Ten scenes of special note from Supergirl Vol. 1: Misadventures in Midvale

The recently released Supergirl Vol. 1: Misadventures in Midvale collects the first six issues of writer/artist Sophie Campbell and colorist Tamra Bonvillain's new Supergirl ongoing series, which is an excellent comics book (I reviewed it at length in this column). 

It's quite good, and if you have any interest at all in superhero comics, regardless of your experience with the character or publisher or the genre, I would recommend checking it out (Mild spoilers to follow, so if you do plan on reading it, maybe do so before you read the rest of this post). 

In this collection, Supergirl Kara Zor-El visits her one-time hometown of Midvale, only to discover a mystery: There's already a Supergirl there, and there's also a Linda Danvers living with her adopted parents. It turns out Lesla-Lar, a super-smart Kandorian with some issues, has escaped the bottle city and set up shop impersonating our hero. 

With help from a new old friend and some super-pets, Kara defeats Lelsa...and then adopts her, taking her under her wing and teaching her to use her yellow sun-granted superpowers for good. In short order, Kara and company meet new versions of old Supergirl comics villains Decay and Nightflame and add a new young woman to their growing girl gang.

Here are the ten scenes that I thought most interesting or intriguing for one reason or another...

1.) What, exactly, is Princess Shark's plan...? In the very first panel of the book, Campbell introduces a new character, Princess Shark. Her name suggests that she may be related to, or at least inspired by, old Superboy villain King Shark (And she is not to be confused with Nidhi Chanani's Shark Princess, the apparent whale shark protagonist of a series of early reader graphic novels).  

As you can see above, letterer Becca Carey gives Princess Shark a bigger, bolder, slightly scratchier font to suggest a deeper, scarier voice than that of other characters, and she rants "Metropolis will soon become Sharkopolis! It is inevitable!" 

Supergirl appears to defeat the menace between panels. "Nah...Princess Shark, you just need to cool off a bit, okay?" she says, before dumping the villain into the sea and flying away as the shark-woman raises a fist and shouts "Curse you, SUPERGIRL!"

I was curious about her plans, exactly, beyond that of turning Metropolis into Sharkopolis. I mean, in that first panel, the street behind her is full of sharks of various species and sizes laying around and more seem to be falling out of the sky, as if there was a very particular type of strange fall, with Princess Shark at its center.

Later in the series, in issue #5, the one devoted to two short stories starring the Super Pets, Princess Shark returns, this time in Midvale, wearing a different costume which I like a bit more than the one above (and drawn by guest-artist Paulina Ganucheau). On that second instance, her aim is to get revenge on Supergirl, and she comes accompanied by a huge flying shark wearing a bandana. Krypto and new super-rabbit Kandy manage to drive her away with their eyebeams.

2.) An unforeseen effect of yellow sun radiation. When Kandorian scientist Lesla-Lar uses her technology to teleport herself (and her pet rabbit Kandy) to Midvale, she is struck by the rays of Earth's yellow sun, and she is imbued with the same array of super-powers that all Kryptonians get from such exposure (Likewise, Kandy immediately starts flying). 

It's been a while since I've seen a new Kryptonian exposed to the yellow sun for the very first time, but here there seems to be a physical component to the change, with the previously slim Lesla-Lar suddenly developing pronounced bicep muscles....and, quite unusually, gaining curves, with her bust increasing by whole cup sizes and her hips and thighs expanding into generous curves, making her suddenly...Pneumatic? Zaftig? Rubenesuqe? Dare I, a middle-aged man, say "thicc"...?

Seeing what her new curves have done to her outfit, Lesla declares herself beautiful, "even more beautiful than Supergirl." 

I don't know. I thought Lesla was beautiful before the sun gave her curves too, but then, I do like girls with glasses...

3.) Does Lesla-Lar summon Titano from a Poke Ball...? Okay, so I've never actually watched any Pokemon comics or read and Pokemon manga, as the franchise didn't make it to the U.S. until I after I had aged out of the intended demographic (And it's always seemed more kid-focused than all-ages to me). So, I don't know exactly how these things work, but it was my understanding that Ash or Mindy or whoever would throw a Poke Ball*, and that from out of it would emerge whichever particular monster they needed at that particular time, right?

That's exactly what happens here.

I would ask how exactly Lesla-Lar had acquired Titano the super-ape in the first place, and this might have even have been something that would have bugged a younger, less-experienced teenage Caleb, but, having looked into what passes for Titano "continuity" in the past, I know that, post-Crisis at least, there isn't really any throughline to Titano appearances. He generally just shows up, sometimes only in cameos, whenever a generic menace is needed to occupy Superman briefly. I am guessing whenever an artist feels likes drawing a giant ape is the main determinant in whether or not Titano appears in a particular Superman comic. 

After Supergirl defeats the super-ape by blindfolding him with her cape and then spinning him so fast that she screws him into the ground, Titano is next seen tiny sized, in a little terrarium in Lena Luthor's lab. He will appear off and on in the following issues, renamed "Tinytano" and becoming a member of the Super Pets, even getting outfitted with his own cape (Purple, like that usually worn by Kandy, rather than red, like those of Krypto and Streaky).

4.) This is what Campbell's Lena Luthor looks like. As I mentioned the other day in my review of the trade paperback, I don't recall seeing Lena Luthor (Lex's daughter, not his sister) since she was a little kid, circa "Our Worlds At War" or so, nor do I recall her having any association with Supergirl, and thus I imagine her presence in the book as a friend and ally to the title character was inspired by her role on the TV show (I know "Supercorp" was a popular-ish ship pairing the show's version of Supergirl and Lena Luthor). 

I thought I might have detected a touch of such of potential romantic tension in an exchange or three here, but that could totally be my reading something into it. (As for Supergirl's orientation, the only character she seems attracted to in these issues—and by "attracted to" I mean a red heart appears in a thought cloud above her head when she looks at them—appears to be male; more on him in a bit).

Anyway, I like the design. The Brainiac sigil on her forehead, which goes unremarked upon herein, seems to indicate that her association with the character is still canon, and I like how Campbell gives her various "bad girl" signifiers, like dyed hair, a partially shaved head, black clothes and kick-ass boots, even though, so far at least, she seems to be on the side of the angels.

5.) I love the look on Krypto's face when he goes bad. After Titano the super-ape fails to stop Supergirl, Lesla-Lar's next attempt to defeat Supergirl is to blast her with a "cerebral alignment transmogrifier" powered by black kryptonite, which she says will cause Supergirl to become "not only chaotic and antisocial but moronically stupid as well."

As you can see, this also transforms Supergirl into Satan Girl, with a new costume and white-on-black dialogue balloons to go with her new, temporary identity (And if you find yourself thinking, "Wait, that's not how I remember black kryptonite working before," well, keep in mind that Supergirl wasn't exposed directly to black k, but hit with a weapon powered by it).

Krypto is also caught in the blast, and while he doesn't get a new name—Krypto the Satanic-dog, maybe?—he does get a new costume, and appears to also be suddenly chaotic, antisocial and moronically stupid. I mean, you can see it in his expression in the panel above, right?

That's how good an artist Campbell is! Just the look on a dog's face reveals that he's been changed into an evil, stupid version of himself!

During Satan Girl's brief, four-page rampage, Krypto joins her in causing mischief, stealing the pants from a citizen in one panel, and lifting his leg to melt the hood of a truck with his super-pee in another.

6.) Supergirl gets a magical girl transformation sequence. During her first encounter with the imposter Supergirl Lesla-Lar, Kara's costume is exposed to some kind of chemical creation that changes her red and yellow S-shield to a purple and green P-shield (apparently for "Phonygirl", which is what the people of Midvale refer to her as, thinking Lesla-Lar is the genuine Supergirl).

Later, she changes into her "Daring New Adventures" costume, the one with the blouse and little red shorts, while Lena tries to "fix" the damage that Lesla did to her current costume. And then, after she changes into Satan Girl and then back into herself, her Daring New costume is all torn up.

That's when Lena flips an S-shield at Supergirl's chest ("SWIP"), and it attaches itself to her, emanating her costume like so many ribbons, and giving Supergirl her very own transformation sequence!

In the next issue, #4, Supergirl will pull the S-shield from, um, somewhere and apply it to her chest herself, allowing her to instantly suit up for action. 

7.) This is what the girls wear to the goth club. At the end of the first story arc, which fills the first three issues of the series, one-time Supergirl impersonator Lesla-Lar has been remanded into Supergirl's custody. She is apparently living with Lena and Kara in Lena's secret lair on the outskirts of town and learning how to be a superhero under Supergirl's tutelage. She's got a new purple and yellow costume, and is going by the name "Luminary."

To celebrate her first day on the job, Lena suggests they all go to The Masquerade, Midvale's goth club, which has apparently been around since the aughts. We get a few panels of Lena helping with make-up before the reveal of what they're wearing (above). 

I suppose there must be a goth clothing shop in Midvale too, because it sure doesn't look like Lena and Lesla are the same size and can share dresses, does it...?

8.) Another L.L. Once inside, readers are introduced to a new character, Luna Lustrum. That's her on the far right of the top panel and speaking in the center of the second panel. As you can see, Campbell has given her a quite striking design, with big eyes, a sloping forehead, a rather unique downward sloping nose and curly hair. (Is it just me, or does her design suggest comics artist Jill Thompson at all...?)

I absolutely love the character's look. If she were a real person, I would totally have a crush on her. Heck, even though she's not a real person, I still kinda sorta have a crush on her. 

She doesn't reveal her name until the end of the fourth issue, at which point Lena says, "Another L-name? I guess that makes you part of the gang." 

Luna reappears in the sixth issue dressed as a witch—it's set during Halloween—and her hair is quite different in that issue than it is here, but I'm pretty sure she's wearing a wig as part of the costume.

Luna seems to have some degree of psychic powers, which come in handy in issue #6, and would seem to make her somewhat valuable to Supergirl's growing crime-fighting team. 

9.) Is this Supergirl's type...? As soon as the girls enter the club, Lesla notices a guy with his hands on Luna getting pretty pushy. When Lena grabs his wrist—"She told you to leave her alone and you did not!" she says, angrily—Supergirl attempts to step in, but is distracted.

"Who..." she says in one panel, and then a turn of the page reveals the above image, as Supergirl finishes her thought, "...is that?" I cut it off in my scan here, but just to the right of that panel of Supergirl in profile is a little thought cloud containing a single red, heart. It's the first of two times she will look at this dude and think simply "♡".

Now, I haven't read many Supergirl-centric stories over the years, and those I have read usually involved the post-Crisis "Matrix" version of the character, so I have no idea what this Supergirl's type is, but I was kinda surprised that it might be this guy. I mean, it's not like there are many—any?—guys with that particular look in the DCU as far as I've seen up until this point. 

He definitely has a nice body though, and lovely long hair. As for the rest of his look? I don't know. I do love that Campbell drew black sparkles emanating from him though. 

Supergirl/Lena shippers might take some heart in Supergirl's apparent attraction to this guy, though. His hair looks an awful lot like Lena's, but longer, doesn't it...?

Kara does go to up to talk to him, introducing herself, but their meeting is interrupted by the pushy guy who was trying to get Luna to have a drink with him transforming into Decay, an old Supergirl villain who you can see Campbell's redesign of on the cover of issue #4.  

I assume we'll see this goth hunk guy again...perhaps wearing a shirt in his next appearance. 

10.) Wait, when did Krypto get shot with arrows, and who is the monster who did this to him?! And I mean the monster who wrote a story in which Krypto is shot with arrows and is bleeding profusely from the wounds, not whatever villain might have done it in-story.

So, in issue #6, Supergirl deals with a new version of another old villain, Nightflame. Campbell splits drawing duties with artist Rosi Kampe here, with Campbell drawing the scenes set in the "real world" of Midvale, while Kampe draws the scenes set inside Supergirl's own mind. (The above page, where Supergirl starts to turn the tables on her foe, is Campbell's though.)

That is the domain of Nightflame, who attacks Supergirl by subjecting her to her own memories of various trials and traumas she has been through. I only recognized a couple of them—dying during Crisis On Infinite Earths, for example, or wearing tight slacks and a shawl connected to a bra for a top on Apokolips for another—and a lot I couldn't even guess at**. Like the image in the third tier down of the page above, in which we see Supergirl curled up next to a bloody Krypto.

While it's not necessary to "get" all these references while reading the issue—the point is simply that Supergirl is being forced to confront her own bad memories—I was curious about what this one referred to. And curious enough that I couldn't wait until I could find time to write this post and have one of you guys reply.

So, I asked Bluesky and was told that the image referred to the Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow miniseries written by Tom King and drawn by the great Bilquis Evely, which is apparently the inspiration for the not-very-good-looking upcoming live action Supergirl film (I watched the trailer, and it looked a bit like a Guardians of the Galaxy film, only without the Guardians in it...? The sole point of interest I saw was that it featured a live-action Lobo, which I am at least curious about, if not necessarily interested in). 

Soooo the writer who killed off Alfred Pennyworth also grievously injured Krypto the super-dog...? I mean, I guess that tracks...

It also makes me even less interested in the upcoming movie, though, which sure seemed to tease that Krypto was in serious danger...



*Not for the first time, I found myself wishing there existed some kind of geek media style guide for comics blogging when it came time to use the word "Poke Ball". I mean, is it a proper noun, and thus needs capitalized? Is it one word or two? Do both words get capitalized? Should it have that little accent mark over the e that I don't know how to make? I spent a surprising amount of time researching this online, as well as consulting two co-workers—one who grew up watching the cartoon, another whose son went through a Pokemon phase—and even consulted a guidebook from the children's department in my library. They had it as two words, both capitalized, and with the accent over the "e" but, like I said, I don't know how to make that. 

**The review at Collected Editions runs them all down though, if you're curious. 

"The Great Super-Star Game!" from 1976's DC Super Stars #10

When I was working on that post about Plastic Man team-ups a few months ago, I plugged "Plastic Man" into the Grand Comics Database and scanned his various appearances to see if I was missing anything. Among the Plastic Man appearances that turned up was 1976's DC Super-Stars #10, in which he was one of nine superheroes playing baseball against a team of supervillains. (The story was reprinted a few years later in 1981's DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #13, which has a far better cover, upon which Plas and most of the other characters appear.)

The story didn't really seem to fit the criteria for a Plastic Man team-up that I had established for that post—that is, rather than featuring Plastic Man teaming up with one or two other characters, he was part of an ensemble cast—so I didn't pursue it too urgently, but I remained curious about it. Partially because it seemed like a weird place for Plastic Man to show up and partially because a superhero vs. supervillain baseball game was obviously intriguing. 

Well, it took a while, but I finally found a copy.

The story is the work of writer Bob Rozakis, pencil artist Dick Dillin and inker Frank McLaughlin, and it's an odd one, right from the get-go. It opens with a scene of...domestic violence....?

After an opening splash page detailing the two teams' line-ups and positions (above), not unlike an issue of a Justice League comic might start with a roll call, we get a panel of the exterior of a house, from which argumentative dialogue bubbles seem to be coming. A caption reads, "One of the sounds of the suburbs--or the city, for that matter--a husband-and-wife shouting match!"

The next panel reveals who the husband and wife are, Golden Age villains Sportsmaster and The Huntress, both of whom are in full costume for some reason (Probably because it's 1976, and superhero comics were still just for kids?). They seem to be doing more than just shouting, though. The Huntress (the villainess in the animal print bathing suit, not one of the later purple-clad heroines to use that name) is holding up a chair like a lion tamer might to fend off a big cat, while Sportsmaster is swinging a tennis racket at her ("I just want to knock some sense into your head!" he shouts).

And what are they fighting about? Well, The Huntress is arguing that superheroes always win and supervillains always lose (Fact check: True), and thus she wants to switch sides and become a good guy, to which Sportsmaster objects ("Over my dead body!"). 

To prove that bad guys can sometimes win, he proposes a hero vs. villain baseball game. She picks a team of heroes, he picks a team of villains; if her side wins, she can become a crime-fighter, while if his team wins, she sticks with him.

The next eight pages shows the couple doing their recruiting. Using some sort of never explained equipment, they spy on various heroes and villains and then teleport them to the baseball stadium where the game is to be played. Conveniently, the heroes and villains are all grouped together, and each at some sort of sporting event. 

So, for example, Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance are all at a Gotham City bowling tournament when The Joker and Matter Master show up to steal the prize money. 

Plastic Man is quite literally hanging out with Wonder Woman at a United Nations soccer championship, where upon her first appearance you might notice something off about her (See the first panel below). Though her lasso is glowing with a yellow aura, it seems miscolored, red instead of yellow. This is not a mistake, though.

When Weather Wizard and Chronos appear to steal the championship's platinum trophy, Wondy goes for her lasso and discovers that it's actually Plastic Man! 

They're mid-fight when Sportsmaster and Huntress "Pop" them.

And is it just me, or does Plas' tornado maneuver here make no sense...? Like, I can see that he uses his arms to form the shape of a tornado, but I don't get how that would actually suck up the gas or blow it away. He could have transformed into a big fan or something to dispel the gas, but how exactly does this work...? (Or, wait, on third thought, did Weather Wizard make Plas start spinning with his spell two panels previous, and so his arms aren't merely in the shape of a tornado, but are actually still spinning like a tornado in that panel...? I guess that could make some sort of sense...)

Let us here pause to note how unusual the superhero team is. While some of DC's most popular superheroes are present, it's clear Rozakis didn't choose, say, the nine most popular heroes. Nor do these nine necessarily have anything in common. Sure, most of them are Justice Leaguers, but there are also a pair of Teen Titans and a pair of Golden Age heroes from Quality Comics that weren't known to hang out with the Justice Leaguers all that often at that point.

So, we've got Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Robin, Kid Flash, Plastic Man and Uncle Sam, the last of whom will serve as an umpire given that he is, as Wonder Woman says, "the most honest, trustworthy man alive!"

(Note the editorial box at the bottom of the panel; perhaps that's why Uncle Sam is here; DC could have been using the appearance to help promote the short-lived, 15-issue Freedom Fighters book).

In the next panel, Luthor chooses the bad guys' umpire: "I can't vouch for Amazo's honesty--but since he's an android, he'll have to call them as he sees them!" 

As to why everyone agrees to play in the first place, well, the villains seem taken by Sportsmaster's argument that, if his team wins, it will prove that bad guys really can win, and, as for the heroes, Huntress has (somehow) filled the stands with hypnotized victims who, we're told, will remain there forever if the heroes refuse to play.

To make the game completely uninteresting, no one is allowed to use their powers. 

Rozakis seems to have tumbled on the fact that such a baseball game won't therefore be any more interesting to read a comic book story about than any actual baseball game would, and so a single page montage takes us through the first eight innings ("Readers interested in knowing the complete play-by-play of the game can find it on our text page, elsewhere in this issue!" an editorial note from "Julie" says; indeed, as editor Julius Schwartz promises, there's an all-text breakdown of the game in the back, which I suppose was fun to imagine and write. Maybe to read too, if one were the least bit interested in baseball but, well, this one isn't.)

So, in the ninth inning, the losing villains finally resort to using their powers and gadgets, and some of the heroes similarly use theirs. There are only five pages devoted to this inning, but at least they are a bit more interesting than they might have been sans powers.

Here's Plastic Man, using his powers to first trick and then tag out Sportsmaster:

And so, the heroes win 11 to 10, and then everyone POPs back to where Sportsmaster and Huntress found them, to finish up their battles, which the heroes also handily win (Wonder Woman lassoing Chronos and Weather Wizard with Plas). We see the climax or end of each of these in another montage.

And does The Huntress go straight and become a superhero? Do she and Sportsmaster get a divorce? Unclear. 

I suppose the fact that the creators spend as much time gathering the heroes and villains as they do detailing their game reveals that this was more of a fun idea for a story than it is a fun story, but it's certainly an interesting curio, and I remain fascinated by the choices of heroes included, like using Plastic Man and Uncle Sam instead of, say, Hawkman and Aquaman, or in choosing Kid Flash over The Flash...

**********************

You know, after reading this, I kind of want to tackle my longboxes and see if I can dig up 1994's Showcase '94 #3 and #4, in which Alan Grant and Tim Sale tell a two-part story of a softball game between the Arkham Asylum inmates and the prisoners of Blackgate Penitentiary. 

Unlike "The Great Super-Star Game!", it's actually as fun as it sounds, if I recall correctly. And check out Kyle Baker's cover for #4:

Bookshelf #30

This week's bookshelf is the penultimate of the four on this particular tiny white unit, upon the small shelves of which only the smallest of books can be held. The best represented publisher here is probably Top Shelf, but more so of their relationship with a particular cartoonist at the particular point of time these books mostly came from rather than anything else.

If there is a cohesive organizing principle here, other than the small size of the books, it is probably that all of the books left of that Dennis the Menace collection there are works of comics as literature...or the cartoonists who make comics as literature having fun with genre silliness.

To the farthest left, we have the 2005 Salamander Dream from AdHouse, which I believe is cartoonist Hope Larson's first published work, aside from appearances in anthologies and online. She's certainly come a long way since, with 2012's A Wrinkle in Time graphic novel adaptation seemingly being a particular milestone, after which her work became increasingly popular and mainstream, and her biography began to fill with "real" graphic novels from "real" publishers (That is, those that had traditionally published book-books and gotten into the comics business, rather than comics publishers). 

Oh, and until I just looked her up a few minutes ago, I had completely forgotten that she wrote a Batgirl series for a while (The 2016-2018 "Rebirth" series, which I think I only read a single issue of, as it was really hard for me to care about a lot of characters after The New 52, the magically un-paralyzed and de-aged Barbara being prime among them).

Next is the 2003 version of Chris Ware's Jimmy Corigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, followed by James Kochalka's The Cute Manifesto from Alternative Comics and then Daniel Clowes' Ice Haven, also from Pantheon. All three are great books and I would recommend all of them if you haven't read them, but at this very moment I find The Cute Manifesto the most significant. It demonstrates Kochalka working both within and without his signature "cute" style, explains how and why he makes comics the way he does and, I think, is a fairly valuable book for a young cartoonist or artist still finding their way to check out.

The next three books feature another wide variety for shelf-mates. First, there's Kazimir Strzepek's The Mourning Star from Bodega, a wonderfully cartoony apocalyptic fantasy epic that I see the Amazon write-up says combines "the depth of Lord of the Rings with the showmanship of Star Wars" which...well, that's one way to sell a comic, I guess; I appreciated the book design, the cartoony characters and the scratchy, homemade aesthetic. I would definitely recommend it if you can find it anywhere (Sadly, as I flipped through it, I noticed the binding on my copy was falling out). Next is Scott Morse's Noble Boy, a biography of sorts of animator Maurice Noble, in an extremely interesting format that suggests nothing so much as a more rectangular than usual board book for the youngest children (albeit with many more words than such books typically feature). And then we have Alex Robinson's Lower Regions from Top Shelf, a 56-page mini-comic about a sexy barbarian lady with a battle axe fighting her way through a dungeon full of monsters, from the creator of Box Office Poison and Tricked. 

Between that and Dennis the Menace, we have a bunch of early Jeffrey Brown books from Top Shelf. These are the books through which I first encountered Brown's work, and why I still can't get over the fact that the cartoonist has now produced a shelf full of Star Wars books, as well as comics starring Batman, The Hulk, Thor, The X-Men and The X-Files. In order, these are Miniature Sulk (although the spine reads "Mini Sulk"), a collection of short, funny scripts; Any Easy Intimacy ("AEIOU" on the spine), a serious autobiographical novel about his relationships, like much of his early work; Sulk 1 and 2, an apparent anthology series, as the first follows his superhero parody creation Bighead and the latter is a mixed martial arts fight story drawn in a far more realistic style than most of his work; The Incredible Change-Bots, his full-color parody of the original Transformers cartoon which was my favorite Transformers comic until Tom Scioli's Transformers vs. G.I. Joe came around; Every Girl Is The End of the World For Me, another relationship comic; and, finally, Unlikely, the story of how Brown lost his virginity and one of his "girlfriend trilogy" of books. I think that was the first work of his I ever read. (Sadly, the sunlight has taken a toll on it, as the part of the back cover that towers over its neighbors is faded to a lighter red than the rest of the book.

And, as mentioned, there's a Dennis the Menace collection from Fantagraphics, Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace 1951-1952. Like Fanta's Peanuts work, it's a great collection and I also found it somewhat revealing at how different the single-panel cartoon felt in its first year vs. what it had become by my lifetime, where I would regularly encounter it in the funnies (And then, later, on The Comics Curmudgeon). I won't say these were necessarily brilliant comics or anything, but they were certainly funnier back then, and, I think, more sharply drawn.

Fun fact: I also have the second volume, although it is sitting amid a pile of stacks in the middle of the floor in my "library", as I have more books than I do bookshelves. (The obvious place to put it would be next to the first volume, but, as you can see, there is no room there). One day years ago my mother was stuck for an afternoon in my ancestral home, where I currently live and where all these shelves are, and she wanted something to read to pass the time. The only books in the house were mine, though, and were 99% comics rather than book-books. She ended up choosing a Dennis the Menace collection. 

Three interesting scenes from Don Rosa's "A Little Something Special"

The title story of Fantagraphics' new collection Uncle Scrooge: "A Little Something Special" and Other Tales of Fiendish Foes is by Don Rosa and was created in 1997 to mark the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Carl Barks' creation of Scrooge McDuck. It's an all-around great story, a celebration and summation of Uncle Scrooge comics, containing the character's family, friends and foes, as well as references to his biography and the history of Duckburg. 

Is it the ultimate Uncle Scrooge story? Perhaps.

Thes reason it is one of the 15 stories collected in this particular book is, of course, because it contains an alliance of Scrooge's greatest villains. Though I think Rosa's "A Matter of Some Gravity", a Magica De Spell story, is probably the most inventive and technically interesting of his work in this collection, there are some really great bits of storytelling and cartooning in "A Little Something Special," which I wanted to take a moment to point out here on the blog.(You can read my full review of the book at Good Comics For Kids.)

1.) The villains gather. Though Magica De Spell, The Beagle Boys and Flintheart Glomgold are Scrooge's greatest foes, and each has their own longstanding conflict with him, Rosa details here that each villain's desires differ greatly from one another, so much so that they can all play a part in a coordinated attack against Scrooge.

Also, I thought it notable that their alliance doesn't fail for the same reason similar groupings of supervillains generally fail in superhero comics. That is, while they don't necessarily like or respect one another, they aren't done in by infighting or betrayal...at least, not until a panel that acts as a sort of coda to that aspect of the story, perhaps suggesting why these guys didn't make such a team-up a regular thing. 

2.) Scrooge puts two and two together. The bad guys' plan involves keeping Scrooge away from his money bin by having him sit through an interminable ceremony in his honor, and another part of the plan involves the various villains taking on magically created disguises, these generated by a transmutation wand that Magica purchased with Glomgold's money. 

There is apparently one flaw in the disguises though: Transmuted or not, a person's shadow remains the same. That's how Scrooge, with an assist from a nephew, realizes that the speaker is actually Glomgold in disguise. 

The last panel in the above sequence, in which Scrooge realizes that Glomgold must be working with Magica and that means trouble for him, is a great one, one of those "only-in-comics" bits of storytelling.

3.) The disguises break down. During his mad dash back to his money bin, Scrooge runs headlong into Magica, damaging her transmutation wand. The result? The disguises that the Beagle Boys had adopted, each of them appearing to be a different one of Scrooge's friends or family, start to fall apart. They don't disappear entirely, but the Beagle Boys suddenly look like hybrids of themselves and a duck character, and Rosa gives them each a unique form, as you can see above (Unfortunately for Donald and one of the Beagle Boys, Donald was in the process of kissing "Daisy" when Scrooge accidentally damaged the wand).

The Beagle Boys would remain in this weird state for a few more pages, giving us a few more fun images of a Beagle head atop Daisy's body or a nephew's torso atop a Beagle's legs. 

Not pictured here are the Beagles who were disguised as Gladstone Gander and Gyro Gearloose. The former resumes his Beagle body, but he is now dressed in Gladstone's far too small clothes (Rosa never draws him from the waist down; the Beagles wear pants, remember, while the ducks don't). The latter is bisected vertically, so that he looks like a Beagle Boy on the right half of his body, while the left half of his body is that of Gyro.

My four favorite parts of Faith Erin Hicks' new Inbetweens

Faith Erin Hicks' latest graphic novel Inbetweens stars twin sisters Ash and Sloane, both of whom are gifted young artists who have shared the dream of working in animation since they were little girls. As the book opens, they are about to attend a summer-long animation program for high school students at the prestigious Ormidale College, and, better yet, one of their heroes will actually be one of their instructors!

They make new friends, like Cameron, a boy who excels at drawing backgrounds and animals but is quickly bored by drawing the same things over and over, and Nisha, perhaps the most naturally talented person at camp, although at least one of her instructors is quite dismissive of her (Whether this is because she is one of the few young women in the program, or because of her darker skin, Hicks never makes it explicit).

The twins also meet a variety of mentors, one quite good and one quite bad, they are exposed to new kinds of animation beyond the Disney and Disney-like feature films they know inside and out (particular anime, and particular Studio Ghibli anime) and they discover different ways of learning and thinking about art.

They also, for the very first time, find reason to question their dream, as they learn exactly how difficult the work (and the people) can be, and both of them start to wonder if animation is really for them or not, although for very different reasons.

Hicks sets the book in the summer of 1999 (according to a calendar we see in the girls' bedroom), which I imagine is because she herself is, as her bio on the back cover says, a "former animation industry professional", and is basing the graphic novel at least in part on her own experiences. That's natural, of course, and I have to imagine that the field of, say, the 2020s is quite different than that of the late '90s, as the increasingly popular use of computers has so completely changed the way so much animation looks these days and, I assume, how it is made (I can't say for certain, but computers must make things like drawing the "inbetweens" far, far easier, right...?). 

While it does feel weird to think of a graphic novel set during my young adulthood as a "period piece", I was rather glad of it, as it meant I got all the references! (Well, being an American, I wasn't familiar with The Sweater, a 1980 National Film Board of Canada short that is one of the five films Hicks recommends at the end of the book, but I recognized all the others.). 

Plenty of real films are discussed or play a part in the story, including Disney's The Great Mouse Detective and One Hundred and One Dalmatians and Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky and Kiki's Delivery Service (Both of which would later become, retroactively, Disney movies, I guess). 

Additionally, the backgrounds are full of posters for recognizable movies, many with slightly off titles. For example, there's a poster in the halls at Orindale for a movie called All Good Boys, the sketchy image of which is colored in a way to suggest All Dogs Go to Heaven.

One fictional movie plays a pretty big part in the book, and that's a film directed by Ash's animation hero Douglas Frye entitled Monstrous, which looks and sounds a bit like The Iron Giant (Confession: I've never actually watched The Iron Giant).  As to why Hicks needed to make up a movie to attribute to Frye, well, a) he's fictional and b) he turns out to maybe not be the best of mentors and he is gradually painted in a rather poor light.

I picked the book up both because I am a longtime fan of Hicks' work and because I was planning on reviewing it for Good Comics for Kids, but a colleague of mine beat me to it. So instead of writing a formal review for it, I wanted to call attention to some of what I think were the most fun and interesting elements of the book here. 

1.) It's fun to see Hicks' version of various anime characters. Early in the story, we sit in on the program's film class, taught by Lisa Sato, the only female instructor there (I'm not sure how the animation industry looks today, but Hicks' book certainly seems to suggest that it was quite male dominated in the '90s). Her job is to expose the kids to animation made outside of America, and this of course leads to anime...and thus seeing Hick's drawings of famous characters you probably know from animation.

In this panel, for example, we see Hicks' "covers" of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, Nadia from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and Rei Ayanami and the Evangelion Unit 01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Nadia is an interesting choice, I thought, because I assumed it wasn't a terribly well-known anime (I had only watched it in the early '00s after I learned that it was created by Hideaki Anno and Gainax, the creators of Evangelion), but then, it's quite illustrative of the teacher's point, that two anime shows from the same folks could be so different. 

In the very next panel, the teacher slides a VHS tape labeled "Laputa" into the VCR to show the kids Castle in the Sky (Laputa is the name of the castle and is sometimes part of the title of the film). Later, Nisha shares Kiki's Delivery Service with Sloane and Cameron (in addition to inspiring them, its plot rather directly informs the way the kids see their own conflicts). At another point, Nisha mentions Princess Mononoke. In each case, Hicks draws characters and scenes from those films into the action of her story, as the kids enter into the worlds of the films. In the case of Princess Mononoke, it's just a panel, but the sequences are a bit bigger and longer for the other two films. 

Hicks mostly has the Miyazaki characters looking away from the readers, though, so while readers will clearly recognize Kiki during passages of the book, they won't really see Hicks' version of her as clearly as they saw Hicks' Astro Boy, Nadia and Rei.

2.) Hicks does a great job of illustrating the act of animation in the medium of comics. Animation usually means doing a lot of drawing and drawing the same things over and over. So how does a cartoonist manage to dramatize the action of a character sitting at a table and drawing, say, a ball, over and over and over again? And how do they do it in a way that is compelling to read?

I liked Hicks' solution to the problem of "drawing about drawing" quite a bit. In fact, I think this is the most interesting aspect of the book, from a storytelling perspective, and I'm only addressing it second as I was writing about the parts that struck me in the order in which they appear in the comic.

Now, in the very first scene of the book, Hicks draws Ash drawing, a two-and-a-half page sequence that starts with a splash of her hands, one of which holds a pencil, over a notebook; the image is overlapped on the splash by a similar image, in which the sketch of a tree has now appeared. One inset panel shows a close-up of Ash's eyes and another of her tongue sticking out.

On the next page and a half, we see multiple images of her hands and the pencil as she's obviously moving them around quickly, and hand-drawn sound effects like "SHF" and "SKRATCH" appear around her.

So that's Hicks drawing drawing. But drawing animation? 

Well, on this two-page splash above we see Ash and Sloane literally drawing in the foreground, while, in the background, Hicks adopts a more symbolic approach, showing us what they are drawing, while multiple images of of the girls hover around the action they are drawing. 

What they are working on here is their first animation assignment, the bouncing ball. They have been tasked with drawing a bouncing ball, which necessitates drawing that ball over and over again on different sheets of paper, the ball seemingly moving a little on each page, so that, when the pages are flipped, the ball appears to move on its own. (On the end pages at the beginning of the book, Hicks draws another version of Ash and Sloane standing next to sketches of bouncing balls, too).

On the next pages, we see Cameron and Nisha similarly animating their bouncing balls, their full-color figures standing alongside the full-size sketches of the balls with their pencils pointed at them (Interestingly, Cameron gets bored, and, after a deep sigh, he ends up giving the balls faces and accessories and draws a background for the "characters".)

Later still, the kids all get the more advanced task of animating a flour sack as if it is alive, and Hicks uses this same technique to show the characters in the act of animation. Ash's bag seems to move clumsily in one panel, and then she sits down next to it to talk to it. Meanwhile, we see Nisha dancing alongside her flour sack, using her pencil a little like a conductor uses a baton to move it along. And, again, Cameron is bored; in the few panels featuring him during this sequence, we see a barely sketched flour sack laying on its side, while he's busy drawing an extremely detailed house and trees in the background.

3.) I just thought this was funny. At one point, the kids take a field trip to an agricultural fair, where they are to do life drawing of real animals (I can't remember which making-of-documentary I saw this on, probably one for the Lion King or Jungle Book or something with wild animals, but I remember seeing a scene in which Disney animators are shown sitting around with sketchbooks at the zoo to study how the animals look and move in real life). 

First, I just love Sloane's response to Ash, "We both know horses are impossible to draw." Not just hard or difficult—impossible! This is, of course, all the funnier because they are characters in a drawn comic book, and they are standing right there next to a horse, a horse that Hicks has obviously drawn, and thus they can't be all that impossible to draw (It's a good horse, too! Although, I guess Hicks got lots of practice while working on 2022's Ride On).

(Speaking of drawing horses, when I was still in grade-school, I used to borrow those how-to-draw books from the library, those guides that broke drawing whatever subject was into a few simple shapes to build upon, and the one I remember the best was the one on horses, and how you would start with two big circles and later connect them, forming the horses' body. I remember quite clearly showing my work to my grandfather who was visiting us that evening, and him saying, "Hey Mugget," his name for my grandmother Margaret, "Look at this horse! It's a little husky, isn't it?" I'm not sure if I remember that because he was making fun of my art, or because it was the first time I heard the word "husky", but it embedded itself in my memory. I think the last such book I ever read was one I had bought from Books Galore in Erie, Pennsylvania, a big, 1998 paperback entitled How To Draw DC Comics Super Heroes illustrated by John Delaney and Ron Boyd that I purchased because I wanted to be able to draw in that Bruce Timm-inspired animated style of the time. It did not, in fact, teach me to draw like Bruce Timm...or John Delaney...or Ron Boyd, but it's fun to look at some deeper-cut DC heroes drawn in that style, as this was well before the Justice League cartoon. I tried to post a thread of images from it on Bluesky the other day, but I don't think they threaded quite right.). 

The talk of the difficulty of drawing horses also reminded me of Kelley Jones' various scary horses, seen in his 2000 Vertigo adaptation of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and the 2001-2002 series The Crusades with Steven T. Seagle (I wonder, was that series a pitch for a dark, gritty Vertigo take on The Shining Knight, or am I just making that up?). When I had to draw scary horses for one of my own terrible minicomics, I looked to Jones' horses for inspiration, rather than real horses. 

Finally, the exchange also reminded me of one of the funnier bits of Brian Michael Bendis' memoir Fortune & Glory: The Musical, in which Bendis shares an anecdote regarding the legendary Gil Kane's reaction to Frank Miller's then hot comic Ronin (Spoiler: It involves the drawing of horses).

The scene continues, though, as we learn Cameron also likes drawing cars. I can't even remember the last time I attempted to draw a car for any reason...

4.) Guess the anime. When Nisha wants to share her favorite movie with her new friends, she takes them to a video store to show them the "Japanese Animation" section, where she will select Kiki's Delivery Service (Poor kids today, never knowing the pleasure of renting a movie from a video store...)

I always enjoy seeing fake movies in comic (the posters on the outside windows of the store are for Monster, Kiss Me Stupid, Alien Hunter and the apparently Child's Play-esque Killer Doll 5). This bottom panel shows us the covers of a bunch of anime, little rectangles upon which Hicks has room for a tiny picture, a splash of color and a word or two or three worth of title.

Still, that's enough that you can recognize Neon Genesis Evangelion ("Neon Angel"), Hamtaro ("I Am Hammy"), Trigun ("Twogun"), Sailor Moon ("Moon"), Cowboy Bebop ("Cowboy Jazz") and Dragon Ball Z ("Z"). 

The rest, I'm not sure about, but I enjoyed puzzling over them as I went back to linger on this panel. I think "Doll" may be referring to Chobits, but that's just a guess. Similarly, "War of the Elves" on the bottom shelf may be Record of Lodoss War...? Or maybe Those That Hunt Elves...? I'm just guessing; I've never seen the former and saw only a few episodes of the latter.

Similarly, I got nothing "Road Rage", "Knight" or "Sweet", but I would be curious to hear your guesses (Given the red hair on the cover of "Knight", I wonder, could it be Magic Knight Rayearth...?)  

And in the lower righthand corner, the image on that one DVD suggests Akira, but I'll be damned if I can read that little red writing over black with my now old man eyes...

On 1989's Secret Origins #44

As you're probably already well aware, one of the next movies based on a DC Comics character is going to be Clayface, currently scheduled for an October release. It doesn't strike me as a very good idea, as a solo film starring a C-list villain of an A-list superhero suggests 2022's Morbius to me. But then, no one asked me...and I think it's safe to assume that James Gunn knows more about making movies than I do. 

Now, movies based on Big Two comics characters tend to influence the publishers in two ways. First, it generally gooses them to collect comics starring that character to release in trade to potential new readers inspired to seek out said characters' comics origins. Second, it can lead to the publisher commissioning new comics starring that character. 

I was thinking the other day about the former in regards to Clayface, a character—well, a whole group of characters who share the same name—who doesn't really have all that many classic storylines for DC mine for trade paperback fodder. 

In fact, they've already published two comics for the mainstream, beyond-the-comics-shop market, 2017's Batman Arkham: Clayface, a collection of 14 stories published between 1940 and 2013 starring at least a half-dozen different Clayfaces, and 2023's Batman—One Bad Day: Clayface, a Killing Joke-inspired original graphic novel starring what has become the most popular and default version of the character, actor Basil Karlo-with-Matt Hagen's-powers. (In what I think is probably telling regarding the Clayface character/s status in Batman's rogues galleries, these books aren't unique to him; a whole bunch of Batman villains have their own Batman Arkham anthology collections and Batman—One Bad Day OGNs.)

When thinking of Clayface comics DC could collect in the hopes of the existence of Clayface-curious demand this fall, the one story arc that came to mind was 1989's "The Mud Pack", a four-part Detective Comics epic by the creative team of Alan Grant, Norm Breyfogle and Steve Mitchell (One of the best creative teams to ever tackle the Dark Knight).

Here, let's look at the covers:

This is basically the ultimate Clayface story, starring all four of the Batman villains to bear that name up until that point kinda sorta teaming up: Clayface Basil Karlo, a horror actor turned murderer who wore a clay mask; Clayface II Matt Hagen, a thief who discovered a radioactive pool in a pool that gave him the ability to change shape; Clayface III Preston Payne, a madman whose body would melt away like candle wax if not encased in a special suit and whose deadly, burning touch can reduce his victims to formless protoplasm; and Lady Clayface Sondra Fuller, who was given shape-changing powers similar to Hagen by Kobra in an issue of The Outsiders. (I say "kinda sorta" only because Hagen is, at that point, dead, and didn't have much choice over whether Karlo propped his remains up at the meeting table or not). 

In the end, Karlo manages to turn himself into the ultimate Clayface, assuming the powers of all of the other Clayfaces for his own, while the other living Clayfaces are kinda sorta written off.

I don't recall seeing a whole lot of any of the Clayfaces between this story's publication and the 2011 New 52 relaunch, an issue or two appearance aside. In the new New 52 continuity, thatwhole history and legacy of the Clayfaces was done away with, and DC basically just smooshed Karlo and Hagen into a single character, following the lead of Batman: The Animated Series, in which the sole Clayface had Hagen's comic book powers, but was, like Karlo, an actor. (That episode, by the way, aired in 1992, and I suppose therefore owes something to Grant's "Mud Pack", which first blended the actor Clayface with the shape-shifting Clayface). 

Batman: The Animated Series is probably the most influential Clayface story; for most comic book appearances of a Clayface to follow, he resembled the design seen in the cartoon. 

Anyway, if DC Comics wanted to publish a trade featuring a big Clayface story, "The Mud Pack" is pretty much all they've got, if you ask me (Do correct me if you have other suggestions, though!). Of course, they have published "The Mud Pack" in collected form before, in 2015's Legends of The Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle Vol. 1 and 2021's Batman: The Dark Knight Detective Vol. 4, but not as a standalone story, one that would be visibly a Clayface story rather than a Batman one, you know?

Of course, "The Mud Pack" is only 88-pages along...is that maybe not enough for a trade? Well, luckily, there is a tie-in that could help fill out some trade paperback pages, 1989's Secret Origins #44, a special, all-Clayface issue published in conjunction with Detective's "Mud Pack" storyline. (Other candidates? In 1994, Grant checked back in with Clayface III and Lady Clayface in a Bret Blevins-drawn two-parter in Shadow of the Bat #26 and #27, and then in 1998 Grant and pencil artist Mark Buckingham had "Ultimate" Clayface Basil Karlo return for the first time since "The Mud Pack" in Shadow of The Bat #75).

I didn't expect to be able to find Secret Origins #44. I've been fairly fascinated with that series lately (as you may have noticed from my posts on stories from it featuring Detective Chimp and company, Rex the Wonder Dog and the Justice League of America), and have found myself increasingly wishing DC would collect (I think a couple of DC Finest collections would be perfect, DC). 

But to my surprise, DC did actually already collect issue #44 though, in the pages of the aforementioned Batman Arkham: Clayface. "Mud Pack" proper isn't in there—I assumed due to its length, as the Arkham collections obviously favor shorter stories, although they do include the four-part "The Shape of Things to Come" from Batman: Gotham Knights circa 2005, starring Clayface V—but the Secret Origins issue is.

I was particularly surprised to see this was the case, as it retold the origins of Clayfaces I-III...and the original origins are also collected in the Arkham trade. Still, I'm not complaining! Not only did it finally allow me to read a tie-in to "The Mud Pack" (although it's tangential at best, and totally unnecessary to understanding and enjoying the arc), but it features some extremely interesting artwork, from Keith Giffen and Bernie Mireault (!!!), plus Tom Grummet, who's not exactly a slouch.

So, after like 14 paragraphs of preface, let's take a look at the actual issue, shall we...?

The first fourteen pages are devoted to the origin of Basil Karlo, as retold by writer Mike Barr, pencil artist Giffen and inker Al Gordon.

The shape-changing Lady Clayface uses her powers to infiltrate Arkham Asylum, where the now elderly Karlo is in a hospital style bed with IVs and other medical apparatus all around him. 

"You're the one they call 'Clayface'--the first one, aren't you!"  she demands. "Why do you care?" he replies, and she responds, "I'll tell you--if you first tell me why they call you 'Clayface.'"

He then launches into his story, a 12-page retelling of 1940's "The Murders of Clayface" by Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson, which, as I said, is also included in this Arkham collection (At least, that's what the credits in the table of contents say! I can't personally vouch for how much Kane actually drew of it!).

Barr and Giffen stick fairly close to the original, although it's quite a bit of fun to flip back and forth, and to compare and contrast various aspects of a Batman story in 1940 vs. 1989, where the plot is so similar, and you can see things like, say, how Kane/Robinson might have drawn Robin leaping feet-first at the murderer, or how Golden Age Batman varies from late-eighties Batman or just how different Julie Madison looks between the two eras:

Aside from the one-page prologue and epilogue set in the present and the opening splash, the entire story is broken into strict, six-panel grids, and it's quite fun to see Giffen's post-Dark Knight Returns take on Batman here. He's a big, boxy, perpetually shadowed shape of a man, the only details emerging from the blackness that seems to always fall across him are his furrowed brows, narrow white eyes and a bright yellow bat-symbol (Even when he's out of costume and presenting as Bruce Wayne, he's huge and boxy, sort of like a Dick Sprang Batman/Bruce Wayne as filtered through Frank Miller's style). 

(Among my favorite images are a long-shot of the Dynamic Duo swinging on their bat-ropes in front of a big, full moon, where they look more like talking capes than human beings.)

On the final page, Karlo raves a bit about his intention to avenge himself against Batman, and his visitor reveals herself: "My real name doesn't matter! You can call me the new Clayface!" She spends two panels relaying her origins, an asterisk telling us she is referring to Outsiders #22. Karlo asks her to free him, she refuses and departs, and, left alone in the dark again, Karlo tells himself, "The Batman has not seen the last of me...nor have you."

I guess it's the exchange here that most directly ties into "The Mud Pack"...although I guess knowing the origins of all the players would have been helpful going into Grant's story arc.

A turn of the page takes us to "The Tragic Though Amusing History of Clayface II", written by Dan Raspler, penciled by "BEM 89" and inked by Dennis Roider. 

It was this story that most interested me in checking this issue of Secret Origins out, as I was eager to see Mireault playing in the DC Universe again (Mireault is the creator of The Jam, collaborated with Mike Allred on Madman comics and Matt Wagner on Grendel comics, and also illustrated the "When Is a Door?' story in Secret Origins Special #1; written by Neil Gaiman*, it was a great last, ultimate Riddler story, and though obviously the character has been in fairly constant circulation since, I think it would have been a fine story to retire him after). 

Raspler and Mireault's story is played as a comedy, something helped tremendously by Mirelaut's cartooning, which gives this technically-still-a-superhero story the look and feel of an underground comic.

"Lucky" Matt Hagen seeks out sunken treasure, and finds a chest full of little pots of "oily, mucus-like stuff". When he departs for the surface, he accidentally swims into a rocky out-cropping, only to discover, with a "SPURB!!" sound effect, that he has been irrevocably changed!

It takes him about three pages and a failed suicide attempt, but he soon realizes he can regenerate his own head, he is now bullet-proof, and he can change shape. 

Naturally, he turns to a life crime in Gotham City and thus begins his career as a Batman villain. The World's Greatest Detective often catches him, but Hagen's powers and ability to survive pretty much anything keeps him coming back again and again.

Then comes Crisis on Infinite Earths, which Mireault draws like this—

—where Hagen finally meets his end, when a Shadow Demon flies through him, killing him with a "BLOOOSH!". (This story has some pretty great sound effects). 

And that's pretty much the end of Hagen...although, in the final panels, we see Karlo collecting Hagen's remains, which will be integral to the plot of "The Mud Pack".

Finally, we get to "His Name is Clayface III", by writer Len Wein (who had created this Clayface in a 1978 issue of Detective Comics) and artists Tom Grummett and Gary Martin.  While I never read Wein's original story starring Preston Payne (although it is collected in this Arkham book), I was fairly familiar with this particular Clayface's powers, look and particular brand of madness (talking to a mannequin, with which he seems to have a romantic relationship), as he was a fairly frequent cameo in Batman comics that featured scenes in Arkham Asylum in the 1980s.

Here, he sits in an Arkham cell in an easy chair with his mannequin, holding a copy of TV Guide and watching the television in front of him. They watch an episode of the show The Notorious, hosted by Jack Ryder, which is apparently a documentary series featuring criminals. 

This episode features him, but, unimpressed with the five-panels detailing his criminal career, he then tells his mannequin mate his origin in his own words. A genius scientist who suffers from acromegaly, he seeks a cure via Matt Hagen's blood. It works, allowing him to reform his deformed face into that of a very handsome man...but its efficacy is short-lived.

Soon his face starts to melt, and when he grabs his screaming date, she too melts away. Going forward, a burning pain will build up in his body, and the only way to temporarily relieve it is by touching and thus melting a victim. While Batman doesn't appear beyond a single-panel cameo, the serial-killing obviously made him an enemy of Batman's, and the whole experience seemed to drive him mad.

Aside from constantly ranting to a mannequin, the last panel reveals that there's not actually anything playing on his TV set, just static, and everything else seems to be in his head.

I really like Grummett's art, and his is like a Platonic ideal of superhero comic art, although in the context of this particular issue, it seems a little plain and even bland, given how distinct Giffen and Mireault's contributions are.

***************************

Ironically, the Clayfaces relatively minor position in the hierarchy of Batman villains make them well-suited to a collection like Batman Arkham: Clayface, which featured a cover by artist Guillem March (Which originally appeared on 2013's Batman: The Dark Knight #23.3; though it features The New 52 Basil Karlo Clayface, note that the design is clearly inspired by that of Batman: The Animated Series' Matt Hagen). 

I didn't read the whole collection, just the new stories that interested me (a few of the stories within are ones that I had read elsewhere before). As I said before, it features the first appearances of most of the Clayfaces, and there's a handful of really great artists whose work appears here. 

What then will you find, beyond Secret Origins #40...? 

•The first Clayface story from 1940, which I mentioned above.

•1961's "The Challenge of Clay-Face" by Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris, introducing Matt Hagen (and, through him, the concept of the shape-changing Clayfaces).

•1978's Detective Comics #478 and #479 by Len Wein, Marshall Rogers and Dick Giordano, introducing Clayface III.

•1987's Outsiders #21 by Mike Barr and Jim Aparo, introducing Lady Clayface and some even goofier villains, sicced on Batman, Metamorpho, Black Lightning and the goofballs that filled out the ranks of the Outsiders by the supervillain Kobra.

•1998's Batman #550 by writer Doug Moench, with pencil art divided between then regular Batman artist Kelley Jones and J.H. Williams III. This issue's Clayface was Clayface IV, Cassisus, the son of Clayface III and Lady Clayface. Jones was obviously well-suited to the body horror aspects of a Clayface (in the scene above, this Clayface uses the people-melting power inherited from his father to melt a policeman) and as for Williams' presence, well, he was drawing the upcoming Chase ongoing series, which this issue was a lead-in for. In fact, this issue is the first appearance of Cameron Chase and the Department of Extranormal Operations.

•2002's Catwoman #4 by Ed Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke and Mike Allred, pitting the Feline Fatale against an all-new Clayface, this one created in a military experiment. I think this would be Clayface V...unless you count Lady Clayface as Clayface IV, in which case he's Clayface VI...? At this point, I think it's safe to say there are officially too many Clayfaces.

•"If a Man be Clay!", a story by Steve Purcell, Mike Mignola and Kevin Nowlan, that was originally published in 2005's Batman Villains Secret Files and Origins #1 and featured Batman and the original Robin taking on Matt Hagen for the first time. From what I understand, this one was sitting in a drawer for a while, but was rescued to be published here...and why wouldn't DC rescue it...? It was Mignola drawing the shape-changing Hagen! Though it follows the plot of "The Challenge of Clay-Face" closely, and contains much of the same imagery, it's great fun to see those scenes drawn in Mignola's moody style, particularly with Nowlan's evocative inking.

•The aforementioned "The Shape of Things to Come" from Gotham Knights, by A.J. Lieberman, Al Barrionuevo and Bit. I didn't read this one, either when it was originally published (I had dropped Gotham Knights by that point) nor in this collection, but it apparently features the Johnny Williams Clayface, the one previously seen in Catwoman.  Also, Hush is in this one. 

•2013's "Not Just Another Pretty Face" by John Layman and Cliff Richards, from Batman: The Dark Knight #23.3, the previously mentioned comic from which the collection's cover is taken. It seems to star the New 52 Basil Karlo.

So, to review, this collection features art by Bernie Mireault, Kelly Jones, Darwyn Cooke and Mike Mignola, plus Sheldon Moldoff, Marshall Rogers, Jim Aparo, Keith Giffen and Tom Grummett. That's not bad company to spend time in...!

*Yeah, him again. This then is another comic now more or less ruined by the presence of Gaiman's credit, his recently revealed actions tainting all of the quality work he helped produce over the decades of his comics career.