Number 1585: Man of the atom

By way of announcement, beginning with the month of June I am cutting my posts by 25%, going from four postings a week to three. I will post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Many of you won’t even notice. It is time to cut back on the work. And yes, this is work. Nobody pays me, but it’s work.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled post...

Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom was created by Gold Key comics to compete against the popular superheroes of the day. At the time I liked the first three issues, finding them well drawn in a more sophisticated, illustrative style, but lost interest when Dr. Solar gained a costume. I just didn’t think he could go toe-to-toe with what was coming from Marvel Comics. But I was wrong; the costume was what fans were clamoring for.

Jerry Bails, the godfather of comics fandom in the early '60s, had a letter in Doctor Solar Man of the Atom #7 in 1964, praising Gold Key for putting Dr. S. in a costume. Jerry was a bit more conservative about villains. He said, “Nothing destroys a super-hero faster than fantastic villains.” I’m reasonably certain the readers of superheroes wanted those fantastic villains...as Marvel Comics had proved.

The story is from that aforementioned issue #7. Script credited to Otto Binder by the Grand Comics Database, and art attributed to Frank Bolle.

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Review: Mind MGMT Vol. 3: The Home Maker hardcover (Dark Horse Comics)

It wouldn't be Mind MGMT if the book wasn't a riddle wrapped in an enigma, and Matt Kindt's Mind MGMT Vol. 3: The Home Maker is no exception. Kindt starts the third volume considerably far from where the second volume ended and the pieces take a while to coalesce, but three volumes in we trust by now that there's always a method to Kindt's madness and a startling twist waiting at the end. Here again, Home Maker is no exception, with a four-page fold-out spread that can only be described as "operatic."

In truth, Home Maker forwards the overall Mind MGMT story only slightly, though I'd argue there are so many little details sprinkled throughout that even if Mind MGMT doesn't get "further" here, it certainly gets deeper. I've read Kindt describes this as Mind MGMT's halfway point, and if the book is a little quieter (up until said operatic ending), it closes protagonist Meru's arc from the first two books and cements the status quo for Mind MGMT's next act.

[Review contains spoilers]

Home Maker collects five issues, #13-17, comprising the "Home Maker" story, plus the one-off issue #18. To an extent most of the issues are self-contained (though linked), which contributes to the sense that the book catches its breath here even in the strong action sequences. The book opens with a purposefully-confusing look at the titular "Home Maker," followed by single-issue profiles of Meru, Henry Lyme, and the Eraser, and then the concluding issue and the "Zoo Keeper" profile. Though the middle three character profile issues weave in and out of the "Home Maker" storyline, they each mostly stand on their own, with the beginning and arc-ending issue #17 being the most connected.

The Meru and Lyme are the least effective chapters among an overall stellar book (like saying this corner of the Mona Lisa is my least favorite) if only because most of what they show us explicitly could already be intuited by sharp readers, and what revelations Kindt includes here are so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable. Meru's issue tells us the least (though don't think I missed that nosebleed Mr. Kindt, no sir). At the same time, I have noted before that I sometimes find it hard to empathize with Meru given how little the character knows herself, but I thought "Right in the boob" was an absurdly funny line in the midst of it all that helped humanize Meru considerably.

Ditto the Lyme issue, which I thought told us even less new information about the character (that I noticed). But here as well, Kindt's depiction of all the times Lyme brought Meru to him, told her his story, and then wiped her memory was incredibly affecting, both in the ways Lyme tried to tell the truth initially and then got further away from it with each instance, and also the gradual disintegration of Meru each visit. I need to re-read Volume 1 of Mind MGMT at some point to catch the subtleties I missed then and understood now; Mind MGMT has been optioned as a movie and I wonder if they would actually tell Vol. 1 as written, with the audience not finding out that Meru has done this before until the end, and then the "real" story starts in the sequel. It would be interesting to see the reaction of those "not in the know."

The Eraser's chapter, in contrast, tells us a lot we don't know about the character, and it's buffeted in true Mind MGMT style by the hypnotic sci-fi story that starts at the edges and then ultimately takes over the page (the visual crown jewel of the volume until it's trumped by the fold-out). It turns out, through a series of events both revealed and unrevealed, that new MGMT leader the Eraser is actually Julianne Verve (or is she?), subject of Meru's true crime book and supposed murderer of her own family. A bevy of questions are opened up here, given that it seems that Julianne did not have powers at the outset and that it was her husband who was hooked up with Mind MGMT, but somehow Julianne comes to take the fall for his murder and reemerges as the Eraser. Further, Lyme pushed Meru to write Julianne's story, and Duncan, the Futurist, freed her from death row (as shown in Volume 2). Are Lyme and Duncan responsible for the Eraser's threat -- and is the Eraser a threat at all?

Aside from watching all the "Home Maker"'s dominoes fall in issue #17, resulting in a suburb imploding, one of the moments that grabbed me the most in this volume was when Meru had to choose between the Eraser and Lyme. Kindt did actually make me doubt whether the Eraser was truly "bad" or if her supposed mission to take down the Russian MGMT equivalent (the book's other key contribution to the mythos) wasn't actually noble. For a moment I did root for Meru to go with the Eraser rather than Lyme, hoping Kindt might pull a Lost/Others/the-bad-guys-aren't-so-bad-type scenario, but it wasn't to be. That Meru sides with the forces that want to stop Mind MGMT instead of the forces who want to harness the super-powered chaos makes sense enough and cements Meru and Lyme's "team," though I think Kindt intends that the difference between the two groups is really negligible.

It's likely tough to follow the, again, operatic chaos of issue #17 (one can actually imagine an opera score playing under all of the carnage); issue #18 does this well enough, but it's clear it's got a hard act to follow. This issue profiles the young "Zoo Keeper" who can control and influence animals. Lyme makes some interesting appearances in flashback and one wonders if his care for the Zoo Keeper is influenced by his care for Meru or vice versa, or if all of this stems from some other relationship in Lyme's life. However, "Zoo Keeper" ultimately follows what becomes a maybe too-familiar Mind MGMT storyline in which a character develops powers, gets recruited by the group, has qualms about the work, and then in some way gets out (see Lyme, Dusty, Duncan). Kindt's use of Dick and Jane tropes here is amusing and the storybook narration along the side of the page is downright creepy, but one does get the sense they've read this issue before (and not because of partial mind-wiping).

But Mind MGMT Vol. 3: The Home Maker is, in total, remarkably clever, and the way in which the rogue Home Maker's plan ultimately comes together is something everyone should behold. With Mind MGMT's first book, I didn't really know what was going on, and with the second I "got it" retroactively; now with the third volume, Matt Kindt shows us the story Mind MGMT can really tell with (more of) its cards on the table, and I'm hooked once again. Only, after this book's giant gatefold, I wonder what Kindt will do for an encore.

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Review: Godzilla: Half-Century War trade paperback (IDW Publishing)

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at '80s Marvel Rocks!]

IDW gained the Godzilla comics license in 2011, and for the most part, it took them some time to properly use it. This isn’t an isolated case; their Transformers comics especially have gone through a couple of different eras. So while IDW used a variety of ongoings-turned-limited series to figure out what to do with their newly-arrived license, they also gave writer/artist James Stokoe the opportunity to create a truly epic monster tale. Godzilla: The Half-Century War, as the title implies, follows the King of the Monsters from his post-World War II origins to the modern day. What sets this book apart from the other IDW Godzilla comics is its manga-based style.

In its loosest sense, the manga aesthetic is used by artists such as Humberto Ramos and Michael Ryan to give their artwork a distinct look. What Stokoe does is closer to Adam Warren’s Empowered; all of The Half-Century War looks like it’s a manga that’s been translated into English. A lot of this is due to the carefully constructed word balloons, which are designed to be too large for the English text and which feature centered question marks below the words themselves; both are common translation features. Many characters chuckle constantly or have some other verbal tic, another common manga standby. Mixed into this are Western techniques, such as turning Godzilla’s traditional “Skreeonk!” roar into a John Workman-style word balloon and deliberately faded coloring.

A Godzilla project is much like an Aliens project in that its human cast can determine whether it succeeds or fails. This can be judged in two factors: how important the humans are to the overall narrative, and how annoying those humans are. Stokoe thankfully anticipated this and provided an excellent main character in Ota Murakami, a young soldier on the front lines when Godzilla arrives in 1954. He’s not burdened with an excess of backstory and he’s quickly established as intelligent and almost insanely courageous by taking on Godzilla with a Sherman tank. As time marches on, Ota grows more bitter, but it’s not angst for angst’s sake. This is a man watching the world fall apart and unable to stop the onslaught of monsters.

One major advantage that IDW has over the previous license-holders is that they have access to Toho’s entire monster catalog. Toho requires companies to license each monster independently; Marvel and Dark Horse could only afford to get Godzilla and were forced to make up their own foes. This is also why the 1998 film didn’t have a second monster (amongst many other reasons, but that’s a huge field of worms). Either IDW shelled out the cash or Toho was willing to cut a package deal since the films were on hiatus until the 2014 release. Whatever the case, IDW can use all of the monsters they want, and Stokoe uses this resource to set up the timeline of The Half-Century War as a broad strokes version of the films. While Godzilla is alone in the first issue, the second sees him fighting Anguirus in a loose adaptation of Godzilla Raids Again!. It simultaneously answers the question, “What if Godzilla ended up in Vietnam in the depths of the war?”

Issue three jumps ahead as Ota and the Anti-Megalosaurus Force (an organization from the films) have tracked all of the monsters to Ghana. The AMF features all sorts of strange characters which we sadly don’t get to learn more about, especially the hippies charged with following Mothra. This issue’s fight features essentially every major monster from the '70s “Showa” era of films, with the exceptions showing up later due to plot reasons. Even Megalon gets a turn to shine; Jet Jaguar is sorely missed though. We also get to meet the villain building the machines used to summon the monsters: Dr. Deverich, whose last name is a combination of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the team behind the 1998 film. Unfortunately, his machines work too well, even reaching out into space ...

The fourth issue sees a shift in the narrative as the heavily wounded AMF are demoted to being, in Ota’s terms, storm-watchers for oncoming monsters. Humanity finally has a weapon to take on Godzilla: Mechagodzilla! This is specifically the '80s/'90s “Heisei” Mechagodzilla, my personal favorite design of the character, as it fits in with the villain. Back when Toho made Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, they thought about including Mechagodzilla as well, but decided that two kings of monsters were enough. Stokoe clearly disagrees, and the real and metal Godzillas are forced to team up against the crystalline foe. Exactly how SpaceGodzilla came to be in this continuity is thankfully ignored; that’s a character that didn’t need a fourth origin.

We finally, in issue five, join an aged and sick Ota one year after Dr. Deverich’s machine summons more monsters from space. Stokoe saved Gigan and King Ghidorah, two of Godzilla’s nastiest foes, for last, and the two have wreaked havoc on Earth while the AMF have rebuilt Mechagodzilla into its 2000s “Millennium”/”Kiryu” design. Just to prove he’s a bigger Godzilla fan than anyone else, Stokoe uses the Dimension Tide, an obscure black hole weapon from Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, as a key plot point. Ota finally confronts Godzilla face-to-face after taking control of Mechagodzilla, leading to a satisfying finale ... until another set of spines rises out of the ocean!

This is a storyline that I’d love to see revisited at some point in the future. For instance, how would Ota react to Godzilla’s son Minya? Either way, it’s safe to say that James Stokoe’s Godzilla: The Half-Century War is both a definitive Godzilla epic and a stunning work of art. It could also be the basis of a really great film, so hopefully IDW has sent Gareth Edwards a copy.

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Number 1484: Viking Prince by the crown prince of comic artists

The Viking Prince feature, which ran in The Brave and the Bold for the first two dozen issues in the mid-to-late fifties, is a collaboration between Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert. I believe the Viking Prince was a version of Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, although the comic book character was original enough in his own right. Being written by Kanigher in the Comics Code era meant that the blood and thunder was not in violent battles between humans, but often with supernatural entities, like the living giant stone statue in “The Secret of Odin’s Cup!” Kubert’s art on the story is superb.

From The Brave and the Bold #20 (1958):

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DC Trade Solicitations for August 2014 - Batman Anniversary editions, Arkham Asylum, Zero Year, Gordon of Gotham, Martian Manhunter, Harley Quinn

Some interesting 1990s-2000s stuff in DC Comics's August 2014 hardcover and trade paperback collections solicitations, including Batman: Gordon of Gotham and collections of the Martian Manhunter and original Harley Quinn series. There's a bit more Forever Evil material to be found here, too, and some controversy in the collection schemes of Blight and Green Lantern. Let's take a look, shall we?

• Batman 75th Anniversary Commemorative Collection

This collection slipped past me the first time around, but it caught my eye after this discussion on Dan DiDio's Facebook page.

Not surprisingly I'm more in the William Lange camp than I am in the Ken Cramer camp. Irrespective, pairing from the last 30 years Dark Knight Returns, Hush, and Court of Owls in a slipcase is interesting to me -- you've got a little Bronze Age, a little New Millennium Age, and then a New 52 title. That's probably a good cross-section if you had to pick one prominent Batman collection from each of those eras (which, depending on your point of view, is not to say "great" or "noteworthy" or "groundbreaking," just "prominent"), though I can't help think there's an era somewhere between Dark Knight Returns and Hush that's probably underrepresented here; what comes to mind first is Knightfall, or then maybe No Man's Land, though the challenges to including either of those in a slipcase collection like this is probably obvious. (All the No Man's Land volumes in a slipcase? DC could just have my money for that.)

• Batman: Arkham Asylum 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition HC and New Edition TP

What I mainly find interesting here is the decision to release new twenty-fifth anniversary editions of Arkham Asylum simultaneously in hardcover and paperback. Just about every comics shop and chain bookstore has a copy of Arkham Asylum perpetually in stock, and I wonder if it was in recognition of that that this comes out in both versions at the same time -- whatever kind the bookstore doesn't have, that's the kind they'll order. I also wonder if DC might, or might do well to, stick the Arkham Asylum video game logo on one of these books. Blasphemy, I know, I know, but I also wonder if that might newly introduce this book to a new generation.

• Batman: Gordon of Gotham TP

Regarding Gordon of Gotham, GCPD, and Gordon's Law, all collected here, the former is written by Dennis O'Neil and the latter two are written by Chuck Dixon. No knock on O'Neil, who made his own indelible mark on Batman, but much of the publicity I've seen for this book puts O'Neil first when he's only one third of this book to Dixon's two-thirds, and we really, really lack in the Chuck Dixon/DC Comics collections department. Draw your own conclusion whether this has anything to do with the reported bad blood between Dixon and DC.

Anyway, given that this is obviously being published in connection with the new Gotham TV series, I rather wish they'd included the Batman: Bullock's Law one-shot by Dixon also -- hat tip to the Dan DiDio Facebook page crowd for that one, too.

• Batman Vol. 5: Zero Year – Dark City HC
• DC Comics: Zero Year HC

When it was originally solicited I had called the DC: Zero Year book an "omnibus," but it actually doesn't have that moniker -- at 14 issues, it'll just be a pretty thick book. Most of these issues aren't being collected elsewhere, which makes a little sense since I don't believe they connect to events in the ongoing titles, though this does run contrary to DC's "collect every issue of a title in its own series's book" policy -- curious to hear if you're all happy with the "Zero Year" crossover issues being separated out or not.

Either way, I'm looking forward to this, not in the least because I'm curious what a Green Lantern Corps/"Zero Year" issue might be (no spoilers, please!). Nice touch by DC having the second Batman: Zero Year collection out at the same time.

• Martian Manhunter: Rings of Saturn TP

As always, I think DC mining this mid-1990s stuff is an excellent step in the right direction, and the fact that it's stuff by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake doesn't hurt, either. Original solicitations mentioned issues #10-17 but not the DC One Million issue, but this one has it in it; hat tip to Paul Hicks for pointing it out (we miss your "Uncollected Editions," Paul!).

• Earth 2 Vol. 4: The Dark Age HC

First Tom Taylor volume. This one is only four issues, #17-20, plus the second annual, which is kind of a small trade but I imagine that's because of the abrupt James Robinson/Tom Taylor switch and that things will even out after. Odd but not unwelcome that the Earth 2 collections include two annuals in two volumes.

• Forever Evil: ARGUS TP
• Forever Evil: Arkham War TP
• Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion TP

Wouldn't be a crossover without some spin-off miniseries. This reminds me a bit of Final Crisis and its aftermath, like Revelations (which ultimately didn't have much to do with Final Crisis) and Rogues' Revenge. (Remember Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape? Wasn't that a trippy comic). Glad to see a couple of the Villains Month issues in there, which makes those feel not so removed from the events at hand.

• Forever Evil: Blight TP

Again from the "Bound to Make No One Happy Except the People That It Does" department comes the full-book collection of Forever Evil: Blight, including Justice League Dark, Phantom Stranger, Pandora, and Constantine (two of which we would note are now DOA shortly after this crossover). You can read 'em here, or you can read 'em each in their own collections too.

• Green Lantern Vol. 5: Test of Wills HC

As the saying goes, "I've got a bad feeling about this." This collection includes Green Lantern #27-34 and Green Lantern Corps #31-33, the latter of which issues from both series are the "Uprising" crossover (I've been so unfocused on the Green Lantern titles, which will change soon, that I believe I even missed that this crossover was going on). The fifth Green Lantern Corps trade isn't officially solicited yet, but early word is that it will contain issues #28-33 and an annual, so yes, that's just a four-issue difference between the Green Lantern and Corps trades (and the Corps trade, at present, doesn't have the Green Lantern issues while the Green Lantern trade has the Corps issues).

A four-issue difference isn't as bad as some other trades we've seen (you know the one) but I imagine this will dissatisfy some out there.

• Harley Quinn Vol. 1: Hot in the City HC
• Harley Quinn: Vengeance Unlimited TP

Occurred to me the other day that Harley Quinn is now what Catwoman was in the 1990s, the kind of go-to bad-girl sex-symbol Bat-character. Despite that I think many long-time fans didn't much like Harley's new costume et al in the New 52, DC must be getting a good return on the character to see her starring in her own new series plus these collections of the 2000s Harley Quinn series (I have to think the forthcoming larger reprint of Gotham City Sirens is mainly spurred by Harley, too). I'd further posit that the new interest in Harley comes at least in part from Arkham Asylum series video game players, which is an interesting new phenomenon, video games (vs. TV, etc.) influencing comics.

• Wonder Woman Vol. 5: Flesh HC

With issues #24-29 and the Villains Month issue, seems to me this might be the penultimate volume of Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's Wonder Woman run. One more six-issue volume would put us at issue #35.

That's what I'm buying (or at least flipping through on the spinner racks). What's on your pull list from DC Comics for August?

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Number 1583: You never can tell!

Al Williamson is credited with just a handful of stories at ACG in the late fifties. I haven’t done the research to tell you how many (lazy me). After early 1960, though, I believe the only stories credited to Williamson are reprints.

’You Never Can Tell!” is a story about a little man with a big case of obsessive-compulsive disorder involving auctions and treasure. It’s from Adventures Into the Unknown #107 (1959).* “In the Beginning,” with its shopworn science fiction/early man plot is from Forbidden Worlds #76 (1959).

Williamson often worked with other artists, but I don’t see the most obvious, Roy Krenkel or Frank Frazetta, in either of these stories. There are some Frazetta-style touches in some of the Neanderthal men panels, but I don’t see his dynamic pencils or inks. Al also worked with George Woodbridge and Angelo Torres on some, and they could have helped him here. The Grand Comics Database doesn’t say, crediting Williamson with pencils and Inks on “In the Beginning,” and Jack Davis with the inks on “You Never Can Tell!” That is a collaboration I don’t see by looking at the story. Someone will have to explain to me how they came to that conclusion.

I have shown these stories before many years ago. I have re-scanned them for this posting.

*“You Never Can Tell!” likely got its inspiration from “Rock Diver” by Harry Harrison, which was first published in the science fiction digest, Worlds Beyond #3, in 1951. In that story prospectors use similar suits to explore underground.

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Number 1582: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy, Dell squareback days of summer

It would not have seemed that summer vacation was coming with its mouth-watering anticipation of 12 weeks of freedom from school had I not had the large Dell squarebound vacation specials. They arrived in April or May to remind me those golden-hued days would be upon me. But that was illusion. Summer vacation was usually not that good; it was mostly unstructured and boring, and worse than boring it was hot. I often retreated to a shady spot behind the garage with a stack of comic books, including the Dell specials, to read and wait out the heat of the day.

Bugs Bunny’s Vacation Funnies was part of that reading. I’m posting the lead story from that title’s issue #2 (1952). It’s a funny fantasy. Bugs travels through time to meet his and Elmer Fudd’s ancestors in the town of Salem. The art is by Fred Abranz (1909-1992), an animator/comic book artist I associate with Bugs. You can see more examples of Abranz’s work from Mykal at The Big Blog of Kids’ Comics and a Chilly Willy story by Abranz from Steve at Four Color Shadows.

The cover, attributed to longtime Bugs Bunny comic strip artist Ralph Heimdahl, has Porky and Petunia swimming in their clothes!

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