Is this the first appearance of the Spear of Destiny in DC Comics? (1977's Weird War Tales #50)

One particularly interesting bit of New History of the DC Universe's timeline was the mention of the Roman centurion Longinus "using his spear to pierce the side of Christ on the cross," illustrated by two Dick Ayers and Alfredo Alcala-drawn panels. 

The first shows a longshot of three men on crosses (so, Jesus and the two thieves). The second is a medium shot depicting Longinus with his spear raised at the foot of the cross, of which we only see Jesus' feet in shadow. Yellow narration boxes are in both, referring to Jesus as "Christ" and "our dying savior."

Presumably timeline writer Dave Wielgosz included that entry because it is the origin of the Spear of Destiny. Indeed, the entry includes the sentence, "In future years, the weapon becomes known as the Spear of Destiny."

While the spear appeared in stories like John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake's volume of The Spectre, 1999's Day of Judgement and the lead story in JLA Secret Files and Origins 2004, its greatest import in the history of the DCU was that it was a powerful magical artifact that Adolf Hitler wielded during World War II. His possession of the spear was used as a retroactive explanation for why the Golden Age heroes (be they from Earth-2 or, later, the 1930s and 1940s of the shared, post-Crisis DCU) didn't just fly across the Atlantic and put a stop to the Nazis in couple of hours. 

(I feel like I've read stories featuring at least two different versions of the spear's ability to keep the likes of Superman, The Spectre and Doctor Fate at bay; in one, it erected an impenetrable forcefield over the European theater of the war, while in the other, if heroes got too close to it, it would allow Hitler to take control of them, and wield their considerable powers against the allies. If any of you guys know when the spear was first used as a retcon explanation for why the JSoA didn't fight in the frontlines during WWII, please let me know; I am assuming this was a Roy Thomas thing, likely from All-Star Squadron...?)

Regardless of exactly why Weilgosz included Jesus' crucifixion, I was excited to see it, as it establishes Jesus as a real historical figure with at least some literal magical properties, rather than something more equivocal, as one might find in a book about our universe's Jesus. 

And while DC comics may allude to Jesus, there's usually a degree of separation between the characters or action and Jesus as a historical figure. One quite famous attempt to include Jesus in a DC comic book story was scrapped at the last minute in 1989...although I guess they are finally going to publish it sometime this year.

But Weilgosz's mention of Jesus here, in the context of this timeline, suggests Christ is as much a DC character as, say, The Silent Knight or Tomahawk or Balloon Buster or Black Orchid or Ballistic. I find that interesting. Interesting, if not entirely surprising. As I've noted previously, what Douglas Wolk said about the Marvel Universe in his All of The Marvels also seems to apply to the DC Universe. That is, that there, all mythologies are apparently literally true. And that, obviously, includes Christianity. 

For that reason, I was quite eager to see the comic from which those panels featuring Longinus at the foot of the cross that were used to illustrate the mention of Jesus came from, as they seemed to indicate a retelling of the crucifixion story, which would obviously need to include Jesus as a character, right? Thankfully, the New History timeline also includes notations of which particular comics the events it refers to occurred in. This story of Longinus and the spear was from 1977's Weird War Tales #50, published the same year I was born!

Unfortunately, the issue, like so much of the 124-issue, 1971-1983 series, hasn't been collected (Although I think it would have been a perfect candidate for the old Showcase Presents, black-and-white phonebook-like format...maybe some of it will end up in future DC Finest collections...?) DC doesn't often collect their comics in ways that reflect my own personal reading habits of following particular tangents or falling down particular rabbit holes like, say, collecting all the comics featuring the Spear of Destiny into a single omnibus, for example.

So, it took some doing to track a copy of this issue down. To my surprise, when I finally did, I found that the panels used to illustrate the crucifixion in New History of the DC Universe weren't taken from a comic book retelling of the crucifixion story but rather appear in a sequence illustrating someone else telling a story about those events. So here again is an example of Jesus appearing in a story being told within a story, a level of narrative padding or distance built into a comic seemingly featuring him.

In other words, here is yet another comic which suggests that Jesus is real, but only shows him to us from some distance, acknowledging Jesus without ever exploring him as a character.

The story is entitled "--An Appointment With Destiny!", and it is a 17-pager written by Steve Englehart, and pencilled and inked by the aforementioned Ayers and Alcala. The cover, by Ernie Chan and Vince Colletta, depicts a startled American G.I. being menaced by a skeleton in a German helmet wielding the spear. (Skimming the series' cover gallery on the Grand Comics Database, Weird War Tales seems to suggest that there were an awful lot of skeletons fighting in WWII.)

The story opens on April 30, 1945 in Adolf Hitler's bunker. With a Luger in hand, the Fuhrer shouts to his assembled advisors in English that the Allies are in Berlin, and their shells have begun to shake the bunker:

The end has come for the Reich, and me! But fear not, my loyal and faithful friends!

Another will scale the heights we failed to reach! Wait for him, after I am gone! Wait for--

--AN APPOINTMENT WITH DESTINY!

He and Eva then leave the room and shut the door ("What we must do is not for others' eyes!"), and two big, red "BAMM" sound effects are heard through the door. 

Suddenly there's an explosion, and in charge a pair of American soldiers, their dialogue exchange introducing them as Walker and Baxter. They seem to know exactly what they've found too, calling the bunker "the chief rat's nest!" and mentioning snatching "Uncle Adolf" before "the Russkies" arrive. 

There's a brief, bloodless firefight that takes up all of one panel, and when they question the last surviving Nazi, he says that Hitler is gone and, portentously, "Now, we shall all await--the coming man!" 

No sooner does Walker find the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun—rather tastefully posed and free of blood; DC did still abide by the Comics Code Authority at the time of publication, after all—than he catches sight of another man out of the corner of his eye, a fleeting figure that seems to be wearing a military uniform under a reddish-brown fur coat, with a World War I-era helmet on its head.

The figure flees, and Walker gives chase, climbing into the ruined but deserted streets of Berlin. 

Out of nowhere, a spear flies, and lands bloodlessly in Walker's chest. He falls to his knees, clutching the wooden shaft, and then to his back, surviving just long enough to hear the speech about the weapon delivered by the mysterious figure:

On this day, the Spear of Destiny has brought death to Adolf Hitler, the greatest man our race has ever known!

You could scarcely have been spared.

Death comes to all who encounter this spear. Death--and power!

Power to stir men's blood, and raise a cry of battle! Power to stride unheard through rubble, and kill with unerring accuracy! Yes, and power even stranger than that!

Power--and death!

Which will I savor first, eh?

I-- the coming man!

While delivering that last line, the figure seems to rise into the air, as if he is about to fly away—another strange power of the spear's, perhaps?—or maybe Walker is just starting to lose it as he dies. Throughout these panels, though the "Coming Man" is presented in medium shot looking directly at the reader, his identity is still hidden, his face shaded by the rim of his helmet in two panels, and he appears only in silhouette in another. 

Baxter eventually finds Walker, and hears his comrade's strange story, a story that Walker claims he was only able to tell because the power of the spear kept him alive until he could tell someone. Promising Walker he would get the Nazi that killed him, Baxter sets off in search of the Coming Man.

He finds a trail of footprints in the snow that start out of nowhere, presumably made when the Coming Man came back down to ground. He encounters some Russian soldiers who order him to fall in with them, but he flees—"I've gotta see a man about a spear!"—and they fire on him.

He manages to escape but not without being wounded. Using a stick as a crutch, he carries on, following the trail to a castle outside of Berlin.

Within, he's greeted first by a Chinese servant named Fong, and then the German master of the castle, an aristocrat with a monocle named Baron Kragen, and, finally, Ilse, Kragen's fetching young daughter (I assumed Kragen is a bad guy, perhaps even the Coming Man, upon his initial appearance, simply because he has a monocle. Does anyone other than a bad guy ever have a monocle in a comic book story?)

With the war over—"We Germans are as happy to see this madness end as you are," the Baron says—he offers Baxter his hospitality, and Ilse dresses his wounds. At dinner, Kragen notices Baxter eyeing his missing left hand, and then tells him how he lost it to a tiger and, after Baxter's none-too-subtle questioning, he discusses the history of the Spear of Destiny:

Here is where those panels in the New History timeline are taken. As you can see, they are illustrations of Kragen's story about the spear being told to Baxter. 

The next tier of panels from the page traces it the spear from ancient Rome to the sights of a young Hitler: 

And here we learn that the spear became a powerful magical artifact. Apparently "any warlord who held it knew greatness", although they would eventually die themselves (Of course, everyone dies eventually, so I'm not sure what kind of curse that is meant to be). Alexander the Great, Napoleon "and many others" are named as men who have possessed the spear before Hitler. 

The story of the spear out of the way, Baxter again makes his suspicions that Kragen is the Coming Man known, and Kragen makes it known that he was only being so hospitable because he suspected Baxter of being an advance scout for an American force. 

Downed by poison administered via his fork, Baxter awakes in a cell, beyond the bars of which Ilse and Fong come to...taunt him? Deliver exposition...? She explains how Germany's "first attempt at world domination" (WWI, I guess) had failed, and now this second attempt has failed as well. But that Hitler and her father had "come to terms" previously, so that if Hitler failed, Kragen would inherit the spear and begin the third attempt.

Baxter snatches Ilse through the bars and threatens to kill her unless Fong releases her (He addresses Fong derisively as "Fu Manchu", which seems pretty racist; on the other hand, he does have a moustache referred to as "the Fu Manchu", so...maybe not...?).

Baxter finds a sword in the castle, and with it in hand searches for the Baron, ultimately finding him talking to himself atop a castle turret.

"The Aryan dream will rise again!" Kragen screams at the end of his little three-panel monologue, giving Baxter the opening to reply, "'Cause it's full of hot air, Baron!"

They fight, the Baron employing his laser gun hand and proclaiming himself a "bionic man" (remember, though set in the forties, this was written in the seventies, when that world had cachet) and "the wave of the future!"

The fight lasts about a page, during which Baxter is able to snatch the spear from the Baron's hands—er, hand, I guess—and plunges it into his stomach ("Gott im Himmell! I--I am murdered!"). Now it's Baxter's turn to make a bit of a speech ("You were fightin' the next war, but I had to finish this one!"), after which Ilse, one of the straps of her dress now broken off, charges Baxter with a dagger, and he impales her on the spear. 

With tears in his eyes, Baxter's wonders, "Could it be this peace we fought so hard for--won't last forever", but before he can even pronounce a question mark, Fong cuts him down with a volley of machine gun fire from behind. (So Baxter obviously won't live to see 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine setting off another land war in Europe, or 2025, when the Trump administration and its allies began their attempt to introduce a new, dumb version of fascism to the United States).

Here are the last two panels:

For the story's protagonist Baxter, it's obviously a tragic ending, with him ultimately losing his life while making the realization that even a peace as hard-fought as World War II's may be doomed to be temporary. 

It's interesting how Englehart frames the Spear of Destiny as a sort of artifact that inspires war wherever it goes, drawing a direct connection between the spear falling into a Chinese man's hands and the culmination of the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949...connecting it to the wars that followed it until the present of the 1970s, from the Korean war to Vietnam. 

Englehart further tries to predict the next global hotspot, the Middle East or Africa. 

Now, when Englehart wrote this story, he definitely wasn't thinking about DC comics continuity, as in 1977 the DC Universe wasn't nearly as coherent a shared setting as it would later become and, I have to confess, I have no idea which "Earth" in the DC multiverse their war comics (and many of their other non-superhero genre offerings) were meant to be set on. The more popular characters from their war comics—Sgt. Rock, The Unknown Soldier. The Haunted Tank, etc.—would eventually meet with various DC heroes and share adventures, suggesting they did indeed exist in the DCU (and both History of the DC Universe and New History of the DC Universe suggest their adventures ocurred in the DCU shared-setting).

But Englehart's seems to at least partially line-up with the history of the Spear of Destiny that John Ostrander wrote in a 1994 four-issue arc of The Spectre. In Spectre #21's "Troubled Waters," the spear goes from Longinus (depicted by artist Tom Mandrake standing at the edge of the giant eye socket of a giant skull upon which there are three crucified men in the distance, the artists play on the fact that Chris was crucified at Golgotha, Latin for "the place of the skull") to Saladin, then St. George, then Hitler.

After the war, though, rather than falling into Chinese hands, it is found in Berlin by the Russians, and spends years in the collection of "a high-placed Soviet official". Eventually, supervillan/terrorist Kobra gets his hands on it, and then U.S. operative Nightshade steals it from him, delivering it to Sarge Steel. 

No one in the U.S. seems to actually possess it, though; rather, it ends ups lost in a Washington, D.C. warehouse until a special operative assigned by the then-president Clinton finds it and gives it to Superman.

So it would seem that the main difference between Englehart's 1977 predicted future of the spear and Ostrander's 1994 history of the spear would only contradict one another as to where it was between World War II and whenever Kobra got it, which wouldn't really be too hard to reconcile (For example, it could have gone to China and been in Asia between the end of WWII and when the Soviet collector acquired it). I'm murky on when exactly—like, what decade—it would be when Kobra had it, though; according to The Spectre, it was right about the time the JSoA entered Ragnarok, which I guess would be in the 1980s...but I'm not sure whether those events still "happened" or not in current DC continuity (New History remains very, very vague about Justice Society history).

At any rate, the spear spent about a decade in space (The Spectre put it in orbit in 1994's Spectre #22, then the heroes recovered it to sue against a rogue Spectre in 1999's Day of Judgment before the Sentinels of Magic sent it to the sun in its aftermath), and the last I saw of it was the lead story in JLA Secret Files and Origins 2004, but it looks like it's last, still in-continuity appearance may have been 2009 Final Crisis tie-in miniseries, Final Crisis: Revelations...? 

Hmm... Maybe after I finish reading all of Detective Chimp's appearances, I can start tracking the Spear of Destiny trough DC history...

That time Rex the Wonder Dog almost helped found the Justice League (On 1977's Justice League of America #144)

Justice League of America #144 is particularly interesting for two reasons.

First, it addresses the passage of time in a way that, at least here in the 21st century, seems unusual for a superhero comic book.

Second, it is premised on the never before revealed story of the true creation of the Justice League, long concealed from the world and, indeed, even some of its own members. A literal secret origin, then.

The 33-page story, "The Origin of the Justice League--Minus One!", is written by Steve Englehart, pencilled by Dick Dillin and inked by Frank McLaughlin. In its framing sequence, Green Arrow is on the League's satellite headquarters, reading through a thick book labeled "Journal of the Justice League," as one does. 

Apparently upset by what he has just read, he storms off to angrily confront Superman and Green Lantern Hal Jordan, who are playing cards, as Justice Leaguers do. How upset is GA? Well, Dillin draws an explosion of energy emanating from his head, which colorist Anthony Tollin has colored red. 

What's got him so worked up? Well, he says that Hal has always maintained that he became a Green Lantern in September of 1959 (a date, an editorial box points out, that was chosen because that was the cover date of Hal's first appearance, in Showcase #22). And Green Arrow was told that the League was founded, "with you a large part of it", in February of 1959, which is seven months before Hal was even a superhero.

So what gives? Well, Superman and Hal solemntly lead Ollie to "the communications quadrant" of the satellite, seat him before a giant monitor (Green Arrow sits down while wearing his quivers on his back? Seems uncomfortable), and play him a tape of Martian Manhunter, who will tell the story that will dominate the rest of the book's 30 pages, when the heroes who would become the Justice League all met one another for the first time and decided to form a team...but to postpone doing so for six months or so.

"It wasn't you we feared-- It was the times!" J'onn says, addressing the camera. 

But let's linger on those dates that Green Arrow rattled off, shall we? 

This issue was released in 1977, and, presumably, the framing sequence is meant to be set in 1977 as well. If Hal became a GL in 1959, that means he has, at the point this story takes place, been superhero-ing for 18 years now (and the League has been around for that long as well...meaning the rest of its members are all at least 18 years into their careers already).

If we imagine that Hal was as young as, say, 20 when he became a Green Lantern, then that would mean he is 38 in this story...and, as we know, this was relatively early in Hal's career. It would be another decade or so before Crisis On Infinite Earths altered the timestream/DC continuity for the first time. 

While those numbers work out for the purposes of this story as regards Hal and his Justice League peers, it's worth noting that Robin Dick Grayson appears in the flashback story, which, again, is set 18 years ago, in 1959. He was a teenager then. And, in 1977, he was still Robin and, apparently, still a teenager (He went away to college in 1969, though, at which point he must have been 18 or thereabouts.)

So, um, obviously that doesn't work.

That same editorial note that mentions how they came up with the month of Hal's Green Lantern origin, credited to "Julie" (who would, of course, be editor Julius Schwartz), also contains something of a disclaimer about the passage of time: "Remember-- We're dealing here with comic mag time! And comic heroes have their own ways to stop the clock and avoid aging!"

Dick Grayson especially, I guess.

As for the story, it is, for its first half or so, primarily a Martian Manhunter one. It begins with his origin, being brought to Earth by a device created by scientist Dr. Erdel, who almost immediately has a heart attack and dies, stranding J'onn.

He takes on the identity of John Jones, and becomes a police detective in Middletown, doing superhero work on the sly while trying to figure out Erdel's device in order to get back home. His life is upended with the arrival of a General Blanx and a gang of other White Martians (Who Green Arrow, and I suppose readers at the time, knew from the pages of JLoA #71).

J'onn, resuming his more familiar form of a half-naked green muscle man, is in the middle of battling the White Martians when The Flash arrives. J'onn tries to explain to Barry Allen that there's a difference between good Martians and bad Martians, but upon seeing the aliens, the locals all start to freak out. 

The Flash tries to calm down the spreading mass hysteria, telling the gathering crowd that he will get someone everyone knows and trusts to head up the investigation: Superman. 

He's never, at this point, actually met Superman though. Nevertheless, he runs to Metropolis and finds the Man of Steel, who is at present in the company of Batman and Robin. The four heroes return to Middletown, where they promptly meet Roy Raymond, TV detective.

"If we alert the nation, this story should generate a lot of help for you!" Raymond tells the heroes.

And it does. A turn of the page reveals a pretty spectacular splash, filled with the 30 heroes promised on the cover: Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Blackhawks, The Challengers of the Unknown, The Vigilante Greg Saunders, the original Robotman Robert Crane, Congo Bill "with the amazing Congorilla", Plastic Man and Rex the Wonder Dog. (Do dogs watch TV...? How did Rex know what was going on, and how did he get himself to Middletown...? Well, I he is a wonder dog, I guess). 

Oh, and also Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, introduced as if they too were superheroes.

Now, even after all these years, I still haven't integrated a deep enough knowledge of DC Comics/DCU history to know this for certain, but I suspect this particular gathering is meant to represent all of—or at least most of—the DC Comics heroes who had their own books or regular features in early 1959, or perhaps those that could have conceivably been around then...excluding the various heroes who were already established as occupying other Earths in the DC multiverse, like the Justice Society and other Golden Age characters of Earth-Two, or the Fawcett characters like Captain Marvel and company, assigned to Earth-S. (A pair of other heroes from that time will turn up in the course of the story; just wait.)

That said, the inclusion of Plastic Man and the Blackhawks is curious. 

They all came from Quality Comics, the Golden Age adventures of which were apparently set on a theoretical "Earth-Quality" and, in 1973's Len Wein-written JLoA #107, a Nazi-ruled Earth-X occupied by the various Quality heroes (Plas and the Blackhawks appear in that issue, but only in flashback). 

I haven't similarly tracked the Blackhawks, but DC launched an ongoing Plastic Man comic in 1966, which was presumably set on Earth-One with the majority of the DC Comics line (although I have read that the series, like several other comedic DC comics, was set on an Earth-Twelve...?). And then there are Plas' various Brave and The Bold appearances, of which there were three prior to this issue of JLoA, to deal with. 

I guess there are, therefore, at least three, possibly four Plastic Mean in the DC Multiverse, then...? (The original of Earth-Quality, an alternate one from Earth-X, that of Earth-One and possibly an Earth-Twelve Plas.)

One can see why DC felt a multiverse streamlining crisis was needed about a decade later. 

Anyway, this massive assemblage of heroes broke up into three smaller teams. Plastic Man, The Blackhawks and Jimmy Olsen followed one lead, which lead them to almost encounter Rip Hunter. Robotman, Vigilante, The Challs, Lois Lane and Congo Bill and Congorilla followed another, which lead them to almost encounter Adam Strange. And, finally, the heroes who would eventually form the Justice League, along with Raymond, Robin and Rex, followed another, which lead them to Ferris Air test pilot Hal Jordan, and the Martians.

After a brief battle, the heroes defeat the White Martians, rescue the green one and plan future public relations. J'onn decides to stay on Earth, which he has come to love, and which he believes, in his words, needs a Manhunter from Mars. 

Given the anti-Martian hysteria of the previous pages, though, Aquaman suggests J'onn allow for a six-month cool-off period before coming out, and Wonder Woman adds that, when he does, "it could be with the backing of all of us".

"You know, we ought to form a club, or society...!" Superman suggests. While Batman says he's not much of a joiner, Flash argues the point: "But Batman-- A league against evil! Our purpose would be to uphold justice against whatever threatens it!"

And so it's decided that these heroes would form a league to uphold justice in six months' time...Hal Jordan and Roy Raymond, who were present for the discussion, both swearing secrecy. 

The eventual line-up of the Justice League, this story suggests, seems to have been determined by who just so happened to be on the team that followed one of the three leads in this adventure. Had the team's divided up slightly differently, Plastic Man or Robotman or Congorilla or Vigilante could have ended up on the team. (Of course, Plastic Man would eventually join the team, in 1997's JLA #5, and Congorilla would join around 2010's Justice League of America #41 or so, after appearing in the troubled 2009 miniseries Justice League: Cry for Justice. As for Vig, he never made it into a comics League, but he was an unlikely inclusion on 2004-2006's cartoon Justice League Unlimited's massive line-up).

Of course, the book doesn't explain why Robin wouldn't be offered membership, or, for that matter, Rex, who found the Martians in the first place...

I guess the Justice League must have put a "No Dogs Allowed" sign in front of their Happy Harbor headquarters...?

(If you would like to read the issue for yourself, it looks like it's been collected twice before, in 2018's Justice League of America: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 2 and in 2020's Justice League of America: A Celebration of 60 Years, the latter of which is where I read it. I'm hopeful DC will collect the issue, and most of the Satellite Era, in future volumes of their DC Finest series, though...)

Re: That movie that's probably well on its way to making tens of millions of dollars already

If you're reading this comics blog, then you're probably a fan of comic books in general, and superhero comics in particular. And I imagine there's a pretty good chance that, at some point this weekend, you went to the nearest movie theater to take in Guardians of the Galaxy, maybe the mostly hotly anticipated of all the many based-on-a-comic book movies that have appeared in theaters this year (Me? I'm going tomorrow night).

The movie is directed by James Gunn (Super, Slither), and written by Gunn and Nicole Perlman. It stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, David Bautista, Lee Pace and others. I don't generally follow box office returns, like, at all, but I'm fairly certain the film is going to be well-received and a huge financial success for Marvel Studios and Disney, as pretty much any profit made on a Guardians of the Galaxy movie is going to be seen as a remarkable amount (as far as properties likely to produce summer blockbusters, "Guardians of the Galaxy" was probably somewhere between Man-Thing and Red Raven on a list of all Marvel potential film fodder right up until about the point that it was announced that Marvel was doing a Guardians of the Galaxy movie).  A sequel is already showing up as announced under Gunn's IMDb profile, for whatever that's worth.

In short, a lot of people are going to make a lot of money off this movie.

And, if a lot of people make a lot of money and there are a lot of accolades being thrown about, then a lot of credit is going to go to a lot of people, from whoever cut those winning trailers to the designers and animators who got Rocket's fur to look just so to Gunn himself. If comic book people get any credit, chances are it's going to be as a collective (i.e. "Marvel") or under a "Special Thanks" near the end of the end-credit scrawl (IMDb has comics writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lannning receiving writing credit; if that's on the screen near the "written by" credit, then that's awesome).

So I think it's worthwhile to take a moment to remember who did what, and to maybe take a moment to write a check this weekend to The Hero Initiative, a non-profit that serves as a financial safety net for comics creators in need, for at least as much as the cost of a movie ticket (For me, it costs between $5-$9 to see a movie, depending on when I go; that's somewhere between one and three comic books). And/or to remember Bill Mantlo and his current circumstances, given his role in creating one of the more prominent and memorable characters in this particular film.

Hollywood, here we come!

The superhero team name "The Guardians of the Galaxy" was created for a 31st century group of heroes in 1969's Marvel Super-Heroes #18; they were written by Arnold Drake and their first appearance was pencilled by Gene Colan. The characters guest-starred in various Marvel books sporadically over the decades, eventually earning their own title in the 1990s.

In the 2007-2008 crossover storyline Annihilation: Conquest, overseen by writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, a rag-tag group of space heroes—including Groot and Rocket Raccoon—would begin to gravitate toward the character Peter Quill, Star-Lord. The miniseries Annihilation: Conquest—Starlord, written by Keith Giffen and drawn by Timothy Green II and Victor Olazaba, followed this thread most closely.

In 2008, Abnett and Lanning would launch the second volume of a Guardians of the Galaxy comic book, with pencil artist Paul Pelletier and inker Rick Magyar. The book spun out of the events of the writing team's various Annihilation storylines, and this particular line-up of this particular team is the same as in the movie—Star-Lord, Rocket, Gamora, Drax, Groot–and several others who come and go.

Behold: Groot's wide vocabulary!

Groot was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers in 1960; he was one of the more memorable monsters in a string of one-off monster comics produced by Kirby and Lee in the pre-superhero days of Tales To Astonish.

The Collector was created by Lee and Don Heck in 1966 as an Avengers villain.

Please tell me "the deadly lips of Ronan" are referred to in the film.

Ronan The Accuser was created by Kirby and Lee in 1967 as a Fantastic Four villain; his alien race, The Kree, were also created by Kirby and Lee, and are a mainstay of the space-set stories in the Marvel Universe shared-setting.

Drax The Destroyer was created by Starlin and Mike Friedrich in 1973 in the pages of Iron Man.

Gamora was created by Jim Starlin in 1975; she is the adopted daughter of Thanos, another Starlin creation (albeit one heavily influenced by Kirby's DC-owned, 1971 creation Darkseid, who Thanos has beaten to the big screen).

Star-Lord was created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Steve Gan in 1976.

The Celestials were created in 1976 by Kirby for his series The Eternals.

Rocket Raccoon was created by Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen in 1976 (and dramatically fleshed-out in a four-issue, 1985, self-titled mini-series by Mantlo, pencil artist Mike Mignola and inkers Al Gordon and Al Milgrom).

The Nova Corps (and Richard Rider, aka the superhero Nova who starred in the comic book Nova, but who I don't think actually appears at all in the film himself)  were created by writer Marv Wolfman and first drawn by artists John Buscema and Joe Sinnott in 1976.

Nebula was created by Roger Stern and John Buscema in 1985 as an Avengers villain.

Korath The Pursuer was created by Mark Gruenwald and Greg Capullo in 1992 in the pages of Quasar.

And...that's all I know of. Did I miss anyone or thing very important, that isn't a spoiler for the film...? I'm just going off what I've seen in the trailers and the cast-list on IMDb here.

The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #8

Long, long ago—maybe eight or nine months ago, although it seems like it's been years—I noticed that the basic plot of Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu's Secret Invasion story sounded a lot like the basic plot of DC's 1988 hostile-aliens-invade-Earth-by-infiltrating-the-heroes storyline, Millennium (Not that the observation was unique to me or anything; anyone who's read Millennium probably had the exact same reacation). And I thought, Hey, maybe it would be fun to re-read an issue of Millennium each week I read an issue of Secret Invasion, and publish an examination of it.

Well, as it turned out, it wasn't much fun of at all, and, after a certain point, it became kind of a waste of time, given that DC actually took my advice and published a trade of Millennium for the express purpose of saying, Hey, comics readers! Marvel's biting off our worst story ideas from 20 years ago!

But, at that same point, I didn't want to give up. Who wants to be known as The Guy Who Wrote Five Really Long Posts About Millennium Then Gave Up, instead of The Guy Who Wrote A Really Long Post About Each Issue Of Millennium. Having come so far, how could I abandon my quest to make EDILW the Internet's number one source for disucssion of DC's 1988 weekly series Millennium? (Shit; I just googled "Millennium, 'DC Comics'" and EDILW is only the seventh site to come up. Perhaps this was all for naught...)

So here it is! The very last post about the very last issue of Millennium! And then I'll put these crumbling yellow comics back into their cardboard coffin and never see them again.

So here we are at Millennium #8, “The Rising and Advancing of Ten Spirits.”


In the last issue, we saw that the Manhunters were defeated on earth after Earth’s “heroes” had destroyed their planet and murdered every last one of them, the lost space heroes successfully returned to earth, it was revealed that Booster Gold had secretly invaded the Manhunters… what’s left to resolve? Oh yeah, all that boring New Age-y business about the ethnic stereotypes who are to guide humanity into “The Millennium.”

We open outside Hal Jordan’s condo, where the heroes have all gathered to form an aisle for some sort of wedding or graduation type ceremony:

“They’e ready for ya now!” Kilowog says, and rushes to push play on an off-panel boombox that will play “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Writer Steve Englehart starts out with the weirdest narration box: “See, it’s an extraordinary day in the DC Universe…!”

Is it? Oh, we’ll see about that.

The Immortals, now rapidly aging because, well just because, recap just what the hell’s going on here,

and then it’s time to start passing out superhero powers and makeovers.

First up is Xiang. Herupa shoots green light out of his forehead and Nadia shoots violet light out of her head, and the result is that Xiang is no longer Xiang, but

Here’s the saddest part of this issue and, indeed, this whole series. Look closely at Gloss’ name there. Not only does she get her own special logo, but there’s a teeny little “TM” after it. DC trademarked Gloss. They were so confident that they had the next Wonder Woman on their hands, or at least the next Infinity Inc. character, that they went and put a TM after her name. They do this with all of The Chosen, who will all become pretty terrible superheroes.

“It’s-- --Clarity! Power! Sleek Sensation!” Xiang shouts, and explains that the Chinese know feng-shui, and that she can draw power from the earth’s dragon-lines, power and “sinuous skill!”

Betty points out to the others that Gloss said “the Chinese,” as if she herself were no longer Chinese, and they immediately catch on.

I know I’ve said this before but man, Gregorio is just. So. Gay.

I know there are supposedly more and bigger name gay superheroes in the DCU now, but have we really come that far? Renee Montoya, Obsidian and Batwoman may be gay, but add all three of them together and they’re still not half as gay as Gregorio.

This Xiang-to-Gloss sequence establishes a pattern that most of the book will follow. The Chosen say some nice things to one another, one of them walks up for the green and violet ray blast and they become a lame-ass superhero. They then explain their powers, and some DC superheroes strain to make some connection between themselves and the new guys, while cosmic onlookers from around the universe throw in their two cents worth (Here, some Greek goddesses on Olympus say “Diana’s involvement in man’s world has borne its first fruit!” while the Parliament of Trees talk about The Green and Woodrue.

Next up, is Takeo:

who, as his new codename suggests, now has computer-y powers. “Fields link—Data spiral through the ether —through my fingers —for me —Random Access Memory!”

Then Gregorio,

who is somehow made even gayer.

This is the face of gay superheroes in 1988:


Extrano explains his powers—“I’m a witch!”—while The Phantom Stranger stands atop a rock, making puns to himself.

"Somewhither?"

Betty becomes

the earth, I guess? She’s not really a superhero per se, but a funny looking globe symbolizing the planet and providing a connection with Gregorio.

Celia gets taller, bustier, hip-ier and more scantily clad to become

Huh, the same thing happened to Xiang, actually.

Next up is Tom Kalamaku, but he decides to take a pass, and explains that it’s basically because his wife has been nagging him all miniseries and the dude is totally pussy-whipped:

Hal understands, and takes the opportunity to slur Tom’s ethnicity for the 5,000th time in his life:

As an aside, I prefer when Hal’s mask has the eyes pupil-less white triangle, a la Batman’s. Something about his mask really creeps me out otherwise:

See? Creepy.

Since Tom is such a baby about the whole thing the Immortals pick Harbinger as his replacement, but she bolts, so they give Tom his power in latent form, to protect him from fat white racist South African guy who washed out of the enlightenment program. He is determined to get his revenge:

Their task done, the Immortals drop dead.

Sick of this shit, Superman and the real superheroes decide that since their hosts have died, they don’t have to feel compelled to stay any more and get ready to bolt, but not before Batman and Brainwave each make a pass at Jet:

And then the old superheroes all take off in a pretty cool splash panel that Staton unfortunately laid out diagonally so I can’t scan it in its entirely:

And we get a final, posed panel of the new super team:

And that's the last anyone would ever see of these new superheroes.

The end.



Previously:
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #1
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #2
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #3
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #4
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #5
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #6
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #7

The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #7

Marvel’s Secret Invasion has entered its seventh month, which means it’s time to look back on DC’s twenty-year-old version of the story.

While this is the penultimate issue of the series, it is in actuality the climax of the story. This is the issue in which the forces of good (the DC superheroes) and the forces of evil (the space android cult) resolve their conflict though a big fight, while the eighth and final issue of Millennium is reserved for the most excruciatingly embarrassing twenty-two pages in DC Comics history, setting up a brand-new super-team composed of brand-new superheroes who will all be ignored and forgotten in a matter of months.

But that’s next issues; let’s look at Millennium #7, once again written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Joe Staton and Ian Gibson, who managed to draw a whole comic book miniseries all by themselves, without needing guest-artists, teams of emergency inkers, or shipping delays. And remember, it was a weekly! They sure knew how to work ahead at DC back in the ‘80s…

The action starts out in outer space, where the Manhunter Kill Krew composed of Superman, Martian Manhunter, The Hawks, a handful of Green Lanterns and the rest are giving Dr. Fate shit for his inability to magically teleport them all back to Earth. The last time we saw this squad, they were almost all dead, their souls being stored within Superman and Hal Jordan, so apparently their situation improved in one of the tie-ins.

The most worried of the heroes is Harbinger, who feels that Earth is still under threat form the Manhunters, even though they had destroyed the Manhunter home world. In an act of desperation, she teleports away, causing Hal Jordan’s teenage girlfriend Arisia to remark, “You never told me she could do that, Hal!”

Dr. Fate, who is not Hal, responds anyway: “The Millennium is a time of evolution for many.”

I know from experience that Dr. Fate speaks the truth. It was between 1999 and 2000 that my hair evolved from thinning to straight-up bald, and it was also around that time that I evolved wisdom teeth.

As it turns out, Harbinger is right! Earth is still in danger from the Manhunters, as the rest of the heroes decided last issue that perhaps the Manhunters have a base in the center of the earth.

They’ve assembled into some kinda crazy bathysphere ship that looks like a giant mine to get there:
The plan is to use this experimental craft of Blue Beetle’s to descend underwater into the Mariana Trench, then into a volcano, then through the bottom of the volcano (Is this geologically sound comic book-scripting?) and then storm the Manhunter HQ.

Blue Beetle and Mr. Miracle banter about whether or not the ship can survive the stresses, which is why it seems so weird to me that Bones is smoking:
I don’t know if it’s outright dangerous to smoke in an experimental submersible craft or not, but, at the very least, it’s gotta be rude, right?

The craft hold together, and our heroes find themselves in some sort of artificial atmosphere, right above a hidden base. Harbinger appears before the heroes, to be given a stupid nickname by Brainwave:
And while they storm Manhunter base, the immortals are teaching their chosen ones tai chi, and they themselves are suddenly aging quite rapidly.

Note Nuklon up there in the upper right corner. JSA fans know that he changed his name to Atom-Smasher and started wearing a full face-mask, presumably to honor his ancestor, The Atom. This is not true at all. He actually changed his name because “Nuklon” is a pretty stupid name, and he covers his face out of shame, for having gone out in public like this for so long:
Tom Kalamaku being one of the chosen has caused quite a rift in his relationship with his family. Over his shoulder, he catches his wife watching him do tai chi and crying, leading to this dramatic exchange:
Back underground, John Stewart shushes his comrades,
and prepares to subtly, stealthily, scope out the situation
by conjuring up a giant, glowing green ear.

What does he hear? Only that the Manhunters have a doomsday device that they’re prepared to detonate as a last resort! If they can’t own the earth, they’ll destroy it completely!

Just then, the heroes are discovered by Manhunter guards, and a battle ensues, sending them crashing through the roof and into the thick of the Manhunters.

Here’s Batman, wearing his special white android ass-kicking left boot:
Among the Manhunter androids are some of their allies, like Booster Gold, who betrayed the heroes, and the android Pan, who had infiltrated the Greek pantheon.

Capturing Pan is Wonder Woman’s assigned task, and she opens with a flying scissor lock:
When Pan tries to bolt, she lassos him with her unbreakable lariat and hangs on tight as he tries to running away, and
she cuts himself in half!

Hardcore, Wonder Woman.

Here’s a whole page of the fight. Note the exciting jumble of panel shapes:
Englehart and company try giving us little snapshots of the characters in each of these panels.

The Mike Grell Green Arrow is kind of ashamed of being a superhero instead of a realistic urban vigilante, but he still finds shooting arrows at robots thrilling, Mr. Miracle is colorful, Aquaman can’t shut up about what percentage of the earth is his own personal property (This is the second time in this very issue he’s noted that), and so on.

On doomsday device guarding duty is Booster Gold, and he and his Manhunter allies face off against some Leaguers and Infinitors, which is what people actually called the member of Infinity Inc.:
Man. How many times has the “out of your league” joke been made in DC comics, in reference to Justice Leaguers, do you think? 250 times? 500?

As the tide seems to turn against the Manhunters, one of them reaches to detonate the doomsday device, only to find that—the traitor Booster Gold is now betraying them?!
That last panel, by the way, is probably my favorite of the entire series.

I love the fact that Jade says. “Want to check?” for no real reason, and the Manhunter responds by screaming “YES!”

What? It’s so random. He wants to check if they’re all humans…? He wants to search them for louses…?

And so the day is saved, and a terrible adjective is coined by Booster Gold,
although his fellow superheroes don’t believe he was a double agent all along just yet.

The conquering heroes, whom Nadia says “have covered themselves in glory,” meet the immortals, the chosen and the returning space heroes outside Hal Jordan’s condo, for the big ceremony that these past seven issues have been building up to.

But we’ll get to that next month, when Millennium ends…not with a bang, but a whimper.

In the meantime, does anyone know if they still make these Striped Chips Ahoy cookies?
These ads are making me crave them, but I can’t remember the last time I saw them in a grocery store…



Previously:
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #1
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #2
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #3
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #4
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #5
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #6