Maui Mighty Comics!

Although that singular focus has shifted over the many years of this blog, I began it with a special emphasis on Charlton Comics. The defunct publisher created some of my all-time favorite characters as evidenced by my "nom de electron". Mort Todd among others attempted a revival of sorts of Charlton with the Charlton Neo brand. That project always seemed to be waiting for the next thing and as far as I can tell didn't live up to promises, though they did produce some tasty comics which hearkened back to Charlton's heyday. The final E-Man stories by the late Nick Cuti and the great Joe Staton were published by Charlton Neo. Now Charlton Neo has risen up with a rebranding as "#1 Comics". The first publication titled Maui Mighty Comics is a charity tie-in for the Maui which as suffered deadly wildfire damage of late, and it reprints many stories from the Charlton Neo run. 

"The Dream Weaver" by Roger McKenzie and Steven Butler features Mr. Mixit, a hero who is created as an homage to Steve Ditko. Mr. Mixit is a blend of various classic Ditko hero looks with Blue Beetle's general shape and costume design, Spider-Man's crazy poses, Captain Atom's chest symbol, Doctor Strange's cape details, and the Creeper's signature shaggy cape-piece. 

This story is reprinted from 2017's Charlton Arrow #1 from Charlton Neo.

"Captain Mercury" is a polished re-colored reprint of "The Mercury Man" by Joe Gill and Rocke Mastroserio from the pages of Charlton's Space Adventures #44 from way back in 1962. The new colors help make the hero pop as he encounters mankind for the first time. The wing-eared alien comes to Earth to find that humanity is about to destroy itself with deadly nuclear weapons. He intervenes. If you'd like to read the original check out this link. 

"Ms. Molecule" is by Renee King Thompson and Sandy Carruthers and this story is reprinted from Charlton Neo's Unusual Suspense from 2015. Ms. Molecule is really Maxi Molin, a graduate student in the sciences who during a treatment to shrink a cancer is herself given the power to shrink. With the help of Dr. Spaulding and technician Oliver, she helps people with strange medical problems and animals like the horse in this adventure which takes her to the Kentucky Derby. 

"Yang - The Sea of Blood" is by Roger McKenzie and artist Ben Torres and is a reprint from 2016's Charlton Arrow #5. It's 1895 and we meet Yin Li, the man known as "Yang" or the "Light" as he prepares to return to China aboard the clipper ship Sattler. But the warlord Chao Ku gets word and transforms himself into a dragon. We learn a secret of Chao Ku's daughter who is the Ying to his Yang. There's a confrontation and an explosion and this might be Yang's final adventure. 

Yang by Joe Gill and artist Warren Sattler and its spin-off House of Yang by artist Sanho Kim were remarkable if relatively brief additions to the Kung-Fu craze of the 70's. 

There is also a one-page Nature Boy gag strip by Gary McGinnis and artist Mort Todd. I wonder why Nature Boy gets no respect. 

Oh, that's why. Never mind. 

This second Mr. Mixit story titled "Reflection" is by the McKenzie and Butler team for Charlton Arrow #2 from 2016. Our hero is learning to use his new powers gained when a box of comic books exploded in the basement of Mr. Oktid's comic shop, and he stops a crime and saves a kid before changing back to his nerdy self. But the cliffhanger portends great danger four our hero. 

Part of me wants #1 Comics to succeed, though I am sad that Charlton Neo is now a memory. Good luck to Mort Todd and the gang. And good luck to the folks in Maui who are recovering from the deadly disaster. For more on that check out this link. 

Rip Off

The Clown Prince Of Crime!

The Joker is likely the most famous villain in all of comics. Thanos got a fantastic boost from his key role in the Marvel movies, but even that doesn't counteract the fame the Joker got from his TV show appearances played by Casear Romero, his first movie appearance portrayed by Jack Nicholson, and the mesmerizing second coming presented by Heath Ledger. The Joker even has his own movie. And once upon a time, he had his own Bronze Age comic book. Let's take a walk down memory lane with the Clown Prince of Crime. 

The popularity of Batman's number one nemesis the Joker is proven when DC saw fit to give the "Clown Prince of Crime" is own ongoing series. DC already had tried Secret Society of Super-Villains and Marvel had Marvel Super-Villain Team-Up, but this time one bad guy got the top billing. In the first issue under a handsome Dick Giordano cover, the team of Denny O'Neil, Irv Novick and Giordano bring us "The Joker's Double Jeopardy" in which he and Two-Face both escape from Arkham Asylum and contend with one another to prove who is the better baddie. They both get recaptured, so I guess it's still up for grabs. 

Then the Joker is busted out by Willie the Weeper who seeks advice from the smiling villain about he can stop crying so much when he commits a crime. The two team up to steal some platinum and it's a wild scheme with a barrage of double-crosses. This one is titled "The Sad Saga of Willie Weeper" and was written by O'Neil, with art by Novick and inker Jose Luis Garcia-Lozpez. Ernie Chan's cover is a powerful one. Two Arkham guards who get fired for letting the Joker escape are in this story. They are Benny Khiss and Marvin Fargo. 

Chan steps in as artist with help from inker Garcia-Lopez for the story 'The Last Ha-Ha" in which the Joker has to contend with The Creeper. This one was written by O'Neil and features as fantastic cover by Giordano. I should mention the Joker has a regular hide-out called the Ha-Hachienda. 

In "A Gold Star for the Joker" the mirthful murderer travels to Star City where he kidnaps Dinah Lance because he's smitten with her and decides he must either marry her or kill her. Green Arrow of course gets involved in this story by Elliot Maggin featuring pencils by Garcia-Lopez and inks by Vinnie Colletta. Ernie Chan supplies the cover. Dinah never becomes Black Canary in this issue for reasons I will never understand. One would've thought seeing the Canary in the Joker's clutches would've garnered more fan interest. Why would they pass up a chance to show off those fishnets baby?

Under another Chan cover we find a convoluted story titled "The Joker Goes Wilde" by writer Marty Pasko. Irv Novick returns as penciller with Tex Blaisdell on inks. With one exception this will be the art team for the balance of the nine-issue run. The story has the Joker contending with the Royal Flush Gang to get possession of a legendary painting which supposedly points the way to riches. Venerable science fiction writer Alfred Bester is given some credit for having something to do with the story, but it's not clear what. I assume the story references in some a story Bester wrote for DC in the Golden Age, but this is never spelled out. 

Denny O'Neil and Novick and Blaisdell are back for "Sherlock Stalks the Joker" under a clever cover by Chan. When an actor named Clive Sigerson is knocked on the noggin during one of the Joker's heists, he thinks he's the real Sherlock Holmes and dedicates himself to tracking down the cackling prince of crime. The yarn is filled with puns which call back to classic stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It's a goofy romp, ideal for the Joker's series. 

DC was on a Sherlock Holmes thing because a few months earlier they'd put out a Sherlock Holme de facto one-shot. Maybe this story was a way to embed Holmes into the DCU, though actually that had been done decades earlier by Gardner Fox. 

Superman's arch-nemesis and former Joker partner Lex Luthor shows up in "Luthor - You're Driving Me Sane" by O'Neil, Novick and inker Frank McLaughlin. The cover is by Chan. The Joker and Lex Luthor exchange personalities when the Joker interrupts one of Lex's attempts to gain control of Green Lantern's ring. Hal Jordan makes a one-panel cameo. Needless to say, neither of them is happy though Lex does seem to use the opportunity unleash some of his darker aspects. 

Maggin, Novick and Blaisdell team up to give us "The Scarecrow's Fearsome Face-Off" in which the two Batman villains battle it out under another slick Chan cover. When the Joker impersonates the Scarecrow in a crime, the latter is annoyed and seeks vengeance. Eventually the two manipulators of emotion face off. This issue gives names to a trio of young men who have been the Joker's entourage in the latter part of the series. The are Southpaw, Tooth, and Sonny November who alas doesn't make through this issue. 

The same creative team of Maggin, Novick, Blaisdell, and Chan wrap up the series when Catwoman shows up in "The Cat and the Clown". The series wraps up as both the Catwoman and the Joker attempot to kidnap Benny Springer and his cat Hiawatha. Springer proves to be a worthy adversary for both the Bat-villains as the story rumbles along. The Joker kills a good number of folks in this series, though I don't have an exact number. For all the hijinks and general light-heartedness of the series his deadly nature is never forgotten. It's not really a spoiler to say that the Joker is back in Arkham as he was when the series started. We all know it's only a matter of time. 

And that's a wrap. Tomorrow stuff not about the Joker. Be sure to check out all three of today's posts, and I sincerely hope your April Fool's Day has been a dandy! No Foolin'!

Rip Off

The Killing Joke!

Want to hear something funny? I've never read The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I'd never read it until just a few weeks ago when I was prepping this post. I have been a monster comic book fan my whole life. But somehow when The Killing Joke hit the bookshelves in 1988 my focus was elsewhere, on my family and beginning a new career. I was a devoted Marvel Comics fan at the time, limiting my focus to help save money for needed things for a wife and two young daughters. So, the changes at DC Comics largely passed me by. 

I ignored The Watchmen. I missed out on John Byrne's fresh take on Superman, I passed on reading Frank Miller's The Dark Knight, and I ignored the praise that The Killing Joke was getting. Later when I turned my attention back to DC, I just never got around to reading this classic. I knew of the consequences such as Barbara Gordon's baleful injuries, but I was never tempted to read the actual story itself. Maybe it was a bit of reverse snobbishness since the story seemed to garner such universal praise. Truth told I was late in the game to the whole Alan Moore phenomenon and his boorish attitudes about it later in life have not warmed me to him. I'm trying to fix that now. 

So, now that I've at long last read it. What's my opinion? It's a pretty fucking (pardon my curse but it felt appropriate) fantastic bit of storytelling that grabs a reader by the neck and lets the go only when that final chuckle has receded into the night. Brian Bolland's artwork (and coloring) is magnificent. Moore's script is clever and taught. The story cannot of course have the same effect on me that it did on readers decades ago because I to some little extent know some of the goriest details from other sources. That's not the fault of the creators. It's not their fault I dallied for over thirty-five years to give this infamous bit of comic book storytelling a go. But I can say the stuff holds up and that it doesn't age a smidge. Bolland creates a noir world which is simultaneously decades old and timelessly fresh. 

Having at long last read The Killing Joke, I turned my attention to the animated adaptation and doing that helped make better sense of the original. It does reproduce the story, but the adaptation falls short of its emotional impact for a number of reasons. The animation cannot really reproduce Bolland's remarkable artwork, a limitation of the form. But most importantly the creators felt the need to add a whole other story to the beginning which featured Batgirl in action. I understood the perceived need to establish her for folks not coming from the comics, but it seemed somewhat random. It undermined the main story and after she's shot there is actually very little about Barbara Gordon in the remainder of the film. And sadly, that's possibly the most tragic part of her role in this story. 

The creators of the cartoon were fooled into thinking the story was about her and what happens to her. It's not. She's sadly just collateral damage like so many of the tragic victims are in the eternal conflict between Batman and the Joker. That was Alan Moore's secret, he took a permanent character and treated her like an impermanent one. It rattled the comfort zone from which we read our little stories and suggested that all things might just be possible. 

So, in the final analysis, I heartily recommend The Killing Joke to any comics fan. What is that? You've already read it, a long time ago in fact. Well, as it turns out the joke is on me. 

Happy April Fool's Day to all. More Joker later today. 

Rip Off

Aprilis!

What's the Joker laughing at? Well, if I know him, he's not only guffawing at the situation he's got the Batman in symbolically on this outstanding Neal Adams cover, but he also giggling about all the gloom and mayhem ahead this month at the Dojo. But we'll get to that. The first day of April is the time for jokes and pranks and an ideal time to take note of Batman's worst best baddie -- The Joker!

The Joker was created by Jerry Robinson way back in the Golden Age and battled Batman countless times through the decades. But I kick off the month later today with perhaps the Joker's most odious prank in all that time, as related in Alan Moore's and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke. After that, I want to take a gander at the Joker's brief but rather fun comic book series from the late 70's. So, it's a day full of Joker. Be sure to check back in later. 

Who would've imagined we'd be dealing with Nazis again? I have lived my life comfortable that, save for a handful of nutjobs, the Nazis were relegated to the ash heap of history and to nostalgic comic books where the likes of Captain America and the Human Torch could bash on them with glee. But they're back. I am going to spend a few days this month looking Hitler and his gang and their loathsome ideas in some classic science fiction that speculates about what might've happened if things had gone differently so long ago.

I've been indulging in some other dystopian classics as well. The fragile nature of our present-day society is showcased most effectively in these modern myths that present dark reflections of what we might become when the bad guys win. God knows, our society sucks enough when the good guys win. 

But it's not all gloom and doom. Expect more reviews from the Deep Woods as I wrap up my readings of Charlton's The Phantom. This time we get not only more of Pat Boyette, but a host of other talents including the great Don Newton. 

We head back to Astro City to enjoy the latest MetroBook from Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, Alex Ross, among others. 

And we make another whimsical journey to the land of OZ, where we'll check in on our favorite characters in all of their naive childlike glory. 

But shifting gears back to less rosy possibilities, another strange world is that of Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. This dark future has humanity all but squashed with a madhouse array of animals are ascendant. This was Jack Kirby's most successful work in terms of sales during his third tenure with DC. And it always surprises me when I read it. 

And I want to pay respects to Neal Adams again by looking at the one and only Batman, one of the greatest DC creations. The refinements to the character wrought by Adams helped the character survive the onslaught of camp brought on by the successful TV show and even thrive. I'm especially eager to revisit the introduction of Ra's al Ghul the Demon and his enticing daughter Talia. 

And who knows what else might come lurching into view as the month rolls along. So, it's a little gloomy this month, but there are a few rays of sunshine to warm a comic book fan's heart this spring. 

Check back later today for The Killing Joke. 

Rip Off