Comics I Liked This Week

 Not all of these were new last week, but that's when I got around to reading 'em!

Absolute Martian Manhunter #1: I a fan of Martian Manhunter and particularly a fan of new interpretations of the character from the DeMatteis/Badger limited series, to American Secrets, to the underappreciated series by Orlando and Rossmo. This title sits firmly in that tradition with a first issue that is something like the traditional origin of Martian Manhunter meets Shade, the Changing Girl, and I dig it.

An FBI agent, Jones, is nearly killed in a bombing and since he's been having hallucinations and seems disconnected from his life. As he (against orders) investigates the bomber and tries to make sense of his motives he discovers the was only saved by somehow bonding with an alien intelligence. Or possibly that Other is a manifestation of something already within him--maybe his own mind? At this point, it's unclear. Deniz Camp's story is intriguing and well done, but I feel like the really star here is the psychedelic art of Javier Rodriguez, that reminds me of the pop art inspired comics work of Guy Pellaert or Alberto Solsona.

Bug Wars #1: This one is on issue 2, I think. Slade Slaymaker, along with his brother and mother, is forced to move back into the home where his entomologist father died a grisly death. It's a home with secrets. Not the least of which is that there are warring tribes of diminutive insect-riding humanoids having epic battles in the unkept backyard!

Ad copy calls this "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids meets Conan" but I feel like Aaron and Asrar are fulfilling the promise of Sword of Atom or the Hulk stories set in Jarella's world in a gritter, modern way.

The Seasons #1: This title from Remender and Azceta is actually on issue 3 now. The series is set in an alternate 1920s (I think).   A decade ago, the parents of the Seasons sisters disappeared. Now Autumn has discovered where they might be, and how it might be connected to a creepy carnival that has just arrived in New Gaullia where Spring Seasons is. Will Spring be able to avoid falling prey to the carnival's clowns?

Remender said that they wanted to do something that paid homage to "paid homage to Tintin, Miyazaki, Winsor McCay, and Jeff Smith’s Bone." I feel like those influences are very much on display in the style and setting of the first issue. There's also a tinge of horror lurking in the background that adds intrigue to the whimsy.

Lost Marvels

Fantagraphics has been doing hardcover with some Timely and Atlas stuff for some time, similar to their EC Comics Library. An interesting development that slipped by me was the announcement of a new archive series of more recent Marvel material: Lost Marvels.

Volume 1, set to release at the end of April, is Tower of Shadows. It collects the 9 issues of the never before collected horror anthology series from 1969. (With issue 10, the series became Creatures on the Loose, and some of that has been reprinted elsewhere.)

While that's interesting, I don't know if that would go into the buy column for me, or it wouldn't have, but then I saw the announcement of volume 2. That volume's titled: Howard Chaykin Vol. 1: Dominic Fortune, Monark Starstalker, and Phantom Eagle. It collects the first (maybe only?) appearance of Monark Starstalker in Marvel Premiere #32, all the color Dominic Fortune stories by Chaykin including the Max limited series, and the collaboration with Garth Ennis, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle. Pretty cool contents, particularly when there is no chance of ever seeing any sort of Dominic Fortune collection. 

The "vol. 1" implies there may be a Chaykin volume 2 in the future.

Rust was Weird

This week the score from an ebay auction came in: All 13 issues of the 1987 series of Rust by Now Comics. My brother had two issues of this (as it turns out, the last two) when we were kids, and those issues had left us curious about the rest of the comic. 

Well, since I bought them as a gift for my brother, I haven't read them yet, so I can only report what I know from the internet and the two issues I have read, but in brief, Rust is the story of a cop who presumably through some sort of accident gets super-tough skin, acid blood, and a gruesome appearance. The original writer was Steve Miller, but most of the run is written by Fred Schiller. The art is most by Tony Atkins and Jim Brozman.

I gather most of the series is Rust taking on various non-super-powered bad guys. The first issue we read was issue 12 that is the culmination of a storyline involving Rust taking on a cult. It had an eye-catching cover and a preview for Now's Terminator comic. The next issue blurb promises: "the end of the world."

And this was not hyperbole.

The final issue (September 1988) has a deadly plague spreading across the globe. Rust and his (I guess) love interest are separated by events and presumably unaware the other is alive for most of the story. It's a hell of a way to bring a truncated run to an end!

While I admire the audacity of that ending, it's no wonder the 2nd Rust series in 1989 completely ignores it.

The Adventurers

This weekend, I won an ebay auction on the Malibu collections of The Adventurers from 1990. If you don't remember this minor title of the 80s black and white boom, it's a fantasy series started at Aircel in 1986 by artist Peter Hsu (later replaced by Kent Burles on interior art) and scripter Scott Behnke. After 2 issues, it moved to Adventure Publications where it ran for 10 issues. 

In 1987, it was followed by Book II than ran for 7 issues. Adventure was acquired by Malibu as in imprint in 1989 and there was a Book III that ran for 6 issues. 

In an era when Sword & Sorcery comics not based on a work by Robert E. Howard were disappearing from the stands, The Adventurers was practically its own small universe. There were also spinoff series: Warriors, Ninja Elite, and possibly Hsu's Elf Warrior, though I'm unclear if it's in the same world.

While clearly drawing inspiration from the S&S comics of the 70s and earlier 80s, The Adventurers explores new territory by borrowing the adventuring party from Dungeons & Dragons, and other fantasy rpgs and making a recurring character a representative of the important 80s group: the ninja. 

I can say that The Adventurers is anything phenomenal but if you are a fan of S&S comics (which I am) or 80s black & white indies (also me), I think they are at least worth checking out. There's one fansite I've found dedicated to the series.

Captain America: Brave New World

I saw the new Captain America movie this weekend. It continues the adventures of Sam Wilson as Captain America. Those that missed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Disney+ series might have missed that he took over the mantle from Steve Rogers sometime after the events of Avengers: Endgame. It also features a new Falcon, Joaquin Torres, and a host of other characters from previous Marvel films, including some call backs to the early days of the franchise.

In brief, Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross has been elected president, and Wilson has been working with them despite tensions that remain from the period of Captain America: Civil War. Ross even asks Wilson to consider restarting the Avengers. Ross has secrets, though, and events put Wilson at odds with his Commander-in-Chief as he strives to clear the name of a friend and prevent a hidden mastermind from starting a war.

I probably liked this installment of the Cinematic Marvel Universe better than I've liked most Marvel films since about 2019.  It was less jokey than average, which was nice, adhering to the template of Winter Soldier.

My brother observed that it's a very Bronze Age Comics movie, and I think he's right. Not in the basic elements of the story which are a mix of (original) Ultimate Universe realism and 21st Century characters and arcs, The structure, however, of things partakes (like Winter Soldier) of 70s political thrillers and the call backs and tying of loose ends of less successful Marvel films (The Eternals and The Incredible Hulk) recalls the way writers would finish off stories with guest appearances in other titles, particularly team-up books like Marvel Two-in-One or Marvel Team-Up. It plays very much like the Captain America Annual dealing with story elements from the aborted Eternals and Hulk runs.

Denny O'Neil's Bat-Bible

In 2021, Scott Peterson, writer and former assistant editor to Denny O'Neil, posted O'Neil's Batman Bible from 1989. It was a writer's guide to the character and his world for that era of comics and from the perspective of O'Neil.

Obviously, the mythos has evolved over that time and some of O'Neil's takes would not have been universally accepted by other writers at the time (like, "he never kills"), but it's a good distillation of the understanding of the character and his world from a man who did a whole lot to shape that mythos over the years.

Check it out here.

Collections I'd Like to See

 There are so many runs in the Bronze and early Modern Ages of comics that haven't been collected or haven't been collected recently. Here are five I'd really like to see:

Dominic Fortune: This 30s pulp adventurer created by Howard Chaykin also managed to have some adventures in the modern day. Chaykin even came back and did a series in the 00s but let's end this collection in the 80s. Includes material from Marvel Preview #2, Marvel Super Action #1, and The Hulk! #21-25; Marvel Premiere #56, Marvel Team-Up #120, Web of Spider-Man #10, and Iron Man #212-213.

DC Comics Presents: While we're on the subject of Superman, where's our Superman: DC Comics Presents Bronze Age Omnibus? Sure, the series was collected in Showcase Presents volumes, but we need them in color omnibus to balance the Batman team-ups in Brave and the Bold. I don't know how many omnibuses it would take, but we need the whole series: DC Comics Presents #1-97 and annuals #1-4.

Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja: This one isn't likely to be high on most people's lists (it was meant to last 24 issues but only went 16), but I appreciated what Hama and Wagner were trying to accomplish, which was something like G.I. Joe meets Akira. Even if it's a failure, it's an interesting one and deserves to be seen by more eyeballs! A collection could include material from Marvel Comics Presents #25, Nth Man #1-16, and Excalibur (vol. 1) #27.

Superman and the Forgotten Heroes: The Forgotten Heroes, a minor team in the 80s of short-run characters from the Silver Age, are once again, mostly forgotten--except maybe for Animal Man, whose inclusion I'd argue help raised his profile for better days to come. This would include Action Comics #545, 552-553, and DC Comics Presents #77-78. It could be rounded out with earlier Bronze Age appearances of the individual characters with or without Superman: Showcase #100, Detective Comics #486, Wonder Woman #268, Action Comics #536, and Action Comics #540.

Cover mockup by Catspaw Dynamics

Barren Earth: This sci-fi epic by Gary Cohn and Ron Randall about the survivor of an expedition of spacefaring humans to a post-apocalyptic Earth working to reunite the remnants of humanity ran as backups in Warlord, then got a limited to tie things up. It has never been collected. A collection should include material from Warlord (first series) 63-74 and 76-88, Who's Who vol. 1 #2, and Conquerors of the Barren Earth #1-4.