All Star Squadron, by Roy Thomas, Jerry Ordway, et al.

 So, since early in the COVID quarantine, my buddies and I have been doing weekly video calls to talk some classic comics. We've read Geoff Johns's initial FLASH run, THE NEW TEEN TITANS by Wolfman & Perez, and the QUESTION by Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan. Now, we're reading Roy Thomas's paean to DC's golden age, ALL STAR SQUADRON. This week, we're reading issues 14-20, plus JLA 207-209, and I wanted to share some panels from these comics that brought a smile to my face. 

From All Star Squadron #17, by Thomas, with art from Adrian Gonzalez & Rick Hoberg.

This issue was a trial to determine if Robotman was human or merely a mechanical facsimile that should be melted down for slag. The turning point comes when the courthouse begins to collapse and Robotman must break from his chains and use his super strength to save those within, most especially the lawyer who brought suit against him. Revealing his humanity, he is deemed human and free to go. But how can he speak to the judge at his bench when the building collapsed????

From All Star Squadron #15, by Thomas, art by: Gonzalez & Jerry Ordway

Per Degaton, the villain of this 5-part crossover with the JLA, is going to "conquer an earth!" Melodrama aside, I love the reactions of the henchmen in the background -- genuinely funny stuff. I wish there was more of this in these comics.

From All Star Squadron #16, by Thomas, Gonzalez & Hoberg. 

  

I gotta give points to Nuclear, the Magnetic Man (no, I'd never heard of him before either) using Robotman's arm as a weapon against the other All-Stars. Well played!

Another from All Star Squadron #15: 

Luckily, Superman and Dr. Fate have super voices and are able to utilize the very, very few oxygen molecules in space to speak with one another. 
I . . . don't know if that's how that would work. But, it's comics!

And, from JLA #209 by Gerry Conway & Don Heck, more fun with oxygen

    

If Per Degaton is without oxygen (read Zatanna's spell backward, to see what she did to him), then how is he still speaking?!!? 

Another from JLA 209

This should have been the opening page, rather than a couple of pages of backstory exposition. (I know, I know! It was a different time, when exposition was the way things were done in comics . . . except that Larry Hama was doing it with far more aplomb in G.I. Joe, the same year this was published, and Alan Moore was beginning his legendary run on Swamp Thing that same year as well. So, there were other ways of doing it.)

Again, from All Star Squadron #16

Wonder Woman claims she's never needed the help of other heroes. But, she worked with the JSA and All Stars in issues 1-3 of this series. AND THERE'S AN EDITOR'S NOTE TO THAT EFFECT. Why doesn't she remember?!!? And why does Roy Thomas, who wrote all these comics, make her not remember?!!? What the hell is going on?

What It Is – week ending 16 November [2014]

With apologies to Dave the Thune.

WRITING:

Every day.  1000 words.  That’s the goal.

Finished part one of the novel this week.  52,600 words down for that first draft.  I’d planned on letting things percolate for the weekend before returning to it – ten years later in terms of the narrative – but found myself workring and reworking the first scene of the second part that I had to get it down.  Did that yesterday.  So, I’m ready to press on and see where it takes me. 

Also wrote up a couple of posts for the site this week.  But more about that below. 

And, at this point, I’ve got 34 consecutive days of writing under my belt – the longest stretch, by far, this year (or any other, for that matter).  One needs to take a break, recharge the batteries, especially with a day job and a family that needs attention, as well.  But, even though I’ve made plans to take a day off here and there during this streak, it hasn’t happened.  Feeling pretty good about that. 

READING:

Finished up Difficult Men this week.  If you’re a fan of the seminal television shows of this “third golden age” like the Sopranos, Deadwood, and the Wire, and you enjoy peeking behind the curtain, you should pick up this book and read it.  It’s fascinating.  Check it out.

Also been working on the to-read comic pile next to the bed this week.  Here are few quick hits:

Suicide Squad 21-22 by John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell, and Karl Kesel.  I love this book.  These two issues wrap up a subplot about a senator’s attempted blackmail of the squad, in order to get their assistance in getting him elected.  As with any Squad story, it ends the way you’d expect, but the details aren’t quite what you might have seen coming.  Great stuff.

Dr. Fate (1987) by J.M. DeMatteis, Keith Giffen, and Dave Hunt.  This is a series that eluded me when I started collecting, despite the house ads that enticed me.  Glad I finally got to read it.  Revealing how the “new” Dr. Fate came into being post-Crisis, it was a fun, if forgettable, tale that included one of my favorite enigmatic JLI characters.  

Firestorm 62-64 + Annual 5 by John Ostrander, Joe Brozowski, et al.  Crossing over with the Suicide Squad, this storyline has Dr. Stein suffering from seizures as an inoperable tumor threatens his life, leading to Firestorm’s declaration he will transmute the fissionable material of all the world’s nuclear warheads if the United States and Russian governments cannot reach an arms agreement.  When the Squad is brought in to deal with Firestorm (followed closely by the newly-formed Justice League), things go from bad to worse and Colonel Rick Flag must battle on the opposite side of Batman for the first time (which will lead to an interesting confrontation in the Squad’s own book).  In the end, the audience is given a “new” Firestorm, the full of extent of which is, at the time, as yet unknown.

Doctor Mid-Nite (1999) by Matt Wagner & John K. Snyder, III.  The introduction of a new Doctor Mid-Nite (unknowingly, I seem to have collected a selection of series with a common theme), this book is almost terribly overwritten with too much talking and exposition and not enough “action.”  The art from Snyder is lovely, and the overall storyline, with a few exceptions, is fairly good.  But this didn’t need to be three oversized issues.  If it had been cut down a bit, I think this could have been something approaching “really good.” 

The Phantom (1987) by Peter David, Joe Orland, and Dennis Janke.  This story incorporates the 21^st Phantom, in the present, and the 13^th Phantom, nearly 150 years in the past, in an overarching narrative thread with the Phantom in combat with the Chessman family.  This was a pretty good story – engaging, with smartly staged parallels, and a satisfying conclusion – but the real star here was Joe Orlando’s artwork, which was a rarity at this stage in his career.  Fun stuff, and beautiful to look at.

Star Reach Classics by Frank Brunner, Len Wein, Howard Chaykin, P. Craig Russell, Dave Sim, et al.  A collection of the best from the not quite underground/not quite mainstream anthology series, Star Reach.  It’s a showcase for some legendary creators, and the art is wonderful in every issue.  But, with the apparent exceptions of Russell and Lee Marrs, it seems to have been an excuse for the artists to draw boobs and get them published.  Not bad, but not great either. 

I also read the new Ms. Marvel collection by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona.  Starring the first Muslim hero in mainstream, western comics, this was a fun read and and important book. Check out my full review here. 

WATCHING:

Still enjoying the Flash on the CW.  Loved the introduction of Captain Cold, and the hint at Heat Wave’s forthcoming appearance.  This continues to be a fun series, offsetting the dour and grim tone that so many superhero TV series and comics seem insistent on utilizing.  It also helps that the Flash is my favorite superhero.  Bleeding Cool had an interesting theory on its site about the connection between Barry Allen and Dr. Wells, which I expanded upon here. 

SIGN OFF:

That’s it for this week.  Looking forward to starting Turing’s Cathedral next week, as well as continuing to plow through my comic to-read pile.  Once I whittle that down, I plan on reading the entirety of Matt Wagner’s Grendel.  I’ve read a bunch of it, but not all.  Really looking forward to that.

And, as always, check out my friends – Brad & Matt and Don McMillan for their own weekly recaps on things comic-y and geeky, and we'll see what's what in seven.  

-chris

NEW TO ME: JSA volume 1

Now that I’ve been at the UMaine library for half a year, I am finally availing myself of their services – specifically, utilizing the interlibrary loan functionality in order to get trade collections and graphic novels that I’ve not yet read but have wanted to for some time. The first book I received was volume 1 of Grant Morrison’s much-lauded JLA run. Two posts on that can be found here and here.

The other series I am checking out is the return of the JSA under the guiding hands of David S. Goyer (Blade, Batman Begins) & James Robinson (Starman), which would eventually lead into Geoff Johns’s run on this series from 1999.

I read the first volume – Justice Be Done, collecting issues 1 through 5, plus Secret Files #1 – and it was okay. At least it was better than the initial JLA volume from Morrison, Porter, and Dell.

The story worked well, though it did feel terribly padded. There seemed to be a lot of “talking heads” scenes that were meant to remind readers (or introduce them) to these characters – a mix of the classic JSA heroes such as Alan Scott (the original Green Lantern) and Jay Garrick (the original Flash) and new characters like Sand (once the ward of the golden age Sandman, Wesley Dodds) and Jack Knight, the new Starman from James Robinson’s well-received series of the same name. My thoughts on the first omnibus collection of this series are here.

The main thrust of this first story arc is the pending return of Dr. Fate, and the heroes’ need to find and protect the child who will house the reincarnation of Nabu (the spirit/entity that is Dr. Fate) before Mordru gets to him. For what it was, this was a fairly good story. It set up the new status quo well enough; it brought back a classic version of a classic hero (Dr. Fate), and it came to a climax with a bit of a twist – though a twist I saw coming as soon as Mordru got hold of Nabu’s vestments. But, maybe I’ve read too many superhero comics to be that surprised anymore.

The dialogue – which is something that grates on me in Robinson’s Starman series – was okay, but often fell into “exposition” mode far too much. Again, I get that they were introducing old and underused characters to a “new” audience. But for a writer of Robinson’s acclaim – I found it disappointing.

The art, mainly from penciler Steve Sadowski with inks by Michael Bair, was serviceable. It was, for the most part, solid superhero work with occasional stabs at innovation (a two-page spread with Black Canary comes to mind, but that was ruined by poorly placed word balloons). The storytelling was clear, the characters were recognizable, but it was all pretty “vanilla.” Which isn’t a bad thing – clear storytelling will win over muddled “experimentation” as much as not. But it made little impression on me.

Ultimately, the main thing I took away from this first collection of JSA was that I did not care about these characters. Even Jay Garrick and Alan Scott – characters with which I have a bit of history from my years reading comics – didn’t excite me. And I really wonder if it isn’t a result of James Robinson’s writing. Starman – though I found the initial chapters exciting – is a series I’m unsure I will continue reading past those first sixteen issues of Omnibus #1. The Golden Age did nothing for me. And this is serviceable, at best.

But I will be continuing with JSA because I have enjoyed most of what I’ve read from Geoff Johns, and his work begins in the next trade. I’m anxious to see what he does with the characters and to find out if it’s the characters or the creators that are leaving me cold.

-chris