Blog 2.0

“The Hulk Vs. the Thing”/”The Avengers Take Over!”

Editor and writer: Stan Lee  Art: Jack Kirby (pencils), George Bell (inks)

My original title for this Deck Log entry was “The Battles of the Century”.  I had intended to cover the notable clashes of the Silver Age.  First on my list of one-on-one battles to review was the epic contest between the Thing and the Hulk, one which stretched across two issues and climaxed with the Emerald Behemoth squaring off against the combined might of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers.

But when I dug out my copies of Fantastic Four # 25 and 26 and re-read that classic combo, for the first time in some thirty-five years, it rapidly became clear that this was a tale that deserved a column of its own, as a true gem, indeed.  Perhaps not as forgotten as some of the other stories I’ve discussed under this heading, but it most definitely should be taken out of storage and dusted off.

Fighting is the crux of all comic-book stories.  Hero against villain.  Americans against the Nazis.  Earthlings versus aliens.  You can dress the plots up with elabourate twists or sharp characterisation, but it still boils down to a fight.  The fans know this.  Take a look at any comics-related forum and see how many threads there are marked “__________ vs. __________”.  Perhaps the purest comic-book story consists of a single brawl between two super-powered heavyweights.  For fans of this kind of story, you won’t find any tale better done than “The Hulk Vs. the Thing”.

Ben Grimm tangled with the Hulk many times over the years, both before and after, but none of those stories came close to the gripping, edge-of-your-seat drama of Fantastic Four # 25-6.

The nuts and bolts of the tale are simple enough to describe.  It opens with a short scene at the FF’s headquarters in the Baxter Building, as the Thing rejects an attempt by Reed Richards to return him to his human form.  It’s a quick bit to establish the fact that the Thing is afraid that Alicia Masters will lose her love for him if he is plain Ben Grimm.  Primarily though, it sets up the transition to the events which will eventually land the Thing in the fight of his life.  In an obvious bit of foreshadowing, the Invisible Girl reads to the others a newspaper account of the Avengers’ battle with the Hulk and the Sub-Mariner (which took place in The Avengers # 3 [Jan., 1964]).

Dissolve to New Mexico, where the Avengers are hot on the trail of the Hulk, following his damage-strewn path.  Ol’ Jade-jaws, after a brief reversion to Bruce Banner (mistakenly called “Bob Banner” by Stan throughout), takes refuge in his secret underground lab.  At this early stage, he is still the brutish, thug-like Hulk, rather than the simple-minded, childlike-unless-angered version which became the standard.  Determined to remain the Hulk permanently, he destroys the intricate gamma-powered equipment with which Banner had been able to change between his two personæ at will.

Seeking to rid himself of every trace of his human alter ego, the Hulk empties the pockets of his trousers.  Among the articles, he finds a newspaper clipping announcing that Captain America has taken his place with the Avengers.  Noting Rick Jones’s absence, the Hulk concludes that both the boy and the Avengers have deserted him.  Enraged at their “betrayal”, the Green Goliath launches himself toward New York, in hundred-mile leaps, to destroy the Avengers.

A day later, at the Baxter Building, the eternally-researching Reed Richards is experimenting with some rare viruses.  One “oops” later, he accidentally infects himself with the virulent germs and lapses into a coma.  Johnny Storm zooms off in the Fantasti-Car in search of a doctor, just as the Hulk arrives in the Big Apple and starts tearing up everything in sight.  Johnny attempts to stop the rampaging monster, but fails, as the Hulk viciously retaliates.

The city is in panic.  The police begin an evacuation of Manhattan and news cameras broadcast the Hulk’s battering of the Human Torch.  Seeing the Torch’s peril on television, Ben and Sue rush to his aid.  Sue’s force field protects Johnny from further injury, but the staggering pressure the Hulk applies to her force field places so much strain on the Invisible Girl that she passes out.

With Reed comatose, Johnny severely injured, Sue unconscious---and apparently every other Marvel hero out of town---it is up to the Thing to stop the raging Hulk.

Like charging bulls, they slam into each other.  The Hulk’s juggernaut might pitted against the Thing’s lesser strength, but keener reflexes and agility.  At first, their relative strengths and weaknesses balance out, as their battle wages back and forth.  Ben’s wisecracks needle the Hulk, making him even angrier, and gradually, the Green Goliath gains the advantage.  This is one of the earliest indications---I’m guessing, the first---that the madder the Hulk gets, the stronger he gets.  One caption, more or less, makes it clear:  “His incredible strength seems to increase during the strain of combat!”

Their mighty clash turns Manhattan into a war zone.  Streets are reduced to shattered pavement.  Sewer lines are torn loose.  A bus is torn in half.  The Hulk shakes a tenement off its foundation to get to the Thing.  Ben rips out an underground electrical cable to zap the Hulk with a million volts of juice.

Through superior tactics, Ben manages to stave off the more-powerful Hulk.  With super-human effort, he ensnares his green-skinned opponent by wrapping him in a suspension cable torn from the George Washington Bridge.  Ben’s great strength is rapidly fading, while the enraged Hulk is getting stronger by the minute.  With a tremendous flex of his emerald muscles, the Hulk shatters the cable and wades into the Thing with a terrible fury.  Ben caves under the withering attack and the Hulk furiously turns to face the terrified citizens of New York.

The Army blasts the Hulk with rifle fire and rockets from hand-held launchers.  The enraged man-monster shrugs it off and bears down on the troops.  On nothing more than determination, the Thing throws himself into the Hulk before the brutish behemoth can annihilate the soldiers.

“It’s amazing!” cries one G.I.  “The Thing must be fighting on sheer courage alone!”

Just when it looks like it is all over for Ben, the rest of the Fantastic Four have recovered enough to come to his aid.  Their wobbly efforts manage, barely, to drive the Hulk off. 

Cunningly, Ol’ Jade-jaws has ducked into New York’s subway system and makes his way, underground, to the Avengers Mansion.  Bursting through the floor of the townhouse, he catches the Avengers and Rick Jones looking.  The Hulk focuses his anger on Rick and before the super-heroes can get their act together, he seizes the boy and crashes through a wall.

Both the Avengers and the regrouped Fantastic Four corner the Hulk with his captive.  Both groups claim jurisdiction over the threat of the green-skinned brute.  But neither team bows out and they wind up inadvertently fouling their respective efforts against the Hulk.  Mocking their ineptness, the Hulk leaps to the top of a partially completed skyscraper, with Rick in tow.

The FF and the Avengers come to an understanding and coördinate an attack on the Hulk before he can harm the youngster.  Despite the combined efforts of nine super-heroes, the best they can manage against the Hulk is a stalemate. 

It’s a gripping climax to a battle lasting forty-some pages---and an odd one, as far as the Fantastic Four is concerned.  Once the Hulk makes his last stand atop the skyscraper's skeleton, the F.F. seems to drop off the scope.  For the last five pages, the Avengers carry the action. 

At last, the Hulk angrily confronts his “replacement”, Captain America.  But the agile Cap easily evades being pounded into jelly.  Unable to land a single blow on the Star-Spangled Avenger, the Hulk’s frustration mounts.  His mood doesn’t get any better when Giant-Man intercedes, alternately rabbit-punching the jade giant, then shrinking out of harm’s way.

The Hulk is totally pissed now, which is never a good thing.

Fortunately, the cavalry has arrived, in the form of the Wasp leading a large column of ants to the fray.  In his Ant-Man form, Hank Pym orders the insects to swarm over their foe.  While the Hulk is plagued by the stinging ants, Rick Jones thrusts a gamma-ray treated capsule into Ol’ Greenskin’s gaping mouth.

To get the ants off of him, the Hulk dives into the near-by Hudson River.  The exhausted super-heroes give up the fight.  What they don’t see is the unconscious figure of Bruce Banner floating to the surface and drifting away with the current.

Still, it’s a curious ending, with the stars of the title taking a back seat to the Special Guest Heroes.  Especially in light of the build-up of the previous issue and a half, pitting the monstrous Hulk against a desperately outmatched Ben Grimm, while the other FFers, sick and injured, try to get it together. 

Instead, it reads like the last few pages of an Avengers tale got tacked on by mistake.

At its forefront, “The Hulk Vs. the Thing” is one long brawl, marked by violence, trickery, grit, and humour.  (Think John Wayne and Victor McLaughlin’s donnybrook in The Quiet Man, taken to the super-human degree.)  But what’s back of it elevates this tale into a true gem.

One of the aspects rarely seen in a Hulk story is the effects of one of his rampages on the public at large.  Outside of including a few panels showing some fleeing bystanders, the Hulk’s battles always seemed to take place in a vacuum.  But here, we see the full force and effect on a city terrorised by the Hulk.  Citizens react in varying degrees of horror, some scattering in wild panic, others rooted to the spot by fear.  We see city authorities responding---marshalling forces, setting up barricades, directing an evacuation, establishing first-aid stations.  The military, when called in, are shown as more than just gun-crazy soldiers.  We witness the planning, the weighing of options, the discussion of how much force can be brought to bear against the Hulk without causing more death and destruction than the menace they have been called to defeat.

And there is damage aplenty.  No desolate countrysides or remote locales here.  The battle between the Thing and the Hulk rages through downtown Manhattan, leaving a swathe of demolished structures and twisted wreckage in its wake.  A dozen city blocks are left without electrical power.

The effect of these interludes is a cinematic one.  It gives “The Hulk Vs. the Thing” the feeling of a superior B-movie from the 1950’s, not that far removed from a minor classic like Them!   Stan Lee’s script accurately portrayed a city as it would respond if such a menace as the Hulk and such heroes as the Thing existed. Nothing is incidental.  The television coverage not only keeps the public informed, but it alerts the other members of the Fantastic Four to Ben’s dire situation.

Another huge plus was the tight unification of the various sub-plots that had been running through several Marvel titles at the time.  This was the benefit of having Stan Lee write virtually all of Marvel’s output. 

DC’s titles were collected into minor fiefdoms:  Weisinger’s Superman family titles.  Kanigher's war books.  Schwartz’s almost everything else.  While each editor’s titles showed consistency to varying degrees, there was very little continuity across editorial boundaries. 

But over at Marvel, Stan’s personal hand in everything created the strong sense of a connected universe.  Sub-plots in one hero’s series carried over if the hero appeared in another’s title.  And so many of those threads wended through “The Hulk Vs. the Thing”.  The impetus for the Hulk’s rampage on New York came from his discovery of the events that took place in The Avengers # 4, which themselves were a continuation of The Avengers # 3.  The Hulk’s destruction of Bruce Banner’s secret underground lab wrapped up a loose end left over from his first, cancelled series.

Another dangling plot element from the first Hulk series was the character of Rick Jones.  Lee neatly segued Jones over to the Avengers title, where the newly revived Captain America took the teen-ager under his wing.  Rather than having no impact on the mythos of the Hulk, we see the Green Goliath actually reacting to such a thing, even if he misinterpreted it.  And it gave a chance for Rick to display his conflicted loyalties, between those to the Hulk and those to the Avengers.  Rick’s presence in the story even afforded Stan the opportunity to make a reference to Bucky Barnes, thereby tickling a Fantastic Four reader’s interest in Captain America and his upcoming series in Tales of Suspense.

The Hulk’s precipitous departure from the ranks of the Avengers in issue # 2 of its series makes it easy to dismiss his Avengers membership as a mere technicality.  But, as FF # 25-6 shows, the Hulk had an emotional investment in his rôle as an Avenger; he is angered that the team replaced him with Captain America and looks on it as an abandonment.  His dialogue with Cap during the battle at the top of the skyscraper makes it clear that Jade-Jaws resents the Star-Spangled Avenger taking his place. 

It was a very natural thing, this resentment.  It implied that, though the Hulk quit the team, he was secretly gratified by the notion that he couldn’t be replaced.  That he was replaced so quickly and by a "glorified acrobat”, no less, rankled the Hulk’s impenetrable green hide.

All of this contributed to the feeling that Marvel’s characters resided in a self-contained universe.  Even the individual titles didn’t matter so much.  A running thread started in one series could continue, or even evolve, in another.  This was a novel idea for comics at the time, and---as Stan Lee was cannily aware---it was the best kind of self-promotion for the Marvel line.  Fans of, say, the Sub-Mariner had to follow more than just Fantastic Four, if they wanted to keep up with what was going on with Namor’s war against the surface world.

One of Stan Lee’s strengths as a writer was his ear for humourous dialogue.  Offhand, his only equal in writing truly funny lines was Arnold Drake.  Ben Grimm’s wisecracks during the battle not only hit that right note necessary for comics-dialogue humour, but it underscored the Thing’s courage.  It invests Ben with a true sense of valour.  His determination and refusal to quit come across as genuine human qualities, rather than just because it’s in the script.  As a character, it is Ben Grimm’s finest hour.

As for the art, I am not as big a Jack Kirby booster as most; I’ve always found his depiction of human anatomy as, shall we say, too stylised.  But there is no denying the raw dynamism and punch in his renderings.  For this kind of story, no-one could present it visually better than Kirby.  Every panel of the fight has movement, power, impact.

Kirby’s prodigious output during Marvel’s early years was virtually the house style for the line.  This bolstered the unified Marvel mythos, in some ways, even more so than Stan Lee’s cross-title plotlines.  Kirby’s art provided a visual continuity that was reassuring to fans as they put down one Marvel comic and picked up another.

If someone were to ask me what the big deal was about the early Marvel Age of Comics, these are the two issues I would show him.

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

There are few graphic novels that not only benefit from multiple readings, but demand they be re-read. Spaceman (DC/Vertigo, $24.99) is an example.

The premise alone is fascinating: The “spaceman” of the title is Orson, a hulking bruiser in the near future, genetically engineered to survive a trip to Mars and do manual labor there. But when the controversial program that created Orson and his 16 equally anthropoidal siblings became public, the outrage costs NASA its funding and Orson his future. Instead of living and working in outer space, he scratches out a living dredging up salvage from America’s seacoasts, which were flooded after the icecaps melted. What isn’t drowning in this greenhouse world is burning, except for narrow strips between fire and flood where the wealthy live as well as ever.

In an interview, writer Brian Azzarello said Spaceman wasn’t a post-apocalypse story, so much as “a collapse. An environmental and economic collapse.” And it’s not science fiction so much, he said, as “science hell.”

Which is just the set-up. The plot involves the kidnapping of a celebrity couple’s child, who falls into Orson’s orbit. Will he save her? If he tries, what chance does he have against the competing bandits (and one of his siblings) who want the reward? And, even if he can, is he doing it out of altruism – or the money?

“He has a good heart, but only Mother Teresa has never given in to temptation,” Azzarello laughed. “There’s a noir element to it. If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t be working on it.”

Which is obvious to anyone familiar with Azzarello’s career, famed for the crime noir series 100 Bullets, the Western noir series Loveless and currently “Wonder Woman” – which is framed not as a superhero book, but one exploring the Greco-Roman gods, a group Azzarello calls “the original crime family.”

Azzarello is teamed with artist Eduardo Risso, his partner on 100 Bullets, and Risso’s work is – as always – gorgeous. But, in many ways, the writing is still the star.

For example, Orson is named for Orson Welles, who – among other things – has a connection to Mars in the form of Welles’ famed 1938 radio broadcast, War of the Worlds. In fact, Azzarello said, all of genetically-altered children were named with Mars references. The entire book is laden with this sort of wordplay, from chapter titles to the dialogue, mostly delivered in futuristic slang based on texting-speak.

That’s one reason Spaceman needs a second reading, to catch all of Azzarello’s clever references, puns and double entendres. But another reason is that all of this cleverness is in service to the story, which involves overlapping storylines, plots, double-crosses and triple-crosses, with echoing themes both overt and sub-rosa.  

All of which, again, is mirrored in another story, set on Mars – the astronaut future Orson was promised but which we’ve been led to believe never happened. Azzarello never explains these vignettes, which tell another crime story involving two of the same players (Orson and his bounty-hunter brother, Carter). We follow this story in Orson’s head when he is unconscious, dreaming or intoxicated, but it’s never clear whether this adventure is a memory or a fantasy. If the latter, Orson has an implausibly active imagination, but if the former, how and when did this mission occur?

These are the sorts of questions roiling through the reader’s head after the first read. It will surely take a second reading – or perhaps a third – to uncover all the clues necessary to piece this puzzle together, as well as for full appreciation of a complex story.

Speaking of complexity, one other graphic novel this week takes on a complicated topic, but tries to make it simpler.

Philosophy: A Discovery in Comics (NBM, $16.99) falls into the category pioneered by Larry Gonick’s “A Cartoon History of the Universe”: A textbook masquerading as a comic book. But that’s not a bad thing; the reason the textbook-as-graphic-novel genre exists is because it works.

In Philosophy, Dutch cartoonist Margreet de Heer explains and explores the major philosophies of Western thought, with brief biographies of the major Western philosophers. That means she starts with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; follows through with Thomas Aquinas and  Augustine; then hits “free will” and branches into all sorts of directions.

If that sounds boring, it honestly is not. No matter the subject, a good cartoonist can make it lively and absorbing, and de Heer is a good cartoonist. I am one of those who always found philosophy boring, but not here. For example, now that I have a visual understanding of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” I understand it implicitly and don’t find it boring at all.

Nor does de Heer limit herself to the classical approach to philosophy. In the section on modern philosophies she plows far afield of academia, exploring the beliefs of friends and family, as well as unofficial philosophers like comedian George Carlin.

As I usually say in these circumstances, this is a book that belongs in schools. If I can finally learn about philosophy from comics at my ripe old age, think what fires it would light in the minds of the young!

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

ART

1. Spaceman is a sci-fi noir about a genetically engineered brute who runs across a kidnap scheme. Copyright DC Entertainment Inc.

2. Philosophy gives background, biographies and explanations for Western philosophy. Copyright NBM Publishing Inc.

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THUNDERBOLTS #1 YOUNG VAR NOW
TMNT COLOR CLASSICS MICRO SERIES MICHELANGELO
TRANSFORMERS REGENERATION ONE #86

ULT COMICS SPIDER-MAN BY BENDIS TP VOL 02
ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #18.1
UNCANNY X-MEN BY KIERON GILLEN TP VOL 02

VALEN OUTCAST TP VOL 02
VLADIMIR TOD EIGHTH GRADE BITES GN
VOLTRON YEAR ONE #6

WAKE THE F#CK UP #1 (MR)
WARLORD OF MARS DEJAH THORIS #19 (MR)
WARLORD OF MARS DEJAH THORIS #19 10 COPY RENAUD RED INCV
WOLVERINE MAX #1 2ND PTG WILLUMSEN VAR (MR)
WOMANTHOLOGY SPACE #3
WONDER WOMAN CHRONICLES TP VOL 03
WORLDS FINEST #7
WORLDS FINEST #7 VAR ED

X-FACTOR #248
X-MEN #39
X-O MANOWAR (ONGOING) TP VOL 01 BY THE SWORD

This list came from pittsburghcomics.com. Arrivals at your LCS may vary.

68 SCARS #3 (OF 4) (MR)

A PLUS X #2 NOW
ADVENTURE TIME #10
ADVENTURES OF A COMIC CON GIRL #3 (OF 3) (MR)
ALL NEW X-MEN #2 NOW
ALL STAR WESTERN #14
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #33 (MR)
ANGEL & FAITH #16
AQUAMAN #14
ARROW #1
ASTONISHING X-MEN ANNUAL #1

BART SIMPSON COMICS #77
BATMAN BEYOND UNLIMITED #10
BATMAN INCORPORATED #5 (RES)
BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #14
BEFORE WATCHMEN OZYMANDIAS #4 (OF 6) (MR)
BEFORE WATCHMEN SILK SPECTRE #4 (OF 4) (MR)
BOYS TP VOL 12 BLOODY DOORS OFF (MR)
BPRD HELL ON EARTH #101 RETURN O/T MASTER #4 (OF 5)
BREATHLESS HOMICIDAL SLIME MUTANTS SALE ED

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BLACK WIDOW #639
CAPTAIN ATOM TP VOL 01 EVOLUTION (N52)
CHEW #30 (MR)
CHOSEN #2 (OF 3)
COBRA ONGOING #19
CROSSED BADLANDS #18 (MR)
CROW #5

DANTES INFERNO GN (KNOCKABOUT)
DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS TP VOL 01 DEADMAN CHALLENGERS
DICKS COLOR ED #10 (MR)
DIOSAMANTE HC (MR)

FANTASTIC FOUR 100 PROJECT SC
FATALE #10 (MR)
FF #1 NOW
FF BY JONATHAN HICKMAN PREM HC VOL 04
FLASH #14
FLIGHT OF ANGELS TP (MR)
FORBIDDEN WORLDS ARCHIVES HC VOL 01
FURY OF FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MEN #14
FUTURAMA COMICS #64

GAMBIT #6
GFT SLEEPY HOLLOW #2 (MR)
GHOST #2
GHOSTBUSTERS ONGOING #15
GODZILLA ONGOING #7
GREEN HORNET #31

HAWKEYE #1 3RD PTG
HAWKEYE #2 3RD PTG
HELLRAISER ROAD BELOW #2 (OF 4) (MR
HERO WORSHIP #5 (OF 6)

I VAMPIRE #14

JOE KUBERT PRESENTS #2 (OF 6)
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #14

LOCUS #622
LOOKOUTS RIDDLE VOL 01 #3
LOT 13 #2 (OF 5) (MR)

MACGYVER FUGITIVE GAUNTLET #2 (OF 5)
MAGIC THE GATHERING TP VOL 02 SPELL THIEF
MARVEL SUPER HEROES #5
MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #8
MASKS #1
MIGHTY THOR BY MATT FRACTION TP VOL 02
MMW GOLDEN AGE SUB MARINER TP VOL 01
MORNING GLORIES #23 (MR)
MULTIPLE WARHEADS ALPHABET TO INFINITY #2 (OF 4)
MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #1

NEW AVENGERS #34
NIGHT O/T LIVING DEAD AFTERMATH #2 (MR)
NOWHERE MEN #1

PEANUTS VOL 2 #4 (OF 4)
PHANTOM LADY #4 (OF 4)
PLANETOID #4
PREVIEWS #291 DEC 2012
PROPHECY #5
PROPHET #31

RED LANTERNS #14 (RISE)
RIPD CITY O/T DAMNED #1 (OF 4)
ROBYN HOOD #3 (OF 5) (MR)

SAVAGE HAWKMAN #14
SECRET ADVENTURES OF HOUDINI
SECRET AVENGERS #34
SILVER STREAK ARCHIVES ORIGINAL DAREDEVIL HC VOL
SIXTH GUN TP VOL 04
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG ARCHIVES TP VOL 19
SPECTRUM TP VOL 19
STAR BRIGHT & THE LOOKING GLASS HC
STAR WARS DAWN O/T JEDI PRISONER OF BOGAN #1 (OF 5)
SUPERMAN #14
SUPERMAN FAMILY ADVENTURES #7
SUPURBIA TP VOL 01 DM PTG

TALON #2
TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #77 (MR)
TARZAN CENTURY OF LORD GREYSTOKE OFF CENTENNIAL ED
TEEN TITANS #14
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #16
THOR GOD OF THUNDER #2 NOW
THUNDA #4
TOWER CHRONICLES GN VOL 02 (OF 4) GEISTHAWK
TRANSFORMERS PRIME RAGE O/T DINOBOTS #1 (OF 4)
TRUE BLOOD ONGOING #7

ULTIMATE COMICS IRON MAN #2 (OF 4)
ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #19
UNCANNY AVENGERS #2 NOW
UNTOLD TALES OF PUNISHER MAX TP (MR)

VENOM #27.1

WARLORD OF MARS #22 (MR)
WE CAN BE HEROES JUSTICE LEAGUE 7 PACK BOX SET
WINTER SOLDIER TP VOL 02 BROKEN ARROW
WITCH DOCTOR MALPRACTICE #1 (OF 6)
WOLVERINE MAX #2 (MR)
WONDER WOMAN CHRONICLES TP VOL 03

X-FACTOR TP VOL 17 ROAD TO REDEMPTION
X-MEN LEGACY #2 NOW
X-TREME X-MEN #7

Comics & Collectibles of Memphis posted this 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.

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.

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?

ADVENTURES OF AUGUSTA WIND #1
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YOUNG JUSTICE #22
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Comics & Collectibles of Memphis posted this list on Facebook. Arrivals at your LCS may vary.

Certain things in comic books were handled with a bit more discretion back in the old days. 

Although it seems pointlessly quaint to modern-era sensiblilities, the office of the President of the United States was treated with a special reverence when it came to comics.  At least, for the first twenty-five years or so.

While historical Chief Executives such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were often depicted in all their glory, the sitting President was considered too rarefied to appear openly as a comic-book character.  When a story called for the appearance of the President, he was usually rendered in shadow or with his face otherwise obscured as a nod to the dignity of the man and the office.  

Occasionally, the artist would play coy with the readers by inserting an element which made the identity of the President apparent---like Franklin Roosevelt's trademark cigarette holder.  Other times, they got downright sneaky, as in “The Superman of the Future”, from Action Comics # 256 (Sep., 1959).  This involved a convoluted scheme enacted by Superman to protect the President from an assassination attempt.   Following the custom, the President was never portrayed directly, but one panel showed the Man of Steel disguising himself as the Commander-in-Chief.  On the make-up table was a bald skull-cap resting on a modeling bust---a clear-but-subtle reference to Dwight Eisenhower, the man who occupied the Oval Office at the time.

While an occasional exception popped up here and there, the convention of obscuring the President continued well into the Silver Age.

Then it got tossed out on its ear in 1961---when John Fitzgerald Kennedy took the oath of office as the thirty-fifth President of the United States.

Kennedy’s election heralded a change in image for the American president.  Before, the President had been older, avuncular, staid.  Now, Americans had a Chief Executive who was relatively youthful, handsome, and vigorous.  Kennedy represented a change of mood in the country; the old, gentrified ways were out, replaced by a new generation of dynamism.

JFK captured the enthusiasm of the nation and of the comics as well. DC Comics, the company which had launched the Silver Age, delivered bright, clean stories emphasizing modern technology and the sense of an optimistic future.  Now we had a President who symbolised those very things.  Kennedy was the real-life representation of DC's Silver Age.  Thus, it was no surprise that the character of JFK began to appear in DC's stories---and not as a vague, silhouetted figure.  His youth, good looks and thick shock of brown hair made him as acceptable a comic-book "leading man" as Hal Jordan or Ray Palmer.

The John F. Kennedy of Earth-One debuted in the Imaginary Story “Lois Lane and Superman, Newlyweds”, from Lois Lane # 25 (May, 1961).  After Lois and the Man of Steel tie the knot, they appear at a formal reception as the President and Mrs. Kennedy offer their congratulations.

(As fate would tragically have it, that panel also depicted the second Silver-Age President to appear in full---then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, standing in the receiving line with Lady Bird.)

This occasion heralded the beginning of a series of Presidential appearances in Mort Weisinger's "Superman family" of magazines, at one point reaching such a frequency that Kennedy could reasonably been considered a member of the Man of Steel's supporting cast.

JFK’s first appearance in an in-canon DC tale came in “The Jinx of Metropolis”, from Jimmy Olsen # 56 (Oct., 1961).  It amounted to a cameo appearance in which he accepted from Superman a meteor-repulsing device from Krypton, the Man of Steel's contribution to America's space effort.

Mort Weisinger gave the President more face time in Action Comics # 283 (Dec., 1961).  The backdrop of "The Red Kryptonite Menace" was a summit conference between JFK and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.   The reader would discover, however, that the on-camera appearances of the two world leaders was a sham---the "Kennedy" and "Khrushchev" encountered by Superman were actually two Durlan villains from the future in disguise.

It was worth the deception, though, to see artist Curt Swan’s smoothly spot-on renditions of the two world leaders.

Kennedy's next appearance in DC comics was a "real" one and took place in the milestone Action Comics # 285 (Feb., 1962), the issue in which Superman revealed the existence of his cousin Supergirl to the world. As part of the ceremonies, Supergirl was presented to the President and the First Lady at a reception on the White House lawn. In the second chapter of the story, President Kennedy requests the aid of the Girl of Steel in combating the threat of the Infinite Monster, thus further solidifying the ties between JFK and the Superman family.

This link would eventually prove to be an invaluable one to the Man of Steel, in particular.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, for thirteen days in October, 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union perched on the brink of atomic war.  The Soviet installation of nuclear missiles on the hostile island nation of Cuba, a mere ninety miles from the closest American soil, posed a clear and present threat.  President Kennedy’s unflinching, determined response ultimately forced the Soviet forces to go home and take their missiles with them.

Even as Americans mopped their brows in relief, they acknowledged the young President’s courage and his popularity soared.  So much so that, Mort Weisinger took the remarkable step of taking the results of the upcoming 1964 Presidential race for granted.

The Legion of Super-Heroes tale in Adventure Comics # 305 (Feb., 1963) included a character rejected for Legion membership---Antennae Boy, who possessed the ability to audibly receive radio transmissions from the past, present, and future.  During a demonstration of his power, one of the intercepted signals proclaimed:

Bulletin!  Kennedy re-elected President of U.S.!

Over at 625 Madison Avenue, Marvel Comics was slower to jump on the Kennedy bandwagon. JFK made a one-panel cameo (or at least his hair did) in Fantastic Four # 17 (Aug., 1963) and another in Journey Into Mystery # 96 (Sep., 1963).

In Tales to Astonish, where it was a rare Iron Man story in which the armoured hero wasn’t beset by Communist adversaries, the President’s name was often invoked.  Defeated Red spies demanded to know how Iron Man was able to thwart their plans.

“Does Kennedy tell Khrushchev?” was Shellhead’s frequent rejoinder.

Meanwhile, DC fans had responded positively to seeing Superman and Supergirl interact with the President.  Mort Weisinger followed suit by upgrading JFK’s appearances from simple walk-ons to taking an integral rôle in the plots.  Curt Swan was handed a script for “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy”, a story promoting the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.  The story would appear in an upcoming issue of Superman.

Until then, JFK would make his most substantive appearance to date in Action Comics # 309 (Feb., 1964).  The story within, “The Superman Super-Spectacular”, was intended to be a landmark tale in the relationship between the Man of Steel and the Man in the Oval Office.  History, though, would give it significance for another, more tragic reason.

“The Superman Super-Spectacular” begins with the Metropolis Marvel responding to a request for aid from the White House.  However, the successful completion of his task leads to another mission, which in turn leads to another, and then another, and yet another.  At the end of his busy day, Superman receives the thanks of a grateful Commander-in-Chief.   Unknown to Superman, his jam-packed schedule was secretly arranged by President Kennedy and Daily Planet editor Perry White, to keep the super-hero too busy to uncover a well-planned and well-deserved surprise on his behalf.

Lured to a television studio, Superman is astonished to learn that he is the featured subject of the television show Our American Heroes (Earth-One’s version of This Is Your Life).  During the live broadcast, a parade of Superman’s friends and associates, going back to his boyhood, arrives to pay him tribute.

The Man of Steel realises that Clark Kent will be expected to appear.  Appearing as both Superman and Clark at the same time was usually not an insurmountable problem for him.  But this time events conspire to thwart his usual solutions.

Lois Lane and Lana Lang, realising that Superman will be in just such a bind, equip themselves with a robot-detecting device, to prevent the Man of Steel from employing one of his mechanical doubles.  The Batman also appears as a guest, but as a gag, has used heavy make-up to make his features resemble a Bizarro.  The Legion of Super-Heroes arrives to honour Superman, but an emergency summons the team back to the thirtieth century preventing Chameleon Boy from impersonating Clark.

And by the time he remembers his two Kandorian doubles, Van-Zee and Vol-Don, they are already on stage in their rôles as members of the Look-Alike Squad and too tiny to double for Clark Kent.

Superman is running out of options.

Nevertheless, Clark Kent shows up for the programme’s finale.  To their dismay, Lois and Lana’s detector shows that Clark is not a robot, but a flesh-and-blood human.  And the readers are challenged to deduce how Superman and Clark Kent were able to appear together.

Most readers probably didn’t think on it overmuch, but simply turned to the remaining four panels of the story to learn what kind of trick the Man of Steel pulled off this time.  But, this time, it was quite a trick.

“Well, Superman, I don’t need the make-up and glasses any longer,” says the mystery stand-in, once the two of them are alone.  “Did I make a good ‘Clark Kent’?”

“You were perfect, Mr. President!”

That’s right.  The man behind the Clark Kent guise was the President of the United States.

With that privileged information, President Kennedy entered rare air in the Superman mythos.  Jimmy Olsen didn’t know the Man of Steel’s secret identity.  Nor did Lois Lane or Perry White or most of the regular and semi-regular characters.  It even distinguished Kennedy from the other Chief Executives, as no other U.S. President had ever been entrusted with the knowledge that Superman was Clark Kent.

This was exactly the fun sort of tale that die-hard Superman fans got a kick out of.  Unfortunately, real life spoiled any chance of readers viewing “The Superman Super-Spectacular” as fun.

On 22 November 1963, a few days after that issue went to press, President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas.

The horrendous act sent ripples of shock and grief around the world.  And in the offices of DC, it created a particular quandary.  Thousands of copies of Action Comics # 309 had already been sent to the distributors.  It was too late to recall them, and on 26 December 1963, Action Comics # 309 hit the stands.

It was a caprice of fate and nothing more, but DC feared that the story, particularly arriving while Kennedy’s death was still fresh in the minds of the public, would open the company up to charges of bad taste and capitalising on a national tragedy.  Mort Weisinger hunkered down for the barrage of letters he knew would come.

To Mort’s credit, he took the bull by the horns and printed several of them in the Metropolis Mailbag of Action Comics # 312 (May, 1964).

Some fans were loudly indignant, such as Felice Michetti, of Yonkers, New York:

However, in the story, “The Superman Super-Spectacular”, I was greatly dismayed by the outcome of this story.  I think that at a solemn and grave time as this your story was in bad taste.  Surely the use of the late President John F. Kennedy could have been avoided.

Richard Allen Pachter, of Brooklyn, New York, was at least tolerant:

I’m sure “The Superman Super-Spectacular” was printed before our great national leader was brutally assassinated.  So before you apologize, I’ll forgive you for having our late and beloved President John F. Kennedy portrayed in this story.

So was Darrell J. Turner, of Maspeth, New York:

It is unfortunate that this great story had to be marred by revealing at the climax that the “surprise guest” was a man who is now dead.   While this did take away from the enjoyment of the story, I hope that none of your readers will be offended by this seeming disrespect.  I hope they will remember national magazines are prepared many months in advance of the publication date and that you did not exploit the President’s death.

And to DC’s relief, some actually found favour with the tale.  John C. Sherwood, of Marshall, Michigan, was one:

Your story was wonderful.  It superbly shows that our late President was, indeed, a great man who would always help a friend in trouble.  Thanks for this splendid story.

Weisinger responded to all of these comments with an honest, straightforward explanation:

The issue of ACTION COMICS featuring the story in which President Kennedy came to the aid of Superman was already printed, and in the hands of our distributors, when word of the tragic assassination broke.  Copies mailed to thousands of our subscribers were already in transit and it was physically impossible to recall them.

Within 24 hours, this issue became a collector’s item and, in many areas, sold at premium prices.  Although many news dealers asked that we go back to press to fill the demand, we refused to do so . . . .

We are thankful for the numerous readers who wrote us, explaining that they understood that our magazines go to press months in advance, and that we had no control over the released issues.

There was one last bit of damage control to implement.

“Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy”, written by Bill Finger and rendered by Curt Swan and George Klein, had been scheduled to appear in Superman # 169 (May, 1964).  Instead, another story appeared in its place.  Because the tale had been heavily promoted by DC---it had been prepared at the request of the Kennedy White House---Weisinger knew there would be questions.  So, the letter column of the upcoming issue of Superman---# 168 (Apr., 1964)---was replaced with a memoriam written by Mort himself.

Here, he explained the withdrawal of “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy”:

The finished story, which showed Superman cooperating closely with President Kennedy, was scheduled to appear in our next issue.  Because of the President’s untimely end, however, we have cancelled its appearance.  Instead, we plan to present the original artwork to his gallant widow, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.

In the social attitude of the time, the readership clearly felt that DC’s intentions were sincere and heartfelt, and the company suffered no bad press or serious backlash from the public.

It wasn’t quite the end of John F. Kennedy’s Silver-Age participation in DC comics, though.

A month after the announcement that “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy” was being shelved, officials from the new White House administration contacted DC and requested that the story see print.  President Johnson wanted it published “as a tribute to his great predecessor.”  More important, as far as DC was concerned, the Kennedy family gave its consent.

However, there was a problem.  The original artwork to the story, the pages drawn and inked by Swan and Klein, could not be located.  Either the art had been given to Mrs, Kennedy, as Weisinger had indicated, or it had been simply lost.  Another possibility was that the discarded pages had been appropriated, as memorabilia.

Unfortunately, Swan and Klein were waist-deep in other DC projects, and with time of the essence, utility artist Al Plastino was drafted to re-draw the story.

Plastino’s art had always been journeyman, at best.  And he was fond of taking short-cuts, such as constantly reëmploying the same stock poses.  It didn’t help any that he was working under a very tight deadline.  Consequently, when “Superman’s Mission for President Kennedy” finally saw print in Superman # 170 (Jul., 1964), the results looked rushed and uninspired.

Even a casual glance could detect the art was slap-dash.  Thus, much of the sense it was a tribute to the fallen President was lost.  It felt more like an inventory story, inserted at the last minute.

In death, Kennedy's presidency attained a lustre that it probably would have lacked had he lived.  DC continued to honour the myth of "Camelot" by making reverential references to the slain President.  In "The Infamous Four", from Jimmy Olsen # 89 (Dec., 1965), the intrepid cub reporter, on a mission to Earth's future, unmasks a gang of alien criminals when they fail to observe a nationwide moment of silence on the centennial of Kennedy's death.  Meanwhile, over in Lois Lane # 62 (Jan., 1966), Lois, observing JFK's bust in the Senate hall, reflects that Kennedy "might have become our greatest president if not for an assassin's bullet."

John F. Kennedy’s time as a de facto member of Superman’s supporting cast led to one lasting change.  It marked the end of the old traditon of obscuring the identity of the sitting President.  JFK’s successors, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, were depicted openly, in both name and likeness, whenever they appeared in a Silver-Age comic. 

Not everything had changed, though.  The stories still treated the man in the White House with dignity and respect.

It would take something called “Watergate” to do away with that convention.

I’ve always like sidekicks. Maybe it was because of a lack of self-confidence. I had a hard time imagining myself as Batman. But I could easily imagine I was Robin riding alongside the Caped Crusader. Maybe it was because of my affinity for the underdog. Sidekicks seemed to be mocked more often than not and I liked to see them prove themselves to their mentors, their foes and the fans. Whatever the reason, I like the scrappy sidekick, the young pal, the comic foil and so on.

Here is my list of the best sidekicks in comics. Your list is probably different. Heck, my list would probably be different if I did this again in a couple of months (so don’t fault me if the ranking doesn’t entirely match my earlier “best” lists).

1. Robin: Robin is the gold standard of comic book sidekicks. He was the first one on the stands, making his debut in April 1940. He was the light-hearted contrast with Batman. He demonstrated Batman’s humanity as we witnessed the Caped Crusader’s concern for the orphaned acrobat. Plus, Robin is well-regarded as both a sidekick and a legacy- the mantle having been passed from Dick Grayson to Jason Todd to Tim Drake to Stephanie Brown to Damian Wayne to, someday in the future, Carrie Kelley.

2. Bucky: I was not always a Bucky fan. I used to think of him as the generic sidekick and I had no interest in Marvel bringing back Bucky. And then Ed Brubaker brought Bucky back and completely changed my mind. He even changed my view of the 1940s incarnation of the character, pointing out that Bucky was a true soldier who used a gun on almost every comic book cover and showing that Bucky bravely fought beside Captain America despite having no powers of his own.

3. Jimmy Olsen: These first three choices are relatively easy- and relatively free of controversy. Jimmy Olsen was Superman’s pal. He was Clark Kent’s friend. He was often Lois Lane’s partner in mischief. He was eventually the star of his own adventures. Jimmy Olsen is an essential part of the Superman mythos. Yet his classic status has sometimes hurt Jimmy as it has prevented the character from growing and changing with the times.

4. Kid Flash: Kid Flash is one of the few sidekicks who outshone his mentor. When the debate eventually became “Who is the better Flash?” it was easy for me to answer “Wally.” I liked Wally better even when he was the sidekick. He had a great costume, inverting the colors of his mentor. He had the cool open-scalp cowl that let his hair flow in the wind (several decades before Jim Lee borrowed the same look for Cyclops). Kid Flash was exciting, racing off on adventures with his uncle. But I also liked that, in the beginning, he had a normal Midwest family home to go back to.

5. Rocket: The title of the comic book may have been Icon, but Rocket was the real star of the series. Like Kid Flash, Rocket outshone her mentor and readers were more interested in her life and perspective. She was Icon’s teacher, explaining the realities of modern life on Earth to the long-lived alien. And she was the one who experienced the ups and downs of life- especially with her much publicized unplanned pregnancy and later status as a single mother.

6. Po-Po: A key quality for any sidekick is comic relief. Robin provided the light-hearted banter and quips that kept Batman from being too serious. Po Po was the sarcastic monkey who accompanied Boon on his adventures in CrossGen’s Way of the Rat. Po Po was convinced of his own superiority and often rightly so. He berated Boon for his stupidity. He mocked their many foes- yet, by doing so, he also alerted the reader to the serious threats. If Po Po was scared, we should be too. Po Po also mocked fans- much to their delight- by berating them in the letters page.

7. Jubilee: Jubilee is a rare addition to the company of sidekicks in that she came from a team book. At a time when the X-Men were fractured (and living in Australia), Jubilee slipped through the cracks and into the arms of the team. She was originally a stowaway but after Wolverine was crucified by the Reavers Jubilee became his rescuer. She nursed him back to health and became his new companion. Jubilee was a different sort of sidekick, prone to backtalk more than banter. Yet she served the same purpose as many of the great sidekicks before her- revealing a caring, human side in her mentor.

8. Altar Boy: You might say that Robin is such a cool character, he shows up on this list at least three times. Jubilee was reputedly based on the Carrie Kelley version; Altar Boy is clearly based on the original. Brian Kinney moved to Astro City with the hopes of becoming a hero. After he broke up an armed robbery as a busboy, he got his chance as Confessor took him under his wing. Brian eventually discovered the Confessor’s secret- he was a vampire- though it’s likely the Confessor wanted him to know as a potential confidant. The Confessor sacrificed his un-life to save the earth and, after years of further training, Brian took up the mantle of his mentor.

9. Rick Jones/Snapper Carr: They’re two of the most divisive characters in comics. Their fans would argue that they aren’t technically sidekicks- they’re partners and honorary members of a team. Their critics would also argue that they aren’t technically sidekicks- they’re mascots and nuisances. Rick Jones hung out with the Hulk, Captain America and Captain Marvel. Snapper Carr befriended the Justice League. Peter David and Tom Peyer tried to rehabilitate their reputations in the ‘90s in Captain Marvel and Hourman but they’ll always be divisive figures.

10. Woozy Winks: Golden Age comics were full to the brim with amusing sidekicks but the best of the bunch was Plastic Man’s constant companion, Woozy Winks. While Plastic Man provided the big laughs, Woozy provided a slightly put upon perspective. He was along for the ride but he didn’t have to like it. He was easily startled and confounded in the early adventures. Later on, he was more likely to let out a knowing sigh or to raise an arched eyebrow.

11. Kitten: Golden Age comics were also full of kid companions. It seems like every superhero needed a miniature version of themself running along behind them. But Kitten was different. She was a girl. That may not sound like much today but it was groundbreaking at the time. Kitten was Catman’s partner in Holyoke comics. At first, she was a squeaky clean kid. By 1944, Kitten had developed some curves. She prefigured Annette Funicello, growing from Little Orphan Annie to Katy Keene before the reader’s eyes.

12. The Newsboy Legion/The Little Wise
Guys: What’s better than a kid sidekick? How about a whole gang of them? Joe Simon and Jack Kirby developed the kid gang formula and perfected it with the Newsboy Legion. The team, filled with stock characters similar to Our Gang (aka the Little Rascals), accompanied the Guardian on many adventures. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that the Guardian accompanied them. Over at Lev Gleason, the Golden Age Daredevil picked up a crew of kids known as the Little Wise Guys. They kept him company for a while before eventually displacing him from his own title.

13. Tawky Tawny: What’s better than a kid sidekick? How about a talking tiger? Captain Marvel was already a kid in a grown up’s body so it didn’t make sense to have another kid trailing along behind him. That’s probably why Captain Marvel Jr. was spun off as a solo star. But the gravitational pull of the sidekick was too great and Captain Marvel was eventually given an associate: a talking tiger who walked upright and wore bowties. You don’t get much better than that.

14. Omni-Boy: You won’t find a lot of modern sidekicks as they’ve fallen out of favor. Yet they still show up from time and time and can be done well. Omni-Boy is the alien half-brother of Invincible. He fills one of the classic roles of the sidekick by illuminating the qualities of the hero through their differences. Omni-Boy comes from a planet with a higher birth rate and shorter life span so he has a more cavalier view of life than Invincible. Their partnership forces Invincible to become the teacher and the defender of life.

15. Dusty the Boy Detective/ Roy the Superboy: You may not have heard of them as they’ve faded into history but back in the ‘40s, they were two of the best in the business. They were the younger partners of the Shield and the Wizard at MLJ Comics. They had unique costumes rather than the copycat uniforms of most sidekicks. They also teamed up together without their adult mentors- the kind of star turn usually reserved for top sidekicks like Robin, Bucky and Jimmy Olsen.

I hope you enjoyed my little list of the best sidekicks. Come back in a week when I run down the best sidekicks outside of comics.

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

I posted this list using my new Samsung Chromebook.

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

The first round of collections from DC’s “The New 52” initiative featured the publisher’s strongest characters and titles. Now we’re reaching a little deeper into the catalog, with much more mixed results.

Which is not to belittle The Flash, a strong character with a strong title, whose first “New 52” collection was mysteriously pushed to November. (The rest of his Justice League colleagues, from Aquaman to Wonder Woman, have already had collections released.) The Flash Volume 1: Move Forward ($24.99) collects the first seven issues of the Scarlet Speedster’s “New 52” title and it’s a solid title.

The new Flash is police scientist Barry Allen, similar to the Barry Allen who helped launch the superhero revival of the 1960s known to comics fans as the “Silver Age.” (There were a couple of other Flashes in the ‘80s and ‘90s.) But whereas the original Barry was one of the first of the heroes who would later form the Justice League, this one seems a bit younger and a lot less experienced. The result is that this Flash is constantly learning new things about his super speed, including the novel idea of super-fast thinking called “augmented cognition,” which proves to be a mixed blessing.

That dovetails nicely with the Flash legacy; the 1960s version was forever thinking of clever and exciting new ways to use his power besides just running fast. But that Barry carried the reputation of being boring, whereas the new one has more mystery, a bit more personality and a much more complicated love life.

All of which grabbed me. What didn’t was the fairly pedestrian superhero aspects of the seven issued included in Move Forward, where the Wizard of Whiz battled a multiplying man named Mob Rule and upgraded versions of traditional Flash foes Captain Cold and The Top (now called Turbine). It’s strange for this old superhero fan to say, but I’ll be back not for the super-speed antics, but for the lingering mysteries about Barry’s past, the fate of his father and how his current romantic triangle will resolve.

Speaking of Justice League members, one of the early “New 52” collections was Green Lantern, which was terrific. But initially I had intended to ignore the three other Green Lantern-related titles, until I discovered all four titles will be required reading for a major event in 2013 called "Rise of the Third Army." So I picked up Green Lantern Corps Volume 1: Fearsome ($22.99), Green Lantern – New Guardians Volume 1: The Ring Bearer ($22.99) and Red Lanterns Volume 1: Blood and Rage ($14.99) – and discovered my first instinct was the right one.

Red Lanterns was actually boring! The supposedly terrifying Red Lantern leader Atrocitus spent all the issues in this collection wandering around a deserted planet talking to himself, trying to decide what to do. In short, here’s a big, bad supervillain playing Hamlet.

Corps features two lesser Emerald Warriors – the overly-aggressive-and-not-terribly-bright Guy Gardner, and African-American cipher John Stewart – who, honestly, make several shockingly bad combat decisions, but implausibly survive anyway. There’s some other awful writing involved here – clichés and gratuitous violence abound – but it’s not worth the space it would require to trash it.

New Guardians is the best of the bunch, with solid art and writing. The problem is that it must, perforce, spend much of its time figuring out a reason to exist. The book is predicated on representatives of the Blue, Green, Orange, Red, Sapphire, Violet and Yellow Lantern corps hanging out together, when they have no convincing reason to do so. Also, the book leads up to the introduction of a Big Bad named Invictus who is supposed to be awesome, but is actually kinda dull and derivative of much better cosmic villains. Plus, his supposedly majestic headquarters looks like a tinkertoy on steroids.

Meanwhile, Justice League Dark Volume 1: In the Dark ($14.99) was a fun book whose concept is to team up supernatural characters to fight magic-based threats that the “regular” Justice League is ill-equipped to battle. The team includes a lot of fan favorites, consisting of Deadman, Enchantress, John Constantine, Madame Xanadu, new character Mindwarp, Shade the Changing Man and Zatanna. But as much as I enjoyed the fast action, quirky characterization and creepy magic stuff, I had hardly put the book down before I realized that nothing had actually happened!

 This collection of six issues was nothing more than one of the team-to-be gathering five other members of the team-to-be to fight the seventh member of the team-to-be, who had gone nuts. While that’s all well and good, it takes an awful long time to achieve very little, and writer Peter Milligan doesn’t even get around to introducing someone else for them to fight until the last panel of the last page. As stories go, that’s a pretty lengthy – and expensive – prologue.

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

ART

1. The Flash Volume 1: Move Forward launches the new/old Scarlet Speedster. Copyright DC Comics

2. If Red Lanterns Volume 1: Blood and Rage is building to anything, it's taking its time. Copyright DC Comics

3. Green Lantern Corps Volume 1: Fearsome continues the adventures of Green Lanterns Guy Gardner and John Stewart. Copyright DC Comics

4. Green Lantern -- New Guardians Volume 1: The Ring Bearer doesn't provide a reason for this team to exist. Copyright DC Comics

5. Justice League Dark Volume 1: In the Dark uses up all its space giving this team a reason to exist. Copyright DC Comics

I came to Marvel Comics late in the game.  While I had been reading DC’s comics since the beginning of the Silver Age, I didn’t tumble to Marvel until about 1965.  Oh, I had seen Marvel Comics.  There had been a few lying around the barber shop where I got my hair cut.  I had taken a look at them, didn’t recognise any of the characters, and tossed them aside.

It was The Avengers that finally drew my attention to Marvel.  I’ve always been a sucker for super-hero teams, and by then, I was able to wrap my brain around the idea of different publishers with different super-heroes.  After all, I had had no problem distinguishing between Earth-One and Earth-Two, so I came to view Marvel’s heroes as belonging to yet another parallel world.

Unlike many of my contemporaries, I didn’t rave over Marvel’s different approach to super-heroes.  It was different, of course, and interesting, but frankly, I was a bit uncomfortable with the “fuzziness” with which Marvel looked at most super-hero conventions.  DC’s super-hero universe was far more orderly.  The rules were the rules.  Marvel seemed to play fast and loose with them.  The Avengers would walk around their headquarters with their masks off and calling each other by their first names.  You never saw that in the JLA. 

DC's heroes had specific weaknesses.  Superman had kryptonite, magic, and red and green suns; J’onn J’onzz had fire; Green Lantern’s ring was thwarted by the colour yellow.  Other than those, they were good to go.  But you couldn’t be sure what would take out a Marvel hero and what wouldn’t.  Thor had that sixty-seconds-without-his-hammer-would-turn-him-back-to-Don-Blake thing going on, but that was the only weakness set in stone.  The vulnerabilities of other Marvel heroes seemed less absolute, more easily sidestepped.

Given my preference for uniformity, it’s a curious quirk that one of the Marvel heroes I enjoyed most, my favourite Avenger after Captain America, was Giant-Man.  When I went back and captured back issues of Marvel Comics, so I could be up to speed on its super-hero universe, the first old issues I strived to obtain were The Avengers and the Tales to Astonish issues featuring Giant-Man.  I was surprised to discover how many ways the character had changed, in both powers and costumes and sobriquets.  Clearly, Henry Pym was the most mutable super-hero in the business.

Not that in the more regimented DC universe were changes in costume or powers or names never seen, but it was rare.  Seldom was a hero’s costume altered completely.  Yeah, the Blackhawks did, the Challengers did; but they were second-tier titles.  As far as the starring heroes went, you had the change to Batman’s chest emblem---which was big news---and Gil Kane’s tinkering with the arrangement of green and black on Green Lantern’s uniform.  That was about it.

Changes in name?  The only place that happened was in the Legion of Super-Heroes.  Lightning Lass became Light Lass; Triplicate Girl to Duo Damsel; Lone Wolf to Timber Wolf.  And a DC hero’s powers were almost never messed with for more than just the plot of one issue.  The only permanent examples I can think of were, again, in the Legion, with Light Lass and Ultra Boy. 

But Giant-Man, or Ant-Man, or whomever---in any given story featuring him, you never were sure just what cognomen, what costume, or what powers he was going to have.  Other Marvel heroes would change, but never so often or so quickly.  And when one thinks about it, it made sense.  Henry Pym was a research scientist, and apparently one with independent wealth, so he didn’t have to worry about anything but spending time in his laboratory.  (In fact, going by the stories, he practically lived in his lab.)  The most logical thing for him to do would be to continually develop and refine his powers and abilities, the same as Tony Stark constantly upgraded his armour.

The Ant-Man series started off specifically enough, in Tales to Astonish # 35 (Sep., 1962).  Stan Lee took the protagonist from an earlier tale when Tales to Astonish was a “creature feature” comic---Henry Pym, a scientist who had inadvertently shrunk himself to the size of an ant.  In that first appearance, Pym had not been intended to be a super-hero, but merely one of the dozens of unremarkable ordinary-citizen heroes to prevail over “science gone wrong”.  Thus, Stan caught a break when he decided to turn Pym into a costumed good guy.  Pym’s method of shrinking had come from a serum.  By happy circumstance, this method of reduction was sufficiently different from either DC’s the Atom, who relied on white dwarf star matter to shrink, or the Golden-Age Doll Man, who pulled the same stunt by “concentrating his supreme powers of will”, that Stan could legitimately claim he was not copying either previous hero.

The next thing to do was give the new hero an appropriately “miniature” name.  With atoms and dolls already taken, Stan christened his shrinking star “the Ant-Man” and designed him around an insect motif. 

The Ant-Man’s costume consisted of a silver helmet with antennae and a red-and-blue costume with black designs on the front in an abstraction of an ant’s segmented body.  Thanks to the cybernetic circuits installed in the helmet, the Ant-Man could communicate with real Hymenoptera formicidae.  While at ant size, it was established, Pym retained his normal-sized strength (pretty much a necessity for shrinking heroes).  When called into action, Pym suited up, drank some of his reducing serum, and summoned a flying ant for transportation.

The first change came in the very next story, in TTA # 36 (Oct., 1962)---when Pym converted his reducing and expanding sera to gases and compressed them into twin cylinders he wore attached to the belt of his Ant-Man costume.   This wasn’t so much a change, though, as it was a refinement, much in the way Ray Palmer added remote size-and-weight controls to his gloves in The Atom # 19 (Jun.-Jul., 1965).  This, logically, would have been the next step of development for a researching scientist and it didn’t change the essential premise of the series.  Pym still shrank, talked to ants, etc.

The series rolled along on that premise for the next dozen issues.  (My hunch is most fans don’t realise that Pym went that long with the Ant-Man as his sole super-hero identity.)  He picked up Janet van Dyne---the wonderful Wasp---as his partner in TTA # 44 (Jan., 1963), but his character remained unchanged.  In fact, the Wasp’s light-heartedness underscored Pym’s blandness. Previously, the lack of characterisation had been a consequence of his plot-driven series.  Now, his stodginess became a deliberate aspect of his personality.

In the fall of ’63, Stan Lee cranked out Marvel’s answer to DC’s Justice League of America with The Avengers.  For the team’s starting line-up, Stan chose two of his headliners---Iron Man and Thor---along with the Hulk, a character for whom the smilin’ editor had plans.  To round out the group, he was forced to drop to his second-tier roster and selected the Ant-Man and the Wasp.

One of the first things that must have occurred to Lee was that it made no sense for a super-team to have two members who could do little more than shrink to the size of insects.  That meant a revamp was in order for the boring-as-oatmeal Henry Pym.

                                                                        
Stan managed to squeeze that Big Change into Tales to Astonish # 49 (Nov., 1963), before the second issue of The Avengers hit the stands.

In “The Birth of Giant-Man”, we learn that Pym has been seeking to ramp up his act.  Step one:  he has further refined his size-control method, inserting his reducing and enlarging potions into capsules he can ingest orally.  Step two:  he has increased the potency of his enlarging fluid, enabling him to exceed his normal human size.

In the first self-test of his new growth serum, Hank screws up and takes too great a dosage.  He shoots up thirty feet, smashing through the walls of his New Jersey home.  Too weak to move his own body, he lays helplessly in the rubble until the Wasp can slip him a reducing capsule.

(Those in the Hank-Pym’s-mental-problems-began-with-his-insecurity-over-being-a-foul-up-as-a-scientist camp---which I am not---point to this episode as validation.)

After some experimentation, Pym discovers that twelve feet is his optimum size.  At that height, his strength increases, making him capable of pressing a ton.  He can grow larger; however, if he does so, it weakens him proportionately.  (Which is a touch I liked; it was a left-handed acknowledgement of the square-cube law.) 

With the bugs worked out, Hank adopts a second super-hero identity as Giant-Man.  Almost immediately, his rôle as Ant-Man is shoved into the back seat.

To me, this was a novel thing, indeed.  Since I rather backed into Marvel’s early history, I knew Pym as a giant before I knew that he had an alternate identity of Ant-Man.  I had never heard of a character having two different super-hero identities simultaneously.  It wasn’t quite the same thing as the hero possessing the ability to change his size either up or down; the scripts constantly referred Pym “becoming Ant-Man” or “changing back to Giant-Man.” 

This was also the beginning of many costume changes for the Master of Many Sizes, as he exchanged his clunky silver helmet for a simple red cowl with antennae.  Other than that, his costume remained essentially unaltered, except that the black pattern on his chest eventually shifted its aspect from that of a segmented ant to one of a pair of suspenders.  When fans think of Giant-Man, this is the version they remember.

The next development snuck in almost unnoticed, when in TTA # 59 (Sep., 1964), it was established that Giant-Man no longer needed the capsules to change his size.  Frequent use of the pills now permitted him to change height by mental command.

And that brings me to the Giant-Man everybody forgets.  Everybody wants to forget, more likely.

In TTA # 65 (Mar., 1965), Henry Pym creates an ultra-cybernetic device which gives him the ability to mentally control the size of other living things.  The design of the device requires a modification---something along the lines of an ancient battle helmet---which he fits over the cowl of his Giant-Man outfit.  To match the new appearance of his headgear, Jan insists on making him a new costume.  She calls his current costume “atrocious”, but it’s a bit calling the kettle black, since the new one she comes up would’ve given Bill Blass nightmares.

Jan essentially fits a black sweater-vest over the costume’s torso, then adds a blue shoulder assembly with flared ends.  It’s bad---real bad.  (In all fairness, it’s Pym’s new helmet-cowl that sends it over the edge.)  Unfortunately, by his own admission, he’s a scientist, not a fashion model, so he wears the damn thing.

But not for long.  Giant-Man’s days as an active Marvel super-hero were numbered.  In The Avengers # 16 (May, 1965), he and Jan, along with the other two remaining charter members, decide to take a break from Avengering.  Then his own solo series ends with Tales to Astonish # 69 (Jul., 1965).

In less than three years, Henry Pym had gone through two super-hero identities, three costumes, and several adjustments of his powers. 

It’s often commented that writers of super-hero team books prefer to cast heroes who do not have their own series.  Team members with their own series impose a status quo that the team-book writer cannot step outside.  With team members who have no other exposure, the writer is free to experiment with their personalities, relationships, and premises.  The demise of Giant-Man’s TTA series probably accounts for why he and the Wasp were the first original Assemblers to return to the team.

Only a year after taking their leaves, Hank and Jan returned to the Avengers.  Kicking off a running plotline that begins in Tales to Astonish # 77 (Mar., 1966), the Sub-Mariner disrupts an ocean-bed drilling operation overseen by Pym.  When the hostile Namor abandons the station to head for New York, Hank orders Jan to follow as the Wasp. This ultimately draws her into the clutches of the sinister Collector. 

In The Avengers # 28 (May, 1966), Hank rings in the Avengers’ help to rescue her by revealing his identity as Giant-Man.  After satisfying Captain America with his bona fides, Pym makes a revelation.  The principal reason he left the Avengers was because he discovered that his frequent size-changes were putting a potentially lethal strain on his body.  He has limits, now.  Hank can no longer vary his sizes; he can achieve only one height, that of twenty-five feet, and he must remain at that height for fifteen minutes exactly.  If he attempts to return to his normal size before or after that, the strain may be deadly.

If the Scarlet Witch had done nothing else for the Avengers or the world, she would be regarded as a heroine for sewing a new costume for Hank, “in case [he] ever did return”.  (Seriously, that girl had no social life.)  Wanda’s design is reminiscent of the first Giant-Man costume, but in blue and yellow and with more elegant lines.  When Hank shoots up to his twenty-five foot size, Cap remarks, “You’re a real Goliath!”   And as easy as that, Pym discards the name “Giant-Man” and becomes Goliath.

It’s not too hard for the Assemblers to track down the villain’s secret hide-out, and an enraged Goliath keeps the Collector on the run.  But in the end, good old Avenger teamwork rescues Jan.  In the heat of battle, though, Goliath overstays his fifteen-minute time limit and, when he tries to return to normal height, he stops at ten feet and passes out.

Goliath awakens several hours later, and a medical analysis determines that he is stuck at a ten-foot height permanently.  Trapped in a World Too Small for Him became his Marvel “handicap”, good for the hand-wringing that Stan Lee liked to insert in all of his titles.  After a few issues, Captain America gets tired of Hank’s “poor me” whining and delivers one of his patented star-spangled pep talks.  Freshly motivated, Pym hunkers down and seeks a cure for his condition, with the help of his new assistant, Doctor Bill Foster.

All the sweat pays off when their experiments finally restore Goliath’s ability to return to normal height in The Avengers # 35 (Dec., 1966).  As a bonus, Pym regains his full range of size control and he can once again become the Ant-Man.

Though Hank’s plight of being stuck at ten feet tall didn’t last all that long, it introduced the notion that his constant size-changing had a detrimental effect on his body, a concept which would resurface many times.  In fact, it didn’t take that long to crop up, again.  Though able to grow or shrink at will once more, Goliath tended to stick to a ten-foot height while in action.  In The Avengers # 48 (Jan., 1967), he is forced to shoot up to twenty-five feet in order to save some bystanders from a plummeting chunk of stone.  Even as he does so, Hank thinks, “I’ve been warned not to . . . it might permanently affect my ability to grow in size.”  Pulling off the save, he manages to shrink back to normal size with apparently no ill effects.

The next two issues are plotted slyly.  Events transpire in such a fashion that Pym has to employ only his Ant-Man identity.  He never grows above normal size.  But so neatly did that fit into the plot that it gets completely by the reader, until Hank himself lays it out:  “Years of fantastic strain on my very molecules---plus the recent overtaxing of my size-changing powers---have finally had their effect on me!  Though I can still become Ant-Man . . . I can no longer become a ten-foot giant!”

The way Pym’s powers came and went, the readers were probably a lot less concerned about it than he was.  And sure enough, two issues after losing his power to grow, Goliath gets it back---at the hands of the Collector, no less, who wants a flawless set of Avengers to add to his acquisitions.  Not only can the new, improved Hank resume his usual ten-foot height, he can now safely increase to a height of twenty-five feet for brief periods.

It couldn't have been more than a mild surprise that the story contained yet another costume change for Goliath.  It wasn’t shown on the cover, probably because it wasn’t much of one; just an alteration in the colour scheme, the blue-yellow becoming red-blue.

By now, the Master of Many Sizes was becoming Who Am I This Week?  Henry Pym had gone through all the permutations of his identities.  Ant-Man only.  Goliath only.  Both.  Neither.  It was growing wearisome.  Hank’s most recent problems with his powers had come from writer Roy Thomas, whose back-and-forth handling of them suggested that he didn’t know what to do with the character.

For the next several issues, Goliath put in solid, reliable service with the Avengers, while the focus shifted to new members the Black Panther and the Vision.  But soon enough, the writers would jigger Henry Pym once again.  Only this time, there was none of the “Ant-Man only” or “Goliath only” nonsense.  The end of the Silver Age brought Pym the most dramatic change of all.

An accident in his lab exposes Hank to a combination of unknown gases which cause him to experience a personality shift.  Pym adopts the completely new identity of Yellowjacket.  No longer aware that he himself was Goliath, he informs the Avengers that he has killed the giant-sized hero.  Furthermore, he kidnaps the Wasp and intends to marry her.  In short, as Yellowjacket, Pym was acting out his sub-conscious desires.

All becomes clear immediately following the wedding of Yellowjacket and Janet van Dyne, in The Avengers # 60 (Jan., 1969).  When the Circus of Crime attacks during the reception, the Wasp is imperiled.  Seeing Jan in danger restores Pym’s mind to normal, and once the heroes have put paid to the threat of the villains, Hank and Jan happily agree to let the marriage stand.  Particularly, Jan, as she had tumbled to the fact that her kidnapper was an off-his-nut Hank and went along with the wedding plans just so she could finally get him to the altar. 

Citing the medical dangers of constantly enlarging his body, Pym decides to remain Yellowjacket permanently.

Yellowjacket was essentially the Ant-Man with some factory-installed extras.  His yellow-and-black costume included artificial wings which permitted him to fly while insect sized.  Devices installed in his gloves enabled him to deliver electrical jolts in the fashion of “stings”.

Changing Goliath to Yellowjacket marked an axial shift in the Avengers for me.  As far as I was concerned, his oversized presence on the team was as integral as that of Captain America.  And I wasn’t placated when, a few issues later, Hawkeye abandoned his bow to become the new Goliath.  It was a move that seemed forced and wasteful to boot.  Why have one Avenger who could shrink and another who could grow, when there used to be one hero in the group who could do both? 

Whether he was Ant-Man or Giant-Man, as a solo act, Henry Pym was always a second-string hero.  But as an Avenger, he was a cornerstone of the team for years, despite the way writers would tinker with his powers.  That’s the way those of us who read his adventures ‘way back then saw it, and removing Goliath from the team was, for me, one of the strong Marvel indicators that the Silver Age was over.

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.

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.

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? 

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Oct. 23, 2012: The third season premiere of The Walking Dead Oct. 14 on AMC scored record-breaking ratings, with almost 11 million people tuning in.

And that’s deserved, because TWD is a terrific show. But it started as a terrific comic book, and if you’re not reading it, you should be. If you think the comics would spoil the TV show, or that the TV show makes the comics redundant, that’s not the case: AMC has made the canny decision to follow the general outline of the comic book, but not the specifics.  

With this season, the gang on the show is just now moving into a Georgia prison for safety, which happened in the comics back in 2004. But already stark differences between the two formats are in evidence. In the comics, for example, Dale Horvath was alive when they reached the prison, but Hershel Greene wasn’t – but on the TV show, that’s reversed. Also, in the comics Rick’s gang was larger, and the composition was different, with a lot more children. And finally, in the comics Rick allowed the surviving convicts to join the group, whereas on the TV show he isolates them in a different cell block.

Those are just the obvious contrasts a fan of one format would notice when sampling the other. But there are plenty of subtler differences as well, many an inevitable result of a story playing out in two different media with different strengths and weaknesses. For example, the characters’ internal struggles are much more evident on an actor’s face than in a pen-and-ink drawings – but in a comic book, you can know what characters are thinking. So there are pluses and minuses in each approach.

Which is why I heartily recommend that non-readers give themselves a Halloween treat and catch up on The Walking Dead in print. Image Comics has made that as easy as buying soft drinks: You can buy any size you like. There’s the $3.99 monthly comic book (now up to issue #103); the $14.99 trade paperbacks, which collect six issues each; the $34.99 “Book” format, which collects 12 issues in hardback; the $35.99 “Compendia,” which collect 24 issues in massive trade paperbacks, and the $59.97 “Omnibus” format, which collects 24 issues per volume in hardback with a slipcase.

But lock the door before you start reading, and leave all the lights on. You’ve been warned.

In other spooky stuff this month, Hotel Transylvania premiered, which I have not seen. But I have seen The Art and Making of Hotel Transylvania ($34.95, Titan Books), which I quite enjoyed.

Art takes us through the process of creating each character, each background, each plot point of the movie. As a frustrated cartoonist myself, I found it fascinating to see all the variations on the main character alone. There’s a page of fat Draculas, old Draculas, imperious Draculas, modern Draculas, old-school Draculas, you name it – until creator Genndy Tartakovsky (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) settled on a version that played to the strengths of the voice actor, Adam Sandler.

“One of the challenges of new versions of classic characters such as Dracula and Frankenstein is finding the balance between the expected and the unexpected,” writes author Tracey Miller-Zarneke. And with more than 400 pages of concept art, character designs and digital art, along with interviews with creators, filmmakers and crew, the reader gets to go along for the ride.

Meanwhile, the latest American Vampire collection is out from DC/Vertigo, and I have to say it’s the first one that hasn’t completely blown me away.

American Vampire Volume Four ($24.99) is the first that doesn’t star the usual group of characters we follow, the current representatives of the Book and Cash families, whose history forms the spine of the American Vampire narrative. That may explain my tepid interest.

But it may also be that the three, almost-unrelated stories in this collection didn’t grab me.

The first is set in the old West, starring Skinner Sweet in his pre-vampire days and his half-brother and later nemesis Jim Book. While Skinner has been believed to this point to be the first American vampire, this story – “The Beast in the Cave” – reveals an earlier one, from around the 16th century. But there is no doubt by the end of the story that the title refers metaphorically to Skinner as much as it does literally to the ancient bloodsucker – which comes as no surprise at all to regular readers.

The second, "Death Race,” is set in the 1950s with every cliché from that decade. Our hero is a vampire killer who steps right out of The Wild One (or Grease), with James Dean hair, a cigarette perpetually hanging from pouted lip, black leather jacket, white T-shirt and rolled-up blue jeans. I’m half-surprised he wasn’t named Elvis, and the ending was telegraphed pretty early.

The third story promised to be the most interesting, with the first African-American vampire starring in a two-part story set during the Jim Crow South. But it failed to tackle these issues directly, instead essentially serving as a set-up for the next adventure, which will take place in the next volume.

But, while I’ve been a bit critical of this book, it is still head and shoulders above most comics fare. This book is a solid double, and is only a disappointment in that we’re used to home runs.

ART

1. The Walking Dead Book 8 is the latest in the hardback collection, with The Walking Dead #85-96. Copyright Image Comics

2. The Art and Making of Hotel Transylvania pulls the curtain back on the creative process. Copyright Titan Books.

3. American Vampire Volume 4 includes one story set in the old West, and two in the 1950s. Copyright DC Entertainment

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

Things That Would Have Shocked My 12-Year-Old Self

Oct. 26, 2012: As I may have mentioned a few thousand times, science fiction (and fantasy and horror) were nearly non-existent in American pop culture in the 1960s when I was growing up. The conventional wisdom in Hollywood was that "science fiction doesn't sell," perhaps because all the SF movies in the 1950s were dopey B-movies about giant radioactive insects with really cheap budgets and lousy special effects. Regardless, Hollywood was convinced SF was a loser, and that idea pretty much permeated media across the board.

There were occasionally SF TV shows, but none of them were success stories. Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea became jokes. Star Trek failed after two seasons, and was only extended for an extra year by a coordinated letter-writing campaign. The Time Tunnel only lasted a year. Batman was deliberately silly. 

So for kids like the young Captain, who loved extra-normal stuff, the only good material available was early Universal horror movies (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, etc.) and comic books. Both areas were pretty seriously marginalized, so my friends and I were pretty resigned to being on the periphery of pop culture (and avoided mentioning our passions at school). 

Then along came this thing called Star Wars in the 1970s. And suddenly SF, fantasy and horror were cool. This would have shocked my 12-year-old self. Moreover, Star Wars kicked open a door that hasn't ever closed, and more wonderful stuff has poured through that door so that even now, more than 30 years later, my inner 12-year-old remains giddy with disbelief through each revelation. Here are just a few of my favorite things:

* There is an Element Lad action figure. If comic books were a marginal hobby in the 1960s, Legion of Super-Heroes fandom was a subculture within a subculture. While even our parents could name Superman and Batman, most comic-book fans could be stumped at naming any member of the LSH outside of Superboy. And yet, not only did DC Direct release a series of Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes action figures, they released the figures in the order the characters joined the team. If that doesn't tickle your fanboy heart, your heart comes from Stone Boy's planet.

* There are superhero movies, and they don't suck. When the Captain was 12, the only breakthroughs superheroes made into broader media were bad cartoons, the aforementioned Batman and reruns of the Adventures of Superman TV show. The Marvel Super-Heroes cartoons of 1965 were simply gawdawful, and the initially respectful Superman, Batman and Aquaman cartoons quickly devolved into Super Friends. The Superman show was wonderful, but it was OLD -- often B&W -- and, let's face it, the special effects were nearly non-existent. The fact that Hollywood pours millions into X-Men, Batman, Spider-Man and Avengers movies is astonishing to my inner 12-year-old, and even better, they're popular. I feel a weird sense of affirmation. Speaking of which:

* My mother knows who Wolverine is. My parents -- and most of their generation -- thought of comics as juvenile pap, and knew nothing about superheroes beyond vague ideas about who Superman and Batman were. But thanks to the movies, even my mother has heard of Wolverine. Wolverine! He didn't even exist until 1975!

* I have a Captain America shield. In the 1960s, I could fantasize about a decent Superman, Batman or Spider-Man TV show or movie because I could imagine -- just barely -- those characters being popular/familiar enough that maybe somebody would put up money for such a movie, and maybe enough people would go so that it wouldn't bomb. But Captain America? He was a back-up series in Tales of Suspense, and during the Vietnam War kids and young adults were turning against pro-war jingoism and deeply suspicious of mindless patriotism. I was a big Cap fan, so much so that I made a shield out of a garbage can lid and tempera paint. But a store-bought shield? My 12-year-old self could not imagine such a thing.

* Iron Man is an A-list character. I loved Marvel Comics in the 1960s, but they were the new kids on the block and virtually unknown to non-comics-readers. And, just like DC, where Superman and Batman were the top dogs, there was an hierarchy at Marvel: Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and maybe the Hulk were A-listers, and everyone else was B-list or below. (And even the FF were a bit sketchy; kids at school and church would generally refer to them as "rock guy," "stretchy guy," "fire guy" and the like.) So the idea that Iron Man might someday be A-list was an alien concept to me; that he would headline an Avengers movie unthinkable. And yet, here we are. God bless Robert Downey Jr.

I could go on in this vein, but Gen Xers are probably yawning and younger readers have probably drifted off. I hope not, though, because the whole point of a forum is to share experiences and perspectives. I am always fascinated, for example, how fellow Legionnaire Chris Fluit views Uncanny X-Men, since it was the best-selling comic book of his youth, while it sold so poorly when I was a boy it was canceled when I was 12. So we are both big X-fans, but in my case it's my love for the underdog, while his experience is almost diametrically opposite! 

So I hope some of you find this amusing, despite the age/experience gap. Because, honestly, I couldn't be more tickled by today's options, and I hope that rubs off!

It was Labor Day weekend 2009, when I embarked on an ambitious project that would eat up more than 3 years of my life. I decided to read every X-Men comic. All of them. In order.

I’d read most of them before. In fact, I’d read most of them more than once. But this was the first time that I would start in 1963 with X-Men #1 and systematically read right up through the present day. Actually, I started before X-Men #1 by reading the origin story Children of the Atom published in 1999 first. This was also the first time that I would include every one-shot and mini-series associated with the X-Men. However, I opted against reading ongoing spin-off titles except for the issues that were directly involved in a crossover. If I had done that, it probably would have taken a dozen years. But who knows? I may get to that next.

This week, I finally finished. I intentionally saved Claremont’s future-set story X-Men The End for the end. That way I’d have a specific end point rather than having the project peter out when I caught up to the present day. I finished the final Avengers vs. X-Men tie-ins last week and blazed through The End over the weekend.
With the exposition out of the way, let’s get to your questions…

George Poague: Any reactions? Have your eyes stopped bleeding? ;) Did you just read issues of Uncanny X-Men, or did you also read the spin-offs (from New Mutants on)? And the guest shots and miniseries?

Yes. I feel a strange sense of accomplishment. It took an unexpected amount of dedication. When I did reading projects like this in the past, it would usually take a couple of months, no more than a year. This was the biggest project that I’d ever attempted and I had no idea that it would take this long.

I was never tempted to give up but I did set the project aside a couple of times. In each case, I had binged at some sale or another- a trade paperback blowout or back issue bargain hunt- and I took a break from the X-Men while I read new comics. That’s probably what prevented bleeding eyeballs or insanity (though the latter diagnosis is debated).

At the same time, it was a lot of fun. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t love the X-Men. I enjoyed it and I’m glad I did it.

As I answered earlier, I didn’t read the ongoing spin-off titles like New Mutants and Excalibur except for issues that were directly a part of a crossover like the Morlock Mutant Massacre. I did read the guest shots and mini-series. I even picked up the other half of shorter crossovers like Ghost Rider #26-27 and guest appearances in other titles like Spider-Woman #38 (though I eventually had to abandon that angle as well).

John Dunbar: What held up? What didn't? Did anything surprise you, as in "I think I liked this better the first time" or "I don't remember this being this good before"?

In most cases, the answer is what you would expect it to be. There are a lot of great X-Men runs and they remain great whether you read them for the first time or the fifth: Roy Thomas & Neal Adams, Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum & John Byrne & Paul Smith & John Romita Jr. & Marc Silvestri & Jim Lee… [takes a deep breath], Scott Lobdell & Joe Madureira, Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely, Joss Whedon & John Cassaday and so on.

There were also some rough patches. One of the things that I discovered is that I had less patience for those rough patches this time ‘round. For example, I couldn’t tolerate Claremont’s heavy-handed narration during his return to the X-Men in 2000. I was willing to read every word the first time because I didn’t know what was going to happen. But I found myself skimming a few narrator speeches this time. I also didn’t bother reading The Arena story in X-Treme X-Men as I hated it the first time. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t count. Plus, I didn’t bother buying two issues of X-Men Legacy I had originally skipped.

Even so, there were a few surprises. I enjoyed the Arnold Drake issues more than I remembered. A big part of that is the early Jim Steranko and Barry Windsor-Smith art. Partly, the first Roy Thomas run that preceded those issues was so bad anything would look good in comparison. Yet Drake deserves some credit for mixing things up a little with the introduction of Polaris and Erik the Red.

Some of the recent runs held up really well. I loved Ed Brubaker’s epic Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire when I first read it but it was even better when I was able to read the entire story again in one sitting. Second Coming was better than I remembered. The crossover had a very strong narrative progression through different stages of the battle and a deep emotional core with the deaths of Cable and Nightcrawler. It was a story I enjoyed at the time- I even wrote a eulogy for Nightcrawler- but I admired the story-craft that much more now. I also appreciated the way that it subtly set up future storylines- this is where the rivalry between Cyclops and Wolverine really begins to turn into animosity, and where Cyclops starts to reject Captain America and the rest of the “outside” world.

I was disappointed in a few things. Warren Ellis’ run on Astonishing X-Men wasn’t as good as I remembered it. It was all flash, no substance and the stories didn’t really move forward. The X-Men/Micronauts mini-series didn’t live up to the hype. I hadn’t read it before but it came across as a typical team-up. It’s probably not something I’ll bother to read again. And there’s one other…

Jeff of Earth-J: Chris, I know you said you didn't read any of the spin-off series, but I'm wondering if you made an exception for X-Men: The Hidden Years...?The title knocked Avengers out of my personal "#1 favorite Marvel" spot at the time, but I've never gone back and re-read the entire series. I have a feeling that it might not hold up in a marathon reading session and that it might not fit very well following directly on the heels of [having read] X-Men #66.

You guessed right, Jeff. I read The Hidden Years between the first X-Men series and the All-New revival and it did not hold up well. I loved the series when it came out. I appreciated the way that John Byrne imitated Neal Adams’ art style. And it was a lot of fun to spend time with the original X-Men plus Havok and Polaris. But, on reflection, it wasn’t as good as I thought at the time.

30 DAYS OF NIGHT ONGOING #11

A PLUS X #1 NOW
ABSOLUTE FINAL CRISIS HC
ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #1
ALL STAR WESTERN TP VOL 01 GUNS AND GOTHAM (N52)
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #32 (MR)
ANGEL & FAITH #15
AQUAMAN #13
ARCHIE #638
ARCHIE ARCHIVES HC VOL 07
ARMY OF DARKNESS ONGOING #6
AVENGING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1
AVX CONSEQUENCES #4 (OF 5)

BATGIRL ANNUAL #1
BATMAN BEYOND UNLIMITED #9
BATMAN EYE OF THE BEHOLDER TP
BEDLAM #1 (MR)
BLOODSTRIKE #32
BPRD HELL ON EARTH #100 RETURN O/T MASTER #3 (OF 5
BUCKAROO BANZAI #2 (RES)

CALL OF WONDERLAND TP (MR)
CAPTAIN MARVEL #6
CBLDF LIBERTY ANNUAL 2012 #5
CHARISMAGIC DEATH PRINCESS #1
CHARLES BURNS HIVE BOOKPLATE ED
COLONY TP

DAN THE UNHARMABLE #7 (MR)
DARK SHADOWS #9
DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER TP JOURNEY BEGINS
DEADPOOL KILLS MARVEL UNIVERSE TP
DISNEY PRINCESS MAGAZINE #9
DOCTOR WHO VOL 3 #2

EC KURTZMAN CORPSE O/T IMJIN AND OTHER STORIES HC
EC WALLY WOOD CAME THE DAWN AND OTHER STORIES HC
EPOCH TP (MR)

FASHION BEAST #3 (MR)
FATALE #9 (MR)
FAUST LOVE OF DAMNED ACT 14
FEAR ITSELF TP HOME FRONT
FEAR ITSELF TP UNCANNY X-FORCE DEEP
FERALS #10 (MR)

GFT MYTHS & LEGENDS #22 (MR)
GHOSTBUSTERS ONGOING #14
GHOSTS #1 (MR)
GODZILLA ONGOING #6
GREEN HORNET #30
GREEN HORNET STRIKES #10

HAPPY #2 (OF 4)
HAUNT #27
HEAVY METAL RELOAD SC
HIGHER EARTH #6
HIGHER EARTH TP VOL 01
HIT-GIRL #4 (OF 5) (MR)

IDOLIZED #3
ITS TOKYO CHARLIE BROWN GN

JOE KUBERT PRESENTS #1 (OF 6)
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK ANNUAL #1

KISS GREATEST HITS TP VOL 02
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #189

LADY DEATH (ONGOING) #23 (MR)
LEGEND OF OZ THE WICKED WEST ONGOING #1
LOONEY TUNES #209
LORD OF THE JUNGLE TP VOL 01 (MR)
LOT 13 #1 (OF 5) (MR)

MARS ATTACKS HOLIDAYS ONE SHOT
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE THE ORIGIN OF SKELETOR #1
METABARONS ULTIMATE COLL ED (MR)
MIGHTY THOR #22 BURNS

NANCY DREW & CLUE CREW GN VOL 01 SMALL VOLCANOES
NEW DEADWARDIANS #8 (OF 8) (MR)
NEW MUTANTS #50

PHANTOM LADY #3 (OF 4)
PREVIEWS #290 NOV 2012

RACHEL RISING #12
REAL GHOSTBUSTERS OMNIBUS TP VOL 01
RED HULK TP MAYAN RULE
RED SONJA ATLANTIS RISES #3
RISE O/T GUARDIANS HIDDEN TRUTH & OTHER GN
ROBYN HOOD #2 (OF 5) (MR)
ROCKETEER CARGO OF DOOM #3 (OF 4)

SECRET AVENGERS TP RUN MISSION SAVE WORLD
SHATTERED ASIAN AMER COMICS ANTHOLOGY TP
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #242
STAR TREK ONGOING #14
STAR WARS DARTH MAUL DEATH SENTENCE #4 (OF 4)
STEED AND MRS PEEL ONGOING #2
SUPERMAN EARTH ONE HC VOL 02
SUPERMAN FAMILY ADVENTURES #6
SWAMP THING ANNUAL #1
SWEET TOOTH TP VOL 05 UNNATURAL HABITAT (MR)

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ANNUAL 2012
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #15
TICK #101 TICK MEETS MADMAN
TRANSFORMERS CLASSICS TP VOL 04
TRANSFORMERS MORE THAN MEETS EYE ONGOING #10
TRUE BLOOD ONGOING #6

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #16.1
ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #18 UWS
UNCANNY X-FORCE PREM HC BOOK 01 FINAL EXECUTION

VAMPIRELLA #24
VAMPIRELLA VS FLUFFY ONE SHOT

WARRIORS OF MARS TP
WHISPERS #4 (MR)
WINTER SOLDIER #12
WITCHBLADE #161
WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #19
WONDERLAND #4 (MR)

X-MEN HIDDEN YEARS TP VOL 02
X-MEN LEGACY #275

Comics and Collectibles of Memphis posted this list on Facebook. Arrivals at your local comics store may vary.