My sister has a suggestion for DC Comics:

My nephew recently discovered the 2004-2008 cartoon series The Batman on Netflix. And, because he is three-and-a-half (and a bit of a tyrant), that means his whole family watches The Batman regularly now. Which is why I've been getting a lot of texts like the one above this week.

Review: SHIELD Vol 2: The Man Called DEATH

This collection collects the next six issues of Marvel's Mark Waid-written SHIELD comic, which features the main cast from the TV show Agents of SHIELD as part of the real Marvel Comics Universe (instead of the Marvel Cinematic Universe). And, because Marvel cancelled the series along with everything else in their line once last year's Secret Wars began, that means SHIELD Vol. 2: The Man Called DEATH also collects the second half of the too-quickly-canceled, 12-issue series (It has been semi-relaunched as Agents of SHIELD, but with writer Marc Guggenheim at the helm; I can't tell you if or how much it's changed, having not yet read it though).

The format of The Man Called DEATH is fairly similar to that of the first volume, Perfect Bullets, with Phil Coulson the one constant character in each issue, with various members of his TV team–Fitz, Simmons, May and, as of this volume, Skye/Daisy/Quake and Bobbi Morse (in her full Mockingbird regalia)–coming and going as needed. Almost every issue features a guest-star from the Marvel (Comics) Universe, so the book continues to be a good introduction to the wider, wilder world that inspired the cinematic universe, particularly useful to fans of the show who may not have ever met Howard the Duck or Dominic Fortune. And every single issue features a different, usually fantastic artist, so it also serves as a crash course in great comics artists for the TV/movie fans-turned-readers that this book is hopefully attracting (Although, personally, I'm not overly hopeful, given Marvel's tendency to reluanch and re-title willy-nilly, it can be really hard to figure out which books to read; I didn't even realize what this book contained until I brought it home from the library, originally thinking that it must be a collection of those recent anniversary one-shots, based on the cover image).

Here's what this volume contains:

•The introduction of the comics version of Daisy "Quake" Johnson to the cast, in a story that essentially officially merges her with the Skye character of the TV show. The villain is her father Mr. Hyde. This one's drawn by Greg Smallwood, whose work is close enough in style to that of Chris Samnee that this issue is pretty evocative of Waid and Samnee's Daredevil. The lay-outs are not just easy to read, but clever and sophisticated, with lots of white space between and around the panels. Tastes vary from reader to reader, of course, but I'm pretty sure this is the best-drawn issue in this collection.

•Coulson sends Mockingbird and May to tackle a human trafficking ring that abducts children, surgically alters them in fantastic ways (sewing on wings, tails or horns and so on) and then sells them to the highest bidder. This one's drawn by Paco Medina, and is maybe the weakest, visually. There's at least one really muddy action scene, which really stands out here, given the high quality of just about every other page.

•The title story features Coulson investigating a mystery as old as SHIELD, which turns out to be infinitely older than Nick Fury. Maybe. Having not read Jonathan Hickman's 2011 SHIELD mini-series, I'm not sure if this story directly references or riffs on it or not, but it sure seemed to. This issue is maybe the most interestingly crafted of these half-dozen, although it wouldn't become apparent until the end of the book and some explanatory back-matter. It's something of a collaboration between Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, Lee Ferguson and Waid. Apparently shortly before the launch of Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, Kirby was already working on a comic featuring World War II vet Sgt. Fury as a post-war super-spy concept, and got two pages in. Those pages were later given to Steranko as an inking test. And they reappear here, integrated into the story, which is set in the early days of SHIELD as well the modern day.

•Fitz and my favorite new character from the first volume, the one who is most perfectly-suited for a team-up with an anthropomorphic bird, recruit Howard The Duck to help SHIELD shut down an inter-dimensional threat that is definitely of Howard's milieu. It's a pretty integration of one book/character's tone and general subject matter into a book that skips all-around the various corners of the Marvel Universe, which is, of course, something of a quilt. Evan "Doc" Shaner draws this issue and, as always, he draws the hell out of it...even though Howard The Duck isn't a character I would have thought would been the most ideal one for Shaner to draw.

•Dominic Fortune recruits Coulson's help in recovering his riverboat casino from the clutches of a Hydra-affiliated businessman and a corrupt croupier, featuring art by Fortune creator Howard Chaykin.

•When a time traveler assassinates Odin, Asgard goes to war with Midgard, slaughtering all of its heroes (including former Thor and current Thor, who sided with the Avengers). Coulson and his whole team travel to Asgard to sue for peace, but they also time travel on the way up or something, and thus have the opportunity to prevent the assassination, thus stopping the war before it start. Not much suspense in whether or not they succeed, of course, but, once again, it allows Waid to take the book to another corner of the Marvel Universe, and work in the space-mythology of Asgard as well as confusing time travel. This one's drawn by Joe Bennett and a handful of inkers, and isn't a terribly visually exciting issue, although there are plenty of opportunities for striking imagery.

As with the first collection, this premise and format works really well for me, and it seems like it should theoretically work really well for new readers–I don't think I've ever seen Marvel produce a comic that seems so well-designed to capitalize on mass-media adaptation by selling a particular group of viewers on not just a comic, but their whole comics line in general.

In that respect, it's kind of too bad they gave up after only a year's worth of issues, as even if the new Agents of SHIELD comic mimics this one rather closely, it also has a new title and will thus be renumbered, and will just add to the messy pile of Marvel comics with the words "SHIELD" in the title and/or to feature Coulson.

On the positive side, if any comic shop owners whose customers come in and tell them they watch Agents of SHIELD and want to know which comic they should read, or if any comic book readers who friends ask them for recommendations for a comic featuring those characters, well, they'll know what to suggest: SHIELD Vol. 1: Perfect Bullets and SHIELD Vol. 2: The Man Called DEATH

Thoughts on Daredevil season two (episode one)

So dumb.

•I still really, really dislike TV Daredevil's costume, and Netflix showed a pretty thorough visual recap of the first season before the first episode of the second season, giving me another chance to see that original, all-black, non-costume costume right before his big, dumb, bulky body armor suit. Because I am a masochist, my friend and I re-watched the 2003 Daredevil film shortly after watching the first season, and the one thing it did better than the TV show was that it had a better Daredevil costume (especially the cowl).

Now wouldn't Charlie Cox look great in this outfit?

I've said it before, but I'll say it again since I'm back on the subject. I'd prefer a TV Daredevil costume much closer to the one he's currently wearing in the comics, all black with some red highlights (gloves, boots) and a cowl more like the one Ben Affleck rocked.

•The opening sequence, in which a gang of ski-masked wearing, gun-toting thieves who apparently just robbed a silver briefcase store but neglected to arrange for a getaway car are taken down one-by-one by an unseen, off-screen Daredevil is pretty fantastic introduction to Daredevil and his ninja skills.

•I wonder if they are eventually going to address the fact that Daredevil is basically a sadistic crazy person with a semi-split personality. The way Charlie Cox plays Matt Murdock, he seems like such a nice, charming sweet guy, but when he justifies his vigilante activities to Elden Henson's Foggy in their first scene together, he brings up an instance where he stops a drunken wife-beater from attempting to murder his spouse, who they were unable to fully protect simply through their lawyering. Murdock notes that he put the bad guy in the hospital, after breaking both his arms and inflicting some other grievous injury...was it a cracked sternum? Something like that?

I mean, way to go saving the day and all, and I'm sure the serial abuser deserved to get a taste of what he was dishing out to his wife, but Jesus Matt, did you have to break both arms? Doesn't breaking one limb kinda make the point?

•It's pretty impossible these days, even when one doesn't read the articles under the headlines on the comics sites noting who has been cast as who in what show, to avoid learning details about shows like this (and even if I did stay off the Internet all together, I would have seen the ads for the show prominently featuring the two new characters). But I really kinda wish I didn't know The Punisher was going to be in this. Because they spent a significant time building up the threat this episode, with the climax of that build-up probably being the revelation that it wasn't a gang or squad or team of people using military-grade hardware to slaughter various Hell's Kitchen's gangs by the dozens, but that it was "just one guy."

Maybe they could have mo-capped Bernthal and had Tim Bradstreet draw a CGI Punisher over him...?

•I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Jon Bernthal's Punisher, as he's not really on-screen all that much. The Punisher I see in my mind's eye these days is the one from Garth Ennis' Max run, which means something of a cross between an ogre and a middle-aged Clint Eastwood. This Punisher is certainly being portrayed as something close to Ennis' maniac-serial-killer version from the Max comics series, which reinforced that image of him in my mind before appeared on-screen.

I'm not sure who looks like that Punisher--Scott Eastwood with some Lord of The Rings-style camera trickery to make him look three feet taller than Daredevil? Ron Perleman?--Bernthal but seemed too normal-sized, rather than the bigger-than-life force of nature he's portrayed as here.

•Boy, do they really sell The Punisher as a bat-shit insane, slasher-movie villain, as opposed to the anti-hero, guy-who's-willing-to-cross-that-line vigilante of the previous movies or the pre-Ennis (and some post-Ennis) comics. The Punisher I've read comics about certainly wouldn't be above torturing bad guys or anything, but that whole sequence in his lair, with victims hung on hooks with sides of beef, all sorts of industrial flesh-cutting equipment in the next room?

If the Punisher-cave was simply more poorly lit, or at least had flickering light bulbs, it would seem more like a place for Leatherface to hang out than The Punisher.

•I was actually pretty surprised that he and Daredevil had a fight within the first episode, especially considering the build-up before Wilson Fisk ever appeared in the first season. Their fight was pretty fantastic at the outset--I really liked the way Daredevil essentially moved him across the rooftop while they fought--but once we got to the slow-motion kick, it lost its momentum (Daredevil screaming like Tarzan before tackling Punisher from above wasn't a very sneaky ninja move, either).

•I was a little surprised by the fact that Punisher held his own so well against Daredevil in a fistfight, but, again, that may be simply because I'm bringing with me my own perceptions and impressions from reading comics about these guys, where one is a master ninja with super-senses and the other is just a big guy with guns. We haven't learned much about this Punisher yet, so far all I know he was trained by Stick or The Hand or discovered the lost city of K'un-L'un.

Comic Shop Comics: March 16

Batman & Robin Eternal #24 (DC Comics) I believe this series only has two more issues to go, and things certainly seem climactic in this issue, as Dick Grayson closes in on Mother while the rest of the cast–and plenty of cameo-ing guest-stars*–fight off hordes of brainwashed killer children all over the world.

Azrael's appearance–see him on the cover there?–is weird, as he basically appears to pick a fight with Grayson, and rather than trying to talk Az out of his stated his desire to kill Mother, Grayson just tries to run him over with a snow mobile. I know this is a comic book, but it's not a Marvel comic, and it's not 1967; you guys can team-up to take Mother down and then argue over whether she should be run through with a flaming sword or tied up and turned over to the proper authorities.

Steve Orlando scripts this issue, while Alvaro Martinz pencils it and Raul Fernandez inks it. The action is kind of hard to follow in several passages, and I'm not entirely sure I could make sense of the way Red Robin and Red Hood were using the doors. Also, Midnighter's costume looks pretty weird, although I doubt I would have even noticed had I not just read the Orlando-written Midnighter Vol. 1: Out.

Oh hey, and for what it's worth, I notice that the credits for this issue not only mention that Batman was created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger, but also that Azrael was created by Dennis O'Neil and Joe Quesada. Azrael is the only character other than Batman to get such a credit here.

Black Canary #9 (DC) Wait a minute, >this isn't what DC had scheduled for Black Canary #9, nor is March when they had it scheduled. Weird.

Given that this issue has an entirely different creative team than the regular one and that it's an out-of-sequence, done-in-one story set sometime before Black Canary #1, this seems to be a last-minute substitution, a true fill-in that DC may have already had in a drawer, should the need for it ever arise. That's weird.

To my great surprise, it was also the best issues of the series so far. As I've said before, I've always liked the idea of this book, and the premise of it, a lot more than the actual comic, which has involved a lot of stuff that strikes me as outside of Black Canary's (solo, as opposed to Justice League) milieu, stuff that wasn't really necessary when Black Canary As Lead Singer In A Crime-Fighting Rock Band is such a great premise as is.

I suppose that, and the self-contained nature, are a large part of why I so enjoyed Matthew Rosenberg's story–"Please, Pleas, Please, Let Me Get What I Want"**–as much as I did. It demonstrated that the rock band that fights crime angle is plenty to propel a comic book...although certainly the Moritat art didn't hurt any.

Black Canary (the band) has been hired by a rich, mean lady to play the birthday part of a young super-fan, and Dinah almost blows the gig when she flying kicks one of the party guests: Tobias Whale. It soon becomes evident that the party is full of name criminals, as the little fan is actually a mafia princess, the granddaughter of Carmine Falcone.

Also, a half-dozen assassins have been hired to kill her, so it's a good thing that Black Canary (the character) is also a superhero.

Moritat's art is, as always, fantastic, and while something of a departure from the previous art in the book, I really rather enjoyed his take on the lead, a high-kicking Barbie doll-bodied young woman with a face that looks somewhere between Tim Sale and Naoko Takeuchi. He handles all the other characters quite well too, of course, and his lay-outs and storytelling are superb.

The sequences in which she quietly takes out the assassins are particularly strong, although page 13 is probably my favorite, for its big third panel, showing a a crowd of criminal types in a crowd, watching the show. There's something almost Richard Sala-like about that panel stuffed with creepy, unsavory, comically criminal-looking characters.

In terms of story, this is pretty much what I wish Black Canary has been all along. In terms of art, I really like the work of regular artist Annie Wu, but I also really like that of Moritat. I would be totally, 100% okay with either one of them drawing the upcoming Batgirl and The Birds of Prey.

Oh, the one thing I didn't like about this issue? The first page. It's a full-page splash, a tight close-up of Black Canary (the character) shouting, seemingly directly at the reader. It's a great piece of art, although the lines look incredibly thick compared to those in every panel that follows, and something seems...wrong about it.

What, exactly, is revealed on page 12, when the exact same image reappears as the fourth of the five panels on the page. Apparently, it was blown up to fill the splash on the first page, or the first page was shrunk to fill this panel. I...have no idea why, Perhaps it was written that way, or perhaps this was so hastily assembled that the creators were short a page. I don't know, but it's kinda jakey looking, as my mom would say (spellcheck just underlined the word "jakey," so perhaps my mom is the only one who would say that, as it does not appear to be a real word, as I've suspected for years now).

Legends of Tomorrow #1 (DC) I plan on covering this in a few days at perhaps too-great length, but thought I would at least mention it here, on the off-chance that anyone actually reads these posts looking for recommendations of which new comics to buy or anything. In short, yes, you should probably buy this, as it is really rather Not Bad At All.

As I mentioned on Twitter earlier, and probably when I wrote up DC's solicitations for this month's comics, the entire endeavor seemed incredibly confounding to me. It bears the title of a TV show, but the only character it has in common is Firestorm, with the other 3/4ths of the book devoted to The Metal Men, Metamorpho and, oddest of all, Sugar & Spike, two characters from old gag comics who were babies that talked in baby talk but are here grown-up private eyes for no reason that I can conceive of (By the way Firestorm was created in 1978, Metamorpho in 1965, Metal Men in 1962 and Sugar & Spike in 1956; so more like Legends of Yesterday am I right? ). It's an $8 anthology comic. It doesn't feature any work from any creator that can sell a book by him or herself.

It may have just been how much I lowered my expectations then, but I actually rather liked this quite a bit. These are apparently all New 52 versions of the characters–Firestorm seemed to pick up where the Firestorm comic ended, these Metal Men and Will Magnus look like those from Justice League, and Metamorpho's story is an origin story. But they were all easy to follow, no one seemed to fuck any of the characters up too badly (I had some issues with Metamorpho, and that Sugar & Spike reinvention is just so random). There's nothing ground-breaking in here, but, for the most part, these are a bunch of fun, interesting characters, in well-crafted, self-contained comics.

And despite the crazy-high price point, each feature is 20-pages long–the book has a spine, like one of those comic/trade hybrid "100-Page Spectacular" comics DC published not too long ago–which means you get four comics for the price of two.

After having read this, it looked like DC threw this together to try and sell four different series that would have died immediately had they tried publishing them as individual titles. Not sure if it will work, but if you've got $8 discretionary dollars, there are certainly worse ways to spend them on new comics this week.

Lumberjanes #24 (Boom Studios) As I've mentioned before, that fact that the covers of this comic pretty much never, ever have anything at all to do with the story inside has gotten a little on the irritating side over time, but this one by Kat Leyh is pretty clever (although the whole bottom row does look a bit off-model, don't they?). I don't think I've ever seen the ghost-that-doesn't-show-up-in-the-picture gag in the digital camera age, wherein here the camera's focusing guidelines (or whatever the little yellow squares are called) detects that there's a vampire or whatever up there, but doesn't pick up its image. Pretty neat idea, well executed.

The interiors are, of course, devoid of vampires or Leyh art, but she does continue to co-write, along with Shannon Watters (while Carey Pietsch handles art). This is the conclusion of the Seafarin' Karen and the Selkies plot, which seems like it may have gone on an issue too long (which seems to be the norm with Lumberjanes arcs).

It is, nevertheless, a very solid issue in every respect, and it awards readers with maybe the cutest Lumberjanes badge yet (as my friend pointed out to me), the "Seal of Approval" badge. In-story, the 'Janes earn their Knot On Your Life knot-tying badges, which was the original impetus for this adventure. And they do earn them, as several knots are tied during the climax.

Robin Vol. 2: Triumphant (DC) My ancestral home was recently broken into, and while nothing was stolen, the burglars searched the entire house, even going to the trouble to search most of my comics midden, dumping most of the long boxes just in case I had hidden any hundred dollar bills between issues of Ultimate Spider-Man and Justice League Task Force, I guess. They didn't take any comics, and I think my collection must have eventually tired them out, as by the time they worked their way to the bottom layer of the pyramid of longboxes filling a spare room, they didn't even bother to open the lids. Way to go, Comics Collection! You defeated the trespassers!

So I've begun the daunting task of going through my comics, a task I was really hoping to leave to my nieces and nephew sometime after my death. It's given me a chance to reevaluate whether or not I actually need to keep each and every one of the damn things just because I paid cover price for them at one point, or if I can live without the post-House of M volume of X-Factor or that bonkers Kathryn Immonen-written Hellcat series I didn't understand and never intend to read again.

It was during this (still in-progress, sadly) collection sorting that I realized I was missing a long-box, one filled with issues of Robin and Batgirl. And then I remembered that the one time my apartment got broken into when I lived in Columbus, those burglars had taken a long box (and a jar of nickles, a stack of un-longbox-ed comics and all of my DVDs that weren't sub-titled). So this break-in reminded me of a bunch of comics lost in a break-in years previous, which I had forgotten, because Jesus God I have so many comic books.

This is all a long, long way of saying that I guess it's a good thing DC is collecting old Robin comics, because I lost all of mine. My shop didn't have the first volume, so I'm staring with the second volume.

I did not finish reading it yet, but I'm going to mention here, because those are the rules of this column. This book collects 1991's Robin II: The Joker's Wild and 1992's Robin III: Cry of The Huntress, both by Chuck Dixon and Tom Lyle, as well as Batman #467-469, their sequel to their original Robin mini-series. The collection also includes Batman #465 by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, the first issue featuring the new Dynamic Duo.

I guess the organizing principle here then is that DC is collecting all of the Robin Tim Drake comics chronologically...or at least the ones in which he appeared in costume (Between "A Lonely Place of Dying" and Robin, there was a stretch of Tim hanging around the Bat-cave doing computer stuff, and that story where his globe-trotting parents were attacked by The Obeah Man).

I had, of course, read all of these before, and some of them, like Robin II, I've read over and over and over.

These being some of the first comics I've ever read, and Tim Drake having been "my" Robin, a character who was my age who was just debuting as I was starting to read comics,these comics are kinda special to me, and I suppose it may be difficult to evaluate them without worrying if nostalgia tinges my regard for them at all.

Re-reading the first 130 or so pages of this collection today, I was reminded of how (relatively) realistic these comics were, and what great pains writer Chuck Dixon, as well as Alan Grant and the Bat-office's editors went to justify Batman fighting crime with a kid. Robin was new, and there were lots of rules regarding how he could fight crime, what he could and couldn't do, and how to keep from getting killed like Jason Todd.

Damian Wayne grew on me surprisingly fast, but I really like Tim as a character, particularly during these formative years, when he had to ask Alfred to drive him into Gotham City to fight crime, and he went to school with a supporting cast of sorts, and even had enemies of his own distinct from Batman's (King Snake, Lynx and The Ghost Dragons).

I also really like the way Lyle drew his hair and cape, and the way he had both Batman and Robin clutch their capes when they were jumping, forming a crescent moon-like shape as the capes fluttered up and away from their fistfulls of fabric.

Breyfogle's art is, of course, even stronger, and although he drew most of the earliest Tim Drake comics, it was Lyle who drew Robin in his Breyfogle-designed costume the most for a long time. His single issue if full of great images of The Dynamic Duo in action, and he was able to draw a Tim that looked both youthful and appropriately spooky and menacing enough to be standing next to the post-Dark Knight Returns Batman.

Just flipping through this issue one more time, my eyes keep landing on great, dynamic scenes: The pair landing on a rooftop on page two, Robin scaring away a drunk menacing a woman just by demonstrating his skills with his staff over the course of five panels on page 5 (this is the second time in the issue Robin prevents a crime from happening without resorting to violence), his two panel take down of two muggers on page 8, his staff hitting one on the back of the head while his feet hit the other and, of course, the second panel on page 21, where Batman and Robin soar up to the roof of police headquarters to answer the Bat-signal on grappling hooks and lines anchored on the corner of the building. Breyfogle's art is so kinetic, so dynamic that there are panels of this comic that seem practically animated.

When I think of Robin Tim Drake, I inevitably think of Tom Lyle's version, and perhaps that's the case for most readers, but I suppose that was simply because Lyle got more assignments prominently featuring the character than Breyfogle did. As this collection demonstrates, Norm Breyfogle was the best Batman artist of the '90s.

Flipping ahead to the end, I noticed that DC seems to have reproduced most if not all of the Robin II variant covers, which included a goofy hologram sticker embedded in images drawn by some of the best artists you could ask to have draw your Batman covers. The stickers aren't included, obviously, nor were the incredibly complex, poly-bagged gimmick covers of Robin III, which involved sliding out some sort of card behind a semi-transparent cover to simulate the effect of a fluttering cape on a posing character. While I lived, read and collected through the 1990s, I'm pretty sure the covers of Robin III were the most elaborate variants I ever personally encountered, making die-cuts or embedded plastic gems and glow-in-the-dark ink (the only cover enhancement I genuinely thought was cool) seem quaint.

Oh man, I hope those individual issues of Robin II and Robin III didn't skyrocket in value or anything...if so, my nieces and nephew's inheritance won't be worth as much as it might have been if the Columbus burglars had stolen the long box with all the Bloodlines annuals instead...



*Oh hey, look, it's Calvin Rose, AKA Talon! I was wondering if he was dead or not, as I haven't seen him anywhere in so long, so I guess this answers that question.

**Despite the name of my blog, I don't like the title. In fact, I generally hate when song titles are repurposed for the names of comic book stories or, worse still, comic book titles.

Review: Secret Six Vol. 1: Friends in Low Places

The second volume of the Gail Simone-written incarnation of Secret Six (following a healthy, 36-issue series that lasted from 2008-20011) reads infinitely better in trade than it did in serially published, comic book format. But then, it would almost have to, as the book's unusual delays hobbled it almost immediately upon launch.

The first issue, featuring artwork by Ken Lashley and a striking cover by Dale Eaglesham, was released in December of 2014. The "six" of the title were a half-dozen villains and anti-heroes, including the New 52 introduction of Catman (given a radically different costume that altered his original origin dramatically, but is otherwise a strong design), reappearances by the Simone-created Ventriloquist III (or II in the New 52, I guess) and Black Alice (whose New 52 debut came in DC Universe Vs. Masters of The Universe, of all places), plus mute Court of Owls assassin Strix (from Simone's run on Batgirl) and new characters Porcelain and Big Shot.

Structured as a bizarre (if familiar, Saw-like) horror mystery, it featured our point-of-view character Thomas "Catman" Blake being abducted and waking up in a seemingly inescapable, coffin-shaped room with the other five characters, while their captor posed a vague, open-ended question (which doesn't make sense, given what follows) and occasionally delivering electric shocks. A lot of mysterious elements, a lot of questions and relatively little connection to the previous series, outside the presence of this new, New 52 version of Catman.

The second issue missed January, and didn't ship until February of 2015. The creative team remained the same, but the plot advanced only minimally, with the characters working together to escape their prison and kill their captors–save the unseen boss, Mockingbird. The present was broken up with flashbacks to Catman being thrown into another prison by a group of characters who may or may not have been the same as the ones imprisoning the Six, where he was kept one year and then released (Kind of like a less extreme version of Oldboy, really).

Who many of the characters were, and what their relationship to one another and why they were targeted remained a mystery. Mystery is fine, of course, but keep in mind that this was a brand-new series still in the process of establishing a premise, and after just 40 pages spread over three months, it still wasn't quite there.

And then the book disappeared for a while, missing three months and only reappearing again in June with the third issue. At this point, the art started changing, with Tom Derenick drawing the final 12 pages after Lashley's first eight, but it finally came together. These six odd-ball characters were going to band together to find and fight Mockingbird for what he did to them. Their initial base of operations would be Big Shot's home in a Gotham suburb.

The book remained on schedule after that point, shipping monthly, but the damage was apparently already done. There were a lot of hurdles placed before readers to make it this far, as they had to wait a total of seven months for the first three issues and, if the sales estimates to direct market retailers are any measure, few stuck it out and were content with what followed: By the sixth issue the book was selling several thousand copies less than when the previous volume ended, and by the seventh issue it was reaching cancellation levels (As it turns out, it is to be cancelled, being one of the many comics to not be reborn during this summer's "Rebirth" initiative).

Readers who encounter the book in trade for the first time will, of course, be spared all the waiting and the threat of waning interest between issues. The extraordinary length of time that it took Secret Six to hit six issues is still somewhat evident here, however.

Like all DC books, Secret Six had an eight-page preview story appear during DC's Convergence break. Most of the trades in which these previews have appeared have done so at the beginning of the book, but because of the timing of Secret Six's launch and the delays, their preview appears practically at random in the middle of Simone's storyline (between issues #3 and #4). It's a bit jarring, as the preview story is actually a completely complete story, and one in which the Six are presented as a fully functioning team taking on the sorts of mercenary jobs that the team in Simone's previous Secret Six series did. But that's not really who this team is, at least, not yet, and so it reads like a hiccup in the narrative, a flash-forward not demarcated as such in anyway.

By issue three, the book begins to take form, and Simone has fun contrasting her characters with the wholesome-looking, sitcom stage of a house that Big Shot, a private eye named Damon Wells with the super-human ability to Hulk out. Members of her old Six appear as mercenaries working for Mockingbird, sent to try and recover the new Six: Ragdoll, Scancal Savage and Jeanette, all rather ridiculously concealing their identities in head-to-toe, Snake Eyes-like black costumes with red goggles.

Just as I was starting to get comfortable with the series, despite not being a huge fan of Simone's sense of humor and actively disliking her reinvention of Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle's Ventriloquist and Scarface characters married with elements borrowed from horror movies (plus, telekinesis!), the last panel of the fourth issue drops some bombshells, including the true identity of one of the new characters and Mockingbird.

So overall, it's a pretty strong book, particularly if you were a fan of Simone's original. Lashley's art was fine, but that of Derenick and Dale Eaglesham is far better, particularly for a book with such a large cast and so many colorful characters (Derenick draws the sixth issue in its entirety, Eaglesham draws #4 and #5, plus the eight-pager in the middle of the book).

Like the previous Secret Six, it's a book about some fairly terrible, extremely broken villains-turned-anti-heroes who form a makeshift family and bond over scrambled eggs and mutual enemies, falling victim to and occasionally victimizing worse people. Despite my dislike of The Ventriloquist and Ferdie, this is a strong, diverse cast with an interesting mix of personalities, powers and gimmicks. Had it managed to ship monthly and with its eventual art team at the beginning–say, if DC held its launch until June 2015's "DCYou" initiative–it likely would have fared better, perhaps even surviving into the "Rebirth" phase of DC's publishing plans.

I'm a little baffled by the last two issues, though, as Mockingbird's real identity is a weird one, as is that of the traitor in the Six's midst, as is the reason the Six and Mockingbird are in conflict at all.

And now let's discuss spoilers, after this image from the cover of Secret Six #2, so click away now if you don't want this spoiled for you.

Okay, ready?

Here's the last panel of Secret Six #4:

Mockingbird is The Riddler, and Big Shot is Ralph Dibny, who pre-Flashpoint was known as The Elongated Man (Whether that's the case in The New 52 isn't revealed; Dibny mentions his ability to stretch, but not whether or not he was a superhero with a costume and codename.)

Why did The Riddler take on a secondary codename? Why did he abandon his riddle/puzzle motif? When did he take up long-term kidnapping? No idea. As for why he had it in for the Six, they were all aboard a yacht of his when a precious gem was stolen, and he thinks one of them did it and still has the gem. That's why the "What is the secret?" question was so weird; he had trapped them in order to get the thief to confess, apparently, but the set-up didn't make sense, as he threatened to kill one of them if they couldn't answer the question...not riddle, but question. Wouldn't "Who has my fucking diamond?" be a better question...?

The yacht that the diamond was stolen from blew up and sank, and during the chaos Ralph Dibny and his wife Sue Dibny were separated; he assumed she was dead. It turns out, she wasn't dead, but was with Riddler/Mockingbird this whole time. Although she seems to have amnesia?

And so Dibny's powers somehow changed a little, so that he looks/made himself look completely different, and only swells rather than stretches...?

And also The Riddler is madly in love with Sue, and was planning on proposing to her with the diamond, even though she was already married to Ralph...?

Like I said, none of this makes a whole hell of a lot of sense to me. The reveal isn't really one of those New 52 paradox reveals, as it doesn't really matter who the Dibnys are, and everyone knows The Riddler (although I found Catman and Scandal's characterizations of him as a loser odd; sure, he's no Joker or Lex Luthor, but he did conquer and rule Gotham City for months during "Zero Year").

Riddle-obsessed villain The Riddler being in conflict of mystery-loving hero The Elongated Man, even vying for the affections of the same woman, is kind of interesting, although it's pretty out-of-left field in this comic...and what makes it interesting is knowing the Dibnys and a little about their history, of course.

The conflict is kinda sorta partially resolved, with The Riddler and Sue escaping and Ralph/Damon with his new team, but there are a lot of loose ends that Simone will have to wrap up before the series ends in June, and there's only one more trade paperback's worth of issues to do it in.

Let's talk at some length about Midnighter, on our way to a review of Midnighter Vol. 1: Out...which will contain story-ruining spoilers, so don't read this post if you haven't read the book but want to

Writer Steve Orlando's Midnighter ongoing launched as part of DC's June 2015 "DCYou" initiative, but apparently won't survive this summer's "Rebirth" initiative. The series' tenth issue is just now seeing publication this month, and its first collection, Midnighter Vol. 1: Out, was just released, so its removal from the schedule seems to have less to do with sales than an attempt to re-focus the DCU line. Or, I suppose I should clarify that it may have to do with sales, but only as far as sales to direct market shops go, as not enough time would have passed to see if the book would fare better in the bookstore market as a trade paperback than it did as a serially-published comic, be it a paper one or a digital one. I don't know DC's exact metrics, obviously, but it seems like this was likely about more than sales, however big a factor sales might have been.

I wouldn't go so far to say that the cancellation of Midnighter is a shame, given how many superhero comics there are on the shelves at the moment, but I can see how it might feel that way to fans of the character or the book. As one of relatively few out gay super-characters, Midnighter is fairly unique in one sense, despite how derivative his character is of other superheroes in most every other sense. I think he's the only gay male superhero currently headlining his own title, but I'm saying that off the top of my head, rather than doing any research on the matter, which does make the cancellation a bit of a blow in terms of diversity (The "DCYou" initiative in general brought a great diversity of the types of characters starring in their own titles...and the creators and even styles of those books).

It is a rather good book, though.

It suffers from several problems of course, chief of which is the fact that Orlando doesn't exactly have a partner on the series. You'll notice I referred to it as "Steve Orlando's Midnighter" above; I did so not because I don't think an artist deserves to be granted the same degree of authorship as the writer, but because Midnighter lacks a regular artist. In Out, which collects the first seven issues (and the eight-page preview that ran during DC's Convergence break), first-issue artist Aco draws about 86 pages (#1, #3, #6, most of #7 and the preview), but these are interrupted regularly by sections of the book drawn by other artists Alec Morgan (#2) and Stephen Mooney (#4 and #5). Those are a lot of personnel changes for a single story arc, and the second issue of a brand-new series is a completely ridiculous time to need to turn to a fill-in artist. What makes the uneven art particularly regrettable is that Aco has a particular style and way of depticting Midnighter's powers–using tiny little inset panels to call attention to the things Midnighter's fight-computer brain and/or enhanced senses pick up on–that the other artists drawing th stories remaining 62-pages don't adhere to.

It also suffers somewhat from The New 52 paradox in a particularly weird way, given the relative youth of the Midnighter character, and the fact that as a WildStorm character imported into the DCU at the launch of the New 52, he has literally only been in this publishing line/universe for four years.

On the other hand, the character is a Warren Ellis-created, Mark Millar-tinkered with character, who Orlando writes as an Ellis-tongued Batman with a dark sense of humor, an insatiable sex drive and a love of violence. He surrounds himself with other characters, even borrowing Batman's longest-serving sounding board for a few issues, allowing him to trade quips, flirtations and tossed-off technobabble throughout his adventures.

Elements are quite familiar, even similar to other DC books–the character has a bit of Batman, a bit of Deathstroke, a bit of Constantine to him, and the globe-trotting, high-tech, super-crime focus is reminiscent of the slightly older Grayson book–but there isn't really another book in DC's line exactly like Midnighter.

But let's backtrack a bit, as Midnighter's not exactly a household name or anything.

So, who is Midnighter?

As mentioned above, the character was created by writer Warren Ellis with artist Bryan Hitch, both well before they reached their current super-star status, way back in an 1998 issue of StormWatch, when it was still an Image title. He and Apollo were the sole survivors of a seven-member superhero team of Justice League analogues, being the team's Batman and Superman, respectively.

Hell, the cover for the issue in which Midnighter first appeared looks like an homage to Dark Knight Returns:

While Mignighter, like so many Ellis creations, wore a particularly movie-ready looking costume, note the cape-like coat, the scalloped sleeves and the cowl that looks like one of Batman's with the ears trimmed off.*

Unlike Batman, Midnighter was super-human, having a whole bunch of artificial enchancements to make him stronger, faster, smarter and with greater senses; these included an extra heart and a sort of "fight computer" in his brain that allowed him to predict outcomes nearly instantaneously, so he could essentially map out how to win fights just before jumping into one. (Batgirl Cassandra Cain, who had a similar ability gained in a completely different way, debuted well after Midnighter, if you're wondering.)

While he and Apollo appeared in that volume of StormWatch, they would reach greater heights in the millennial spin-off series The Authority, where they were part of a powerful superhero team with a no-holds barred approach to superheroing (I first heard of the team when writing up a little piece for my then-local paper about Ellis visiting a local comic shop; the shop's owner described The Authority to me as "an amoral Justice League"). Ellis and Hitch handed the hit book over to up-and-comers Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, and it was during their run in which Midnighter and Apollo came out as a couple. While it was refreshing to have two such powerful, bad-ass and (at the time) popular and prominent heroes come out as gay, it also made me a little uncomfortable in that they did so. Mainly because they were created as Batman and Superman analogues, and this was Mark Millar doing the writing, which made it seem like the intent may have been nothing more than a gay joke about DC's flagship characters (DC, by the time the characters had come out, had acquired the rights to the WildStorm characters and universe, and WildStorm was at the time an imprint of DC).

Whether that was the case or not–and hopefully it wasn't, but Millar's a writer whose sincerity is always a little hard to take given just about everything he's written since his brief run on The Authority–the characters certainly grew beyond simply being Gay Batman and Gay Superman (Who Are Gay With Each Other).

As was the case with most of the WildStorm characters after their acquisition by DC, the star of The Authority began to fall pretty quickly. Maybe this had something to do with the fact that what constituted success for characters overseen by Jim Lee at Image in the late '90s didn't exactly constitute success for DC in the early '00s, and maybe it had to do with the fact that DC's readership already had all those DC super-teams to read about, and thus weren't as interested in following the WildC.A.T.S. or Authority or whoever, even when they would occasionally cross over from Earth WildStorm to the DCU.

Midnighter did earn his own solo title in 2006, though, from the creative team of Garth Ennis and Chris Sprouse, the former of whom was perhaps uniquely positioned to write a semi-parodic superhero character whose adventures had gotten so big and absurd (this was years after The Authority fought God, remember) that the next logical step was silly: He sent Midnighter back in time to kill Hitler. Despite contributions from high-profile creators, the book limped along after Ennis and Sprouse's departure, and died after just 20 issues (That's still about eight issues longer than the current, second volume of Midnighter will last, however).

Hard to imagine that a book about a more powerful, more violent Batman without the moral code against killing wouldn't last too long, but then, that Midnighter solo book was stuck in the WildStorm universe, which, at the time, was going through a series of reboots that gained less and less traction with each attempt (a warning sign that DC failed to note?), and the creators eventually became those that DC felt they could spare from their DCU titles (a lot of Keith Giffen, in other words).

And then The New 52 initiative came, with a semi-rebooted, completely re-designed new universe that was composed under mysterious circumstances by the mysterious character Pandora for yet-to-be-revealed reasons, a universe that smooshed three of the 52 Earths of the extant DC Universe together: New Earth (The DCU Universe), the "Vertigo Universe" and "The WildStorm Universe" (Those last two had number assignations in 52, but I'll be damned if I can remember them, and I'm not digging through longboxes to find the comic in question).

Midnighter and Apollo's place in the New 52-iverse was in the pages of a new Stormwatch title, which lasted less than three years. Written by Paul Cornell, who also wrote the similarly short-lived and poorly-drawn Demon Knights, this new iteration imagined the team as a secret superhero team that has protected Earth from behind the scenes for centuries. It featured The Engineer, Jack Hawksmoor and Jenny Quantam, teamed with all-new creations and lead by Martian Manhunter, who in the New 52's new continuity was never really a member of the Justice League. Midnighter and Apollo were among their newest recruits, and they both looked terrible, with a red-eyed, coatless Midnighter wearing spikes all over his costume, including a huge one on his chin, for, um, some reason. It's not like it's easy to hit the guy, especially on the chin.

The launch of a Midnighter monthly, two years after the cancellation of Stormwatch, might have seemed like something of a surprise, given that the character hadn't found traction anywhere during much of the past decade, and DC's readership's fairly strong rejection of any WildStorm books in The New 52 era (Stormwatch lasted 31 issues, Grifter 17 issues and Voodoo 13 issues.)

More surprising still was not only that it wasn't terrible, but that it was actually quite good. Aco put Midnighter back in his original costume, losing the spikes, armor and red-eyes and restoring his coat (The character still has to have bits of armor here and there, and his gloves look like they may have weights in them or something, which seems weird; Midnighter doesn't really need padding or anything, does he? Given his abilities, his costume should really just be as basic a superhero costume as possible, chosen for style over functionality).

So Midnighter looks like Midnighter again, and he uses the doors that The Authority used to use (and which Brad Meltzer borrowed during his brief, best-forgotten Justice League of America) as he travels the world beating the living shit out of evil, often directed by his "assets," people he's met in one way or another and "tagged" with high-tech thingees that allow them to "call" him when they are in need...or just see something or someone he needs to kill.

Orlando, as I said, writes Midngihter as an Ellis character, talking almost exclusively in an endless variety of clever/bad-ass bon mots and, as in an Ellis-narrative, there is a sometimes dizzying amount of bleeding edge, sci-fi technology on display. This isn't to say that Orlando is doing something bad or wrong; Midnighter should be an extremely Ellis-esque character, since he is an Ellis character.

Without an origin or what one might call a "real life," Midnighter is pretty much always Midnighter, and Orlando gives a great introduction to the character in the very first issue, by introducing us to him via his dating profile. Midnighter dates, a lot. The preview has him jumping out of bed with one man, the first issue has him spending the night with another man (who will become a series regular, although they decide to be friends pretty much the very next morning) and he spends most of the first trade dating a guy named Matt, who we will discuss a bit later.

Besides all the fun, creative conflicts and combat–alien body-snatchers posing as demons from Christian hell, artificially-created vampires and other "weaponized folkore", a woman who can kill by reciting one of six words, etc–Orlando explores Midnighter's past and personal life, with Apollo here his ex-boyfriend, who he broke up with because...well, the main reason is that they were one another's first and only relationship, but Orlando ties it to Midnighter's powers by having the character note that he already knows the outcome of every fight, and therefore he breaks up with Apollo before their fight. As Orlando writes the character, his super-brain isn't simply for physical combat, by conflict of any kind.

He also surrounds Midnighter with friends like Matt, Jason (his first date in the book) and a straight guy who owns the bar that more or less serves as Midnighter's superhero HQ. Or, at least, the place he goes to between fights.

The overarching plot is that someone has stolen many super-exotic, fantastical weapons from some orbital vault called "The God Garden," where a woman named "The Gardener" created Midnighter. The thief immediately begins distributing those weapons all over the world, and were that not enough incentive for Midnighter to track them down, The Gardener confides to him that she also kept a secret file detailing the real life Midnighter didn't even know he had.

And so these seven issues feature Midnighter hunting for the arms dealer, meeting him only at the last page of the second-to-last issue.

The DCU connections are, for the most part, somewhat minimal. Midnighter encounters Multiplex, an old Firestorm villain whose power is to create innumerable clone bodies of himself, which makes him, if not Midnighter's arch-enemy, at least his favorite guy to fight.

At one point, Midnighter recruits/kidnaps Dick "Agent 37" Grayson for an extended team-up, apparently returning a guest-star favor (Midnighter appeared in the early issues of Grayson). It's actually kind of hard to overstate how much fun it is to see these two characters together. On the meta-level, it is of course interesting to see Grayson teaming up with a more violent, more psychopathic version of Batman, but this black-cowled crimefighter has a personality, and quips as much or more often than Grayson, and he's also gay, which makes his teaming with the sexiest man in the DC Universe a lot of fun, as he relentlessly flirts with Grayson.

I was actually sad when their mission ended; Midnighter and Grayson is about as enjoyable a Dynamic Duo as Batman Dick Grayson and Robin Damian Wayne were. Whereas Grant Morrison basically inverted the traditional Batman and Robin personalities in his Batman and Robin (grim, humorless Robin allied with a sunny, smiling Batman), Orlando's Midnighter makes Grayson the straight man and the guy who has to keep Midnighter from killing all of his opponents constantly.

And then we get to the climax of the book, which is where it suffers from the New 52 paradox and, if you're reading this despite my spoiler warning, let me remind you that I am about to ruin the end of the first story arc, okay?

So among Midnighter's circle of friends and allies is his new boyfriend Matt, who has white hair. Because Apollo also had white hair, a far more common hair color for people under 70 in superhero comics than it is in the real world, one could safely assume that the choice was quite deliberate, that the character was meant to evoke Apollo, and that Midnighter perhaps was attracted to him because he reminded him of his first love.

As it turns out, however, there's a more prosaic reason he has white hair. Matt is secretly a pre-existing DC Universe character, who also happens to have white hair. He's the character who robbed the God Garden and has been distributing it throughout the world and he's been plotting to murder Midnighter for at least five issues. He's also been dating, and sleeping with, Midnighter for weeks and weeks.

This is a little weird not because the character was seemingly straight in the pre-Flashpoint DCU, although I suppose that's a notable change, but also because that is a crazy amount of work to go through just to kill this one, single superhero, and killing this one, single superhero isn't the character's primary motivation, either pre-Flashpoint or even as stated in this book.

Okay, so here's the reveal:

That's right, it's Prometheus. So once again, we have a big moment in a New 52 series presented as a big moment that is a deliberate call-back to a now out-of-continuity story. The impact of the reveal, which is the cliffhanger of the sixth issue, depends on a reader knowing who the hell Prometheus is...which is something The New 52 was explicitly designed to not have happen that often, since all previous Prometheus appearances aren't supposed to exist anymore (which is maybe for the best, as after the three stories Grant Morrison wrote featuring the character, they were all terrible, terrible stories; I'm convinced that Cry For Justice and it's follow-ups, along with Identity Crisis, are a big part of the reason DC decided to try a reboot at all).

This Prometeus character was created by Grant Morrison who used the opportunity of DC's 1998 "New Year's Evil" specials to present his origin in New Year's Evil: Prometheus #1 (penciled by Arnie Jorgensen). That origin was essentially a reverse of Batman's: The son of criminals who saw his parents gunned down in front of him by police officers at a young age, Prometheus devoted his life to becoming the perfect soldier to wage a one-man war against justice. He appeared in a two-part arc in JLA #16-#17, in which he attacked the League in their Watchtower, taking down one of the most powerful League line-ups ever through a combination of trickery and high-tech gadgetry.

Among his gimmicks was a specially-designed helmet that allowed him to download particular skills and fighting styles directly into his brain.

He returned for Morrison's final JLA arc, "World War III," in which he was one of the members of a new Injustice Gang composed entirely of League-level threats. After that, well, don't read any Prometheus appearance after that.

Now, long-time DC readers–or at least newer readers who have read Morrison's JLA run in trade, which I hope is anyone at all interested in DC's superheroes, because those comics are just the best–will know all this when they see that splash page, and think, "Oh shit, it's Prometheus!" (And, maybe, "Wait, Prometheus and Midnighter were doing it all this time...? Huh.") For others, this is just a random bad guy.

At the beginning of the next issue, #7, Orlando recaps Prometheus' origins, and even includes The Cosmic Key (which, at least as presented here, simply allows him to disappear; we don't see his Ghost Zone or crooked house). It's kind of uncomfortable, at least to me, because there's no acknowledgement of the fact that Orlando is re-telling part of Morrison's story from the Prometheus special, or using a character that someone else created. I know this happens all the time in Big Two super-comics–Orlando didn't create Midnighter, Apollo, Grayson or Multiplex either–but given how few appearances Prometheus has had, and the way in which he's used here, it seems...worse, somehow. I don't think I'm articulating it very well, but his re-telling of Prometheus' origin, a character that I believe is appearing for the first time in the New 52-iverse here, borrows pretty heavily from Morrison's origin, with no indication that this character is a pre-existing one or that any borrowing is going on.

It just doesn't work for me, and maybe just me perosnally, that the character is used at all, for the same reason I don't like how The New 52 comics keep relying on old, pre-New 52 comics with which to buttress big, unearned moments, but also because if you're not familiar with the character and his stories, this seems like a new and original character (if randomly presented), but if you do, then this feels uncomfortably familiar.

All that aside though, Orlando does take Prometheus' name literally to incorporate it into his plot nicely (Prometheus having stolen "fire" from the God Garden for his own personal use). I think his appearance heralds the book falling a part quite a bit, though. While Prometheus' vendetta against law and order and superheroes is restated, and Midnighter likely qualifies, he's a hell of a superhero to start with. Prometheus makes a speech about Midnighter's hypocrisy, fighting murderers by murdering them, but hey, maybe you want to start small?

On the other hand, in JLA he did start with the Justice League, although they had the benefit of being the most public face of superheroics in the world. The fact that Midnighter is such a behind-the-scenes kind of guy–it's not like if he was killed any other superheroes would notice–makes him a strange target for Prometheus' first strike.

And then there's the lengths to which Prometheus went, essentially pretending to be in love with Midnighter for weeks, just to get close enough to almost murder him when his guard is sufficiently down. (Had he succeeded, that would be what, 1 down, 359 more to go...?)

Their battle is surprisingly dull, too. After Prometheus stabs Midnighter in the chest, suits up and begins his monologue, he tells Midnighter that he's made himself unreadable to Midnighter's computer brain, and that his own brain has been "programmed with the abilities of thirty of the world's best fighters," including Lady Shiva, Batman and Midnighter himself.

But when they fight they just punch, kick and beat one another with blunt objects (Prometheus has his super-baton, while Midnighter resorts to a fire poker and a doorknob). What should be the best fight scene imaginable is just one more fist-fight, and not even anywhere near as in interesting as the many, many fights of the previous six issues.

Midnighter and Prometheus are actually well-suited to be archenemies, but this was pretty out-of-left-field, draws attention to the problem at the core of The New 52, raises all kinds of distracting questions and, of course, fails to deliver on its promise.

I wouldn't say it ruins the first story arc of Midnighter, which is apparently going to be the first half of the series, but it certainly sours Out quite a bit.



*It didn't actually occur to me until I was staring at this cover and its close-up of Midnighter's cowl just now, but I suppose Doctor Midnight might also have been a source of inspiration for the character, given the name as well as the fact that Doc Midnight also rocked a black cowl that looked a lot like the one Batman would eventually sport, sans ears.

If children's books hadn't worked out, Richard Scarry would have made a hell of an automobile designer.

These are just a few of my favorites of the scores of vehicles in Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (1974).

Remember, "Bizarro" is a synonym for "awesome": A little on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

The other day Comics Alliance's most prolific writer, Chris Sims, covered the first story arc of DC's 1988-1991 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comic in his regular feature, "Bizarro Back Issues." The piece, like most of Sims' writing, is rather funny. And it is not entirely inaccurate in its description of the plot as a quest to cure "a noble paladin of tiny hands disease." (Say, men with small hands have been in the news a lot lately, huh?)

As the comics Internet's greatest AD&D fan, I do feel compelled to, if not defend that particular story, then at least offer some additional context. The original story arc, comprising the first four issues, was co-plotted by Michael Fleischer and artist Jan Duursema. It did indeed deal with a small band of heroes helping former, fallen paladin Priam Agrivar and his half-elf half sister Cybriani reclaim their kingdom from a demonic mage and fix their messed-up hands.

It's not really all that great, no.

But the next 32 issues are all pretty awesome. With the fifth issue, Dan Mishkin took over as the regular writer, writing all of the remaining arcs save the third one, "Catspaw Quartet," which was written by Jeff Grubb (Duursema drew all of the issues, save for three issues drawn by her husband, Tom Mandrake).

The cast of the book changed fairly immediately upon the conclusion of that first story arc, as well, with Agrivar leaving the title (to star in AD&D's sister book, Forgotten Realms, which featured Rags Morales art; Agrivar and his new campaign party would cross paths with the AD&D cast again in Forgotten Realms Annual #1), and the bland half-elf mage Cybriani bonding with her evil half Kilili to create a new character (with a new hairstyle, that would magically change again later), who took on the combined name Kyriani.

I highly recommend the series, and while you could probably skip the first arc and still follow along okay, that arc is not unreadable or anything. Duursema's art just gets better and better as the series progresses, though.

 Produced in the high-volume years of the late 1980s and early 1990s, finding single issue in back-issue bins isn't that challenging a quest to embark upon, but, IDW, which currently holds the license for Dungeons & Dragons comics, has collected the entire DC series in four volumes, under the title Classic Dungeons & Dragons (The old DC Forgotten Realms, meanwhile, is collected as Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms Classic).

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

It's interesting to think about this book in 2016, on the other side of years-long online discussions about representation of many groups other than white, straight dudes in mainstream comics, and the depiction of women in comics.

AD&D had a core cast of four characters: Two women females (Vajra Valmeyjar and Kyri) and two men males (Timoth and Onyx). As mentioned, Agrivar leaves after the first four issues, and there's a male thief named Conner who comes and goes, playing various roles, serving as something between a foil for or outright antagonist of Vajra (He's in three of the book's 12 stories). That's a 50% female team!

Of those four, one of them is a person of color (25%!) and, if you want to get cutesy with it, none of the characters are white men, as the male characters consist of a centaur and a dwarf.

Duursema gives each of the female characters a very distinct look and physique, as well. Kyri is the one with a probably typical comic book body, consisting of large breasks, a tiny waist and wide hips. Former gladiator Vajra, meanwhile, is tall and muscular, with an athletic build. Luna, who owns the inn where our heroes hang out, is a bigger, rounder older woman.

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

I recently read Tim Hanley's new (prose) book, Investigating Lois Lane, and he points out how relatively rare female artists still are on DC's biggest books, noting that it wasn't until Becky Cloonan drew a story in 2012's Batman #12 that woman had ever drawn Batman, and that no woman had drawn the regular Superman books in...well...ever...yet? He was talking about the way Lois was frequently portrayed after she and Clark married, and how she seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time hanging around their apartment scantily clad, and cited the fact that it was always just a bunch of dudes drawing her that likely contributed.

That seems really weird that Superman and Batman have both been starring in two monthly books apiece that have been around for about 75 years now, and none of those four books have featured a run by a female artist. DC should really get on that.* You know who would be perfect for Action, Superman, Detective or Batman...?

Jan Duursema.

But then, you knew I was going to say that, didn't you?

Actually, I was kind of surprised that DC didn't give her and/or John Ostrander Green Lantern after Duursema started doing a little work for DC again (Earth 2: World's End, Convergence: Nightwing/Oracle), particularly since DC seemed to be going in a very Star Wars-esque direction with the book after their "DCYou" initiative, and Duursema (and/or Ostrander) were no longer doing Star Wars comics as they had been doing for years, when Dark Horse held the license.


*Hey, just out of curiosity, has a woman ever drawn Amazing Spider-Man...?

Comic Shop Comics: March 9

Batman & Robin Eternal #23 (DC Comics) Genevieve Valentine scripts and Christian Duce draws this issue, in which Team Robin gathers all their allies–including at least one rather unexpected one, in the form of StormWatch/The Authority's Batman analogue Midnighter–to try to stave off Mother's apocalyptic plan while Dick Grayson goes after her personally. It's nice to see some of these guest stars, particularly Spoiler and Cullen, both of whom were present at the beginning of the series and then disappeared for about 20 issues or so.

Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #4 (DC) In this issue, Michelangelo prevails upon Batman to eat a piece of pizza, and Batman does so...while wearing his gloves! Batman! You were just rolling around the floor sparring with Leonardo wearing those gloves! They're probably filthy with dirt and traces of guano from the bats that live in the stalactites in the roof of the Batcave. But, cleanliness aside, who wears gloves while they eat? Maybe Raphael was on to something when he pointed out that only a crazy person would drive a car shaped like he himself.

This issue seems to be a sort of deep breath before the climax of the six-issue series begins in earnest, with the heroes mostly engaged in down time while the plot advances slightly from the cliffhanger ending of last issue. Splinter, the Turtles, Batman and Alfred hang around Wayne Manor and the Batcave and Batman shares his origin story with Raphael (Hey, did you guys know his parents were murdered right in front of him when he was just a little boy, and that's why he decided to dress up like a bat to fight crime? It's true).

I must confess to being pretty surprised with the last page of this issue, and, especially, the next issue tag, which promises a direction for the series I would never have even imagined.

Freddie Williams' art continue to impress, and remains my favorite part of the book, even if I kind of hate the design work on all of the lead characters, from Batman's heavily armored costume to the shape of Raphael's mask.

Gotham Academy #16 (DC) Brenden Fletcher and Adam Archer handle the "interstitials"/framing sequences to the two stories in this latest issue of the "Yearbook" story arc, which mainly consists of short stories featuring the book's cast by guest-creators. In their sequences, Robin Damian Wayne breaks into Maps' room and makes off with her homemade yearbook.

The guest stories are by James Tynion and Christian Wildgoose and by Ken Niimura. The former is an incredibly cute story in which Batman is cast as a sort of Santa Claus-like figure who young Maps tries to stay up late enough to visit, while the latter features the whole cast and features Maps and Olive trying to manufacture an excuse for the Detective Club to hang out when there isn't actually a real mystery for them to solve. Wildgoose's art is great, but quite realistic compared to the look the book usually has, while Niimura's has a refreshingly indie feel to it, including hand-lettered dialogue and narration.

The format of "Yearbook" is, by necessity, one of fits and starts, but it will likely read great in a trade collection...which, based on the available direct market sales figures, seems to be the way most people must read this series anyway.

The Legend of Wonder Woman #3 (DC) Renae De Liz's epic Wonder Woman origin story continues, and it continues to be not just great, but surprisingly so. With this issue, Wonder Woman finally leaves the island with Steve Trevor, and while the essentially elements are similar to previous, foundational tellings–like Diana disguising herself to compete in a contest to choose an Amazon champion responsible for Trevor against the wishes of her mother–De Liz makes presents the exact circumstances in refreshingly new ways that not only help further her particularly complex vision of Amazon society, but also makes her telling unique.

There's a scene where Hippolyta presents Diana with her various weapons and armor, and here Wonder Woman's powers–strength, speed, limited flight–are still gifts of the gods, but they are imbued within the items. I particularly liked how De Liz continues to show how Diana employs a rope as a weapon for incapacitating foes without killing or even hurting them badly, foreshadowing her use of the magic lasso, which she is finally gifted with near the end of this issue.

I was slightly surprised as the last page, which finally let's us know when this story is set–it's 1944 in Man's World–which will make this a period piece. I know I've said this before, but Wonder Woman seems inextricably linked to World War II in a way almost none of her fellow Golden Age characters are, so I was curious to see if or how De Liz would try to uncouple her from it. I guess she's not going to, which means The Legend has more in common with DC Comics Bombshells beyond being a top-notch Wonder Woman story.

Fantastic use of Jumpa in this issue, too.

SpongeBob Comics #54 (United Plankton Pictures) Brian Smith's cover promises "3 Seaworthy Stories," but those three stories are just three of the usual assortment found within the pages. I guess they just didn't have an overriding theme this issue, as they so often do...?

Those stories are pretty straightforward ones by Gregg Schigiel, Brian Smith and Joey Weiser and Stephanie Yue, all in a fairly straightforward style...well, Yue has a softer, more storybook-like style, but the other two look perfectly compatible with the aesthetic of the cartoon inspiration of these comics. In between those three are a four-panel table of contents strip by Andrea Tsurumi (panel two of which contained my favorite gag of the issue), a James Kochalka four-page story (in addition to his usual "SpongeBob Funnies") and short comics by Charles Brubaker, Maris Wicks and Sam Henderson.

Attention: Detective Comics #50 features a Kelley Jones cover version of a Norm Breyfogle cover

I know DC Comics doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of publishing decisions just to please me personally, but every once in a while, they produce something that so perfectly addresses my tastes that I have to wonder. Take, for example, Detective Comics #50, which features Kelley Jones, who is one of my favorite comic book artists period and my second favorite Batman artist ever, drawing a pin-up that is a cover image of a 1989 Detective cover drawn by Norm Breyfogle, who is one of my favorite comic book artists period and my absolute favorite Batman artist ever.

It appears as one of the the 13 pages in a back-up story entitled "The 11 Curious Cases of Batman," written by regular 'Tec writer Peter J. Tomasi and drawn by Scott McDaniel and a murderers' row of great artists, each of whom draws a pin-up "cover" of a past 'Tec cover (John McCrea, another of my favorite artists, also contributes one, drawing an homage to an old Gene Colan cover of Batman facing off against a trio of killer clowns, although McCrea flips the image around so that we see it from the opposite angle).

Detective Comics #50 is, like some of the other 50th issues being published this month, priced at $4.99, and unlike, say, Green Lantern or Action Comics, it doesn't have an extra-length story filling its pages, nor does it have several short back-ups, as in Catwoman. Instead, editor Mark Doyle seems to have worked with Tomasi to gather a dozen artists for this fun feature. At just 13 pages, all of which are splashes or pin-ups, it's probably not worth the extra dollar or so (the main story, by Tomasi and artists Fernando Pasarin, Scot Eaton, Matt Ryan and Wayne Faucher, is 25-pages long rather than 20 or 22), but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

Personally, I probably would have assigned Jones to cover the cover for 'Tec #425, as that was a Bernie Wrightson cover featuring a monster man and a horrifying horse, and thus sat smack dab in the middle of Jones' area of expertise, but, like I said, I love the fact that two of my favorite Batman artists are in conversation with the Jones-after-Breyfogle image (Also, maybe Jones' version of Wrightston's image would have been a little too similar, whereas Carmine Di Giandomenico went in a different direction with it entirely...even if his scary horse isn't nearly as scary as Kelley Jones' scary horses are).

Oh, and if you're at all curious as to what the heck Baman is doing fighting a six-armed, battle axe-wielding ogre in that image, the cover is from the middle issue of the three-part "Tulpa" story arc, written by Alan Grant and drawn by Breyfogle and inker Steve Mitchell. A mystic uses his supernatural ability to create a tulpa demon to help protect him from the criminals that keep shaking him down for money, and Batman tries to save the poor bastards. He turns to fellow Gothamite Jason Blood for help, but it's not until the climax that Blood finally relents and lets Etrigan out. The Demon and Batman have a pretty spectacular battle. It's collected in Legends of The Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle Vol. 1, which you really should buy, if you haven't already.