I found a Barry Allen story I liked

On my plane ride back from Comic-Con International in San Diego on Sunday night, I re-read Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn and Mark Waid’s 12-issue JLA: Year One from 1998 in its entirety. It’s not the first time I’ve done this; JLA: Year One is one of my favorite trades I own and a story I like to revisit at least once a year for various reasons.

First, it’s wonderfully written as Waid doesn’t just turn in great work per usual, but is wonderfully complimented by Augustyn, who also helped steer his awesome Flash run as both an editor and co-writer. You won’t find many stories that better balance varied action with heartfelt character development while also throwing in resolutions and twists both clever and perfectly “comic book-y” in their fun goofiness.

Second, it’s Barry Kitson at his finest, and that’s saying a lot as I love Barry Kitson. He’s an artist who seems equally comfortable with Silver Age square-chinned heroism and bizarre sci fi flourishes as he is with modern dynamic storytelling and effects, so he’s the ideal choice to bring the tales of the original Justice League from the 1960’s into the present.

(At this point I guess I should note that JLA: Year One is the then-definitive and expanded telling of the Justice League’s first 12 months together with the post-Crisis On Infinite Earths, pre-Infinite Crisis/Final Crisis/New 52 continuity of Black Canary replacing Wonder Woman as a founding member as well as Superman and Batman’s roles having been minimized)

Third, it’s a giant Easter Egg fest with all my favorites from around the DC Universe dropping by in guest roles or cameos so Kitson can draw them, Waid and Augustyn can shoot them some dialogue, and you can get a sense where everything fits. The Justice Society, Superman, Doom Patrol and Green Arrow all get significant screen time—particularly the DP in an awesome two-parter—but there’s also nice bits for everybody from Batman to the original Blue Beetle, plus a funny little subplot with the Blackhawks and little in-jokes involving Ted Kord, Maxwell Lord and others.

Fourth and foremost (so I guess it should have been first), I love stories about super heroes coming together as allies and becoming friends along the way, putting the concept of a shared universe to full use. The five member JLA—Aquaman, Black Canary, Flash, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter—start the series as tentative associates, but have their bonds forged, tested, broken and solidified several times over. I’ve always had a soft spot for team books in comics because I love camaraderie, and I’m a sucker for series like this or Joe Casey and Scott Kolins’ Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes where they take legendary groups that initially had pretty cut and dry “we’re teaming up to fight” origins back in the day and inject some heart and pathos.

However, this time around, I discovered yet another reason this is a great piece of work: It made me really like Barry Allen.

I think my negative feelings toward Barry Allen have become exaggerated over time, both by myself and others. I don’t hate Barry Allen, he’s just obviously not my Flash and as such I’m somewhat predisposed to look at him a bit negatively. I’m not against Barry Allen so much as I’m against anything that prevents Wally West from being the A-1 Fastest Man Alive and thus his flaws stand out to me.

My biggest knocks against Barry have always been that he was kind of bland and his heyday and also that his death was an amazing story but one that rendered him such an untouchable beacon of heroism that as a living character he becomes tough to relate to.

The first note is really a product of the period he was created in more than anything else; as the very first major hero of the Silver Age, Barry predated the more three-dimensional characters that would fill the next couple decades and thus emerged as a weird hybrid of stoic Golden Age champion and nerdy 50’s era science protagonist. He remained this way up through the 80’s and then missed out on getting reinvented the way most of his contemporaries did because he was the big Crisis sacrifice. Geoff Johns has already made inroads in updating Barry with a personality more compelling to a modern reader, but he had an uphill battle; I’m actually thinking the upcoming reboot will helps Barry perhaps more than many as being a couple years younger and having a cleaner slate could really benefit his development.

Then there’s that big Crisis sacrifice I mentioned. Barry Allen literally gave his life to save the multiverse by running so fast he destroyed the Anti-Monitor’s big ass weapon. You can’t really top that as a final act. He was perfectly cast from that point forward as the patron saint of the DC Universe; the role model Wally West can never really live up to and the hero of heroes everybody else speaks of in glowing reverential tones. It’s hard to pull a guy like that down from the heavens and have everybody treat him as just a dude again.

But in JLA: Year One, Barry Allen is years away from saving the multiverse and also anything but bland.

The cast in JLA: Year One is roughly analogous to the cast of a high school movie/TV show; Green Lantern is the cocky jock, Black Canary is the hot girl with an attitude, and Aquaman and Martian Manhunter represent the two stereotypes of foreign exchange student: brooding loner and well-meaning outcast. Barry Allen is the nice guy who lacks the bluster of GL, but is more confident than J’onn and more comfortable than Aquaman; Black Canary shows a romantic interest in him because he’s clearly the most well-adjusted and likeable of her options. If JLA: Year One were The Breakfast Club, Barry would be about halfway between Emilio Estevez and Anthony Michael Hall, which happens to be exactly where I think most readers—certainly myself—would identify themselves (Hal Jordan is halfway between Estevez and Judd Nelson).

Waid and Augustyn retain the heart of Barry’s Silver Age incarnation by showing his work life and having him display his scientific knowledge, but they don’t let his—for lack of a better term—nerd side define him. It’s not hard to figure out why a bombshell like Iris West is interested in him as while he may be chronically tardy, he is demonstratively caring and considerate toward her, not closed off and cerebral with a love interest just because the formula dictated it. Likewise, the dynamic between Barry and Hal makes sense; they may have different personalities, but they also have a starting commonality in this super hero life and look out for one another. I like the scene where Barry super speed paints a machine Hal needs to move yellow to blue so GL won’t be embarrassed that his ring won’t work on it, not because he’s trying to win the cool guy’s affection but because he’s a nice guy and they’re genuinely becoming friends; it’s a little thing, but it makes him more human.

The romantic subplot between Flash and Black Canary is one I enjoy as well. For one, the cool girl gravitating towards the soft spoken gentleman as opposed to the bombastic loudmouth will always be a winner with the geek crowd. But Barry’s end does a lot to flesh him out as well. Of course he’s attracted to the gorgeous girl he can talk to about the things he needs to hide from his fiancée and who is expressing interest in him over the more obvious choices; again, he’s only human. That he weakens, that they share a kiss, builds the drama but also adds a layer of vulnerability and flaw to him that he never had in his original incarnation; that he ultimately chooses Iris makes him a guy we still look up to.

But without a doubt my favorite scene really in the entire series is when the entire team is on the verge of breaking up despite the threat of an alien invasion looming because they feel like they can’t trust each other, as they’re going their separate ways Flash pulls off his mask and then it flips to a full splash page close-up of his face with him saying “My name is Barry Allen. I’m a forensic scientist with the Central City Police Department.” The rest follow suit, revealing their identities, and then the Justice League charge off to save the day.

It’s not running to his death on a treadmill of doom to save countless universes, but it’s still the turning point moment and it’s still The Flash who gets it done.

Barry steps up in that moment because he is the leader of the team, though that’s a fact they’ve only just acknowledged. He’s the leader not because he’s the loudest, the most confident or the most powerful, but because they trust him. Because he’s a good guy. He’s not the token scientist or the guy who gives his life to save reality; he’s just a good, solid guy doing his best.

That’s a Barry Allen I’m very interested in reading more about.

Upcoming in September, a new era begins for The Flash and there’s great potential we could be following the adventures of a Barry Allen more along these lines. He’s going to be younger. Hopefully he’ll be a bit more at ease with himself as he was in this series. Hopefully he won’t have the Crisis sacrifice hanging over his head like a Sword of Damocles forcing everybody around to walk on eggshells around him. Francis Manapul seems like he’s got great enthusiasm for the character so I’m excited to see where he takes him.

And I implore him to check out JLA: Year One.

Five Comics Worth Reading - April 2011

DETECTIVE COMICS
Following Grant Morrison’s initial foray, I thought perhaps some writers might find it a bit challenging to distinguish the Dick Grayson version of Batman from the Bruce Wayne incarnation beyond the slightly tweaked costume, but for the most part I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how it’s gone down. Dick has been played as the extremely competent hero he was as Nightwing, yet with a higher level of confidence to match his new position and distinctive whimsy to perhaps combat it; few places has this new Batman shined as nicely as in the retooled Detective Comics written by Scott Snyder, which has hit on quite a few cylinders for me. Besides nailing a great protagonist in the Grayson Batman, Snyder has also embraced the book’s title with genuinely compelling—and frankly creepy—mysteries that he layers nicely with a mix of forensics and super hero stuff. Snyder’s secret weapon has also been his nuanced use of Commissioner Gordon, either as the back-up or lately star of the story, giving this stalwart a nice stage to play on and enough moral murkiness to remind you he’s no angel, just the best cop in a bad city. Having the distinctive and striking art of Jock and Francesco Francavilla certainly doesn’t hurt this title’s case either.

INCORRUPTIBLE
Since its inception, Incorruptible has been a fun companion piece to Irredeemable, telling a more lighthearted morality tale off to the side of the rampant tragedy and destruction of the parent book—and seriously, I’m not joking when I say the story about the former super criminal with the underage female sidekick named Jailbait is the “softer” side of the Irredeemable Universe. As Irredeemable has moved towards a broader story and resultantly brought some its characters over into Incorruptible, it has only made the latter title stronger. It’s quite interesting to watch what Mark Waid is doing in contrasting the heroes of Paradigm with their egos and neuroses against the simple single-mindedness of Max Damage, reformed villain; Max may have been a jerk and worse in the past, but he operates on a very simple field of “this is how we fix things” with no room for grandstanding or political posturing, whereas the “good guys” overanalyze their every move because they’re so much more concerned about keeping their images intact. The side stuff where Max is falling for his old archenemy’s girl even as she moves to portray him or putting off dealing with the trauma-fueled psychoses of his new sidekick is good stuff as well, but as ever, I just enjoy reading Mark Waid pick apart the mechanics and dynamics of what’s behind super heroes and villains.

IRON MAN 2.0
Nick Spencer writes comics that I feel like should be too smart for me, but makes sure I get them. With Iron Man 2.0, he’s covering all sorts of political, social and economic issues as he sends War Machine into the government and around the world dealing with conspiracies and WMDs, but even though I’m more or less useless when it comes to any news items not posted on the AOL homepage when I sign in at work every morning, I’m not only getting it, but getting into it, as he’s using these building blocks not to talk down, but to create a world that resonates with stuff really going on and at the same time carves out an interesting corner of the Marvel Universe for his cast to explore. I dig his characterization of James Rhodes—a tougher character to nail down than most people think in my opinion—as a guy committed to his country, more committed to doing the right thing, driven by a sense of duty, but not a total starched shirt as you would imagine years of hanging around Tony Stark would loosen up even the staunchest military man. I like the mix of big explosions with whole issues that are just supporting characters introduced only months ago talking about other characters we’ve never met—and that issue had me riveted! I think Spencer and my buddy editor Alejandro Arbona are dead on with their assessment of War Machine needing to be not just lots of guns, but whatever the next cutting edge way of waging war is; again, it’s a smart book, but not too smart for a dummy like me. And intelligence aside, scenes of Tony and Rhodey talking like kids about their armors as toys are just plain fun.

R.E.B.E.L.S.
I suppose this can be filed under “too little too late” with the book coming to an end next month, but I’ve been meaning for awhile to mention how much I enjoy Tony Bedard and Claude St. Aubin’s take on the cosmic DC Universe. They way Bedard manages a large and eclectic cast, shifting the focus every page or two and keeping things fresh, reminds me of how Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen nailed a somewhat similar premise on Legion of Super-Heroes back in the 80’s, and there are few higher compliments I can give. Bedard has once again made Vril Dox the kind of guy whose arrogance and cleverness I look forward to following—if for no other reason than to see how he’ll cheat his way out of the latest situation his mouth got him into—while on the total other end of the spectrum he writes a great smart ass and crazy Lobo while also finding nice spots for Adam Strange, Starfire, Captain Comet and the rest of DC’s displaced space stars. To St. Aubin’s credit, his clean art does a great job of making the many overlapping plots easy to follow and the action pop off the page. I should also note that their take on Starro creeps me out to no end. Pick this one up in trade!

UNCANNY X-FORCE
It takes talent to mix nostalgia and continuity service with genuinely intelligent stories as well as character-driven development plus throw in a decent amount of shooting and stabbing in one book; fortunately Rick Remender is talented as well as smart with a knack for enjoying his work, so he is more than adept at serving up delicious comics stew with Uncanny X-Force. I can’t say enough good things about this book, one of my top favorites as I tear through my comics. I love Remender’s long game as he’s both playing off existing mythology when it comes to Apocalypse and also building something entirely new. I’m invested in Psylocke’s quest to save Archangel’s soul—and her own. I’m intrigued by what Fantomex is up to and how he interacts with the rest of the team. The different take Remender has on Deadpool from just about anybody else I’ve ever read is fascinating. All that aside, you’ve got Deathlok versions of the Avengers—not to mention Deathlok himself as a supporting cast member—great old school X-Men villains like the Reavers and The Shadow King coming back, and a return trip to the friggin’ Age of Apocalypse; it truly is a perfect storm and I also really appreciate Remender’s commitment to acknowledging that every single this that has happened in past stories did in fact happen and will be addressed. Did I mention the murderer’s row of artistic talent that includes Jerome Opena, Esad Ribic, Mark Brooks, Rafael Albuquerque and Billy Tan not to mention Dean White? There are few comics out there right now I am a bigger fan of—if there are any.

Underrated/Overlooked: Legion of Super-Heroes "Year One"

I was, once upon a time, one of those great unwashed who found the Legion of Super-Heroes too intimidating and complicated.

To be fair, my primary exposure to the Legion growing up was through house ads for the “Five Years Later” incarnation in the DC books I did read, so to me it was a book about sad-looking middle-aged people dressing in shabby rags, sitting around looking forlorn (I’ve since come to appreciate that era of the mythos, but with no sense of context or what came before, it did not look terribly appealing, particularly to a kid who liked shiny super heroes). I picked up a couple issues of Legionnaires, but could not make heads or tails of where it fit with the other book or reconcile why there were all these characters with the same names and powers.

The first Legion book I vividly remember buying and reading was one of the middle chapters of the “End of an Era” crossover running through all three of the group’s titles (including Valor) prior to Zero Hour. It involved trying to collapse pretty much all of Legion history up to that point, attempting to sort out decades of inconsistencies in six issues and wrap up the group’s story once and for all to clear the decks for a full reboot.

In short: It doesn’t seem like there could be a worse issue for a Legion neophyte already wary of the towering continuity to try out.

And yet, it worked.

Or rather it worked in concert with something that struck me in the base framework of Legionnaires as well as the fact that both books were starting from scratch to tell a new version of the old story after Zero Hour wiped out all that had come before. The Zero issues of Legion of Super-Heroes and Legionnaires were great, and before I knew it, I became a full-fledged Legion junkie, with the franchise becoming probably the first DC one I really latched onto in the way I did Marvel books.

It’s interesting to me that when the publication history of the Legion gets summed up, generally it tends to jump straight from the Paul Levitz glory days of the 70’s and 80’s straight to when Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning came onboard in the late 90’s. If you go looking for the great Legion stories, you’re going to get directed to stuff like The Great Darkness Saga and Legion Lost, perhaps with a recommendation to check out Jim Shooter’s Silver Age stuff or Mark Waid’s “Threeboot” if you really want to look. And I love all of that stuff; Great Darkness is one of my favorite stories ever, the DnA run was some fantastic sci-fi that put my boys on the map, and I championed the Threeboot long and hard at Wizard. Yet it always confounds me that the post-Zero Hour re-launch gets more or less swept under the rug. Not only did it start off really strong, I do remember it being fairly successful commercially for a bit there, with lots of internal press for the books and the Final Night event more or less spinning out of Legion (before becoming a Green Lantern story in the end).

And as much as I’ve grown to love the Levitz Legion, DnA’s Legion, the Threeboot Legion and so on, that post-Zero Hour group remains the Legion I truly think of as mine.

I think the first year following Zero Hour is the strongest case for the “forgotten” Legion. After that, there were peaks and valleys and somewhere along the way when half the team was stranded in the present for what felt like forever I jumped off, but those first 12 months from the Zero issues to the Year One-themed annuals were rock solid, building a new mythology while also constructing a focused super story that paid off in spades. Mark Waid and Tom McGraw (I believe with the assistance of Roger Stern, though I’m having trouble confirming it, and later Tom Peyer) seemed to have a really clear idea of how they were going to prove to folks like me who had been so terrified of the Legion that here was a great concept when you stripped it down and focused on the basics of what made it cool.

Rather than being introduced as a sprawling and established organization coming back in time to recruit Superboy to their cause, this Legion started from the start, with three super-powered teens unexpectedly joining forces to save the life of a rich old man and giving him the idea that the future needed heroes. From there, Waid and McGraw did the slow rollout, introducing a couple new members each month, quickly enough so that they could fill out a clubhouse within a few issues and the requisite friendships and romances began to form, but with sufficient deliberation that we actually got to know the characters as individuals and not just names and powers in a virtual army.

Cosmic Boy was the natural leader. Live Wire was the dreamer with the wandering eye. Saturn Girl was the ice queen. Apparition was too perfect. Triad was conflicted. Leviathan had an inferiority complex he tried to mask with a false superiority complex. Invisible Kid was the guy you wanted to be friends with. XS was the schoolgirl in over her head. Chameleon was the foreign exchange student. Brainiac 5 was the arrogant jerk.

Each character was somebody you knew or could at least relate to, and as they interacted, you saw your own youth played out on a level you could only imagine. Because as I always say when it comes to the Legion, there is nothing better than the high concept of teenagers with super powers getting to live alone with other kids their own age in an awesome headquarters with no parents in sight and seemingly unlimited resources. Plus they got to save the universe every month. As somebody who loved summer camp, I think the Legion tapped into that part of me that thrived on escaping society a couple of months every year and getting to have responsibilities beyond my age thrust at me while also getting to act way younger—it still does.

Anyways, rambling aside, when you forget about the continuity crap, Legion is just a cool as it gets idea that should always be a lot of fun and wish fulfillment to the highest power. Waid and McGraw’s Legion was the embodiment of cutting through the smog of comic book complications and making the books a place you really wanted to spend time every month. It also helped that they had great artists in Stuart Immonen and Jeff Moy, each of whom brought something different to the table. Immonen in that early stage had a neat sort of gritty realism that he could pull off without making the stories seem dark. On the other end of the spectrum, Moy’s art was buoyant and full of life, but he could bring it for the emotionally heavy stuff as well. They complemented each other and what the writers were trying to do perfectly.

While the Legion grappled with an assortment of threats, Waid and McGraw also continued to add members like Shrinking Violet, Kinetix and the xenophobic Andromeda while also casting pre-Zero Hour Legionnaires like Ultra Boy in new roles—he was on a rival team but had a Romeo and Juliet love story going with Apparition in a nod to their classic romance—and throwing in curveballs like Live Wire being kicked off the team and replaced by his twin sister Spark. While I didn’t know everything about the Legion as it was before Zero Hour, I at least recognized many familiar characters or relationships, and enjoyed the wink by the creators as they found new ways to use old favorites like Matter-Eater Lad as the Legion’s chef or Bouncing Boy being a non-powered sort of intern (and having a crush of pre-Zero Hour wife Triad).

And the whole time, beginning right from Legion of Super-Heroes #0, something larger was going on off to the side. The people that tried to assassinate R.J. Brande were tied to a larger group called the White Triangle, a cabal of Daxamites founded on considering all other races inferior. Andromeda had ties to the White Triangle but hid them early on and also seemed to be slowly coming around. Members of the group beat one of Triad’s selves nearly to death. The plotline was very heavy stuff, dealing with tough issues like intolerance and hate crimes and doing it with maturity and weight in a fantastical setting like that of the Legion’s supposedly idyllic future. It hung around the fringes of the first year’s worth of stories, but with mastery, Waid and McGraw (at this point I believe with Peyer) brought it closer to the forefront until it reached a boiling point.

The Legionnaires Annual that wrapped the White Triangle story and carried the Year One banner which most books used to tell origin stories but here marked the conclusion of the new Legion’s first year of existence, felt very much like a season finale. The White Triangle finally found a way to get their Superman-level powers working on Earth and launched a full scale out in the open invasion. After months of working behind the scenes, the bad guys were here and they were terrifying.

It was all hands on deck as anybody who had left the team came back and every guest star available showed up to pitch in. Live Wire’s hero arc reached a dramatic crescendo as he returned to the team that had spurned him to help save the day. Andromeda was forced to finally pick a side. R.J. Brande showed up at the very last minute with a secret weapon that would make old school fans smile. Everybody got their big moments—and there were casualties. The deaths were not at all tossed off and had extreme gravitas to them; I remember getting quite emotional watching a couple of these new friends I’d gotten to know over the previous year get snuffed out.

That story still stands out to me well over a decade later as one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of how you build expectations and tension over the long haul and then end it right. It was just great storytelling.

So if the current Legion seems appealing to you but you’d a bit put off by the sheer number of characters or amount of continuity changes, let me make the suggestion that you try and track down the Legion of Super-Heroes: Beginning of Tomorrow trade and then scrounge up all the back issues you can. The post-Zero Hour Legion really is the ideal gateway to the concept working without any baggage, and if you’re like me, you’ll then be ready to take the training wheels off and start exploring forwards and backwards in the franchise. It’s a truly wonderful world to explore, you just need the right entry point, and I’m telling you, it’s the one even most hardcore fans forget ever existed.

The Ka-Zar Conundrum

I swear I did not plan the timing of this post on purpose.

What I mean to say is that I don’t generally go in for shilling Marvel product on this blog. Yeah, if I like something the company I’m working for is putting out, which I do a lot, I’m not shy about saying, most frequently in Five Comics Worth Reading, which is designed in part with that function in mind. And yeah, I’ll pimp my own stuff in, well, Pimping My Stuff. However, I try not to set this blog up as a promotional machine to point out how cool upcoming projects look—aside from Art Attack—because I already do that quite nicely over on Marvel.com, I believe, and Kiel and his crew do the same on CBR.

So please believe me when I say I conceived of this post and began writing it in my head before I had any idea we’d be announcing today that my friend Rob Williams is writing what sounds like a dope series about Skaar going to the Savage Land and fighting Ka-Zar and a bunch of other folks for control of the kingdom. My intention in writing this piece was to talk about the coolness, both tapped and untapped, of Ka-Zar, Shanna, Zabu, etc., not to sell comics.

(But if this post does move you to learn more about these subjects, Skaar: King of the Savage Land by Rob Williams and Brian Ching starts in April)

Anyways, I finally got to read the first eight issues of Mark Waid and Andy Kubert’s much ballyhooed (or at least ballyhooed) Ka-Zar series of the mid-late 90’s, collected this very week. I was not let down. Waid’s doing what he does best, writing an endearing but flawed lead, exploring a strong but complex romantic relationship and packing in loads of action—it’s actually not totally unlike his Flash run, just with the hero in a loincloth as opposed to red and yellow spandex. Kubert gets to cut loose drawing dinosaurs, crazy cave folk, a darn hot Shanna and frankly the nastiest Rhino I’ve ever seen.

But I went in knowing I was going to dig Waid and Kubert’s work; Ka-Zar was the unknown commodity.

I like him. I like him a lot.

If you’re only familiar with Ka-Zar from guest appearances and maybe the 90’s X-Men cartoon, it’s easy to write him off as a typical Tarzan knockoff, the noble savage swinging around the jungle with his sabretooth tiger, fighting pterodactyls and hanging out with his hot leopard bikini-wearing lady. Indeed, many have depicted him as just that, but as Waid—and others—have demonstrated there’s more than that to the character.

Ka-Zar does not speak in grunts or say “Me Ka-Zar,” he is as witty and charming in his verbiage as any Marvel hero. He was not born in the Savage Land; he was raised for the early years of his life in England as Kevin Plunder, heir to British nobility. As Waid points out in his first issues, Kevin was nine when he came to the Savage Land, and though he came of age there, he still remembers his other life and retains a degree of it in his attitude.

While Ka-Zar has often been portrayed as weary to trust anybody or anything from outside the Savage Land, Waid writes him as a torn soul, divided between the wild kingdom he rules with mastery and the mysterious outside world he deep down harbors a rampant curiosity about. While outwardly the apex of manhood, Waid’s Ka-Zar is in many ways still a child, filled with wonder about the things he doesn’t know or fully understand, eager to explore. It’s certainly a fascinating dichotomy and in the hands of a skilled creator like Mark Waid, fertile ground for character exploration.

Speaking of dichotomy and contrast, another part of Ka-Zar’s appeal comes simply from the fact that he’s never alone: he and Shanna are a package deal. Unlike her husband, Shanna came willingly to the Savage Land as an adult, already having lived all the life she wanted to in the “real world.” There is no ambiguity in Shanna; she’s an incredibly strong woman who knows exactly what she wants and exactly where she stands and makes even her potent partner seem the tame one of the couple, no easy feat for a female character in comics. In Waid’s run, they bicker, and Ka-Zar seems justifiably intimidated by Shanna, but they’re also far stronger together, something they recognize. Oh, and by the way, despite being jungle adventurers who run around in next to nothing, they’re also loving and impressive parents of a young son! It’s a unique and special coupling that elevates both characters.

Yet despite the potential of both Ka-Zar and Shanna to be strong leads set apart from other Marvel Universe protagonists, a potential only scratched in stuff like Waid’s series or Christos Gage’s lead story in Marvel Comics Presents a few years back, it’s not difficult to discern what holds them back from becoming A-list characters, as it’s also one of their defining strengths: The Savage Land.

The Savage Land is one of the classic comic book locales and a go-to setting to show a different side of the typically urban heroes who populate the Marvel Universe. And you know if a character heads to the Savage Land, they’re going to inevitably run into Ka-Zar and Shanna, the same way there aren’t too many stories set in Wakanda where The Black Panther doesn’t at least cameo or in Atlantis that don’t involve Namor somehow. As much as I’m interested in all that other stuff I outlined above, the key component of Ka-Zar remains that he is the ruler of the Savage Land, and that if you go there he is the absolute best guy to have on your side.

Unfortunately, this means you’ve got basically two options if you want to tell a Ka-Zar story with some juicy conflict beyond him and Shanna hunting for food: Either a villain comes to the Savage Land looking to take it over/seek revenge on Ka-Zar/whatever, or Ka-Zar leaves the Savage Land for some compelling reason and fights villains in a more familiar setting like New York City and then goes home upon completing his mission. In the eight issues of Waid and Kubert’s run I’ve read, I’ve already seen both stories, and they were done well, but I can imagine coming up with continued reasons for either scenario to keep occurring is going to become straining. Besides that, if you’ve got an ongoing Ka-Zar series where bad guys and guest stars are finding reasons to come to the Savage Land, it probably means no other books are going to feature Savage Land adventures, which cuts off a valuable storytelling avenue.

The solution might seem to be to get Ka-Zar out of the Savage Land on a regular basis by having him join, say, the Avengers, but do that and you’re removing the character’s most defining trait and what makes him special; sure he’s got great survival skills and can hold his own in the occasional jaunt to the big city, but his whole deal is that he knows how to manage and thrive in a place few others can on a level that nobody else can. I’d argue no Marvel character is as closely tied to his home base as Ka-Zar is, including the aforementioned Black Panther and Namor, adding on guys like Doctor Doom or even the Inhumans.

The Savage Land is integral to Ka-Zar, but it’s also what prevents him from truly breaking out.

I wonder how different things might have been had Ka-Zar and the Savage Land been developed somewhat independently of the Marvel Universe in a separate series and then integrated later, following a similar model to how Warlord and Skartaris were created and built upon over at DC. That way you have the benefit of building a whole mythology of places and people, both allies and enemies, within the Savage Land that can sustain Ka-Zar’s adventures alone for years rather than just having the X-Men or Spider-Man visit every couple of years and only ever showing the same half dozen characters because that’s all you need. It may not have made a difference, as after all, Warlord has never really been among DC’s top tier or joined the Justice League, but he did have quite the long-running series once upon a time.

So yeah, there’s definitely something there when it comes to Ka-Zar and his family, but I’m not sure how it should best be handled, truth be told. Part of me wants to see another enterprising set of creators give a go at an ongoing series and take it where it can go. Another part is curious to see what it would be like if Ka-Zar and/or Shanna joined the Avengers (and I am getting to see it after a fashion in the Ultimate Universe, but they’re very different characters).

But I do think the largest pragmatic portion of me recognizes that certain characters simply aren’t destined to be headliners, serving rather as intriguing occasional players in the larger tapestry of their comic book universe. So I’ll take my Ka-Zar fix where I can get it, be it in guest appearances, back issues or the occasional limited series.

Starting with Skaar: King of the Savage Land, beginning in April.

Sorry about that.

Comics Events That Stick the Landing

It ain’t easy being a comic book writer.

Now I’m not speaking to you as the acclaimed writer of Werewolf By Night: Werewolf By Eve here, but rather as a (I guess) longtime comics professional and longer time comics fan who has seen the process, the struggles and the results up close enough to know how hard these guys and gals work. And among the many mountains these scribes must climb, fewer are more difficult than not only spooling out a big-time event story, but bringing said epic to a satisfying conclusion.

The great challenge of ending an event, particularly in today’s era of everything needing to be bigger, higher stakes and more dangerous is that after spending years building the threat(s) in your tale to be nigh insurmountable, you need to find a way for the good guys to win that’s clever, rewarding and not too clichéd—way easier said than done.

Sure this is a hurdle that folks writing movies, television, novels, etc. also face, but no other medium but comics offers you quite so many tempting tools to fashion obstacles limited only by your own imagination that you will at some point need to put down in an issue or two.

A lot of complaints come flooding in when the solution to foiling the big bad turns out to be basically the equivalent of “fire a bigger energy beam” or “punch a little harder,” but the fact is that if those scenarios are played out with proper skill and drama by a writer in full cognizance of their own creative gifts, they can still kick some major ass.

Other popular go-to outs include the heroic sacrifice or the unexpected cavalry, both of which done right can be perfection and done wrong can bring down the wrath of a furious fanbase. And of course once every so often there’s that wonderful “How did he/she ever think of that?!” out of left field clever endgame that you need to just stand up and applaud.

Here are a few events that earned my standing or sitting ovation with their passion and/or ingenuity.

(And since I kinda need to summarize these endings to explain why I dig them…SPOILERS AHOY!)

THE INFINITY GAUNTLET
What Happened: Thanos unites the six Infinity Gems, becoming nigh omnipotent and defeating not only all of Earth’s heroes, but also the big gun cosmic entities of the Marvel Universe, from Galactus to Eternity. However, after being spurned by Death—the lover whose approval he sought through his actions—because he is now so far above her in station, Thanos becomes distracted enough for his granddaughter, Nebula, to steal the Infinity Gauntlet. In a 180, Thanos teams with longtime foe Adam Warlock and the other good guys to get the Gauntlet back from Nebula.

Why It Rocked: Nobody could defeat Thanos but himself. Literally every other would-be savior, from Captain America on up to Eternity, tried and failed. But as Warlock confronts Thanos about as they prepare to battle Nebula, he knows his enemy’s soul well enough to know that he allowed himself to lose, just as he always does, because deep down he knows he’s not worthy of ultimate power and fears possessing it. It was a pattern writer Jim Starlin had established in prior stories years earlier, so it didn’t come out of nowhere and was a character-building development rather than a complete Deus Ex Machina. I have also always dug the irony that the one thing Thanos always wants, the love of Death, was the one thing he couldn’t have no matter how powerful he was, and that played into his undoing.

THE GOLDEN AGE
What Happened: Adolf Hitler gets his brain transferred into the uber-powerful body of Dynaman, and after the secret gets out, begins laying waste to Washington D.C., brutally murdering any hero who gets in his way. It’s a dog pile of Golden Age DC heroes against the greatest foe they’ve ever faced, but Hawkman, Johnny Quick, Hourman, Starman and even Green Lantern as well as dozens of others prove not-so-up to the task. In the end, a young Captain Comet surprises the exhausted Dynaman and gets kicked in the nuts for his trouble, but gives Liberty Belle an opening to stab the bad guy through the chest with Starman’s Cosmic Rod.

Why It Rocked: The whole “one hero after another takes a go at the unstoppable bad guy” is a timeless trope that James Robinson laid out perfectly in his script and that Paul Smith drew to perfection. The moment where Green Lantern finally shows up when it seems all hope is lost really gets your heart racing—but the fact that he fails is even better. I’m a suck for the folks you least expect being the ones to get the job done in the end, so Captain Comet, who had just debuted in the series a few pages earlier and is a barely known commodity besides, being the guy who makes the difference and then the barely-powered Liberty Belle getting the kill shot just gives you the warm and fuzzies (as much as anything can when you just witnessed a psycho Nazi superman butcher a bunch of beloved heroes).

X-CUTIONER’S SONG
What Happened: Stryfe frames Cable for an assassination attempt on Professor Xavier, kidnaps Cyclops and Jean Grey, and manipulates Apocalypse, Mister Sinister and various others to play them, the X-Men, X-Force and other factions against one another as he seeks mysterious revenge against all parties. Ultimately, Apocalypse saves Professor X’s life, and various members of the X-Men, X-Factor and X-Force head to the moon where Stryfe has Cyclops and Jean held captive and has opened a time portal for unrevealed reasons. Only Cable and Havok are able to breach Stryfe’s force field; after battling Stryfe to a standstill, Cable throws Cyclops a device that allows him to send both men into the portal then collapse it, seemingly killing them and ending the threat.

Why It Rocked: This was the kind of overblown soap opera-on-steroids stuff that was like my crack at age 10. Those climactic panels of Cyclops hesitating to condemn Cable and Stryfe to death as he has connected the dots we as readers had much earlier—that one of the two of them is Nathan, the son he sacrificed and sent to the future years before—while Cable screams at him to push the button is classic. In those days, I was too young to know that dead didn’t mean dead when it came to comics and really the industry had yet to prove that axiom, so this felt like a really big deal and appropriately huge price for the good guys to pay in order to get the win.

ZERO HOUR
What Happened: After Hal Jordan-as-Parallax attempts to recreate the DC Universe from scratch following his destruction of the original timeline, a motley crew of heroes that includes Superman, Kyle Rayner, Green Arrow, Donna Troy, Guy Gardner, The Ray, Damage and others stands as the last hope to stop him. Time guardian Waverider has an elaborate plan that involves getting as close to Parallax as possible to stop him and then feeding enough energy into Damage that he can create a huge explosion that will generate a new “Big Bang” and restore the prior universe as closely as possible. The heroes—along with an eleventh hour assist from The Spectre—are able to distract Hal and his henchman Extant for a period, but Parallax triggers his own endgame when he attempts to kill Damage and ends nailing an alternate reality Batgirl instead. This prompts Hal’s longtime best friend, Green Arrow, to let loose a shaft right into the chest of his weakened buddy, nearly killing him and tossing both he and Kyle Rayner into the timestream just as Waverider’s plan works.

Why It Rocked: As you can tell from the paragraph above, there was a lot of complicated shit going down in this climax, perhaps too much, but Dan Jurgens, who both wrote and drew it, had such a mastery of the important beats as well as the foresight to utilize the huge cast he had at his disposal that I felt it was a great and powerful conclusion to a series that had its ups and downs. I’m always a suck for The Spectre coming in at the last moment and Damage was a great wild card savior, but the tense stare down between Hal and Ollie as Green Arrow makes the hardest shot of his life—and sadly, an ultimately futile and unnecessary one—is just tremendous stuff.

UNDERWORLD UNLEASHED
What Happened: A DC Universe version of the devil himself, Neron, tempts various heroes and villains, empowering many of the latter group in a campaign designed to sow chaos and move different pieces into place so that he can make a power grab by seizing a pure soul and presumably expand his kingdom. Neron surrounds himself with several prominent baddies like Lex Luthor, The Joker, Circe, Doctor Polaris and Abra Kadabra as his inner circle, but also brings The Trickster under his wing, seeing great potential within him. Ultimately, it turns out the soul in question was Captain Marvel’s, and Trickster saves the day and the world by instructing Cap to offer it without asking for anything in return, realizing a completely unselfish deal was the only thing that could defeat Neron.

Why It Rocked: Kudos to Kiel for reminding me of this one. A C-rate Flash villain who had not been relevant in years, Trickster was an absolutely inspired choice to be the guy who brings Neron down, and Mark Waid’s handling of him during this story is nothing short of brilliant. That James Jesse didn’t go on to anywhere near the level of coolness this story demonstrated he had the potential for and ultimately backslid into being a villain again before dying a nearly anonymous death is one of comics’ saddest examples of squandered potential in my view. Not only was this an awesome expectations-defying wrap to a solid story featuring a truly grin-worthy hero turn, the path to victory was quite well-thought-out and layered, a true thinker’s conclusion.

ANNIHILATION
What Happened: Having destroyed the Nova Corps, captured Quasar’s Quantum Bands and conquered huge swaths of the universe with his Negative Zone army, Annihilus now turns his attention to destroying existence, planning to harness Galactus as a weapon after jailing him and utilizing Thanos’ technology. Realizing Annihilus’ plans, Thanos turns against him moments before his own death at the hands of Drax, allowing Moondragon to free the Silver Surfer, who in turn unleashes Galactus and destroys the base of the Annihilation Wave. Annihilus escapes only to find himself confronted by Nova; following a savage battle, Phyla-Vell tips the scales by swiping the Quantum Bands and Nova ends the universal threat by tearing Annihilus’ guts out through his throat.

Why It Rocked: I’m not doing the complexities of Keith Giffen’s ultimate cosmic war story and its twisting, turning plot justice with that write-up, but you get the idea. The various hoops the array of characters had to maneuver their way through in order to get things to a point where Nova could deliver a decisive deathblow made that moment all the more sweeter—and it was already pretty darn sweet. Granted I’m biased here, but Giffen and his cohorts did an incredible job building up Nova as a Luke Skywalker/Rocky Balboa underdog throughout all of Annihilation, so when he disembowels Annihilus from the outside, I dare you not to cheer at the very least on the inside.

Five Comics Worth Reading - Feb. 2010

In the nascent days of this blog, I used to do a weekly feature called Five Comics Worth Reading, where I picked out some books I enjoyed and gave little capsule reviews. It wasn’t long for this world because I’m really not great at reviews and didn’t like having that mandate hanging over my head every week, taking away a bit from the pure joy of just reading my comics (kudos to those who can do it; you’re better than me).

However, every now and again I read a comic and am just like “Wow, this book is sick,” but don’t always have more than a few sentences to say about it, let alone a whole post. To that end, with no ambitions whatsoever of any sort of regular schedule, I am gonna bring back 5CWR periodically to babbly about books I’m really digging.

Books like these.

DAYTRIPPER
I read the first issue of this series just because Ryan said so and was pretty well blown away not even knowing what the high concept was, just digging the writing and art. The twin brother team of Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon deliver a pretty standard “day-in-the-life” story about an average thirty-something going about his day, but I mean “standard” only in the sense that the events of the issue were (until the end) ostensibly mundane; however, despite the average nature of what’s going on, Ba and Moon have a way with their words of investing you in this man’s life and making the end of the issue all the more poignant.

I apologize for the vagueness here as I know it must be more than a bit frustrating, but I had no idea what this book was about going in, and that totally helped me enjoy it all the more, so if there is anybody out there who’s in the position I was, I want you to take a leap of faith and have a similar experience. The ending is key to what the whole series is about, and to give it away would be to spoil issues two and three as well, both of which also have that same quality of being beautiful in their take on the ordinary, but also begin bringing in a more sweeping sense of romance and grandeur.

The art—also a collaboration between the brothers—is gorgeous, with every person and every scene bursting with detail and unconventional beauty, as anybody who has followed their work on Umbrella Academy or Casanova would expect.

I wanna say more, but seriously, just trust me on this one and go find the first three issues.

IRREDEEMABLE
Yes, the whole “What if Superman went bad?” motif has been done to death a zillion times since the dawn of time, but for whatever reason, I’m totally into Irredeemable in a way I wasn’t with all those others.

It may be because Mark Waid is such a fan of Superman and the whole heroic ideal that he really takes care when toying with it; there’s no sadistic glee you find in most of those pastiches (ok, maybe a little), but rather a great deal of care taken and a sense of “yeah, that’s how it would happen,” that comes from knowing Waid has absolutely thought this through. The motivations and fallout are meticulously thought out and add up (to the degree such things can in a book about super-powered demigods in spandex).

Peter Krause’s art has a sorta Dan Jurgens vibe going for it that fits the story well. He infuses the really horrific stuff Waid is putting out there with a sense of innocence gone horribly awry that twists your stomach in the right ways.

Beyond the initial shock factor of seeing the world’s greatest hero annihilating continents with his heat vision, there are also mysteries and tangential threads being laid out like mines by Waid and I enjoy seeing them go off with the precision he intended while I struggle to figure out who I’m supposed to be rooting for; good stuff here.

THE PUNISHER
I’m sure there were plenty of folks out there who didn’t think turning The Punisher into a Frankenstein monster and having him hang out with Morbius and Werewolf By Night was a good idea (probably right here on this very Internet).

They were right; it was not a good idea.

It was a great idea!

Punisher is such a hugely entertaining comic right now it’s insane, and this is coming from somebody who has never been able to get into the character. Rick Remender has done a complete 360 in that he took a concept so wonderfully entertaining in its utter ridiculousness and then brought it full circle into a story that is completely compelling and perfectly fitting for the character.

I love that Remender is doing all this crazy shit but at the end of the day, in the context it is put in, IT MAKES TOTAL SENSE! Yes, if The Punisher went up against an entire team of ruthless super villains with the kind of power and carte blanche the Dark Avengers have, the son of Wolverine would totally end him. And yes, because he lives in a world where radiation doesn’t kill you but gives you fantastic or horrible powers and giant guys in purple suits try to eat or planet, it is not inconceivable in the least that a group of monsters would patch him up and turn him into a Frankenstein because they need a strategic mind to save their asses.

The latest issue—in which Dan Brereton illustrated the hell out of a flashback sequence telling the origin of Hellsgaard—was another quantum leap of awesome as we realize the bad guy Punisher is going after is basically him but replacing the figurative monsters who killed Frank Castle’s family with literal monsters who killed his own. The fact that this doesn’t even faze Frank as he prepares to go to war is a juicy little morsel that I’m interested to see get picked up down the road either as an Achilles heel or further evidence that The Punisher is so far gone a parallel like that means jack to him.

It’s also worth noting that Tony Moore draws not only the best vampires and werewolves in comics, but also does crazy fight scenes like nobody’s business. I love the liberties he’s not afraid to take with established characters and really hope he gets to draw more of them.

RED ROBIN
I forget sometimes how much I like the character of Tim Drake because a lot of the time he just gets written as “Robin” with folks forgetting that behind the mask he is so far removed from Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and particularly Bruce Wayne. He’ll never be the fighter that Bruce or Dick were, but he makes up for that with his brains and the fact that he’s probably the best natural detective out of the bunch. He’s also the happy medium between Dick’s carefree swashbuckler and Bruce’s grim and hopeless creature of the night.

Chris Yost totally understands this and is making me remember more and more in every issue of Red Robin why this character rocks.

As Red Robin, Tim is refreshingly human, making mistakes but working through them and being driven by faith in his own inherent belief more than any sacred vow or thirst for vengeance. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and it bites him in the ass more than a couple times, but he has an incredible skill set and ability to think on his feet that Yost is extremely apt at showcasing.

I’m also quite a fan thus far of Yost’s new potential love interest for Tim, Tam Fox, as she’s got a good bit of her own capability but also enough damsel in distress in her to keep things interesting; her being Lucius Fox’s daughter is a neat and clever spin as well.

But I honestly realized how much I am getting out of this comic in the latest issue where Tim has both an awesome fight with Killer Moth and then a great emotional hugging scene with Superboy where he breaks down in tears of joy over his best friend being alive that felt so sincere; Yost is so good not just at writing convincing young adults, but also at positioning action and emotion in perfect harmony with one another.

X-FACTOR
I know there’s a school of thought that Peter David’s writing on ongoing series tends to be too dense for new readers to navigate in easily, and maybe it’s true, but at the same time if you invest the time in his stories, you’re pretty much always guaranteed one helluva return.

I really respect how long PAD sticks around on books, be it a decade on Incredible Hulk, five uninterrupted years on Young Justice, or so forth. I love that he lays out long-term plans, commits to them, changes on the fly if necessary, but generally tries to stay the course on the big characters arcs he’s mapped out and epic stories he’s lad the tracks for. I enjoy the in jokes rewarding folks who have read the book for awhile and the pay-offs that are a long time coming but worth it.

Such is the case with X-Factor, where David has been hard at work for five years, building an impressive cast, imbuing them with great personalities, weaving a tangled web of interpersonal dynamics, and just having a good time.

He just wrapped a year-long time travel story he’d been building for some time before that, and now we’ve got the incredible eclectic cast of Jamie Madrox, Strong Guy, Siryn, Rictor, Monet, Darwin, Longshot, Shatterstar and Layla Miller going in a bunch of different directions that include diffusing an international incident, trying to locate the missing Invisible Woman, and moping in Ireland.

Honestly, the incredible mix of 80’s, 90’s and today B and C-listers I just rifled off as a team roster should have piqued your curiosity enough, but if you come for that, stay for the wit, the well-spun mysteries, the crazy twists, the heartfelt dysfunctional family, etc.

Our Comics Decade: 2006

Ben
No doubt for me 2006 was the year of 52.

Only a few months into my tenure as DC contact for Wizard, my first two major assignments were steering to a compelling close the coverage of Infinite Crisis my predecessor Rich Ho had begun and coming up with my own plan to cover this new initiative. And with all due respect to Rich, while managing Infinite Crisis, DC’s biggest event in nearly two decades, certainly must have provided quite the challenge, figuring out how to give monthly love to an innovative new kind of beast—a weekly series with a rotating A-level writing team that impacted the entire publishing line—was a whole other level.

Luckily, I had a lot going for me: I had a great support team both at Wizard and at DC, I both got along with and respected the folks involved with the series, and last but not least, 52 was really really good.

Upon becoming DC contact, I inherited a huge pile of notes, sketches, etc. related to a project with the working title of “52.” My then-boss Brian Cunningham had been on hand for one of the very first meetings where 52 (I’ll take it out of quotes because obviousy the working title stuck) had been discussed, so he sat me down for a lengthy period and gave me the short version of what was being discussed (said meeting took place in the fall of 2005, over six months before 52 would actually launched, so as has been said in many interviews over the past few years a lot changed, but an impressive amount remained intact as well).

To sum it up, I was impressed, both with what a bold move this was and also by how much the folks involved had their shit together and were working so far ahead of the curve. Later on, both to my additional respect and sometimes unavoidable frustration, I’d discover they were equally adept at changing on the fly when necessary. Mostly though, I felt both because this was my first major chance to prove myself professionally and because I had such appreciation for the guys involved (Geoff Johns in particular, who as I detailed two posts ago basically got me my start), I was bound and determined to cover this sucker to the best of my ability.

The first thing I did to this end was convince my superiors that it would be a good idea to send me solo to WonderCon in San Francisco in January; it was a show that Wizard did not typically attend, but as the entire 52 writing team of Geoff, Mark Waid, Grant Morrison and Greg Rucka as well as editor Steve Wacker and DC head Dan DiDio would all be there, I saw an opportunity to kick off our coverage with a bang, and my bosses concurred.


WonderCon was a weekend of excess in some ways for me, but mostly good ways (and I’m a fairly conservative person when it comes to a lot of stuff, so “excess” for me might be tame for a lot of you). First off, Wizard put me up in a way nicer hotel room than I’d ever stayed in before, so that was pretty cool; one of the first things I did when I got there was to call Rickey (I called Megan first), tell him how sick the room was and then send him pics. I also ordered this crazy ass deep-fried sushi from room service because I was starving and had not eaten since leaving Newark.

Not long after my “dinner,” I got a call from Geoff telling me to meet him, Steve and Mark in a bar down the street. I had met Steve a couple of times at that point, but I’d never had any contact with Mark Waid, who was one of my major heroes and influence, so I was nervous and starstruck from the start. So rattled was I, in fact, that I let Geoff order me a bunch of Jack & Cokes without paying heed to the fact I hadn’t had caffeine since my freshman year of college because I was enraptured listening to Mark tell stories about writing issues of Spider-Man Team-Up in the 90’s. I think the worst that happened that night was that I completely inadvertently implied that Mark was old at some point, but the next morning my stomach and I were feeling the combination of the time change, fried sushi, and Jack & Cokes pretty bad.

I was scheduled to sit in on a closed door meeting of the 52 braintrust to observe and take notes around noon and to say I was physically a bit rough would be an understatement, something anybody who had the misfortune of being a stall over from me in the convention center restroom an hour before would be able to attest to (sorry, guy). Fortunately a quick trip to CVS to grab some Pepto Bismol and a cross-country pep talk from Joe Yanarella later and I was back in business (Geoff and Steve would later tell me they had no clue I was ready to puke into my briefcase most of the meeting).

The meeting was incredible and certainly unlike anything else I’ve ever gotten to experience in or out of comics. The natural rhythm and flow between these five creative forces working seamlessly as one was a thing to behold. During the period I observed, I got to witness more or less in its entirety the genesis and evolution of the Black Adam-Isis wedding and all the things swirling around it from large chunks of Renee Montoya’s journey all the way to the eventual murder of Osiris. At other creative summits I’ve attended, I’ve freuqently piped in with a suggestion here or there for some minor thing, but for this one, I just sat in rapt attention and watched tose gents do their thing (and not just because I was kinda queasy).

I had some other neat experiences out in San Fran (being a question plant at the 52 panel, watching Frank Miller and Jim Lee hold court at our hotel bar, mocking Christos Gage at the galling thought that he could actually get a Union Jack limited series greenlit at Marvel), but pretty quickly it was time to head home and get back to work.


As a professional working to cover 52, I had both my good times and my bad times. I loved fun little things we’d come up with on the fly (as the nature of the project often demanded) like doing a faux tabloid mock-up in one issue of Wizard covering the big mysteries/events where Greg Rucka and Keith Giffen shind as my “correspondents.” On the flipside, we did a sketchbook feature featuring what would become the Great Ten and Lex Luthor’s Infinity Inc. that was a nightmare to coordinate because there were a lot of last-minute changes going on in 52 itself (they proved positives for the book, which was of course the real priority, but stymied me a bit as a guy trying to produce coverage three months out, but that was a tightrope we often walked and fell off at Wizard).

As a fan, I loved 52, perhaps even moreso than the average dude since I got to see the whole script-to-art process at pretty much every step as my weekly FedEx packages from Alex Segura at DC came in. I will always tip my hat in reverance at how the writers were able to take perennial also-rans like Booster Gold, Ralph Dibny or Montoya and elevate them to being every bit as fleshed out and important as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman in my eyes. I had immense respect for Keith Giffen’s ability as layout artist to give the book such a consistent feel despite working with literally dozens of other creative types. And perhaps above all, I marveled at the tremendous feat Steve Wacker (and later Michael Siglain accomplished) making the trains run on time. As far as personal favorite issues/moments, I gotta go with the infamous “Wicker Sue” chapter where Ralph and friends break up the ceremony that may or may not have resurrected his wife Sue both due to its incredible emotional wallop and because my buddy Todd Nauck showed once and for all he could not be boxed in as an artist simply capable of humor stories.

In the end, neither Steve nor I would make it to the end of 52 “on the inside.” He left DC for Marvel during the summer of 2006 (which is a bit deceptive as it makes it seem as though e was only onboard a few months, but in fact he’d already helped plan out at least half the series by then) and I moved from the DC beat to the Marvel one a couple months later. I actually sent Steve, Geoff, Mark and Greg a pic we’d all taken at WonderCon with mine and Steve’s faces exed out the day I got transferred with a subject line of something like “Casualties of 52: Who Will Survive?” (I don’t think I included Grant on the e-mail because Grant Morrison has better things to do than read my crappy jokes—ok, all those guys do, but I didn’t know Grant as well).


52 stands to this day for me as milestone in comic book accomplishment and I’m not sure what those guys did can ever be quite duplicated (though Mr. Wacker has done an admirable job with a similar though not exactly the same task on the thrice-weekly Amazing Spider-Man these past couple years). It was also another career milestone for me, as it was the first project I really felt a part of—whether deservingly so or not—and what a way to start.

Rickey
In 2005, Grant Morrison wrote me a love letter. But I didn't really start to understand it until 2006.

It was late in 2005 when All-Star Superman dropped and a lot of the guys at the Wizard offices lost their minds over it. The issue even won top honors in the "Single Issue of the Year" category in the "Best of 2005" issue. But, really, I didn't think it was that great. Between the odd designs from Frank Quitely and the dwarf star density of the plot, I just wasn't that intrigued. I think a lot of that had to do with not understanding the All-Star line period at the time. Then, in early 2006, when I finally sat down with issue #2, my stomach began filling with nerdy butterflies AND STILL HASN'T STOPPED. The only ceiling that seemed capable of containing Grant's cosmic ideas and break-neck plot pacing was my own limit of imagination/understanding and the implied motion and flourishing detail in Quitely's art made me feel like I was watching a cartoon painted cell-by-cell by, I dunno, Moebius. And the colors! I'm convinced Jamie Grant INVENTED new hues for the series. How else do you figure out the color of a Kryptonite eye-beam shooting out of a giant synthetic man and bouncing off the indestructible back of Superman before crystallizing in space? (See issue 4, story page 14)

So instead of talking your ear off about the series, I'm just gonna give you my favorite scenes from issues #2-#5 - the issues that came out in 2006:


Issue #2 - While impressing Lois Lane with his Fortress of Solitude, Superman takes a moment to feed (by hand) a baby Sun-Eater he keeps as a damn pet. What does he feed it? A miniature sun he cracks into pebble-sized pieces with a hammer on something called The Cosmic Anvil, of course.


Issue #3 - After Atlas and Samson show up all Silver Age-y in an effort to win Lois' affections, they wind up fucking up and attracting a mad god who plans on deleting Lois from existence. This series of panels tickles me pink with A) a perfect summation of how serious the Lois/Clark love can be portrayed and B) a dope-ass threat from Superman so palpable it kinda chokes me up.


Issue #4 - When Jimmy Olsen takes over leadership of the top science program in all of human history, he pulls a boner and falls into a vat of something called the Underverse - a newly discovered realm of super-heavy gravity hidden in the basement beneath the known structure of the universe (WHAT?!). Superman not only pulls Jimmy free - he yanks out a mineral specimen from the dangerous reality with as much effort as it takes my chubby ass to shovel snow off my sidewalk.


Issue #5 - In my favorite issue of 2006, Clark Kent visits Lex Luthor in prison to do a Daily Planet story on the villain's incarceration and finds himself the first-hand witness of a superhuman riot. Frank Quitely blew my mind with this sequence as the ultra-strong Parasite's rampage creates an earthquake so vengeful it literally cannot be contained by the panels and rips the fucking page apart!

And yo, the continuity! This was the first place I noticed Grant's proclivity for stringing all his DC stories into one linear continuity all his own. DC One Million, JLA, Animal Man, 52, All-Star Superman, Batman - it's alllllllll connected, and this was the series that showed me that truth. Comic life hasn't been the same.

So I admit, the love letter wasn't to me, or even exclusively FOR me - it was meant for Superman and all the creators over the past 70+ years who have made the Man of Steel one of the most stunning examples of how far and wide comics can journey into the fun-zone of the imagination. Don't get it twisted: All-Star Superman is as wholly about the infinite possibilities of comicdom as it gets. And I'm proud to say that since 2006, after at least 7 or 8 more read-thrus, I'm proud to call it my favorite comic ever. Big words for the comic that gets me more giddy than any other. Now please go and read an issue - any issue. Bet you'll smile at least once.

And for the record, in all my years in comics, I've never spoken to or met Grant Morrison. It's kind of pathetic of me, but I just never got the chance.


Kiel
Maybe my favorite moment in the whole of DC's 52 series comes at the beginning of issue #31. As the cosmic zombie legions of Lady Styx circle in on a planet that just happens to be a lot like Victorian England, all but forgotten '50s space hero Captain Comet makes a last stand, sending a desperate telepathic message across the cosmos asking for help. But no help is on the way, and so a whole civilization is eaten away by blind white cubes as its people have their chest cavities cut open with oblong scissors.

The scene is dramatic and strange and more than a little creepy, despite the fact that it relies on a few well-worn genre and character tropes and has next to nothing to do with any of the regular cast of the 52-issue weekly series. For me, that was one of the series biggest strengths – not the drama of "Can they pull it off?" or even the tension in the many mysteries confronting the main cast, but the weird inventiveness and joy that Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid were collectively able to pull out of that cut-and-pasted mess (and the DCU is a TOTAL fucking mess) of a universe.

But even considering all those brilliant left-field moments, they aren't the reason I'm writing about 52 for 2006. They just helped me through the reason I am.

See, 2006 was my first full year at Wizard, and while I could go on for a while about my experience landing and keeping the job at the magazine, all that's really germane to this discussion is that I was one of the first staffers (if not the first) tapped to work on Wizard's first stab at having a real online presence with the now defunct WizardUniverse.com. It was an odd thing that first year. Shortly before the summer con season rolled up, I was asked along with new hires Brian Warmoth and Rick Marshall to build an entire back catalog for the site by inputting former magazine features into our super jankety FileMaker Pro-based blogging system. And before we were even finished with that task, the three of us were thrown into the deep end of on online comics journalism when Wizard had its annual Philly convention where it was our stated task to "beat CBR and Newsarama" in posting panel reports and on-the-floor interviews from the show. Boy, did that suck balls.


All things considered, I think the three of us did a pretty great job that year of making the Wizard site viable in the online marketplace, and one huge part of that for me was 52. In any online venture, a big part of getting people to give a shit about what you're writing is interactivity – how many people you can get not just to show up and read or show up and comment, but to show up and link back to you from their own site. With their chock-full of fanboy Easter Eggs approach to throwing every character and their brother into the mix approach, the 52 writers gave our first year on the site a giant gift. Warmoth and I split duties with the series with him interviewing cover artist J.G. Jones each week (and it's still a fucking shame those columns are now gone) while I organized a rag tag bunch of staffers that included everyone from Ben and Rickey to Dave Paggi, TJ and a series of random interns to pitch in to the regular "52 Roundup" column highlighting each issue's biggest moments, plot twists and hidden clues.

That column was occasionally a bear to put together as I had to dive into each Wednesday's new stack of comics (on the week's we couldn't get an advance copy from DC), grab the new issue, pass it amongst the gang and then discuss, assign and write the column with their help. But most of the time it was a total blast. From the ongoing mystery of what exactly Ralph Dibny was going to find throughout his resurrection quest to whatever the hell was going on with the mad scientists of Ooolong Island, there was plenty of addictive cliffhangers carrying along our discussion each week with plenty of curveballs thrown in. And as our silly little column went along, it felt more and more like the round table chats we'd have each week at the Wizard offices was starting to spread around the internet from the site's own message boards to Douglas Wolk's invaluable 52 Pickup blog.

And even though I'd been working at the magazine and having my stuff read by several thousands of fans each month for nearly a year at that point, I didn't feel like I was a part of the broader comics community until that year. While 52 the comic dolled out its thrills over a long, slow-boil story arc, 52 coverage was all about the instantaneous gratification of geeking out over moment of continuity or making some extremely corny (and sometimes just plain mean) joke to see how many people you could get to laugh along. I'm sure that can be said of damn near all writing on the internet, but I never really felt that way about what I did until that 52 column. By the end of it, we even had the writers following along (sometime at a con, ask me about the scariest e-mail I ever got from Mark Waid), though those interactions are dwarfed by what I'm sure Ben's writing about for this year (and if he doesn't include that photo from his Facebook page, he's cheating you poor bastards).

Anyway, the first iteration of the Wizard website collapsed shortly after my year of 52-ing (plus I had to write about Countdown each week during the decline...woof), and it would be easy for me to look upon the whole enterprise as something that never came together in the way I'd quite hoped. But just like 52 the series, that website's bright spots and downturns and (hilariously) dramatic moments added up to a lot more than they'd seem if held in amber (or mylar, to keep my metaphors in house). I wish those archives were still around.

[NOTE: Since it was my turn to post one of these entries, and I see now that Ben did NOT in fact post that pic off of Facebook on the site, I'm doing for him. HAHA! - KP]