Dreams of Urbicand

I recently had a restless night where I kept dreaming of a black and white comic that I had I once read where a lattice kept growing in and around a city. When I woken up, I figured that I wouldn’t be able to figure out that distant and vague memory was about.

Nope. Two google searches later and I figured out that I had been dreaming of Fever in Urbicand by Francois Schuiten and Benoit Peters. (It’s also been published as The Fever in Urbicande)

Way back in high school, I had read it piecemeal in back issues of Cheval Noir, a Dark Horse comics anthology that reprinted European comics. It was printed in six chapters and I ended up not reading all of them in order since I read them when I could find a back issue.

I learned at that time that it was part of a larger series called Les Cites obscures, stories where architecture and geography and urbanization are used as key components to convey the story. The series is actually larger than I had realized and also includes a movie and at least one art installation. However, from what I can tell, a lot of it has never been released in English. (In fact, I relied on scans and memory to revisit Fever in Urbicand)

Of course, so much media ends up in English, it feels petty to complain lol

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Urbicand is a literally divided city where the elite live on one side of the river and the poors all live on the other side with only two bridges connecting them. And Urbicand is a mashup up of Jules Verne aesthetic and the 1927 Metroplis movie. A mysterious lattice made of an indestructible material that can grow through solid objects without damaging them engulfs the city, connecting everyone and transforming the city.

To be brutally honest, as a concept and a pretty obvious social metaphor, Fever in Urbicand wouldn’t be unusual if it were a written work. And it would fit in with the science fiction anthologies that Marvel and DC published before devoting themselves to superheroes.

However, the comic story would be ten pages long. Fever in Urbicand is much bigger than that in length. It explores the changes the network makes to the city, particularly the political ones. And while the work ends on a mysterious note, with the network growing again until it is presumably bigger than the planet but out of Urbicand, that ambiguity has weight. 

The story does have a point-of-view character, the master architect Robick. Who takes being a passive observer to such an extent that his friends Thomas the political opportunist and Sophie the madame-turned-political-radical comment on it. (Indeed, by the end, instead of Robick being the middle ground between them, they represent one side and Robick the other) However, Robick anchors the reader and even he is changed by the newtwork by the end.

However, the two most important characters are Urbicand and the network. Visually, they dominate the story. Two dueling (?) structures and their interactions drive the plot. And, damned if the art work isn’t beautiful and would look at home in a museum. Urbicand is a vision of precision and control while the network is a power outside of that control.

Fever in Urbicand left enough of an impression that I dreamed about it decades after I last read it. The story itself is an ultimately simple social parable but the artwork is magnificent. It’s not perfect but it has impact.

Where I realize the Long Halloween is a foundational story

Rereading Batman: The Long Halloween, I realize I had forgotten both how good it is and how long ago it was written. Almost thirty years ago but it doesn’t feel that way.

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Of course, part of why The Long Halloween feels timeless is because it is so firmly entrenched in film noire. Which I suppose means it is kind of timely but that time is the 1940s lol

It is also set in that mythic early period of Batman’s history before Robin. Which, in real life was eleven months of comic books but apparently lasted at least ten years of Bruce Wayne’s life in some continuities.

The Long Halloween is a murder mystery, one that never entirely gets resolved (at least to some readers’ satisfaction. And that’s just fine because that’s part of film noire) It also explores the fall of Gotham’s conventional organized crime with the rise of costumed lunatics taking over the criminal world.

The Long Halloween is not the only story that explores Gotham becoming a superhero setting with the likes of the Joker pushing out mobsters who haven’t escaped from Dick Tracy but it does a very good job of it. (It might be one of the earliest stories about that but Batman is too vast a subject for me to the sure)

The Long Halloween also gives us another origin story for Two Face. I’m honestly not sure how many of those we’ve gotten over the years. Two Face is such a hot mess that he can’t help but be fascinating. Again, it does a very good job of it. Having thirteen issues, eleven of them before the disfigurement, helps. It gives us time to get to know Harvey Dent before everything comes crashing down.

Researching the story for this blog, I found that it influenced the Nolan movies and 2022 movie. Which I hadn’t realized but I can see. The fact that I hadn’t realized it speaks to how well The Long Halloween has sunk into the DNA of Batman.

Because while it is a solid mystery with a fascinating serial killer and an engaging origin story for both Two Face and Gotham’s identity as a fever dream, it is, above all else, a cracking good story.

The time Don Rosa explored publishing

I sometimes wonder where Don Rosa would rank worldwide in popularity as a cartoonist. Particularly if you took the United States out of the equation lol

Don Rosa is justifiably considered to be one of the best creators of Disney Duck comic books. And it is hard to discuss his work without also discussing Carl Barks (who _defined_ Disney Duck comic books) or without discussing Duck Tales or without describing his magnum opus, the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.  

But earlier drafts ended up being bloated and, even by my standards, rambling and incoherent. And I probably got lots of details wrong. So I am just going to touch on his Uncle Scrooge story Guardians of the Lost Library.

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The Guardians of the Lost Library features Uncle Scrooge and grandnephews Huey, Dewey and Louie going on a globe trotting adventure to rediscover the Library of Alexandria. In regular history, it was destroyed but there are hints that it survived in the Duck version of the universe.

What unfolds is actually a history of the development of written information. Uncle Scrooge and his nephews discover that each version of the library was condensed and added to by developments in publishing. We go from papyrus scrolls to published books. Each set they find has been destroyed by time but hints are left to guide them further.

The ultimate reveal is that the most recent version of the Library of Alexandria is the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook, the closest thing Disney has to the Necronomicon. It had already been well established as a repository of all knowledge and a Deus ex Mechina that let the nephews get the ducks out of any crisis.

Before I read the story, I already knew about that and I thought that was the point of Guardians of the Lost Library. Instead, Don Rosa explores both how we wrote stuff down and how that affected history. The bit about the guide is just the cherry on top.

Despite being a globe-spanning adventure, Guardians of the Lost Library is a thoughtful work without a lot of blatant conflict. No villains like the Beagle Boys or Magica De Spell. Instead Scrooge and the boys have to deal with forces of time that decayed the various forms of the library and ignorance, embodied by Donald spending the entire story watching TV.

Wikipedia states that the Comic Buyer’s Guide allegedly mentions it as ‘possibly the greatest comic book story of all time’ but with a note stating citation needed. Yeah, that’s a bit much. I wouldn’t describe it as even Don Rosa’s best work. (The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck easily hold that title but it’s also twelve stories, not counting later companion stories, so you can accuse it of cheating lol)

With that said, the Guardians of the Lost Library is fun and charming. It’s a lesson both in history and why people love Don Rosa.

The Singles Club uses pop culture to make high art

I had read that Phonogram vol 2 The Singles Club was the right place to actually start the series, the best of the three volumes. 

Well, I read the first volume first anyway. And quite enjoyed it. I found the complaints that you have to be familiar with the indie music scene for it to make any sense to be heavily exaggerated. You just have to understand fandom in general. 

Then I picked up The Singles Club. And couldn’t put it down lol

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The Singles Club describes the same night at a club seven different times. Wikipedia claims it’s based on a real event but I couldn’t find any other reference to that. More than that, there isn’t any dramatic moment in this evening. It’s eight different people having a night out.

I also want to note that this isn’t a Rashomon story, at least as I understand the term. None of the stories contradict each other. They are just different points of view.

(Rashomon is a movie that has really stuck with me. I know Kurosawa didn’t invent the concept but, man, he created such a definitive example. The dead husband testifying through a medium was so wild to me. And I also appreciate that every single person, even the woodcutter, turns out to be lying)

But that formula wouldn’t be enough to make for a good read. No, the reason the Singles Club is good is because the art and the writing come together to give memorable, believable, flawed, sympathetic characters. 

And the characters are everything. All of the action is internal. There isn’t a dramatic plot structure. Instead, we watch pretty much every character end a touch wiser than they started. 

And then they stick the landing with Kid-With-Knife. Who isn’t a serial killer and whose name I _think_ is a reference to the band Knife. A band I have only heard of through Phonogram. He’s a big, loveable goof. He was the Chas Chandler to David’s John Constantine in the first volume. And he’s convinced David to teach him about Phonomancy.

And KWK works so well as an endnote because he is such a contrast to every other character. He may be a loveable idiot but he knows who he is and he is comfortable in his own skin. His reaction to phonomancy instructions being listen to the music until it fills you is ‘Hell, everybody does that’

Truth to tell, as an old duffer, I related to Rue Britannia better. However, as a work of art, the Singles Club is better. The journey seems to go nowhere but takes you so far.

Jim Shooter leaves behind such a messy legacy

On Monday, June 30, 2025, comic book editor, writer and publisher Jim Shooter died.

And when I read that, I was struck by two thoughts. First, as the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics from 1978 to 1987, he had a huge impact on my childhood. Second, man, he left a complicated legacy.

Because, history has judged him as, to put it politely, quite the jerk. And, from what I can tell, not unfairly.

(I also can’t get over how he started writing comics professionally when he was fourteen.)

Trying to summarize his career, even just the Marvel part, is more than I think I can do without getting too much wrong.

However, during his time as Marvel’s editor-in-chief, he restructured it to be, well, more professional. I think it’s safe to say that allowed Marvel to thrive in the 1980s and his influence on both Marvel and the comic book industry can be felt to this day. From what I have understand, Marvel Comics was close to shutting down when he took over and he turned things around dramatically, making it the market leader.

It’s also safe to say that he could be a tyrant and a jerk, particularly near the end of his time as editor-in-chief. He instituted what were then viewed as homophobic editorial policies (which has to be saying something since it’s not like other media were very embracing) And some of the stories that were made under his watch or even under his pen are terrible. (Avengers #200 is one of the crowning examples. And, no, I don’t feel comfortable describing it)

I’m not very familiar with his work after Marvel so I can’t comment on it.

Jim Shooter leaves behind a complex, divisive legacy. He was profoundly hated by many. And I was only on board for a relatively small part of the journey, albeit what might have been the most important part. And I don’t know if I would have become a comic book fan without his work.

You don’t have know indie music to appreciate Phonogram

Until earlier this week as of my writing this, I had never heard of the comic book Phonogram until I saw a clickbait article saying it was one of the all time greats of comic book-dom. So I found a copy of the first volume and read it.

Summary: It isn’t some forgotten V for Vendetta but it is a solid, even thoughtful read. In fact, Phonogram is one more (of oh so many) arguments that comic books are literature, not mindless gloop.

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In the world of Phonogram, phonomancers are magic users who use music to reinforce or change their identities, how people see them, things like that. In other words, pretty much what people do in the real world. And, indeed, it is set in the ‘real’ world and real music is so imbedded in it that there are extensive annotations for someone like me who just likes to listen to music and not be an authority on it.

The first volume, Rue Britannia, is about phonomancer David Kohl looking into a group of retro fans trying to resurrect the patron goddess of Brittpop. And, if you are like me, you’ll need to look up that it was a mid-90s indie movement and that you do know some of the bands.

The actual underlining plot, while it involves undead goddesses and cultists, is David realizing what a shallow, pretentious little git he is. And, by the end, he is still a pretentious jerk but he’s gained some awareness and empathy.

And Phonogram also has something to say about music. Or, really, our relationship to music. That a song can be shallow or objectively terrible but still meaningful to us. And that’s okay. That the music we listened to when we were nineteen will always be the best music. (Don’t actually agree with that but I understand the idea)

Hellblazer was clearly a major influence on at least the first volume of Phanogram. David Kohl and the Garth Ennis-flavor of John Constantine have a lot in common. Some of David’s lines I would have been right at home in one of Ennis’s scripts. But since it is a self-contained story, David is allowed to actually grow.

After reading Rue Britannia, the second volume, The Singles Club, considered to be the best of the three volumes, is on my shortlist to read.

One more person calling Mike Mignolia a genius

After reading Lobster Johnson, which is a weird, little subdivision of the Hellboy-verse, I decided to go back and read the first few Hellboy collections.

And, oh my, it is tasty stuff. People have been saying Mile Mignolia is a genius for years and there is not much I can add to that. (Man, I hope there’s nothing scandalous in his personal life and I’m not praising a real jerk)

What I feel I can bring to the table is a probably delusional sense of historic perspective. I remember Hellboy’s early appearances, mostly due to friends saying ‘Hey! You got to check this out!’ I’m not going to claim my younger self (or possibly current self) had the taste or wisdom to find Hellboy on my own.

One thing I had forgotten was how much of early Hellboy were short stories, scattered among issues of Dark Horse Presents. As someone who didn’t find the stories in order, it wasn’t always easy to figure out what was going on.

But the art was always fascinating, so different from so much of what was out there. We are talking about the era before that particular comic book bubble burst, a world of massive splash pages and gimmick covers. Yes, Mignolia owes a lot to Jack Kirby. Yes, he makes use of light and shadow in a way that would make Robert Wiene nod approvingly. However, the art is also very stylized and distinct when it felt like everyone wanted to be Rob Liefield or Todd McFarlane.

Looking at Hellboy now, it feels like the harbinger of things to come. Comic books have never been only superheroes. Archie Comics and Disney have been making serious bank since the 40s. But in the decades since Hellboy first showed up,  horror and crime and urban fantasy and so many other genres have become more acknowledged in comic books. I’m not saying The Walking Dead wouldn’t exist without Hellboy. I’m just saying Mignolia was ahead of his time.

And the old stories hold up surprisingly well. Mignolia establishes when the stories take place, as opposed to a nebulous present, which helps keep things from feeling unintentionally dated. He mines folklore and older creaters so there’s a foundation to the work. And it’s also just good.

Lobster Johnson was fun but his biggest impact on me was taking me back to Mignolia’s other works.

The flawed beauty of Radiant Black

I read a lot of manga and a decent number of horror or crime drama graphic novels. But it had been a while since I’ve read any super hero stuff and that was all I read comic book-wise when I was younger.

So when Humble Bundle had a bundle of Massiverse graphic novels from Image, I decided that it would be a chance to go back to my roots. Which is actually pretty fair since there is clearly a lot of influence from Marvel Comics.

If I were to describe the Massiverse in one sentence it would be ‘A superhero universe where every hero is Peter Parker in super sentai armor’

Which actually sounds pretty awesome.

Peter Parker isn’t the first example of a superhero with normal people problems but he has become the quintessential example. That’s a big part of what makes everyone love Spider-Man. And, really, Power Ranger outfits look cool. (The creators previously did a Power Ranger comic book so this choice makes sense)

Unfortunately, I don’t think the Massiverse lives up to that potential.

The series that got the line started is Radiant Black and I think it really highlights the strengths and flaws of the line overall.

After failed writer Nathan Burnett has to live back in with his parents, he discovers a mysterious black hole that lets him transformed into the armored form of Radiant Black. A side effect of this is that he is drawn into a cosmic conflict involving other colors of radiant and the potential destruction of the Earth.

The visuals are really good. I particularly love how the creators lean into the radiant helms being expressive. There is clearly a bigger picture and I honestly feel like this is designed to be a single story and not a never ending serial. And the creators are clearly intent on having their heroes be flawed human beings.

However, one of the downsides of the line is that flawed human element can be pushed too far. The second Radiant Black (won’t explain any further to minimize spoilers) is pretty much a copy of Randal from Clerks who is an antagonistic glory hound trying to monetize Radiant Black. He stops being relatable or sympathetic and I don’t think that’s intentional.

(On the other hand, in another series in the line, Rogue Sun, the fact that everyone who has been Rogue Sun is a total jerk does seem to be the point)

Another problem, arguably even greater, is how poorly they show or explain the characters powers. A problem that goes across pretty much every series in the line. Having an a character can do doesn’t just give a reader a sense of their limits, it informs them what the heck is going on.

Just the Radiants alone are confusing. They share some powers but exactly what those are isn’t explained. I didn’t understand Radiant Red’s powers until she got a mini-series. And I had to go to outside sources to find out what Radiant Yellow’s powers were.

The one character where this approach works Bibi from Dead Lucky. Some elements of her powers may actually not be powers at all but side effects of her mental illness. And I still understood what she could do better than characters from other books.

I enjoyed my read. Good graphic design goes a long way in a graphic medium. However, it can’t be a coincidence that, after I finished, I started binging manga.

Archie continues to bewilder me

I’m about eight years late to the party but I picked up and read Archie Comics’ Road to Riverdale. It was a sampler for their New Riverdale line, the first issues of five of the books. And it obviously was done to help promote the Riverdale TV show. (Which I have never watched but I understand critics love to savage it)

I had heard of the New Riverdale line, a reimagining of Archie and his world with more realistic artwork and more continuity-based storylines. And, while not inappropriate, aimed at an older audience.

And it wasn’t quite what I expected. As opposed to being Archie as a serious drama (which isn’t actually unknown), it was more of a denser, wackier look but with a heavy emphasis on character development. Honestly, it felt like a post-Buffy the Vampire Slayer Archie, self aware but room for feels.

I find Archie weird. Before I was old enough to not be embarrassed to read it, I thought of Archie as simplistic, repetitive and reactionary. And, frankly, a lot of that is true. Archie has been going since the 1940s and has been almost always aimed at a younger audience.

At the same time, Archie has been constantly reinventing itself. I don’t even know if Archie Comics itself knows how creators have worked on the franchise. And it’s been addressing social issues for decades.

What muddies the water is the fact that they are constantly reprinting stuff from all over their catalog. So you can find different messages, sometimes in the same magazine.

To be fair, you can point to any long running franchise. Batman has been many things. However, Bruce and his merry band of vigilantes have been allowed to change and adjust. The lack of continuity and constant reprints means Archie Comics  keeps the values dissonance constantly churning. There is good stuff but they keep burying it.

Which might be part of the point of New Riverdale.

Heck, it got me to read the first volume of Archie. Which I did enjoy but found almost bipolar. We have moments like Archie’s bumbling destroying the entire Lodge mansion contrasted with Betty’s angry tears at Archie freaking out over her makeover.

From what I understand, the New Riverdale has ended. Perhaps that has to happen. When you actually create a story where the characters develop and change, endings make sense.

Next on my delayed movie watching…

 Since I’m relatively caught up with the MCU, I decided to branch out into the DC movies and watch Birds of Prey. Because apparently, left to my own cinema tastes, I just watch superhero movies. Okay. I’m fine with that.

As I have said so often that I should get a t-shirt made, movies are not comic books (or books) and I’m cool with changes from source material if they work. Different medium, different needs. And, with a few reservations, Birds of Prey does that.

While the movie doesn’t have my favorite interpretations of Renee Montoya, Black Camary or the  Huntress (I’m old enough that I remember when the Huntress was Helena Wayne), they work in the context of thos story. Fans of Cassandra Cain have every right to have problems with this name-only version of the character, though.

But the point of the movie is Margot Robbie’s interpretation of Harley Quinn. The actual Birds of Prey are supporting characters in the movie that has their name as part of the title.

I didn’t think much of Harley Quinn in the original Suicide Squad movie (which, as a movie, I thought of even less of), feeling she was more eye candy than character. In Bird of Prey, Harley Quinn is a self-destructive train wreck, a hot mess and a generally terrible person. I wouldn’t want to be in the same zip code, let alone the same room, as this character. BUT she is interesting. This Harley Quinn is a constant source of conflict. She is an actual character.

Birds of Prey can only work if Harley Quinn is strong enough to carry the movie. And I think the movie does work. Harley Quinn is a horrible human being but she grows (but isn’t redeemed) and creates change as well as conflict. The audience can be invested in the character.

Birds of Prey isn’t a perfect superhero movie. But the tone on the movie is constant and it is both engaging and entertaining. I’d watch it again and I now feel prepped to watch the second Suicide Squad movie.

Loki takes the MCU into Doctor Who land

 I do love me some MCU. And Loki may be my favorite mini-series out of the current wave that Disney is cranking out. (WandaVision is tough competition though. I like weird, meta fiction)

Only one episode has aired as of me writing this, which means that I’m not too worried about spoilers. However, I’ll still try to be cryptic.

I do find it hilarious that the powers-that-be resolved Loki’s character arc in the Infinity War and they are getting away with still doing more stuff with Loki. They are having their Tom Hiddleston cake and eating it too.

But to be fair, I think the last time anyone has accused Disney of not knowing how to make money was when it took Sleeping Beauty eleven years to turn a profit (thanks to its astronomical production costs) And the comic book version of Loki has certainly been through a lot of story arcs.

My first impression is that Disney has put Men in Black, Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Who into a blender. Well, if the Men in Black was a malevolent organization. To say that the Time Variance Authority is morally ambiguous is being generous past the point of reasonable.

Loki, at least as of episode one, has the title character enter a completely new setting, one that I don’t think has been even hinted at existing in the MCU. And one that like Guardians, it’s a used, Star Wars-like setting where there’s lot of stuff going on we will never learn about. 

I enjoy quirky science fiction. I was bitten by a Jon Pertwee serial at a young age and it’s affected me ever since. So I am so one of Loki’s target demographic. It has moments that are truly funny and others that are honestly bittersweet but it is strange and snarky all the way through.

Jim Starlin and his Infinity Crusade

 When I saw that our local library had just the Infinity Crusade from 1993 as a pair of collected editions, I decided I should actually finish the thing. You see, I did start reading the comic books back in 1993 and quit halfway through.

Okay. Let’s have some background. The Infinity Crusade was the third big crossover event that featured Jim Starlin bringing back Adam Warlock, Thanos and all their related cast after he killed them off in the 70s. Before it was the Infinity Gauntlet and the Infinity War.

And let me get this out of the way right now: The Infinity War and Endgame movies were much better than the comic books. Tighter plots, smaller casts (yes, really!) and better characterization. 

By the time the Infinity Crusade rolled around, it was pretty clear even at the time that Marvel was beating a dead horse. It was another cosmic mad conqueror storyline. The fact that Starlin spent a lot of time on a comic relief character that didn’t add anything to the plot or theme makes me wonder how burnt out he was at that point.

Now, I like a lot of Jim Starlin’s stuff. His original Warlock comics were wacky fun. Thanos Quest,

which led up the the Infinity Gauntlet, was much better than the Infinity Gauntlet. And I really liked his apparently forgotten space opera Dreadstar (well, except for the last arc but there was a lot of good stuff before that)

But either he can’t write endings that live up to the rest of the story or he can’t handle a huge cast or the executive meddling gets too much when he has to add in the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man and so on.

The Infinity Crusade is further complicated by the villain being Adam Warlock’s feminine side who has been driven insane by being repressed. That is problematic and misogynistic on so many levels. 

I am going to put on my arrogant comic-book guy hat and say that the story would have been vastly better if it turned out that the Goddess was actually benevolent. Like her plan was actually to give everyone in the universe a moment of cosmic awareness, knowing that almost everyone would shrug it off but it would make a difference for a tiny percentage of people. Instead, she’s virtually indistinguishable from Adam’s repressed male side. (Adam Warlock is complicated)

After finally finishing the Infity Crusade almost twenty years later, I can say I’m glad I didn’t play for all the issues back in the day.

How Ambush Bug helped me appreciate Deadpool

 I recently commented ‘So the only difference between Ambush Bug and Deadpool is Deadpool kills people?’

The immediate reply was that Deadpool is also pansexual and cusses. 

But the two characters are both remarkably similar and wildly different to the point that actually talking it through made me appreciate Deadpool more :D

Ambush Bug is a relatively obscure DC character created in the 80s by that wacky Keith Giffin. He’s a guy on a green suit who ignored the fourth wall so much that he wanted Julius Swartz’s job. (He was an editor at DC, just so you know.) Ambush Bug was actually pretty funny and skewered plenty of sacred cows. Giffin has said the character is now officially retired but that enough money could change his mind.

And Deadpool is- well, you already know who Deadpool is. And if you don’t, I don’t believe you. And like Ambush Bug, he’s really funny, is completely meta and started out as  bad guy.

But Ambush Bug is, at the end of the day, a joke. (Which isn’t a dig. That’s the whole point of Ambush Bug) And, somehow, Deadpool actually has become a character with pathos, character arcs and such. They couldn’t have made a movie about him if that wasn’t the case. 

Don’t get me wrong. Deadpool is no Thing. Ben Grim is in a class all his own when it comes to pathos. But I read the early issues of X-Force and, man, you would not expect Deadpool to be a breakout character in any way. I seem to even remember the original revelation that his face was mutilated and not caring because he was such a jerk.  

(Just assume there are ten or twenty paragraphs ranting about how bad Rob Liefeld’s work is)

But somehow, by making him funny and making him still a jerk but one who is trying to better, Deadpool became sympathetic.

Ambush Bug is fun but Deadpool is interesting.

Plutonia is a comic book spin on a childhood classic

 Margaret Wise Brown, the same person who wrote Good Night Moon, also wrote a book called the Dead Bird, a picture book about a group of kids who find a dead bird in the wood, bury it and sing a song.

It is actually more of mediation about the acceptance of death than the start of a cult or the origin of a bunch of serial killers. I still find it an unsettling work, although I will grant that it does teach a necessary lesson. 

A few years ago, I came upon a comic book called Plutonia that could honestly be described as some saying ‘What if we rewrote the Dead Bird but made it a dead superhero instead?’

Five kids find the body of local hero Plutonia in the woods after she is apparently killed by one of her many foes. Things go dark from there.

I read the first issue but it was years before I found the rest.

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I had heard that the story culminates in one of the kids getting beaten to death by the others so I was all set for a Lord of the Flies scenario. Instead, said kid had gone nuts and was trying to kill the others. The nicest character hits him in the head once with a log to save the other kids. Self defense instead of mob violence. Quite a different scenario and one that actually ties back in with The Dead Bird comparison since they then shamefully bury him in the woods.

The kids, who are in turns petty and scared and completely out of their depth, are believable. That helps sell the story, as well as make it more uncomfortable to read. It’s not a superhero story but a story about kids. Unlike the kids in the Dead Bird, these kids do not come to terms with death but, to be fair, it’s a much more extreme situation.

Plutonia is a meditation about children trying to cope with death. Just not a happy one.

Post Script: Plutonia, who isn’t actually dead, is a fascinating character developed in flashbacks. She has Superman’s powers with Batman’s working arrangement with the police and Spider-Man’s problems. Spider-Man as a single mom isn’t a new concept but Plutonia did a good job using it.

The Incredible Hulk as literature

 Hulk: The Last Titan was a graphic novel that I’d never heard of. Marvel has put out a lot of one-shot graphic novels so never hearing about it wasn’t a surprise. However, despite being eighteen years old, I found it quite intriguing. Less about the story itself and more what it said about the Incredible Hulk as a literary concept.

Okay, here’s the story. In a post-apocalyptic world where nuclear holocausts have reduced the world to a barren wasteland, only horrible mutant cockroaches and the Hulk are left. The Hulk sometimes reverts to Bruce Banner, who ruminates about existence. There are no twists and surprises, just an examination of the situation. It’s pretty bleak.

But it’s a story that works very well with the Hulk. I can’t really see it working for a character like Spider-Man or Captain America but it definitely works for the Hulk. That’s because, obviously, the Hulk is a very different archetype than just about any other silver age hero I can think of, both being Jekyll and Hyde as well as a Tragic Monster.

While Stan Lee has said that he considers the Silver Surfer the most literary character he worked on, I would really argue that the Hulk really holds that title. (Although, as long as Steve Ditko was on the job, Peter Parker sure seemed to have escaped from Catcher in the Rye) While certainly not the first anti-hero in superhero comics by a long shot, it’s still a core concept in almost all the vast variations of the Hulk. He is a hero second, unhappy loner first.

In fact, that is the Hulk’s status quo. He can be dumb and green or gray and ruthless or smart and green or an alien barbarian warlord but the Hulk is always a troubled outsider in a world that he cannot fit in with. As a small child, I found Lou Ferrigno’s portrayal both scary and sad. Also as a small child, well before Bill Mantlo or Peter David got their hands on the Hulk and started looking at psychological angles, the Hulk was sad to me. Even the X-Men at least had each other.

And I read the comics for decades and still am very found of the character and his stories. Because it works.

(Someone just pointed out to me that the Hulk can be considered a metaphor nuclear bomb and humanity’s hubris instead of an anti-hero. My response was why can’t he be both? And that just adds to the literary nature of the character.)

Hulk: the Last Titan being the Hulk alone after the world ends and nothing else? It makes perfect sense.

A comic book whose point was going off the rails

I recently bought a bundle of Graphic Novels which includes the complete Ghost Fleet, which I had never heard of. And it was so much like reading someone’s fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants RPG campaign that I have to comment on it.

(Since I really only read comic books by buying the odd bundle of graphic novels now and then, I don’t really blog about comic books since I’m always years behind on them. That said, is there any reason for Bruce Wayne to hide his identity other than avoiding endless civil and criminal lawsuits that would accrue every issue?)

Lots of spoilers ahead... lots of them.

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Spoilers

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The book starts off explaining how Andrew Jackson and Jean Lafitte set up a black ops smuggling infrastructure called The Ghost Fleet, which has continued to operate into present day. I mention this only because this demented bit of world building never comes up again, which is a shame because there’s some definite potential there.

Anyway, Trace and Robert are two operatives of the Ghost Fleet until Robert betrays Trace but leaves him alive. So Trace goes on a roaring rampage of revenge that basically involves stealing a semi-truck carrying a McGuffin. It’s an action adventure involving explosions, master assassins, crazy shoot-outs and big trucks slamming into things.

MASSIVE SPOILER

And in the last issue, the McGuffin turns out to the Death, the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, who possesses Trace so Death can Kung Fu battle the devil for the fate of the world. Death wins and the world becomes a post-apocalyptic world of mutants, robots and demons.

what

Okay. There was some foreshadowing and it turned out what the McGuffin actually was mattered to the story (sorry, Alfred Hitchcock) But the book jumped from cheesy summer action flick to gonzo crazy over the course a few panels. 

And, yes, I have a specific GM I know in mind who would run a game like this :D I don’t know if he ever ran an octaNe campaign but it probably would have looked like the end of The Ghost Fleet.

I’m not saying the Ghost Fleet is good. There are some bizarre plot holes, including that the guy who Robert sold Trace out to was also their employer, making the betrayal actually make very little sense. The need for either the betrayal or Trace not being a part of it just isn’t there. Basically, cool overrules common sense every time.

And I’m not saying the Ghost Fleet wasn’t fun. But, despite what I hear some critics say, fun isn’t that hard to find in comic books. 

But if it had had a less fantastic ending (Like: ‘we were hauling illegal nuclear weapons the whole time? Time to shoot everyone and drive off into the sunset’), I’d have forgotten the book already. And I’m going to remember the Ghost Fleet.

Thank you for the great comics, Denny O’Neil

Dennis O’Neil passed away on June 11, 2020.

The guy contributed more to the world of comic books as a writer and editor than I can summarize without making this blog entry way too long. He wrote the classic socially-conscious Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories, gave Frank Miller how break on Daredevil, completely overhauled the Question into a great character and came up with the name Optimus Prime.

But the single biggest thing he did was make Batman serious. In the early 1970s, he removed the more light-hearted and fantastic elements from Batman, making the stories more grim and gritty, as well as more street level. He redefined Batman into the damaged, obsessed character that he has been for going on fifty years.

His work on Batman has informed literally every single version of the character since then.

So, yeah, Denny O’Neil was a big deal.

Intellectual properties work best when I don’t care about the source material

I recently got almost the complete run of IDW’s Star Trek comic books set in the 2009 movie universe, the one by J. I. Abrams. And I’ve been quite enjoying them.

Here’s the thing. I have a great appreciation for Star Trek but it’s not a franchise I’m really into. (I have been told that would change if I binged DS9) That’s particularly true for the Abrams movies, of which I’ve only seen the first one. 

I have also found comic book adaptations of intellectual properties feel ‘off’ to me. I don’t have this problem with book adaptations. I think part of it is that comic book panels create a very specific form of pacing, as discussed by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics. I think the change in pacing just changes the way stories are told enough to feel weird to me, on top of other issues from adaptations.

So why I am enjoying these comic books so much?

Well, I think it’s because I have almost no investment in this version of Star Trek. There isn’t any is ‘the Doctor wouldn’t do that’ or ‘Applejack wouldn’t take off her hat!’ or even ‘that’s not Picard!’ So if these books aren’t true to the movies, I don’t care! For me, it’s fun science fiction comic books with familiar costumes.

So, my theory is the more divorced I am from a source material, the happier I can be with adaptations.

The Black Island is where Tintin clicked for me

Okay. First of all, I have to eat some crow. While I realized that Hergé and his studio revised the artwork of some of his older works in the 60s, I thought they just added color. It seems they also added a lot of refinement and detail. So, while I still hold that Tintin is pretty awesome, it isn’t a revolutionary and ahead of its time as I thought.

That said, I’ve been reading some of the earlier volumes (with the revisions and I’m very curious how some of the elaborate landscapes looked in the original versions) and Tintin started to really click for me with the eight volume, The Black Island.

The actual story itself is pretty simple and could be described relatively spoiler-free as Tintin and Snowy chase some bad guys pretty much the length of the British Isles. There wasn’t much mystery or complex plans going on.

However, that left room for me to focus on the action sequences and the slapstick comedy sequences, which are sometimes one and the same. The pacing was really solid and I sometimes felt like I was reading the story booking of a movie. Poor Thomson and Thompson’s escapades in a plane felt particularly cinematic.

I also was glad I was reading the story as an album. I enjoyed the keystone kops-esque silliness of two pages of firefighters trying to find the key to the fire station but if I had had to wait a week or a month to find out what was going to happen to Tintin unconscious in a burning building, I wouldn’t have liked it as much :P

Tintin was originally created for a conservative children’s magazine so you don’t get edgy apart from drug dealers, alcoholism, political refugees... and, you know, scratch the surface, Tintin deals with some surprisingly serious issues. The comics have a light-hearted feel aimed at kids but it deals with some adult issues.

What I was going to say, before I got into the last paragraph, was is that Hergé and his studio did a good job telling stories that were full of action and comedy. More and more, I can appreciate why Tintin made such an impact.