Riddled with steroids - Looking back at Batman #490

The other day I was trying to pinpoint exactly when and where I first started reading comics. As Morrissey is wont to say, "The past is a strange place." Mt personal recollection is pretty hazy for a number of reasons, but there are a few key issues that always spring to mind.

I have the vaguest of vague memories of my older sister buying me a copy of X-Men #1 by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee. There's also an issue of Web of Spider-Man my pop got my at a gas station, most likely to shut me up long enough for him to run errands unimpeded. I can "see" those covers when I peer back in time, but the most vivid recollection I have of actually reading a comic (all by myself!) is the following issue of Batman.

Batman #490 would probably be sold as "zero issue" of a big event these days, as it is a bit of a prologue to the upcoming Knightfall story arc. Knightfall made a big impression on me as a kid, since I hadn't "been on the ride" before, so to speak. I was really worried when the urban terrorist Bane broke Bruce Wayne's back and cautiously optimistic when a psychotic choir boy named Jean Paul Valley took over the cape and cowl. This character switcheroo was right around when the Fox animated series hit, displaying a rare lack of synergy between the screen and the page.

That's all in Little Chris's relative future, however. Batman #490 is a Riddler story. Rather than the usual puzzles and mind games, Eddie Nygma has been endowed with a freakish physique thanks to Bane's venom formula and gets to let out all of his nerd rage on an already exhausted Dark Knight in this issue. This is my favorite part of the setup for Knightfall: Bruce Wayne is already tired and half-beaten before the story begins, making the Arkham Asylum breakout and inevitable battle with Bane all the more hopeless. Riveting stuff for a little kid who was juts dipping his toe into the world of monthly superheroes.

Writer Doug Moench doesn't get enough love these days. His work with the Bat, and with other vigilante types like Marvel's Moon Knight is often overlooked. Of course scribes like Alan Moore and Frank Miller are synonymous with great Batman stories, but its the monthly, in-the-trenches guys like Moench who kept adding fuel to that fire. In my own reading history, Moench might actually have had more of an influence on me than I ever considered previously. He and guys like Chuck Dixon developed an internal voice for Batman that was more in line with what I would later see in the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini stuff than the hyper-violent (almost to the point of self-parody) Frank Miller stuff.

On the art chores this issue is Jim Aparo, a legendary DC artist who was still a regular working stiff at this point. His figures might look a little plain now, but his work was always about strong fundamentals. No experimental layouts here, Gothamites, just solid storytelling. Aparo would go on to be a regular Bat artist for nearly the rest of the 90's. Other than the Bruce Timm animated version, his was the caped crusader I most tried to emulate when I was a littler doodler.

Batman #490 isn't a stand-out issue or anything, it's just one that I fondly remember and may have been my first Batman comic. I no longer have that original copy, I'm sorry to say, but I have since gone back and repurchased all of those Knightfall era books. Similar to how some fans (myself included) have a soft spot for the Clone Saga over in Spider-Man, this is my guilty pleasure as a comic reader and the Knightfall arc sucked me right into the hobby.

Thanks for reading! And apropos of nothing, if you happen to like pro wrestling, I cover it over on my other blog, Work/Shoot.

Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com

Do it like Jack: Layouts vs. Finishes in Tales to Astonish #73

Stan Lee knew he had a winner with Jack Kirby. So much so that Kirby's "in your face" style of storytelling would soon become the "house style" at Marvel. If Stan had had his way, Jolly Jack would've drawn every comic. The next best thing was to have Kirby act as an art director of sorts, and lay out each new series or strip until the artist doing finishes could ape him. The setup was simple: Kirby would guide the artist through the first few stories, then, as if removing the training wheels from a bicycle, would detach himself from the book and leave the other artist to their own devices.

Sometimes it was a seamless transition, other time not so much . . .

Which brings me to today's back issue dive: Tales to Astonish #73 from November of 1965. The main story here sees Bruce Banner, the incredible Hulk, manipulated by the nefarious Leader into aiding him in his bid for global, nay, UNIVERSAL conquest. As the story jets along in the usual break-neck Marvel fashion and The Leader's plan to use the Hulk bounds toward a crescendo, we are left to wonder who is actually using who.

(And the Watcher shows up, which is always cool.)

The plot is what it is. While exotic locales like the Leader's headquarters or the mysterious "blue area" of the moon might take the Green Goliath into fantastic territory and threaten to sap the humanity and relatability from the story, Lee keeps it grounded by putting us in the Hulk/Banner's head for the duration of the issue. His fears and doubts remind us that the Hulk is more like a mental condition than proper superpower, and while schoolyard kids might fantasize about thwipping from building to building as Spider-Man, being the Hulk is a curse.

The Leader was a villain I didn't really appreciate until recently. I like the simple flip on the gamma bomb concept; while Bruce Banner was burdened with a monstrous physique, the Leader was endowed with a giant brain. It's mind vs. matter in the mighty Marvel manner, and Stan draws these parallels several times throughout the issue, in case you're dense like me and need things explained.

(I huffed a lot of paint when I was little. Lay off, man!)

Jumping back to the art, Kirby's layouts are finished by an artist named Bob Powell. Bob Powell isn't a name you hear bandied about too much when fans talk about Silver Age Marvel, mostly because Powell was a holdover from the Golden Age. Powell's work in Cave Girl and horror titles like Crypt of Shadows is something to behold. His figures, with their distorted faces and sinister intentions, remind me of Steve Ditko's stressed characters. Just a personal point of reference . . . I'm not a proper art critic, that's for sure.

Bob Powell

Powell trying to incorporate his style onto Kirby's layouts is like trying to jam the square peg into the round hole. Kirby's figures want to leap off the page, but Powell's figures want to sink into the corner and shutter away from the anxieties of mortal danger. It's a contrast of styles and a conflict of interests.

Knowing what little I do about the art processes at this time, I have to rely on my imagination to fill in the blanks. I imagine Powell begrudgingly trying to apply his details and deformities to Kirby's wire frames and growing frustrated. But for all I know, Powell was just happy to be working or even interested in trying a new style. It does reek of, "No, do it this way!" in some spots.

Was Stan wrong in wanting to centralize the look of Marvel around Kirby's style? Was it oppressive for the artists who had their own way of going about thing? I'm left to wonder. No matter the trials, tribulations, and backstage drama, you could always count on Marvel at that time to churn out some satisfying superhero stories.

Thanks for reading!

Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com

More of my ramblings can be found here, here, here, and here!

"The scaffolding of spacetime farted and collapsed", a look at Marvel Boy by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones

(The following is a piece I wrote for my old blog, The Club of Heroes. Yeah yeah, it's a rerun.)

"Sole survivor...A real 'why me' situation, I should think." -Doctor Midas

On my recent vacation to Colorado, I was fortunate enough to check out Mile High Comics in Denver, a behemoth of a comic book store with just about anything an eager reader could want. I made the mistake of not having a proper shopping list prepared and wandered the shelves of trades and hardcover collections just trying to take it all in. It's not the prettiest store I've ever been in, but it's easily the biggest and I honestly felt a little overwhelmed. Then I spotted it; a golden bullet pressed between ruby red lips. Sitting between some Marvel Essentials and a Rocket Raccoon hardcover was Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones' Marvel Boy. Morrison is easily my favorite comic book writer of the modern era and snagging a copy was a no-brainer. Upon finishing this little gem that night, I flipped right back to the first page and started it all over again. Pretty soon it was three in the morning and I was on my third read through. This is a very special comic, and still quite ahead of its time over twelve years later. I plan to discuss this comic in great detail here, so let me go ahead and say, "SPOILER ALERT" and all that. Now let's jump in.

The saga of Marvel Comics in the 1990's isn't a boring one to say the least. Bad business deals, bankruptcy, creative stagnation, and harmful editorial fiefdoms plagued the House of Ideas. In 1998, the Heroes Reborn line, spearheaded by Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, had turned out to be a flop and Marvel then desperately shuffled the "Reborn" heroes back into the regular Marvel Universe. While guys like Kurt Busiek, George Perez, and Mark Waid were able to do some quality work on titles like Avengers and Captain America, Marvel had ultimately just reverted to the status quo. They were making good comics, but they were also making the same comics. When Jimmy Palimiotti and future editor-in-chief Joe Quesada got the green light to start a premium line of comics called Marvel Knights featuring marquee names like director Kevin Smith, industry veteran Christopher Priest, and rising stars Garth Ennis and Paul Jenkins, fans didn't exactly hold their breath for something new and exciting. For once the Marvel hype machine wasn't just blowing smoke however, and the Marvel Knights line churned out some damn fine comics. Daredevil, Black Panther, The Inhumans, and The Punisher all made a splash and before long, a second wave was solicited. That brings us to Marvel Boy, a six issue miniseries that may be (with apologies to Warren Ellis and The Authority) the first real twenty-first century comic book.

First off, let's talk about the creative team. Grant Morrison is a writer that usually divides the readership of any title he works on. No one can deny he's a great idea man and Marvel Boy is nothing if not a collection of interesting ideas. No matter how tightly he plots a story or how straightforward his dialogue is, he will always be considered a "confusing" writer. Marvel Boy is an easy story to follow, and the themes of rebellious youth and boy meets girl are so transparent it could almost warrant harsh criticism if it weren't so damn charming. There are threads in this story left dangling that future writers could've ran with, but we'll come back to that disappointing afterword in a bit. Another thing about Morrison as a writer that has always fascinated me is how visually oriented his comics are. He isn't afraid to cut out the more needless captions and let the artist do the heavy lifting. That brings us to J.G. Jones, the pencilier of this miniseries. Jones is a utility player who can do it all: action, expression, layouts, etc. He's in the same class of artists as guys like Frank Quitely, who can break down Morrison's stories and give every important element equal attention, while never having to sacrifice character. Inker Sean Parsons is delicate with his line work as well. Lines are thick where they need to be, and details aren't muddied or lost. The careful inking gives the book a hi-def look, and I'd put it up against anything the "hot" artists are doing right now. Heck, I'd even say current Marvel hits like Hawkeye and Young Avengers are finally catching up to the Morrison/Jones/Parsons squad.

Marvel Boy is the story of Noh-Varr, the last survivor of a doomed alien starship. His crew and family are destroyed when their Kree exploration vessel has to make an emergency landing on Earth after traversing the omniverse and comes into conflict with Earthling interests. From the beginning, Noh-Varr is a passionate, angry teenage outcast on a world unlike and inferior to his own. His first experience with humanity is being shot out of the sky by them and the series follows his vendetta against the human race. We have all been judged by an angry powerful alien by the worst and most war-mongering of our kind. Way to go, us. With the aid of his living computer Plex (based visually on the Kree Supreme Intelligence from The Avengers), Noh-Varr wages a one man war with the human race, with New York City as the beachhead. In a very pre-9/11 display of destructive power, Noh-Varr wrecks huge chunks of the city and commits vandalism on a cosmic scale, burning the words "FUCK YOU" into a section of NYC. The Avengers are elsewhere, the F.F. are occupied, and only S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to be present to deal with this threat. And let us not forget, Noh-Varr is the hero in this story. His poor first impression of Earthlings and his aloof observations almost dare the reader not to agree with him and root for him. He lost his crewmates, his family, and his lover in one fell swoop and the havoc he wreaks is nothing more than a victim of a tragedy, flailing about against reason. 

Throughout the story, Noh-Varr experiences the various stages of grief on an epic scale, and while his actions and their destructive nature are ridiculous, his emotion is genuine. By the end of this comic, you might be more than a little frustrated with humanity too.

And now our villain: the multi-trillionaire scavenger scientist Doctor Midas. Midas is a wicked character design. A chain smoking Dr. Doom-type, clad in a golden version of Tony Stark's silver age Iron Man armor and a black leather trench coat. Unlike Dr. Doom however, Midas has no regal quality to him. He's just stupid rich and sociopathic, bathing himself in cosmic rays and wishing for powers like the Marvel heroes of the silver age. He's almost representative of a 90's fanboy, marveling at a heroes appearance or power set, but giving no thought to any complicated moral hang-ups. The first time we see Midas, he has the sole survivor of the starship crash Noh-Varr captured and plans to harvest his strange alien organs and steal the engine from his ship. Midas wants to use Noh-Varr's cosmic engine to shower himself in even more cosmic rays and become a true superbeing, which he feels characters like the Fantastic Four were just on the verge of changing into. One thing Midas does have in common with Dr. Doom is vanity. We learn through his interactions with his daughter that Midas finds not only his cosmic ray scars hideous, but even the human body itself is disgusting  to him. Midas is a 90's comic book villain who wants to transform into something as interesting as the silver age characters were in their time. His methods of fighting and trying to recapture Noh-Varr, such as disguising a public assassination as a movie shoot in the middle of the city (he even pays off the witnesses and tells them they were 'extras'), are pretty clever though. Midas definitely gets his in the end when Morrison turns his King Midas-inspired catchphrase on its ear in one of the books only moments of true comedy.

If the entirety of this series was just angry Noh-Varr clashing with sinister Doctor Midas and the dregs of humanity, it would be little more than a weak attempt at "widescreen" comics in the same vein as The Authority. It's with the introduction of Oubliette, Midas's daughter, that the story takes on a new dimension and direction. Oubliette is a teenage outcast like Noh-Varr who has been raised by her insane father to be a homicidal henchwoman in a leather fetish suit. She hates her dad, she hates herself, and blah blah blah. She is first sent by her father to capture or kill Noh-Varr, but ends up saving him, partly out of pity and partly out of wanting to piss off her daddy. Her back and forths with her father are not unlike any teenage girl going twelve rounds with an overprotective dad, but with vocabulary that could only find root in a comic book. Once again, Morrison plays out a very basic story of boy meets world and boy meets girl on such an epic scale that it feels fresh. Noh-Varr already hates Midas for shooting down his ship, but now he can stick it to him by bragging about being with his daughter. Their relationship is never romantic however. While the characters tight clothing belies an S&M club and their sweat-drenched patter sounds like pillow talk, Noh-Varr and Oubliette really end up more like brother and sister. Their isolation also makes them kindred spirits. Obliette gets to learn a little about Noh-Varr's people, the Kree, and in the climax of the book, Noh-Varr reveals he still carries the remains of his Kree lover, "but it's hard to love a carbonized, irradiated, skeletal structure." In the radioactive light of the cosmic engine, Noh-Varr and Oubliette share a tender moment and compare their shitty situations. The mask her father forces her to wear supposedly hides a hideous facial scar, but when Noh-Varr coaxes her to remove it, there are none to be had. In this scene we see the effect (in a very comic booky kind of way) that an abusive parent can have on a child. It's almost touching and you start to like a character who only a few minutes ago was threatening innocent people on a subway with imminent death.

The three main moving parts of Marvel Boy are Noh-Varr, Midas, and Oubliette. As far as characters go, they lend themselves to much more analysis than I am even capable of, but the other main villain of the piece is just as interesting. Hexus the Living Corporation is more of a malevolent concept than a proper character, but it's through Hexus that Morrison gets to play with some ideas about commercialism that were very prevalent around the turn of the millennium and are still relevant today. A play on the old "Brand X" idea, Hexus is a living logo that expands itself across billboards and bus stop ads, possessing eager businessmen and entrepreneurs and turning their delusions of grandeur against them. Hexus hires employees and spreads its influence at a super accelerated rate, taking over most of Manhattan and the world market in issue three. The Hexus logo creeps along in the first two issues, and eagle-eyed readers can spot it in the backgrounds. Hexus was safely contained by Noh-Varr and his crew before the series began, but breaks free when their ship is shot down. Hexus is preparing a "product launch" called D2K1, similar in theme to the acronym-laden advertising of the late 90s. D2K1 is in fact a "digital concentration camp" where Hexus will realize its full potential and corner the market on everything. The voice of Hexus, the body jumping Mister Greepy, puts it best. "Hexus grows. Hexus replicates. Soon, Hexus will own everything. We will license the air you breathe and the thoughts we allow you to think." Noh-Varr is only able to defeat Hexus by means of corporate sabotage. Using Plex, he hacks into Hexus's systems and gives their secrets and data to rivals like Coca Cola and Sony. In turn, the other corporations devour Hexus like ants on a larger insect, and Noh-Varr has (reluctantly) saved the day. Hexus is the danger of a monopoly in the form of a space-based thought parasite.

The Following is an excerpt from an interview with Grant Morrison around the time of Marvel Boy's release. "We've only started to experiment but already MARVEL BOY looks like nothing else around. Some of the stuff J. G. is doing is like an update of the whole Steranko Pop Art approach to the comics page. Instead of Orson Welles, op art and spy movies, J.G.'s using digital editing effects, percussive rhythms, cutting the action closer and harder, illuminated by the frantic glow of the image-crazed hallucination of 21st century media culture and all that. Comics don't need to be like films. They don't need to look like storyboards. This is not to dis the many great comics which have used filmic narrative techniques but I wanted to go back and explore some of the possibilities of comics as music."

Comic books as music is something Grant Morrison has toyed with in a few projects since, including We3 and Final Crisis, to varying degrees of success. This narrative style has brought new energy to his 21st century work in some cases (We3) and turned off or confused readers in other cases (Final Crisis). I would say Grant and J.G. are only partly successful in their attempt here. The first couple of issues are laid out extremely well, but only in certain sequences of the latter half, do the quick cuts and rapid fire panels start to occur. Again, I think the first two issues are really more like the "widescreen" books that people like Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch had made popular during this time. There is a sequence when Noh-Varr is fighting Oubliette for the first time that does read like a dubstep song, if that makes any sense. In the action sequences like that one, artist J.G. Jones cuts out some of the rhythm and delivers bass drop after bass drop. Whereas Final Crisis felt like a symphony, Marvel Boy is like nu-metal, with quiet pseudo-depressing verses, and loud, banging choruses. Nevertheless, kudos to the creative team for trying something new and fun to read.

Marvel Boy ends on a sort of cliffhanger, but the first arc is pretty neatly wrapped up. Noh-Varr is a captive of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the end and viewed as a political prisoner by much of the public and a terrorist by others. Obliette, after lashing out and sending her father Doctor Midas to a sub-dimensional hell, is rallying for him on the outside, spreading the word about the superior Kree way of life. One of the last scenes in the series is Obliette destroying Disney World and making a televised threat against the powers that be for holding Noh-Varr. Basically, boy meets world, boy meets girl, and finally boy gets in trouble. Noh-Varr ends the book on a smart-ass remark, and claims that his prison will one day be the capitol city of a new Kree Empire. Our hero is dragged away ranting and raving like a scorned supervillain, or just an angry child if you prefer. The character has since been featured in Brian Bendis's Avengers run as The Protector, but the more interesting bits about his character were kind of lost. In more recent comics Kieron Gillen has used the character to great effect in the current volume of Young Avengers, so at least Noh-Varr has a home.

Marvel Boy isn't a complete success, but like I mentioned up above, it's a very special book and maybe even still a bit ahead of its time. Noh-Varr is a 21st century Peter Parker. He's a young loner who suffers great tragedy and must learn about power and responsibility. If Stan Lee and Steve Ditko were children of the 70's and were creating a new teenage hero in the 90's, I'd like to think it would look something like Marvel Boy.

(Thanks for joining me on this blast from the past. 2013 Chris sure had a lot to say!)

Twitter: @ChrisBComics

E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com

More mind-bending material: Tabletop Legends

New releases for the week of 8/17/16

It's new comic book day! Here's a few new releases that I think are worth checking out:

Backstagers #1 (Boom! Studios)
Writer James Tynion IV and artist Rian Sygh present this new series where a group of theater outcasts find a portal to other worlds beneath their high school stage. Tynion IV is a disciple of Scott Snyder and his work in the Batman universe at DC showed he has great character chops. Sygh has done art for Munchkin and his lively expressive characters should capture the drama of high school life quite well.

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #1 (DC Comics)
Writer Julie Benson is a fresh face to me. I haven't seen her work yet, but she's been making the rounds in the comic podcast world, talking a big game about her love for the DC Universe. Claire Roe is on the art here. I'm interested to see what they do with the Barbara Gordon character and this strange new take on the Oracle concept, especially after the debacle that was The Killing Joke adaptation.

Jackboot & Ironheel #1 (IDW)
2000 A.D. regular Max Millgate writes and draws this supernatural WWII tale, which sees a footballer turned R.A.F. tailgunner come face to face with "his own dark destiny" as the solicitation copy promises. If you're a fan of Millgate's Judge Dredd stories or the war comics of Garth Ennis, give this new series a shot.

Super F*ckers Forever #1 (IDW)
Writer/artist James Kolchalka brings his profane heroes to their own monthly book as part of IDW's Creator Visions event, where five different creator-owned titles are set to launch over five weeks. Kolchalka's sense of humor might not be for everyone, but chances are you know someone who'll get a kick out of it!

Spawn Kills Everyone #1 (Image)
I'm not what sure what to expect other than a lot of cartoon bloodshed in this one-shot, which also serves as a homecoming for Spawn creator Todd McFarlane. That's a cute widdle Spawn on the cover though!

The Fallen #1 (Marvel)
The Hulk bit the big one in Marvel's latest crossover event, Civil War II. I'm not too hot on the main series, but I like the idea of the heroes getting together and telling Hulk stories. There's no creative team listed for this, so this might be one worth thumbing through before you take it to the counter.

Not a bad haul for the week! IDW came to play, that much is certain. What looks good to you? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter (@ChrisBComics) or via e-mail (backissuechris@gmail.com). Thanks for reading!

Captain America the Bull Fighter: Action and impact in Tales of Suspense #59

Since I'm using my copy of Essential Captain America Vol. 1 as reference material here, I won't be able to cover the Iron Man half of this issue. It's a half-assed, half-hearted effort in the Back Issue Diving tradition!

While Doctor Strange and Star Wars: Rogue One are both still on the horizon, I'd say the dust has settled on the "big" comics movies for 2016. Warner Bros. made two valiant efforts in the form of Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad, but the clear winner in terms of quality blockbuster entertainment has got to be, hands down, Captain America: Civil War.

(You can let me know how wrong I am in the comments section, DC-heads!)

Captain America and Iron Man are a couple of interesting characters when contrasted. In the case of Steve Rogers, you have a paragon of virtue, whose greatest strength is also his greatest weakness: his lack of ability to compromise. With Tony Stark, you've got a man of great vanity who, to his credit, is quite capable of changing his mind and finding a middle ground in any dispute. That's what I like about the Marvel films so much; Steve is a rock, while Tony is water, shifting shapes to fit his environment.

But that has diddly squat to do with the issue I'm spotlighting today, so maybe I should move on from this digression . . .

Tales of Suspense #59 is a famous first from the dawn of the "Marvel age of comics". Just one issue prior, Cap and Iron Man met in mortal combat and this issue sees the two as allies; albeit in two separate monthly strips. In 1964, desperate business dealings had left Martin Goodman's publishing house with limited distribution in the comic book market, so a Stark-like compromise had to be made. Rather than two monthly series, they'd have to go the anthology route and combine the two into one magazine. Other examples include Hulk and Giant Man in Tales to Astonish, as well as Doctor Strange and Nick Fury sharing Strange Tales.

Cap's first solo outing in this new era is a brief, punchy little pot boiler where a local mobster named Bull believes Captain America to be the weakest link of the Avengers. He and his goons storm Tony Stark's mansion, where Cap has made his home, and attempt to take him down, only to be trounced by Cap's slick acrobatics and hand to hand skills. (The indestructible vibranium shield doesn't hurt, either.)

Cap's humble nature shines through on the last page. He assures the gang of criminals that they're "lucky only I was here. If the other Avengers had been around, somebody could've been hurt!"

The scripting is by Stan Lee, and it's the usual bombast you'd come to expect if you've read literally anything by him. Cap is plagued, but never defeated, bu self-doubt as he adjusts to the brave new world of the sixties after being on ice since WWII. Bull is a doofus and possible prototype for future mob-influenced Marvel characters like Hammerhead over in Amazing Spider-Man.

The art is laid out by Jack "The King" Kirby, but finished and inked by Chic Stone. Kirby's dynamism is on full display here, as this was the period in his career when he made the transition from an artist of relief to an artist of impact. Stone's finishes give a rounded quality to the physiques of the figures, and in a few panels you'd swear you were looking at Don Heck artwork.

The fight scene between Cap and Bull's gang, which makes up most of the issue, is another classic Kirby production. Kriby fight scenes are always wonderfully choreographed, and even artists working today could do a lot worse than to look back on his Cap stuff. These fight scenes would become a staple in he and Lee's run of Cap stories, eventually becoming so visually striking and fun to follow that Lee would abandon his usual overblown captions just to let them breathe. Half a century later, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely would do the same thing in Batman & Robin.

(If I have one pet peeve in superhero comics, it's when a character has a stack of word balloons next to their head while punching out a baddie. The timing never makes sense to me.)

Like I mentioned above, I don't have the Iron Man story contained in the other half of this issue on hand, but you can safely assume it involved either a)Tony fighting the commies or b)someone trying to take over Stark Industries. Well, the cover blurb says the Black Knight is going to show up, but don't believe everything you read. Thanks for reading!

Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com

It's always a longer walk to the men's room: Life and Death in The Umbrella Academy: Dallas #3

I feel like we're never going to get Umbrella Academy Volume Three; it's like the Chinese Democracy of comics, ever dangling out of reach and sure to disappoint us once it drops, due to the inflated expectations of hopeless fandom. That's not to say we won't be getting more of Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba. Way is rebooting DC's Doom Patrol soon and Ba and his brother Fabio Moon are always churning out new material like their recent graphic novel Two Brothers. But this magic collaboration--this Uncanny X-Men meets Madeline meets Wes Anderson take on superheroes--is forever frozen at the twelve issue mark.

It's a real shame because I think the confidence and mania of The Umbrella Academy inspired a lot of up and coming creators. I'm probably reaching here, but I see shades of their fast and loose, take no prisoners style in many current books. At the time I felt Gerard Way was the successor to Grant Morrison, a comics rock star who wasn't ashamed to love this shit, but also not so beholden to it that the work suffers.

(And in Way's case, the rock star thing is quite literal.)

There's one issue in particular I wanted to shine a light on for today's back issue dive: the third chapter of the second series, Dallas. While the first series a bit more straightforward, Dallas plunges into time travel, existentialism, hyper violence, and daddy issues. This comic dares you to keep up and if you're willing to--God forbid--pay attention, there's a lot to enjoy. Don't get me wrong, it's still saccharine funnybook entertainment, but it's just so goddamn stylish you can't help but admire it.

In issue three, the spirit medium member of the Umbrella family, Seance, gets capped in the head by two Pulp Fiction rejects wearing mascot helmets named Hazel and Cha-Cha and finds himself in the afterlife, or as the caption says simply, "Heaven".

And who else is there to greet him but . . . The Marlboro Man!

Well, not really. It's God, portrayed as a grizzled cowboy on that "last long ride into town" as he puts it. God baffles Seance with his frankness and drops some good ol' boy witticisms that sound like they could have come right from my late father's mouth. Basically, he tells Seance to sack up, get back to life and kick the asses of the those who have wronged him and his family. It's my favorite "pep talk" scene in recent memory and I can feel myself smiling every time I read it.

Without diving too deep into Umbrella Academy's lore and turning this into a Wikipedia entry, I'll try and simplify by saying that Seance is their Doctor Strange equivalent. He astral projects, he has weird conditions that hamper his magic, etc. He sums up his own character in the original series with one line: "Everything I own is black." He's that guy. In Dallas, he tries to freshen up his look a little bit and lighten up, and it gets him killed.

Like the stern faced cowboy-themed avatar of God, Seance is a figure set in his ways. And that's how it be sometimes. Some people are what they are, and trying to change or mold them is like asking a fish to come up out of the water and breathe air. That's why we don't just exist, we coexist.

Thanks for reading! Hit me up on Twitter: @ChrisBComics or drop me a line at backissuechris@gmail.com.

Taking the sweet tart for a walk: The Collected Strangers in Paradise Vol. 1

I have this trio of creators I like to refer to as the "trinity" of independent comics; Jeff Smith with Bone, Dave Sim with Cerebus, and Terry Moore with Strangers in Paradise. No, they aren't the very first "indy" guys, and yes, I'm well aware of R. Crumb and the Alt Comix movement, but these three are on a pedestal in my mind because of where and when they exist within my personal fandom.

And I have Wizard magazine to thank for that.

Yeah, Wizard was full of juvenile humor and would often shill for the bigger publishers like Marvel and DC, but if it weren't for that old rag I wouldn't even know independent comics existed. With the exception of Linsner's Dawn, I can't think of a grouping of indy comics that got more press and more recommendation than the three I mentiond above.

I was a few years and several hundred crappy comics away from ever actually reading Strangers in Paradise when I first read about it in Wizard, but I remember the figures of Francine and Katchoo capturing my pre-pubescent imagination. I was attracted to the series for all the wrong reasons, and as a young, sweaty chronic masturbator, I embodied everything the character Katchoo hated in the dumber sex.

It would take another few years for me to really appreciate SiP for what it was: a takedown of the way women are portrayed in comics. Of course, it was still crafted by a male creator, but that's a whole other ball of wax and people are Tumblr are probably arguing about something like that right as I type this . . .

Terry Moore's art renders the human body in all of its doughy, natural glory. Francine is an emotional basket case, dealing with her psychotic roommate and her ex Freddie Femur, all while trying (and failing) to retain some dignity day-to-day. Katchoo is the Bugs Bunny of this outfit, bending reality to her whims and leaving Kactoo-shaped holes in the world. Thoughtful David slouches and panics and stands in awe of Katcho's art. Everyone is this lump, crazy, beautiful mass of humanity. Body language is both shouted and whispered at the reader.

The first trade paperback collection I'm revisiting right now contains the first three issue miniseries, as well as some interesting back matter. There's a short SiP strip from Negative Burn, a sketchbook, and some other miscellaneous strips from earlier in Moore's cartooning career. Moore also has a background as a musician, and every SiP story is filled poetry, song lyrics, and other missives, some of which are stuffed into the background, while others are shoved into your face.

Strangers in Paradise shaped my worldview in weird ways. I have this series to thank for the concept of "strong female characters", as I surely wasn't getting any of that in the mainstream comics I was reading and I don't think I had a full conversation with a woman who wasn't my mother until . . . well, some things are too embarrassing to admit, even on a blog. But yeah, comics were my window into worlds I could not visit, and one of those was femininity.

I also imagined my adult life would be something like SiP. Me and my cool "out there" friends, making art and grinding it out in the creative fields of our choosing. (Never mind how they pay the bills . . .) Falling in and out of love, burning bridges, holding grudges, confidently making love to alternative rock.

NONE OF THAT SHIT HAPPENED!

Adult life is really just a blur of doing things you hate, funneling money from an employer to a series of bill collectors, and praying that sound you heard on the freeway wasn't your car.

Ugh . . .

I guess I should talk about the comic itself, a least a little bit. The plot centers around Francine's tumultuous breakup with her dude, Freddie, and the hurt feelings that ensue. This escalates when her roommate Katchoo decides to exact revenge of Freddie. And there's a guy named David who really likes Katchoo's artwork. And the cops get involved.

The series dips into many different genres and storytelling styles as it progresses, and just when you think one arc is getting stale, Moore finds a way to flip the whole premise on its head and get you reinvested. There's an arc with the mob, an arc with a treasure hunt of sorts, etc . . . It's one of those "desert island" books. It's all you need because it has a little bit of everything.

If you hit the end of the road with SiP, don't panic. Terry Moore has produced other great comics such as Echo and Rachel Rising, and after his panel at the most recent San Diego Comic-Con, it doesn't look like he'll be slowing down anytime soon.

And who can forget SiP Kids?

Well, if you made it this far into my rambling, why not hop over and check out Gotham Animated, where I talk about a certain cartoon series episode-by-episode, but you'll never guess which one. Thanks for reading!

Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com