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…

Underrated/Overlooked: Psionex

In most iconic super hero-super villain archenemy pairings, the two individuals or teams involved are bound by their stark differences, cracked mirror similarities, or in some cases a little bit of both.

Superman is the alien who is an everyman while Lex Luthor is the human who sees himself as above his fellow man. Spider-Man is the hopeful optimism of youth in the face of adversity battling old men like Doctor Octopus or The Green Goblin who have given up on altruism and are driven by greed. Batman is the imposition of order while The Joker is the embodiment of chaos. Doctor Doom is the intelligence of Mr. Fantastic without morality and civic unselfishness keeping him in check.

The New Warriors never really had an archenemy. Some might say it was The Sphinx, and in that case you could argue the dynamic was the young agents of change versus the timeless champion of inevitability, but he was really Nova’s bad guy first and foremost. If you look at the bad guys in other big Warriors storylines like Tai, the Poison Memories or the Dire Wraiths, they were all basically one and done adversaries.

Breaking it down to numbers, the villains who plagued the New Warriors the most frequently and were their opposite number at least in the sense of being a team of young people were Psionex, introduced in issue #4 of the original series and recurring for the remainder of the volume as foes to our heroes, reluctant allies against a larger threat like Terrax, and even Night Thrasher’s attempt at a rehabilitation project.

If there was a weakness to Psionex in their core concept, it was that they didn’t really stand for much of anything, whereas the Warriors had a very strong sense of identity. Certain buzz phrases would recur through all of that classic first Warriors series—“making hard choices,” “searching for the truth,” “the power of love over the love of power”—creating not only a clear mission statement for the good guys, but the potential for an antithesis that was never really filled outside of in part with stuff I mentioned like The Sphinx and other little cases.

The initial hook to Psionex was a simple one: They were unbalanced young people given super powers by Genetech, the faceless corporation who would bug the New Warriors because why not. As it said on the blurb of their introductory issue, “They were bred for one purpose: To destroy the New Warriors!” but aside from having powers that gave various members of the team trouble, you never got the whole “bred for one purpose” thing. This wasn’t like the Injustice League or Dark Avengers or some incarnations of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants where each member of the villain team was picked specifically to target an opposing player on the good guys; it was just a bunch of randoms with cool powers.

However, it’s in those powers and their relative inventiveness that Psionex raises a notch or two up in my mind. Fabian Nicieza clearly put some time into coming up with these guys’ abilities, and in an era where “generic energy blast” was the flavor of every month—I’m looking at you Acolytes—it was refreshing and appreciated.

Asylum was a mental patient who never spoke but had a body composed entirely of Darkforce matter that induced hallucinations in anybody she came into contact with; similar to Cloak but with a twist of mental imbalance. Coronary at first glance seemed like the team powerhouse, but who was actually a “bio-telepath,” capable of messing with people’s internal functions so as to make them vomit, give them a heart attack or do other nastiness. Impulse had an enhanced metabolism which gave him fairly generic heightened speed, reflexes and healing, but his crazy thrill seeker personality coupled with his gang background made him interesting and led to classic moments like him trying to take on Terrax singlehanded and getting his back snapped (he got better). Mathemanic not only had a great name, but the most bizarre and intriguing abilities, as he practiced “mathematical telepathy,” messing with statistical regularities so he could do things like forcing his foes to perceive interstellar measures of distance and thus not see what’s in front of them or slowing the passage of time by altering perceptions. Last but not least you had Pretty Persuasions, an exotic dancer with an energy whip who could increase and then draw power from the “erotic urges” of others, making her one of the most straightforwardly sexual characters in comics at the time, but in an odd “what you see is what you get” refreshing kind of way.

Psionex had their initial clash with the Warriors, then a rematch that ended with Terrax’s rebirth and a temporary truce/half the villains fleeing. Later, after Asylum dissipated during a fight with Nova, Firestar and Speedball, another New Warriors villain, Darkling, found her mask and took up her mantel, getting Psionex back together and attempting to make them into heroes who would use the excessive force the Warriors were unwilling to; this period showed some potential for the group to really forge their own place in the Marvel Universe—or at least in the New Warriors mythos—but while it made for a few good stories, they were heavily focused on Asylum, with the rest becoming more or less window dressing. After Asylum accidentally killed a child by inducing an unknown heart condition while trying to scare him straight, we got a pretty emotionally hard hitting story—Nicieza’s final issue—where Mathemanic tries to turn back time by affecting perceptions across New York City, but ultimately is convinced that he can’t undo what is already done.

From there Psionex joined up briefly with Night Thrasher and Rage before gradually receding into a background role in the Marvel Universe for the past couple decades, generally only showing up for cameos when Nicieza is writing a book like New Thunderbolts or part of huge villain armies in titles being penned by New Warriors fans like when Christos Gage had the reins of Avengers: The Initiative.

In addition to their powers, the other thing Psionex really had going for it was that Mark Bagley did a bang-up job on their designs. They really were a motley crew of misfits, as befit their status as nut jobs, with the nerdy Mathemanic looking like he belonged nowhere near a group that also included S&M bombshell Pretty Persuasions. Asylum’s lack of physical form anchored by that golden mask was cool, as was Coronary’s evolving crystalline shape—although the weird skirt he rocked at first was bizarre—and even Impulse’s fairly traditional super villain get-up had neat touches like the evil Spider-Man bug eyes or weird wrist gauntlet blades. Richard Pace would ramp up the exaggerated elements of Psionex during his all-too-brief run on New Warriors and breathe even more life into Bagley’s work.

But again, while Psionex had plenty of potential in the abilities and visual departments, their lack of personalities, individually or as a group, and no real direction hurt their lasting legacy. It wasn’t enough just to be crazy, particularly in the 90’s, and after that initial Genetech-sponsored fracas, it wasn’t even quite clear why they were always tangling with the New Warriors.

Still, there’s something there in Psionex, even if it’s just that they bring something different to the table in terms of abilities that go beyond the tired cocktail of super strength, mind powers and, yes, energy blasts. I’m not saying they’re ever going to anchor a line-wide crossover or anything, but maybe next time an Avengers writer needs to kill half a standalone issue that’s really about the heroes’ relationships anyways, rather than use the Wrecking Crew yet again, they give Psionex a shot.

Underrated/Overlooked: Fatal Attractions

The thing most people remember about the 1993 X-Men semi-crossover Fatal Attractions is, frankly, the holograms.

Fatal Attractions spread the long-awaited return of X-Men uber villain Magneto (he’d only been “dead” for a couple years, but there were so many X-Books with so much happening every week at the time that a couple years felt like decades) over six chapters. What made it somewhat unique on the heels of stuff like Inferno, X-Tinction Agenda and my beloved X-Cutioner’s Song and the reason I call it a “semi-crossover” was that unlike those events, where each chapter bled into the next and readers had to adjust to shifting creative teams trying their best to tell a seamless story, each installment of Fatal Attractions more or less stood alone as pieces of a larger puzzle that could still be savored individually and gave every writer and artist their own chance to shine without having to worry about any baton.

But back to the holograms for a moment.

Gimmick covers were of course all the rage in 1993. The gimmick du jour for Fatal Attractions was that the front of each cardstock cover had a hologram of one of the book’s stars as designed by the series artist in the upper right hand corner under the logo. I’ve heard from the walls that can talk at Marvel HQ that these babies were not exactly the easiest things to pull together—and to the best of my knowledge we haven’t seen them since—but they sure did look sweet, particularly as you could really see each guy’s design sense in the one he created (Joe Quesada did Havok for X-Factor, Greg Capullo did Cable for X-Force, John Romita Jr. did Magneto for Uncanny X-Men, Andy Kubert did Gambit for X-Men, Adam Kubert did Wolverine for…well…Wolverine and I’m not sure who did Nightcrawler for Excalibur, maybe Joe Madureira, but it looked nice—and I’m sorry if I just got any credits wrong).

However, this was one case where the 90’s sizzle on the outside has perhaps caused folks to forget that the work in between the covers brought the steak in spades. Like I said, each chapter really did work on its own, so let me touch quickly on what I dug about each.

The story kicks off in X-Factor #92 by Peter David and Joe Quesada, although more than any other part of Fatal Attractions, this one ties in more thematically than anything else and serves truly as the prologue. Magneto’s groupies, the Acolytes, led by the guy who “killed” him, Fabian Cortez—they don’t know that—attack a government Sentinel-building factory really as a way to draw Quicksilver, X-Factor member and son of Magneto, into the fray. The main event of the issue is Cortez attempting to sway Quicksilver to become his ally and take his place as Magneto’s heir, which does a nice job filling any new readers in on what Mags’ deal is and why he’s such a nasty piece of work. While this is going on though, you also get a pretty killer X-Factor vs Acolytes throwdown—with a literally killer Jamie Madrox moment—gorgeous formative Quesada art, the balance of wit and morality that PAD always brings to the table, and a pretty powerful ending where the team confronts their government liaison and supposed friend Val Cooper about the whole Sentinel thing. There’s also a cameo from Exodus, who becomes more important down the line.

X-Force #25 by Fabian Nicieza and Greg Capullo has its own big time non-Magneto comeback, as Cable, who had been “dead” for an even shorter amount of time, returns to the team he founded to discover maybe they don’t need him anymore. I’ve said before how much I absolutely loved this era of X-Force and the Cable-less issues in particular, but this remains a personal favorite because it highlights how much Cannonball and company had grown over such a short time and forces Cable to have to prove his worth to his old charges, a neat 180 from the first year or so of the series where he was the gruff and mysterious drill sergeant they were all eager to please; you also get the beginnings of Cable as far more of a fully realized character as opposed to a 90’s cliché, with him relaxing a bit and demonstrating that he cares about and appreciates this kids just as much as his pouches and guns. But if that wasn’t enough to entice you, Exodus makes his first extended appearance to beat the crap out of X-Force and attempt to invite Cannonball and Sunspot to join his “master,” a cloaked guy in a space station who they tip toe around naming until the very end where he dons the full Magneto regalia as awesomely depicted by Capullo. It’s definitely the “warm-up” issue for the main event X-Men one-two, but it’s again a great story on its own that once more effectively shows a side of Magneto—in this case the teacher who wants his students back—as well as bringing Cable back in style and elevating X-Force since each guy wants to guide them (and Cable’s awesome “I don’t want them to follow my path—I want to follow theirs!” speech coupled with Magneto’s brutal disassembling of his machine side makes for a fantastic close).

So then we come to Uncanny X-Men #304, the first round of the true prize fight by Scott Lobdell and John Romita Jr., and you’ve got a lot going on. First off, Colossus’ kid sister Illyana, at one time Magik of the New Mutants, had died of the Legacy Virus, and it is in many ways the death of innocence in the X-Men’s world. Lobdell does some really nuanced character work covering the reactions, from Colossus’ refusal to show his feelings (or his non-metal form), to Professor X’s guilt, to Kitty Pryde’s gamut of emotions (she’s us, remember); there’s also a great bit where Bishop tries to pull his whole cryptic warnings of a doomed future routine with Banshee and Banshee deadpans “And what if I just go toss myself in front a bus? What happens then?” Interwoven with the grieving and the X-Teams coming together, there are pages written by Lobdell with powerful art by Jae Lee revealing pieces of Magneto’s earliest days in a Nazi concentration camp, some of which had been covered, but never with such raw detail (I believe this is the first time he’s called Erik and it’s not a stretch to say the great opening to the first X-Men movie borrowed heavily from here, intentionally or not). The two worlds come crashing together as Magneto, flanked by his Acolytes—Exodus revealed Cortez’ treachery to them and crushed him earlier in the issue—has the audacity to make his showy official return in the midst of the funeral and earmark this failure on the X-Men’s part to protect the most innocent among them as proof positive that Xavier’s dream has failed. Over the course of several Romita Jr. pages packed with characters and details, the more-powerful-than-ever Magneto dominates his heroic adversaries while also engaging with the usual philosophical battle of wills with his old friend Xavier, maybe making better points for why he’s right than ever before. It all builds to the heartbreaking moment where X-Men stalwart Colossus can stand no more tragedy and does the unthinkable, choosing to side with Magneto and become an Acolyte, breaking Professor X’s heart in the process and perhaps shattering his dream as well. The final page, where Xavier is dropped from the sky by Magneto, caught gently by Archangel and then assures his X-Men he knows he can count on all of them is extremely poignant; it’s an impressive pairing of action and pathos in that unique way only super hero comics can do it.

There’s less talk and more action in X-Men #25, as Nicieza comes back for his second go around, this time with Andy Kubert on art. Magneto fries most of the world’s electrical grid with an electromagnetic pulse mostly to show he can, so Professor X decides enough is enough and he’s taking a small strike force of X-Men—Jean Grey, Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit and Quicksilver, on loan from X-Factor—to finish this once and for all; he also dons a sweet Shi’Ar exoskeleton that allows him to walk so he can be front and center, despite the protests of many of his students. When Xavier essentially tells Cyclops he needs him to stay behind to carry on in case they don’t come back, you believe it. The strike force storms Avalon and teleports the Acolytes off the base so it’s straight up X-Men vs Magneto with the good guys being more ruthless than ever at Xavier’s insistence. Quicksilver and Rogue both play up their personal connections to Mags while assaulting him simultaneously; Professor X and a reluctant Jean barrage him with a psychic slew of bad memories, including Cypher’s death while he was in charge of the New Mutants; Wolverine goes full berserker; I’m not quite sure why Gambit was there other than to justify being in the cover hologram, but maybe he picked some locks or something. Despite it all, Magneto just keeps coming and neither side looks to give an inch. Then, out of nowhere, Wolverine makes a vicious swipe at his opponent’s guts—and Magneto responds by tearing the adamantium clear off Wolvie’s bones and out of his pores!

This is of course nearly 20 years in the rearview at this point, but you have to understand, as a fan reading at the time, the splash page image of the most popular and untouchable X-Man screaming in agony and quite possibly meeting his end in visually grisly fashion was beyond shocking. An enraged Xavier responds to that knockout with a ruthless uppercut of his own, full-on mind blasting Magneto like he never has before and wiping the dude’s brain clean, leaving him catatonic (we wouldn’t see him operational again for another six years, so really Fatal Attractions was more a blip on the radar than a full return, but what a blip). The postscript has Wolverine and an exhausted Xavier both in critical condition as Colossus shows up to help his former teammates get out before the other Acolytes return and then silently cradle Magneto’s limp body in a powerful closing panel.

To demonstrate just how standalone these books were, I have never actually read Wolverine #75! I know it’s by Larry Hama and Adam Kubert and that it deals with Wolverine ultimately recovering then electing to leave the X-Men, but I’ve never cracked the cover; it’s one of my white whales.

Everything wraps up in Excalibur #71, written by Lobdell with an assortment of artists helping him out, but this is really an “It’s all over but the crying” situation, as the big action was out of the way and now it was just a matter of dealing with the fallout; it’s a nice bookend to X-Factor in that it’s a true epilogue you don’t always get to see when you’re running from one big story to the next. Professor X, Cyclops and Jean Grey come to Muir Island, where the remaining members of Excalibur—Nightcrawler, Shadowcat and Phoenix—have stopped in to help Moira MacTaggert with some business. After some serious persuasion—and some nice “Professor Xavier is a jerk” thematic callback—the X-Men persuade Kitty to lure Colossus to the island, as apparently he has an outstanding head injury and they fear it may have influenced his recent decisions. Colossus shows up, feels the sting of his one-time love’s betrayal, but gets the help he needs while Cyclops and Nightcrawler beat up the Acolytes cannon fodder—including CKT favorite Katu!—and Rachel Summers has a somewhat random but sweet meeting with her alternate reality half-brother (neither knows yet, but the readers kinda did) Cable. In the end, Colossus forgives Kitty and offers thanks to the X-Men, but still chooses to remain an Acolyte, putting a bow on Fatal Attractions and what it was really trying to say as a whole: There are no absolutes in the X-Men Universe and neither Professor X nor his dream may be quite as infallible as we thought. Also, Excalibur decides to stay on Muir Island with Moira, but that’s another story.

It’s come to be a mantra from me here and elsewhere, but the 90’s get a bad rap. The X-Men in the 90’s get a particularly bad rap. A story like Fatal Attractions, remembered more for its posters, gimmicks and splashy returns was actually a deft ballet of awesome action and harrowing emotional betrayal, with healthy doses of humor and character growth mixed in plus pretty consistently great art throughout. It’s a true example not to judge a book by its cover.

Regardless of if the cover has a sweet hologram.

Cannonball: Upward Trajectory

I first encountered Sam Guthrie, aka the once and future member of the X-Men known as Cannonball, in the pages of X-Force circa “The X-Cutioner’s Song.” The paramilitary teen X-team was in the process of being ditched by their mentor figure, Cable, and young Sam had already begun seizing the reins of leadership.

The Cannonball I met back then was a Southern gentleman to be sure, but more he was a self-assured youngster with strong convictions and a chip on his shoulder; he was a nice guy, but not too nice, and that quickly made him one of my favorite characters.

At the time, I had no idea that Sam Guthrie had not always been this way. As I was still a kid and yet to really delve into the dense forest of continuity, I had a passing awareness that Cannonball had been part of a younger, less intense team called the New Mutants at one point and from early issues of X-Force I found at my local store, I gathered his confidence and poise with his own powers was a relatively new developments, but I was certainly more familiar with Fabian Nicieza’s “angry young man” take on Sam than any other.

This is why I was so disappointed when Sam joined the X-Men post-Age of Apocalypse and somehow became this wide-eyed rookie in awe of his teammates and incapable of any real sort of competence. This was not the Sam I knew and loved.

Over the years I’ve gotten to know where Cannonball came from a little better, most significantly via the New Mutants Classics trade collections, and while I still don’t buy that Sam should have been quite such a screw-up during his first run in the big leagues, I get where it came from, and also see how the character’s evolution makes him somewhat unique in the Marvel Universe while also instilling him with a huge amount of potential that writers have only scratched the surface of in the three decades or so that he’s been around.

Chris Claremont’s original take on Cannonball in those first several years of New Mutants is one I look back at and can barely recognize as the hero of my youth. In his early days, Sam Guthrie was an awkward, overeager, clumsy and often downright nerdy country bumpkin who seemed in way over his head as a world-class hero. However, while Sam may have been gawky and not quite oozing cool in those initial appearances, the core characteristics that would make me a fan years later were there from the start: he was a true blue hero whose motivation for doing good came from the most pure and unselfish of places, and despite the fact that he may have been crashing into walls half the time, he was a natural born leader who commander the respect of his peers.

In re-examining the trajectory of Cannonball from wide-eyed New Mutant to almost world-weary X-Force leader and beyond, I realize that Sam Guthrie represents perhaps one of Marvel’s best examples of a character who has actually grown up over the years.

Over in the DC Universe, you can look at Dick Grayson and Wally West in particular as well as the original Teen Titans in general when seeking out examples of one-time youngsters who have grown and changed over the years, but there are fewer examples of that path at Marvel, with Cannonball being among the more pronounced. For those who have followed his entire comic book “life,” they’ve seen Sam Guthrie go from an awkward boy to a teen struggling to prove himself and most recently witnessed him blossoming into adulthood as a responsible soldier who guys like Cyclops put total trust in. Cannonball’s progression has been pronounced yet for the most part natural, and it’s neat to see the seeds that were planted way back when and the fruit they have born.

Dick Grayson and Wally West both grew up and assumed the mantels of their respective mentors; while Sam has yet to become the new Professor X--and likely never will--he has ascended from teen sidekick equivalent to fully-realized adult hero.

Another aspect that makes Cannonball so cool is something that used to get brought up a lot back around that era of X-Force I loved so much: unlike pretty much any other character in the X-Men Universe, Sam is a guy who received the tutelage not only of Professor X and his opposite number in Magneto, but Cable as well, providing him with training and a cumulative knowledge that could perhaps put Scott Summers to shame. There was always something neat to me that Cannonball is a character whose power is fairly pedestrian, but the strategic skills and ability to lead instilled in him by the most impressive and diverse collection of teachers any Marvel mutant could accumulate distinguish him. Again, there is so much potential in exploring a protagonist who has been exposed to three incredibly differing philosophies and perhaps is the only person able to balance them into the best possible course.

I really dig what Zeb Wells is currently doing with Cannonball in the current New Mutants series, highlighting him as, again, somebody Cyclops really sees the worth and value in as he works to safeguard the mutant race--and as a possible heir--while also showing he’s a strong leader who is not without imperfection. Surrounding him with his old friends adds an element I also enjoy as while Sam may be a soldier and a hero, there’s certainly a human element you never want to ignore.

I do still think there is much ground to be mined when it comes to Cannonball, not just in a team setting, but maybe as a headliner in his own limited or ongoing series. Really dig deep into the stuff I’ve written about here in regards to his evolution as well as his stance on his various teachers and I think you’ve got a strong foundation for something that could really take off (pun intended).

Essentials Extra: New Warriors Must Reads Pt. 2

Last time, I covered some of the most essential reading from Fabian Nicieza’s first 25 issues on New Warriors. This go-around, let’s take a look at the latter half of that run, the bulk of which was illustrated by Darick Robertson, who remembers those days so fondly that he did not think me a psycho fan when I was working at Wizard and practically assaulted him at a bar in L.A. expressing my fandom and later did a very nice Nova sketch for me.

(Again, in a perfect world I really do recommend reading all of New Warriors from start to finish, but these are just a few of the stories that stand out for me)

“The Next Step” (New Warriors #26)
In Robertson’s very first issue, he’s clearly still in his growing stages as an artist, but Nicieza gives him a doozy to start with, as it’s the epilogue to “Nothing But the Truth” as well as a bon voyage for Marvel Boy, who has been convicted of manslaughter and is headed to prison. It’s a real tug at the heartstrings, as Firestar, Namorita and Nova attempt to spring their teammate en route to The Vault, and he ends up surprising them with his response. My favorite part of the issue is the emotional farewell between Marvel Boy and Firestar, as well as his incredibly mature and beautifully-expressed reassurance of her in regards to taking a major step in their relationship for the wrong reasons. While I was more of a Nova-Namorita fanboy when it came to Warriors couples (for obvious reasons if you know me), I always have and still and a soft spot for the “aw shucks” feel good nature of the Vance-Angel romance, and this issue reminds me why.

“Forces of Darkness, Forces of Light” (New Warriors #32-34, New Warriors Annual #3)
There’s definitely a different feel to this arc than most of the others on this list as it’s probably the only time Nicieza really deviated from putting the Warriors and their personal conflicts front and center, instead placing them at the center of a big ol’ action epic guest-starring half the Marvel Universe. Because of that feeling of separation for the overarching New Warriors saga, I’d never place “Forces of Darkness, Forces of Light” at the very top of my must-reads, but at the same time it certainly warrants some place as it’s cool to see Spider-Man, the Avengers, etc. taking their cue from the Warriors, because the idea of a villain who can turn the heroes into bad guys by flooding them with darkness with the visual expression being that they turn charcoal is one of those great high concepts that appeals to your inner kid ala evil twins, and because Robertson starts to come into his own on this one.

“Poison Memories” (New Warriors #37-38, Night Thrasher #1)
Despite having an interesting twist on the Shazam concept being an inner city kid in an adult hero’s body, Rage was mostly a blank slate during his tenures with the Avengers as well as the New Warriors, but in this story, Nicieza really cracked him open and found the unique character within the shell. It was a different kind of conflict for the Warriors from the start and yet very fitting with the world they existed in, as they’re targeted not by a true super villain, but by a street gang whose leader actually did his homework, seducing Namorita—the only Warrior with a publicly known identity—in a nightclub and then stealing her address book to learn her teammates’ IDs and target their loved ones. While most of the team surrenders to Kimeiko Ashu and his Poison Memories lest Nova’s brother or Speedball’s father be harmed, Rage lashes out following the murder of his grandmother, living up to his name. Night Thrasher’s return to the team to save them from Ashu, who began as his enemy, is dramatic, but nowhere near as tense as when Rage has the villain in a chokehold and callously snaps his neck over his allies’ pleas not to. Also, once again, Robertson takes his work to the next level, aided by a seemingly renewed energy as well from Larry Mahlstedt on inks and Joe Rosas on colors.

“Family Viewing” (New Warriors #39)
The epilogue to the Poison Memories saga deserves its own entry as it’s a “downtime” issue where Nicieza really opens things up and gives readers their money’s worth. You’ve got Nova’s brother, who just lost his pinky finger two issues back, giving an awesome pep talk to his moping super hero sibling about how he’ll lose all four limbs if it means his bro saves the planet again. You’ve got a nice moment where Firestar refuses to leave the bedside of her comatose father and leaves Marvel Boy dangling on the other line of the payphone when he wakes up. You’ve got Rage trying to take responsibility for his actions by turning himself in to the authorities and Night Thrasher making it clear he answers to a harsher jury: him. And of course, you have the Nova-Namorita hook-up that took 39 issues, but was well worth it.

“Time and Time Again” (New Warriors #47-50, Night Thrasher #11-12, Nova #6-7)
The first (and last) real crossover between the suddenly burgeoning New Warriors family of titles that emerged at the height of 90’s excess was somewhat hit or miss by its very nature. The Sphinx scattered the team throughout time, meaning you got eight different stories by eight different artists (all written by Nicieza) as well as a ninth set in the present where Warriors mascot Hindsight Lad, the former female Sphinx and Night Thrasher’s half-brother Bandit attempt to organize a new team to rescue the originals; some of the stories were good, some not so much, some totally forgettable (I don’t even remember what happened with Rage and know that Namorita was in ancient Atlantis while Firestar was in the Salem Witch Trials, but couldn’t tell you much more than that). Personally, I liked Nova’s trip to a parallel world where his brother got his powers, Justice traveling to his abusive father’s childhood and learning that he was a repressed homosexual, and Silhouette being put in the “would you kill baby Hitler?” position with her evil grandmother, Tai. Regardless, it’s Robertson’s final issue as well as Nicieza’s last sweeping epic, and both go all out in the landmark, over-sized fiftieth issue which features some of the most vibrant art I’ve seen to this day, incredible wall-to-wall Warriors vs Sphinx action, and appropriately touching resolution to the whole thing.

“Another Think Coming” (New Warriors #51)
Though he’d hand on a couple issues longer, to me the coda to “Time and Time Again” was really Fabian Nicieza’s well-earned farewell to New Warriors, and a perfect note to end on. He brings back one of the Warriors’ very first villains, The Mad Thinker, not to battle our heroes, but to remind them of the purpose they seemed to have misplaced and galvanize them to remain as a team. For Nicieza, it’s a chance to sum up for us what those first 50 issues were all about as well as demonstrate how much these characters have grown since they got together. It’s got some neat art by Richard Pace (who only stuck around about four issues and I have not really seen since, which is a shame) and puts a nice cherry on top of Fabian Nicieza’s New Warriors sundae.

Essentials Extra: New Warriors Must Reads Pt. 1

Very heartened to see and hear similarly positive thoughts across the Internet and even around the Marvel offices about Fabian Nicieza’s New Warriors following my post the other day. It’s nice to know I’m not the only person who considers that run rightfully essential.

If you’re a New Warriors neophyte looking to see the team’s glory days for yourself, you’re in luck, as Marvel released the first six issues plus the group’s two-part debut in Thor in New Warriors Classic, and there’s a second volume coming in May with issues #7-10 plus the first Annual and the other three chapters of the “Kings of Pain” crossover with the X-Men, New Mutants and X-Factor.

You can also find single issues on the relative cheap if you scour shops and shows for them and while I wholeheartedly recommend the entire series, here are some choice stories to whet your appetite (issues #1-25 today, #26-50 coming tomorrow or soon after).

“Hard Choices” (New Warriors #7-9)
After taking the first few issues to introduce his cast and firmly place them in the Marvel Universe, Nicieza tackles his first real multi-part storyline and immediately places the book apart from most of its contemporaries as far as not being afraid to hit real world hot button issues. Most of the team heads out of the country to save Speedball’s mother after she gets in over her head with an environmental rights group and run up against eco-terrorists the Force of Nature. Meanwhile, back in New York City, Night Thrasher attempts to protect Father Michael Janes, a respected priest, from Bengal, a Vietnamese orphan whose village he helped massacre during his days in the army; The Punisher also gets involved. These are the issues where Mark Bagley’s art also begins improving by quantum leaps (and it’s not like he was half-bad to start).

“Forever Yesterday” (New Warriors #11-13)
One of the craziest, most fun and plain best alternate reality stories I’ve ever read, as the first chapter drops us straight into a world where once upon a time Moses lost his duel with Pharaoh’s sorcerer, leading to a world where Egypt became a major superpower, black are the upper class while whites are the minority, and a female version of old Nova villain The Sphinx secretly rules it all. Within the first 10 pages, an Avengers team consisting of Captain Assyria, Horus, Storm, Monica Rambeau, a black Iron Man and Nova as the token white fry Wolverine to a crisp—in the first 10 pages. Over three issues we get a boffo “What If?” history of the Marvel Universe with Bagley going balls out and redesigning every character ever to accommodate for racial shifts, a classic “rebels versus the establishment” struggle between mutants and The Sphinx, a decent bit of social commentary, and the New Warriors having to come together as strangers and save reality as they don’t know it.

“Ground War” (New Warriors #15-17)
After a return bout with Psionex—a group of mental cases given powers who were basically the New Warriors’ Masters of Evil or Brotherhood of Evil Mutants—our heroes renew another old acquaintance: their first ever opponent Terrax, a cosmic-powered former Herald of Galactus. The gist is that the first time they met him, the Warriors got really lucky and basically beat Terrax on a fluke, but here he’s fully powered and prepared, so he more or less kicks their asses and nearly destroys New York City in the process. It’s really the Warriors’ coming out party, as they’re in way over their heads and have to take their lumps big-time before formulating a comeback plan that involves asking for help from guest stars the Fantastic Four and The Silver Surfer, but it’s also Nicieza doing the equivalent of a blockbuster disaster movie in comic book form as the action is insane and, again, Bagley really gets a chance to shine.

“Nothing But the Truth” (New Warriors #22-25)
Two huge storylines for the price of one, as Nicieza bids Bagley a fond farewell and in the process really wraps up the first era of the larger story he’s telling with the New Warriors. On one side, Night Thrasher learns his whole life is more or less a lie, with the tragedies he’s faced having been perpetrated by those closest to him, and embarks on a quest for the truth that leads to him and the bulk of the Warriors team—along with honorary members Darkhawk and Rage—having to face down a villain who scared the crap out of me as a kid as well as prevent the end of the world. On the other, Marvel Boy, with Firestar in his corner and Foggy Nelson pleading his case, stands trial for murdering his own abusive father a few issues back when he lost control of his powers. Both stories pack an emotional wallop and Nicieza delivers big-time on all the clues and teases he has laid out over the first two years of the series with shocking answers, high stakes, and a conclusion I sure as heck did not see coming.

The Essentials: New Warriors by Fabian Nicieza

Growing up, I always liked to root for the underdogs; maybe it was the burgeoning Red Sox fan in me, who knows. I pulled for the Buffalo Bills to upset whoever they would inevitably lose to in the Super Bowl, rooted for guys like Kerry Von Erich to win the Royal Rumble, and always made sure my favorite character on any TV show was the third most popular at best (i.e. Laser from American Gladiators as opposed to Nitro, Gemini or Turbo).

In comics, I was no different. The more well-known a character or property was, the less interest I had. Of course the secondary reason for this was that the more undiscovered a comic was the more fun I had learning all about it, but I didn’t really get that consciously until later.

I knew who Superman and Batman were, so I eschewed DC for Marvel. I was at least somewhat familiar with Captain America and Iron Man, so I passed over the Avengers for the X-Men (who of course were anything but obscure to comic book fans, but they didn’t have a TV show or anything yet). Even within the X-Men titles, I always preferred X-Force to the main books because Cannonball was more interesting to me than Wolverine.

And then there was New Warriors.

One day early on in my comic book journey as I was rooting through the back issue bins of my local baseball card store, I happened across three or four issues of New Warriors from the original run by Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley. I was mesmerized by these characters who all had great designs thanks to Bagley and the artists he was borrowing from, but who I had no familiarity with whatsoever, yet there was the Marvel logo up in the corners, so they did somehow share a universe with Spider-Man and the rest. That it was a book about teenagers closer to my age than the X-Men or most other prominent characters of the day was a welcome discovery I would make upon returning home and reading the book, but I bought every issue I could find just on the strength of those first few covers and my curiosity about the unknown.

New Warriors ended up becoming the book that served as the spine of my first Golden Age as a comic book collector and remains not only one of my favorite series ever, but one I feel more than comfortable pointing to and saying “This totally holds up as proof the 90’s weren’t all bad.”

I know that looking back at my favorite childhood comic inevitably means many of my observations are going to be tinted through a haze of nostalgia, but I still think I can speak pretty conclusively to some of the things that really made New Warriors work.

In my mind, Nicieza’s commitment to the book and the characters was the most important factor in its success (and for my purposes, we’re talking about “success” more in terms of being a critically well-received and much-beloved by me personally comic if not necessarily a commercial blockbuster), but no doubt the environment of Marvel at the time, at least in terms of their treatment of Warriors, played a huge role in making that possible.

During the 90’s age of super-continuity and titles often being sucked up into bigger events beyond their control, New Warriors was for the most part left to its own devices. Yeah, Nicieza brought in plenty of guest stars from The Punisher to Namor to Darkhawk to an entire alternate Egyptian-themed Marvel Universe in those first couple years, but they added to rather than distracting the larger stories being told over lengthy periods of time in Warriors, stories that felt very self-contained and that as a reader of the book you felt a great deal of ownership over and satisfaction in.

Out of the aforementioned sense of standing alone, I always dug that the New Warriors felt like a far more intimate and welcoming group in opposition to their counterparts at both Marvel and DC. While the X-Men were fighting for Xavier’s dream, the Avengers were Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the Justice League were (at the time) working for the government and so on, the Warriors had no great modus operandi and were really just a group of misfits who ended up becoming friends because they enjoyed hanging out together; it was far closer to my (and I’d think most people’s) junior high/high school experience than any other comic.

To wit, the Warriors were founded thusly: Night Thrasher wanted to create a team of young super heroes to fight crime and avenge the death of his parents (yes, I know it sounds familiar); Marvel Boy (later Justice) wanted to join the Avengers but was deemed too young; Nova got his powers back thanks to Thrash and was looking to kick ass; Firestar was at loose ends; Namorita wanted a place on the surface world; Speedball was just looking for a good time. Six completely different agendas, but through more coincidence than design, they ended up banding together to beat Terrax and decided it made more sense to be a team than not to be one. From there they got a cool warehouse to hang out in, brought in some other directionless recruits, and of course started pairing off romantically like bunnies in heat.

In other words, it’s one of the most unique and yet most realistic depictions of teens as super heroes ever; because honestly, at age 17 were you and your buddies more likely to hold formal meetings with roll calls and such or meet up every so often in your clubhouse, order pizza, and go fight aliens because you saw them attacking New York on the news?

In interviews, Nicieza always said his run on New Warriors was about two things: making hard choices and seeking the truth. Again, as a kid, these were things I grasped really easily and found far more compelling than simply “We’re out to save the world” or even “We’re out to foster peace between our race and those who hate and fear us” (no offense meant to my other childhood comic book loves of course).

With those two guiding principles, New Warriors often tackled issues that you wouldn’t see in your average comic on a semi-monthly basis. Marvel Boy was a victim of child abuse and ended up killing his father accidentally while using his powers for self-defense, which formed the crux of one of the title’s most monumental storylines when he went on trial (defended by Foggy Nelson no less). Namorita led the team into a hostile Middle Eastern country where they were unable to determine whether the dictator in charge or the leader of the rebellion was a bigger scumbag. Foes like eco-terrorists the Force of Nature and the vigilante Bengal had the Warriors constantly having to make those aforementioned hard choices as to what side was the right one.
On the seeking truth side of the equation, the mystery behind what exactly happened to Night Thrasher’s parents ended up becoming far more complex than a simple Batman knock-off and the revelations would for an epic that dominated much of the book’s second year and concluded explosively alongside Marvel Boy’s trial in Bagley’s final issue. Nicieza being able to meticulously plot and unfurl these intricate tales gave New Warriors much of its strength.

And yet while New Warriors did hard-hitting “torn from the headlines” stuff better than most mainstream capes and tights titles, it could flip on a dime to stuff that made the universe shudder as well. That Egyptian alternate universe story, for instance, was the Warriors’ first encounter with Nova’s near-omnipotent old foe, The Sphinx, albeit a female version, and that “Forever Yesterday” trilogy not only stands out as a perennial favorite to anybody who has read it, but also heralded more mammoth tales pitting our young heroes against the immortal lovers in a Shakespearean drama gone cosmic.

The Warriors also took on world beaters like their old buddy Terrax as well as the Inhumans and Star Thief, not to mention having to help Nova save an entire dead world in “The Starlost.” They tussled with The White Queen and her Hellions as well as out-of-control mutant Darkling who brought half of New York City’s good guys under his control, including several Warriors. They had memorable moments from Nova and Namorita’s first hook-up to Rage snapping the neck of the man who killed his grandmother.

Like New Teen Titans, New Warriors was a comic that could adapt to any genre, be it topical issues, fantasy, science-fiction, etc. The heart of the book was the family that Fabian Nicieza and his artistic collaborators created in these characters and that you felt a part of.

Speaking of those collaborators, Nicieza and fans like myself were damn lucky as we not only got Mark Bagley for 25 issues, but then no less than Darick Robertson as an encore through issue 50. New Warriors was always a great-looking book and a lot of the fun in following it monthly was seeing both men grow from the rookies they came on the title as into the superstars they’ve become today.

I think I’ll wrap on that point of the New Warriors feeling like a family, which is an overused cliché in singing the praises of good comics to be sure, but that doesn’t make it any less apt. However, the Warriors never felt like a family in the traditional sense, they felt like the way you call your best friends “family” and know you can count on them to be there for you when maybe you don’t want to go to your parents or siblings. Coming full circle to why I picked up New Warriors in the first place, since they weren’t an established property with years of history when I started reading, I felt like I got in on the ground floor of basically the first week of school and got to become friends with Dwayne, Vance, Angel, Rich, Nita, Robbie and the rest at the same time they were becoming friends with one another; as their fictional bond grew, so did my attachment to following their adventures, hardships and triumphs.

Interestingly enough, I can still draw parallels to that original run of New Warriors to my experience as teenager into the present. In the same way I haven’t really remained close to many of my friends from high school but can still talk to them for hours when we do run in to one another, I don’t feel any great void in my comic book-reading life for lack of a New Warriors ongoing, but I still get excited whenever any two or more members of the team appear together.
Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning illustrated pretty well in an issue of Nova last year where Rich got together with Justice and Firestar to have some pizza and beers that you can never really go home again as far as those glory days. Today, Night Thrasher and Namorita are dead. Nova is off in space. Speedball is a haunted basket case. Justice and Firestar didn’t end up getting married, they went their separate ways. When the survivors hang out, they talk about the good times they had way back when, but their lives are elsewhere now, for better or for worse.

Sound familiar?

Like high school, New Warriors is something I got a lot out of and would never want to trade in, but it’s also something I’m happy leaving on the shelf, revisiting once in awhile before moving onto something else. Those 50+ issues were really something special, but also a neat instance of a comics saga with a good beginning, middle and end that you can always remain satisfied with even as the characters move on to other things.

Ben's Cancelled Comic Cavalcade part two

Continued from last time...

HOURMAN (1999-2001)
Unique case here as the entirety of the Hourman series actually took place during a time when I was not reading comics. I came back into the fold only months after the book's cancellation and one of my gateway books was JSA, so I quickly heard a lot of good buzz about Hourman and got to see firsthand the artistic talent of Rags Morales. It took me a few years, but I gradually tracked down the back issues and did get to read nearly the full run. Like pretty much everybody else, I could not believe they had cancelled this book. It's some of the smartest writing you'll find from Tom Peyer with equal parts wit and philosophy as he charts the hero's journey of the formerly omnipotent android, Tyler and masterfully sets up dominos only to knock them down way later. Great supporting cast with Rick Jones and his ex, Bethany, who are really more co-stars, and absolutely stunning art from Morales, who was clearly having fun. Ironically given the nature of the content and protagonist, it may just have been a book ahead of its time.

NEW WARRIORS (1990-1996)
A book near and dear to my heart as it was the title that more or less introduced me to comics beyond grabbing the occasional Archie digest. The thing was, by the end of 1994, Fabian Nicieza, the co-creator of the title and really its guiding force, had departed following 53 issues because he had run out of stories to tell. During the four years he was on the book, along with Mark Bagley and Darick Robertson, Fabian had compiled an impressive set of stories that, taken as a whole, comprised an epic super story that most fans could be satisfied with. His successor, Evan Skolnick, stumbled out the gate a bit and the book suffered greatly by being shoehorned into the Spider-Man editorial family, complete with Scarlet Spider randomly joining the team for a bit. However, Skolnick eventually found his footing, artist Patrick Zircher was coming along nicely, and most of the Spider-Man ties were dropped. When the book got cancelled with #75, I was upset mostly out of nostalgia and lingering fondness for the characters (upset enough to write a fan letter to Marvel Vision even), but also because the last story arc was probably the best since even before Fabe had left. It would have been nice to have seen New Warriors hit triple digits and become more o a Marvel mainstay, but alas.

NEW X-MEN (2004-2008)
This one is a bit of a cheat, since writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost moved immediately over to X-Force, one of my current favorite titles, and carried many of their characters and themes with them, but I'm selfish and wish they were writing both books. New X-Men was just a really fun take on oft-attempted "next generation of heroes" trope and I dug what C&C did with it (as well as the base set up by Christina Weir and Nunzio DeFilippis).

SUICIDE SQUAD (1987-1992)
The aforementioned situation with Hourman to the extreme here, as I didn't read Suicide Squad until 12 years after it was cancelled on the recommendation of Geoff Johns, but quickly snatched up all 66 issues like candy and devoured them. It's unquestionably one of my favorite books ever and will certainly be the subject of an upcoming Essentials column. It's the only example I can readily think of where a long-running series starring villains worked without the protagonists having to lose the edge that made them appealing in the first place, and credit for that can be laid at the feet of the great John Ostrander and his wife and collaborator, the late Kim Yale. The plug and play premise of Suicide Squad was a great draw, but Ostrander and Yale's knack for getting the most out of their cast by pushing them to their limits as well as their ability to adapt and maintain that "anything can happen" feel for five years was even more impressive. This was the book that brought us Oracle, made Deadshot a badass, made Amanda Waller an even bigger badass and rehabilitated characters from Captain Boomernag to Vixen to Nemesis. The thing is, Suicide Squad was as good quality-wise at issue #66 as it was at issue #1 (with understandable peaks and valleys in between), but the market changed over five years and unfortunately it simply got edged out.

YOUNG JUSTICE (1998-2003)
For 55 issues, plus various specials, writer Peter David and artist Todd Nauck pulled off the impressive feat of an incredibly entertaining five-year run on an ongoing title with a grand total of like two fill-ins needed the entire ride. PAD and TAN worked some great coming of age drama, romance and action into YJ, but the big hook was always the fun and the clever ways they'd find to utilize the most ridiculous bits of DC trivia or break the fourth wall. The three-way discussion between Superboy, Impulse and the Ray about cancelled comics that Robin interupts to be glared at remains one of the funniest moments in comics to me. And don't get me started on Todd's array of DC-themed t-shirts for Snapper Carr! Ultimately, Young Justice gave way to the Teen Titans re-launch by Geoff Johns and Mike McKone, which proved a critical and commercial hit, so it's understandable why the move was made, but YJ was certainly a special kind of book.

Ben's Cancelled Comic Cavalcade part one

Here's a harsh reality, my friends: If you are a comic book fan, odds are not great that a decade from now your personal favorite title will still be published. It's sad but true. Sure, there are those precious few books that have hit triple digits and others that have been started from near scratch countless times but maintained a presence seemingly forever, but the vast majority of ongoing comics, even the really good ones, are lucky to 50 issues, let alone 100.

Now in many cases this is not a bad thing. Some books like Sandman or Y: The Last Man get to end on their own terms at the time of their creators' choosing. For others, cancellation can be a mercy killing (even perhaps my favorite comic ever, New Teen Titans, ran out of steam long before it got put out to pasture). And in still other instances, your favorite book may have been so transformed by the time it gets axed that you really don't mind (X-Force, I'm looking at you).

But unfortunately, a lot of good series get cut down in their creative primes or as they seem to be turning a corner or when you are still personally enjoying them. Why do they get cancelled? Who knows. Sometimes it's a sales thing, sometimes it's a creative thing--the workings of the comics industry can be mysterious even to those of us who work in it.

Here are some comics I was sorry to see go over the years.

BLUE BEETLE (2006-2009)
I have spoken on my love for this title on this blog before. Without question it is one of my top five favorite books of the last few years. It was always more or less on the verge of cancellation from the moment the sales figures for the first issue came in, but the nice thing was we got more or less a complete 25-issue epic from John Rogers (with Keith Giffen) that can be set aside and read on its own. On the other hand, I felt like after a few shaky issues, Matt Struges was finding some good footing when the cancellation was announced. Jaime Reyes is also just such a different kind of teenage character with an awesome supporting cast and unique world. Fortunately, Jaime has kept in the public eye thank to Teen Titans and will soon be getting a back-up feature by Sturges in a book I already buy, Booster Gold, so it's about as happy an ending as a cancelled comic can get.

CABLE & DEADPOOL (2004-2008)
The spiritual successor to Joe Kelly's Deadpool, this series written by both characters' co-creator, Fabian Nicieza, was one of the funniest comics around for its full run. Both characters now have solo titles of their own which I enjoy (and which are more commercially successful), but the "buddy" genre is one so rarely well-done in comics (past Power Man & Iron Fist, it's a short list), that done right it is lightning in a bottle and something to behold. Cable & Deadpool was also blessed with some great underrated artists who did excellent work during their tenures, from Mark Brooks to Patrick Zircher to Reilly Brown. There were some dry spells and I'm sure Fabian would be among the first to admit Cable was a lot tougher to make fit than Deadpool, but this was 50 issues of fun that I'm grateful for (and I got to contribute to final issue!).

CATWOMAN (2002-2008)
Will Pfeifer had the rough task of following the character-redefining run of Ed Brubaker as writer on this book, but he ended up putting together a solid and entertaining sort of old school super hero adventure that happened to star not-really-a-super hero. I guess Pfeifer's Catwoman wasn't groundbreaking, but I never felt like it had to be; there wasn't much flashy about it, which may have ultimately led to its demise, but you could count on getting a smart book with good art where the writer definitely had a good handle on his lead and a plan on where to take her. I also admire the way Pfeifer deftly weaved in and out of line-wide crossovers without the main story ever veering too far off-track. Definitely a missed monthly pleasure.

FIRESTORM (2004-2007)
I admittedly did not give the Jason Rusch incarnation much of a chance at first, but when Stuart Moore took over with issue #14, I figured the jumping on point made it worth a look and then ended up spending the next year and a half singing the book's praises alongside Andy Serwin in the pages of Wizard as the most underrated and entertaining comic around. Part of the book's appeal was the straight up stripped down good guys vs bad guys approach Moore infused with science tidbits and great characterization. Another part was, like Blue Beetle, that Firestorm showcased both a unique lead and an appealing supporting cast. Still another part was that the book really utilized the DC Universe toybox, both in terms of guest stars and easter eggs. And a key piece of the equation was Jamal Igle breaking out as a really incredible artist. Like with Catwoman, Firestorm was never a book that felt like it was changing the world, but it was comfort food and guaranteed quality.

HARD TIME (2004-2006)
I joined the part late with Hard Time, picking up with the start of "Season Two" and then having to catch what I missed via trade. All in all, Hard Time only ran 19 issues over two volumes, but it was unlike anything else that was coming out at the time, and honestly unlike probably anything in comics ever. I mean, it was a supernatural prison drama--was there ever another one of those? The premise was bold and there's no denying the talent of the late Steve Gerber, who made sure there was never a dull issue.When reviewing the final issue for Wizard, I noted that it really seemed to go out on its own terms and did a nice job tying up pretty much every loose end, but there was such a vast mythology Gerber seemed only on the verge of tapping into, and I'm sorry we never got to see that.

HAWKEYE (2003-2004)
This series was a strange case study. For years, Hawkeye had been a popular character who fans clamored to see more of, so it made sense to give his own solo book. What didn't make so much sense from a marketing standpoint was to make it a book about Clint Barton, out of costume, having "on the road" adventures like he was in "Kung Fu" or "Renegade." In retrospect, it's not that shocking this book only lasted eight issues. That said, I loved it. Again, it was a Fabian Nicieza joint, so I'm always a sucker for that. In a way, it felt like Fabian was trying to re-create his old Nomad book with a more popular character, but also, having written Clint for years on Thunderbolts, he definitely had him down. I dug the very genre tone and the way Hawkeye was played as the handsome stranger who breezes into town, beds the hottest chick, gets in trouble, fights his way out, then moves on. It fit who I thought he was. It appealed to me the same way Wolverine one-shots do when Logan is out of costume and having random adventures. Unfortunately, Hawkeye is not Wolverine when it comes to marketability. I think judged on its own merits, this was a good book, but unfortunately, not the book Hawkeye fans were waiting for. It also had some truly rad covers.

More to come...