More words than anyone could possibly want on 2025's Nightwing Vol. 1: Bludhaven (collecting the 1995 miniseries and the first eight issues of the ongoing)

While I read a lot of Batman comics in the '90s, I sat out Chuck Dixon and Scott McDaniel's Nightwing ongoing series. I mean, as a teenager and college student with limited income, I had to draw the line somewhere, and that seemed like a good place to draw it. 

I had obviously read a lot of Dixon, and while he was not a particularly colorful nor imaginative writer, he was great at coming up with new crimes and heists on a monthly basis, and penning comics that read like mini action movies that happened to have a superhero in them. I wasn't familiar with McDaniel at all. I imagine if the book had been drawn by Norm Breyfogle or Tim Sale or Vince Giarrano or Jim Balent, I might have snapped it up, but it was not (I am now trying to imagine the book drawn by any of the above and can't quite see it).

Also, I remember balking at the very existence of Bludhaven, the fact that Gotham City happened to have a neighboring big city that was even more corrupt and crime-ridden that no one had ever mentioned before. That was too much for Teenage Caleb's suspension of disbelief (Grown-up Caleb doesn't care and, in fact, I now see it was completely integral to making the Nightwing ongoing interesting; having Dick as Batman Lite fighting crime in Gotham City just wouldn't have worked).

So why am I reading it now, especially given the fact that the reputations of the series' creators are now so, as Travis Hedge Coke pointed out on my Bluesky post about it put it, "tarnished"...? Well, as I explained a few posts back, my teenage nephew is starting to get into comics, and  he said he liked Nightwing. I ordered this particular trade paperback online for him and, when it arrived, I noticed that not only did it collect the beginning of the monthly, but also a four-issue 1995 miniseries penned by the late Denny O'Neil. 

That was of particular interest to me, as not only had I not read the miniseries, but I don't think I had ever even known it existed. Released when it was, the mini, penciled by some guy named Greg Land and inked by a Mike Sellers, would have slotted in between the events of "Prodigal", the multi-book event storyline during which Dick Grayson temporarily became Batman after "KnightsEnd", and the launch of the Nightwing ongoing.

So, after giving my nephew a brand-new copy for his birthday ("Can you pose like that?" his mother asked after he unwrapped it, trying to strike the pose Nightwing did on McDaniel's cover for the trade), I ordered a copy from the library to read for myself...and, of course, blog about.

Having now read the four-issue miniseries, I'm not entirely sure why it was published (Pretty great Brian Stelfreeze cover though, right? Unfortunately, it has Dick in his previous costume, and probably wouldn't have worked for the collection cover; Stelfreeze also drew the cover of the second issue, and McDaniel provided those for issues #2 and #3, neither of which are quite as strong, and McDaniel covered the fourth and final issue).

It's not exactly that nothing happens, but not much of real consequence does. The plot provides a couple of potential big, life-altering events for the Dick Grayson—he decides to quit superheroing and try out life as a civilian, he meets a new love interest and he learns a secret that might mean he was wrong about who actually killed his parents—but, by the fourth issue, all of those things are resolved in such a way that he's pretty much right back where he was at the beginning of the series, albeit it wearing a new costume. 

If the point was simply to get him into a new costume, DC probably didn't need to a publish a 90-page story. Surely that could have happened in Nightwing #1...or simply off-panel. I wonder if perhaps the reason DC published a Nightwing miniserires was to test the waters and gauge market interest in a Nightwing ongoing series.  DC had just published a one-shot—Nightwing: Alfred's Return—a few months previous, and the monthly launched about nine months after the mini concluded.

Regardless of the why of it, let's discuss the what of it.

The opening scene finds Nightwing, still wearing the costume seen on the cover above, atop a rooftop at night, looking down on a quartet of very large men in an alley, one of whom is about to execute a young woman with a pistol. He intervenes, chattily beating everyone up and saving the girl...but not before the leader of the gang forcefully drives her face into a brick wall, knocking off her glasses and knocking her out.

"Without her glasses, she's beautiful," Nightwing thinks, and then follows that up with "I can't believe I thought that.

For reference, here she is with glasses:

And here she is without: 

Jeez, what does Dick have against glasses...? If he went to the high school in She's All That, I suppose he would have thought Rachael Leigh Cook was some sort of hideous monster before Jenna Malone gave her a makeover. 

Ironically, the last I knew, Dick was in a relationship with Barbara Gordon, who famously wears glasses.

Anyway, Batman shows up and the two glare at one another as if they are about to fight, but, instead, they chat a bit about what just happened.

The girl is Miggie Webster, she had been kidnapped and the cops were unable to crack the case...but Nightwing was able to find and rescue her in the nick of time. The former Dynamic Duo talk about their history over the course of a few pages of climbing a wall, swinging from extremely thick ropes that get all McFarlaney below where they hold them and running across rooftops.

At the end of the scene, Dick says he's going to quit the hero business, and hands Batman his old costume: "Put it in a trophy case. Give it to the Salvation Army. Burn it."

The next day, Dick goes to see Miggie in the hospital, and gives this weird-ass explanation:

You probably don't remember me...My name is Dick Grayson. I was there--in the alley a couple of hours ago... I have a friend who was one of the paramedics... Anyway, I was in the neighborhood and I thought I'd see how you are--

I found this amusing because not only does Nightwing have a relatively small mask (It's not like it might disguise his facial features the way that Batman or Daredevil's masks hide theirs) but at this point he also has a very distinct, flowing blue-black mullet. I mean, if you encounter two such young, fit guys with that same exact hairstyle in a matter of hours, you might be a wee bit suspicious, no...? I think of this hairstyle a little like I've always thought of Oliver Queen's distinct goatee; it's just a little too distinct to successfully pull off a double identity with.

I don't know if Miggie does recognize Dick as Nightwing or not. As he's leaving, she says, "I feel I owe you something...a cup of cappuccino?"

If she knows he's Nightwing, sure, that makes sense. He did save her life. The least she can do is take him out for coffee. But if he was just some guy in the alley with his friend, what does she owe him for...? For checking on her the next day...?

Well, whatever. Dick returns to his dusty, grocery-less Gotham apartment and lays atop his blanket-less bed in a tiny pair of red and blue briefs.

(A little something for the ladies, from Greg Land and Mike Sellers.)

The next morning, Alfred, who Dick's narration tells us is his best friend (Take that, Wally!), arrives with a plate of pancakes, a thermos of coffee and a bunch of papers, in order to feed Dick and talk about how happy he is that he's considering a life beyond vigilantism. (Dick is considering law school, he says).

Among the papers, however, is something that will fuel the events of the rest of the series. A threatening letter written in yellow scrript—what, did the writer use a highlighter?—addressed to his parents, mere days before their deaths. It reads:

If you say anything about what you saw, they will kill you and your whole family.

Be warned.

Pickles The Clown

It was in an envelope postmarked from the Principality of Kravia, one of those little fake countries that must make the maps in the DC and Marvel Universes so much more complicated than those in ours. Apparently, Haly's Circus visited there shortly before the Flying Graysons were killed, and now Dick is questioning whether it was really Tony Zucco who killed his parents all those years ago...or someone from Kravia.

Just when he thought he was out of the hero game, he finds himself pulled back in...!

Kravia is ruled by a rather ridiculous looking dictator named Prince Balsik, who wears a blue, green, purple military uniform with lots of medals, shoulder cords and a sword. His face is badly scarred with big, thick scars that look like a wild animal had mauled him. 

His soldiers wear orange and yellow armor and helmets that looks like something out of a video game...or, perhaps, the future, and though their guns fire bullets, Land draws them more like laser guns. 

When Grayson starts making inquiries, the prince sends an assassin after him, but between meeting the assassin and then having the first of two fights with him, Dick manages to go on a date with Miggie, who seems oddly desperate to spend time with Dick (This is, for the detectives at home, Clue #2 that Miggie's life isn't as perfect as Dick, who spent his childhood training under the World's Greatest Detective, assumes it must be).

Eventually, Dick visits the Batcave, gets a briefing from Oracle, whom he just refers to as "Oracle" (no mention of how she looks in glasses) and, now regretting his decision to give Batman his superhero outfit, is in need of something to wear.

Enter Harold, "Batman's chief mechanic, computer whiz and all 'round genius...not to mention costume maker!"

It is Harold who is responsible for Nightwing's new costume, the simple, mostly-black one with the stylized blue "V" over the chest that runs down his arms. I'm pretty sure this is the very best of all of Nightwing's costumes (and, notably, all of those that followed it over the course of the next 30 years have mostly just been slight variations of it). While Harold is responsible for it in-comic, I wonder which real-world artist designed it.

Anyway, here's Dick's first appearance in it:

For some reason, Land gave him long, claw-like nails on two of the fingers on his right hand and, amusingly, once Dick puts his hair into a ponytail, it seems to be about five times as long as it was when he was wearing it down. Did Harold also give Dick extensions...?

From there, Dick infiltrates Kravia, and does so during Prince Baslik's first night of an ethnic cleansing. In a rather grim scene, one that prefigures that one gag from Family Guy, Baslik hands a subordinate a light brown card and asks, "Your men have copies of this card, Colonel?"

When he responds affirmatively, the prince follows up with, "They understand they are to terminate anyone whose skin is darker than this?"

Dick's not there to save the country or end Baslik's rule, but he inadvertently does so, in the process fighting lots of those weird futuristic-looking soldiers, discovering a very dark and melodramatic secret about the Kravian leadership, escaping a particularly scary-sounding deathtrap, deciding whether or not to kill someone who might have had his parents killed and ultimately learning the truth behind Pickles The Clown's threat to his parents.

As I said earlier, after his little adventure, Nightwing's status quo reverts to where it was on page one, the only real change aside from his costume being his acknowledgement or acceptance that Batman and Alfred had given him a good childhood after all. "You and Alfred gave me a home and you gave me what we don't mention," Dick tells Batman on the penultimate page. "The L word." (Unfortunately, Scott Pilgrim ruined the moment for me.) 

I've shared enough imagery above that you probably have a good sense of what the miniseries looked like. It's always interesting to see Land's work from this early in his career, when it seems to have genuinely been created by Land putting pencil to paper...something that can't be said of his work in the 21st century.

I mean, I have no idea exactly how he creates his artwork, but, when I think of Land, I think of images like this now, images so obviously photo-referenced that it seems as if he is finding photographs and then digitally manipulating them to add on superhero costumes...and not even with much care, so that, say, Reed Richards or Sue Storm's face may look like those of completely different people from panel to panel.

I honestly don't get it, as that seems just as tiresome to me as drawing would. (But maybe easier on the hand?)

 There are a few examples of...well, let's say shortcuts in this series, published 31 years ago.

Here, for example, is an image of Batman and Nightwing swinging through the night together:

And here, on the very next page, is Batman and Dick-as-Robin swinging through the night together:

Obviously, the point is that the images should be similar, demonstrating how Dick has changed even if his partnership with Batman hasn't, but jeez, if Land was going to repurpose the Batman pose, couldn't he at least have changed up the exact weird tangling of the ropes, or the angle of his wrists, or which foot is visible or something...? Like, gestured towards making them look different...? Colorist Cathi Bertrand did a little bit more work in distinguishing the two images of Batman, making his costume seem a bit bluer in the second image.

(Again, these images appear on consecutive pages; in fact, there are only five panels between them). 

Here's another, more obvious one, in which Dick punches the assassin four times in the mid-section in four panels, although Land only drew two panels and then repeated them:

A pre-cursor of what was to come, perhaps...

With the miniseries now out of the way, the rest of the trade is devoted to the first eight issues of Dixon and Beatty's ongoing, which was inked by Karl Story. 

That's a pretty hefty chunk of comics there, twelve issues total, in a $19.99 trade paperback. Pulling up the calculator on my phone, that works out to $1.66 per issue...a pretty solid value, really. 

Now, while the miniseries isn't really necessary, and doesn't really come into play at all in the events that follow, those first eight issues of the ongoing do all belong together, as they are all more-or-less a single storyline. 

In it, Batman sends Nightwing to Bludhaven in order to find out who was responsible for killing 21 men in a very particular fashion (Their heads were all turned around backwards and they were thrown in the water, eventually floating into Gotham), and Dick spends those eight issues trying to get to the bottom of that particular mystery...which involves the city's kingpin of crime Angel Marin going missing, and some unknown player seemingly assuming his role in secret.

It's only in the later issues that Dixon and McDaniel start to hint at the new kingpin of crime (and yeah, I'm using "kingpin" on purpose, as the title seems less Batman Lite and more Daredevil Lite, including having a very large villain in the suit in the antagonist role). 

Fist he's just a voice, then a figure in the shadows, and then a civilian name being bandied about and, ultimately, on the very last page of the seventh issue, hie revealed visually and his supervillain identity spoken aloud (In a very dramatic lead-up to that splash, McDaniel draws three consecutive panels of Nightwing addressing him, gradually falling under a shadow as the gigantic crime boss apparently stands up in front of him).

Now, these comics are from 1996, so, chances are you already know who this mysterious villain is. I mean, I did, and, as I said, I didn't read Nightwing back then...I just knew Dixon had made use of the character via osmosis I guess, seeing issue of Nightwing on the new comics racks and, eventually, reading about it on the Internet. 

If the comics weren't 30 years old, I'd be hesitant to name the character at all here, but, well, they are 30 years old, so I guess I will name him eventually, so I guess you can stop reading now if you don't want his identity spoiled.

The book isn't presented as a mystery—that is, there are no suspects, and Dixon doesn't provide the reader with enough clues to guess at who the crime boss might be—but it is mysterious, and Dick spends seven issues trying to get to the bottom of it as he feels out the local criminal underworld.

It seems unusual to me as it is essentially a single, eight-issue story arc, with the mysterious villain revealed at the end and, while the conflict isn't resolved, it is only at that particular point that the book's premise is finally unveiled and the hero gets a new status quo. 

The hopelessly corrupt city lacks anything approaching a hero and is portrayed a lot like Frank Miller presented the Gotham City that Batman returned to in the Batman arc "Year One" (Although Bludhaven lacks a Jim Gordon and a Harvey Dent to help Batman do his work) and, realizing all of this and the fact that it is in the clutches of an honest-to-goodness supervillain, what started as a mission for Dick becomes his vocation.

Just as Batman has his Gotham City, then, here Nightwing gets Bludhaven.

While I said these eight issues basically constitute a single storyline, this isn't any sort of Bendis-ian decompression...in fact, was there decompressed storytelling in mainstream comics circa 1996...? Dixon breaks the eight-issue story into smaller chunks, one-issue stories and short arcs, even if they are all part of the same story (Outside of the big crossover events, I'm having a hard time thinking of a Batman arc from the '90s that went on quite as long as this; that is, Nightwing #1-8 weren't advertised as an event, but the story was more event-sized than most comics from the Bat-office at the time).

Each issue has a big action sequence and features Nightwing foiling some kind of crime. In some cases, these are the work of "Reynard", a member of Gotham gangster Black Mask's False Face Society who wears a fox mask; in other, they involve Nightwing going after pressure points in Marin's organization in an attempt to find out where he is and who it is that is replacing him.

Along the way, Dick rents a seedy apartment in a terrible neighborhood, an act that introduces a running gag and, I assume, a potential love interest. The building's super is a woman named "Clancy" with an Irish accent that seems to always be behind a closed door or somehow covering her face when Dick tries to talk to her (washing her hair in the sink, carrying a stack of boxes, etc.) She turns out to be of Chinese descent (Though she was adopted by an Irish family, which is where she picked up the accent, before moving to the states).

Dick also takes a job as a bartender at a local cop bar, which he hopes will provide him with a source of intel.

Oh, and he loses the ponytail during his first encounter with Reynard and Black Mask's gang.

Dixon and McDaniel thus stock the book with brand-new supporting characters, although familiar faces do pop up. There's a page in the first issue, in which Batman charges Nightwing with the murder investigation and Bats later checks in via computer. Oracle and Wally West literally phone-in appearances. And Robin Tim Drake guest-stars in issue #6, where, during some downtime in crime-fighting, they discuss how different the pair are when it comes to the role of Robin.

Ah, the simpler days, when there were only ever three Robins, and one of them was totally dead forever...!

The creators also introduce the first of several new villains created for the series: Lady Vic, a British aristocrat/assassin who fights with various bladed weapons. McDaniel gives her an interesting look, although I have to admit it's one of those designs that doesn't quite look right when someone else draws it (And thus probably isn't the best of designs). I think it's the mask/helmet that does it.

As for the major villain, that is of course, Roland Desmond AKA Blockbuster. The second Blockbuster, to be precise, although he was basically just like his brother, the fist Blockbuster: A big, strong, simple-minded engine of destruction. 

During 1995 event Underworld Unleashed, he had sold his soul to the devil Neron, and in exchange was given brains to match his brawn (visibly signified by his huge, swollen head, from which dangled a skullet). He menaced Manchester, Alabama in the Impulse tie-in issue to the event series before Dixon decided to use him as a Wilson Fisk-like giant, super-strong crime lord in Nightwing.

Earlier in the post, I mentioned that it was hard to imagine this series being drawn by some of my favorite Batman artists of the '90s, and that was largely because of how distinct it was visually. Yes, the cover of the trade that my sister made fun of isn't that great (That of the first issue, or #7 might have been better choices), but the art inside is much better.

McDaniel is a completely original artist, to the point that, looking at his art, I can't really see who might have influenced him, nor can I think of other artists with whom to compare him. His art is instantly recognizable and, although I wasn't a big fan of it back then, I've come to appreciate more and more. 

His page layouts are all quite dynamic, but his art doesn't necessarily look animated or invigorated on a panel by panel (or panel to panel) basis. Many of his static images nevertheless seem to violently fly off the page at you; there's a real in-your-face quality to much of the action, particularly when it involves Nightwing leaping, which he does a lot of.

A signature technique that McDaniel employs, and the thing I think of when I think of his art, is to draw multiple images of Nightwing in the same panel to indicate how much and how fast he moves. It's an old comics trick, although I find it notable that McDaniel doesn't accompany the multiple figures with speedlines, nor does he draw the "past" images of Nightwing as less substantial than the "current" one...he'll just draw 3-12 Nightwings in a panel or splash, inviting the reader to follow the character as he jumps and flips and swings around.

It is, of course, a great trick for a character known for his athletics and acrobatics—and the sleek, cape-less character design makes it easier to pull off than it might for a character like Batman—and it allows a reader to appreciate how Nightwing moves. 

It's also pretty effective in fight scenes, as it gives one the impression that Nightwing is everywhere all at once (One thing I always liked about Breyfogle's art is how he would pose Batman so that he was fighting multiple opponents at once. So that, for example, he might be standing on one leg while he kicks one guy in the face, his right hand might be smashing a second guy's face against a wall or table, and his left hand extended in a throw, as a batrang whizzes across the room at a third guy. Sometimes when McDaniel draws Nightwing fighting a group, he does so by drawing four Nightwing figures in the panels executing different moves against different guys).

It looks like the previously linked-to cover for Nightwing #7 is the first time we see McDaniel's multiple Nightwings on a cover. Inside the book, it's on the tenth page of the first issue, wherein he leaps from a rooftop onto a speeding truck below:

Later, there's a fight atop a speeding train going through a tunnel, and McDaniel draws Nightwing doing what looks like a combination of an acrobatic routine and a live-action game of Frogger as he jumps off the train before it enters the tunnel, crosses the traffic on the overpass while thet train is passing through the tunnel, and then lands back on the roof of the train right behind his opponents, who used the more traditional strategy of guys on top of a train when it's about to go through a tunnel and ducked.

This is probably my favorite example, though, as Dick Grayson leaps back and forth between buildings in a way that suggests the old Ninja Gaiden videogame to me:

So yeah, I passed on this book in the '90s and, given the reputations of the creators of late, I hadn't felt any urgency to check it out, but I'll be damned, this is a pretty good action comic about a vigilante fighting crime and, thanks to McDaniel's idiosyncratic work—which often I appreciate more than I necessarily like—I can't think of another book that looks anything like it. (Other than, maybe, other McDaniel-drawn books, of course). 

The pair certainly did their job with these first eight issues too, as I now kind of want to know what happens next...

Bookshelf #45

This week's bookshelf—my last bookshelf!—is another one devoted to DC Comics. It contains some of the earliest comics I ever bought, certainly some of the oldest collections, some of which were purchased long before the publishers regularly collected their serially published comics.

The organization of this particular shelf makes perfect sense...at least to me. I suppose anyone else would be hard-pressed to find a particular book on this particular shelf.

First, there are the oversized books: JLA: Heaven's Ladder (the only JLA story that the post-Morrison/Porter team of Mark Waid and Bryan Hitch collaborated on; fill-in artists were needed for all of Hitch's arcs on the monthly series), the various Paul Dini/Alex Ross specials (Batman: War on Crime, Shazam: Power of Hope, Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth, JLA: Secret Origins, JLA: Liberty and Justice...I guess I never bought the Superman one, although I know I've read it) and that How To Draw DC Comis Super Heroes book that I mentioned on Bluesky a while back. 

Next are the hardcovers: The Complete Frank Miller Batman (complete as of 1989, anyway), The Joker: Stacked Deck, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Kia Asamiya's Batman: Child of Dreams, Batman: Broken City, Batman: Ego and Other Tails (Darwyn Cooke!), Catwoman: Selina's Big Score (More Darwyn Cooke!), JLA: Earth 2, JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice, Bizarro Comics and Bizarro World (A lot of Batman, as you can see). 

From there we move on to the trade paperbacks, and the rest of shelf is organized by hero, in the order of what I consider their importance. 

So first there's Batman: Batman In The Forties, Batman In the Eighties, Batman: A Death in the Family, The Many Deaths of The Batman, Batman: Hush Vol. 1 (Not sure why I have this or where it came from, as I also have those issues in singles), Batman & Dracula: Red Rain, Batman: Crimson Mist, Batman: Bloodstorm, The Dark Knight Strikes Again #1-3 (these could probably have gone in a long box, actually, but they had spines, so I guess they ended up here, I guess; you'll see a few other series of "prestige format" books on this shelf), Robin: A Hero Reborn and Catwoman: Nine Lives of a Feline Fatale.

Next up? Superman, of whom the only trades I have featuring him here are Superman: Panic in the Sky, Superman: The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen and the Elseworlds book Superman: Secret Identity. 

Then there's Wonder Woman, of whom I only have two books here: Wonder Woman Vol. 2: Challenge of the Gods and Wonder Woman Vol. 3: Beauty and the Beasts.

And then some Batman and Superman team-ups, which I suppose should have come before the Wonder Woman books, Batman & Superman: World's Finest and the ridiculous Superman and Batman Vs. Vampires and Werewolves, and then a Batman/Supeman/Wonder Woman team-up, Matt Wagner's Trinity.

Then we get into heroes who I have relatively few collections of. There's the four issues of Jeff Smith's Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil, Plastic Man: On the Lam (I have these issues in singles too, but I bought the trade because I liked the design so much; Kyle Baker draws the cover so as to suggest that Plastic Man himself has disguised himself as this trade and is hiding on your bookshelf), Green Lantern: A New Dawn, Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, two volumes of Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' classic Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics, Tim Truman and company's Hawkworld, Jack Kirby's New Gods, Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle, all of Starman (which I missed in singles, but went back and read in trade due to the critical acclaim), a Hitman collection (Which I bought because it included Tommy Monaghan's first appearance in The Demon Annual #2, which I had not read at that point...also, that's a pretty great cover, isn't it...?) and three volumes of Marc Andreyko's Manhunter (but not, curiously, volume 2).

Finally, there are team books (Justice League of America Hereby Elects... and Challengers of the Unknown Must Die!), crossovers (Cosmic Odyssey, Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, Villains United, Rann-Thanagar War, Day of Vengeance) and Elseworlds (DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories, The Golden Age and Justice League of America: The Nail).

Oh, and then a couple of random books, only a few of which take place in the DCU: Doctor 13: Architecture & Morality, DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore, Space Ghost and Icon: A Hero's Welcome (I would like to read the rest of Icon, but I'm not sure if it was collected in an accessible format like this first chunk of the series was).

Later, I came back and stacked more books atop those on the shelf, and these are all mainly random ones, although all DC...except for The Immortal Iron Fist: The Last Iron Fist Story. Not sure how that one got in there...

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero Pt. 10

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #40 (1985)
Art by Rod Whigham and Andy Mushynsky

•This issue, entitled "Hydrofoil", involves a couple of introductions from the toy line, including one I have been waiting for. That would be the introduction of Shipwreck, one of my favorite characters from the cartoon (That was where he first appeared, in 1984's "Revenge of Cobra" mini-series, and then Hasbro released him as an action figure in 1985). Here we see his first appearance, and he seems awfully grumpy, seemingly annoyed at having to work with "landlubbers." He's aboard a ship that is transporting the Transportable Tactical Battle Platform; it will be picked up and flown out into the Gulf of Mexico by helicopter.

That battle platform was a playset from 1985 and looked a little like those oil platforms you see in the ocean sometimes. My best friend had it, and I remember it being a lot of fun to play with. 

Another Joe making his first appearance here is Barbecue, the Joe team's new fire fighter.

"Fireman? This is a combat unit!" Shipwreck growls after Barbecue hands him a copy of his orders. "We don't need a fireman!"

 Barbecue cooly responds, "That's what everybody says... ...until their house is on fire!"

•But wait, there's more...! Also making their first appearance in this issue are the Cobra Hydrofoils, or Morays. These were red boats that came packaged with a driver action figure, codenamed Lamprey. Cobra Commander inspects them above. Interestingly, Hama had just used Cobra hydrofoils in issue #36, but those seem different than these, as they were colored standard Cobra blue.

•Much of the issue revolves around Hama playing with the new toys. There's talk about the sea base and scenes of it being put together, and then there's a battle against the Hydrofoils that pretty much totals it, as these new Cobra vehicles are so fast that they are hard for the Joes to hit with standard weapons. 

And, as it turns out, the Joes did need a fireman, as Barbecue suits up and uses his fire axe to chop off burning bits of the base. 

"Those blasted Cobras are tearing my base apart!" Shipwreck shouts at one point, and once again Barbecue is ready with a rejoinder. 

"No," he says while hacking at another piece of burning base. "They're shooting holes in it and setting it on fire...I'm the one who's tearing it apart."

•Aside from a battle involving the new toys, what's going on here is a little complicated. Inside a Cobra sub in the gulf are Cobra Commander, Tomax and Xamot, Zartan and a man Zartan refers to as "the master planner of this venture, the mysterious Crimson Guardsman with the daughter who wears the bear suit!" (That's Candy's dad, of course). They dock in a secret base within a sunken ship.

Meanwhile, there's another underwater Cobra base, a heavily fortified bunker that the Joes are unable to even scratch with the armaments aboard the investigating WHALE and SHARC. But they have to destroy it, and do so fast, as it is transmitting a wavelength through the water that is killing all marine life...if that bunker isn't taken out soon, it could kill all the fish in the Gulf! The situation is so urgent that the Pentagon is contemplating dropping a tactical nuke on it. 

•Oh, and by the way, Cobra Commander refers to the Crimson Guardsman who had come up with this whole plan, Candy's dad, as "Professor Appel." Which means Candy's name full name is "Candy Appel."

•It is Doc who comes up with an alternative to deploying a tactical nuke, as he points out that the explosive power of a nuke could be matched by conventional explosives...provided they just use enough of them. And so, rather than dropping a nuke, a bunch of Skystrikers take off from the nearby USS Flagg on a bombing run targeting the Cobra base...which sits on a fault line...which is disturbed by the explosions....exactly as Cobra planned. 

What's going on here...? We'll have to wait until the next issue to find out, but Cobra is pretty happy about it. I mean, look at the Commander's fist pump there...

•And what of the professor's daughter, Candy Appel, still being held for questioning at The Pit...? Well, things aren't going great for her. She has a chance meeting with the captured Dreadnok Buzzer, who calls her "Candykins", "My little sweet potato" and offers to sweep her away to New South Wales. Then, after the Joes receive orders from the Pentagon to relocate the pair, both Candy and Buzzer are being transferred from the Pit into the custody of the Army's Military Police...when Buzzer hijacks the bus, taking her captive...!

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #41 (1985)

Art by Rod Whigham and Keith Williams

•What do you notice about Mike Zeck and John Beatty's cover for this issue...aside from the fact that the Joes pictured are wearing a lot of bandages...? Did you notice Snake Eyes' mask? Zeck has drawn the character's "new" mask, the one with the knight-like visor worn by the second, 1985-released action figure, rather than his original mask, which looked more like a ski mask with goggles over it. The comic book version of the character will eventually adopt the mask on this cover (and a new and somewhat different costume), but not yet; indeed, in the few interior panels in which he appears in this issue, Snake Eyes is wearing his original costume and mask.

•So, what, exactly, was Crimson Guardsman Appel's plan in the Gulf of Mexico? Apparently, it was to trick the United States military to attack a precise point on a fault line with sufficient force to shift a section of the sea floor and, in the ensuing geological upheaval, raise it above the surface, creating an entirely new land mass. 

Is this plan scientifically sound...? Could an explosion of a big enough magnitude at just the right place create an island in the Gulf of Mexico...? Well, I wouldn't think so, but I certainly don't have the scientific background to rule it out. Nor, do I imagine, did many of the little boys reading this comic in 1985. 

Personally, I'm a little suspicious such a plan would work—and worked so perfectly, as the emerging island carries Cobra's secret base in a sunken cargo ship up to the surface with it!—but it seems well within the bounds of comic book science, and G.I. Joe is a comic book. Certainly, it was far more realistic and grounded than Marvel's superhero line, but, at the end of the day, it's still a comic book from the people who regularly tell stories about the likes of Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men and Thor.

•Creating the island was just step one, of course. Step two? Plant a flag on it and have the already-positioned lawyers stride into the Capitol building in Washington D.C., the United Nations building in New York City and government buildings in Mexico City and Havana, Cuba. And, before you know it, Cobra's new island becomes the officially recognized nation state of Cobra Island...!

•But such legal maneuvering takes time, and while awaiting recognition, Cobra unloads ASPs, HISS tanks, FANG copters and Stingers from within the tanker base to defend the new land mass. After surviving the massive tidal wave caused by the rise of Cobra Island, the Joe team in the Gulf quickly gets its shit together and attacks. 

A small team of Joes aboard The WHALE hovercraft land on the beach (With Ace in the Skystriker, having made a seemingly impossible takeoff from the listing USS Flagg, providing air cover). They do remarkably well, and have Cobra Commander, Zartan and Professor Appel cornered by the end of the issue.

•This issue's vocabulary word? "Enfilade."

•What the Joes lack in numbers, they make up for in jokes. 

Now remember, Barbecue, the guy making the joke in those last two panels, is a fireman, and his role on the team is to fight fires. The axe he carries (and that his action figure was packaged with) was specifically to chop down doors of burning buildings and, as we saw in the previous issue, cutting loose burning parts of enflamed structures.

But, having used the axe for that purpose already, Hama does what surely every kid who had the toy version of Barbecue had him do with it: Attack people. 

•Duke and his team have just about won the day, when Hawk radios in new orders, informing the team of Cobra Island's new sovereign status. 

Do note Cobra Commander's declaration in that last panel above. "What a great system!" he declares. "If you have enough money and you can hire the best lawyers, you can do anything you want!"

What comic book character do you think is most emblematic of American values? Superman? Wonder Woman? Captain America? Maybe Scrooge McDuck (as Chris Sims once made a convincing argument for)...?

I don't know. Sometimes I think it might actually be Cobra Commander. 

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #42 (1985)

Art by Rod Whigham and Andy Mushynsky

•It's Billy. The silhouette with the question mark over it that Storm Shadow seems to be about to strike on the head with his sword on Mike Zeck's cover? That is totally Cobra Commander's young son and, of late, Storm Shadow's apprentice Billy. And the cover is a fake out, as Storm Shadow isn't actually going to cut him down; this is just part of a training exercise. 

•There's an awful lot going on in this issue. In fact, there are five distinct narrative thread (two of which intersect in this issue). All but one of them involve a road trip of one kind or another. I'll break it down if you're invested in the ongoing G.I. Joe story but, um, not so much that you've actually picked up the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Compendiums and started reading it for yourself. 

1.) Hawk and company go to Washington, D.C. General Austin is in the middle of "a private reading of the riot act" to Hawk over some kind of video monitor, complaining that the Joes weren't able to defeat Cobra on the new island in the Gulf fast enough, and now Cobra Island is an official country, with diplomatic immunity, printed money and so on. In mid-sentence, he has a heart attack. Hawk has Snake Eyes and Stalker take him to see Austin in D.C. in a VAMP Mark II (released in '84 although the one in the comic is colored green rather than tan and is missing the toy's missile rack). While Hawk's at the hospital, the pair go visit the Vietnam Memorial and, while discussing how everyone else in their unit beside Storm Shadow were killed in action, they notice a name missing: Wade Collins. They thought he was dead, but if he's name's not there, perhaps he survived after all...?

2.) Crimson Guardsman Fred II follows them. He is in bed with a fever, the result of being dumped in the drink while fighting Snake Eyes and Scarlet on the ferry in #36. His doctor advises him to stay in bed (Doctors still did house calls in 1985...?), but he disobeys and goes to drive around. He happens to drive by Hawk and company's VAMP, and he then follows them to D.C. He confronts Stalker and Snake Eyes at the memorial, pulling a gun on them and making a shocking revelation: "Wade Collins isn't dead at all! Cobra gave him a new face, a new life and a new name!" It turns out that Fred II is Wade! Gee, what a small world...

3.) Buzzer and hostage Candy Appel are still on the run. Candy is continually trying to escape, and she eventually makes good when she gets her hands on a shotgun, dumping Buzzer on the side of the road and taking off in the truck he had stolen.

4.) The Soft Master is hitchhiking to Springfield. He takes a ride from an obnoxious reckless driver who sips from a thermos of coffee laced with brandy while driving (Don't hitchhike, kids!). He's eventually dropped off in Springfield, to the surprise of the driver, who says there's something not quite right about the city. "I'm not intending to stay for long," The Soft Master says, "Just taking care of some old business, family business." He forgets his suitcase in the back seat, which seems significant, as they show us a silent panel of the suitcase in the back seat as he leaves.

5.) Storm Shadow continues to train Billy. They are in Stormy's New York City water tower base, and Billy is blindfolded and hanging upside down from a trapeze as Storm Shadow swings his sword at him Billy is able to catch the blade, take it, dismount from the trapeze and throw the sword at Storm Shadow, who is able to catch it in the scabbard on his back. Again, Billy is a fast learner; it apparently doesn't take long at all to become a pretty decent ninja. Later they do a different variation of this, one that more closely comports with what we see on the cover. 

•Ripcord (spelled "Rip-Cord" above) was wounded in the battle of Cobra Island, but the more serious injury is that to his heart. Not only did Candy dump him a few issues back, but now she's somewhere on the road with Buzzer, and it's unclear if he has taken her hostage or if she went willingly, as they suspect she might be a Cobra agent, like her dad. 

Here he mentions letting his sadness wear off naturally. I'm...not entirely sure if that works, but then I guess sadness is different than depression, and while I've dealt with both, I've never been in Ripcord's exact circumstances before. 

•At the Springfield police station, The Soft Master says he needs access to their computer system and they rebuff him. The series push past the officer in charge anyway, at which point the officer sics a trio of others on him. Note their names in the second panel.

This is interesting in 2026, now that I know Hama's lifelong comics writing ambition is to write Uncle Scrooge comics. And now Marvel, which is owned by Disney, is publishing Scrooge comics! Let Larry Hama write Disney duck comics, dammit!

No idea what's all over The Soft Master's tie there. 

•After beating everyone up, The Soft Master and the original officer are alone, and the officer threatens to shoot him. "You've already tried to shoot me five times and missed," The Soft Master says. "What makes you think you can hit me with your last shot?"

After he indeed misses a sixth time, The Soft Master hands him a card reading "Hard Master." At least, I like to imagine that it was an old business card of his brother's.

•Finally, Billy leaves a Dear Storm Shadow letter, in which he expresses his desire that he could have had a cool ninja for a dad rather than a terrorist leader. 

On 1994's Justice League America Annual #8

Why am I writing about this particular comic this particular week? Well, because I had just read it for the first time. And as to why I just read it, well, having briefly mentioned 1991's Armageddon 2001 crossover event the other day, I thought about trying to track down the many annuals from the event I had never read, and started with Justice League American Annual #5; I couldn't find it, but I stumbled across this one instead. Given that its cover featured a League of A-listers—and this was from the period when the Justice League/s generally featured an A-lister or two among a bunch of C-listers—I was curious to read it. 

Now, this annual is from 1994. After a few years of the annuals all being part of a big crossover event story—1991's Armageddon 2001, 1992's Eclipso: The Darkness Within, 1993's Bloodline—DC switched to doing annuals that weren't connected by a particular storyline, but instead united by a theme. This was the first year of those thematic annuals, and the theme, as you can see from the cover above, was Elseworlds, DC's updated version of their old "Imaginary Stories", wherein the comics presented alternate universe takes on the characters. 

(The Elseworlds annuals would then be followed by Year One annuals, Legends of the Dead Earth ones set in alternate futures, and Pulp Heroes, after which point DC's line of annuals contracted greatly, so that only a handful of books got annuals. As I do every time I bring their annuals up, I would like to again state my wish that DC would collect all of these, preferably into DC Finest volumes. In terms of quality, the Pulp Heroes seemed to be the best of all of these, but then, I've only read all of the sets of annuals piecemeal over the decades, and there are plenty I've yet to track down).

This annual consists of two stories, the 46-page cover story and an eight-page back-up; I assume it is the latter that will be of greater interest to readers today, given the characters and light tone. And while a couple of bits of dialogue probably wouldn't have been published as is today, this second story is more evergreen and less, well, nineties looking than the former.

Both are written by Dan Vado, the Slave Labor Graphics and Alternative Press Expo founder who was, at the time, one of the several Justice League writers. He wrote Justice League America for a time, and then the unfortunately titled Extreme Justice (Which, from what I've read from back issue bins, is not as bad as it sounds...nor as bad as the art on the first issues certainly suggests it is). 

The lead story was penciled by a Norman Felchle, whom I have never heard of, and inked by Jon Stokes and a Rich Rankin (the latter of whom I don't think I've ever heard of either).  The back-up was drawn by Evan Dorkin...although he's credited as Evan DokinO, for reasons that will become apparent when we get to the story. 

Neither the credits nor the Grand Comics Database entry credit the cover artist, but I think it's safe to assume that it is Howard Porter, right? His style has changed a bit over the decades, but those poses all seem like pure Porter, don't they? 

And, as you can see, that cover features a Justice League with some big guns (and Hawkman), albeit they are all slightly off: Wonder Woman's hair is the wrong color, Superman's wearing gold armbands and The Flash looks like Darkstar Ferrin Colos. What goes on...?

Well, this Elseworlds story is a little like a Marvel "What If...?", the particulars of the question being "What If...Felix Faust Destroyed the Original Justice League and a Century Later a New One Rose to Oppose Him?" I guess that doesn't quite fit on a comic book cover, though, so maybe a Marvel editor of old would have been able to think of a shorter, punchier way to say that.

But yes, we open with the original Justice League: Superman! Batman! Wonder Woman! Green Lantern Hal Jordan! The Flash Barry Allen! Martian Manhunter!

Where's Aquaman? I do not know; he's never mentioned. And as for Wondy being there instead of Black Canary, who, in the DC timeline as it existed in 1994, was a founding member of the League while Wonder Woman was not, well, this is an Elseworlds story, right?

Apparently, Faust—who here lacks his old headdress—has very publicly challenged the Justice League, and they answer his challenge, arriving at what looks like a huge crater. They are immediately set upon by what Superman calls demons, and they chatter with one another during the fight; the demons aren't really a great threat to them, but they do keep them busy.

I was tempted to complain that Hal is able to use his ring against them despite the fact that they are yellow, but then I remembered this is an Elseworlds story...so maybe this Hal's ring worked against yellow...? Seems an odd choice though; they should have just colored the demons any other color. 

When the demons retreat, J'onn follows them in an attempt to locate Faust, but it is just then that the villain springs his trap. Calling on the powers of Abnegazar, Rath and Ghast (you know, the traditional Justice League villains The Demons Three), Faust summons a magical mushroom cloud that FWA-KOOOOMs the Justice League to death:

(Note their bones in the last panel on that page above; gnarly!)

Now empowered by demons from hell, and without the Big Seven Six to oppose him, the immortal Faust quickly conquers the Earth and, as he approaches the 100th year of his reign, he's starting to get a little bored, having never been able to recapture the high of killing the Justice League.

This new world looks oddly high-tech for one ruled by a wizard, but perhaps that is because Vado and Felche want to demonstrate the fact that is now somewhere in the latter half of the 21st century. (That said, Faust hasn't changed his look up, nor have his henchmen, who wear generic helmets, visors and armor that make them look like goons that the Image heroes of the 1990s might have fought.)

In this new, apparently utopian world, the only resistance to Faust comes from The Children of Justice, lead by Doctor Jonas, and old man with a flowing white beard who looks a bit like the Wizard Shazam and dresses like a superhero, wearing a cape and tights, with breifs over them. He goes around telling stories about the old, dead Justice League and how much Faust sucks, aided by totally normal, non-costumed and non-powered guys with familiar names like Ted Kord and Ralph Dibny. When we first meet Jonas, there's a Jimmy Olsen questioning his anti-Faust rhetoric.

Jonas and the Children are doing more than spreading stories, though. They are also conducting metagene experiments, and end up creating a new Justice League, consisting of new versions of the dead Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Flash, as well as a Hawkman and a Red Tornado. 

These have familiar sounding secret identities. The new Superman is Perry Ross, for example. And most of their costumes look like those of the originals, albeit with a variation here or there, like Supeman's armbands, or Wonder Woman wearing thigh-high boots. The more dramatic makeovers are those of Hawkman and the new Tornado.

Hawkman's costume is basically just a helmet, a pair of underwear and a bunch of straps that somehow make him look more nude than if he didn't have the straps, while Reddy's redesign is so radical you probably wouldn't recognize him as a Red Tornado until he started shooting tornadoes from his hands (It Looks slightly Deadpool-ish, doesn't it...? Or maybe Red Tool-ish...? Although Red Tool is supposed to be a Deadpool analogue, so maybe it's the same thing...)

Is this new League going to be enough to stop Faust, who vows to capture them and execute them on the 100th anniversary of when he killed the original League...?

Well, I mean, of course they are, but in order to keep it interesting, Vado has one of them turn out to be a traitor working with Faust, you probably haven't forgotten that Martian Manhunter has been alive all these years (and, apparently, taking his sweet time in attempting to bring Faust to justice), and then the good guys get some completely unexpected help from a rather out-of-left field source to finish off the bad guys.

(Spoiler warning for a 32-year-old comic, I guess...?)

The art, for better or worse, seems very much of its time. When Felchle draws the original Justice League, they have an unusual thickness or stoutness that reminded me of the way Mike Sekowsky drew them in their original adventures, but the more one reads on, the more awkward all of the figures look. Their heads often seem just a little too small, their limbs and hands too big. 

As I said, I'm not familiar with the artist—the credits on the GCD indicate that he's worked for Slave Labor, and collaborated with Vado on DC comics The Griffin and The STAR Corps and he has a couple of Marvel books to his name—but I have to wonder to what extent he was drawing in his own personal style, and to what extent he might have been trying to draw in a style that was popular at the time, which I suspect was behind a lot of the weirder comics art of the early to mid-90s.

Take, for example, this establishing shot of Faust's headquarters within the White House: 

(Also, let's stop to appreciate the fact that even in a comic book story about a dystopian future where a literal supervillain rules the world, the creators didn't imagine said villain would tear down the east wing of the White House.)

See the giant guns the goons guarding the White House are carrying? The one on the left, colored all blue, looks like the sort of over-sized gun we might expect to see Marvel's Cable or an Image guy toting around. But the one on the right, the red one? It looks ridiculously large, not like a gigantic rifle, but a cartoonishly large pistol. 

This panel is one of the many (many, many) examples of "extreme" art from DC Comics during this period where I suspect the artist might have been drawing at least somewhat sarcastically. That is, is Felchle here drawing guys with big guns because that's what the story calls for, or is he, perhaps, parodying comics where guys carry big guns...? 

It's not clear, really. In this panel, he does seem to be having a laugh at the extremes of '90s art, but, given that it's the only instance of such exaggeration within, it probably isn't likely. 

The art in the back up is, perhaps unexpectedly, straighter and more realistic looking at this point, even though Dorkin has a reputation of a cartoonist who draws funny comics.

Entitled "Attack of the O Squad!!! Or, What If They Staged an Invasion and Nobody Came?", the premise of the story is borne of the realization of just how many Justice League villains have names that end in the letter "O". Starro, Amazo, Despero, Kanjar Ro...you get the gist. 

This story is divided into two narrative strands. 

In one, the members of a Justice League sit around their base, bored out of their minds and, every time we check in with them, they are talking about how bored they are or attempting to do something to stave off boredom. An Elseworlds League, this particular line-up isn't one that ever actually existed: Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, The Flash, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Red Tornado and Hawkman.

In the other strand, Starro has gathered all of the Justice League villains whose names end with "o" mentioned above, along with other such villains as Sinestro, Bizarro, Chemo, Titano, Metallo and Professor T.R. Morrow, all of whom wear little "Hello My Name is..." nametags (If one of those villains jumped out of you as not belonging, don't worry, that's part of the story). 

Not content with just using all those guys, Vado also has Starro start to explain the absence of other such "o" villains: 

Alas, five of us are absent! 

I could not reach Deconstructo, nor Professor Ivo. Muto's ex-mate knows not where he is, and Eclipso seems to answer his phone half the time.  As for--

Here, Morrow interrupts Starro: "Hey! Don't any evil girls' names end in 'O'?"

Indeed, this villain team-up is a real sausage fest. 

Now, the problem with villain teams is that because they are inherently comprised of a bunch of unscrupulous people who never trust or respect one another, they collapse when the villains turn on one another. For some reason, the various Injustice Gangs and Legions of Doom never think to wait to start betraying one another until after they defeat the good guys. 

The O Squad is speeding towards Earth in a gigantic spaceship of Starro's, a rather cool design from Dorkin, which is hidden in a meteor shower. It is apparently effective camouflage, as the League hasn't noticed them, and so The Flash is channel surfing at super-speed, Reddy is wandering around with one of those paddles with a ball attached to it by a rubber band and so on.

When they begin to bicker about who will get which part of Earth after they conquer it, the team-up is on the verge of dissolving...until Starro calls in a lawyer to help them divvy up Earth equitably. But once they all sign "the evil document," they noticed that Morrow spelled his name with a "W" at the end (On his name tag, his name is "T.O. Morro").

Soon, everyone comes to blows and, as if things weren't bad enough for the bad guys, another sometimes Justice League adversary whose name also ends with an "O" appears. 

It's all great fun, and I particularly enjoyed Dorkin's take on the villains, all of whom appear to be in their original, Silver Age designs (Dig the forehead on Sinestro, too!). 

I am quite fond of this particular take on Starro, where he is a giant starfish that walks around on two of his arms, and, despite how alien he might look, he still talks and acts like your standard issue supervillain. (This Starro reminded me of Scott Snyder's Starro in 2018 miniseries Justice League: No Justice, although this story predates that one; now I wonder if Snyder had read and was perhaps inspired by this back-up...)

Perhaps my favorite bits were a particularly crass character referring to Chemo as "a punch bowl shaped like a fat guy," and this panel, wherein we see some of the little, face-hugging Starros holding pens:

Oh, and J'onn dismissing War of the Worlds as "anti-Martian propaganda" made me smile too. 

(As for the bits I don't think would have appeared were this written and published today, at one point Wonder Woman refers to Evil Star's Starlings as "those midget henchmen" and Bizzaro is excited when he thinks he is being "gypped".)

I wasn't terribly happy to see Cleveland used as a punchline...

...but otherwise, this was a very fun story with lots of little pleasures to be had, and Dorkin fills the panels with visual gags that reward one for poring over them. 

While DC has yet to collect all 1994's Elseworlds-themed annuals together, some of them have been collected here and there and this particular annual was collected in this year's Elseworlds: Justice League Omnibus.