Hardcore

Nina Stone has a thoughtful, outsider's p.o.v.-style review of two recent super-hero comics - Punisher #63 and Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #2. Her take on Legion is that it is busy, messy, and impenetrable. It got me thinking: even though I think Geoff Johns is one of the best contemporary super-hero writers, I can't think of anything he's done that I could recommend to someone who wasn't already really invested in super-hero comics. He doesn't do "entry level" super-hero comics.

Johns gives his super hero stories their narrative and thematic oomph by positioning and re-positioning various elements of the DC Mythos. But if you haven't already invested a fairly substantial amount of time reading DC super hero comics, most of what he's doing is going to look meaningless (at best).

And, as much as I like his work, I'm not sure that it would be worth doing the "grunt work" necessary to grok it for anyone who isn't still a teenager. For example, Green Lantern: Rebirth sounds like it should be a good jumping-on point for a newcomer to Green Lantern - especially since Johns intended it to be a lead-in to a continuing Green Lantern series which would focus more on the core elements of the Green Lantern Mythos*. However, Rebirth starts very far away from those core elements and Johns' attempt to straighten out Hal Jordan's extremely convoluted storyline won't resonate with people who don't know and/or care** about that storyline.

For me, that's not really a negative. I'm glad that he's writing these super-hero comics for hardcore super-hero fans. As I've said before, I think there's something unique about DC's mythos-centric stories that you don't find anywhere else, and while "unique" doesn't necessarily equal "good", when these stories are done well by someone like Johns, "unique" is definitely an added value.

And because I do place value on their uniqueness, attacking these kinds of comics because they don't work like other kinds of arts and culture stuff rings hollow to me.*** Part of what I enjoy about Final Crisis and other Mythos-centric super-hero comics is that it is a lot harder to get into by picking up a random mid-series issue than it would be to get into, say, House by watching a random episode from the middle of season 4. I don't think that every super-hero comic should work like Final Crisis, but I don't see it as a strike against them when they do.

*This is an excellent series, by the way. If you twisted my arm, it would be the one Johns comic that I'd recommend to non-hardcore super-hero fans.

**I'd note that a lot of the caring would come from people who think the whole Parallax/Spectre story was a completely awful idea and needs to be undone.

***This isn't what Nina is doing in her post, but I'm directing that last paragraph towards people who are making those kinds of arguments.

Millennium #1 - "Over"

Writer: Steve Englehart
Art: Joe Staton, Ian Gibson, and Carl Gafford

After Legends, you'd think I'd want to avoid these DC crossovers, but I was actually looking forward to checking this out. Millennium has a pretty awful reputation, but I have fond memories of it for some reason.

Right off the bat, this is a lot weirder than Legends. Legends was botched in its execution, but at the concept level it had a respectable thesis and seemed to be trying to respond thematically* to the "important" super-hero comics of its era (The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, The Squadron Supreme). Millennium, on a concept level, is much farther out: the Guardians - a race of super-powerful little nerdy men - and the Zamorans - a race of super-powerful Amazonian warrior women - have decided to use the energy created by them having lots of sex to propel humanity's evolution along . But the Guardians' former servants - the mutinous Manhunter androids - want to stop them.

The series' big gimmick, of course, is that the Manhunters have infiltrated the lives of all of Earth's heroes, so, like, we find out that Flash's father and Superman's girlfriend are really Manhunters in disguise. This element of the series really seemed to piss people off. Personally, I don't mind so much, especially since it turns out that Pan (you know, this Pan) is also a Manhunter. That, to me, encapsulates the way that the super-hero genre can thrive on mixing and melding incommensurate elements.

However, I can see why the seemingly drastic revelations might have turned off long time fans.

Joe Staton's work here is very nice: he can handle all the different characters and does a good job putting them in interesting poses for the big standinging-around-in-a-room-talking scenes.

*I.e., "swiped a number of plot point from".

Legends #1 - "Once Upon a Time...!"

Writers: John Ostrander & Len Wein
Artists: John Byrne & Karl Kesel

Since the second Flash series "spun out" of Legends, I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at it. I'm glad I did! A lot of my recent theoretical/critical musings on DC comics have been based on half-remembered comics read long ago, so I'm never quite sure how well they'll stand up when tested against the thing itself. For example, I was looking for evidence of the benefits of writing Mythos-centric super-hero comics, but, so far, the Baron/Guice run on Flash has mostly shown the costs of this kind of writing.

So, on an admittedly self-centered level, I find Legends interesting because it confirms some of my ideas about the way DC's different "ages" break down in terms of (a) the relationship of the Mythos to the World and (b) the amount of self-reflexivity in the writing.

We open on Apokolips, with some pitch-perfect caption writing from Len Wein:

"Here, where even miles-high columns of flame spewed ceaselessly by awesome energy-pits fail to penetrate the eternal darkness, joy is unknown and hope is a capital offense..."

Hey - here's another theory:

There are a couple of what I'd call "Fault Line Questions" that creators (meaning writers, artists, and editorial) need to deal with when they're mucking around with the DC Mythos. These are questions that cry out to be answered, but attempts to answer them definitively usually end up creating some kind of rupture in the Mythos, which then needs to be addressed in turn, leading to a cycle of Perpetual Crises.

Maybe the biggest Fault Line Questions is "What do we do with Superman?" But coming in second is probably "What do we do with the Fourth World?"

I don't want to characterize the Fourth World as "Kirby's Last Gasp" (I think his work throughout the 9170s was pretty strong), but it was his last (or, arguably, only) chance of creating an entire "Universe" of his own. Unlike the DCU proper, which was made up of bits and pieces foraged from various Golden Age comics, the Fourth World was a coherent creation of a singular artistic vision - one of the strongest, and most singular in all of comics (and not just super-hero comics). And it also represents one of the last major "explosions" of creativity in mainstream super-hero comics (in order: the initial Golden Age boom, Julie Schwartz's Silver Age refurbishments, the Stan Lee et al.'s Marvel Age, and, finally, the Fourth World).

So, on the one hand, you've got this incredibly rich and evocative cast of characters and series of storylines. So rich and so evocative that they form the core of one of the major pop culture events of the last forty years. On the other hand, the Fourth World is palpably its own thing, or rather, Kirby's own thing. It is not quite compatible with the DCU, even though Kirby's attempt to make it so are among his most interesting comics.

With Legends, DC was trying to set up some overarching storylines and themes for a post-Crisis DCU and, following The Great Darkness Saga, they pick Darkseid to be the new Big Bad. Early into the first issue, he gives us a Title for the series and its Argument. Ranting about those accursed super-heroes of Earth, he says:

"To some these puny creatures are legends, the stories of their greatness inspiring others to greatness as well! Perhaps the time has come to strike at the core of the problem -- to destroy the very concept of such legends!"

So begins Operation Humiliation!

A quick comics-in-the-good-old-days note: Ostrander, Wein, and Byrne pull off some economical storytelling here. We get a quick set-up and then jump right into the action.

From a Flash-project p.o.v., it's interesting to see that a lot of the themes Baron has to work with are set up here. (How does that bear on the issues being discussed in these comments?)

We're also introduced to Glorious Godfrey, who has come to Earth in the disguise of media pundit G. Gordon Godfrey, speaking out against super-heroes. Anti-super hero punditry isn't a new development (see J. Jonah Jameson), but I get the sense that this particular incarnation is very much inspired by Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, which finished up a few months before Legends began.

The first issue ends with something that I had forgotten, but was like "Oh, yeah - I remember that!" after I re-read it. Captain Marvel is caught in the grip of a giant Kirby-lite villain called Macro-Man (John Byrne has drawn him so he looks like a midget Galactus). To escape, Cap yells "Shazam!", thinking that as Billy Batson he'll be able to wriggle free. But, alas, the magic lightning bolt fries Macro-Man to death! Guilt stricken, Billy vows never to become Captain Marvel again.

Though this sounds grim, surprisingly enough it's a pretty effective moment. Unfortunately, just around the corner in Legends, we'll get some narrative weaseling that will completely undermine any impact this had. (On second thought, James, maybe you're right!)