BOUGHT:
That was certainly the case with this book, in which writer Gabe Soria and artist Sandy Jarrell tell a wild adventure in which Jimmy Olsen gets his hands on a sort of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-like super-book and then he and his friends try to stop a handful of mischievous villains, embedding within their tale entries from said book, making for something like a new-reader friendly Who's Who in the DC Universe? x Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen.
However, I ended up liking the book so much that, after reading it, reviewing it and returning it to the library, I ended up buying a copy of it for myself, because I knew it was something I would want to return to in the future, and, well, it just seemed like the exact sort of comic book that I should have on my shelves.
If you read this feature regularly, you know how rarely I buy new books now. It's even more rare that I actually buy one I've already read. Anyway, I just wanted to note that here, as I think it functions as something of a review in and of itself. That is, how good is Jimmy Olsen's SuperCyclopedia? Good enough that I felt I needed to have a copy of my own.
If you read this feature regularly, you know how rarely I buy new books now. It's even more rare that I actually buy one I've already read. Anyway, I just wanted to note that here, as I think it functions as something of a review in and of itself. That is, how good is Jimmy Olsen's SuperCyclopedia? Good enough that I felt I needed to have a copy of my own.
If you haven't read the book yet, I would highly recommend you do so. If you're a DC Comics fan, or are just curious about the publisher, it's a real love letter to the company, its creators and its universe, filled with appearances of many less-seen characters (Warlord, Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, Angel and The Ape) and intriguing reinventions of a handful of characters (Cain and Abel as TV horror hosts, Doc Magnus as a kid with action figure-sized Metal Men). There's also a reference to Captain Marvel as "Captain Marvel", which I'm pretty sure from the context was a typo, and a character/creature so rare I actually had to Google it (To be fair, it came from a 1965 Legion of Super-Heroes story, and I've never managed much interest in reading Legion comics).
As I had said previously on Bluesky, I could talk about this book all day long. I considered doing a super-long blog post here "annotating" it, so as to point out the creators for responsible for all the characters that populate it, suggest some good comics where curious readers could find more of them and track some of the choices and changes Soria and Jarrell made, but after I hit a couple thousand words about the cover alone, I decided maybe no one actually wanted what was shaping up to be a book-length blog post...
I would have around 13-years-old at the time most of these issues were originally released, and despite my interest in the TMNT sparked by the Palladium role-playing game and a trade-paperback collection of the first dozen or so issues of the Mirage Studios series I had, I turned my nose up at the Adventures book.
The comic's use of the cartoon show's logo, the differently-colored bandanas on each turtle and the presence of characters like Krang, Rocksteady and Bebop suggested that this was a comic book for fans of the cartoon, not the "real" turtles.
The comic was, obviously, baby stuff, and not for a sophisticated teenage reader like myself. The fact that it was published by Archie only seemed to reinforce that fact.
That said, I did try a few issues when I was desperate for new comics. I remember buying 1990's #8, #9 and #11 off the rack, for example. Those last two were penciled by Mirage's Jim Lawson. In fact, though I didn't know it at the time, it was actually Mirage Studios that were making these things. They were written by Puma Blues writer Stephen Murphy (though he used the pseudonym "Dean Clarrain"), and other Mirage alum like Ryan Brown, Dan Berger and Steve Lavigne were heavily involved at the outset.
Heck, the first Archie Turtles comics, the 1988 mini-series, may have been adapted from episodes of the cartoon show, but it was penciled by Mirage's Michael Dooney and lettered by the regular TMNT comics' Lavigne, and bore cover art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird themselves.
Heck, the first Archie Turtles comics, the 1988 mini-series, may have been adapted from episodes of the cartoon show, but it was penciled by Mirage's Michael Dooney and lettered by the regular TMNT comics' Lavigne, and bore cover art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird themselves.
It wasn't until much, much later that I would actually become interested in this series, though.
True enough, it did start as a tie-in to the original, 1987 TMNT cartoon, which, like many 1980s cartoons, was essentially of toy advertisements in the guise of a TV show. Like the miniseries, the first few issues were based on particular episodes, even.
But Murphy/Clarrain and his collaborators would diverge from the cartoon within the first few issues, presenting a series which was much weirder and wilder. Artist Ken Mitchroney, who penned an introduction to this new collection, described it as a hard right turn. (And just how weird was the book? Well, that first issue I bought, for example, saw the Turtles wearing gaudy new costumes and competing in intergalactic gladiatorial combat/professional wrestling; they traveled via a giant flying living cow head named Cudley the Cowlick that would lick them up into his mouth before departing for deep space).
Bebop and Rocksteady were rather quickly written out, many new mutant and alien characters were introduced (some based on characters from the toy line, some wholly original), and the book would very much do its own thing, including some interesting departures from the cartoon and toy line it was apparently supporting, like giving April O'Neil a sword and ninja training of her own. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was basically an all-ages version of those fill-in issues that dominated the main, Mirage Turtles comic from, oh, issues #22-#47 or so.
Bebop and Rocksteady were rather quickly written out, many new mutant and alien characters were introduced (some based on characters from the toy line, some wholly original), and the book would very much do its own thing, including some interesting departures from the cartoon and toy line it was apparently supporting, like giving April O'Neil a sword and ninja training of her own. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was basically an all-ages version of those fill-in issues that dominated the main, Mirage Turtles comic from, oh, issues #22-#47 or so.
Ultimately, Archie's TMNT Adventures book would run for 72 issues over five years (plus a handful of related mini-series and a short-lived Mighty Mutanimals ongoing).
That was enough to make it the longest-running Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book series, a record it would hold until IDW's 2011-launched ongoing hit its 73rd issue in 2017 (That iteration of the book is now the longest running Turtles comic ever. It eventually made it to 150 issues, plus more spin-off one-shots, mini-series and crossovers than I was able to keep track of, before relaunching with a new #1 last year. Interestingly, the IDW volume of TMNT ended up incorporating plenty of characters and concepts originally introduced in Archie's Adventures stories...even the weirdest ones, like Cudley).
By the time I became a grown-up with, like, a job and disposable income and everything, I was quite interested in this book, and although IDW did collect—in a series of 16 trade paperbacks published between 2012 and 2018—I passed on them as they were released, as I wasn't thrilled with the page count-to-cover price ratio (Although I do seem to have volume 3 on my bookshelf for some reason; I am assuming I got it on sale at a book store or comics convention...?).
I guess the ratio on this collection isn't much better, but, having missed one chance, I didn't want to miss another, so I did drop a (little less than a) hundred bucks on this. I do hope IDW collects the rest of the series as well, which, if my calculations are to be trusted, should take another three, possibly four volumes.
The book was released on April 29, so I'm not very far into reading it—I'm still on the first issue collected as I type this, actually. I guess I'll let you guys know in some future post if anything seems particularly worth mentioning...
I guess the ratio on this collection isn't much better, but, having missed one chance, I didn't want to miss another, so I did drop a (little less than a) hundred bucks on this. I do hope IDW collects the rest of the series as well, which, if my calculations are to be trusted, should take another three, possibly four volumes.
The book was released on April 29, so I'm not very far into reading it—I'm still on the first issue collected as I type this, actually. I guess I'll let you guys know in some future post if anything seems particularly worth mentioning...
BORROWED:
So DC making her an outright supervillain in the pages of event series Absolute Power—wherein she seeks not only to de-power and capture every superhero on Earth but, by book's end, to overthrow America, then take over the world and, finally, subject the multiverse itself to domination—has been hard to wrap my head around.
I mean, within this series alone she goes from Lex Luthor territory (that is, not trusting superheroes because of their fantastical powers and resenting what their existence says about regular human beings) to Darkseid territory (the subjugation of all reality).
I want to say it's a little like Max Lord's heel turn in the pages of 2005's Countdown to Infinite Crisis, but then, it's not been as sudden as all that. Indeed, DC has playing Waller as increasingly villainous for years now (the last time I saw her, in the pages of 's Titans Vol. 2: The Dark-Winged Queen, she was quite literally taking a business meeting with a devil), and this is merely the end result of a long-term plan to remake her into a supervillain.
"Maybe it's just me," I thought to myself while reading Absolute Power, "and I've just been reading comics too long." After all, Ostrander's Suicide Squad series was a long time ago (it ran from 1987 to 1992).
I want to say it's a little like Max Lord's heel turn in the pages of 2005's Countdown to Infinite Crisis, but then, it's not been as sudden as all that. Indeed, DC has playing Waller as increasingly villainous for years now (the last time I saw her, in the pages of 's Titans Vol. 2: The Dark-Winged Queen, she was quite literally taking a business meeting with a devil), and this is merely the end result of a long-term plan to remake her into a supervillain.
"Maybe it's just me," I thought to myself while reading Absolute Power, "and I've just been reading comics too long." After all, Ostrander's Suicide Squad series was a long time ago (it ran from 1987 to 1992).
But then, this is a comic book series written by Mark Waid, who has been writing comics even longer than I've been reading them. I mean, he makes a reference to a supporting character from the pages of DC's 1983 Thriller series here, and a pivotal role is played by a new version of Air Wave, a Golden Age hero first resurrected in the 1980s.
I think Waid handles Waller as well as can be, given what little room the series has to explain her becoming a villain, but it never really feels right to me, and thus there's a degree of narrative friction that irritated the back of my mind the whole time I spent reading the series.
I think Waid handles Waller as well as can be, given what little room the series has to explain her becoming a villain, but it never really feels right to me, and thus there's a degree of narrative friction that irritated the back of my mind the whole time I spent reading the series.
The closest the series gets to justifying Waller's actions is a stray line from the Waid-written Absolute Power 2024 FCBD Special Edition, which kicks off the collection. Clock King, giving a tour of The Hall of Order and introducing Waller to new recruit Haywire (and thus the readers), mentions that Waller was "Widowed at a young age...Blames superheroes for reasons she's never talked about."
That, and Waller's motivations, are likely detailed in Absolute Powers: Origins, one of two Absolute Power-branded collections published in conjunction with the main series. That three issue series written by John Ridley (and collected under a pretty unappealing photo cover), purports to tell "the untold story of what lead Amanda Waller to form the Trinity of Evil in DC's Absolute Power blockbuster, and take down Earth's Super Heroes!"
I suppose now is as good as time as any to mention one problem with this collection. This big event series, like most of the most recent ones I've read from either DC or Marvel, is meant to be read serially, as it was published, with readers picking up additional tie-in comics that pique their interest. Ridley's Origins was one such tie-in, and it seems to offer necessary context on Waller's psychology.
There was also Absolute Power: Task Force VII, following the aforementioned Trinity of Evil's league of Amazos. And then there are a couple of one-shots and tie-in issues from five ongoing series. I'm not sure where, or if, those will all be collected, but it seems the plan is to collect them by the series they appear in, rather than a dedicated, Absolute Power-branded collection (That is, the issues of Green Arrow that tie-in to the Absolute Power storyline will likely be collected in a future Green Arrow trade).
Although the Absolute Power collection doesn't contain any asterisks or editorial notes pointing readers to other comics, it's pretty clear that the story plays out outside the confines of this trade. In addition to Waller going full supervillain, there are a few panels about the Task Force VII androids seemingly having picked up bits of conscience and virtue along with the superpowers they drained from the heroes that doesn't go anywhere here ("You're telling me goodness is a %$*& super-power?" a bug-eyed Waller screams at one point), and various heroes are shown being given various missions, and then returning from those missions successfully later, their adventures seeming to have occurred completely off-panel. (Oh, and there's no explanation for why, when Hal Jordan appears, he's shirtless.)
Now, is it fair to fault the book, or writer Mark Waid, or DC for the fact that some of Absolute Power thus reads rather wonkily, since we're all well aware that the story is meant to be read serially, rather than in this collection which, of course, only includes part of the story...?
I don't know. I can excuse the book for seemingly leaving so much out because I understand the nature of such crossover event storylines but, at the same time, DC is packaging and selling the book in this particular format too, so I think it's fair to assess this particular collection as it's presented. And it is obviously somewhat wanting, not reading like a complete story, as it has so many dangling sub-plots that seem to go nowhere.
(By contrast, Tom Taylor's Beast World, a far more compact storyline with significantly less lead-in than Absolute Power, read perfectly well in its collected form, it's tie-ins not being particularly important to the plot, and thus all easily skipped...and collected together in a single companion volume that complimented rather than completed the main storyline, Beast World Tour. Although I don't know for certain that we can extrapolate from that fact that Taylor wrote his event storyline better than Waid did; as I said, Beast World was a smaller affair. Perhaps it's an argument for smaller events, though, or perhaps it's an argument for a bigger main series for events. That is, perhaps if Waid had six or eight issues for Absolute Power rather than four, he could have gotten everything significant into the book...?)
(By contrast, Tom Taylor's Beast World, a far more compact storyline with significantly less lead-in than Absolute Power, read perfectly well in its collected form, it's tie-ins not being particularly important to the plot, and thus all easily skipped...and collected together in a single companion volume that complimented rather than completed the main storyline, Beast World Tour. Although I don't know for certain that we can extrapolate from that fact that Taylor wrote his event storyline better than Waid did; as I said, Beast World was a smaller affair. Perhaps it's an argument for smaller events, though, or perhaps it's an argument for a bigger main series for events. That is, perhaps if Waid had six or eight issues for Absolute Power rather than four, he could have gotten everything significant into the book...?)
The collection begins with the previously mentioned FCBD story, a 12-pager written by Waid and drawn by Mikel Janin, which introduces readers to some of the main players. Not only Waller and her operation, but also robot Batman Failsafe (who Chip Zdarsky created for his Batman run; I didn't read that, but Waid efficiently defines him thusly: "Think Batman crossed with the Terminator"), reluctant Waller recruit Dreamer and Green Arrow Oliver Queen, who is apparently betraying his friends and allies to join Waller.
That is followed immediately in the collection by Absolute Power: Ground Zero, a 30-page, three-story anthology that more thoroughly introduces three characters that will play important parts of the main series, which fills the rest of the book.
Each of these short stories is from a different creative team. "Stage One" is written by Nicole Maines and Waid and drawn by Skylar Partridge, and is a Dreamer story, devoted to her work for Waller's Suicide Squad, which here involves capturing her former friend (and Superman Jon Kent's boyfriend) Jay Nakamura...after others working for Waller apparently assassinated his mom.
"Stage Two" is by Chip Zdarsky, Waid and V Ken Marion, and stars minor supervillain Time Commander, who is resurrected and put to work by Waller on her new super-robots. His role, though minor, will prove integral at the story's conclusion.
Finally, "Stage Three" by Joshua Williamson and Gleb Melnikov, details Waller's recovery of The Brainiac Queen (apparently from the goings-on in the Superman books), and the extremely elaborate way in which Waller gets her to become her devoted and willing ally.
All the prologue over, Absolute Power begins in earnest, with Waid joined by his World's Finest partner Dan Mora, who I personally think is one of the best artists currently regularly working on super-comics.
Each of these short stories is from a different creative team. "Stage One" is written by Nicole Maines and Waid and drawn by Skylar Partridge, and is a Dreamer story, devoted to her work for Waller's Suicide Squad, which here involves capturing her former friend (and Superman Jon Kent's boyfriend) Jay Nakamura...after others working for Waller apparently assassinated his mom.
"Stage Two" is by Chip Zdarsky, Waid and V Ken Marion, and stars minor supervillain Time Commander, who is resurrected and put to work by Waller on her new super-robots. His role, though minor, will prove integral at the story's conclusion.
Finally, "Stage Three" by Joshua Williamson and Gleb Melnikov, details Waller's recovery of The Brainiac Queen (apparently from the goings-on in the Superman books), and the extremely elaborate way in which Waller gets her to become her devoted and willing ally.
All the prologue over, Absolute Power begins in earnest, with Waid joined by his World's Finest partner Dan Mora, who I personally think is one of the best artists currently regularly working on super-comics.
After a pretty compelling scene in which Superman loses his powers while trying to apprehend some bad guys, getting shot and falling out of the sky, we flash backwards to see how we got there. Amanda Waller, using the super-robots Failsafe and the Brainiac Queen, has apparently hacked world media, broadcasting "Big Lie" inspired, AI-generated footage of various superheroes (Captain Marvel, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Supergirl, Firestorm, etc.) going on mass casualty rampages, mowing down civilians.
This is apparently enough to turn American sentiment completely against any and all superheroes. Five years ago, I might have said this seems unlikely, but, well, I've now lived through covid misinformation, Donald Trump and his allies' insistence that he actually won the 2020 election and that the January 6th riot wasn't that big a deal, and a dozen other efforts to shape public opinion by simply telling big obvious lies as often and as forcefully as possible.
As Waller explains to her number two, Sarge Steel:
You don't need fear gas to shift public opinion. You don't need telepathic mind control. In a world run in a media echo chamber, no matter how many busloads of nuns Superman saves, you can make an uncomfortably large number of people doubt their own eyes and ears.All you have to do is refine your message into a memorable catchphrase...and repeat it fifty thousand times.
I wish that weren't true, but recent American history, and the daily news, seems to support it.
Anyway, it seems successful enough that she's able to attack Superman and the others with her Task Force VII Amazo androids, which, along with Failsafe, make up a sort of robot Justice League, each of them modeled after and possessing the powers of one of the founding Justice Leaguers (Presumably Waller will rely on these the next time, say, aliens invade Earth, as seems to happen a few times a year in the DCU; it doesn't really make sense to do away with Superman and the Justice League otherwise, given how often they save the world. Unless one is completely nihilistic, anyway).
There's one major difference between these new Amazos and the previous models, though: When they steal a superhero's powers, they do so completely and permanently, regardless of the source of those powers. ("If you have superpowers, we will take them," Waller says in a broadcast appeal to the world's heroes to surrender. "If you utilize devices, we will drain them. If you use magic, you will no longer remember how to conjure it.")
There's one major difference between these new Amazos and the previous models, though: When they steal a superhero's powers, they do so completely and permanently, regardless of the source of those powers. ("If you have superpowers, we will take them," Waller says in a broadcast appeal to the world's heroes to surrender. "If you utilize devices, we will drain them. If you use magic, you will no longer remember how to conjure it.")
While there might not be any real tension as to whether the Justice League and most of Earth's heroes losing their powers permanently is actually, you know, permanent—"I'm not going to insult you by pretending the heroes don't ultimately triumph," Waid writes in his introduction to the collection—there's an effective enough effort to make the proceedings suspenseful, with the how of the various heroes going back to normal at the end remaining an elusive mystery throughout (During the opening attack, the Amazos even render The Spectre helpless, as a sign of how effective the power draining efforts are).
Many of the heroes who are drained but not captured retreat to Superman's Fortress of Solitude, where, after a page of argument among several leaders as to who should take charge, Nightwing asserts himself as the leader of the world's superheroes, rallying them together and assigning various heroes their tasks in an effort to fight back...an effort that is that quickly frustrated when Jon Kent, covered in mechanical bits and pieces and apparently under the Brainiac Queen's control, attacks the fortress, causing the heroes to retreat to another Justice Leaguer's secret home base.
Many of the heroes who are drained but not captured retreat to Superman's Fortress of Solitude, where, after a page of argument among several leaders as to who should take charge, Nightwing asserts himself as the leader of the world's superheroes, rallying them together and assigning various heroes their tasks in an effort to fight back...an effort that is that quickly frustrated when Jon Kent, covered in mechanical bits and pieces and apparently under the Brainiac Queen's control, attacks the fortress, causing the heroes to retreat to another Justice Leaguer's secret home base.
It eventually comes down to a big battle at the disbanded Justice League's previous headquarters, now re-christened the Hall of Order, with an army of the powerless heroes attacking Waller's soldiers (who wear skull-shaped facemasks...not exactly a good guy look), while Flash Barry Allen and Green Lantern Hal Jordan try to stop an invasion by multiversal villains from a gateway in the basement and Oliver Queen reveals that he was really on the good guys' side all along (Obviously, although Waid has an interesting wrinkle to the mechanics of his playing double-agent).
Now that I've switched to trades, I'm far from up to date with the goings-on of the DC line of comics, but I thought Waid did a fairly impressive job herein of getting in a lot of heroes. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman all play big roles, obviously, but so too do other Justice Leaguers. And there are an awful lot of cameos, including other teams like the Titans, JSA, the Doom Patrol and the Birds of Prey, and characters as diverse as, say, Animal Man, Red Tornado, Plastic Man, all the Wonder Girls, a Doctor Mid-Nite that sure sounds like he's meant to be the (dead?) original and even a handful I didn't recognize (There's a purple-ish character with a tail and a cat-like face who seems to be part of the current Doom Patrol, for example, and a pair of heroes named Cadejos and Rana Dorada...at least one of whom I think I might have seen in World's Finest Vol. 4....?).
I thought Aquaman was well represented, not only suggesting himself as the heroes' leader ("Deploying armies at a time of war, delegating resources...those are a king's duties"), but also offering comfort to Superman when it seems that Jon is lost and, later, checking in with and offering a heart-to-heart with the new Airwave. Oh, and leading the heroes into battle in a few cool panels.
Blue Beetle Ted Kord, first introduced in a panel battling a giant robot of some sort in London alongside Martian Manhunter, Booster Gold, Fire, Ice and an off-panel Elongated Man, plays an unexpectedly bigger role, working on tech stuff with Mister Terrific at one point (His is such a great costume design, and Mora draws the hell out of it).
Waid seems to write everyone well, as he should, given how long he's been working on DC Comics. I didn't really care for the bit where Big Barda argues with Nightwing over whether or not they should kill the mind-controlled Jon Kent, though. I know she's from Apokolips and all, but she seemed uncharacteristically bloodthirsty, so much so that at one point she seems prepared to go against Nightwing and shoot Jon with a chunk of Kryptonite she loads into an Amazonian rifle (Where did she get the kryptonite from? Is it the same chunk Wally West grabbed at the Fortress? And did it just so happen to be bullet-shaped and sized enough that it could be put in and fired from a long gun?). (Update: Collected Editions, which is obviously much more up to date with the goings-on of the DC Universe than EDILW is now, recently reviewed Absolute Power, and the review notes some inconsistencies between the characters' portrayals in the book versus their home books.)
Getting to see Mora draw so much of the current DC Universe is, obviously, a treat. Seeing him take on more and more characters from DC's past has been one of the great joys of World's Finest, and so it's fun to see him draw Batman and Dick Grayson in their modern costumes, as well as take on various legacy characters and the many other ones that just didn't yet exist during the vague past of World's Finest.
Now that I've switched to trades, I'm far from up to date with the goings-on of the DC line of comics, but I thought Waid did a fairly impressive job herein of getting in a lot of heroes. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman all play big roles, obviously, but so too do other Justice Leaguers. And there are an awful lot of cameos, including other teams like the Titans, JSA, the Doom Patrol and the Birds of Prey, and characters as diverse as, say, Animal Man, Red Tornado, Plastic Man, all the Wonder Girls, a Doctor Mid-Nite that sure sounds like he's meant to be the (dead?) original and even a handful I didn't recognize (There's a purple-ish character with a tail and a cat-like face who seems to be part of the current Doom Patrol, for example, and a pair of heroes named Cadejos and Rana Dorada...at least one of whom I think I might have seen in World's Finest Vol. 4....?).
I thought Aquaman was well represented, not only suggesting himself as the heroes' leader ("Deploying armies at a time of war, delegating resources...those are a king's duties"), but also offering comfort to Superman when it seems that Jon is lost and, later, checking in with and offering a heart-to-heart with the new Airwave. Oh, and leading the heroes into battle in a few cool panels.
Blue Beetle Ted Kord, first introduced in a panel battling a giant robot of some sort in London alongside Martian Manhunter, Booster Gold, Fire, Ice and an off-panel Elongated Man, plays an unexpectedly bigger role, working on tech stuff with Mister Terrific at one point (His is such a great costume design, and Mora draws the hell out of it).
Waid seems to write everyone well, as he should, given how long he's been working on DC Comics. I didn't really care for the bit where Big Barda argues with Nightwing over whether or not they should kill the mind-controlled Jon Kent, though. I know she's from Apokolips and all, but she seemed uncharacteristically bloodthirsty, so much so that at one point she seems prepared to go against Nightwing and shoot Jon with a chunk of Kryptonite she loads into an Amazonian rifle (Where did she get the kryptonite from? Is it the same chunk Wally West grabbed at the Fortress? And did it just so happen to be bullet-shaped and sized enough that it could be put in and fired from a long gun?). (Update: Collected Editions, which is obviously much more up to date with the goings-on of the DC Universe than EDILW is now, recently reviewed Absolute Power, and the review notes some inconsistencies between the characters' portrayals in the book versus their home books.)
Getting to see Mora draw so much of the current DC Universe is, obviously, a treat. Seeing him take on more and more characters from DC's past has been one of the great joys of World's Finest, and so it's fun to see him draw Batman and Dick Grayson in their modern costumes, as well as take on various legacy characters and the many other ones that just didn't yet exist during the vague past of World's Finest.
The book, colored by Alejandro Sanchez, looks darker and busier than Mora's other work with Waid, although I assume that has something to do with the "darker", more serious nature of the modern DCU to the more idyllic, pre-tragedy past the creators explore in their previous collaboration, as well as the nature of the modern costumes of the characters, which feature an awful lor more black.
My sole reservation about Mora's work here? I didn't care for his Robin Damian Wayne, who look both too old and way too tall, like his now artificially aged-up peer Jon Kent, rather than the diminutive 13-year-old he's usually drawn as.
Despite quibbles like that, and the aforementioned friction about seeing Amanda Waller as a world-conquering supervillain (ultimately taken down in the same way so many bad guys in comics and TV have been taken down in the past, albeit with a probably guessable superhero twist here), this is a decent enough big, blockbuster style superhero crossover.
And while its unlikely to change the DC Universe forever, it does contain a few changes that look like they will take and be explored elsewhere, including Amanda Waller being taken off the board permanently (in a way that feels uncomfortably like a plot point from Identity Crisis, although I guess its perpetrated by Dreamer, rather than any of the heroes who now know better than to mind-wipe anyone), swapping Fire and Ice's powers, de-powering Barry Allen, shutting off access to the Multiverse (um, somehow) and, most obviously and prominently, setting up the Justice League Unlimited series, with the last pages devoted to Ollie and the Trinity discussing the need for a League and showing off the holographic design for a new satellite watchtower.
And while its unlikely to change the DC Universe forever, it does contain a few changes that look like they will take and be explored elsewhere, including Amanda Waller being taken off the board permanently (in a way that feels uncomfortably like a plot point from Identity Crisis, although I guess its perpetrated by Dreamer, rather than any of the heroes who now know better than to mind-wipe anyone), swapping Fire and Ice's powers, de-powering Barry Allen, shutting off access to the Multiverse (um, somehow) and, most obviously and prominently, setting up the Justice League Unlimited series, with the last pages devoted to Ollie and the Trinity discussing the need for a League and showing off the holographic design for a new satellite watchtower.
Did any of your guys read any of the companion series, or tie-in issues from the ongoings? Anything worth making a point of tracking down and reading?
Fortunately, the particular nature of its dumbness is of the big and fun variety.
After some 20 pages of an in medias res opening featuring Batman in an extremely different milieu than we are most used to seeing him in, fighting bizarre alien soldiers and robots aboard a spaceship, writer Jason Aaron lays out the weird series' premise.
A year into his crimefighting career—and, presumably, well before he met Superman, Martian Manhunter or Hal Jordan, as the book falls apart if his work friends include aliens and a space cop—Batman encounters a big, strong alien working as an enforcer for a Gotham mob. He tries to beat the alien up but ends up getting his ass kicked.
Deciding that, in order to best protect Gotham, he needs to learn how to fight aliens as well as human beings, he spends $532 million on a "prototype long-range shuttle from S.T.A.R. Labs", flies it "eight megaparsecs" into the Slag Galaxy and gets himself abducted and imprisoned on an alien ship, where he can learn how to fight aliens.
This ship is the War Storm, which travels the Slag galaxy surrounded by an "artificially generated stellar hurricane" to capture various sentient beings, train them in the arts of hand-to-hand combat using "Punch Bot" robots and then sell them as a slave army to the Blackksun Mining Company, which has been decimating every inhabited planet they have set up shop on. (And yes, it's unfortunate that the bad guys share a name with a criminal organization from the Star Wars "Extended Universe"; Aaron or an editor should probably have googled "Black Sun" at some point before going to print. Maybe they did, and that accounts for the spelling.)
A year into his crimefighting career—and, presumably, well before he met Superman, Martian Manhunter or Hal Jordan, as the book falls apart if his work friends include aliens and a space cop—Batman encounters a big, strong alien working as an enforcer for a Gotham mob. He tries to beat the alien up but ends up getting his ass kicked.
Deciding that, in order to best protect Gotham, he needs to learn how to fight aliens as well as human beings, he spends $532 million on a "prototype long-range shuttle from S.T.A.R. Labs", flies it "eight megaparsecs" into the Slag Galaxy and gets himself abducted and imprisoned on an alien ship, where he can learn how to fight aliens.
This ship is the War Storm, which travels the Slag galaxy surrounded by an "artificially generated stellar hurricane" to capture various sentient beings, train them in the arts of hand-to-hand combat using "Punch Bot" robots and then sell them as a slave army to the Blackksun Mining Company, which has been decimating every inhabited planet they have set up shop on. (And yes, it's unfortunate that the bad guys share a name with a criminal organization from the Star Wars "Extended Universe"; Aaron or an editor should probably have googled "Black Sun" at some point before going to print. Maybe they did, and that accounts for the spelling.)
While tasked with menial labor—"Bat-Man" is deemed too small to be a worthy recruit—Batman secretly studies alien anatomy and the breaking of it under a rundown Punch Bot he was meant to discard, and he gradually befriends Ione, a Tamaranian* bounty hunter (There's also a Thanagarian bounty hunter who shows up a bit later, but other than those two, all of the aliens in the book seem to be original creations of Aaron and designs of pencil artist Doug Mahnke, rather than extant denizens of the DCU's outer space).
Batman eventually learns what he needs to know and return to Earth, but he then decides to liberate the War Storm from Captain Synn, a member of the same species as the alien he had fought back in Gotham.
Batman eventually learns what he needs to know and return to Earth, but he then decides to liberate the War Storm from Captain Synn, a member of the same species as the alien he had fought back in Gotham.
And then he decides to take on Blackksun and its super-powered leaders, which leads to a Batman-led planet-by-planet rebellion before a climactic showdown with the villains.
In other words, while it started out pretty big and dumb, it only gets bigger and dumber as it goes on, and the ending, in which Batman returns to Gotham to beat up the alien he failed to beat up before his journey began, sure seems to suggest that this whole epic adventure was just an insanely long, circuitous plan to win a single fight. (That, and there's a bit about the inspirational nature of Batman, and the creation of what I guess is retroactively the very first member of the Club of Heroes/Batman Inc.)
Although the delivery is always completely deadpan and the entire adventure played pretty straight, one imagines Aaron must know how silly the story he's telling actually is. One sees it in the goofy alien words that pepper the dialogue ("Close cell number Yrtteen!", for example, or "Frrg Alert, all Stormers to arms" and so on). And in Batman's often ridiculous narration ("Somewhere out there in the darkness, orphans are screaming. My fists scream with them").
In other words, while it started out pretty big and dumb, it only gets bigger and dumber as it goes on, and the ending, in which Batman returns to Gotham to beat up the alien he failed to beat up before his journey began, sure seems to suggest that this whole epic adventure was just an insanely long, circuitous plan to win a single fight. (That, and there's a bit about the inspirational nature of Batman, and the creation of what I guess is retroactively the very first member of the Club of Heroes/Batman Inc.)
Although the delivery is always completely deadpan and the entire adventure played pretty straight, one imagines Aaron must know how silly the story he's telling actually is. One sees it in the goofy alien words that pepper the dialogue ("Close cell number Yrtteen!", for example, or "Frrg Alert, all Stormers to arms" and so on). And in Batman's often ridiculous narration ("Somewhere out there in the darkness, orphans are screaming. My fists scream with them").
Both in its often semi-sarcastic sci-fi and its portrayal of a single-minded, ultimate badass hero that is a a parody of himself, Off-World reminded me quite a bit of the Judge Dredd comics I've read.
Mahnke's very busy, detailed, semi-realistic style means the adventure is presented as completely straight as well. A veteran artist who has been drawing comics about as long as I've been reading them, Mahnke has had plenty of experience drawing the Dark Knight, both during his JLA run and stints on the Batman and Detective monthlies.
As mentioned above, he seems to be designing pretty much everything in the book, making his buxom Ione and the Thanagarian bounty hunter, named "The Thanagarian", quite distinct from, say, Starfire and Hawkman, with tattoos and accessories and various visual filigree. He also gives Batman an updated, action figure-ready space adventure suit later in the book, a cool-looking "razor wolf" sidekick and, of course, he fills the book with various weird and dangerous-looking aliens and robots.
I'm sure there are plenty of other artists who could have drawn this book, but, having just finished reading it, it's hard to imagine anyone other than Mahnke drawing it. He's here inked by Jaime Mendoza, and colored by David Baron, the latter of whom does a pretty remarkable job of contrasting the outer space setting with that of Gotham City.
There's no Elseworlds or Black Label logo attached to the cover, but given just how big and weird this comic is (and how difficult it might be to reconcile with the events of Batman's early career), I can't imagine any future creators building on or referencing this series in anyway.
There's no Elseworlds or Black Label logo attached to the cover, but given just how big and weird this comic is (and how difficult it might be to reconcile with the events of Batman's early career), I can't imagine any future creators building on or referencing this series in anyway.
Still, it's a fun standalone Batman adventure, one that seems to celebrate the character's attributes while simultaneously tweaking them and it is, of course, a tour de force from Mahnke.
Despite having read and re-read these comics before, I took the opportunity to re-read them yet again that this particular collection offered; I love these comics, and I am quite enamored with the new DC Finest format.
Admittedly, I puzzled over the curation of this particular volume quite a bit, given that it starts not with Batgirl #1, but with Batgirl #7, and collects the series up through #27 and, as alluded to above, includes an issue each of Superboy and Supergirl.
I thought that, perhaps, DC started the collection as they did because they wanted to end at a particular point, the climactic battle with Lady Shiva that fills the oversized issue #25 and completed a long-term arc for the title character, resolving the death wish she had developed from the extreme guilt she carried about killing a man when she was only eight-years-old (An event that was particularly traumatic for her, given her ability to "read" her opponents, meaning that she experienced her victim's death along with him).
But that's not the case, as the book extends two issues beyond that. Looking up what happened in those first six issues, I realized that those were the ones that were co-written by Kelly Puckett and Scott Peterson, and then I thought perhaps DC was taking some pains to not include Peterson's contributions to the title...but that can't be the case either, as one of those two post-#25 issues was guest-written by Peterson.
So, in the end, I can't even offer a good guess as to why the book is filled with the issues it is, especially once one factors in those issues of Superboy and Supergirl, which don't offer all that much to the ongoing narrative (The potential for a Superboy/Batgirl relationship, as extremely unlikely as that may seem, is eventually followed up on, in issue #41 by a different creative team, but I don't think there's ever any such follow-up to Batgirl's brief meeting with Supergirl).
So, in the end, I can't even offer a good guess as to why the book is filled with the issues it is, especially once one factors in those issues of Superboy and Supergirl, which don't offer all that much to the ongoing narrative (The potential for a Superboy/Batgirl relationship, as extremely unlikely as that may seem, is eventually followed up on, in issue #41 by a different creative team, but I don't think there's ever any such follow-up to Batgirl's brief meeting with Supergirl).
It wouldn't have hurt to start at least an issue or so earlier, as, when Batgirl #7 opens, Batgirl is reeling from having just lost her ability to predict people's movements, the result of a telepath rewiring her brain, and thus making her unable to continue her mission as Batgirl (Batman doesn't want to let her resume crimefighting until she can prove that she can adequately defend herself again).
She quickly regains this ability, of course, but in a less-than-ideal way. Having discovered that Shiva has the very same ability, she makes a deal with the world's greatest fighter: If Shiva teaches her to read people again, she will promise to fight her to death in one year's time, giving Batgirl the choice between, as Batgirl sees it, to be "mediocre...for a life time...or perfect...for a year."
Batgirl chooses the latter, secretly telling herself that, since she has promised never to kill again, she will just let Shiva kill her during their eventual fight. Suicide by death duel, then.
She quickly regains this ability, of course, but in a less-than-ideal way. Having discovered that Shiva has the very same ability, she makes a deal with the world's greatest fighter: If Shiva teaches her to read people again, she will promise to fight her to death in one year's time, giving Batgirl the choice between, as Batgirl sees it, to be "mediocre...for a life time...or perfect...for a year."
Batgirl chooses the latter, secretly telling herself that, since she has promised never to kill again, she will just let Shiva kill her during their eventual fight. Suicide by death duel, then.
There's actually probably an argument to be made for starting a collection of Batgirl Cassandra Cain's adventures even earlier than Batgirl #1, of course, given that she was introduced during the course of the big Batman event/temporary status quo "No Man's Land." (She first appeared in 1999's Batman #567, which was drawn by Damion Scott and written by Kelly Puckett, who would make up the official creative team for the first 37 issues of the ongoing series, although there were a handful of guest writers and guest artists during those issues, as we'll see).
After Cassandra proved herself, she inherited the Batgirl costume that Helena Bertinelli wore briefly in the earlier issues of "No Man's Land," graduating to her own title in 2000, the very first Batgirl ongoing monthly series.
She was a compelling character. Trained from birth by assassin David Cain before eventually running away from him (and becoming one of former Batgirl Barbara Gordon's agents), Cassandra possessed not only extensive martial arts knowledge, but an uncanny ability to predict the movements of others, which, when combined made her all but unstoppable, allowing her to dodge bullets, sneak past just about anyone and outfight anyone she ever came into contact with.
She also possessed some interesting weaknesses, however, including the fact that she couldn't read and, at this early point, was still just learning to talk. For much of the comics collected within this volume, she basically spoke only in one or two-word sentences or, when she had more to say, a little like Swamp Thing, with lots of ellipses. Even when Puckett revealed her inner thoughts to readers via narration boxes, these tended to be extremely terse. Cassandra Cain communicated primarily through actions, and her comic followed suit; re-reading these issues today, it's pretty remarkable how much Puckett and Scott worked by the maxim of showing rather than telling.
She also possessed some interesting weaknesses, however, including the fact that she couldn't read and, at this early point, was still just learning to talk. For much of the comics collected within this volume, she basically spoke only in one or two-word sentences or, when she had more to say, a little like Swamp Thing, with lots of ellipses. Even when Puckett revealed her inner thoughts to readers via narration boxes, these tended to be extremely terse. Cassandra Cain communicated primarily through actions, and her comic followed suit; re-reading these issues today, it's pretty remarkable how much Puckett and Scott worked by the maxim of showing rather than telling.
Her essential, character-defining conflicts—the guilt of once killing a man leading to her Batman-like insistence of never taking another life no matter what, her plan of letting Shiva kill her eventually—are here quickly established, and laid over a fun, if curious, status quo.
A kinda sorta sidekick and protege to both Batman and then-Oracle Barbara Gordon, she's a bit like a kid the two are raising together, although the pair of veteran heroes rarely see eye to eye on what's best for Cassandra, with Batman wanting her to become a perfected version of himself and Barbara constantly pushing her toward adopting a real life beyond training all day and crimefighting all night.
While these conflicts simmer in the background, Puckett and Scott craft what is essentially an entire ongoing series of new-reader-friendly done-in-one stories. One could pick up just about any issue of Batgirl, certainly any of those in the book, and read and enjoy it all on its own, even if it was one's first exposure to the character.
This is all the more remarkable given how often outside events are honored by the book, be they smaller Batman line only events ("Officer Down", "In This Issue: Batman Dies!") or bigger ones ("Bruce Wayne: Murderer", "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive"), or DC Universe initiatives (like February 2002's month of Will Eisner-inspired covers) or crossover event stories ("Joker: Last Laugh").
While Puckett writes the majority of the Batgirl comics in this collection, there are two issues guest-written by Chuck Dixon and one by the aforementioned Peterson. Scott likewise pencils the majority of the Batgirl pages herein, inked by Robert Campanella, save for an issue by Dale Eaglesham, one by Phil Noto, one by the great Vince Giarrano (doing a passable impression of Scott and Campanella) and then there's a part of another issue by Coy Turnbull. The included Superboy and Supergirl issues are, of course, by the creative teams of those books.
This is all the more remarkable given how often outside events are honored by the book, be they smaller Batman line only events ("Officer Down", "In This Issue: Batman Dies!") or bigger ones ("Bruce Wayne: Murderer", "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive"), or DC Universe initiatives (like February 2002's month of Will Eisner-inspired covers) or crossover event stories ("Joker: Last Laugh").
While Puckett writes the majority of the Batgirl comics in this collection, there are two issues guest-written by Chuck Dixon and one by the aforementioned Peterson. Scott likewise pencils the majority of the Batgirl pages herein, inked by Robert Campanella, save for an issue by Dale Eaglesham, one by Phil Noto, one by the great Vince Giarrano (doing a passable impression of Scott and Campanella) and then there's a part of another issue by Coy Turnbull. The included Superboy and Supergirl issues are, of course, by the creative teams of those books.
While Batgirl mostly interacts with Batman and Oracle (and, to a lesser extent, Shiva and Cain), it's interesting to see her earlier interactions with other young heroes. It's a Dixon-written issue that has her teaming up with Spoiler Stephanie Brown for the first time, as Cassandra turns to her for help reading a ransom note...and then reluctantly accepts her help closing the case, despite their vastly different skill levels (Repeatedly throughout the series, Batgirl will knock Stephanie out in order to keep her from getting hurt in a dangerous battle. One such instance leads to the pair bickering about this before an exhausted Oracle, pre-figuring the eventual Batgirls series that teamed the three of them together by decades).
Steph will also appear when Batgirl takes on the super-powered (and Joker-ized) Shadow Thief in Batgirl's "Last Laugh" tie-in, be there when Batgirl digs up the murdered Vesper Fairchild's body to examine it for clues in the "Fugitive" tie-in and, when Cass is sleeping off the results of two back-to-back fights to the death against Shiva, Steph will step in to tackle a master martial artist who worships Shiva.
Steph will also appear when Batgirl takes on the super-powered (and Joker-ized) Shadow Thief in Batgirl's "Last Laugh" tie-in, be there when Batgirl digs up the murdered Vesper Fairchild's body to examine it for clues in the "Fugitive" tie-in and, when Cass is sleeping off the results of two back-to-back fights to the death against Shiva, Steph will step in to tackle a master martial artist who worships Shiva.
As for Robin, we first see him in the Superboy issue, answering Kon-El's question of whether or not the two years his elder Batgirl is hot with a sigh and "She's on fire", although Puckett, Scott and Campanella will also devote an issue to Batgirl and Robin finding themselves in a team-up together (They first meet unexpectedly when they pass one another during a big fight scene, and, before the issue is over, Tim confesses that he was weirded out by Cass' unusual background, and apologizes to her for treating her somewhat standoffishly).
The two Super-book crossovers are both pretty inessential, although I'm glad they were collected here, if only because it meant the volume contained some material I either wasn't familiar with at all, or else less familiar with then the rest of the contents.
The Superboy issue is by Joe Kelly, Pascal Ferry and Keith Champagne (Why Kelly gets the second credit on the cover of this collection, given that he only scripts 22 pages of the book, I don't know; Dixon scripted twice as many).
The Superboy issue is by Joe Kelly, Pascal Ferry and Keith Champagne (Why Kelly gets the second credit on the cover of this collection, given that he only scripts 22 pages of the book, I don't know; Dixon scripted twice as many).
In it, Kon is in Gotham visiting his Young Justice teammate Robin because he needs someone to talk to, but after a brief fight scene against some kind of weird glowy zombies, he and Batgirl rush off together when Robin's not looking, the Boy Wonder having stepped away to call in Batman.
The extremely chatty Superboy and the near silent Batgirl, who only answers his constant commentary with either one-world answers or simply saying "...", are of course polar opposites. They run afoul of what looks like an actual supervillain, a Dr. Sin (a rarity for Cassandra at the time, as Batman and Oracle were always trying to keep her away from metahumans) and the pair end up nearly dying in a death trap.
When Batman threatens to punish Batgirl at the end, Superboy has words with the Dark Knight, and insists that he be given half of her punishment. Then the two take off to hang out, off-panel. Again, this particularly unusual World's Finest team would show up once more, much later in Batgirl.
The Supergirl issue is from the long-running Peter David**-written series and I could barely make heads-or-tails out of it, having never read a single issue of it.*** It was a "Last Laugh" tie-in, which at least helped a bit.
This Supergirl, dressed in the white ringer crop top and mini-skirt that her animated counterpart wore in Superman: The Animated Series, is facing off against a Bizarro Supergirl (here, an imperfect clone, rather than a visitor from Bizarro World), as well as a Joker-ized Two-Face and a Joker-ized guy named Buzz I didn't recognize, but was apparently a character from the ongoing series.
Batgirl, here drawn by pencil artist Leonard Kirk and inker Robin Riggs, saves Supergirl from Bizarro Supergirl, dodging the meta-human repeatedly and eventually using her momentum to toss her into some live wires, and then helps round-up Two-Face.
This Supergirl, dressed in the white ringer crop top and mini-skirt that her animated counterpart wore in Superman: The Animated Series, is facing off against a Bizarro Supergirl (here, an imperfect clone, rather than a visitor from Bizarro World), as well as a Joker-ized Two-Face and a Joker-ized guy named Buzz I didn't recognize, but was apparently a character from the ongoing series.
Batgirl, here drawn by pencil artist Leonard Kirk and inker Robin Riggs, saves Supergirl from Bizarro Supergirl, dodging the meta-human repeatedly and eventually using her momentum to toss her into some live wires, and then helps round-up Two-Face.
The two heroes don't seem to share any real chemistry, and, unlike Spoiler, Robin and Superboy, I didn't really have any desire to see them spend any more time together in the future, but then, this single issue of Supergirl didn't really give me any sense of the main character, a character DC seems to have been rebooting regularly ever since John Byrne's Superman reboot first scrambled her origins and history.
As for the title of the collection, it's taken from the title of issue #19's story. It's probably the strongest, and perhaps the most daring, story in the book, one that tackles a pretty tough subject for a Batman comic.
In it, Batgirl is introduced standing between a group of criminals looting an electronics store and a couple of policemen with their guns pointed at the thieves, and she declares "Nobody...dies...tonight."
How far will she go to keep her promise? Well, not only does she take down the thieves without killing them, but she also pulls on one of the cop's arms to keep him from shooting one of them. And then she sees an item on the TV news about how the first federal execution in twenty years is set to take place in Gotham tonight.
The killer is obviously guilty; in fact, the creators show him strangling a fast-food worker in the opening scene, and, throughout, scenes of Batgirl in action are intercut with scenes of him preparing to go to the gas chamber.
She will ultimately break into the prison, sneak into the sealed gas chamber itself, kick her way out of it, and try to escape with the murderer, although it's not entirely clear what she plans to do with him once she saves him.
"You...springing me?" he asks.
She answers: "No."
She will ultimately break into the prison, sneak into the sealed gas chamber itself, kick her way out of it, and try to escape with the murderer, although it's not entirely clear what she plans to do with him once she saves him.
"You...springing me?" he asks.
She answers: "No."
"Then...what?"
She attempts to answer by restating the title of the story, at which point they are interrupted by the mother of the murder victim, who tells Batgirl to return him. When she argues "Maybe... he.... changed," the woman answers "Maybe he did. But my little girl is still dead."
She thinks about the time she killed, which was apparently on this very day nine years ago, but she ultimately relents, and the last page of the book shows the murderer holding his breath, his eyes bulging, as gas fills the chamber.
It's a tough read, and, thinking about it now, one of the few vengeance/justice debates so popular in certain superhero comics that I've read to actually take into account whether or not we as a society believe in executing criminals like, say, The Punisher does, or not, as Batman and his allies always refrain from doing, no matter the circumstances.
I am fairly certain Scott's art won't be to everyone's taste (and it has only gotten weirder and more idiosyncratic over the last 25 years or so), but I really loved it here. He's clearly adept at telling a story through art, something Puckett's plots call on him to do constantly, and communicating Cassandra's feelings, beliefs and intentions through her body language and expressions, and he rises to and meets the challenge of the show-don't-tell nature of the book.
I don't think he designed this particular Batgirl costume, but he certainly perfected it; I've always thought of Scott's Batgirl as something of a cross between Batman's and Spider-Man's designs; in costume, his long-limbed, round-headed, sharp-edged Batgirl is somewhat disconcertingly weird and more than a little scary, abut also young, feminine and even dainty, her smallness always accentuated by the fact that she's constantly facing and fighting characters that tower above her.
Highly influenced by manga and, to an extent, kung fu movies, his layouts are all pure comics, and many of them would read quite intelligible enough if you stripped all of Puckett's or Dixon's narration or dialogue out of them...as they would have to, given the nature of the character, and Puckett's focus on her in each issue (While "Nobody Dies Tonight", for example, obviously isn't a silent story, it's very easy to see how it could be, given how much of it is told without any dialogue or narration).
She thinks about the time she killed, which was apparently on this very day nine years ago, but she ultimately relents, and the last page of the book shows the murderer holding his breath, his eyes bulging, as gas fills the chamber.
It's a tough read, and, thinking about it now, one of the few vengeance/justice debates so popular in certain superhero comics that I've read to actually take into account whether or not we as a society believe in executing criminals like, say, The Punisher does, or not, as Batman and his allies always refrain from doing, no matter the circumstances.
I am fairly certain Scott's art won't be to everyone's taste (and it has only gotten weirder and more idiosyncratic over the last 25 years or so), but I really loved it here. He's clearly adept at telling a story through art, something Puckett's plots call on him to do constantly, and communicating Cassandra's feelings, beliefs and intentions through her body language and expressions, and he rises to and meets the challenge of the show-don't-tell nature of the book.
I don't think he designed this particular Batgirl costume, but he certainly perfected it; I've always thought of Scott's Batgirl as something of a cross between Batman's and Spider-Man's designs; in costume, his long-limbed, round-headed, sharp-edged Batgirl is somewhat disconcertingly weird and more than a little scary, abut also young, feminine and even dainty, her smallness always accentuated by the fact that she's constantly facing and fighting characters that tower above her.
Highly influenced by manga and, to an extent, kung fu movies, his layouts are all pure comics, and many of them would read quite intelligible enough if you stripped all of Puckett's or Dixon's narration or dialogue out of them...as they would have to, given the nature of the character, and Puckett's focus on her in each issue (While "Nobody Dies Tonight", for example, obviously isn't a silent story, it's very easy to see how it could be, given how much of it is told without any dialogue or narration).
It's also fascinating to watch Scott's art change over the course of these 20 issues. Heck, go to comics.org and just look at the covers, and you can see how he quickly he refines his style, his characters getting bolder as his rendering gets more and more cartoony.
There's a reason why he was one of only a dozen artists given their own title of the short-lived artist showcase series Solo, I think.
As for the rest of the artists in the book, they are all fine, for the most part. Giarrano, a distinct stylist whose work can be seen in several quite memorable Batman comics of the previous decade (as well as a short-lived Manhunter revamp), seems to temper his own style and ape Scott's work, as I said earlier (Only one of the characters he draws in his series really looks like his). Ferry does okay on the Superboy issue, his Batgirl looking incredibly thin and pointy. Kirk and Noto are real stylistic departures from Scott, but they are both technically fine, and Noto's facility with expressions leads to some fun moments when the girls take their masks off after their mission.
As I said the other day on Bluesky, I'm not sure if there is enough material for this particular take on this particular Batgirl for a second DC Finest collection of her adventures. There are only seven more issues by the Puckett/Scott/Campanella team, with a three-issue arc by Dixon and Scott that teamed Batgirl with Conner Hawke coming in the midst of it. Even if you cast about for other appearances to fill up the collection—the sole Batgirl annual, DC First: Batgirl/Joker #1, Scott's Batgirl material from his issue of Solo, maybe the Batman/Batgirl issue of Gotham Knights by Devin Grayson and company—one is still well short of another 500 pages of material.
Unless, of course, DC wanted to just go ahead and collect issues from the next two writers' runs on the 73-issue series, those from writer Dylan Horrocks and then Andersen Gabrych, but then, those comics aren't nearly as good as those in the Puckett/Scott/Campanella run, and, though they feature the same character, read like an entirely different book. (Those James Jean covers sure were gorgeous while they lasted though, weren't they?)
Unless, of course, DC wanted to just go ahead and collect issues from the next two writers' runs on the 73-issue series, those from writer Dylan Horrocks and then Andersen Gabrych, but then, those comics aren't nearly as good as those in the Puckett/Scott/Campanella run, and, though they feature the same character, read like an entirely different book. (Those James Jean covers sure were gorgeous while they lasted though, weren't they?)
All told, this particular volume might not be the best way to read the best Cassandra Cain comics—the Silent Knight, To The Death and Point Blank trade paperbacks seem to collect the entire run by this creative team—but it's certainly now the easiest way to get your hands on some truly great Bat-Family comics, and certainly the best Batgirl comics of the last 25 years or so.
Given that, you may be wondering why this book is down here, with those I borrowed from the library, rather than up there, with those I decided to buy.
Well, I wasn't familiar with the creative team of Christopher Cantwell, Alex Lins and Jacob Edgar. And I didn't care for the cover at all. And I was pretty leery of the pitch of it as "body-horror Plastic Man noir." Even though Plastic Man's origins—1940s gangster caught in a chemical accident discovers his body is completely malleable—would certainly seem to justify such a take, I wasn't really interested in reading a grim and gritty Plastic Man comic.
As it turns out, I think both the words "body-horror" and "noir" are a bit of a, well, of a stretch when being applied to this book. The actual story doesn't really strike me as either; sure, Plas loses some control of his body, and it seems to turn against him, but it's more sad and tragic than horrifying. And while there are some crimes depicted within the proceedings, I wouldn't exactly call this a noir story.
The Cartoonists Club (Graphix/Scholastic) It's hard to overstate the magnitude of this particular pairing of creators.
Well, I wasn't familiar with the creative team of Christopher Cantwell, Alex Lins and Jacob Edgar. And I didn't care for the cover at all. And I was pretty leery of the pitch of it as "body-horror Plastic Man noir." Even though Plastic Man's origins—1940s gangster caught in a chemical accident discovers his body is completely malleable—would certainly seem to justify such a take, I wasn't really interested in reading a grim and gritty Plastic Man comic.
As it turns out, I think both the words "body-horror" and "noir" are a bit of a, well, of a stretch when being applied to this book. The actual story doesn't really strike me as either; sure, Plas loses some control of his body, and it seems to turn against him, but it's more sad and tragic than horrifying. And while there are some crimes depicted within the proceedings, I wouldn't exactly call this a noir story.
This is a Black Label comic (see the Black Label label in the lower-righthand corner above?), which, as I understand it, means that the story is meant to be either continuity-lite, or completely non-canonical, akin to an Elseworlds story, depending on the comic in question.
That said, Cantwell's story is rather heavily dependent on the original, 1997 JLA series, during which Plas joined the Justice League for the first time, and, in particular, Joe Kelly, Doug Mahnke and Tom Nguyen's 2002 JLA #65. That was a done-in-one Batman/Plastic Man team-up that, while quite well made, I absolutely hated at the time, as it revealed superhero Plastic Man to be a deadbeat dad (The issue introduced Plastic Man's son Luke, who had inherited his powers, his former lover Angel and the idea of Plas as perpetually absent father, hiding his inadequacies through his shape-changing fueled humor, all of which are integral to this new book). (Also of note is probably Mark Waid and Frank Quitely's 1999's The Kingdom: Offspring, a future-set story starring a son of Plastic Man named Ernie. Luke and Ernie would eventually be collapsed into a single character during Geoff Johns' Teen Titans run, wherein Offspring joined the team around the time of the "One Year Later" time jump. Johns reconciled the different names by making "Ernie" Luke's middle name.)
That said, Cantwell's story is rather heavily dependent on the original, 1997 JLA series, during which Plas joined the Justice League for the first time, and, in particular, Joe Kelly, Doug Mahnke and Tom Nguyen's 2002 JLA #65. That was a done-in-one Batman/Plastic Man team-up that, while quite well made, I absolutely hated at the time, as it revealed superhero Plastic Man to be a deadbeat dad (The issue introduced Plastic Man's son Luke, who had inherited his powers, his former lover Angel and the idea of Plas as perpetually absent father, hiding his inadequacies through his shape-changing fueled humor, all of which are integral to this new book). (Also of note is probably Mark Waid and Frank Quitely's 1999's The Kingdom: Offspring, a future-set story starring a son of Plastic Man named Ernie. Luke and Ernie would eventually be collapsed into a single character during Geoff Johns' Teen Titans run, wherein Offspring joined the team around the time of the "One Year Later" time jump. Johns reconciled the different names by making "Ernie" Luke's middle name.)
One need not have read any of those stories to make sense of or enjoy Plastic Man No More!, but they certainly help provide context, given the roles that Luke, Angel and Plastic Man's relationships to them play into the new comic, which reads a bit like an extended extrapolation of JLA #65, and to function as something of a "last" Plastic Man story.
Cantwell's Plastic Man is from Mammoth City, the name of the setting of the original Plastic Man comics that creator Jack Cole eventually settled on (after at least one reference apiece to Windy City and Capital City).
We are introduced to Patrick "Eel" O'Bryan during his early criminal career. Here, he looks exactly like Plastic Man before the accident, is already friends with Woozy Winks (who is, in fact, his literal partner in crime), is already in a relationship with a woman named Angel and, in a rather significant departure from Cole's early stories, he's not a very good crook. He gets pinched during the jewelry store robbery we meet him and Woozy in the act of committing and then apparently spent a period of his life getting busted and getting parole repeatedly.
Twenty years (and one chemical accident later), he's a member in good standing of the Justice League. This particular team line-up isn't one that ever really existed, though. In addition to long-time members like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, when they first appear, their numbers also include Green Lantern Hal Jordan, a Hawkman with a mace and Vixen, in her Justice League Unlimited cartoon design. We'll see plenty of other members throughout the series, including the likes of Metamorpho, Green Lantern John Stewart, Zatanna in her superhero costume and Detective Chimp, the last of whom will play a fairly large role in the story.
During a battle with villain Solaris, Plas expands his body to take a blast of a death ray meant for some orphans. He immediately jokes about how hurt he is, but the other characters laugh at his jokes, rather than note the information he's trying to relay to them (This will be a theme throughout the comic, with only Detective Chimp and, to a much lesser degree, Batman seeming to pay any attention to Plas at all beyond laughing at his jokes; in once scene, the Leaguers will literally talk over him, their dialogue balloons placed atop his).
During a battle with villain Solaris, Plas expands his body to take a blast of a death ray meant for some orphans. He immediately jokes about how hurt he is, but the other characters laugh at his jokes, rather than note the information he's trying to relay to them (This will be a theme throughout the comic, with only Detective Chimp and, to a much lesser degree, Batman seeming to pay any attention to Plas at all beyond laughing at his jokes; in once scene, the Leaguers will literally talk over him, their dialogue balloons placed atop his).
Plas returns to a dark, dingy, lonely apartment to sleep off the injury, but, when he awakens, he finds his right hand has fallen off his body like melting ice cream and leaked down the bathroom drain, leaving a trail of flesh-covered slime behind (Here's where we get the body-horror, I guess). Unable to regenerate his hand from the still-leaking stump, he ultimately thrusts it in a bag, which he will wear throughout the rest of the comic (and, on occasion, need to empty).
His League colleagues are almost no help at all—after a meeting in which he fails to convey the seriousness of his predicament to them, Detective Chimp approaches him and gives him a business card that Batman passed along. It's for a Wayne Industries petroleum chemist.
His League colleagues are almost no help at all—after a meeting in which he fails to convey the seriousness of his predicament to them, Detective Chimp approaches him and gives him a business card that Batman passed along. It's for a Wayne Industries petroleum chemist.
Her diagnosis is grim: "Patrick, you're depolymerizing. You're molecularly coming apart." She says this may be because of the death ray, but it may also just be the inevitable last stage of the sequence of events that had made him "a unique and singular organism."
In other words, it's likely a death sentence. As sobering as that is for Plas, the worst part is that he's not entirely unique, as his estranged son Luke, here a young man and apparent Teen Titan, has the same powers and, if it could happen to Plas, it might also happen to Luke.
After a tense and not exactly fruitful meeting with Luke, Plas prevails on the chemist to come up with a theoretical, potential solution for his falling apart. It involves subjecting both Plastic Man and Luke to an atomic bomb explosion.
And so Plas enlists Woozy to help him procure enough uranium for the bomb, which here means kidnapping the Metal Men's long-lost brother Uranium, referred to alternately as a sociopath, a dickhead and an asshole (This is Black Label comic, remember. That basically just means superheroes can swear).
After a tense and not exactly fruitful meeting with Luke, Plas prevails on the chemist to come up with a theoretical, potential solution for his falling apart. It involves subjecting both Plastic Man and Luke to an atomic bomb explosion.
And so Plas enlists Woozy to help him procure enough uranium for the bomb, which here means kidnapping the Metal Men's long-lost brother Uranium, referred to alternately as a sociopath, a dickhead and an asshole (This is Black Label comic, remember. That basically just means superheroes can swear).
The problem is, someone else has already kidnapped Uranium to use as raw material in a nuclear weapon, the villainous mad scientist Dr. No-Face (An extremely minor Batman villain from the Silver Age, whose deal was the destruction of images of faces).
And so Plas leads the Metal Men into action, a mission that results in all of them being destroyed (Which, while presented as a tragedy here, actually kinda happened all the time, and Magnus would just rebuild them, something that Cantwell has Plas refer to in passing).
Then it's just a matter of kidnapping his own son and coercing No-Face to blow them both up. Although Plastic Man's got a few other problems to deal with, like the fact that his own body is rapidly deteriorating (by the climax, he's wearing a jar over his head to keep his head from sliding off his body entirely) and that both Detective Chimp and Luke's teammate and friend Robin Tim Drake are investigating.
Then it's just a matter of kidnapping his own son and coercing No-Face to blow them both up. Although Plastic Man's got a few other problems to deal with, like the fact that his own body is rapidly deteriorating (by the climax, he's wearing a jar over his head to keep his head from sliding off his body entirely) and that both Detective Chimp and Luke's teammate and friend Robin Tim Drake are investigating.
Does it work? Well, I don't want to spoil the ending, although it's worth pointing out that Plastic Man does indeed seem to be no more by the book's end...although there is an intriguing, darkly absurd series of panels near the end to suggest the world has not necessarily seen the last of Plastic Man.
Despite all the pathos, and Plas' characterization as a bad father, a loser who masks his insecurities with jokes and a clown the Justice League looks to solely as comic relief (None of which I cared for here anymore than I did in the Joe Kelly story that seems to have inspired the book), Plastic Man No More! is actually quite funny in several places.
I particularly enjoyed Plas and Woozy's attempt to take down the Metal Men, and all of Uranium's scenes, which reinforce the fact that he is, indeed, an asshole, as he offers unsolicited psychoanalysis of pretty much whoever happens to be in front of him at the time.
That said, despite its reliance on previous continuity, this is a comic that couldn't have been told in the regular DC comics line, and not just because of the fact that so many characters seem to get killed (or the swearing). Rather, it's pretty dependent on a very particular version of Plastic Man, and not a particularly likeable or marketable one, even if he is a sympathetic character, and one who at least tries to do the right thing and is therefore, ultimately, a hero.
That, and it sure makes the Justice League look like a bunch of jerks.
That said, despite its reliance on previous continuity, this is a comic that couldn't have been told in the regular DC comics line, and not just because of the fact that so many characters seem to get killed (or the swearing). Rather, it's pretty dependent on a very particular version of Plastic Man, and not a particularly likeable or marketable one, even if he is a sympathetic character, and one who at least tries to do the right thing and is therefore, ultimately, a hero.
That, and it sure makes the Justice League look like a bunch of jerks.
Cantwell works with two different artists on the book: Alex Lins and Jacob Edgar.
Edgar is responsible for the pages depicting Plas with the Justice League, and he draws in a somewhat abstracted style, with clean lines and more cartoony designs (these passages are also colored more brightly). The result is a more classic, "comic book-y" look for the League scenes, suggesting a normal state of affairs.
Lins, who drew the cover and handles the lion's share of the art, handles all of the scenes of Plastic Man away from the League, and thus his earlier life of crime, his wrestling with his diagnosis, his attempts to reach out to Luke and his ill-conceived attempts to save Luke from the fate currently befalling him. Lins' style is a bit more realistic and has a greater degree of grit to it.
Lins, who drew the cover and handles the lion's share of the art, handles all of the scenes of Plastic Man away from the League, and thus his earlier life of crime, his wrestling with his diagnosis, his attempts to reach out to Luke and his ill-conceived attempts to save Luke from the fate currently befalling him. Lins' style is a bit more realistic and has a greater degree of grit to it.
The idea seems to be to contrast Plastic Man's "public" life with the League and his personal life away from it as sharply as possible, and it works, although I don't know that it was necessarily necessary. I was personally more drawn to Edgar's style, and I think the book probably would have worked just fine had he drawn it tall, the emotional content of the story and dialogue contrasting with the art, but certainly Lins' increasingly drippy, even goopy Plas sells his deteriorating nature. (While Edgar draws all the League scenes, Lins does draw the few superheroes who interact with Plas outside of League meetings and missions, like Detective Chimp, Robin and the Metal Men.)
Despite my reservations, this turned out to be quite a good comic book.
Despite my reservations, this turned out to be quite a good comic book.
Maybe I should have bought it after all...
REVIEWED:
Scott McCloud and Raina Telgemeier are two of the most influential cartoonists of my lifetime, and their impact on the medium and the industry is hard to even get one's head around (and by "industry", I mean "publishers of comics," not "the direct market").
I noticed that in Brian Cronin's review for CBR, he opened by casting about for similarly "high profile comic book collaborations", and the only ones of the handful of suggestions he had that seemed convincing to me were Todd McFarlane's out-of-left-field run with writers Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Dave Sim and that other guy on Spawn in 1993. (No offense to the likes of, say, Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, the late John Cassaday and the others mentioned, all of whom no doubt brought a lot of new readers into comics and have legions of fans, and all of whom have produced work I've enjoyed in the past, but they never influenced the way people thought, talked and taught comics like McCloud or helped convince traditional book publishers to invest in original graphic novels for kids like Telegemeier.)
So anyway, this is a book you're going to want to read, if you haven't already. As one might expect, or, perhaps, hope, the book reads pretty much like an Understanding Comics for the Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels set, the lessons about comics (and, perhaps more fun, the making of them) all being embedded within a somewhat gently dramatic story of four very different young creators learning about the medium. I wish I had this book when I was in middle school. My review is here.
Well, yeah. I both bought it and professionally reviewed it, so it appears under both "Bought" and "Reviewed" in this month's column.
For my formal review of it, click here. Spoiler alert: I liked it.
For my formal review of it, click here. Spoiler alert: I liked it.
*That's how it's spelled in this book. I've always seen it spelled "Tamaranean," but, looking it up, the entry on dcfandom.com suggests both are acceptable. I question Aaron's use of a woman from Tarmaran in the book, especially given that most readers will be well aware of the role one of her race will play on Earth in the future...and, more specifically, in the life of a member of the Bat-Family. Given that Batman and Ione become lovers in this book, it seems, well, weird to have the first Earth man/Tamaranean woman coupling not be that of Dick Grayson and Koriand'r, but to instead involve Dick's own adoptive father. What are the chances?
**As you've probably heard, Peter David is experiencing some health issues, and being a comic book writer in America, that means he and his family are facing extreme financial hardship. If you're able to, you can help out by donating here.
***Wait, that's not true. I read 1999's Supergirl #38, a Day of Judgement tie-in in which Supergirl teamed-up with Zauriel, a favorite character of mine. I don't remember anything at all about it. Based on the cover, I assume they fought the then host-less Spectre.
1 comment:
Thanks for the shoutout. I have read the companion series and nearly all of the tie-in issues from the ongoings. What I can tell you is it's one of those weird situations (maybe like Batman: Prelude to the Wedding) where clearly all the creative teams were working from the same premise (Amanda Waller does very bad things) but the fine details are left to the individual books, with poor results.
For instance, a prominent multiversal villain appears in Absolute Power: Task Force VII who is then never seen again in Task Force VII (each of those issues has a different writer), plus the appearance is never mentioned or referenced in Waid's Absolute Power proper, possibly because it wasn't even on Waid's radar.
The whole "we're blocked off from the multiverse" aspect felt tacked on to me, and the whys and wherefores in Absolute Power are distinctly opaque. Perhaps tellingly, there's more detail about the multiverse problem in Joshua Williamson's Superman tie-in issues, using a henchman of Waller's who only appeared in two places: with Waller at the end of Williamson's Dark Crisis and then again in Williamson's Superman tie-in issues. Absolute Power is like that — from a distance it looks like everyone's together (reading one book would make you think surely the answers are in the other), but close up everyone's going in slightly different, even contradictory directions.
One more: there's a definite undercurrent in which we're supposed to understand the Amazos are facets of Batman and/or contain the consciousness of alt-Earth Batmen. But that's not explicitly in Absolute Power, and among the tie-ins there's a lot of, "Hey, doesn't that Amazo sound like a Victorian Batman" without anyone ever actually getting to the point, nor this feature of the Amazos ever really made important. It's like every member of every creative team thought, "Someone else is handling this," and then when it came down to it, nobody was.
As you say, Absolute Power proper doesn't read particularly well as a volume on its own. I too understand the nature of crossover events, but it seems to me DC has done this so much better of late — Lazarus Planet, with anthology tie-ins collected in-book; Knight Terrors and Beast World, with tie-ins collected separately without feeling lacking. Maybe DC had to go "bigger" here for the Dawn of DC finale with the separate miniseries and regular series tie-ins, but the fractured nature seems is more noticeable than Dark Nights: Metal/Death Metal, for instance.
I'll be curious to see the presentation order for the inevitable omnibus. Hopefully a DC editor will try to put all the various issues in a semblance of a reading order. I'm interested whether that makes the story suddenly fuse together into a cohesive whole or just makes more obvious that the pieces don't fit together.
Separately, kicking off that DC Finest: Batgirl collecting with the seventh issue sure is an odd choice. They've been doing that a bit with these (overall impressive) DC Finest books — the Justice League Detroit book that starts about in the middle of that era when a second creative team took over. Insofar as I like to see everything complete, I do admire the gumption of making the "This is how we can release it" hard choices. I wonder if it's a matter of they've got about 20 issues worth of space for a DC Finest: Batgirl volume, and they can start at #1 and get to, like, #20 or they could start at #7 and get to #25 and have the full Lady Shiva arc in there even if not having issue #1. That's not ideal either way but I'm glad they tried; the story they collected factors pretty heavily into the new DC All In Batgirl series, too.
Post a Comment