RatCreature's Journal

So my Easter-time Flash binge reading continues, and I found this costumed criminal in Flash #130, The Fashioneer ... No really that's his name, and apparently fashion houses pay him to use his "time power" to "send styles back in time so that designers can get a jump on their competitors." And okay, I find it odd that he wouldn't simply get game scores or lottery numbers for himself, but what I am really wondering is, what kind of fashion house would trust someone dressed like that to pick out the successful styles from the future collections he sees?!?

...just not not right now. Ahem.

I've finished reading Dead Heat (Flash #108-111 and Impulse #10-11), and overall I enjoyed it a lot, not at least because I like stories with the speedforce playing a prominent role, however one thing bugged me: The way the speedsters talk about Johnny Quick's suicide made them sound like one of the more disturbing cults out there. I mean it's great for them that they're so sure of their afterlife, but still-- when Jay tells Jesse who mourns her father "Your father was a fine man... and, god, I'm going to miss him. But be glad for him, Jesse. After a lifetime of living in darkness, he finally saw a light that took him in and made him whole." (quoted from Flash #111) --it somehow bugs me. It's not only how content they seem to serenely seek out and embrace their death (joining with the field or not, they are still dead) when they feel their time has come, because the speedforce calls to them, which is vaguely disturbing to hear from people who are not terminally ill or in a lot of pain (which are the only circumstances I have encountered that sentiment), it's also that apparently to have their desired afterlife, they can't just wait for dying of old age in their sleep, they have to die through their form of ritualized suicide, by running as fast as they can, and then if they're lucky enough (or favored by the speedforce, or whatever), they can join with it. Which is what reminds me of some wacky cults who tell their members they have to kill themselves in some specific fashion to get into heaven.

I mean, I've been wondering whether in the aftermath (i.e. the funeral in Flash #112) the other speedsters told the assembled heroes that Johnny Quick didn't really die in the fight, but decided to join the speedforce because he "finally saw the light". It doesn't seem that way-- at the funeral Johnny's ex-wife Libby (the retired Liberty Bell) is grieving and fairly bitter, and blames it on the costumed adventuring that he's dead. It seems she assumes he died because of the fight. I assume the speedsters must have told her something about why they are so certain he's not going to reappear, because otherwise I have a hard time how anybody in the DCU would accept someone as dead without leaving a body behind this quickly, just because he apparently disappeared in a big boom of lightening.

I now want to know much of this stuff the speedsters share with their team mates, and what those team mates think of this. I mean I can't imagine that their views on this go over well with everybody.

Another thing I'm ambiguous about is that in Dead Heat we get to see Wally inside the field, which on one hand is cool to see, on the other hand I liked that it was left open and mysterious in Terminal Velocity, and in a way seeing it on page this time, made that less effective. However it's still a really cool sequence in Flash #111 (page 15, 16, 17/18, 19, 20), not at least because even though Wally is in (or at least only one step away from) nirvana-like bliss, he still has a sense of humor as he brings Savitar to join the other speedsters: "And the certainty that all those who have journeyed here before me take care of their own... however they must. So long Savitar. Learn to play well with others."

I've just read Flash #106, and I'm wondering, this James guy who's with Piper, when they and Linda meet for lunch, is he Piper's boyfriend? And who is he anyway? (When Piper says to Linda that he's no expert on relationships James interjects "Oh, I don't know..." and in this conversation it seems he and Piper share a house.) And who is he anyway? I couldn't find a James on the main site I use to look up Flash info, besides James Jesse, the first Trickster, and that guy looks very different, e.g. Trickster I has long blond hair.

First the bitching: this series is seriously overpriced. Even with 64 pages and no ads the price of $6.95 per issue is too much. I mean, I prefer stapled comics to the prestige binding, because you can easily see double pages without hurting the spine, so I actually don't mind that, and don't wish the format was different, but it's just too expensive for 64 pages. The reason I'm nevertheless buying the single issues is because I suspect DC is going to release it as HC edition before publishing it as trade, and with eventually six issues of 64 pages each, i.e. 384 pages, they even might publish it in two trades, so it's not certain that I'd end up paying less than for the single issues, and I prefer collecting single issues.

However, once you forget about how much money you handed over -- which happened quickly enough in my case -- the series is a lot of fun, and I think it's well worth reading. I'm not very familiar with the Silver Age DCU, and haven't read the stories New Frontier draws upon and retells, and there are many characters I don't recognize, but it stands very well on its own. I guess the reading experience becomes more layered the more background you know, but it's not necessary to have that knowledge.

Basically New Frontier takes the Silver Age DCU and transplants it from the goofy and campy comic reality of that time as which it was first published into the real world of those times (well a more "real" world anyway), transforming it in the process. And it's fascinating, one of the rare cases in which the mixing of real world politics and superhero comics actually works for me. Usually it's something that I think tends to end in a narrative disaster, and more often than not unintended utter ridiculousness, because the assumptions and internal logic of the two just don't mesh without some serious effort. But IMO it works here, and totally it sucked me in.

You get the comic elements like giant dinosaurs combined with McCarthyism, the KKK, and the build-up to the Vietnam war, J'onn J'onzz learning about humanity through television (and it was a great sequence to see him try out shapes, and to see him as Bugs Bunny) and watching 1950s space invasion movies, the historical "space race" combined with (behind the scene) covert ops of the DCU Suicide Squad and the like... and it works. And I like Cooke's versions of the characters, too.

I'm very curious how the different narrative strands will come together in the second half of the series. New Frontier takes its time to establish the characters and the setting, but it doesn't read slow or drags. And I'm impatiently waiting for the next issue to come out, as its unfortunately on a bi-monthly publishing schedule now, which isn't surprising with the length and just a single writer and artist (except for the coloring which is by Dave Stewart).

Anyway, I like this way of paying tribute to the DC Silver Age a lot more than resurrecting it one piece at a time in the main continuity.

I think the primary reason why there's so little personal stuff in this blog is because inertia rules supreme in my RL and it would be really, really boring if I were to write at length about how the most activity-like thing I've done the last days was to try out the bread baking machine my siblings got me for my birthday last Sunday (in short: bread is really much easier to make with such a machine, and it turns out better too). Also it's kind of embarrassing. Ahem.

But on to more interesting topics, namely: Comics!

Birds of Prey #62-65 (written by Gail Simone, pencils by Ed Benes and Cliff Richards, inks by Alex Lei)

So far I enjoy the Sensei & Student story a lot. I like how Simone writes the characters, but I like even more that the story has me hooked with its plot. I want to know how it turns out, there's plenty of suspense: the as of yet mysterious threat/attack Oracle's computer system faces is creepy, I'm curious whether Black Canary will accept Lady Shiva's offer despite her apprehension (btw kerithwyn has put up some scans of Dinah's nightmare of the consequences of accepting), I like the plot with Chesire and the senator... Also I'm really starting to like Lady Shiva, and I gained at least some appreciation for Chesire. In the unlikely event that anyone even remotely interested in these characters isn't getting this, IMO you really should.

Batgirl #48-50 (written by Dylan Horrocks, pencils by Rick Leonardi, inks by Jesse Delperdang)

Horrocks doesn't quite write Batman like I see him, however I really like the art team, and I'm shallow enough to enjoy pages and pages of fight scenes when they're done like this. The story about the improved Soul drug made from corpses is kind of wacky, IMO, and I'm a bit dubious about Batman's tactic of fighting as therapy, though I guess I can see him act like that if I squint a little, especially if he was partly under the influence of Soul-- I have a hard time seeing how he would cause a huge explosion on a bridge with all those innocent bystanders otherwise, and I hope Bruce Wayne is going to make some generous donations or something to make up for blowing up a bridge to fix Batman's relationship problems. As many others have noted the Batman/Batgirl smiling and cuddling gave us some weird visuals. Though #50 had some good lines, like Barbara to Batman after he explained his "therapy": "You're crazy." Batman's reply: "So they say. But it works."

Flash #80-83 (written by Mark Waid, pencils by Mike Wieringo, inks by Jose Marzan Jr.)

I'm reading Flash back issues kind of randomly and out of order, which probably doesn't help me follow the sometimes convoluted storylines any better, but at the moment I'm just buying those stories of which my store happens to have all backissues available, and this leads to some haphazard selection. This story features Flash's ex-girlfriend Magenta, and reading up on her background just made my eyes glaze over (I got lost somewhere around Raven in an evil form implanting parts of Trigon's soul into her, I guess you just had to be there for the relevant Titans issues...), but that didn't turn out to be that important for the story anyway. The story, "Back On Track", has Wally working together with Kory and Nightwing to fight some intergalactic arms dealers who set up shop in Keystone City, and it was fun to read. I'm missing something of the Titans background causing Dick to have some kind of existential angst, but taking place, I think, around the time when Batman chose Azrael as replacement during Knightfall can't help with his self-doubt either. I thought it was sweet how Wally tries to involve him to cheer him up. Also we get lots of panels with Wally carrying Nightwing piggyback, which no matter how sensible it is, still looks kind of dorky, and IMO alone makes this story worth picking up.

Finally a totally random domestic Superman scan, which I uploaded for my feedback to corinna_5's funny SV/QEftSG x-over, but which is just so cute that I'll link to it here too. It shows Superman being really sweet, and cooking macrobiotic special dishes for Lois in his Superman costume. (In case anyone's interested, the story the panel is taken from is in the Superman 80-Page Giant from 1999.)

I've decided to get over myself and just ignore that huge pile of comics, which I all wanted to talk about at some point, but which is just getting more intimidating, while my recollections of what I wanted to say fade.

Instead I'll just talk about two comics from last week. I wanted to comment on two more (Legends of the Dark Knight #177 and Nightwing #91), but it's getting close to four a.m. here and my head hurts (not from the comics, probably from staring on my monitor too long though).

Gotham Central #17 (written by Greg Rucka, art by Greg Scott)

I have to admit that even after 17 issues I'd still love to have an overview, from something like an SF&O issue, just listing all the cops, their first names, last names, nick names, ranks, and with whom they are partnered. I know I've said this before, and I admit it is getting better, and I like that each arc seems to highlight some character(s) so that gradually we get to know them better -- but honestly, on the top of my head I couldn't list even half of them with full names and ranks. I don't know whether it's my scattered brain, or something intrinsic to the stories, but it is starting to seriously bug me.

This issue also showed the quiet, tedious part of police work rather well, and because of the personal plots interwoven with it, it wasn't actually boring to read, but personally I like some more action. I guess I'm juvenile that way. Though I liked the cliffhanger with Huntress showing up at Vincent's place. See, already I can't remember his last name *looks it up* del Arrazio, Vincent del Arrazio, it's like learning frelling vocabulary in school, I always hated that too. The people writing the "Next month in..." bits also seem to have problems, because there it says 'The action focuses on Detective Azeveda who gets a surprise visit from an "old pal" who just happens to go by the name "Huntress."' when the last panel this issue shows Vincent and Huntress meeting, and I doubt she also knows Josh Azeveda. (And yes, I had to look up Azeveda's first name, because I didn't remember that either.) Finally I think this habit of putting the title and credits at the end should be stopped, I want to see the title of a story in the first couple of pages.

JLA #94 (written by John Byrne and Chris Claremont, art by John Byrne and Jerry Ordway)

After reading a few older JLA issues, and some feeble, in the end futile internal resistance, I've finally resigned myself to being interested in the comic Justice League, and I figured I might as well start getting the new ones. I'm neither a particular Byrne nor a particular Claremont fan (I don't dislike them either, I just haven't read much by either), but a new story is usually a good time to start getting issues, and since DC would want it to be attractive to people into Byrne and/or Claremont who haven't read the previous JLA issues it probably would be enough of a standalone for me to get the story without major confusion, and ease into the on-going JLA. And I was mostly right about that. I mean, of course I experienced the by now all too familiar confusion, like I have no idea who this Manitou Raven guy who (seemingly?) died on page two is, but overall I had no problems.

So a great evil threatens (whatever, I wasn't that impressed with the foreboding, but then generally magic stories are my least favorite, so I'm biased), children with low-level meta potential are disappearing, Batman notices a pattern, the JLA investigates, and Clark gets mind-controlled by some cult (apparently those who abducted the children), and then bitten by its vampire leader. So far I'm not really exited about the story. For example somehow mind-controlled and even vampiric Superman here is much less creepy/scary than I think he could be.

Still it's early in the story, and I liked the art, which in a way was charmingly retro. I think a lot of the "retro feel" is due to the use of thought balloons and additional omniscient narrator boxes, which has become unusual. I mean, if you get internal thoughts, the most common way these days seems to be to have the thoughts of the POV character in the narrative boxes and no thought balloons. Still, I liked the retro. And on the completely shallow side, with my new found Flash appreciation I noticed that Byrne draws a rather cute Wally West (or you can see both the retro thought balloons/narrative boxes and Wally here).

Recently I commented in lcsbanana's LJ and shared a couple of pictures from Elseworlds, some wackier than others, and some rather freaky, and I thought I might as well turn it into an entry in my own blog, because some of those images you really shouldn't miss...

There is a rather freaky Elseworld comic from 1998 called "Batman: I, Joker" (written and illustrated by Bob Hall), about a future Gotham ruled by a Batman cult, in which we see CultLeader!Batman fight a weird bondage gear Batman (and anybody who thought the regular Batman outfit couldn't possible get any more fetish-like is proven wrong). In case you're interested in some context, and some more disturbing pictures: The cult ruling Gotham has a ritual once a year where others can challenge The Batman (who is thought of as a god) to become the next one, and to win that right to fight, first they have to bring down one of the supervillains who are resurrected and let loose in the city for that ritual. Actually they are not so much resurrected, as that they take normal people, erase their memories, disfigure them and implant them with wrong memories of the supervillain they are to represent. You can see this exposition with the cult in action on the pages 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. The weird Batman in that SM outfit is a challenger who managed to kill the Riddler, and actually in that story the guy they chose to play the Joker happens to have been a member of some underground guerrilla, and managed to beat the false memories and challenge the Batman, and it ends with Joker (well someone who had his mind wiped, Joker's personality implanted, and been given the face of Joker) as the next Batman though he's a good guy and determined to end the cult in what I guess counts as a wacky (and somewhat disturbing) happy ending.

I also pointed out some of the cliche and/or genre Elseworlds (because I love Elsewords, just like I love AUs, so I read them quite a lot, though honestly those below are not my favorites, just evidence that there is probably nothing these poor characters didn't have to go through):
- Cave!Batman (from Legends of the Dark Knight #35, and okay, that is actually, in the story, supposed to be a Viking!Batman, but does that look like a viking to you?!)
- Pirate!Batman (from Batman Chronicles #11)
- Vampire!Batman (there's a series, but this image is from Batman: Bloodstorm)
- Batman as a were-bat because of some gypsy curse (also from Batman Chronicles #11)
- Batman in the wild west (cover of Batman: The Blue, the Grey, and the Bat)
- as King Arthur's knight (cover of Batman: Dark Knight of the Round Table #1)
- Samurai Batman and Robin in medieval Japan (from Robin Annual #3) which by the way ends with Robin comitting ritual suicide, because he broke his word to Batman and avenged his death when he swore he would not.
- Batman as Egyptian Bat-God (which I haven't read because it sounded like a bad SG-1 x-over)
- Bruce Wayne as gay artist in the 1930s in Berlin (from Batman Chronicles #11, which features an amazing amount of bad writing for just one comic). Personally, I think neither the pink house coat nor the lipstick (well it *looks* like lipstick anyway) suits him, though it makes sense in a weird way, that in this universe Robin is female, just like in the regular comics with the heterosexual (officially anyway) Batman Robin is a boy...

Finally, not (quite) an Elseworld but a really good (and creepy) story, Mask by Bryan Talbot in LotDK #39/40, where Bruce Wayne is in a mental hospital, and only imagines running around as "Batman" in his fantasy world, in reality his costume is a ridiculous outfit made from junk and he's institutionalized. Of course in the end it turns out a supervillain plot after all, but that really isn't the point of the story. I mean it could've been an Elseworld if it hadn't turned out to be a supervillain scheme.

Somehow I found this scene from this story (Nightwing and Robin: Partners, written by Doug Moench, art by Bob McLeod) in Showcase '93 #12 really amusing, thus I'm sharing scans of two pages. Nightwing and Robin are hassled by two cops, who hate "flashy ginks" and "skintight spraypainted showoffs" and are angry that "our Halloween party boys had a little fun here on the docks"...

The two pages these quotes are from, so that you can see the homophobic superherophobic cops for yourself:

( Read more... )

The first post, and the second post of this series.

BTW, I should mention that in my notes and eventual comparisons my interest isn't really in establishing a consistent timeline, other sites, like the Unauthorized Chronology of the DC Universe do this much more thoroughly than I ever could, also with special attention paid to Batman and Nightwing. Of course I'll mention the timeline information that is given in an issue, but I won't try and make it all fit to find the "one true sequence of events" as it really happened in the fictional universe, or explore timeline and chronology problems at great length, though I might link to timeline problem analyses/conjectures other people did, in places where I find it interesting.

Anyway, in the last post I looked at Batman's origin story in Year One. Right after Year One (in the publishing order, not in the internal chronology), Batman #408 (Jun 1987) starts the series of stories with Dick retiring as Robin, and Jason taking on that role. I'll look closer at those aspects in the (projected) posts on Nightwing's origin. However, there is also information about Bruce and his past in "Did Robin Die Tonight?", i.e. Batman #408 (Jun 1987), and I'll comment on some Bruce characterization I found interesting, too:
( lengthy notes on Batman #408, with quotes and links to scans )

The first post is here.

The first section on Batman (of which this post is the first part) covers stories/issues I'm aware of which deal containing information about Bruce Wayne/Batman's childhood, his years of training and travel, as well as key moments early in his vigilante career that formed the present day Batman. Like I explained earlier, I'll deal with key first encounters separately.

Issues/stories are listed in order of their first publishing date. The ones I haven't read (yet) are marked with a "*" (For those I linked to the sites I took the information from, the numbering of the resource sites is the one I used in the first post.):
( a longish list )

Now a more in-depth look at these stories, starting with the central Year One storyline, which I'll also use as a "baseline" to compare other stories to, because it is at the core of modern Batman continuity. As is often pointed out [1] [3], Batman didn't get a "clean" break in his continuity during Crisis with a neat retelling like Superman, however Year One has a similar function, even if there was no full rewrite.

Year One, i.e. Batman #404-#407 (Feb - May 1987), gives us the following information (I won't summarize the whole plot about corruption and organized crime in Gotham, but just highlight some stuff, especially since I'll cover the early history of Batman, Dent and Gordon in a separate post. I guess everybody just a little interested in the comic version of Batman -- and who else would read detailed comparisons of information on his origins? -- will have already read Year One anyway):

( notes on Bruce/Batman in Year One )
tbc...