What Classic Comic Have You Read Lately? Pt. 2

[Polar Bear]

Over the last couple of weeks, I read Challengers of the Unknown, all four Showcase appearances and #1-9 of their own mag. Kirby drew all of these issues, and Wood inked most of them, so they're awfully pretty.

They're also good evidence of just what Stan Lee brought to their pairings: personality. The Challengers' dialogue balloons are virtually interchangeable, their private lives are non-existent, and their backgrounds are blank. Kirby's amazing creativity is on display, but without actual characters paired with that proliferation of ideas, reading them becomes surprisingly like an obligation or a chore instead of a joy.

[inferno]

I read an ashcan edition of "Jack Davis' Tales From the Crypt" published by Fantagraphics. It was a full-size B&W reprint of four classic stories. It was published in October in advance of an upcoming book project.

I'm not sure what issues the stories were from. The second was the origin story of the Cryptkeeper. The third story was told in the second person, which is interesting. Those two stood out for me, but the other two were enjoyable too. It's hard to go wrong with EC horror stuff.

[berk]

Over the last couple of weeks, I read Challengers of the Unknown, all four Showcase appearances and #1-9 of their own mag. Kirby drew all of these issues, and Wood inked most of them, so they're awfully pretty.

They're also good evidence of just what Stan Lee brought to their pairings: personality. The Challengers' dialogue balloons are virtually interchangeable, their private lives are non-existent, and their backgrounds are blank. Kirby's amazing creativity is on display, but without actual characters paired with that proliferation of ideas, reading them becomes surprisingly like an obligation or a chore instead of a joy.

I haven't read the Challengers for awhile, but I more or less agree. The only thing I'd add is that I think it was more a matter of something unexpectedly emerging from the Kirby/Lee collaboration that was greater than the sum of its parts - those parts meaning the sort of work each guy had done prior to that collaboration, not their inherent potential as individuals. Afterwards, we can see the kind of work each guy produced on their own, and I don't think Kirby's solo work after the collaboration ended was lacking in personality, though of a different kind from that which Lee brought to the table.

[Scott Harris]

I just finished reading Wally Wood's Heroes, Inc #1 and was wondering, does anybody know why this comic was never distributed? It was apparently produced to be sold in military PXs but never was. Anyone know the story behind this?

[Scott Harris]

I just read a couple issues of Lois Lane. #106, the infamous I Am Curious Black, lived up to every bit of its hype.

However, I have to say that #110 was just as out there in pretty much the exact same way. In #110, Lois ends up joining a band of Native Americans protesting a dam being built on their ancestral land. The leader delivers a long and impassioned speech which goes over the history of how the white man has screwed their people for centuries. Superman eventually solves the problem at the dam, but not before one of the women dies after, well, basically falling and hitting her head because she was so upset about her husband being MIA in Vietnam. Her dying wish is that Lois raise her orphaned baby as her own. So Lois takes the baby back to the city and is hounded because she is a white woman raising a Native American baby. Finally, she flees the city to get away from the turmoil and is ridden off the road by an approaching army truck. Her car goes into the river, but she manages to save the baby from drowning just before she passes out. She doesn't drown, though, because the soldiers in the truck saved her -- and one of them is the baby's father, rescued from a Viet Cong war camp! He reclaims his son... but not before Lois is voted the Mother of the Year by Daily Planet readers.

It's really amazeballs, and it also features this epic cover:



#110 and #106 were the last issues I needed to have 96-up, and now I know why it was so hard to find, because this is right up there with #106 as one of the bizarrest "relevancy" issues ever published.

Also, I forget which of these issues it's in, but one of these had the absolute dumbest panel I've ever seen regarding the Lois/Superman relationship. Lois is talking about how she wishes Superman would marry him and Clark says "Maybe someday I will convince you to marry me instead!" And then he think, I can't marry her as Superman, because she would be a target, so the only safe way to do it is to marry her as Clark Kent.

Now, I mean, seriously dude. Seriously. Here's a crazy idea: Tell her you're Clark Kent and then immediately get married. Problem solved.

You huge moron.

[Scott Harris]

Every time I finish an issue of Lois Lane I think to myself, nothing can top this. And then I read the next one and it does. It's amazing.

I'm only a few pages into #111 and it's already just flat out incredible. On the second page, Lois gets ambushed by a team of five-inch-tall, evil Justice League clones created by Darkseid and sent to Earth to undermine the real heroes. They even have little tiny costumes and everything. This scene on the cover? it actually happens:



Then, Lois and Clark engage in some of the most amazing(ly bad) romance storytelling ever, courtesy of Robert Kanigher. Clark goes to turn in an "article"Lois absentmindedly left in her typewriter but when he sees it, he realizes she has just typed the line "I Love Superman!" over and over for the entire page. So he thinks, "I can't turn this in. I will keep it close to my heart."

And then just a couple pages letter, we get this amazingly adult thought balloon from Superman when Lois leans in to kiss him:

"I may be a Superman... but I'm hungry for companionship... for the touch of another human when night falls!"

Whoa man, control your hungers. And if this isn't enough, Lois is interviewing a group of Latinos about their troubles. Are we going to get another ham handed relevancy story already?! Oh man, I sure hope so. And this is just the first six pages!

Edit: Oh my gentle Jehosephat, this comic, I can't even. So the miniature, evil JLA knocks out Lois and applies a poisoned lipstick to her. So when she finally kisses Superman, it causes him to go into an insane berserker rage. Lois immediately calls some scientists and explains the situation, then waits for them to rush over a special package they are whipping up. Got it so far?

Alright, so the package arrives, but the tiny, evil JLA also shows up to taunt Lois and prevent her from interfering with their plan. Except, they don't reckon with what the package contains: A squadron a tiny Lois Lane clones!

Yes, the scientists uses her DNA to whip up a squad of tiny Lois Lane clones, who have been specially outfitted and trained to deal with tiny evil JLA doppelgangers. So as Lois watches in amazement, her team of tiny Lois clones engages in an epic battle with the tiny, evil JLA. Once they win, she applies a special antidote lipstick they sent her, races over and kisses Superman, breaking him out of his trance.

Look, let's face it: the real Golden Age of comics was in 1971.

[Scott Harris]

Back to random reading now that my Wonder Woman readathon is over. Tonight's batch so far:

Man-Thing #8: (Volume 1 for what it's worth). One of the most inexplicable developments in comic history for me is the fact that in the early 70's there suddenly were three different publishers with competing versions of what is basically an animated mulch pile. I don't get the appeal of any of these characters and I kind of hope I never do. This issue is by Gerber and Ploog, so it's a readable comic, but honestly. Why?

New Gods #5: The amount of energy and inventiveness Kirby packs into every page is just amazing. It's no wonder this series and the fourth world in general didn't take off, because it was so far ahead of its time it must have completely boggled readers who were apparently more interested in walking swamp muck at the time. This is really astounding stuff; you can see just why an entire generation of creators have basically been feeding off of it for decades now.

Forever People #4: As I mentioned in my Wonder Woman thing, I find dystopian comic book versions of Disneyland to be endlessly interesting; I guess you could say that trope is my own personal inexplicable Swamp Thing. Kirby makes his, which is run be Desaad instead of Disney, maybe the creepiest and most deviant of any I have read. Plus, it's also the earliest version of this 70's trope I have seen yet. Anyone know of an earlier take on this idea?

All-Star Western #4: A Neal Adams cover, but otherwise nothing too interesting. Outlaw just doesn't have much of a hook and while El Diablo does, it's wasted in a boring story here.

Doom Patrol #105: Offbeat weirdness, which is mostly what I was expecting from it. I liked Rita getting a major role here and the portrayal of her marriage, which for female comic book superheroines seems very modern and quite different from anything else going on in comics in the 60's. Very progressive. The story itself wasn't that interesting and the dialogue was just weird in places, but this was worth it for Rita. Makes me curious about the rest of the run. Though in general, I am not a fan of the name "Rita."

Tomahawk #134 and 135: I find the concept of this era of the series intriguing, as it takes place neither in the 18th century like the original Tomahawk run nor the old west like most westerns but rather on the mid-west frontier of the 1830's (or so, it's not explicitly stated in the story when it takes place). In practice, though, it's mostly written like just another western, which I think is a waste of a good premise. OKay issues, nothing special other than the cool covers and cover design from Joe Kubert.

Strange Tales #177: This is the final issue featuring The Golem. There's a note in the lettercolumn basically saying they are canceling the stirp because they have no idea what to do with it and nobody likes it anyway. So, yeah, I guess those are good reasons. The story and situation reminds me in some ways of the brief Astonishing Tales run of It the Living Colossus.

Sub-Mariner #41 and 72: Both of these issues sucked. I have to say, I've probably read close to a dozen issues of this series, ranging from 7 to 72 (the final issue) and none of them have been good. The early ones are at least readable, thanks to Roy Thomas, but later on it's just.. I don't know. The only halfway decent issue I have read is one of the Bill Everett ones, because his art was great. But overall, I mean, does anybody like this series? Did anybody like it at the time? Why is so much of this long run so bad? Blah.

[Aaron King]

I'm only a few pages into #111 and it's already just flat out incredible. On the second page, Lois gets ambushed by a team of five-inch-tall, evil Justice League clones created by Darkseid and sent to Earth to undermine the real heroes. They even have little tiny costumes and everything. This scene on the cover? it actually happens.

As I whittle down my collection of single issues, I imagine this comic will be one I keep forever. Kirby madness meeting Kanigher/Superman office madness. Perfect.

[Bad Wolf]

It's a good thing Guy Gardner wasn't around at the time.

[MichaelPaytonMZ]

I've been loading up my tablet with some DCs from the 80s & early 90s. So far I've got the complete runs of: Grell's Green Arrow, Ostrander's Suicide Squad & The Spectre, Jones' The Shadow Strikes and O'Neil's The Question. I'm skipping back & forth between them, so I don't get burnt out on anything, reading a few issues of one then moving on to the next. Some of these are books that I've never read before, others are ones that I read new and haven't read in 20+ years.

Some of it is rather dated, especially the preachy bits that O'Neil likes to write about. I do find myself preferring the JLU version of The Question because of this. The Shadows Strikes is interesting, esp since I just finished Ennis' arc for Dynamite. They're both interesting takes on the character and very well done. I'm a big fan of Ostrander's work, so it's nice to go back and revisit his Suicide Squad days and to read his Spectre for the first time. If/When Marvel does take over the Star Wars comics, I wouldn't mind Ostrander having another go at either of these books again for the New 52. (Tho, the new Suicide Squad might be beyond help.)

I've been exceedingly disappointed in the New 52 Green Arrow, and it's downward spiral. (Looking forward to #17 when a good writer finally steps in.) It was my desire to satisfy my Ollie fix after enjoying the new TV series, that compelled me to track down the Grell books, since only 16 issues of the Grell ongoing series are available as either a trade or digitally. The Spectre is even worse, with only a single issue available digitally. Reading these has brought me back to my High School comic reading days. Haven't had this much fun in awhile.

[MRP]

Sorting through some comics and organizing them, and reading various issues that catch my eye rather than any planned reads (such as my recent rereading of all 4 volumes of Planetary). Got to the following:

Metal Hurlant 1-4 (Humanoids, 2002): revival of the anthology that inspired Heavy Metal. I picked these up way back when they were released and read the first issue but the others went into a will get to the later pile that I never did. Several interesting stories by Jodorowski, including one illustrated by J.H.Williams III. Kurt Buisiek and Geoff Johns contribute stories to the first 2 issues as well (I particularly liked Busiek's twist on the werewolf story in his contribution Hunter's Moon in #1). As with many anthologies, the material can be uneven, but there is enough interesting stuff here to make it worth a look.

Spacehawk by Basil Wolverton-a freebie from Fantagraphics as part of this year's Halloween Comic fest but reprinting a classic Spacehawk story. Wolverton is one of those legendary comic artists who I have always heard about but never really experienced first hand, so I snagged this freebie when it was offered to me, but just got around to reading it. While there are certainly some comic camp elements to the story reprinted here (emergency brain transplant surgery putting a Plutonian's brain into a dinosaur on Uranus) it was a fun read and Wolverton's art certainly lived up to the hype. I will certainly have to keep an eye out for more affordable Wolverton stories to check out.

Mystery in Space #115-fished this out of a dollar bin some time ago but the Joe Kubert cover and the promise of 5 all new interstellar shockers caught my eye. The first story, featuring a space arc with a pilot named Noah by Mike W. Barr with art by George Tuska and Bob Wiacek on inks, is pretty standard fare but I really liked the Tuska art here, not usually a fan of his stuff, but the Wiacek's inks really work well, and how can you not root for a man character who has a monkey companion named Einstein. The second story is a three page twist style story featuring some gorgeous Ditko art and a neat little ironic twist. The third story is a classic love conquers all themed tale with some nice art form Greg LaRocque, who I am only familiar with from his run on the 2nd Flash series featuring Wally West. The fourth story is a cautionary tale of hubris with a nice twist and some early Denys Cowan art, and the last tale features a story by Arnold Drake and rare interior art by Brian Bolland. A decent issue more for the art than the stories but it had some fun sci-fi reads, which is all you can ask from an anthology title like this. Plus it had a classic Flash Hostess ad strip in it as well. Flash Meets the Bureauc-Rat.

-M

[Sacorn69]

Loving the reviews everyone is posting, however they just make my want list grow even longer.

Those Lois Lane's look like a laugh!

I read Savage Sword of Conan #26 last night, starting the adaption of REH's Beyond the Black River. It starts off pretty slow, but from the second chapter the action starts happening when the Pict mage Zogar Sag becomes more involved. Some great Buscema art, as usual, but the opening page was stunning!

Also included is a Solomon Kane vs Dracula backup, which isn't a bad read.

[Scott Harris]

Every time I finish an issue of Lois Lane I think to myself, nothing can top this. And then I read the next one and it does. It's amazing.

I'm only a few pages into #111 and it's already just flat out incredible. On the second page, Lois gets ambushed by a team of five-inch-tall, evil Justice League clones created by Darkseid and sent to Earth to undermine the real heroes. They even have little tiny costumes and everything. This scene on the cover? it actually happens:



Then, Lois and Clark engage in some of the most amazing(ly bad) romance storytelling ever, courtesy of Robert Kanigher. Clark goes to turn in an "article"Lois absentmindedly left in her typewriter but when he sees it, he realizes she has just typed the line "I Love Superman!" over and over for the entire page. So he thinks, "I can't turn this in. I will keep it close to my heart."

And then just a couple pages letter, we get this amazingly adult thought balloon from Superman when Lois leans in to kiss him:

"I may be a Superman... but I'm hungry for companionship... for the touch of another human when night falls!"

Whoa man, control your hungers. And if this isn't enough, Lois is interviewing a group of Latinos about their troubles. Are we going to get another ham handed relevancy story already?! Oh man, I sure hope so. And this is just the first six pages!

Edit: Oh my gentle Jehosephat, this comic, I can't even. So the miniature, evil JLA knocks out Lois and applies a poisoned lipstick to her. So when she finally kisses Superman, it causes him to go into an insane berserker rage. Lois immediately calls some scientists and explains the situation, then waits for them to rush over a special package they are whipping up. Got it so far?

Alright, so the package arrives, but the tiny, evil JLA also shows up to taunt Lois and prevent her from interfering with their plan. Except, they don't reckon with what the package contains: A squadron a tiny Lois Lane clones!

Yes, the scientists uses her DNA to whip up a squad of tiny Lois Lane clones, who have been specially outfitted and trained to deal with tiny evil JLA doppelgangers. So as Lois watches in amazement, her team of tiny Lois clones engages in an epic battle with the tiny, evil JLA. Once they win, she applies a special antidote lipstick they sent her, races over and kisses Superman, breaking him out of his trance.

Look, let's face it: the real Golden Age of comics was in 1971.

In what might be the best news I have ever received in my entire life, I just discovered that this story apparently has a follow-up in Superman Family #194.





Edit: I just read this and it's a huge disappointment. The mini-JLA in this issue apparently has no connection to the earlier one; they just show up randomly, fight Superman for two pages and then all fall over. That's it. What a bummer. False advertising!

[benday-dot]

Spacehawk by Basil Wolverton-a freebie from Fantagraphics as part of this year's Halloween Comic fest but reprinting a classic Spacehawk story. Wolverton is one of those legendary comic artists who I have always heard about but never really experienced first hand, so I snagged this freebie when it was offered to me, but just got around to reading it. While there are certainly some comic camp elements to the story reprinted here (emergency brain transplant surgery putting a Plutonian's brain into a dinosaur on Uranus) it was a fun read and Wolverton's art certainly lived up to the hype. I will certainly have to keep an eye out for more affordable Wolverton stories to check out.

Fantagraphics is set to release a full Spacehawks volume within the next couple weeks. It will be awesome.

[MRP]

Fantagraphics is set to release a full Spacehawks volume within the next couple weeks. It will be awesome.

Unfortunately most of the shops around here won't carry something like that and I would have had to pre-order it when solicited in Previews three months ago to be sure to have gotten a copy. I may check Amazon if I get an influx of holiday cash though, so thanks for pointing it out.

-M