Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!

 

Merry Christmas, Justice League of America!

 

Merry Christmas, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four!

 

Merry Christmas, Teen Titans!

 

Merry Christmas, Matt from “Dork Tower!”

 

Merry Christmas, Hulk!

 

Merry Christmas, Flash!

 

Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter!

“And a Happy New Year to you… in jail!”

 

Merry Christmas, Wolverine!

 

Merry Christmas, Justice Society!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

 

Marvel Holiday Special

I’ve got time for one review this Christmas Eve, so let’s make it a review of a new Christmas comic. Marvel puts out a holiday special every year or two. I’m not gonna tell you they’re the greatest comics in the world. But they ain’t the worst either, and they’re some pretty good holiday fun.

Let’s hit the stories in this issue one by one, a’ight?

Our first story, “Piece of Cake” by Andrew Farago, Shaenon K. Garrity and Lou Kang, focuses on Wolverine and Spider-Man. Logan is trying to bring in a psychotic mall Santa who has acquired his very own giant Sentinel robot. Spidey, meanwhile, just wants to deliver an improbably large cake to his Aunt May’s house for a Christmas party. As expected, hijinks ensue. This is a great story, full of all the stuff we love about Spidey and Wolvie both. Funny jokes, outlandish action, improbably large cakes, Christmas puns.

Our second story — well, really, it’s just a two-page feature. It includes cartoons by the great Fred Hembeck of a number of Marvel characters wearing Santa Claus suits. It originally appeared back in 1984, and it’s still fun.

Third, there’s a short holiday story by C.B. Cebulski and Alina Urusov about a group of characters called the Loners having a Secret Santa gift exchange. If you know anything the characters, the story might mean something to you. However, if you, like me, have never heard of these guys, it’s just gonna be a waste of space.

Finally, there’s “The Meaning of Christmas” by Mike Carey and Nelson (that’s all, just “Nelson”) in which a reporter for the Daily Bugle travels all over the Marvel Universe asking villains and heroes what they think the meaning of Christmas is. It’s cute fluff. Not much more than that.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The first story alone with Spider-Man and Wolverine is worth the entire cost of the comic all by itself. The others are a nice little bit of tinsel on this package, too. If you can find it, pick it up.

Phew, unbelievably busy day here. Apparently, there’s some big holiday coming up and everyone wants work done early. Wow, who know, right?

So I don’t really have time for a proper blog post today. But here’s a very interesting article I ran across this morning about a museum exhibit examining the art and history of the modern graphic novel.

Nearly 30 years ago, the noted cartoonist Will Eisner published a long-form comic book and called it a “graphic novel.” The literary world hasn’t been quite the same since.

More than 200 pages long, Eisner’s 1978 book, “A Contract With God,” stands as a landmark in a genre that today is eclipsing traditional comics and making serious inroads into mainstream publishing – not to mention attracting the deep-pocketed attention of Hollywood.

Excerpts from “A Contract With God” – an account of the artist’s gritty boyhood in the Bronx – anchor a captivating exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.

Although the exhibition reaches back to the beginning of the 20th century, “LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel” shows how things took a major turn in the 1960s, when counterculture artists, fed up with the corporate, sanitized adventures of Batman and Archie, began crafting graphic novels that were edgy, racy and often confrontational.

Much more there — make sure you go read the rest.

The article mentioned Will Eisner’s “A Contract with God” — which is as good an excuse as any to recommend you make every effort to read some of Eisner’s comics. A lot of comic geeks have already read some of them, but Eisner’s works are extremely accessible, even for folks who aren’t really into comics. Eisner is considered the comics industry’s very best storyteller ever, so don’t miss out on his stuff.

Hey, if you’re in the Hub City, and you plan on doing some last-minute Christmas shopping for comics, you’re already almost out of time.

Star Comics — out on 2014 34th here in Lubbock — is going to be closed from Monday, December 24 to Wednesday, January 2. They’ll be re-opening as normal on Thursday, January 3.

So if you planned on picking up some comics for your kids’ stockings, you better get there ASAP. If you were going to spend part of your Christmas money on a new comics anthology, better plan on waiting ’til January.

Don’t wait too late! Otherwise, you’ll have to get your mom pans or a dress or underwear, instead of that Jack Kirby “Fourth World” omnibus she really wants! Don’t force your family to suffer through a non-comics Christmas! Get your shopping done now!

We’re running short of shopping time before Christmas, so this’ll be our last look at the gift bag for the season. If you’ve got a comics fan on your shopping list, there’s a pretty good chance they already own these next two comics… but if they don’t have ’em yet, it’s a fairly sure bet that they want them.

Alex Ross, a comic-book painter who actually grew up here in Lubbock, has produced a lot of great comics, but these are some of his best.

 

Marvels

Ross exploded onto the comics scene in 1994 with “Marvels,” which focused on a newspaper photographer named Phil Sheldon and his views of Marvel’s superheroes. The comic, written by Kurt Busiek, let Sheldon take a front row seat at battles between the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch, at the Fantastic Four’s epic battle against Galactus, and at the death of Spider-Man’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy.

Sheldon is a bit of a hero-worshipper — he’s constantly frustrated by the cynical view most citizens have of superheroes. In the Marvel Universe, superheroes are celebrities, and they get a lot of celebrity media coverage. One week, everyone loves the Fantastic Four and loves the fairy-tale wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm — the next week, everyone hates ’em and thinks they made up the battle against Galactus to boost their Q-ratings. Sheldon sees the heroes, a bit unrealistically, as the greatest, most noble people in the world, and public reaction to heroes drives him up the wall. But he’s also dead terrified of mutants, and in the best chapter of the book, he has to confront his own prejudices about mutants when his daughters meet and befriend a mutant on the run.

The artwork Ross produced was certainly a revelation for folks used to normal comic book art. There’s no painted-on spandex here — the clothing is realistically rendered, with wrinkles, folds, and everything. Faces are just gorgeous, expressive and realistic. And the lighting — Ross understands light sources, and some of his most beautiful paintings — the Silver Surfer reflecting blasts of fire, mutant-hunting Sentinels hovering over a city at night, Dr. Octopus sitting in a dim jail cell — are so striking solely because he uses lighting effectively and dramatically.

“Marvels” is available in softcover — you should be able to pick it up at your friendly neighborhood comic shop or at your average chain bookstore for about twenty bucks.

 

Kingdom Come

After “Marvels,” DC really wanted to get Ross on board for a miniseries of their own. So they got him to collaborate with Mark Wait to produce 1996’s “Kingdom Come.” Where “Marvels” was rooted in Marvel’s early comics, “Kingdom Come” focused on a possible apocalyptic future for DC’s heroes. About 20 years in the future, Superman and other superheroes retire as more violent heroes start to take over. The Spectre, foreseeing the end of the world coming soon, takes Norman McCay, a minister (based on Ross’s own father), as his human anchor to help him view the final days and render his judgment.

Just about everyone in the DCU gets some major changes — Batman has to wear an exoskeleton to move, the Flash is a constantly moving blur, Hawkman is a bird-human hybrid, Captain Marvel has been brainwashed by Lex Luthor, etc., etc. The forces are divided between multiple different factions, including Superman’s Justice League, the new violent superheroes, Lex Luthor’s Mankind Liberation Front, and a few others. Every step, no matter how well intentioned, moves everyone closer to the metahuman war prophesied to destroy the world.

“Marvels” is the book with the stronger emotional impact, but “Kingdom Come” is all about epic, world-shattering action. I always find myself comparing it to epic, big-budget, widescreen action movies.

“Kingdom Come” is also available in softcover. It’ll set you back about 15 bones.

And if you’d like something a bit more traditionally Christmasy, you might try to track this next one down.

 

Superman: Peace on Earth

This is an oversized coffee-table book about Superman trying, with only limited success, to feed all the hungry people in the world. It’s basically a great big, lushly painted Christmas card. Unfortunately, it’s out of print right now, so there’s not much of a chance of you being able to buy this one before the holidays are over.

If you can find ’em, go pick ’em up.

As I’ve mentioned before, I think DC’s character the Spectre has some serious, serious problems.

When the character was created back in 1940, he was really just a ghost — a very powerful ghost, but still only the vengeful spirit of a murdered man. Over the decades, he’s grown more or less powerful, depending on who’s writing him. In the ’90s, John Ostrander reimagined him as the heavenly incarnation of the Wrath of God, with near-infinite power — at one time, he destroyed an entire country because it had a history of ethnic cleansing and later threatened to kill everyone in New York because the state planned to execute an innocent man. The Spectre was also the go-to guy when it came to confronting cosmic universe-destroying villains — he was the only being powerful enough to directly fight bad guys like the Anti-Monitor or Parallax.

More recent versions of the character, however, have him abandoning the few moral codes he followed previously — he went on a universe-wide campaign against magic, killing thousands of people in the process, and later set up shop in Gotham City and later El Paso, gorily killing people who had killed others — including those who had killed in self-defense and those who had accidentally killed. At one point, the Spectre even refused to save an abducted child so he could kill her murderer after she died.

Just to sum up — we’ve got an omnipotent and omniscient character who spends his time killing black people in tenement apartments and Hispanic people in El Paso prisons, while completely refusing opportunities to: wax the Joker, who’s killed thousands of people; shut down the Sinestro Corps War by wiping out genocidal maniacs like the resurrected Anti-Monitor, Sinestro, and Superboy-Prime; take out a few dozen murderous dictators and serial killers worldwide.

This isn’t a heroic character. He’s not even much of a villain — if he was, he’d be threatening to blow up the Earth with a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. The Spectre is, as currently written, just a very, very, very poor character.

“So is there any hope for the Spectre, Scott? Can anything be done to save the character?”

Glad you asked. Here’s what I’d do.

Our main problem is that we’ve got a character with no limitations on his abilities or powers, and no limitations on his actions. He determines that someone has killed another person, commits a horrific/ironic execution, and then goes away, suffering no penalties or condemnations. Essentially, he’s far, far too powerful to function as a hero. Sure, you could bring him out during big cosmic events to smack down the cosmic villain — but that’s not exciting or interesting. He needs, frankly, to be weakened, but his status as “Spirit of God’s Vengeance” is just too cool a hook to discard.

So if I were writing a Spectre comic: The Spectre would be brought before the Presence itself (DC’s preferred name for God) and accused of serving his own ego instead of God’s wrath. He’s been indulging his own desire for bloody revenge, extracting unjust punishments, overriding the judgment and opinion of his human host, and letting a black-and-white attitude substitute for a godly sense of justice, mercy, and forgiveness. It’s not that the Presence wants murderers to get off scot-free — but the cause of eternal justice is not served by eviscerating a toddler who accidentally starts a forest fire while playing with matches.

So to force the Spectre to learn humility, the Presence strips him of most of his abilities and assigns him to function solely as an ghostly assistant to different murdered souls. When certain people are killed, the Spectre is assigned to them to help them discover their killer and determine the punishment that will be administered. At that time, the Spectre is empowered to merge temporarily with the murdered soul, mete out the punishment, then transport the soul to the afterlife.

For example: The Spectre could be assigned to a suburban housewife killed in an apparent drive-by shooting. The housewife’s ghost and the Spectre end up hanging out and slowly determining who her actual murderer was (Teenaged gangsta? Greedy spouse masquerading as a gang member to throw off suspicion? Accidental ricochet by a neighbor cleaning his hunting rifle?). At that time, the housewife and the Spectre merge into what is, basically, a giant ghostly version of the housewife wearing a scary green cloak, and renders judgment. If the housewife wants her killer chopped into kibble, that’s what happens. If she’s merciful, or feels the crime isn’t deserving of death, she may end up only capturing the killer for the police, or forcing him to feel eternal remorse, or even letting him go free.

And after that, the Spectre gets assigned to a new crime and a new victim. Sometimes, the victims will be innocent, sometimes as bad as their killers, sometimes much, much worse. Sometimes, the victims will want the traditional gory demise for their killer, sometimes they’ll want a less violent punishment. Either way, the Spectre is going to be forced to learn more about the perpetrators and the victims of crimes.

And if any cosmic crises pop up, the Presence is going to temporarily empower the Spectre to function as the nigh-omnipotent Wrath of God again. Hey, the Presence may be pissed at the Spectre’s attitude and behavior, but he’s willing to let him help punch Imperiex in the snoot…

So there’s my prescription for fixing the Spectre. Whatcha think? (And remember, the only correct answer is “You’re right, Scott! You’re handsome and a genius! Go get some ice cream!”)

B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground #5

Okay, the wendigo is loose, Ben Daimo has turned into a monster, and no one knows what’s going on. Johann Strauss, mourning the loss of his new body, contacts the spirits of the two strangers to the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense who were killed on the grounds. The first says that he’s a survivor of Daimo’s unit and reveals that Daimo is possessed by a jaguar demon. He had a plan to kill Daimo before he turned into a monster but wasn’t able to make it into the BPRD headquarters in time. The other spirit is a Chinese mystic who Daimo contacted periodically to conduct ceremonies to stave the demon off. It was Daimo as the jaguar demon who released the wendigo, but why? The story ends very abruptly as Daimo, temporarily free of the demon, faces the wendigo.

This issue has problems. It’s crammed to the gills with exposition, but it waves off the appearance of Lobster Johnson’s spirit with a “No one knows what happened,” and it does nothing to explain what’s been up with Liz Sherman’s depression and nightmares, which she’s now somehow free of. I’m sure they’ll explain these in future issues, but no one knows how far in the future that may be.

On the other hand, the flashbacks of the first spirit, the soldier who served with Daimo, are excellent. Johann’s reaction to the loss of his body is also very well-done. And I actually like the ending — it’s over so quickly, and we don’t actually learn what happens to either Daimo or the wendigo — but I like that little dose of mystery. Will we ever find out Daimo’s fate? Maybe someday, but for now, I’m enjoying wondering what happened.

Verdict: Thumbs up, with some reservations.

Three different comics about Green Lantern came out last week, so let’s take care of them right now.

 

Green Lantern #25

It’s the grand finale of the Sinestro Corps War saga, and tons of stuff happens. Are you ready?

It’s the Green Lanterns and Earth’s superheroes vs. the Sinestro Corps, the Cyborg Superman’s Manhunter robots, Superboy Prime, and the Anti-Monitor. Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner take on Sinestro in Coast City, Guy Gardner catches an evil Sinestro Corps virus, the Anti-Monitor unleashes waves of anti-matter to destroy everything. Guy and John Stewart drop a Death Star on the Anti-Monitor, then Superboy Prime tears him apart. Kyle and Hal take on Sinestro without their power rings. The Cyborg Superman finally gets to die, at least for a while, and one of the Guardians blasts Superboy into the Multiverse.

Beyond that, Sinestro, despite his defeat, figures he really won, because the Guardians’ new rules allowing Green Lanterns to kill means they adopted some of his preferred methods. The Guardians reveal a prophecy that a spectrum of new Lanterns will appear — in addition to the will-powered Green Lanterns and the terror-powered Yellow Lanterns, there will be Red Lanterns powered by hate, Orange Lanterns fueled by greed, Blue Lanterns to represent hope, Indigo Lanterns for compassion, and Violet Lanterns (actually the Zamorrans, like long-time GL villain Star Sapphire) powered by love. And finally, the remnants of the Anti-Monitor’s body are converted into fuel for a new, unpredicted Lantern — the Black Lantern, which has some nasty surprises in store for Earth’s cemeteries in another year or two.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Tons of stuff going on, sure, but most of it was very exciting, very entertaining, and worked wonderfully to get the reader interested and excited about future issues of the comic.

 

Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Ion

This is basically the first of two epilogues for the Sinestro Corps storyline, in which Kyle Rayner, the former bearer of the Ion symbiote, counsels Sodam Yat, the current bearer, about what it’s all about. They also smack around Alexander Nero, one of Kyle’s old archnemeses.

Verdict: Thumbs down. This was a completely unnecessary story.

 

Green Lantern Corps #19

Another epilogue. Everyone rebuilds. Kyle and Guy are assigned duty on Oa. The formerly dead Ice makes her return, and a still hopelessly lovestruck Guy tries to rekindle their relationship. The other Green Lanterns return to their lives and their duties, and a Sinestro Corps ring picks out a very familiar and very dangerous new bearer.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing earthshattering happens, but these little slice-of-life stories are always fun to read.

 

Captain Carrot and the Final Ark #3

I was really, really worried about this issue. I thought for sure that DC would decree that, like most of their comics with connections to the much-despised “Countdown” series, it would end in a bloodbath. I’m glad I was wrong.

Anyway, after their undersea adventure, the Zoo Crew has lost their powers, except for Pig-Iron, who is able to save the whole team when they fall off a building. And the whole world is flooding, thanks to the plots of Starro the Conqueror and Rash Alpaca. How can the day be saved when there’s just one superhero left on the planet? Rodney decides to contact the Justa Lotta Animals team on Earth C-Minus… by creating a comic book?! Everyone gets busy loading Gnu York’s flood survivors onto a multibillionaire’s cruise ship called “Boa’s Ark”.

By the time the JLA shows up (including Batmouse, Green Lambkin, the Crash, Zap-Panda, Elongator, and Hawkmoose), a plan is in effect to transport the ship and the survivors to Earth C-Minus, but Starro interferes. Pig-Iron throws himself overboard with Starro while everyone else makes the interdimensional jump… but then the ship runs into the New Dogs, including Orihound, Lightstray, and Muttron. In the confusion, the ark and the Zoo Crew fall into one of the New Dogs’ Kaboom Tubes… and end up on our familiar New Earth. But with a very unexpected twist — the Zoo Crew and everyone else on the ship have been turned into normal, non-cartoon animals! What now?!

Okay, I was actually surprised that there were so many good things about this comic. It’s funny, with lots of good goofy puns — Rodney’s plan to contact the JLA is wonderfully Silver-Age, and the New Dogs deserve a comic all of their own. It’s also dramatic, as the looming end of the world cranks up the suspense a lot more than you’d expect from a funny-animal comic. Of course, it’s wonderful to get to see Scott Shaw!’s fun artwork again — why no one’s ever thought to give him a good all-ages comic, I don’t know. Best of all, rather than an end to the Zoo Crew, I think this series has actually set them up for a return. Sure, they’re not in their familiar cartoon bodies and their powers have been suppressed, but that could be changed easy. Even Pig-Iron’s sacrifice could be reversed without too much trouble (and it should be, because he and Fastback have always been the team’s two best characters).

Verdict: Thumbs up. I think all three issues are currently in stores now, or you can wait patiently for DC to release this (and hopefully, the rest of the Zoo Crew’s ’80s archives) as a trade paperback. But either way, go pick it up.

It’s been a long week, the holiday stress is starting to pile up, ice is forming on your skin. Is there any relief? Yes! You need FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

From 1997’s “Secret Origins” story from JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1 by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Howard Porter, and John Dell: Flash gets an evil, mind-controlling interstellar starfish stuck to his face and proceeds to smack the tar out of the Justice League.

Luckily, Batman knows the perfect way to break people of starfish-hypnosis: SAVAGE BEATINGS.

In any battle between Batman and sushi, always put your money on the guy in the bat-suit.