Category: Spotlight Sundays

The fact that you can’t judge a book by its cover means that there are spoilers ahead for…

“I do hope you didn’t kill the Dwarves. I’m running low on hammers.”

I hadn’t wanted to tackle another issue of Thor so soon, given how frequently the Spotlight shines on it – if I’m honest, I didn’t really want to tackle anything today, but here we are – and while there were some other good choices, such as an issue of the new Criminal series from Brubaker and Phillips that involves the comics industry, and the second new Conan comic from Marvel, this issue is the one that stood out the most.

It’s interesting that one of the other books I considered looking at – Criminal – features work by a father and a son (Jacob Phillips, son of Sean, performs coloring duties), as the book I did choose focuses so heavily on father/son relationships. (Which also figured prominently into the story contained in the last issue of Criminal, and does in this issue as well, albeit with more of a focus on a father figure.)

The first such relationship examined is the one between Loki and Laufey, and it’s exactly as bad as one might expect, with Laufey disappointed that while you can take the Frost Giant out of Asgard, you can’t take the Asgard out of a Frost Giant. How you gonna keep ’em down in the ice cave after they’ve seen the Realm Eternal and all that. While Laufey sees Loki as being useful in the War of the Realms, it’s clear – after Loki turns a Frost Giant who mocked him into a frog rather than slaying him with his bare hands – that Loki will never be the son that Laufey would wish for.

Malekith, meanwhile, recognizes, as anyone sensible would, that Loki is not to be trusted, and forms plans to deal with the God of Mischief once his usefulness is at an end.

The main event, however, is the relationship between Odin Borson and Thor Odinson, which is, in its own way, just as dysfunctional as that between Laufey and Loki.

Despite what the cover shows, there is no reconciliation or mending of fences – or Rainbow Bridges, for that matter – between father and son. Mostly the story focuses on the two of them beating the shit out of each other.

Part of the examination of the relationships between fathers and sons that Aaron undertakes here focuses squarely on the problem of toxic masculinity, which is, I suppose, a theme that runs through all of the books I considered talking about this week, though it’s much more explicitly centered here.

I know many bristle at the mention of toxic masculinity. “Oh, so you’re saying that masculinity is inherently toxic?”

Uh, no. If that were what being said there would be no need to add “toxic” to it as a qualifier. Masculinity isn’t toxic, but, well, toxic masculinity is toxic.

What is toxic masculinity? Well, we get some very good examples of it from Odin, right from the start of the issue, as we find him, drunker and surlier than usual, brooding in what’s left of his great hall in the ruins of Asgard, which is currently home only to himself, Heimdall – who was blinded by the Mangog – and some Dwarves who are whiling away the hours making hammers for Thor.

It’s also home to Cul Borson, the God of Fear, and the once-banished older brother of Odin. As he reflects on the mistakes he’s made in his long life, mistakes that have brought him to this point, Odin assigns a mission to his brother, sending him to Svartalfheim to gather intelligence that can be used in the War of the Realms that is soon – in two months, as the cover tells us – going to come to a head.

Cul agrees, but asserts that once it’s all over, he will be the one wearing the crown. For his part, Odin isn’t so sure that would be so bad, all things considered.

Odin is brooding not only on the ways in which he’s failed as the All-Father, but the ways in which he failed as a father, thinking about all the things he should have said to Thor throughout the years, and all of the tings that he did – unfortunately – say. He realizes that he is as bad at being a father as his own father had been.

After a recent adventure with another of Odin’s damaged children – his long-lost sister Angela – Thor returns in search of more hammers, as he’s been going through hammers at a breakneck – in some cases literally – speed, only to find a very drunk Odin and a bunch of passed-out Dwarves.

At the sight of his beloved son, Odin thinks about all of the things that he should say. How he should tell him about Cul’s mission, about all of the millions of things that a father ought to say to his son, but, of course, he doesn’t, and…well, like I said, beating the shit out of each other.

The timely intervention of one of his other sons – Balder – saves Odin from getting what he thinks he wants, and Thor flies away.

As anyone who has gone through recovery can tell you, the first step is admitting that you have a problem. When your son has almost beaten you to death, at your prompting, that…that seems like a good time to admit that you have a problem. It’s also a good time to reach out to someone and ask for help, someone who might have some idea what you’re going through.

One of the more interesting aspects of comics in recent decades has been taking some of the subtext of long-running books and making them text.

For decades, even if it didn’t reflect authorial intent, it was clear that Odin was a shitty father. But that shittiness was rarely remarked upon, and everyone – readers and characters alike – accepted the illusion of normalcy, pretending that things were fine, everything is fine, in the way that dysfunctional families so often do. We were all one big dysfunctional family, plastering on fake smiles and ignoring the rot behind the facade.

I will go to the cremation furnace believing that the Simonson run on Thor is one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of this medium I love so well. It was fantastic at the time, and all these decades later, it’s still fantastic.

But.

It was part of that facade, propping up the illusion of Odin as the wise and loving – if stern – father, and Thor as the devoted son, who harbored no bitterness towards his abusive ass of a father.

In that regard, what Aaron has done in his run, which will also rank very high in my esteem all the way to the end, is like the scene in Thor:  Ragnarok with Hela destroying the veneer that was painted over the real history of Odin and Asgard.

This issue is a powerful exploration of the ways in which we, as men, fail each other, of the traps that we fall into, the way we do the exact opposite of what we know we should do, the way the toxicity seeps into every aspect of our lives, and the way we pass the toxins on.

There is one way the cycle can end – the way that Odin wanted it to end – and that is, too frequently, with too many innocent victims, the way it does end.

But as we see with the step that Odin takes, that doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, the way it ends.

This is exactly the kind of “SJW” comic that the Comicsgate crowd would rail against, but it’s exactly the kind of story that we need. People lost their shit when a razor blade manufacturer humbly suggested that we, as men, need to do better. But the razor blade manufacturer was right.

We need to do better.

If even a one-eyed jackass like Odin can see that, well…

Over the past few days – and this will likely be true no matter when you you read this – we have had multiple instances of mass shootings. As is almost always the case, the shooters had histories of domestic violence.

Having a history of domestic violence is the most reliable predictor of mass shootings.

At the root of all of that is toxic masculinity.

We need to do better. We can’t hope that, as it did for Odin, things will still somehow manage to work out.

We need to get the toxins out. We need to say what we need to say, take the time to listen. Be open. Be honest.

We need to ask for help, and we need to offer help.

As for the rest of this issue, Aaron provides the standard excellent mix of action and humor, and continues to build the momentum for the upcoming crossover event.

I do have a continuity-based quibble, however. I haven’t seen any overt reference to this bit of history being changed, and, in fact, I’ve seen other indicators previously that it has not, but while she raised him and is his mother in every meaningful sense, Freyja did not give birth to Thor, and Thor was not born on Asgard.

Canonically in the comics, his biological mother is Gaea – manifesting at the time as the goddess Jörð – and he was born on Midgard, so it makes no sense for Odin to talk about not being in the hall (or being too drunk to remember being in it) when Thor was born there, because he wasn’t born there.

(Of course, the No-Prize explanation would be that Odin was too drunk to remember the details.)

(And yeah, I know, there are those who would complain that Marvel generally gets the Norse myths wrong in a lot of ways, though I would argue that this presupposes that humans ever got it right in the first place, and I would also point out that we don’t live on Earth 616. )

Anyway, that is a thing that’s been bothering me for a while now, and it really jumped out at me here. If it has changed, well…okay, I guess, but I haven’t seen any indication of it being anything other than forgetfulness or a willful disregard of continuity. I’m not necessarily the biggest stickler for continuity, but I also don’t fall into the “Continuity stifles all creativity!” camp.

I’m guessing it’s the latter option (disregarding for the sake of the story), but there have been other, documented, changes to Thor’s history during Aaron’s run, so I’m mostly just curious.

Really like Del Mundo’s work here. Great storytelling flow and solid line art, and page design. The page shown above with the panels in the hammer was phenomenal.

However, my existing complaint about the colors stands. It’s a good style, but it’s not the right style here. I would love to see Matt Wilson, who was the colorist on the previous series, brought back in. He would complement Del Mundo’s line work perfectly.

Still, it’s a good-looking book, and I’m eagerly-awaiting the arrival of The War of the Realms.

That does it for the Spotlight for this week. Be sure to come back next week to see what it shines upon.

As always, special thanks go out to Comic Logic Books & Artwork, my Local Comic Shop. Remember to support your LCS (find one here, if you don’t already have one).

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There was a lot to choose from this week, but the publication of a “lost” story means that there are spoilers ahead for…

“I was wrong. Ma and Pa were wrong. I can’t do this.”

Back in the Aughts, DC published a series called Superman Confidential, featuring story arcs by different creative teams that focused on telling untold tales of from different periods early in the career of the Man of Steel.

As explained in the foreword to this volume, then Editor-in-Chief approached Marv Wolfman in 2006 to tell one such tale.

Unfortunately, while the story was completed and ready to run, Superman Confidential was cancelled before the tale ever saw print, and so, as a story that didn’t really “fit” anywhere in the ever-shifting continuity, it languished, unused, for nearly a decade.

Ultimately, in this sort of free-for-all, anything goes era of continuity, the finished story was release from the vaults and repackaged in a single oversized volume rather than the four separate monthly issues it was originally created to be.

Honestly, the continuity problem really doesn’t seem like that much of a factor, as hewing to the established history hasn’t really been a priority for decades, but regardless, while the details might not have aligned with whatever was happening at the time – indeed, it doesn’t really fit with what was happening back in 2006 – the core themes and overall narrative have an applicability that are unconstrained by the need to mesh perfectly with what was considered canon.

With this story, Wolfman decided to focus on the earliest days of Clark Kent’s arrival in Metropolis, leading up to his public debut as Superman.

As an origin story, it doesn’t spend much time on the basic facts we already know – Doomed planet. Desperate scientist. Last hope. Kindly couple. – choosing instead to explore the false starts, missteps, and moments of doubt that Clark Kent experienced on the path to becoming the world’s greatest hero.

That said, the details do differ considerably from what was considered canon at the time – which was a mix of the story told in Byrne’s Man of Steel and Waid and Lu’s Superman: Birthright – as we find a young Clark of indeterminate age arriving in Metropolis directly from Smallville.

(It’s very unclear how old Clark is meant to be. Is he fresh out of high school? Out of college? He’s referred to as a “recent grad” a couple of times, but there’s no mention of any kind of post-secondary education, which seems…odd. I mean, no matter how confident you are in your abilities – and even when it comes to his super-abilities, Clark still lacks some confidence – it doesn’t seem likely that you’ll try to land a job as a reporter at one of the world’s most respected newspapers without at least an undergraduate degree.)

In Byrne’s telling, Clark travelled the world for years, operating in secret, before finally settling down in Metropolis, and it was his intention to keep his good works secret. That plan got derailed when there was a need for him to operate in plain sight, which ultimately led to putting on the cape and tights. Here, the intent was always for him to – eventually – make his existence known, complete with a colorful costume. Or, as Ma and Pa keep referring to it, a uniform, with the idea being that, much like the uniform a police officer or firefighter wears, it would serve as a visual clue to let people know that he’s there to help.

Throughout most of the story, the costume remains packed away, unworn, as Clark isn’t quite ready to take that step, and after a few missteps he becomes certain that he’ll never be ready and ships the costume back to Smallville.

I’m not going to dwell much on the specifics of the story itself, but, in the broad strokes, some terrorist organization is blowing up buildings in Metropolis, and there are calls for bringing in the National Guard and instituting martial law. That happens, but only leads to more explosions, and, ultimately, the city capitulates to the terrorists’ demands.

Shortly thereafter, Lex Luthor returns to Metropolis after a five-year absence, which leads to another, larger than ever attack, which forces Clark to operate openly, and which ultimately leads to the discovery that Lex was behind the whole thing, planning to use the attack as an opportunity to showcase the powerful new defense systems that Lexcorp would very much like to sell to the military.

Clark’s intervention in the attack outshines the contributions made by Lex’s defense systems, which, of course, adds a personal animosity towards the flying interloper on Lex’s part, and for Clark’s part, while he knows that Lex was behind it all, he can’t prove it, and so we end up with what has been the typical status quo for the past 30+ years.

I’m avoiding getting into the details of the story not because the story is bad; it’s not. It is, however, somewhat by-the-numbers, but that’s a deliberate choice, as the plot isn’t really the point of the story being told, and exists largely to serve as the engine that drives the real action, which is the story of how Clark Kent learns to be Superman while also learning how to be Clark Kent.

It’s an interesting notion, one that has always been there, but has never really been explored in depth or stated explicitly: when he became Superman, Clark Kent didn’t take on one new identity, he took on two. The Clark Kent who exists as the counterpart to Superman is, in many ways, a very different Clark than the one who existed before he put the cape on for the first time.

Marv Wolfman was involved in the relaunch of Superman back in 1986, contributing the idea of Lex Luthor as a billionaire tycoon, and, for a time, writing Adventures of Superman, the new series that launched alongside Byrne’s Superman and Action, and which took on the numbering of the original Superman series.

Part of Marv’s Luthor concept, per Byrne, involved Lois being his girlfriend, and – according to Byrne – being something of a capricious power groupie who dumps Lex as soon as someone more powerful comes along. In the stories that saw print, the relationship between Lex and Lois was a bit more complex and one-sided, with Lex doggedly pursuing Lois, and Lois mostly blowing him off.

Here, there is talk of Lois and Lex having dated in the past, but the capricious groupie angle is, mercifully, absent.

I judge the quality of most Superman stories on how well they handle Lois, and in that regard, this story works well, with Marv working to show what it is about this particular LL that captures Superman’s attention.

For a big part of the story, Lois is something of an unseen presence, mentioned in either reverent tones, or derisively by jealous – male, of course – colleagues who speculate that her success as a reporter and her access to sources have more to do with her legs than her legwork.

For his part, sight unseen, Clark develops a respect for Lois based on what he sees of her work and what he overhears said about her, and develops a positive point of view when it comes to Lois Lane. He was not, however, prepared for the actual view of Lois Lane.

While Clark had been thinking about moving on – he had bungled some things and thought for certain that coming to Metropolis was the biggest mistake he ever made – Lois proves to be the key to keeping him there. Not just because she’s beautiful – though that doesn’t hurt – but because he realizes that she’s the person who can win the people of the city over and realize that he’s there to help.

The bungling he did led to a “flying man” getting spotted and becoming associated with the terrorist bombings in a way that led people to think that he might be behind them. Lois, with her strong instincts, wasn’t so sure. As he listens in on some discussions between Luthor and his assistant, he starts putting some of the pieces together and brings what he has to Lois, who says she will look into it, and, if it pans out – and he can write – she’ll help him land a job at the Planet.

While she ends up not being able to definitively prove Lex’s guilt, she does get a story out of it, and she’s impressed by the story Clark brings her – an interview with the flying man – and is true to her word.

This is a major reworking of the Lois and Clark dynamic that Byrne established, with Lois hating – but respecting – Clark after he scoops her with the Superman interview. Here, the dynamic is one of friendly(ish) competition, with Lois relishing the idea of having someone around who’s (almost) as good as she is to serve as the inspiration to drive her to be even better.

With all the pieces in place, all that’s left is for the flying man to get a proper name.

In his foreword, Marv talks about wanting to explore some ideas about Superman that he’s never seen anyone tackle, though he notes that in the years since he wrote it, as is the nature of the business, other writers have done so, albeit in very different ways (which is also the nature of the business).

As mentioned, there is the exploration of the idea of creating two new identities, which builds on the experience we all have of moving into adulthood and figuring out who we are and where we fit in while adding some super-complications to the mix, but there’s another element that I particularly liked: a deeper dive into why Clark wanted to be a reporter.

The standard explanation has always been that working for a major metropolitan newspaper allowed him to be close to the action, to have his finger on the pulse of what’s happening and to determine where he’s needed. That’s still there, but Marv adds another detail that I found interesting.

While they help him with some of his information-gathering, and the speed at which he can complete assignments, his powers don’t really give him any advantages as a writer. Super strength and the ability to fly don’t really contribute much of anything to formulating ideas, to finding the emotional core of a story, or putting the words together. It’s the one profession in which, to some extent, at least, he’s forced to struggle just like any other mere mortal.

It’s a neat idea, and one that I don’t know that I’ve encountered before.

There’s not a lot for me to say about the art that the images I’ve included don’t say for themselves. It’s beautiful work, with clean lines and dynamic action and a good storytelling flow. The comic is rounded out with a few pieces of commissioned work from Castellini.

Marv refers to this as the best Superman story he’s ever written. If I were to argue against that it would only be because Marv has written a lot of great Superman stories over the years.

Whether or not this is the best, I’m glad that after years of being “lost” it’s finally been found.

Recommended Reading

Marv Wolfman!

(Also, the Mister Miracle trade comes out this week. After you buy some stuff by Marv, you can use the handy search field above to find and buy that, too. Just sayin’.)

That does it for the Spotlight for this week. Be sure to come back next week to see what it shines upon.

As always, special thanks go out to Comic Logic Books & Artwork, my Local Comic Shop. Remember to support your LCS (find one here, if you don’t already have one).

The fact that I’ve got “Thunderstruck” stuck in my head means that there are spoilers ahead for…

“The continued existence of people is the only hope for something other than your culture.”

I don’t recall a time in my life in which I saw comics published by Charlton being sold individually on store shelves or spinner racks.

DC, Marvel, Archie, Harvey, even some Gold Key; all were available for purchase as new comics. But Charlton? They were, for me, solely in the in realm of the mystery packages of damaged, unsold comics that made up so much of my comic collection as a kid.

Even then, the Charlton titles that would occasionally pop up were almost entirely horror comics.

However, as anyone who has a “thing” – some defining characteristic that is easily-identifiable – can attest, inevitably, you begin acquiring items related to that “thing” from other sources.

My ex-wife’s thing was cows. She liked cows. Thus, our apartment was filled with cow-related items, some of which were self-selected, but most of which were given as gifts, whether for a specific occasion, or as the result one of those “I saw this and thought of you” spur-of-the-moment purchases by some friend or family member.

My “thing,” of course, was comics, and I got a lot of my comics through a similar set of circumstances, the most notable of which was when my parents went out of town for something and in one of the stores my mom found a big bundle ‘o comics. (Of course, in that case there was an additional, financial motivation, in that it was a lot cheaper to buy a big bundle of random-ass comics than individual issues that cost $.50 – 1.00.)

Said bundle contained a bunch of Charlton comics, and it served as my first exposure to their line of super-hero comics, introducing me to characters such as Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, and Judomaster.

A few years later, I would meet those characters – and more – again when they popped up in Crisis on Infinite Earths, as Charlton had gone out of business and much of their intellectual property had been acquired by DC.

It was in Crisis that I first encountered Peter Cannon AKA Thunderbolt, a man who had, as the result of training by a secret group of monks, unlocked his full potential, becoming stronger, faster, smarter, and just plain better than even the finest athletes and scholars.

In the ’90s, he got his own short-lived series at DC, but my only familiarity with it was via DC house ads and the poster in Darlene’s bedroom on Roseanne.

I don’t know the full story behind it, but at some point the rights to the character reverted to the estate of his creator, Pete Morisi.

I did check out the brief series that Dynamite published several years ago – which also featured some characters who were very clearly Captain Atom and Nightshade with the serial numbers filed off – and learned a bit more about the character, but then I kind of forgot about him until seeing the announcement of this new series written by WicDiv scribe Kieron Gillen, which was enough to catch my attention, and which we, finally, will start talking about.

One of the most notable aspects of all of the Charlton characters is that in his initial pitch for Watchmen, Alan Moore had planned to use the recently-acquired Charlton characters. However, the late Dick Giordano, who had worked at Charlton, convinced him to use original creations instead, as the story Moore intended to tell would have, in Giordano’s mind, destroyed DC’s ability to use the characters in other contexts. And so, Moore created new characters, though they remained analogous to the Charlton characters that inspired them.

In that original pitch, Peter Cannon filled the role that later went to Ozymandias.

Here, Gillen leans into that bit of comic book history in the story he tells, which opens with a group of international heroes appealing to Peter Cannon for assistance. The Earth, it seems, has been invaded by aliens, aliens who have already destroyed an entire city.

The appeal isn’t going well, as Cannon seems to have no interest in saving the world. However, he is interested in saving people, and so he relents and invites the heroes to make themselves comfortable while he consults the sacred scrolls containing all of the accumulated wisdom of the monks who bequeathed them to him, and which are the source of his amazing abilities.

With Cannon’s assistance, the heroes make short work of the invading aliens, and while the loss of an entire city is tragic, the silver lining to this very dark cloud is that it has united the nations of the world who now see that there are some things larger than our petty ideological and political differences, and that we must all come together in the face of a common enemy.

Sound familiar?

While Watchmen probably isn’t included in Cannon’s sacred texts – though it is included in mine – it sounds familiar to him, too. After the invasion is dealt with, Cannon reveals to Tabu that the whole thing is a hoax, a trick designed to unite a divided world.

Further, Cannon realizes that there’s only one person who could pull off such a monumental – and monstrous – prank: Peter Cannon. However, given that he didn’t do it, the obvious conclusion is that some other Peter Cannon, from another dimension, did.

We cut to a fortress in some frozen location where a mysterious figure is watching, and musing that it was inevitable that someone would figure it out…

I have been…allergic to the follow-up work that DC has done with Watchmen, as I feel that it’s a singular work that stands alone and it serves no purpose – no creative purpose; obviously it serves a financial purpose – to keep going back and trying to build on what it accomplished. I know others disagree, and I understand their perspective. I simply don’t share that perspective, and, frankly, I seen no point in arguing about it, because no one is going to convince anyone of anything through some fruitless debate. (I’m also not particularly interested in having a conversation about the critical reevaluation of Moore and his work, or about his general grumpiness.)

But.

I have no objection to others doing their own thing with the basic themes and ideas presented in the book, and using a character who served as the original springboard for the idea is a clever twist.

There’s no reason it shouldn’t – and a lot of reasons why it should – be viewed as a source of creative inspiration, but where I do object is with simply rehashing the same themes, and reusing the characters, and diving into unnecessary backstory as part of a shameless cash grab.

This is not that.

There is a fine line between “homage” and “rip-off,” and this first issue walks it pretty well, dropping in some knowing winks – such as the opening caption accompanying the scenes of devastation that tells us that this takes place “35 minutes in the future” and noting that “our heroes are impotent” – but very much managing to be its own original work. Gillen pulls off the trick of giving us something familiar as a means of introducing us to something new.

Even when using the visual language of Watchmen, the book adds its own accent and idioms, as with this scene:

It’s a nine-panel grid that recalls the layout of Watchmen, and presents an action sequence that is similar to some famous sequences contained therein, but does so in a way that is not derivative, mixing in both classic elements of graphic storytelling that the original eschewed – the “action” lines – while also utilizing more modern elements in terms of overall style and composition, such as the gradient backgrounds and the modern coloring techniques.

It’s worth noting that the previous series from Dynamite also leaned into the Cannon/Ozymandias connection. There, Cannon was using his mental abilities to project the illusion of an enormous dragon that appeared at random, and then jumping in to fight it off, building up a reputation as a hero as a means to establishing a reputation and a level of celebrity that would allow him try to sell the world on his vision of how life should be lived. (Perhaps that Peter Cannon is the antagonist here?)

I’m not familiar with Caspar Wijingaard, but I like what I see here; there are echoes of Gillen’s frequent collaborator Jamie McKelvie, but also – particularly in the battle scenes with the aliens – hints of Bryan Hitch’s work on The Ultimates. As with the overall Watchmen homages in the book, though, the art has its own unique identity despite the familiarity.

It’s an interesting and auspicious beginning for a new series, with a lot happening in a single issue, and I look forward to seeing where it goes, and hopefully learning a bit more about some of the other heroes whom we meet very briefly.

Recommended Reading

I should probably recommend some work by Gillen, or some Peter Cannon-related titles, but instead I’ll simply point out that the trade collection of the Mister Miracle is available for pre-order.

You know how much I love it, so why not give yourself the opportunity to love it when it becomes available later this month?

That does it for the Spotlight for this week. Be sure to come back next week to see what it shines upon.

As always, special thanks go out to Comic Logic Books & Artwork, my Local Comic Shop. Remember to support your LCS (find one here, if you don’t already have one).

I can’t spoil “The Biggest New Mystery in the DC Universe,” as it’s only the first issue so we don’t know what the mystery is, but there are spoilers ahead for…

“Actually, yeah.”

I was as uncertain about what would be in the Spotlight this week as I was about picking up the first issue of the second title in the “Wonder Comics” line, as it was a relatively light week and I try to avoid clustering related titles too closely together in time, but ultimately I decided on this simply because it’s a beautiful-looking comic.

Our story opens with a page that seems like it was designed to up the ante on the nine-panel grid layout of Mister Miracle, bringing the total up to twelve, with each panel containing a different talking head, though they’re all talking about the same thing.

But who can blame them? These (young) people live in the kind of sleepy town where nothing ever seems to happen. At least, that had been the case until this happened:

The battle between Superman and Mongul only lasted for seventeen seconds, but it had a huge impact on the town, in terms of property damage and the collective psyche of the town’s residents.

As the town deals with the physical and psychological aftermath of the events, one person in particular – a young woman named Naomi, who actually missed seeing it happen – is grappling with the repercussions, asking questions of all of her friends who were there for it. Said discussion involves some complaints about the fact that despite making a mess, Superman hasn’t come back to help clean up the mess he left, which prompts a question about whether or not any of them would like to trade places with Superman, who is probably too busy dealing with “Superman stuff” to come back, which prompts a response from Naomi that is quoted above.

Despite being busy with “Superman stuff,” the Man of Steel does return, and this time, Naomi doesn’t miss it.

We start to learn a little about Naomi. She’s seventeen, she’s adopted – which we learn during a therapy session in which her therapist suggests that the core of Naomi’s fascination with Superman stems from the fact that Superman was adopted as well, which also clues us in on the fact that Naomi is in therapy and has been for quite some time – and she has a very inquisitive personality.

That latter point comes to the fore in the course of some discussion with her friends about how the single most interesting thing that’s ever happened in their town isn’t in the news anywhere else. It’s during this conversation that Naomi learns that this may not have been the first time something like this has happened.

This sparks an investigation by Naomi that mostly yields no results, as no one seems to remember the event that allegedly occurred years earlier.

It seems she’s reached a dead end, until, on a whim, she decides to check with a local auto mechanic who looks like he could be Mongul’s lovechild. He admits that something may have happened, but says that he wasn’t there when it happened and doesn’t like to talk about things that he hasn’t seen himself.

He does, however, provide her with one especially pertinent piece of information. Namely, when, exactly, it happened.

This is a great-looking book. Campbell has a lush style that is a visually-interesting blend of realistic and cartoonish and infuses each character with a distinct personality.

Sadly, the substance is no match for the style. While there is a mystery at the center of the story, there is no real tension to be found in it, as there is too much of a division between the place-setting and the revelation that there hidden truths waiting to be discovered. That is, we get a bunch of pages introducing us to Naomi and to her friend, and then, suddenly, in the last few pages, we learn that there’s some secret.

You start out wondering where this is heading, but, cover blurb aside, you don’t get the sense that it’s heading towards some mystery, you just wonder if it’s going to get around to telling any kind of story. You might assume that there is a mystery to be solved, given the “every sleepy little town has its secrets” trope, but the story lacks the necessary slow build up to that reveal.

While there have been many stories that have done so, exploring the impact that the adventures and misadventures of super-powered beings have on the lives of ordinary, non-super people remains fertile storytelling ground, so I would hope that the mystery at the heart of this story takes advantage of the opportunity.

I won’t beat a dead horse, but I will mention that this is a book that has a bunch of young people engaged in conversation, so it provides ample opportunity for Bendis to be Bendis.

This issue also has a preview of the next title from the “Wonder Comics” line, Wonder Twins. I’m probably not going to check that out, as I just don’t have it in me to be interested in any iteration of Zan and Jayna. The premise seems to involve the alien twins adjusting – poorly – to life on Earth and learning how to live like ordinary teens while simultaneously working with the Justice League.

As for Naomi, I may check out the rest in trade form at some point, but for right now…meh.

That does it for the Spotlight for this week. Be sure to come back next week to see what it shines upon.

As always, special thanks go out to Comic Logic Books & Artwork, my Local Comic Shop. Remember to support your LCS (find one here, if you don’t already have one).

Supporting OpenDoor Comics is a thing you can do, by whitelisting the site in your ad blocker, by purchasing something from the Supply Closet or the OpenDoor Comics Shop, by creating your own comics on the OpenDoor Comics platform, or through directly giving money via Patreon or PayPal.

A bit of corporate synergy means that there are spoilers ahead for…

“You know, I’ll take that sass from just about anyone else in my life…but not from Zeus’ granddaughter!”

One of the things I was most eagerly anticipating in 2019 was the return of Young Justice.

The animated series, that is. After years of demand – and high viewership numbers of the existing seasons on Netflix – the addition of a third season to the much-beloved series prompted a great deal of enthusiasm and excitement for fans of the show…until it was announced that it would be exclusive to yet-another-streaming-service, a sign of what increasingly seems to be a move to recreate cable TV on the internet.

One of these days I’ll probably write up something about the DC Universe streaming service, but now, I’ll just mention that the new season of YJ has so far proven to be worth the wait.

Of course, right now we’re talking about the return of the comic on which the animated series was based, which is something else fans have been demanding for years. Since before the animated series ever launched, in fact.

So, how does it stack up?

Well…

It’s not bad! While Bendis is much more like himself here than he has been in Superman and Action in terms of some of his tics as a writer showing up on the page, it’s a perfectly fine start to a new series that walks the line between introducing something new and acknowledging what came before.

With Young Justice: Outsiders – the animated offering – the action can pick up right where it left off, as that “universe” has essentially been in stasis since the second season ended. With the comic, that luxury isn’t available, as it’s been a longer stretch since the last series ended and the larger universe in which the team existed has undergone significant changes.

I’ve mentioned many times before that it still remains unclear, post-“Rebirth,” what is and isn’t in continuity, or at least – as here – how what is in continuity manages to fit. We don’t really get any answers – and I wouldn’t necessarily expect to in a first issue – but we do get some more questions. However, there is some acknowledgement of the fact that history is a bit wonky right from the start.

Said acknowledgment occurs at the beginning, as we open on another world where a man who says he was born on Earth is talking to his father about the current state of their world and how it is tied to Earth and the many – seven, by his count – history-altering crises that the Earth has undergone.

The world in question is revealed to be Gemworld, and the man from Earth is Prince Carnelian, speaking to his father, Dark Opal.

From there, we move to Metropolis where a young woman who’s been driving a rickety old pick up truck all the way from Texas is pulled over for a broken tail light. The young woman explains that’s she’s packed up her life to move to the Big Apricot, as is evidenced by the – rather suspicious – pile of junk just barely held in place in the bed of the truck by a tarp.

Before the cop can investigate further, they’re both reminded that they’re in Metropolis, where crazy things – warriors from the twelve houses of Gemworld demanding that Superman show himself, in this case – drop down out of the sky on the regular.

While the Action Ace is a no-show, Robin (Tim Drake) happens to be in town, and does what he can to help contain the situation. He gets an assist from the young Texan, whose name is Jinny Hex. While he appreciates the help, Robin’s not thrilled by her use of lethal weapons, which prompts Jinny to dig through her junk pile and produce some kind of fancy ray gun.

We get a bit of a flashback to a few minutes earlier when Tim had a chance encounter with Cassie Sandsmark, AKA Wonder Girl, who tells him that she feels like she hasn’t been doing what she should be doing and has moved to Metropolis to attend school and sort things out, believing that being in a city under the watchful eye of Superman would be more relaxing.

That’s when the invasion happens, but despite Tim’s suggestion that they team up, Cassie insists that she needs to sit this one out.

Fortunately, as the battle rages, she changes her mind and joins the fray, as does Bart “Impulse” Allen, who happened to be running to Canada at the time (as a bit of a meta-joke, Bart says that he was heading there to join Alpha– the thought is cut off before he can complete it).

(We get another meta-joke in the form of a cameo from the two young women who popped up in the preview of The Man of Steel in Action Comics #1000, who were in the diner that got trashed, and are in that same diner with a “Not again!” as it gets trashed here.)

Another hero shows up as well, a “sort of” Green Lantern, hidden inside a ring-construct mecha, going by the name “Teen Lantern.”

Bart believes it’s fate and that Young Justice is together again, though Tim asserts that can’t be the case without Conner. As the Gemworld warriors decide to retreat, our young heroes find themselves caught in an onomatopoeia storm, and we follow two of them as they wind up in different locations.

Tim’s welcome to wherever he is isn’t exactly the warmest:

Bart, however, does get a much friendlier greeting:

Anyone who knows me well and has paid attention knows of my fondness for Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, and will likely understand why I’m very leery of seeing the character’s return.

From what little we’ve seen, this seems to be a mixture of the original, which I loved, and the version introduced as part of “The New 52,” whose title was one of the earliest casualties of that initial group, which I was considerably more ambivalent about.

(I will say that Gleason did a fantastic job with his rendering of the evil Dark Opal, echoing the style of original Amethyst artist Ernie Colón without aping it.)

I was initially concerned that Cassie’s reluctance to join the fray was going to be some tired “I’ve lost my powers” thing, but I’m glad to see that wasn’t the case and am interested in finding out what’s up with that.

One other area of concern for me is Impulse, as he represents something of a nightmare scenario for Bendis to Bendis up the whole thing as far as dialogue goes. As it is, in his brief appearance here, Bart is already a bit much.

Gleason’s art is a good match for the story and characters, and he does an especially good job with the frenetic scenes with Bart quickly bouncing around Metropolis, though I will say that there are times when even the slightly slower action is a bit hard to follow.

I’m also impressed by the bright and vibrant color work from Alejandro Sanchez.

I’m not sure who is part of “DC Lettering,” but the lettering is crisp and clear, and the sound effects in that onomatopoeia storm were especially well-done.

That said, after checking out this first issue, I’m probably going to trade-wait on this series.

I understand the need to appeal to new readers, fans of the old series, and fans of the show, but I think that it would make more sense to put the thumb on the scales in favor of the animated series a bit more, at least in terms of some of the characters, or the characterization of the characters, but we’ll see how it goes.

There is definitely some potential – enough to keep me interested – but I keep insisting to myself that I’m going to do more trade-waiting but failing to do it, so this will be a good test.

YJ is the first title from a new line of new-reader-friendly and teen-focused comics curated by Bendis. “Wonder Comics” will see other titles such as Wonder Twins and Dial H for HERO joining the line-up later this year.

We’ll see if it pays off, and as I mentioned, it would probably be smart to align things a bit more with some of DC’s properties in other media, where they get much more exposure, but for right now, it’s a decent start. I’ll close out with one of the other fantastic variant covers, this one from Evan “Doc” Shaner.

Recommended Reading

Young Justice.

That does it for the Spotlight for this week. Be sure to come back next week to see what it shines upon.

As always, special thanks go out to Comic Logic Books & Artwork, my Local Comic Shop. Remember to support your LCS (find one here, if you don’t already have one).

Supporting OpenDoor Comics is a thing you can do, by whitelisting the site in your ad blocker, by purchasing something from the Supply Closet or the OpenDoor Comics Shop, by creating your own comics on the OpenDoor Comics platform, or through directly giving money via Patreon or PayPal.

Taking a bit of a holiday break and stepping out of the Spotlight.

See you in the new year, and in the meantime, make your holidays happy and read comics!

The fact that, like it or not, it is that season, means there are spoilers ahead for…

Red Sonja Holiday Special
Writer: Amy Chu, Erik Burnham, Roy Thomas, Clair Noto
Artist: Ricardo Jamie, Frank Thorne
Cover: Leonardo Romero
Rated Teen+
$4.99
Dynamite

“This time of year, people try a little harder to help others. Peace on earth, good will towards all, you know?”
“I do not.”

Despite my general grinchiness, I thought I should probably make some acknowledgement of the season and take a look at one of the many holiday specials on the stands. I missed – though by some accounts, I suppose I should say “missed” – the offering from DC this year, and while I did also grab a Hellboy special, that particular red character made a holiday appearance last year.

But red is one of the colors associated with the season, so it was only fitting to pick instead one of the unlikelier specials. Unlikely, of course, because of the era in which the character lives – it’s rather like paradox of The Flintstones or the characters in the comic strip B.C. celebrating the birth of someone who, from their perspective, hasn’t been born yet – but the She-Devil with a sword has a distinct advantage in that regard, given that she engages in time travel on a semi-regular basis.

Thus, as she makes her way through the snowy woods and encounters a poor, hungry woman vainly seeking warmth, the color of the woman’s cloak reminds her of her visit to a future time and she is moved by the spirit of the season to offer the woman food, warmth, and the story of that memory.

Shortly after her arrival in modern-day New York, she and her friend Max – who later proved, unbeknownst to him, to be a time-tossed resident of the Hyborian Age – were rushing down the snowy Manhattan streets on Max’s motorcycle. Well, “rushing” is a relative thing – Sonja asserted that she could run faster than they were moving in the gridlocked winter traffic.

After a man in a red suit standing on a street corner laughs at her, or so she thinks, Sonja wants to stop to show the man the error of his ways, but Max explains that he wasn’t laughing at her, and as Sonja observes the New Yorkers gathering at “temples” (stores), and purchasing trees, she realizes that there is indeed much in this strange new world that she does not understand.

She’s especially confused when they stop at a diner and she sees the proprietor deliver kindness to a beggar rather than the beating she anticipated.

Max does his best to explain the holidays to Sonja, focusing on the diverse cultures clustered together in the city that never sleeps, and how virtually all of them have some kind of traditional winter holidays that occur around the same time, and that even those who don’t hold any of the beliefs those holidays reflect are often moved by the spirit to be a little kinder.

Sonja soon turns Max’s words against him, roping him into helping out a man who Max initially writes off as a nut and wants to just dump into the system (Max is a cop), but Sonja prevails upon the way of “the Santaclaus,” whose colors the man wears, to coerce Max into helping right now.

While we see that this little side quest actually connects to the larger story of Sonja’s time in the present, even in her telling of the tale Sonja is unaware that the man they’re helping – who was beaten for overhearing some mob types talking about their plans, and who lost his dog, Rudolph, in the process – has just had an encounter with her ancient enemy, the sorcerer Kulan Gath.

While Sonja initially pounds the stuffing out of the goons still pursuing the man in the Santa outfit, they eventually produce the “powerful magic” of guns, and the three are soon on the run, but are saved by…Santa Claus!

Shortly thereafter, the drunken and battered Santa is reunited with his Rudolph, and though Sonja is eager to join the revelry, Max insists they’ve had enough excitement and that he’s interested in having a silent night from this point on.

Back in the Hyborian Age, the telling of the tale comes to an end, though Sonja lets the woman know that there is a grander tale to be told, if the woman is interested in travelling with her for a time. She is, but she asks if Sonja ever thinks about trying to find a way to return to Max’s time.

Sonja admits that she does miss things like warm baths and cold beers, and Max, of course, but it is not her time. Still, telling the tale and honoring the ways of Max’s gods by engaging in an act of kindness at this time of year did make her feel close to him once more and provided a moment of peace and goodwill.

The special is rounded out with a reprint of a classic tale from the Marvel era, with art by legendary Red Sonja artist Frank Thorne.

This tale has no holiday connection, featuring a weary Sonja headed towards a city that she hopes will offer her a comfortable place to sleep, good ale to drink, good food to eat, and a minstrel to sing sad songs.

She is warned away from the village by a talking goat, but does not take the warning to heart, and, in time, learns that the whole city was an illusion created by Death himself as a means of trapping Sonja.

Fortunately, while they didn’t dissuade her from entering the city, remembering the goat’s warnings provides the clues she needs to escape from Death’s trap.

This was a very slight comic in terms of content, with nothing really going for it beyond being connected to the season. It’s very talky, with not a whole lot in the way of action.

While the main story is connected to the recent events in Sonja’s regular series, it doesn’t really add much, or do anything to push the ongoing narrative – the last few issues of the regular series have mostly been one-off stories of late – so it’s mostly just…there. It’s not bad, and it’s a fun little holiday-themed diversion, but it’s nothing to write home about, or probably to even write a Spotlight post about, I suppose.

And yet, here we are.

The art in the main story is solid, with an especially good use of facial expressions, which is a bonus, given the aforementioned lack of action. However, the already-gratuitous nature of Sonja’s outfit seems even more gratuitous – and out-of-place, given the weather – here, particularly with some of the poses.

I mean…

The “classic” story is exactly the kind of thin story you’d find as a back-up feature in the 1970s, but it is saved by the art of Thorne, whose work can also be called gratuitous, but he has the advantage of having achieved iconic status, and benefits from the nostalgia of olds like me, for whom Thorne’s Sonja was the Sonja.

So, yeah. ‘Tis the season and all that, even in a a harsh and brutal era in which “the season” did not yet exist as such.

Recommended Reading

Frank Thorne’s Red Sonja

That does it for the Spotlight for this week. Be sure to come back next week to see what it shines upon.

As always, special thanks go out to Comic Logic Books & Artwork, my Local Comic Shop. Remember to support your LCS (find one here, if you don’t already have one).

Supporting OpenDoor Comics is a thing you can do, by whitelisting the site in your ad blocker, by purchasing something from the Supply Closet or the OpenDoor Comics Shop, by creating your own comics on the OpenDoor Comics platform, or through directly giving money via Patreon or PayPal.

Another week of playing catch-up means that there are spoilers ahead for…

The Green Lantern #2
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Liam Sharp
Cover: Liam Sharp
Rated T+
$3.99
DC

Before we get started, I can announce the selection of a winner of the first (and only) OpenDoor Comics Peer Pressure Prize Sweepstakes. Congratulations to Seed of Bismuth! Thanks to everyone who participated, even though the prizes were enough to keep almost everyone else away. Will there be other prize giveaways in the future? Based on the "success" of this one...well, we'll see.

“Nurse, I’d call a doctor if I were you. But tell them this man killed 2.5 billion people. Tell them there’s no need to hurry.”

Given that most people who consume genre fiction in which a role can be passed along tend to favor the character who held the role when they first started consuming said genre fiction as “their” version of the character, Hal Jordan should be “my” Green Lantern.

While there were other Green Lanterns – and I don’t just mean the other members of the Corps; I mean people who were the main focus of the series – for brief periods, when I started reading comics, Hal was the Green Lantern living on Earth – on Earth-One, anyway –  and the star of the titular series.

I liked him well enough, I suppose, and there was a period during which I really liked the series* – it was at that same time that I came to really appreciate John Stewart, who, thanks to the DC Animated Universe, is a Green Lantern that an entire generation of fans view as “theirs” – but eventually I, and apparently many others, grew to find Hal a bit…tiresome. Bland. Boring.

It probably didn’t help that DC kept removing one of the corps core aspects of the character that made him interesting: the fact that he was part of something much larger, an entire corps of Green Lanterns spread out across the universe. The existence of the larger Green Lantern Corps provided a lot of narrative possibilities, but, sadly, those possibilities were rarely explored, and the stories tended to focus on the earthbound, generic adventures of Hal Jordan, to the extent that the larger Corps was thrown into disarray, and then, ultimately, ended, leaving just a handful of active GLs.

(I always found it amusing/revealing that the Green Lantern Corps persisted for uncounted millennia right up until a human became a member, at which point the whole thing just fell apart.)

Still, I wasn’t a fan of a the heel turn that Hal eventually took, but that did lead to the Green Lantern that I do think of as mine: Kyle Rayner.

As with Wally West – who is my Flash – I liked Kyle because I was there from, more or less, the start, able to watch him grow into the role, and to earn the name. (Also, Wally was a lot less bland than Barry Allen.) With Kyle, there was the additional aspect of working not only to live up to the role he found himself in, but to redeem it in the wake of his predecessor’s actions.

I honestly liked Hal more in his role as The Spectre in the series by J.M. DeMatteis and the late Norm Breyfogle. I thought it was a much better redemptive arc for the character than what came later with his return to ring-slinging.

In any case, Hal has been the Green Lantern again for a while, even if he is one amongst many, but I haven’t read any Green Lantern titles in quite some time, so I’m not really that up on the state of things.

That doesn’t appear to be necessary for enjoying The Green Lantern, however, as writer Grant Morrison is clearly doing his own thing with the title, with said “thing” being borrowing from different parts of the characters’ history, but leaning very heavily on the science fiction aspects of the Silver Age.

He’s also leaning into the whole “space cop” idea, which, from my most recent readings seems to be a popular approach, structuring the story as something of a police procedural, except in space.

Last issue – which is one I had intended to write about, but it was sold out by the time I got to the comic shop, and by the time I did pick it up there was something else that got my focus – we found an earthbound Hal on suspension. However, circumstances were such that he ended up being called back to active duty to investigate an assault on the member of the Corps that stemmed from an unsuccessful attempt by space pirates to steal a “Luck Dial” from the Luck Lords of Ventura.

The sponsors of the heist – a group of Blackstars, who are a sort of more extreme version of the Green Lantern Corps, run by the Controllers, who are related to the Guardians who run the Corps – referred to the dial as “Component One,” though what it’s meant to be a component of is not yet clear.

However, this issue opens with some Blackstars busting the villainous Evil Star out of his Guardian-imposed imprisonment.

Back on Oa, Hal is interrogating a captured space pirate to get to the bottom of what’s going on, not yet aware that there is any connection to another case being worked by the Corps that involves missing planets.

The pieces of the puzzle start coming together later, however, after Hal gets the pirate to talk, and we see the Blackstars take Evil Star’s “Star-Band” weapon – Component Three – from him, and leave him adrift in space somewhere near Earth.

The Blackstars, we learn, are using the Star-Band as the basis for a mass-produced weapon that can be incorporated into their battlesuits, and we see the Controller behind it offering the services of the Blackstars to the the Dhorian Slavers (the most famous of whom is Kanjar Ro) to provide security while the Dhorian’s go about their business.

Said business being stealing planets. Why are the Blackstars, who are more inclined to punish evil than abet it, helping them out? We’ll find out, though the Controller assures them that one day their time will come.

With the Blackstars’ backing, the Dhorians set about their latest planetary heist as Hal heads home after visiting the dessicated and decrepit Evil Star in a hospital and learning about the partnership between the Blackstars and the Dhorians.

Which, uh, which planet do you suppose the Dhorians decided to steal?

Green Lantern, particularly an incarnation that is in a more cosmic setting, is a good fit for Grant Morrison, who, for good and ill, is known for some of his more “out there” concepts. So far, the plot is considerably more straightforward than is typical for Morrison. His imagination is seems to be running with the characters and the settings more than with the narrative.

(I am kind of amused by having Earth being stolen be part of the story so close on the heels of a similar event happening in the current Bendis run on Action Superman.)

That cosmic focus is a good idea when you’re working with someone who is, frankly, as unappealing as Hal Jordan is often presented, as it draws attention away from his strange combination of skeeviness and blandness.

I have to wonder if DC, aware that there is a vast untapped potential with GL, is hoping that Morrison can build some real excitement and enthusiasm for the character that can translate into a cinematic effort that can undo some of the damage of the 2011 offering.

While I am excited by the prospect of what Morrison will do with Green Lantern – irrespective of the motivation – what really stands out so far is the amazing, meticulously-rendered artwork of Liam Sharp.

Just look at this:

Sharp also stands out in his character design, going wild with some of the alien Lanterns, such as Lantern Volk, who has a frickin’ volcano for a head.

It will be interesting to see when two immense talents who both have an obvious affection for the Silver Age will go with such a quintessentially Silver Age character and set of concepts. So far, we’re off to a promising start.

Recommended Reading

Morrison.

That does it for the Spotlight for this week. Be sure to come back next week to see what it shines upon.

As always, special thanks go out to Comic Logic Books & Artwork, my Local Comic Shop. Remember to support your LCS (find one here, if you don’t already have one).

Supporting OpenDoor Comics is a thing you can do, by whitelisting the site in your ad blocker, by purchasing something from the Supply Closet or the OpenDoor Comics Shop, by creating your own comics on the OpenDoor Comics platform, or through directly giving money via Patreon or PayPal.

*Those runs are, unfortunately, marred by recent developments involving the writer. It's possible, sometimes, to separate the art from the artist, but...damn.