Five Comics Worth Reading - February 2012

ARCHIE
At this point, having a comic book blogger tell you that you should give Archie Comics a second look because they’re doing some pretty remarkable and groundbreaking stuff is not the shocker it was a year ago (I already more or less did as much recently). However, just because it’s getting exposure is no reason not to talk about something good, and Archie is indeed something good right now. I’ve always appreciated the rock solid and consistent grasp of storytelling and characterization the folks from Riverdale have, but the material they’re producing right now is pretty bold and standout, not to mention something I can sink my teeth into as an adult while still recommending it to my sister who is a school teacher to give out in class. If you want to see issues like gay marriage or the economic crisis covered with intelligence and wit but also restraint and balance, Archie of all places is where you should be turning. Also, there are guest appearances from rock bands and parodies of movies; it’s like how Sesame Street got cool again, but more up my alley. I’ve been meaning to sample more of the line, such as the fairly acclaimed Life with Archie, but for now I’m recommending the titular flagship since that’s where my amigo Alex Segura’s recent “Archie Meets KISS” story just wrapped and where he’ll be tackling “Occupy Riverdale” in the coming months.

AVENGING SPIDER-MAN
So perhaps you checked out the first three issues of Avenging Spider-Man because Joe Madureira made his return to comics, and likely you were not disappointed because Joe Mad has still got it and kicked some ass. However, while marveling (pun not intended) at Joe drawing eight zillion Moloids, you may have found yourself chuckling at Spidey’s banter even more than usual. You may also have been shocked at how much you were seeing J. Jonah Jameson as a complex character rather than just a gruff curmudgeon (but also still a gruff curmudgeon). You may further have empathized with The Mole Man, gasped when Red Hulk went down and marveled at Spider-Man’s solution to the whole conflict. All of these reactions came in large part thanks to writer Zeb Wells, who is indeed the goods. Peter Parker is fortunate enough (or as fortunate as comic characters can get given the high tragedy rate they suffer through more or less monthly) to be handled with regular love and care by the brilliant Dan Slott, but Zeb comes from another direction on this book, focusing exclusively thus far on the Spidey side of the equation, and with results I’m digging. It really clicked into place with me on issue #4, a standalone team-up with Hawkeye drawn by Greg Land, where Wells inverted the usual Spider-Man/anybody else dynamic by having Spidey as the frustratingly responsible one, and then nailing a core character trait of Clint Barton from an angle I’ve certainly never seen, and if it’s been done before surely not any better than this. Zeb Wells is a busy dude out in Hollywood who doesn’t get to write nearly enough comics, but when he does, you should rush to appreciate his twin barrels of genuinely hilarity and razor sharp grasp of what makes the characters he’s writing tick; that he’s currently on a book where he gets to play with the coolest heroes in the Marvel Universe while top notch artists draw them is the proverbial gravy sauce.

GLORY
On a recent trip to Midtown Comics, I decided to put my money where my mouth was re: a claim I made recently in an Art Attack post that the covers for the new Extreme books were enough to entice me to check out at least one or two with no idea what I was buying—and I’m glad I did. I have no familiarity with the character Glory, either in her original or Alan Moore incarnations (are they the same?) and further had no knowledge of who Joe Keatinge and Ross Campbell were outside of names my more sophisticated comic reading friends drop when discussing folks good at writing and/or drawing. The story by Keatinge in the first issue (technically #23) is all over the place both in terms of chronology and focus, but while that can take me right out of some stories, here it was done wonderfully, as I felt immersed in a huge saga within 20 or so pages, getting glimpses of tons of stuff I knew a little about and want to learn more of, but also feeling like I got a good enough sense of this character and her world that I am invested in what comes next. Campbell’s art is wild and unique, certainly outside my normal comfort zone and I ate it up, man. Glory is terrifying in her proportions and the visual violence she reaps, but she’s also quite beautiful, both in the quiet moments and glimmering in the heat of battle. This is also a comic where I really noticed the colors, given how much white and grey there is so kudos to Shatia Hamilton for really making it stand out. Discovering new comic book universes where I’m a total neophyte but want to know more is one of my favorite things, so I’m quite pumped to be reading this book!

NEW MUTANTS
For the longest time I didn’t really “get” the New Mutants. Weaned on X-Force as I was, they were only ever the younger, wimpier, less cool versions of the characters I really liked to me, and Cannonball looked like a dork. I had no desire to read about that incarnation of my beloved team and even less to see them regress to that point. When Generation X and later the New X-Men came into being while X-Force quietly dissolved back into being reserve X-Men, the mutants I grew up loving seemed to suffer the same middle child syndrome as the original Teen Titans, just kind of hanging around in the background as less competent adults or out-of-place young people. It’s only recently that I’ve really started to appreciate through trades the endearing quirkiness of the original New Mutants—it helps that I’m not 12 years old and baffled by characters under 20 without earrings or leather jackets anymore—just in time for Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning to find a niche for the characters today. Having just departed my 20’s, I dig how DnA writes the original Muties as that drifting lost generation too old to live on Utopia with Cyclops and company but still too young to know quite what they’re doing with their lives. For a team that includes techno-organic aliens and other-dimensional doppelgangers, the New Mutants seem refreshingly “normal” amidst an X-Men Universe of the extraordinary (which I also love, but there’s room for chocolate as well as peanut butter; well, not for me, I’m lactose intolerant, but you get me). Tossing this weird yet relatable group up against gonzo threats like demonic metal bands or islands of monster birds plays the contrast beautifully, and the soap opera aspects are also finely tuned, feeling more Reality Bites than 90210, as befitting the protagonist demographic. With guys like David Lopez manning the art, New Mutants is also one of the prettiest book on the stands. And did I mention they had a whole issue that was Magma on a date with Mephisto and it was phenomenal? Mephisto truly is the most lovable character of 2012…

RED LANTERNS
Ok, on the surface, Red Lanterns would seem to have a lot going against it for the discerning reader. There’s the pretty absurd violence level and the fact that most of the characters are literally vomiting up acid blood more often than not. There’s also the overblown sexualizing of many female figures in physically impossible poses. The book gives you plenty of reasons not to give it a shot, and nobody would blame you if you wanted to pass and try something else—I won’t—but if you do elect to sample Red Lantern, you may be surprised to find you enjoy it; I kinda was. It’s not a surprise that Peter Milligan can write a good series, but given the material of perpetually pissed off monsters whose personalities consist more of yelling than anything else, it’s pretty impressive how much depth he gives them. Without a traditional heroic lead, Milligan chooses instead to muse on the concept of rage and anger getting somewhat deep in the process, but never lapsing into boring. As the series has progressed, he’s gone a bit further and explored the gamut of emotions, how those that drive the Red Lanterns fit in the mix, and how they can be exploited. The power struggle between Atrocitus and Bleez is reminiscent of something you might see on Apokolips, and as the cast expands, the intrigue grows. Ed Benes’ art may not be for everybody, but you can’t deny it’s striking, and when it comes to designing or portraying out there beasts, his skills can shine quite nicely. So yeah, I didn’t think Red Lanterns would be a book I’d be championing six months in—and again, this is one of those “your mileage may vary” cases—but I do contend it’s worth a look if you’re even slightly curious.

The new Scarlet Spider is the new Spider-Man

Writing about Darkhawk the other day, I discussed how it seemed like in the 90’s comic companies—Marvel in particular—were always looking for “the new Spider-Man.” What I didn’t talk about was how there actually was a new Spider-Man for a bit in Ben Reilly.

I’ve done a post about Ben Reilly before and mentioned that I felt he had a lot of untapped potential that writers like J.M. DeMatteis in particular seemed to get. I thought Ben’s greatest attribute was allowing creators to explore different paths and venues for Spider-Man right there in the Marvel Universe without having to mess with Peter Parker directly. In Ben Reilly you had the core of Peter Parker’s personality (say that five times fast) but also a tortured soul and free spirit that played better as a man questing for life rather than being anchored by a city or friends and family.

Ultimately I think the worst thing for Ben Reilly was for him to become Spider-Man. He may have had a different costume and blond hair, but it was about trying to jam him into Peter Parker’s place and tell Peter Parker stories (specifically unmarried Peter Parker stories) with a guy who could have been something different.

You know the end of the story: the fans didn’t buy Ben as Spider-Man, he got dispatched, and Peter Parker returned.

However, absence did make the heart grow fonder and folks came to regard Ben Reilly with a loving nostalgia, as evidenced by the many requests we (meaning Marvel) would get at conventions to bring him back. When we teased at San Diego that the Scarlet Spider might be returning folks got excited as this was Ben’s pre-Spider-Man identity. Things went another direction and the other clone of Peter Parker, one-time villain Kaine, ended up as the new Scarlet Spider who recently got his own series by Chris Yost and Ryan Stegman.

And to bring my little tangent full circle, I think a decade and a half after the search began and with a character born out of that very era, in the new Scarlet Spider, we’ve finally got a new Spider-Man.

The obvious response to that statement is “yeah, obviously we kind of have a new Spider-Man in that a clone of Spider-Man is wearing one of his old costumes and webslinging around—duh, Ben.” First, that’s rude; second, you’re better than that; lastly, there’s more to it.

Chris Yost’s premise for the new Scarlet Spider is not just exploring a Spider-Man with a different costume or haircut, it’s an ambitious exploration of nature vs. nurture with Peter Parker as the test case and the results being how Spidey would have turned out different under alternative circumstances. It’s also a great deal of fun and the art by Ryan Stegman is fantastic (I have to mention his name at least twice as he’s a great guy but also terribly vain and sensitive), but I’m really enjoying the meatier character study here.

In Kaine as Yost writes him (and as Dan Slott set him up, to give credit where credit is due), we have the beginning of Ben Reilly’s unrealized potential and then some. Ben had all of Peter’s memories—including most crucially being raised by Ben and May Parker—to a point and then there was a divergence; Kaine has the core essence of Peter, but his “childhood” was being abused and cast out by his “father,” the murderous Jackal. He has spent his life to this point with gross physical deformities and living under the shadow of a life-threatening disease. He has killed many people and burned through every relationship he’s ever had. Whereas Ben was a slightly darker hue of Peter, Kaine is pitch black—and now he’s searching for redemption.

The question at the heart of the series—or one at least—is how ingrained what makes Peter Parker a good person and a hero is and how much of that came about because he had the right upbringing. Kaine has the building blocks of Peter Parker, but he never had an uncle to explain to him about power and responsibility. Even the real Spider-Man had to grow into being a decent guy at a horrible cost and didn’t have the easiest life, but Kaine is that plus a million.

It’s compelling stuff, but two issues in it has also created a really entertaining and alluring character. Free of his disease and feeling like he has redeemed his misdeeds enough, Kaine just wants to retreat from the world, but there’s something deep down that’s pulling him toward a heroic path. At the same time, he’s got to fight the urge to deal out that killing blow to the bad guy and has no problem tossing civilians out of the way or even using a gun. He’s his own Greek chorus in a way slightly more serious than Deadpool.

I also love the way Yost dialogues Kaine. He’s got glimmers of those Spider-Man wisecracks but buried beneath about a dozen layers of cynicism and bitterness; it’s a unique voice. He’s not the standup comic; he’s the drunk heckling him from the back of the room. Also, when Kaine talks tough it doesn’t feel like a put-on, another difference between him and Spider-Man.

So ultimately it wasn’t about instilling a kid with a similar personality to Peter Parker with different costumes and powers. It wasn’t about creating a spider character with a dark twist like Venom (Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson are both great in their own right, but they are their own men). Finding the new Spider-Man and doing so in the most rewarding way was just a matter of playing “what if?” on a serious level with the heart of Peter Parker and what makes him who he is and then running with it.

I’m loving Scarlet Spider so far and reveling in the chance to experience a new kind of Spider-Man from the ground floor. I’m really excited for him to get established and start becoming part of the Marvel Universe to see how others react to him. It truly does feel like being on the ground floor of something special not unlike folks felt when Amazing Fantasy #15 first came out, and I do believe that was the goal.

Also, did I mention Stegman’s art is great?

The Best of 2011 Comics Gift-Getting Guide pt. 2

Part one...

MYSTIC: THE TENTH APPRENTICE
When I was reading Mystic, I thought of it as a story that would appeal to fans of both Harry Potter and Hunger Games (had just seen one and read the other), but without being a rip-off of either; G. Willow Wilson accomplishes the task of tapping into multiple current sources of pop culture zeitgeist but only as building blocks to a new, vast world. I enjoyed all the CrossGen launches from Marvel, from the clever Ruse to the whimsical Sigil, but this is the one I think will hit the sweet spot of the broadest reader base, genre fans and civilians alike. It’s also another stop on artist David Lopez’s unrelenting tour of inspiring professional self-improvement.

THE PUNISHER VOL. 1
As Mark Waid did with Daredevil, Greg Rucka made a strong choice with his take on The Punisher—both books edited out of the Steve Wacker “Spider Office”—by making Frank Castle almost a secondary character or even backdrop against which the stories take place; he’s a grim presence who rarely speaks while the stories revolve around the people he affects, only roping him in for the big action scenes or major climaxes. It’s a bold, cinematic type of storytelling that has paid off in a comic experience that stands out in today’s climate. Marco Checchetto’s haunted art with a heavy Eastern influence is another completely new direction for The Punisher, really casting him as some sort of spectral angel of death and giving weight to his status as more than merely a man.

SECRET AVENGERS: SUBLAND EMPIRE
The one and done format is hardly common in modern mainstream super hero comics outside of all ages material and certainly not in a flagship franchise like the Avengers, but Warren Ellis did it to near perfection in his Secret Avengers run over the latter part of the year aided and abetted by some of the best artists in the business. Whether it was tech-based espionage with Jamie McKelvie, crazy kung fu action illustrated by David Aja or one of the trippiest time travel yarns I’ve followed in some time by Alex Maleev, Ellis delivered across the board with intelligent and entertaining standalone stories you need to give a look.

SPIDER-MAN: MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Over the course of just six issues in the early months of this year, Dan Slott demonstrated the versatility of himself as a writer and Spider-Man as a character in tales that ran the gamut of emotions as his awesome Big Time era of Amazing Spider-Man heated up and took off. Revenge of the Spider-Slayer was action-packed mayhem showcasing Spidey and an enjoyable New Avengers guest spot while No One Dies and Torch Song swung to the emotional side of the spectrum, tracking Peter Parker and his friends as they dealt with serious loss. The talented artists of ASM contributed with varied showmanship fitting each story, as Stefano Caselli brought his raw energy to the first while Marcos Martin delivered the stark pathos needed for the second (and a dream sequence in #655 that still has me applauding). Wedged in the middle: The debut of Flash Thompson as the new Venom in a story written by Slott with art by the great Humberto Ramos.

SPIDER-MAN: SPIDER-ISLAND
Continuing the Dan Slott love fest, Spider-Island was the textbook case of how to do a fun comic book event that also has major impact and pack metric tons of plot, character and action into every installment. It’s a great love letter to what makes Spider-Man a great hero and Peter Parker uniquely suited to his role with nice meaty parts as well for Venom, Anti-Venom, Kaine, Mary Jane, J. Jonah Jameson, Carlie Cooper and more, not to mention the villainous exploits of The Queen and The Jackal plus a boatload of great guest stars including the Avengers, X-Men, Future Foundation and tons others. Humberto Ramos turns in inspired art on the Amazing Spider-Man installments while Rick Remender and Tom Fowler tear it up on the Venom chapters also included in this main collection.

STORMWATCH: THE DARK SIDE
Paul Cornell’s Stormwatch is to me a great guide to and exploration of the burgeoning DC Universe provided by the New 52. It takes characters that lived on the fringe of mainstream comics as part of the WildStorm line and drops them into an environment skewing closer to the traditional DCU and we see how both affect one another. Cornell is create at brewing a strange but satisfying cocktail with strange moon eating monsters and angry towns come to life as excavated by a recast Authority, relocated Martian Manhunter, and an eclectic cast of newcomers. Cornell excels at building worlds, and here he gets to take that mandate a step further, rising to the challenge with aplomb.

SWAMP THING: RAISE THEM BONES
The other new DC horror staple that’s giving me good chills and more great work from Scott Snyder, who pays homage to the classic Alan Moore run on Swamp Thing and what came after but gets the opportunity to explore it from a whole new spin with Alec Holland as active protagonist rather than buried subconscious influence, an advantage he takes full advantage of. The ideas Snyder has come up with as far as gross new threats add to a vast tapestry begun in those seminal stories, and Yanick Paquette’s harsh, heavy lines provide the perfect style to convey the beauty of nature as well as its destructive force, plus the sick torture inflicted on these poor characters.

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES BY JONATHAN HICKMAN VOL. 1
Speaking of writers making everything old new again, witness Jonathan Hickman capturing the widescreen majesty of Mark Millar’s original Ultimates but swiveling the camera at just the right moments to provide a new spin and open up the universe. Hickman’s first issue started out with swaggering Nick Fury, cool as ever, ready to take on gods, and ended with a note of doubt in the Ultimates’ leader’s eye that told you the rules have changed. In the new Ultimate Comics Universe, Fury, Iron Man and even Thor have to work that much harder and are paying harsher prices for their hubris while the likes of Hawkeye and others need to step up. Hickman has made the threats bigger and brought the heroes down to Earth in a way that breathes new life. It doesn’t hurt that nobody draws epic like Esad Ribic, whose work alongside colorist Dean White is breathtaking, from a city full of gods to the aforementioned moment where Nick Fury realizes he’s only human.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN: DEATH OF SPIDER-MAN
After over a decade of writing Peter Parker in the Ultimate Universe, Brian Michael Bendis gave his “baby” a wrenching, emotional and utterly heroic sendoff. Ultimate Spider-Man as it was had in my mind certainly not run out of steam, and indeed the “Ultimate Aunt May Boarding House for Super Heroes” made for some of my favorite stories over the last couple years; thus, the pressure was on if Bendis wanted to take out a character still in his prime, and I believe he delivered. This story has all the action, humor and life lessons that were the hallmark of Ultimate Spider-Man, but more than anything it’s about the relationships among the extraordinary supporting cast Bendis has built, the ties that bind them as close as family, and how much they’re willing to fight for one another, Peter most of all. Mark Bagley back on art, sharp as ever, was icing on the cake. I’m enjoying Miles Morales’ early adventures as the new Spider-Man under Bendis’ pen, but he’s got a tough act to follow to be sure.

UNCANNY X-FORCE: THE DARK ANGEL SAGA, BOOK ONE
There is no story I followed with more rapt anticipation this year than the Dark Angel Saga, salivating over each installment as it was the pinnacle of serial super hero storytelling for me in 2011. Rick Remender is a genius and I do believe Uncanny X-Force to be among his finest work, telling the story of a team doing the dirty work other good guys don’t want to touch; what shatters the cliché and also makes them perhaps truer heroes than any others in comics is that they don’t shrug off the awful acts they commit, they’re genuinely haunted, but they keep doing what needs to be done. In the Dark Angel Saga, hard choices come home to roost as Archangel loses control and his teammates must journey to no less than the Age of Apocalypse itself, facing down an evil alternate reality Wolverine and more, in a story remarkably ambitious for being told simply in one monthly series. Remender balances nostalgia and modern sensibilities like a mad chemist, creating an essential X-Men classic in the process. Mark Brooks’ art evokes exactly the feelings of familiarity shattered by change needed and Dean White provides rock solid continuity in the book’s visual appearance with his covers. And this is just the first half of the story!

WOLVERINE: THE BEST THERE IS – CONTAGION
I consider myself a man of fairly refined taste (not at all), but sometimes it’s nice to kick back with pure graphic violence and ridiculous excess, both of which Charlie Huston and Juan Jose Ryp execute with aplomb in Wolverine: Best There Is. It’s an unapologetic string of brutal fights, gross-out moments and crude humor, framed by Wolverine fighting against a bunch of opponents who have healing factors similar to or slightly varied from his own that allow them to do horrible things to one another without repercussions like they were Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote with claws and swords. The first six issues feature a truly vile villain named Contagion who I think could be a fixture given how simultaneously impressive and repulse Huston makes him. Ryp is uniquely qualified to provide the visual window for this grind house flick of a comic, taking a horror background and channeling it perfectly to super heroes.

X-MEN: FF
In the shadow of larger events, Victor Gischler put together this fun, action-packed little four-issue yarn about the X-Men and Future Foundation going through a portal in the Bermuda Triangle to another dimensions where they team up with Skull the Slayer and fight a bunch of aliens. It’s Comics 101 as Gischler puts together an enjoyable adventure that has the right amount of character moments—great stuff between “reformed” Magneto and Doctor Doom—and humor between fights and twists to create a story with heart that stands nicely on its own. Jorge Molina steps up his game huge on art, drawing some beautiful heroes, male and female alike, and exotic landscapes galore.

X-MEN: SCHISM
Jason Aaron has spent a few years now writing Wolverine and the X-Men have shown up now and again, but he had a pretty big assignment for his first regular go with the team, and I’d say he proved his chops quite nicely. What I like about Schism is that Aaron writes Cyclops and Wolverine as two guys with opposite but legitimate points and he’s smart about giving each a valid argument; your guts tells you Wolvie is right to want to keep mutant children off the front lines, but if you’re being pragmatic, it’s hard to argue Cyke’s stance that an endangered species needs every soldier it can get. It’s a solid battle both philosophically and eventually physically that could carry the entire story if need be, but Aaron overachieves with a deviously cool new Hellfire Club of spoiled brats that I’m happy to see have carried over into Wolverine & The X-Men with other elements of this story such as Kid Omega. As for the art—it’s Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuna, Alan Davis and Adam Kubert jamming, so it’s pretty tough to complain.

X-MEN/STEVE ROGERS: ESCAPE FROM THE NEGATIVE ZONE
There’s an old school feel to this over-sized three-parter written by James Asmus dropping the X-Men in the Negative Zone and pitting them against Blastaar hearkening back to the days when team-ups and Annuals were a big deal in and of themselves, not just because they lead into the next big event. Steve Rogers coming to save the day comes off like a feel good moment and the story itself is a nice bit of standalone cinematic storyline. Asmus also does nice work furthering the dynamic between Cyclops and Hope, exploring Rogers’ relationship with the X-Men, and having fun with the offbeat pairing of Namor and Doctor Nemesis. The art is top notch across the board, particularly Ibraim Roberson’s turn, which looks as if he sculpted the figures out of wood and placed them on the page.

XOMBI
John Rozum and Frazer Irving’s Xombi is just wonderful and weird; it’s wonderfully weird. It’s intelligent and there were times I had to go back over what I had just read to fully understand it, but I never felt completely left in the dark. It’s a musing on humanity, religion, friendship and love couched in a quest adventure with super powered nuns and spooky golem creatures; I could keep going on about the story, but frankly writing a sentence like the one I just wrote usually suffices for my money to unpack the appeal. As always, Irving’s work is like nobody else in comics; he has a unique approach that brings sensibilities of fine art to the page and instill Xombi with a pedigree that makes it stand out even more than it already did—which was a lot.

Why I Left Comics

Despite the bold and emotional proclamations we may make when our favorite character is killed or a book we loves get cancelled, I don’t believe comic fans on the whole tend to leave their passion for the medium behind in one grand sweeping gesture. Rather, I think multiple factors tend to contribute to gradual erosion in enthusiasm that dulls the flame to the point where it’s not worth nurturing for the time being rather than stomping it out entirely.

For me, it’s tempting to simply say high school was the cut off point for my first life as a comic book fan and college brought about my second chapter (well, not that tempting, I do want this blog post to be more than two paragraphs), but certainly there was more to it.

Make no mistake though, high school played a role. For one thing, I suddenly had a lot of other interests to occupy my time, be it sports (I played soccer my freshman year and wrestled all four), the school newspaper, plays, and so on; my time to sit around reading about super heroes became more and more limited as I had other things to do. There was also the transference of funds and energy to parties and other distractions that weren’t on my radar in prior years. I saw my social outcast status fade a bit once I turned 14 or so; I don’t think I ever quite reached big man on campus level, but people seemed to generally like me enough to let me know what was going on over the weekend.

More than anything though, the friends I bonded with over comics drifted from the hobby, and certainly if there was any high school stereotype that proved true for me it was the follow the pack mentality, at least in some cases like this. With my buddies no longer making the pilgrimage to New England Comics or wanting to talk X-Men at lunch, those things held less interest for me as well (although in a story I can now chuckle at, I did continue “covertly” trekking to the comics shop every couple weeks for awhile, acting like I had stopped reading comics when I was still buying a few, and ran into a friend of mine who was doing the same; we both were mortified and didn’t acknowledge the encounter for some time, actually until I ran into him at New York Comic Con last year and said “Remember when…”).

It wasn’t just social contributors though. Comics lost me in the mid to late 90’s because a lot of the stuff that had fueled my fandom seemed to coincidentally wind down around the same time. There was good stuff like Grant Morrison’s JLA, Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s Avengers and more I wouldn’t experience for a bit after they came out because a lot of the stuff I was reading conspired to provide me with a convenient jumping off point. Here’s where I abandoned ship on the books that had been my childhood/young adolescent favorites…

What would be roughly a year-long process of me slowly going from a healthy number of monthly comic book purchases to none began in July of 1995 with the conclusion of the Age of Apocalypse. Whereas today I’m able to appreciate that event as the fun alternate reality epic it was, at the time, it was one of the first proclamations to a naïve 13-year old that comics changed. To that point, while I had been aware on some level of creators coming and going, directions changing and so forth, for the most part I still saw my most cherished books and characters as remaining in a state I could recognize them, typified by the 90’s X-Men titles, driven by a never-ending soap opera about people in colorful costumes drawn by guys with a splashy style that matched at least in part the Saturday morning cartoon show.

I remember reading in Wizard how the plug was going to be pulled on the X-Men books with no real explanation beyond that and not learning about the concept behind Age of Apocalypse until a couple weeks later via the Marvel Hotline (as a former Wizard employee now, I have to wonder to myself how much of the story they knew at the time and held back to help Marvel build an air of history; need to ask Brian Cunningham or Pat McCallum next time I see them). Comics were still vitally important to me at the time and in a childlike way that the idea I would “lose” so many of my favorites really shook me up (if 13-year-old me had been around for the New 52, he may have had a stroke).

When the X-Men books resumed their normal runs post-AoA (and without the Internet we did not know at the time when that would be if ever at the time), I regarded them with caution, feeling they had burned me once and I didn’t want to experience it again (I’m aware of how melodramatic that sounds, but I was 13 and hadn’t had a girlfriend yet, so work with me). In particular, I was unwilling to give the new incarnation of X-Force, once among my top titles, a chance. Fabian Nicieza, my favorite writer at the time, jumped off and was replaced by Jeph Loeb, whom I knew nothing about at the time. Tony Daniel, whose art I was really getting into, was replaced by Adam Pollina, whose style was not just radically different than the “X-Men house style” of the time, but just about anything I’d ever seen beyond those Vertigo books I never bought; he also almost immediately ditched the varied costumes for a uniform purple and yellow look.

But more than anything, the mission statement of the book was changing entirely, with the team going from a group of teenagers living on their own (with their gruff cyborg mentor) to moving back into the X-Mansion. As I have come to know Jeph to be a talented writer and a swell dude to boot, I apologize for not giving his run more of a chance, but there are few things less cool to a 13-year old than his heroes essentially moving back in with their parents. As the capper, Cannonball, my favorite character in the book, was “graduating” to the X-Men, so it felt like it was time for me to do the same.

I started picking up Justice League America around the time Superman died to get a better sense of the DC Universe. Truth be told, I was never that into it and didn’t feel like it was fulfilling that goal by letting me know what The Ray, Fire and Bloodwynd were up to on a monthly basis. It became more of a reflex buy for me the same way Silver Surfer or Iron Man was; a book I didn’t love, but I did like having a lot of new comics to read every month. After Zero Hour, when Gerard Jones took over as writer and centered the book a lot around the weird love square between Nuklon, Fire, Obsidian and Icemaiden with The Flash maybe getting something to do every three issues, I lost interest quickly. I stuck around because they dangled the carrot of Guy Gardner coming back to the team, but once it became evident he wasn’t sticking around, I dumped the book in August of 1995.

I began reading Captain America in 1993 or so admittedly because of the stunt “Fighting Chance” storyline where Cap’s Super Soldier Serum was going bad and he only had a year to live. Yes, it was goofy with the pouch-filled vest, the armor and Jack Flag, but I ate up every chapter of Mark Gruenwald and Dave Hoover’s year-long story. When they jumped off the book (and Cap disappeared mysteriously) in September of 1995, I did the same, figuring I’d come in for this story only and didn’t have any interest in a long term commitment (I did the same thing more or less with the Death and Return of Superman). Ironically, the next run was the to-this-day highly regarded Mark Waid/Ron Garney collaboration cut short but Heroes Reborn and I would not get to read it until years later.

I had tried to give the main X-Men books a chance even after I dropped X-Force, but that didn’t last long. I was kind of intrigued by the Onslaught mystery and loved Joe Madureira’s art, but weirdly Age of Apocalypse really botched it for me as I just couldn’t get into the characters as I had before. Having gone back and caught up on what I missed during the years I was gone since, I kind of wish I had stuck with it, because stuff like Operation: Zero Tolerance and the later Joe Kelly/Stephen Seagle run was right in my wheelhouse, but I said goodbye to the comics that had really been my childhood lynchpin during the fall of 1995, though I would continue following their animated adventures for another two years.

I bounced in and out of the Spider-Man books for a lot of the Clone Saga, Amazing Spider-Man and Web of Spider-Man being my primary titles of choice. Because that era was my entry point, I knew no other Spider-Man, and just assumed it had always been full of mysterious strangers, shocking reveals and omnipotent villains just like X-Men. As I began to cotton to the fact that this was not really the case and the creative teams waxed and waned between restoring the status quo to “the good old days” but then lurched back into another clone showing up to keep that thing running, I strained a bit from feeling like I was caught in the middle of a tug of war. When Ben Reilly took over as Spider-Man would have seemed the ideal jumping off point, but I was still somewhat under the impression the saga was finally winding to a close; around the time Spider-Carnage debuted in April of 1996, I gave up.

I’m sure it won’t surprise any regular readers of this blog to learn that New Warriors was the toughest comic for me to give up—in fact, I never did. I stuck with the book all the way to its cancellation with issue #75 in September of 1996, the same month I started high school interestingly and poetically enough (childhood’s end and all that). The stuff that had driven me off other books didn’t faze me when it came to the Warriors. Fabian Nicieza left with issue #50, but I found Evan Skolnick to be a very capable successor. Nova, Namorita and Night Thrasher were written out, but I stuck around for Justice, Firestar, Speedball and the new recruits. Even the altering of the seminal logo wasn’t enough to get rid of me (and that was a big deal, I assure you). I may have missed an issue here and there, but that was only because I was going to the shop less and less, so sometimes I’d forget the shipping schedule and they’d sell out, as New Warriors was not a book my retailer was getting in bulk.

As I’ve said before, I felt New Warriors ended on an appropriate note, with Skolnick bringing the full team back together and I do feel like those 75 issues constitute a complete story for me that subsequent revamps have left untouched. Still, it was a seismic shift for me as a fan, with my favorite comic being cancelled (despite my letter writing campaign of one letter to Marvel Vision) and me re-evaluating how into all this I still was.

Superboy was my favorite DC character as a kid (I liked the concept of The Flash, but didn’t know the person behind the mask that well yet). It was oddly serendipitous that at almost the exact same time New Warriors was coming to an end, Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett, the creative team that introduced Superboy and crafted the first two-plus years of his book, were moving on. If I had still been buying a lot of comics, I likely would have kept up with Superboy, but as I was pretty much done by the fall of 1996, their exit seemed an appropriate sign. In fairness, I did give the new creative team a few issues and really wanted to like it given how much I enjoyed Ron Marz on both Silver Surfer and Green Lantern, but even though they kept the same supporting cast and setting, the book felt different enough that it wasn’t too hard to move on (little did I know that 15 years later Superboy would be completely unrecognizable to a kid who grew up reading about him).

Strangely, as best I can tell, the final comic I was reading on a reading on a regular basis was Legion of Super-Heroes. This was odd because I’d come into the book late (I didn’t start until after Zero Hour in 1994), the characters had no recognition outside of comics (I never watched a cartoon with them or anything) and…well, Legion was just an odd book for me to end on. Don’t get me wrong, I thought that era was great, but it’s wild to me that I hung on with Legion of Super-Heroes longer than I did X-Men, Superboy and New Warriors. The split of the team and marooning half of them in the past where they suddenly weren’t as unique likely contributed to my severing ties.

(I should note the fact that I dropped my final two DC titles during Final Night speaks not to a disdain for that story, which I like, it was just coincidental timing)

And so as 1996 drew to a close, I was out of comics. I would check in now and again if I happened to spy a rack in a CVS or something over the next couple years and always checked what they had when I went to a bookstore, but for the most part, I was comics-free from 1997 to nearly 2001.

That, of course, is another story…

The Hobgoblin: Knockoff Made Good

When something works in comics, it has the propensity to spread like wildfire. This can be particularly true in the case of villains and even more so when it comes to Spider-Man’s villains. We’re talking a flock of Vultures, a pack of Kravens, Goblins of every make, a Scorpion and Doctor Octopus of each gender, not to mention symbiotes galore. In some cases, the copies make their own mark and turn out to be worthy successors to the mantel; in others, they end up cannon fodder so the original can make their way back into the limelight.

I’ve recently been reading the Amazing Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin trade and am struck by how Hobby is one “knockoff” who didn’t just pick up where his predecessor left off, he established his own distinct spot in Spidey lore.

A lot of “second generation” bad guys feel lazy because they seem to pick up their gimmicks for lack of their own ideas. Blackie Drago literally stole Adrian Toomes’ Vulture wings rather than come up with a different gimmick. The Kraven boys followed in daddy’s footsteps pretty slavishly out of tribute or tradition. However, while Hobgoblin swiped the Green Goblin’s gear and basic style, he went out of his way to make sure everybody knew they were not the same.

One of the things I’m really digging in these early Hobgoblin stories—written mostly by his co-creator, the great Roger Stern—is how he analyzes where Norman Osborn went wrong and takes measures to avoid the same pitfalls. It gives the character credibility that he not only recognizes insanity but also how it can be limiting, as opposed to just another nut seduced by promise of power. He’s cagey and deliberate whether it means avoiding a pointless fight with Spider-Man before he’s ready or cleaning up every last loose end. The Hobgoblin doesn’t want to live up to any legacy, he wants to surpass it; he wants to be better.

Something else I credit Stern and folks like Tom DeFalco with is how they gave Hobby a definitive arc in those first appearances. There are under a dozen comics collected in the trade I’m reading, but they really do account for the definitive Hobgoblin epic. For a year or two, the character was very much at the center of Spider-Man’s world, particularly in Amazing Spider-Man, involving himself with the ongoing soap opera and retaining a significant role in the background of issues even where he wasn’t the star. He comes into Spidey’s life, makes a huge impact, then fades out having left an impression.

I’m not clear on the exact circumstances surrounding the length of the original Hobgoblin stories; the fact that DeFalco took over midway through and Stern returned over a decade later to conclude it his way tells me there were probably non-story factors at work, but that’s irrelevant to me. The fact is the way Hobby steals the show and then exits before wearing out his welcome works perfectly. While there would be subsequent Hobgoblins featured in the Spider-Man books and elsewhere, that sense that the guy Stern knew to be behind the mask only made a handful appearances and then vanished for so many years adds tremendous mystique. Even now, when the original has come back and even died, the character carries a weight because your mind doesn’t go to whatever he was doing in the 90’s, it flashes right back to that first strong run.

Of course the mystery of the Hobgoblin’s true identity was central to his early success as well, with Stern doing his riff on the original Green Goblin in another way but with the nuances comics had gained and bringing his considerable strength at crafting the story to bear. Even reading this material in retrospect and knowing the answer to the questions being posed, I’m impressed by the suspects Stern lines up, the clues he leaves and the way it really does feel like it could be any number of folks. This also helps weave Hobgoblin into the tapestry of not just Spidey’s world, but Peter Parker’s, with the sense that a close colleague, old foe or even trusted friend could be the one unwittingly—or wittingly?—responsible for his woes. The paranoia is palpable and makes for a stronger story.

Kudos as well to John Romita Jr. as well as his dad on Hobby’s design. I always thought the color scheme of a pale face with orange and grey tunic both set the character apart and trumped the green and purple look favored by Norman Osborn and many other practitioners of evil. The first time I saw Hobgoblin was on the 90’s Spider-Man animated series—fantastically voiced by the great Mark Hamill—and I thought he made Venom look tame in terms of creep factor.

Recently Dan Slott seemingly brought the career of original Hobgoblin Roderick Kingsley to a bloody close—“seemingly” because it’s comics, not because I know something you don’t, because I don’t—having former heroic Green Goblin Phil Urich slice his noggin off and swipe his gear. It’s a nice full circle routine since Kingsley stole his shtick from another Goblin too, but more than that it’s been neat to see Phil step up and fill those Hobby boots as the wild card of the Spider-Man world, even maintaining that air of mystery since while we know who he is, nobody around him does.

So-called “knockoff” villains indeed don’t always have the highest success rate, but I’d say the current Hobgoblin stands a more solid chance than most not only because I personally enjoy him, but because he’s walking down a path whose trailblazer created by bucking the idea bad guys can’t borrow a costume or name and not also be their own baddie.

Pimping My Stuff: Marvel.com Trifecta

I wear many hats in my role as Associate Editor of Marvel.com (not actually true, I don't generally wear hats unless on vacation to protect my scalp from the ravages of the sun). These days, much of my time is spent programming content, organizing my freelancers, supervising interns, editing stories and helping to produce, direct and occasionally host our video and animation efforts. I dig all this stuff and getting to constantly incorporate new responsibilities and roles into my job is an awesome perk to an already great gig.

However, at the end of the day, I'm still a writer at heart, as the lengthy treatises on pro wrestling, Subway and Adam-X that have hopefully wasted many of your evenings go to show.

It's not every week I get the opportunity to sit down and just write at my day job, but this was one of those weeks. I worked on three pretty cool pieces over the past few days, and if you'll indulge me (if you've made it this far you kinda already are), I'd like to share them with you.

Up first, I spoke with designer and letterer Jared Fletcher about coming up with the new logos for the post-Regenesis X-Men titles. I've never covered this kind of topic with anybody of Jared's skill, so it was neat to get into his process and also see all the sketches and tests that got him to his final product. Check out more at his web site. Sorry they nixed the lower case "e," Jared!

Next, I had the pleasure of chatting with my old buddy and one of the most uniquely talented artists working in comics, Juan Doe. I can't divulge my history with Juan, lest I shatter shrouded-in-mystique persona, but it was awesome to catch up with him and hear about all the recent triumphs in his personal life and then dig into his work on Legion of Monsters, the first limited series he's ever tackled (he's previously stuck to covers and one shots). Juan is ever the wordsmith, explaining the lure of the series and how he's recently altered his style, but the sketches are the real gem. Creepy Morbius! Hit his deviantArt gallery.

Finally, I'm not sure who he is, but somebody sure is keeping painstaking track of the developments in Spider-Island, adding them to a super cool and ever-evolving map on Marvel.com. Nice work, guy!

Mix & Match Super Villains

It’s no secret that the Eisner Award-winning Invincible Iron Man is a pretty consistently solid comic book (or so the scoreboard would indicate). Matt Fraction’s writing is sharp, Salvador Larroca’s art is slick, my main man Alejandro Arbona edits the heck out of the whole shebang and Tony Stark has become a wonderfully complex and charismatic lead.

So it’s no surprise I dig the book as I do, but even I was a bit taken aback at how much I’m digging the current “Fix Me” arc in which Spider-Man archfoe—revealed to also be a former Stark peer in his younger years—Doctor Octopus is squaring off with Iron Man as he attempts to get Tony to cure his life-threatening physical ailments or at least admit his failure. It’s well-written, well-drawn, all that jazz, but honestly one of the biggest draws for me is simply seeing Doc Ock, generally an Amazing Spider-Man fixture, mixing it up with somebody new (and he brings Sandman and Electro along for the ride to boot).

Heroes trading their villains around is, of course, nothing new and has been going on since at least the Silver Age if not longer (I truthfully do not know if, say, The Red Skull ever appeared in Sub-Mariner during the 40’s or if Golden Age Lex Luthor fought that era’s Batman) and has been a fixture ever since. Particularly in the 90’s, if a villain was popular—Venom is the number one example that jumps to mind—you’d see them everywhere whether it made sense or not (A-listers like The Joker or Doctor Doom aren’t in the discussion here as part of what makes them great is that they can face off with anybody and it works).

In recent years, as restraint has returned to the medium, super villains have tended more or less to find a home title/hero and stick to it, so when something like “Fix Me” occurs it feels a little more special, as I’m sure it did the first time Magneto fought the Avengers back in the 60’s. More than that, though, if you find just that right “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that” pairing, it’s so sweet to see a bad guy out of the element you associate them with, but making such a perfect adversary for their unfamiliar dance partner. No matter how good “Fix Me” ultimately is, I’m sure Doc Ock will remain primarily a Spider-Man baddie simply because there’s such a rich history there, but developing a side feud with Iron Man can only up his profile and make for more great stories. I’m hoping for similar goodness in the just-announced “Storm Hunter” story this summer where Kraven goes after The Black Panther in another matchup that just makes total sense.

Following that train of thought, I wracked my brain for some shuffled hero vs villain showdowns I think have a lot of potential—and by the way, I fully recognize that as much as I know about comics I’ve got decades of continuity working against, thus I’m sure at least one of these has happened already and I look forward to hearing about it in the comments, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done again and even better.

(Also, I don’t have Photoshop at home, so I’ll assume you all know what the good guys look like and instead display pictures of the baddies)

SUPERMAN VS BANE
First and foremost, Superman always needs more villains he can just get into punching matches with, because the rotation between Metallo, Bizarro and Parasite in between cerebral wars with Lex Luthor and Brainiac gets played pretty quickly. Realistically, maybe Bane isn’t in Superman’s weight class, but then again, neither are a lot of the guys he fights. Besides that, Bane is a lot smarter than your average musclehead (when he’s being written right), as he’s the guy who not only physically dominated Batman, but weaved the psychological web of destruction that allowed that to occur. The optimum time for this to happen would have been right smack dab in the 90’s when Bane could taunt Superman with the “I broke your best friend” card, but done right today, this could bump Bane up a level and give Superman a fresh sparring partner for when you just need an issue of Action Comics full of double page spreads.

THE X-MEN VS THE DEVIANTS
It’s tough coming up with opponents for the X-Men particularly in the here and now as they are literally an army living on their own private sanctuary. However, the Deviants’ numbers dwarf even Cyclops and company, plus they’re an entire race bred more or less to go to war. Really there could be no more perfect threat for the X-Men to play against, as the Deviants are mutants gone down the worst possible scenario and any last remnant of Xavier’s dream torn to shreds: they’re an offshoot of humanity feared for their power, shunned for their differentness and driven to isolate themselves and lash out against the Eternals, Celestials and every either “normal” or “gifted” group that has been able to ascend into the light they’re denied, so of course they would really hate the X-Men. I’d love to see Cyclops’ strategic skills pitted against the likes of Warlord Kro and the X-Men forced to look into the dark mirror of what they could become—and are actually moving closer to if they really take a minute to think about Utopia—in the Deviants.

GREEN ARROW VS CAPTAIN BOOMERANG
Ok, maybe pairing off the two specialized weapons guys is a bit cliché, but just because it’s sensible doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be fun. Awesome arrow vs boomerang dual aside—and once they get to the gimmicks it would be seriously amazing—the personalities would be an interesting mesh as well. Going after Green Arrow would be a sensible move for Boomer, as he’s one of those villains constantly trying to prove he’s better than his reputation and targeting the perceived “weakest” member of the Justice League falls right in line with his character. For Ollie, looking at Boomerang would be—as with a the X-Men/Deviants pairing I just discussed—a glimpse at the road not travelled but that could still be. Digger is a guy who has let arrogance and his vices consume him and lost his family because of it; Ollie isn’t that far off from that. Both guys are arrogant and snarky and would have I suspect a spirited battle of wits, words, fists and projectiles.

SPIDER-MAN VS BATROC
This may be my personal favorite. I have already read the amazing Captain America & Batroc one-shot by Kieron Gillen and Renato Arlem headed to stores this Wednesday, and it only renewed and strengthened my affinity for “Ze Leapair,” a truly fantastic pseudo-villain and just fun character. I’d love to see Batroc gain a higher profile in the Marvel Universe, and Spider-Man is the perfect opponent for him. Captain America and Batroc always have cool dustups, but at his core, my favorite Frenchman is an acrobat, not a scrapper, so Spidey would be a great opponent for him just from a physical and fighting style angle. Batroc is also a guy who leads with his pride, preferring to prove himself against Cap rather than beat him or even pull off the big score and he’s all about the honorable opponent, so you know he and Spider-Man would start off trading barbs, but the Wallcrawler’s ceaseless banter and deprecating sense of humor would ultimately drive him—no pun intended—up the wall. And yet, underneath the surface, Batroc and Spidey actually have more than a little in common: both are underdogs, both seek and generally don’t get respect, and both stand by their morals at the end of the day (seriously, read any good Batroc story and he’s not really a bad guy, more of a thrill junkie and swashbuckler). Put the right artist on this and it would be an instant classic fight sequence, but the correct writer could also forge a cool rivalry/friendship in the end—paging Mr. Gillen and Mr. Arlem!

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES VS BLACK ADAM
Probably the best Legion of Super-Heroes story ever is The Great Darkness Saga, with Darkseid emerging in the future, and a modern highlight of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s run came when Ra’s al Ghul showed up as the out-of-nowhere mastermind trying to take over the United Planets. Long story short: Present day villains are gold in the 30th/31st century. Black Adam is immortal and this could certainly still be around somewhere in a thousand years or so, plus he’s one of the few figures who simply on his own could present a viable physical challenge to a fighting force as vast and diverse as the Legion. I’d love to see Captain Marvel’s toughest opponent lock horns with Mon-El and Ultra Boy, trade sparks with Lightning Lad and Lightning Lass or match magic with The White Witch. Black Adam is an unstoppable force and some of the Legion’s greatest battles have come when they go up against that type of threat; I’d love to see Cosmic Boy or Brainiac 5’s battle strategy, but I’d also like to see what happens when BA shrugs it off and ignites the tempers of Legion hotheads like Wildfire and Timber Wolf, leading to the inevitable dog pile. Throw in Isis and Osiris as well and this is a slobberknocker for the ages for sure.

IRON MAN VS THE LEADER
I’m biting a little on the Iron Man-Doc Ock feud I started the post talking about, but if anything, that story has shown me that Tony Stark up against other smart guys makes for quality stories. For years and years The Leader has been banging his giant head against the wall trying and failing to put mind over muscle against The Hulk, so it would be interesting to see him step up to somebody of his own intellect. Conversely, I don’t think Iron Man has ever gone against anybody with the brain capacity of The Leader, so it would be a different kind of challenge for him than battling The Mandarin or one of his numerous armored rivals. I don’t hate The Leader’s chances here, as a guy who has come within inches of putting The Hulk down despite no physical abilities can surely give Iron Man a run, while Tony would be in the uncomfortable position of not being able to necessarily fall back on his knowledge, having to opt for finesse and firepower instead.