I gave Faces of Evil: Prometheus a flip-through at the shop today. The Grant Morrison JLA run that spawned him remains one of my favorite comic book reading experiences, and I was kinda curious how DC planned to rehab the character after he was so poorly written in Batman: Gotham Knights and subsequent appearances. Essentially, he went from Morrison's conception as a kind of reverse Batman (criminal parents killed by cops, swears vengeance on the forces of law and justice) with Matrix powers (can download skills directly into his brain) to a run-of-the-mill henchman working under the Jeph Loeb-created evil plastic surgeon Hush.
What I saw was a pretty lame attempt at restoration by writer Sterling Gates—there were two Promethei, the original badass one and a more incompetent imposter—and some decent enough art by Federico Dalbochio. So whatever, a pretty run-of-the-mill, not terribly intersting looking comic book.
And then I noticed Anima was in it. I've mentioned her at least once before on EDILW, but for those of you unfamiliar, she was a teenage runaway character heavily influenced in design, fashion and tastes by the popular "alternative" music of her mid-90's origin. She debuted as part of DC's throw-a-bunch-of-new-heroes-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks "New Blood" event. She was one of the more sucessful characters from the event, earning a solo series that lasted 16 issues (two more than Gunfire, nowhere near as many as Hitman).
It wasn't the greatest book, and swathes of it don't hold up very well today, but I really liked it while it lasted, and, even looking back today from a 30+ year old's eyes, there are still a lot of admirable things about it. It tackled some tough issues—the heroine's best friend was a lesbian with AIDs, for example—in a way that was lightyears more subtle and effective than what you get in your modern Judd Winick comic.
Speaking of Judd Winick, he pulled Anima out of limbo to have her brutally killed alongside a bunch of other minor characters he didn't create in 2007's Titans East Special #1 (Check the comments section at that link for a few word's from one of Anima's creators about her origins).
So I was pretty surprised to see her in this book, being brutaly killed again.
I didn't follow Winick's new Titans series, because it was a Judd Winick Titans series, so I guess maybe Anima and all those other characters weren't actually killed-killed, just really, really, really, really badly hurt. Well, if Winick didn't finish her off, it looks like Gates does so here—as she gets completely cut in half.
So did DC pluck a minor character forgotten by all but a few fans, violently kill her off to show how bad-ass a villain was and motivate some other heroes to ge revenge in one book, forget about her for a year or so, and then bring her back to violently kill her off again to show how bad-ass another villain is...?
If not admirable, its at least endearing the way DC wholeheartedly embraces its decadence, isn't it?
Showing posts with label anima. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anima. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Culling the character herd: Begin each new series with a blood sacrifice
When Judd Winick was about to launch the new series The Outsiders, he and co-writer Geoff Johns first collaborated in a three-issue miniseries entitled Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day in which Donna Troy was seemingly killed off and long-time Titans supporting character Lilith “Omen” Clay was killed off.
When Winick was about to launch the new Black Canary/Green Arrow series, he first wrote Black Canary/Green Arrow Wedding Special #1, in which Green Arrow Oliver Queen was seemingly killed off and one-year-old villain Everyman was killed off.
So now that Winick is about to launch a new Titans series, reuniting the Wolfman/Perez era Titans, he naturally first wrote Titans East Special #1 in which he…killed off a bunch of characters.
Who did Winick sacrifice to his pagan gods to pray for moderate sales success this time? Let’s take a look…
ANIMA
Created by: Paul Witcover, Elizabeth Hand and Malcolm Davis in New Titans Annual #9 (1993)
Appeared in: Pretty much just the “Bloodlines” books and her own title, with a cameo or two elsewhere (Zero Hour, the Infinite Crisis trade collection).
Noted for: Being the second most successful New Blood character (Of the three awarded their own ongoings, hers lasted 16 issues; Himtan lasted 61, while Gunfire only lasted 14); being mentioned positively in Sassy magazine.
Will be missed by: Probably just me
LAGOON BOY
Created by: Erik Larsen, Eric Battle and Norm Rapmund in Aquaman #54 (1999)
Appeared in: Aquaman, Robin #83-#84, Young Justice: No Man’s Land #1, Young Justice #20-#21, the “Sins of Youth” crossover (Particularly Sins of Youth: Aquaboy/Lagoon Man #1)
Noted for: Being the breakout character of Larsen’s Aquaman run
Will be missed by: Young Justice fans
POWER BOY
Created by: Probably the creators of 52, where he debuted
Appeared in: A couple issues of 52, Supergirl
Noted for: Being a creepy stalker/would-be rapist psychopath; once being referred to in one of the year’s most notorious DC Nation columns as a “mimbo.”
Will be missed by: No one
VULCAN
Created by: Scott Beatty and Keron Grant in Son of Vulcan #1 (2005)
Appeared in: Son of Vulcan, JSA: Classified #19
Noted for: Starring in a book that was a lot like the current Blue Beetle series, only read by even fewer people; debuting in the midst of the Infinite Crisis build-up
Will be missed by: Dozens of Son of Vulcan fans
DOVE II
Created by: Karl and Barbara Kesel and Rob Liefeld in Hawk and Dove #1 (1988), based on Steve Ditko’s original Dove
Appeared in: Hawk & Dove, Armageddon 2001, JSA #45-#50, Teen Titans
Noted for: Being drawn by Liefeld before he moved to Marvel Comics and blew up
Will be missed by: Politedissent.com
HAWK III
Created by: Geoff Johns and Mike McKone in Teen Titans #22 (2005), based on previous Ditko character
Appeared in: Teen Titans, 52
Noted for: Being a long lost sister from a different country that was never, ever mentioned before her very first appearance; being a member of one of the “Lost Year” Titans line-ups.
Will be missed by: Geoff Johns, dozens of Teen Titans readers, Aquagirl II
Notice anything these characters all have in common? Aside from the fact that they're all mostly new-ish characters, created within the last two decades?
How about the fact that none of them were created by Winick, whom we see here once again subtracting from the fictional universe he writes for, rather than adding to it?
Let’s hear it for entropy!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Worst of The Scarecrow
While The Scarecrow has been drawn by a lot of great artists over the years, and starred in a lot of pretty good Batman comics, not every appearance is golden. Or bronze. Or tin. There have been quite a few bad Scarecrow stories and sub-par Scarecrow designs, so I’d like to take a break from highlighting some of the best of the Scarecrow to take a look at some of the worst.
You would think his strong visual hook and compelling modus operandi would make him into a popular villain for other DC books to borrow, but the fact of the matter is Scarecrow stories in non-Batman books don’t usually turn out so well.
For example, in 1994, The Scarecrow became the first DCU character to guest-star in brand-new series Anima, one of the many ill-fated attempts to spin something lasting out of the Bloodlines annual event (Hitman was ultimately the only Bloodlines ongoing with any legs at all).
Now, I have a soft spot for this series, and teenaged Caleb was pretty into it. Looking back now, it’s shameless in its pandering, and pretty hilarious in how dated it is (Anima is to grunge as Vibe is to breakdance), but, well, they were pandering to me specifically, and, like a lot of the DC comics I was reading at the time, I was just as enamored by the potential I saw in the characters as the characters themselves.
Someday I’m going to have to force myself to reread this series and write something serious on it, because it is an incredibly weird one. The art in the first few issues alone was so bizarre…almost collage-like, and the book looked and felt more like a bad Vertigo comic than a DCU comic of any kind, even when Hawkman or Superboy showed up.
Anyway, teenage runaway Courtney Mason, whom we’d previously met in New Titans Annual #9 and various Bloodlines branded books, has made her way to Rain City, which is a DCU fake city version of Seattle. In 1994! What cooler place to set a comic book, huh?
She’s befriended a few similar teenage outcasts, including an Asian pickpocket named Pockets and the diverse members of a grunge band called Boojum (Including a lesbian! Who likes her! In 1994!).
One of those bandmates is your typical dunderheaded type, who’s always trying to score with the ladies. Finding a hot chick passing out flyers for a strange new drug rehab clinic called New Dawn, he checks himself into it, in an attempt to score with the chick.
Turns out, New Dawn is actually run by Courtney’s evil aunt, a mad scientist type trying to figure out how Courtney and her mom are able to access some Carl Jungian style mystical mumbo jumbo realm called the Arcana and populated by archetypes (Courtney can summon “Animus,” a big, hairy red monster that beats things up for her). Also on staff? A skinny, bespectacled Gotham psychologist who goes by the name Dr. Egret.
Wait, egret? That’s a kind of bird, isn’t it? Like, a tall, skinny bird? With a long neck and long legs? Not unlike a crane? Oh my God! Dr. Crane! The Scarecrow!
When Courtney and Boojum bust into the joing, Dr. “Egret” captures Courtney, injects her, and puts on his costume for, like, four panels. Animus beats him up, and he goes to jail. Those cover images grossly exaggerate the amount of Scarecrow in the book, but Anima had a bad habit of grossly exaggerating the amount of guest-starrage in it. For example, the first issue was solicited as guest-starring Batman, but, in actuality, Animus simply impersonates Batman in one panel. (Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter do actually guest star later, however).
A more recent not-very-good Scarecrow story was Aquaman #30-#31, “Kiss of Death,” by Marc Guggenheim and Andy Clarke. This was during the last volume of Aquaman, after it quit being a boring book about Aquaman traveling around the world fighting The Thirst (who I’m pretty sure was actually a Kool-Aid Man villain at one point) and became a boring book about Aquaman being the Batman of Sub Diego.
In this particular story, someone is killing Sub Diegans by forcing oxygen down their throats, suffocating them (see, the Sub Diegans were mass-mutated to breathe water and exhale oxygen…which doesn’t make sense since there’s oxygen in water, but let’s not worry about that right now). Eight people have died so far, and Aquaman, Aquagirl II, and a new female police detective character want to solve the crime.
Since the killings are taking place underwater in Sub Diego, which used to be part of the city of San Diego, Aquaman decides he needs to talk to a specialist on serial killing, so obviously he travels all the way to east coast city Gotham to talk with Dr. Jonathan “The Scarecrow” Crane in Arkham Asylum.
Why? I have no idea. The killer isn’t doing anything at all fear related, and Crane is basically just used as a generic smart serial killer, a Hannibal Lecter to Aquaman’s Clarice (But that actually makes it sound more exciting than it actually is; their relationship is just quick and business like, and there’s no sense of Crane gaming Aquaman).
The closest I can come up with for an explanation to this story is that Guggenheim just really likes The Scarecrow (Hey, I don’t blame him!) and just squeezed him in here, since he happened to be writing a fill-in on Aquaman rather than a fill-in on Batman.
And since I can’t find my copy of Hawkman #26, those are all the bad comics guest-starring The Scarecrow that I’ve got.
Anyone have any other recommendations?
To return to the subject of Scarecrow character design, I think the very worst Scarecrow design of all probably belongs to artist Vince Giarrano (whose work I actually like quite a lot) who with writer Dough Moench created an alternate future version of the character that seems kind of amusing for about a second, but, if you look at/think about it any longer than that, you begin to realize how stupid it actually is.
Their Scarecrow appeared in 1996’s Batman Annual #20, one of the “Legends of the Dead Earth” themed annuals. This was undoubtedly the worst idea for themed annuals anyone at DC ever came up with. The gist of it was that sometime in the farflung future, the Earth was dead, and heroes had spread out onto other planets. None of them were really “our” heroes, since so much time has elapsed, but they all coincidentally had the same names and similar powers. I guess the idea was to show how enduring the DC heroes were or something, but the results were kind of unappealing. I think I only actually read two—the Batman annual and the Aquaman annual—so I don’t know, maybe some of them turned out great.
But Batman Annual #20 sure as hell wasn’t one of them.
What we had here was a story within a story. An old man is telling some young kids about the “Bat-Man,” which breaks up into little stories of a crazy looking Bat-Man and Darkwing (I think his name was). The former looked like a man in a werebat costume, as Rick Baker might design for a movie, and the latter looked like Hawkman with Robin’s colors on. Together, they flew around this big future city, capturing alternate future versions of Batman’s classic foes, whom they would then drop down a hollowed out tower into a prison they called Hell.
The villains were all redesigned by Giarrano, and I really loved the style he used on this book (his art was the main reason I bought it). Rereading it in preparation for Seven Days of the Scarecrow week, I was able to pin down exactly what I liked about it.
It was almost as if Giarrano was drawing the whole book sarcastically, in a loose, rough, exaggerated style that showed someone capable of much better aping a sort of post-Image house style not so much to replicate it, but because he thought it was funny. This is just a guess, of course, but given the subject of the story—the old man telling stories of these dark, wicked cook heroes and the silly villains they fought—it sure seems to fit.
Giarrano’s art here is like that of Marc Hempel’s mixed with Rob Liefeld’s, and that certainly makes it something worth taking a look at.
Anyway, for some reason Moench gives the all the villains lame names that underscore that they’re basically the traditionally rogues, only lamer. So the Penguin character is “Ice Bird,” The Joker is “The Jester,” and Catwoman is “Cat-Femme.”
The Scarecrow in this annual? He’s a guy whose job is to literally scare birds away from the crops, and then decides to try and scare Bat-Man and Darkwing, turning to a life of crime.
His design? He’s your classic Scarecrow…except he has the head of an actual crow. And, as Giarrano draws it, it’s a big old Heckle and Jeckle-style head. This Scarecrow is a crow scarecrow.
Finally, this is probably the absolute worst Scarecrow story ever written. Don't read it. Seriously. It's awful.
You would think his strong visual hook and compelling modus operandi would make him into a popular villain for other DC books to borrow, but the fact of the matter is Scarecrow stories in non-Batman books don’t usually turn out so well.
For example, in 1994, The Scarecrow became the first DCU character to guest-star in brand-new series Anima, one of the many ill-fated attempts to spin something lasting out of the Bloodlines annual event (Hitman was ultimately the only Bloodlines ongoing with any legs at all).
Now, I have a soft spot for this series, and teenaged Caleb was pretty into it. Looking back now, it’s shameless in its pandering, and pretty hilarious in how dated it is (Anima is to grunge as Vibe is to breakdance), but, well, they were pandering to me specifically, and, like a lot of the DC comics I was reading at the time, I was just as enamored by the potential I saw in the characters as the characters themselves.
Someday I’m going to have to force myself to reread this series and write something serious on it, because it is an incredibly weird one. The art in the first few issues alone was so bizarre…almost collage-like, and the book looked and felt more like a bad Vertigo comic than a DCU comic of any kind, even when Hawkman or Superboy showed up.
Anyway, teenage runaway Courtney Mason, whom we’d previously met in New Titans Annual #9 and various Bloodlines branded books, has made her way to Rain City, which is a DCU fake city version of Seattle. In 1994! What cooler place to set a comic book, huh?
She’s befriended a few similar teenage outcasts, including an Asian pickpocket named Pockets and the diverse members of a grunge band called Boojum (Including a lesbian! Who likes her! In 1994!).
One of those bandmates is your typical dunderheaded type, who’s always trying to score with the ladies. Finding a hot chick passing out flyers for a strange new drug rehab clinic called New Dawn, he checks himself into it, in an attempt to score with the chick.
Turns out, New Dawn is actually run by Courtney’s evil aunt, a mad scientist type trying to figure out how Courtney and her mom are able to access some Carl Jungian style mystical mumbo jumbo realm called the Arcana and populated by archetypes (Courtney can summon “Animus,” a big, hairy red monster that beats things up for her). Also on staff? A skinny, bespectacled Gotham psychologist who goes by the name Dr. Egret.
Wait, egret? That’s a kind of bird, isn’t it? Like, a tall, skinny bird? With a long neck and long legs? Not unlike a crane? Oh my God! Dr. Crane! The Scarecrow!
When Courtney and Boojum bust into the joing, Dr. “Egret” captures Courtney, injects her, and puts on his costume for, like, four panels. Animus beats him up, and he goes to jail. Those cover images grossly exaggerate the amount of Scarecrow in the book, but Anima had a bad habit of grossly exaggerating the amount of guest-starrage in it. For example, the first issue was solicited as guest-starring Batman, but, in actuality, Animus simply impersonates Batman in one panel. (Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter do actually guest star later, however).
A more recent not-very-good Scarecrow story was Aquaman #30-#31, “Kiss of Death,” by Marc Guggenheim and Andy Clarke. This was during the last volume of Aquaman, after it quit being a boring book about Aquaman traveling around the world fighting The Thirst (who I’m pretty sure was actually a Kool-Aid Man villain at one point) and became a boring book about Aquaman being the Batman of Sub Diego.
In this particular story, someone is killing Sub Diegans by forcing oxygen down their throats, suffocating them (see, the Sub Diegans were mass-mutated to breathe water and exhale oxygen…which doesn’t make sense since there’s oxygen in water, but let’s not worry about that right now). Eight people have died so far, and Aquaman, Aquagirl II, and a new female police detective character want to solve the crime.
Since the killings are taking place underwater in Sub Diego, which used to be part of the city of San Diego, Aquaman decides he needs to talk to a specialist on serial killing, so obviously he travels all the way to east coast city Gotham to talk with Dr. Jonathan “The Scarecrow” Crane in Arkham Asylum.
Why? I have no idea. The killer isn’t doing anything at all fear related, and Crane is basically just used as a generic smart serial killer, a Hannibal Lecter to Aquaman’s Clarice (But that actually makes it sound more exciting than it actually is; their relationship is just quick and business like, and there’s no sense of Crane gaming Aquaman).
The closest I can come up with for an explanation to this story is that Guggenheim just really likes The Scarecrow (Hey, I don’t blame him!) and just squeezed him in here, since he happened to be writing a fill-in on Aquaman rather than a fill-in on Batman.
And since I can’t find my copy of Hawkman #26, those are all the bad comics guest-starring The Scarecrow that I’ve got.
Anyone have any other recommendations?
To return to the subject of Scarecrow character design, I think the very worst Scarecrow design of all probably belongs to artist Vince Giarrano (whose work I actually like quite a lot) who with writer Dough Moench created an alternate future version of the character that seems kind of amusing for about a second, but, if you look at/think about it any longer than that, you begin to realize how stupid it actually is.
Their Scarecrow appeared in 1996’s Batman Annual #20, one of the “Legends of the Dead Earth” themed annuals. This was undoubtedly the worst idea for themed annuals anyone at DC ever came up with. The gist of it was that sometime in the farflung future, the Earth was dead, and heroes had spread out onto other planets. None of them were really “our” heroes, since so much time has elapsed, but they all coincidentally had the same names and similar powers. I guess the idea was to show how enduring the DC heroes were or something, but the results were kind of unappealing. I think I only actually read two—the Batman annual and the Aquaman annual—so I don’t know, maybe some of them turned out great.
But Batman Annual #20 sure as hell wasn’t one of them.
What we had here was a story within a story. An old man is telling some young kids about the “Bat-Man,” which breaks up into little stories of a crazy looking Bat-Man and Darkwing (I think his name was). The former looked like a man in a werebat costume, as Rick Baker might design for a movie, and the latter looked like Hawkman with Robin’s colors on. Together, they flew around this big future city, capturing alternate future versions of Batman’s classic foes, whom they would then drop down a hollowed out tower into a prison they called Hell.
The villains were all redesigned by Giarrano, and I really loved the style he used on this book (his art was the main reason I bought it). Rereading it in preparation for Seven Days of the Scarecrow week, I was able to pin down exactly what I liked about it.
It was almost as if Giarrano was drawing the whole book sarcastically, in a loose, rough, exaggerated style that showed someone capable of much better aping a sort of post-Image house style not so much to replicate it, but because he thought it was funny. This is just a guess, of course, but given the subject of the story—the old man telling stories of these dark, wicked cook heroes and the silly villains they fought—it sure seems to fit.
Giarrano’s art here is like that of Marc Hempel’s mixed with Rob Liefeld’s, and that certainly makes it something worth taking a look at.
Anyway, for some reason Moench gives the all the villains lame names that underscore that they’re basically the traditionally rogues, only lamer. So the Penguin character is “Ice Bird,” The Joker is “The Jester,” and Catwoman is “Cat-Femme.”
The Scarecrow in this annual? He’s a guy whose job is to literally scare birds away from the crops, and then decides to try and scare Bat-Man and Darkwing, turning to a life of crime.
His design? He’s your classic Scarecrow…except he has the head of an actual crow. And, as Giarrano draws it, it’s a big old Heckle and Jeckle-style head. This Scarecrow is a crow scarecrow.
Finally, this is probably the absolute worst Scarecrow story ever written. Don't read it. Seriously. It's awful.
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