Millennium - Trust No One!

I picked up the collected Millennium - Trust No One collection some years ago when I was filling in gaps in my Justice League collections. It was one of many such sprawling late 80's  yarns, the kind that spewed across a broad swathe of any given comics universe and connected to other titles in that universe. It was designed less to be a coherent story than a routing device for other comic books. I think they called them "spine" stories and that name suits Millennium quite well. 

It pits a Post-Crisis DCU against the menace of the Manhunters, android servants of the Guardians of the Universe who found them unreliable and scrapped them in favor of the Green Lantern Corps. The Manhunters resented that treatment and used their various powers to infiltrate the universe in an attempt to thwart the goals of their former masters. These Manhunters were first concocted by Jack Kirby in a one-shot effort and later revised by Steve Englehart in his brief but potent run on JLofA. 

Englehart is the  author of this core story as well and it must've been quite a bit of fun (or perhaps not) trying to tell a story and maintain the momentum of that story when much of the story itself and a great deal of the action happened in other locations and titles. 

Reading Millennium is much like it was back in the olden days of comics when distribution wasn't reliable and reading a comic book meant making many assumptions about events not seen in other issues. 

My primary attraction to the series is the artwork of Joe Staton. I'm a diehard Staton fan and I followed too little of it at DC. I have almost none of his Green Lantern work, the primary title he focused on while there. I fell in love with Staton on Charlton's E-Man and the crush has never gone away. I followed him to Marvel where he inked a bit and then to DC where he became a force on the stories of the Earth-2 heroes (when there was an Earth-2 that is). 

Actually Staton does breakdowns on his series and is finished by Ian Gibson, an artist I have little familiarity with. But I do like the rough and tumble combination of the two here. 

The core story of Millennium is that the Guardians and their female counterparts the Zamorans seek to bring into being a new race of immortals. To that end one Guardian and one Zamoran seek out particular Earthers who have the gift which will allow them to elevate to the new status. Along the way some of the candidates are killed or make decisions which make them unsuitable. 

One true fact about this series is that Englehart went to great lengths to make sure that this new gang of heroes was not dominated by white men, which was the standard in comics for most of its long history. One of the characters is gay, though this is not explicit. One interesting choice was Tom Kalimaku, the longtime assistant for Green Lantern known by the unfortunate nickname of "Pieface". Another was a villain called the Floronic Man. 

Another thing that makes Millennium a difficult read is that so many of the heroes are somewhat revised as a consequence of the Crisis and events since. Much of that varnish has vanished over the intervening decades, but still fresh then were really alternate renditions of Superman, still somewhat of a novice hero despite his iconic standing and a more-than-usual surly Batman. Actual events from the Crisis, such as the compiling of the new Earth's revised history by Harbinger is actually a major plot point for the series as a whole. Harbinger was a fun character in Crisis on Infinite Earths and is interesting here as well. I haven't any inkling what might've become of her since DC has reshaped its universe several times since these heady days. 

Holding true to its sub-title the series reveals that many of the people in and around the heroes are actually Manhunters or their agents and this makes the whole of the saga quite unsettled, especially since so many key events happen outside its pages. I can only imagine this is what the Marvel movie universe will be like when Skrulls will continue to pop up here and there and most anywhere. 

The upshot of the series, and it takes a long time to get there, is the creation of some new heroes who are sent off into their own title dubbed appropriately The New Guardians. The series didn't last long, so a lot of energy is expended in Milennium for relatively small gain. Alas it is so.

"No man escapes the Manhunters." is the mantra of that duplicitous cult and alas neither does the story in Millennium, at least not completely. 

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Dojo Classics - The History Report!

According to Marv Wolfman the two-part History of the DC Universe was originally slated to be the final two issues of the twelve-part Crisis on Infinite Earths, but was shuttled out when the story of the Crisis grew to absorb all twelve installments. 

What these two beautiful books do is lay out in sumptuous detail the DC Universe (emphasis on the "Uni") that had evolved from the machinations of the Monitors in the epic which whittled down the sprawling reality.

We get a somewhat sober reflection from the point of view of Harbinger of this new reality from the very beginnings of the universe right up through the creation of the Earth and beyond. We follow the development of human history from the Neanderthal beginnings of Vandal Savage and the Cro-Magnon Anthro. We see the early gods of the Greco-Roman canon effect the planet and we see the rise of Camelot with its heroes such as the Shining Knight and the Demon.

The Old West comes into focus as does the American revolution right up to the advent of World War II when heroes assembled in large numbers to battle the Axis. With the assembly of the Justice Society of America and the All-Star Squadron the curtain drops on this first part of the history.

The story continues in the then modern day of 1986 as the rocket containing Kal-el of Krypton arrives on Earth, Bruce Wayne loses his parents in Crime Alley, and Diana of the Amazons comes to be. The new DCU is ripe with glorious heroes who assemble as a Justice League with members such as Aquaman, Flash (Wally West), Green Lantern, Atom, and more. Other teams such as the Suicide Squad, the Doom Patrol, and the Teen Titans arise to defend the planet from a host of threats. Heroes such as Manhunter, Black Lightning, and even a new if not necessarily improved Captain Marvel show up to save the sundry days. We even get glimpses of the future with Tommy Tomorrow and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

All in all these two tomes showcase the then nascent landscape the Crisis had yielded, a landscape ripe with possibilities and rich with potential. Most agree that potential was somewhat squandered as the focus and energy to complete the Crisis itself seem to deplete that required to follow it up, but it did make DC relevant again to a readership which more and more in those days was comprised of dedicated fans and less and less casual readers. Only fanboys would buy a two-part history lesson like this, but then that was exactly the market which the Crisis had to no small extent succeeded in bringing to fruition.

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Dojo Classics - Crisis On Infinite Earths!

Doubtless one of the most significant publications in comic book history the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths was a true game changer for the industry. Twelve glorious issues produced with ardor and gusto by Marv Wolfman and the spectacular George Perez transformed not only the landscape of the DC Universe but also the landscape of how comic books were conceived and manufactured.

World War II Heroes Before The Crisis

I recently read the  "Crisis" again. I hadn't done so in decades, perhaps not since the beginning though I have lingered over individual pages and images since, but never have I read it over from beginning to end since first buying and enjoying it so many moons ago. It served as a capstone to my DC buying interests at the time and soon after the series I traded away my originals, since having replaced them with a handsome trade some years ago.

World War II Heroes After The Crisis

I won't bore you with a summary of this story, but suffice it to say that the assembled heroes of all the worlds of the former DC multiverse battle a godlike being who seeks to destroy everything and create an anti-matter counterpart so he can have absolute control over everything. Nearly all the worlds are obliterated and the heroes on them either disappear into the ether of memory or become part of a brand new world which contains fragments of all that had preceded it.

I will not bother with spoilers, but if you haven't yet read Crisis you really need to, and don't read further because I will assume everyone has a thorough knowledge of the events now thirty or more years gone. I am just going to comment on events which stood out for me in individual issues. 

I loved Earth-3 and the villainous Crime Syndicate was given a pretty heady send off. Loved seeing Blue Beetle in a new comic book and drawn exceedingly well by George Perez.

Loved seeing the original Superman on the team sent by the Monitor into the past. His presence gave the whole affair a real gravity.

The battles are furious and it's hard to keep track, but the western heroes were fun to see assembled and the deaths of The Losers was a harbinger (pun intended) of things to come.

It all ends, and we for the first really get a sense of the scale of this epic. The new Doctor Light never really gelled for me, but I admit her acerbic tone does add some nice spice to this story, her heroism not certain by any means.

George Perez at his mightiest with a spaceship full of heroes. I cannot think of a single other artist who could've done this series so well. (Many have tried, none have succeeded.)

One of the weaknesses of the series is that the Anti-Monitor is a rather bland uber-villain. He wants the end of everything, but that seems such a callow desire it is difficult for me as a reader to find resonance with it. Of course compared to later examples of his ilk (Onslaught comes to mind) he was a giant among pygmies.

The passing of Supergirl is seen as a watershed moment for the series and comics as a major character dies, really for the first time with a sense of finality. It stung.

But not as much as the death of the Flash which was so much more tragic since one of my favorite heroes died mostly alone and unnoticed. He gets his just recognition later of course, but the decision to have him pass so far away from his peers was staggering. Flash was a my favorite DC hero, so his demise was an apt time for me to leave the fold.

The villains are plentiful and this issue shows they are true to form. Often in these big events the prosaic motivations of the baddies is difficult to reconcile with the larger threats to reality. The Joker works well throughout, that I'll grant you.

The climatic battle does seem a bit underwhelming since so much has been spent in its set up, but that's almost inevitable. Given the power of the Spectre in these kinds of things, it's hard sometimes to get too worked up about the threats. He's so totally over the top in terms of what he can do.

Death comes so quickly and often in the final issues that much of the effect is lost. I've always assumed that was intentional, the fog of war and all that.

The Crisis left a world behind which to my mind was less rich than the one that preceded it, save of course of the addition of the Charlton heroes of Earth-4, as briefly as it existed. But otherwise the DCU for all its energy was a lesser place, though as we all know now from this vantage point that didn't last.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a dandy story, there's no disputing that. Folks dislike the results, I dislike some of the results. But like any great yarn it moved you to care about what happened and in the DCU once upon a time that was a rare thing indeed. 

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Classic Crisis #21 - Magical Mystery Tour Of Doom!

1970 brought new things and continued the traditions of the last decade. The annual crossover event between the League and the Society saw another two-part installment. But missing was longtime DC inker Sid Greene, his replacement was reliable Joe Giella who gave Dick Dillin's pencils a smooth gloss. Denny O'Neil offers up his second and final crossover tale.

"Peril of the Paired Planets" by O'Neil, Dillin and Giella, under a cover by Neal Adams, begins dramatically on Earth-1 when Superman plummets from the sky unconscious. The JLofA investigates and they suspect magic when Batman too is struck down. The remaining League members Hawkman, Atom, and Flash call in Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Black Canary from leave. The story shifts to Earth-2 where in space Red Tornado encounters an alien spacecraft. On board are some blue aliens led by a mysterious blue figure called "Creator Squared" (actually the text uses the superscript number). Wishing to mine the energy of the twin Earths when they are pushed into one another across the dimensions and explode, Creator Squared puts a device in Tornado's noggin and situates him in the Borderland between Earths as a beacon of sorts to increase the inevitable pull. He then sends five of his henchman to capture the JSofA members with high-tech nets. Superman is the first captured and we learn that it is this capture which brought down the Superman of Earth-1 in the beginning of the story because of the affinity between the two heroes and the closing situation of the Earths. Next Dr. Mid-Nite is captured and his counterpart on Earth-1 is Batman. Flash is next and he escapes the aliens for a while, but eventually he is captured and so is Barry Allen. As the Earths get closer and closer many people across both globes detect ghostly images of what seem to be themselves. The JSofA assemble to face the threat, and on Earth-1 Green Lantern attempts to get to Earth-2 but finds the way blocked. The Atom's diagnosis suggests some link between the Earths is drawing them together, and the team not knowing about Red Tornado suspect it just might be Black Canary who migrated from Earth-2. She declares to save both Earths she must die.

 

Under a very strong Dick Dillin and Murphy Anderson cover, the O'Neil, Dillin, and Giella team offer up part two of the saga titled "Where Valor Fails...Will Magic Triumph?". The story opens with the assembled Justice Society facing the threat when more of the super nets from the aliens appear and attack the members. Starman is captured, as is Wonder Woman, and Hourman is defeated also. On Earth-1 Green Arrow consoles Black Canary who imagines she must die to save the planets while Green Lantern tries again to get access to Earth-2 and finds a hole. He discovers Red Tornado but is then cut-off from a return. Hawkman is on Earth-1 helping people who are threatened by ghostly dopplegangers of themselves when he too is struck down at the same time as his counterpart on Earth-2 is captured by a net. The Society continue to fight and Green Lantern of Earth-2 is caught when the net becomes wood, his weakness. This also freezes the Lantern in the Borderland. As time ticks away, Canary has just twenty minutes she thinks before she must commit suicide. Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt and Dr.Fate gather up the Spectre from his graveyard lair and head to the Borderland where Spectre uses his body to form a barrier between the Earths. Thunderbolt and Fate attack Creator Squared's spaceship directly ultimately destroying it and ending the threat and freeing Red Tornado from his influence. But Spectre is caught in the wake of the twin Earths speeding away from each other and is seemingly "killed". The scene shifts to Earth-1 where Green Lantern returns and tells the League what has been happening since he was filled in magically by Dr.Fate. They all feel remorse for the sacrifice of Spectre but suspect he will return somehow. 

 This crossover feels somehow more muddled than have others in the series. O'Neil seems more adept at communicating emotion than cold plot details and consequently, I think the story has some decent pathos, but lacks the forward impetus that other entries have had. I will say that his attempt to move back and forth from the Earths is a brave device but doesn't always succeed as it might. Also the sacrifice of the Spectre (the second Earth-2 "death" in as many crossovers) is underwhelming simply because of his very nature. The threat of Creator Squared never really seems potent enough to cause the problems he does. That said, this is a brisk and reasonably entertaining story with a lot of members from both teams getting some exposure. One oddity is the correlation between Dr.Mid-Nite and Batman. This correspondence has been suggested before in other crossovers, but since we know for a fact that Batman of Earth-2 is around, it seems very peculiar that this relationship between these disparate heroes would exist. This points up a real oddity though in these crossovers, and that is since DC has been all too ready to reveal both a Superman and Wonder Woman on Earth-2 why exactly does it seem that Batman will not get that nod. In Wonder Woman's case, it's a clever way to get the classic Wonder Woman some action while the Emma Peel phase works itself out over in her own title. But the two Supermen seem straightforwardly confusing, if its visual clarity between the heroes that DC desires. 

Anyway, this crossover I'd have to label as the weakest installment yet in the annual event, but that doesn't mean it's not still great fun to read. 

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Manhunter Deluxe!

Manhunter by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson is among the most treasured comic yarns in my long experience in the from. As Goodwin describes in his introduction to the 1979 reprint the freedom to create something fresh and unusually lively was a result of two factors. One was that the series appeared in Detective Comics, which at the time was suffering a sales slump and so change was seen as good. And the other was that Manhunter was the back-up piece and so seen instantly as less important overall. So things could change, and in the Bronze Age changes in the status quo of comics was much ballyhooed but rarely done with total commitment. Here was a hero who could do things other Comics Code approved heroes might not be able to get away with, hidden as he was in the shadows of a dangerous world but also in the back of a familiar comic.

I have bought the Manhunter in nearly all its forms. I picked up several of the chapters in real time as they first appeared and have filled in the gaps since. I've picked up the 1984 DC reprint, the 1999 reprint titled Manhunter: The Special Edition which hard on the sad news of Archie Goodwin's untimely death offered a new chapter, wordless but no less important to the core saga. I more recently picked up the story in a collection of Archie Goodwin's best DC stories and I even popped for the magnificent "Artist's Edition" which showcases Simonson's tasty pages in their full black and white glory. I don't have the first reprint from an outfit called "Excalibur Enterprises" called Manhunter: The Complete Saga, but beyond that I think I have them all and just included the new "Deluxe Edition" from DC. I love this little saga, I loved it then and I love it still.

The story taps so many of the pop-culture vibes of the era, with a Golden Age hero named Paul Kirk who has grown disillusioned and then dies in a tragic accident. He is revived by a cabal of evil men who seek to use him and his genetic make-up to help them conquer the world. He turns against these men and turns his back on power and immortality to recapture that which they seem to have stolen from him, his fundamental sense of self and his basic human need to shape his own destiny as much as he can. 

The notion to connect Manhunter directly to the vintage Golden Age hero of that named made most famous by the Simon and Kirby team was brilliant. Ironically though the Goodwin-Simonson Manhunter has been reprinted numerous times, the Simon and Kirby Manhunter tales have never been collected though they'd fit neatly into a single slim tome. It's an oversight for certain. 

I first noticed something different about the writing of Archie Goodwin in his early Iron Man issues back in the late 60's when fresh from Warren he dabbled a bit for Stan "The Man". There was a deceptive simplicity to his writing that though it felt like it had not personal style was in fact rich with it  for that very reason. When he took the editor's seat at Detective Comics I took notice and could feel that a more adult approach was evident in both the lead feature and the back up. 

And then there's Walt Simonson who made his bones on Manhunter, a quick little series that lasted only a brief time but brought many awards and critical recognition to its makers. Simonson did not waste the heft the series gave him and went on to become a significant force in comics of the era. Reading Manhunter in various formats is like listening to a great piece of music in different performances, the greatness is always evident regardless. 

If they sell Manhunter again, I likely will buy it all over -- the music is so very very good. 

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DC In The Dojo!

My personal relationship with DC Universe has always been a little complicated. Like many fans of my generation DC was the behemoth on the block that was fronted by the likes of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. And like most fans of my era DC comics were always around somewhere it seemed. I got plenty of a good DC by way of friends and relatives. As young fanboy though I took a cotton to Marvel, buying into Stan the Man's delightful gab and warm welcome to a burgeoning universe that took pains to be coherent. Then all of a sudden Jack "King" Kirby went to DC and I went along with him, and found much at the "Distinguished Competition" that I rather liked (since DC was making attempts to be more "Marvel-ish" at that time no doubt). I hung around and found fantastic values such as the quarter books with proper reprints and the 100-pagers that swept me up and away. For a period of time in the late 70's I though DC was doing the finest job in the business, but I guess I not in a mob with that attitude as the "DC Explosion" was soon followed by the infamous "DC Implosion" and forever after DC was a second-rater as Marvel zoomed into the stratosphere before beaching hard in the 90's. 

But in the 80's DC decided to clean up the shop and to that end they employed Marv Wolfman and George Perez, two up and comers with scores on "The New Teen Titans", to check all the DC closets and attics and garages and clear up the mess that accumulated over four decades. That became the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and it became a template for DC from that point on. The DCU became more of an artifact, something to be tinkered with and adjusted on a somewhat regular basis. Whereas the Marvel Universe kept growing organically (with more than a few weeds) the DCU was a machine that could be taken hold of and reprogrammed. There's no preference for me to either model, but I find I rather love a "Multiverse" (Spock with a beard is so cool.) and when DC decided they had a rich one and wanted to farm it I preferred things that way, both before and after the "Crisis". 

So this month I will be representing most of the rest of my "Crisis" posts from a decade ago (with some adjustments here and there maybe) and taking the rest of the time to dive into some DC books that I've been wanting to check into for many years in some cases. After the first opus by Wolfman and Perez we got some regular annual events and later still alternative versions of classic heroes by supreme talents like Alex Ross and Dwayne Cooke. I'm hankering to read some for the first time and some all over again.

"The Sunday Funnies" feature will give way this month so that I can showcase some of those sumptuous Taschen DC specials written by Paul Levitz. 

This month's "Showcase Corner" is occupied by the delightful romp by Roy Thomas, E. Nelson Bridwell and Scott Shaw (among others) - Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew. 

And there might be other dollops of DC here and there. So this month amigos it's all DC all the time. It could be worse -- I might've focused my attentions on...yuck...Image. 

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