The Eleventh Day of Classic Comics Christmas 2012

[hondobrode]

I used to own an issue or two of Empire Lanes. Not sure if I still have them or not.

I'm not even sure if I've ever read them, but based on today's post, would like to. It's amazing to look at someone like Peter Gross and see how far he's come in his craft.

Ok, on to today's pick.

Brat Pack # 1-5 by Rick Veitch



In the city of Slumberg, the masked avengers are lowlifes who terrorize the population and make a mockery of civil rights. But even more despised are their irresponsible teen sidekicks : a “Brat Pack” of bullies, drug abusers, and bulimics who use their “super” status to get their kicks. That is, until leather-masked Doctor Blasphemy decides to wipe them out with a car bomb.



From the acid-tipped pen of Rick Veitch comes this dark, five-part mini-series from King Hell, told with verve and energy in a dramatic palette of gray wash tones. Brutal, compelling and darkly humorous, the Brat Pack practices its credo : “Live fast, love hard, and die with your mask on.”



For anyone who’s been moved by the dark take on their heroes from works such as Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns, many consider this the third leg of that stool. Rick Veitch’s masterpiece that tears the scab off of the whole sidekick phenomenon.

[Slam_Bradley]

Since Chase and Chronos were ruled ineligible I decided to use these last two slots for more obscure stuff that we haven't seen on the list. So....

Guns of the Dragon 1-4, 10/98 - 1/99 by Tim Truman.





Bat Lash, Hans Von Hammer and Biff Bradley (Slam's brother) team-up in 1930s China to battle Miss Fear, Mao Tse-Tung and Vandal Savage for possession of ancient swords on Dragon Island. This one is pure pulp with dinosaurs, unpowered heroes and Truman going ape-shit in all directions.

I don't care if it isn't the best story in the world. Lash is funny. Hammer is serious. And there are DINOSAURS and Tri-planes. If you can't have fun with that...turn in your fun card.

[Aaron King]

Empire Lanes is a lot of fun. There is an older trade from Comico's short lived creator-owned imprint. I picked it up for $3.00 when Mile High had one of their major clearance sales.

Gross may be the most underrated artist in the business. He really pushes himself in experimenting with different storytelling techniques on The Unwritten, which, for my money, is the best monthly comic being published these days.

I saw some cheap used copies on Amazon that I might pick up. I thought his art was great in Lucifer, but I never knew if it was him or Ryan Kelly's finishes that I liked since I'd seen and enjoyed a lot of Kelly's solo stuff.

Like you said, though, The Unwritten has been a real eye-opener. His storytelling is rock-solid, his character work is great, and his stylistic changes and design work for all the different elements (storybook stuff, news networks, website pages) have pushed him into the "great artist" category for me. As I understand it, he's co-plotting with Carey, too, which makes him even more impressive.

[Brian Gravity]

#2 - Batman: The Cult #1-4 by Jim Starlin and Berni Wrightson (DC, 1988)



The Deacon broke me, Robin. He starved, drugged, and tortured me... brainwashed me. Blackfire convinced me his twisted outlook on life was right. I just wasn't strong enough to resist him.
—Batman

Few series' have left a brutal imprint of awesomeness as this one has, and I'll never forget my first time reading The Cult. We see Batman captured and hung like a pig by a maddened Deacon Blackfire, who proceeds to convert Batman into his Cult by beating, starving, and drugging him heavily into submission.

Now brainwashed, Batman carries out the Cult's doctrines armed with a machine gun, killing those he swore to protect. He is eventually saved by Robin (Jason Todd) in what becomes a revenge of mammoth proportions. We see what might be the most kickass Batmobile ever -- The Bat-Monster Truck. Batman's rescue is not without it's consequences though, and he's going to need some serious PTSD counseling after this one.



Big kudos to Jim Starlin's writing skills here. I always felt his writing was good but his art was usually better, and after reading this his storytelling became top notch for me. Wrightson is also at his best in visualizing a tormented Batman unlike any I've ever seen, and makes the Arkham Asylum GN look like a children's movie. They really take this hero through the worst possible scenarios imaginable, and it works.

There are a lot of great Batman stories out there, but this one ranks as my personal favorite.

[shaxper]

V for Vendetta (1988) #1-10
by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

Ummm...my number one for this year??

This is just getting too weird, Mr. Chris

[shaxper]

#2 - Batman: The Cult #1-4 by Jim Starlin and Berni Wrightson (DC, 1988)

There was a lot I loved about this series, and I doubt I'll ever forget Wrightson's depiction of Jason finding Batman in that tunnel full of bodies.

Still, what ALWAYS frustrated me about this series was that such a dire series of events for both Gotham and Batman got completely ignored in the regular series. Starlin was WRITING the flagship Batman title and couldn't drop a single reference to this story HE wrote concurrently? It annoyed me to no end.

Also still thrown by the minor details: How was Batman broken by The Deacon so easily when he'd been in darker situations previously, why didn't ANY of The Deacon's followers ever try to unmask him, etc.

I would love to see this series unofficially redone and given a much longer running time so that more focus can be given to Gotham going to hell under The Deacon's control, with Batman and Robin functioning as a parallel storyline, outside of the central action until the climax of the series.

[hondobrode]

Since Chase and Chronos were ruled ineligible I decided to use these last two slots for more obscure stuff that we haven't seen on the list. So....

Guns of the Dragon 1-4, 10/98 - 1/99 by Tim Truman.





Bat Lash, Hans Von Hammer and Biff Bradley (Slam's brother) team-up in 1930s China to battle Miss Fear, Mao Tse-Tung and Vandal Savage for possession of ancient swords on Dragon Island. This one is pure pulp with dinosaurs, unpowered heroes and Truman going ape-shit in all directions.

I don't care if it isn't the best story in the world. Lash is funny. Hammer is serious. And there are DINOSAURS and Tri-planes. If you can't have fun with that...turn in your fun card.

Nice ! I might've picked this up if I had known Lash and Hammer were in it. Def will pick this up, Slam. Thx !

[Chris N]

Ummm...my number one for this year??

This is just getting too weird, Mr. Chris

It at least suggests that my #1 pick is something you should give a try.

[shaxper]

It at least suggests that my #1 pick is something you should give a try.

I've certainly been paying extra attention to all your choices thus far. Your #1 will be no exception.

[Roquefort Raider]

2. Le décalogue #1-11; script by F. Giroux with art by several very talented individuals.

This is a masterpiece. Truly. I cannot do it justice in just a few lines.

In its simplest form, this is a series of interconnecting stories with one major point in common: a book ("Naik") that was written and published in the XIXth century, then lost when the publisher's depot burned down... all but a simple copy. The book itself, now a legendary tome among bibliophiles, told the story of a people who guard something that might have a profound impact on the entire moslem world: ten laws, a moslem decalogue, that the Prophet supposedly wrote on the shoulder blade of a camel.

Each chapter of this saga proceeds backward in time; tome 1 is set in modern times, and shows how a writer down on his luck chances upon a copy of the text of the famous book, which he proceeds to publish as his own work. He gets fame and fortune, but is then submitted to blackmail and things go badly for him.

Tome 2 is set a few years prior, when a young man on a religious mission means to assassinate a Turkish writer under a fatwah; onl;y to discover that he's no murderer after all... and the writer shows him the sole surviving copy of Naik, and the young man starts to rethink his extremist views. Naik is destroyed in this story.

The following tomes show (always going backward in time) how the book impacted the lives of individuals and families; we also get to witness many important events in the history of Europe. The terrible years in Yugoslavia. World war II. The massacre of the Armenians. We get to see how Naik was first written, based on the story of a French soldier who served in Egypt. We get to see what happened to him down in the desert, and how there is really a sect of very ancient Muhammadans who have kept the camel shoulder blade as their most precious relic. We finally get to see whether Muhammad really did wrote down those ten laws (and the way the artist manage never to show the Prophet's face is quite elegant).

This is more than a historical thriller; it's also a story about books, about faith, and finally about the way history gets written. It's really without peer.

Like I said earlier, a masterpiece.

[hondobrode]

Quite an interesting pick. I've never heard of it before, but I would certainly get it. I love stuff like this !

Is it in English ? Where could I get it ? Is it collected ?

[Aaron King]

2. Le décalogue #1-11; script by F. Giroux with art by several very talented individuals.

This is a masterpiece. Truly. I cannot do it justice in just a few lines.

Sounds like a Salman Rushdie novel. I'd love to read it.

[icctrombone]

2. The Infinity Gauntlet 1-6
Marvel Comics 1991
Writer : Jim Starlin Artist: George Perez



I consider this epic the most successful and engaging battle story by Marvel comics. Starlin tells a story that elevates Thanos to THE most dangerous and interesting Villain In Marvel. It’s Thanos against EVERYONE, and he wins. Adam Warlock is re-introduced into the Comics world in an imaginative way and he is a different character than last we saw. All the Marvel universe is showcased and this 6 parter is reader friendly by not having to buy additional books for the full picture. The artwork is started by Perez and taken over by Ron Lim , who does a great job as well. The ending is not telegraphed and is a welcome surprise to my tired comic reading eyes . This is Starlin at his best since the Original Warlock saga.

He's baaaaaaaaack!



And he's a cold SOB

[Polar Bear]

#2. Age of Heroes #1-5, by Hudnall & Ridgway (#1-2 by Halloween Comics, #3-5 by Image Comics)

Swords and sorcery, magic and thievery, half-elves and demigods. An unfinished (and uncollected) epic, but there's food for the imagination here. All five issues are essentially stand-alone, though a few threads loosely connect the stories. Wex, Mael, Drake, Conor, and other heroes go on magical quests in a world created by James Hudnall & John Ridgway. Do you really need anything else?

[benday-dot]

2. Giant-Size Man-Thing

Runner up goes to comics most memorable title.

Of course when you get by the snickers you get to some pretty amazing comic books. The extended page length of the giant-size format gave Marvel's great iconoclast Steve Gerber room to tell some wonderfully powerful tales. A comic in which the main character never talks and has all the personality of a swamp turnip doesn't seem like a conceptual winner, but Gerber managed to weave such thoughtful and compelling tales about the nexus of Marvel's muck monster that it became an unlikely thing of brilliance.

GS Man-Thing was one of the first comic runs I read when I returned to the hobby after a 20 year absence. I didn't pay a lot of heed to Gerber as a kid collector, but the fact that his 5 issues of Man-Thing were what finally lit the Gerber flame under me is enough grant the series the number two position.