‘Crisis’ at 30, Part 12

Dogpile

“Someday this war’s going to end,” laments Robert Duvall’s Col. Kilgore to conclude his memorable joyride through 1979’s Apocalypse Now. Similarly, as we come to the final issue of Crisis On Infinite Earths, I find myself longing (just a little) for more panels overstuffed with characters, more conversationally-expository dialogue, and even more stakes-raising plot twists.

Still, Crisis had to end sometime. Last issue introduced the singular timeline and its history. It was the first step into an era that continues to inform DC’s superhero comics. As such, issue #12 — which appeared in comics shops some thirty years ago, during the first week of November 1985 — is about cleaning up the miniseries’ last bits of clutter and getting the merged timeline ready for all its prospective readers. It’s 42 pages of wall-to-wall action, executed skillfully by the creative team.

Speaking of which, credits: Crisis On Infinite Earths issue 12 was co-plotted, scripted, and edited by Marv Wolfman, co-plotted and pencilled by George Pérez, inked by Jerry Ordway (who also pencilled one page), colored by Tom Ziuko, and lettered by John Costanza. Robert Greenberger was the associate editor and Len Wein was the consulting editor.

* * *

The issue follows a few basic tracks, including Earth invaded by shadow-demons and the final fight with the Anti-Monitor. However, it opens with the Forgotten Heroes, a group of (at the time) C- and D-listers: Animal Man, Adam Strange, Dolphin, Captain Comet, Rip Hunter, and the Atomic Knight. Last issue they came across Brainiac’s skull-ship, drifting listlessly through space; and this issue they see that Earth’s not where it should be. After Brainiac wakes up and is convinced that he needs to help save the universe (again), he realizes they need a more powerful ally — so naturally, he sets a course for Apokolips.

Meanwhile, the Earth and Moon are still in the Anti-Matter Universe, with Anti-M’s giant heavenly holo-head talking smack. He recounts his efforts to “enlarge” the AMU and “have it replace all other universes,” only to be stymied by the Earth’s superheroes. Now, though, it’s time for the Earth to die, just like Supergirl, the Flash, and “so many others” died. Various reaction shots show stoic heroes, except for Kid Flash, who’s all “the Flash [really] is dead?” Clearly this is the next step in Kid Flash’s own subplot, but since it comes at the end of Anti-M’s speech (and isn’t followed up for several pages) it’s a little jarring.

Anyway, as Harbinger summons various heroes and they start making plans, darkness covers the Earth. Super-senses allow the Earth-Two Superman to hear and see all of New York City descend into panic and chaos, and he gets a little rattled. As it turns out, the darkness is really the collective effect of millions of shadow demons, who (not two pages later) start swarming over the globe, picking off random civilians left and right.

It’s portrayed very effectively. Wolfman’s narration uses phrases like “this place of death,” but he dials back the melodrama just enough to emphasize the creepiness of it all. Pérez and Ordway’s storytelling, combined with Ziuko’s colors, create a somber, spooky mood. Even a scene involving the ultra-bright Doctor Light contrasts the darkness with harsh yellows; and when the darkness “shatters” into shadow-demons, they spread out against a sickly pink sky.

‘Crisis’ at 30, Part 11

This issue: tribute to tight grips!

The penultimate issue of Crisis On Infinite Earths offers an interlude critical to the series’ success. It demonstrates the real impact of DC’s housecleaning not with antimatter waves or shadow demons, but through the characters who helped build the publisher’s matchless history. Accordingly, Crisis #11 features emotional impacts just as devastating as any of its cosmic carnage.

* * *

For those who might have come in late, since last December I have been revisiting every issue of DC Comics’ landmark Crisis On Infinite Earths, approximately on the thirtieth anniversary of their arrivals in comics shops. (The newsstand versions each debuted a month later.) Links to earlier installments will appear at the bottom of this post.

I wanted to revisit COIE in this format because that’s how I (and countless other Reagan-era readers) first experienced it. Nowadays it’s easy to digest these big-event miniseries in one sitting, and to poke through their various twists, turns, and inconsistencies. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sure by this point most of Crisis’ readers came to it as a collection.

However, Crisis wasn’t just a story. (Some might say Crisis was barely a story to begin with.) Instead, it was an argument for restructuring all of DC’s superhero books in a way that would forever alter how they were viewed. Crisis’ tagline promised that worlds would live and die, and nothing would ever be the same — and it delivered. Amongst all the process, plot machinery, and exposition — and the clunky, obvious, and awkward moments — it kept those ad-copy promises.

Now, imagine you’ve been getting Crisis not in collected form, but every month in single-issue form. At the end of issue #4 you saw the apparent destruction of Earths-One and -Two, representing the bulk of DC’s fifty-year output. Issues #7 and #8 brought the deaths of Supergirl and the Barry Allen Flash. Issue #9 and the first half of #10 were the “Villain War,” a sprawling series of super-fights across three of the five remaining Earths.

Then, at the end of issue #10, all the good guys had gone back to the Dawn of Time to prevent the Anti-Monitor from reshaping history for his own evil purposes. It had come down to the Spectre, pumped full of super-energy from the assembled heroes, wrestling a similarly-supercharged Anti-M with the fate of all creation at stake. There was a flash of white, the page’s very panels shattered, and once again everything went blank….

… and you had to wait four weeks for this issue, Crisis On Infinite Earths #11, which appeared in the Direct Market thirty years ago, during the first week of October 1985.

Credits: COIE #11 was co-plotted, scripted, and edited by Marv Wolfman, co-plotted and pencilled by George Pérez, inked by Jerry Ordway, colored by Carl Gafford, and lettered by John Costanza. Bob Greenberger was the associate editor, and Len Wein was the consulting editor.

* * *

It’s been ten years, so I’m just saying hi

With the launch of Comics Ate My Brain on July 14, 2004, I became an official comics blogger. Back then I started out talking about the various Robins, and this past Thursday at Robot 6, I did it some more.

Obviously I haven’t done much with this site in a while, and I regret that. I do feel like I get a sufficient writing outlet over at Robot 6. It gives me a weekly DC soapbox, and if I really want to write about something else, often I can do it through Best of 7 or another group-post forum.

Comics Ate My Brain came out of my time posting on the TrekBBS boards, and specifically the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section. I reviewed each issue of “Hush” as it came out, and together with another poster who was a Marvel fan (his handle was The Old Mixer) I tried to spot all the references in JLA/Avengers. Actually, I got on TrekBBS initially on December 6, 2001, which was the 10th anniversary of Star Trek VI, and I wanted to celebrate that particular milestone.

Before that I had been writing fannish analyses mostly to get my own thoughts in writing. It was probably close to twenty years ago that I started what came to be called “The Manifesto,” but which was actually titled “Speculation On Star Wars Episodes I-III: What Did Obi-Wan Know And When Did He Know It?” It was full of all sorts of theories, and it expanded on the notion that Luke was really Obi-Wan and Bail Organa’s backup plan (because Leia was really sent to Tatooine to pick up Obi-Wan so he could train her too, duh). I revised it a couple of times to reflect the plots of Episodes I and II, and while I like the prequels fine, I’m still pretty enamored of a couple of ideas — Aunt Beru starting out as one of Padmé’s handmaidens; and Sidious engineering an ecological disaster on Naboo that would have driven Padmé into exile on Alderaan. Many’s the time I’ve wanted to use this space for Trek or SW essays, but I always wanted to talk about comics first, what with the title and all.

Anyway, the comics were a little different ten years ago. Here’s the July 2004 “Time Machine” page from Mike’s Amazing World Of DC Comics. Overall it’s fairly typical of DC in the mid-00s — Gail Simone writing Birds of Prey (and also guest-writing a Legion arc); Greg Rucka writing Adventures of Superman and Wonder Woman; Aquaman in the “Sub Diego” period; Stephanie Brown as Robin; plus short-lived experiments like Bloodhound and Monolith; and revivals of Firestorm and Doom Patrol. The company was putting out tributes to the late Julius Schwartz, and Identity Crisis was on its second issue.

It was a different time as well for me as a comics fan. Later that month, I went to my third San Diego Comic-Con in five years (2000, ‘01, ‘04) but since then I’ve only been to one more SDCC (‘07) and a WonderCon (‘10).

I put a good bit of effort into this blog throughout the rest of ‘04, and it apparently paid off: I got recruited for The Great Curve group blog in ‘05 and stayed with it through the Blog@Newsarama days (2006-08), and then the move to CBR/Robot 6. I tried to do a podcast related to this site for a few weeks in ‘08, and every now and then I get social on Tumblr, Twitter, or Facebook; but generally I’ve only had time for Grumpy Old Fan.

Still, although there’s room for improvement in both the social and content areas of my fandom, I’m okay with how things have turned out. Maybe someday I will get back into the more individualized blogging this site allows. Until then, thanks to everyone who’s visited over the past ten years; and I’ll try not to go another ten without giving this space a little more love.

 

[Reposting] Towards A Modern Superhero Canon: “Night of the Reaper!”

All dressed up and nowhere to go

[I wrote this post originally for Blog@Newsarama, which is apparently no longer being updated. It was published on October 30, 2008.]

Welcome to the second in a periodic series of posts on my list of “canonical” superhero stories. (The original post, which includes a link to Tucker Stone’s call for such a canon, is here.) Last time I talked largely about “Beware My Power,” the introduction of Green Lantern John Stewart from writer Denny O’Neil and penciller Neal Adams. This week brings another O’Neil/Adams tale, “Night of the Reaper!” from December 1971′s Batman #237.

Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea — my standards certainly don’t begin and end with O’Neil and Adams. In fact, timing has placed “Reaper” at this particular point on the schedule. Not only does it take place at Halloween, but it strikes me as a fine way to remember the late Tom Fagan of Rutland, Vermont. As the man behind Rutland’s Halloween parade, Mr. Fagan helped inspire this story, as well as a few others.

“Night of the Reaper” uses Rutland’s Halloween festivities as its backdrop, and really, it’s all about the costumes. Just about everyone is in some kind of weird getup; and the reader is invited to imagine that all those strange adults in their bizarre outfits (we see no minors trick-or-treating) might just be the real thing, be they Batman, Robin, or Death itself.  While the murders the story chronicles have some very down-to-earth motives, they too have been “dressed up” for Halloween. Thus, “Night of the Reaper” is an excellent superhero story because it melds the empowerment of a superhero costume with the unique atmosphere of Halloween, and draws on both for an eerie, fantastic mood.

On “Smallville’s” Big Finish

It’s pretty much redundant to say that the classic Clark-to-Superman transformation is archetypal, because Superman is the archetype for so many things superheroic. Accordingly, I will always make room for any version of the transformation, especially one staged like a walk-off grand slam, and accompanied by gratuitous John Williams music.

That’s — SPOILER ALERT! — pretty much how “Smallville” flew off into TV history last night (here’s the YouTube clip). Once it was announced that this season would be the show’s last, and once I realized I actually had some free time on Friday nights, I ended up watching a decent amount of these final episodes. (ComicsAlliance’s “Smallvillains” feature made it easy to keep up with the show otherwise.) Last night I also followed reactions of the faithful on Twitter, first at #Smallville and then #SmallvilleFinale. Now, I know, Twitter; but even discounting the OMG! factor, clearly the show developed an audience devoted enough to keep it on the air for ten years. Heck, it probably could have run until Tom Welling started to look like the Earth-2 Supes and the special DC guest-stars were Aztek, Kid Psycho, and Sugar & Spike.

Biographies and origins

Whenever the Best Wife Ever watches something adapted from a comic book or reworked for the kids today, inevitably she will ask me “is that how it really happened?”

Accordingly, I was watching the Midwest’s most gifted repeat offender get the snot beaten out of him — yes, another viewing of Star Trek ’09 — and thinking, no, that’s not how it happened.  It is now, of course; but it wasn’t then; and that is not an insignificant distinction.

See, then it wasn’t necessary to come at James T. Kirk from Year One, let alone Day One.  Back on September 8, 1966, it was enough to see Kirk fully formed as Captain of the Enterprise.  For that matter, it was enough to introduce “the Bat-Man” as a mysterious urban vigilante; with the shocking! twist at the end of “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate” being that he was really bored playboy Bruce Wayne.  Batman’s origin was told a few issues later, in a two-page vignette which had nothing to do with the main story’s Dirigible of Doom.

Note that “favorite” does not necessarily mean “good”

One of my favorite Justice League stories is “The Deadly Dreams of Doctor Destiny!” from Justice League of America #34 (March 1965).  It may be one of the worst JLA stories ever.  It is definitely one of the most audacious.

Today the villain Doctor Destiny is a monstrous, skeletal figure, emaciated from the toll exacted by years of channeling mysterious energies.  JLA #34 found him pretty early in his career, though; and he’s just a regular-looking guy without even a supervillain costume.  In a previous story, he had invented a machine (the “Materioptikon”) which could make real whatever he dreamed.  If he dreamed about chocolate, he’d get chocolate.  Thus, he dreamed about a Materioptikon, and got a Dream-Materioptikon.  This allowed him to plot against the JLA from his prison cell, and indeed during the story he never leaves it.

Naturally, his plan involves manipulating the Leaguers’ dreams.  Each of our heroes dreams — sometimes in conjunction with a colleague, which you’d think would tip them off — that during a super-battle, a weird article attaches itself to him or her and imposes some encumbrance.  That’s fancy talk for Batman’s ring giving him super-speed, Hawkman’s gloves only letting him “swim” through the air, Wonder Woman’s mask broadcasting her thoughts, and Atom’s headpiece giving him always-on telescopic vision.  Superman’s device renders him immune to Kryptonite, but makes him susceptible both to fire (a la Martian Manhunter) and the color yellow (like Green Lantern’s power ring).  I haven’t yet mentioned Superman’s device, because it in fact is the ludicrous hurdle which this story must overcome.

Superman’s device is a pair of eyeglasses.

Now, by itself that might not be a problem.  Superman fights his particular opponent (a giant statue) in the Italian countryside, perhaps far removed from anyone who might see his bespectacled face.  The fact that this happens initially in a dream also mitigates a lot of secret-identity concerns.  However, when the dream-devices inevitably manifest themselves in reality, and the glasses are fixed on Supes’ nose, he doesn’t think anything of it.  Furthermore, he apparently doesn’t care that he’s still wearing the things when he and the rest of the Leaguers visit Doc Destiny in prison.  In an era where secret-identity plots were as common as primary colors, I can barely believe that writer Gardner Fox and editor Julie Schwartz passed up such a golden opportunity.

I mean, I wouldn’t be making such a big deal about this if the story had only acknowledged that maybe it might be a problem for Superman to be seen in a pair of glasses.  Supes probably had a half-dozen ways to talk himself out of “say, don’t you look like that reporter?” One line of dialogue addressing just one strategy no doubt would have satisfied a lot of readers, me included.  I can accept a lot — I accept Doc Destiny’s reality-bending powers, especially given his later appearance in Sandman — but I trip over this plot hole every time.

And I do like the story.  It’s one of the first Fox/Sekowsky JLA stories I remember reading (in a ’70s reprint, of course), and it is one of the more imaginative takes on a familiar JLA plot.  There are nice visuals too — Wonder Woman and the Atom fight giant mollusks, Batman and Hawkman fight the Joker and (the terribly obscure) Chac amongst some South American ruins, and Superman’s gladiator-statue foe is convincingly menacing.

Those glasses, though…. I’m still shaking my head.

Requiem for an action figure

I don’t usually read the biographical information on the backs of action-figure boxes, usually because I know it already.  However, I did glance at the brief bio from the DC Universe Classics version of Green Lantern Katma Tui:

When the Green Lantern, Sinestro, turned rogue, the Guardians of the Universe named Katma Tui as his replacement.  Katma Tui served with distinction for a long time before retiring.  She returned to service at the urging of Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern of Earth, and trained Jordan’s replacement, John Stewart.  Katma Tui came to love Stewart, and the two of them married, but Katma Tui was murdered shortly thereafter by longtime Green Lantern foe Star Sapphire.

Can you tell which of those data points Mattel might have considered omitting?

I mean, I buy a nominal amount of action figures, and like I said, I don’t often read the bios — but I don’t expect them to say that the figure I just bought is a plastic version of a dead character.  I bet if she comes back in Blackest Night some copywriter is going to be mighty embarrassed….

k THX bye

Comics posts are coming, honest, but I did want to mention that I watched THX 1138 recently.  It was the “George Lucas Director’s Cut” version, which meant some CGI inserts a la the Star Wars special editions.  I am not especially familiar with the original THX, although I did tape it (and Lucas’ original student film, also a DVD extra) off Bravo ten-plus years ago, so it’s not like the original is completely lost to me.  The GLDC didn’t despoil my childhood, is what I’m saying.

Anyway, it was an interesting film, very much in the mold of alienated ’70s sci-fi, where everything looks drab, utilitarian, and monochromatic, and all personality has been outlawed. It does have its moments, most of them having to do with the characters LUH (love interest) and SEN (maliciously annoying colleague).*  THX (the character) is heroic in his way, but it’s a slow burn before he finally decides to (as Lucas puts it elsewhere on the DVD) “walk through the open door.” LUH and SEN each have designs on THX, and it’s through their actions that THX is put through his ordeal, so perhaps that’s why they seemed more … well, entertaining to me.  I had forgotten it had nudity — which sounds really strange at this point, doesn’t it?  Nudity in a George Lucas movie? — and either the actors (Robert Duvall as THX and Maggie McOmie as LUH) had great chemistry or Lucas had a much better feel in the early ’70s for directing a romantic scene.  Insert smart-aleck Attack of the Clones comment here.

For paranoid, dystopian early-’70s sci-fi, it’s not especially suspenseful either.  (SPOILER ALERT!)  When Lucas talks about THX walking through an open door, he’s not exaggerating.  The last shot is pretty amazing, though; and it makes a good counterpoint to its sister scene in Star Wars.

Walter Murch’s soundscape didn’t do much for me, probably because I wasn’t watching it in 5.1. I think it’s the kind of movie you have to watch a few times, in order to get a proper feel for the rhythms and themes. I’m not opposed to that, but it may be a while before I revisit it.

* [By the way, I would love someday to chart Donald Pleasance’s various career trajectories. Not long before this he was Blofeld in You Only Live Twice, arguably one of the biggest movies in the world. In 1971 he did THX, in 1978 he did Halloween, and in 1981 he was back with John Carpenter for Escape From New York.]

Structure, tone, and Superman

These days I am watching movies in big chunks, usually while a certain young someone is napping. Today I finished yet another viewing of Superman, which is probably well-suited to this kind of schedule because it has pretty much four distinct parts.

The opening on Krypton is weird not just because everything is cold and crystalline, but because it all centers on Marlon Brando in a white spit-curled wig. He makes a good Jor-El, in part because he and Lara are the most friendly characters we meet. Even when he’s “interacting” holographically with Superman later, though, he plays a caring dad, eager to catch up with his long-lost son.

Of course, when I first saw Superman during its original run, I was nine years old and didn’t know Brando from Mr. Greenjeans. I had no Godfather or On The Waterfront or (yikes!) Last Tango In Paris frames of reference; and can only imagine what 1978 audiences must have thought about Don Corleone in that wig and S-shield muumuu ambling around the North Pole. (Remember, Superman‘s original script was by Godfather author Mario Puzo.) I expect Am I tripping? went through more than a few heads.