as the Universe’s Hero is to stop a rogue planet from colliding with Earth and Mars.  It takes him all of two panels.)

Shortly thereafter, we learn that the 30th-century Superman's Fortress of Solitude is a satellite in orbit around the Earth, shielded from prying eyes by a cloak of invisibility. However, a page or two later, two criminals find a way to penetrate that shield and evade most of the snares set for intruders, before being nabbed by the Man of Steel. After that, Superman XX moves his citadel into the centre of Earth's sun.

This eight-page tale simply sets the stage, and no doubt, Mort was hoping it would whet the readers’ appetites.  Apparently it did, since the Future Superman’s first real adventure appeared the following year, in Action Comics # 338 (Jun., 1966).  For those who came in late, the Superman of 2966 (moved up a year to maintain the thousand-year separation) was introduced thusly:

Hopping heroes!  What kind of Superman story is this?  Can this future-age city be Metropolis?  And that flying guy doesn’t look like our Man of Steel!  Well, no wonder!  He’s the Superman of 2966---a direct descendant of the Caped Kryptonian!  And the villain?  Just turn the page and meet . . . “Muto---Monarch of Menace!”

The original Man of Steel fought Lex Luthor.  Superman V’s greatest foe was Vyldan.  The Superman of 2966 had for his arch-enemy---Muto, a dwarfish, yellow-skinned mutant.  Muto possessed an oversized cranium which held an enlarged brain, capable of various mental powers.

Despite his freakish appearance, Muto was an Earthman. Two decades earlier, the current Man of Tomorrow’s father, Superman XIX, intercepted a comet with a small, solid nucleus.  The comet was on a collision course with an inhabited world, and in order to save those lives, the nineteenth Action Ace smashed the nucleus to atoms.  However, the tremendous energy released opened a space-warp to another dimension, a warp which sucked a space-cruiser into it.  On board the trapped ship was a pregnant Earth woman who gave birth while in that alien dimension.  As a result, the baby was born with an inhuman appearance and incredible mental abilities.

The infant, now grown into the adult Muto, blames his hideous mutation on the earlier Man of Steel.  But he’ll settle for killing the son.

Surrounding himself with a band of alien lieutenants, Muto lands on the Weapons World, where the Federation of Planets confines devices too dangerous for the universe’s safety.  Superman XX tracks Muto to the Weapons World, but the villain’s mental powers, combined with his access to the deadly weaponry, results in a pitched battle.  As the combat sways back and forth, it becomes clear that Muto is a much more formidable foe for the 30^th-century Superman than Luthor or Brainiac ever was for his ancestor.

It also quickly becomes obvious that sea water is a much more constraining weakness than kryptonite ever was.  Unlike kryptonite, sea water exists in some form almost everywhere, and with his mental powers, Muto has little trouble finding some to use against Superman.  He can even condense the moisture in clouds into a paralysing sea spray.

Their battle rages on, jumping from planet to planet, until finally, on a civilised world, Muto uses his mind-over-matter power to create a tidal wave of sea water.  While trying to save lives, Superman is engulfed by the wave and submerged, immobile and dying.

Fans were left biting their nails, since the story ended here, to pick up the next month, in “Muto Versus the Man of Tomorrow”, in Action Comics # 339 (Jul., 1966).

In a clever trick of turning Muto’s own trap to his own benefit, the Superman of 2966 frees himself from his watery would-be grave and takes off after his foe.  Muto has used the respite to return to Earth where he savages the populace with the devices he stole from the Weapons World.

Once again, the battle is joined, but, this time, the various sea-water traps prepared by Muto are less effective.  Superman has taken the precaution of outfitting his belt with flying jets that trigger automatically whenever they are dampened by water.  The jets fly the Man of Tomorrow clear of Muto’s water tricks. 

After fighting across the breadth of the Earth, Superman XX and Muto come to a showdown on a polar ice cap.  Before Muto’s mental powers can melt the entire cap, deluging the Man of Steel in so much sea water even his jets could not save him, the hero springs a trap of his own.  With his super-powers, he recreates the circumstances that opened the original space-warp to the dimension in which Muto was born.  A new warp opens, and the villain is irresistibly drawn back into the alien dimension.

Over the course of the series, the readership was given fascinating glimpses into the history of Superman. On the splash page of the first story from Superman # 181, is displayed a pavilion of statuary honouring the Supermen of past generations. Interestingly, the statue commemorating the original Man of Steel lists the years of his birth and death as "1920-197_", with the last digit of the year of death obscured. That means that the original Superman was, at most, a mere fifty-nine years of age when he died.

Other aspects of the Superman dynasty were revealed:

• Dave Kent was exposed as Superman IV when he had to go into action in his civilian identity to save a jet-train from crashing, an incident he could have avoided had he noticed the weak point in the railing. 

• Superman VII had his identity as Kanton K-73 revealed by his own son, when the toddler tore open his father's shirt with his own super-strength, revealing the super-suit underneath to house guests.

• The costume worn by Superman XX is the original one woven by Ma Kent out of Kal-El’s baby blankets.  Indestructible and immune to wear, it has been passed down from generation to generation.

The Superman of Tomorrow made one final appearance, in “The Danger of the Deadly Duo”, from World’s Finest Comics # 166 (May, 1967).

This story revealed that another of the Future Superman's foes was that era's Joker, who, like many in the series, was descended from the original, twentieth-century version.

Readers found out that there had been a dynasty of Batmen too, and for centuries---at least through the fifteenth generation---a Superman-Batman team had fought evil throughout the galaxy. But Superman XX has no Caped Crusader for a partner. The father of the current Joker had killed the nineteenth Batman at a public ceremony by gimmicking the dais to explode.

The blast had also killed several spectators, including Batman XIX's wife and the rest of his family.

A few pages later, we learn that the slain Masked Manhunter had a son.  An infant at the time, he had been too young to attend the ceremony.  And with his parents dead, there was no-one to tell him of his crime-fighting heritage.

After the boy---Bron Wayn E7705---grows into a man, he makes a pilgrimage to Wayn Manor, situated on his family’s private asteroid.  There, he accidentally discovers the entrance to the Batcave and learns of his lineage. Swearing vengeance on the nineteenth Joker, Wayn E7705 undertakes a period of intense training to become the next Batman.

In addition to his physical and mental development, the new Batman has a utility belt crammed full of futuristic devices to help him in his vendetta. The belt is outfitted with powerful mini-jets which enable him to fly; a molecular diffuser which allows him to pass through solid objects; an invisibility beam; a brain-wave tracer; a feature-adjustor capable of altering his appearance; and "all sorts of scientific detective equipment".

Instead of a Batmobile, Batman XX travels in "the Batship", a sleek, swift spacecraft adorned with a sweeping bat-silhouette on the nose.

Realising that the route to finding the killer of his parents is through his son, the current Joker, the Batman of 2967 seeks out and teams up with the Superman of 2967.  Complicating matters is the fact that Superman XX’s arch-foe, Muto, has escaped from the other dimension and has partnered with the Murderous Mountebank.

“The Danger of the Deadly Duo” is primarily a 30^th-century Batman showcase.  The Caped Crusader easily deduces where the Muto-Joker team will strike next, and the new World’s Finest Team has them on the run from the get-go, primarily due to the presence of Batman and the gimmicks in his futuristic utility belt.  After forcing the fleeing crooks down on a planetoid bombarded by constant electrical storms, Superman XX makes quick work of Muto, even though the big-brained villain flees into a cavern dripping with sea water.  The Man of Tomorrow simply slams repeatedly into the rocky ground overhead, forcing Muto to escape the cave before it collapses and crushes him.  As Muto emerges, Superman places an encephalo-helmet on his noggin, deadening the mutant’s super-powerful brain waves.

Meanwhile, Batman XX has it out with the son of his parents’ killer.  An awesome figure of vengeance, the Future Masked Manhunter determinedly shrugs off every weapon the Joker brings to bear.  Once he gets his hands on his prey, the Batman of 2967 beats him savagely, demanding to know where the Joker’s father is.  With one last trick, the Joker stuns the Batman and makes a desperate attempt to kill him.

It backfires.  Perhaps the father has escaped the Batman’s justice, but not the son.

In creating a thirtieth-century Superman, Mort Weisinger raised as many questions as he answered.  It is difficult to reconcile the existence of a Man of Steel in the same era, down to the year, as the Legion.  There are the minor discrepancies between the two series, such as the 30^th-century Superman’s “Federation of Planets”, as opposed to the Legion’s “United Planets”.  But the biggest problem is the inability to account for the presence of the other during times of crisis.

Especially in the Legion series over in Adventure, where there were plenty of occasions when Metropolis or the entire Earth faced overwhelmingly dire threats---the approach of the Sun-Eater, the onslaughts of Mordru and of Computo the Conqueror, the invasions of the Khunds and of the Dark Circle.  It stretches credibility to explain the 30^th-century Superman’s failure to show up in each case by saying he was away on a space mission each time.

Curiously, after examining the fans’ comments on the Future Superman stories,  I found no-one addressed this or asked other obvious questions---where was the Legion when Muto was wreaking havoc on the Earth?  Or, why didn’t Superman XX help out the Legion on such-and-such a case?   At least, not in the letters that Mort allowed to see print.

The failure to tie the 30^th-century Superman with the 30^th-century Legion was a remarkable lack of attention to continuity for Weisinger, especially this far along in his reign as editor of the Superman mythos. 

For several months in 1971-2, DC expanded its comics to forty-eight pages and filled out the extra pages with reprints.  During this time, the first three Future Superman stories were reprinted, but not before Weisinger’s relief, Julius Schwartz, inserted a convenient change.  He backed up all future time references by five hundred years.  Thus, the Superman of 2965 became the Superman of 2465, a good five centuries before the birth of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it provided Julie with some wiggle room, in case somebody asked. 

As far as I could find, nobody ever did.