Spin the bottle and robots - Superman: The Man of Steel #88

Robots are great. In the saccharine world superhero comics and Saturday morning cartoons, you can do things to robots that the power-that-be would never let you to do to a living character. Just look at Batman: The Animated Series. Episodes like "The Last Laugh" and "Heart of Steel" pit the Caped Crusader against mechanical menaces, allowing him to cut loose with a level of violence that was never unheard of. Heads are smashes, limbs are torn asunder, and LED eyeballs are crushed underfoot. You can't kill a robot, and therefore, you can't be accused of masochism if your antagonist is a synthetic, no matter how lifelike.

I was a pitiless robot-hater myself until the Animatrix installment "Second Renaissance" turned me around. Or maybe it was Ghost in the Shell. Maybe these artifical beings were developing an intelligence that could be compared to human consciousness . . . perhaps their own capacity for compassion could even rival our own.

Naw.

Silver Age Superman knew the score: robots are meant to be used as slaves for fighting crime. The Supes of the late 50's and 60's era comics employed an entire troupe of S-shield wearing helpers, using them for everything from aiding him against threats to acting as body doubles when that sneaky Lois Lane was a little too close to putting two and two together and realizing farm boy Clark Kent and her costumed savior were one and the same.

John Byrne's Man of Steel miniseries ushered in a new "down to Earth" Superman, stripping away some of what were considered the "sillier" elements of the hero's lore. Byrne would go on to have his time at the helm until another wave of creators took the reigns in the 90's. Cue the "death" of Superman. Cue the marriage between Lois and Clark. Cue the Electric Blue costume. And once these new and exciting ideas had been exhausted, the authors behind out monthly Super-adventures looked to the past to reinvigorate the series.

The Superman robots had found their way back. Into our comics and our hearts.

By spring 1999, there were still four main Superman titles: Action Comics, Superman, Man of Steel, and Adventures. They were interlocking, with a new issue of each dropping every week and advancing the weekly soap opera. This practice barred me from being a huge Super-fan for a while, for in my humble burg I could only find two out of the three titles at any given time.

A reboot of sorts was just around the corner. I'd read in Wizard magazine that a new wave of writers and artists were set to take over the books in the fall--names like Jeph Loeb and Joe Kelly and Geoff Johns, just like how Mark Schultz and Louise Simonson had done nearly a decade prior. The current creative teams were ramping up their storylines and bringing everything to a head, with a new galactic baddie named Dominus going to new and terrifying lengths to disconnect Superman from his friends, family, and even the rest of the JLA.

Dominus appealed to Superman's sense of responsibility, slowly warping it over time into a mix of vanity and paranoia. Recent events had made Superman more aware than ever that he could not, in fact, be everywhere at once. He fashioned a new wave of Superman robots to help him patrol the globe, while withdrawing from his Clark Kent persona entirely. Naturally, the Superman robots under his (and Dominus's) command were over stepping their boundaries are leaving world authorities on edge. Who knew the global police state would come wrapped in a red cape and blue spandex?

Man of Steel #88 sees Superman coming to his senses, at least to some degree, after Lois Lane and the cosmically-powered faerie-like creature Kismet appeared at the Fortress of Solitude to slap some sense into him. (Well, Lois throws a boot at him, but you get my point.) The world is on edge, preparing to declare war on Superman and his robot army, and it may take more than the usual fisticuffs to settle things.

It takes a kiss. A fairy tale, cosmically-endowed kiss.

Doug Mahnke provides the art in this issue, and his Superman robots are definitely the highlight. They aren't quite as humanoid as their Silver Age predecessors, instead sporting a raw mechanical look that just scream, "Break me!" His human figures are nice too, but he's years away from becoming the modern master we'd see in the more current Green Lantern and Justice League titles. Looking back at this issue, I was surprised to see how long Mahnke had really been in the game. He's one of DC's go-to guys, that's for sure.

Scripting this one is the aforementioned "Mr. Science" Mark Shultz. He seems to come from the Elliot S! Maggin school of Superman writing, using the character and his world to ask those vaunted "big questions" about society and the state of our world. However, this issue in particular has a personal touch to it. There's even a flashback to Clark playing spin-the-bottle with Lana Lang in his younger years. Love and sex conquer hate and death. The Kismet/Dominus stuff is almost a Jim Starlin-like cosmic opera, but the feels creep in a little more than in any issue of Warlock I remember.

And that cover. Awesome. When you're an adolescent like I was at the time, darker, edgier characters like Spawn are constantly stealing your attention (and allowance) away from classics like Supes. All it takes is an action packed, mechanical bone crunching cover like that to draw me back in.

I never managed to get every chapter of the Kismet/Dominus story, but I must've liked what I read because those issues seemed to have stuck with me while other ones from the time have faded from my memory, and my collection. The Loeb/Kelly run that was about to start was arguably the stronger material, but aside from President Luthor and Our Worlds at War, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what any of those issues were about.

But I guess that's what this rambling little blog is for!

Thanks for reading!

Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com
More heroes in peril: Gotham Animated

A whole team of Captain Americas! - Looking at Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis

When I started collecting comics, I had a core of four titles I would gravitate to no matter what: Amazing Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men, Batman, and Superman. It would take me a while to broaden my horizons, eventually branching out into things like Daredevil at Marvel and The Flash at DC. Bit by bit, I would come to accept that the wider universes these characters occupied could be just as "cool" as Gotham City or Prof. Xavier's school.

I'm not sure where these biases come from. Maybe it's because other heroes weren't represented by saturday morning cartoons as aggressively as Batman and Spider-Man, or maybe the more colorful costumes on characters like Captain America seemed "lame" to me.

Speaking of Cap, what sucked me into his world was the whole "man out of time" bit. As my knowledge of history and social studies subjects increased gradually thanks to school and the History channel, I became more and more fascinated with the notion of a hero whose values weren't represented by modern society. I love that source of internal conflict, and the best Cap writers have always known how to capitalize on this.

The history of the world converges with the history of comics in a number of interesting ways, the least of which has to be the era of "Golden Age" heroes. I remember reading about the Justice Society of America (the world's first superteam) in the pages of Wizard or somesuch and becoming enthralled. There was something a little edgier about these masked mystery men of the WWII years, something a little rougher.

In 1999, DC brought the JSA back from literal and figurative limbo in a new JSA series. I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, this is like an entire team of Captain Americas!" Starman scribe James Robinson wrote the inital arc, then passed it on to David Goyer and Geoff Johns for eighty issues or so. This might be my favorite team book ever. Johnny Sorrow, Mordru, Kobra . . . their list of rogues was an impressive one, but what kept me coming back for each new arc was the saga of Black Adam.

Which brings me to today's back issue dive . . .

Following the events of Infinite Crisis, DC ditched the acronym and relaunched the JSA title as Justice Society of America, introducing a new generation of younger heroes looking to scoop up the mantles of their formers. The old timers like Jaw Garrick and Alan Scott led the team and acted as mentors, hoping to prepare them for a future where the Justice League wouldn't be as reliable.

The bad apple of the bunch was Black Adam. An old Captain Marvel villain, Teth Adam was the counterpart to Billy Batson in more ways than one. Billy was a wide-eyed young man who could summon the Wizard's lightning and become Captain Marvel. Teth was a tortured adult who used the same lightning to become Black Adam and with his Superman-level might would bring his home country's regime to its knees and install himself as ruler.

Throughout the first volume of the series, Black Adam gradually formed a splinter group within the JSA. These ere other characters like himself who'd grown tired of coddling villains and wanted to be a little more . . . proactive against the menaces of the world. This caused a rift in the team, with junior member Atom Smasher leaving to join Adam's side.

Fast forward to volume two and the year 2009. The JSA have finally gotten most of their ducks in a row when word of Adam's return hits their doorstep. The team heads to Khandaq (Adam's fictional home country) to sort things out, but this time things are a touch more complicated.

Black Adam's wife Isis had been targeted by his enemies during his absence. Her (possibly rapey) torment at the hands of Felix Faust has sapped away her love for her people and she has a mad on for pretty much the entire human race. Looking to do right by her, even if it means traveling down a vengeful road to oblivion, Adam splits his power with her. They hijack the Rock of Eternity (where the Shazam characters get their mojo) and sets his sights of the destruction of man.

(Yeah, I'm probably missing a few things with that synopsis, but we're talking about the culmination of ten years worth of crisscrossing storylines. Bear with me.)

This conflict marks the end of Geoff Johns's long tenure with the characters, titled "Black Adam & Isis". Joining Johns on his swansong is classic DC artist and Power of Shazam! alumni Jerry Ordway. Ordway has that "classic" style to his character designs and layouts that was beginning to slip away from DC at this point. (Flashpoint and the New 52 were on the horizon.) His art is a throwback, and I can see some younger readers turning their nose up at it.

(Those Alex Ross covers tho . . .)

I, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of the Johns/Ordway team. This book became my palette cleanser, a by-the-numbers superhero book I could rely on to scratch that itch for 80's DC. Sure, Ordway's faces are a little wonky at times, but short of George Perez, I can't think of another artist still working that could encapsulate what I love so much about that era. This book, like several of its main characters, was displaced in time.

Rereading this particular arc now, I realize how entrenched one had to be in not only the JSA but DC continuity at the time to really get the most out of it. Subplots are weaving in and out of nearly every panel, and you can tell Johns is doing as much as possible in three issues to tie up every loose end he can as well as set some dominoes up for the next creative team.

Is this the perfect comic? Heck no. Would I recommend it? Maybe to DC diehards. Is it the conclusion to a personal favorite run? You betcha.

Ordway would go on to do a few more issues of the series until Bill Willingham took over. Being a Fables fan, I was really excited to see what Willingham would do with the team, but I remember not caring for his run as much once it started. Perhaps I, like some of the JSAers, am a little too set in my ways?

Thanks for reading!
Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com
More stuff about dudes hitting each other: Work/Shoot

New releases for the week of 8/24/16

It's that time of the week again. Time to drop some of your hard-earned shekels on new comics! Here are some new releases that I *think* might be worth a look:

Betty And Veronica #1 (Archie Comics)
Alright, this one already dropped a few weeks ago, but it's getting a second printing and I'm an old-school Archie head who loves what the current slew of creative teams have been doing with these properties, so I gotta give it some love. Chip Zdarsky's Jughead and Mark Waid's Archie have been solid reads, so I can't imagine them dropping the ball with this one, especially with Adam Hughes on art duties.

Northguard #1 (Chapterhouse Comics)
I love patriotic heroes like Captain America and I especially love when other countries throw their hat in the ring and debut a flag-wearing hero of their own. (Maybe it's a symptom of Olympic fever.) Apparently this is a reboot of the old Captain Canuck character by writer Anthony Falcone and artist Ron Salas. I look forward to seeing the Great White North's take on superheroic fisticuffs, and the Aurora Dawn cult he's battling in this first arc sounds interesting as well.

Six-Pack And Dogwelder: Hard-Travelin' Heroz #1 (DC Comics)
Garth Ennis has been getting a ton of mileage out of his old Hitman supporting cast. Count on low brow humor and gobs of debauchery in this new mini. Also, as a nice nod to the subtitle of this series, there's a variant cover by the legendary Neal Adams. Because why not?

Duck Avenger #0 (IDW)
This is a localized import of some strange Scrooge McDuck comic that was a hit overseas. I'm down for all things Disney ducks, being a big fan of both Ducktales and Darkwing Duck. I'm not sure why IDW has this instead of Marvel, but who cares?

Lake of Fire #1 (Image)
I'll just copypasta the solicitation copy here: "SERIES PREMIERE It is 1220 AD, and the gears of the Albigensian Crusade grind on. When an alien mining-craft infested with a horde of bloodthirsty predators crash-lands in the remote wilderness of the French Pyrenees, a small band of crusaders and a Cathar heretic are all that stand between God's Kingdom and Hell on Earth." I'm in. And that's before I noticed that Nathan Fairbairn and Matt Smith were the creative team.

Generation Zero #0 (Valiant)
Valiant, like Archie who I mentioned above, is a publisher that can do no wrong right now. They have been the alternative to Marvel and DC when it comes to costumes heroes and sci-fi stuff. Frad Van Lente leads the creative team pack in this new X-Men/Inhumans-inspired series spinning out of the recent Harbinger Wars mini. Francis Portella provides the art. High school drama with angsty psychic soldiers? It could only be the latest manga or Generation Zero.

Some interesting debuts this week, especially that Lake of Fire series. What looks good to you? You can let me know in the comments below or on Twitter (@ChrisBComics). Thanks for reading!

Paul Dini's Darkest Night

Between the odd Bat-related thing here on Back Issue Diving and my other side project Gotham Animated, I feel like I've been getting a concentrated dose of Gotham City lately. I'm not complaining, I just find it to be a weird confluence of events.

The book I wanted to shine a light on today really doesn't need the press, but it was such an emotionally taxing experience I feel I need to write about to somewhere. So yeah, it's not a "back issue" in the strictest definition, but it's a damn good read and far from your usual Batman story.

I guess that's because Dark Night: A True Batman Story isn't really about the caped crusader at all. It's a story about Paul Dini, one of the creative pillars behind Batman: The Animated Series. In Dark Knight, Dini recounts a personal low; a deep depression that set in following being mugged on the streets of L.A. and how it forced him to reflect on the emptiness and isolation he was subjecting himself to.

Joining Dini on this personal journey is artist Eduardo Risso, a name you might recognize from 100 Bullets or even his other Brian Azzarello collaboration, Spaceman. He and Azzarello also teamed up to do a six issue run on the main Batman title back in the mid-2000's, and I remember liking it a lot. His art is a worthy successor to the Frank Miller "grim 'n gritty" style, and his use of negative space evokes Miller's Sin City. I wasn't sure what to make of pairing him with Dini when this graphic novel was first announced, but he turned out to be the perfect choice for this story. I'd even go so far as to say that Dini's story forced Risso to up his game in the storytelling department. While there are plenty of street-level Batman-esque sequences, the majority of this book exists in other territory, be it Dini's elementary school playground, the Warner Bros. animation offices, or a psychiatrist's office.

Risso obviously knocks it out of the park when depicting Batman and his rogues gallery as they float around in Dini's subconscious, taunting him and pointing out the issues in his personal and professional life. Much more surprising was his grasp of the real-world people in Dini's life. Rendered with almost as few lines as possible in some places, these forms morph between suggestion and caricature. It's that "thing" that other current artists like Samnee and Francavilla do so well, getting the most across with as little ink as possible. Superb stuff.

Dini's story and script are solid, and his frankness about everything makes the book feel a little "too real" in places. When Dini arrives home after the mugging to find no one there to greet him but a shelf load of action figures, I cringed. His issues in this story were all too relatable. It's a scathing look at the grim side of geekdom and the walls we introverts sometimes build around ourselves.

Batman and his rogues interact with Dini as guiding spirits. Batman wants Dini to pick himself up and use his rage at his attackers as fuel to push through his existential crisis and live a better life. The Joker becomes a worm in his ear at time, encouraging Dini to "let it all go" and live life however he wants. (Because it's all just a big joke, right?) Poison Ivy belittles his sexual prowess and calls him out for being as shallow as the vapid actresses he dates. Scarecrow reminds him that his attackers were never caught and are still out there, dragging him down into a vortex of agoraphobia and paranoia. Even the Penguin makes an appearance, tempting Dini to soothe his broken body and mind with more and more alcohol.

There are near little tidbits referring to behind the scenes stuff from Warner Bros. and particularly the production of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, but that stuff never hijacks the story. Dini's life as a writer is a backdrop, and the other talents we see from that era like  Harley Quinn voice actor Arleen Sorkin and story editor Alan Burnett are treated less like historical animation figures and more like genuine human beings. It's such a human tale. Really remarkable.

I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to look at a well-done graphic novel that uses superhero characters for more than just punching and posturing. Heck, even people who don't give a rip about Batman will enjoy this just for Dini's honest narrative voice. The only setback I can see with this book is that it does go into some dark places, and might be a little too "navel-gazey" for some. Still, it's a great package and just about one of the only DC things to read right now if their ever-shifting continuity and corporate structure have thrown your own fandom for a loop.

As always, thanks for reading! Tomorrow, I'll be looking at some new releases for the week and the day after (hopefully) I'll be diving into a couple of comics involving Isis! (Not the bad one)

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

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

I didn't count on being happy: A quick look at Batman: The Widening Gyre

Say what you will about his films and the eternal lateness of Daredevil: The Target issue two, but Kevin Smith can spin a yarn when he wants to. His love for the Bat is no secret, as fans of his Fatman on Batman podcast can attest, and his love for a certain run in particular is what drives today's selection, Batman: The Widening Gyre.

In the late 70's, writer Steve Englehart and artist Marshall Rogers produced a short run of Batman stories centered around Bruce Wayne and Batman's love affair with a woman named Silver St. Cloud. Collected in trade paperback as Batman: Strange Apparitions, this all-too-short run of issues sees Batman dealing with the likes of a post-Denny O'Neil revamped Joker, Dr. Phosphorus (who would go on to be the inspiration for the character Blight in Batman Beyond), crime boss Rupert Thorne, and the now-in-a-major-motion-picture hitman Deadshot. Stylistic ripples from this run could be felt for decades to come, even as the majority of Batman comics in the next decade would follow in the footsteps of Frank Miller and Alan Moore.

Smith and his artistic collaborator Walt Flanagan clearly hold that run in high esteem, as this series sees not only the return of Silver St. Cloud to Bruce Wayne's life, but a reflection on a "simpler" time, before uzis replaced death rays and eating hearts became the new trend among Gotham psychos. As Bruce Wayne considers giving up the cape and cowl life to be with Silver, his alter ego takes a new young crime fighter under his wing.

The character Baphomet is a bit of a cipher. We know he looks up to Batman, but he doesn't seem intimidated or even especially beholden to his style of righting wrongs. Baphomet's true identity and motivations remain a mystery right up until the final, devastating two page splash of the last issue, and once that genie is out of the bottle . . . well let's just say Smith and Flanagan have their work cut out for them when and if the sequel, Batman: Bellicosity ever comes to be. (I'm not going to spoil it here, but yeesh . . . if you've read it, you probably had the same reaction.)

I'm putting the cart before the horse here. And the horse is a fun read. Each issue jumps back and forth in time between the grim avenger of the current Bat-status quo and an earlier (and usually lighter) version. Smith's Bruce Wayne is a little more candid than the usual portrayal, and a bit more human. We get all kinds of intimate secrets about both Batman and Bruce's private lives and once you learn the origin of Silver's nickname for Bruce, "Dee Dee", you'll be one hundred percent certain you're reading a Kevin Smith story.

There are guest stars galore, from Aquaman to Etrigan, and a bevy of classic Batman villains, all rendered competently by Flanagan. His figures might seem a bit odd at first, but I found his illustration style growing on me as I read on. He clearly relishes the chance to draw the grotesque and horrific, and Smith's diversions into the darker side of Gotham give him ample opportunity.

Overall, it's a satisfying six issues with a cliffhanger ending that will either leave you scratching your head or filled with nerd rage. Either way, I think its safe to say this comic will get a reaction out of you.

Also, I guess it bears mentioning that the run by Englehart and Rogers that I cited at the beginning of this post did in fact get a sequel miniseries from DC in the early 2000's, but that's a back issue dive for another time!

Thanks for reading!

Twitter: @ChrisBComics
More Batman Stuff: Gotham Animated