365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 198: Joan Jett Attacks!

House ad for Strange Adventures #220 (October 1969); printed in Teen Titans (1966 series) #23 (September-October 1969)
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino
From the era when Strange Adventures was cover-billed as Adam Strange Advemtures, here’s Allana and Mister S. versus the Beast from the Runaway World. Run away! Run away!


Cover of Strange Adventures #220 (October 1969), pencils and inks by Joe Kubert
And, since "The Beast from the Runaway World" was a reprint from Mystery in Space, that makes this not only a double-barreled cover-stravagnaza on tonight's 365 Days of DC House Ads but also a new rare sighting of a Same Story, Different Cover!


Cover of Mystery in Space #55 (November 1959), pencils by Gil Kane, wash by Jack Adler
Which is not to be confused with The Beast from the Runaways World:


Cover of Runaways (2005 series) #4 (July 2005), panted by Jo Chen
Or, indeed, The Beat from a Runaway World.

Beautiful: Runaways #18

Beautiful is a feature that focuses on those gorgeous and colorful ways to tell a comic book: its cover. (I think y'all know how crazy I am for comic book covers.) Each installment will spotlight an especially good-lookin' comic book cover that I think is cool, interesting, unique, unusually well-designed...or, in fact, beautiful.

Aieeeeee! One of these people will die in this very issue!



Who could it be? Who could it be?



Oh. That's who it be.

It stunned us in 1973, but these days you'd have to be a fairly green comic book fan to be too shocked by any of the drama or angst promised by comic book covers which promise the death of a major character. It's just been done too often, too many times. Yes, so-and-so will die; get on with it. Shuffle off this mortal coil, awready!



It's gotten to the point where even comics itself makes fun of this trope.



I was too young to catch Amazing Spider-Man #121, and its successors in the death pool sweepstakes have intrigued but never emotionally affected me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which one of the Fantastic Four is going to die this time...oh, hey, it's H.E.R.B.I.E. You got me, comic book story!

So it's been that I've been moved by such a cover exactly one time in my comic readin' life. And that's Runaways #18. It is...for lack of a better word...beautiful.


Runaways v.2 #18 (September 2006), cover art by Marcos Martin

Whoa, I said, when I first picked up this issue. Wow, I thought. I'd not seen...certainly never in superhero comics...a more gorgeous, poignant, affecting contrast of reading line and cover image. The jubilant figures of the Runaways (even dinosaur Old Lace is laughing away); the large blissful and quiet blue negative space; the small, subtle quiet copy that doesn't even end in an exclamation point. It's a cover that wouldn't have been imaginable in the superhero market in the pre-2000s. No anguish or torment, no screaming heroes, no boldly stoic poses, just happy figures and a simple statement. One of these kids is gonna die. Which one? And you can't not read the comic after that.

Runaways has been one of my favorite comics over the past few years. Certainly part of that has been the concept and the plots: super-powered kids discover their parents are villains, and they take off on the run, from the law, from their pasts. They make a brief go at costumes and code names, but that doesn't last long; this is not Avengers or even X-Men. It's more about the soap opera (and I mean that as a complimentary description) that it is about the heroics, and to me the adventures, clever and unique as they are, take a back seat to the personalities and interpersonal relations of the Runaways. For the first time, including the original X-Men, New Mutants, and Teen Titans, these seem like real adolescents (with admittedly cleverer dialogue). I've often felt that the themes and characters of Runaways lends itself to being the best gateway entry into Marvel Comics for fans of manga and young adults novels. Setting the series in the Marvel Universe wasn't necessary, and in fact I remember being annoyed when Cloak and Dagger first made guest appearances. But series creator Brian K. Vaughan and successive writers have kept the crossovers unobtrusive, and when they do happen, they're often good for a giggle.


Panels from Runaways v.2 #12 (April 2004), script by Brian K. Vaughan, pencils by Takeshi Miyazawa, inks by David Newbold, colors by Brian Reber, letters by Randy Gentile

Yes, it's absolutely a wonderful series, but hey! This post is about cover art. My favorite of the Runaways covers is v.2 #18 above, but the entire run of the title has had some amazingly gorgeous design from several different artists. Here's another one of my favorites from Marcos Martin:



David Lafuente contributes several intriguing designs in the series' third volume, including my favorite of all "Wolverine on a cycle" covers from throughout Marvel history:





With his manga-style bigfoot cartooning approach, Humberto Ramos is a natural for the covers, and here's three striking, pensive, and...dare I say it? sassyfemale portraits:





Here's another portrait of Karolina Dean, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," by one of my favorite comic book artists, Chris Bachalo:



Jo Chen has done painted covers for much of the series. The cover of v.2 #21 is probably my second-favorite of the whole comic. It's got nothing to do with the story content inside—very few Runaways covers do—and yet it captures the gleeful and quirky humor and tone of the book. (This cover's also got the infamous stray arrow, and here's one of my own earlier admirations for this cover.)



I've always loved this Jo Chen cover from the storyline where the Runaways go back to the turn of the century. But I'd never noticed, before tonight, the lovely detail that dinosaur Old Lace is blurry in the photograph. Of course she would be...she can't stand still long enough to have her photo taken in those days. Lovely.



Finally, Takeshi Miyazawa's variant cover for the 70th anniversary of Marvel issue of Runaways is one of my favorite portraits of Molly Hayes ever done. Who else in the Marvel U. would wear a tokidoki Wolverine tee? All those other little characters around the border are just plain jealous. And that includes Wolverine himself.



Runaways: a wonderful series with beautiful covers. It strikes me that almost all of the series' cover art is purely portraiture, rather than depicting specific events in the comic. I usually complain about that kind of cover: they can seem monotonous and unmemorable (I'm lookin' at you, Ultimate Comics). But I've never minded a Runaways cover that didn't feature a story plot. I guess that only goes to show: if you're just going to have a portrait of the character(s) on the cover, at least make it beautiful.

That said...whither Runaways? Except for a couple crossover event series teaming up with the Young Avengers, the Runaways haven't appeared in the Marvel Universe for quite some time. Their parents, The Pride, did recently feature in the "Industrial Revolution" storyline of Iron Man: Legacy, a series which also had some pretty gorgeous covers:



Marvel EIC Joe Quesada promised that the book was "being retooled and will be back in some fashion very soon, so stay tuned." I've practically glued myself to my radio comic book dial and we haven't seen a relaunch of the series. C'mon, Marvel, bring the Runaways back. Instead of another Wolverine or Deadpool or Avengers series, how about relaunching one of the most innovative and touching series of the last decade with new stories? How about it? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? (I can do this all night, y'know.) Huh? Huh?

At least Marvel keeps its Runaways digests and trade in print, so if you've never read the series, I highly recommend it. Not only are the kids all right, but their covers are absolutely beautiful.

365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 292

Panels from Free Comic Book Day: X-Men/Runaways one-shot (May 2006), script by Brian K. Vaughan; pencils, inks, and colors by Skottie Young; letters by Randy Gentile

Monday Night Murals: Downtown the young ones are growing

Ah, crossovers. What better time for the kids across the street to come over and play games with us? Better play nice, kids, or we'll take our ball and go home!

Covers of Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways#1-4 (September-December 2006),
art by Jim Cheung, John Dell, and Justin Ponsor
Click image to Stature-size


Despite Wolverine continually knocking on their door asking if he can guest-star, I'm generally a fan of keeping the Runaways as far removed from the Marvel Universe as possible , but I always enjoy their team-ups with those other adolescent adventurers, the Kid Junior Pint-Size Young Avengers, especially if we get a decent both-teams mural across all four issues. (Except hey, where's Old Lace?)

Because gluing my covers together above leaves a few seam gaps and mismatches, here's a better, single image of the whole shebang and kaboodle:

Click image to crossover-size

Hey, why is Hawkeye about to shoot Nico?

Fun Fifty of 2006, Part 5 of 5

You know how sometimes you invest many hours or maybe even an entire Fourth of July weekend listening to "Power 98's One Thousand Most Rockin' Songs," just waiting for them to get up to number one, where they've got be playin' "Stairway to Heaven," there's no other choice, any fool worth his drumsticks knows it's all building up to the Stairway, and then at 11:53 PM on the last day before you have to go back to school, they reach number one and it turns out it's Van Halen's "Panama"?

Yeah, it's gonna be like that.

(Everything that led up to this moment: #50-41 • #40-31 • #30-21 • #20-11)

10. SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL: Scheming supervillains. Erupting volcanoes. His first encounter with deadly kryptonite. Any one of these would leave you or me hiding under the couch, but Superman steps right up to the plate against 'em. So what's his real Achilles' heel? A spunky, classy, unpredictable woman named Lois Lane. This beauty of a story arc by Darwyn Cooke and Tim Sale features gorgeous art and design (#2's juxtaposition of Kal fighting molten lava while Lois gets ready for a date is absolutely, affectingly sublime), tack-sharp dialogue and characterization (a wonderful scene where Clark expresses to Pa Kent his terror at trying to save people) and that element of the Superman mythology that makes it universal to all of us: the love of a man from another world for a woman who's so close and yet worlds away. The introductory kryptonite subplot at first seems secondary to the love story until I realized it wasn't secondary: it was parallel—in this story we see through Superman's eyes the two centers of his world: the literal world (a glowing green rock) and the spiritual one (fast-talking and sassy). Both are his greatest weaknesses.


9. 52: I woulda bet my piggybank fulla dimes that it couldn't be done: a weekly series that never got off schedule, never missed an issue, never brought a company's entire line screeching to a halt—and more important, a weekly series that entertained the heck outta me. While the big three take a year's sabbatical, DC's second and third bananas step up to the plate in seemingly-separate but gradually-intertwining storylines, gently spiraling towards reshaping the DC Universe in a slow but steady process the likes of which we've not seen before in superhero comics. The sheer number of issues has led to a handful of dud subplots and who-cares stories, but week after week there's some sheer entertainment value here, and while many of the mysteries are far from being solved, half the fun is the journey. My favorite issue has to be Week 24 (with hyper-aware Ambush Bug shouting directly to us about "52" and his relationship with Julie Schwartz), but this series has also made me like and appreciate Renee Montoya, the never-named Question, Black Adam and his clan, and even evil, evil Skeets in ways I'd never felt before. There's a lot of endgame work to be done in the last few months of the series and I've got my hooves crossed they don't drop the ball, but it's been a heckuva ride so far. Fifty-two!


8. RUNAWAYS: In a year where DC and Marvel heroes were getting knocked off left-and-right, incinerated by flying nuclear submarines or punctuated by Norse code, the most affecting and touching death was that of Gert Yorkes in the pages of Runaways. This death has colored the entire year as it spins into final arc of creator Brian K. Vaughan, but though the mood is somber this is still one of the most life-affirming and joyous superhero comics on the market. I've long said that Runaways needs to be the flagship in Marvel's outreach to get new young adults and teens on board with comic books, and this storyline is no exception. With the exception of repackaging issues in digest format, however, I don't see any marketing geared for the manga-fan crowd. That's a pity and a shame, and a wasted opportunity. Maybe new marketing to the next generation of readers will take more of a precedence once Joss Whedon comes on board, but even if Runaways never becomes the crossover hit it so richly deserves, it's still provided us discerning comics fans with one of the finest and realistic portrayals in comics of teens. With, uh, evil parents and superpowers. And a pet dinosaur.


7. COMIC STRIP REPRINTS: Everything I said about this being the best of all possible times to be a comics fan because of the extensive comic book reprint programs goes double for being a fan of comic strips in 2006, where the recent growing trend in beautifully designed and reproduced collections of classic strips really began coming into their own. Peanuts and Dennis the Menace got new volumes continuing their adventures, Gasoline Alley and Dick Tracy began definitive reprint projects...even the Moomins came back in comic strip-in-book form! My pers'nal favorite is the big-as-the-2001-monolith Popeye from Fantagraphics (an amazing design crammed with more high adventure strips than a donkey who's eaten Milt Caniff's portfolio), and there's much, much more to come: 2007 looks to be another powerful year with announcements of new editions of the works of Lynda Barry plus new volumes of most of the above. And scuttlebutt in the publishing world tells this little stuffed ear to the ground there's much more classic stuff to come, so start saving your dimes...truly this is the beginning of the Age of Classic Strip Reprints!


6. GUMBY: The most fun you can have with America's favorite clayboy without ever touching a rubbery toy! Bob Burden and Rick Geary's two issues of surrealism, whimsy, and fun are the perfect all-ages comics in the truest sense of the word: not just for kids but for everyone who's a fan of fun comics. Gumby falls in love, joins the circus, does the sombrero dance, thwarts the plans of evil clowns, gets turned into a golem, and summons of the spirit of Johnny Cash...all without wearing any pants! The joy and exuberance of these comics is contagious and infectious; I dare you not to crack a smile readin' 'em, and Geary's beautifully toned and suitably rubber artwork is spot-perfect for Gumby and Pokey. Sure, buy 'em for your kids...but you'll wanna read 'em too!


5. THE SPIRIT: This comic hits a high spot on my Festival of Fun '06 on the strength of...count it...one issue. As a long-time Eisner fan, I certainly was holding my breath that Darwyn Cooke would do right by Denny Colt, and hoo boy! he exceeded my wildest hopes on every single page. This beautifully illustrated and smartly-written update of one of the finest comics of all time captures the elements that made the Spirit a classic: innovative and intricate design, casual and believable humorous dialogue, breakneck action, a gorgeous dame with an improbable name, and even the Eisner trademark splash-page representation of the Spirit's name in the artwork, brought smack-dab up to the twenty-first century by blazing it not across city buildings but in the shimmering pixels of a television screen. But Cooke's successfully pulled off an even more incredible update: Ebony is no longer a character we as fans feel we need to be ashamed of or defend with embarrassment. I know it's a cliché to say "Will Eisner would be proud"...but heck, I'll say it. I bet he's looking down from his drawing board up there and nodding in approval.


4. AGENTS OF ATLAS: It sometimes seems like there's a rogue division at Marvel slyly and stealthily sneaking comic books into publication which are so innovative and different from the normal company line that surely Joe Quesadilla doesn't even know they're doing it. That's the impression Agents of Atlas gives me, because who'da thought that in today's Civil War-ridden Marvel Universe populated by fewer than 200 mutants, a maskless Spidey and a long golden hair all grown up from a test tube, there'd be a market for a six-issue miniseries about secret heroes of the 1950s whose most significant story was a thirty year old issue of What If? Not me, that's for sure, but I'm happily on the Atlas bandwagon as Jimmy Woo and company untangle the Mystery of the Missing Ike, The Stereotypical Asian Villain and how Miss Venus manages to walk around without a top. It's sheer joyful fun that had me from the moment Gorilla Man barreled down a hallway with a gun in each hand...and foot. The I-never-woulda-figgered-it-out, wonderful and sublime puzzle-box ending was one of the finest conclusions a miniseries could have: a definitive end with a promise of more potential future adventures. Even if any future Atlas action is merely in my head and not on the page, this is a miniseries that made me oh-so-glad to be a Marvel Fanbull.


3. ALL STAR SUPERMAN: Grant Morrison knows. There's no other way to put it: he knows what we loved about the Silver Age. He knows what we love about comics today. And he puts 'em in a pot and stirs 'em around and adds a dash of absinthe when his mom's not lookin' and serves up one of the finest reinventions of Superman, ever. On the surface he and the wonderfully quirky Frank Quitely are simply retelling tales of the fifties: Super-Lois! Jimmy in drag! Krypto! But it's tinted with twenty-first century nanotechnology and hyperawareness of the tropes in comics that make the fur on the back of your neck stand up and tingle, in a comic that rewards re-reading like none other. Pay attention to the details: Clark's casual, uncostumed, cause-and-effect superdeeds in the background have a Rube Goldberg joy and brilliance to that makes this little stuffed reader giggle in glee. All Star has also given us this year one of the best Luthor tales in modern comics, a wonderfully kinetic updating of The Desperate Ones in which a never-supersuited-Clark and an arrogantly crowing Lex work their way through a riot-ridden prison, the signs of his safety right in front of Lex's burnt-off eyebrow, if only he'd look closely enough. The crown jewel of a great year for DC, and never mind the schedule: I'll gladly wait months for this.


2. SERGIO ARAGONÈS: SOLO: Permit me the indulgence of quoting myself and my original review: "not only the most fun comic of the week but will surely be on my year-end list of The Most Fun Comics of 2006!" (Hey, that guy's good!!) I mourn the passing of Solo for every one of its inventive and innovative issues that uncharacteristically for floppy comics, focused upon and celebrated the creators that make DC great. There was no more gleefully enjoyable issue in the series, though, than this fun-fest by MAD's manic Mexican master, a collection of several stories that didn't contain a weak panel in the lot 'of 'em: from confessing his murder of Marty Feldman to a wonderful autobiographical sketch of how he broke into American cartooning, Aragonés hits the heights every time, even in a goofball Batman story that's more MAD than the modern MAD magazine itself. Sheer brilliance from an amazing talent we don't see enough of these days. Hey Mark Evanier, bring back Groo!


1. NEXTWAVE: You sum it in one sentence and it sounds like a snoozefest, or worse yet, a 1980s Image comic: disillusioned superhumans working for a government agency discover their boss is a homicidal madman, and they turn against their employer and vow to take him down. But. This comic is super-caffeinated with over-the-top, outrageously gleeful violence, smartass dialogue, cheerfully irreverent reinventions of Marvel sacred cows, crab cyborgs, Broadway-dancin' Mindless Ones, Captain America's pee, Elvis M.O.D.O.K.s, and the most deadly version of Forbush-Man ever seen outside your Nyquil-fueled fever dreams. Politically-incorrect as all get-out. Widescreen in ways that would make the Authority weep. The best introduction page month-after-month. Gloriously intense artwork by Stuart Immonen, including cover designs that break the mortal bounds of comic book design and look like they would be well at home on the front of books from "real-world" paperback publishers. Warren Ellis's script and concepts gives unapologetic the Marvel Universe fanboys half-nelsons, and if there is one proof that this comic broke all boundaries, it's in the next-to-final issue #11 where half of the issue is two-page spreads (get a second issue so you can cut it up and paste 'em all end-to-end): I normally object to splash pages or two-splashes in comics as they advance the story precisely only one panel, but I spent more time examining and giggling over the Where's Waldo-on-speed brilliance of those big-ass panels than I do reading the entire length of some books. We've got one more big bang of an issue in 2007 before Nextwave goes bye-bye, but I, and you, are all the richer for a 2006 filled with its rich, nougaty, zomg-filled goodness. That's why NEXTWAVE is the most fun comic of 2006 and this is the The Best Line of the Year:


No, Miz Bloodstone: I think it stands for enormous fun.

Whew! When I started thinking about my Fun for 2006 list waaaay back around the time I picked up Solo #11 and Gumby #1, I pretty much had in mind a list of ten, or maybe a baker's dozen. When I sat down in late December with a pile of comics and a stack of notes and printouts of reviews it became clear my job of narrowing down that field to a mere hoof-ful was gonna be uphill work. The list became 20...and then 25...and oh no, I left out this one and that one, and like Topsy, the list grew and grew...until it became a Fun Fifty, and if I'd thought about it s'more I prob'bly coulda beefed (no pun intended) it out to a Sensational Sixty or a Entertaining Eighty. (Tell me your favorites, especially if I've missed 'em, in the comments!)

So, what have I learned? Well, I've learned that even in a year when I was dismayed much of the time at the state of the mainstream, in which one comic got me so hoppin' mad I saw red (and you all know what happens when a bull does that), in which I continued to express my disgust over the big crossover events of 2005 and 2006 and the sheer slippery slope the entertainment value of fairly expensive floppy books seems to be barreling down...well, I still found bucketloads of joy and excitement in the comics of 2006. That's my message to you all: whatever you enjoy, whether it was something I liked or didn't or didn't even mention, value it, treasure it, rejoice in it, have fun reading it. It's a wonderful hobby and there's more good stuff out there that meets the eye, even if it's a little black button one.

In 2007 and beyond, may your comics be fun, too!

Math

+

+

=

What kind of sick superhero snuff comic is this?!?

Mama Bull always used to tell me: "One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch, dear." I never really knew what she meant because I do enjoy yummy, yummy apples, and even if they are a little overripe then at least they are good for applesauce. And if the apple is truly bad, you just throw it away! See? It didn't spoil the other delicious, crisp, juicy apples at all!

Come to think of it, she also always told me to eat my spinach, and I don't think that's very good advice anymore either.

Anyway, I think I've finally sussed out Mama's advice here as applied to this week's comics. Every now and then a comic comes along that is so vile, so outrageously wrong, so disgusting, so out of character, so makes me wanna throw up in my mouth a little that it spoils the whole freakin' comic book week's reading experience for me.

That comic book is Krypto the Super Dog #1.

Haw! No, I kid Krypto the Super Dog. (In fact I didn't see it on the shelf and will look for it next week.) You know what comic I'm talkin' about here. I won't go as far to say it ruined my week, but I definitely got a sour taste in my mouth. And it ain't Lemonheads.

CIVIL WAR #4: This comic is not fun. In fact, I'll go so far to say that not only is this comic the least fun comic of the week, but also probably of 2006, even though we're only 3/4 of the way through the year. Sigh, It's just...it's just...look, the best way I can put this is that Marvel has achieved what they set out to with this series: they have reached the level set by DC in its bestselling Infinite Crisis: in the arm-ripping, head-rolling antics of Superboy-Prime, the final "Superboy" published by DC before the rights went back to his creator. As I said about some of the events in Infinite Crisis: what kind of sick superhero snuff comic is this?. And because I have been taught in homeschool to show my work, here's why:

• It's sensationalistic, gory, and blood-soaked, as shown in the lovingly-detailed splatter of Goliath's organs: spraying out in the style we've come to know from such recent superhero history as, say...oh, Blue Beetle getting his head blown off and Pantha's head being punched off. Look, I'm not saying violence and death cannot and should not occur in comics. But it's over the top so as to produce disgust instead of fright or empathy with the situation. Dagger says: "This is wrong...this is really, really wrong." Yep.
• It sacrifices one of the few minority characters in the Marvel Universe. Look, I'm defintely not saying that black characters should be untouchable in the MU. I'm definitely not saying that white characters should be the victims over any other races. I'm not even saying that I'm a big Goliath fan (honestly, I didn't know he was still alive.) But killing off a character for no specific storyline purpose except for shock value and as a sacrificial lamb is lazy, sloppy writing, and denies a future writer the chance of turning Goliath back into a viable, cool character. Killing off, by my calculations, one of the fewer than twelve black superhero characters in the Marvel Universe is a sad statement in the universe that values its diversity and progressive social nature.
• It's out of character. I'm not buying that this Tony Stark is the Iron Man we've been reading about for years. This story is a callback to the most ill-advised, reviled and objectionable Tony story, the idea that he was controlled by Kang and had to be replaced by Teen Tony. Why would you wish to revisit "The Crossing?" Civil War's Iron Man is out of character in what seems to me an attempt to imitate the "cooler" Ultimate Iron Man—more ruthless, more violent, more "extreme." But less Tony. Retconned away or forgotten now is the history that Stark opposed government interference in the world of superheroes. Gone is the concern and benevolence that Stark had for his fellow heroes. Gone is the humanity of Iron Man. I don't buy that Tony, circa Avengers #1, had the idea to pluck and save a strand of Thor's hair for later use. He's a smart guy and pre-emptive, but please don't project 21st century comics characterization onto 1963 comics stories—I find this a more objectionable continuity implant than Xavier covering up the death of a secret X-Men team. Finally, it's a dead-end path: there's no way to get Tony out of this heroically (and that may be Marvel's plan). They have altered and darkened Iron Man to a point of no redemption. And whatever has been done to Tony, has been done in spades to Reed Richards. You can claim Reed is beyond understanding, that his patented big brain is beyond us mere mortals to comprehend. I look in disgust on this Reed Richards and say that Reed has never, never done something that is so obviously morally and ethically wrong (and he is a most ethical if sometimes distracted man). Both these portrayals are so far out of character that I believe there must be some plan to prove they are not the real deals. This ain't Reed. That ain't Tony. It's a Skrull, a LMD, the Space Phantom, a Puppet Master or Loki-controlled man. But while Marvel heroes may make bad decisions or sometimes fight for the wrong team, they never have feet of clay.
• It's riddled with illogic and stupidity. Why create a Thor clone? If you can create a fake electronic Mjolnir, why doesn't Iron Man wield that himself? Why not build the fake-Mjolnir technology into the Iron Man armor instead? If the only answer is "a clone Thor provides a psychological edge," then why such poor programming that he doesn't even speak the fake-Shakespearean lingo? An even stupider error occurs at the giggle-worthy funeral of Goliath. He's so big that at his clichéd-rainy funeral they have to bury him in thirty-eight plots. Um. Too bad the pro-registration side doesn't have any access to shrinking technology or gas. Say, some freakin' Pym particles?
• It contains sloppy, embarrassing writing and continuity errors. Tony Stark has beaten Captain America until his "jaw's practically hanging off." But no, it isn't: not in the artwork. And Steve manages to talk clearly and intelligibly in the next panel. And in the last issue of Fantastic Four, The Thing left the team and America vowing to fight on neither side...yet here he is, fighting on Iron Man's pro-registration side. Add to that another count of out of character: sure, you can write Ben Grimm however you want to, but the Ben Grimm I've been reading for years, the Ben Grimm who has recently been written in his own series as a man who does the right (pun intended) thing, would not run away from what he believes, right or wrong. I appreciate a Ben Grimm who thinks and considers before he clobbers. I don't mind a tormented and hesitant Thing uncertain what to do. But if you write Ben Grimm as running away from something that makes him uncomfortable, something that requires he make a stand, if you show the Thing leaving the people (including Alicia) and the beliefs he lives by, and burying his head in the sand in a different country...then you're not writing The Thing, you're writing an imposter in a orange rocky outfit. And I don't wanna read about a fake Thing.

And I don't wanna read this sad, exploitative, no-one-can-win excuse for bringing Marvel Comics into the twenty-first century. This issue is my last. I will continue to pick up Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Nextwave and She-Hulk and X-Factor and Runaways and whatever Marvel Comics continue to depict and celebrate smart, fun writing and heroes I can believe in. But so long, Civil War. You did what you set out to: emulate Infinite Crisis. And like that series, I don't find you fun or worthy of continued support.

By those standards, everything else this week is fun.

52 WEEK 20: This comic is fun. The mystery of Supernova continues. One of the better Steel sequences in this series so far. A startling twist on Luthor's generosity. The origin of Adam Strange, drawn by Kevin Nowlan! Pope Lobo...how can you not love the concept of Pope Lobo?!? And at last, an origin for the Emerald Eye! This comic does not contain any giant-sized rain-soaked funerals. So it's fun.


X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #1: This comic is fun. I haven't been reading any X-Men comics in quite a while, so choosing First Class as my Pick Up One New Comic Title I Haven't Been Reading book of the week was a risky move for this little stuffed bull. Imagine my surprise to find this was actually a pretty nicely-done-in-one adventure set during the first year of the X-Men's history and starring the original five mutants. I'm not exactly certain who precisely was askin' for the unseen adventures of Cyclops, Beast, angel, Marvel Girl and Iceman: this kind of approach has either been poorly done (Professor X and the X-Men) or has been slow and rambling with plots and subplots stretching on for months and months (X-Men: The Hidden Years). It's not a brilliant, exceptional comic by any means, but it's got charm, humor, good personalization (I like any comic that reminds us that Hank McCoy is freakin' brilliant, even as a teen) and a nicely-done Star Trek-ish ending that still has plenty of room for action. I'll even forgive the unnecessary topical reference to an X-Box game system, which like the cell phones in Hidden Years or the Seinfeld reference in FF: First Family, is so jarring that it probably just should have been left out. Of course, this comic does not contain any out-of-character Sue Richards abandonment of her children, two people she would most fight to the death to protect. So it's fun.


RUNAWAYS #20: This comic is fun. The best superhero comic Marvel produces continues to mix teen drama and high adventure and serves as a lesson in characterization: if you're going to have a hero perform ethically or morally questionable acts, to make a deal with the devil(s), then give him a solid or at least believable in the context of the story reason for doing so. This comic does not contain scenes of Captain America declaring "Let them leave if their freedom means so little to them." So it's fun.


X-FACTOR #11: This comic is fun. An "everything you know is wrong" twist about Jamie Madrox kicks off this issue and leads me to slap my hoof on my forehead and say "Hey, that's right! Why did we always accept that about Madrox when it violates the rules of every other mutant?" It's clever, yes, but it serves a valuable storyline point and I'm enjoying the twists and turns Peter David is giving this series in a pitch-perfect update of the Stan Lee formula: progress the story but keep everything moving along with subplots, mysteries, and action that make you want to read the next issue because not every single loose end is wrapped up even at the end of a storyline. And while one of the members of X-Factor has been turned into a cold-blooded murderer (incidentally leading to The Best Line of the Week: "...which is like killing someone in warm blood. Except the air-conditioning was on."), it's made clear that his was mentally controlled against his will by villains. So, unlike other comics out this week, this comic does not contain any crazed-eyed murdering superheroes biogenetically created and mentally programmed by two men I considered heroes. So it's fun.


NEXTWAVE #8: This comic is fun. If the Marvel Universe is a family, Nextwave is the anarchic and brilliant black-sheep uncle who roars into the family reunion after it's already started, tossing pixy sticks to the kids and showing off the risqué photos he took at your dad's bachelor party. In short, the uncle you'd much rather hang around with than, say, Iron Man or Captain America, because he's not interested in arguing superhero registration with your dad Tony and grandfather Steve over the hot dish on the picnic table; he's instead showing you Mindless Ones watching American Idol, waiting for the bus, enjoying a pleasant night out in a sports bar and most brilliantly, re-enacting West Side Story. All this plus the freakin' kick-ass origin of Elsa Bloodstone, and Dormammu's kid brother who really, really likes the Suicide Girls. There's no better example of the diversity and variety you can get in the Marvel Universe than this black-humored, over-the-top extravaganza of the weirder, outrageous corners of the Marvel Universe. This comic does not contain so-called heroes attempting to gain force of numbers by recruiting crazed murdering supervillains to their ranks. So it's not only fun, but it's also the most fun comic of the week. And nobody had to get burned through the chest with a hammer lightning strike for it to be so. So no, I'm definitely not giving up on Marvel Comics. I just want 'em to be...is this too much to ask?... fun.

"You get what everyone gets, you get a lifetime."

So spoke Morpheus's sister, the Death with the spunky, can-do attitude, a character who gives us all hope that one really cute goth chick will hold our hand at least once in our lives. Or, more accurately, once right after our lives. Death is not only part of life, it's a hefty part of the comics I picked up this week; each of them has a character death or reference to death or even just a solid tempus fugit tone to it. I'm not a morbid little stuffed bull—rather, my days are filled with Pixy Stix and Rock'em Sock'em Robots and Pepperoni Cheese Goldfish and Gilmore Girls reruns and my pogo stick and my Bender the Robot action figure, but even on a bright sunny summery day a little bull's thoughts turn to carpe diem and where we all go after we leave this place.

Me? I'm goin' to Disney World. Otherwise, I ain't goin'.

Let's talk about this week's comics, shall we?

RUNAWAYS #19: This comic is fun but sad. The title of this story? "Dead Means Dead." As comic book fans, we don't tend to believe that, do we? Dr. Doom/Superman/Phoenix/Bucky/Robin/Uncle Ben die...but in the revolving door mythology of the Marvel and DC Universes, more often than not, they're just away on a short life-challenged vacation. (Peter David even had a funny bit about it concerning Banshee in a recent X-Factor). We're used to that, but the Runaways aren't, and the death of one of their team hits them hard in one of the most affecting and personal issues of superhero comics dealing with death I've yet read. Even Leapfrog is called on to discuss the nature of death as the kids react to their loss. Rest assured: this is not twenty-two pages of the Runaways moping around and feeling sorry for themselves; there's a solid beginning of the next big adventure plotline and a dandy monsteriffic cliffhanger. But I've said it before and I'll say it again: how the Runaways react to their situations and circumstances make them the most realistic of a large bunch of superteens; this is simply one of—maybe the—best-written and pitch-perfect portrayals of teens in superhero comics. Ever.


NEXTWAVE #7: This comic is fun. Look, I've told you enough times: buy Nextwave. If you're not going to pay attention to me, move along, buddy, there's nothing to see here. I hear and understand some of the criticisms: it's a one-joke premise, Dirk Anger runs thin after a while, I'm not believing the way Machine Man and Captain Marvel are being written. But you're denying yourself not only one of the most rollicking fun gonzo experiences in comics every month—a caffeine-laden palatte-cleanser for oh-so-serious superhero adventure—but you're also denying yourself some of the funniest dialogue in modern superhero comics, including a week that's full of death's best reference and Best Line of the Week: "X-Men come back more than Jesus." To paraphrase the cover of Jimmy Olsen #141: Bully says: Don't ask! Just buy it!


MANHUNTER #25: This comic is fun. A little voice keeps whispering in my head: Buy Manhunter. Buy Manhunter. Buy Manhunter. I've been to several specialists and had a dozen CAT scans (well, actually I just rode back and forth through the X-ray machine at LaGuardia Airport several times) and all specialists agree: I'm not crazy. They also suggest: Buy Manhunter. So, in accordance with my weekly mission to Pick Up One New Comic Title I Haven't Been Reading, I bought Manhunter. And whatdaya know, it's a heckuva lotta fun. Great characterization, sharp dialogue, solid art, strong supporting characters, and a dandy of a last-page guest star: it's everything I love in fun comics, plus the best scene about the impracticalities of changing into your superhero costume I've seen since Christopher Reeve couldn't find a boxed-in phone booth! But if this is "Death Week," you're asking, where's the death? Quite simply: this was very nearly the last issue of Manhunter: it was cancelled, and like a last-minute cliffhanger where the hero cheats death, there's more to come: five issues starting in December. Isn't that the way it usually works in superhero comics: back from the dead at the last minute? I won't be ignoring the little voices in my head again: I will buy Manhunter, picking up the trades and back issues so I can get up to speed on Kate Spencer and company (although for a "final issue," #25 is remarkably accessible), and I will be standing in line outside my comic book shop ready to buy Manhunter #26 when it goes on sale on December. Don't make the same mistake I made: Buy Manhunter.


52 WEEK 15: This comic is fun but sad. Let me end this week's round-up with the big death: like his pal Ted Kord, Booster Gold is dead. C'mon, stop scolding me: no spoiler alert needed: it says it right up front on the cover. After several weeks of acting like a self-centered ass (and more painfully, a self-centered criminal ass), Booster went out the way a hero should (a death we the fans won't be completely up in arms about, the way DC treated Blue Beetle), and I sniffled more than a little bit at the last couple pages. Sure, it's comics. Sure, it's a time-travelling superhero. Sure, there are umpteen ways to undo this story, from resurrection to time travel to Church of Superboy to Wein's Law (hey, we didn't really see the body...). Skeets's reaction is heartbreaking: in the words of Roy Thomas, even a robot can cry. And I'll go on record right here and now: I no longer trust Supernova. Dude's got a secret, and I bet it's not a good one. He's up to something; he has his own agenda, and I ain't trusting him, he can't borrow my pogo stick, no way. But in the end, this is DC Comics, and I don't care what Mister Didio says, Booster Gold will be back somehow, you can bet on it. That doesn't make this issue any less sad, but the sadness doesn't make it any less fun: sacrifice and change is part of what makes superhero comics entertaining. In homage to the fun and joy I've gotten from Booster Gold and his adventures, from his self-titled series to Justice League, through the Superbuddies and 52, I award 52 WEEK 15 the most fun comic of the week.

Still, I think this story needs a coda, a closure, a goodbye. The Vertigo Universe doesn't seem to be part of the DC Universe anymore, but the realm of the Endless was never restricted to such mortal boundaries anyway. Like they say, if you want it done, sometimes you have to do it yourself. So I did. I hereby present a little bit of bullish creative fan-fiction about what happens between panels one and two on page twenty of 52 WEEK 15. Call it...

52 Fifteen-and-a-Half

"I'm back, baby!" Booster Gold tossed back his head and smiled, and declared to the skies over Metropolis: "I am back!"

It felt good. It felt right. It felt...

There was a quiet soft snap somewhere above him, and he felt the rush of fire against his face, and the roar of the wind, and somewhere far below him, a robot cried his name, but it faded quickly, so quickly it might never have been there.

“Hullo, Michael. Why’d you do it?” asked a female voice.

Booster spun around—aware for the first time that he was no longer on the deck of the submarine hovering over Metropolis. He wasn't floating, however: he was standing on nothing at all, but the nothing was solid beneath his feet, an invisible floor of grey mist. If that was surprising enough, then it was instantly surpassed by the woman who stood before him, smiling at him. She was dressed all in black—black leather jacket over a black lace camisole top and black puffy skirt, shiny black skin-tight stockings down her shapely legs and scuffed black motorcycle boots on her feet. Her hair was even blacker than her clothes, a tangled yet artful mop that stuck out in all directions around her pale, pale, white as snow face, but her eyes were warm and violet. Around her neck she wore a fine filigree chain with a silver ankh pendant that dangled between her breasts and set off the silver colour against her pale, pale skin.

She was, Booster thought, quite possibly the second-most-beautiful woman he had ever seen.

“Why did I do what?” he asked her.

“Well, y’ know,” She smiled and spun on her heel playfully. “You were out. You were safe. You'd made your mark. You didn't have to prove yourself to anyone. You didn't have to prove yourself to Supernova, or the city. You'd done your best. You could have walked away, flown away. But you came back, and you let him live instead.” Her eyes twinkled. “I had a bet with my brother. He said you wouldn’t come back, wouldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. I was sure I could prove him wrong. Again.”

Booster shrugged. “I don’t know. I just felt I had to.” He hesitated. “J'onn once said...”

The woman in black said nothing, just waited for him to gather his words.

“J'onn once said...if you can't be a hero...be human.”

There was a long silence.

“Was I right?” Booster asked, expectantly. “Did I do the right thing?…for the first damn time in my life?”

“What do you think?” she asked.

Booster shrugged, and fell wordless again.

“Hey, cool googles,” the pale woman broke the silence with an enthusiastic grin. “Can I try them?”

“Sure,” Booster said, amused at her, much to his surprise, and peeling his goggles off his face, he handed them to the woman, who slipped them over her violet eyes and peered up at him with a sparkling smile.

“Way cool,” trilled the woman, squinting through the golden lenses. She regarded him thoughtfully. “Ready, Michael?”

“You aren’t at all what I expected.”

“I never am.”

“I sort of thought the skeleton guy in the robe was…”

“Oh, him.” She clicked her tongue and tilted her head in amusement. “Not the real thing at all, you know.” She ran her free hand through her tousled raven hair and regarded him carefully, a smile line creasing through the curlicue tattoo below her right eye, shining through the golden goggles. “It's me who turns the last page in the story every week; it's me who closes the cover and puts the book away in a bag.” She took his hand and inclined her head towards the far grey horizon. “Ready?”

“Uhh…”

“C’mon. I’ll walk with you.”

He hesitated. “Will Ted be there?”

She smiled. “Come and see.”

So he did.

Michael Jon Carter
Booster Gold
24??-2006
Rest in peace