Number 1219: Baseball by moonlight

Ty Cobb (1886-1961) was an awfully great baseball player and a greatly awful person. There are many stories of his nastiness. Despite the records he set and his accomplishments on the field he's just as well known for his bad temperment, his aggression and intimidation of opposing players. The story is that Cobb filed his steel cleats to be razor sharp, and when he stole bases he slid into base “with his feet up and steel showing.”

I'm sure that Ty Cobb was the inspiration for “Foul Play” in Haunt of Fear #19 (1953). The story, with its gory ending, was fairly typical EC-revenge. But it was brought before a stunned public of non-comics readers with a page in Seduction of the Innocent (1954) by Fredric Wertham, M.D.

The caption reads, “A comic-book baseball game. Notice the chest protector and other details in the text and pictures.”

In 1986 I attended a panel with Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis at the San Diego Con. Davis made mention of the horror comics and the trouble they caused. Speaking of the Senate hearings and uproar over them Davis said, “I'd lie awake at night and think, did I cause this?”

This is the infamous baseball story, drawn by Jack Davis, and written by editor Al Feldstein.

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Review: Men of War Vol. 1: Uneasy Company trade paperback (DC Comics)

War comics are a genre that has fallen out of favor, replaced if anything by political or espionage comics. DC Comics's first New 52 war series, therefore -- collected in Men of War: Uneasy Company -- is something of a risk, but a calculated one. Men of War would appear to be war comics for people who don't like war comics, a war comic with a dash of superheroics thrown in.

In this way, Men of War -- which was cancelled with the second wave of DC New 52 titles -- is successful. For fans of DC's Checkmate, for instance, Men of War has enough fiction mixed with its realism to keep readers interested through Ivan Brandon's first six-issue arc.

The final issues and back-up stories, however, are a mixed bag of wonderful and weird, banal and reductive, that underline perhaps the problems that war comics have always faced. Especially in today's political climate, the line between a cogent piece of war fiction and one that's trite or potentially insensitive is a fine one -- Men of War has a little bit of both.

[Review contains spoilers]

The best chapters of Uneasy Company are the first two, in which young corporal Joe Rock becomes the sergeant of DC Comics fame (this Rock is the grandson of the World War II Rock). Men of War becomes a kind of Smallville-esque origin story for Rock (albeit in two issues) as he grows into the man the reader knows he will become. Rock and the reader gets hints of a conspiracy in which Rock's "East Company" may be pawns of evil government forces; Rock also faces not one but two metahumans from a grunt's-eyes view. Brandon and artist Tom Derenick's work is not Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker's Gotham Central, but there's similarity in the tone and perspective.

With the third chapter, however, Brandon begins a four-part story where a covert Easy Company mission goes awry, and by the end the Company appears to be the prisoner of vampires supplying weapons to Middle Eastern insurgents. This remains a fine story, comparatively -- Brandon's is the best work of the book -- but it does not answer any of the questions from the first two issues, and Brandon's poetic narrative sometimes gets in the way of the basic sense of the story (why, for instance, is the old woman shot? What's with the hydrochloric acid? Why do they lose the boat in the first place? And so on). Right after, Brandon's story concludes, so unless he gets to write more Easy Company somewhere else, Uneasy Company is ultimately a story that suggests a lot of interesting things but never resolves any of them.

Still, Brandon has plenty that's impressive here. Rock, the Easy Company, and the vampires comport themselves with a warrior's honor -- a kind of slow, dangerous dance -- that's fascinating to learn the rules of. The Easy Company's super-powered soldier, Private Korba, is also one to watch -- the religious shame with which he perceives his own powers is unique for a DC character, and this and the reaction of his fellow soldiers suggest much about the darker side of having powers in the DC New 52.

Following Brandon's story are two more Men of War issues with guest-creative teams, and then the backup stories that originally appeared in the issues, wisely shunted to the back. Among the best of these are "Knife Fight" by Matt Kindt, a sad and romantic story of two spies thinking how their lives could have gone (I found it easier to read all of her dialogue first, then go back and read his afterward). Kindt and Jeff Lemire's Frankenstein story was good, too, though it really is just a "one-off" story, not revealing much new about Frankie. And J. T. Krul and Scot Kolins have a smart, emotional story here about the difficulties soldiers face when they return home again.

Among these, however, are a couple of others that miss their mark. Jonathan Vankin's Navy Seals Tracker and Ice are a too-stereotypical team of pacifist-and-warmonger, and their adventure saving a family from insurgents using them as human shields is too pat -- the soldiers go in, they beat the bad guys, they're hailed as heroes. That the inexperienced Tracker is allowed to deliver a traditional Middle Eastern woman's baby is near ridiculous, medically and religiously -- it makes for a story that treats war too glibly.

B. Clay Moore's story is perhaps supposed to be funny, with malfunctioning robots in a war zone. But the punch line of Moore's story, without sufficient hint of irony, is that the soldier's poor equipment is good for Washington's bottom line. This is alongside artist Paul McCaffrey depicting the heads of numerous turbaned, bearded men exploding in cartooney blood, similarly far too glib for this subject matter.

Superhero comics can be heavy on the irony since in reality no one actually flies across the sky, but there's an extent to which a successful war comic has to remember that actual people go to war. The stories can be critical of war, like Krul's, or funny or romantic or intriguing, but nonchalant seems the wrong way to go. The black-and-white, good versus evil that writers are used to writing superheroic comics doesn't necessarily work here; for a war comic to succeed in today's market, it would require a writer hyper-aware of these issues.

Men of War: Uneasy Company is a good experiment in war comics for today's audience, but it does not emerge as more than an experiment. Ivan Brandon's "Uneasy Company" story ends too uncertainly and the book does not feel as complete as the also-cancelled Mr. Terrific or Static Shock. The short stories are also interesting, but don't add to or play off the main story. The audience can only hope Brandon gets his hands on Sgt. Rock again some time in the future, such that Men of War ends up as more than simply a "one-shot."

[Includes sketchbook section by Tom Derenick and assorted artists]

Next week, the Collected Editions review of the DC New 52 Batgirl debut, and more. See you then!

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Review: The Wretch: Devil's Lullaby and From Crade to Grave trade paperbacks (Slave Labor Graphics)

[Guest review by Doug Glassman.]

My look into Phil Hester’s obscure but brilliant The Wretch continues as we go back in time to the collected second and third volumes. Essentially, the title’s issues were put out in reverse, as Slave Labor Graphics/Amaze Ink, the last publishers of the title, wanted to get their issues out in trade first. The second volume, Devil’s Lullaby, contains some of the strongest issues of the title. The final and much smaller volume, From Cradle to Grave, contains the earliest, very short stories, along with the final story so far, which first saw print in this book.

None of these variances in publishing order are really apparent in the books aside from some art changes. There is almost no continuity in The Wretch, with only one example in each volume. In the second volume’s “Happy Birthday,” a man sells his soul to Satan to rid his daughter of Down Syndrome. The Wretch uses the little girl’s glove to end the pain of the titular character of the book’s final story, “The Wailing Woman.” The third volume’s “Exorcism 101,” the very first Wretch story, has as a side character Gilby Gott, the protagonist of the first story in Everyday Doomsday. Gott seems to be a stand-in for Hester himself, and it’s a nice Easter egg linking one volume to another.

Devil’s Lullaby is split between four serious stories and four funny ones, allowing Hester to show off the different facets of his writing skill. “Rain Babies” follows the titular creatures as they wreak havoc through Glass City. As the Wretch tries to catch them and harness them for good, we get a look into the minds of the city’s residents and get their interpretations of what the “rain babies” are. Hester has a fascination bordering on obsession with babies in The Wretch. The monster in Everyday Doomsday’s “White Lie” had a baby face. “Rain Babies” and “The Wailing Woman” from this book and the trade-only story in From Cradle to Grave all center on them. This last story explains why: for Hester, babies present an uncertain power. They can grow up to be good or evil ... and who knows what they were in a previous life?

The baby theme is an expansion on Hester’s general use of children in these stories, using their innocence or lack thereof. The former can be seen in “The Sun,” wherein a young girl is terrorized by a wall-hanging sent by her delinquent father. When it co-opts a Power Rangers doll and a pair of scissors, it becomes even more terrifying, and there’s some extra power in the justice dealt to the father at the end. Compare this to “Devilrock,” which directly precedes “The Sun.” Two losers play a record backward and become demons, allowing them to ruin the life of one of their older brothers. They look rather creepy, but it only makes their bickering goofier until the Wretch takes them out with a cigarette lighter. Our hero seems at home in both types of stories despite the rapid change in tone.

Like the Kirby homages in Everyday Doomsday, Hester likes to use the shortness and lack of continuity to homage other creators. “Mandelbrot’s Leaf” is, by his own admission, a tribute to Chuck Jones, as a supervillain inadvertently sets off “the end of the world” with his patronizing bragging. “Ultimax” in the third volume is another Kirby homage, although this time it’s closer to New Gods rather than Galactus. It’s also the wordiest story by far despite none of them being spoken by the Wretch.

I mentioned an artistic shift, and it’s more present as you read on. It’s explained in Hester’s opening pages that, initially, the Wretch was called the Creep. This was later changed to avoid copyright conflicts (presumably due to DC’s Creeper). As the Creep, and during most of these two books, the Wretch has a thinner head, broader and spikier hair, and a set of hoses on his chest. The hoses are actually useful, gathering up fluid in “Rain Babies” and delivering powerful flames in “Devilrock.” However, Hester was advised by Alex Toth to simplify the design. For those unaware, Toth was a comic book artist who created the character models for Super Friends and other Hanna-Barbera cartoons, so advice like this is wisely heeded. The result is the slimmer Wretch from Everyday Doomsday. Losing the hoses actually helps in the storytelling: this way, they don’t become ever-present weapons to be used, instead making the Wretch come up with his own intricate solutions.

Hester isn’t the only writer or artist involved, either. Mike Worley drew the hilarious "How Did You Create The Wretch," a cartoonish tale of how the Wretch saved Phil Hester from drowning in a swimming pool, turning him into Namor in the process. “Devilrock” was written by Jason Caskey, but it feels much like a regular Wretch story because of the similar childhoods of the two authors. Colin Wales drew the intricately silly “Satan Crisps,” which feels out of place with the rest of the book but not really to its detriment. Wales also created the equally silly “Tag” in From Cradle to Grave, which is the only story in the series featuring aliens.

Despite what confusion the collection order of these books may cause, I can understand why the earlier stories were held back for the final volume. Had the collections of The Wretch started out with the earliest material, there would have been little interest in collecting the whole thing. Only towards the end, in the final pre-published story, does it really feel like it’s leading into the other stories. While I don’t have the same emotional connection to Devil’s Lullaby and From Cradle to Grave as I do with Everyday Doomsday, I enjoy them all the same.

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Number 1218: Capp slapped by the Spirit

Here are a couple of questions for knowledgeable Pappy readers. Some years ago I read an interview with Will Eisner where he told a story of being contacted by Al Capp. The Li’l Abner creator told Eisner he wanted to trade satires of each other’s strips. Eisner said Capp never followed up. So what I’m wondering is, where did I read that, and is this the strip Eisner used for his satire, or is this an Eisner “Slapp at Capp” after feeling betrayed?

Either way, this is Eisner going after the big boys of comic strip syndication. I would think either Harold Gray (Elmer Hay) or Chester Gould (Hector Ghoul) might feel insulted, not to mention Capp. As satire it seems more than just a friendly nod or gentle nudge in the ribs. A particular target of Eisner's satire is the Dick Tracy/Fearless Fosdick situation. Gould felt that Capp over-reached by making Fearless Fosdick — who began as a one-off caricature of the Dick Tracy comic strip — a semi-regular character in Li’l Abner. I assume he was further aggrieved when Fearless Fosdick got commercial endorsements like Wildroot Cream Oil, which made $$$ for Capp, none for Gould. As for Harold Gray, I have no idea what he thought of The Spirit.  Maybe Gray didn't care what Eisner did. Maybe he never saw it. Unlike Gray’s large following, there were only a few papers carrying the Spirit's Comic Book Section.

This is an interesting Spirit story, and I'd love to know the background of this particular episode.

Originally published July 20, 1947. This is scanned from The Spirit #1 (Warren, 1974):

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Trade Perspectives: You have to love the characters ...

I admit I've been keeping an eye on Rob Liefeld's Twitter feed since the creator publicly walked off his DC Comics titles last week. In part, like everyone, I'm simply fascinated by the mayhem. But even in a situation that's clearly bad for reader enjoyment of comics overall, there's a part of me reading Liefeld's tweets like I do solicitations, hungry and excited for clues to upcoming storylines -- Liefeld's tangent about proposed but cancelled intersections between Grifter, Stormwatch, and Superman, for instance.

Liefeld's departure overshadowed a much quieter but far more tragic exit from DC Comics, as I've mentioned here before, that of writer Judd Winick. Winick is also a controversial figure, I know (though at least for his work and not for his after-hour comments) but I have thoroughly enjoyed his Outsiders and Green Arrow and most recently his Catwoman and Batwing, and indeed I feel DC has lost something special here akin to when Greg Rucka left shortly before the DC New 52 relaunch.

These departures -- and George Perez's negative comments, also as we've discussed -- are depressing for a DC Comics fan. More troubling for me, however, have been the "false starts," if you will -- series whose creative teams and directions changed after the first collection. Paul Cornell left Stormwatch, though I think Paul Jenkins continues in the same general direction; however, Savage Hawkman and Deathstroke both get a second collection reboot, as to an extent has Superman, Green Arrow, and others.

This sometimes makes me wonder why I should even spend my money on these collections knowing, for instance, the first collection of Savage Hawkman may not have much impact on the second -- and then, with Liefeld leaving Hawkman essentially after the second collection, the second collection and third may have differences, too. All these departures -- some would say, disorganization -- makes it hard to read some titles at all.

I've been trying to think, before comics had a twenty-four hour news cycle, how did we deal with creative changes on books? I remember when David Micheline replaced Roger Stern on Action Comics, I thought the stories got a little more violent, but otherwise the Triangle Titles kept rolling on as usual. Definitely the tone was different when Jon Lewis replaced Chuck Dixon on Robin, but the characters and setting stayed the same for the most part. Gail Simone replacing Dixon on Birds of Prey turned out for the best; so did Geoff Johns replacing Mark Waid on Flash.

If you want to get really esoteric, I followed Justice League from Dan Jurgens to Dan Vado to Gerard Jones. Who knows what went on behind the scenes? Creators came, creators left, the books maybe struggled for an issue or two, and then we were off to the races again. In cases like Waid and Johns, the writers got to wrap up their storylines before they left; in other cases, not so much, but it worked.

The conclusion I came to is that you have to love the characters. You have to love the characters. Superman is going through three writers in about twelve issues -- if you don't like reading about Superman, what's the point anyway? Hawkman's going through a couple of creative teams -- none of it matters if you don't like Hawkman. An interest in Fire and Ice and Guy Gardner and the rest took me from Jurgens to Vado to Jones on Justice League, and I still have an affinity for all those runs. It was just a matter of sticking with the characters.

Got to keep our heads down, ignore the hubub, and keep reading, is the best I can figure.

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Review: Batwing Vol. 1: The Lost Kingdom trade paperback (DC Comics)

It's the trade-waiter's dilemma that this glowing review of Judd Winick's second DC Comics New 52 series, Batwing: The Lost Kingdom, comes just after the news that Winick has quietly announced his departure from Batwing and from DC Comics in general. This, after Winick also left Catwoman and apparently turned down a stint on Green Arrow. More's the pity, in a week where DC's reputation for creator relations is already taking a hit in the form of Rob Liefeld's much more public walk-off from his DC titles.

Winick's first Batwing collection is cogent superhero comics with an international flair of the kind also found in Winick's later Outsiders work. His Batwing also has charmingly much in common with the adventures of former Bat-proteges such as Azrael Jean Paul Valley and Batgirls Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown; Winick does well imagining the new junior member of the Bat-squad.

Minds are made up quickly, but Winick's work on Batwing ought give anyone who dismissed his work on Catwoman as cheap or trashy a second thought. Batwing is a well-crafted book, and it's impossible to appreciate the thought given to Batwing without acknowledging that same thought must have gone into the Catwoman book as well.

[Review contains spoilers]

As with Greg Rucka's Batwoman, Judd Winick starts out with the basics for Batwing. He is, by day, David Zavimbe, police officer in the African city of Tinasha -- reminiscent not so much of Gotham's billionaire playboy, but maybe Dick Grayson's classic adventures in Bludhaven. Zavimbe has his own Batcave -- called, actually, The Haven -- and even his own "Alfred" in the form of former child-soldier social worker Matu. Armed such, Zavimbe is out hunting gun runners on the Tinasha streets.

Issue one ends with a fantastic cliffhanger, however, as the rampage of a villain called Massacre hits home, and Winick continues to build Zavimbe's distinct personality from there. He has an "Alfred," yes, but this Bat-character doesn't hesitate to shoot his assistant with a drugged dart in order to duck an order of bed rest. And further, Winick reveals by the third issue, Zavimbe is like Jean Paul Valley and Cassandra Cain before him a murderer, even if as a child and under duress. We have a Bat-character, once again, who sees himself as deeply flawed and sees his nocturnal activities as penance, and that's always a great dynamic.

J. T. Krul and company's first Green Arrow collection suffered from threats that, for the most part, didn't much relate to Oliver Queen himself; not every need fight their evil best friend, but neither should heroes be interchangeable in a conflict. The Lost Kingdom offers the best of both worlds -- Massacre attacks Zavimbe's fellow police officers, to start, and then he goes after The Kingdom, an African super-team that helped inspire Batwing. By the book's last chapters, however, the reader suddenly realizes that Zavimbe is not just threatened by Massacre, he also might've helped create him.

That Zavimbe might fight Massacre through two whole collections might seem too much, except that Winick alters the dynamic exceptionally between the first and second books. As the reader gets to know Zavimbe, Zavimbe gets to know Massacre; in the second book, all the personal conflicts will now be place, and in addition Batwing and Massacre each move out of Africa to Gotham.

Carefully placed in the post-Justice League: Origin "five year gap," Winick imagines a team of proto-heroes, the Kingdom, who came before Batwing. From their towering headquarters to their impressive names -- Earth Strike; Dawnfire; Steelback, the man-machine -- the existence of this team is immediately, entirely believable, and the other pity of Winick leaving this title is he won't be able to show any "Times Past" Kingdom adventures. One rough spot, however, is that Winick's Thunder Fall, with electrical powers, too closely mimics the established Black Lightning; rather than lessen Lightning's uniqueness, it seems Winick could have chosen another power set instead. Also, Winick glosses over how the Kingdom's toppling of a Congo dictator intersects with actual African history; this is an instance where DC New 52 and reality diverge, and it would have been more interesting and less confusing if Winick had given this more attention.

The dialogue in Batwing's fight scenes is not always perfect; for every great moment like "I am a monster," there is also wooden dialogue in the fight scenes, like Batwing to Massacre: "You will not win." At the same time, some of Batwing's awkwardness has a Stephanie Brown-like joy to it; in a world of infallible Bruce Waynes, it's fun to read about the neophyte Zavimbe learning the ropes.

Ben Oliver handles most of The Lost Kingdom's art, with one chapter drawn by ChrisCross. Oliver's is the more definitive, offering a shadowy, watercolored Massacre, and it's a shock halfway through when the book shifts to ChrisCross's more "standard" style. ChrisCross handles the flashback scenes with equal delicateness, however, and while some of the facial expressions seem overwrought, in total Batwing is a good-looking book -- not J. H. Williams's Batwoman, but far from ordinary.

In all, however, Judd Winick's Batwing: The Lost Kingdom immediately finds its place and some precedent among the Bat-canon -- more than just "a book about an African Batman," Batwing is the newest book about the underdog Bat-character, the one with a dark past and something to prove. The good news is that Winick gets a little over twelve issues, and another collection, to complete his part in telling Zavimbe's origin -- it's only too bad readers already know the end is in sight.

[Includes Batwing sketchbook by Jim Lee and Ben Oliver; Batwing cover mock-ups.]

More New 52 later this week, with the Collected Editions review of Men of War.  Don't miss it!

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Number 1217: Happy 100th birthday, Tarzan

According to Alistair Boddy-Evans of About.com, it was 100 years ago today, August 27, 1912, that Tarzan of the Apes made his first appearance when the October, 1912 issue of All-Story Magazine went on sale. It was an immediate success, and success continued to follow author Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In 1965, after Jesse Marsh left the Gold Key Tarzan for health reasons (and died the next year, at age 59), Russ Manning* took over the comic book. Manning’s first issue was a typical story that Marsh would have illustrated, but with the next issue, number 155, Gold Key began adapting Tarzan novels. The first was (naturally) Tarzan of the Apes. I've scanned my copy, bought off the stands in 1965. I've been a Manning fan since I first saw his work. (Later he took over the Tarzan comic strip, which is a whole other thing.)

Next to Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan is one of the most recognizable literary characters in the world. I expect that Tarzan will be known in the 22nd century and beyond. This issue of Gold Key’s Tarzan is an important issue, and I'm glad to present it to you on the 100th anniversary of Tarzan's introduction to the world.

Script adaptation of the original novel by Gaylord Du Bois.**

From Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan #155, December, 1965:

*The Grand Comics Database also gives Mike Royer credit for assisting Manning on pencils and inks.

**I've seen Gaylord Du Bois' name spelled Dubois and DuBois. Apparently he spelled it both as it is on his birth certificate, Du Bois, or DuBois. 

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Number 1216: Bad blondes 2 — more blondes, more bad

Women usually fell into one of three categories in crime comic books: victims, gun molls, or ruthless criminals. These three stories, featuring blondes, fall into the criminal category.

Kathryn Kelly, wife of George “Machine Gun” Kelly, was said to have promoted her husband’s criminal career, much like a publicist or agent. She was arrested right along with him. The story, “Machine Gun Kelly,” is from Avon's All True Detective Cases #3 (1954), reprinted from Famous Gangsters #2 (1951). Kathryn goes from blonde to redhead in this story, but that's no big thing...I've been married to a blonde, brunette and redhead, and they're all the same woman.

Betty-Jane Watson, a tigress with some sharp claws, is hot but hostile. This busty gal busts out of prison. Her tale is told in Prison Break #4 (1952), drawn by Mort Lawrence.

“Angel Face,” aka Connie Farrar, has a face that appears innocent, but she's no angel, she's a devil who murders men when it suits her purposes. She's featured in Underworld True Crime (called Underworld in the indicia) #2, 1948.

These blondes may have more fun, but the guys with them, uh-uh...no fun at all.

I showed more bad blondes in Pappy's #1114.

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