Inglourious Marvels

After seeing Inglourious Basterds twice in four days, I found I really had a hankering to write about something World War II related (I’d love to see a comic series that fills in some of the Basterds’ adventures in occupied France –after all, they were there for three years, and we only got a glimpse of their exploits!). I soon remembered that I had intended to discuss the new Ed Brubaker/Steve Epting miniseries The Marvels Project, but somehow got sidetracked. Now, the first issue of this eight-part mini takes place in the years leading up to America’s involvement in WWII, but it is about both sides in the coming conflict trying to beat the other in the race to create super-powered soldiers. Close enough for government work, right?

The Captain America team of Brubaker and Epting reunite for a story that, because of the title, seems to often get mistaken for some sort of prequel or follow-up to Marvels, which isn’t exactly right. The title is, I believe, meant to evoke the Manhattan Project, although the weapon being developed here is the superhuman, not the A-Bomb. If anything, The Marvels Project resembles Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier, as it weaves several familiar origin stories—Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, and the original Human Torch, to name a few--together into a newly interconnected tapestry. However, the bulk of the story so far comes to us via a much more obscure character—Dr. Thomas Holloway, who will eventually be known as the Avenging Angel.

As the story begins, Holloway is working in a New York hospital, where he has befriended a dying old man named Matt Hawk, who longtime Marvel readers will know as the western hero Two-Gun Kid. Hawk tells Holloway of his journey to a future time filled with costumed, super-powered adventurers…stories that Holloway initially dismisses as senile delirium. Marvel aficionados know better, though; during an Avengers run in the late Seventies, the Two-Gun Kid was transported to the “present” for a run of several issues. So, in talking of the future to Holloway, Hawk plants the seeds of that very future, which is, to him, the past. Really, it’s not as confusing as it sounds, I promise. As to the somewhat confusing redesigns of the Marvel heroes in the above illustration...I assume that this is supposed to represent how Holloway pictures the people Hawk described in his adventure (presumably he didn't take snapshots).

Meanwhile, FDR is troubled to learn of a mysterious German scientific initiative known as Project Nietzsche. The President also hears about Professor Horton’s attempts to create a synthetic man who, unfortunately, bursts into flame when exposed to oxygen. In the Sargasso Sea, a Nazi battleship that is collecting dead Atlanteans for scientific research runs afoul of a very pissed-off Prince Namor, and in Germany, a scientist named Professor Erskine plans to defect to the United States with the help of an American G.I. named Nick Fury.

The fascinating alternate history Ed Brubaker posits in The Marvels Project doesn’t contradict the existing Marvel timeline so much as it nudges several details closer together. The result is a tale of military and scientific intrigue that, while utterly fantastical, seems almost plausible in its understated delivery. Steve Epting’s gritty, Buscema-esque art keeps the whole thing grounded in a recognizable reality, one that occasionally explodes with feats of superheroic unreality like Namor’s vengeance upon the Nazis or the Human Torch’s escape from his subterranean prison.

Colourist Dave Stewart really makes Epting’s work pop off the page in a way that regular Captain America colourist Frank D’Armata never quite seems to.  The first issue may seem a bit slow-moving in today’s event-driven marketplace, but it lays the foundation for a pretty epic storyline. However, if you have any patience left over after all the Civil Wars and Secret Invasions, this is one Project that is most definitely worthy of further study. 
 

Archie Sunday: Window Dressing

This is the funniest Archie gag I've seen in years:

And it's only from 1959!

Compare and Contrast: Castle of the Devil

This has been a good year for Solomon Kane fans: the excellent new Castle of the Devil series from Dark Horse, followed by a collection of all of the Kane tales from the old Conan series and another collection coming up, full of the 80s Marvel comic. Good times abound.

Back to Castle of the Devil. As I've already confessed, I straight up bought this series twice - I am a sucker for nice looking trades with extra material. I knew that the series was based on a five paragraph story fragment from right about the time that Robert E. Howard got really into writing about Conan and (oh, woe!) pretty much abandoned Solomon Kane. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal for adapters, actually: Howard sets things up and you can finish the story how you wish without excessive nit-picking.

Anyway, given how much I liked Castle of the Devil, I was very interested to see that there was another adaptation of/expansion on it in the Saga of Solomon Kane trade that I picked up a couple of weeks ago. I've never actually been able to track down a copy of the fragment (especially weird given that Howard's work is kinda sorta tenuously in the public domain) but I think that we can piece together just what the authors of these diverse stories had to work with with a little of the old compare and contrast (with a little help from the Wikipedia summary of the fragment, of course).

Okay, so both tales feature Solomon Kane, of course. The Sword Against Sorcery, the meanest Puritan since Cromwell or that one guy from the Baroque Trilogy. Also featured is John Silent, a decidedly non-Puritan Englishman and rogue whose favourite expression is "Name of the devil!":

I like the second a bit better. "Foppish rogue" just isn't as fun as regular rogue.

The story begins with Solomon Kane finding a young boy hanging from a gibbet. Don't worry, though, as he gets there in time to cut the lad down and save his life. Here's the Dark Horse hanging:

And here's Marvel's offering:

You know, I'm going to venture a guess: I'll bet that the Howard text just says "a youth". Either that or this issue of Savage Sword of Conan hadn't yet reached its Naked Lady Quota and they were scrambling to fit just one more page worth in.

So, having rescued the... youth, Kane strikes out for the titular Castle of the Devil to have a few words with the local Baron about his practices. he meets up with John Silent along the way and takes the opportunity to engage in a bit of tough talk and show off just how badass he is:

Okay, now this is where I think that things start getting speculative. I reckon that Howard mentioned that the Baron had some sort of crazy idol that he had an unhealthy relationship with. Marvel went with a standard giant devil guy:

It's pretty evil - I definitely wouldn't trust a guy who worshipped anything with that many spikes adorning its head - but it doesn't even compare to the super-creepy Guy Davis creation that Dark Horse offered up:

There might have been a little note, something along the lines of "Boy, it would be kind of cool if the Baron turned into a monster at some point, huh?"

And I reckon that Robert E. must have made it plenty clear that John Silent likes the ladies:

Like to a wildly inappropriate degree. Finish rescuing her first, John! You need to concentrate! On something that isn't boobs!

What I will guarantee you, though, is that there is absolutely no physical description of the Baron himself in the fragment. Like, nothing. I know this because, well look for yourself:

On the one hand, an elderly, robed figure with a Persian wife and an air of learning.

And on the other hand, a Sergent Rock-style Nazi with goat feet.

Goat feet! Monocle! Crew cut!

I don't know what else to say!

Anyway, I have finished. I think that we have managed to ferret out the truth, you and I. And I got to use that picture of Baron Nazi Goatfoot, which was my whole goal.

Good night!

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night, No Comics Shall Escape John's Sight

Hey, I just had a great idea! Next Summer DC could have a big event called Brightest Day, in which everything goes just swell!

Blackest Night: Superman No. 1 (of 3)

Urgh. There’s technical about this comic that renders it any worse than the Batman version last week, but somehow big cosmic-style event stuff happening to Smallville just skeezes me out. Like, Millennium was not by any means a masterpiece but it definitely hit its lowest point when they did the Superman tie-in and were all like “and by the way, there’s a giant Manhunter spaceship right over there and everyone under thirty is a Manhunter and hey, here’s Manhunter Lana Lang!” It just doesn’t work for me - Smallville is a perfect for smaller adventures (alien invasions by five or fewer aliens, theft-based crime, etc) or as a jumping-off point to more exciting places (the future, the past, space, everywhere else) but giganto world-shaking things just don't work as well there. Hell, set two or three modern-style events there and there won’t be a Smallville anymore, just a series of craters and bits of wood.

I’m also having a hard time reconciling this series with the start of Adventure last week. Does this take place beforehand? Is Smallville an idyllic small-town wonderland even after wholesale zombie-slaughter? Or does it take place at the same time and the rest of the Adventure run will mostly feature Superboy rescuing traumatized people who wander out into traffic whilst having flashbacks? Maybe Blackest Night will end up only kind of happening, like Countdown.

Ah well. As I said, it ain’t a bad comic on its technical merits. Of particular note is the effective use of the “Black Lanterns can see your emotions, well, seven of them” convention. Superman’s arm is afraid!

ZOMBIE WATCH: Earth-2 Superman, Earth-2 Lois Lane.

Superman Annual No. 14

Hey, uh, wasn’t the secret origin of Mon-El the top story in the last year's Action Comics annual? I will be highly amused if this is just a reprint of that story. (reads comic)

Okay, it’s okay. This issue was concerned with his secret origin before he touched down in Smallville and is largely focused on reconciling the happy-go-lucky good-time exploratoring Daxamites of Mon-El’s origin story with the xenophobic jerkwads of Sodam Yat’s. And, much like in the old “Hey, why are the Klingons all lumpy-headed in Next Generation when they just had severely receding hairlines before?” question of yore, the answer is basically “Uh, there are two different types. But only one type that we’re going to use from now on.”

Eh, it’s a decent story and a valiant attempt to retcon things so that all of the divergent bits of DC history match up (hey, does this finally remove the Daxamites from the Invasion! equation? Aren’t they the reason that Earth won?), though wouldn’t it have been easier to say that Lar Gand’s spaceship was slower-than-light and that he came from an earlier, more tolerant age on Daxam? Coulda cleared everything up in a couple of panels and devoted the rest of the Annual to him beating up Captain Nazi or someone. I’m just saying, is all.

Batgirl No. 1

I think that the fact that there would be a new Batgirl in this series was pretty broadly telegraphed, right? I'm not going to be surprising anyone by talking about it here? Okay (or SURPRISE!). I was kind of hoping that it would end up being Misfit from Birds of Prey (and will we ever get to find out what her DARK SECRET was?) but bad news: it’s not Misfit.

I guess that my personal code of ethics dictates that I not spill the beans until Issue 2 is already out, but it’s not like it’s hard to figure out - the potential Batgirl pool isn’t terrifically huge. I can’t even think of enough teenage girl martial artists to make an effective joke about someone really unlikely being considered for the job. How old is Judomaster? Or, uh...  Ah well. If it really matters to you, bring it up in the comments section (linkcmeo)

I know that it’s basically a cliché by this point, but the Bat-family is just super reluctant to admit that anybody else is at all capable of being a vigilante in Gotham, based on… the fact that they were there first? (so in a perfect world Alan Scott should be showing up and giving Batman a hard time?) It feels like I’ve read the scene where someone gets home from fighting crime only to have Batman or Robin or whoever show up to give them a a stern talking-to about a million times. They really need to just start assuming that new guys are going to show up every once in a while and have some gift baskets made up. It’s not like trying to dissuade them has ever worked, not even on Nite-wing.

The Red Circle: The Web (One-Shot)

I suspected that this would be the Red Circle comic that I enjoyed the most. So far I’m right, and I don’t think that the Shield is going to knock this one out of the top spot.

Let’s see… the Archie Comics Web was a Batman-style vigilante with a web-gun and (eventually) a disapproving wife. The Impact Web was a SHIELD-style spy organization who kept a beady eyeball on the super-types. This Web is a billionaire industrialist who is driven by dissatisfaction with his life and a desire to do something meaningful to start a website offering up his services as a super-hero. So... Iron Man plus Iron Fist?

I like the idea of a hero who, as the Web does, focuses on helping folks with day-to-day stuff rather than haring off after alien invasions and so forth, as DC heroes so frequently end up doing (heck, Mr Grim n' Gritty Street Crime himself got killed by the eye-beams of a semi-dead alien god). There should really be half a dozen of these guys per city, just busting muggers 24/7. Just like, some big guy with a wrench who you get in touch with through a number you find written on a phone booth wall and you have to buy him a sandwich to help you.

Power Girl No. 4 - Man, how’d I miss that Terra miniseries last year? I have to assume that she was just as fun there as she is here and kick myself a little for having missed it (I don’t think that there’s a non-creepy-sounding way to say this, but the fact that she takes her pants off as a substitute for having her costume with her is pretty adorable. But not creepy-adorable, I swear. Look, just read it and see what I mean). Guess I know where some of my nickels are going next week. As for the issue: yeah! More one-off (kinda) issues where PG’s life and supporting cast get built up! More of that cat! This is a good time!

The Brave and the Bold No. 26 - Man, I don’t know anything about Xombi. I gather that he’s some sort of techno-immortal and that he spends a lot of time getting involved with the supernatural, but that’s about it. Anyway, yeah. Xombi and the Spectre team up to fight a ghostly serial killer. Also, the Spectre was the one who made him a ghost, oops. I liked this one - decent story, nice art and colours, lotsa ghosts. I was, however, left with one important question: is the Spectre allowed to shave? Because man, that goatee looked pretty dapper on Crispus Allen but is not doing a thing for everyone’s favourite spirit of vengeance.

Atomic Robo: The Shadow From Beyond Time No. 4 (of 5) - Weep with me, for this latest Atomic Robo miniseries is almost over. Cheer with me, as Robo and Carl Sagan team up to capture and study the latest iteration of the creature that ate HP Lovecraft’s head. Laugh with me, because this is a damn funny comic, with some very good tough-guy lines from Sagan in particular. Fret with me, because another month must pass before we can find out how this whole thing ends.

North 40 No. 2 - I know, I know, it came out a couple of weeks ago. I missed it then, though, which is a shame because this is still a damn fine comic. I get the feeling that it’s going to be really satisfying to read a whole lot of this story at a time, so everybody be sure to buy lots of ‘em, if not for me and my need for this series to continue then for the entertainment value of watching a guy with a whole lot of extra eyes drink lots of coffee.

Superman/Batman No. 63 - Yeah, Dave really did a number on me. I can’t resist this damn comic. Now I’ve got like sixty back issues to check out. The man is a master salesman!

Viking No. 3 - Vikings. Gratuitous sex and violence. Adorable kittens. Is this something that you can afford to miss?

Invincible No. 65 - And we're back to lots of interesting stuff happening in Invincible! Hope it keeps up for a little while, as constant bloody fighting was fun but not as fun as constant bloody world-building. Also, lots of hate mail about the "death" of Atom Eve. Also also, Atom Eve all but explicitly states that she made her boobs bigger when she put herself back together, and that's creepy.

I also picked up The Complete K Chronicles this week, though the indicia says that it was released in 2008, so that’s not exactly a new release. Still: a super fun comic and a steal at 25 bucks for, like, 500 pages. Now I must wait for more.

Our Contest Winner

I am going to apologize here for my almost complete absence from posting on this blog lately. The last few weeks have been completely nuts.

I want to announce our contest winner! Based on a random draw, ScottyQuick is the winner of our Third Anniversary Contest! Scotty will receive autographed copies of Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke and The War at Ellsmere by Faith Erin Hicks, a fantastic two-pack of comics by Nova Scotia-based comic book stars. Congratulations Scotty! Be sure to send me an email with your mailing info to rachellegoguen at gmail dot com.

To everyone else, I think in a week or so things will have settled down enough for me to get back to blogging regularly. In the meantime, of course, Tiina, Dave and Johnathan are throwing down some awesome posts.

My Back Pages

My gal-pal Hillary walked in on me rummaging through the bedroom closet earlier this evening, frantically rooting through boxes of comics in a vain attempt to find something, anything, to blog about. “What are in all those bags up there?” she asked, pointing to the closet’s top shelf. I told her that they were mostly filled with my original art for various minicomics I’d done over the years, plus a lot of other projects that burst into flames on the runway (in other words, I got distracted and abandoned them partway through). Looking through them, I stumbled across something cool that I thought I’d lost in a move years ago—the first original page of comic art I’d ever purchased. It’s the final page of issue twelve of Legends of the DC Universe, the now-defunct anthology title from the late Nineties. This two-part tale, written by Christopher Priest and drawn by Ken Lashley, starred the Silver Age incarnation of the Justice League of America. I bought it from the issue’s inker, Ron Boyd, at my first ever comics convention in Toronto in 1999. I was determined to come home from that con with a piece of original art, and was pretty stoked that I had purchased a page featuring Green Lantern, the Flash, and Zatanna for a pretty reasonable sum. It's a swell page featuring a good old-fashioned cliffhanger ending. However, at some point, it got packed away into a bag, thrown onto a pile, and more or less forgotten. Here it is...

...and, just for fun, here's the final, coloured page as it appears in the comic:

Looking at this page, two things became quickly apparent to me. First, I really should get this framed and put up on the wall one of these days before I forget about it again. Second, it’s a bit of a relic, which makes me sad. If you were to buy a page from just about any comic published today, it would look quite a bit different. The lettering in the word balloons on this page is pasted on, whereas today it never physically appears on the original art—it’s added in digitally. The artwork on this page doesn’t make the usual allowances for digital colouring that you would normally see, leaving areas blank for computerized trickery and the like. Lots of pages are now digitally inked, or not inked at all as computer colours are sometimes applied directly to the scanned pencils. At some point, it’s conceivable that the very concept of original pages for sale might be a thing of the past, what with you kids and your Photoshop and your Wacom tablets and so on. This bums me out a bit, since I really love looking at a page of original art and seeing notes to the inker scrawled in the borders, or a telltale spot of liquid paper where somebody made a goof, or the little brown spot where a teensy bit of coffee got spilled. These little touches are what I love the most about seeing original comic pages—all the various layers of interference between creator and fan disappear. You’re no longer reading a comic, you’re looking at a drawing somebody did.

I love that, after a lifetime of reading and enjoying comics, there’s always a new angle to appreciate them from—even if it’s of the wistful, things-were-better-in-my-day variety. I’m heading up to Toronto for the Hobbystar Fan Expo later this month, pretty much exactly ten years after I bought this page. I’m hoping that when I get there, I’ll find lots of cool original art for sale. I also hope, once I’ve financially recovered from the trip, to get that damn Legends of the DC Universe page (with its newfound relevance—Hal Jordan and Barry Allen are, after all, back in action these days) finally framed and put on the wall!