Number 602


Do two half-men make up one whole man?


I noticed the title similarity to these Atlas Comics stories, but the titles are all that's alike. "Half Man, Half...?" is from Menace #10, 1954. "Half Man" is from Uncanny Tales #22, but my scans are from the 1970s reprint in Crypt of Shadows #9.

"Half Man, Half...?" is drawn by Robert Q. Sale, a staple of the Atlas bullpen. At one time Sale shared studio space at the Charles William Harvey studios with Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, John Severin and Charlie Stern. This 1949 cartoon illustration by Severin is from The Art of Harvey Kurtzman, The Mad Genius of Comics by Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle.

Sale is seated with his back to us, and is singing along with a radio commercial. It's said that Sale stuttered, but could sing radio jingles with no impediment.

"Half Man" is an allegory about Jim Crow and the treatment of African-Americans in the U.S. after returning from World War II. They rightfully felt they'd be recognized for their service and given full rights as citizens. Even in 1954 when dealing with such subject matter as race, the main characters shown are white. It undercuts the point, but publishers tread a little more lightly in those days when they were scared of losing readers in areas of the country where segregation was the law.

"Half Man" is credited at the Atlas Tales website to "Fass?" which means Myron Fass, and the question mark means they aren't sure. I'm not familiar enough with Myron Fass' comic art to make a determination, but I know a bit about Fass's later life as a publisher of sleazy and exploitation magazines, including the Eerie Publications line. You can read about Myron Fass here.











**********
Say what?

I could take you more seriously if you'd stop wearing mouse ears.

From Atomic War #3.

[This review comes from Adam J. Noble, a public librarian living in Eastern Canada.]

If you go shopping on Amazon for trade collections of Uncanny X-Men, you’ll find that those unpredictable mad scientists who toil in Amazon’s warehouses have decided to begin numbering the Uncanny X-Men volumes with Matt Fraction’s first crack at writing the Mopey Mutants (eg. Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1: Manifest Destiny; Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2: Lovelorn), which is fair enough. Fraction is doing the nigh-impossible and giving us a fresh, exciting take on the X-Men without venturing too far left of field into hard sci-fi (i.e. Grant Morrison’s New X-Men) or going off in the other direction, into soap opera territory (Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men). Fraction’s been delivering an allegorically charged, witty and fun take on the X-Men that feels like it’s just getting started.

However! Amazon’s unofficial “numbering system” ignores the collection Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand, which falls in between Fraction’s run and the Uncanny X-Men/X-Men/X-Force/New X-Men crossover Messiah CompleX. I came up in the 1990s, my brothers and sisters -- I am not going to read an X-Men crossover ever again, if I can help it. (Once Onslaught-en, twice shy.) So I feel completely justified in telling people to skip Messiah CompleX and begin with Divided We Stand -- which features a recap page, if you need it.

But the volume doesn’t feel like the epilogue to a line-wide crossover. It instead feels like a prologue, and a more than serviceable one at that. Any explicit references to prior events feel more like the in media res way that Grant Morrison often begins his books (“Jimmy’s been cursed by a gypsy fortune-teller? Sure, why not…”).

Although Fraction isn’t credited with the writing of this volume, his Immortal Iron Fist collaborator Ed Brubaker is surprisingly on top of his game here, so much so that one suspects that Fraction was involved to a large extent in the plotting. I’ve criticized Brubaker on this site before: he’s capable of crafting great crime comics but writes in such a grim, “realistic” idiom that he shouldn’t be allowed within ten feet (3.048 metres) of a superhero comic writing credit. Yet, here’s a Brubaker-penned story about Cyclops and Emma Frost vacationing in the Savage Land, Angel and Warpath getting hypnotized into thinking that they’re hippies (along with most of San Francisco), and Nightcrawler wearing an Angelina Jolie hologram so that Colossus gets photographed by paparazzi.

Yeah, not so much with the grim.

I suspected briefly that Fraction might even have ghost-written this volume, except it features lots of Brubaker hallmarks like having everybody give long speeches about exactly how they feel (like people do all the time in real life right? *COUGH*) and Emma Frost not sounding the least bit English or, for that matter, bitchy.

But in all, this is the most fun superhero book that Brubaker has attached his name to, and it does a great job of setting the stage for a pretty terrific Fraction run. If you’re looking to get on board with Uncanny X-Men after hearing all the buzz surrounding the current crossover with Dark Avengers, this is a great place to start -- consider it Volume Zero and dig in. Uncanny X-Men: the San-Francisco treat.

Bonus review: Wolverine: Get Mystique, written by Jason Aaron and illustrated by Ron Garney (the creative team behind the excellent ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X), serves a similar function to Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand, in that it acts as a bridge from Messiah CompleX into the new status quo. Mystique -- whom casual X-Fans will remember as being played by naked Rebecca Romijn in the movies -- has betrayed the X-Men’s sympathies once again, and Wolverine has been tasked by Cyclops to bring her down ... permanentlyOOOHSNAP.

Wolverine’s hunt for Mystique across continents and war zones turns out to be a framing device built to showcase a flashback to the pair’s first meeting, in the days of flappers, speakeasies and the Charleston. Wolverine and Mystique’s relationship escalates until it reaches a climax in a boxcar that neither of them could have foreseen. Funny, violent, genuinely disturbing and most of all sad, Wolverine: Get Mystique is not just the best solo Wolverine story ever: it’s also one of the best collected editions Marvel has ever released. And for a $10.99 US cover price, it’s also a bargain.

Get this, then get the collection entitled X-Men: Manifest Destiny, which mostly consists of the Aaron-penned story of what Wolverine gets up to once he moves back to San Francisco with the other X-Men (it involves kung-fu warlords and is perfect). Then, start picking up Wolverine: Weapon X.

Ol’ Sniktbub has never been better at doing what he does. He’s the San Francisco treat. (I already used that joke? Never mind. Just pretend I made a Grateful Dead reference.)

Number 601


"Outside the forbidden pages of deSade..."


Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham, M.D., is often mentioned in comic book circles but how many have actually read it? I read it a couple of times over 40 years ago and a lot of it is still vivid to me, especially in the illustration section with the out-of-context panels and covers. They were taken as examples from the worst comics Wertham could find.


"Veiled Lady" is from St. John's Authentic Police Cases #2, and is a reprint from Red Band Comics #16. Both of the appearances were in the 1940s, and long off sale by the time Wertham used them in his infamous 1954 book.

The whole silly story is best known for the first panel, page two (also the panel on top of this page). Dr. Wertham said this in a caption, "Outside the forbidden pages of deSade, you find draining a girl's blood only in children's comics." Like his other choices, he never gave any context to the panels, just used them for their shock value.

Wertham was not the only anti-comics crusader. There had been organized efforts against comic books practically since their inception. By the time Seduction was published the public clamor had reached a peak, had even provoked senate hearings. The Comics Code was an industry attempt to keep comic books on the stands, because there were boycotts going on. The illustrations in Seduction, including this crazy "deSade panel," had a lot to do with bringing major changes to an industry.

Number 600


The Marvel Family and the Great Space Struggle


The Marvel Family #75, from 1952, is a comic I've wanted to show for quite some time. It's drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger, good in itself, but written in his inimitable Captain Marvel style by Otto Binder. Otto, who was science fiction writer Eando Binder (he started out collaborating with his brother Earl, hence Earl and Otto Binder), had a light touch with dialogue and captions, and kept the stories moving fast, with some funny moments.

I like that it's one of those future-in-the-past stories, which I define as a story with a year designated as the future, and yet is in our real world past. We get to see how far off the mark the predictions are. In "The Great Space Struggle!" 1960 is the future year, just eight years from the date of the comic book, but already far enough--according to the story--that we have rocket ships heading for other planets. Binder ignores time travel paradoxes. The Marvels would meet themselves in the future, just eight years older, and their future selves would remember and anticipate what was going to happen in 1960, blah blah blah...

It's a fun story with fine artwork.

Number 599


Vampire World!


Who's Cresto? I looked at the fount of inexhaustible knowledge, the Grand Comics Database, and they list Cresto as the artist for this story from DC Comics' Strange Adventures #6, March 1951. In all my decades of looking at old comics it's the first time I've ever come across that name, so maybe someone out there can tell me who Cresto is. Whoever he is, "Vampire World" is a very well-drawn strip, with some real dramatic panels.

I like early issues of Strange Adventures because writers are credited. Writers never got to sign their stories. It seems natural, since Strange Adventures editor Julius Schwartz was a literary agent for several science fiction writers when he began his career. Manny Rubin is credited with the story.

And who's Manny Rubin? He's quite accomplished and you can find information on him here.