Here is the third story from the one-shot Captain Rocket, a Canadian comic book from 1951.
It's well-illustrated, but the silly costumes, as usual, crack me up. I especially like the open-shirted look of Tubby. Say, this isn't Tubby Tompkins of Little Lulu fame grown up, is it?
Futuristic fashions notwithstanding this has robots, and I love a story with robots.
The first two stories from this science fiction comic can be found in Pappy's #517 and Pappy's #533.
Chris Marshall at the Collected Comics Library reports that Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth, due April 2010, could include not only Green Lantern: Rebirth, but also Green Lantern #1-6, collected in Green Lantern: No Fear.
[Note: Rumors fly fast and furious especially around convention season, and indeed we're now hearing that Green Lantern: No Fear may not appear in Green Lantern: Rebirth. In all cases, advance solicitation information should not be considered final until officially solicited by the comics publisher (see, for instance, the change in the Final Crisis collection's contents). The below post has been edited to reflect the new status of the Rebirth information, and we regret any confusion this caused.]
As pleased as I am to see Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth (because, hey, why not?), the possibility of including No Fear would make for, in my opinion, a terrifically uneven reading experience. Green Lantern: Rebirth is quite self-contained, whereas Green Lantern #6 ends on something of an inconclusive note, and the art there by Simone Bianchi differs drastically from what came before.
Granted, those last issues include an appearance by Black Hand, he of Blackest Night, so no doubt that would be a benefit.
But putting No Fear in Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth would beg the question, as one fan asked at the Geoff Johns Spotlight panel, is there more on the way? The subsequent issues of Green Lantern are good but aren't necessarily notable, but there's long been speculation about an Absolute version of The Sinestro Corps War; stretching out Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth would seem the first step toward a sequel.
Thanks also to Rob Stuparyk and Chris Hilker for the head's up and corrections.
Four trade paperbacks ago (roughly fourteen issues of collected comics), Judd Winick ended Green Arrow and began Green Arrow/Black Canary. Since then, Winick has essentially told just one story, that of Green Arrow Oliver Queen's globe-spanning search to find his missing son Connor Hawke, also known as Green Arrow. That story ends in Green Arrow/Black Canary: A League of Their Own, which includes some pleasing ties to the Green Arrow mythos; more controversial I imagine is what seems to have been the intent of this long story, to remove Connor Hawke as Green Arrow and leave only Oliver Queen with the title.
Throughout Winick's run on Green Arrow/Black Canary, I've praised his use of the characters and settings of the DC Universe in demonstrating Green Arrow and Black Canary's central place among those characters. This continues in League of Their Own, with appearances by Batman and Plastic Man as well as a villain recently featured in Winick's Outsiders. Even better in this volume, however, is Winick's inclusion of longtime Green Arrow villain Shado. I hadn't considered that while Green Arrow/Black Canary has been a good DCU story, it hasn't been a terribly Green Arrow-centric story--but using Shado, even if her role could have been played by any of a number of other villains, at least gives the story a bit more relevance.
Ever since Green Arrow Oliver Queen's resurrection a few years back, there's been a surplus of Green Arrows with Connor Hawke. Winick wrote Hawke to great effect in the previous Green Arrow series, but "Team Arrow" never quite had the cache of the Green Lantern Corps. For a while -- per the DC Comics hype machine in full force during the early days of Countdown to Final Crisis -- there was every reason to believe Judd Winick might let Connor Hawke die during the initial events Green Arrow/Black Canary; I don't believe Winick disliked Hawke (in fact, quite the opposite), but I can see how two Green Arrows might not fit with DC's current trend toward having a one, true, iconic version of their heroes.
Instead, what we find at the end of League of Their Own is a Connor Hawke who's still alive, still a hero, still a martial artist -- in fact, even has some enhanced strength and healing factor these days -- but can't hit a target with an arrow even if it's standing right in front of him. In a move that's on one hand ingenious and on the other smacks of such silly weaknesses as vulnerability to yellow or wood, fans can still enjoy the adventures of Connor Hawke, but he'll never again be named Green Arrow because of said aversion to pointy things.
This is good, I think, if you were never all that crazy about Team Arrow, though likely a troubling trend. Whereas the writers didn't make the mistake of also calling Nightwing "Batman" when he first went out on his own, and the nature of the Corps allows Kyle Rayner to be called Green Lantern alongside Hal Jordan, Flash Wally West best be a bit concerned now that there are additional contenders for the Flash name.
I was concerned that Oliver Queen didn't have a place in the DC Universe when he was first resurrected; since that time I've grown to like the character very much. He's now in essence the One True Green Arrow, but with Judd Winick leaving the title, I wonder about the future of the character. I like Green Arrow, but how does the Green Arrow title differentiate itself from Batman or Manhunter, and how does it avoid the that lead to the former series' cancellation? These'll be things I'm watching when the new creative team comes along.
[Contains full covers.]
On now to finish Jim Shooter's run on Legion of Super-Heroes. Don't miss it!
Number 562
More Dennis by Wiseman
Here are some more selections from Dennis the Menace comic books by Hank Ketcham assistant and superb all-around cartoonist, Al Wiseman.
The Dennis story from Dennis #39, November 1959, is in a style Wiseman and writer Fred Toole did so well, Dennis in a fantasy historical situation shown from his childish point of view; in this case, with "Dan'l Spoon." I'm uncomfortable with Dennis' line, "I thought only dead Indians was good Indians." This is from a Code-approved book? Unfortunately, it is also from 1959, when that type of humor was acceptable, even under the Comics Code.
As a bonus I'm also including two non-Dennis stories by Wiseman. The Punky story, from Dennis #24, is dedicated to my friend, Steve Banes, aka Karswell, who is also known as rocker, Punky, from the band, Sons of Black Mass. Here's a picture of that Punky, taken a few years ago. If you want to know more about Steve "Punky Karswell" Banes, read this interesting interview with him.
The final story is a Grampa story from Dennis #39...and dear to my heart. I'm not only a pappy, I'm a grandpappy, too.
Just learned we can expect Crisis on Multiple Earths Vol. 5 -- first solicited in 2007 and long considered the holy grail of missing DC Comics collections -- coming April 2010.
Also, the first hardcover collection of Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly's Batman & Robin, "Batman Reborn," will be in deluxe format to match Batman RIP.
In April 2007, DC Comics solicited Crisis on Multiple Earths Vol. 5, the next volume in a series collecting the classic JLA/JSA team-ups the preceded Crisis on Infinite Earths. At the time, the book was to include Justice League of America #159-160 ("Crisis from Yesteday" and "Crisis from Tomorrow," where the JLA/JSA meet the Black Pirate, Enemy Ace, Jonah Hex, Miss Liberty, and the Viking Prince); 171-172 ("Crisis Above Earth-One," the death of the original Mr. Terrific); and #183-185 ("Crisis on New Genesis," "Crisis Between Two Earths," and "Crisis on Apokolips," where the JLA/JSA encounter the New Gods).
I'm pleased to see the first collection of the Morrison/Quietly series get the deluxe treatment not only for the better view of Quietly's art, but also that it'll fits on my shelf right next to Batman RIP.
Sure, any number of people may be looking for classic Superboy team-ups collected in this volume, but I'd like to see the two issues generally known as Superboy/Robin: WF3 (or "World's Finest Three," following Dave Gibbon's World's Finest and Walt Simonson's Legends of the World's Finest. Published in the heyday of the new Superboy (later Kon-El) and Tim Drake Robin series, these were written by respective series writers Karl Kesel and Chuck Dixon, with art by Tom Grummett who had worked on both series. Like my all-time favorite team-up, The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, this story teams not just the heroes, but their supporting casts, and it's well worthy of being collected.
The second JLA Deluxe volume collected issues #10-17. If this one skips #18-21, which were Mark Waid-written issues (and good issues, but I don't know if this is just a Morrison series collection), then it might collect #22-23 (with the Sandman), #24-26 (Ultramarine Corp and the new Shaggy Man), and #28-31 ("Crisis Times Five" with the JSA). DC One Million falls in there, too, and it'll be interesting to see how DC handles that.
I thought this was the last of two volumes, but there's a lot of Perez Justice League still to collect (I count 21 issues: #195-197, 199, 200-205, 207-209, 212-215, 217-220). Maybe a third volume will follow?
I'm rather surprised to see Gotham Sirens in hardcover even as Red Robin appears in paperback. I certainly enjoyed Paul Dini's work on Detective Comics, but not enough to purchase what's a truly ancillary title (not even one of Batman's assistants, but a gaggle of villains) in hardcover.
The title of this reminds me of Teen Titans: A Kid's Game, which I consider both a great Titans story and a fantastically well-collected trade (you can barely tell where one issue ends and another begins) -- and how little I've been enjoying Titans lately as compared to when the title began. It's sad, really, that a title that begins with such steam can fall so far; it makes me concerned for the day the same might happen to Green Lantern, for instance.
See our thoughts on the other DC Comics' 2010 trade paperback and collected edition solicitations, including DC Universe: Origins and more!
[Contains spoilers for Superman: Brainiac]
The collected Superman: Brainiac follows a string of Action Comics successes for Geoff Johns, but this may be the best of the library. Johns and then-Superman writer Kurt Busiek effectively rebooted the Superman franchise with Up, Up, and Away and Last Son, but on the eve of the "New Krypton" storyline, Brainiac feels like another reboot -- one that firmly grounds Superman in his Metropolis supporting cast and portrays the best Clark Kent I've seen in years.
As he's has done before in Green Lantern and Hawkman, Johns revitalizes the Superman/Brainiac rivalry by offering a new take which simultaneously preserves everything that came before. The iterations of Brainiac that Superman has fought before, he learns, are simply probes of the one, true Brainiac, which Johns can now introduce for the first time. Never mind that this makes no sense in the context of the original stories; that Johns offers even this partial nod to continuity is what counts.
Johns's new Brainiac is actually a bit mundane as Brainiacs go, essentially a rehashing of the Superman: The Animated Series Brainiac. But in tying Brainiac to Krypton, Johns makes Brainiac a better foil for Superman than he's been before ("You've told me Lex Luthor is everything bad about humanity," Supergirl quips. "Well, Brainiac is everything bad about aliens."). The even bigger selling point for the new Brainiac, however, is artist Gary Frank, who channels his inner Ridley Scott for a decidedly Alien take on Brainiac, complete with organic-mechanical tubes drilling through Superman's forehead and down his throat. As in Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Frank draws a suspenseful, pulse-pounding ending to the story as good as any Superman movie.
Where Johns really succeeds in this volume is in the small set-up scenes, before Brainiac arrives, of Clark Kent and Lois Lane at the Daily Planet. Pre-Infinite Crisis, Greg Rucka wrote a more traditionally nerdy Clark Kent that differed from the mid-1990s budding novelist Kent, but that lacked the tongue-in-cheek sparkle we saw in the nerdy Clark Kent of the Superman movies. But as Johns's Clark Kent mildly but pointedly defuses the over-the-top Daily Planet staffers Steve Lombard and Cat Grant, with a Margot Kidder-styled Lois Lane smirking behind, we not only get a perfect demonstration of how Clark Kent and Superman could exist in the same person, but why Lois Lane and Clark Kent are perfect partners -- without the mushy declarations of affection found in James Robinson's The Coming of Atlas over in the Superman title.
Johns makes the choice in this volume to kill Pa Kent. While I don't mind the unabashed love Johns and company show for the Superman movies in this current Action Comics run, I was disappointed by the loss of a character that I felt added a lot to the 1990s-era Superman stories (though thankfully Johns spared us the "All my powers ..." line). I do understand that this affords Johns the opportunity to truly differentiate his run from that of the ground-breaking 1980s Superman revamp by John Byrne that kept Pa Kent alive for the first time in decades; I also understand the thematic dichotomy of Pa Kent dying at the same time Superman enters the "New Krypton" storyline. I'm not entirely convinced the thematic tie was worth it though; I'll be watching "New Krypton" for that moment, if you will, that without Pa Kent's death it wouldn't have been possible to achieve.
Despite my indecision, however, Superman: Brainiac is a good comic, it's good Superman, and as with Geoff Johns's Superman tales before, it's based in continuity while at the same time something I think I could give a new comics reader and they'd understand all the beats. I'm a long-time Superman fan, and it's been a while since the title's been this good as Johns's Action Comics.
[Contains full covers]
Green Arrow/Black Canary and Legion of Super-Heroes coming up next week. Stay tuned!
Number 561
End of the line
"End Of the Line," is a prophetic title for this story from Adventures Into the Unknown #61, January-February 1955. It was the last issue of that title before the Comics Code took effect. It was also the last story of the issue, so planned or not, it became a swansong to an era free of censorship, if not of controversy.
For several preceding issues, and obviously before ACG signed up for the Code, there had been talk in editor Richard E. Hughes's letter column, "Let's Talk It Over," asking readers if they wanted to see more "shock" stories. "Shock" in this case meant EC-style, non-supernatural horror stories. Adventures Into the Unknown was proud that it had been the first of the supernatural titles, and editor Hughes must've worn out his rotater cuff patting himself on the back touting the comic's excellence. Still, readers were asking for another kind of story and Hughes felt he must poll his readers.
A few months later in his column, now under the Code, editor Hughes was telling his readers that "some publishers" dragged the whole industry into areas which caused a public uproar and the need for the Comics Code. But ACG had pioneered the supernatural comic, had published dozens of stories of monsters and mayhem that added to the outcry. Except for going all out for grue and gore like some publishers, Hughes really hadn't much room to talk.
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Secret Identity, The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator, Joe Shuster By Craig Yoe, Introduction by Stan Lee Abrams ComicArts, 161 pages, 2009 $24.95
Craig Yoe tells two stories in this book: One is of a sleazy publication called Nights of Horror used as the centerpiece for a sensational 1954 case of murderous, sadistic delinquents tabloids called the Thrill Killers. The other story is the tragedy of Joe Shuster, the one-time great American success story, Superman's original artist and co-creator, who had the rug jerked out from under him. The two stories converge because Joe Shuster was the artist for the sleazy publication, available in Times Square bookstores, which depicted whippings, torture and beatings.
Until recently it wasn't known that Shuster did the illustrations. Anyone familiar with his work apparently recognized his drawings when Yoe showed them a copy he'd found. It's why Yoe called the book Secret Identity. Shuster did the drawings in a sub rosa fashion for much needed money.
The storm that broke over Nights of Horror was fed by the furor over comic books in 1953 and 1954, when Seduction Of the Innocent, by Fredric Wertham, M.D., was published.* The boys who emulated Nights of Horror were also inveterate comic book readers, crime and especially horror comics. Dr. Wertham was called in to assess the boys, and his methodology was the same he used with his other "research." If Wertham talked to a kid who had gotten into trouble he asked him, "Do you read comic books?" and if the kid said "yes" then the comic books became the reason the boy was in trouble. It didn't have to do with the kid being a sociopath who happened to read comic books, he was a sociopath because he read comic books. In this case Wertham brought a set of Nights of Horror to the gang leader's cell and asked if this was the sort of thing he read. The boy thumbed through a couple of them and said, "That's it."
That boy Wertham showed Nights of Horror to sometimes dressed up in a vampire outfit when he went out to do his damage, and that was somehow tied to Atlas horror comics. Stan Lee, who was the editor at Atlas, doesn't mention the connection in his introduction to the book.
So the Thrill Killers case was tabloid fodder, making lurid headlines in 1954. The heat came down on the printer of Nights of Horror, but not Shuster, who remained anonymous. At the time of his death he probably thought this episode in his life would never be known.
Craig Yoe talked to people associated with Joe Shuster, and to people who had something to do with the case of the Brooklyn Thrill Killers. I'm surprised he found them; it's been almost six decades and the case is long forgotten by the public. Nowadays the illustrations that caused such a firestorm can be printed in a well-produced book, published and distributed by a class publisher like Abrams. What seemed horrific at one time: pornography, forbidden rites, BDSM, fetishes, high heels, whips and chains, even voyeurism, seems tamer to us now. Turn on the TV on any night of the week and the crime and detective shows will produce something much, much worse to look at.
I bought Yoe's book because I was curious, like many others who buy it, I suspect. I'm a fan of the history of comic art and comic books. Shuster's illustrations are given the bulk of the book, and are fascinating when looked at in their context as both notorious and an offshoot of the history of comics. What I noticed is that they aren't any worse than that which had been published a couple of decades earlier in the Spicy line of pulp magazines. In the examples printed in Secret Identity of whippings, for example, not one shows a whip actually hitting flesh.There are indications, light lines across a back, but Shuster kept it coy and showed as much as he probably thought he could get away with without showing absolutely everything. There is a picture of a bound girl being prodded with a knife, yet many horror and crime comics of that period showed people being stabbed by knives. Nights of Horror was probably less graphic than some of that era's 10¢ comic books. Shuster's illustrations are not as titillating as we would see today, or even by the standards of fetish artists like Eneg (Gene Bilbrew) or Eric Stanton.
Secret Identity is a fascinating look at a hitherto unknown bit of comic books history, and credit goes out to Craig Yoe for bringing it to our attention.
*Wertham and his book, Seduction Of the Innocent created my interest in crime and horror comics. When I read the book in 1959 at age 12 I hadn't seen any "real" horror comics and I made it my business to find as many of them as I could. I wanted to see what made them so bad. I'm sure there are other fans like me who used that book as their starting point. Wertham's book is an example of the law of unintended consequences. He set out to do one thing and yet, over time, did something else.
As Secret Identity shows, over a half century later we see this sort of thing as campy or quaint. Horror comics of the '50s may have gruesome images which are themselves fetishistic, with skeletons, walking corpses, chesty females (sometimes in bondage), monsters and killers, and while we may love their funky look (as I do) the original shock of these comics is mitigated by the violence of modern movies, television, video games, and yes, even comic books.
