Just received word that DC Comics will release Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory in hardcover format in 2010.

This should in truth come as no surprise given the current popularity of (A) hardcover collections and (B) Grant Morrison.

Bigger yet is the news that this will likely not be a four volume set like the Seven Soldiers of Victory paperbacks, but rather two oversized volumes collecting the thirty-part miniseries.

My question to you is: there was much controversy about the way DC originally collected Seven Soldiers (linearly, rather than by character story). So, this time around, would you like to see the collection ordered by character, or presented the same way as the paperbacks?

[This review comes from Bob Schoonover, who's annotating NBC's Chuck on his blog.]

Daredevil: The Devil, Inside and Out, Vol. 1 is the beginning of Ed Brubaker's run on Daredevil, and, given the first six pages, ought to have been confusing and required weeks of digging through previous trades to understand what was going on. To be sure, the status quo in Marvel books is changing regularly, and this can be a headache for someone wanting to begin following Marvel characters. Realizing that the first trade in Mr. Brubaker's run begins with Matt Murdock, Daredevil, in prison, can be even more off-putting.

To his credit, Mr. Brubaker deftly pulls off the explanation of Matt Murdock's imprisonment without lengthy flashbacks or relying on the reader to be familiar with Brian Michael Bendis's previous run. In the end, he presents a compelling story of the prisons in Matt Murdock's life - the one Murdock is incarcerated in, the one created by his secret identity, and the one created around him by his family and friends.

The story begins with a Daredevil fighting crime in Hell's Kitchen, while Matt Murdock sits in prison, charged with obstruction of justice (essentially, for being Daredevil). Of course, Murdock is in the same prison as many of his enemies, including The Owl, The Kingpin, and Hammerhead. These two story strands interweave as the Daredevil on the outside interacts with Foggy Nelson and the rest of Murdock's law team, while Matt Murdock takes control of his prison life. By the end of this arc, the second Daredevil is revealed (this would be the Daredevil that was in Civil War), and Matt Murdock begins his quest to find out who set him up to go to prison (a fact that will be made plain in the next review).

My experience with Daredevil had been mostly limited to Frank Miller's run from the '80s and a random trade here or there. However, I enjoyed Brubaker's run on Batmanand Detective Comics, and decided to follow him to the most "Batman-like" character in the Marvel universe. Brubaker comes out swinging for the fences, including Bullseye, The Kingpin, a second Daredevil, and The Punisher in his opening arc. It was clear that from the various conversations and narrations that I had missed a lot in Matt Murdock's life, but Brubaker deftly covered the important parts, allowing the story to flow without the need for editor's boxes, or for me to hit Wikipedia. This was all done while keeping the story moving at a brisk pace, something I always appreciate.

As good as the story is, and it is good, the art by Michael Lark really makes the book stand out. Lark's style works spectacularly in the "realistic" setting of Hell's Kitchen and prison. My first exposure to Lark was in Gotham Central, and I think he really upped his game since then. The last four pages of the TPB contain an interview from Marvel Spotlight with Brubaker and Lark concerning the opening sequence of this trade, and Lark explains some of his techniques and choices - I'm not an art student by any stretch, but after reading the interview and re-reading the trade again, it's clear that Lark had a very specific idea of the world he was working in, and he executed it perfectly.

For those that are curious about continuity, this volume takes place approximately during Civil War. I think Brubaker managed to have the only comic series/property at Marvel that wasn't involved in the battle between heroes, and I'm glad for it. Daredevil's strength, as both a character and a series, comes from him being out on his own or with other street-level heroes. Daredevil may be the best Marvel analog to DC's Batman, but unlike Batman, who has been elevated from a street-level hero to the Bat-God (see Morrison's run on JLA, or even Mark Waid's) so that he can interact with other superheroes and be involved in cosmic events, Daredevil has chosen not to be in the New Avengers, and has largely avoided the bigger events (it does not appear that he was involved in any Secret Invasion crossovers, either, and I haven't seen a Dark Reign tie-in yet).

By avoiding some of these high-octane stories, the writers can keep Daredevil on the street, and don't have to continuously create more ridiculous situations/villains to spur the hero on or make the universe consistent [it's always seemed odd to me that Nightwing has faced Trigon (The New Teen Titans), Batman has faced off against New Gods (JLA: The Rock of Ages) and Martians ( JLA: New World Order), and Robin faces off against Anarky].

For anyone that liked Brubaker's Batman run (or Greg Rucka's run in Detective, for that matter), Frank Miller's Daredevil run, or Batman: Year One, I think Daredevil: The Devil, Inside and Out, Vol. 1 will suit your needs. Brubaker and Lark have crafted a great prison story where everyone - the prisoners, the guards, the people on the outside - has depth, human needs and human emotions, and Daredevil is, as it always seems, put through the wringer.

[Read a review of Daredevil: The Devil, Inside and Out Vol. 2 from Collected Editions contributor Jeffrey Hardy Quah.]

Number 589


The patriotic Yankee


Yankee Longago, who travels in time (as we saw in Pappy's #366), this time has a near-Bill Murray Groundhog Day experience, where he relives a day. He then steps into a war bonds poster and becomes part of the shooting war in Europe. In this morality tale by Dick "Frankenstein" Briefer our boy Yankee realizes he's not doing enough to help win the war. He's selfish, spending his savings on a bicycle instead of a war bond.

In 1944 terms the story made sense; in 2009 we think of the poor shopkeeper. He refunds Yankee's money, tells him he'll hold the bike and when Yankee saves more money he can buy it. Yankee says, "...when I save up another $18.75 I'll buy another bond." That was then, this is now. A consumer was then guilty of not spending money on bullets, as consumers today we are made to feel guilty for not spending our money on things we really don't need so we can "help the economy."

If the bicycle man was still in business when the war ended maybe Yankee got his bike. The story is from Boy Comics #18, October 1944.

Number 588


Third time's not always the charm...the origin of Stuntman


Stuntman was created for Harvey Comics by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1946, but had a short run, only two issues. (Two issues sold on the newsstand, one small black and white edition for subscribers; now very rare.) After the war ended superheroes went into doldrums and as in nature, only the strong survived. Even some of the best, like Flash or Green Lantern, were gone before 1950. Stuntman's origin was reprinted in 1948, and then the original two issues again in late '54 as a Harvey science fiction title, Thrills of Tomorrow #19 and #20. Number 19 was published just before the Comics Code was instituted, and it appears that Harvey was gearing up by replacing its horror comics and going for fare that would get less criticism from the public.

As it was, Harvey's bread-and-butter became its line for very young children.

Stuntman is high energy S&K, but the origin is based on coincidence: Stuntman, a circus daredevil, looks just like Don Daring, a "movie star and amateur detective", so does his heavy work for him in front of the camera, while everyone thinks it's Don. This third Stuntman go-round didn't do any better than the first or second, so once again Stuntman stepped off the stage into obscurity.

But at least we had this much, and any time I look at a Simon & Kirby strip I love the action-filled pages.. Whether or not they were successful sellers, Jack's dynamic artwork could breathe life into even the most prosaic of concepts, but, like his characters, jumped off the page with his superhero and crimefighter strips.

Number 587


The Officer and the Oatburner


Here's a tender tale of the relationship between an officer and his horse. It's from Gang Busters #14, 1950.

"I Gallop For Danger" is an excellent example of Frank Frazetta's ability to draw animals.

I wonder if Geoff Johns would hesitate if someone asked him which characters he preferred to write, the Flash or the Rogues?

[Contains spoilers for Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge]

In Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge, writer Geoff Johns reunites with artist Scott Kolins and proves sometimes you can get the band back together again. Johns' five-year run on The Flash remains one of my favorites (see my retrospective of Johns' Flash run), and in Rogues' Revenge he not only returns most of the series' main supporting characters for a final bow, he also builds on a couple of the characters in the process. Add to that Rogues' Revenge's perfect position as a bridge between the disparate Countdown to Final Crisis and the miniseries itself, and it combined for a story I literally didn't want to end.

Even more clearly than in Flash, Johns demonstrates here the dichotomy of the Flash's Rogues. These are quite remarkably deadly foes, as Johns proves in the brutal second chapter when the Rogues torture and decimate a group of replacements. At the same time, they are to a one wracked with guilt over having killed the Flash Bart Allen, believing in a warped sense of fair play where they don't kill anyone who wouldn't kill them in turn. But we can't forget that each Rogue emerged from a terrifyingly damaged family situation, so much so that Captain Cold hardly blinks before ordering the death of his own father.

What we find is a group of bad guys near unquantifiable among the other villains of the DC Universe. While every other villain (including, Johns points out, Superman's Lex Luthor) joins Libra in Darkseid's cult of evil, Captain Cold quips that he doesn't believe in evil, only "different shades of grey." All of this is Johns' invention -- the Rogues weren't nearly so complex in previous eras -- but indeed it helps to define them as something different that the patients of Arkham and the Sinestro Corps. The Rogues are on one hand rational villains who commit crimes only for gain, not maliciousness; but they're all also on the bleeding edge of plum crazy, and Johns doesn't let us forget it.

At first I thought it something of a waste that DC included the already-collected Captain Cold profile at the end of this book, but Johns offers so much detail about Cold here that I found myself reading that story again. Johns' posited Cold in his Flash stories as leader of the Rogues and the antithesis of the Flash Wally West -- from a broken home like Wally, Cold is essentially what Wally could have become if not for the guidance of Barry and Iris Allen. Though Cold's arc essentially ended in Flash, Johns unexpectedly brings Cold's abusive father into the scene, and pages of violence are followed by quiet interaction between Cold and his father -- which itself gives way to more violence. The sequence is, if you'll forgive the pun, chilling, and cements Cold as an oft-overlooked villain worth watching.

I also appreciated that Johns took a few pages to fill in a gap in the history of the Weather Wizard. Whether by design or the fallout of retroactive continuity, the Weather Wizard's origin has historically been a little murky; he's at different times been believed to control the weather either on his own or through a staff invented by his brother, who either died of a heart attack or whom the Wizard himself murdered. In Rogues' Revenge, the Rogues end up in the selfsame observatory where Wizard's brother died, and Johns finally reveals the truth -- no big surprise, and indeed the entire scene in the observatory was hardly necessary, but I appreciate that Johns took the time to tie up this loose end.

Like DC Universe: Last Will and Testament, Rogues' Revenge serves as a mediator between Countdown to Final Crisis and Final Crisis, neither one of which itself quite fit into DC Comics continuity. The Rogues murdering Bart Allen was one of the lynchpins of Countdown, and this series addresses that in terms of Final Crisis, as Libra takes special interest in the Rogues for having killed a speedster. This volume acknowledges not only the death of the first Trickster from Countdown, but also the Pied Piper's semi-comprehensible ties to Darkseid's Anti-Life Equation in the same series.

(As a side note, one has to acknowledge that DC Comics has had a pretty rough time of it in the run-up to Final Crisis. Fans generally panned Countdown to Final Crisis, and for the success of Sinestro Corps War there was also the failure of Amazons Attack; more than a handful of the One Year Later titles were cancelled. With Batman RIP and New Krypon, DC seems back on track, but I remember the outcry over the death of Bart Allen, and in that way the Rogues represent a trying time for DC. When Captain Cold delivers a lethal blow to the comics-arbiter of Bart's demise, Interia, in thanks for "one $%@#$@-up year," I have to think the Rogues are getting their revenge on a couple of levels.)

[Contains full covers, Captain Cold and Zoom reprint stories]

Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge is hardly a necessary story. It doesn't add much to Final Crisis on one hand, and likely isn't essential before you read Flash: Rebirth on the other. But this is a good story, a good crime story, a good DC Universe villain story, and hands down one of my top recent favorites.

Number 586


Izzy and Dizzy and the genie of the lamp


Animator/comic book artist and writer Ken Hultgren makes his second appearance here. His first, in Pappy's #408 had me asking a question about Hultgren. Paul Spector told us that Hultgren was born in 1915 and died in 1968. Hultgren was part of the Sangor Shop, which provided comics to the company that became ACG. The artists who worked for Sangor were moonlighting animators.

Dave Miller kindly provided the scans for this story from Ha Ha Comics #33. He also sent me some more scans from this issue as well as other funny animal comics from his collection. You will see more of Dave's comics in the coming weeks as I work with his generous donations of material.

You can see some of Dave's own cartooning--for adults--in Storybored at Hairy Green Eyeball. Dave, you are a very talented guy.