Credit where credit is due: Who created who in Thunderbolts*

•Bucky Barnes, Captain America's sidekick, was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1941's Captain America Comics #1. His Winter Soldier look, identity and backstory as a brainwashed assassin with a robot arm were the creations of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting. Barnes first appeared as the Winter Soldier in 2005's Captain America #6.

•La Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, an agent of the espionage team SHIELD, was created by Jim Steranko in 1967's Strange Tales #159.  

•Red Guardian Alexei Shostakov, the Soviet Union's answer to Captain America, was created by Roy Thomas and John Buscema in 1967's Avengers #43. 

•Taskmaster, a mercenary and combat instructor with "photographic reflexes" that allow him to mimic the moves of his opponents, was created by David Michelinie and George Perez in 1980's Avengers #196.

•John Walker, a one-time Captain America antagonist, was created by Mark Gruenwald and Paul Neary, appearing for the first time in 1986's Captain America #323, wherein he used the name "Super Patriot." He later became the new (and temporary) Captain America, before finally settling on the name USAgent in 1989's Captain America #354. I'm afraid I'm not sure which artist deserves credit for the black, white and red variation of the original Simon and Kirby Captain America costume that Walker eventually adopted as his USAgent get-up. (Tom Morgan seems to have penciled its first appearances). If you know, please tell us in the comments and I'll update this post. 

•The Ghost, an Iron Man villain with a power suit that allows him and objects in his possession to become invisible or intangible, was created by David Michelinie and Bob Layton in 1987's Iron Man #219. 

•The Thunderbolts, a group of long-time Marvel supervillains who secretly adopt new codenames and costumes to pose as a superhero team, were created by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley for the 1997 Thunderbolts series (Although they first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #449 by Peter David and Mike Deodato Jr.).  

•Yelena Belova, the second Black Widow, has some rather convoluted creation credits. She first appeared as a sketch by artist J.G. Jones in 1998's Marvel Knights Wave 2: Sketchbook #1, made her first in-story appearance in a 1999 issue of Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee's miniseries Inhumans and then starred in a 1999 Black Widow miniseries by Devin K. Grayson and Jones, who are usually credited as her creators. (Wikipedia lists Grayson, Jones, Jenkins and Lee all as her creators, though). She is, obviously, a legacy version of Black Widow Natasha Romanoff, who was created by Stan Lee, Don Rico and Don Heck for the Iron Man feature in 1964's Tales of Suspense #52. She has since adopted the name White Widow.

•The Sentry, a Superman analogue with mental health problems that manifest as the alternate identity The Void, was created by Paul Jenkins, Jae Lee and Rick Veitch for 2000's The Sentry #1. 

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Speaking of who created The Sentry... You'll note that I credited Paul Jenkins, Jae Lee and Rick Veitch above. As you've probably noticed, I was going by Wikipedia's credits for all of those I didn't already know. A few months ago, I would have told you that Jenkins and Lee created The Sentry, but then, that was before I stumbled upon this interview with Veitch at the website Popverse, which includes various sketches of the character in the style of different artists apparently created to support a pitch. It's a fascinating (if rather sad) interview, and paired with this follow-up story, it seems like Veitch and Jenkins are currently in rather strong disagreement about whether or not Veitch contributed to the character's development at all.

Review: Avengers: Mythos

Despite the title, this collection is only partially composed of the Mythos origin one-shots by Paul Jenkins and Paolo Rivera, with the remainder of the stories filling it being five Avengers Origins one-shots, each by a different creative team. Regardless of which publishing initiative the comics originally came from, the main throughline is that each of the seven stories deals with the origin story of an Avenger, from founders like Thor and Ant-Man to relative newcomer Luke Cage, and as a whole the book functions as a sort of Avengers 101, a helpful guide to some of the characters you'll likely encounter when reading any of Marvel's many Avengers books or big crossover/event stories.

In most cases, better versions of the stories can be found elsewhere, but not packaged altogether so conveniently.

Let's break them down story by story, and of the whole simply say that it is of professional if unremarkably quality, a good, solid bit of escapism that points to other, better comics and readies the curious for immersion into bigger, wilder stories featuring the same characters.

Mythos: Captain America
By Paul Jenkins and Paolo Rivera

Marvel's Mythos line was one of several attempts to package their most popular characters in a way that would be new-reader friendly, with "most popular" meaning those that were or were most likely to be adapted into films. Jenkins wrote them all, condensing the characters' origins and careers in general into single one shots, while the incredibly talented Rivera drew them, working in a painted style that suggested a certain amount of prestige, but tended to lack the virtues and vitality of his drawn work.

The motley crew that earned the treatment, which repeated some of the goals of the Ultimate line (only in-continuity, and in a one-off instance instead of an ongoing one) and pre-figured the goals of the Season One original graphic novels), included not only Cap and The Hulk, but also Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, the X-Men and Ghost Rider (These are all collected together in the Marvel: Mythos, which may or may not be in print any longer because, you know, Marvel).

This one's from 2008, and the premise features a still-young Steve Rogers in the year 2008, strolling across a street to a VFW and, on his way, remembering his life story, which he narrates to readers along the way. This is the story you're probably already pretty familiar with, whether from the comics from the 2011 movie.

Skinny, 4-F kid willing to be a lab rat, successful experiment granting him super-soldier status, spy plot making sure he'd be the last such super-soldier, PR effort and real soldier, ally Bucky, the last adventure which (seemingly) ended both of their lives, re-discovery by the nascent Avengers team, finding his place as the leader of the current generation of superheroes, calling on the experience and knowledge gained during World War II.

He's at a veterans dinner at the VFW, talking to a fellow veteran during all this time. It's a very talky story, with a lot of telling (or reminding, really) rather than showing, but it gets it's job done pretty quickly and efficiently. The main innovations Jenkins adds are to spend a considerable amount of time on Cap's incredibly depressing childhood (they didn't call it The Depression for nothing!) and on his interaction with the other veterans at the dinner.

I'm curious about the Captain America stories of the future, in, say, another ten years or so, when almost all of those who fought in the war aren't around anymore. There will come a time pretty soon when Captain America is the last surviving soldier of World War II (with the exception of some other Marvel characters, of course), and stories like these will be impossible to tell in quite the same way.

Mythos: Hulk
By Paul Jenkins and Paolo Rivera

The 2006 Hulk issue was an all-around stronger piece of comics, with Jenkins focusing on a single incident of the Hulk's life—his birth in the Gamma Bomb test, and what went on just before and just after—and mostly ignored narration for letting the already modern mythic events tell the story all by themselves.

Jenkins pays special attention to the relationship between the angry, acid-tongued scientist Bruce Banner, the imperious General "Thunderbolt" Ross and his daughter Betty Ross, who the two men fight bitterly over. General Ross clearly goes out of his way and takes things rather far to make life miserable for Banner and to keep him from Betty, but the way Jenkins writes Banner, it makes Ross' actions understandable, if not relatable. Banner is pretty insufferable, and its Betty who deserves the readers' sympathy—she's the one who has to put up with these two.

Again, you know exactly how things go down here, with Banner impulsively but heroically rushing out on the testing site to save Rick Jones (here an intern doing some painting, listening to "It's Not Easy Being Green" on his walkman, and thus oblivious to what's going on around him), and being turned into the monstrous Hulk.

Rivera's Hulk takes many cues from Jack Kirby's, and while that character's depiction has changed quite a bit over the years—rather remarkably so, given the fat that his basic design is simply "big, green, muscular guy in torn purple pants—Rivera's retains the broad, thick body and large, square-like head that gave Kirby's Hulk his distinct look, the look most artists to follow him deviated rather dramatically from.

Avengers Origins: Ant-Man and The Wasp 
By Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Stephanie Hans

I really rather enjoyed writer Fred Van Lente's take on Ant-Man's origin way back in Marvel Adventures Superheroes #6 and Roger Langridge's portrayal of the character and The Wasp during his short run on Thor: The Might Avenger with Chris Samnee. It was hard not to contrast this with those other stories of the early Ant-Man, and thus find this one a little wanting.

Aguirre-Sacasa's script has some lighter, funnier moments to it—as in an instance where a shrunken-for-the-first-time Henry Pym wonders what to do next while a gigantic mouse looms behind him, or when he has a flustered conversation with Janet Van Dyne through a cracked doorway, trying to hide the giant ant tugging at his pant-leg—but the story is told with a more-or-less straight face, which isn't the easiest face to keep while discussing the origins of the character called "Ant-Man."

The funniest parts may not have been intentional. The writer repeatedly asks rhetorical questions about insects before answering them in the narration and the story: "Do insects dream?" and "Do insects have a destiny?" and so on. It ends with "Do insects love? Yes...these two do."

The story seems to take place within and around the early Ant-Man stories, which I've yet to read, despite having my eye on an Essentials volume containing them for literally years now, detailing Pym's early scientific successes in the fields of shrinking and ant-controlling and his romance with Jane Van Dyne, who, here at least, borders on stalking him. (If they ever finish and release an Ant-Man movie, it's easy to imagine her in a magic pixie girl role in it or its sequel).

I didn't really care for Hans' realistic, painterly work; it matches that done by Rivera in the previous story, but while those dealt with elements of the fantastic occasionally intersecting with the real world, this story is set in fantastic locales, and is chock-full of giant ants, a giant monster, a shrinking man, a shrinking woman, and it has more than one super-costume in it.  Hans likewise has a hard time selling some of the comic moments, which play in one's imagination more than on the page, as the art and words combine to suggest them, not detail them.

Avengers Origins: Vision
By Kyle Higgins & Alec Siegel and Stephane Perger

The origin of maybe my least favorite Avenger of all time! There are few things I hate to read about more than androids with the emotional lives of teenagers; I like The Vision even less than The Red Tornado, only in that The Vision has a more garish and ugly costume (I like Golden Age Vision's look okay though).

This story seems to be set almost entirely within an issue, or part of an issue, of The Avengers, of which I've never read. Ultron builds, grows and teaches The Vision, programming him with powers to take down a fairly weak squad of Avengers, and then sicks Vision on them.

Then it's The Vision vs. The Wasp, Pym as Goliath (Hoo boy, did their relationship change between these two stories!), Hawkeye and The Black Panther, and not only should the powerful android mop the floor with these guys, he does—the only reason he doesn't kill them is that he's introduced to the concept of love through much of the fight, and then turns on his creator Ultron.

As an all-fight action comic, there's little to complain about here, and, as a hater of emotional androids, I was relieved that at no point did The Vision shed any tears. Perger's art was pretty nice, maintaining the painted look, and while the backgrounds disappear almost constantly, much of the issue is set outside at night in the rainstorm, and or there are bright flashes of light, so that The Vision's sports-team color scheme is muted and, on the whole, he looks much more dramatic than usual, with Perger lengthening his cape when necessary and often blotting out the features of his face (or at least his eyes) in order to give him a mysterious, stoic, not-really-there look.

Avengers Origins: Luke Cage
By Adam Glass & Mike Benson and Dalibor Talajic

The major outlier among the other origin stories, Luke Cage's origin is of relatively recent vintage (he was created by Archie Goodwin, John Romita Sr. and George Tuska in 1972; the next most recent character included in this volume is The Vision, who was re-created in '68, but was based on a Golden Age Timely character from 1940). He's also the only one in the book to join the Avengers after the 1960s; in fact, he didn't join the team until 2005's New Avengers.

Glass and Benson's script follows Jenkins' Captain America script rather closely in form, telling Cage's origin story (which bears some parallels to Cap's) from prison to experiment to escape to flirtation with crime to Hero for Hire, ending in the modern day, with a sort of coda in which Cage continues to try and atone for a mistake he made during his life of crime and being forgiven by his victim.

Having never read the original stories this one is based on, once again I'm uncertain as to how faithful it's being, but given that Cage's archenemy on the outside is named Stryker-with-a-Y, it sure seems like it's a re-telling of something from the 1970s.

From here on in, the book loses its painted style, save for the covers, slivers of which are used as the cover for the collection. Talajic's art is perhaps the best in the book. It's certainly the most straightforward in terms of comic bookishness, and he does a pretty good job of updating the time period during the story (It seems like this Cage grew up in the '80s, rather than the '60s).

Avengers Origins: Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver
By Sean McKeever and Mirco Pierfederici 

Okay, they may technically be Avengers, but they're mutants, and they got their start with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which makes these two X-Men characters, which makes them confusing and annoying.

McKeever tells their story from childhood until their debut as Avengers, with the bulk of attention spent on their relationship with Magneto, whose secret connection to them wasn't yet known to all parties at the time (although Quicksilver suspects). Their main conflict comes from not really having their heart in the whole "Evil" part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

As with the Cage story, the artwork in this oen is particularly comic-book-y, but perhaps in a more generic, less stylized way.

The story stands out as particularly complicated, but that's due more to the fact that their story is particularly complicated, coming out of the soap operatic X-Men franchise, and their inclusion in the Avengers by second-generation Marvel creators, while so many of the other Avengers getting the origin treatment here were originally created as stars of their own features, and thus had a pretty straightforward, simplicity to their powers and origins.

The question about Scarlet Witch that has always haunted me remains unanswered: What exactly is that thing she wears on her head and, like, what's it's deal, exactly...?

Avengers Origins: Thor 
By Kathryn Immonen, Al Barrionuevo and Michel Lacombe & Mark Pennington

The bulk of this story stars the young Thor and the young Loki, and it's set in Asgard. Odin commissions the creation of Mjolnir and a few other trinkets, and the hammer sits there, un-pick-up-able, while Thor and Loki have their various interpersonal conflicts and. When shit finally goes down, Thor finds the inner-strength he needs (and the right motivation) to pick up Mjolnir and start kicking ass. But he kicks so much ass, and does so in such an arrogant way, that he gets cast down to Midgard and, well, I'd suggest you pick up Thor: The Mighty Avenger for more of his adventures on Earth.

Immonen wisely starts and more-or-less completes her story before the story of the Marvel Thor really begins, with his time on Earth, and Barrionuevo's pencils are fine, evoking a bit of Brian Hitch, but are nothing remarkable, and his Asgard seems more like a Xena, Warrior Princess set than the sort of sci-fi fantasy realm of Kirby's creation.

On further reflection, the line-up of characters chosen for inclusion here is a rather odd one, isn't it? The Avengers Origins series is from 2012, the same year as the movie, but movie Avengers Iron Man, Hawkeye and Black Widow are absent, while the only movie Avenger who had an Avengers Origins issue produced was Thor. And The Hulk, who is in the movie, is included here, even though he's never really been a member of the team for any great length of time, and was merely present at their origin (As was Iron Man who, again, isn't represented).

And, again, Cage sticks out as being the odd Avenger out, although perhaps they decided to produce an origin issue focusing on him instead of, say, Hawkeye or Iron Man, simply because his origins is much more obscure than that of, say, Tony Stark.

All in all, it's a decent enough intro eight Marvel superheroes. None of the stories stand out as being particularly great ones, but then, none of them are at all poor ones either.

Some notes on Batman: The Dark Knight Vol.1—Knight Terrors

•Like Batman Inc, Batman: Dark Knight was a newish Batman title that launched shortly before the New 52 relaunch of the entire line, resulting in there now being two volume ones of the series, distinguishable only the "The New 52!" slug near the title of the second volume one. Batman: The Dark Knight Vol. 1: Golden Dawn is the first volume one, while Batman: The Dark Knight Vol. 1: Knight Terrors is the second volume one.

I'm not entirely positive how much of the first volume one carries into the second volume one (with Batman Inc, so much did that the second volume one was really more of a volume two). There do seem to be some sub-plots picked up already in process (Like an Internal Affairs officer named Forbes investigating Commissioner James Gordon for illegally colluding with the vigilante Batman, and also going after Bruce Wayne, who post-Batman Inc has announced he's Batman's financier.)

•The majority of this book is drawn and co-plotted by David Finch, scripted and co-plotted by Paul Jenkins and inked by Richard Friend. When Dark Knight was first announced, it was to be a sort of vanity book for Finch, his chance to do whatever he wanted with Batman, as both writer and artist. That lead to scheduling difficulties, and more and more creators came on to help. At present, DC is still publishing the book, but Finch is neither writing nor drawing it any longer.

•First line of the book: "Fear is a cannibal that feeds upon its self." Is that what Paul Jenkins meant when he said DC was "in the toilet right now?"...?

•Good thing Finch was working with a professional and experience writer though; imagine how much worse that line, and the whole goofy, overwrought speech that follows, could have been if the artist wrote it himself.

•Pages 2 and 3 of the first issue is a two-page splash page showing Batman swinging on a Batline over Gotham City, essentially the same basic image that's on the cover, only bigger. Each Finch-drawn issue of the series collected in this volume, it turns out, contains a similar two-page spread of a not terribly significant image (Two-Face punches Batman, Batman punches Superman, Bane punches Batman, etc).

•When the IA officer first confronts Bruce Wayne, he makes fun of the speech that served as narration for the first scene: "I heard your speech tonight, Mr. Wayne," he says. "Would've thought a man of your stature could afford better writers." Well, at least Jenkins realized what crap writing the first few pages of script were...

•Bruce Wayne is called away from a social/philanthropic event by a break-out/riot in Arkham Asylum (Fun fact: This very plot point occurred in the first issues of both Batman and Batman: The Dark September 2011). What's different about this one is that the in-mates are all gigantic and muscley, as if they've been caught in a Gamma bomb blast with Dr. Bruce Banner.

•In the Asylum, we get our first look at the new villain White Rabbit:

Her costume? A mask with bunny ears, a pair of panties with a bunny tail attached, a corset, thigh-high high-heeled boots and long gloves. I'd say she was wearing the uniform of a Playboy bunny, but I'm pretty sure her outfit is even more revealing and less-suited to super-villainy than what Playboy bunnies wear.

•Throughout the riot, Batman is seeking Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, who must be the most dangerous villain still in the Asylum (The Joker had his face skinned off in Detective Comics #1, which was released the same month as this issue). Here's what Two-Face looks like now:

•If you're wondering where all the other Gotham heroes are while hulked-out Arkham inmates are flooding out of the asylum and into the city, the next issue contains a montage checking in with them. Nightwing and Robin are fighting The Ventriloquist I (Who is apparently alive in The New 52U; he uses the corpse of a police officer as a ventriloquist's dummy when Scarface gets damaged). Batgirl is fighting Mr. Zsasz. Batwoman is fighting The Cavalier. And The Birds of Prey are fighting The Clock King, seen here "clocking" Black Canary:

Look, his costume hasn't changed a bit! Is Clock King the only DC character other than Catwoman whose costume was completely un-touched during The New 52 redesign?

Batman, meanwhile, is following a lead to The Joker, who has taken over a train.

•Okay, this doesn't seem very Batman-like at all:

Not only does he not save the dude by Bat-grappling his legs and pulling him down, he doesn't even gesture or say "Down, fool!" or anything.

•Inside the train he finds a hulked-out Joker, which reminds me of one of those Arkham videogame tie-in books I read, wherein The Joker was made gigantic and super-strong on the drug "Titan."

"Eait till the get a load of me," The Joker says, quoting himself from the 1989 Batman movie.

•Nevermind, it wasn't The Joker after all, but Clayface pretending to be The Joker. Just like in "Hush" when we thought that maybe Jason Todd was still alive, but it was actually just Clayface posing as him. This story arc is a lot like "Hush" in that it is full of breif, not-always-necessary appearances by various characters, who seem to be here mostly because Finch wanted to draw them.

•"I've never seen anything this complex," Batman tells Alfred, while analyzing a sample of the mysterious Titan-like chemical. "Its composite structure is based on Scarecrow's fear toxin but it acts differently...instead of sending you into a paralysis of fear, it somehow makes you fearless."

Being a good butler, Alfred bites his tongue and refrains from suggesting Batman google Detective Comics #571, the Mike Barr/Alan Davis classic wherein The Scarecroew develops a toxin that instead of sending you into a paralysis of fear, somehow makes you fearless.

•I probably say this about twice a week now, but this may be the most completely insane thing I've ever seen in a DC comic book:

Alfred brings two ice cream cones to Batman while he's working on the Bat-computer. Cones. Look how weird that is. How did he get them from the kitchen to the Bat-cave without melting? Where the dishes and tray? Batman takes his, but doesn't eat it. Just walks off-panel with it, and is next seen in the cockpit of the Batplane. Where did his ice cream go?

This more than attempting to write a scene of Batman sitting down may be why Jenkins was hounded off the title, although I'd have to see the script. It may be that Jenkins just wrote about Alfred bringing in ice cream, and it may be Finch's fault for drawing ice cream in waffle cones instead of in rich-people silver cups with long spoons.

•And finally, The Scarecrow appears...

...quoting a Sandman ad from 20 years ago...

but it's okay, as that ad was quoting T.S. Eliot.

•"Why don't you ask Batman for help?" Forbes snidely asks Gordon over the phone, when the latter complains about what dire straights the city is in. "I told you, I don't know what you're--" Gordon starts.

But there is a big spotlight on top of Gotham City Police Department Headquarters that creates a Bat-symbol on the night sky over Gotham City, commonly referred to as "The Bat Signal," because it is meant to signal Batman for help.

That's a pretty good clue that there's some form of collusion between the city police and Batman, right?

•The sixth issue is where the creative team starts to see some fiddling, and they'll all fal away (at least temporarily) before the end of this collection. In this issue, Paul Jenkins is credited as sole writer and Finch loses his "co-plotter" credit, while Joe Harris gets a credit for "dialogue assist."

•The seventh issue is called "The Final Curtain," and turns out to be the end of a story arc...although none of the conflicts really see resolution, beyond the defeat of one of the second or third villains to claim to be the mastermind behind everything (See? It's "Hush"-like). Jenkins and Finch both return in the creative capacities they held at the beginning of the book.

•Bane's Venom now basically turns him into the Hulk. In addition to making him so big that he's got several feet in height on Batman and his fists are the size of Batman's head, he can also leap several stories high.

•Bane talks about taking over the city by releasing all the maniacs in Arkham, which is basically the plot of Knightfall, only here instead of giving them firearms upon release, he's given them the Scarecrow/Venom toxin that make them fearless and turn into Hulks.

•He also mentions having broken Batman's back, which one might think would mean "Knightfall," "Knightquest: The Search," "Knightquest: The Crusade" and "KnightsEnd" are all still in-continuity, except they rather explicitly can't be, as you'd have to subtract Barbara Gordon from them, rearrange Robin's costume and—I assume—completely remove Jean-Paul Valley/Azrael/Batman II from the proceedings, which was kind of the whole point of the exercise.

In other words, like most of the stuff kept in-continuity, some of the events of that storyline are considered in-continuity, but not how they happened, and not the stories/comics themselves, so it's another example of a big DC event (Superman's death, Blackest Night, etc) that still happened, but differently than readers think it did, and how it differed exactly is known only to some folks behind the scenes at DC, if they choose to think about it enough to know it anyway.

Which is that "Worst Of Both Worlds" aspect of the New 52 I find most frustrating; it's not a real reboot, and it's not not a reboot, it's just a whole bunch of stuff changed seemingly arbitrarily and at random; a series of universe-wide retcons that punish both new readers for their lack of knowledge and long-time readers for their knowledge, while rendering the whole backlist suspect. Indvidual trades can be enjoyed on their own, but shouldn't be thought of as part of a bigger, wider story, which is, of course, the main selling point of the DC universe line of comics.

•Batman ends his battle with Bane by throwing a Venom antitdote into his mouth and then shoulder-blocking him off a cliff to the land spine-first on the rocks far below, where he's carried off to sea by the waves. Batman doesn't lift a finger or shoot a grappling hook to prevent Bane's likely death.

Meanwhile, the super-fast Flash, standing right next to Batman at the time the Dark Knight attempts to murder his enemey, makes no move to, like, run at super-speed down the cliff, create an aircurrent to slows Bane's fall and then kicking the living shit out of him at super-speed and run him to a prison cell before Bane even realized he was falling.

•Issue #8 is a fill-in issue, written by Joe Harris and drawn and co-plotted by Ed Benes. Perhaps it's the inking by Rob Hunter and Jack Purcell, or that Benes provided less-full pencils than usual, but this is the best Benes art I can recall reading. Batman looks human in his physique, and there aren't any women in it. Maybe Benes should always and only draw Batman comics, as the best Benes art I've ever seen from him has always appeared in Batman comics. That, or work with Hunter and Purcell all the time?

•At first it seems a continuation of the story that I guess ended in the previous issue, as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum appear in it and are they are both giant, Hulk-like brutes now instead of the diminutive little round fellows they were before, but, as it turns out, that's just how they are in The New 52.

•It's mainly an inconsequential done-in-one, with the main narrative progression involving Gordon's conflict with Forbes (Here, he has to see a psychiatrist).

•The final issue of the collection is another fill-in, or perhaps the start of a new writer's arc, but it's a tie-in to "The Night of the Owls" crossover with the main Batman title, so as good a place as any for a fill-in. That writer is Judd Winick.

•An undead-ish Talon assassin for the Court of Owls makes an assassination attempt and, while he suceeds, he gets pretty fucked-up in the process (getting tasered and shot in the forehead with a handgun), before Batman shows up and kicks him out a window that's so high that when he hits the pavement he liquifies and goes "SPLORCH." He must have some crazy regenerative powers, because by the time Batman gets to the street, the Talon is pretty much reconstittued and has fled, evading capture by the World's Greatest Detective.

The Melancholic Spider-Man

All the original Marvel characters had their own adjectives—the Fantastic Four was, obviously, fantastic. Thor was mighty, the Hulk was incredible, Iron Man was invincible, the X-Men uncanny and Spider-Man was, at first, amazing. He would later be sensational and friendly neighborhood, as well.

But he was never depressing. At least, he never starred in a comic book called The Depressing Spider-Man, but that's only because someone thought Peter Parker: Spider-Man had a better ring to it. Last night I sat down with three issues of the book from 2001, and by the time I finished the third one I had almost completely lost my will to live.

Now, I don't know if Peter Parker: Spider-Man #33-#35 are representative of writer Paul Jenkins' run on the title or not, but they are some incredibly downbeat comic books. Like, so downbeat I'm not even sure why they exist. Well, I can sort of almost kind of see the logic that since this was the title with Spidey's secret identity's name right there in the title that they'd want to focus on his inner, emotional life over his superheroic exploits but, my God, not like this, not like this!

Issue #33 bears a cover of young Peter Parker and not-dead-yet Uncle Ben at a ball game. It's drawn by Humberto Ramos, and it's a kinda funny image. You see Pete got konked on the head by a flyball and is seeing stars, while various game-goers react to that and other events in exaggerated, cartoonish ways.

Kinda looks like it might be a fun comic, right?

Then you turn the cover and, on the first page, Spider Man is clinging to the spire of a skyscraper, thinking about how fast time is moving now that he's getting older, and, in th elast panel on the page, we see his unmasked face, his eyes filling with tears, and his narration box reads: "This is the day my Uncle Ben died."

Uh-oh.

Page two, Aunt May visits Ben's grave. The next twenty? Peter goes to a Mets game by himself, all the while flashing back to ones he attended with Ben as a kid and the life lessons he learned at those games, including the last one they attended together—just three days before Ben died!

Okay, well, that was a bit of a downer, I thought, but not a bad piece of super-melodrama, really.

On to #34. This one's got Spider-Man on the cover, doing something Spider-Man-ish, plus a guy with glowing blue laser eyes. This one's gotta be a more standard superhero book, right? (And by "standard superhero book" I mean not completely focused on the brevity of human life).

The first three pages deal with a couple of monks freaking out about another of their order having escaped the monastery. Apparently, he's a mutant of some kind with the Cyclops-like problem of laser blasting and killing whoever he looks at. And he's on the loose!

Meanwhile, in the city, Aunt May gives Peter a used set of salt and pepper shakers shaped like an angel and a devil, which Jenkins writes into the story specifically to set up a sight gag referencing the angel on one shoulder, devil on the other cartoon staple. For some reason, artist Mark Buckingham draws the shakers huge though. Like, they're the size of jars.

Peter is at this point still married to Mary Jane, but they're separated (geographically but not legally, if I remember millennial Spider-marriage status quo correctly), and he's not sure if he should go on a date-like outting with his sexy neighbor, although he eventually decides to go to a neighborhood fun fair with her.

That's where the laser-eyed monk is heading. He kills a whole bunch of people by looking at them, he fights Spider-Man a bit, but, in the end, he gets aboard one of those, tilting, spinning amusement park rides that's a bit like a giant cup you stand in and while it spins around (here called "The Wall of Death").

The specifics of his eye whammy are that a) it only goes off if he's standing upright as opposed to laying down and b) the longer he keeps his eyes open, the more life-energy he expends and the closer he gets to death.

He wants to ride this ride simply because it allows him to see the stars as he expends all his energy in looking at them, and dies. Spider-Man, hero that he is, fails to save the suicidal laser-eyed monk.

So this is essentially a done-in-one story about a mutant monk committing suicide right in front of Spider-Man. William (that's the monk's name) sees the stars, but also sees God (William switches pronouns from I see "them" to I see "Him" as he dies). Spider-Man looks down at the dead monk, and then up at the night sky, and envies him: "All I see are little points of light against a big black blanket. A vast shroud of nothing, infinitely far away. Somes I wish I could be as lucky as William."

Presumably Jenkins means Spidey's an atheist and wishes he could believe like William could believe. Or perhaps he wishes he were dead, and put out of the misery that is his life? After 40 pages of vicariously living it, I can understand where he's coming from.

Sheesh. Well surely Jenkins will lighten things up next issue, right? He can't keep providing emotionally punishing stories month in and month out. No one reads Spider-Man comics to be bummed right the hell out, after all.

So that brings us to #35, on which Ramos draws Spider-Man sitting with his chin on his knee (uh-oh) talking to a little boy about something. Fuck. I bet it's something sad, isn't it?

That little boy is excitedly running home from school on the first page to tell his mom that he got invited to a classmate's birthday party, but inside he finds her laying face down on the couch of their filthy apartment, beer cans and an empty bottle of gin piled around her.

"Momma. I got home from school," he tells her sadly, awakening her. When he asks where dinner is, she says she has a headache and it's in the fridge before shes passes out again. He goes to the fridge, but all he finds are two cans of beer in it.

Jesus. Spider-Man doesn't appear until page five, and man, even Spider-Man's not gonna help any here. The boy goes to his room and fishes a collectable Spider-Man card out of a box under his bed, and suddenly Spider-Man appears with a, "Heya, Secret Sidekick!"

The boy, Lafronce, tells Spider-Man all about his day, and Spidey tells him about the villains he fought. But it's not really Spider-Man! No, it's the imaginary Spider-Man that Lafronce summons to hang out with him as a way of coping with his miserable life.

We wallow in Lafronce's terrible life for a few more scenes. Here he is at school drawing his hero Spider-Man hanging out with he and his mom, there are his aunt and uncle arguing with the principal that he should have Lafronce taken away from his mother, here he is coming home from school again this time finding a mean man beating on his mom, here's imaginary friend Spider-Man again, and there's a social worker talking about how he's doing everything he can for Lafronce over the phone, while we see him at a golf course.

Then one day Lafronce goes home and finds his mom's body being removed from their apartment. Apparently she's been dead for three months, and Lafronce was living with her the whole time?(!?!)

At the end of the story, he has another conversation with imaginary Spider-Man who is apparently going to quit being his imaginary friend now, and when he's ready to leave Lafronce, imaginary Spider-Man says "Big men don't hug each other when they part ways..they shake hands."

Ready for the last page surprise ending? Spider-Man has removed his glove and mask to shake hands with Lafronce and...Spidey's a black man!
It's a neat image to be sure, and certainly a surprise ending. Perhaps Jenkins is trying to say something about how we project ourselves into our heroes, or want them to be like us, all I could really think was Jesus, if Lafronce actually got to meet his hero like that, would that be just one more disappointment to learn that Spidey is actually just an ineffectual, whiny white kid?

Part of me wouldn't mind reading more of Jenkins' run on this title just to see if it's all like this, and part of me hopes I never come across any more. I don't think I can stand to read any more about the human misery and suffering in Spider-Man's world. After all, isn't that what all the comics set in our world are for?