Eclipse means Eclipso!

With the eclipse, it seemed a good time to look at one of a couple silver-age DC comics I picked up. One thing the comics showed was that if you think that the Silver-Age Doom Patrol was weird, you probably need to read more DC comics from that era. House of Secrets during this time had two features much like their competition's Strange Tales and Tales of Suspense. In this case, the two were Eclipso and Prince Ra-man. One of the things that attracted me with this comic was it promised a merging of the two features into one story pitting the hero against the star villain.

Eclipso was sort of DC's version the Hulk, playing on the Jekyll and Hyde motif: good guy scientist who turns into a menace. In Eclipso's case all it takes is an eclipse to turn scientist Bruce Gordon into the villain Eclipso. Unlike the Hulk, Eclipso got to wear a costume, had incredible intellect and was an out and out villain. Gordon spent most of his time trying, and failing, to prevent coming into eclipses and then helping to set things up that would force him to become Gordon again. In this he is aided by his girlfriend Mona and her father Professor Bennet. A strong sudden light is enough to banish Eclipso.

Prince Ra-Man is a bit tougher to explain. He has his roots in an earlier strip featuring Mark Merlin who was an occult detective. He got himself stuck in another dimension and the only way to get back to our reality was to be cast into a recently deceased body. In this new body, he has various mental powers (telekinesis, illusion casting) and a powerful artifact, the six-sided sun. Sort of like the cinema version of Doctor Strange, it has the all of the earmarks of being a mystical hero but explaining it in pseudo science fiction terms while hedging their bets by also sprinkling in Egyptian references. Upon arriving back in this reality he tells Mark's fiance Elsa that Mark is dead. But, she travels with Prince Ra-man in his crusade against crime. Prince Ra-Man may be DC's first superhero to actually sport a beard. With that, plus a white streak in his black hair and his eyes being all white and black ringed, he is looking almost more like a villain than a hero at the time.

This story starts with Bruce, Mona and Professor Bennet preparing for the next eclipse and a plan to instantly banish Eclipso. As usual Eclipso uses his intellect to outwit them and embark on his next plan of world conquest. In this instance, Eclipso emerges from Bruce Gordon as opposed to Bruce transforming into Eclipso. Eclipso's plan involves him to create Helio, a being made from sun and various chemicals. He even designed a costume for Helio. Of course, it means Eclipso has to shield himself from his own being in order to avoid getting banished. With Helio's power, they steal a space platform so that they can attack anywhere on earth from the safety of space. Eclipso is eventually defeated and returns to Gordon's body. However, Helio is still out there.

In the part two, Prince Ra-man sets out to end the ongoing threat of Helio. In their first encounter Helio almost manages to kill Ra-man and Elsa in a cave in. Helio travels to the lab complex of Buce Gordon in Solar City. He creates an artificial eclipse which transforms Bruce into Eclipso this time. When Prince Ra-man arrives, he quickly reasons that Eclipso is Gordon's other self which Professor Bennet admits. The professor tells him this transformation is only temporary but if there is a real eclipse, Eclipso will split off permanently and if Eclipso and Helio are able to get the stolen space platform into space, they will be nearly unstoppable. Ra-man grows his disc to giant size and flies it like a flying carpet after the platform where he has to battle the two villains.

GCD lists both parts of the story to be by Bob Haney while Jack Sparling did the art for the first half and Bernard Bailey on the second. It's not quite the book length battle promised on the cover, it is still a fun read of a couple of off-beat characters. The stories don't give much background on the characters and so the handling of Eclipso seems a bit inconsistent, with him emerging from Bruce in the front half and a transformed Bruce Gordon in the second. Eclipso's appearances after his run were sporadic in the 1970s. Some reprints, a battle against Batman, the Metal Men, an appearance in Crisis. It would be in the 1990s that Eclipso would get upgraded into a major villainous threat as he was portrayed as a dark villain that was able to use his black diamonds to create dark-sides of the various heroes. In one issue of his own comic he would be responsible for the deaths of various characters including the original Steel, the lady Dr. Midnight and Wildcat, Peacemaker, Mark Shaw Manhunter, the Creeper and another or two. The Creeper would get better and the Manhunter killed was retconned to have been someone else in his costume. In these stories, Eclipso doesn't display the scientific expertise and cunning that he does in these Silver-Age stories where he seems more of a Doctor Doom or Lex Luthor style villain. Prince Ra-Man would cross swords again with Eclipso a few issues later. He would eventually come clean with Elsa over his identity. Not much later he was killed in the final issue of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Since then, there have apparently been sporadic inconsistent appearances of him and/or Mark Merlin.

Carmine Infantino - RIP

Just heard that Silver-Age great Carmine Infantino has passed away. Infantino is an artist who made such a significant mark at DC during the Silver-Age, it's easily forgotten that he got his start at the tail end of the Golden-Age and did some 1970s work at Marvel.

He's so associated with revamping the Flash in the 1950s at DC, giving him a modern streamlined look, most probably don't realize that some of his earliest work was on Jay Garrick the golden-age Flash. And, while he did some wonderful science fiction stories for DC, especially Adam Strange, during the 1950s he did some wonderful work on Westerns and characters like the Trigger Twins and Pow-wow Smith as well as the intelligent spy thriller series King Faraday of Danger Trail.

His 1950s and 1960s work shows similarities to Alex Toth and Dan Barry. In his earliest works, his use of shadows and blocks of black to give shape, wrinkles and depth to clothes echoes the works of Caniff, which may be where his more stiff, angular posing of characters came from. Clean and concise art style with an emphasis on natural proportions and physiques and clear storytelling. His style quickly developed an angular and almost mechanical artificial style. The same design sense that gave us cars with hard edges and fins was echoed in his comic style. On the Flash, he gave us some iconic covers as well as some of the more surreal images. Whenever I hear people talking about how the Doom Patrol was about weirdness, I like to point them to a handful of Flash covers that outdo anything that appeared in the DP. His covers were often ones of action, heroes or villains rarely stood still, something was happening or about to happen. As far as I know, he developed the cover of two teams charging/facing off against each other from either side of the cover like opposing football teams. He had a quirk of often setting the action on some plaza with the skyline of a city in the distance. I often wondered where these remote plazas or staging areas were with nothing for yards around other than the distant city a mile or so off. Even the "Flash of Two Worlds" cover has the man about to be crushed by a metal beam with apparently no other structure a mile around other than the brick wall he happens to be kneeling by. Talk about bad luck! I want to credit that it was Infantino that was also ultimately behind the "new look Batman" ala the yellow oval around the bat on the chest.

I tended to like Murphy Anderson as inker over Infantino. Anderson appropriately rounded off some of the edges of his characters, making them more natural without sacrificing the actual power of Infantino's figures

In the 1970s, he'd go to Marvel working on titles such as Nova, Spider-Woman, and Star Wars. By this time, his figures were all hard corners and angles. It was bold but eccentric. He was a strange choice for their John Carter, Warlord of Mars book but buried under Rudy Nebres inks, the combination gave us possibly the best of both artists: clear, powerful layouts and storytelling of Infantino and more organic, lush, detailed line found in the Filipino school. In the 80s, he'd return to the title that made him famous, the Flash. Like Kirby, his style by this time is stiffer, blockier, and more epic in proportions, yet it's compelling in sheer bombastics and storytelling. He also revisited his Danger Trail series, with some excellent art, though the covers had Paul Gulacy, an artist with a completely different and photo-realistic style, almost a complete antithesis of Infantino's. About the only thing the two really shared was their use of stark highlight and shadow, with little sense of grays or gradation.

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Arrow - Honor Thy Father

The second episode of Arrow was as strong (and as weak) as the first. We get a bit more progression of what happened to Ollie on the island and an indicator of where the scars came from. There's a colorful and equally skilled villain for him to face off against in the white haired Asian woman China White. We see the bodyguard Diggle being actually useful and showing some ability himself. Quentin Lance is probably the most interesting of the characters, with more sides to him as his relationships and motivations logically differ depending on who he's interacting with: overprotective parent of Laurel, disapproving and dislike of Ollie, honest cop and upholder of the law against vigilante. It helps that Paul Blackthorne manages to wring some worth out of rather hokey or cheesy dialogue and seems to be about the only actor in the show that really knows how to act with more facial expressions than just glower.

With Ollie, we get a lot of the character conflict that helped Smallville as well as similar themes in how to best honor the wishes of the father. In Smallville a large part of that conflict was due to Clark having two fathers often with opposing goals, as well as the excellent John Glover playing the part of Lionel Luthor, Lex's father. Here, the conflict is out of the type of man the father was, a flawed businessman who made big mistakes and whose dying declaration is for his son to fix those mistakes. Ollie is trying to make good on that mission without actually exposing to the world the type of man his father really was. Redeem those mistakes so that in death, his father's legacy will be the truth of what it was pretended to be in life. And, we see Ollie struggling here as it means he's forced to maintain three identities: the driven and enlightened to his self and the ways of the world, the masked vigilante, and the false shallow playboy from before. And, this episode shows he recognizes that it is a juggling act and that he has to become more comfortable with the latter identity, the one that's more false than the others, if he's going to be successful as the second. But, it's a juggling act he's not good at because when in private with people that he likes, it's the new, enlightened Oliver Queen they see.

The episode falls apart mainly with the resolution. In stereotypical superhero fashion, Oliver shoots arrows around the bad guy while interrogating him, all the while secretly recording the man's confession. He then gives this to the cops and this somehow clears up the investigation/trial with the clear implication that the confession is sending the man to jail. This is a cliche and it's a bad cliche, especially considering one of the writers used to write for Law & Order! There's no way a coerced confession, especially by a vigilante, would ever be admittable in a court of law. If anything it would make the case more difficult, not less. They want to distance themselves from superheroes and be considered a bit more of a crime/action drama, these are the slack storytelling cliches they need to avoid. It's not the costumes, names and powers that sink superheroes. It's the bad storytelling that often goes hand-in-hand, that as soon as the creators see that it includes costumes or powers, it gives them a pass to be sloppy.

The show is already beginning to show some chinks as well. Turns out that it's not the name changes that's annoying but the disregard towards names. We've seen this in the superhero movies. Black Widow not being called that in Iron Man II, Hawkeye not being called that in The Avengers, Catwoman never being called that in Dark Knight Rises and her friend Holly Robinson is not called by name in the film or how the British member of the Howling Commandos in Captain America had his name changed to Brian Falsworth but not actually called by name in the movie... it's a name change via credits only. Some of this is just basic bad storytelling, not giving us the names of people as they appear in the movie despite giving them names in the credits. In many cases though it's the people being afraid of the source material. The show is called Arrow but the show goes to great lengths to not call him by name. He's referred to twice now as "Robin Hood" and as "the archer". I can possibly understand the reasoning behind changing the name of the show, but avoidance of the name in the show itself smacks of shame. The name "Green Arrow" for a character didn't seem to hurt Smallville any. Likewise, the Triad villain in this episode. If she was called by name in the episode I missed it. For all I knew, she was a tv version of Cheshire or Shiva. Had to look it up on IMDB (interestingly, the actress has voiced Cheshire on Young Justice). Next week's episode features Deadshot. Will he be called that.

The other chink is from the pics, it looks as if all the superhero/villain characters go to the same tailor with a large surplus of dark leather. Personally, I think both Deadshot and Deathstroke not only have striking costumes, but ones that could translate fairly faithfully. Dull the colors some, downplay the latter's boots but make them distinctive beyond a few trinkets. The Marshall Rogers and George Perez designs are strong, distinctive designs which would look wonderful as faithfully realized.

There is a bit of irony that a show that is trying so hard to distance itself from the term of "superhero" and seems embarrassed by the characters is racing to include as many comicbook heroes and villains as it can. Deadshot next week, we already have seen hints of Deathstroke and is promised soon. Somewhere soon is the Huntress and in the wings in the distance Black Canary and Merlyn cannot be far behind.

The last chink is one of repetition. The show has a dual mega-story it's telling. What happened to Ollie on the island, and the redemption of his father's name by going after people in the notebook. This gives the show some depth and mystery, a well to draw upon for stories. But, it can also choke a series to death. Tie the story too closely to the mission and you run into future problems such as the show becoming a caricature of itself, unable to move beyond the mission. Richard Kimble cannot find the one-armed man, Jack McGee cannot uncover the truth behind the Hulk, Fox Mulder cannot discover the whole truth, Sam and Diane/David and Maddy cannot become a couple, etc. Eventually the episodes are covering the same beats, the same monotonous tone week in and week out. More importantly, we are seeing that mega-story series fail as often as they succeed. For every Lost, there seems to be about a dozen The River, The Event, Alcatraz etc. Instead, the model should be for the mega-story be more about concept that allows a variety of stories with smaller, major arcs that can be threaded through it such as Persons of Interest. While there are episodes and recurring themes that reveal more of the mysterious backgrounds of the principle characters, it's organic and allowing for many different types of stories. The other major problem of making the show too much about the mega-story is that it becomes impenetrable to casual or new viewers. Miss a couple of episodes and you are lost. Too much effort to get back into.

Maybe I am judging the last a little too harshly based on just two episodes, but I see that this kind of plotting and storytelling driving comics of the last couple of years. A year into Aquaman and we're still on the same mega-story. So far the episodes of the tv show are better at being done-in-one while furthering the ongoing sub-plots, but here's hoping we'll see some of the main plots of the episodes having nothing to do with the mega-story or sub-plots of the same episode, that not everything is connected. For it is there that you will find variety and opportunity for the show to grow beyond its basic setup.

CW's Arrow

The CW aired their pilot of Arrow, the tv series of Green Arrow. The show has received quite a bit of flak (some of it deservedly so) of comments made by show's creators concerning the distancing from the character's superhero roots. Especially since two of the creators have written comics and the show IS about a superhero. And, they choose to bring in other superhero/supervillains into the mix. Like Smallville before it, it wants to be a superhero show while escaping from the stigma of the show. Thankfully, the trailers released for the show made it look more interesting and taking itself more seriously than most superhero shows. Forget Smallville, No Ordinary Family, The Cape and Birds of Prey. This is more tonal in quality to shows like Supernatural, and Alphas. It's still a superhero show, no bones about that. But, it's more back to basics with the concepts of superheroes.

Overall, I liked it. Very pulpish take which is fitting, considering the roots of the character and superhero comics. It starts off with playboy Oliver Queen who's been marooned on an island for five years and presumed dead rescued. He is welcomed by family (mother and sister) and best friend and they seem eager to have Ollie back. Only through flashbacks, we learn that he's changed. Before he died, his father charged him with correcting the mistakes he had made, that dear old dad was not the saint that people thought he was. His girlfriend is not happy to see that he's returned as Ollie was on the boat with her sister and who went down with the ship. He pretends to embrace the old lifestyle while he uses mad skills that he gained on the island to carry out the mission his father charged him with.

On one hand, this is fairly faithful as far as comic adaptations go. The marooned origin is basically the Silver-Age Simon & Kirby origin of the character. Although Oliver having an extended family and surviving members of it are new. I can see where they don't want to get into the teen sidekick but are using his kid sister nicknamed Speedy to touch on the responsibilities he feels now as a role model and how he has not lived up to it in the past.

The most annoying aspects really are the name changes. Laurel Lance is using the secondary names of the heroine known as Black Canary which prompted me to try to explain the convoluted history of the character. If there's no GA or previous Black Canary, there is no reason for her last name to be Lance. Heck, it might have been MORE interesting to have her as Dinah Drake (her original pre-crisis name) and Paul Blackthorne's character be rival love interest Larry Lance. Having him be her father instead and then changing his name to Quentin Lance? I guess Larry would have been too close to Laurel... but again, why is she going by her middle name? I'm hoping maybe there is a plan for Black Canary, that her mother was a masked heroine. Although, if they go the Black Canary route, they should have switched the actresses playing her and playing her sister. The sister has the build for the costume.

What will probably kill the show for me will be the lack of faith in having costumes. Bringing other superhero characters in, but in variety of plain clothes styled costumes. The Green Arrow outfit works. It's kept in shadow, obviously leather which makes sense and not too different as an amalgamation of various costumes he's worn. Could stand to be a little more green though. When you start bringing in the likes of Deathstroke and Deadshot among others, you need to go a little larger than life than trenchcoats and leather jackets. The colors still can be subdued, but don't name them after costumed villains if you aren't going to use them. You can have the codenames, powers and costumes without being cheesy. Look to the Dini & Timm animated Batman series. It managed to encompass all the tropes and still wring pathos and solid stories out of them. It is possible to take yourself too serious and lose the fun aspect of the show. Speaking of Deathstroke, did I see his mask on a stake when Ollie got rescued in the beginning?

Which is where this show is going to be interesting. There's a lot of background, mystery, plot and character development and interaction going on here. It reminds me a bit of Crusoe only in reverse. There, the mystery that was slowly unfolding was the plot and machinations behind the scenes that lead to him getting marooned on the island. The immediate mystery of the flashbacks here will be what he discovered on the island, how he it changed him beyond simply his father giving him a mission. How he developed these skills, not just the skill with the bow but the ability to fight and take out trained men bare-handed.

In regards to how the ship went down, I think this show will go there as well, especially with the reveal at the end. That ship didn't simply go down in a storm and flashbacks will show just how corrupt his father's business dealings were. A twist on the Batman template of which Green Arrow is built. He's not out to avenge his father's name but redeem him and himself.

A shame that this show and Person of Interest has better fight scenes than the big budget Batman movies. Of course, part of that is they don't put the characters into outfits they can barely move in. But, in the pilot episode alone and I get the feel that he could kick movie Batman's butt. In that regard alone, this show is already more of a superhero story than the movies have been in that they haven't forgotten that at the heart of it, it's supposed to be an action story.

Not my favorite tv version of Green Arrow. That would probably be Justice League Unlimited, where they got the swashbuckling, fighting for the little guy, and stubborn s.o.b balance down pat. But, this is still early in the character's career. Hopefully, we'll see some of that come out as he learns to let some joy back into his life. For the most part, I liked Green Arrow in Smallville. In the later seasons, he was often the better part of the show and played as a complicated character. Their biggest mistake was he rarely actually used the bow and arrow but instead crossbows. But, I thought the actor did a good job with the character and it's a shame that he couldn't continue in that role. A pity the comics featuring the character aren't near as good to any of the small screen appearances.

The naming of the show and the design of the character, the cynic in me says part of it was to secure the tv trademark as it is very similar to this guy who's public domain but the comic book trademark is currently claimed by Dynamite.

Aquaman #0: If you don't like Geoff Johns' current style of writing, this won't change your mind. Not only are there three consecutive pages of nothing more than landscaped panels of Aquaman swimming... no text or words or thought balloons giving internal thoughts, there's also a couple of pages of him pretty much silently fighting a huge shark and then a string of coincidences that'd be worthy of Edgar Rice Burroughs - Aquaman is looking for Atlantis. In a moment of kewl display of super-strength he rescues a couple of American boaters who just happen to know a man who lives in Norway that might know where Atlantis is, and are presumably able to give Aquaman accurate directions. He finds this man (Vulko) who is conveniently just got back home since he had been away looking for Arthur since his existence was made public. At least Paul Norris gets creator credit for the character.

To add insult to injury, the comic ends on a cliffhanger. That's right, this ZERO issue in addition to interrupting the flow of the monthly story in progress, is nothing more than an introduction to a whole new story arc that has yet to appear in the regular series. Guess people at DC need some counting lessons. The issue # that follows 0 is 1, not 13, 14, or whatever the Ocean Master storyline will be starting on. We now have a comic that can neither be filed numerically as it doesn't belong before issue 1, or by date since it isn't part of the ongoing storyline and delivers nothing new or relevant for it. All we need is a couple of fish-jokes and a gratuitously graphic death scene and this would be a complete pastiche of bad Geoff Johns writing. Only really written by Johns.

The art team of Ivan Reis, Prado and Rob Reis (who deserves probably more credit than he gets on the colors of this book) should take one of the Silver-Age Aquaman Showcases, break several of the stories back down into scripts and re-illustrate them. I think modern fans' minds would explode at seeing just how much is really being carried by the art team here and seeing stories that aren't decompressed but full of creativity and yet complete reads.

Talon #0: According to the "logic" of the reboot, I shouldn't get this comic. After all, I don't buy any of the Batman books so the only continuity of the character and concept underlying it is what I can gleam from the previews/blurbs of the Batman books that I've read. But a couple of things going in, 1) this is more of what I'd expect or want from something like the reboot, which is actual new characters and not retreads of pre-existing ones. 2) I was struck by the artwork in the previews. With Joe Kubert's death still a recent memory, the art here looks a lot like Kubert's. Close enough to be mistaken as being done by one of his sons, only a lot better than they have been recently. Enough to over-ride that I really hate the costume he wears on the cover. Guillam March is a name that's worth keeping an eye out for.

Even the colorist deserves an 8/10 score. His subtle colors often mimic brush work more than obvious computer filter gradients. The only place he really falls is that the modern style of coloring doesn't allow for just solid flat color, or solid white. Imagine if Alex Toth, the master of balancing white space with blacks was colored by today's colorists. Every open shape would be filled with colorized texture, undoing what he achieved through contrast, space and negative space. There are places, most notably backgrounds where relatively simply defined shapes or spaces, the colorist has taken to add color with texture and in those places, it sticks out like a sore thumb. March's linework is so lush and capable at providing depth, shadow and weight, it doesn't need the colorist trying to fill in the places where he left space open and kept it simple. Don't fight the artist, follow his cue.

Despite having a backstory, I'm not privy to, the comic actually delivers everything you need to know in-story. See, continuity and history does not have to be a detriment to good storytelling. Other than a passing reference to Haley Circus and the Flying Graysons, there's nothing in the comic that links to Batman or that this concept has appeared before. It's a set-up for a series, but it also tells a story. We see the growth of the character Calvin Rose from boy to trained escape artist to talented recruit to the Court of Owls to his disillusionment with the organization and escape. Told from Rose's point of view, we get into his head, we get what he's feeling and going through at all times, his frustration, despair, and growing resolve. A refreshingly dense read.

The story isn't terribly original when you think about it. We've seen the same story in Kirby's Mr. Miracle and Big Barda (part of it even seems directly inspired by that story), Azrael, the Nolan Batman trilogy and even the Bourne movies of the recent years. It wouldn't have been too hard to not create the Talons and the Court of Owls and just used the League of Assassins or the Order of St. Dumas and make this a Richard Dragon/Bronze Tiger/Shiva/Azrael story instead, take your pick. Heck, I would have LOVED to see this as a Richard Dragon book. But, the familiarity doesn't subtract from that it is still very well done and that character of Calvin Rose makes for an interesting protagonist.

The only place the story really falls is his big moment of conversion (out of The Bourne Identity), when he decides to not kill his targets but instead to help them escape. By this point, the Court is so well set up in their single mindedness and capability, one has to wonder how much he actually was able to help them. Because we know the Court would send other Talons, near as good as he is. It is imperative from their point of view that this mother and child are history. He does not have the resources to really help them escape beyond their reach. From the start we see he cannot even avoid them finding him.

Despite getting the zero issue, I probably will only being getting this book in trade (paperback, please, very few comics are deserving of hardback treatment and cost). See, what drove me from the Batman family titles years before DCnu 52 is still in place. You cannot buy one Batman or one Superman title. Eventually, not if but when, a single story will cross the whole family, no matter how distant the relation. War Games was the story that ultimately killed my interest in Birds of Prey and Catwoman. A year into the reboot, and it already has happened with Batman with the very Court of Owls storyline, crossing over into even the Jonah Hex comic. And, the current previews promises to do pretty much the same with Death of a Family story. So, as much as I like this comic and it being pretty much exactly what I would want from a comic and nuDC, I know it's not worth it to get as a monthly because DC hasn't really changed in the ways that they operate.

Reboots vs Continuity: since I touched on this a little bit, there's a fallacy behind the whole idea of the reboot and many of the defenders of nu52 seem to preach it as if gospel. That is the idea that the reboot was needed because continuity was too complex for new readers and this allows them to all be on the same page.

That's not really what DC has done though. If that was true and really embraced by DC, there would have been no Justice League book in the first roll-out, much less THREE of them. No Teen Titans. No Red Hood and the Outlaws. Zero issues after a year wouldn't be needed to explain the gaps. Batman and Green Lantern wouldn't continue as if nothing really happened. In fact, neither of those characters have ever truly been rebooted. We have never seen in the main continuity a new Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, meeting the Joker for the first time, training Robin etc presented as if it was happening just now. We've gotten flashback minis and stories giving us the retcon version of events, but significantly, they don't change what was happening in the book at the time. The closest was when Jason Todd was given a whole new origin, and previous couple of years of Batman titles was rendered a bit conflicting. Despite the new origin, somehow Killer Croc was still in continuity. So a few stories obviously didn't happen the way we saw them, but Batman himself was still the same guy as before and still operated as before. And, some of those Jason Todd stories still worked, it didn't matter too much that his background had changed.

What DC has done is not start continuity from scratch so that readers can get in on the ground floor, but replaced the continuity with another one. A new reader picking up the Red Hood and the Outlaws is going to have the same problem as before. These aren't new characters. Despite the changes, in some way they are still predicated on there being name recognition for them to be relevant and a draw. He's still going to be facing a book with characters and history he doesn't know as before. The differences being that this time it's intentional and there's no reason to go to back issues or ask the store owner or another customer or even some of the writers. They don't know either! The comics are no more accessible to new readers than they were before. What they are is equally inaccessible to established readers! They cannot lift the new readers up, so they throw the existing readers down so that everyone is on the same page, the same boat.  If continuity was too complex and was keeping people away, how will a NEW and SECRET continuity actually attract new readers and not drive the existing fans away? I don't know. The crazy thing is that somehow this translated to good numbers starting out as if everyone got the same kool-aid.

Return of Captain Midnight

 Dark Horse has announced they are bringing back Captain Midnight, first in their anthology Dark Horse Presents and then as a mini-series. Unfortunately for me, their anthology book is usually too expensive when there's only one feature in it at a time I'm interested in.Link

This isn't the Captain's first return. He's been showing up some in the Airfighters comic by the company that's doing a manga influenced Airboy. AC has reprinted a few of his old tales, only promoting him to a major (presumably for trademark and copyright purposes).

But, the news story is interesting. Most companies, including Dark Horse, announce the "return" of a character only to mean a new character using the old one's name, powers and maybe the costume if you're lucky. However, in this instance, the story is all about using the Fawcett version of the character. I'm not thrilled with the angle being the US Government hunting him down and hope they move away from that. At this point, it's bit of a cliche and an easy target. I want to see the character as a cross between Captain America and Nick Fury. Hopefully, when they get the introductory story out of the way, we'll get more of that. However, the writer Josh Williamson says all the right things about trying to remain true to the character and his history and honoring that. A far cry from creators that bash the original material or praise it, while changing everything about the character.

In some ways, this almost seems like an anti-Dynamite book. At least from the one bit of artwork shown, the Captain is not getting a heavy re-design. He's not being re-imagined from the ground up. The cover art by Steve Rude is like Ross only it embraces the superhero aspect of the character. He's larger than life and very dynamic, not looking at all like someone striking a pose. It alone makes me want to read the story.

To quibble... the serial was a movie serial. And, there was a tv series (never seen it, but those usually weren't serials although the serials themselves would sometimes re-air on tv). Their particular take of "the man out of time" disillusioned with the present isn't really all that different either. That's pretty much the whole point of Marvel's The Twelve. Frankly, that seems almost the obvious take and pretty much patently false. It's looking at the past through rose-colored glasses which may work to an extent if you're a white heterosexual male. The strides we've made (though still a ways to go) in regards to race, gender, religion. There's no jet-packs, but an African American President! There's 100 plus channels on tv. In color. In high definition. We've been to the moon and have a robotic car on Mars. Our telephones can do what machines the size of a room could not do. We can cook a dinner in minutes. Sure, there's bad stuff too. But, this is a man that saw WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. Prohibition and gangsters, Great Depression, the Holocaust, the Atomic bomb, the Red Scare.

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This just in, DC discovers that selling 4 titles a month makes more money than selling 2 or 3 titles a month and making more money is good for business.

 One of the more annoying conversations I sometimes run into is explaining to people that late books is bad for business. It's less product for DC to sell, it's less product for stores to sell which is especially damaging as many stores are largely dependent on their weekly deliveries and new comic sales to make budget. The length of time it took JMS to finish The Twelve, Marvel could have completed the series, had the trades out, a follow-up series or spin-offs with the characters. Instead, it lost all momentum, and a year of lost opportunities. If Frank Quitely or Frank Miller can only put out as half as many books as other creators, do their books sell over twice as well if other artists had been associated with the book? You'd think this would be common sense but  judging by conversations I have had with some fans, common sense is not all that common.

Plus, the evidence suggests that coming out on time and regularly increases the sales each month. Thus a book that comes out on time 12 times a year sells more than just 25% more than one that only managed to eke out 9 issues that year.

Here's another angle. If you have a regular publishing schedule and keep to it, advertisers are more prone to advertise with you. After all, they want to know if they run a Christmas theme ad, the title actually comes out before January. You run a business professionally and it instills confidence in others to do business with you.

www.newsarama.com/comics/new-52-one-year-later-title-title-sales.html

Post-reboot — with the exception of very few titles — DC has been publishing its comics on a strict monthly timeline. While fans may be disappointed by the fill-ins that are required to keep the train running, the sales performance of the overall line is more steady and predictably higher when all the books are shipped each month.

Earth 2

Earth 2: DC has released images coming from their next wave of books, promoting an Earth -2 line. There's the book titled Earth-2 and then a "World's Finest" title featuring Power Girl and Huntress.

Most of the online chatter seems to be about Power Girl's costume redesign. Admittedly, this is a bad design. More uses of armor where it's not needed, extraneous seams for no purpose. I can understand getting rid of the boob window, but editorial mandate for covering the legs but allowing bare arms?  Who is this person in editorial that has a thing against sleeves?

Everybody seems so caught up on her breasts they don't realize the basic change in hers and Helena Wayne's characters that the cover suggests. Power Girl and Huntress were not ashamed of their pedigrees but they still debuted as women who forged their own identities and not to be immediately defined by or serve as reflections of their male mentors. Yet the cover suggests that on this new Earth-2, they were originally Supergirl and Robin. That lessens them more than changing her costume. She's had worse.

It's indicative of a slight double standard and message being sent. Look at the Batman family of books. In addition to Batman, the white men that are or were sidekicks and being featured in books: Robin, Red Robin, Red Hood, Nightwing. Now, the Batman Family book featuring a man of African descent: Batwing. The ones featuring women: Batgirl, Batwoman. All direct reflection of the head of the tamily so to speak. And, now we have a character that originally debuted as a woman with her own identity but honoring the legacies of both mother and father being retconned as once being a sidekick with a white man's former identity.

And, with Power Girl, being her own woman and not riding Superman's coat-tails was part and parcel of the whole point of her. I will probably still check it out. Levitz is the writer who has some history with these characters and artwork's by Perez and Maguire so it will definitely look good.

On that note, it's hard to get optimistic about "Earth-2" by James Robinson. This is an alternate cover and it shows us yet another heavily redesigned Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Speculation is that they are legacies up there, Dick Grayson as Batman and who knows as the other two. Which of course was what his Justice League title was.

Then, there's this little line from the solicits: You may think you know Earth 2…but this is DC Comics – The New 52, where anything can happen!

Ok, the thing is, title something Earth-2 and there are reasonable expectations. Not only that, the whole point of Earth-2 was not simply an alternate Earth with an alternate history. It allowed DC to be new with Barry Allen as Flash, Hal Jordan as Green Lantern while EMBRACING their original history and heritage. It was about KEEPING as much history as they could. Over time, some changes and legacies came in, but it was always about maintaining a sense of history and what went before. You start making wholesale changes, and it's really no different than other titles. Especially right now with a freshly launched DCU. The main titles are already of a new universe that readers are getting acclimated to, including new histories and backgrounds featuring Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. The regular universe is already an "alternate universe" for readers as it's substantially different from what went before. You might be making use of the names and ideas, but it's not really the original characters. It should be noted that while Roy Thomas launched an Earth-2 legacy book in "Infiniti Inc." there was already a title in place and doing alright that was about the originals and history: "All-Star Squadron". Also, that first round of Infinitors, while legacy characters, they were not replacement characters. Like Power Girl and Huntress, they reflected their origins but they were their own identities. The originals were still around. Oh well.

Didn't take too long for them to return to type. The book is not even out yet but is already talked about mattering to the main continuity, that it will tie in to the main continuity down the road. Not a mistake that the cover has them fighting what looks like Parademons.

Meanwhile, that same month, hopefully you're keeping up with what's going on in one of the main Batman books as its plotline will highjack the story across the various Bat-family lines including the Jonah Hex book! So much for not trying to turn away potential new readers.

Also just reported, the re-launch has apparently hurt sales of the trade market. Are they really surprised? The comic book shared-universe business plan is built on a basic model driving sales. 1) The Collector mentality that has fans searching out back issues (and now trades and such)  and driving that 2) Past stories matter. Thus first issue appearances go up in value and highly sought after. The company rarely gets any of that money in the pre-Trade days but it helped their distributors' sales and helps make fans feel like they are part of the club, sharing and seeking after gems at shows and such.


I couldn't help but think at the time after "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and the subsequent reboots that came in the years after, this had to hurt back issue sales somewhat. After all, what does it matter what Krypto's first appearance was if he no longer existed? You have the company basically saying the character doesn't matter. Pre-Crisis Superboy and Supergirl? All the Legion of Super-Heroes reboots? Hawkman? At the time there was no real way to track that kind of effect since the trade market really didn't exist as it does now, but it seemed logical that if new stories weren't potentially fueling interest in the back-market, it would start dying down. The only possible evidence we have of it is the steady demise of the comic stores. One store I go to does a pretty good business on back-issues but he says it's because many stores don't make back-issues a priority any more.


Now, we have a strong trade market, reprinting everything not nailed down. We can see how rebooting and the company basically saying their old stuff doesn't matter can negatively impact sales of that same material, essentially drive down the value of their library. What will they learn from this if anything?

Aquaman already sinking

I was actually looking forward to the Aquaman book. Not crazy about the trident, mind you. Afraid it will be like Bucky and guns. What good is a weapon if he's not going to use it and often? I should listen to my inner voice more often, as this cover for issue 3 shows.

And, my interest just dropped, seeing Aquaman spearing a foe through the chest with blood spurting out in both directions, and on the cover no less. The cover could be just as interesting and far more all-ages appropriate with him just fighting them off with his fists, without the gratuitous depiction of lethal violence BY THE HERO! And, if you don't know what Mera's powers are, you'd have no clue what she's doing in that pic as she doesn't seem to be interacting with that arc of water at all which is taking out a foe she's not even looking at.

Welcome to the new DC, same as the old DC. Bleh. 

Forget a Reboot, can we get a Reset?

I was in Target the other day, getting some dental floss and fishing line, but otherwise browsing. Takes me about 30 minutes, my wife 3 hours and then she can go back in a week. Me? I'm good for a month. Anywho, I'm cutting through the aisles from the back of the store and end up going through stuff for school kids where I see a couple of floppy binders for papers based on comics. One is Wonder Woman. The other is the Justice League. Only, it's a Justice League cover by Perez from 1983! It includes some other marketing artwork from about the same time (judging by the appearance of Starfire). The source of the Wonder Woman artwork is not readily apparent, but the design also places it from about the same time period.

It highlights a problem with much of the DC comics. Here's material marketed for kids. But, it's material from almost three decades ago! Makes sense, because that's the last time that most of these characters still looked iconic. Hawkman hadn't been changed to wearing body armor with mechanical wings. Firestorm hadn't gone through his transformation into a fire elemental, much less other changes. Aquaman hadn't had worn his blue costume much less grown long hair, a beard, lose a hand and become the sour underwater character. Hal Jordan hadn't yet gone crazy and been replaced nor taken on the job of the Spectre. Elongated Man hadn't gone through a succession of bad costumes, was still alive and not more or less replaced by Plastic Man. The Atom was still happily married and the second and latest person to make use of the name.

Marketing obviously recognized something that the people writing the comics don't. Building a brand demands a bit of consistency. Not knocking creativity and trying different things, but there's inherent problems when trying to shake things up and write creative stories. If you go too far, change too much, you weaken the brand. Take Aquaman. When fans talk about what they think it will take to make the character successful and what they want out of the character, it's divided. Some people want the pre-Crisis Aquaman. Others want the Peter David version. In an effort to modernize the character and get away from the jibes the character often gets, the David version ultimately proved polarizing. It was good for short-term sales, but now it's an "either-or" proposition. Despite the acclaim of David's series, the Aquaman that's marketable is the one in orange and green. Kyle Raynor as Green Lantern did the same thing for that franchise. You can see the polarizing of fans over Blue Beetle and Firestorm, only with the added fuel of racism charges if you so happen to like the original versions over the newer ones. Or those that like Morrison's Doom Patrol versus the ones that didn't. Truman and Ostrander's Hawkworld proved to be damaging to the whole concept of the DCU as a shared continuity that the character nor company fully recovered from.

I'm not saying that the modern versions were badly done. But, they were badly thought out. When Superman became the electric blue Superman, it wasn't thought to be permanent. Likewise the death of Superman that launched several new characters. They were temporary changes to the status quos that allowed some character exploration. When John Walker took over the identity of Captain America while Steve became the Captain, it was obviously nothing more than a chapter in the ongoing story. Status quos were reset in about a year's time or less.  Peter David claims that he was going to restore Aquaman's status quo when he was done, but there was no sign of that in the actual book. When Morrison was done with the Doom Patrol, every previous member was dead or completely changed into an unrecognizable character and the team hasn't been able to recover.

DC seemed to recognize that a little bit. Hal Jordan was made Green Lantern again. Barry Allen returned as the Flash. Somewhere, Ray Palmer is the Atom. Recently Aquaman was brought back in his green & orange suit. Hawk and Dove returned. But, for each course correction we get Firestorm struggling out a compromise solution between the Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch fans. PC versions of the Question and Blue Beetle. Roy Harper (Speedy/Arsenal) becoming villainous and a cyborg. Green Arrow killing criminals again, still ruining his relationship with Black Canary. Hawkman maiming opponents. Wonder Woman gets a badly designed costume. Superman and Batman both absent from their core books for extended period of time at the same time. Redesigned and "revamped" versions of the Red Circle and pulp heroes to the point they have little to nothing in common with the source material.

So, I was thinking, "What DC needs is a reboot of all characters to about the 1983 continuity."
I was a bit surprised when it was announced that DC was indeed rebooting their line. With talk of making characters a bit younger, stories accessible. Sadly, it also carried buzzwords like "modern". In fact, what makes sense about saying Jim Lee is going to redesign 52 characters so that they are more modern and recognizable? How do you redesign Wonder Woman, the Flash, Superman or Batman to make them MORE recognizable? The very nature of redesigning an iconic look is the EXACT OPPOSITE of their proposed intent. Then, there's the inherent conflict of goals. Making something modern doesn't make something necessarily recognizable. As I started off with, the problem is that DC has some iconic designs, but they and Hollywood seem intent on moving AWAY from them when what they need to do is move back towards them. The designs of the characters have stood the test of time for decades with minimal tweaking. I have no problem with redesigns, if the character truly needs it. But, the goal shouldn't be MODERN. It should be TIMELESSNESS. There's a reason when talking about character designs, people mention words like "iconic" and "classic". Most costumes are iconic because they are timeless. This usually means there's a simplicity and instantly identifiable and reproducible elements to the costume. Don't know who said it, but a comment I liked was a good costume should generally be akin to one that an eight year old can reproduce in his own drawings. The recent Doom Patrol relaunch had new uniforms for the team, with piping and such. Not bad designs per se, but instantly forgettable in they were not only generic but needlessly busy with extraneous details. When redesigning costumes, one should look at a few factors. Has this costume been worn for two decades or more and do you understand the difference between "classic" and "dated"? Was it designed by Gil Kane/Steve Ditko/Jack Kirby/Dave Cockrum? If the answer is "yes" to either of these, then the answer to redesigning the costume should 95% of the time be "Hell no".

The other problem is that they have ONE artist and writer redesigning the line. On the artist end, it's an artist whose last design has met a lot of resistance and who has yet to produce a design that can be said to stand the test of time. Not to say he isn't talented and produces pretty pictures. But, a less than zero track record. On the writer end... the concept of a "planned" shared universe just doesn't work. Every company that has tried to launch a planned universe with a central vision has ultimately failed. EVERY. ONE. Valiant. Dark Horse. Marvel's New Universe. Malibu (with two different universes). Defiant. DC doesn't even have to look any further than last year with their Pulp and Red Circle launches. Yes, I know. Red Circle was within the context of their regular Universe, but it was still formed, linked and sold on mainly one man's name who had nothing to do with it after creating the bible and the first issues. Not saying go in without a plan. But, what made DC and Marvel work was that it was organic. Continuity was built by telling stories, usually trying not to conflict with events elsewhere. It wasn't about continuity in and of itself. However, launches like this ARE about continuity, even when it's trashing old continuity and establishing new ones. (There actually is ONE exception: Marvel's Ultimate line which is still going strong. However, it's a shared universe that is built on the concept of a previous one, not an all new continuity. Even when it's going somewhere different, it cannot help but be a reflection of the main line. I don't read the comics, but I've never seen any advertising for pushing a NEW character in the Ultimate Universe that didn't already exist elsewhere.) Unless you're Kirby, one creator generally doesn't have that much creative variety in him to really fuel a whole universe. And, even Kirby's Fourth World books didn't succeed.

The first descriptions and covers of the relaunched titles further shows that while they seem to recognize that the line has problems, characters too convoluted and written into corners to the point of not being viable, they don't seem to realize the source of the problem. From indicators, Captain Atom has nothing to do with any previous version, visually or story wise. Striving for a compromise with Firestorm, he is now Ronnie Raymond AND Jason Rusch who are high school buddies. The Hawkman description tells us a little about Carter Hall but not anything about Hawkman himself, other than it seems to be an all new take on the character with some nods to original elements. It was messing with the concepts to begin with that lead to he mess we're in. It's partly why Red Circle and the pulp line failed as it sacrificed built in readership and built in character identification. It's why Target has binders with artwork of the characters as they were 30 years ago. Green Arrow and Mr. Terrific sound like they could be all right, but the redesigns are horrible. The latter looks like he stole a costume from the Emo-LSH and reflects none of the character's legacy and history, but otherwise he didn't need a new universe setting to launch a book. It looks more like change for change sake in his case. Green Arrow's costume looks like it came from Hollywood and is overly busy and looks fated for early shredding and return to a more classic look. The fact that Green Arrow has been written into corners twice now by being taken too far from center and requiring a resetting and looking at what's being solicited with other heroes, doesn't bode well that the creators have learned anything from the past.


If anything, the ability to reboot and reset seems to allow writers the freedom to continually move characters in extreme directions as well as the freedom to just ignore or contradict what a previous creator wrote just last month. Every writer that came along felt the need to redefine or rewrite the origin of Powergirl, Donna Troy. Or a new Legion of Superheroes every couple of years after previous writers kill off several characters. We're not seeing anything in the new reboot that DC has learned from that, instead just the opposite. With new and ugly designs, more casual rewriting of some pasts and leaving some in place (such as Blackest Night), it's setting up for more of the same mistakes they've been making and the problems that have plagued DC since post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. The exact opposite from what they need if the goal is to make the characters memorable. Want them to be memorable, don't make long term lasting changes every time the wind blows. Get back to telling compelling action and adventure stories using continuity as a tool and backdrop but not making the stories be about continuity. The one book that looks the most appealing to me is Aquaman. In part because his costume is the least re-designed although now he seems to be incomplete unless he's carrying a trident weapon, much as Bucky now must always be shown with a gun. Ironically, the title will be by the artist I took to task for not knowing how to draw gloves and drawing his gloves inconsistently from one panel to the next.

The Firestorm description makes me wonder if Blue Beetle will be the same. I think we can safely assume it's NOT going to be Ted Kord, the question is will he still be dead, a mentor to Jaimie or just written out of continuity altogether?

Todays Comics Looking to the Past

Since I probably won't be getting any new comics this week and I've not talked about comics in a little while, here's my chance to plug away.

Captain America: The Patriot: Two issues have come out and I'm conflicted on the book. General consensus on the web seems to be as well. Most seem to praise the artwork over the writing (I guess because Kesel is not Brubaker) whereas I'm a bit the other way around. Kesel does seem to be writing Brubaker-lite, but I think he does an admirable job at writing the history of a man whose history is generally known. He succeeds in doing so without actually changing known facts and keeping the focus and point of view on Jeff Mace and his view of things. The art is passable in most places and is in keeping in toning down the gosh-wow factor of superheroes and their costumes that passes for good superhero art these days as half the artists seem embarrassed at drawing superheroes.

The second issue is where it really begins to falter. The problem is that while it is telling a good character-centric story and makes Jeff Mace seem like a decent and likable lunkhead, it and the art never get across why the characters are cool characters. The highlight of the whole issue is when he gets fed up with Namor's snarkiness and attitude and punches him. There you see his passion. Otherwise, as soon as Mace puts on the Captain America costume he becomes a second-rate hero in his own book. Every story of the fill-in Captain Americas center around why they were bad Captain Americas. As this is his chance to shine, it would be nice that the focus went the other way, why he was such a good choice for Captain America. Maybe the best choice for the time period. There are little bits where he shines such as the afore-mentioned conflict with Namor, but otherwise it is more about his shortcomings.

Other little things that bug me, Kesel seems to forget that the Bucky he's writing is not the original Bucky, at least in the way he writes him. Bucky comes off as a better fighter and hero and constantly berating Patriot-Cap, even though Patriot would have been a superhero for much longer. And, this Bucky has only been Bucky for just a couple of months longer than Jeff has been Cap, so it seems especially strange for Bucky to constantly be talking and acting as if he has so much more experience.

Kesel also uses the term "blue ticketed" to explain the discharge of a friend of the Patriot's and his subsequent suicide and why Jeff cannot appear as Captain America at the guy's funeral. It is also used to explain why Jeff would never become the Patriot again as his appearance and impassioned speech at his friend's funeral in the guise of the Patriot would make that identity a pariah. However, what Kesel doesn't do is explain what "blue ticketed" actually meant. He gives us the effect, but the closest he gets to the cause is the Whizzer asking if his buddy had a girlfriend. A Blue Ticket discharge was a way to get undesirables ie blacks and homosexuals out of the service without it actually being a formal dishonorable discharge and such a discharge haunted the men back in civilian life. Sure, we don't want clunky exposition, but it could have been handled a little better.

One of the pleasures was seeing the focus on Miss Patriot in this series. Appearing only once in the Golden-Age, here and her identity as a fellow co-reporter of Jeff Mace's she plays a central role. From the start of the second issue, we get the hints of bad things to come, that is if you know the history of Captain America and Bucky. After WWII, there was an explosion of good-girl art and characters. Most of them were jungle queens, but Timely/Atlas/Marvel explored shapely female heroines along the lines of Sun Girl and Golden Girl. Thinking that Captain America might do better with an adult female sidekick, Bucky is shot by a lady criminal called Lady Lavender and Cap recruits the help of Golden Girl who is Betty Ross, a long recurring character and possible romantic interest in the Golden-age Captain America tales.

That's a lot of threads being tied together in this one comic. We see Mary/Miss Patriot several times with a mention of her Lavender perfume each time. One discussion even centers around Jeff accusing her of hoping that Bucky is shot so that she could become his partner. Then you factor in that Jeff is generally oblivious of her romantic feelings for him and that he pretty much ruins her career as Miss Patriot when he destroys the Patriot's reputation. Mary's path is obviously becoming a sad tragic one. And, when Bucky is shot at the end of the issue with the smell of lavender in the air, Cap will get a future female partner but it will not be Mary. What we don't really get is the feeling that Mary has gone over the edge. We see her as being sad, but we don't actually see the bitterness. You feel sorry for her but don't see that final step or sign that she has gone over the edge, it's a huge gap in the portrayal of her characterization. It might be Kesel just trying to be coy for just a little too long, or a sign that she's not really the villainess (after all other women probably wear the same perfume). Either way, it's obviously going to be a story that doesn't end well for Jeff or Mary.

DC Universe Legacies #5: I had sworn off this book, didn't get issue four because the writing had so many holes and internal discrepancies in it that it was a chore to read to try to figure out exactly what the point of it was. However, issue five shows this book's perspective of Crisis on Infinite Earth's and with it, the wonderful George Perez doing what he does best: drawing scores of superheroes on model in big battle scenes. Not only that, we get an appearance by one of my favorite wonky silver-age characters Ultra, the Multi-Alien, who was left out of the original mega-mini. Couple that with a great little back-up with art by Walt Simonson teaming up Space Ranger, Adam Strange, Captain Comet and Tommy Tomorrow. Other than Adam Strange, the others don't have much to do, but it's great seeing them again looking the way they should.

And, as I usually come down hard on colorists, this is a book where the colorist gets it. His skin tones are natural and subtle, no obvious banding to the point that under most lighting conditions, people's skin appears only to have two tones, you generally don't have bright highlights on skin. No blurring of speed lines and edges of super-speed characters, no obvious texture fills, etc. In general, no special effect that actually draws attention to itself, the coloring instead serves to help the art to tell the story, something important in artwork that's dense like Perez.

While the writing still makes as little sense as ever (we have references to Judomaster as a modern day hero and Captain Atom in a costume he didn't actually wear in the DCU other than as part of government cover-up suggesting a career that was longer than it was), it's at least a book that looks good.
JSA #43: It read like a setup issue by a writer who is not the regular writer of either principle character of the story or title with a plot that has similarities to the upcoming story arc by the new regular writer, the JSA take over the running of a town. Just as Robinson's JLA/JSA arc featured heavily Obsidian going bad/being taken control of immediately after a series culminating with Obsidian stating that would never happen again. Serious, what is the editor doing on this book?

I think part of this was to actually give some kind of reason that Robinson's storyline mattered. Because, otherwise, it's no big deal that Obsidian and Jade cannot be in proximity because other than their days as part of Infiniti Inc, they rarely are featured together, each following different paths and teams. And, she's been dead. So, he needed this bit of durm und strang to make it seem like what just happened was this really big deal. However, just how much time has passed between issues? For everything that Alan Scott has done on the moon it would have to be close to a year at least, that he's been able to master talking to different races in their speech patterns, broker truce treaties with various worlds and realms AND research with Fate Obsidian and Jade's condition and the various futures.

Project Superpowers: Chapter Two #12: The final issue of the second series, the big Claw battle seems almost like an afterthought. In many ways it's a retread of the previous battle with Zeus, the heroes fighting a giant god-like being that they don't have the power to kill. The Claw battle has a bit more of a philosophical/moral dilemma in that his body is made up of innocents and thus to defeat him means killing or condemning thousands of people who don't deserve to die, drawing parallels to dropping the Atomic bomb to end the war with Japan. It's an anti-climactic ending though. Part of that was rendering the heroes ostensibly immortal and another that the Claw is such an ill-defined threat. And, you have the heroes apparently readily accepting Dynamic Man and Power Nelson into the folds despite their traitorous crimes.

In Chapter One and the Death Defying Devil minis, the Claw was a terrorist organization and an almost demonic entity that possessed others. It was a storytelling device that could have been used to fuel quite a few different type of stories or a long series in and of itself ala the mostly excellent JSA vs Kobra mini. But, much of that is dropped in making him a more physical threat. He goes from some kind of long plan insidious goals to one of more direct physical confrontation and easily handled. The actual terror of what he is and what he does doesn't really come across as it has been too far into the background of the storyline that focused more on Zeus and the identity of DDD. What could have been a heart and gut wrenching tale is ho-hum. After all, the Claw only absorbed one person we could even possibly care about.

The drawing AND the coloring improve. In a book like this, cannot really separate the two, but for the most part, the two do merge to make single whole. Although, the style has its shortcomings such as a page that has a 15 panel grid of single heroes in battle. The panels are too small, the detail needed too tight for such over done coloring.

Time Masters: Vanishing Point: The mini suffers from not having any clear direction or plot. We know the over-arcing plot, that the small group of heroes are traveling through time to rescue Batman. But, as his return is the focus of another book, that's obviously not the point of this one. So, instead, we have a battle alongside heroes of other times against other ill-defined threats. Meanwhile some classic mastermind villains are exploring the remains of Booster's headquarters, Vanishing Point, for some clues and power to reshape time. Despite these villains each being scientific masterminds, they are give little to do. The Ultra-Humanite is used mainly to being a short-tempered foil and for his brute strength. Jurgens does little to really explain or characterize many of the characters, some of whom who haven't appeared in comics for decades.

With the second issue, I noticed the art looked off. It looked a bit like Jurgens but it seemed to be more of all of his shortcomings and not his strengths, that bodies looked stiff and disproportionate, reminding me of bad Jim Starlin in places. I looked at the credits and saw that Jurgens was only the layout artist and with two different finishers, explaining the inconsistencies. With issue three, we still just have Jurgens on layouts but at least only one guy doing the finished art. However, it still looks like "bad Jurgens" art. One of the big problems is that with both issues, the art is trying hard to have all the principle characters with their bodies facing the reader. Heroes are constantly fighting threats behind them and looking over their shoulders, having conversations while not facing each other, and so on. One panel has Booster and Starfire talking about being surrounded. Not only are they hardly surrounded, but half of their foes are not even looking at them. It looks more like a group of people just milling around than any kind of threat. The one good news is that either the coloring is not as bad with the computerized effects or it just distracts you from it.

And, why is the Black Beetle almost completely red?

The only reason to get this book is the chance to see Bronze-age characters like Claw and the original Starfire, Despero and Per Degaton in their original looks. For that, I'm a sucker.

Peter Cannon, Whereforth Art Thou?
The story goes that shortly after DC canceled his series and he made a couple of appearances in Justice League Task Force, the rights to Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt returned to his creator Peter Morisi, shortly before he died. As such, he was the only character that was part of a Justice League book to not appear in the JLA/Avengers mini. Of course, there was some justification that that the heroes that appeared in Task Force were never actual JL members and so didn't require an appearance, but he is still the sole notable exception. Even Hourman from the same story was in there.

However, we have Thunderbolt appearing in TWO different DC books this past month. One, alongside the other Charlton heroes in DCUniverse: Legacies #5 which admittedly has other problems in the same panel: the WWII Judomaster and Captain Atom appearing in his red, blue and silver outfit when he wasn't really on the scene at this time, in this costume, both being government fabrications. Meanwhile in Justice League: Generation Lost, we have a retelling of the scene in Kingdom Come where the Charlton heroes alongside Magog track down the Parasite who uses his powers to split open Captain Atom and setting off an atomic explosion and is pretty much the kick-off event of that mini. In the comic, Thunderbolt is identified by name and is show in the more GA Daredevil influenced costume.

Makes you wonder what is going on. Do we have two blatant examples of editors just not doing their jobs and allowing the exact same copyright infringement? Is the original story about the character's rights reverting to Morisi just a comicbook legend? Did DC buy the character back? Of the three, I'd say the latter is the most unlikely. Why buy the rights back and debut him back into the DCU in what are largely throwaway scenes where the character does absolutely nothing? Either of the other two are the most likely though it's strange to see him appear in two completely different books out of the blue. But, no love for the Son of Vulcan (I like the name, design and concept of the character, his actual comic though was beyond bad).
Black Terror Canceled. Been seeing references that the Black Terror book has been canceled. A shame but not surprising. The book never gelled, the plotlines and the stories never actually developed the character other than to add kewl pirate motif elements. What could have been a decent book about a super-powered Batman type character fighting super-criminals and bizarre mysteries never became anything more than a book about a perpetually angry and gruff hero. No supporting cast or characterization was developed over just following up plot threads left over from the Superpowers book itself. A shame as I believe Dynamite was right in focusing on him as a character to launch a single character title. He has one of the more iconic costumes, names and storytelling potential. If only they had approached it as they were telling a single character comic and not a "comic universe" comic and actually looked at the source material that made him such an enduring character and concept to begin with and not just the revisionist ill-tempered Black Terror of Superpowers.

The Return of the Originals: On the subject of pulps, I have started my own blog reviewing various pulp novels and characters. So far, two entries. One, a Secret Agent "X" novel and two, the Doc Savage rift Thunder Jim Wade and his final novel. This blog started off as a pulp and comic review site, but it's difficult to do both subjects justice in one place. Plus, the overlap may not be all that great as many fans and readers of pulps don't translate to being fans of modern comics, as we will see below.

Moonstone is getting ready to launch what they call the "Return of the Originals", ie seeing many of the original pulp heroes into their line of comicbooks. They've already been using Domino Lady although the first issue failed to me in any way other than just being badly done and the Spider has been appearing in some illustrated prose "comics". They have also published a couple of really good books, one being radio scripts of Doc Savage written by Lester Dent and an Avenger anthology of short-stories by modern writers, most of whom get the character far better than anyone at DC does (it could have used an editor overseeing the original stories as many centered around introducing various characters from Richard Benson's past).

This website has a host of interviews with people involved in reprinting and writing modern pulp stories and comics as well as many of the people behind Moonstone's upcoming foray (you'll have to scroll down to get to them).

One of the standard questions they ask is how the interviewee feels about DC's take on Doc and the Avenger and modern revisions/reimaginings of the characters. It's almost funny at the spin that each writer gives as they are all doing pretty much the same thing to different degrees. I give Hopkins a break with the Golden Amazon because she did have a couple of different irreconcilable back-stories. Sort of like the Alec Baldwin Shadow movie which tries to combine both the radio Shadow and the pulp Shadow into one character. The creators behind the Green Ghost and the Phantom Detective both talk about using as much of the original published history as possible. But, both decide to give them powers. While the writer of the Moon Man changes the gender of his chief assistant for no good reason (there's already a capable love interest in the original stories).

The Ghost gets his new powers through a new mask and the Phantom Detective gains abilities through using performance enhancing (and mind altering drugs). What's really funny about this is the Phantom Detective writer brings out all sorts of psycho-babble to justify it, that he feels he's being made obsolete due to the explosion of costumed heroes with real powers. This is sorta true meta-fictionally. The pulp heroes did give way to the costumed comicbook heroes. In fact, the Phantom Detective was also in the comics as his publisher was one of the big companies at the time. HOWEVER, Moonstone does not have that superhero-universe. There are no true super-powered heroes bursting on the scene unless this writer creates them. Plus, it's a flawed argument in that the presence of superheroes does not make police, soldiers, firemen and detectives superfluous. It's a writer that truly does not get the character or subject matter.

Likewise, the interview concerning the Black Bat goes along the same lines. The character debuted the same time as Batman with a similar look. More importantly though, his origin was pretty much lifted for both Dr. Mid-nite and Two-Face, at a trial he has a vial of acid thrown at his face which scars him (and leaves him blind). After a secret experimental surgery, he discovers he can see in the day and night and with a small gang of aides, he fights crime. He's not above killing criminals especially the ringleaders beyond the touch of the Law, but he doesn't set out to kill them. Of course in the one online preview, we see him killing drug dealers execution style and driven by voices in his head. Yet, this complete revision of the character isn't seen as being the same as Azzarello's handling of Doc Savage? Maybe it's because they talk about how much they love the characters vs his professed disdain of the source material.

What's sad is that this was not their approach to the Phantom. They wrote the character as he was classically but with modern threats and credibility. The character stayed in keeping with the way he was portrayed in the strips. You could go from their comic to the newspaper to old reprints and still see character as being completely recognizable, that you're obviously reading about the same character. But, their interviews are along Ross' and Dynamite's promos and talking about their Phantom comic. "Here's how much I love the character, so I'm going to change all this stuff about him."

Secret Agent "X" is about the only one we know that's going to be appearing that they haven't talked about. "X" has a lot of potential, especially as his past is a complete mystery so there's plenty that could be developed. However, based on what we've seen so far, I expect a lot to be changed concerning what the character already is.

A little interesting tidbit, the principle characters we know are being used, this is not their first time in the comics. As noted, the Phantom Detective appeared in the Golden-age comics, mostly intact. Secret Agent "X", Black Bat, and Captain Future all had their first stories pretty much straight-forwardly adapted though they all became Phantom Fed "X", the Mask, and Major Mars (the Captain Future id was used by a "standard" superhero). The Moon Man also made it into comics but with a name and costume change to that of the Raven. The Ghost got re-imagined in comics as superhero magician with true magic powers, dumping much of his pulp influences.

The comic store I frequent actually has several pulp fans, about five I think. Plus, he just got one more whose tastes seem to mirror mine own in modern comics only he gets even fewer than I do. However, he's only getting one issue each of these books and it's not going on the shelf. As the longest customer apart from the owner, more than likely I'll get first refusal. But, it doesn't speak well when the books don't even seem designed to appeal to those who should be their most core basic audience. Especially considering that pulp reprints are fairly popular these days and very pricey. If we're willing to spend $12-$16 for a forty year old reprint, we might be very willing to buy a comic for a fraction of that price if it at least played fair with us instead of pulling a bait and switch.