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: 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.

Art Attack: Ben's 90's X-Men Sketchbook

The year was 1993 (or 1994) and 11-year-old (or 12-year-old) Ben Morse's eyes were glued to either Fox's X-Men: The Animated Series or the epic X-Cutioner's Song crossover. And like a lot of kids my age, lack of formal artistic training (and possibly talent) certainly didn't stop me from attempting to emulate Jim Lee or Andy Kubert in depicting my favorite comic book characters.

I linked up with my buddy Husani Johnson to actually put together a "sketchbook" of our favorite X-Men as well as members of X-Force and X-Factor leader Havok (sadly Captain Britain made the cover alone and in name only).

Cleaning out my room back at my folks' house in Boston over Thanksgiving, I found said artistic treasure trove, and of course I had to share it with the world.

I offer the following with only two comments: I clearly still didn't quite have a hang of what women (or limbs) looked like and I was a friggin' logo master.

(Also, I attempted to only print my work here since I haven't spoken to Husani in years and don't have permission to show his, so I apologize if I got some mixed up by mistake)

Cannonball: Upward Trajectory

I first encountered Sam Guthrie, aka the once and future member of the X-Men known as Cannonball, in the pages of X-Force circa “The X-Cutioner’s Song.” The paramilitary teen X-team was in the process of being ditched by their mentor figure, Cable, and young Sam had already begun seizing the reins of leadership.

The Cannonball I met back then was a Southern gentleman to be sure, but more he was a self-assured youngster with strong convictions and a chip on his shoulder; he was a nice guy, but not too nice, and that quickly made him one of my favorite characters.

At the time, I had no idea that Sam Guthrie had not always been this way. As I was still a kid and yet to really delve into the dense forest of continuity, I had a passing awareness that Cannonball had been part of a younger, less intense team called the New Mutants at one point and from early issues of X-Force I found at my local store, I gathered his confidence and poise with his own powers was a relatively new developments, but I was certainly more familiar with Fabian Nicieza’s “angry young man” take on Sam than any other.

This is why I was so disappointed when Sam joined the X-Men post-Age of Apocalypse and somehow became this wide-eyed rookie in awe of his teammates and incapable of any real sort of competence. This was not the Sam I knew and loved.

Over the years I’ve gotten to know where Cannonball came from a little better, most significantly via the New Mutants Classics trade collections, and while I still don’t buy that Sam should have been quite such a screw-up during his first run in the big leagues, I get where it came from, and also see how the character’s evolution makes him somewhat unique in the Marvel Universe while also instilling him with a huge amount of potential that writers have only scratched the surface of in the three decades or so that he’s been around.

Chris Claremont’s original take on Cannonball in those first several years of New Mutants is one I look back at and can barely recognize as the hero of my youth. In his early days, Sam Guthrie was an awkward, overeager, clumsy and often downright nerdy country bumpkin who seemed in way over his head as a world-class hero. However, while Sam may have been gawky and not quite oozing cool in those initial appearances, the core characteristics that would make me a fan years later were there from the start: he was a true blue hero whose motivation for doing good came from the most pure and unselfish of places, and despite the fact that he may have been crashing into walls half the time, he was a natural born leader who commander the respect of his peers.

In re-examining the trajectory of Cannonball from wide-eyed New Mutant to almost world-weary X-Force leader and beyond, I realize that Sam Guthrie represents perhaps one of Marvel’s best examples of a character who has actually grown up over the years.

Over in the DC Universe, you can look at Dick Grayson and Wally West in particular as well as the original Teen Titans in general when seeking out examples of one-time youngsters who have grown and changed over the years, but there are fewer examples of that path at Marvel, with Cannonball being among the more pronounced. For those who have followed his entire comic book “life,” they’ve seen Sam Guthrie go from an awkward boy to a teen struggling to prove himself and most recently witnessed him blossoming into adulthood as a responsible soldier who guys like Cyclops put total trust in. Cannonball’s progression has been pronounced yet for the most part natural, and it’s neat to see the seeds that were planted way back when and the fruit they have born.

Dick Grayson and Wally West both grew up and assumed the mantels of their respective mentors; while Sam has yet to become the new Professor X--and likely never will--he has ascended from teen sidekick equivalent to fully-realized adult hero.

Another aspect that makes Cannonball so cool is something that used to get brought up a lot back around that era of X-Force I loved so much: unlike pretty much any other character in the X-Men Universe, Sam is a guy who received the tutelage not only of Professor X and his opposite number in Magneto, but Cable as well, providing him with training and a cumulative knowledge that could perhaps put Scott Summers to shame. There was always something neat to me that Cannonball is a character whose power is fairly pedestrian, but the strategic skills and ability to lead instilled in him by the most impressive and diverse collection of teachers any Marvel mutant could accumulate distinguish him. Again, there is so much potential in exploring a protagonist who has been exposed to three incredibly differing philosophies and perhaps is the only person able to balance them into the best possible course.

I really dig what Zeb Wells is currently doing with Cannonball in the current New Mutants series, highlighting him as, again, somebody Cyclops really sees the worth and value in as he works to safeguard the mutant race--and as a possible heir--while also showing he’s a strong leader who is not without imperfection. Surrounding him with his old friends adds an element I also enjoy as while Sam may be a soldier and a hero, there’s certainly a human element you never want to ignore.

I do still think there is much ground to be mined when it comes to Cannonball, not just in a team setting, but maybe as a headliner in his own limited or ongoing series. Really dig deep into the stuff I’ve written about here in regards to his evolution as well as his stance on his various teachers and I think you’ve got a strong foundation for something that could really take off (pun intended).

Our Comics Decade: 2001

Kiel
College, man.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I'm pretty sure that there's nothing I could write about my first year of college that would sound meaningful or important. I mean, I'm pretty fucking sure that 99% of Americans couldn't write something meaningful or important about their first year of college. But I'm also sure that anything close to feeling that epic for me came along at a time when I was not what doctors would call sober. At least in all the clichéd hijinx, there were some pretty fun comics around and fun people to read them with.

I lived in this dormitory at Michigan State called Abbot Hall, which – besides being across the street from the 7-Eleven with the most Slurpee sales and variety (8 flavors rotated weekly with a calendar to tell you what was coming) of any location in America – was generally awesome for having rooms set aside for other arts and letters majors. That meant damn near everyone on my floor was studying English or Theater or Art or Drug Use or whatever. Amongst my new peers was a fine art major named Ariel who would aggressively tell me that superhero comics were fucking stupid compared to Battle Angel Alita whenever she had a chance and a good buddy we called Stomp who was known for wearing Morrisey t-shirts and studded collars, running the dorm's drunken Dungeons & Dragons night and getting way into CrossGen.

Coinciding with our matriculation was the opening of a new comics shop in East Lansing – the very well-run 21st Century Comics & Games. For the first time ever, I had a crew bigger than me and my bud Tony heading out on Wednesday and a shop that had deep stock of independent and alternative books and The Comics Journal and even fucking trade paperbacks (a novelty then, for sure). Though with all the new material I was able to explore, one of the books that stands out most to me from that time was a Marvel superhero book: Pete Milligan and Mike Allred's X-Force.

Honestly, the series was a hard sell for me at first, even though I was a big enough Allred fan to schlep a bunch of
Madman issues from Flint to San Diego that summer when my dad took me to Comic-Con (graduation gift!) AND bought even more at the show (Creatures of the Id #1 FTW!) for autographs. Still. Something about the whole "NuMarvel" approach of tearing up lame duck franchises I'd never read by putting entirely new characters in them (see also) felt really hammy and lame. It probably didn't help that this particular case of trying to make Marvel feel "edgy" again was Mike Allred drawing MOTHER FUCKING X-FORCE.

But I tried the whole thing out after hearing about how Allred's art helped make the gruesome "death of half the new team" opening chapter more satire than shock value. The vibrant pop art feel of he and his indispensable colorist/wife Laura certainly defined how the series was breaking from the "gritty splash page" mentality out the gate, but what kept me plugged in was Milligan's character work.

Plenty have written about the media satire and conspiracy threads Milligan weaved throughout the run, but what brought me back each month was the honest and brutal way he portrayed the team's flaws and emotions. With names like U-Go Girl and Phat and plots revolving around publicity campaigns, this X-Force could have easily been a camped up comedy fest, but the characters were always played straight. Vivisector and Phat weren't portrayed as Broadway-loving, fashion-conscious stereotypes. They were two gay men living under the extremely fucked up scrutiny of the public eye. The Anarchist's tough guy attitude saw a chink in its armor in the form of a surprisingly subtle struggle with OCD. Best of all, the awkward, combative and ultimately tragic love between self-aware and put upon leader The Orphan and self-destructive, would-be boss Edie Sawyer provided a rock solid emotional through line for a book that was often about letting superhero tropes wildly spin out of control.


As the series progressed, Milligan did the requist amount of envelope-pushing while Allred traded off with a series of guest artists so unique yet compatible in tone that it seems a shame to call the "fill in guys." X-Force never failed to take chances with the development of its cast, making Edie's eventual death somewhat expected but no less of a total fucking gut punch.

The series eventually relaunched as X-Statix as part of the general course of the story and NuMarvel's "just try some shit" nature, and a lot of those later stories are good too (until things lost steam with the whole Princess Diana incident). Still, for me it'll always be that initial X-Force rush of shattered expectations and surprisingly strong character work that made those comics so worthwhile and fun and memorable during a time when everything was coming on so fast that it's mostly a blur now.

Ben
2001 did not start out particularly well for me.

Since I can remember, I’ve always had a weak stomach and bad nerves. For most of my childhood and young adulthood it wasn’t anything I thought was anything serious or even medical, I just got really sick from eating Chinese food sometimes and paced like a nutcase before my wrestling matches even if I was going out to collect a forfeit—that’s just how it was.

Something happened over my winter break from college during my freshman year that I still don’t fully understand and can’t entirely explain. Some switch flipped in my head and I became terrified of needing to go to the bathroom and somehow being in a situation that wouldn’t allow it. I could not ride in a car for more than five minutes out of fear I’d be “trapped.” I refused to eat for days at a time and ended up losing about 25 pounds. Additionally, I began having episodes lasting as long as half an hour where I’d go into a blind panic, breathing heavily and barely able to communicate, fearful that somehow my life would never be “normal” again.

I ended up missing the start of my second semester as I ran through a battery of unpleasant tests that tried to determine what the heck was wrong with me. I celebrated my 19th birthday with my very first colonoscopy (I’ll never forget the sad look on the nurse who was checking me in’s face when she asked for my date of birth). Nothing revealed anything.

It was at the urging of my primary doctor that I ended up sitting down for a session with a therapist, an idea that both my parents and I were both pretty hesitant about as they both had been raised in a time when such a thing was looked down upona and I personally had negative connotations associated with the practice due to growing up in a rich suburban community where a lot of kids I knew went because their own parents didn’t feel like talking to them.

However, we were at the end of our rope, so we relented.

It was one of the best decisions I ever made, as sitting down and speaking with a third party made me feel safer than I had in over a month. Pretty quickly he diagnosed me with Panic/Anxiety Disorder and began to treat me. Through consultation with the other folks I had seen, he was also able to suss out that I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome and I was given instructions on how to deal with that.

Going to therapy was a life-changer for me, as it taught me how to deal with my problems head-on rather than hide from them. I’ve gone long periods since without being in treatment regularly, but I always find it’s nice once in awhile to take stock of where you’re at by chatting with a trained professional and getting your head on straight. Certainly therapy is not for everybody and not everybody needs it, but it’s done wonders for me, and if anybody reading this has ever thought about it but held back out of biases like the ones I had, I urge you to give it some more thought.

So over-self-sharing aside, what does all this have to do with comics?

I did make it back to school by February, but obviously it was not the easiest transition. For one thing, I didn’t know how the friends I had only made a few months ago would receive me after all this (I’d kept them caught up with the situation), but I needn’t have worried. Still, as I was still adjusting to the pressures and fears better awareness of my IBS and other conditions brought with them, things like having roommates, keeping a decent diet on cafeteria food and especially driving into town or using public transportation without being afraid. And don’t get me started on spending the weekend in the girl’s dorm at Trinity…

One of the things that helped me through this difficult transition period was of course the ability to escape into a world where the eternal battle between good and evil took center stage as opposed to mundane health problems and needing to locate the bathroom nearest to your classes.

Spending more and more time absorbed in comics naturally led to me wanting to expand my tastes; man after all can not live on X-Men alone.

I had grown up mostly a Marvel kid, with the X-Men books in particular being my poison, but I did occasionally wander over to check out the odd DC book, with the Death of Superman being a particular lure for me. However, the DC heroes had just never captured my young attention, as they seemed old (Superman was married, Green Lantern had grey hair) or trying way too hard to be cool (Aquaman had a hook for a hand, Gunfire was…Gunfire). I loved Superboy and to a lesser extent Robin and the Legion of Super-Heroes, but if I lived in the Marvel Universe, the DC Universe was more like my grandparents’ place in Cape Cod where my folks took me for a month every summer.

But as I said, at age 19, I was ready to try new stuff (in comics…pervs), so it was off to the DCU for me. JSA ended up being my gateway drug to a whole new level of the comic habit.

I was surfing Sarge’s for something to sample and the cover to JSA #27 by Rags Morales jumped out at me; I had a vague idea about the Golden Age Green Lantern and Black Adam from stuff like Zero Hour or articles in Wizard, but most of the other characters ere complete mysteries to me—mysteries with really neat costumes who Rags made look absolutely awesome.

Picking up JSA #27 revealed JSA #26, a cover with even more heroes completely foreign to me, with Hawkman, who I’d always thought of as one of the worst characters ever (everybody can fly, they just don’t all have giant cumbersome wings), standing front and center looking bad ass.

Perhaps this DC stuff I had written off years earlier had something to offer.

Because I had some disposable income from working at the school’s snack shop and needed to fill my days with something other than dwelling on my health, I snatched up half a dozen issues of JSA on a whim. By this point it was the fall of my sophomore year and I had my own room, so I was able to dive right into my new treasures without the prying eyes of roomates or unexpected visitors.

It’s definitely a bit ironic that I had shied away from DC as a kid because I thought of them as being “too old,” and yet here I was getting totally absorbed into a book headlined by some of the oldest characters of them all. But just as my teenage years had been all about youthful rebellion, pierced ears and razor stubble for me, I guess as I approached 20 and was confronted with setbacks considerably more serious than trying to sneak into R-rated movies, suddenly the idea of a place where the heroic ideal glows strong and people don’t fade away and become irrelevant as they age appealed to me a whole lot.

That’s what I found with DC. While I was still heavily into Marvel, and it’s protagonists with feet of clay, there was something beautiful about the stalwart champions of the DC Universe and the vast mythology they carried with them. At a time when optimism was what I needed most, books like JSA, Flash and Young Justice became just what the doctor ordered (along with medication and the aforementioned therapy).

And of course the coolest thing about waiting until I was in college to really discover the “other” comic company was that suddenly I had literally tens of thousands of new stories to explore. Reading JSA made me want to learn more about the other heroes of the DCU, so I picked up Batman, Superman and Titans. Reading those made me curious about DC’s past, so I hit the back issue bins for old runs of Justice League of America. Falling in love with George Perez’s art led to tracking down his full tenure on New Teen Titans with Marv Wolfman, which I have discussed at length here before. And all that led to the motherload: taking the gift certificate to New England Comics that my girlfriend’s parents gave me for Chanukah (which in retrospect I believe was their way of thumbing their noses at what they felt was my immaturity, but I could be completely off-base as they were always pretty nice to me) and using it to buy the biggest trade on the shelves: Crisis on Infinite Earths.

I wrapped up 2001 using the first half of my winter break to get lost in Crisis, mentally noting all the new (to me) characters I wanted to read more about later and thinking about what a difference a year makes.

Oh, and of course JSA also introduced me to the work of writer Geoff Johns, who would become very important not just to my fandom but my professional life as the decade rolled on, but we’ll get to that later.


Rickey
It's hard to remember how I first found out about Dave Crosland. Part of me feels like I first read about the intensely stylized writer/artist in a Wizard Magazine sidebar. Part of me remembers reading Jim Mahfood's website where he talked about Crosland with such contagious excitement that I caught the bug. And another part of me remembers stumbling across one of Crosland's "Slop" mini-comics while browsing the indie section of a comic shop in Austin, Texas. Whatever the introduction was, it split open the worlds of do-it-yourself and alternative comics for me to such a profound degree that I credit Crosland's work for helping me develop as an artist and a comics reader.

DIY comic?! What the fuck?! I can draw ANYTHING I want with ANY characters I want and then print it off at a Kinko's as a mini-comic and get my local comic shop to buy them and sell them for me?! MADNESS. But that's just what I ended up doing for the better part of about 6 years thanks to books like Crosland's. I remember lots of spectacular nights in my dorm sitting up late with my best friend Josh and drawing comics together and listening to music and talking about designs and ideas we otherwise never would have. Slop's energetic, signature style showed me and Josh that there was a market out there for just about every kind of comic and Slop's wide range of genres (poetic war parables, action-packed ninja tales, bizarre full-page pin-ups with an urban flair) and zany layouts taught us anything was possible when you were your own editor and publisher; and that creative freedom is the SOUL of indie comic-making.

My new addiction to Slop and other mini-comics kept me so consistently glued to the indie sections of all the local comic shops that I started growing an interest in and recognizing other artists I still adore today. It was my shopping for Crosland's work that helped put creators like Adrian Tomine and Chris Ware and James Kochalka on my radar. And it was THEIR work that put the works of guys like Seth and Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Paul Pope on my radar. And it was guys like that who put the literary alt comics scene on my radar and so on until NOW where I'm driving to shows like SPX and MoCCA and talking intelligently about comics with friends and sifting out PRECISELY what I like in a comic. It all grew out of simple 20-page Xerox'd mini-comics. And thanks to Crosland, I have many bookshelves bowing under the weight of MANY creatively explosive mini-comics from over the past decade whose contents get me just as excited about comic art and design as they did in 2001. Crosland's minis were popping with such fervor and life that they not only entertained me—they INSPIRED me to create. When was the last time a comic did that for you?

PS: I eventually met Crosland and his enthusiasm was no only-for-the-page show. I still have the business card he gave me tucked away in my wallet.