Batman- The Grant Morrison Odyssey: New 52 Style V3

What Came Before:

Part 1: Batman & Son
Part 2: Club of Heroes/Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul
Part 2.1: Devil-Bats & The Bridge to RIP
Part 3: RIP
Part 4: The Missing Chapter/Last Rites/Final Crisis
Part 5: Batman Reborn
Part 6:Blackest Knight/Batman vs. Robin
Part 7: Batman & Robin Must Die!!!
Part 8: Return of Bruce Wayne Part 1
Part 9: Return of Bruce Wayne Part 2
Part 10: Batman Inc. Part 1
Part 11: Batman Inc. Part 2
New 52 Part 1
New 52 Part 2

 Depart the origin issue and return to where we left off with Matches Malone being hung, Redbird fighting dogs, and based on this cover, Wingman in action!

Only, instead of Redbird fighting dogs & soldiers as in issue #3, we kick this issue off with two direct stabs at the heart of Bruce Wayne and the foundations of what created Batman:

The Monarch Theatre....Zorro's Restaurant...two direct shots at Bruce Wayne: NOT Batman, at Bruce Wayne.  The theater outside which where Thomas & Martha Wayne were murdered, a restaurant named after the movie that Bruce and his parents watched prior to their deaths, plus a Bible quote hyping up Leviathan; this is all a direct shot at Wayne by Talia Al Ghul because, as she says in the 3rd panel, "...he took my son from me".

What is rather intriguing about this sequence though is the relatively throw-away line by The Heretic that reads "I thought I was your son..."; that line, and Talia's follow about Leviathan having many children, betrays something more sinister and rather insidious about her plans for Bruce, Batman, and Gotham City.

The next scene returns to the "trial" of Matches Malone as he ignites that match, sets ablaze a gunpowder trail, and announces that he "...set a new record for holding breath" as the world around him goes batshit nuts (pun totally intended)!

As that page shows we've got El Guaucho and The Hood in action against Talia's assassins. In the subsequent pages there is a good deal of mindless ultraviolence as the Club of Heroes take on Merlyn and a horde of other nameless villains.  In the midst of this chaos we catch up to the activity of issue #4 as Damian Wayne, aka Redbird, joins the fray and Wingman steps up to the plate. The most interesting part of this, for me obviously, takes place in the fourth panel of this following page:

Obviously there is a recognition here between Damian/Redbird and The Wingman that flows both ways but before it can be explored much further we cut scene to Matches Malone getting away from his "trial".  I think my favorite part of this whole sequence comes from Damian's insistence that Bruce said ROBIN was grounded, not REDBIRD.  Oh yeah, add in the fact that D insists he knows Wingman's fighting style and I think the scene depicted below is multi-layered:

There is some humor to be found in Damian talking about the dog's blood I must admit...

Anywho, as we progress we see more of the Club of Heroes & Batman Inc. brought into the fray as Knight, Nightwing, and Red Robin come bursting through windows while Squire snips at power lines like Wolverine in the Hellfire Club.  This is Batman Inc in full-force and they are a tough lot!

Batwing arrives on the scene with some reference to the events of Leviathan Strikes! plus we get an appearance by Alfred who name drops Kirk Langstrom and his "Man-Bat Serum". We also get Damian showing off his own detective skills by noticing Wingman's voice, accent, and "unmistakable grating sound"...

GoatBoy rears his head again with Lumina Lux in tow as a hostage.  The two individuals who sought to play Batman & Matches Malone for suckers are in one place and ultimately only one of them wins the kindness of Bruce Wayne.  Lumina stabs GoatBoy with a fork, allowing her to escape, and Bats gives her the Multiple Sclerosis medicine she told Matches her sister needed.

So, according to Bats, The League of Assassins is broken and Brucie wants Talia to have a sitdown to talk about what's going on.  She in turn tells Bruce to reveal to Damian just who Wingman, his Double Agent, really is...

So I find the name Wingman especially intriguing given the reveal of his identity.  Now I was holding out some ridiculous hope that the introduction of a new Wingman following the events of the Black Glove story arc would somehow lead to a Jean Paul Valley. Now, given that the original Wingman was a traitor to the group and was responsible for killing the original Dark Ranger, the choice of Jason Todd to fill the role was...ironic perhaps.

Look at JT's previous roles; he was a Robin, a sidekick, a WINGMAN to Batman more or less.  Upon his rebirth (due to Superboy-Prime punching stuff in the pre-New 52 world), he was a traitor to EVERYTHING Batman stood for; he killed villains, took over drug dealing operations, and ultimately made a mockery of everything Batman stood for before the BS that was Countdown to Infinite Crisis attempted to turn him into something...awful.

In his post-rebirth world, thanks to Judd Winick and the Red Hood: Lost Years mini, Jason has a very strong connection to Talia Al Ghul which also puts him in a prime position to be a part of this mission despite his anti-Batman history.

The sad thing is that despite everything heroic he has done, despite all of the missions that Damian has undertook alongside his father, ultimately (as a result of seeing the future) Bruce still sees the threat his son represents.  So, in front of most of his New 52 family (minus Batgirl), Bruce essentially tells a heartbroken Damian that he must return to his mother or else we will see the world of Batman #666...

The next issue of Batman Inc, number 5 to be precise, take us on a journey through the world of 666...

 Yeah, I love using alternate covers, what can I say?

Essentially we pick up right where we left off with Gordon and his men arresting the various assassins that Tali sicked on Batman Inc but it turns into a tale of Bruce telling Jason and Damian just what happens if D ascends to the cape & cowl:

As Bruce saw in the future, presumably in his The Return of Bruce Wayne visit to Vanishing Point, and as we all saw in Batman #666, the future under Damian-Bats is a bit of a nightmare.  Previously we saw a Gotham under the rule of a Batman willing to slaughter anyone in his path (evidenced by the murder of Pyg) and one in opposition to whatever still existed of the GCPD (headed up by Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl).

As you can see in the panel above, the relationship between Barbara and Damian-Bats is far less contentious than previously depicted and, in fact, allows room for Alfred-Kitty! Also, in stark opposition to the version of the character published in the New 52 era, Babs is depicted in a wheelchair, totally in continuity with the pre-New 52 version of her character as well as with the original Batman #666 version.

Now this version of Gotham has been overrun by Joker toxin (as referenced in #666) and they remaining "heroes" are left defending Arkham Asylum against the hordes of the infected (Walking Dead influenced perhaps?).

The baby Damian saved (tagged as Batman Beyond's Terry McGinnis in #700) is apparently already immune to this chaos but the rest of Gotham isn't!  Jackanapes, in the original #666 story, pops back up here and confirms (whilst spouting biblical Revelations references) that the baby isn't just immune but he is also a carrier of the Joker toxin and has now infected all of Arkham.

So in the midst of the chaos on Arkham which includes Barbara getting infected with Joker Toxin and shooting Damian-Bats with a Tommy Gun, we also have a man who is likely Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne influencing the President to drop bombs on Gotham City!  Prior to that page...

We have amazing artist, and all-around awesome dude Chris Burnham replicating a Kubert scene, plus Dr. Hurt laying a guilt trip on Damian for being the one responsible for opening up "the hole in things" that lead to all of this drama.

This page from the death of Arkham, and essentially Gotham, is necessary to point out just due to its inclusion of a great number of other villain's Grant Morrison dealt with during his run.  Not only do we have Jackanapes prominently featured but it also includes Flamingo (first introduced in #666 before being featured in Batman & Robin) as well as Weasel and some Dark Knight Returns Mutant looking guy.  As you can see, Damian knows it's his mother Talia...

Still, the sad revelation after the bombs are dropped and Dr. Hurt's influence is felt and we return to present day is that fourth panel look from Damian to his father. "Don't make me go back to her" is one of the most heartbreaking lines I can imagine Morrison writing and Burnham's depiction of that moment completely conveys all the sadness I would imagine Damian is feeling at that moment.

Unfortunately for the Wayne family, resolution must wait as a building containing Knight, Squire, Halo, Looker, Batwing, and others, explodes into flames....

To be continued...

SNIKT!: Thinking about Wolverine....

   

It is safe to say that those are as close to my first visuals of Wolverine as I can find on Google images. The first from Marc Silvestri & Dan Green and the second from John Byrne & Terry Austin.  Technically my first Uncanny X-Men issue was #224 but he's not on the cover and image finder was no help getting an interior page of Wolvie from that ish.  The second image is originally from UXM #113 but I first read it as part of the wonderful Classic X-Men series...ish #19 to be exact.  That series enabled me to essentially read the entire history of the All New, All Different team from their Giant Size intro until the Classic issues and my back-issue collection met up somewhere around issue #170.

They were a great way to immerse myself in the history of the team plus, for the first 44 issues, they contained great back-up stories that further fleshed out the characters.  Several of them are quite memorable for me including the Magneto back-up from #19, several great Wolverine back-ups with him & Crawler, him and Jean, a story about what happened between panels when Jean became Phoenix, when Proteus played with Wolverine, not to mention awesome covers & page art like these from John Bolton:

It was a phenomenal introduction as an 8 or 9 year old kid to these characters and while this blog is not intended as a a reflection on that series (the back-ups are largely available in the X-Men:Vignettes collections), it is because of stories like these, and in the way in which he was presented, that I fell in love with Wolverine.

I imagine the hairy little (at least back then) Canadian guy with his adamantium claws was a gateway into comics for many a kid.  He was tough, hell everything about him screamed tough.  He fought tough, talked tough, healed from everything, and HE HAD FREAKIN' CLAWS!  Created by Len Wein and first drawn by Herb Trimpe for an Incredible Hulk story, he immediately demanded my attention more than any other character in that first UXM issue I bought (Longshot and Havok were distant seconds).  I followed him everywhere, into Alpha Flight, into his own solo on-going series (the Claremont/Miller book was before my time so I read it much later), into Marvel Comics Presents, basically if Wolverine was there so was my (dad's) money.  I even remember him freaking out when I asked him to buy me the Wolverine Saga books because they were priced at the insanely high tag of $3.95!!!!

So yeah, suffice it to say that I was a huge fan of Wolverine...I'd dig up my Halloween costume picture if I had the slightest clue where it was located...so it slightly saddens me to realize how little I actually follow the character anymore.  I mean I still put my money down for Wolverine & The X-Men every month, or rather twice a month now, but I haven't purchased a single issue of his solo books in several years.  What happened? 

I suppose I'll show you some of the highlights of a text conversation between me and my friend that put this whole thing in my head in the first place:


ME: I want to write a Wolvie tale but despite reading the guy for 20+ years I find I have nothing original to say

RYAN: That's probably part of the problem...

ME: Aside from Jason Aaron...I can't think of the last good take on Wolvie

RYAN: Last Wolvie run that stick in my head is Millar

ME: Old Man Logan?

RYAN: Yeah

ME: All I think of was how insanely delayed it was because they though McNiven could do a monthly...

RYAN: Or even Enemy of the State

ME: Enemy of the State was good

 

 

RYAN: They need to treat Wolverine like Spidey...make it a flagship title, put one committed writer on it with a long-term plan, like Slott, and rotate a few regular artists

 

2004/5 and 2008/9....comics from eight and four years ago respectively were the last standout Wolverine story arcs either of us could think of...that's not a good thing for someone who is such a flagship character for Marvel and the X-Franchise.  Look at other flagship characters; you have Captain America under Ed Brubaker, Spider-Man under Dan Slott, Daredevil under Bendis/Brubaker/Waid, and Iron Man under Matt Fraction who have had lengthy, critically acclaimed runs.  They have told long form stories with their characters and I find myself unable to think the last time this happened for Wolverine.  I suppose it would be Millar's run from #20-#32 of Volume 2 or perhaps Jason Aaron's extended tryst with Logan across multiple books over the last several years that still continues in Wolvie & The X-Men. Still, as much as I love that book, it's not so much a Wolverine book (despite the title) but more an ensemble piece.

 

Oh wait!

 

 

Daniel Way wrote all 50 issues of this book! That's the longest run I can remember on a Wolverine book since Larry Hama wrote basically every issue save four from 31-118 and yet, despite that four year run, Origins has largely faded from my memory.  Started with lots of promise to unravel the ridiculously convoluted history of Logan and somehow managed to make it even MORE convoluted with the stupid Romulus character's involvement (which now Jeph Loeb has made even worse and I hope everyone who touches a Wolvie book from now until the end of time pretends it never happened).  Also, Way is not the caliber writer in terms of skill and recognition that a Brubaker, Bendis, Fraction, or Aaron are...

 

Anyway, before I move on, let me say that Aaron is responsible for what I think is the best single issue in recent memory of a Wolverine book:

ME: I gave up on Wolvie after its first relaunch...picked it up again after House of M...dropped it again and have DL'd ever since...bought some Weapon X

RYAN: Aaron started out great, got silly towards the end. Bunn started out ok, got lame. I'm gonna DL the new titles, not buying. "The Best There Is" kinda scared me off extra Wolvie titles

ME: Best There Is was awful...and Loeb's arc was shit. I hated that story where his memories got cut up too...was that Bunn?

RYAN: Yeah, think so. Bunn continued the Dr. Rott thing which started w/ Aaron...but I think Bunn screwed with his memories. Don't remember.

ME: It just pissed me off...like he thought "I like Wolvie better when he couldn't remember stuff" so he just found a way to make it happen

I read an interview with Mark Waid where he said "...the next guy who does Daredevil will either drop a safe on everything I did, or go back because he remembers what Ann  Nocenti did with great fondness and he wants to do that". 

It immediately came back to my mind when we were talking about Wolvie and Bunn's decision to erase his memories (I am not even sure if Aaron has incorporated that into his book now that I think about it). For the longest time, right up until post-House of M and this:

Wolverine had little memories of his past prior to the Weapon X program and the adamantium bonding process.  It made for a fun sandbox for various writers to play in because, since he had no concrete origin or history, it was possible for Logan to have been everywhere and seen everything.  He could know anybody, could have had experiences and adventures in every country around the globe, and it was a game that writers milked to death. 

It made for fun stories as Chris Claremont, Larry Hama, Fabian Nicieza, Scott Lobdell, and a slew of others over the years explored the endless possibilities that Wolverine's tabula rasa state provided.  So when the moment happened, when Marvel showed some balls by having Logan remember it all, it closed some doors creatively I imagine.  Essentially writers were now in the game of creating a true history of Wolvie, of cementing his memories as fact, and sorting out the chaos of a history that had been created over the years. 

It all really started with the Origin mini written by Paul Jenkins that predated this memory unlocking.  That story set-up his age, his true name, his love for redheads, and then it was the Origins series by Way that spun out of the returned memories that was supposed to explore this stuff.  Instead it gave us Dakken, Romulus, and a whole lot more confusion if you ask me.


RYAN: I actually think its his character in general that people have trouble with. Too man contradictions over the years. He's a killer...he's not a killer. He's a loyal boyfriend...he's a ladies man. He's a team player...he's a loner. It changes writer by writer. Doesn't help that his very memories keep changing writer to writer

ME: Yeah...it helped when you only had two writers handling him for his first 15 years but now...Remender may be the closest to what I think of

RYAN: Yeah...everyones got diff idea for what he's like, its confusing. Its easier with a character like Spidey
 
ME: To me he is Claremont & Hama's failed samurai...loyal and cares about the kids, the guy who stayed loyal to Mariko until she died

RYAN: I actually really grew to like Morrison's version.

ME: I did too...Its Grant after all

RYAN: Yeah, Just felt...different.

ME: Wolvie stripped down to his "I am 200 yrs old and have seen it all" badass core

RYAN: Yeah, I mean seriously, he's THAT old and he's still trying to "find himself"...

Peter Parker is largely the science guy for whom nothing seems to go right a vast majority of the time (except for his ability to attract the hotties), which is actually why the Big Time arc was so different.  He got the job, the girl, the respect, etc.
Reed Richards is the genius & family man, Tony Stark is the genius playboy industrialist, they all have a very concrete identity and although they may slightly stray from type occasionally, they always come back to form.

Wolverine, on the other hand, is a huge contradiction in almost every aspect of his personality.  As Ryan pointed out, and as the recent X-Force books have played up, he is a killer...for awhile he was the only true killer on the X-teams.  Sure other X-people had killed but part of the struggle of Wolverine's life was his battle with the killer inside, with the berzerker. It's part of where the Claremont ideal of "failed samurai" came into play.

He's a father figure...very evident now with the running of the school and whatnot...but it is a role he has always filled to some degree.  The list of children he has mentored or played big brother/father for is endless...and filled with females.  Kitty Pryde, Rachel Summers, Jubilee, Black Widow, Psylocke, X-23, one of my favorite Uncanny issues of all time is basically all about this:

It's Barry Windsor-Smith art for one, but the story by Claremont is amazing as well.  On the surface it seems like another tale of Wolvie fighting baddies while on the run and at the end of his rope, but the true beauty of it is in his interaction with Katie Power.  Despite being in what was essentially an animal state, he still does everything in his power (no pun) to protect Katie just as she protects him to the best of her ability until he recovers. 

He adopts a daughter in Amiko after finding her in the rubble of a building and Tyger Tiger came into existence because Wolverine chose to save a woman, a complete stranger, who the Reavers mentally violated.  He treated a robot child who tried to blow him up named Elsie Dee (ya know I don't think I go that LCD pun when I was 10) just as a normal human girl. Even in the movies he takes care of Rogue.  Simply put, he is a caretaker for the next generation and that is why the idea of him running the new school is actually perfect.

Wolverine is a loner but yet is friends with the entire Marvel U.  Captain America, Spidey, Thing, Fat Cobra, fn Squirrel Girl (which is a whole other creepy story considering she is likely very young), he has some relationship to any every character you can think of.  He had an extraordinarily close friendship with Nightcrawler and was also quite tight with Colossus. 

RYAN: Felt to me like he wanted an excuse to write Melita out

ME: That too

RYAN: Or like he didn't wanna deal w/ the relationship so he contrives a way around it

ME: Yeah

RYAN: Kinda felt like Aaron botched it with Melita too, which is odd because he created it

ME: Yeah...part of me feels like writers have little clue how to handle his love life

He is a "ladies man" but also one of the most loyal men to have on your side.  His sexual resume is quite lengthy including Mystique, Yukio, Melita, Silver Fox, Domino, Gahck (Savage Land woman with whom he has a forgotten child), someone compiled a list here and here. Yet, despite all of those women, I will always think of these:

 

Mariko Yashida will always be the love of Logan's life.  He tried to be a better man for her, he wanted to marry her of his own free will (as opposed to Viper who he was obligated to marry), he was different...for her.  Jean Grey may be his biggest unrequited love, but Mariko is the one who truly had his heart and I wish some writer would occasionally bring back the idea of Logan visiting her grave every so often (Silver Fox's too).  It may seem like continuity porn but I think it is a way to remind everyone of who Wolvie is, where he came from, and a way to let newer readers into his rich history.

Ultimately I think that's what I am looking for...that sort of powerful story like ish #57 of Volume 1 up there. A story that resonates with me and I still remember vividly fifteen, twenty, thirty years later.  Maybe it's the tenure I have with comics, maybe it's the volume of comics I read now as opposed to back then when it was maybe four books in an entire month, but there are so few stories that linger for me.  It's not just a Wolverine thing, it's a comic book thing in general, I guess I just choose to filter it through the lens of Logan since he who I was a fan of first.

Before Batman, before Brubaker's Captain America, before Johns' Hal Jordan, there was Wolverine. Chris Claremont, Larry Hama, John Byrne, Marc Silvestri, John Buscema, BWS, Romita Jr, just to name a few, they shaped the SHORT and hairy Canadian berserker samurai for me.

Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, the Kubert brothers, Jim Lee, the brought him to another life as I got older.

Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Jason Aaron, Nick Bradshaw, those are the guys who have defined, and are continuing to define, Wolverine for me as an adult, and despite the fact that he looks absolutely nothing like any comic book incarnation of Wolverine that ever existed prior to the movies, Hugh Jackman has done a pretty decent job of bringing him to life on the silver screen.

Wolverine is marketable, and just as well known to the masses as Cap or Spidey or Thor. He deserves greatness in both story and art, not to mention in cinema.  Now with Paul Cornell & Alan Davis on one upcoming book and Frank Cho on the recently released Savage Wolverine perhaps he will get that classic story for the modern audiences.  He deserves his "Winter Soldier", his "Big Time", his article in USA Today announcing something huge to the world. 

Hopefully that day is coming soon and with the movie on the horizon, I certainly wouldn't be surprised.  He is the best in the world at what he does after all....

Accessibility & Continuity Part 1 (Or How I Likely Won't Stop Worrying & Totally Love The New 52)

I almost just called this, "I'll take ripping off classic movies titles and calling it an homage for $1000 Alex"...



"We really want to inject new life in our characters and line," DC Comics co-publisher Dan DiDio told USA Today. "This was a chance to start, not at the beginning, but at a point where our characters are younger and the stories are being told for today's audience."

“I certainly wouldn’t buy a DVD series of a hit show and start at Season 7,” Jim Lee said. “I would want to go back and start from the beginning.”       

"The approach is very much about who they are behind the masks and how they interact together and how these personalities mix," Geoff Johns told USA Today of the title (JLA)

Those are just some of the initial quotes pertaining to DC Comics "New 52" prior to its launch at the close of August with Flashpoint #5 and the new JLA #1.  In the ensuing 2 months, and now entering month 3, the numbers have been good, and DC finally trumped Marvel in sales with the real numbers still coming together due to returns/digital sales/international sales.  There's been critical praise & critical hate, creator praise & creator hate, and a fair share of controversy when it comes to the subject of sexism & DC's overall portrayal of its female characters (who are largely written by men). 

But none of those subject matters are what I'm choosing to write about tonight because quite honestly, I could give a damn about sales figures, the sexism issue isn't one I would choose to address yet, and I'm not looking to heap praise on any one creator or condemn anybody just yet.  I will give a quick plug to what my faves thus far have been when I'm done, if only to maybe turn a reader on to something they haven't picked up yet, but that's not my issue of import right now.  What concerns me, obviously as indicated by the title of this blog, are the concepts of accessibility and continuity...

I know I've pointed it out before, but that right there was the first comic that was ever purchased for me.  Actually, that's probably not accurate as I can recall my grandmother picking me up some black & white paperback collections of old Amazing Fantasy & Spider-Man stories from garage sales when I was really young.  I remember reading the 1st appearances of Spidey, Doc Ock, & Sandman, among others, as well as Peter's first pow-wow with the Fantastic Four, but I'll be damned if I can find this old things online anywhere.  Anyway, let me get this train back on its track...

That was the first comic book of my COLLECTION, the title that started this nearly 30 year obsession with fantastical characters, crazy alien worlds, mutants, batmen, and lately odd swamp creatures, Dada-inspired villains, time-warping secret societies, and at the very moment before I started typing, an odd city named Opal. I am happy to say that I actually still have that very issue, well 2 copies of it actually, but I am still in possession of that first dose of Claremont/Silvestri/Green greatness with a cover that's barely attached at the top staple, but refuses to give up the ghost after all these years.  I tried to find it to put a picture up along with this blog, but pulling it out would require digging through a closet filled with nearly 30 long boxes.  Needle in the haystack and what not...

It was an amazing read to 8 year old me, and who knows how many times I read that single issue during my flight from Denver to Lansing, or how many times I continued to read it in the months after my dad first got it for me.  It was colorful, exciting, descriptive, but one thing it was certainly was not was ACCESSIBLE.  I downloaded the issue & read it over before I started this (I own 2 copies so I don't feel too bad, plus that whole 30 boxes thing) just to insure that my memory of the contents was accurate, and yeah...it's potentially just as inaccessible as I recall.  That is if you're an adult...



So blow that page up & read it...maybe it's your first time ever seeing it, perhaps you're like me and have been over it a million times, but if it is your virgin read, especially if the World of X is totally alien to you, then tell me what the hell these two women who essentially appear of similar age are talking about.  First timers & X-Novices should wait a few pages when Rogue talks about Mystique being "more my folks than my natural parents" and tell me you're not a bit confused.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

See this issue is both preamble to the coming "Fall Of The Mutants" arc that enveloped all three X-Centric books (yes once upon a time there were only 3) but also serves as post-script to the story that brought our merry mutants to San Francisco (yup, Matt Fraction & Ed Brubaker weren't the first ones to bring them to the Golden Gate City...shame this didn't get referenced in their very Claremont-influenced run).

There are layers upon layers of back-story built into damn near every panel of this issue from the Storm,/Naze/Forge triangle to Madelyne Pryor's history to Havok's morose attitude to Longshot's naivete; I could likely find something referential in every sentence given the style in which Chris Claremont writes.  I can safely say that this is pretty dense material now that I'm looking back on it, the type of material that I imagine DC Execs would have looked at in 2011 and promptly decided was too inaccessible to new readers. 

But looking back on it...thinking about how I was 8 years old, picking up my first X-comic probably because I thought the cover was cool, with absolutely zero knowledge about any of these characters to go on, and I still took tremendous joy in those 23 pages.  Accessibility wasn't something that crossed my mind and dense history wasn't something preventing me from finding enjoyment in the story unfolding before me.  I think it would be safe to say that it is BECAUSE of that dense history that I truly became a comic book fan. 

Why is that you ask?  Well I'll tell you...

It's because I was a kid and I actually used my imagination.  I filled in the blanks myself to a degree, and let my curiosity about this brave new world flourish to a point where I harrassed my dad constantly to take me to the comic shop (the late Capital City Comics on Michigan Ave represent) to dig up whatever back issues I could find.  I had this driving desire to fill-in the blanks, to do my homework so to speak, and learn every iota of information I could about these odd X-People.  When Uncanny made reference to the original X-Men (Who?What?) I felt obligated to figure that story out and X-Factor became a part of my rotation; Classic X-Men issues gave me the backstory I needed from the early days of the "All-New, All-Different" while I worked my way backwords from #224, eventually meeting in the middle about the time Classic hit #175, and essentially having a complete story from the debut of the new team.  It spun out into the 1st volume of New Mutants and the 1st Wolverine on-going (2 series I proudly own every issue of) as their stories sprung up or tied into whatever was going down in UXM.  It's easy to see how I went from reading one comic to five in just a matter of a few months.  Hell, if you take that "I need to know it all" mentality out on a long enough timeline, it's pretty easy to see how I was collecting something like 20-30 different books a month at one point.

Point being, I MADE the books accessible to myself even at a young age because I was hungry for information and didn't NEED the author to give me every detail of every relationship or every old story; if I cared enough I could track it down, otherwise it was written clearly enough to know that a past existed and I could use my 8 year old imagination to piece it together.  It certainly helped in the beginning that Chris Claremont is very expository in his writing, the infamous thought bubble speeches listing all of Wolverine's attributes as he leaps into action, or Havok pointing out in every speech that Madelyne Pryor is his brother Cyclops' wife & he'll watch out for her.  The more cynical, jaded readers will look back on Claremont's style and mock it, but damn if it didn't make every issue feel ACCESSIBLE to a new reader. 

The dialogue may not have been the most natural 100% of the time, but it's a damn comic book and even reading it now, it doesn't read forced or out of context.  The moments in which this expository dialogue is spewed are relevant to one another, Rogue is talking about what Mystique told her for example and mentions that she was raised by her in the process, Dazzler puts on a light show using her powers which allows Wolverine to remind her (and tell the new reader) about the current mutant climate, I think you can understand what I mean.  It was a fine line to walk between informing the new readers without making the long-timers feel beaten over the head with information they already possess, but Claremont did it expertly once upon a time.

Now it's not cool to write like that anymore, thought bubbles are passe, and even Claremont jumped the shark on his own style of writing with X-Treme X-Men, forgetting how to make it work like he did in the past.  But just because there isn't a writer who does his job in a style that makes the work easy for this apparent "I need it now" mentality, doesn't automatically make the books inaccessible to new readers, it simply means that....like I did when I was 8....people have to put in some EFFORT, interact with their hobby, and track down the missing pieces of the puzzle themselves if it's that important to them.  And it is easier than ever to get that information if you really want it.

25 years ago the trade market barely existed, now...especially with Marvel Comics...you'd be hard-pressed to find a major moment that isn't collected in some fashion AND with the prolification of the Omnibus collections for the major books, it is even easier to sit down and read every issue of Uncanny X-Men ever written.  It blew my mind this week when I saw a fellow customer at my local shop buying a Claremont/Jim Lee Omnibus that covered every issue of Uncanny X-Men between Inferno & X-Tinction Agenda including a random Classic X-Men issue from the Dark Phoenix Saga.  Marvel has, or is in the process of, making essentially every X-Men issue ever available in TPB or HC, nullifying a great deal of the back issue market, but making it so damn easy for a real collector....no that's the wrong word...a real FAN to fill-in all their storyline blanks.

DC Comics isn't so hot at this in my opinion, and I'm basing this solely on the Batman family because that's my main vein of knowledge, but I don't think they truly take advantage of the collections market as well, or as quickly, as they could.   For example, the Batman Inc. Hardcover comes out at the end of November and collects issues 1-7.  Well issue 7 was released in June, so we waited 5 months for the collection.  Conversely, FF #5 was also released at the end of June and the first Hardcover collection of ishs #1-5 was released in September.  This is just one example, but on the whole, Marvel seems much quicker on the ball to release the collections than DC AND seems much more willing to dig into their back catalogue for trades.  Doesn't logic dictate that when Dick Grayson took over the Mantle of the Bat after "Final Crisis" that DC reissue the "Prodigal" arc where he stepped up to the plate before?  Doesn't it seem natural that some serious Catwoman stuff would already be getting solicited in prep for "Dark Knight Rises"? I know they are dumping out some random collection of Bane stories, as well as reissuing Knightfall just a couple months after pulling Vols. 1 & 2, but Catwoman seems to be a big part of this too. 

And speaking of Knightfall, does anyone else feel like something is seriously missing in that collection with none of the AzBats Knightquest: Crusade & Bruce's Knightquest: The Search stories included?  It just jumps from Bruce being broken & heading off to find Shondra Kingsolving and JPV in his armored suit to Bruce healed and training to fight an uber-crazy AzBats.  Damn it DC, collect Knightquest!

So now that that tangent is over, I'll get back on track.  Point of all this being that it is largely easier than ever to make comic books accessible to yourself with the Trade/HC Market and online research via whatever Wiki pages you can dig up.  Although I must admit that half the fun in my younger days was digging through back issue bins at the Motor City Comic Con looking for that one random issue of X-Men or Batman that was missing from my run, and the feeling of accomplishment when you finally found it after checking a dozen different boxes.  Then you pay for it, and suddenly there's a dozen copies that appeared out of nowhere at someone else's table, and they're cheaper too!!!  Now, largely to due storage space restrictions, I play the same game with collections and get that same exhiliartion from finding Batman "Broken City" in Hardcover for 75% off, or filling the holes in my Grant Morrison collection at 50% off cover price (Vampirella & DC One Million!!!) at Wizard World Philly this year. 

There's work involved in being a true fan of this pop culture niche, and enjoyment should be found in that work.  Sometimes it can be infuriating to get to that reward, sometimes it is easy, but it should always be fun.  If it's not fun, then stop doing it...or at least stop reading the comic(s) that's sucking the fun out of it.  When you started reading, probably as a youth, it was because of the fun and excitement and imagination packed into every page.  As we get older though, we start to impress our aged thoughts onto these pages and likely take a lot of that fun-factor out ourselves. 

Questions of logic, realism, continuity, and possibility aren't something we care about when we pick up that first comic...it's a fantasy world after all, no different than sci-fi or swords & sorcery movies; our every day rules don't have to apply.  It is only as adults that we start to impress those ideas into the pages, that we start to question how accessible this is for other adults...but isn't the whole point to bring in new, YOUNG readers, not more adults & lapsed readers?  Don't we need fresh blood to carry this hobby, this passion of ours into the future? And if you're a parent or shop owner trying to open up the doors to a curious kid who has questions about what he's reading, how much trouble is it to help an eager mind get their answers from the plethora of sources available both in-print and online? 

I don't think the answer is in reboots, after all two of the most critically acclaimed runs in recent memory are Grant Morrison's "Batman" & "Batman & Robin" as well as Rick Remender's "Uncanny X-Force" and those are complete continuity porn.  Same goes for the whole basis of "X-Men Legacy" when it first started, the current direction of "New Mutants", it's safe to say that a large chunk of what Marvel is doing is 90's retro as a matter of fact.  A Venom solo book, Carnage solo books, a Scarlet Spider book, an Age of Apocalypse book...all sounds very continuity based to me, so maybe it's just Marvel going in the opposite direction of DC.  But that steers this talk into the continuity realm and I want to save that for part 2 of this blog since I've already been wordy enough. 

So to sum it up, go buy trades & HC's, go dig through some back issue bins, put the work in to learn your comic book history, don't let them convince you that comics are inaccessible.  Let me quick address that Jim Lee quote I opened up with regarding TV seasons; TV season sets are the equivalent of TPBs & HCs, you can always watch the current season while simultaneously getting yourself up to speed with the collections.  How many people do you think have watched Dexter or Breaking Bad from S1E1 versus how many people started in the middle of a later season and played catch up?

You know, al those words up above here and I think I could have summed it all up in three words: Accessibility is overrated...

Claremont: The Other Side Of The Coin

Back to our regularly scheduled blah blah blah....





That cover up there marked the return of Chris Claremont to the X-Verse after 101 issues away.  On the heels of the terribly disappointing "Apocalypse: The Twelve" story, the meh "Ages of Apocalypse" follow-up, as well as a really terrible 2-issue arc where everyone lost their powers, the man who made the X-Men into Marvel's premiere franchise finally returned!  The results: blargh....with an addendum.

See at the time somebody (Bob Harras it seems) decided to herald the return of the prodigal creator by putting a 6-month gap (storyline-wise) between ishs 380 & 381, as well as across the X-line.  Almost all the titles saw some level of change from this gap, with X-Force, X-Man, and Generation X, undergoing the most radical changes in the form of "Counter-X".  Warren Ellis writing X-books??? Whodathunkit!  The "Counter-X" books got a story arc called "Shockwave" to explain what happened during the gap, a luxury none of the other books received, and something which certainly hurt Claremont's two books the most.

In the 2 books Claremont got handed (Uncanny & X-Men), the gap saw new members to both teams, new leaders in the form of Gambit and Rogue respectively, new characters like Thunderbird III, and new villians in The Neo and The Goth.  Little explanation was given as to what happened during the time-jump, and new stuff was immediately thrown at the reader. 

At the time, reading these as a devout Claremont fan, I felt let down.  Re-reading these a few months ago, not much has changed.  It felt rushed at times, too much crammed into the readers' brain all at once, and little attention given to the how and why.  To his credit, Claremont did attempt to tie his new villains into the "powerless" story arc that preceded his run (an arc he may or may not have been ghost-writing anyway) but it still felt....forced.  The idiosyncrasies of Claremont (extensive internal monologues for example) did not translate well to an audience 10 years later, and the idea of long drawn out stories that took years to flesh out were not entirely feasible either.  Call it a lack of patience from the reader, or maybe just the feeling of being alienated from the book as a result of "6 months later", but after 9 months...two of which were spent in crossovers ("Maximum Security" and "Dream's End"), it didn't look good for Claremont. 

At least "Dream's End" was an X-Over where as "Max Security" was a Marvel wide story shoehorned into the two books.  "Dream's End" one real lasting effect on the X-Verse was the death of Moira MacTaggert at the hands of Mystique as well as the discovery of a cure for The Legacy Virus after what felt like a million years.  All in all, as a fan of Claremont's, these issues were not indicitive of his talent as it pertains to new fans of the book.  Later on, with some research, one can find out that his run was cut short by the promotion of Joe Quesada & Bill Jemas and they wanted changes in light of the 1st X-Men movie's success.  The slow-burn story that was Claremont's specialty wasn't going to happen and without any "Shockwave" style arc like the "Counter X" books, it left readers...especially this one...very disappointed with the highly anticipated return of Claremont to the X-books. 

Claremont got thrown the bone of  "X-Treme X-Men" after getting bumped from the other two books...well actually it was either take his own book or stay on the flagship books and coordinate with someone else.  He opted to do it on his own, and for me, this is where Double C's wheels truly fell off.  A nobody villain kills Psylocke right off the bat and injures Beast (who at this point was already in "New X-Men" looking completely different), forcing the book to initially be set before "New X-Men" starts.  Of course since Chris wasn't remotely attempting to coordinate with the other X-Writers, no mention of Beast's beating or Psylocke's death is ever mentioned by Grant Morrison or that other ass clown who was busy trying to ruin Uncanny X-Men at the same time as Grant was revolutionizing the X-Men.  "X-Treme" started on the basis of a hunt for Destiny's diaries (a subject introduced in "Dream's End"), but that plot point quickly went away in favor of...well in favor of doing nothing of importance. 

It's was like Big Brother and MiniTrue; Tessa is a good guy, and has always been a good guy in secret.  Bishop is named Lucas, Rogue is Anna, and they've always been that way.  Fans spent years begging to know Rogue's real name and he just pissed it out like so much dreck.  There was an attempt to recapture "God Loves, Man Kills" but instead it felt like, as it did for most of the series, Claremont was writing characters he had never written before.  Nobody felt like the characters they had always been.  Rogue got tattooed (no other artist has ever acknowledged this), Masque came back (Cable blew his head off and burned the body), Callisto got tentacle arms again (this was just dumb), it was one giant clusterfuck!  The only positive that came from the whole damn series was bringing back Rachel Summers into the X-Men.  I tend to hold onto a series until it either ends or gets so atrociously bad I can't justify spending a dime on it.  X-Treme became the latter after only 20 or so issues.  I didn't even make it for 2 years, but I did go back in later years and scour back issue quarter bins for issues I misssed just cause I'm a completist. 

What followed? A New Excalibur book that shat all over the way Grant Morrison ended his run and forced subsequent writers to create some BS rationale for why Magneto wasn't dead despite being killed by Wolverine pretty definitively.  This was actually worse than X-Treme!

Another run on Uncanny X-Men as part of "Reloaded" that saw the return of Psylocke, the introduction of X-23 to the team, and the Shiar scarring Rachel with the Phoenix tattoo...oh yeah they slaughtered the entire Grey family too.  This wasn't terrible, but was totally overshadowed by the amazing work of Joss Whedon on "Astonishing X-Men".  In the same way that Morrison's "New X-Men" highlighted how behind the times his X-contemporaries were, in my opinion, Whedon bascially did the same to Claremont & the assclown writing X-Men.

Now-a-days Marvel still seems to think they can make some money off letting Claremont write a book with a X on it.  So we get "X-Men Forever" and its sequel of the same name.  With the premise being that this was CC's intended story line if he'd stayed on the book after X-Men #3, the book immediately goes to hell by not following the premise at all.  Just like "X-Treme" we are treated to characters and storylines that are totally unrecognizable given that premise.  Wolvie and Jean Grey are having some kind of tryst, Storm's a little kid again, SHIELD is all up in the X-Business, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.  The dialogue is like taking the worst of CC's traits and amping them up 1000%.  This book managed to alienate me pretty quickly despite having an interesting premise of mutantkind nearing extinction (the opposite of the now-ignored Morrison plot from "E for Extinction").   So repulsed was I by this book that I dropped it after ten issues (and having a bi-weekly schedule was ridiculous).  The 2nd volume could be great, I'd never know, because as much as it pains me to say it...

I have given up on one of the writers who turned me into a comic book fan.  No book with Claremont's name on it will see my dollars, hell I won't even take the time to download it for free ;)  "X-Treme X-men" hurt me, "Excalibur Vol. 3" tore out my heart, and the combination of reading "X-Men: The End" and "X-Men Forever" shattered my soul.  Melodramatic?  Most certainly, but highly appropriate when discussing Double C. 

So instead of thinking of those books, I will think of the man who gave me "Inferno", "X-Tinction Agenda", "Fall of the Mutants", "Mutant Massacre", and much much more...


RIP
Chris Claremont
1975 - 1991

Chris Claremont...222 Uncanny Issues

Chris Claremont circa 2008


Uncanny X-Men #94-279, 381-389, 444-473

Two hundred twenty-two issues in total, one hundred eighty-five of those consecutively, all that spanning portions of four decades, and that is representative of Chris Claremont's work JUST on Uncanny X-Men.  That says nothing of X-Factor, New Mutants, Excalibur, Wolverine, or his forays into X-related mini-series, one-shots, annuals, and various other X-centric work.  He holds the honor of being the writer on the Guinness World Record holding X-Men #1 from 1991 (8.1 million copies and nearly $7 million) as well as being the father of the mutant boom

For this writer, Claremont holds the distinction of being the definitive X-writer.  He established the personalities, breathed new life into the existing characters, fleshed out the "new class" that he inherited, and gave strong identities to those he created.  His ability to define a characters' identity was second-to-none, usually done in the form of lengthy interior monologues, and he truly turned the sketches of some of comic's best artists into three dimensional beings.  He is the reason I got teary-eyed when Nightcrawler died in Second Coming, when Colossus sacrificed himself to cure the Legacy Virus, and when little Illyana died of that same virus.  It wasn't the writers handling the book at the time, as good as they may have been, but rather the character I had grown so attached to during the initial 185 issue run in which Claremont defined the core of each X-Man.  Even a character as briefly lived as the original Thunderbird was given a very strong identity that made the reader actually care about his death, despite his life only lasting the course of three issues.  That is a testament to the ability of Claremont to get inside his characters.

This is the man responsible for stories that have stood the test of time with repercussions that still carry today: Dark Phoenix, The Mutant Massacre, The Trial of Magneto, The Brood Saga, and my personal favorite...the run of stories that carried the team from "Fall of the Mutants" to "X-Tinction Agenda", especially the "Australian Saga" chunk.  He mastered the art of the slow burn, allowing stories to fester in the background before taking over the top slot.  The best example I can think of for this took place in both UXM #218 and UXM #232.  In the former, the reader simply sees Havok & Polaris ran off the road by a speeding bus and you see the fallout from the perspective of the two mutants.  Jump ahead to the latter, 14 issues later, and we finally see the events landing that ultimately led to Havok & Polaris' hit-and-run with Harry Palmer.  The Mr. Sinister/Madelyne Pryor/Jean Grey story, the Genosha story, the Siege Perilous, all stories that culminated over months and years.  All that in the days when only the major story arcs were collected in trades.

The effect Claremont had on the X-Universe is seen in nearly every author that followed him on the books.  With Scott Lobdell, Steven T. Seagle, Joe Casey, Alan Davis, and Ed Brubaker, there were some traits of Claremont in each.  Matt Fraction, with his use of on-going subplots, and general treatement of the book, may as well be the reincarnation of Claremont.  It's funny because I hated Fraction at first...but that's a story for another blog.  Oh yeah, and fuck Chuck Austen's run...

So thank Claremont for the stories that have endured decades, that have inspired movies, that turned Wolverine into a pop culture figure, and drove fanboys into protest over the potrayal of Gambit.  And after you do all that, you can then tell Claremont that it might be time to call it a night....

...To Be Continued...

Initation

Suggestions were made, ideas bounced around a bit, and here I am writing a blog.  Take the years of otherwise useless information floating around inside your head and do something with it.  That was the notion put before me given the twenty-plus years I have spent reading the 32 pages or so of multi-color fantasy otherwise known as comic books.  Really, it's more like 23 pages minus the ads and various other gaga thrown in for good measure, but that's neither here nor there.  It's enough to say that comic books are a hobby (spelled: obsession) for little old me.

Ever since my dad bought me a copy of Uncanny X-Men #224...



...at the Denver Airport in...1987...when I was...eight...well I've been hooked.  From Uncanny to Classic to Wolverine's 1st on-going to X-Factor, that first year or so of mutant reading opened me up to a whole new world.  Suffice to say I became a little obsessed, started using the titles of stories as stand-ins for the summer book reading contests at my local library, and fell hard down the slippery slope of back issue bins. Thank you Capital City Comics.

Now here I am....creeping on the end of 2010, and my palate has expanded beyond Claremont and Silvestri, Claremont and Byrne, Claremont and Buscema, Claremont and...well, you get the idea.  As a matter of fact, I've become more of a DC guy, with a strong Batman bent, and...at least according to friends...have an unhealthy obsession with everything birthed from the brain of Grant Morrison. 

That's the basics....and it all started with that cover.  That cover was oh so epic to the eyes of an 8 year old kid told he could only get one book to read on the flight home, and that piece of personal history actually holds up when I look at it now.  It screams of adventure and excitement, teasing you with events to come, and all for only 75 cents!!!  I still have that ish actually, cover hanging on for dear life by one small scrap of paper somehow attached to the top staple.  I look at it now and think....

...are comic books, gas, and cigarettes the things that have been hit the hardest by inflation or what?