God Needed A Driver

Courtesy of our pals over at AiT/PLanet Lar, here's some preview art from Stuart Moore and John McCrea's forthcoming WILL STARR.



According to today's press release:

"Remember all those great sci-fi TV shows of your youth? Full of colorful new worlds, mind-stretching concepts, and complex characters? Well, this story isn't about them. It's about the OTHER shows -- the ones you watched, reluctantly, when the good ones weren't on. The ones that never made any sense, that bored you to tears -- that you always hoped would be good, every time you turned on the TV, but that never were,” says writer Stuart Moore.

"I really don't know where in my brain this book came from. It's not nice, wholesome entertainment, like most of what I write. It's really twisted, nasty, and depraved. It starts off with a giant dildo smashing into a swinging bachelor from 1979, thrusting him into suspended animation for 400 years till he wakes up to become a hotshot, coke-fiend space pilot of the future. Then it gets kind of sick. Basically, it's a lot like the '70s."

The book should be out in Spring. I have to admit I'm looking forward to this, for two reaosns: one, I've always had a soft spot for McCrea's work, ever since his run on The Demon all those years ago. Secondly, I think I've liked AiT/Planet Lar's sci-fi offerrings the best out of everything of their's I've read.

So, call me a sold-out shill for The Man if you want, but this is still a book that I want to read.





Sidekicks

I’ll be honest with you: I had absolutely no idea what to expect before I began this book. I know nothing about the current state of childrens’ literature. I haven’t even seen a Harry Potter movie.

I certainly wasn’t expecting something as delightful as this. Quite honestly, I am surprised that the authors – Dan Danko and Tom Mason – got away with some of the stuff in here. It’s hardly ribald or inappropriate, but it is damn funny in places, and a lot of the jokes are a bit obtuse for most kids. The promo materials say this is intended for grades 6-8, and maybe that seems a bit old for me . . . but then again, I’m not an educator. I was reading Heinlein and Victor Hugo in sixth grade. In any event, I don’t think there’s anything here that a precocious fourth grader would have trouble with.

The story begins as Guy Martin has just recently been inducted into the League of Sidekicks in his alter-ego as Speedy, the Fastest Boy Alive (not the drug addict with a bow and arrow). Despite his fairly impressive power, he’s the low man on the totem pole, having been assigned to a distinctly unimpressive superhero Pumpkin Pete. Pete, as you may have guessed from his name, possesses the proportional strength, speed and agility of . . . a pumpkin. He’s not really that great of a superhero, as you can imagine.

In fact, most of the superheroes and sidekicks here seem like refugees from the Legion of Substitute Heroes – Exact-Change Kid, Earlobe Lad, Boy-In-Plastic-Bubble Boy, and Spelling Bea, just to name a few. The heroes are set upon by the Brotherhood of Rottenness, led by the evil marionette Peenoh Keyoh (say it out loud), and taken to their floating satellite to be thrown into the sun.

Danko and Mason seem to know their superhero mythology inside and out, and have no problem at all with gently skewering it. When you refer to something as "deconstructionist", you’re usually referring to very dark and ponderous works like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns or Powers. But Sidekicks, while certainly a lot less weighty than any of those fine books, does about a good job - on its own level - of poking some darn funny holes in the concepts and mythologies of superheroes. Even a kid who’s never read a comic book and may just be familiar with characters like Batman and Spider-Man from the movies and cartoon shows will have no trouble getting most of the satire.  I don't know why in the world you would want to lead a 6th grade discussion on Derrida, but if you did want to do so, this and Duck Amok would be a good place to start.

Now, I don’t want to read too much into what is proudly a childrens’ book, but I definitely believe that Danko and Mason deserve a lot of credit for crafting a deceptively interesting work. I’m no dummy. The book took about an hour to read, and it was a light read at that. But the fact of the matter is, this is a far sight more enjoyable than most of the gloomy and torpid crap that passes for "adult" superhero comic books. It may not have the horribly misogynistic murder of long-running female supporting characters, like seemingly every other book on the shelves today, but somehow it manages to be entertaining despite all that. It’s fun, it’s breezy, and the characters are instantly recognizable. So what if I’m a good decade or two out of grade school myself, it’s still fun. At $4.95, it’s a better bargain than most regular 32-page pamphlets.

But as it is there is a lot of stuff here that seems like it would go over the head of most kids. For instance, there’s a scene-stealing appearance by a sidekick called Latchkey Kid, who sits in a room in the back of the headquarters while everyone else is out fighting evil, drinking soda and watching TV by himself. I doubt most kids would get that. Speedy and Exact-Change Kid race to their Sidekick Super Rocket of Blastingness, only to find that it is a cardboard box with dials and knobs colored on the outside. I laughed but I think something like that would fly over most kids’ heads.

Also, Peenoh Keyoh’s evil master plan involves turning everyone in the world into puppets. Now, last I checked most grade-school kids probably won’t catch obscure Silver Age references like this . . .



Now, it’s not perfect. For the most part it manages to avoid the sort of scatological humor that books like Captain Underpants trade in, but there is a character named Le Poop who incapacitates his foes with super-stinky . . . flatulence. I suppose even Hamlet had Polonius. It’s not really dwelt on for long, but all the same why do I have the frightening but persistent thought that this will be the kids’ favorite part?

There’s a lot of other stuff as well, such as a small subplot featuring Guy’s unrequited love for Prudence Cane, and Cane’s subsequent courting by Mandrake Steel, AKA Charisma Kid. It’s nothing new if you’ve ever read Spider-Man, but that’s hardly the point. This stuff is absolutely primal. If you’re a kid, you’ve felt isolated and put-upon and unappreciated, and that’s exactly what Danko and Mason understand. Just like the kids identify with Harry Potter and Spider-Man, they’ll identify with Speedy and his rather pitiful pals. That’s the beauty of superheroes – they’re a broad enough metaphor to accommodate just about anything, when done well.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m quite critical of the superhero genre. But this is the type of superhero book I have no problem with. A book like Sidekicks is a wonderful, upbeat example of superheroes done right, suitable for all ages (and by that I mean you should still get a kick out of it if you’re older than 12). I look forward to continuing the series and seeing what plans Mason and Danko have in store for these wonderfully silly characters.

Me and Edith Head

My opinion of this mini-comic increased exponentially when I discovered that I was not the intended audience. The story, by childrens’ author Sara Ryan and Steve Lieber, was initially published in Cicada magazine in 2001. Cicada, according to their website, is dedicated to teenagers and young adults. That seems like a perfect fit.

One of the weird facts of life in youth publishing is that children and teens always want to read what they think the age group above them is reading. Hence, Seventeen magazine is bought by girls who are not yet seventeen, as the actual seventeen year-olds have moved on to Vogue. I think that this story would best appeal to pre-and-early teens, who maybe haven’t yet experienced the kind of rigid social stratification encountered herein.

The story is fairly straightforward. Katrina is your average high-school girl – full of insecurities and surrounded by difficulty at home. She’s not conventionally pretty and maybe even a little bit plump, so she dresses to cover up her perceived shortcomings. Like a lot of undernourished high-school girls, she gravitates towards drama. But the role of Titania in the school production of "A Midsummer’s Night Dream" goes to a wispy blonde, and she is stuck in the role of costume designer.

This doesn’t necessarily jibe with my own experiences. For one, important jobs like lighting, sets and costumes would only go to people who both expressed an interest and had some expertise in the area – not simply to people who failed the auditions, because the people who failed the auditions were usually not very bright. For another, the best rolls never go to the prettiest actresses, they go to the best actresses. Perhaps Katrina had a horrible audition, but I have a hard time seeing that with her obvious intelligence she wouldn’t have grabbed at least a supporting roll.

But, those are small qualms. The story unfolds in a fairly predictable - albeit satisfying - manner. Despite the initial disappointment of not having won the role she wanted, eventually Katrina sees the value of her part, and gains a degree of confidence and self-assurance from learning about the world of fashion, which is where Edith Head comes in. This coincides with the disintegration of her family life following her parents’ divorce. This narrative arc has been intelligently structured to appeal specifically to things that kids understand and relate to on an everyday basis.

Comics aimed specifically at pre-teens and adolescents are in woefully short supply. While its very true that many mainstream comics are definitely written from a perpetually adolescent perspective, the actual stories themselves are not something that would appeal to the average teen. While this short book does a wonderful job, it also points to a glaring omission in the output of many large publishers. Of course, now that Scholastic, the proverbial 800-lb gorilla of the kids publishing world, has entered the graphic novel arena, perhaps this will change.

I don’t know if I would recommend this mini-comic to someone who wasn’t already a fan of Lieber’s work. It’s a good story well-told, but again, I haven’t seen the inside of a high-school in many a year. Looking back on high-school like this doesn’t present a lot of challenges to older readers such as myself, but I can easily imagine how this might be a revelatory comics experience to someone just facing their teenage years. I wish there were hundreds of cartoonists working in this vein for that specific demographic.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons manga is so damn popular?



Family Reunion

This is an excerpt, illustrated by Lieber, of Sean Stewart’s new novel Perfect Circle. I’d be interested to know what Stewart’s actual prose voice reads like, because the unfortunate fact is that any distinctive style he may have is sublimated by the graphic adaptation process. This has long been the bane of all but the most virtuoso adaptations, and in the space of a mere eight pages Family Reunion is not well-served.

When books are adapted to film or television, the directors and associated crew try – if they try at all, that is – to find some sort of visual style that will allow them to visually replicate the mental sensation of reading a particular writer’s voice. Hence, Jane Austen adaptations are often crisp and dry, with a hint of biting wit and subtle sarcasm. Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas attempted to replicate Thompson’s signature style by creating a film that was spry and rambling, with a vivid and garish visual vocabulary to match the overheated accent of Thompson’s prose.

Of course, when you’re discussing comics, the first literary adaptations that spring to mind are the Classics Illustrated ones. There were actually a few good CI adaptations done during the series’ resurrection in the early 90s – I have fond memories of Kyle Baker’s work on Alice in Wonderland, as well as Gary Gianni’s O’Henry omnibus. More recently, David Mazzuccheli adapted Paul Auster’s City of Glass to universal acclaim, and P. Craig Russell has made a cottage industry of adapting the world’s most famous operas, starting with his multi-volume adaptation of Wagner’s imposing Ring of the Nibelung saga.

So it’s not as if powerful and evocative literary adaptations are an impossibility. But if there is one lesson to learn from Faimly Reunion, it is that comics are by nature a far more decompressed art form than prose. In order to successfully adapt prose, you need to learn how to adapt mood and tone as well. Unfortunately, in the space of a mere eight pages there’s not much mood or tone on display here.

The vignette follows William Kennedy on an afternoon family picnic. Kennedey has the ability to see the dead, and he is being haunted by the ghost of an uncle who died in Vietnam. Over the course of the story it is revealed that, rather than having died and honorable death in combat, the uncle actually died of a drug overdose brought on by the traumas of war. It’s an interesting story, but unfortunately the brief context of this short mini doesn’t allow for much besides the bare facts of the narrative.

Perhaps if they had presented a longer adaptation of the same material, or merely chosen to tell the same story in more pages, it would have read better. But as it is, I find myself unimpressed with the story. Lieber’s art, as usual, is technically impressive, but again, in the space of eight pages there’s not enough room for him to stretch.

Hoo Ha

Well, Chinese Bizarro Spider-Man is on his way to his first adventure, courtesy of the United States Postal Service. Where’s he headed? Why, to the wilds of Boston, and a stayover with Jamie Tarquini, AKA Pmpknface. I’m sure he’s going to have a wonderful time. Where’s he headed next? Could it be your town?

Boy, the fact that Alf is back on TV sure makes me sleep better at night. It’s as if some primal injury has been healed, or as if some cosmic injustice has been righted. Many thanks to TV Land for this momentous occasion in human history.





Travels With Larry Part XV

Scurvy Dogs #5

Perhaps I was too harsh on the first bundle of Scurvy Dogs that I reviewed a few weeks back. Sometimes opinions can change – that’s part of what having an open mind entails. Perhaps issue #5 was simply better than the previous issues. Whatever the answer, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Of course, everyone know that "humor is subjective". If you repeat it often enough it becomes a mantra. It has also been used by many critics to cover up the fact that A) they don’t get whatever the humor is, or more likely B) they get it, alright, but they don’t find it funny because it’s cheap, puerile, stupid or vulgar. But regardless, there is so much that goes in to whether or not any particular person will find any particular thing funny that these things are impossible to predict.

For instance, most cheap-gag SNL oriented movies made in the last fifteen or so years leave me cold, but I find Chris Farley and David Spade’s Tommy Boy and the first two Adam Sandler movies quite funny, even after repeated viewings. Of course, you couldn’t pay me enough to get me to sit down and watch Mr. Deeds, but I’ll gladly give him those first two flicks. I loved Cabin Boy, as I have said before, even though the majority of the English speaking world steers as clear of that one as they possibly can.

My wife thinks that Robert Schimmel is the funniest man alive, but I only find him intermittently amusing. I think that Ivan Brunetti is the funniest cartoonist alive, but the one time I tried to get her to read Schizo she said it was the most horrid and disturbing thing she had ever seen. So, different strokes for different folks.

Scurvy Dogs seems to have ensnared quite a few of my fellow bloggers in its briny grip. I always pay attention when events find my opinion to be at odd with common consensus. I haven’t changed my opinion on Wilco yet, but I sure am glad I bothered to give Radiohead another listen after initially dismissing them many years back. Likewise, if enough people say that Scurvy Dogs is funnier than two peglegged monkeys in a cage match, I’ll probably want to reexamine the back with a new set of eyes the next time it crosses my radar.

Sure enough, I found myself quite enjoying the latest issue of Scurvy Dogs. Some of my initial criticism still holds true: Ryan Yount is still not what I would call a master draftsman, not by any means. His very minimal art conveys just enough story to get the meaning of the jokes across. If I was going to recommend any course of action, it would be to spend this coming downtime studying up on some of the cartooning fundamentals that are keeping me from liking Scurvy Dogs as much as, perhaps, I could learn to. By which I mean: draw some damn backgrounds, already. Yeah, they’re hard to draw and stuff, but they can add a considerable bit of heft to any comedic presentation. Like on page four, in the first panel, there’s a potted plant behind the television screen. It’s such a beautifully drawn plant, I wish every panel had a potted plant in it.

But besides that, the fact is that Scurvy Dogs #5 caught me on a good day. For whatever reason, I wanted to laugh, and I found plenty of opportunity herein. My wife got sick of me tapping on her shoulder to show her funny panels. She did not think the microwaved emu gag was nearly as funny as I did.

I think that a great deal of my personal problem with Scurvy Dogs has been the fact that the book is very obviously the product of two fairly intelligent twenty-somethings. Like a lot of intelligent, college-educated folk, they know too much about pop culture – junk culture – and think that laughs can be easily gained just by name-dropping certain obscure cultural references to the right crowd. The fact is, that’s what passes for humor among quite a few lazy young comedians. I don’t think it’s a very strong or smart way to run your comedic career because, frankly, there are only so many people who find Mannix or Thompson Twins references automatically funny. At some point, there need to be actual jokes, not just clever cultural signifiers. Sometimes I laugh at jokes like this, but rarely twice.

I think, over the course of these five issues, I can detect a growing and gradual awareness of this fact on Yount and Boyd’s part. Even if you have no idea who Mickey and Andy Rooney are, the picture of them facing off like aging sumo wrestlers is funny. A pirate beating Gabe Kaplan to within an inch of his life isn’t so funny. A pirate computer is funny, especially with game software like King of Savate and Marion Barry’s Civilization.

Somehow, Yount and Boyd are getting better at hitting my strike zone. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but they are subtly honing in their skills as both humorists and cartoonists (although their improvement in terms of the latter is lagging behind the former). In any event, whereas previously I just plain didn’t enjoy the book, this time I am happy to say I can offer it my qualified recommendation.

The Funk Has Hit The Fan

So I finally saw Spider-Man 2. Sure enough, it was an enjoyable film, save for a handful of plot qualms. Which I won’t go into, because that’s not really something I want to talk about. Other people have already made great hay out of the inconsistencies therein.

But something did bother me that I haven’t noticed anyone else talking about. The fact is, I am really distressed at how they took the most happy-go-lucky superhero in the world and turned him into a very grim fellow. I mean, Peter Parker was always having a bad day, but being Spider-Man is supposed to be fun. He’s supposed to be flinging a never-ending stream of wisecracks at his foes. But the movie Spider-Man is just kind of boring in that respect. Now, of course there are some issues about being able to film it so that you can hear the wisecracks above the tumult of whatever action is happening, but hey, this is a movie where nuclear fission generator supply stores take cash from men in grimy trenchcoats. I’m sure they could figure it out somehow.

Anyway, after we got out of the movie we dropped into the local Dollar Store to buy something or another, and I made a momentous discovery. Staring back at me out of a huge wall of cheap knock off toys was something that I could only describe as pure genius: Chinese Bizarro Spider-Man.

His package was sparse, with pictures of Zorro, Superman, Batman and company filched from various comic book and movie stills. The only legend on the blister card was "Hero", in addition to the small words "Made in China". I paid the dollar and liberated my webby friend from his plastic prison.



There are no words to describe the joys of Chinese Bizarro Spider-Man. The plastic he’s made of feels about as heavy as tissue-thin balsa wood. The mold he was made from had big thick lace-up boots and gloves. He’s supposed to have a light-up chest cavity but it doesn’t work. The seams on the plastic could cut a small child. He’s got a slightly misshapen head with what looks like a brain tumor embedded on the right side of his face. It is simply the best damn Spider-Man toy I have ever seen, and it fills me with an indescribable joy.



So here’s what we’re going to do. Everyone’s talking about creating new "memes" on the blogosphere or whatever. Most of these memes are stupid, the blogging equivalent of those surveys that get passed around the back of history class in tenth grade. "Do you like Jimmy Newsome? Who’s your favorite cheerleader?" But this time we’re going to do something that’s actually fun. Chinese Bizarro Spider-Man is going to go on a long trip. Where’s he going? Well, that’s up to you.

The first blogger who e-mails me their name and address gets Chinese Bizarro Spider-Man in the mail. Then they get to have whatever adventures they want with our slightly retarded red plastic friend. Hopefully they’ll post pictures and tell us all about it. Then, when they’re done, they mail him off to someone new, and they do the same. Hopefully, CBSM will be able to tour the world and meet all sorts of new friends. Then, when there are no more bloggers to see, he will return to me and assume a place of honor on my shelf.

It’s as simple as that. So, who’s first?



Amazingly, Friday’s post about Quasar seems to have hit a nerve with a few people. I am sure glad to be able to share my enthusiasm for the series, and I got a couple letters to prove it:

"Hi.

"Liked your thoughts on Quasar... I ignored this series as it originally came out (the 90s were when my interest in Marvel and DC were at an all time low), but a few years ago I came across a whole stack of them in the bargain bins and bought them because... well, they were there. Just as buyer's remorse was about to set in, I actually read them and was completely charmed by them.

"Re: your comments on the "White Room" and the heroic purgatory; I don't know if you haven't seen the story or if you just didn't want to stray off topic, but have you read Gruenwald's sequel to his earlier "What If the Avengers Had Become Pawns of Korvac?" It was backup story in What If (duh)... I believe the issue had a Bill Sienkiewicz cover of Conan with a gun... anyway, it explicitly jibes with your observation. The Universe, after being Ultimate Nullifed by Korvac, is an empty void. Dr. Strange, the Silver Surfer and Phoenix (previously exiled by Korvac) return to it... The Surfer and Phoenix immediately take off for a living universe to call home (no doubt causing X-fans to get all excited at the possibility of a returned Phoenix), while Dr. Strange, reasoning that he as Sorcerer Supreme (a position not unlike Protector of the Universe, I suppose) has the responsibility to remain at his post, and he does so, for eternity. Creeped me out as a kid, too... I either didn't catch or forgot about the similarity between the two stories until you mentioned it...

"Since you have me thinking about Gruenwald, and mentioned the tension between the quality of his ideas and that of his prose, I'm halfway tempted to draw a tortured, belabored comparison between Gruenwald and Philip K Dick, another writer often accused of the same flaws and, I believe (per an old "Question of the Month"), Gruenwald's favorite. There really isn't that much similarity between the two; Gruenwald's writing certainly isn't as fevered as Dick's, although some moments in Quasar -- such as the Deathurge or the Unbeing sequences -- have a similar sort of melancholy that made me wonder where his writing would have gone if he had pursued that. And I don't know if the passion of Gruenwald's contemplation of comic book reality is quite on the level of Dick's spiritual questing... but this unnerving "white room" motif does certainly give me pause.

"Well, thanks to you and Dave Fiore, now I have to go hunt down and replace all those Captain America issues I got rid of when I purged my collection several years ago... convention bargain boxes, here I come...

"Thanks for yer time...
--Chris Keels."

You know, I had forgotten about that issue of What If? as well, which is odd considering that that is one of my all-time favorite series. But yes, that is a damn creepy story, and perfectly in line with some of Gruenwald’s later ideas as explored in Quasar. The responsible hero is rewarded for his steadfast sacrifice with . . . oblivion? Purgatory? That’s kind of grim, whichever way you slice it.

"Just wanted to let you know, you're not alone in your appreciation of QUASAR. I still have enormously fond memories and a complete run of that series and still flip through it now and again when I want a bit of a grin.

"Possibly my favorite story line was the visit to the New Universe. That was Geuenwald (sp?) just showing us all how it could be done when you had someone who cared.

"Anyway, thanks for the great review and memories.

"Best,

"Rick Jones, really"

Yeah, I love the New U visit as well. Ironically, everyone knew Gruenwald was absolutely adamant about not just folding up the remnants of the New U into the Marvel Universe. He wanted the New U to be unique, even in death. But, I guess he was just too fond of the characters and concepts to let them go, because it was pretty obvious by the time 1991 rolled around that there wasn’t ever going to be a New U revival if he didn’t do it himself.

I have a great fondness for the New U myself and I think it’s ironic that many of the unique aspects that were once considered to be radical and weird about the New U were eventually incorporated into stories all across the mainstream. Why, just take a look at any issue of Shooter’s Star Brand and tell me you don’t see a precursor for any number of Nu-Marvel books, from Ultimate Spider-Man to Supreme Power. This is another conversation for another day, however.

Oh, and Rick? Good job on the whole Hulk thing. We’re all grateful for the giant green weapon of mass destruction. Really.

But in all seriousness, as much as I enjoyed that trip down memory lane, I must confess to being slightly embarrassed by the whole thing. Somehow I ended up talking about superhero comics for five whole days last week – someone really needs to be watching me to make sure I don’t get into this kind of trouble in the future.

I think it’s interesting to look at these things from the economics side: how do things like tone and continuity impact the way the books are perceived and sold? How do fan perceptions affect the bottom line? These are some very meaty questions that I think offer many rewarding lines of thought.

But really, just riffing about how much I love old superhero books is hardly the most difficult thing in the world to do. I could do it in my sleep. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I want to devote this blog. At least part of the time, to discussing meatier comics, things that I actually think are worth the time it takes to discuss them. Nostalgia is fun, but really, as much as I love Quasar its hardly Gravity’s Rainbow. The problem is, books like the D&Q Showcase take a lot of time and effort to write about, because they offer so much more of interest for the critic to discuss, so many interesting avenues to explore. But again, I want to make the effort because I think it’s something worth doing.

So, hopefully soon we’ll get that discussion about Love & Rockets Volume 2 started. I’ve also been thinking about Louis Riel a lot as well, and why I believe it to be one of the very best comics every produced. Travels with Larry will still continue for the foreseeable future as well, or at least until I run out of AiT/Planet Lar books to discuss. If Larry Young has his way, that day will never come. (He likes to be the center of attention, in case you haven’t noticed.)

Remember The Maine

I hate Kyle Raynor.

It’s not that I had a particularly strong attachment to Hal Jordan, or even the concept of Green Lantern to begin with. No, the problem I had with Kyle Raynor, and the entire run of Green Lantern after Hal went nuts, is the fact that the book was basically "Quasar done wrong".

If you’re like most folks, you probably don’t remember much about Quasar, except perhaps the fact that Wizard at one point made a monthly habit of mocking him. But here’s the skinny: the first issue of Quasar hit the shelves cover-dated Oct of 1989. A little more than five years later the last issue of the series, issue number 60, shipped with a cover date of July 1994. The book had some ups and downs, but overall it’s probably Mark Gruenwald’s most concentrated statement on the subject of superheroes and comic-book universes. He put a lot of himself into the book, probably more than he put into either Captain America or Squadron Supreme. Quasar was a character close to his heart, and it’s hard not to see his bitterness during the book’s last year or so, as the gaping jaws of cancellation that had threatened the book since the very beginning finally closed in for the kill.

Quasar was a fellow named Wendell Vaughn, born and raised - like Gruenwald himself - in Wisconsin (Quasar was born in Fon Du Lac, about twenty minutes south of Oshkosh, where Gruenwald was raised). He started out as a SHIELD agent before accidentally putting on the quantum bands that had been briefly worn by the Atomic Age superhero Marvel Boy. Of course, once you put on the quantum bands, they can only be separated from your arms by death, so he was stuck being a superhero.

He just wasn’t very good at it to begin with. He didn’t really know how to use his bands as anything other than a third-string Green Lantern knockoff. He bounced around the MU for about a decade with sporadic appearances in titles like Contest of Champions and Marvel Two-In-One. Finally in ’89, for whatever reason, he got the call up to the proverbial "majors" after he was awarded his own title and a membership in the mighty Avengers.

The creative duties for Quasar’s new book fell to the team of Gruenwald and Paul Ryan, fresh off a well-remembered – if slightly less than successful – run on the New Universe’s D.P.7. Ryan split after the first half-dozen or so issues, replaced in quick succession by rising stars Mike Manley and Greg Capullo. Manley went on after about a dozen issue to launch the fairly successful Darkhawk title, while Greg Capullo actually lasted twenty, minus a couple fill-ins. As we all know, Capullo left Quasar to assume the art duties on X-Force, where he stayed until he was snapped up by Todd McFarlane to work on Spawn. After Capullo, unfortunately, Quasar saw a progression of less exciting - albeit stridently professional – artists take their turns pushing pencils for the book. If you remember Marvel in the early 90s, you certainly remember that quite a few books had less than the best art. This was due to circumstances stemming from the exodus of the "Image Seven." Right after that happened, Marvel made an extremely sharp increase in the number of titles they produced on a monthly basis in order to attempt to choke off shelf-space from burgeoning competitors such as Image, Malibu, Valiant (remember them?) and Dark Horse (who tried a superhero line of their own in the summer of ’93). So, a lot of books in the mid-and-lower tiers of the Marvel publishing empire got short shrift, artwise, and this certainly didn’t do a lot to help the long term health of books, like Quasar, which were already on the fence sales-wise.

Anyway, the first thing Gruenwald set about doing with the character was to totally revamp and redefine his powers and abilities. It was immediately established that the quantum bands, far from being mere random artifacts, were actually the traditional weapons of the Protector of the Universe, an office that had previously been held by none other than the Kree Captain Mar-Vell. (Mar-Vell, of course, had not possessed the Quantum bands, but the slightly less powerful Nega bands, which was a consequence of the Q-bands being lost with the 50s Marvel Boy and in SHIELD custody for a few decades). The Protectorship of the Universe came with a cosmic mentor – Eon – who was responsible for instructing Quasar in how to use the powerful tools he had been given, and how best to fulfill the awesome responsibilities.

So far, so good – the first year of Quasar was pretty unexceptional. Vaughn established his civilian identity as a security consultant based in Manhattan, with office space in Four Freedoms Plaza (the Fantastic Four’s office tower HQ after the Baxter Building was demolished in the late 80s and before it was reconstructed in the early 00s). He even – ahem – wore glasses and slicked his hair back when he was in civilian identity. He was also pretty close to Eon for this first year. The Big E gave Quasar the job of tracking down all of Earth’s rogue extraterrestrials, and this, in addition to trying to juggle his newfound superhero responsibilities with his attempts at carving out a new civilian identity, made for quite a full plate.

If the series had continued in this vein, it would have been a good, if unspectacular, superhero book, in the vein of about a zillion others. But, of course, that’s not how it worked out. Things took a turn for the left pretty quickly.

For starters, his secret identity soon went out the window. His business fell to pieces. Both his friends and his enemies saw through his front, and the latter had no qualms about exploiting this weakness.

His "cosmic mentor" was revealed to have been manipulating him in subtle and not-so-subtle ways since the very beginning of their relationship. Eon had flat-out lied to Quasar on a number of important subjects, up to and including re-animating Quasar’s dead father for weeks after the latter had suffered a fatal heart attack. Eon himself was eventually killed, leaving Quasar helpless (and to also be killed) before Maelstrom, who was able to use the stolen Quantum bands to achieve God-like power, power enough to rival Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet. (A later issue of Quasar offered a glimpse of an alternate reality where the last two beings alive were Thanos and Maelstrom, fighting over existence with galaxies and black holes as their weapons.)

Of course, Quasar got better (as he would do two more times before his series wrapped, next in the course of the Infinity Gauntlet [although everyone died in that one so I don’t know if it counts], as well as in the course of the Infinity War). He was able to implement everything he had learned over the course of his first twenty-five issues in order to become supremely powerful and far more confident than he had been at the series' commencement.

So you can see my frustrations with Green Lantern. It took Wendell Vaughn about 25 issues to become fairly confident in his role as Protector of the whole friggin’ Universe, while Kyle Raynor, a decade and change on, is still essentially a stumblebum. The Quantum bands, as elaborated by Gruenwald, are essentially the same thing as a Green Lantern ring, only without any power limit. There’s no central or portable power battery. The Quantum bands are powered by an entire parallel dimension composed of quantum energy. Quasar, with the bands, can do just about anything he wants, from massive expenditures of energy to instantaneous teleportation from one side of the universe to the other. Like a Green Lantern, his power is only limited by his imagination, but unlike Kyle Raynor, Quasar set about to rigorously probe and test the limits of his power until he realized that said power was nearly limitless. Meanwhile, Kyle Raynor is sitting around New York and hanging out with Jade, or something.

The second half of Gruenwald’s run on Quasar was patchy. On the one hand, you have a wonderful string of issues featuring Quasar exploring the universe and the multiverse, answering fundamental questions about the very fabric of the Marvel Universe. On the other, you have the recurring participation in crossovers like the Infinity War and Operation: Galactic Storm, both of which effectively derailed the series for three months at a time. (Although it must be noted that Gruenwald was able to get some interesting mileage out of Quasar’s death in the Infinity War, which I shall discuss in a bit.) Additionally, odd characters like The Punisher started showing up, quite incongruously, when it became obvious that the frequent crossovers alone were not enough to keep the book afloat.

Quasar, when taken as a whole, serves as a potent antidote to the kind of cynicism (of which I am very guilty, albeit defiantly so) that labels all superheroes as inherently fascistic. Sure, Gruenwald understood that the existence of superpowers opened up the door to disastrous abuse – which is a question he explored in the pages of Squadron Supreme. But the questions he wanted to answer with Quasar had nothing to do with the corrupting tendencies of power, but with the exhausting possibilities of infinite responsibility. If great power is accompanied with great responsibility, what then of infinite, or at least near infinite power? At the end of the series, after a series of progressively meaningless conflicts, Quasar fakes his own death and heads out into the greater universe, because he finally recognizes that there is no way he can fulfill so much as an infinitesimal fraction of his responsibility if he stays close to Earth.

When we next saw Quasar, a year or two later in the pages of the short-lived Star Masters series, alongside the Silver Surfer and Beta Ray Bill. He was attempting to fill the universe with quantum "satellite" transceivers, a sort-of early warning system/communication grid by which far-flung quarters of the universe can contact their erstwhile protector. Even though Eon had been a manipulative SOB, Quasar was still driven by the responsibilities Eon had given him. Quasar even acted as a parent towards Eon’s offspring, Epoch.

It was later revealed, following Quasar’s third death, that when a Protector of the Universe passes from life, they are brought to a pseudo-mystical "White Room" to sit in immobilized silence for eternity. Was it a trick by Eon, to punish those who had had the temerity to believe they could protect the entire universe? Was it a cosmic mistake? A preparation for something greater? Gruenwald never lived to reveal the answer to that question, but it is revealing that his conception of the ultimate reward for great heroes was an endless purgatorial nothing.

Quasar is nothing less than the sum of Gruenwald’s (woefully abbreviated) lifetime of thinking on superheroes and superhero comic books. It was obviously a labor of love. There’s an early story featuring a cosmic foot race, wherein all the fast-running characters from the MU were brought together by the Runner (an Elder of the Universe) to race for the privilege of racing in the universal speed trials. At the end of the race, a blond figure materialized on the racetrack, emerging from a cloud of lightning bolts, with the remnants of a red uniform and bright yellow boots. He was a total amnesiac, except for the memory of what his name could have been . . . perhaps "Buried Alien"? Just because Gruenwald worked down the road at Marvel didn’t stop him from paying tribute to one of his favorite childhood heroes, DC’s Silver Age Flash, in the wake of his demise during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Some of the most memorable moments from Quasar were moments like those, dedicated basically to exploring the unenlightened corners of the Marvel Universe, and exploring the very nature of fictional universes. How are fictional characters created – and at what point do characters take on a life of their own? Shades of Animal Man! How do Gods – or at least near-Gods – die? Who mourns the passing of cosmic beings? How about the birth and creation of cosmic deities? How are comic book universes structured – what separates mere alternate realities from entirely separate multiverses, like the Marvel Universe and the New Universe? Some of these questions might seem a bit wonkish, but Gruenwald’s enthusiasm for these cosmic questions was truly contagious. As preposterous as it sounds, he believed every bit of it, he believed that it mattered, on some level, and that by answering one deep question of comic book lore he only asked a dozen more.

But the best thing about Quasar, as a character, was the fact that in terms of attitude he was just about one of the most unlikely super-characters in comic book history. From the very first he regarded fighting and violence as awkward necessities, to be avoided at all costs. In the early days, at least, he always addressed both his peers and his opponents as "Sir". When he grew more powerful, he put a premium on being able to stop his opponents in nonviolent ways – immobilizing them or destroying their weapons or simply teleporting them elsewhere. He didn’t want to fight, which is probably the oddest thing a superhero can do. I think perhaps this was Gruenwald’s way of signaling his own personal protest against the overwrought violence of 90s comics, but that's just my guess.

So, is it any surprise that Quasar was an unpopular book? It’s a miracle it lasted as long as it did. I think that after a certain point he lost interest in writing Captain America, or at least it seemed so from the rather insipid plots he was throwing out every month. At about the time his Cap lost it’s focus, Quasar started getting real interesting. Unfortunately, since Gruenwald’s passing the character has been used sparingly, if at all. He's had a few moments in the revamped Avengers, but other than that the low point was undoubtedly the Maximum Security X-Over that featured Quasar being chosen as the host body for – ah – Ego the Living Planet. It was such a lame plot point that no one since either.

Which makes sense, as crappy as it may seem. By the time his own series had run its course, Quasar had been elevated from a third-string supporting character to someone with nigh-limitless power at his disposal, and with both the knowledge and the confidence to use it judicially. He was transformed from a Marvel Two-In-One punchline to the single most powerful member of the Mighty Avengers, perhaps the single most powerful human being in the Marvel Universe, period, someone able to go toe-to-toe with the Silver Surfer and . . . hold back for fear of hurting the Surfer. So of course it makes sense that he’s not going to be hanging around Avengers’ mansion too often - "oh yeah, Ultron? I threw him in a black hole while I was watching TV."

In case you haven’t figured out, I love Quasar. I said yesterday that it was in my top two or three superhero books of all time, but the thing is, I racked my brain all day and I honestly couldn’t think of one that I had more fondness for. Sure, there are many better series, many more consistent series, and many superhero books that I would rate as "important" before I even got around to thinking of Quasar. But in terms of my personal favorite, a super-hero title that I would write myself in a heartbeat if given a chance? Well, there aren’t too many of those, but at the top of the list would have to be Quasar.

Well, I have just permanently destroyed my Comics Journal cred. Join me next week as I wax poetic on Atari Force.





Travels With Larry Part XIV

Hench

I didn’t want to like Hench. It’s not that I had any preordained antipathy towards the book, but as I have stated before I think that the whole concept of superhero parody is getting to be more played out than the superheroes themselves. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that Hench isn’t actually, as it may appear to be, a spoof or parody book. It is a very funny book, but it plays things straight. In doing so the book manages to somehow achieve a bit of emotional poignancy, despite the constant flow of silly situations.

The most controversial aspect of the book seems to be the art. Admittedly, Manny Bello’s work is rough. Although his figures and design work is strong, he seems to struggle with complicated perspective and especially with texture. Sometimes entire pages pass by without background details. I have to question why the decision was made to publish the book in the form of rough pencils. I realize the answer to that was probably either a creative decision, fiscal decision – or possibly both – but it the book suffers for it. Many of Bello’s more problematic areas could have been "fixed in post", as it were.

But, regardless of that, the book still manages to get by. There is an endearing quirkiness to Bello’s pages. He draws everyone with an exaggerated slovenliness that definitely adds considerable ballast to the book’s humor content.

As for the story itself? Well, that’s the real star of the show. Adam Beechen has set out to answer one of the great imponderables of superhero comic book – why the hell would anyone want to be a villainous henchman? This is putting aside the psychotic gun molls who usually hang out with Batman villains – those gals usually have a few screws loose themselves. I’m talking about the meat-and-potato dudes who put on the funny costume and lug the death-rays while their boss is busy eating filet mignon and snorting coke out of his psychotic gun moll’s belly button.

Surprisingly, Beechen actually comes up with quite a good answer. It’s mostly ex-athletes, sidelined by injury or by life, anxious to get into another profession where they can feel the same kind of adrenaline rush they used to. They need the money and most of them are smart enough to bank the proceeds from a few successful jobs to hold them over the long stretches of prison. It actually makes a lot of sense – people do stupider things on a regular basis.

So, we follow one henchman, Mike Fulton, as he embarks on a life of crime. Initially he’s just in it for the money, but later on, after his family leaves him and he winds up in jail for longer and longer periods, he becomes addicted to the sense of danger and, more importantly, the camaraderie of the criminal fraternity.

So, in some respects, it’s a story that you’ve heard before: the criminal lifestyle proves too much of a lure for our hero to resist. But the difference is, this isn’t just your garden-variety world of mob dons and machineguns. No, this world is filled with colorful and deadly villains who can melt your flesh, summon the forces of Satan or irradiate your body until your penis falls off. As I said earlier, the book plays it totally straight, which makes some sequences absolutely priceless:

"Randy introduced me to my new boss the next day. I think he was happy to meet me. He kept praising ‘Ashtoth,’ or somebody. Then he gave me my uniform and some weapon he called an ‘iron shemeleth.’ Said it would ward off the forces of justice. He gave me the code name ‘Baal-Yiggurth.’ I never felt like such an asshole in my whole life."

I must admit that I laughed my ass off.

So while Hench is by no means perfect, it does have one saving grace that trumps any qualms I could mention about the art: it made me laugh. So, all things considered, it’s OK in my book.