Rocket Raccon mini-series (1985)

This review originally ran as the premire 'Dig the Long Box' column on the now defunct RCB.net 

Bill Mantlo was the Brian Michael Bendis of his time. Check that, Mantlo was Bendis and Jonathan Hickman … combined. Come to think of it, Mantlo might have been the Wolverine of 1980's comic book writers, seriously. At the height of his career, Mantlo was writing as many as eight Marvel titles a month.

 

Best remembered as the writer of The Micronauts and Rom Spaceknight, Mantlo introduces over fifty characters to the Marvel universe during his twelve year career. His creations range from the infamous, Shamrock and Hypno-Hustler, to fan favorites Cloak and Dagger, Lady Deathstrike and Rocket Raccoon.
 

Mantlo learns the art (and artistry) of comic books literally at the feet of the master -- Jack Kirby was his neighbor. As a teenager Mantlo would spend his afternoons hanging out with Kirby (!) talking about superheroes and storytelling. Mantlo made his Marvel, starting as a writer and a colourist in 1974. By April of 1975 he was writing full-time. In his tenure he would write almost every Marvel character before leaving comics for good to become a public defender in New York City. As Tragic as his departure from Marvel was for comic book fans, the real tragedy occurred in 1992 when Mantlo was hit by a car while rollerblading. The driver fled the scene and was never identified. Mantlo has never fully recovered from his injuries and now requires round-the-clock care.

 

Artist Keith Giffen and Mantlo debut Rocket Raccoon in the pages of Marvel Preview #7 (1976). At that time, Rocket was known as Rocky -- you can decide for yourself if this is a joke, a blatant rip-off of a Beatles song, a loving homage or all three. The Incredible Hulk #271 (1982), written by Mantlo with art by Sal Buscema, is where Rocket Raccoon earns his stripes as protector of the Keystone quadrant on the planet Halfworld. A four issue limited series, Rocket Raccoon, is published in 1985; Mantlo handles the writing with Mike Mignola on pencils, Al Gordon inks, the colors are by Christie Scheele and the letters are done by Ken Bruzenak.

At this point in his career, Mignola was known (primarily) as a cover artist and an inker at Marvel. Before Rocket Raccoon, Mignola draws the interior (and exterior) art on two other Mantlo-penned series, The Incredible Hulk and Alpha Flight. One could call his work on Rocket Raccoon proto-Mignola. The artist's distinct style -- ''a mix of German expressionism and Jack Kirby,'' according to Alan Moore -- was still in its Cretaceous-phase. The sun on the cover of issue #1 looks like it could set over the headquarters of the B.P.R.D., but not quite yet -- take look at Mignola's cover to the recently released Rocket Raccon and Groot Ultimate Collection to see the artist's current interpretation of the character. 

Rocket Raccoon had only appeared twice in a Marvel publication and his last appearance had been in a stand-alone Hulk story three years prior to the release of Rocket Raccoon. How does a D-list character, at best, manage a four issue limited series? What, was Professor Phobos on sabbatical?  Never underestimate the power of a quick buck.  By May of 1985, the world of comic books was in a full-blown revolution; The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had arrived a year earlier. The not yet christened 'heroes in a half-shell' were already changing comic book publishing and before long the names Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo and Raphael would be more than merely renowned Renaissance masters. So, the time was right to dust off a talking bipedal raccoon who dresses like a fencer, smokes a pipe and fires laser pistols. Never let it be said Marvel's long-time editor in chief, Jim Shooter, didn't know how to seize an opportunity and ring the cash register.   

I. Is this some kind of joke?

The opening page of issue #1 is a pure delight stuffed with wit, goofs and gags. The image of a craftsmen working on deadline late into the night must have felt very familiar to the young Mignola. In narrative boxes made to look like scraps torn from some arcane text (more on that score in a moment), the reader is told the necessary particulars. Front and a bit off-center sits the Chief Toysmith. He is propped up on a pillow, his many efforts encircle him. Mignola fills the foreground with various toys, dolls and sundry implements of an artisan's labors. Humpty-dumpty crowds into the far right-hand corner adjacent to a real Easter egg, Rocket Raccoon himself, a banner sporting the words ''New! Improve-''acts as an arrow to draw the reader's attention to the titular raccoon. Rocket's first-mate, Wal Rus, is at Rocket's flank on the opposite side of the title card, the Rack 'n Ruin (Rocket'a ship) is tucked in behind Wal Rus. Another great inside joke shows Gumby as he poke(y)s out from behind the Rack 'n Ruin.

Along with Gordon's inks and Scheele's colors, Mignola's composition creates great depth by placing a battery of Kirby-like lights behind and above the toysmith. In the lower right-hand side of the page a silhouetted figure looms in a lighted entryway. Scheele uses the straw yellow of the light bulbs to reflect the color outside the opening; the toysmith, hunched over his workbench, echoes the doorway's arch. Gordon's inks on the back wall help draw the reader's attention to the approaching menace, going so far as to offset the hatching on a hanging clipboard. Only the empty eyes of the English bobby bear witness to the toysmith's approaching doom. Rocket Raccoon (and his world) may have started as larks; however, in the hands of skilled creators even jokes can make for serious comics. Then again …

II. ''... a strange and not always rational galaxy''

'Madcap' is perhaps the best word to describe the world of Rocket Raccoon although 'convoluted' could contend for the title as well. Ostensibly, this series is built around a trade war -- two words that give every fanboy a case of the howling fantods -- between two toymakers: Lord Dyvyne of the Spacewheel and Judson Jakes of Mayhem Mekaniks, the former, a lizard and the latter a mole. Jakes and Dyvyne provide entertainment, in the form of toys, for the mentally-handicapped human inhabitants (referred to as ''loonies'') of Halfworld. The 'loonies' are cared for by genetically enhanced animals like Rocket and Wal Rus. Yep.

For all intents and purposes, Rocket Raccoon is a four issue, eighty page, origin story. The trade war gives Mantlo reason to stage near death escapes, bar fights, and rides through underground caverns on giant worms (David Lynch's Dune had come out the year before). That's all foreground, the background is where this otherwise average 80's comic book gets bizarre.

A long time ago, a group of psychiatrists colonize a planet in order to care for people ''whose mental disorders had caused them to be cast out from our world and the companionship of our race.'' While the psychiatrists are ''expanding [their] knowledge of the functioning -- and disfunctioning -- of the human mind,'' their patients are cared for by robots; also in attendance are a diverse set of animals for the purposes of ''entertainment and companionship.'' When the psychiatrists funding gets cut (!), they are called back to their home world (not Earth). These well-meaning do-gooders decide to leave their patients behind (!!) in the care of the robots and in the company of the animals (!!!). And before these benevolent overlords skedaddle, they construct ''a space-encircling Galacian Wall that … would shield them [their patients] from the same society that loathed them'' which makes the planet kind of a prison or an asylum, albeit one filled with compassionate robots and benign woodland creatures.

These giant gobs of exposition and explanation are contained within the 'Halfworld Bible,' which neither the animals nor the ''loonies'' can read until Uncle Pyko, the chief toysmith of Judson Jakes, deciphers it and learns its secrets. Which happens while the trade war rages on between Jakes and Dyvyne, natch. What the Halfworld Bible doesn't explain is how Rocket, Uncle Pyko, Wal Rus and the rest gain sentience, not to mention their genetically-enhanced geegaws.

Uncle Pyko manages to noodle through this mystery and comes to the conclusion: the robots (must have) exceeded their programming -- the cause of which, Pyko figures, could have been from radiation from a nearby nova -- and ''developed and artificial intelligence.'' Before too long these logical machines tire of tending to their illogical charges and begin to dabble in genetics and enhanced intelligence -- instead of continuing the psychiatrists work and finding a 'cure,' but I digress.

You don't need to be an 'Uncle Pyko' to figure out how the animals learn to talk, walk and develop skills like marksmanship. With the animals now in charge, these industrious automatons retreat to their own side of the planet (hence the name, Halfworld) where they make the toys per the animal's design and work on how to deactivate the Galacian Wall so they leave Halfworld in a spaceship they've been building along with the toys, etc..

 

When Uncle Pyko finishes his dissertation, Rocket screams out: ''B-but … that means that I've spent my whole life searching for sanity in a universe established to house the insane!'' Rocket's reaction is a very human emotion, the reader can relate to trying to make sense in a world where randomness and irrationality sometimes seem de rigueur.

 

As I like to say here: so what? Mantlo needs to construct a backstory and explain (I suppose) how and why Rocket became the protector of this literal fool's paradise. It serves as a character moment to establish Rocket has integrity. If this one-note character is going to avoid becoming a demisemiquaver, not only does he need a reason to (ahem) blast off without abandoning the planet and the people he has sworn to protect, but he's got to do it with style and grace, otherwise, he becomes a punch line. Credit Mantlo for not having Rocket half-ass either of his obligations; Rocket Raccoon, it could be said, gives it his whole-ass.

For all its silliness and complexity for complexity's sake, Mantlo's world-building trips up on itself when the reader begins to consider how long it took between the time the psychiatrists left Halfworld to when the robots were able to genetically-engineer the animals to care for the 'loonies.' Continuity wonks will no doubt cry foul as well that it is not made clear how many generations Rocket and his pals are removed from the animals that first landed on the planet. Same goes for the 'loonies,' who several generations removed from even the sons and daughters of the original patients brought to Halfworld by the psychiatrists. Uncle Pyko speculates there were ''generations of loonies who, if not congenitally insane as their ancestors had been were born into it.'' And let's not get into the fact that this entire society is built on the making and selling of toys to a captive population. It feels less like a critique of our society and more like a dare from one of Mantlo's colleagues, some kind of Marvel Bullpen one-ups-manship -- 'yeah, but I bet Shooter won't let you get away with this!" 

 

In the last issue, the reader learns what passes for currency on Halfworld which is too grand to spoil and makes sense in a nonsensical Lewis Carroll meets Roald Dahl kind of way. Maybe Mantlo should be given some credit for going to a place where few comic books -- then (1985) and maybe even now -- would dare to go? Today's reader will chafe at the word ''loonie'' being thrown around so liberally (I did) not due to political correctness, but plain decency; and it should have bothered Shooter and series editor Carl Potts as well. There's a silver lining (of sorts) because for all its overdone intricacies the narrative of Rocket Raccoon, like a fairy tale, works out in the end. Rocket feeds the Halfworld bible to the Head Robot -- which is exactly what its name implies, a robot head with teeth -- for analysis (pun intended) and it produces a cure, the ''wonder toy,'' so all's well that ends well. The fact Mantlo would offer a cure for mental illness is wish fulfillment of the highest order and something one can (sadly) only get in a comic book.

 

''… under the cover of laser smoke''

 

As awkward, cringe-inducing and at times too hackneyed for its own good, Mantlo's scripting and plotting possess an esprit de corps that puts it alongside 1980's cartoons like Transformers, G.I. Joe and Thundercats. Mantlo knows (Kirby-like) when to move a story along and how to retain the reader's interest. Unlike too much of today's mainstream Marvel fare, talking heads don't dominate issues of Rocket Raccoon in order to delay gratification so that issue four plays out as one big showdown. Mantlo consistently writes to Mignola's strength to draw action; and each creator allows Rocket Raccoon do what Rocket Raccoon does best: fly around on his rocket-skates and fire laser pistols.

Because Rocket Raccoon takes place in space and because it came out after Star Wars there is an inevitable cantina/bar sequence in which Rocket and company get to blast away. Mignola shows his sequential art chops when Rocket's girlfriend, Lylla, is taken hostage (for like the fifth or sixth time in the series) by the chaotic neutral Blackjack O'Hare (he's a rabbit, in case you were wondering). In the first panel Mignola has O'Hare's left arm swing around Lila while his right arm holds a knife to her throat. Again, using opposite sides of the panel (as he did on the first page) Mignola uses similar visual elements to frame the action. In this case, the movement, the swish, of O'Hare's arm mirrors Lylla's tail as it swings up from the bottom of the panel and pulls the reader's eye to the knife at her throat. In the following panel Lylla elbows O'Hare in the face in the same exact spot where the reader's attention is focused. Lylla's elbow moves O'Hare up and to the left-hand side of the second panel which sets up the third panel showing how O'Hare gets a good 'Kapow' for his troubles. In this final panel Mignola shows the sweep of Lylla's arm which completes the 360° arc which was started in the first panel with O'Hare's arm. Mignola's hard-edged, horn-headed hero may be eight years away, but boy, Rocket Raccoon shows Mignola to already be a damn fine draftsmen and a hell of an artist.

When Lylla flips O'Hare over she calls him, ''you horrid hare!''. This is all but one example of the alliterative nature of Mantlo's script, no joke; there is alliteration at almost every turn of the page. It also appears as if Mantlo and Mignola were paid by the pun. The title to each issue is a play on words that reflects the issue's themes and plot. For example, issue #2, ''The Masque of the Red Breath'' takes place at a masked ball held annually by the 'loonies.' The big bad in the issue is an amorphous ''crimson cloud,'' the aforementioned Red Breath, which absorbs everything and everyone it touches -- no worries though, order gets restored when a quintet of Killer Clowns riding vacuu-sleds suck up the cloud and allow Rocket to escape. It's this kind of cartoon violence that gives Rocket Raccoon that Saturday morning or after-school cartoon feel, nobody really gets hurt, except maybe a few clowns, but there are always plenty of them to go around.

 

'' And the stars do beckon''

Rocket Raccoon makes for a gantry, a launching pad for fiction's best (and only) question: 'what's next?' Mantlo and Mignola's creation remains sturdy because its playfulness never takes itself too seriously, only seriously enough. Rocket's complicated and at times torturous backstory makes him more than a cartoon, more than a novelty (song), and more than a knock-off to turn a quick buck. In The Micronauts and Rom Spaceknight, Mantlo took the disposable and gave it a spark, a life -- like Geppetto, Mantlo made a toy real, made it live.

Guardians of the Galaxy is going to introduce mainstream pop culture to Rocket Raccoon; and for comic book readers, those of us who are already in on the joke, Rocket Raccoon is going to be a monster. How 'loony' is it going to be when today's twelve-year-olds (or younger) will be sporting Rocket Raccoon t-shirts and buying Rocket Raccoon toys … insanity, absolute insanity. As Mantlo proves, insanity makes for a 'rocky' start; however, if creators toy with it, tweak it, the sky (and the stars) are the limit.

Dig the Longbox: Hawkeye #1

This review originally ran on RCB.net for the 'Dig the Longbox' column.

 

I wish I had a Hawkeye #1 story, I don't. The same goes for stories about Hawkeye #2, #3 or #4. Hell, I don’t even own Hawkeye #2, #3 or #4. All I got is Hawkeye #1 and a whole lot of nothing else. Only a few columns in and this has already devolved into a white elephant for forgotten comics of the 1980's.

 

The look and language of Hawkeye's first solo foray by writer/penciler Mark Gruenwald is far off the mark from the hyper-stylized, too-clever-by-half Eisner winning Hawkguy of today. Before Fraction and Aja (and Jeremy Renner) brought sexy back to Marvel’s longbowman, Hawkeye looked like a fugitive from a Renaissance faire or, perhaps, a proto-larper.

From its How-to-Draw-Comics-the-Marvel-Way-cover to a plot in which Hawkeye works as Head of Security for a (most certainly) corrupt corporation to the first time he meets Mockingbird (they're married by the end of the mini), Hawkeye #1 falls into the nebulous category critics call 'fun' when a few highlights here or there allow one to look past obvious flaws.

Before I pull back the curtain (bow?) on this solo tale of the 'Avengers' Ace Archer,' I don't want to bury the lead: Mark Gruenwald died in 1996. With one exception -- the pinup of Merlyn in Who's Who in the DC Universe -- Gruenwald spent his entire eighteen year career with Marvel comics. By all accounts he was an inveterate comic book nerd and the wonkiest of continuity wonks. He was paid the ultimate honor in Thor #372 when writer/artist Walt Simonson creates the Time Variance Authority or TVA which monitors timelines and prevents paradoxes in the Marvel universe; each member is a clone drawn to look like Gruenwald.

Simonson's tribute falls far short; however, with what the man himself had in mind when it came to being memorialized in comic book form. Gruenwald made it clear to family and friends that his final wish was to be cremated and his remains added to a comic book. No joke. So, when the trade paperback for the limited series, Squadron Supreme -- the work Gruenwald was most proud of -- was published in 1997, Bob Harras, Marvel comics then Editor-in-chief, allows Gruenwald's widow, Catherine, to add her husband's ashes to the ink used to print the book. First print editions bear the sticker, 'A Tribute to the Imagination of Mark Gruenwald,' and sell for approximately $600 and up on Ebay. Comics, kids!

Gruenwald had worked his way through the Marvel bullpen as a fill-in writer and assistant editor starting in 1978 and by 1983 he is named the full-time editor on Avengers, Iron Man, and Captain America. While keeping everything copacetic with those titles, he also takes the reins as a writer and the editor on The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. For a continuity cop like Gruenwald, this project must have been an absolute kick.

Hawkeye is much smaller work, of course, than a compendium of every person, place and thing (living and dead) in the 616. Not only does Gruenwald write Hawkeye, but  he is also credited as penciler on the series as well. ‘Penciler’ is (probably) a loose term here as much of the credit for the depth and details has to go to Brett Breeding who is the inker/embellisher on the issue. The perspective throughout the issue is dodgy at best and much of the character work manages to be tragically generic. For the most part, the art in Hawkeye #1 looks like one of those comic book ads for Hostess fruit pies stretched to twenty-three pages. Oh, and Gruenwald loves the broke back pose, absolutely loves it.

After Hawkeye, either Gruenwald (or his fellow editors) decides he should put his blue pencil down and stick to words instead of images. Gruenwald goes back to the drawing board only two more times in his career for an issue of What If? and a comic book tie-in to the Marvel videogame Questprobe.

There is a thin filament that connects Gruenwald’s Hawkeye to the current series by Fraction and Aja. What makes Fraction’s Hawkeye such a success is how he manages to bring out the 'lunch pail' aspect of the main character. Fraction plays with the idea of what Hawkeye a/k/a Clint Barton does when he's not being an Avenger, the superhero on his 'day off, in repose. Genius. Fraction turns character moments into a serial; the reader learns who Clint Barton is through his everyday actions/interactions with (mostly) non-super-powered people, people like him. Fraction and Aja's Hawkeye plays out as an indie movie along the lines of Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Instead of an African-American hit man who follows a strict code, Fraction and Aja offer occasional opportunities for their main character to use a bow and some cool trick arrows.

Hawkeye has been a Marvel mainstay since 1964. His charm is he's

uncomplicated: a circus sideshow performer turned hero who uses ancient technology with a few modern upgrades the archers at Agincourt never imagined. Like Fraction will do thirty years later, Gruenwald grounds his story in Hawkeye's everyman-ness. And because this is an early 1980's superhero comic -- which is to say as subtle as the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier -- this faux Robin Hood recalls his origin story (in two efficient pages) and makes his current intentions known to the reader and to Sheila, his co-worker at Cross Technological Services (CTE) and the woman he's trying to woo: ''I've done many a stint with my avenging buddies, but I think I'm ready to wing it solo for good. Much as I like 'em they cramp my style a bit too much.'' If it weren't already so meta, I'd want Barton to add: ''See, baby, I got this limited series now and, who knows, if sales are strong, it might become an ongoing or at least it might prove I can carry a series on my own. Plus, I know the Avengers editor so I'm good to go.' Hello, West Coast Avengers.

 

If the all-purpose art suffers from a lack a style, than the dialogue doesn't do anything to improve the overall experience. Hawkeye marks a hinge in Gruenwald's career. Before this series and tOHotMU Gruenwald was either a fill-in writer on one shots or a co-writer during short runs of third or fourth tier on-goings like Spider-Woman and What If?. One hopes his tin ear for dialogue improved over the course of his decade long run (1985 – 1995) as writer of Captain America. At this stage in his career, the best Gruenwald can do is manufacture one flaccid thought bubble after another so the reader knows exactly what kind of deep/obvious musings are running around in Hawkeye’s blond head.

Besides the lack of superpowers, what makes Hawkeye relatable is his (at times) complicated love life. The bad dialogue and paint-by-numbers plot aside, Hawkeye is a love story. Once Hawkeye figures out Sheila is up to no good at CTE, she has him thrown into a pit (because, of course) -- where awaits a caged (get it?) Mockingbird -- and then Sheila (literally) has toxic sludge dumped on Hawkeye (subtlety!); it's more than the lovesick schlub can take. As their ridiculous costumes (what was up with Mockingbird’s sleeves back then?) drip with green goo, Hawkeye rallies from his slumped stupor and breaks bad: ''Shut up!'' he calls to Mockingbird who's been trying to escape their gloopy fate, ''I'm gonna get us out of here, lady. Then I’m gonna kill Sheila for what she did to me.''

Hawkeye and Mockingbird escape, natch, and while Mockingbird waits atop a convenient conical water tower, Hawkeye crashes his sky sled through a window, takes out some goons and confronts his (I assume) now ex-girlfriend. Shirtless, a result of the acidy ooze, Hawkeye balls up his fists and tells Sheila, ''this is just between you and me, babe. You hurt me, Sheila … more than anything ever hurt in my life. I could kill you for what you did to me.'' Of course, Barton/Hawkeye chooses deference as the better course of valor. All he asks from her in return is his bow and quiver.

A cowed cupid, Hawkeye picks up Mockingbird and flies back to his apartment as tears stream down his face. Tough break, bro. For a pre-pubescent or (arrested) adolescent audience this ending has (almost) as much drama and machismo as when Leia tells Han she loves him and he says, ''I know.'' If only Hawkeye could find a good woman to heal his broken heart. If only …

 
To be fair, Hawkeye #1 is fairly forgettable. Sure, this issue and limited series, as a whole, chronicle the first blush of romance between Hawkeye and Mockingbird which continuity-spotters (Gruenwald-types) may well want to note. Hawkeye's recent rise to pop-culture prominence isn't a fluke nor is it all Renner. Hawkeye's super-power is his relatability, he loves, he loses, he's human. Fraction builds on what Gruenwald knew; Hawkeye is a guy's guy, a bro's bro with a bow and arrows as goofy as they are groovy. You dig?

Dig the Longbox (Redux): Thor #126

I wrote this review of Thor #126 as part of 'Dig the Longbox,' a column on ReadComicBooks.net. The RCB site is on ... (only, hopefully) temporary hiatus. Vive la' Longbox!

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Marvel comics in the mid-1960's groove like nothing else. It was in the air. When Thor #126 makes its debut in March of 1966 the notes of Chuck Berghofer's sliding double bass in 'These Boots Are Made For Walking' would have been slinking out of every transistor radio in every college dorm in America. In the Bullpen Bulletins column there's mention of the September issue of Esquire which reported: 'Hulk and Spidey among the 28 people who count most on campus.' The counterculture was Marvel culture.

 

Unlike his fellow hep heroes who have anxieties over a sick aunt, being a mutant or uncontrollable anger, Thor is a god and above such mortal concerns; however, like many an immortal before him the Thunder god falls down (mightily) in matters of the heart and is not immune to the fickle nature of love. Thor #126 proves even a golden god can lose the girl to the new B.M.O.C.          

The synopsis Stan Lee pens on page one points an alliterative action-packed exclamation point laden account squarely at the collegiate wing of the Merry Marvel Marching Society: ''Hercules has come to Earth! He's got the big eye of Thor's chick! Goldilocks is bugged, but good! So, they're fighting it out!'' Show me a pre-pubescent (now or then) who gets bugged when another snot nose has 'the big eye' for his chick and I'll show you a liar.

With its iconic cover Thor #126 advertises exactly what it sells. Thor and Hercules go god on god, mallet to mace for fourteen pulse-pounding pages. Save for a couple of cutaways to Asgard for some ostentatious headgear, parental interference and glorious Kirby krackle, these two titans fight and fight and fight and fight and fight. When the hurlyburly's done the final two pages of this instant classic reveal Jack and Stan aligning themselves with ancient mythmakers to show, yes, even gods get hurt, 'the mighty' fall and love makes fools of us all. 

An argument could be made that this rumble in the urban jungle is the superhero fistfight on which all other such scraps are based -- at least the third acts of every superhero movie in recent memory. The son of Odin and the son of Zeus fight on the streets, atop a train and round out their roundhouses at a demolition site. Hercules hurls giant tires at Thor and even drops a building on top of his opponent. Thor whips the tread from a bulldozer at Hercules and together the two of them turn a truck into a pile of jackstraws. It goes on and on.

Between the body blows and haymakers, the two immortals brag and bluster, in the third-person of course: Thor: ''Thor is not impressed! Thy words do little more than bolster thine own faltering confidence; ''Hercules: ''Not whilst Hercules can hurl the first blow! Let this teach thee caution Asgardian.'' Each panel brims with braggadocio (and such nonsense) as Kirby and Lee pack in as many archaic pronouns as they can with a ''By the cloven hooves of Pan!!'' and a ''By the bristling beard of Odin,'' tossed on top for good measure.  

For the majority of the issue Kirby's page layouts are straightforward, balanced and symmetrical: four equal-sized panels and one double-sized or 'widescreen' panel. This consistent pattern creates a hypnotic effect as Kirby lulls the reader into a kind of compositional rope-a-dope before he delivers the literal full-page knockout punch.

I've spent hours staring at this image for over thirty years. I first saw it in a huge oversized Marvel Treasury edition and it left its mark. The physiology of Thor’s fists alone keeps me in thrall and forever a devotee of Kirby's work. Thor's balled-up hands are huge (as are Hercules's) and remind me of Rodin's 'The Thinker' or Ugolino from The Gates of Hell. The more I try to parse, the more I'm struck by the notion that for all their heft and bulk, the most Thor seems to land is a good-natured chuck on the chin. To me, it feels like little force transfers in those fifteen tiny hash marks. Perhaps Hercules left hand stays Thor's thump more than the Kirby's cartooning lets on? I don't know, but I can't look away.

 

Read top-to-bottom and left-to-right the action forms a backwards 'S,' the eye follows from Hercules's speech bubble across to Thor's winged head, down his arm, through Hercules's chest, onto Hercules meaty mitt and then towards Thor's forty-seven word bit of bombast. Kirby compresses both fighters into the same frame (only Thor's feet extend off of the page) which makes each play big, but (somehow) not entirely out-sized, confined by the page borders. Even squeezed into such tight quarters, Kirby uses these exaggerated bodies to create great depth as Thor's left arm and Hercules's right leg appear the correct distance apart for such check by jowl combat; and still, I'm left feeling something seems off. I'm like Alice, amazed and wandering wary all at once. Jack Kirby, you magnificent son-of-a-gun.

For all the ferocious fisticuffs at the start, Thor v. Hercules turns into a rout. Prior to his punch-up with Hercules, Thor goes rogue in the Golden Realm and pisses off the sovereign of sovereigns. To put it in Odin-speak: ''Thor has dared to pit his will against mine! For that, he must pay!''. Talk about 'being bugged but good.' Odin watches the fight on a closed circuit i.e. 'the cosmic crystal' and decides to punish his son by weakening him with some sort of 'Odin-power' (yes, he actually calls it 'Odin-power') which he outsources to Seidring the Merciless who pulls the trigger. Cut to ½ power, Thor falls and Hercules wins the day, the people's champion or as one mortal says: ''that cat's the livin' end!''

Thor is broken, slightly magnanimous, but still an egotist: ''I am no longer the one I was! No longer am I worthy to wear the mantle of Thunder God!''. Asgardian, please. Jane Foster shows up on the last page, admits her folly and tells the (newly) fallen god: ''I only wanted to make you jealous -- nothing more!''. That (Odin)ship has sailed and Thor walks away to (I suppose) wander the Earth.

 

By '66 Kirby and Lee have it figured: make it real and make it relate. It's easy to sympathize with a perennial down-on-his-luck teenager like Peter Parker, not so much for Thor, unless he feels human emotions like love or jealousy. Gods have girl problems, they always have since time immermorial. In myths and ancient religions, gods are human projections, frames in which writers and artists hang all sorts of earthly desires and pursuits. Think what thou will of Ms. Foster, but as 'the man' says, she is 'Thor's chick' (Jane's choice to choose aside) and god or no god, Thor can't have some curly-haired Greek god think he can 'make it' with his lady. Teenagers relate to such stuff, such drama.

It's as if Lee adds exclamation points (a lot of exclamation points) to the outline of one of Joe Simon's old Young Romance scripts and Kirby redraws everyone in silly hats, adds in a (really) overbearing father, an extended fight scene and voilà, Thor #126 -- call it the Marvel method and you've got something to build a universe around. Dig it?

  

The Professional

The latest 'Dig the Long Box' column went up this week at Read Comic Books. I reviewed one of my all-time favorite single issues, The 'Nam #8. I'm trying to approach this column with a little more transparency than some of my other writing which isn't easy for me. When it comes to 'I' statements in critical writing, 'I' am not a fan.

About a decade ago, I shot an interview with the journalist and novelist W.C. 'Bill' Heinz, if you've never read Heinz's The Professional -- the book Hemingway called, ''the only good novel about a fighter I've ever read'' -- by all means, go, read. Heinz talked for over three hours. He had a very deliberate way of telling a story. He started at the beginning and like the trained newspaperman he was, he took us through every detail. When asked about his role as a combat journalist in World War II, he spent twenty minutes describing leaving the port of New York for the war in Europe -- thank God we were there for a long-form interview, Mr. Heinz, bless him, did not speak in sound bites.

Heinz wrote about sports for the New York papers back when there were 10 dailies in New York with multiple editions. If it was a game played on a court, field, ring or racetrack, Bill Heinz wrote about it. And in his spare time, Heinz wrote novels like MASH, yes that M*A*S*H. He was a stud.

During our interview, Mr. Heinz used a phrase I'll never forget: ''prose poem.'' He was recalling an NIT game he had covered back when the NIT was ''the tournament'' for basketball and the NCAA was for chumps. So Heinz goes on about his prose poem, how beautiful it was, how elegant, how pure -- all this, mind you, about a basketball game. He hands the story to his editor, the editor reads it and looks at Heinz nonplussed. He hands it back to Heinz and says, ''yeah, yeah, fine, fine, Bill, but what was the damn score?'' In all that poetic prose, Heinz never gave the final score.  

I think about this story when I read on-line comic book and movie criticism. I'm all for a personal essay full of anecdotes, longcuts and obdurate opinions as long as said details add to the story; 'Montaigne' it up, all I ask is to give me the damn score.

The column on The 'Nam #8 starts with one of those 'hey-look-at-me-type' anecdotes' about the time I saw Platoon in the theatre. It takes me five 'graphs before I give the damn score, but so be it. FYI The 'Nam #8 is a yardstick by which all other comics should be judged. How's that for an endorsement?

I've gotten great feedback about the column, so far. It seems 'the kids' they like the personal touch. I'm curious to see if I can remain Mr. Cellophane as I continue the Long Box column or if I fall into my more comfortable mode as the detached (although passionate) critic. For now, I'm a be me.

A hat tip goes to Read Comic Books godhead, Tyler Goulet, a true professional, who continues to cheer me on in tweets and emails. Thanks, Tyler. Dig the Long Box #2: The 'Nam #8  

Old Mutants, New Ideas: the Omnibus

The Whole Megillah (and I'm not even Jewish)

When a fellow writer notices you haven't updated your blog in a while … it's probably time to, you know, update your blog. Never let it be said I don't listen to advice or fold like an origami swan when it comes to peer pressure.

 

I promised I would use Interested in Sophisticated Fun? as a catchall -- I remember saying something as pretentious as the library of Alexandria (shiver) -- for my writing, it was a 'blog promise,' but still … I wrapped 'Old Mutants, New Ideas: Bill Sienkiewicz's New Mutants' about a month ago. I surprised myself when I found I still had something to say about Sienkiewicz, mutants, Claremont and all the rest when I hit 'send' on the last post. The best kind of writing is when you surprise yourself. I never try to dwell on anything the 'guy's in the basement,' as Stephen King says, send something up, don't marvel meat, just write.

One of the surprises in my final post, New Mutants #31, was how I was somehow able to work in the ad for Robert Bell. I sent away for the 'Marvel Comics Price List' and pored over the pages when it arrived in the mail. It was a catalog, nothing more, nothing less. It was talismanic somehow, containing secrets, comics I couldn't find in my friendly neighborhood comic shop. I probably only ordered from the catalog once, maybe twice -- I think I bought an oversized collection, a Marvel Treasurey Edition (?), of the first five or six issues of Thor, after it switched over from Journey into Mystery. Those Kirby pages are magic. Magic that came from Coral Springs, FLA. Who knew.

So, here is the whole megillah, the kit and the caboodle, all in one place. Thanks to everyone who commented, sent tweets and retweets, etc. Special thanks to Jason Sacks at Comics Bulletin and the always reliable Danny Djeljosevic who kept me on schedule. And a tip of the cap to Bill Sienkiewicz -- if we ever meet the first, sir, the first round is on me. Here, as they say, is the 'Full Run':  

New Mutants 18, New Mutants 19, New Mutants 20, New Mutants 21, New Mutants 22, New Mutants 23, New Mutants 24,

 

New Mutants 25, New Mutants 26, New Mutants 27 New Mutants 28, New Mutants 29, New Mutants 30, New Mutants 31

 

Column: ... We've Established That

The Unfortunate Introduction of Nipple Clamps, A Review of The Goon #39

 and Theories & Defenses Inspired by David Brothers

Batman and the Unfortunate Introduction of Nipple Clamps

 

  A few months ago, I started to develop an idea for a writing project that I would call: My Scott Snyder Problem. Writing 'writing project' (now) makes me throw up in my mouth and cramp up a little at my own pretension. My problem (so-called) was that every time I finished reading Batman, I felt sated, but the feeling didn't last. Something was off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. The Batman reviews I was reading were so celebratory to a fault and so full of acclaim that I started to think that Snyder could cure the common cold or master cold fusion with one well told tale of the caped crusader. The fault, I thought, was with me … and then I discovered Comics Journal and I read Tucker Stone.
  Here's what Stone wrote about Batman #6, ''it turned out to be the hipster douchebag version of that old Batman mini-series by Jim Starlin, The Cult.'' In regards to Batman's latest bête noire, Stone writes, ''Talon [is] a character who looks so much like Marvel's Nighthawk that it'll get your dog pregnant.'' For all his snarky bravado, what makes Stone rise above the ranks of the cafeteria-style contrarian is his honesty. He may be too clever by half, but I believe he means what he says. So, embiggined by Stone's screed, I made a plan to ape his iconoclast's voice and hoped that I would be (could be) as nimble and as cutting. I would skewer Snyder, expose the flaws of the Batman and then … and then, what? Who am I kidding? I don't sound like Tucker Stone, I sound like somebody who's mail-ordered the Unabomber home-starter kit. I'm not that guy.
  I don't have a problem with Scott Snyder. God bless, and I think it's silly to be angry at a fictional character, Batman gotta' be Batman, as the kids say. If Batman was a TV show or a song, I would skip it or change the channel. Mainstream superheroes aren't for me. I was happy (for the last eight months) to go along to get along, but Batman #6 and #7 became the tipping point for me to make up my mind to stop buying DC and Marvel. I wish I had a better reason than it's my prerogative. I don't. It's been a progression, at least, and if I were paranoid (who wants to know?) I would put it off to conspiring forces. Bottom line, I'm an indie guy, a prodigal son who's come home.
  I wrote my own review of Batman #6. I didn’t make any references to Jim Starlin or the Cult because I didn't think writing about Ian Astbury was germane to the discussion. I wrote that Snyder and Capullo were attempting to pull off a ''long con, altering what being Batman means to Batman himself.'' I admired how Snyder was trying something new with Talon (Marvel's Nighthawk was beyond my ken) instead of running out the rogue's gallery for safety's sake of or to satisfy fan's expectations. For me, Batman felt new, but this is from someone who's last run-in with the Dark Knight was The Dark Knight Returns. What bothered me about Batman #6 was that throughout the Talon v. Batman battle royal, Batman's shape (and species) keeps changing.  He goes from the jolly dark giant with fangs and claws to a scrawny Edward Gorey-like wraith and then back to hirsute brawler. I questioned whose perspective I was supposed to be seeing. Who was watching this 'Stretch Armstrong-like' Batman morph from one thing to the next? I'm all for suspending disbelief, but this was silly, pointless, and worse, meaningless. Issue #6 ends on a great cliffhanger with Batman near death and trapped under ice. For a moment I had that giddy thrill of wondering how Batman was going to escape this time. I wasn't suspending disbelief, I was lobotomized.    
  Batman #7 broke me. After being trapped, tortured and beaten to within the proverbial inch of his life, Batman finds himself in the back of a panel truck where he is brought back to life by a woman (Harper?) wielding a set of jumper cables attached to a battery. We should all be so lucky. Back among the living, Batman immediately flees the coziness of the van, runs out into the snow and apparently heads for the nearest manhole cover because the next time we see him, he's crawling out of the sewer-side entrance to the Batcave. After all this, the torture, the fighting, the nipple clamps, what does Batman do? He freaks out (for a second), and, of course, goes back to work. I could feel my brain shift into full-on Annie Wilkes: ''Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn't fair!'' Batman was trapped in the Court of Owls maze for at least eight days with only water to drink -- drugged water, but at this point it doesn't really matter -- he has this epic fight with Talon, escapes, rides the lightning (that's two Metallica references if you're scoring at home), finds his way back home and he's right back to solving crimes and running DNA tests. What was the point of all that Court of Owls crap?   
   What sets Batman apart from all the other superheroes is that he's human. Snyder does deserve some of the blame (he wrote the damn thing). The more I thought about it I began to realize that Batman is immortal, a wholly owned subsidiary, a property. Batman is an earner and Scott Snyder can no more bloody Batman (or teach him anything) than Batman or Superman can, for that matter. Batman endures because Batman endures. So, my Scott Snyder problem is really my Batman problem, my superhero problem. As much as I would have wanted Greg Capullo to have drawn at least one panel (just one!) with Bruce having a snack or taking a nap, maybe grabbing a quick bat-shower, it wouldn't have changed anything. Batman's Batman. Oh, and after all this belly-aching and soul searching, I still bought issue #8, yeah. It's that old addict's saw, just one more. Well, here I am, I can go one more or I get out. It's not life or death and it's not an addiction (right?). I'll stop buying Batman, simple as that. Done and done.

The Goon #39 and the Default Setting

  I loved reading the Fred Hembeck cartoons in Marvel Age. If I learned anything from collecting comic books in my misspent youth it was that superheroes make for good parody. I once bought something called XMEN Pronounced Zhmen One Syllable. I would like to think that something deemed a 'comic book' would be open to a bit of lampoon, a spoof, perhaps, at least be open to a couple of yuks at its own expense. Funny books (amiright?) are few and far between. So when I read that The Goon #39 was going to be a parody issue, I knew it was time to revisit those days of yester-Hembeck.

  I don't know The Goon or what he does (fights zombies, monsters, maybe). Ditto Eric Powell. At first, I thought The Goon #39 was sour grapes on Powell's part and that he was taking the piss out of Marvel and DC because he could. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that, no, this is different, this is passion; Powell's anger and frustration come from an honest place, he's speaking truth to power and he's doing it with conviction. Reading The Goon #39 is like a long warm soak in a favorite Monty Python sketch where all the sound effects are some iteration of the word 'douche.' Cynicism for comics comes easy and jokes about superheroes are a kind of default setting. Powell's ire isn't for the idea of superheroes, he's angry about the execution. This ain't no Swift or Vonnegut style satire. Powell gives Goon a hammer as a weapon[1]. Get it, a hammer? Powell goes for the lowest hanging fruit first, codpieces and thongs. There are more subtle and less goofy ways to go about exposing the emperor for having no clothes, but few also include signposts for ''Dramatic nonsensical panel design and arrangement'' or ''gratuitous, unnecessary ass shots also sell really well on eBay!'' It's not all ass shots and douche jokes, Powell goes after race, religion and sexuality too, an equal opportunity offender. The jokes would fall flat – and for some they will, comedy is subjective after all -- if Powell wasn't taking such direct aim at DC and Marvel. There isn't enough racial diversity in comics and it is dubious why outside interest in comic books only peaks when there's a press release about a gay character. As much as one might question why we are still talking about race, religion or sexuality, it's not going away, awareness never should. Parody and satire only work when the audience is in on the joke, or better yet, culpable. Powell's point is that while Marvel and DC are robbing the bank, the reader is waiting outside driving the get-away car.

  My sentence in graduate school only served to deepen my love for essays especially things like 'Bullpen Bulletins' and letter columns in the back of comic books. So, for all the business The Goon #39 takes care of up front, the party (for me) was in the back. Powell's column, 'Correspondences and Whatnot with Eric Powell' finishes what The Goon starts and in some ways it's less subtle and a lot less funny. Powell writes: ''Out of the top 1,000 comics sold in the US in 2011, 24 were not Marvel or DC superhero titles. (Sales figures found on ComiChron.com).'' That's a staggering statistic, but it begs for a comparison to other print industries -- of the top 1,000 selling books, how many were sold by corporate owned publishers?. I don't subscribe to Powell's doom and gloom forecast that if Disney and Warner Brothers decided that comic books weren't as profitable as licensed products (toys and bed sheets) than comic books would cease to exist, but maybe he's right. Even the least robust revenue stream still makes money, right? If movies and TV have taught me anything, it's that corporations aren't above milking a trickle. I like to think about comic books like the dinosaurs (no pun intended) in Jurassic Park.  All the dinosaurs were bred to be female in order to halt reproduction, but as Jeff Goldblum haltingly says, ''nature, uh, finds a way.'' The Goon #39 (and Powell) champion creator-owned comics over corporate-ownership and that's fine, but it does make me rhetorically (naïvely?) ask who doesn't support creator-rights? Oh, right, us.

Theories and Defenses

  David Brothers wrote an essay for Comics Alliance that discusses the ethics of creator-rights in light of Before Watchmen and The Avengers movie. I do not have the encyclopedic knowledge of comic book history nor have I done the research that an argument like this requires of one. Thankfully, for me, Mr. Brothers has done all the heavy lifting. The one thing I wish Brothers did address in his piece was the importance of posterity. For comic book fans, Jack Kirby, Alan Moore and Siegel and Schuster are legends who are (and will) be remembered longer than the suits (or gangsters) that drew up the contracts that they signed. Status is not reason enough to forget or to dismiss how these creators were treated. It's no different than having to bring up inequalities of gender, sexuality, or race in comic books, one has to keep telling the story like it or not.

  Brothers point is not to remind readers of the sins of the past, not entirely, at least. His essay contains an action step and it's in the very first sentence: ''I made a conscious decision to stop supporting Marvel and DC with my money a while back.'' It's the old vote with your wallet argument that so often gets made and so often gets dismissed. What I like about Brothers essay is his honesty and the genuine melancholy that he knows he is going to feel because of all the comics that he will miss that he otherwise would have enjoyed. Like Stone and Powell, Brothers has conviction. I believe him when he says, ''I'm not even publicly proclaiming that I'm quitting while secretly reading scans of their comics in the dark. I quit cold turkey. I'm done putting money in their pockets. It bums me out, but that's life.'' Statements don't get much bolder or straightforward as that; Brothers is out. It's a 'scorched Earth' policy to be sure and I wonder (hope?) that in a future essay Brothers will explain if his decision includes imprints like Vertigo (DC) and MAX (Marvel) and licensed titles like Conan or G.I. Joe as well.
  So what? I'm in (down?) with Brothers, so I'm out too. [Insert sound of one hand clapping] I read three DC titles (Swamp Thing, Batman and Wonder Woman) and I have bought a total of eight single issues of two different Marvel titles since last September. So not buying comics from DC or Marvel requires little effort on my part. I am not trying to ally myself with Brothers. How could I? His decision is noble and it hurts. For me, not buying Marvel and DC is, at best, a minor inconvenience. What I took from Brothers's essay was a reminder about creator's rights and the corporations that profit on the ideas of those creators without proper compensation and representation. A blind man could see that and many do. The other reminder I got from Brothers was that you can 'change the channel.' Why keep reading a story when you are not enjoying it? Comic book buying can become so ritualized that dropping a title is (for some) treasonous. Comic books are filled with consequences, but which titles one chooses to buy is a consequence-free choice.

  For me, getting back into comic books after twenty years means an embarrassment of riches. There are so many artists and writers that I've missed that I want to catch up on. There's no 'sword of Damocles' hanging over my head when it comes to choosing to read the Oni Press deluxe hardcover edition of Local over the next issue of Wolverine and The X-Men or Batman. I wish every decision were so easy. I'm going to subscribe to The Goon too, so, Powell's got me for at least the next issue (just one more?). I'm also searching out and buying self-published mini-comics like Tiger Lawyer, Black Church and The Mire. Fledging blogger that I am, I want to emulate the confidence of Brothers and Stone and I would be remiss if I didn't include Justin Giampaoli, Kelly Thompson, Colin Smith, Martin Gray, Daniel Elkin and Jason Sacks writers I read for their unvarnished (but always polished) honest opinions. Lastly, I'm not doing this for RTs (feel free, of course) or to kowtow or to gain favor with creators or other bloggers. I'm doing this for me. I'm doing this because I've reached my limit with DC and Marvel superheroes. I'm either apathetic or confused by the few titles I read[2]. I have 20-plus years of comics to catch up on. Last, but not least, it's a good time for independents and self-published work. What else can I say? I've gone independent. Honest. Oh, and if someone would be so kind as to tell me how the whole Court of Owls thing plays out, that would be great, thanks. I do worry about that Batman.

---

[1] Another reviewer pointed out that the hammer is a knock on Fear Itself which was lost on me, but it works both ways.

[2] I'm footnoting this because I can't find a better place to shoehorn it in. When it comes to my decision to not buy Marvel and DC titles I'm reminded of the words of one Seymour Skinner, ''Prove me wrong kids. Prove me wrong!'' If Marvel and DC do a better job taking care of the creators who built their respective companies and start putting out titles I want to read maybe I would reevaluate my decision, but I was out of comics for 20 years who knows where I’ll be in six months. Anything could happen.