Casualties of the DC Implosion (Part 1)

Over two dozen different titles were forced onto the chopping block during the '78 implosion that DC comics suffered. Twenty of those titles were ongoing, and monthly sales dictated who would stay and who would go. This made things awkward for the publisher, as Detective Comics was a low-seller at the time, but as a legacy book, represented the origins of DC as a publisher and was even the place where one of their flagship characters, Batman, was introduced. Sentimental editors made their case, and 'Tec was saved. However, the same couldn't be said for many of the others.

I'm going to take this space to provide a capsule review for each of the lost Implosion titles. My expertise in different areas of DC vary pretty wildly, but with resources like Wiki and Comic Book Database at my side, we can slowly but surely paint a more complete picture of DC's publishing line at the time and maybe speculate on why these particular books didn't make the cut at the time.
For example, some titles may have just been showing their age. Antholgies started to fade in popularity at this time, as character focused books and longer storylines played hell with the format. DC's spooky anthology The Witching Hour met its end in Oct '78 with #85. "More Bewitching Pages!" promises the banner atop the title on the cover, in line with the Explosion initiative that contributed to this whole jam in the first place. The remaining anthology entries that would have appeared here merged into The Unexpected, but that title wasn't long for this world either.

Looking at the cancellations chronologically, August is ground zero. Aquaman, Claw, The Unconquered, Mister Miracle, and Shade, The Changing Man were the first wave of titles to go. By the time of its final issue (#63), Aquaman had already been relegated to bi-monthly status, coming out 6 times a year rather than a dozen. This is also true of several of the other cancelled titles, and indicitive of their place in DC's late 70's cosmology. It's not surprising to see Aquaman at the front of one of these lists since he has traditionally had problems maintaining a monthly series and DC has even gone long spells without a monthly Aquaman book. The second part of the story that begins here, "My Brothers Keeper", ended up appearing in Adventure Comics, where the Prince of Atlantis would once again make his home as a back-up feature.

Claw, The Unconquered is perhaps the most unfortunate case in the August cancellations. Claw had been revived just a few months prior after an 18-month hiatus. David Michelinie's Conan clone hacked his last slash with issue 12. One might start to notice a disturbing trend at this point: genre books outside of the usual capes and tights stuff are on the low end of the totem pole when it comes to these cancellations. There was clear pressure from DC's decision makers to streamline the brand and (I have to imagine) a hard stop put on things that might be a little too "left of center", with the "center" being the Justice League and their assorted Super Friends.

There's a lame joke hidden inside the premise of Mister Miracle's Scott Free not being able to escape cancellation. One of the last remnants of Kirby's fling with DC had since been taken over by future Kirby ally and Howard the Duck co-creator Steve Gerber. The incomparable Micheal Golden was on art chores for this final issue, which saw the escape artist super hero pitted against his wife, both under the thrall of Granny Goodness. This particular cancellation seems unfair, as the creative team is sooo good. I suppose that the Fourth World and the Kirby aesthetic in general was starting to wane in popularity.

Speaking of Marvel legends who found new inspiration at DC, Steve Ditko's Shade, the Changing Man met its end with issue #8, "The Gambles!" In light of the enigmatic Mr. Ditko's recent passing, I feel the same pang of regret with this series' cancellation that I did with Mister Miracle. The saga of the Odd Man, the Zero Zone Murders, and Dr. Z would have to settle themselves elsewhere. In the case of Shade, Detective Comics (itself barely surviving the cut) would become a home for the conclusion to Ditko and Michael Fleischer's story.

So far, the cuts have been almost predictable. DC would naturally want to focus on their core heroes and their satellite titles, while off-shoots like Kirby's Fourth World and the fantasy realms of Claw weren't worth the investment or risk. The fall of '78 would become a time of homogenization for DC, meaning non-superhero books would be a tough sell no matter the creative vision or talent attached. The Implosion was just beginning in August though, and the next month would see twice as many titles getting the axe and the number of story pages per issue being reduced to 17 (equal to Marvel's standard issue size at the time).

Like it said on those slick 80's Crisis ads, "Worlds will live. Worlds will die. And the DC Universe will never be the same again." Nearly a decade before a storyline crisis would wipe the slate clean in the DCU, DC the publisher was dealing with a different kind of destructive wave. And there was no Pariah to warn us.

Next time: It was a black September . . .

Prelude to Implosion

Didja know? DC imploded once. It wasn't the result of an anti-matter wave or the cracking of the source wall, but instead the comics publisher suffered a crisis of the commercial kind. In 1978, DC was forced to take drastic steps to insure their survival, the most savage of which, (for fans, anyway) was the cancellation of more than two dozen ongoing or soon-to-be published titles. This event has since gained the moniker, "The DC Implosion" and has generated quite a mystique around itself. Multiple what-could-have-beens and what-ifs have spawned within fandom surrounding the implosion, and some of them have even been demystified a bit thanks to titles like Cancelled Comics Cavalcade.

These events would have ramifications for many years and many regime changes afterward, effecting not just the immediate place DC occupied in the comics market, but the way publishing and branding initiatives would be handled going forward. A couple of years ago, when fans compared the first wave of New 52 cancellations to the '78 implosion, I rolled my eyes. The cancelled New 52 books at that time (I wanna say . . . 2012?) were quickly replaced with new titles, and the machine continued to churn out roughly the same amount of content each month. The Implosion was a stiffer, more sobering blow to DC, and when one starts to take some of those little aforementioned what-ifs to their natural conclusions, it's a wonder the publisher survived.

The content DC was publishing in 1978 was as varied in quality and consistency as its ever been, which is a nothing statement except to say that the factors leading to the Implosion were purely financial and the result of bad or overzealous predictions, not due to any kind of dip in the quality of the books. 1978 saw Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers pit Batman against the Joker in Detective Comics #475's "The Laughing Fish", one of the more beloved and referenced encounters between the two. The two Pauls, Kupperburg and Levitz, brought us a celebration of DC's already rich history as of '78 in the trivia geek landmark Showcase #100. Denny O'Neil, Michael Golden, Walt Simsonson, and so many more industry legends than I could name here were still making their mark and the superhero genre continued it's trek through the bronze age with DC at the helm in terms of characterization. The foundation for Frank Miller, Watchmen, and Vertigo is being laid out by the crafty veterans of the Silver Age.

What went wrong? Thematically, DC's Implosion gets its cynical geek handle from an initiative left over from 1977 but still being carried out in '78: The DC Explosion. The Explosion was an attempt to take back the majority market share from Marvel by increasing the number of titles published and adding more story pages to each issue as well. Naturally, this was accompanied by higher cover prices, leading the comic readers' perception to the conclusion that DC was the "premium" or "black label" product. Not just a set of hero rags meant to shill fruit pies and Stan's Soapbox, DC's books were top shelf, varied in genre, and leading the way in cultural relevance. That was the message DC hoped to send, anyway. There are several miscalculations at work here, the least of which is DC's overconfidence that they had a better "finger on the pulse" when it came to the issues of the day. Marvel was undergoing its own bronze age metamorphosis, and it was just as rocky. The latter half of the 70's also saw many mainstay talents from both brands switch sides or fall out of favor with an evolving readership as some of the old tropes in cape books were starting to wear thin.

So again, what went wrong? A lot of things. One major factor that no one could have foreseen took its toll the previous year. Rough blizzards in '77 affecting shipping and distribution, which in turn derailed a business model based on selling a variety of monthly serials. Titles got backed up, fans got frustrated, creators got frustrated, sales dropped off. Below the realms of weather, but still above the heads of the average Joe was the ongoing economic recession of the 70's, another factor from the all-too-real world that would bring the publishers of cosmic flights of fancy to their knees with a blaring red pair of financial Omega Beams. When God and the economy team up against you, what chance is there?

It's important that I take a step back here, so as not to paint DC in too much of a sympathetic light. These events were exacerbated by greed and the desires to yell "Checkmate!" at a competitor that had done the unthinkable earlier in the decade, dethroning what had been the most dominant institution in comics since the days of National and Timely. DC's clout in the publishing world had made life hell for Marvel and publisher Martin Goodman in the 60's, even limiting the number of titles Marvel could publish at one point. (As a result, we got all of those cool double feature books like Strange Tales.) Marvel came up as the underdog, or at least the smallest of the Titans. Marvel redefined superheroes and even trademarked the damn term! Marvel was making headway in Hollywood, or at least it looked that way at the time, and they were getting their heroes read on college campuses while DC's heroes lived in long shadow of their multimedia adaptations like William Dozier's Batman series or the Lynda Carter version of Wonder Woman. DC was hungry and determined to get back on top, but their desired outdistanced their reach and the cost would be heavy.

These costs would come in the form of staff layoffs, stock damages, and the cancellation of nearly 40% of the publisher's line at the time. To be clear, this company was nearly cleaved in twain by these events. As dramatic as the losses were, what was worth betting on for DC at the time? Could Vixen, Green Team, and Shade the Changing Man have entered the 80's as breakout titles if the weather had been a little different? Or if the recession had cleared up a bit? What impact could stepping on this proverbial butterfly have had on the careers and legacies of guys like Tony Isabella or Russ Heath?

See what I mean about the What-Ifs? They get to you. I'm no economist and I'm certainly not the weather man, so I'll be focusing mainly on the cancelled titles of the Implosion. In this multi-part feature, we'll be exploring the titles lost in the Implosion and hopefully getting a peek at what could have been. Join me tomorrow for what I like to call, "The Casualties".

Look, sometimes you just have to get trapped in a cave, build a suit of armor, and solve the Vietnam war to feel better about yourself

Iron Man #47 is a re-telling of the titular character's origin by the all-star creative team of Roy Thomas, Barry (Pre-Windsor) Smith and Jim Mooney. Following a brief run by Gary Friedrich and George Tuska that would resume in the coming months, we pick up with Tony Stark at the lowest point in his pre-Demon in a Bottle, pre-Armor Wars career. The last issue saw a battle with his former ally the Guardsman go horribly awary, resulting in the death of a friend who had grown bitter with his employer over, you guessed it, a woman.

Iron Man sulks and is briefly spat upon at the Guardsman's funeral, leading him down memory lane as he sad-flies across the Manhattan skyline. This is where Roy Thomas and Barry Smith get to swoop in and do a pretty bang-up job of reestablishing the character's origin and updating (as of 1972) the means by which Tony Stark becomes a P.O.W. and is forced to build his new identity from scratch. The main idea here is that Tony needs to reflect on his past bouts with reinvention and redemption and use those old lessons now. It's a thoughtful way to excuse an origin issue.

It also doesn't hurt that Iron Man has one of the more dynamic origin stories of any of the Marvel characters. Nearly as iconic as Spidey's origin in Amazing Fantasy #15 thanks to the 2008 film, Tony Stark's metamorphosis, while under duress, from arms dealer to futurist is a story that functions as it's own little Die Hard-style action movie. I'd go so far as to say it's more exciting than most of Iron Man's outings once he becomes an established hero. Thomas's minor retcon that Flashback Tony is working on "crazy gadgets to help end the bloodshed in Vietnam" doesn't change the fact that he's kind of a monster before his capture.

The Tyrannical Wong-Chu is set up as the warlord that will capture Tony and force him to build the Iron Man armor as a means of escape. Wong-Chu is a pretty flamboyant general who is also eager to best his detractors in one on one combat, if he is bigger than them. Otherwise, a coward's bullet is good enough for him. He's a charicature, and a pretty dated one at that, from a time when the satirical methods of old were clashing with the progressive virtues of the new. It's not really a big deal, though. Wong-Chu is just here to be a bad guy and get hoisted by his own petard.

"Why Must There Be An Iron Man?" builds to its most artistically potent sequence when Tony is powering up his Mark 1 armor for the first time, resulting in a splash page of the jangling armor prototype emerging from a slab like Frankenstein's monster. Smith's art makes Tony's first armor look like a shambling, jerky, unsafe, ghost in a suit of armor. The terrified Wong-Chu flees as long as he can, then orders the other prisoners executed just to spite the opponent he cannot defeat. Of course, Iron Man isn't about to let that happen and our hero smotes 'em all good.

Professor Yinsen plays a minor role in the story, and that's the only thing I feel is really lacking here and the only thing that keeps this version of the origin from feeling complete. Yinsen is the Elder that Tony encounters while prisoner, checking one of my favorite boxes on the Campbell Hero's Journey List. The Yinsen stuff is almost non-existent here, and when Tony tells the deceased mentor to "rest easy" at the flashback's end, it rings hollow.

The end of the flashback doesn't mark the end of the story however, as Iron Man still gets to spend another four or five pages debating with himself before the issue's closing. Once Tony gets himself all boned up to be Iron Man again and face a new day, we end with a splash page meant to call back to the earlier shot of the Mark 1 armor. This time, Tony is riding high and it's all fluid and dynamic and stuff. Cool.

The status quo that Iron Man returns to at that time from here doesn't really stand out to me as some of Marvel's best bronze age stuff. We're still in the middle of the Marianne Rogers saga, where Iron Man learns his girlfriend has E.S.P. and she starts wigging out on him and kinda leaves him for dead at one point. Yeah, it's pretty wild stuff in terms of throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks, but it doesn't sing like Gerry Conway's Spider-Man or Steve Englehart's Captain America.

Why must there be an Iron Man? Because magnets.

Lana Lang's thirst and the Saga of the Parakat

Today, we put the "back" in Back Issue Diving. As in waaay back. We're actually breaking the barrier of the late 80's and journeying to DC's silver age for a look at Adventure Comics #282. More specifically the cover story, "Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes!"

March, 1961. The allies are on the move and those clowns in Washington just might be able to put there heads together and get a bead on . . . the Reds? I actually don't know what was going on in the world in 1961, but if the contents of this comic reflected the world at that time, I'm kind of bummed they started purifying our drinking water.

I kid, I kid. DC's silver age comics weren't really known across the board for being socially relevant. That was Marvel's bag at the time. Particularly in the Superman line, silver age stories were about a rigid square butting heads with psychedelia and self reflection at every turn. The youth-focused stories of Adventure Comics, namely those starring Superboy and/or the Legion of Super-Heroes, would break away from this tradition at times, but not in any way that would seem out of place in
Archie's hometown of Riverdale.

(Hmm . . . actually, that current Riverdale show is pretty racy, so that comparison is broken now.)

"Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes!" could be an Archie story, if not for the fact is features more than a few superpowered characters. The Curt Swan cover tells the entire story: Lana is trying use Star Boy's affection to make Superboy jealous, but he isn't taking the bait, instead intending to pipe some other 30th century hussie. Not only is Lana a one-dimensional character who is motivated solely to win the attention of a man, but her fucking plan doesn't work and Superboy is like, way smarter and better than her. It's a Silver Age classic!

The real shame is that Superboy's future love interest as Superman, Lois Lane, didn't fare much better in her portrayals.

The Legion itself was pretty new at the time; this story marks only their fifth appearance in comics and the roster was pretty small at the time. You had the core members Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl, plus Star Boy, Chameleon Boy, and maybe a few others? At least, that's all who appear in this story. Really, we're just focusing on Star Boy in this issue anyway.

The plot follows the usual formula of building up to the cover image in about six pages and then racing headlong to a denumot from there. Superboy overhears Lana's aloud scheming after interacting with Star Boy and allows the silly girl to tire herself out, battling a random Parakat along the way after it escapes from a zoo or somesuch. The parakat is probably the strongest part of this issue. The panel of the year is Superboy swinging the Parakat above his head by the tail. I'd post it here, but then I feel like I would need to charge you admission or something. It's next week's meme. It's that good.

30th century gal Zynthia plays the Jezebel in this story, bringing Lana to tears. If the family of the Parakat from earlier attacked the city after Superboy returned to his time, and the last three pages of this story were a series of nine panel grids where Zynthia is ripped limb from limb by angry Parakats, that would be neat. But alas, this one wraps up with Lana getting the cold shoulder from Clark, who claims to have "lots of super-jobs to catch up on!" Ho, ho.

It's for the best really. Lana Lang couldn't birth Superman's Super-Babies. They'd tear through her like a pack of Parakats.

A retroactive generation

In 1961, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #1 hit newsstands and set a new standard for superhero comics in terms of storytelling and characterization. It also marked the beginning of the Marvel universe, although writers and artists since then have incorperated more and more of Marvel's golden and atomic age roots. Marvel, as a shared universe, would continue to grow and prosper up until today, but with Stan Lee's dogmatic "illusion of change" hanging over the line, drastic steps would have to be taken to explain why these characters in the sixties were still quite young and vibrant decades later.

From this, the concept of "Marvel Time" was born. We're expected to believe that, no matter where we are reading from, the Marvel Universe and the interconnected stories within began about nine or ten years ago. This, of course, created another dilemma. Now there were several decades worth of actual human history that had been rendered blank and Marvel-less by the slow creep of Marvel Time. Captain America and most of the other Timely-era characters would stay entrenched in WWII, but there was still the matter of filling out the 50's, 60's and 70's.

In the year 2000, veteran Marvel creators John Byrne and Roger Stern believed they had a solution. Not lacking for ambition, their series Marvel: The Lost Generation featured an era's worth of new creations that had been retrofitted to fill in the blank space that had become the mid-20th century. The series revolved mainly around the superhero team known as The First Line and a futuristic anthropologist named Dr. Cassandra Locke who is tumbling through time, uncovering these "previously unmentioned" heroes and villains, revealing them to herself and the reluctant reader.

The heroes of the First Line are somewhat . . . shall we say cookie cutter? John Byrne's designs are strong, but one can't help but look at them as pastiches of older heroes. Byrne does a pretty good job of imagining what heroes created by the likes of Bob Brown and John Buscema would look like, and writer Roger Stern gives the script an old-school flavor. (Which shouldn't be difficult for the guy who weaved all of those incredible Avengers yarns in the 80's.)

The issue at hand (#7) takes place during the height of the Red Scare, with Skrulls in place of Commies and the potentially offensive Yellow Claw standing revealed as the true menace to both the Invaders and the First Line by issue's end. The cover is a classic "two teams clash while a nuetral party cries out in anguish in the middle" piece. The story here reminds me of the JSA: 1950 arc from Geoff John's storied run on the title, with the H.U.A.C. coming down on masked heroes while another menace takes advantage of the rampant confusion and paranoia cropping up in the American people.

The superhero melodrama is confined to two-thirds of the issue--quite literally, as the bottom of each page fills us in on the simultaneous adventures of Dr. Locke as she unearths the other half of the plot and, in this issue, runs afoul of the Human Torch. (Not that one, the other one.) This is a neat gimmick and a fun way to mess with the format, but I can also see it wearing thin over the course of a twelve issue maxi-series.

Another gimmick that made this series stand out at the time was the numbering. As Dr. Locke is falling further back in time, so do the issues count down from 12 to 1. It's cute, and ultimately non-intrusive, but I have a feeling the edgier fan of the approaching new millenium may have rolled their eyes at the concept. After all, prjects like this and Starlin's Infinity books would become rarer and rarer as the decade would unfurl and the Ultimate line is literally on the way before thise series could even finish its run.

Recent history (the last 20 years or so) has shown us that Marvel would find more success taking their present stock of heroes and de-aging them than they would in trying to retcon in new characters to account for Marvel Time. Unfortunately the real trick to appreciating Marvel Time is all-too-simple: Just don't think about it too much!

New releases for the week of January 31st, 2018

Lo and behold, it's that time again. Time for money spendin' and comics readin'. Welcome back to your favorite segment on the blog (according to analytics) Da New Releases! Here's what you can look for on store shelves, both physical and virtual, the week of January 31st.

Hungry Ghosts #1 (of 4) Dark Horse
One of DC's most unfortunate decisions was letting go of editor extraordinaire Karen Berger a few years back. When Dark Horse's new imprint, Berger Books, was announced last year, fans of early Vertigo were clamoring to see what (and who) the famous editor would bring to the table at her new employer. This anthology of culinary-adjacent ghost stories by a hit list of creators including Paul Pope and TV's Anthony Bourdain seems like a great anthology and a strong start for the line.

Astro City #50 DC Comics
The Eisner-nominated single issue "The Nearness of You" was originally a Wizard magazine mail-away issue, but it ultimately ended up being one of the best stories in Kurt Busiek's epic Astro City saga. A deconstruction of Crisis on Infinite Earth-type stories from the common man's perspective, this special anniversary issue plans to revisit the character of Michael Tenicek and follow up on his tragic dilemma.

Deathstroke Annual #1 DC Comics
A surprise hit for me as of late has been DC's Deathstroke series. It shouldn't come as that big of a surprise however, as its being written by Christopher Priest. This annual teams up The Guy That Made Black Panther Cool with one of my favorite artists who doesn't get enough work, Denys Cowan. Shades of DC's Question and Priest filling in the word bubbles? It'll be a barn-burner!

Motherlands #1 (of 6) DC Comics
The solicitation copy promises "a sci-fi action comedy blacker than dragon s***!" Personally, I just want to see what Si Spurrier has been up to, since Six Gun Gorilla and X-Men: Legacy were two titles that really captured my imagination in recent years. This one's about a pack of celebrity bounty hunters and their hi-fi HDMI adventures in a post-bad things happening world. It looks and sounds as frenetic and kooky as Spurrier's previous projects.

JLA/Doom Patrol Special #1 DC Comics
The "Milk Wars" begin here! Gerard Way and current Justice League of America scribe use this special one-shot to set up a crossover between two of DC's hottest team books. Way's Doom Patrol has been a worthy successor to the legendary Grant Morrison run while Orlando is making waves all over fandom by using some of Alan Moore's old characters in JLA. There's no reason this won't be awesome and sublime. Although, if you don't like out-and-out weird stuff, this might be more like surviving an alien abduction than reading a comic book.

Elephantmen #80 Image Comics
I honestly haven't followed Elephantmen in several years, but I figured Richard Starkings epic comic saga coming to an end deserves a mention. Funny, trippy, and often poingant, Elephantmen was one of thos indy books that got me into indy books back in the heyday of Wizard Magazine.

Star Wars DJ: Most Wanted Marvel Comics
Ben Blacker (Thrilling Adventure Hour) and Kev Walker (lots of stuff) fill us in on the origins and whatnot of the best thing to come out of The Last Jedi next to Porgs: Benicio Del Toro's character, DJ. The amoral scumbag who nearly left Finn and co. out to dry in the film gets his own miniseries. Charles Soule and Phil Noto set the bar pretty high with their Lando mini a couple years ago, but I don't doubt that Black can tap into a little of that classic Star Wars "scum and villainy" and deliver a neat little yarn here.



Dang, that JLA/Doom Patrol Special looks pretty "gear", doesn't it? That's all for this week, but don't be afraid to hit me up on Twitter (@ChrisBComics) and let me know what you'll be checking out this week!

Whatever the opposite of "badass" is

Today's dive doesn't reach as far back as usual. This "back issue" was actually a current issue I'd missed and until today had eluded me. For my money, the best run in recent capes comics was the Warren Ellis/Declan Shalvey/Jordie Bellaire reboot of Moon Knight from 2014. Six issues, in and out, with the creative team leaving behind a smoldering hot set-up for any follow-up creative team to take the reins on. The six issues here remind me of what Grant Morrison did with each mini in Seven Soldiers of Victory: a "pilot episode" for a longer run, streamlining a B-tier character and propping them up to stand side by side with the "heavy hitters".

In six short and quickly read issues, this run positioned Moon Knight as a paranormal investigator in the Marvel U with changeable "modes". Patterned after the phases of the moon, Marc Spector can assume different versions of his Moon Knight persona, from a Batman-like super-ninja to a Ragman-inspired dark arts master. The soldier, the priest, and the prisoner are all represented by Ellis's paradigm. Spector can assume a different version of himself, depending on what kind of story he's in. The comic tells it more simply than I have here; it's not a "high concept" as it might sound.

Here's a quick breakdown of the run. Issue one sees Moon Knight track a serial killer into the sewers, discovering the dark side of SHIELD super-soldier project gone awry in the process. Issue two is a visual spectacle as Moon Knight battles a sniper and the art team gets to experiment with page construction in cool ways as the sniper takes out his victims across a series of pages using a nine panel grid that follows his targets. Once a target is hit, that respective panel goes blank. One by one the panels go blank and dammit I don't think I'm doing this issue justice by trying to explain something so dang visual. Issue three is a classic ghost story with an urban twist. Issue four is a dreamscape trip involving mold spores and lucid dreaming. Issue five is like a level out of Double Dragon or Final Fight translated to the comic page with Moon Knight battling his way up a tenement building.

But yeah, that's the whole "story" so far. Some wicked stuff happens, Moon Knight bombs in and kicks ass, rinse, repeat. Ellis might as well be writing the Morrison Batman-Batgod here, as the protagonist is so completely capable that the interest lies not in if he will succeed, but how.

Issue Six makes the first attempt to create a true nemesis for Ellis's new Moon Knight, and ironically, it's the last issue of the run before he would hand the title off to Brian Wood next ish. A rogue cop looking to make an impression on his mundane reality decides to so his homework and take up the mantle of Marc Spector's old nemesis, Black Spectre.

Not to be confused with the Marvel Universe criminal organization of the same name, Black Spectre was a vietnam vet who used to plague Moon Knight during his earlier series in the 80's and 90's, often tied to the Egyptian god Khonshu that empowers our hero. The new Black Spectre, Ryan Trent, doesn't have all of that to back him up, just a grudge and an inferiority complex. In terms of viciousness however, Trent is right up there with the former Spectre(s).

Trent really does his homework too, using his police contacts to get in touch with Moon Knight's old allies and acquaintances. This culminates in a great scene where Trent tries to pry some useful information out of Jean-Paul Duchamp, an old ally of our hero who has since retreated into a humble life of waiting tables. It's worth noting here that Duchamp is kind of a low-key revolutionary character from the time. He was written as gay, but without the lame Northstar shout-it-from-the-rooftops approach of Scott Lobdell's Alpha Flight. Savvy readers of the time would pick up on Duchamp's sexuality, but it was never used as a gimmick, nor was he ever cast as a social pariah. Anyhoo, Duchamp warns Trent that Spector "can never die", but our fledgling Dark Spectre doesn't heed the warning.

Trent does eventually battle Moon Knight by the end of the issue, but his trap blows up in his face (literally) and he's left a broken mess of a man before the Fist of Khonshu. Moon Knight physically and verbally dissects Trent, then leaves him for dead. We learn that Trent's only error is his need to be loved and accepted, whereas the vaccuum that is Marc Spector doesn't. He's become "all Batman and no Bruce", a focused laser of ass-kicking that can't be defeated because bit by bit . . . he's shedding the aspects that made him "a character" and embracing the ones that make him an almost literal force of nature.

This issue's plot and Trent's origin story tie back to the first issue of Ellis's run and the circle is complete. This could cap off what would have been an excellent miniseries, but instead Marvel tried to keep it afloat with subsequent runs by Brian Wood and Jeff Lemire. While the character has become a place for cool creators to experiment, I don't think either writer has managed to capture what made this run so special. These six issues are a perfect synthesis of art and story. They say so much about the format and where these violent power fantasies ultimately lead.

The cover is an inverse of the cover to issue one, a subtle hint at the creators' thesis. The new Black Spectre couldn't defeat Marc because the old one couldn't. Moon Knight is just a better idea than Black Spectre, and Trent never stood a chance. An opposite can't be stronger than its partner, it can just be the opposite..