Underrated/Overlooked: World War Hulk: X-Men

Sometimes comics can be poetry; they can be works of art; they can be an allegory to a far greater statement used to illustrate the thoughts of their creators in a unique and beautiful medium.

But other times it’s just fun when people in colorful costumes punch each other and talk smack with lots of double page spreads.

However, to say just about any comic book story is just about the punching is a disservice to that story, as there’s generally—not always—something going on at a deeper level even when the surface is a popcorn movie. In my mind though, there’s certainly nothing wrong when the first level of fun is what sticks with you and you perhaps lose the sublevel context unless you’re re-reading; a well-executed fun comic is every bit as impressive as any other sort of achievement from where I sit.

Greg Pak and John Romita Jr.’s World War Hulk is the type of story I remember fondly as a fun comic with lots of punching. Pak had just told a year-long epic weaving science fiction with commentary on The Hulk’s inner identity and sense of self and managed to climax all that character work in a blockbuster that both showcased Romita’s proficiency for drawing the big fights as well as the emotional payoff for the build.

Within the larger event was the three-issue World War Hulk: X-Men limited series by Christos Gage and Andre Di Vito. Now just as the main event worked in pathos with the action, so too did this side story, with moral dilemmas playing a major role and the quiet moments of characterization standing out, but at the end of the day, I know my friend Christos Gage, and I believe he set out to tell the coolest “action figures come to life” romp he could with The Hulk fighting the X-Men—and he succeeded.

The gist of World War Hulk is that the Illuminati rocketed Hulk into space with the intention of sending him to a quiet planet where he would be happy and left alone, but instead he ended up on the war-town world of Sakaar; nonetheless, Hulk flourished on Sakaar, overthrowing a dictator, making friends and falling in love, but then a bomb he thinks the Illuminati placed on his ship detonated, killing most of the populace—including his new wife and their unborn child—so he heads back to Earth with what remains of his army and declares war on the dudes who sent him into space to begin with.

The gist of World War Hulk: X-Men is that Professor X wasn’t at the Illuminati meeting where they made the whole “send Hulk into space” call, but Hulk wants to find out how he would have voted had he been there, and he’ll beat the crap out of every X-Man to get his answer straight from the source and then decide his response.

The first issue has Hulk crashing the X-Mansion where Professor X and Beast are hanging out with the New X-Men while the adults are all off on a mission. One of many cool/smart moves Gage does with this series is structures the whole thing like a boxing/wrestling card with the undercard stuff gradually building excitement to the main event. In this case, the opening bout is the inexperienced and outclassed New X-Men going up against the strongest force in the Marvel Universe and getting their plucky butts kicked, but not before dishing out some decent shots like X-23 kicking Hulk in the eye with one of her toe blades. It also gives Xavier a chance to agonize over yet another mistake coming back to haunt him—this came right on the heels of the double reveal that he created Danger and concealed the existence of Vulcan and the rest of the second class of X-Men—and his most innocent students suffering as a result.

By the end of issue one, the first cavalry arrives in the form of the Astonishing X-Men cast: Cyclops, Wolverine, Colossus, Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde. At this point, Xavier is ready to surrender, lest more of his protégés suffer, but Cyclops and Emma, showing signs of their growing independence from the Professor, tell him that’s not happening—they’re pissed at him for lots of stuff, but only they get to punish him for it—and we’re set for the next round.

This would be a good time to mention how perfect Andrea Di Vito’s art is for this story. His figures are smooth and exaggerated in the right way for super hero comics, even more so super hero comics with lots of fighting with fists flying, claws popping and energy blasts of every shape, size and color being tossed around. As he showed in Annihilation, Di Vito knows how to choreograph the visual aspect of a massive battle beautifully and also how to bring a large cast to life, two musts for this series. Di Vito’s art perfectly walks that line of intensity and fun with some brutality mixed in for effect, and it’s exactly what Gage’s script calls for here.

So with the second issue we get into the big ticket battles in earnest, as Hulk has some actual competition, and said competition continues to expand as the smashing continues and more X-Men—including Nightcrawler, Warpath, Darwin and Hepzibah—along with X-Factor get conscripted into service. You’ve got to love—or at least I do—how Gage doesn’t just go for the easy route of fan service taking all the toys out of the toy box and then putting all the work on Di Vito to just make an eternally neat premise come to life; he actually thinks out the fights and comes up with some genuinely clever twists. I dig how he solves the issue of Darwin, the mutant who evolves to face any threat, by having his power determine the best way to protect him is teleport him to Connecticut, thus taking him out of the fight.

Given their history, Wolverine and Hulk obviously get some significant screen time, although I’m once again impressed on how this creative team is able to push quality over quantity and not let this battle take away from any other in terms of real estate. Di Vito proves up to the task of depicting the requisite grisliness of Logan slicing up his most unbeatable foe and two guys with mega healing factors going to town, but my main kudos goes to another thinking man’s twist by Gage as to the resolution of the fracas—and I am of course going to spoil it here—as he has Hulk rattle Wolverine around by the head, reasoning that even though he can heal real quick from physical wounds, the brain damage caused by squishy gray matter inside an Adamantium skull is a lot tougher to bounce back from.

Another deserving character who gets a nice spotlight here is Colossus, the X-Men’s resident strong man and the Marvel Universe power broker who generally gets left out of the discussion when folks debate their Hulk vs Thor vs Thing battles. Peter Rasputin has a nice showing that focuses on how even though he’s no match for The Hulk—or probably any of those guys—from a pure power perspective, his heart and how much he cares about his friends keeps him in the game; it doesn’t stop him from getting brutally dispatched and having his metal arms broken backwards, but it keeps him in the game for a bit.

On that score, World War Hulk: X-Men is in a lot of ways about Christos Gage giving every X-Man across the board of power and popularity their turn to shine even if it’s in the smallest way, and it’s neat to see that kind of instant credibility a character can receive by lasting even a couple panels with The Hulk—and indeed Gage makes sure to impress upon us that is a big deal.

The Hong Kong action movie style you’d see in a Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan flick where the bad guys attack one at a time to give the star a chance to show off their moves is what Gage employs here with the X-Men as the henchmen, but in this case he manages to use the fight tableaus to give both combatants cool moments. Warpath gets to do a little slicing and dicing with his Vibranium knives before getting swatted away. Monet actually stands toe-to-toe for a bit. Strong Guy nearly gets the job done before being undone by the inherent limitations of his own power. Hepzibah uses the Blackbird as a lawn dirt. And Jamie Madrox gets to hold his own in a verbal spar with Emma Frost.

Nobody gets to shine like The Juggernaut though.

If you know Christos Gage or have ever read an interview with him, you know that he has his particular passion characters, among them Union Jack, Devil Dinosaur, Red Ronin and in particular The Juggernaut. He’s a pro, but he’s also a fanboy, and he’s a dude who loves seeing Juggernaut being big, bad, and crushing everything in his unstoppable path. By the time World War Hulk rolled around, Juggernaut had spent a couple of years at diminished power levels and on the side of angels; when he got his turn at bat, Gage decided to take a swing at bringing back the character he loved but without having to disrespect any work that had come before in the process.

In the second issue of World War Hulk: X-Men, Cain Marko makes a plea to his patron, Cyttorak, to amp his powers back up, ostensibly so he can rescue his half-brother, Professor X, from The Hulk, but ends up getting dropped into the action still at half-strength then stomped. Cyttorak wants his avatar back to being vicious, and realizing on some level that’s what he wants as well, Cain agrees to go back to being a badass, armoring back up and giving The Hulk a real run for his money. Gage scripts the Hulk-Juggernaut smackdown with glee while Di Vito brings his amped up A-game to bear on the comic book equivalent of slamming two locomotives together over and over. It’s a great fight, but perhaps more importantly it allowed Gage to add some edge back to Juggernaut without overwriting his years as a decent dude, placing some acknowledged internal struggle between the character’s desire to better and deeply held love for mayhem.

Without completely spoiling the ending—even with all I’ve already given away, you should still absolutely check this out for the stuff I haven’t plus the great art—the ultimate resolution comes from a fairly unlikely source and in a way that leaves the story without any real winners, a parallel to the larger story of World War Hulk.

Fitting the X-Men into larger events has been a tricky proposition since the days of Secret Wars, as they’re so vast and such an overwhelming presence that bringing them in without making the story all about them can be tough. Their co-star billing alongside the Avengers in House of M pretty much shoved everybody else out of the picture, while I can’t picture the main threads of Infinity Gauntlet, Civil War, Secret Invasion and so on holding up as solidly with a few dozen mutants crowding the picture. Off-to-the side stories that have value and make the X-Men part of the bigger happenings are always welcome and that’s what Gage and Di Vito give us here.

They also created a story I remembered as fun and then came to see as darn clever upon reflection, so well done all around.

Underrated/Overlooked: Fatal Attractions

The thing most people remember about the 1993 X-Men semi-crossover Fatal Attractions is, frankly, the holograms.

Fatal Attractions spread the long-awaited return of X-Men uber villain Magneto (he’d only been “dead” for a couple years, but there were so many X-Books with so much happening every week at the time that a couple years felt like decades) over six chapters. What made it somewhat unique on the heels of stuff like Inferno, X-Tinction Agenda and my beloved X-Cutioner’s Song and the reason I call it a “semi-crossover” was that unlike those events, where each chapter bled into the next and readers had to adjust to shifting creative teams trying their best to tell a seamless story, each installment of Fatal Attractions more or less stood alone as pieces of a larger puzzle that could still be savored individually and gave every writer and artist their own chance to shine without having to worry about any baton.

But back to the holograms for a moment.

Gimmick covers were of course all the rage in 1993. The gimmick du jour for Fatal Attractions was that the front of each cardstock cover had a hologram of one of the book’s stars as designed by the series artist in the upper right hand corner under the logo. I’ve heard from the walls that can talk at Marvel HQ that these babies were not exactly the easiest things to pull together—and to the best of my knowledge we haven’t seen them since—but they sure did look sweet, particularly as you could really see each guy’s design sense in the one he created (Joe Quesada did Havok for X-Factor, Greg Capullo did Cable for X-Force, John Romita Jr. did Magneto for Uncanny X-Men, Andy Kubert did Gambit for X-Men, Adam Kubert did Wolverine for…well…Wolverine and I’m not sure who did Nightcrawler for Excalibur, maybe Joe Madureira, but it looked nice—and I’m sorry if I just got any credits wrong).

However, this was one case where the 90’s sizzle on the outside has perhaps caused folks to forget that the work in between the covers brought the steak in spades. Like I said, each chapter really did work on its own, so let me touch quickly on what I dug about each.

The story kicks off in X-Factor #92 by Peter David and Joe Quesada, although more than any other part of Fatal Attractions, this one ties in more thematically than anything else and serves truly as the prologue. Magneto’s groupies, the Acolytes, led by the guy who “killed” him, Fabian Cortez—they don’t know that—attack a government Sentinel-building factory really as a way to draw Quicksilver, X-Factor member and son of Magneto, into the fray. The main event of the issue is Cortez attempting to sway Quicksilver to become his ally and take his place as Magneto’s heir, which does a nice job filling any new readers in on what Mags’ deal is and why he’s such a nasty piece of work. While this is going on though, you also get a pretty killer X-Factor vs Acolytes throwdown—with a literally killer Jamie Madrox moment—gorgeous formative Quesada art, the balance of wit and morality that PAD always brings to the table, and a pretty powerful ending where the team confronts their government liaison and supposed friend Val Cooper about the whole Sentinel thing. There’s also a cameo from Exodus, who becomes more important down the line.

X-Force #25 by Fabian Nicieza and Greg Capullo has its own big time non-Magneto comeback, as Cable, who had been “dead” for an even shorter amount of time, returns to the team he founded to discover maybe they don’t need him anymore. I’ve said before how much I absolutely loved this era of X-Force and the Cable-less issues in particular, but this remains a personal favorite because it highlights how much Cannonball and company had grown over such a short time and forces Cable to have to prove his worth to his old charges, a neat 180 from the first year or so of the series where he was the gruff and mysterious drill sergeant they were all eager to please; you also get the beginnings of Cable as far more of a fully realized character as opposed to a 90’s cliché, with him relaxing a bit and demonstrating that he cares about and appreciates this kids just as much as his pouches and guns. But if that wasn’t enough to entice you, Exodus makes his first extended appearance to beat the crap out of X-Force and attempt to invite Cannonball and Sunspot to join his “master,” a cloaked guy in a space station who they tip toe around naming until the very end where he dons the full Magneto regalia as awesomely depicted by Capullo. It’s definitely the “warm-up” issue for the main event X-Men one-two, but it’s again a great story on its own that once more effectively shows a side of Magneto—in this case the teacher who wants his students back—as well as bringing Cable back in style and elevating X-Force since each guy wants to guide them (and Cable’s awesome “I don’t want them to follow my path—I want to follow theirs!” speech coupled with Magneto’s brutal disassembling of his machine side makes for a fantastic close).

So then we come to Uncanny X-Men #304, the first round of the true prize fight by Scott Lobdell and John Romita Jr., and you’ve got a lot going on. First off, Colossus’ kid sister Illyana, at one time Magik of the New Mutants, had died of the Legacy Virus, and it is in many ways the death of innocence in the X-Men’s world. Lobdell does some really nuanced character work covering the reactions, from Colossus’ refusal to show his feelings (or his non-metal form), to Professor X’s guilt, to Kitty Pryde’s gamut of emotions (she’s us, remember); there’s also a great bit where Bishop tries to pull his whole cryptic warnings of a doomed future routine with Banshee and Banshee deadpans “And what if I just go toss myself in front a bus? What happens then?” Interwoven with the grieving and the X-Teams coming together, there are pages written by Lobdell with powerful art by Jae Lee revealing pieces of Magneto’s earliest days in a Nazi concentration camp, some of which had been covered, but never with such raw detail (I believe this is the first time he’s called Erik and it’s not a stretch to say the great opening to the first X-Men movie borrowed heavily from here, intentionally or not). The two worlds come crashing together as Magneto, flanked by his Acolytes—Exodus revealed Cortez’ treachery to them and crushed him earlier in the issue—has the audacity to make his showy official return in the midst of the funeral and earmark this failure on the X-Men’s part to protect the most innocent among them as proof positive that Xavier’s dream has failed. Over the course of several Romita Jr. pages packed with characters and details, the more-powerful-than-ever Magneto dominates his heroic adversaries while also engaging with the usual philosophical battle of wills with his old friend Xavier, maybe making better points for why he’s right than ever before. It all builds to the heartbreaking moment where X-Men stalwart Colossus can stand no more tragedy and does the unthinkable, choosing to side with Magneto and become an Acolyte, breaking Professor X’s heart in the process and perhaps shattering his dream as well. The final page, where Xavier is dropped from the sky by Magneto, caught gently by Archangel and then assures his X-Men he knows he can count on all of them is extremely poignant; it’s an impressive pairing of action and pathos in that unique way only super hero comics can do it.

There’s less talk and more action in X-Men #25, as Nicieza comes back for his second go around, this time with Andy Kubert on art. Magneto fries most of the world’s electrical grid with an electromagnetic pulse mostly to show he can, so Professor X decides enough is enough and he’s taking a small strike force of X-Men—Jean Grey, Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit and Quicksilver, on loan from X-Factor—to finish this once and for all; he also dons a sweet Shi’Ar exoskeleton that allows him to walk so he can be front and center, despite the protests of many of his students. When Xavier essentially tells Cyclops he needs him to stay behind to carry on in case they don’t come back, you believe it. The strike force storms Avalon and teleports the Acolytes off the base so it’s straight up X-Men vs Magneto with the good guys being more ruthless than ever at Xavier’s insistence. Quicksilver and Rogue both play up their personal connections to Mags while assaulting him simultaneously; Professor X and a reluctant Jean barrage him with a psychic slew of bad memories, including Cypher’s death while he was in charge of the New Mutants; Wolverine goes full berserker; I’m not quite sure why Gambit was there other than to justify being in the cover hologram, but maybe he picked some locks or something. Despite it all, Magneto just keeps coming and neither side looks to give an inch. Then, out of nowhere, Wolverine makes a vicious swipe at his opponent’s guts—and Magneto responds by tearing the adamantium clear off Wolvie’s bones and out of his pores!

This is of course nearly 20 years in the rearview at this point, but you have to understand, as a fan reading at the time, the splash page image of the most popular and untouchable X-Man screaming in agony and quite possibly meeting his end in visually grisly fashion was beyond shocking. An enraged Xavier responds to that knockout with a ruthless uppercut of his own, full-on mind blasting Magneto like he never has before and wiping the dude’s brain clean, leaving him catatonic (we wouldn’t see him operational again for another six years, so really Fatal Attractions was more a blip on the radar than a full return, but what a blip). The postscript has Wolverine and an exhausted Xavier both in critical condition as Colossus shows up to help his former teammates get out before the other Acolytes return and then silently cradle Magneto’s limp body in a powerful closing panel.

To demonstrate just how standalone these books were, I have never actually read Wolverine #75! I know it’s by Larry Hama and Adam Kubert and that it deals with Wolverine ultimately recovering then electing to leave the X-Men, but I’ve never cracked the cover; it’s one of my white whales.

Everything wraps up in Excalibur #71, written by Lobdell with an assortment of artists helping him out, but this is really an “It’s all over but the crying” situation, as the big action was out of the way and now it was just a matter of dealing with the fallout; it’s a nice bookend to X-Factor in that it’s a true epilogue you don’t always get to see when you’re running from one big story to the next. Professor X, Cyclops and Jean Grey come to Muir Island, where the remaining members of Excalibur—Nightcrawler, Shadowcat and Phoenix—have stopped in to help Moira MacTaggert with some business. After some serious persuasion—and some nice “Professor Xavier is a jerk” thematic callback—the X-Men persuade Kitty to lure Colossus to the island, as apparently he has an outstanding head injury and they fear it may have influenced his recent decisions. Colossus shows up, feels the sting of his one-time love’s betrayal, but gets the help he needs while Cyclops and Nightcrawler beat up the Acolytes cannon fodder—including CKT favorite Katu!—and Rachel Summers has a somewhat random but sweet meeting with her alternate reality half-brother (neither knows yet, but the readers kinda did) Cable. In the end, Colossus forgives Kitty and offers thanks to the X-Men, but still chooses to remain an Acolyte, putting a bow on Fatal Attractions and what it was really trying to say as a whole: There are no absolutes in the X-Men Universe and neither Professor X nor his dream may be quite as infallible as we thought. Also, Excalibur decides to stay on Muir Island with Moira, but that’s another story.

It’s come to be a mantra from me here and elsewhere, but the 90’s get a bad rap. The X-Men in the 90’s get a particularly bad rap. A story like Fatal Attractions, remembered more for its posters, gimmicks and splashy returns was actually a deft ballet of awesome action and harrowing emotional betrayal, with healthy doses of humor and character growth mixed in plus pretty consistently great art throughout. It’s a true example not to judge a book by its cover.

Regardless of if the cover has a sweet hologram.

Underrated/Overlooked: Silver Surfer: Requiem

The Silver Surfer is not the easiest guy to make work as a protagonist. I’m a fan of a character and think he’s a great creation, not to mention one of comics’ greatest guest stars—he really adds weight and that “oh shit, things just got real” factor to any story—but when he’s the focus, it’s a tough sell.

To this day, probably the best Silver Surfer story of all—at least top three—is his introduction in Fantastic Four where he turns on Galactus and helps the FF save Earth. The tale of a stoic alien realizing we dumb humans may be worth saving and more or less turning on God to stand up for us is pretty spectacular as far as star turns go.

Unfortunately, even the best stuff with the Surfer on a long-term basis seems to stagnate. The first handful of issues in his initial solo series by Stan Lee and John Buscema are seriously killer, but you reach a point where you can only sit through so much pathos about being trapped on Earth/separated from his true love, and the “I don’t understand why humans are so needlessly violent…but I will save them anyways” routine gets played out rather rapidly. I likewise enjoyed what Jim Starlin and Ron Marz did with the Surfer back in the 90’s, but even they were hampered by his fairly unbeatable power set and basic detached nature; the first problem kept him in space fighting cosmic gods and nothing else while the second just made him tough to relate to or even like that much.

However, while he may not make an ideal candidate for ongoing series headline status, the Surfer has inspired some pretty great one-off tales, and I think Requiem, by J. Michael Straczynski and Esad Ribic, may well be among the very best.

The story is not set in continuity and depicts what happens when the Silver Surfer learns he is dying and how he spends his final days. Though there is action, it’s less an adventure—the end outcome is never really in doubt—and more a character study of Norrin Radd and his alter ego by JMS. Say what you will about Straczynski—everybody does—but you can really tell when he truly loves a character because few break them down and show what makes them work better, and he sure as heck must be fond of the Silver Surfer.

In four issues, we see the Surfer’s final journey to Earth as he seeks out the Fantastic Four to learn his fate, more or less an extended conversation with Spider-Man, a final cosmic tale centered around an age-old interstellar conflict, and finally, Norrin Radd’s return to Zenn-La, his reunion with Shalla Bal, and his ultimate encounter with Galactus.

The Surfer does not talk all that much throughout Requiem. He’s not silent and we’re given a window into his thoughts on his own mortality, what he has accomplished, his legacy, his view on humanity and other topics, but only speaks when moved to do so, and his words have great weight; it’s a far cry from the philosophizing wonderer of Lee’s early stories, who was special in his own right, but seems like a far younger version of the character.

Instead, it’s mostly through how others view him that JMS paints his picture of the Silver Surfer. The FF agonizes over being unable to help him overcome his gravest ordeal in light of all he has truly given at great cost to his own existence. Spider-Man realizes he has been guilty of always viewing him as an outsider, only to learn through a simple chat he may have greater insight into humanity than most people could dream of. Two alien generals witness his awesome power and feel his rage at not being able to solve all the universe’s problems, and worse, not understanding why he can’t. The people of Zenn La revere him for his tremendous sacrifice on their behalf. Shalla Bal sees simply the man she will always love. And finally, Galactus shows that even the most powerful being in the galaxy can learn respect.

The story reminds us of the silent nobility that the Surfer had back in those first appearances. We see a man whose near infinite capacity for putting himself in peril so that other may have a chance to simply be is rivaled only by his frustration at not understanding why everybody else can’t see things as he does.

Perhaps the finest moment in the series comes in the second issue during the encounter between the Surfer and Spider-Man. At Spidey’s behest, the Surfer shares his Power Cosmic with another, the Web-Slinger’s wife, Mary Jane Watson, as a birthday present. There’s a great aside where after the Surfer introduces himself as Norrin Radd to MJ, Spidey mentally chides himself for never thinking he had a real name, never seeing him as a person. Following the experience, answering a question the Surfer had earlier about how he could do something to help Earth before he died, Spider-Man suggests he allows the entire world to see things as he does for just five seconds—maybe it will make a difference, maybe it won’t, but people will at least glimpse and know that there’s a better way to live. It’s a beautiful beat.

Indeed the whole series is beautiful thanks to Ribic’s painted art. He’s a deliberate and particular talent who we don’t see new work from with great frequency because he is so specific about what projects he chooses and then pours himself into them for years at a time. Requiem benefits tremendously from Ribic’s commitment and patience.

Just as the Surfer is a tough guy to write, he’s a challenge for artists, as it’s really just a naked dude painted silver. The true masters from Jack Kirby to John Buscema to Moebius and so on have been able to leave their mark on the character by rising to this and going all out, not taking shortcuts that are pretty clearly there. Ribic walks a perfect balance between giving the Surfer an ethereal glow particularly in his facial expression and portraying his fading sheen as dictated by the story as very much an all-too-real metal that dents and bruises. He both makes the character almost larger than imagination and so close you can touch him. His portrayal of the Surfer’s power feels every bit as epic as it should, and his delicate work on the moving final scenes make the grief come off the page.

And his Galactus is sick.

Silver Surfer: Requiem depicts the Silver Surfer with all the promise and majesty he displayed when he first sprang forth from the minds of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He fulfills his potential as a champion perhaps without fear facing his most trying and yet defining moments. And yet, good as the story and art are, I think they also show why the Surfer works best in small doses. This is a character you bottle up and save for special occasions, of which this is certainly one. It may be tough to make the Silver Surfer work, but when you can, it’s magic.

Cruel Summer Finale: Five Underrated Bad Guys

Over the course of the last couple months in my Cruel Summer series, I’ve had a good time picking apart and analyzing some of my personal favorite comic book villains, as well as bad guys I thought called for a bit more scrutiny.

Well, all good things and all that, and with this being the last day of August, it’s kinda the end of summer in my eyes, so I thought I’d finish off with quick hits on five baddies I think get the short shrift and deserve more exposure and/or recognition.

AHAB
Based on appearance alone, Ahab freaked me the heck out as a kid. I was just thumbing through back issues at a store or something, came across Days of Future Present, and this guy just looked horrifying. I gathered bits and pieces over the years and the fact that he was basically the end boss of Marvel’s nastiest dystopian future and that he could reduce heroes like Cyclops and Invisible Woman to mindless “hounds” just upped his creep factor. Having actually read the event that introduced him now, I think all the pieces are there for a really memorable X-Men villain, but also that his best stories are still to come. I also think one of the cooler things done in the waning years of Excalibur was to introduce Rory Campbell as a young idealist, then slowly and agonizingly drag him down the path to becoming Ahab that he knew was his destiny but so desperately hoped to avoid. Great-looking villain and neat personal connection that make for a character who shouldn’t be sitting on the shelf.

KANTO
There are a lot of New Gods villain who are vastly underused and underrated—I’m not sure if Orion’s mother, Tigra, really counts as a “villain,” but it sure seems like making her one would be a neat way to have a short-term Darkseid stand-in—but my favorite may well be Kanto, the guy so bad ass that the ruler of Apokolips, who can pretty much kill anybody any time they feel like, employs him as the official assassin of the most evil planet in the galaxy. I also love that rather than be the typical tough-talking, scraggly-bearded cliché you expect from such a job position, Kanto is this dashing dude dressed like a fop who insists on maintaining his sense of style while running around trying to get Mister Miracle in a death trap; more of this fellow, please.

TOYO HARADA
I never read much Valiant as a kid, but I did get the re-release of Harbinger a couple years back, and one of the many things that impressed me about the book is just how scary Toyo Harada is. For one thing he’s immensely powerful; for another, he truly believes he’s the good guy and that he’s saving the world by taking it into his capable hands, which always makes for more interesting villains. In many ways, Harada is a lot like Lex Luthor in his immediate post-Crisis incarnation as the beloved businessman of Metropolis only Superman and a few others really know as a scumbag, but with off-the-charts telepathic abilities rather than just money and gadgets. The thing that really got me with Harada though was how he never would tip his hat as far as exactly how much of Sting’s life he was manipulating, which just added a sinister edge; he was evil and powerful in a way only Pete truly understood since the potential for both was in him as well, and to me the burden of knowing the world’s most benevolent man is a wolf in sheep’s clothing being solely on a kid is such a perfectly terrifying scenario.

COUNT VERTIGO
In many ways, one could see Count Vertigo as a Doctor Doom knock-off of sorts, sharing the standing as European nobility as well as the arrogance and contempt for anybody not him. On the other hand, where Doom is a self-made man who clawed his way up from poverty and sports the literal scars to prove it, Vertigo was born with the silver spoon in his mouth and never had to strive for anything until years later. The missed opportunities I see with Vertigo is that here’s a major player with extremely substantial powers and impressive pedigree who for some reason spends most of his time bugging Green Arrow and Black Canary. Sure there’s some novelty to this pampered royal being taken down by an archer and a girl in fishnets, but wouldn’t he be better served going a few rounds with Superman or The Flash? I’d hone in on the stuff that made Vertigo’s best Suicide Squad appearances, specifically his need to prove he can indeed earn things on his own, and work that into a self-loathing of his underachiever status in villains and renewed motivation to take on the big guns.

MISTER HYDE
Here’s a character who not only appears pretty regularly throughout the Marvel Universe but also has a pretty solid pedigree of decent stories; and yet, he’s really only ever been a random bad guy who switches dance partners every time he shows up, where I think he’s got the potential to be a great consistent foil for some hero. Hyde’s got a brains and brawn combo gimmick that reminds me of Blockbuster during the halcyon days of Chuck Dixon’s Nightwing, but he both predates that run by far and also has a not-yet-fully-tapped elegance and depth I feel beyond his DC counterpart as well. I thought of him for this list in large part because of his recent appearance in the first two issues of Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee’s Thor: The Mighty Avenger. If you need even more reason to check out that book (which you shouldn’t), that kick-off story is the perfect blueprint for elevating Mister Hyde to prominent status in Marvel pantheon of evil. A schemer and kingpin who can also be his own muscle as well as a character conflicted as the one he takes his name from, Hyde could do great things if given the chance.

Underrated/Overlooked: Spider-Man: The Lost Years

Recently I’ve started digging into the newly-collected Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic. Obviously it’s remembered as one of the more “controversial” comics stories of the 90’s and maybe all-time (I put that word in quotes since it just seems to be the polite catch-all folks use when describing something people didn’t receive that well, ala how WWE announcers frequently call John Cena “The most controversial WWE champion of all-time”).

I’m not here to praise or bury the story as a whole, as some talented folks were involved both creatively and editorially and odds are no matter how many “tell-all” interviews see print, we’ll never know the full story behind where certain elements that were supposed to zig were meant to zag and so on. I wasn’t invested enough in Spider-Man at the time to really be super-offended by any of it; I didn’t love how long it dragged on (and from what I understand, neither did most of the people involved), but at the same time it did get me to check out the books a few times.

Revisiting the storyline thus far in its early stages, I’ve yet to form a larger opinion of it (it’s going to take quite some time before I get to read the “Complete Epic”), but one volume in, I do know one thing: J.M. DeMatteis, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson dropped one gem of a limited series in the midst of the madness.

Spider-Man: The Lost Years is a three-issue snapshot from 1995 of the time Spidey clone Ben Reilly spent in exile in the decades between his debut and return. Following his presumed death in his first appearance, Ben took to the road and travelled across America and the world taking odd jobs teaching science or working in labs to stay close to the passion that still resided within him, but mostly just biding time on a long journey to nowhere. Lost Years tells of one particular stop-over where Ben finds love and reluctantly dons a mask once more to combat small-town corruption and the specter of his fellow clone and “evil twin,” Kaine.

J.M. DeMatteis stands out as one of comics’ best when it comes to writing introspective stories that delve heavily into the psyche and questions both base and complex about the nature of things like humanity and morality. In Lost Years, identity is the subject of DeMatteis’ exploration, as its centerpiece is Ben Reilly struggling with his inner turmoil over whether or not he has the right to a “real life” when he’s just a copy of somebody else as well as whether or not to claim ownership over things like his love of science or the values he—or rather Peter Parkers—acquired from Aunt May and Uncle Ben, including that pesky “With great power comics great responsibility” chestnut.

Where Ben stands on that last point fuels much of the conflict in Lost Years, as he observed bad things happening to good people, but tears himself apart over whether or not doing something about it is laying claim to that life and those privileges he feels he doesn’t deserve. Indeed inaction and observing Uncle Ben’s sage wisdom seems to form something of a bedrock of Reilly’s code: he’s being more of a hero by not using those great powers as to do so would be an affront, and he’s not beholden to that great responsibility because it’s Peter’s burden to bear as a counterweight to all the good things he has that Ben has been denied.

To be sure, Ben Reilly in Lost Years is about as angsty as “heroes” come, even for 1995, but in this case you can’t help but feel like he has a right to his pathos. This is a man who was forced into the world with memories, loved ones and even tiny things like interests or hobbies he’s keenly aware of at all times, but can never touch; DeMatteis succeeds in stripping Ben down psychologically to show why he is a fascinating protagonist and give reason to root for him to get his shit together and (literally) get a life.

On the other side of the coin, you’ve got Kaine, the scarred and diseased first attempt to clone Peter Parker (it’s a whole long thing) who now spends his life drowning in self-pity, causing trouble for the sake of amusement, and tailing Ben Reilly, the person he hates and envies more than anybody else in the world. Besides being bulked up and thus a physically-exaggerated version of Ben, Kaine is also the psychologically-heightened take on Reilly: whereas Ben may be eternally dejected at his lot in life, Kaine is flat out pissed off about it; where Ben’s negative feelings about his status as “not a man” manifest in moping and detachment, Kaine’s are expressed via rage and violence.

While Lost Years complains no shortage of action, it’s of an almost refreshingly mundane variety, as the spandex and super powers are left mostly at home with Ben and Kaine getting caught up in organized crime and corrupt police business around the Salt Lake City area of Utah. It’s nice contrast to the rest of the Clone Saga collection I read it in, where Spider-Man seems to be going up against Omni-powerful bad guys way above his pay grade, but also just feels like the right setting for two lost souls whose lives are anything but colorful. Indeed the lack of panache and energy blasts being thrown around is a pretty good summation for the lack of being special or even unique Ben and Kaine feel.

Both the clones seem to find love over the course of Lost Years, and each faces trials along the way to a possible happy ending (I won’t reveal the specifics, because obviously I think you should read this story). Again, DeMatteis shows his grasp over human nature here, as love is really played up as the potentially redemptive element that could give Ben and Kaine each something unique to call their own and reclaim them for their respective (or perhaps shared) purgatories. It’s also worth noting that Kaine of course dives headfirst into his romance without even really realizing at first it might be his “out,” while Ben is characteristically with trepidations not only about dragging another soul into his complex existence, but again whether or not this is even something he deserves.

This book came out right around the period I was starting to come around on John Romita Jr.’s art after a childhood of hating the way I thought he made the X-Men look ugly. It took a series like this (as well as an introduction to his Daredevil work) to really appreciate how much care he puts into drawing people without costumes, not to mention scene-after-scene of torrential rain. It’s the attention to detail that makes JRJr. great, and I’ve certainly changed my tune on him over the years, thanks in large parts to work like this (I still don’t really like how he draws the X-Men, but hey, pretty good batting average still). Klaus Janson is the perfect inking complement (as he often is) and they really capture DeMatteis’ somber, moody and powerfully raw work in a way I’m not sure any other art team could have.

I think the tragedy to a solid piece of work like Spider-Man: The Lost Years for me is that I read it and see how the Clone Saga maybe could have gone “right,” or at the least yielded a pretty cool long-term character in Ben Reilly. This type of story, with Ben as a wandering and reluctant hero struggling with his own issues and musing for writers like DeMatteis on the meaning of identity while stopping the occasional bad guy could have been a cool and different avenue to explore alongside the traditional Spider-Man fare rather than in its place. Indeed if the clone had returned to the Spidey mythos briefly to remind the true Peter Parker (who was kind of a downer at the time) of the great life he has, restoring that status quo somewhat and then hit the road again, perhaps a bit more fulfilled and a bit more at peace with his existence, the Spider-Clone (or Scarlet Spider or whatever) could have been a great every-other-year guest star/once-in-a-while limited series star.

Well no use mourning over what could have been for too long, but I do suggest you get a taste with Spider-Man: The Lost Years.

The sad, squandered potential of Kitchen Confidential

Today’s television climate has made me a paranoid consumer.

Shows get canceled so quickly and sometime with such random rationale that it feels like the freakin’ wild West, man (not really, but that’s a great go-to analogy). I get super-excited about the new Fall season and reading what new programs are debuting, then almost immediately pull back and won’t watch anything without a season behind it for fear I’ll get abandoned on a cliffhanger four episodes in.

I’ll generally subscribe to the theory that if I watch a first season on DVD, then I’m safe to get into season two, but even that can backfire (thank you, Dirty Sexy Money). And hype is no proper barometer either as the stuff with the all-star line-ups and huge marketing campaigns tanks as easily as the under-the-radar sleepers (I’m pretty glad I didn’t put any eggs in the FlashForward basket, but I’m pretty psyched Parenthood will be back in the fall).

To varying degrees, shows like Firefly, Better Off Ted, Veronica Mars, Jack & Bobby, and of course the patron saint of all unjustly cancelled shows Arrested Development have all broken my heart, but one case of television euthanasia stands chef’s hat and shoulder above the rest for me.
When Kitchen Confidential hit the airwaves in the fall of 2005, it had the full weight of the Fox promotional machine behind it to begin with and I tuned in because I was a fan of Bradley Cooper from Wedding Crashers as well as his stint on the aforementioned Jack & Bobby (not to mention Wet Hot American Summer). I thought the first couple episodes were pretty good, but then it went on hiatus for the World Series, pulled mediocre ratings, and got cancelled after only two more installments. Truth be told, I—like most of the viewing public—forgot about the show during the hiatus and wasn’t much bothered by the cancellation.

Last year for Christmas I got the full 13-episode series on DVD and wow—that this show only got four chances to show what it could do (not to mention a momentum-halting stoppage right after it started) is a travesty.

It’s a smart comedy that comes out the gate with a different feel. It was based on chef Anthony Bourdain’s “reformed bad boy” lifestyle working in restaurant kitchens which provided a unique setting a few years before cooking reality shows hit it big. The writing is sharp and the look inside the dining industry provides enough varied plots to keep it from feeling like just another sitcom.

But as well-conceptualized and written as Kitchen Confidential is, no question the cast is what sets it apart.

If Bradley Cooper enjoys life as a movie star, he should really be thanking Fox for botching the management of this show so badly, because his Jack Bourdain is such a great character tailored so perfectly to him that had Kitchen Confidential taken off, I would not be surprised if he ended up a TV lifer; and that’s a compliment, by the way. Jack is exactly the kind of charming in spite of his douchiness rogue that Cooper plays so well, but unlike in Wedding Crashers or The Hangover, he’s the emotional center of the piece here rather than the antagonist or sidekick. This is the guy we’re meant to root for and feel empathy towards, despite the fact that he’s cocky, a womanizer, ill-tempered, etc.—and Cooper pulls it off! You love Jack when he’s reeling off one-liners or getting the girl, but there’s also that deep-rooted layer of good that shows through in his loyalty towards his friends, his drive to be the best and his commitment to warding off his demons that not only humanizes him, but provides dramatic grounding for a very funny show as well. Cooper—in conjunction with the writers and Anthony Bourdain—crafted one of the more unique television “heroes” of the past several years on this show, and that we didn’t get to see more of his journey is probably the greatest crime to come with its dismissal.

However, Bradley Cooper is hardly carrying this show on his own. You look over the cast and it’s pretty darn impressive both on the screen and in terms of what they’ve done since. Nicholas Brendon is still—and likely always will be—best known for playing Xander on Buffy, but he flipped the script here as pastry chef Seth Richman, a far more confident and outgoing type whose comedy comes from his unfamiliarity with failure and awkwardness rather than Xander’s constant love affair with both. John Francis Daley plays the odd man out among a group of alpha males as newbie chef Jim, not shockingly becoming probably the most endearing character on the show in the process—his romance with ditzy bombshell Tanya, played by Sin City’s Jaime King, is just adorable—and creating a template for his work the last several seasons on Bones. Owain Yeoman plays a great mini-Jack as sous chef Steven, which makes it even funnier when he displays a broad emotional side, and he’s currently a regular on The Mentalist. And lest the boys have all the fun, Bonnie Somerville is hysterical as conniving and neurotic head waitress Mimi, matching Cooper perfectly as the best nemesis he has.

Did I mention frigging Frank Langella is a recurring character as the restaurant owner? And Harold from Harold & Kumar is on the show too—yeah, Sulu (yes, I know his name is John Cho).

For my money, there is no greater missed opportunity when it comes to cancelled TV shows in recent memory than Kitchen Confidential not only because of how great it was and how amazing it had the potential to be, but due to how little of a chance it was given.

Underrated/Overlooked: Sins of Youth

Young Justice isn’t just one of my favorite comics of all-time, it’s also in my mind a tremendous accomplishment.

That may have made a few of you scratch your heads; no, Young Justice wasn’t a game-changer like Watchmen or record-breaker like Civil War, but hear me out on the impressive merits it did possess.

I’ve extolled the virtues of Peter David on this blog before, and this is another one of his triumphs. As usual, he did a long haul job, penning 55 uninterrupted (there may have been one fill-in) issues plus numerous Annuals, specials, etc. over the course of five years. Young Justice is as funny and as poignant in spots as his work on Incredible Hulk or Supergirl, but it’s also far more metatextual and self-aware than even PAD’s usual stuff. There’s a scene in one of the later issues that’s one of my favorites that took place just a few months after Superboy and Impulse’s solo books getting cancelled and has The Ray relating to them about “their favorite comics” ending and all of them giving Robin the evil eye when it enters the room—fun but clever bits like that just peppered the book.

But maybe more impressive than the impressive effort put in by PAD was the breakout performance of my good pal Todd Nauck, who absolutely owned this series. It’s not unheard of for a writer, particularly one with the rep of Peter David, to spend half a decade perfecting his craft on a title, but in this day and age, generally guys not named Mark Bagley don’t stick around as long; not only did Todd match PAD for longevity on Young Justice, he utilized his growing familiarity with the characters as a way to constantly up his game and make improvements of what he already knew as well as bringing something new to the table nearly every month (Snapper Carr’s collection of super hero-themed t-shirts—ranging from Plastic Man to Metron—immediately comes to mind). Todd is that rarest breed of modern artist who can draw as fast as he does well (again, shades of Mark Bagley); he drew nearly every issue of Young Justice plus one-shots plus sometimes other series, but it never looked rushed or half-finished. If you look at Young Justice as a showcase for Todd Nauck—and it’s many other things but it’s certainly that in large part—you’ll see a guy who indeed draws fun, colorful cartoons, which is what he’s best-known for, but also an incredible range from an artist who spent five years with these characters and truly shepherded them into young adulthood.

So yeah, not even getting into all the other stuff Young Justice did well—reclaim obscure characters, new takes on tired settings, defying expectations with issues addressing real world hot button stuff, and of course all the great humor along the way—it was just a great series. I hail it as an accomplishment because without many stunts or aggressive promotion, it really was a book that achieved a lot on the backs of two guys who just worked really really hard.

And about a year and a half into their run, DC rewarded the creators of Young Justice by making the book the center of a company-encompassing fifth week event.

The set-up for Sins of Youth took place both in the pages of Young Justice and in Superboy’s ongoing series as the Agenda—a sort of renegade version of Cadmus, also focusing on cloning—led by Lex Luthor’s ex-wife Contessa expands their grudge against Kon-El to his team as well. Attempting to turn public sentiment against the young heroes of the DC Universe, the Agenda manipulates aged Golden Age teen sidekicks (including Dan the Dyna-Mite, which has always weirded me out since he had Hitler’s brain put in his head in The Golden Age, but was played mostly for laughs here) into forming Old Justice and publicly campaigning against their youthful counterparts. In order to address their detractors, Young Justice—under Wonder Girl’s temporary leadership because Batman won’t let Robin appear in public—sets up a summit in Washington DC with member of the JLA, JSA, Titans, et al coming out en masse to either support the kids or keep them out of trouble.

At the rally, chaos ensues like wow as the real Superboy shows up and reveals his evil clone Match has been posing as him, the Agenda’s clone army the Point Men attack, and for the coup de grace Klarion the Witch Boy—also hired by the Agenda and in a more lighthearted pre-Grant Morrison incarnation—mixes his magic with an alien space ray whipped out by Old Justice’s Doiby Dickles to make all the older heroes young and vice versa (except for Superboy, who initially can’t age because he’s a clone though this gets rectified in the second chapter after he kvetches about it, and the original Teen Titans who learn they were previously exposed to the same magic/science mix in a short Secret Files & Origin story written by my boy Jay Faerber).

From there, it’s a series of adventures all over the DCU as the various aged and de-aged heroes run around trying to figure out ways to reverse the situation, to defeat the Agenda, or to just have fun with their new status quo. The action unfolds in a series of one-shots—all with killer Mike Wieringo covers—by various creators wedged between the bookends by PAD and Nauck.

Yes, the ol’ age swap routine is absolutely a gimmick, but as the great Sean T. Collins has said, the best, most successful events no matter how nuanced or deep always center around something your inner 8-year-old can latch onto and enjoy (Civil War is heroes vs heroes, Blackest Night is a zombie movie, etc.)—this is certainly the case with Sins of Youth.

Even if the bookends are more an excuse to set up/resolve the plot along than anything else, PAD and especially Nauck take full advantage of the spotlight being given them and really show off what they and their characters can do. Wonder Girl is at her most heroic, Impulse is at his goofiest, Secret is at her quirkiest, and if you were wondering how Robin would fit in a team book, you get an idea of what a neat dynamic it is. Todd really goes to town drawing the entire roster of DC heroes, cramming as many as he can into a page George Perez-style and making the fight sequences sing with crackling energy and about a billion punches and energy blasts being thrown.

The one-shots are, as you’d expect, of varying degrees of quality, but most of the writers really sink their teeth into the concept, providing insight into what drives the older heroes as well as establishing the credibility of their sidekicks to a greater degree, while also following the general Young Justice mandate of “Have a good time.”

Chuck Dixon and Cary Nord handle the Batboy and Robin one-shot, which—appropriately given the characters—is probably the most serious an introspective of the series, though of course not without lighter moments. Taking a break from the larger crossover to check in on Gotham City, Tim Drake as Batman and Bruce Wayne as Robin rescue Zatanna from a group of villainous Russians. There’s some genuine insight as to how each guy views the other’s role over the course of the adventure as both struggle—Tim can’t do the “Batman” voice to fool Commissioner Gordon or get used to calling him “Jim,” Bruce regrets never having a real childhood—and Tim admits for the first time he doesn’t ever really want to be Batman. It also sets up a funny scene in Sins of Youth #2 where Tim tries to have a beer with his father and ends up spitting it all over him.

JLA, Jr. is more of the romp you’d expect, with Dan Curtis Johnson providing the script and Carlo Barberi rocking it on art as Captain Marvel takes the little Leaguers to see his wizard. Seriously, Barberi doesn’t draw Kyle Rayner in the same costume in any two panels, having him use his ring to whip up new ones every single time he is shown—it’s awesome. I also enjoy Aquaboy using the JLA roster files as Internet porn.

As a Flash fan, I am of course a sucker for Kid Flash/Impulse by Dwayne McDuffie and Angel Unzueta, wherein the speedsters embark on a PR tour to try and salvage the good guys’ image. I love Unzueta’s design for the grown-up Impulse costume and McDuffie’s characterization of young Wally West as perpetually impatient and annoyed. The best scene is definitely Wally briefly getting back to his honeymoon—which was interrupted by all this—and getting totally shot down by Linda when he tries to score.

Starwoman and the JSA is written by some dude named Geoff Johns with art by Drew Johnson. It’s another fun one as the Golden Agers head to outer space with the adult Stargirl as their babysitter; Geoff’s love for the characters shines through and he gets to do some nice work showcasing his creation, Stargirl/Starwoman, and her potential.

The compliment to Batboy and Robin, Superman, Jr./Superboy, Sr. by Karl Kesel and Rob Haynes, progresses Kal-El and Kon-El’s relationship in some pretty significant ways. Most importantly, Superman finally confesses his secret identity as Clark Kent to Superboy—only for Superboy to let him know he had already figured it out some time ago. It’s a nice moment in a book full of them plus a big ol’ fight scene made more awesome by Haynes’ unique style.

It all culminates in the second bookend, in which Klarion—and Peter David—up the ante by introducing a dozen or so de-aged villains into the mix, forcing the heroes—and Todd Nauck—to rise to the occasion double time. I won’t spoil who wins between the good guys and bad guys, but Todd absolutely comes out a champ.

Sins of Youth is a timeless, enjoyable story I probably pull off my shelf more than any other trade I own because it always cheers me up and makes me chuckle—and reminds me how much I miss Young Justice.

Underrated/Overlooked: X-Men 2099

For a line of comics more often than not dismissed as a footnote or even derided as a punchline for 90’s publishing excess, Marvel’s 2099 imprint ended up producing some pretty impressive material. Yes, there was a decent amount of junk as well, but Peter David’s Spider-Man 2099 is held in high esteem by a fair number of people who would know (including this very blog’s Kiel Phegley) while Warren Ellis’ short run on Doom 2099 was not only one of his earliest American successes, but also hailed widely as being cutting edge and ahead of its time. I can even recall Ghost Rider 2099 gaining a decent cult following on the strength of its out-there “literal ghost in the machine” concept and the trippy art of Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham.

However, when I was growing up, the first two years of X-Men 2099 stood out to me not only as an impressive offering for a hit-or-miss corner of the Marvel Universe, but also as one of the most consistently entertaining monthly comics on the market.

As opposed to the conventional “it’s all your favorite heroes—but with grey hair and jetpacks!” caveat of many other super hero venues set in the future, 2099 offered a pretty unique landscape ripe for the creators to mess around in with its dystopian land of excess ruled by mega corporations where Thor had become a religious icon and people escaped their every day lives in virtual reality paradises (at a point before all that became the plot of dozens of movies and TV shows). And to the point, the 2099 characters and books that always seemed to do better and become more popular were the ones that borrowed a name or look from a contemporary concept but then veered sharply in another direction.

Miguel O’Hara, 2099’s Spider-Man, was a darkly sardonic adult very much entrenched in the coroporate lifestyle, in contrast to the perpetually put-upon, constantly wise-cracking and forever in his mid-20’s Peter Parker. Even though Doom of 2099 was ostensibly meant to be the same guy he was in the present day, the lack (until near the end) of a Fantastic Four and the changed world stage adapted the character into a far more enigmatic and Machiavellian figure who hemmed between good and evil rather than cackling and building death rays. On the flipside, Punisher 2099 was basically a carbon copy of Frank Castle but with laser guns, so it didn’t much surprise me that he never really caught on.

The X-Men of 2099 most definitely occupied a different space than the traditional Children of the Atom which accounted for a lot of their appeal. Though some lip service was periodically paid to the whole Charles Xavier “humans and mutants leaving in harmony” routine, for the most part, that wasn’t the end goal for these X-Men. They were a disenfranchised minority more concerned with finding somewhere they could be safe rather than trying to “protect a world that hates and fears them.” They weren’t super heroes in the traditional sense, just a group of people with powers who didn’t even really wear costumes—people just dress that way in 2099—looking for a place they could crash without being Indeed the characters’ goals shifted fairly often as they moved along on the fractured road trip that was the first 25 issues of the book, with there being a vague larger mission statement of tracking down a fabled mutant safe haven, but for the most part they just got into trouble for a variety of reasons and fought bad guys not so much because it was the right thing to do but because they didn’t want to die.

Another thing I dug about X-Men 2099 is that it very much had an ongoing soap opera feel to it, but you could tell writer John Francis Moore had a pretty tight roadmap in his head and was not to going to leave plotlines dangling for too long even when he was juggling quite a few at once and sending characters all over the place (literally). Those first 25 issues really do read a lot like the first season of an episodic sci fi drama on TV—I’d liken it to Buffy or the other Joss Whedon shows in many ways—in the sense that you got lots of little arcs focused on various cool ideas, characters or concepts, but it was all very much part of a big picture building to a climactic showdown. About halfway through the run, Moore splits up the entire team and sends small packs on various journeys, moving the “camera” around every issue, all the while skillfully amping up towards their reunion after a year apart to confront the threat that had been ominously looming in the background while they went about their business. As far as lessons on pacing and scope in a monthly ongoing comic book, aspiring writers could do worse than look to John Francis Moore on X-Men 2099.

Moore came up with a pretty compelling cast of characters who stood on their own rather than being future versions of Cyclops and Storm. I’ll admit that when I first picked up the comic as an 11-year-old I was pretty disappointed that Wolverine with laser claws wasn’t on the team, but in hindsight, it was one of the best choices Moore could have and did make.

X-Men 2099’s “Professor X,” Xi’an Chi Xan, was a former gang member and assassin who one day decided he had a greater purpose in life, namely serving as the prophet to the mutant race and gathering his people together so he could find them a promised land. At first, Xi’an seemed like an extremely bland character—by the way his powers were that he had one hand that could destroy things and another that could heal them—but this changed in a hurry after the first couple arcs when he began hallucinating his former bad boy self telling him how his new existence was futile and he needed to hand him back the reins or he’d get killed. It was actually Onslaught a few years before Onslaught in a way, and eventually Xi’an does end up in a situation where he needs to let his dark side take the wheel, and it completely shifts the entire series’ dynamic for the next year-plus.

The other main protagonist of the series was Timothy Fitzgerald, who is referred to by any article you’ll ever read about X-Men 2099 as Skullfire, though I’m not entirely sure he ever even used that name in the first 25 issues. An electrically-powered mutant who joins up with Xi’an’s crew in the first issue, Tim starts out as a wide-eyed innocent, then after being tortured by the psychic vampire La Lunatica in issue #4, suddenly becomes a devil-may-care wildman. Luna returns to the book down the line and actually ends up an X-Man, with her and Tim’s violently passionate Sid & Nancy romance proving another standout point of the series.

The rest of the X-Men were a little more straight and narrow than Xi’an and Tim, but none ever had a problem carrying their own arc for at least an issue or two. Meanstreak was a speedster with an awesome name and a genius-level intellect he only showed off when he felt like it. Krystalin was the relatively serene daughter from a family of militant Black Panthers who could weave objects out of crystal. Cerebra—who, like Tim, more often went by her real name of Shakti—was Xi’an’s second-in-command with an assortment of psychic powers who was the only one committed to keeping the team together when everybody else was going off on their own. You also had Metalhead—a musically-inclined Colossus knockoff who became far more interesting when he got disfigured by a bad guy then left the team to join their tenuous allies the Freak Show—Bloodhawk—the “designed-to-be-an-action-figure” red reptillian with big ol’ wings and claws who only helped out once in awhile—plus various other support characters, like Xi’an’s old Lawless gang buddies, including the traitorious Junkpile.

X-Men 2099 also had some pretty cool villains (and some pretty crappy ones as well). The big bad of that “first season” was Brimstone Love, an immensely powerful and gigantic devil-looking fellow who ran the Theater of Pain, a performance group that supplied its rich clientele with entertainment powered by the suffering of others and the group that first employed La Lunatica. There was also Master Zhao, a would-be successor to Xavier who was believed dead but instead had just gone insane due to power-enahcning drugs and built his own twisted versions of the original X-Men. Figures like The Driver, a mysterious shepherd who was supposedly responsible for bringing mutants to the fabled “Avalon” but instead downloaded them onto a giant computer in a misguided effort to “save” them occupied a grey area, as did Meanstreak’s old buddy Halloween Jack, a former Spider-Man 2099 supporting character who was granted the powers of Loki and used them to become a green monster and try to take over Las Vegas.

Really the best testament I can give to X-Men 2099 is how vividly I remember all the characters and concepts enough to write about them well over a decade later, and knowing that I’m barely scratching the surface of the expanded cast and barely summarizing any storylines for y’all. It really is incredible what a packed mythology Moore and artist Ron Lim—who never missed an issue—built in just over two years, and even more impressive how each new addition felt fully-realized and occupied a unique space despite the incredible pace and volume at which they were being unleashed.

I jumped off X-Men 2099 shortly after issue #25 both because I was getting out of comics and because it really did feel like I had received a full and rewarding story, beginning to end, so it was a natural place to stop. I’m kind of disappointed the 2099 concept imploded not long after, but at least I get to feel like I was along for the whole ride.

If I had to sum up X-Men 2099 in two words they would be “ambitious” and “consistent”—not too shabby for a book that from its title alone would probably conjure up “tacky” and “excessive” instead sight unseen. I recommend in this case you don’t judge a book by its cover—or its name.

Underrated/Overlooked: Battle Hymn

I believe it was Rickey (though if I'm wrong I'm sure he'll correct me) who recommended to me checking out the Battle Hymn limited series back in 2005 when it came out from Image. Whether it was him or somebody else, I'm glad they made that suggestion, as I really liked it; unfortunately, it was the fourth of five issues I picked up, so while I didn't have much trouble making sense of what was going on, I did regret I had missed three fifths of the mini already. Fortunately, back in those days I was the Image company contact for Wizard, so when my boy then-Image PR guru Jim Demonakos passed me the Battle Hymn trade, I tore into that sucker and it resides on my shelf to this day.

Battle Hymn, which was written by B. Clay Moore and illustrated by Jeremy Haun, is a pick-apart look at an Invaders/JSA-esque Golden Age team of heroes in the waning days of World War II, the first grouping of super heroes in their fictional universe. However, it's not a fond, nostalgic look back at more innocent times, as this group is a deeply flawed group of individuals whose vices and shortcoming demonstrate why such a team would have a tough go of it in the "real world," let alone back in the 40's.

Super hero deconstruction is of course nothing new, as Alan Moore started the ball rolling with Watchmen and the trend has continued to pick up momentum becoming as unto an avalanche in the present day. However, Moore's work here, besides being of high quality (and I rarely mind checking the hundreth variation on a theme provided it's still good) has plenty to set it apart from the standard fare.

First off, the Golden Age is slightly less-worn territory when it comes to deconstruction; though James Robinson and Paul Smith as well as Dan Jolley and Tony Harris did delve into the idea of the old guard not being so bright and shiny in The Golden Age and JSA: The Liberty Files respectively (and I have great fondness for both those works, Golden Age in particular), that they were using established DC heroes strengthened the stories but also held them back ever so slightly as they were at leasta bit beholden to preconceived notions, whereas Moore creates his own universe here and can go to town.

Secondly, Moore explores an angle not really covered in those books as well as one that has been touched upon in other comics, but rarely as well: the role of the government/media machine in making a bunch of freaks who can't get along seem like a finely-tuned fighting unit ready to save these United State at a moment's notice through a careful mix of propaganda and spin. Though the super-powered members of Battle Hymn's Watchguard are the soap opera stars of the stories, their government handlers and PR brigade are arguably even more interesting to follow, particularly if you're really into stuff like political manipulation of the free press (I'm not so much, but I do find myself fascinated by it when it's held right up to my face).

The more super hero themes Moore goes after and turns on their head include the super soldier created more for propaganda than function (Captain America and others), the other-wordly monarch who falls in love with a human woman (Namor) and the kinda creepy killing machine placed amongst a group of patriots in the hopes he can be used for the good of the country (the original Human Torch).

Additionally, Battle Hymn also explores the pretty realistic (and again, not terribly original, but well-done nonetheless) notion that heavily-hyped super heroes, particularly in war-time, would exploit their notoriety for vice (sex, drugs, not so much rock and roll) as well as how a British hero wouldn't necessarily be welcomed onto an American team with such open arms as we always saw in the comics.

Not too many of the characters Moore and Haun create are terribly likable, but that's kind of the idea. Cap stand-in the Proud American is an insufferable gloryhound more useful for photo ops than combat and who gets pulled from the team after their first press conference and replaced by a USAgent type called the Defender of Liberty. Ostensible Sub-Mariner Quinn Rey has the arrogance of his aquatic counterpart, but his lack of understanding of human culture is played less for laughs and more to illustrate how normal folks would really perceive a guy with gills. The Human Torch of the team, the Artificial Man, scares the hell out of everybody around him, and for good reason. Token speedster Johnny Zip (think Johnny Quick) is a lothario and louse looking for easy tail and a decent pay-off. British crimefighter Mid-Nite Hour is the only worthwhile dude in the bunch, and thus becomes our point-of-view character.

Perhaps the most interesting character of all is Betty Jones, the team's "secretary," but really only there to keep Quinn Rey, who is smitten with her, happy and in line. Unlike any actual female character from the Golden Age, Betty is hardly demure, with her bed-hopping, heavy drinking, and a filthy mouth on her that the good ol' Proud American can't believe. Again, Betty is not particularly endearing, but Moore's subversive way of taking the time-old "damsel in distress" and changing things up not by making her a strong, independent character, but rather one grounded in bad habits that weren't uncommon for the time, make you deeply invested in what she'll do next, particularly when she is in many ways the glue uneasily holding the unstable Watchguard together.

Jeremy Haun, whose work can currently be seen in Arkham Reborn and who did a bang-up job on Civil War: Casualties of War among other projects over the past couple years, throws himself into Battle Hymn full throttle, from concept design to action choreography. He impressivley takes timeless designs like Captain America, Namor, Doctor Mid-Nite and others and tweaks them nicely both to add more realistic elements and spice the looks up while not straying to far from his inspiration. In particular, his Artificial Man is a simultaneously tragic and terrifying figure who speaks volumes in the lack of dialogue Moore gives him thanks to Haun's excellent visuals.

There are of course explosions and warfare to be found in Battle Hymn, but that's really not what I'd recommend picking it up for. The character drama and window to a period comics have often made seem a more innocent time when we know it to be anything but is the main event. If you enjoy stuff like Watchmen and the genre it spawned, Battle Hymn is a unique and intelligent entry into that pantheon.