Number 567


A Couple of Miles of Jollity


It's the end of July. I'm stepping on my tongue; it's scorching, dog days. It's a good time to wrap up the month with some relief, a cool and breezy story by the master, Walt Kelly, from Pogo #8, 1953.

See you-uns in August!













[This guest review comes from Adam J. Noble, a public librarian living in Eastern Canada. At Noble Stabbings!!, he is blogging his attempt to read all of the comic series Cerebus in 2009.]

JLA: Ultramarine Corps is a book of extremes. (Hey, why isn't that a book? "Extreme Justice?") This volume collects the initial three issues of the defunct Justice League of America anthology "JLA: Classified," which were written by legendary former JLA scripter Grant Morrison, and illustrated by Ed McGuinness, who, among his many other virtues, has a name that contains the name of my favourite alcoholic beverage. This volume also collects JLA: WildC.A.T.s about which I'll tell you straight-up, Slice: it sucks. I'm going to pretend JLA: WildC.A.T.s doesn't exist for the next few hundred words.

The "Ultramarine Corps" JLA storyline, so-named by somebody at DC's trade-paperback department, doesn`t really have that much to do with the titular team of superheroes, who previously appeared in Grant Morrison's mid-90s JLA run as government-sponsored foils for the Justice League. A better title for the collection might have been the cover copy on the first issue: "Where is the Justice League?" or even "JLA: Seven Soldiers."

JLA: Ultramarine Corps is probably not a great book to throw at somebody who has never read a DC comic before. For starters, if you don't know who the Ultramarine Corps are [Ed: and even if you do], you'll probably get whiplash reading the book`s first few pages, in which the Corps storm the floating city of Superbia to rid it of the invading telepathic ape Gorilla Grodd and his partner, Neh-buh-loh the Huntsman, formerly Nebula Man. "The JLA is AWOL," Corps member Warmaker One intones as the story begins. "Who needs the Justice League?" (Asking that question never works out well for anyone.) As awesome as it is to see The Knight (the British Batman wannabe) blow past monkey warriors on a motorcycle with the music of the Sex Pistols playing, once you notice the song that's playing is "Pretty Vacant" you can sort of see where Morrison is going with this. The Ultramarines are all style, no substance; all show, no go.

And because Grant Morrison`s at the helm, this book works on a few different but familiar levels. First off, the story (released in 2005) serves as a connecting bridge between some of the plot elements of Morrison`s 1990s JLA work and his subsequent efforts for DC. Neh-buh-loh and the parasitic Sheeda-men are here from Seven Soldiers of Victory, the infant universe of QWEWQ from All-Star Superman plays a major role, and, of course, the Knight and his young female sidekick, The Squire, from Morrison's Batman are present. When Batman receives a distress call from Squire and quips to his trusty butler "I'm opening up the sci-fi closet, Alfred. Don't tell my friends in the G.C.P.D. about this," Morrison has effectively laid out a concise manifesto for his coming Batman run.

But as readers of All-Star Superman know, any time the infant universe of QWEWQ gets mentioned, it's a red flag: Morrison has something profound to say about the actual real world and our need to create superheroes. To be sure, the story is about how the Ultramarine Corps are "pretty vacant" and cannot stack up heroically against the JLA. But that story's been told before -- in Kingdom Come, in "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way," in Warren Ellis' StormWatch -- the vigilantism vs. heroism theme is nothing new to superhero comics. So what's going on here?

Morrison's telling us what each team of heroes means to us. The Ultramarines are violent and militaristic, and after Superman and company save the day, Big Blue gives the Ultramarines an appropriate dressing down. The Justice League spends the first two-thirds of the book tracking down the super-serial-killer Black Death on Earth-Q (Batman laments: "They got lost saving somebody else's universe. Typical."). It's difficult to express here, but there is something about how all the scenes on QWEWQ are drawn in a 4-by-4 panel grid that is unbelievably claustrophobic, and when the League talk about our universe and its lack of superheroes being "unbelievable," "damaged," and "unhealthy" there is something so ineffably sad about it. It is like someone in our world describing a universe without color or light or love. For myself, at least, it brings to mind the final pages of Jimmy Corrigan -- Superman feels for us. Hence his decision to assign the Ultramarines to patrol QWEWQ and become its heroes and redeemers. Regrettably, as any reader of Seven Soldiers of Victory knows, the Ultramarines are doomed to fail.

As much as I enjoyed Morrison's recent apocalyptic meta-epic Final Crisis, JLA: Ultramarine Corps gets to the heart of that work's themes in a more concise, more uplifting, more energetic, and more poignant way. Namely, if superheroes didn't exist [which they don't] we would have to invent them [which we have]. And the superheroes know it.

In case I've lingered too long on the emotional/spiritual elements of this story, let me assure anyone who is considering reading this: it is also ass-kickingly awesome. It has The Squire (on whom the entire Internet has a crush, from what I can tell) placing telephone calls to another dimension while on a JLA base on Pluto. It has telepathic man-eating gorillas fighting Justice League robot-clones. It has Batman roasting on a spit. It has Batman in a flying saucer. All of which is drawn by Ed McGuinness, who we all loved on Deadpool in 1997 [Ed: and Superman in the 2000s] and who even manages to make Jeph Loeb worth reading on a semi-regular basis. He's like Joe Madureira except with style and talent and a work ethic.

Oh, and much as I'd like to forget it, JLA/WildC.A.T.s is in this collection, too. Appropriately, as filler. It's drawn by Val Semeiks (DC One Million), whose work I'd describe as "bland" but I can't really work up the enthusiasm to get past "bla." If you've read any superhero crossover before, JLAWildC.A.T.s is just like that one, only not fun or cool. The only thing remotely memorable is that Majestic tells Electric Blue Superman that he'd look good with a cape. Ugh. [Ed: And yet written by Grant Morrison. Go figure.]

Despite the presence of a weak crossover with the Un-X-Men, JLA: Ultramarine Corps is one of those comics I allow myself to at least skim on a monthly basis. It's loud, it's fun, it's touching, and it has lots of Batman. It's everything I love about superhero comics. And at least in terms of succeeding at what it sets out to accomplish, it's every bit as successful as, say, Watchmen. (Yeah, I don't play.)

[Coming next week, the long-awaited Collected Editions review of Final Crisis. Don't miss it!]

Number 566


Forbidden Tales of Oleck and Alcala


A while back I showed you a couple of 1970s DC mystery stories by writer Jack Oleck and artist Alfredo Alcala, and because I admire both of them for their craft at horror, here are two more from that duo. "Head Of the House" is from Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #9, and "The Monster" is from the subsequent issue, Forbidden Tales #10, both dated 1973.

"The Monster" is another from the same swamp that produced the 1940 Unknown story, "It!" by Theodore Sturgeon, which in turn influenced Air Fighters Comics' Heap, Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, Ring-A-Ding the Thing-Thing (that last one I made up), et al. The swamp monster is a genre unto itself. I like Oleck's snap ending to "Head Of the House" because of its ghoulishness. And what can I say about artwork by the late Alfredo Alcala except that it is always a joy, no matter the subject.




















I re-read the first part of writer Jim Shooter's current run on Legion of Super-Heroes, Enemy Rising, in preparation for reading part two, Enemy Manifest, and found myself enjoying the whole thing considerably more than I did when I first read part one.

Maybe the difference is passage of time; when I started, what I felt where some unnecessarily rude comments Shooter made while the ink was still fresh on Legion's pages) still gnawed at me. I found in this re-reading, however, a detailed, multi-layered Legion story that takes much of its action from intergalactic politics (if you like that sort of thing), with a great helping of calm-before-the-war suspense. There's also plenty of scenes of the Legionnaires using their powers (often two Legionnaires using their powers in tandem) that has for me always been the most enjoyable part of Legion of Super-Heroes.

In Enemy Manifest, Shooter essentially pits the Legion against a takeover from virtual reality. The alien destroyers from the first volume are revealed as avatars of digitized race that lives in the universe's ever-present dark matter. It's a fascinating concept, though one unfortunately that Shooter doesn't get much time to explore before the story ends; under writer Mark Waid, this incarnation of the Legion specifically decried how their society communicated virtually instead of physically, so if you squint and tilt your head, the entire series approximates coming full circle.

To be sure, it's apparent from Enemy Manifest even without Shooter's comments that the end comes quicker than he expected. As some point I thought quite a few of the subplots might tie together in the end -- the mysterious beings counseling Projectra could have been the alien invaders, and they could additionally have been responsible for Timber Wolf's violence, the confusion over what happened between Saturn Girl and Ultra Boy, and Dream Girl being blinded -- but instead these stories trickle off into limbo, with only the main story wrapped up. I'm not all that educated in Legion history, but it wouldn't have hurt to have the virtual reality society called COMPUTO, just for old time's sake.

I did appreciate at least that the Projectra storyline made use of events from Mark Waid's Legion run; Shooter also returns Sun Boy from the earlier Dominator War issues. While I enjoyed Shooter's two volumes, the trouble is that they're "just Legion," whereas Waid's run put a new spin on the Legionnaires (as teenage rebels) that made it more interesting to me than the "kid superteam" of previous incarnations. I'll reserve judgment on Geoff Johns's upcoming Adventure Comics Legion until I read it, but I do hope his Legion has more in some way like Waid's did.

[Contains full covers]

More reviews coming soon. Stay tuned!

Number 565



Snowman


Not Frosty the Snowman. Just Snowman.

If Tally-Ho Comics #1 (and only) had not been known as the professional debut of Frank Frazetta, it might alternately be known as one of the most off-the-wall comic books published during the 1940s. The cover makes it look something like a kiddie comic, but the interior is anything but. In the lead story, Snowman's nemesis, Fang, is a very scary looking guy. Since there was never another issue we don't know what Snowman was, exactly...or what Fang was, either. John Giunta and Frazetta drew the story, but I don't know who wrote it. H.G. Ferguson, who was Simon and Kirby's letterer on their crime and love comics, did the "lettering designs," one of the only times I've ever seen a letterer so identified in a Golden Age comic book.

Tally-Ho is listed on the inside front cover as being published by Swapper's Quarterly, Chicago, IL, and the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide says Baily Publications, in parentheses. I don't know how they knew that, but if it's true then Golden Age comic book artist, Bernard Baily, likely had something to do with it.

Overstreet dates it as December 1944. To add to the mystery about Tally-Ho, the undated indicia lists no copyright claim. The Swapper's Quarterly publishing credit could have been that being produced during World War II maybe Swapper's Quarterly, of Chicago, IL, had a paper ration that they used to print Tally-Ho.









Number 564


Plastic Man Products


I believe that Jack Cole hit his stride with Plastic Man. No matter what else he did in his career, and he did some truly amazing things both in and out of comic books, when I think of Jack Cole I really think of his work on Plas. DC Special #15, November-December 1971, was the last issue of a great reprint title, and it went out on a very high note by reprinting several Jack Cole classics, including the oft-seen Plastic Man origin from Police Comics #1.

Since Cole was proprietary with Plas, he threw so much into it he couldn't keep up and other artists had to be brought in. They did a good job, considering who they had to follow, but Cole's work was on such a high level I just don't think anyone ever captured the zaniness of the character like him. In this story, "Plastic Man Products," reprinted from Plastic Man #17 in 1949, every panel is alive with inspired frenetic action and comic exaggeration. I think that it wasn't until a few years later, with Mad comics, that anyone ever again reached this level of comedic genius in comic books.

Check out the blog, Cole's Comics, for more of Jack Cole's work.