Blog 2.0

Mr. Vertigo Reviews 101

Basilisk Vol. 1 and The Ghost in You. More Cullen Bunn and Brubaker/Phillips.

Mr. Vertigo Reviews 100

For the big 100th entry: DC Horror Presents: The Conjuring – The Lover; and Wynd Book One – Flight of the Prince. No Vertigo, but at least there's a horror title from DC.

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.

The fifty-pound turkey stood on the grass, panting nervously.  It was as if the fearful creature knew that Thanksgiving was only a little more than a week away.

That, of course, was impossible.  More likely what was giving the turkey fits was the small throng of low-level officials and spectators and newsmen---naturally, newsmen---that hovered around it.  Upon receiving a signal, the bird’s handler lifted it up and placed it on a small stand near the White House lawn.

A minute or so later, the man who resided in that house came out.

There was nothing new in the President of the United States receiving the gift of a turkey for Thanksgiving.  The gesture had started many, many years before, first by private citizens, then by civic organizations and commercial interests getting in on the act.

And if it was a slow news day---no wars or fires or floods going on---then a report of the event was good for a few column inches in the papers.  It was the kind of press Presidents like.  Some light-hearted remarks about cooking or carving or eating the bird.  Maybe some not-so-light-hearted jabs at the opposition party, which is easy to do when talking about turkeys.  And the public would get to see that the President and his family were “just folks”, like the rest of us.

However, this particular Thanksgiving occasion would be different.

The President approached the stand and inspected the turkey, still ruffling its wings and squawking anxiously.  The Commander-in-Chief pronounced it to be a fine specimen and thanked the party responsible for donating it to the First Family’s dinner table.

Yet, as hearty and, no doubt, as tasty as this turkey would be, it would not wind up in an oven in the White House kitchen, declared the President.  Instead, he announced that the bird had “been granted a Presidential pardon.” 

Thus began a tradition.

Of course, you all know about the annual Presidential Pardon of the White House Turkey.  It’s grown into a more formalised event since the day when it was started by the first Chief Executive to do so.  It makes the evening news on television.  There’s footage of it on YouTube. 

There are two birds now, and we’re told their names and their weights. The idea of two turkeys was intended as a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too measure.  One gobbler would get the pardon; the other would get the axe.  But PR-savvy Presidents who didn’t want to piss off the animal-rights groups soon resorted to pardoning both turkeys.

One episode of the television series The West Wing---“Shibboleth”, first aired on 22 November 2000---used the annual turkey-pardon as a sub-plot.

But I wonder how many of you could tell me which President started the tradition?  The man who came out and, for the first time, declared that the White House turkey would receive a Presidential pardon.

That is, can you do it without Googling for the correct answer?  Oh, come on . . . it’s not like I’m expecting you to pick the right one out of forty-three guys from blind luck.  Especially at this time of the year.  Local news programmes and talk shows, not to mention the Food Network, love to toss out this fact.  You’ll probably hear one of the announcers mention it to-day while you’re watching football .

On the other hand, nearly all of them will get it wrong.  It’s what separates a "factoid" from a fact.

So go ahead and take your best shot.  If you want to discuss it amongst yourselves, I’ll wait.

Got your answer?  O.K., let’s see how you did.

Some of you may have thought of Abraham Lincoln.  Honest Abe is a pretty good answer for a lot of Presidential firsts.  As a matter of fact, if you’ve been reading my Deck Log long enough to remember my first Thanksgiving entry, you’ll recall that it was Lincoln who established Thanksgiving as a national holiday. 

If you said Lincoln, a lot of people agree with you.

As the story goes, in 1863, President Lincoln received a turkey as a holiday gift from one of his supporters.  The President’s ten-year-old son, Tad, grew attached to the bird and adopted it as a pet.  He named it “Jack” and gave it run of the White House.  The boy was blissfully ignorant of the fate intended for the gobbler until the day before the feast, when one of the cooks carried it off to meet its date with the chopping block.

Horrified, Tad burst in on Lincoln in the middle of a Cabinet meeting and tearfully begged him to spare the animal.  The tender-hearted father acquiesced and Jack lived out his natural lifespan as the boy’s pet.

There you have it.  Case closed, right?  Well, not so fast.

There is a question of whether the story is true or apocryphal.  I tend to believe it really happened.  White House correspondent Noah Brooks, of The Sacramento Union, reported the events in a dispatch a year later.  But the validity of the tale is not the issue.

First, Lincoln did not issue a pardon for the bird.  He simply scratched out a note to the cook, telling him to spare Jack and find something else for the holiday dinner.

Eh, what’s that?

“You’re splitting hairs, commander.  The note Lincoln wrote, ordering the turkey not to be killed, was essentially a pardon.”

Well, maybe so, maybe not.  It doesn’t really matter because I forgot to mention---Lincoln received the turkey as a gift for Christmas, not Thanksgiving, which had come and gone by then.  Jack was slated to grace the First Family’s Christmas dinner.

And, in any event, it did not start a tradition of sparing turkeys from the holiday feast.

As I noted, the practise of donating a turkey to the White House was not an uncommon one, even back then.  But it became a regular thing during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant when Rhode Island poultry dealer Horace Vose began sending the finest of his well-stuffed birds to Grant.  Vose continued to do so with each of Grant’s successors.

“Poultry King” Vose selected the Presidential bird with great care.  They never weighed less than thirty pounds and sometimes topped the scales at fifty.  And they were guaranteed “good eatin’”.  Vose’s annual turkey donation became an anticipated event for those occupying the Oval Office and his farm enjoyed widespread publicity because of it. 

The only parties that didn’t benefit from the annual gesture were the turkeys, which wound up on a silver platter in the White House dining room.

Horace Vose’s yearly offerings continued for forty years, until he died in 1913.  But, by then, the Thanksgiving turkey donation had become established as a national symbol of good cheer, so there were plenty of civic groups to pick up the slack.  It also became something of a spectacle, a mixture of patriotism and showmanship.  In 1921, President Warren G. Harding received a Thanksgiving turkey supplied by the Girls’ Club in Chicago.  The gobbler was bedecked as a flying ace, complete with helmet and goggles.  And to make sure the bird travelled in style, its crate was decorated in red, white, and blue bunting provided by an American Legion post.

In 1925, First Lady Grace Coolidge did the honours, accepting a Thanksgiving turkey from a troop of Girl Scouts from the President’s home state of Vermont.

Some of these birds may have escaped the oven---if so, no particular note was made of it---but most of them ended up satisfying the stomachs of the President, his family, and guests on Turkey Day.

Things didn’t change much during the Hoover and Roosevelt years.  The turkeys arrived and the turkeys were eaten.

And that brings us to President Harry S. Truman.

If you cheated and ran the question through a search engine, Harry Truman probably popped up in most of your hits.  And to be sure, Truman did have a lasting effect on how the annual Thanksgiving turkeys were donated to the White House.

And, wouldn’t you know, the reason was political.

In 1947, President Truman established a new foreign-aid task force, the Citizens Food Committee.  The committee’s goal:  to find some way of conserving one hundred million bushels of domestic grain for redistribution in war-ravaged Europe, as part of the Marshall Plan.  The committee determined that the most efficient way of doing this was to reduce the national consumption of meat and eggs.  It proposed a campaign of encouraging Americans to observe “Meatless Tuesday”, “Poultryless Thursday”, and a somewhat vague “Wasteless Everyday”.

Dutifully, the President made a radio address in that October, asking families to prepare their Tuesday meals without meat and their Thursday meals without poultry or eggs.  Just as, Truman assured, would be done at the White House.

It was Poultryless Thursday that caused all the trouble.  Not too surprising, given that Truman made his radio address seven weeks before Thanksgiving, which of course always falls on Thursday.

The first salvo of protest came from an irate chicken farmer, who sent a crate full of live hens to the White House.  The crate bore a sign:  “Hens for Harry”.

But it was the National Turkey Federation, a consortium of poultry producers, which left an enduring mark.  It sent a forty-seven-pound turkey to President Truman just before the Christmas of 1947.  The public had shown a resentful backlash to the Citizens Food Committee’s recommendations, and Truman saw this as a chance to rehabilitate his popularity.  He graciously accepted the National Turkey Federation’s donation in a Rose Garden ceremony, with plenty of press photographers on hand.

It’s this photo op that many confuse with the first Presidential turkey-pardoning.  But none of the reports of the event, nor any of Truman’s personal records, indicate that anything happened to the gobbler other than providing the main course for the Trumans’ holiday table.

And, as in the case of Lincoln, it was not a Thanksgiving turkey, but one given for Christmas.

For the next year’s Yule, the NTF provided Truman with two turkeys.  It pretty much sealed the fates of the Presidential gobblers when Truman remarked that he would take the birds to his home in Independence, Missouri, where they would “come in handy” for Christmas dinner.  His twenty-five relatives, the President explained, “require a lot of food.”

So the tradition of the Presidential Pardon of the White House Turkey did not begin with Truman, either.  What did start with Truman was the National Turkey Federation’s involvement.  Realising that the turkey was more symbolic of Thanksgiving, the Federation adjusted the timing of its annual turkey delivery to mid-November.  And it has remained the official source of the Presidential turkeys ever since.

So let’s keep going.

President Eisenhower succeeded Truman and got his birds from the Federation.  Ate ‘em.

The turkeys John F. Kennedy received in the first two Thanksgiving seasons of his presidency wound up on the White House dinner table.  The 1963 bird was luckier.

The poultry industry pulled out all the stops that year and presented President Kennedy with a fifty-five-pound broad white tom.  The monster fowl sat on a pedestal, trembling.  Despite the sign saying “Good eating, Mr. President!”, JFK took one look at the frightened bird and said, “We’ll just let this one grow.”

But no announcement of a pardon, even in jest.  After the ceremony, the turkey was quietly returned to the Federation officials, who placed it on a farm for breeding.

Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, wasn’t so easily swayed.  A rancher by avocation, he was more sanguine about the final fate of livestock.

Johnson won the 1964 election handily, gaining the presidency in his own right.  “I hadn’t been quite sure what I was going to eat Thanksgiving,” said LBJ of that year’s turkey donation, “but I’m glad I can eat turkey instead of crow.”

Richard Nixon may have been the first Chief Executive to not make a meal out of any of the turkeys provided to the White House.  But he never announced pardons for any of them, either.

Each Thanksgiving during his time in office, President Nixon accepted the bird with the now-customary formalities, made a few noncommittal comments, and posed for the press.  After everybody went home, Presidential aides would send the gobbler to a petting zoo near Washington.

Presidents Ford and Carter followed suit.  And that brings us to Ronald Reagan.

At his first turkey-receiving ceremony, in 1981, President Reagan looked almost incredulous when a reporter asked him what he was going to do with the handsome bird.

“Eat him,” the Gipper replied, straightforwardly.

Now, he was the first President to use the word “pardon” in connexion with a turkey.  That was six years later.  By then, the popular Reagan was enmeshed in the unfamiliar territory of a scandal---the Iran-Contra affair---and the media took advantage of the occasion to ask him questions that he didn’t want to answer.

Reagan’s former national security advisor, Vice Admiral John Poindexter, and his aide, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, had both been indicted as Iran-Contra conspirators.  When reporters asked the President if he intended to pardon the two men, he dodged the question by pointing out that the NTF-donated turkey was destined for a petting farm.

“If not, I’d have pardoned him," quipped Reagan, indicating the turkey.

So once again, we get close to determining the first President to pardon the Thanksgiving turkey, but no cigar.  The Gipper simply joked that he would have pardoned the bird, but it wasn't necessary.

I can guess what some of you are thinking . . . .

“Commander, you’ve taken us from Lincoln of the 1860’s to Reagan of the 1980’s, and you still haven’t identified the first President to issue a pardon to the Thanksgiving turkey.  It’s been such a long-standing tradition, you must have missed somebody.”

Well, no.  I haven’t.

You see, this traditional act, which everybody thinks has gone on forever, didn't occur for the first time until the autumn of 1989.

That was the first holiday season in the presidency of George H. W. Bush.

On 14 November 1989, the first President Bush attended the usual ceremony on the White House lawn and accepted the yearly contribution.  Present were the usual assembly of aides, NTF officials, reporters, and photographers.  A more distant group of spectators probably didn’t escape Bush’s notice, though.  A troupe of sign-carrying animal-rights activists was picketing in front of the Executive Mansion. The President was already in hot water with the pro-animal people for his hobby of hunting quail.

That may have been what led Bush to make a more committed choice of words when asked about the future of the plump fowl presented to him.

“Let me assure you---and this fine tom turkey---he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table,” declared the President.  “Not this guy.  He’s been granted a Presidential pardon as of right now, allowing him to live out his days on a farm not far from here.”

The film footage played that day on local news broadcasts all over the country.  Sometimes all it takes is a creative turn of a phrase to captivate the public’s interest.

For his next three years in office, George H. W. Bush proclaimed a Presidential pardon for each of the White House Thanksgiving turkeys, thereby cementing the custom---one that has been followed by all of his successors.

But it’s not an old American tradition, as such things are usually measured.  In fact, if you’re reading this, then you’ve probably been around longer than it has.

 From Cheryl and myself, to all of you, our fondest wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving Day, and many more of them.

As you’ll remember from where I left off last time, the television division of United Artists now had a product for syndication---Ultraman, which had been a phenomenal hit in Japan.  Thanks to the dialogue direction of Peter Fernandez, the series was ready for airing on American stations.  Now, UA-TV had to find buyers.  Here, it got an unintended boost from the Federal Communications Commission.

To explain this, I’ll need to provide a short lesson in the history of television.  Feel free to go to the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich during this part.

In the early 1940’s, the F.C.C. had limited television broadcasting to the Very High Frequency band; however,  the post-WW II economic boom saw a tremendous proliferation of local television stations.  This overloaded the available VHF spectrum.  To stem the problem, the F.C.C. imposed a moratorium on licencing new stations.  That was in 1948.  Four years later, the F.C.C. instituted a permanent solution by opening up the Ultra High Frequency band to television and lifted the freeze on broadcasting licences.

While this action made more bandwidth available to new stations, broadcasting on UHF wasn’t ideal; it was the “less-talented” brother of VHF.  UHF stations had a more limited range and the image reception was of poorer quality.  That’s when your television set could receive it at all.  Television sets of the day had been designed to receive VHF signals only, and in order to receive UHF transmissions, a special adaptor had to be purchased and installed.

In essence, when UHF television became available, it created more TV stations, but those UHF stations weren’t very profitable.  Because of the added expense of the adaptor---and this was at a time when a television set itself was still so pricey that the only way many folks could see a TV show was to go down to the hardware store and watch it on a set in the display window---and the lesser quality of the reception, most people didn’t bother with UHF.

Again, the F.C.C. came to the rescue.  It mandated that, from 1964 on, all new television sets would be both VHF and UHF capable.  Furthermore, it raised the limit on how much power UHF stations could use to radiate their signals; UHF stations could boost their signals to five megawatts, while VHF stations were limited to 316 kilowatts.

A licence-holder still wasn’t going to get rich off a UHF station, but now, with an increased customer-base, it could be profitable, with proper budget management.  What that meant was keeping the expenses down in other areas, such as production values and marketability.  Thus, UHF channels tended to air programmes that were cheap to produce. 

Purchasing inexpensive syndicated shows was better, yet.  That opened the door to the Japanese imports, such as Astro Boy, Speed Racer, 8^th Man, and---Ultraman!

Got your sandwich and a cold one?  Good, because that’s the end of the history lesson.

The result was, by the fall of 1967, when UA-TV was ready to sell Ultraman, it found a ready market in UHF stations eager to buy a super-hero series at a cut rate.

As early as August of ’67, American youngsters were introduced to Ultraman.  It didn’t take long for them to glom on to the basics.

As with most shows aimed at a younger audience, the characters were strongly defined, without much nuance.  The head of Japan’s Science Patrol was Captain Mura, a stern, no-nonsense commander, but not so hard-nosed that he didn’t flash a smile or display a wry sense of humour on occasion.  Nor was Mura chained to his desk; he led in the field, jumping right into harm’s way with the rest of his team.

Typical of most such arrangements---again, for easy audience identification---the other members of the Science Patrol were divided by specialties. 

Arashi was the team’s marksman.  Round-faced and a bit pudgy, he went against body type with his “tough guy” personality.  There was nothing phoney about his bravado, though.  Arashi was usually the first one to charge the threat, no matter what it was.

Ito was the engineer, the one who designed new weaponry to take into battle.  He was also the show’s designated comedy relief.  Unfortunately, this meant a lot of childish comments and mugging for the camera like a drunken college student on spring break.  Fortunately, he wasn’t played as incompetent.  Ito wasn’t Barney Fife; when trouble arose, he could handle himself.

And then, of course, there was Hayata.  Firm, confident, decisive.  He was clearly the most competent of the Patrollers and the one everybody respected.  That was convenient, because it meant nobody asked him a lot of questions whenever he went off on his own or disappeared, to become Ultraman.

Rounding out the group was Fuji, the only female on the team.  For the about the first half of the series’ run, she was the communications officer, stuck at the headquarters radio console while everybody else was out getting smacked silly by the monster of the week.  Later on, she accompanied the rest of the team on missions, and she did a good job at it, too.  Often, she was nearly as level-headed and capable as Hayata.

Occasionally seen was the obligatory kid mascot, Hoshino.  He got to hang out with the Science Patrol, and at one point, even wore a Patrol uniform.  The Japanese rendition of the show never gave a reason for his privileged status; the American version explained his presence by stating he was Fuji’s little brother.  Once or twice, Hoshino proved handy to have around, but most of the time, his purpose was to get into trouble at the most inopportune moments, forcing the Patrol or Ultraman to bail him out.

Though constantly referred to in the definite article---the Science Patrol---Captain Mura and his crew actually comprised only the Japanese branch of the organisation.  The Science Patrol proper was a global force dedicated to the protection of the Earth.  Occasionally, members of other branches---the United States, France, and South America---appeared in episodes.  This didn’t happen very often, but it was nice to know that Japan wasn’t the only country torn apart by monsters and alien invasions.

The hook of the series was, naturally, that Science Patrolman Hayata was secretly Ultraman.  For the reasons I discussed in the last entry, Ultraman rarely made an appearance until the end of an episode.  When the situation became critical, Hayata would sneak off privately or order everyone else to get away.   (“But, Hayata, we can’t leave you alone with the monster!”  “Nevermind, just do as I say!”)  Then, he would take the beta capsule out of his jacket, raise it over his head, and press the button.  In a burst of light and smoke, the giant Ultraman would appear in his place.

Just in case some brain-dead viewer at home didn’t get it, narrator Jack Curtis would helpfully intone, “Using the beta capsule, Hayata becomes---Ultraman!”

Most super-hero-type television series have a recurring moment that the kids wait for eagerly and fidget excitedly when it happens.  On Adventures of Superman, it was when Clark Kent ducked into that storeroom and whipped off his glasses.  In the animated cartoon, The Mighty Hercules, it was when Herc donned his magic ring and held it over his head.  The youngsters know that’s when the real action is about to go down.

It was the same thing whenever Hayata whipped out the beta capsule.  That was what they had been waiting for.

Most of Ultraman’s battles followed the same pattern.  First, two or three minutes of physical combat with the monster.  Lots of karate chops and shoulder throws.  This part of it tended to be hard on the local property values.  Two giant figures flailing around resulted in a great many toppled buildings, smashed warehouses, and flattened cars.  When the fight took place near a refinery or a power plant, you could count on explosions and large fires.

If the monster possessed some special power, it would attack with it, generally giving Ultraman some trouble at first.  But then he would find a way to protect himself from it and go back on the offensive.  Usually about this time, his colour timer would change to red and start blinking.  As always, the narrator would inform the viewers what that meant.

At this point, Ultraman would get down to business and employ one of his many, many special abilities.  He had almost as many powers as there were episodes, but one used most commonly was his “specium ray”, a sort of general-purpose particle beam that caused whatever it hit to explode.  Often, after knocking his foe down hard, Ultraman used the ray to deliver the coup de grace.

Our Hero could employ the specium ray in another fashion.  By making a different gesture, the ray would discharge as “cutting halos”, resembling flying buzz saws, which would sever his opponent in half.

Once the enemy was destroyed, Ultraman would launch himself in the air and fly off to change back to Hayata.  The transformation back to his human form was seen only twice during the course of the series (from his fingertips, the airborne Ultraman would cast a spiral beam to the earth; Hayata’s body would reïncorporate within the spiral, while Ultraman vanished); instead, usually, the closing scene would simply show Hayata rejoining his fellow Patrollers.

Hayata didn’t have much difficulty keeping his dual existence secret from the other members of the Science Patrol.  Even though virtually every adventure concluded with someone remarking, “Hayata, where have you been?” or “Hayata, you just missed seeing Ultraman destroy the monster!”, those top-flight brains of the Science Patrol never put two and two together.

Perhaps one of the qualities that made Ultraman so popular was that, even for an alien, he was distinctively unearthly.  First, there was the fact that he stood over 130 feet tall.  But more bizarre was the fact that he routinely never spoke.  The only patently audible sounds he uttered were loud, reverberating kiais that he shouted during his fights.  And an occasional groan.  Otherwise, he never said a word.

There were exceptions, rare ones, when the lawman from Nebula M78 did communicate verbally.  To Hayata, in the origin episode, naturally.  Then, in “The Space Ray of Terror”, Ultraman reassures a group of children that he has not destroyed that episode’s monster, but rather, has transformed it into a constellation of stars.  

And, in the last episode, “Farewell, Ultraman”, he explains to his commander the reason for his extended stay on Earth.

All of these instances could be attributed to telepathy, rather than actual speech.  In any event, Ultraman’s perpetual silence was one of the eerier aspects to the character.  It was certainly unsettling.

The majority of menaces fought by Ultraman and the Science Patrol, especially at first, were the giant animal/giant insect/Godzilla type---bestial monsters that mindlessly wreaked destruction.   While their eventual destruction was necessary, it was regrettable in one sense---as dumb beasts, they weren’t truly malevolent.  Over time, the show developed foes that were evil and guided by intellect.  This arose most often when the Earth was attacked by alien beings.  On several occasions, the Science Patrol confronted enemies who were the vanguard for their respective warlike alien races.  These proved to be much more formidable opponents for the valiant defenders of Earth and for Ultraman.

Would-be conqueror Zarab arrives from space, posing as a friend to Earth.  When the Science Patrol unmasks his true purpose, he transforms into an evil version of Ultraman, smashing several city blocks before being confronted by the genuine article.  On another occasion, an emissary from an extraterrestrial race called the Dada comes to Earth to kidnap human specimens for study.  With the Dada alien’s ability to change his size and teleport at will, Ultraman finds himself embroiled in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.  Particularly at one point, when the giant hero is reduced briefly to human size.

As tough as it was beating the Dada, the alien Mephilas proved even tougher.  Seeking to get rid of all of us pesky earthlings so his people could colonise our world, Mephilas uses his power of illusion to buffalo the people of Earth into surrendering without a struggle.  The situation doesn’t improve any after Hayata activates the beta capsule.  When Mephilas rejects Ultraman’s ultimatum to leave Earth or die, a pitched combat results, with neither opponent gaining the upper hand.  Their physical abilities are too evenly matched, and Mephilas’ electrical bolts prove equal to Our Hero’s specium ray.

Incredibly, it’s Mephilas who calls an end to the stalemate, realising that he cannot be certain of victory over Ultraman.  Should he be destroyed, the invader explains, then he can no longer protect his home world.  With that, Mephilas teleports off Earth, leaving Ultraman with a promise to return.

The target demographic for the series were early adolescents and those on its cusp.  But, unlike most U.S. children’s programming that came along later, in the 1970’s, Ultraman never talked down to the kids.  The writers respected the intelligence of its youthful fans and didn’t patronise them in the scripts.  Thus, an adult looking for a half-hour of escapist entertainment could appreciate the show.

That’s not to say it was The West Wing.  Ultraman was straightforward adventure with little depth and virtually no development of its characters beyond the basic traits in their conception.  The plots followed a simple formula calculated to thrill its audience and never varied.  It’s a credit to the show’s writers that they managed to produce so many imaginative and distinctive stories, yet remain within that strict outline.

Still, despite the simplicity of its format, Ultraman, on occasion, delivered some tales with surprisingly mature themes.

“My Home is Earth” is one of the most tragic episodes in the series.  The Science Patrol is assigned to safeguard the members of an international peace conference held in Tokyo, seeking to moderate the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.  Despite the Patrol’s best efforts, three of the conference representatives are killed by a mysterious invisible force.

Science Patrol member Ito devises a weapon that neutralises the assassin’s invisibility, revealing the culprit to be a horribly deformed giant.  However, Hayata makes a more crucial discovery.  His suspicions aroused by comments made by the remaining conference members, he investigates and learns that the monster is actually Jamila, an astronaut from a nation the script avoids specifying.

According to classified records obtained by Hayata, Jamila was the pilot of a manned satellite which was flung out of orbit and crash-landed on another planet.  The alien environment of that world caused Jamila to mutate into the creature.  Jamila’s government was aware of this, but rather than embark a rescue mission, it abandoned the astronaut to his fate.

Instead, the incident was kept secret, to prevent the public from losing faith in the space programme.

The mutated astronaut was able to eventually repair his craft and return to Earth.  Now, he seeks revenge against those who turned their backs on him by killing the members of the peace conference.  Reluctantly, the Science Patrol attacks the monster, but he’s invulnerable to missiles and bombs and fire.  It is Ultraman who is forced to destroy Jamila on the threshold of demolishing the peace-conference headquarters.

Afterward, in a grand display, the assembled representatives give Jamila a hero’s funeral.  Curiously, it is the usually comedic Ito who somberly indicts the hypocrisy with the final line of the episode . . . .

“Politicians are always like this.  Only their words are beautiful.”

Ultraman played a couple of  its episodes for comedy; however, one of them carried a healthy dose of pathos along with the humour.  In “The Monster Graveyard”, Arashi and Ito are spacebound, checking out a strange distortion in the vacuum.  It turns out to be a zone containing the drifting remains of monsters that Ultraman defeated in previous episodes.  When the news is radioed to Science Patrol headquarters, Hayata is markedly disturbed.  He goes to the roof of the building to be alone and, in a moment of introspexion, reflects on his duty as Ultraman.

“To all of the creatures that I have destroyed, I am sorry that I had to do it.  Even though it wasn’t your fault, I had to keep the peace on this world.”

In a mishap, a Mars-bound rocket passes through the same zone and is diverted back to Earth, carrying a passenger from the graveyard---Seabozu, a gigantic skeleton-like dragon.  When the rocket strikes Earth, Seabozu returns to life.  The Science Patrol mobilises, but is quickly confounded by the monster’s actions.  Or rather, its lack of action.  Seabozu does not rampage or destroy; it simply walks forlornly through the city.

When it climbs to the top of a skyscraper and leaps upward, the members of the Patrol understand.  The monster simply wants to return to the eternal peace of its resting place in space.

This is a rare episode in that it does not conclude in a tremendous battle between the creature and Ultraman.  Seabozu has no desire to fight and the giant hero is reluctant to harm him.  Instead, he herds the monster toward the rocket standing by to return it to the graveyard.

It is, probably, Ultraman’s most expressive scene in the entire series.  Seabozu drags its heels like a petulant child and Ultraman responds like an exasperated parent.  At one point, the creature drops to the ground, refusing to budge, and Our Hero shrugs his shoulders in frustration.

There was one other memorable instance when the series mixed absurdity with poignancy.  This occurred toward the end, in the episode “The Little Hero”.

The main villain of the piece is Geronimon, one of infrequent cases of a monster who is not an alien, nor humanoid, but possesses an evil intelligence.  Seeking vengeance for all of the creatures previously killed in the series, Geronimon intends to destroy Japan.  He initiates his plan by resurrecting three other monsters.  Eventually, he will restore sixty of the giant beasts, who will then lay waste to the country.

Geronimon has screwed up, though.  One of that first trio of monsters revived is Pigmon, a human-sized creature who befriended the Science Patrol, back in the eighth episode, before being killed by the behemoth Red King.

Those of you familiar with the series probably rolled your eyes when I mentioned Pigmon.  For the rest of you, all I can say is---I don’t know how Japanese viewers received him, but for us Occidentals, Pigmon was awfully hard to take.  Frog-mouthed, red-tufted, with hands that flapped uselessly from his torso, Pigmon was a blatant attempt for laughs.  But to most American kids, he was irritating and infantile.

Pigmon seeks out the Science Patrol and, even though his speech sounds like the squawking of a macaw, somehow Captain Mura and his team comprehend his warning about Geronimon.

As the Patrol prepares to launch a preëmptive attack on Geronimon and the other two monsters, the usually jovial Ito is despondent and apathetic to the whole situation.  When Hayata pulls him aside to find out what’s wrong, Ito responds, essentially, “What’s the point?”

Bitterly, Ito complains that the Science Patrol never accomplishes anything; it’s always Ultraman who defeats the monsters.  He feels that the Patrol is useless.   An opinion, no doubt, shared by the show’s audience over the last thirty-odd episodes.

Hayata argues that the Patrol is necessary and Ultraman cannot do it alone, but it falls on deaf ears.  Still, Ito is not so far gone that he refuses when Captain Mura orders him to come along on the mission.

Pigmon leads the team to the small island that Geronimon is using as his base.  Leaving Pigmon behind on the ship, the Patrol splits up.  Mura and Fuji and Arashi will take one side of the island, while Hayata and Ito search the other.  Their orders are simple:  kill all the monsters!

Remarkably enough, Mura’s group accomplishes just that, when they come across one of the resurrected creatures.  By laying the barrels of their energy pistols together and aiming for the monster’s unarmoured midsection, the combined burst puts it down for the count.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t go that way for Hayata and Ito.  They locate the other revived beast, Dorako, but Ito sees no point in attacking it, insisting that Ultraman will be along any minute to do the job.  Dorako begins to hurl boulders at the two Science Patrolmen and Ito starts shouting for Ultraman to appear.

Hayata draws out his beta capsule, but cannot bring himself to use it, knowing that Ultraman’s arrival would shatter whatever faith Ito has left in himself and the Patrol.  In that moment of hesitation, the monster scatters the two men, then turns his attention to Ito, who simply cowers, pleading for Ultraman.

An instant before Dorako can squash Ito into paste, Pigmon leaps out, squawking and flapping his hands frantically, to distract the behemoth.  Pigmon’s appearance has the same effect on Dorako as it did the viewers---the little clown annoys the hell out of him.  And when Pigmon stumbles on a ledge, the monster crushes him with one blow, then walks away satisfied with his kill.

The little fellow dies in Hayata’s arms.  Angrily, Hayata snaps at Ito, “Pigmon sacrificed his life for mankind, and you continue to feel sorry for yourself?”  Then he punctuates it by punching Ito in the jaw.

Shamed, Ito charges Dorako and keeps coming, even after the beast pelts him with a shower of rocks.  With a rapid-fire device attached to his pistol, Ito disintegrates the giant creature with a fusillade of energy blasts.

With his henchmen destroyed, Geronimon takes direct action, and when he nearly kills Mura and the others, Hayata has no choice but to become Ultraman.  But Geronimon is no push-over; he’s sneaky and has a number of powers at his disposal.  Ultraman finally gains the advantage, but it won’t last long---his warning light is flashing wildly, indicating his three minutes are almost up.

Just then, Ito scrambles up on the bluff and aims his modified energy pistol at Geronimon.  Ultraman catches on and struggles desperately to hold his foe.  With his strength waning rapidly, he cannot keep Geronimon steady.  Ito has to take the best shot he can.

It works!  And the giant feathered beast vanishes in a burst of flame, just as Ultraman doubles over in exhaustion.

“We did it!” shouts Ito.  "We did it!  You and me, Ultraman!”

And Ultraman nods, acknowledging that, this time, the Science Patrol did all the heavy lifting.

It was only thirty-nine episodes.  It didn’t even run a full year.  But Eiji Tsuburaya had launched a concept that refused to die.

Obtaining greater financing, Tsuburaya tinkered with the basic concept and, in the fall of 1967, introduced a new series---Ultra Seven.  This was not the Ultraman who had been linked to Hayata, but a new hero to come to Earth from Nebula M78.  In a departure from the original format, Ultra Seven did not have an Earthman as a human host; rather, he assumed the identity of Dan Moroboshi, a member of the Terrestrial Defense Force, an updated version of the Science Patrol.

Ultra Seven lasted a year, and Eiji Tsuburaya meant for that to be the last of the “Ultra” series.  But when Eiji died in 1970, his son, Hajime, took over the production company.  And Hajime knew that he had a franchise on his hands.  In 1971, Japanese viewers were treated to The Return of Ultraman, yet another similar but slightly reworked adaptation of the giant hero, who this time was known, in English, as Ultraman Jack.  There would be more Ultramen to follow.  Many more.

Over the next thirty years, between television series and feature films, there would be at least fifteen more separate incarnations of Ultraman.  A mythos emerged, linking all of the various Ultramen as coming from the Land of Light, to serve as humanity’s protectors.  No longer was Ultraman a unique force for good; rather, he was one of an interstellar organisation, pledged to uphold peace.  This was underscored when, occasionally, the current Ultraman would require the aid of one or more of his Ultra-Brothers.

Virtually every new Ultraman series took a turn at remembering its roots by running an episode which saw the return of the original Ultraman.  This has meant a lifetime of employment for actor Susumu Kurobe.  For while the man inside the silver-and-red suit changed over the years, Kurobe has continued to appear as Hayata for over four decades---the link to the series that started it all.

Other actors who had played human host to an Ultraman have occasionally reprised their parts, as well.  But Susumu Kurobe remains the most recognised.  I have seen interviews with Kurobe, and like George Reeves and Clayton Moore, he respects his image as a rôle model for youngsters, on both sides of the globe.

In March of this year, Tsuburaya Productions released the feature film Ultraman Saga, in celebration of the forty-fifth anniversary of the original television series.  That’s quite a thing for Eiji Tsuburaya, I think.  Not many men have created a legacy lasting nearly half a century.

Shu-watchhh!

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!

There’s nothing quite like a comic book legacy. I enjoy watching the passing of the mantle from one character to another. I admire the interaction between different generations and appreciate the contrast in characters. I know I’m not the only one. Comic book writers often invent legacies for characters that didn’t previously have them. They introduce predecessors, distant ancestors and futuristic descendants. Comic book legacies create a sense of history, of epic scale, of continuity. Here is my list of the best legacy characters in comic books. Your list is probably different. Heck, my list would probably be different if I wrote this article again in a couple of months. But read along anyway and enjoy these reflections about the greatest comic book legacies.

15. Jaguar: The first Jaguar showed up in the Silver Age from Archie Comics. He wore a red suit with Jaguar stripes and his adventures mirrored the Superman stories at the time. In the early ‘90s, DC leased the Archie heroes and introduced a new teenaged, female, Hispanic Jaguar. The diversity replacement doesn’t always catch on with fans but in this case, the new Jaguar was more memorable than her predecessor. The newest Jaguar debuted this year from Archie’s Red Circle comics. Although she has a different name- Ivy Velez- she’s clearly modeled on the DC reincarnation.

14. Atom: The Golden Age Atom is not a great character (despite the fact that we share an alma mater in Calvin College). He’s a short guy with a chip on his shoulder. But the name was too good not to be used again. Ray Palmer became the second Atom, complete with shrinking powers and a cool new Gil Kane costume. In recent years, Chinese immigrant Ryan Choi has worn the mantle. Before that, Adam Cray went by Atom while a member of the Suicide Squad. With four successors, including Atom Smasher, Atom is one of the longest legacies in comics.

13. Wonder Girl: It’s not often that a spin-off character has their own legacy but Wonder Girl is the wonderful exception. Originally, Wonder Girl was a teenaged Wonder Woman. However, once the character joined the Teen Titans, she needed an identity of her own and Wonder Woman’s little sister Donna was introduced. Her origin was rewritten over the years, sometimes de-emphasizing the family connection and sometimes re-establishing it. In the 1990s, a new Wonder Girl, Cassie Sandsmark, took on the name. She was one of the stalwarts in Young Justice and eventually the Titans. The two Wonder Girls have often fought side by side, though the older Donna now goes by the name Troia.

12. Black Widow: Stan Lee often re-used Golden Age names with tenuous or even non-existent connections to the original character: Angel, Daredevil, Vision, and so on. The original Black Widow was a mystical avatar of revenge, the new Black Widow a Russian super-spy. But at the turn of the century, Devin Grayson and Greg Rucka introduced a true legacy for the Black Widow. Natasha Romanoff’s former bosses in the spy world reclaimed the moniker and gave it to a new agent, Yelena Belova. The clashes between the two spies served as the impetus for several excellent mini-series and made Black Widow one of the few, great female legacies.

11. Phoenix/Marvel Girl: The other day, I was explaining the concept of legacy characters to my daughter (she was reading Iron Fist over my shoulder and wanted to know why there was more than one). She immediately assumed that legacy characters were related to one another. That’s not always the case. But sometimes its true that mantles are passed from one generation to the next. In this case, Jean Grey’s daughter from a future timeline took her mother’s name, powers and place on the X-Men. Rachel Grey was the second Phoenix and one of my favorite heroines. Later one, she called herself Marvel Girl as a further tribute to her mom.

10. Human Torch: The Human Torch is one of the most successful legacy characters in comics. The original Human Torch was a Golden Age android who went by the name of Jim Hammond. When Jack Kirby and Stan Lee reintroduced the character in the Silver Age, they gave the powers to a human teenager named Johnny Storm. Johnny quickly surpassed the original as a member of the Fantastic Four and occasional solo star. Later writers like John Byrne explored the connection between the two characters, building on the golden legacy of the Human Torch.

9. Grendel: Legacies are usually reserved for Marvel and DC, companies that have been around for 70 years or so. Plus, they tend to be passed down from hero to hero, not villain to villain. But every once in a while, an excellent legacy is crafted for a new character. Matt Wagner created the villain Grendel for Comico. However, he promptly killed the original Grendel, Hunter Rose, and passed the legacy on to Hunter’s granddaughter Christine Spar. The new Grendel was more of an anti-hero than a villain. She was also the beginning of a long line of Grendels over the years, each one straddling the line between good and evil in a different way.

8. Hourman: Hourman is a pretty typical legacy character but, in this case, that’s a good thing as it’s a name that easily comes to mind when thinking about comic book legacies. The first Hourman, Rex Tyler, was a second-tier star in the Golden Age. His son, Rick Tyler, took the name (and wore one of the worst costumes in history) in Infinity Inc. The name passed to a futuristic android at the hands of Grant Morrison and Tom Peyer. Then, it finally returned to Rick Tyler (in a much better costume) as he joined Geoff Johns’ new JSA.

7. Captain Marvel (Marvel): Captain Marvel is one of the most used names in comic books, however most of those occurred at different companies and have no direct relation to one another. The exception is Marvel’s long line of Captains. The first was the Kree warrior, Mar-Vell, who turned against his own race to defend his adopted home of Earth. The second was New Orleans native Monica Rambeau who could transform her body into light. Mar-Vell’s children Genis and Phyla took their turns with the mantle. The newest Captain Marvel is Carol Danvers, the former air force officer and Ms. Marvel. With so many different characters claiming the name over the years, Captain Marvel is one of the most diverse legacies in comics.

6. Blue Beetle: There are three Blue Beetles. Each one debuted at a different company, yet they remain connected. The first Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, was a standard Golden Age superhero with a mystical artifact. The second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, was his Silver Age replacement, turning to gizmos and gadgets instead of magic. The third Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, is the current bearer of the title. He wears an alien super-suit that speaks in a language only he can understand. Each Blue Beetle has a distinctive look and role, making the Blue Beetle one of the more interesting legacies in comics.

5. Captain America: Marvel hasn’t had as much success introducing legacy characters as DC. However, there is one huge exception: Captain America. Although most fans agree that Steve Rogers is the only, true Captain America, other characters have worn the mantle with distinction and become noteworthy heroes in their own right. John Walker became the US Agent after a stint as Captain America. Isaiah Bradley was introduced as an earlier Captain America who received the super-soldier serum as a test subject. And James Barnes starred in a very popular series as Captain America before reverting to the name Winter Soldier. Marvel has also retroactively introduced other Captains as a way to explain appearances in the late ‘40s and mid ‘50s when Steve Rogers was supposedly frozen in ice. That’s a lot of Captain Americas- and an incredible legacy to live up to.

4. Green Lantern: I doubt that any name has been passed around in comics more than Green Lantern. Alan Scott. Hal Jordan. Guy Gardner. John Stewart. Kyle Rayner. Jennie-Lynn Hayden. And that’s just from Earth! Numerous heroes and heroines have worn the ring and the lantern insignia with distinction as part of the intergalactic police force, the Green Lantern Corps. There’s a Green Lantern for every generation and every personality.

3. Robin: It’s amazing to think about all of the characters who have worn Robin’s cape and tights over the years, especially considering that the original Robin held on to the name for almost 50 years. Dick Grayson was the original Robin, but he now goes by Nightwing. Jason Todd took his turn, though he’s now the Red Hood. Tim Drake claimed the mantle. Stephanie Brown, aka Spoiler, wore it for a brief time. Carrie Kelley was the Robin in the future setting of The Dark Knight Returns. And Bruce Wayne’s son Damian is the current namesake. Robin got a late start as a legacy, but it has quickly grown into one of the greatest.

2. Starman: Starman is the definitive legacy character. It’s a classic name yet, for a long time, it wasn’t attached to a great character. Ted Knight was a solid second-tier superhero in the Golden Age but in the ‘70s and ‘80s the name was passed on to several characters who had no relation or connection to the original. Then, in 1994, James Robinson introduced a new Starman: Jack Knight, the rebellious son of the first Starman. In a modern classic, Robinson tied all of the various Starmen together in an intricate tapestry that spanned space and time. Robinson showed the depths that could be explored in a great legacy character, blazing a trail for many others.

1. Flash: The Flash is the first and greatest legacy character. Jay Garrick was the original Flash, a Golden Age speedster who wore a Hermes inspired helmet. In 1956, editor Julius Schwartz commissioned a new Flash. The character was completely transformed. Barry Allen worked in a police crime lab, gained powers through a scientific accident, and wore a sleek red costume with yellow lightning highlights. The character quickly caught on and is credited with launching the Silver Age. Barry and Jay then met each other in the classic story, Flash of Two Worlds, which introduced the idea of the multiverse. Yet the legacy of the Flash didn’t stop there. Barry’s nephew, Wally West, took over the costume in 1986. Wally proved to be a popular replacement as Mark Waid expanded on the character’s powers with the addition of the Speed Force and the character’s legacy with the introduction of Max Mercury and Impulse (who would go on to become the fourth Flash).

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Not all graphic novels work on every level, nor are they to every taste. This week I’d like to look at some books that came oh-so-close to greatness, only to fall short just a tad.

At the top of the list is The Nao of Brown ($24.95, SelfMadeHero), by writer/artist Glyn Dillon. This is an absolutely beautiful book, executed with sparkling artwork, insightful characterization, delightful dialogue and a soulful poignancy that will bring more than one reader close to tears. Too bad all of that isn’t in service to a better story.

First the good news. Dillon is a masterful artist, blending not only technique – it’s mostly watercolor, but I see some other media in there – but also style, hinting at some previous masters from both East and West. And Dillon’s mastery is more than just technique. His storytelling skills are impeccable; his timing perfect; and his postures, blocking and facial expressions reveal reams of information all on their own.

The characterization is equally stellar. It won’t be hard for many readers to fall in love with the star, Nao Brown, a half-Japanese/half-English twentysomething living in London. Her co-worker Steve, her roommate Tara, her would-be boyfriend Gregory, even the walk-on characters at her Buddhist gatherings are all breezily revealed through dialogue, and are mostly very charming.

But the downside is that all of this effort doesn’t lead to much, and where it does aim for something important it fails. For example, Nao suffers from a kind of mental illness where she has brief, violent urges to do terrible things to people. The book jacket describes that as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which it’s not, and worse, is a more serious problem than this book cares to admit. I admire how effortlessly Dillon communicates these flashes through color and technique, but honestly, this is too light-hearted an approach to the serious issue of mental illness. It fares badly in comparison to, say, David B.'s Epileptic.

Secondly, while I enjoyed the ride, it didn’t go anywhere. The ending is disappointing, falling somewhere between expected and “so what?”

Which doesn’t mean I won’t recommend The Nao of Brown, because I will. It’s a good book. It’s just inches off from being a great one.

Meanwhile, Vertigo is adapting into graphic-novel form the popular novel (and movie), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That’s a task made formidable by a lot of hurdles: the talking-head nature of the story; its length and density; and the public’s familiarity with the ending (which murders any hope of suspense).

Crime author Denise Mina (Deception, Field of Blood) does a solid job of adaptation in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Book 1 (of 2, $19.99), but – as I alluded to above – it’s not like we don’t know what’s going to happen next. Artists Leonardo Manco and Andrea Mutti do clear, clean work, and Lee Bermejo (Batman: Noel) delivers a knockout of a cover. But, while good, Tattoo will never be great, by its very nature as an adaptation.

Lastly, points to writer Mat Johnson (Incognegro, Dark Rain) and artist Mutti (see above) for not shying away from politics, which most publishers avoid because in most cases you lose half your potential audience as soon as a point of view is established. I just wish their graphic novel Right State (DC/Vertigo, $24.99) was more plausible.

The plot involves a right-wing radio host going undercover in an extremist militia group at the behest of the Secret Service, who have evidence the New Dawn Militia plans to assassinate the president. While interesting, it’s doubtful the Secret Service would go to the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Michael Medved for such a sensitive mission, not only because of liability issues, but because – well, why on earth would they trust the president’s life to the non-existent espionage skills of an amateur? Nor would a radio host of any political persuasion likely take the job if offered, because, frankly, it’s probably a suicide mission. Further, what radio host is like our protagonist: ex-military, with Special Forces training, and still in awesome, mission-ready shape as a civilian? (Points to Oliver North for being one out of three.)

I could still overcome all that – and the occasional bout of giggles when I pictured Limbaugh in the role – except that the characterization and dialogue of the conservative characters don’t ring true for me. Frankly, while not insulting, the characters’ opinions and rationales read like a sympathetic liberal’s idea of how conservatives think. Add to that some Apocalypse Now riffs and I was glad to get to the end of the book for all the wrong reasons.

Right State was a heroic attempt at a political potboiler based on real-world concepts that, in its attempt not to offend anyone, won’t convince anyone.

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

1. The Nao of Brown is a beauty, but not a classic. Copyright SelfMadeHero.

2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Volume 1 is as good as adaptations go. Copyright DC Entertainment Inc.

3. Right State gets points for effort. Copyright DC Entertainment Inc.

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.

AIRBOY DEADEYE #2 (OF 5)
AKA GN
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #39
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #27 (MR)
AMERICAS GOT POWERS #2 (OF 6)
ANGEL & FAITH #10
ANIMAL MAN ANNUAL #1
AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER TP V2 PROMISE PART 2

BALTIMORE HC VOL 02 CURSE BELLS
BATMAN ANNUAL #1 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS)
BATMAN BEYOND UNLIMITED #4
BATMAN DEATH BY DESIGN DELUXE ED HC
BATMAN PREY TP
BIONIC WOMAN #2
BLOODSTRIKE #28
BOMB QUEEN VII QUEENS WORLD #4 (OF 4) (MR)
BPRD HELL EARTH TRANSFORMATION ODONNELL #1

CALL OF WONDERLAND #1 (OF 3) (MR)
CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY OLD WOUNDS HC
CHANNEL ZERO TP COMPLETE COLLECTION

DC COMICS PRESENTS SUPERMAN SUPERGIRL #1
DC NATION #1
DIABLO #4 (OF 5)

ELEPHANTMEN TP VOL 00 (MR)
EMPOWERED TP VOL 07
EXILE PLANET O/T APES #3 (OF 4)

FABLES DELUXE EDITION HC VOL 05 (MR)
FF #18
FUTURAMA COMICS #61

GAME OF THRONES #8 (MR)
GARTH ENNIS JENNIFER BLOOD #13 (MR)
GFT ALICE IN WONDERLAND #6 (OF 6)
GFT JUNGLE BOOK #3 (OF 5) (MR)
GFT MYTHS & LEGENDS #17 (MR)
GFT MYTHS & LEGENDS TP VOL 03 (MR)
GFT OVERSIZED COSPLAY SPECIAL (MR)
GHOSTBUSTERS ONGOING #9
GLAMOURPUSS #25
GORE #6 (OF 12) (MR)
GREEN ARROW TP VOL 01 THE MIDAS TOUCH
GRIM LEAPER #1 (OF 4) (MR)

HACK SLASH OMNIBUS TP VOL 04
HAWKEN #4 (OF 6)
HULK SMASH AVENGERS #5 (OF 5)

INCORRUPTIBLE TP VOL 06
INCREDIBLE HULK #8
IRREDEEMABLE TP VOL 09

KICK-ASS 2 PREM HC (MR)

LAST ZOMBIE NEVERLAND #4 (OF 5)
LIL DEPRESSED BOY #11

MAGDALENA #12
MARVEL FIRSTS 1970S TP VOL 03
MASS EFFECT HOMEWORLDS #2
MEDITERRANEA #7 (OF 14)
MEDITERRANEA TP VOL 01
MIND THE GAP #1 2ND PTG
MOON MOTH GN

NEW DEADWARDIANS #3 (OF 8) (MR)
NEW MUTANTS #43 EXILED
NEXT MEN AFTERMATH #43

OFF HANDBOOK OF MARVEL UNIVERSE A TO Z TP V5

PETER PANZERFAUST #4 (MR)
POWERS #10 (MR)
PREVIEWS #285 JUNE 2012
PUNISHER #10 2ND PTG

QUEEN SONJA #29

RACHEL RISING #8
RASL #14 (MR)
RAVAGERS #1
ROCKETEER ADVENTURES 2 #3 (OF 4)

SNAKE EYES & STORM SHADOW #13
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #237
STAND TP VOL 03 SOUL SURVIVORS
STAR TREK ONGOING #9
STAR TREK TNG DOCTOR WHO ASSIMILATION #1
STAR WARS BLOOD TIES BOBA FETT DEAD #2 (OF 4)
STAR WARS KNIGHT ERRANT TP VOL 02 DELUGE
STARMAN OMNIBUS TP VOL 01
STEPHEN KING JOE HILL ROAD RAGE #4 (OF 4)
SUPERCROOKS #3 (OF 4) (MR)
SUPERMAN BLUE SYMBOL T/S
SUPERMAN FAMILY ADVENTURES #1

TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #74 (MR)
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #10
THOR BUST BANK
TRANSFORMERS ROBOTS IN DISGUISE ONGOING #5

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #11
UNCANNY X-MEN #11 2ND PTG AVX

WALKING DEAD #98 (MR)
WAR OF THE INDEPENDENTS #3
WOLVERINE #307
WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #11 AVX
WONDER WOMAN HC VOL 01 BLOOD

X-MEN #29
X-MEN LEGACY #267 AVX

YOUNG JUSTICE #16

ZOMBIES HC
ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS ANNUAL 2012

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

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

The comics world is in mourning this week as a giant has passed. Joe Kubert died Aug. 12 at age 85.

Kubert isn’t a household name, but if you’ve ever read a Sgt. Rock comic book, you’ve probably seen his work. In addition to decades on DC’s war titles, Kubert was famed for art on the original Hawkman of the 1940s, and for co-creating the modern version in 1961. He was also know for “Tarzan,” and has drawn virtually every DC character at one time or another, in a professional relationship with the publisher that stretches back to World War II. Kubert also drew award-winning graphic novels, and has been inducted into both the Eisner and Harvey Halls of Fame.

But Kubert’s legacy is more extensive than most artists, no matter how long-lived. For one thing, he and his late wife Muriel established The Kubert School in Dover, N.J., in 1976, training new generations of comic-book artists. His sons Adam and Andy are carrying on the family tradition, as both are successful comic-book artists.

Further, Kubert is remembered as a generous and gentle man. The outpouring of grief after Kubert’s death was a mix of both respect and affection. On Twitter, artist David Mack referred to Kubert not only as “a legend and master storyteller,” but also as “incredibly kind.” Stephen Bissette, one of The Kubert School’s first generation of graduates, who gained fame on “Swamp Thing,” posted a lengthy and heartfelt tribute on his website (srbissette.com) that ranged from personal affection to professional admiration.

Kubert’s story runs parallel to that of the comic-book industry itself. Born in what is now Ukraine in 1926, Kubert emigrated with his family to New York as an infant. He sold his first professional comic-book art at the tender age of 12 in 1938, when the industry was just getting started. He continued drawing for various publishers through his teen years, eventually landing at All-American Comics, which was later absorbed into what is now DC Comics. It was there he did his well-known work on Hawkman (beginning in 1945), but also on characters like Dr. Fate, the original Flash, Johnny Quick, Sargon the Sorcerer, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, Vigilante, Wildcat and Zatara the Magician.

Kubert worked for various publishers through the 1950s, co-creating the prehistoric hero “Tor” and pioneering 3-D comics at St. John, then co-creating “Viking Prince” at DC. In 1959, Kubert co-created (with writer/editor Robert Kanigher) the character he is most associated with, Sgt. Rock. Kubert remained with “Sgt. Rock” in one capacity or another until the book’s cancellation in 1988, and was in charge of all of DC’s war books from 1967 to 1976.

Typically, the self-effacing Kubert credited Kanigher as the true creator of Sgt. Rock in the Foreword he wrote for “Sgt. Rock Archives Volume 1.” Still, he remembered his time with Rock as “a lot of drawing. A lot of pages. A lot of covers. A lot of late nights. A lot of deadlines. And a lot of personal pleasure and satisfaction.”

Kubert’s career only got bigger and more varied from the 1960s on. He drew two comic strips, “Tales of the Green Berets” (1965-67), and faith-based strips for the Jewish children’s organization Lubavitch in the 1980s. Kubert drew a highly-praised run on “Tarzan” in the 1970s, and co-created “Ragman” in 1976 – the same year he founded The Kubert School.

Later decades saw a stream of graphic novels, two of them starring Sgt. Rock. In 2007, Kubert wrote and drew “Fax from Sarajevo,” collecting wartime faxes and remembrances from a survivor of the Serbian siege of the capital of the former Yugoslavia, for which he received both Eisner and Harvey awards. 

Most recently, Kubert inked the miniseries “Before Watchmen: Nite Owl,” over the pencils of his son Andy. Characteristically, Kubert was still looking ahead to his next project when death overtook him, a six-issue miniseries titled “Joe Kubert Presents” with a new Hawkman story. The first issue is scheduled for an Oct. 31 release.

I’ll be there for that first issue, as I have for most of Kubert’s wonderful work over the years. There’s little I can say to add to his stature, but fortunately I don’t have to. Kubert himself has left us an enormous body of stories and artwork stretching back to the 1930s, a legacy that speaks more eloquently than I ever could.

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

ADVENTURE TIME #7
ALL NEW BATMAN BRAVE & BOLD TP V2 HELP WANTED
ALL STAR WESTERN #12
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #692
AMERICAS GOT POWERS #3 (OF 6)
ARCHIE #636
ASTONISHING X-MEN #53

BART SIMPSON COMICS #74
BATMAN INC #3
BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #12
BEFORE WATCHMEN DR MANHATTAN #1 (OF 4) (MR)
BRILLIANT #4 (MR)
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SPIKE #1 (OF 5)

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND NAMOR #635.1
CAPTAIN EASY HC VOL 03 SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
CAPTAIN MARVEL #1 2ND PTG
CAVEWOMAN GANGSTER #1 (OF 3)
COBRA ONGOING #16
COMPLETE PEANUTS HC VOL 18 1985-1986
COURTNEY CRUMRIN ONGOING #5

DAN THE UNHARMABLE #4 (MR)
DANGER GIRL ARMY OF DARKNESS #6
DANGER GIRL GI JOE #2 (OF 4)
DARK HORSE PRESENTS #15
DEADPOOL KILLS MARVEL UNIVERSE #4 (OF 4)
DICKS COLOR ED #7 (MR)
DISNEY PIXAR CARS MAGAZINE #8
DRAGON AGE THOSE WHO SPEAK #1 (OF 3)

FABLES #120 (MR)
FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND #263
FATIMA THE BLOOD SPINNERS #3 (OF 4)
FEAR ITSELF TP
FEAR ITSELF TP AVENGERS
FLASH #12
FURY OF FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MEN #12

GFT MYTHS & LEGENDS #19 (MR)
GLAMOURPUSS #26
GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #12
GRIMM FAIRY TALES #76 (MR)

HERO WORSHIP #2 (OF 6)

I VAMPIRE #12
INVINCIBLE #94
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #523
INVISIBLES OMNIBUS HC (MR)

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #12
JACK KIRBYS FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS TP V3

KEVIN SMITH BIONIC MAN #12
KIRBY GENESIS DRAGONSBANE #3
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #189

LIL DEPRESSED BOY TP VOL 03
LOBSTER JOHNSON PRAYER OF NEFERU ONE SHOT
LOCUS #619

MARS ATTACKS #3
MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #5
MIND MGMT #4
MMW GOLDEN AGE CAPTAIN AMERICA TP VOL 01
MORTENSENS ESCAPADES GN VOL 02 SANTA FE JAIL
MY BOYFRIEND IS MONSTER GN VOL 06

PLANETOID #3
PROPHET TP VOL 01 REMISSION
PUNISHER #14

QUEEN SONJA #31

RACHEL RISING #10
RIP KIRBY HC VOL 05
ROCKETEER CARGO OF DOOM #1 (OF 4)

SAVAGE HAWKMAN #12
SCALPED #60 (RES) (MR)
SECRET AVENGERS #30
STAR TREK ONGOING #12
STAR WARS DARTH VADER GHOST PRISON #4 (OF 5)
SUPER DINOSAUR #13
SUPERCROOKS #4 (OF 4) (MR)
SUPERMAN #12
SWAMP THING TP VOL 01 RAISE THEM BONES TP

TEEN TITANS #12
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #13
TRANSFORMERS MORE THAN MEETS EYE ONGOING #8

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #14 DWF
UNCANNY X-MEN #17 AVX
UNTOLD TALES OF PUNISHER MAX #3 (OF 5) (MR)
UNWRITTEN #40 (MR)

VAMPIRELLA #21
VENOM #23
VOODOO #12

WALKING DEAD #97 2ND PTG (MR)
WALKING DEAD #98 2ND PTG (MR)
WALKING DEAD #99 2ND PTG (MR)
WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #129.1
WOLVERINE #312
WOLVERINE AND X-MEN BY JASON AARON HC V2
WOLVERINE ANNUAL #1

X-MEN LEGACY #272

YOUNGBLOOD #73

Arrivals at your LCS may vary. I copied this list from memphiscomics.com.

Last week, I wrote about the best sidekicks in comic books. As I was working on my list, I remembered a lot of great sidekicks that have appeared in other media. Instead of tossing them all into one big list, I decided to split them off with a second list. So here you go, my list of the best sidekicks in movies, television, cartoons and classic literature.

15. Sylvester Jr.: Sylvester Jr. fulfills a classic sidekick role: the sidekick who’s actually smarter than the mentor. In this case, Sylvester Sr. tries to teach his son how to catch a kickboxing kangaroo and fails miserably. The son sees through his father’s shenanigans. He puts up with his dad because that’s what sons are supposed to do and he’s often more successful than the senior Sylvester. It’s a quietly subversive role, upending the status quo to great delight.

14. Marcus Brody: Marcus Brody experienced a grand transformation from the first Indiana Jones movie to the third. In the first movie, Brody was a bit of a mentor. He was the one who offered advice at home before Indy raced off on another grand adventure. In the third movie, Brody got caught up in the adventure as well and found himself halfway around the world. He was the comic relief, ruining the heroic ride into the sunset by riding his horse backwards. Yet he also provided a positive function as an academic expert.

13. Scrappy Doo: Scrappy is one of the more contentious choices on my list. When he was added to the Scooby Doo show, he was one of the first sidekicks to be widely panned. Fans didn’t like the way he seemed to push Scooby, the titular star of the series, out of the spotlight. But I was young enough to love the brash, young character. I liked his fighting spirit, his put-up-your-dukes attitude and his willingness to rush headlong into trouble. Believe it or not, I still own the Scrappy Doo statue I bought as a kid.

12. Morgan Grimes: Sidekicks may have fallen out of favor in comic books, but they seem to be growing in importance on television. After all, every good hero needs someone to hang out with. One of my recent favorites is Chuck’s boyhood best friend, Morgan Grimes. “The beard” is a wonderful source of comic relief. But he’s also there to challenge Chuck when Chuck’s new spy life draws him too far away from his friends and family. Morgan has perhaps the greatest character arc of anyone on the show, eventually becoming the responsible manager of the BuyMore and an effective member of the spy team.

11. Hadji: I debated whether or not to include Hadji on this list. My concern wasn’t about Hadji’s qualifications as a cool character. He’s definitely cool- and that’s not easy to pull off with an Indian accent. He was smart, inventive and calm under pressure. He was also one of the first international characters that I was exposed to in my young life. No, my concern is that Hadji doesn’t qualify as a sidekick as I could see the argument that he was Jonny Quest’s partner rather than his tagalong.

10. Jan, Jace and Blip/Zan, Jayna and Gleek: Here’s another potentially contentious choice. In the 1960s, Hanna-Barbera introduced the outer space superhero Space Ghost and gave him not one but three sidekicks: the teenaged twins Jan and Jace and the sputtering space monkey Blip. Hanna-Barbera later used the same formula on Super Friends. This time, the twin teenagers, Zan and Jayna, were aliens with their own set of superpowers. Gleek, however, was still a sputtering monkey. I’ll admit that I like Zan and Jayna. I was a kid at the time and, if you were my age, you would have probably liked them too. They also had a memorable catchphrase- “super powers activate!”- that was easy to emulate as a kid, and easy to mock as an adult.

9. Tonto: Tonto is one of the greatest sidekicks in any medium. He’s the Lone Ranger’s silent partner and, like many great sidekicks, often smarter than his lead. At the very least, Tonto is well versed in hunting, tracking and other skills of the wild. However, Tonto is held back by the racial stereotypes of the time. His pidgin English is embarrassing. It remains to be seen whether Johnny Depp can rehabilitate the character for a modern audience in the upcoming Lone Ranger movie.

8. Falstaff: That’s right: I included the Super Friends and Shakespeare on the same list. Falstaff is one of the earliest sidekicks. Shakespeare included a lot of clown characters as comic relief in his plays. But Falstaff became more than a source of occasional laughter. He was a truehearted friend. He was a brave warrior, if prone to bouts of braggadocio. And he was one of the first supporting characters to become a star in his own right. He’s the model for many a sidekick today. Plus, like a lot of great sidekicks, he’s instantly recognizable.

7. Amy Pond and Rory Williams (Or Your Favorite Dr. Who Companion): I’ve heard it said that you never forget your first doctor but I found my first exposure to Dr. Who to be uninspiring. However, the infectious delight of my daughters rubbed off on me and I’ve enjoyed recent episodes, despite my own intransigence. My third doctor (the eleventh overall) is my favorite. Similarly, I’m fond of his two companions: the young couple Rory Williams and Amy Pond. Their relationship is as interesting to me as their adventures. I’m especially intrigued by their indecision whether to embrace the exotic adventures of the Doctor or the comfortable surroundings of home. Feel free to insert your favorite Doctor Who companion in this space, whether it’s Sarah Jane, K-9 or Rose.

6. Kato: The best sidekicks often outshine their mentors. That’s often been the case with Kato, the regular companion to the Green Hornet. At first, Kato was little more than a butler. But in the live action series, Kato learned to kick butt. He was played by martial arts expert Bruce Lee and quickly became a fan favorite. Now, it’s hard to imagine the Green Hornet without his quiet right hand man.

5. Dr. Watson: There are a number of reasons why sidekicks are introduced. One of the most persistent is that the hero needs someone to talk to. That’s why Batman was paired with Robin and Bucky was given to Captain America. And that’s why Sherlock Holmes has Dr. Watson at his side. Dr. Watson is our window into the weird world and impenetrable mind of the great detective. We learn what Holmes is thinking because he has to explain it to Watson. Yet the best Watsons are more than windows. They give as good as they get- teasing Sherlock with friendly familiarity. Plus, as a former soldier and a doctor, Watson is a valuable guy to have around.

4. C-3PO and R2-D2: Another persistent reason to introduce a sidekick is the need to ground the story in reality and humanity. George Lucas ironically did this by giving us a couple of droids. Despite his bumbling nature, C-3PO often spoke for us by commenting on the unbelievable nature of events and expressing the fears we might have in his place. R2-D2 was even better as C-3PO’s counterpoint. He was incredibly expressive and sarcastic, despite speaking only in squeaks and whistles. Plus, his plucky attitude was inspirational for those of us who didn’t have the Force.

3. The Scoobies: Joss Whedon put together the perfect team of sidekicks for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, in doing so, showed us the greatest reason why these types of characters exist. They are companions in the truest sense of the word. They are friends that become family. Robin is like a son to Batman. Watson is like a brother to Holmes. The Scoobies are Buffy’s best friends and the family she makes for herself: Willow, Xander, Cordelia, Oz, Anya, Tara, Dawn, Spike and yes, even Andrew.

2. Sancho Panza: Sancho Panza is the Platonic ideal of a sidekick. He’s the original. Those who came before him are like prototypes before he perfected the form. He’s comic relief. He’s smarter than the lead character. He’s world-wise and world-weary. He’s our point of view into the oddness that surrounds us. He is the sidekick of sidekicks.

Yet, despite those praises, I’d put one sidekick ahead of Sancho Panza…

1. Samwise Gamgee: Can you think of another character that you’d rather have at your side? JRR Tolkien reputedly based the character on the concept of the batman- the military assistant in the British army. The batman takes care of his master’s needs so that he can focus on the fight ahead. In the Lord of the Rings, Sam takes care of the Frodo’s needs so that Frodo can focus on his quest to destroy the ring. Sam is the one who cooks. Sam is the one who stands guard so his master can sleep. Sam is the one who sings a song to brighten his master’s mood. Sam is the one who rations the food so that they’ll have enough for the trip back. Yet Tolkien elevated Sam beyond a simple servant. Sam sees the world with wonder in his eyes, marveling at elves and later oliphaunts. Sam is also wise beyond his years, as evidenced by his commentary upon the difference in stories between those reading them and those living in them. And Sam becomes the true hero, rescuing Frodo from captivity and carrying him on his back to their final destination.

That’s my list. Who’s on yours?

"We were just sitting around talking, about how they've done the zero issues, and what's the most ludicrous thing you could think of in the other direction. Issue one million was the answer. I suggested it as a crossover and it just grew out of the idea of what would be these titles' millionth issues, and what year it would all take place in?"

Grant Morrison, describing the origin of DC One Million.

(from Writers on Comics Scriptwriting, 1999)

DC One Million hit an unsuspecting world in September 1998, when every single DC comic set in the DC Universe became involved in a huge crossover where we got to see what each title, and indeed the DCU itself, would look like in a million months from that time.  It was a five week month, during which every DCU title jumped forward to the year 85,265AD.  I've been meaning to look at this series as part of my JLA thread, which in turn is part of a look at most of Morrison's entire body of work.  However, thanks to a pointer from one of the contributers to the JLA thread, verified by some of my own research, I discovered that Morrison had a hand in virtually every issue that came out in that month.

Grant again:

"Oh yeah, that was the biggest work I've ever done, because basically I plotted everything that month, every single comic except for Hitman.  With that I just said, 'Garth, take the piss', that was my plot. The rest of it was quite detailed. The Batman stuff, the Superman stuff was really detailed. I plotted something like sixty-four comics that month and wrote five of them. It was big. That took a few months. I was working non-stop."

(NB:  Morrison is exagerating here, not that he has to.  Plotting around 35 comics to be ready in a single month and tying them all together is no mean feat itself.)

Having discovered that the mind-boggling architecture of the entire event and much of the plotting of each issue was down to the Mad Scotsman, I decided that I would have to go as deep into these comics as I could.  All the more so, because such a fan-pleasing, original and ambitious crossover appears to have gotten very little coverage on the comics internet.  I guess it is just too sprawling, and multi-faceted to be looked at as a complete body of work. Another mark against it is the hugely variable range of styles and indeed quality across the DC One Million titles.  Virtually every DC writer and artist from Morrison's JLA period were involved, with varying degrees of commitment and engagement.  The DC One Million titles range from perhaps my favourite single issue of any comic (Martian Manhunter 1,000,000), to perhaps one of the worst, most insulting comics I've ever read (Azrael 1,000,000).  So we get a fascinating, slightly off-centre snapshot of DC's entire superhero line and the talent then at the company, which I hope inspires some comment from nostalgic fanboys in the replies below.

There is a huge amount of material to get through, so these may be some of the longest blogs ever posted here.  Rather than just seeing a wall of text, I hope that the obliging reader will instead see these blog entries as mini-magazines with different sections to be read seperately.

The comics themselves might have appeared as random issues with a 853rd Century connection to the readers of the time, very few of whom would have bought into all the comics that month.  The central story, contained in DC One Million #1-4, Morrison's JLA 1,000,000 and  a few other key issues, was collected as JLA: One Million and it makes for a pretty good read.  However, many of the other issues can be grouped together into several strands that weave together into a larger story and many other issues are interesting standalones, or even, as is the case with Creeper, Chase, and Young Heroes in Love, were in effect the final issues of their respective series. 

So in each of these blog entries, I'll be picking out the themes and meanings of Morrison's work in my usual fashion, with particular emphasis on the 5 comics he scripted.  I also hope to highlight the complexity of the inter-related story strands, all of which Morrison was involved with to some extent or another.  Finally, I'm hoping to celebrate to some extent the DC comics of the late 20th Century, an area of superhero comics close to my heart.

DC One Million #1

We open ‘on the third day’ when Plastic Man and Zauriel rush back to the Watchtower monitor room to find that Vandal Savage has just nuclear bombed Montevideo.  This turns out to be the day when the JLA take up the offer from their 853rd century counterparts, the Justice Legion 'A', to travel to the future to take part in various challenges in front of huge crowds to celebrate the original Superman’s return from the sun in the far future.

The rest of the comic is a countdown to this moment.  DC One Million has a huge cast and a lot of story elements in play, in two time periods, and Morrison sets them all up in this 40 page comic.  The comic is quite dense and hardly a frame is wasted.  Character moments also push forward the plot or get across the dramatic tone that Morrison is going for.  As the icons talk about visiting the far flung future, their nervousness and excitement communicates to the reader what a big deal it is.  Even Batman is tempted to go.  That these heroes in particular, who have experienced so much weirdness, should be nervous about the future-shock they might experience in the world of Justice Legion A, goes a long way in setting up the awe and wonder of the 853^rdcentury.

Another thing that Morrison does to get across how special this event must be, is to establish within the story how difficult it was to arrange for the two teams to swap places.  The story emphasises that they can only do it for a brief period of time.  Superhero comics do suffer when jumps between realities or from one time period to another are presented as boringly regular and everyday events.

A conversation between two Golden Age heroes tells us that this is a flowering of what they begun.  Ted Knight, the first Starman can’t contain his excitement in a phone call to the Golden Age Flash:

“That dream we had.  That stupid idea when we were young that we could make things better...  It all comes true, Jay”.

It highlights the simple optimism and can-do spirit of the first generation of superheroes and perhaps, what superheroes are ultimately ‘for’!

As ‘our’ JLA prepare to leave, we get an exciting plot strand of the Titans as they were then - Arsenal, Aqualad, Jessie Quick - and Supergirl getting in way over their heads when they try to stop Vandal Savage buying some nuclear-armed Rocket Red armoured suits.  They actually end up in the suits and unconscious as Savage prepares to launch them as weapons in his drive to conquer the Earth.

The Titans are well cast in this role, as they are between books at this stage, but are still well-known to the readers.  (All readers except me in 1998, I suppose.  I really was the newbie reader that Morrison was writing towards at this time.  That I found his comics so welcoming at that stage probably speaks towards the success, then and now of this incarnation of the League.)

Leaving aside the plotting of the awe-inspiring mega-events in two time periods, the comic is peppered with lots of little details of the sort that make reading a Morrison comic a pleasure.  To give just two examples of his handle on the characters and his ability, in only a word or two, to show what makes them tick:

“Snnt!”  - Flash’s sniggering reaction to the news that Green Lantern’s Challenge Arena will be in a spaceship orbiting Uranus.

“Holy God!” - Plastic Man’s reaction to seeing the damage done to Montevideo by the first of Vandal Savage’s nuclear missiles.  Not only does the phrase subtly hint at Eel O’Brian’s Irish-American background, adding a bit of texture, but it’s one of the few panels in the whole series where the pliable prankster isn’t joking.

There is another little fleeting phrase that betrays the depth of thought Morrison puts into his best work.  The book ends with a glimpse of the Vandal Savage of the far future toasting the success of his plans with Solaris.  We get our first taste of the continuous babble of Headnet, the information-broadcasting system that links all the citizens of the far future.

One of the lines is: “Instant cosmos accessing your neurons wherever the Super-Sun shines...”

The future Starman has already explained to us the perhaps central aspect of life in the 853^rdCentury:

“Our entire culture organises itself around the processing of Information:  a gigantic network of star-computers link the entire galaxy, allowing us to trade new ideas with distant systems.”

In literary and figurative language, the sun’s light often stands for understanding and knowledge.  As used by us in phrases like 'The light dawned on him".  In a kind of alchemical, magickal way, Morrison is making the figurative real in his future world, where the stars are giant computers, processing information and broadcasting it to all.  In a way he is transforming the powerful figurative language of symbols, which we all use every day, into superheroic picture-poetry.  Suns that have become giant super-computers are exactly the kind of thing that some would use to accuse Morrison of wilful “weirdness for weirdness’ sake”.  I’d contend that there is deep systematic thought that goes into many of the ideas that confound those who only look for surface values in their comics.  This transmogrification of the conceptual and the literary into the literally real and visually represented is something playful and smart, that lends itself especially well to superhero comics.

DC One Million #1 is a fine opening chapter to the crossover, communicating the wonder and awe of what is about to happen in the 853^rd Century while establishing a large cast and an array of dazzling new concepts.  All while building up the storyline of Vandal Savage’s greatest push for world domination in 1998.

The rest of DC One Million - Week One

To help guide you through the many issues released under the DC One Million banner, I'll be including these panels from the backmatter for each issue, showing what was released each week.  The incredible thing is how, in the case of issues that weren't standalone, the events in subsequent week's issues follow on from the previously released issues.  The logistics and planning that went into this crossover must have been immense.  In the case of the major strands that run through several comics, I thought it would make for easier comprehension of the storylines if I presented them as a group, rather than divide them up over the different weeks.  It'll be up to you to notice where a comic is in the list for that week's releases, or where it is from a different week.  Well, I mentioned that the architecture of this crossover was complex!

Action Comics 1,000,000 – We'll cover this issue in a Superman strand in a later blog entry.

Shadow of the Bat 1,000,000 – “Neverending Story”.  This is a good origin of Batman 1m, framed by a story of the future Batman trying to get to the 20th Century Batcave to begin addressing the crisis.  Alan Grant supplies a tight script that owes something to the great European revenge westerns which he would seem to be a big fan of. 

Nightwing 1,000,000 – This is basically a long conversation between Nightwing and Batman 1m.  It's a fun bridge in the longer arc of Batman 1m stuck in the 20th Century, but it doesn’t have the good classical structure like Shadow.

Scott McDaniel’s art has element of ‘cartooning’, which is as good a point as any to remark that fashions have changed in comics in the last 15 years.

Green Lantern 1,000,000 – 'Star-Crossed'.  This Ron Marz/Brian Hitch collaboration gets across the pathos of Kyle Raynor being the only Green Lantern, subtly pointing out that his line doesn’t continue into the 853rd Century, whereas the rest of the major heroes have proud legacies.  This theme is presented in a very subtle ‘Morrisonian’ way, rather than hitting the reader over the head with it.  Subtle as it is, there is some payoff of this by the end of the series.

The scene-setting double page spread is very Alan Davis-esque, with wonderful artwork that leaves us in no doubt that we are dealing with a weird and wondrous alien culture.  As it should do!

Young Justice 'Just ice, cubed.' 

“Current Location: Pluto.  Current Time: Wednesday in the 853^rdCentury.” 

David's opening text-box betrays his iconoclastic and tongue-in-cheek approach to the material.  The future versions of Young Justice tell each other stories about their 20th Century counterparts, each more ludicrously ill-informed than the last. Superboy 1m's story parodies Doomsday.  Robin the Toy Wonder’s story conflates Final Night, No Man’s Land, Earthquake, Zero Hour and Knightfall, all told in a Batman, The Animated Series style.

This is a very fun issue, even though its clear David isn't taking it too seriously (perhaps because of this!)  It would have been a distraction for David anyway, as this was only the third or so issue of his Young Justice series to be published.

One of the few obvious discrepancies amongst all these tie-ins occurs here.  This story announces it takes place after Superboy 1m visits the Arctic in Superboy 1,000,000, but that story refers to the events here as if they were in the past. 

Perhaps its a minor time-anomaly caused by Hourman’s messing with Deep Time? 

Yeah, that’s it...

That this is practically the only major mix-up between so many comics, written by so many writers, many of which are connected directly to the others in terms of cause and effect, speaks well of Morrison’s overall architecture.

******************************

The Mercury Strand.

Finally we come to the first of our sections looking at comics which make up an inter-related strand.  Only two comics in this strand, both set on Mercury, and both featuring men in red suits with lightning flashes emblazoned on their chests.

Power of Shazam 1,000,000. 

This is a complex, disturbing story.  It's extremely downbeat, as the citizens of Mercury are shown as a thoughtless lot, avaricious for the currency of information, addicted to the babble of headnet, into Kingdom Come-style pointless super-powered fights. A lot happens here, new characters and their society are well drawn in a few pages and then developed and worked into a single story.

Morrison’s hand is evident in the mysteriousness of Shazam’s long slumber and Shazam’s base ‘the Rock of Eternity' being hidden away in a tesseract deep within the machinery of Mercury - the Information hub of the Solar System.  Shazam keeps being compared to the Flash in this story and mistaken for him, and we get hints in this story of Flash’s concurrent adventure, which wouldn’t appear until week 4.  This prefigures their team-up in Flash 1,000,000. 

This thematic association with the Flash prefigures how Morrison links them in his recent writing as bearers of the Mercury/Hermes Flash symbol of inspiration, and avatars of communication and the ‘magic’ of language and information. (Remember that Captain Marvel activates his powers by a Magic Word!)  In Supergods Morrison points out that the second Flash kicked off the Silver Age, and was there when the hugely significant contact with the Golden Age/Earth One was made.  He also notes that the star of the hugely popular and imaginative Captain Marvel comics, which outsold Superman's own comics for a time, also bore the flash symbol of lightning/inspiration descending from the heavens to the Earth.

So the Flash and what he and his Lightning iconography symbolise have great significance in Morrison’s ‘cosmology’ and in this story he is ‘bundling’ the two Lightning-emblazoned heroes that embody the forces of Hermes/Mercury together with the actual planet named Mercury and its 853^rd century role as the hub of information to the whole Solar System.  Again its a kind of poetry in pictures that would be impossible to do in other media.  There is a lot of this bundling and compressing of symbolic roles in Final Crisis, where several characters appearing in the same issue embody similar forces, so it’s interesting to realise that he was doing it in this phase of his career as well.  In the plot of The Power of Shazam 1,000,000, he addresses the dark side of the mercurial forces symbolised by the lightning.

At first I thought that this comic wouldn’t get MY glowing review, as it is so downbeat and paints the citizens of this corner of Morrison’s supposed Utopia as extremely cruel and petty.  The forces of creativity, communication and inspiration that Morrison normally speaks so highly of elsewhere manifest themselves here in the disturbing characteristics and behaviour of the citizens of Mercury.

They are addicted to information and the acquiring of it at all costs, thoughtlessly killing Sutra, the enterprising mother of the hero of the story, whilst stampeding over her in their rush for new experiences and information to acquire and sell.

However, thanks to the conceptual meat of Morrison's plotting and the excellent realisation of Morrison's ideas by Ordway and his collaborators, I eventually developed a higher opinion of this entry in the crossover.

Flash 1,000,000– “Fast Forward”  (Mark Waid and Michael Jan Friedman)

This wraps up some of the themes of the Power of Shazam issue, and seems at first glance to be a well-put-together but unexceptional superhero tale.  'Our' Flash has to save the world of Mercury one million months hence from the depradations of Commander Cold and Heatwave.  A closer look, however shows why Mark Waid is such a consummate professional and a wonderful collaborator with Morrison.  Waid subsumes his story to the broader DC One Million project.  Each issue of these DC One Million comics has an introductory page which summarises the set-up of the series and introduces the reader to a future world which they haven't seen before.

I'm presuming Waid wrote the intro page to Flash 1,000,000, but whoever did added a line which gives some context to the behaviour of the citizens of Mercury in the earlier Shazam book.  It describes “the fast-living culture of rabid info-junkies”.  So Waid (or whoever) gives the reprehensible behaviour of the ‘Mercurians’ some context and explanation, which the earlier story didn't present so explicitly.  The page also points out that Mercury is the connecting point between the brain-sun and the rest of the planets.  So now the name, location and all the mythology of Mercury/Hermes and the Lightning of inspiration/thought/communication are all compressed and presented as a superhero comicbook.

Another thing this issue does is take the time to elaborate on the nature of the poverty suffered by Sutra and Tanist, the main protagonists of The Power of Shazam 1,000,000.  Yes, they have all the basics for living, but they are still marginalised and cut off from the true wealth of this society.  Waid's contribution is one of the few comics I read that really felt like the writer concerned had studied the comics that his would tie directly into.  He seems to be developing the bare ideas Morrison puts forward in the Shazamcomic and making them more presentable and understandable to the general reader.   Perhaps the fact that his issue would come out in week 4 allowed Waid the tiny bit of extra time to do this with his script.

Although this looks like a straightforward confontation between the heroes and two bad guys, a comparison with the other DC One Million comics featuring the adventures of 'our' JLA in the future shows that Waid avoided the trap that the other comics all fell into. Each of them ended up inadvertantly using the same basic plot more or less, as the Green Lantern comic described above, where the hero had to deal with their contest going dangerously haywire and then find a way to get to Jupiter to meet the rest of the JLA there.  This repetition of the same plot makes the DC One Million comics featuring the main JLA stars pretty much the least interesting of all the One Million comics.  Waid wasn't 'Flashy', if you'll excuse the pun, but he put a lot of thought into his work and provided satisfying comics as a result.

I'm reminded of some notes Waid added to one of the trade collections of 52.  He said that he was the perfect choice to script the Ralph Dibney sections of 52 because they chronicle the adventures of a man of science and rationality who has to deal with the mystical and the bizarre encroaching on his life.  Waid declared that this was a great fictional parallel to his own relationship to Morrison.

Waid and Morrison were a great team.  In their rejected proposal for Superman 2000, Waid was specified as the one who would make Morrison's far-out ideas work and keep the feet of the series on the ground.  I can only agree with that assessment of their dynamic.  DC should have made more use of the productive synergy that seemed to flow from their obvious respect for each other's different methods and styles.

That's it for DC One Million, week 1.  I hope you can join me for the next installment of this look back to the future.

454-120313

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Comics characters often return from the dead – but sometimes publishers do, too. Such is the case with Valiant Comics, which has burst back on the scene in an explosion of high-quality books.

First, the history:

Valiant first launched in 1989 with three top creators at its head: Jim Shooter, former editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics; Bob Layton, who gained fame as co-writer and inker on Iron Man; and illustrative legend Barry Windsor-Smith. The line they launched included a host of imaginative original series, including Harbinger, Shadowman and X-O Manowar. All the titles were subtly interconnected and eventually, as title after title was added, a huge tapestry began to form.

Valiant’s emphasis was on character and good writing in a field then dominated by artists, and it quickly became the third largest comics publisher in America (after Marvel and DC). But right at its peak, in 1994, the company was sold to a videogame company, which de-emphasized the comics and eventually went bankrupt. And that was that. There were a couple of attempts to re-start the company, but nothing panned out.

Until now. Amazingly, two undergrads who were young fans of the first Valiant universe managed to get control of the company’s assets in 2005. Now, after seven years of assembling investors and a professional staff (including former Marvel Chairman Peter Cuneo), Dinesh Shamdasani and Jason Kothari have brought Valiant back.

The new Valiant is putting its best foot forward, by re-launching four of the most popular concepts from its previous incarnations: Archer & Armstrong, Bloodshot, Harbinger and X-O Manowar.  Very little has changed in these titles since their first incarnation … including the fact that they are very, very good.

X-O Manowar #1 came first, launching in May. Written by Robert Venditti (The Surrogates) and drawn by Cary Nord (Conan the Barbarian), X-O stars Aric of Dacia, a Visigoth warrior from the Roman Empire who was, in the first three issues, kidnapped by aliens, joined by the powerful – and sentient – X-O Manowar armor, and returned to Earth, albeit in the present day. It’s kind of an Iron Man-Conan mash-up, with a little Blue Beetle thrown in.

June brought Harbinger #1, by writer Joshua Dysart (Unknown Soldier) and artist Khari Evans. It stars teenage orphan Peter Stanchek, the most powerful telepath/telekinetic on the planet – except for Toyo Harada, the first person with psionic powers, who wants to recruit Stanchek to his worldwide organization of super-powered “harbingers.” Like with the 1990s series, Harbinger operates in a gray area where the scariest people look normal, and it’s hard to know who to root for.

Bloodshot #1, by comics and crime fiction writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Manuel Garcia, arrived in July, about a U.S. military blacks op agent who has jillions of microscopic machines called nanites in his system that allow him to rebuild himself from almost any injury, but also allow his minders to implant thousands of false memories to motivate and control him. Codename Bloodshot has now broken free, though, and is on the run while deciding which of the voices in his head is his own – if any.

My personal favorite from Valiant’s first incarnation returns this month: Archer & Armstrong, by Fred van Lente and Clayton Henry. Armstrong (real name Aram) is an immensely strong and immortal warrior from Ur, the first city, who has developed a strong taste for alcohol and a stronger sense of boredom over the millennia. Archer is an accomplished martial artist raised by a Christian cult that is a front for a hidden organization searching for the secret to Armstrong’s immortality. Archer is sent to kill Armstrong, but instead the two become partners to discover what’s really going on – providing they don’t kill each other first.

Just like the first Valiant, this version has a raft of accomplished creators, is beautifully drawn across the board and is enormously appealing. And just like the first Valiant, this group of titles can be read entirely independently, although there are already hints in the background how alien invaders, psionic mutants, high-tech assassins and immortal warriors all tie together. Hints that will only grow stronger as this universe grows, first with the much-anticipated return of mercenary intelligence agent Ninjak in September’s X-O Manowar #5, and the re-launch of Valiant’s voodoo warrior in November’s Shadowman #1.

Will this version of Valiant succeed where the others have failed? I hope so – because, just like good superheroes, good publishers shouldn’t stay dead forever.

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

ART

X-O Manowar #4, Harbinger #3, Bloodshot #2 and Archer & Armstrong #1, all available in August.

47 RONIN #1 (OF 5)

ACTION COMICS #14
ADVENTURE TIME TP VOL 01
AGE OF APOCALYPSE #9
ANIMAL MAN #14 (ROT)
ANNOTATED SANDMAN HC VOL 02 (MR)
AVENGERS #33
AVENGERS ACADEMY #39
AVENGERS VS X-MEN CHEUNG HC AVX
AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #14
AVX CONSEQUENCES #5 (OF 5)

BATTLEFIELDS GREEN FIELDS BEYOND PT 1 #1 (OF 6)
BATWING #14
BEFORE WATCHMEN MOLOCH #1 (OF 2)
BEST OF FROM THE TOMB SC
BLACK KISS II #4 (OF 6) (MR)
BLACKLUNG HC
BPRD PLAGUE OF FROGS HC VOL 04
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER WILLOW WONDERLAND #1

CAROL LAYS ILLITERATURE HC
CHARMED TP VOL 04
COLDER #1 (OF 5) (MR)
CREATOR OWNED HEROES #6
CRIMINAL MACABRE THEY FIGHT BY NIGHT ONE SHOT

DANGER CLUB TP VOL 01
DANGER GIRL GI JOE #4 (OF 4)
DAREDEVIL END OF DAYS #2 (OF 8)
DC COMICS THE SEQUENTIAL ART OF AMANDA CONNER HC
DC NATION #2
DEADPOOL #1 NOW
DEFENDERS #12
DETECTIVE COMICS #14
DIAL H #6

EARTH 2 #6
EPIC KILL #6

FAIREST #9 (MR)
FEAR ITSELF TP HEROES FOR HIRE
FEAR ITSELF TP WOLVERINE NEW MUTANTS
FLASH GORDON ZEITGEIST #7
FLASH HC VOL 01 MOVE FORWARD (N52)
FLY VOL II #1 (OF 5) (MR)
FOUR HORSEMEN O/T APOCALYPSE SC VOL 03 (OF 3) (MR)
FREAKY MONSTERS MAGAZINE #12
FREELANCERS #1

GAME OF THRONES MAPS OF LANDS OF ICE & FIRE HC
GARFIELD #7
GARTH ENNIS JENNIFER BLOOD #19 (MR)
GI COMBAT #6
GI JOE VOL 2 ONGOING #19
GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO HC VOL 01 (MR)
GREEN ARROW #14
GREEN LANTERN #14 (RISE)
GUARDING THE GLOBE #3

HARVEST #4 (OF 5) (MR)
HEAVY METAL SEPTEMBER 2012 REG ED (MR)
HELLRAISER ROAD BELOW #1 (OF 4) (MR)
HELLRAISER TP VOL 04 (MR)
HYPERNATURALS #5

IRON MAN #1 NOW

JLA EARTH II TP NEW PTG
JUSTICE LEAGUE CYBORG AF

KEVIN KELLER TP VOL 01 WELCOME TO RIVERDALE
KIM HARRISON HOLLOWS HC GN VOL 02 BLOOD CRIME

L&R COPS BY HERNANDEZ T/S
LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #2
LIFE WITH ARCHIE #24
LOVE & ROCKETS 30TH BY HERNANDEZ T/S
LOVE AND CAPES WHAT TO EXPECT #4 (OF 6)

MAGIC THE GATHERING SPELL THIEF #4
MANHATTAN PROJECTS #7
MARS ATTACKS #5
MARVEL UNIVERSE ULT SPIDER-MAN DIGEST TP VOL 01
MARVELS IRON MAN 2 ADAPTATION #1 (OF 2)
MASS EFFECT TP VOL 04 HOMEWORLDS
MU AVENGERS EARTHS HEROES COMIC READER TP #4
MULTI-STORY BUILDING MODEL CHRIS WARE PORTFOLIO

NANCY IN HELL ON EARTH #4 (OF 4) (MR)
NEW AVENGERS #32 AXFO
NEW CRUSADERS RISE OF THE HEROES #3

OZ WONDERLAND CHRONICLES PRELUDE TO EVIL #2 (OF 3)

PATHFINDER #3
PERHAPANAUTS DANGER DOWN UNDER #1 (OF 4)
PLANET O/T APES CATACLYSM #3
POPEYE #7
POUND GHOULS NIGHT OUT #3 (OF 4)
PSYCHEDELIC SEX VAMPIRES JEAN ROLLIN CINEMA GN (MR)

RAGEMOOR HC
RALPH AZHAM HC VOL 01 WHY LIE SOMEONE LOVE
RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS TP VOL 01 REDEMPTION
RETURN TO PERDITION TP (MR)
ROAD TO OZ #3 (OF 6)
ROSARIO VAMPIRE SEASON II TP VOL 10

SANDMAN TP VOL 10 THE WAKE NEW ED (MR)
SCARLET SPIDER #11
SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU #27
SCOTT PILGRIM COLOR HC VOL 02 (OF 6)
SHADOW #7
SHADOW TP VOL 01 FIRE OF CREATION (MR)
SHADOWMAN (NEW) #1
SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 #7
SMURFS GN VOL 13 SMURF SOUP
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG GENESIS TP
SPACEKNIGHTS #2 (OF 3)
SPACEMAN DELUXE EDITION HC (MR)
STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION HIVE #2
STARDUST GIFT ED HC
STORM DOGS #1 (OF 6) (MR)
STORMWATCH #14
STUMPTOWN V2 #3
SUPER DINOSAUR #15
SWAMP THING #14 (ROT)
SWEET TOOTH #39 (MR)

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ADVENTURES TP VOL 02
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES COLOR CLASSICS #6
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES MICRO SERIES TP
THOUGHT BUBBLE ANTHOLOGY 2012 #2
TRANSFORMERS REGENERATION ONE #85

UNCANNY X-FORCE #33

WONDER WOMAN ARCHIVES HC VOL 07
WORLDS FINEST #6

X-FACTOR #246
X-MEN #38

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

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Ever see someone do something so well it discourages you from ever trying?

As a wannabe comic-book artist myself, there have been a lot of masters over the years that have that have been that good. And of those masters, few are as magnificent as the man who created “The Rocketeer.” In Dave Stevens: Covers and Stories (IDW Publishing, $49.99) you can see how good.

Stevens, who died at age 53 of leukemia in 2008, left a relatively small body of work even accounting for such an early death. And most of that work was scattered hither and yon; some covers here, some short stories there, some inking way over yonder. While “The Rocketeer” comics and stories have already been collected in a variety of formats, this is the first book to collect Stevens’ other wide-ranging material, some of it published, but also sketches, first drafts and other unpublished work.

And it’s ridiculously good. Stevens is renowned for his gorgeous women, his lush brushwork, his exquisite rendering, his perfect perspective, his flawless anatomy, his creative use of light and, of course, for restoring the spotlight to 1950s pin-up queen Betty Page, by incorporating her image into his own work. All of that is on display here in all its stupefying gorgeousness.

I should point out that Stevens drew from live models and often failed to put shirts on his girls (especially in sketchwork), so keep the kiddies at bay.  Also, I found a sketch where Stevens was evidently having some trouble foreshortening an arm, erasing and re-drawing a lot. That’s reassuring, in that it proves he was human. And now we have this book, where I can admire again and again the level of work we lesser humans can never achieve.

Speaking of sketches, Steven Heller of New York’s School of Visual Arts has put together a hefty tome collecting samples from sketchbooks from an army of artists. Comics Sketchbooks: The Private Worlds of Today’s Most Creative Talents (Thames & Hudson, $44.95), samples more than 80 artists from the U.S., Europe, South America and Japan.

That’s a lot of artists, which means a mouth-watering cornucopia of styles and genres, some famous and some not. The downside is you only get 2-3 pages per artist, which in some cases is just a maddening taste of a fuller meal. But where else are you going to get famed comics artists Jim Steranko and David Mazzuchelli, caricaturist Drew Friedman, “underground” cartoonist R. Crumb, animation great Chris Battle and editorial cartoonists from Cuba between the same two covers?

Still, I can only recommend it for academia, hobbyists and pros, as I don’t think it offers much to the general public.

Meanwhile, I can’t let another week go by without touting a new graphic novel about one of the seminal events of World War II. Writer/artist Wayne Vansant has given us Normandy: A Graphic History of D-Day, The Allied Invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe from Zenith Press ($19.99).

Vansant drew Marvel’s The ‘Nam for a number of years, and his art bears a strong resemblance to Sam Glanzman, who drew war comics for both Marvel and DC Comics for decades. But while retaining Glanzman’s sketchy approach, Vansant isn’t as strong in rendering, so some panels look like pencil roughs. Nevertheless, while the result can be cartoony – off-putting given the bloody story – Vansant tells a lot with a little.

And speaking of the story, Vansant manages to retain the adrenaline-charged, throat-grabbing horror of the days between June 6, 1944, and the liberation of Paris, while still maintaining a reportorial distance. The words establish the factual narrative, while the pictures provide the emotional body-blows.

It’s a nice balance, and this book ought to be used in every high school history class in America.

Meanwhile, DC’s Get Jiro! graphic novel has been in my to-review pile for a while, and the reason is that I didn’t much care for it.

Jiro is by famous chef Anthony Bourdain, writer Joel Rose and artist Langdon Foss (with Jose Villarrubia), and is set in the near future where chefs are the pop superstars of the world. That obvious wish fulfillment was annoying, but not a deal-breaker.

What’s wrong is that Bourdain goes whole hog, positing a world where chefs are legally allowed to slaughter diners who don’t properly appreciate them. I’m sure that was hysterical when this was being plotted, but the upshot is that Jiro – a sushi chef caught between warring restaurant barons – ceases to have the audience’s sympathy when the first few pages depict him decapitating people whose only crime is dunking their fish in the wrong sauce. After that scene I didn’t much care what happened to Jiro, and I’m pretty sure I was supposed to.

Still, there are some funny bits, if you enjoy over-the-top satire. The artwork is a bit too fussy for my taste – it’s a highly detailed, lifeless cartoon style with a minimum of shadows – is nevertheless quite clean, with clear storytelling.

While not my cup of sake, it might be of interest to those who watch The Food Channel.

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

ART:

1. Dave Stevens: Covers and Stories collects the non-Rocketeer output of the late artist. Copyright IDW Publishing.

Halloween is a happy time of the year for me.  It usually brings back fond memories of past costumes.  Of course, there have been a few recurring themes over the years.  Science fiction and fantasy.  Classic horror characters.  And, naturally, comic books.

 My first comic book costume was Batman.  I was probably 10 at the time.  My mom sewed a homemade costume for me and I cut a Batman logo out of yellow cardboard.  My brother dressed up as Superman.  It’s funny how the mind can play tricks with your memory.  As we grew older, I gravitated more to Superman and my brother to Batman’s darker side.  We even reminisced a few times about the year that he dressed up as Batman and I as Superman until

               (As an aside, my little sister who was 3 at the time dressed up as Cookie Monster.  She had a blue snowsuit with ping polls painted to look like Muppet eyes glued to the top.  She was so excited that my older sister had to hold her head still for the family photo.) I stumbled across an old family photo. 

               I don’t remember dressing up as a comic book character again until I was in college.  This time, I opted for the slightly obscure route and went as Starman.  I already had a Starman T-shirt (which everyone mistook for a 

communist flag).  I used tinfoil and a broom handle to create my own cosmic rod.  Then I got a nice trench coat and some aviator goggles for the finishing touches.  The only thing I skipped was the tattoos- probably because I didn’t think of it at the time. 

Most of my friends had never heard of Starman before so I had to explain my costume over and over again.  However, once I explained it, they usually nodded appreciably.  Looking back, this was a significant step forward in my life.  It signaled that I was becoming more comfortable as “a comic book geek” and I didn’t mind other people knowing.  It also showed that other people were generally more accepting than I would have guessed.

This year, I’m going out as a comic book character for the third time. 

 He’s one of my all-time favorite characters.  We share a Canadian heritage.  We even debuted in the same month (I was born in July 1974).  He’s Wolverine.  Or, I guess should say, “I’m Wolverine.”  

I have a couple of kids now.  They’re about the age I was when I first dressed up as Batman and they’ve dressed up as comic book characters in the past (my younger daughter had a home-made Raven costume for the Teen Titans cartoon).  They’re super-excited to see their dad dress up.  They grinned with glee when they saw first the claws and then the T-shirt arrive in the mail.  I also have a very supportive wife who enjoys all of the same geeky stuff I do and bought the costume pieces at the first hint. 

That’s one of the things I love so much about Halloween- it’s time for us to have fun as a family.  The candy and free comics are an added bonus.

P. S. Since I mentioned it in the opening, I figured I should share my other costumes.  For science fiction and fantasy, I’ve dressed up as Harry Potter and Jayne from Firefly.  In the classic horror category, I’ve dressed up as a vampire and a zombie (a Michael Jackson Thriller zombie rather than a George Romero or Walking Dead zombie- and boy, did that incite a few arguments in the Fluit 

house when I was a kid).  I’ve gone as Dr. Seuss and Goofy.  I’ve gone as Caesar as a special request by my daughters who were dressing up as Cleopatra.  And, one my favorites: I put on a leather jacket to be Ed from Northern Exposure.  What about you? 

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

May 22, 2012: Wonder Woman and Green Lantern are two of DC Entertainment’s oldest characters. But collections of their newly re-launched titles bring some surprising changes.

For example, we learned in 1942 that the child who would grow up to become Wonder Woman was a clay statue sculpted by Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, brought to life by the gods and granted their powers. In 2012, we learned that’s a lie.

The True, Honest-to-Gosh, Cross-My-Heart Origin of the Amazing Amazon comes to us in Wonder Woman Volume 1: Blood ($22.99) arriving this month. Blood collects the first six issues of Wonder Woman, a title re-launched with DC’s other superhero titles in September as “The New 52.”

It’s clear that Blood has more than one meaning. First, the story involves the bloodline of the Greco-Roman gods, and secondly, it involves a lot of the red stuff. The plot is this: Father Zeus has disappeared, which sets various gods into violent motion against each other to claim his throne. Also, venomous Hera is trying to kill one of Zeus’ many lovers, a girl pregnant with a demigod that Wonder Woman has taken it upon herself to protect. As battles are won and lost, deals are brokered between power bases, and alliances shift. In the middle is the Amazing Amazon, who also must deal with the revelation of her true nature – and the fact her mother has been lying to her all along.

If this sounds more like a gang war than a superhero story, maybe it’s because Blood is written by Brian Azzarello, famed for the intricate crime noir 100 Bullets. He called the Greco-Roman gods “the original crime family” in a phone interview last year, motivated by “selfish” and “twisted” desires.

Artist Cliff Chiang does an imaginative job re-designing these centuries-old mythical beings – creatures who are, of course, free to appear as they like. Apollo is beautiful, as you’d expect, but looks carved from obsidian. Hermes is bird-like, with winged claws for feet. Hera is naked most of the time (except for her cloak of peacock feathers), but so bloody-minded and lethal you forget that pretty quickly. Ares is as old as war, and shows it. Poseidon and Hades are unearthly, and have to be seen to be believed. Not to mention that Chiang, abetted by Tony Akins, gives us a broad-shouldered, martial and plausible Wonder Warrior, who nevertheless retains a hard-edged Mediterranean beauty.

All of this is set against Diana’s shocking discovery about her origin, which I won’t spoil here. Well, except to say it’s an elegant explanation that befits Diana’s iconic status, without shredding what past writers have done.

But while Wonder Woman is going through big changes, writer (and DC Chief Creative Officer) writer Geoff Johns (and DC’s Chief Creative Officer) made subtle, almost minor changes to the Emerald Warrior in Green Lantern Volume 1: Sinestro ($22.99). That’s probably because Johns has already spent several years virtually re-creating Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, erasing decades of bad stories, clumsy mischaracterization and general mistreatment of one of DC’s signature characters.

The New 52 Green Lantern picks up right where the old title left off, with Jordan booted out of the Corps, his place as Green Lantern of Sector 2814 taken by his oldest arch-enemy, the red-skinned ex-Green Lantern Sinestro. Nobody is happy about this; not Jordan, not Sinestro, not the rest of the Corps. But the enigmatic Guardians of Oa are, as usual, executing some plan they won’t explain, and treating everyone like disposable tools. In the meantime, Sinestro has to eject from his home planet Korugar the evil yellow lantern corps he created, recruiting a reluctant Jordan to do so, just as the latter is trying to make up to Carol Ferris for years of neglect.

But while much of this may seem familiar, Johns has really upped the stakes, and the octane. The action is breathless, while every answer Johns gives just raises more questions. Meanwhile, artist Doug Mahnke – also retained from pre-New 52 title – has really found his groove, combining dramatic rendering with strong storytelling.

So what’s new is that Sinestro is no longer the cartoon bad guy he was in the 1960s, but a complex and tragic (but still really unpleasant) protagonist. And the Guardians may have crossed a line that can’t be ignored.

Meanwhile, Jordan must learn who he is without the ring. And Wonder Woman must learn who she is with her past ripped away. Given the status of these characters, those count as pretty big developments.

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