Monday Night Murals: Four Horsemen Came Riding

Are there any three words more beloved by comic book fans than To Be Continued? (Well, maybe "Batman versus monkeys".) There's nothing quite like the thrill of a well-written cliffhanger that leaves you eagerly panting for the next month's issue, hangin' around Pop's Sodium Shop with your quarter in yoru hot little hand, bugging the soda jerks about when the new comics will be in. ("Are they in yet?" "No." "Are they in yet?" "No." Are they in yet?" "Get outta here, kid!") After all, how else will you find out whether Spider-Man will escape the fangs of the Hungry Hungry Hippo, or if Superman will manage to foil Lois's plan to crush the universe under her Jimmy Choos? Why, with a month-long wait like that...maybe they might die! (Probably not.)

My point...and I do have one...is that sometimes it's not merely the story that's to be continued but also the cover of the comic book. Welcome to the very first installment of Monday Night Murals, the new Bully-feature that spotlights, once a week, and prob'bly on Mondays (if not, then see you on Muesdays or Mhursdays), multiple comic book covers that form a single image when put together. Why, it's like a giant jigsaw puzzle, except without weird jaggedy edges, and you have to wait a month between putting down each piece!

Except for this one! I wanna start with one of my favorite mural-covers, a quartet of DC comics from 1988 tying into "Week 4" of the big Millennium crossover, the line-wide event that gave us those superstars of the DC Universe, The New Guardians! That popular supergroup defined DC for the eighties and consisted of...um...er, the Floronic Man was one of them, right?...everybody remembers the flamboyant gay guy, don't they?...and then there was...er...well, hey, the Eskimo guy with the really racist nickname! He was in it, wasn't he? And, hmm, Snapper Carr, and Alfred Pennyworth, and Rick Jones, and Tawny Kitaen.

At the time, I thought it was pretty cool that Millennium coincided with the Harmonic Convergence, but what impresses me now is a convergence of a different sort: the four-comic mural formed by the Week Four crossover between Captain Atom, Firestorm, Batman, the Suicide Squad, and the Spectre...and I think it would go something like this:

L-R: Captain Atom #11, Suicide Squad #9, Detective Comics #582, The Spectre #10, art by Jerry Bingham (January 1988)

(Click picture to millenni-size)

I've matched 'em up as best I can so that you can see all four comics have their characters approaching, ready to team up at the drop of a cowl. (Fittingly, Batman's gonna get there first.) For a few moments when I was putting them together tonight I nearly had my little stuffed brain blown by the mistaken thought that The Spectre would connect with Captain Atom, turning it into a ring of adventure! It doesn't, although I bet if Jerry Bingham thought about it, he woulda done so.

I like this DC mural not merely because it combines four different comic titles into one picture (most murals occur within a single title), but that it's the pictorial definition of the storyline: it's a crossover waiting to happen. Long after I've forgotten the plot of these books and of Millennium (and I think it may be best forgotten), I look fondly on these four covers...laid out on the floor in a row so I can gaze at 'em.

Next week: another exciting comic book mural! Which one will it be? I don't know yet! (But it'll be a cool one.) As they say in the comic books, kids...to be continued!