Comic book heroes are usually rendered in an impossible physical ideal, but today’s superheroes go beyond Olympian physiques and into some crazy realm where even their muscles have muscles. Trying to pick the fittest and strongest amongst them is a mug’s game. Even Forbush Man looks like he’s been working out!

Manliness is something else entirely. You need a lot more than a square jaw and chiseled abs to join this particular club — you need a manly attitude, too. And since we’re talking comic books, we’re looking for exaggerated manliness, while stopping short of being — ahem — too manly. Stubbly chins, stogies, and gravelly voices all count for a lot. So does pimp style, womanizing, and a tendency to think with their fists.

It also helps to be kinda sorta a regular guy, or at least as regular as you can get while infused with gamma radiation, cosmic rays, or a super-soldier serum.

Who is the manliest superhero of them all? Joining me for today’s oh-so-serious nerd debate are Tom Mason, comic book scholar extraordinaire (and when he isn’t doing more important things, you can find him over at Comix 411). Also here is Chris Ulm, last seen at Longbox Graveyard as a part of my WonderCon panel, and also my co-host for the blog I did on Deathlok several weeks ago (and it occurs to me that Deathlok is pretty damn manly, too, but dead men are excluded from consideration).

(Both of these gentlemen will join me at my upcoming Comic-Con panel, so if you don’t like their choices below, c’mon by our panel and throw rotten fruit at them).

Our goal is to come up with a list of the ten manliest superheroes, but knowing these guys, it’s going to be a chore to stay on target …

PAUL: Who gets an honorable mention before we get to the list?

ULM: Aquaman might get my vote — the fact that he has the sheer swinging stones to show up riding a seahorse and spends his time talking to sea-spiders says a lot about his confidence — he obviously doesn’t give a crap what anyone thinks — not even Batman.

PAUL: Not Aquaman, no — not since he went sitcom on us. Plus he let his wife push him around during that family RV vacation. No one can be hectored by his spouse and make the list. That’s the reason Spider-Man doesn’t make it — Gwen Stacy, MJ, and Black Cat are the holy trinity of comic book girlfriends but Peter’s a mommas boy and he’s whipped.

TOM: Everyone knows Flash and Atom are whipped.

PAUL: Flash is SO whipped! I spent half a review column on Iris bugging Barry about being late and not the man Flash is and blah blah blah. It goes beyond the Lois Lane trope into some kind of power exchange fetish play.

TOM: Flash has never appealed to me because of this weird henpecked way they wrote him in the Silver Age. I like strong female characters, but they made Iris some kind of naggy harpy and turned Flash into a guy who was constantly fretting about getting in trouble. The whole recurring “Barry’s late again” with Iris standing in a doorway checking her watch is just too much. All those 60s DC editors, especially Weisinger and Schwartz, always put out comics with these bizarre male-female dynamics that seem mean-spirited and misogynistic and out of touch with reality.

And the Atom, the Ray Palmer one, is another weird 1960s domestic drama, with a guy who has the powers of a man but’s just six inches tall. I’m not buying it and no one else is.

ULM: Speaking of little guys, Ant Man has to go to bars explaining that he’s … Ant Man. And he STILL nailed the winsome Wasp. That’s MANLY. If he had manned up and just stayed Ant Man, he’d definitely get my vote. After all, he did create Ultron in his spare time. But since Henry Pym keeps changing his name like a giant pussy (“Oooh, check me out: I’m YELLOWJACKET! I’m GIANT-MAN now!”) he’s off my list.

plus, being a dick does NOT make you manly!

TOM: How about a lady’s man like The Spirit?

PAUL: The Spirit is interesting. Because of the femme fatales?

TOM: I think yeah because of the femme fatales. He’s got chicks falling all over him – most of them are evil and trying to kill him and he doesn’t catch on until it’s almost too late, but they keep a’coming. And he likes it. After fifteen beautiful women have tried to kill you, you might get suspicious of #16, but The Spirit welcomes her with open arms. That’s a special kind of guts, or the biggest lack of self-awareness for at least seven pages of every eight page story.

PAUL: By that criteria we’d have to include Daredevil. He notched up Black Widow, Electra, and pre-crackwhore Karen Page. Plus he holds his own with crap powers, and wears a costume only a blind guy would think is cool (and pulls it off).

TOM: What about Green Arrow? No powers, but he took stupid equipment and made it work. He’s got some manliness/sexist issues that often threaten to overwhelm him, but for awhile he had a love arrow for Black Canary.

PAUL: Good one, it crossed my mind, I suppose every case I make for Daredevil would apply here too.

TOM: Exactly. Plus, Green Arrow has very strong opinions about a lot of life issues and isn’t afraid to point his finger into anyone’s chest for emphasis. It takes a special kind of man to make an arrow with a boxing glove on it. Oliver Queen is always ready for a fight.

PAUL: All right, I’ll put The Spirit, Daredevil, and Green Arrow on the list at number ten. It’s my list and I can break the rules!

10) The Spirit, Daredevil, Green Arrow (half-mad chick magnets)

If stupid gear is going to score manly points, how about Guy Gardner? Moe haircut. Bad attitude. Jerkwad. But no way is anyone manly enough to pull of a Green Lantern costume.

Anyone else?

TOM: Fawcett’s Capt. Marvel is like the Tim Tebow of super-heroes. He gets the job done, but he’s not going to clear out the biker bar in the middle of the night.

PAUL: How about that other big boy scout — Superman?

ULM: Superman technically should get credit for being manly because one can only imagine the damage a swarm of super-sperms could do to Metropolis. That alone should give him high standing in the manly sweepstakes. However, as an alien, technically he’s not a man, so forget it.

PAUL: Superman’s seemed a little limp to me since that Brandon Routh picture. I don’t much like Zack Snyder but if anyone is going to give Superman a testosterone injection, he’s the guy. Though I expect he’ll go all 300 and make Superman just a little … too manly.

TOM: Superman’s now this wistful nostalgic character content to sit atop tall buildings, smell flowers and pick out shapes in the clouds. He’s like Dr. Manhattan in the early parts of Watchmen. He’s like Xanax in a cape now. At least in the old days, Jimmy would turn himself into a giant turtle or Lois would throw herself out the window to make his life interesting.

ULM: Since you mention Jimmy …

PAUL: We didn’t. C’mon, I need someone for number nine.

TOM: How about Lobo?

PAUL: Never read Lobo. Whaddya think?

TOM: Lobo is technically some kind of alien freak biker badass. He doesn’t take crap from anyone and doesn’t fight fair. He’s manly in the same way that a Hell’s Angel is manly at 2am Sunday. He would totally own Burning Man and those people would follow him anywhere.

PAUL: I’d put him on the list but Ulm’s already disqualified Superman for being an alien. And if a motorcycle was enough to get you in I’d pick Ghost Rider. With that flaming skull head, he’s like a living tattoo on the back of a mass-murderer’s neck. Leather. Hotline to Satan. Charter member of the Legion of Monsters. Problem is that Nick Cage has played him twice and he’s also a charter member of the Champions, the lamest superhero team of all time.

TOM: How about Wildcat? My understanding is that he is/was a boxer. He’s got no super powers except brute strength and a mean right hook, so he’s a little like Batman in that regard (but without any gadgets). I’d say it’s manly for a guy to put on a cat costume to fight crime. That’s the nine lives of brass balls.

PAUL: Plus I think in one of DC’s innumerable reboots, Wildcat is the guy who taught Batman how to fight. OK, I don’t know if he belongs or not, but we’re not making a lot of headway so he goes on the list.

9) Wildcat (are YOU going to tell him he’s NOT manly?)

Wildcat seems like a regular guy, too. Like Ben Grimm. Ben’s got the stogie and you could drink beer with him and he’d pay. He’s got the New York street kid gang thing going on. Test pilot. He’s approachable but too much like your uncle to make the list.

ULM: The manliest super-hero is Thundra. You know she has penis, but maybe you’d still date her for the story …

PAUL: Sorry, you need to have a Y chromosome to make the list.

Thundra is NOT amused!

OK, since this is going nowhere fast I’m going to just start putting names on the list. Like … Black Panther. So, so cool. African king. Many wives. Pimp style and for awhile he was a hip hop guy (maybe still is). Downside: Token Avenger.

8) T’Challa (but you can call him Black Panther)

If pimp style counts, then we have to consider Sub-Mariner. Goes to work in his underwear (and when he doesn’t he wears the Pimp Suit and pulls it off). Perpetually pissed off. Royal blood. Has a giant octopus for his wingman. Fought Nazis AND the Japanese. Attacked New York a bunch of times. Downsides — Shares many of Aquaman’s negatives, he’s a Pretty Boy, plus couldn’t steal Sue Storm from Rubberman and he’s a fish. And if being a fish or an animal knocks you out, then there goes Howard the Duck, who has a stogie and no pants, but there was definitely something happening with Bev.

And it’s apropos of nothing, but I think we have to include Thor. Divine hammer. Muscles out to here. Can drink the whole mead hall under the table, got the whole viking thing going on. Downside: Cute little wings on the helmet and talks funny. Pretty. But I thought the movie last year did a decent job of making Thor seem like a regular guy, that he wouldn’t cockblock you or make you feel like a sidekick. He’s got those Warriors Three always hanging around and they don’t seem any worse for it.

7) Thor (long hair, thees and thous, but still manly)

I guess Gods are in, while aliens are out. Any other edge cases I’m forgetting?

ULM: What about Black Bolt? He is the ultimate version of the tall silent type. Apart from the occasional tear slowly crawling down his cheek, he keeps his lips zipped and only opens his mouth to destroy ancient Kree cities.

PAUL: Not sure I’d pick him over someone like Orion of the New Gods. He’s heir to the throne of a deathgod. Bad dad issues. Messed-up face and wants to fight everyone. But all the New Gods are kind of sissified — not as bad as Seraphim, but still …

How about someone more down-to-earth. Like Luke Cage! First, he’s Luke Cage! Should have been played by Samuel L. Jackson, but now he’s too old. Defends the ghetto and has a steel chain for a belt. Curses by saying “Christmas!” Downside: Curses by saying Christmas!

6) Luke Cage (Christmas!)

Who am I missing?

TOM: Judge Dredd?

PAUL: Dredd definitely, completely forgot about him. He’d in the running for #1 if he had even one lady on his dance card. His one-dimensionality holds him back, if you consider being the fifth manliest superhero being held back. He wears that helmet to bed, you know. Not sure if that helps or hinders his case.

5) Judge Dredd (he is the Law … which means no time for the ladies)

And if ladies are part of the equation, then you have to give it up for … Iron Man. Fought the Commies, and he’s a merchant of death.

ULM: Iron Man. Heart condition. Drinks. Smokes. Womanizes. Builds cool shit in his garage. Drives fast cars. Hangs out with thunder gods, super-soldiers and Nick Fury. Most importantly, Tony Stark has man-servants like Happy Hogan to do his taxes and drive him around to bang super-models. C’mon — is this really a contest? Think about what Bruce Wayne does in his spare time — obsess about crime and train young men to be his “ward.” NO CONTEST.

PAUL: Yeah, but there are some drawbacks, especially as he compares to Batman. Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are a push on the millionaire playboy thing, but Batman scores points for working without a net. How manly do you have to be to take on bad guys in what is essentially the battlesuit version of an F-15? Plus, Batman has the stubble while Tony has that pencil-thin mustache. And he can’t hold his booze.

Still:

4) Iron Man (manly enough for this room)

But technology only gets you so far. Guts counts for more than gears, and Wolverine gets points for the stogie, the hair, the tortured past, and the chip on his shoulder — more than enough to make up for the showtunes thing.

3) Wolverine (despite the Hugh Jackman thing)

Keep the stubble and the attitude, remove the Canadian thing, and add a whole bunch more women and you get …

2) Batman (despite the Val Kilmer thing)

Man points up for the gravelly voice and stubble (when Jim Lee draws him at least). Major playa with disposable starlets and supervillainesses like Cat Woman. Put a bun in the oven with Talia al Ghul, and probably Talia Shire too. No real powers. Loses points for hanging out with Robin.

manly pajamas

ULM: Really, all this stuff is just throwing you off the track. The real manliest man is JIMMY OLSEN. Yes, the alter ego of multiple super-heroes through the years including (but probably not limited to) Mr. Action, Giant Turtle Boy, Elastic Lad, Flamebird, Speed Demon, Insect Guy, Morbidly Obese guy, Gorilla, Viking guy, etc.

When not solving crimes in one of these guises, Jimmy has to always be on call and kowtow to a his “best friend,” a homoerotic alien fixated on a crazy woman desperately climbing the office ladder of a two-bit newspaper. Non-stop drama with no escape in sight. The fact that Jimmy Olsen is not swinging over a drain makes him, by far, the manliest super-hero in any universe.

PAUL: Sorry, Ulm, I’m not buying it. Maybe you could squeeze Jimmy in at number ten with that kind of logic but you missed your chance. We’re talking about numero uno now, and that means just one person …

1) Nick Fury (Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

He’s number one and it’s not even close. Eye patch. Stubble. Stogie. Actually IS played by Samuel L. Jackson. No super powers but he’s still The Boss. Pretty sure he nailed Madame Hydra and he had that tragic lost love in the old Sgt. Fury comics.

played by Samuel L. Jackson AND the Hoff? THAT’S Manly!

TOM: Also, Nick fury has the Infinity Formula so he will live forever.

Nick’s got a special kind of manliness. He fought Hitler, founded a secret agency, built a secret base that hovers in the air, he gets to boss around the superheroes despite having no actual powers, and he carries a gun, even when he’s on his giant secret hovercraft base. I’ll say it again: He bosses around the Avengers, and they like it.

PAUL: Damn right they like it. And you know why? Because Nick is MANLY, that’s why, manlier even than Giant-Sized Man Thing!

And that’s the list! Thanks to Tom and Ulm for their wise contributions (notwithstanding the whole Jimmy Olsen bit).

Agree, disagree …? Sound off in the comments, below!

NEXT WEDNESDAY: #55 — The Amazing Spider-Man

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“The DC deal was first in the wind when Paul Levitz approached Scott Rosenberg at a WonderCon distributor party in 1994. It was one of the last big open bar con parties. In May of that year, at an impromptu Board of Directors meeting with Scott Rosenberg, Chris Ulm and me and our investment partners WSE in Tulsa, it was urged that we pursue Paul ASAP. A secret meeting was arranged at the Universal Hilton in Universal City between Scott, myself, Dave Olbrich, Chris, Paul, Bob Wayne and Bruce Bristow. This was followed a short time later by a secret dinner meeting at a Chinese restaurant in Woodland Hills, where the prior participants were joined by Lillian Laserson, DC’s then in-house legal person. All were in agreement that a deal should proceed. DC even picked up the check.

“Shortly thereafter, the potential acquisition was turned over to Warner’s Mergers & Acquisitions department in Burbank for due diligence. The M&A people would come into the office after hours and scurry out with boxes of files & records so that a potential deal could be kept secret. Negotiations continued throughout the summer and as Malibu’s sales fell (because at the time the industry was in a state of free fall as the investment bubble was bursting), Warner kept lowering its offer – we suspected they were trying to find that magic number where they could acquire the company for the cheapest possible price before Malibu’s finances were permanently damaged. And Malibu needed to be sold. The company was losing $200,000 a month. WSE was pushing hard to get back their investment and Malibu’s once-strong video game division had collapsed (because of rapidly-changing game platforms and mismanagement) and the comic book portion was holding up both halves of the company.

“The potential sale to DC was still a secret by the San Diego Con that year, and it looked like a deal was about to happen. Ulm and I had a not-so-secret breakfast meeting with Paul at the convention and he really wanted the company and wanted to grow it. One thing that was clear was that he was less interested in the characters and the Ultraverse and more interested in the organization itself – how things were run, how fast we could get things done, and ideas for what the company wanted to do next, beyond the Ultraverse.

“After the convention, we took a few people on staff into our confidence and held an off-site retreat to figure out ways we could work together with DC. Aside from restoring, we hoped, market confidence in the company and benefiting from the kind of business stuff people don’t really think of (access to new markets, better printing discounts, increased overseas sales, potential for greater newsstand/bookstore space, plus DC’s trade collection policy that collected stuff and kept it in print), we had a couple of short-term boosts that we wanted to fiddle with. I believe it was an idea from Hank Kanalz about bringing in Green Lantern (this was when GL was still a much lesser character in the DCU) for a line-wide crossover event. None of us were interested in Flash, Atom or Hawkman. The GL idea never made it out of committee and was never pitched to DC, because the winds were about to quickly change.

“Shortly after the retreat, there was some kind of Oregon-based convention that was affiliated with Dark Horse. Word had apparently been around the con that Malibu was close to a deal with DC. That prompted a post-con call from Marvel’s then-head Terry Stewart to Dave Olbrich and ask if the rumors were true. Marvel wanted in and, we were told, been instructed to buy the company to keep it away from DC (the reason why would make a good panel discussion). Because of various time factors, Marvel then had 7 days to do the due diligence that Warner had been doing for several months.

“And now…I’ve said too much!”

– Tom Mason, former VP Marketing for Malibu Comics

(For more inside information on the secret history of Malibu Comics … including the birth of Image Comics and the fate of the Ultraverse … be sure to see Tom at Longbox Graveyard’s Malibu Comics Retrospective panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Thursday 7/12, from 2-3PM in Room 32AB!)

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The Dark Knight Rises is in theaters this week, the third and final chapter of Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman, which with its bazillion dollars in box office has clearly become the consensus view. Few characters have sported as many different tones as Batman, and fewer still so successfully — between comics, TV, and movie series, there must be a half-dozen different versions of the Batman. The current grim-and-gritty motion picture Batman traces its roots to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, though Nolan’s series has gone on to become a thing of its own, thanks to its not-a-superhero-but-really-a-crime-picture story beats, and a transcendent performance by the late Heath Ledger in the trilogy’s middle installment.

Batman wasn’t always this way, and the Batman of old didn’t become today’s Batman overnight. A couple weeks ago I spotlighted the late 1970′s Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers run in Detective that arguably began Batman’s transformation into his modern form, but where was Batman after that series and before Frank Miller put his indelible stamp on the character?

The Batman of the early 1980s was defined by writer Doug Moench. Teamed with a number of pencillers — most notably Gene Colan — Moench’s 80-issue run, published twice monthly in the pages of Detective and Batman, gave us a final look at Batman before Crisis on Infinite Earths and Frank Miller’s vision helped bring down the curtain on the “Bronze Age” of comics.

Overshadowed as it was by the Dark Knight phenomenon, this Doug Moench era has been forgotten by many, and I think unfairly, as it has moments of rich characterization and a couple single-issue stories that hold up well today. To their credit, DC didn’t boot Moench to the curb, no matter how many times Dark Knight went back to press with the flavor fans clearly preferred. Moench’s run came to a celebratory end in Batman #400 … but then it’s like he was never there. Following Moench would be Batman: Year One, and then a run by crime novelist Max Allen Collins, and the modern age of Batman had well and truly begun.

nice cover by Don Newton, who did some of his final work on this series before his untimely death in 1984

So who was the Doug Moench Batman, this transitional shades-of-grey knight before the darkest dawn of our current era?

The familiar Bat-tropes are all on display. Bruce Wayne still moonlights as Batman, hangs around in a cave, and responds to Commissioner Gordon’s Bat-Signal. Gotham City is still menaced by the finest rogue’s gallery in comics, and Batman himself is obsessively driven to bring them all to justice. Batman roars around in his Batmobile accompanied by his young partner, Robin. There are plenty of fist-fights and shadowy show-downs with warehouses full of mooks up to no good, and one or two Gene Colan pages with costumes swirling all over the place.

yes, Harvey Bullock has three hands in that panel, but this is the masterful Gene Colan — just go with it!

Where this Batman most differs from the more recent vintage is in his humanity, or at least his emotionality. Far from the grim workaholic of contemporary Batman stories, Doug Moench’s Batman wrestles with his dual roles as Bruce Wayne and superhero, wondering if he can ever be happy so long as Batman is a part of his life. Themes of mortality and exhaustion are repeated throughout the run, as Batman comes to understand that he may be at his physical peak, but that he’s wearing down under the constant grind of battling Gotham’s crazies. He especially agonizes over whether he should allow Jason Todd to become his partner as Robin, and he gets positively tied in knots shifting his affections between four different women each appealing to a different aspect of his soul.

There’s plenty of crime, punishment, and superheroic punch-outs in this run, but it is in this handling of Batman’s interior life — and the lives of the book’s many supporting characters — where Moench is at his best.

Commissioner Gorden nurses a bad heart and works overtime to bear up under the gaze of his boss, the corrupt Mayor Hamilton Hill, who makes Gordon’s life miserable by saddling him with the piggish and disgraced Harvey Bullock as his assistant. Alfred Pennyworth is distracted from pressing Bruce Wayne’s trousers when his estranged daughter, Julia, re-enters his life. Jason Todd has mood swings and generally acts like a little kid, earning him a contempt from the audience that would famously end in his death by popular demand in a DC Comics telephone poll, but also painting an emotionally accurate portrait of an insecure and needy young man.

Four women form the points of Bruce Wayne and Batman’s emotional compass in this series. Bruce’s relationship with Vicki Vale goes downhill quickly, with Vicki proving demanding and strident; it isn’t long before Bruce has thrown her over, first for a momentary infatuation with Alfred’s daughter, Julia, then for a more serious involvement with Nocturna, one of several new characters Moench adds to the cast in this run.

Nocturna is introduced as a tiresome emo girl, physically and psychologically altered by an astronomy accident (!) rendering her skin white … but she recovers from that ridiculous beginning, and does what many of Moench’s characters do: change and grow as the series evolves. Nocturna puzzles out Batman’s true identity, then tries to ensnare Bruce by mounting a custody challenge for Bruce’s ward (and Robin-to-be) Jason Todd, only to find that her emotional needs are better met trying to be mother to Jason than paramour to Batman.

Along the way, Batman discovers he’s interested in Nocturna only when she’s playing the bad girl, an obsession thrown into stark relief when Catwoman returns to Batman’s life, but our hero finds the old sparks aren’t striking, largely because Catwoman has reformed and the thrill has gone along with her villainy.

Catwoman’s return doesn’t work out so great for anyone

Supporting players get their spotlight time, too. He’s changed a bit since his introduction here, but Harvey Bullock is Moench’s signature and enduring creation in this run. Initially a foil for Commissioner Gorden, the incompetent Bullock changes his tune after driving Gordon to a heart attack, and seeks to atone for past sins by becoming a genuinely dedicated cop. He’s used for comic relief, storming in at the worst moment and trampling on evidence, but he proves to be a genuine and emotionally reliable character, even revealing an interior thoughtfulness through his love of classic film …

… and inspiring a boyish loyalty from Jason Todd, who might see in Bullock a surrogate father more approachable than the remote Batman.

The bad guys are appropriately street-level, with most of their darkness on the inside. There’s the cop killing (and ex-cop) Savage Skull, and the aforementioned Nocturna and her ninja henchman, Night-Thief. Black Mask goes whacko and fashions a mask for himself from his father’s coffin lid, which is pretty wonderful. Moench trots out Batman’s traditional villains, too, but at times this feels compulsory. Batman’s battle with the Riddler was an off-the-shelf tale (though it is hard to be anything but formulaic with a written backwards-by-the book Riddler story), and Moench’s Joker story was a feathered fish, with that villain incongruously trying to set off a Guatemalan civil war. Poison Ivy fared a bit better, as did Deadshot.

Moench’s take on Two-Face was his best of all.

This is a Batman book, so of course it has its gothic shadows, but they aren’t so front-and-center as in contemporary books. This is an old fashioned series, employing storytelling conventions long out of style — like compressed story arcs that rarely run more than an issue or two, and copious use of thought balloons. So, too, is Batman a bit old fashioned, at times daring to smile and even seem happy to do what he does. On his first night’s patrol with his new Robin, Batman is positively giddy compared to the grim Dark Knight of page and screen this past quarter century. Batman even works in a photo opportunity after he and the Boy Wonder clean up a den of inequity.

To be fair, this isn’t a classic run of comics. A few of the storylines overstay their welcome, and the Green Arrow back-up feature in Detective is forgettable, save for a two-part Alan Moore story, and a delightful turn in Detective #559 — a full-length tale where Batman and Oliver Queen go after each other harder than they do the bad guys.

Select single issue stories stand out, like Batman #383, where we see an exhausting night in the life of Batman, or the excusably heavy-handed Detective #550, where Moench tries to get to the heart of what led an otherwise ordinary street thug into a life of crime. A two-part tale in Batman #393-394 reuniting Doug Moench with his Master of Kung Fu partner Paul Gulacy has some tasty art, but the espionage thriller story is a bit muddled.

Moench & Gulacy bring some Master of Kung Fu-style to Batman

In all, though, this is an average run of superhero comics, nudged to just-above-average grade owing to its length, and consistency. I am a big Gene Colan fan, but even Gene is less than extraordinary here, possibly limited by inadequate inkers (the forceful Alfredo Alcala, especially, is a poor fit for Gene’s flowing fog style). Approaching the end of this run in my recent re-read, when the “red skies” of the Crisis on Infinite Earths meta-event signaled that the end was near for the old order at DC, I found that I didn’t sadly shake my head or mourn for what Batman was about to become. I enjoyed this run, and I rank Doug Moench among my favorite comic book authors, but Batman is one of the few comic characters that I think is genuinely better served by his current incarnation. The contemporary Dark Knight may be a little short on melodrama and self-examination, but we have plenty of other superheroes running that playbook. Batman has evolved into a remote and unapproachable legend, but he’s earned that status, and it’s a big part of what makes him unique. Despite my love of Bronze Age comics, I think I’ll stick with the current take on Batman …

… but if you want to see Batman before the legend overtook the man, you could do worse than to hunt down this particular run of Bat books, which do offer their own leisurely, introspective, and slow-burning rewards.

• Titles: Batman & Detective Comics
  
• Published By: DC Comics, 1937-2011 (curse you, “New 52″ reboot!)
• Issues Reviewed By The Longbox Graveyard: Batman #360-400, Detective #527-566, June 1983-October 1986
• LBG Letter Grade For This Run: C-plus
• Own The Originals: Detective & Batman

NEXT WEDNESDAY: #58 Panel Gallery: Holy Hannah!

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I’ve been a comics fan and reader since the early 1970s. I left comics in the 1990s and have only this past year returned, but my interest is confined to nostalgia — today’s books don’t really interest me, which I think is a problem both for me and for publishers, as I am affluent reader with two kids who might pick up the hobby but the current approach at Marvel and DC holds limited appeal for us. I worked briefly as a writer on some non-Marvel/DC books decades ago, and I still have friends in the business, but I don’t think either one of those things gives me any special insight into what’s happening in comics today. However, since 2008 I have been partners in an iOS publisher and developer, and that DOES give me special insight into the digital world, at least in the apps publishing space.

I have two problems with the digital programs now on offer from the “Big Two.” One is editorial, and the other is with the marketplace.

The marketplace issue is the easiest to address. First off, there may not be a marketplace issue. As of March 2012, ComiXology is on record saying they’ve shipped 50M comics through their app, and they make frequent appearances on the iPad Top Grossing lists in the United States. Maybe Marvel and DC have managed to dig a flaming, gasoline-filled trench around their digital IP and will be able to keep their prices artificially high.

Speaking as a publisher who has to work to give away free games that pack hundreds of hours of content … if they can do that, then I say more power to them!

Speaking as a digital entrepreneur, my view is that publishers could be leaving money on the table due to inflexible pricing, a creaky storefront, too many partners (DC and Marvel must share revenue with Apple and ComiXology with their current apps) and cross-platform incompatibility that erects an artificial wall between new books and the catalog offerings of Marvel’s Digital Unlimited service.

Were I running the digital initiative for Marvel or DC I would ween myself from ComiXology as soon as possible in favor of my own publishing platform, built around microtransactions with in-app currency (to allow more flexibility in pricing and bundling), with laser-sharp metrics closely watching reader behaviors to guide future business decisions. I’d also leverage comics as a social platform by opening up the sharing possibilities of digital books and empowering readers to evangelize their passion by migrating the “collecting” experience from the physical act of owning books to virtual achievements built around viewing and sharing digital comics, with an eye toward restoring comic books as the brand leader for superheroes, instead of the trailing appendage they’ve become in this era of better than a billion dollar box office superhero movies (while equivalent books sell in the hundred thousand copies range).

This might already be in the works. A recent report put ComiXology’s “gross merchandise value” for 2011 at nineteen million dollars, with that number projected to jump to $70M in 2012. With that kind of money on the table, Marvel and DC can certainly afford to build and control their own platforms (and in fact they can’t afford not to).

A simpler solution would be for Marvel and/or DC to buy ComiXology outright, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see this happen.

The bigger problem is on the editorial side of the business, which is stuck with largely the same playbook they’ve been running for the last three decades. The freemium digital marketplace I’m advocating only make sense if you can reach a mass audience — a truly digital approach to content and monetization will work only when your audience numbers in the tens or hundreds of millions.

Evidence suggests the current system works to some degree for a market where the top print book struggles to sell 200K copies. The question is whether that market can ever be brought back to the levels of prior decades. If they think there is a mass digital audience out there, then it is an inevitability that DC and Marvel will have to stop price protecting their print retail partners and adopt lower prices for their digital offerings. I’m in my fourth year in the iOS business and I have seen the “Race To Zero” first-hand (with my own money on the line). It’s gotten so even .99 is considered a “premium” price, and you have to work to give away free apps.

In truth, even “free” costs too much these days.

The danger for comic publishers is that it may be too late for them. The market may be so damaged and diminished that it is no longer possible to tap into a mass audience by dropping prices to .99 or free. If the worldwide market for superhero comics really has collapsed to a half-million or so hardcores buying DC and Marvel print titles each month then the free market just won’t work — you’d need ten times that many people interested in digital books to make a profitable business off the 5% of your customers that you will monetize through free distribution. There would be some organic lift from getting free books into more people’s hands — and thus spreading your brand to a collateral audience — but I think the editorial problem at Marvel and DC is pathological enough that just getting the books into peoples’ hands won’t be enough. The content has become too dense, self-referential, and fringe to work as mass entertainment. Witness DC’s “New 52” reboot — presented as a means of making DC’s line more friendly to new readers — which after an initial surge of interest appears to have posted only modest readership gains in the long run (though there are encouraging indications the market is coming back).

So if there is no reaching new readers, then it is actually best for Marvel and DC to do what they’re doing — circle the wagons, hold the price line as long as they can, and fight a delaying action until the publishers as we know them are closed down and their properties are licensed out to smaller shops. Paramount and Hasbro both have comic books without being in the comic book business — might Marvel and DC ultimately elect to go the same route? Marvel and to a lesser extent DC have already realized they are in the “superhero” business rather than the “comics” business and are reorganizing their operations accordingly. I have friends who will lose jobs when this happens and it gives me little joy to say it, but markets are never wrong — the music, publishing, and software businesses have already been disrupted, and there’s no reason to expect comics will be any different. The collapse of Borders and Blockbuster are just two of the earliest and most visible casualties in the digital disruption of entertainment. There will be a pile of bodies on the field before this shakes out.

The indie side of digital offers some opportunities but will be hamstrung by the absence of meaningful brands. There will be successes here and there — particularly for small shops who can keep their costs in line and put a LOT of effort into fan outreach via social media — but for that mass North American moviegoing audience we should be trying to tap, “comic books” = “superheroes,” and “superheroes” = Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman (and now also a host of lesser Marvel characters as well, thanks to a stellar effort from Marvel’s movie studio). Mark Waid has made news by shifting his creator-owned work to digital and I think he is smart to set up his own channel to distribute and monetize his work. He is definitely biting the hand that feeds him but the tide is inevitable and irresistible (and I have enjoyed his digital effort, “Insufferable”).

The problem Mr. Waid will face is that there’s only a fraction of this already-small audience interested in reading his original books than there are people who want to read his Daredevil books. The power of the superhero brands is substantial (which is why the movie business is roaring, for the most part), and with seventy-five years of brand equity built up around their superhero rosters there’s no way any small indie operation is going to challenge Marvel and DC with superheroes for the mass audience. It’s a risk for Mark (because he is making a living off this business) but he’s wise to know the end is near and to make the jump too soon instead of too late. The disruption is real and no one will escape. The guys still standing at the end will be the ones who disrupted themselves and changed into new and profitable forms.

So there you have my view — the major publishers afraid to take the leap, knowing there likely isn’t a far side of the ravine out there in the dark, while indie guys have the tools but don’t have the networks or the superhero properties the market cares about. In the next three years I expect you will see a few digital indie studios take root, clutch and grab to break even, and then be positioned to pick up the licenses to the big superhero brands when the monthly paper publishing arms of DC and Marvel inevitably collapse. The brick and mortar comics market will continue to struggle and is probably doomed. Fans will vote with their wallets and pirate digital books rather than pay inflated prices to placate direct market retailers. Publishers and retailers will remain chained to each other at the ankles, until the last second when the publishers will sever the chain and give retailers a shove over the side. Then the publishers better hope they still have an audience. Digital consumer habits for the next hundred years are being established RIGHT NOW and Marvel and DC are flirting with extinction because they aren’t at the center of it.

Time is critical and there may not be a second chance to get this right.

Note: This column original appeared at the We Talk Podcasts site, to support my appearance on the We Talk Comics podcast. This revised version of my Digital Comics Rant has been updated to reflect new information, and is reprinted here to support next week’s review of the Legends of the Dark Knight digital comic, as well as the pending release of the next Longbox Graveyard Podcast, which will cover digital comics. Thanks to We Talk Podcasts for providing a forum for the original version of this article.

NEXT WEDNESDAY: #61 Legends of the (Digital) Dark Knight

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Last week I exhumed my rant about digital comics and the state of the comic book marketplace. This week, Longbox Graveyard looks at DC Comics’ “born digital” Legends of the Dark Knight comic series. That’s right — Longbox Graveyard is reviewing a book from the present century. And it doesn’t even come on paper!

Despite my love for comics of the past, I help run an iPhone developer and I write this comics blog, so that kind of puts me in the bullseye for digital comics whether I like it or not. I’m enjoying Insufferable over at Mark Waid’s Thrillbent site, and even allowing for substantial interface issues, I remain a fan of Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited subscription service. I also recommend Operation Ajax for iPad as a “concept car” for the way technology and graphic story telling can come together.

I’d like to have a weekly comic book fix — I just don’t want to trek to a comic store and pay $3.99 an issue to get it. So my little bat ears perked up when I learned DC Comics was launching a new, out-of-continuity Batman series, to be published weekly in digital form, for .99 each. Weekly installments, low price point, a character I like, and digital delivery! OK, DC Comics, you got me back.

Now … can you keep me?

Reviewing Legends of the Dark Knight requires looking at the title from two different angles — technology and content. Let’s tackle the tech first.

Legends of the Dark Knight on iOS is delivered via DC Comics’ own app, which is a branded version of the Comixology store app (Marvel uses the same platform in their own branded app). The DC Comics app isn’t a store so much as a storefront — all billing and downloads are handled through Apple’s iTunes, which means all the app has to do is provide a clear and attractive marketplace for browsing and placing orders.

In this the app comes up a little short. Having learned about the series from DC’s blog I came to the DC Comics app eager for some digital Batman. I didn’t come to this series in the first week and so missed any special banners or promotion that might have run trumpeting this new series, and had to search the book up on my own.

Searching for “Batman” didn’t do me a lot of favors …

That’s a lot of Batman, and the priority of the search results didn’t help. I’m a new digital customer, looking for Batman — I would expect DC’s new, digital-only Batman series to receive priority in search results. Certainly it should appear before hits for series that concluded in 1995 or 2004. Seeing that I was viewing just a fraction of the 46 series on offer and the 986 issues available, I was ready to give up on the whole enterprise, but instead went outside the app to DC’s blog, confirmed the title of the series, returned to the app, and then found it by searching for “Legends of the Dark Knight.” This brought up the title I wanted, though I still had to distinguish between this new original series and the digital version of a legacy print title with a similar name that breathed its last in 2007.

This is asking a lot of customers — someone vaguely hearing of a new digital Batman book would certainly be thwarted coming to the store and trying to find Legends of the Dark Knight by browsing. Search is complicated, and it’s a bugaboo for the whole Apple ecosystem, but the DC Comics app earns poor grades in this aspect. A storefront that can’t quickly and efficiently connect a customer with their product is failing its most basic function.

With the technology navigated I encountered my next problem:

Wrtitten by Damon Lindelof?

Crap!

Having recently endured his instantly-forgetable Prometheus, seeing Lindelof’s name on the masthead did not inspire confidence. But the story proved better than I expected, though it was too reliant on a long, talking head sequence, and I didn’t buy the twist ending. The art was kind of sketchy but that’s down to taste rather than execution, and I know Jeff Lemire has his fans.

In all the first issue was a tightly-constructed and clever one-and-done story, and for all the ballyhoo of The New 52, as a lapsed Batman fan I found it a better jumping on point that the Batman Vol.1: Court of Owls graphic novel that I read last June. In fact I liked it well enough that I exclaimed so out loud, and my office partner, Chris Ulm, sitting just across the desk from me, overheard and we struck up a conversation about the book, and DC’s new digital initiative, and he was instantly eager to check it out.

Here I encountered another technology problem.

Short of my physically handing Ulm my iPad, there was no easy way for me to share Legends of the Dark Knight with him. There was a “Tap to Rate” option on the last page of the story, where I could give the tale between one and five stars, but no means of sharing this story via email or social networks. No Facebook or Twitter buttons, no “recommend to a friend” link, not even a URL that I could copy and paste and send to Chris. Nuthin’. As an evangelist who navigated the app’s search functionality to find the one book among thousands I actually wanted, I was provided zero help in sharing my enthusiasm with another likely customer.

As the kids say: FAIL!

At this point, though, I’ve paid the opportunity cost of hunting up the book, and getting it onto my iPad, and I liked it well enough. I was sold on the .99 price and weekly frequency, and so looked forward to sticking with the series, even if I wouldn’t be sharing it anywhere outside of Longbox Graveyard. The book wasn’t going to make me forget Frank Miller, and there weren’t a lot of bells and whistles in the way the technology was used to tell the story, but not everything has to be Operation Ajax. The lack of continuity with the rest of the DC line might be considered an inadequacy, but for me it is a benefit — and in fact at the first hint of a cross-over, reboot, or line-wide editorial mega-event, I’m gone, baby! No, I like Legends of the Dark Knight just fine the way it is — a bat-specific shaped-charge perfectly suited to penetrate my Armor of Jadedness and get me back into a weekly comic book habit.

Issue two was another entertaining one-and-done story, this time by Jonathan Larsen and J.G. Jones. This tale pit Batman against Amazo, a “sentient android possessing all of the (Justice) League’s superpowers.” A mismatch on paper, the story showed how Batman used brains and grit to defeat Amazo — and by proxy, prove himself superior to his superpowered Justice League colleagues.

Clever, groovy, well-told, and it didn’t overstay it’s welcome. I can already see that the reduced page count and single-issue focus of this series is forcing creators to produce crisp tales, with little of the decompressed, “write for the trade edition” pace that frequently reduces my enjoyment of modern comic books.

By the time the third issue rolls around, it’s fair to say I’m a fan. Legends of the Dark Knight has helped establish a little Thursday digital routine for me. Instead of spending my lunch hour with a Marvel digital moldy oldie, now I’m looking forward to a fresh new Batman episode on my iPad. Neat!

Except for one thing.

I do enough customer support for my own iOS firm to know that download errors rarely have anything to do with the app itself. They’re usually upstream at Apple. Still, it was disappointing to want some Batman on my lunch hour only to be thwarted by a vague download error message. An advantage of digital comics is that they should be available at any hour, instantly, and that they never sell out. We’re not there yet.

An hour or two later and my download was approved, and it was worth the wait. This third installment — by Tom Taylor and Nicola Scott — is a gimmick story, but it’s a good gimmick, as Batman (and Robin, yay!) do a little data mining to stop a crime before it happens.

I’ve always liked these street-level stories that try to get into the psychology of Gotham’s criminals, and in it’s tone this tale reminded me of the 1980s stories that Doug Moench used to tell so well. One jarring flaw was hearing Robin refer to “hiring” a car — we “rent” them over here in the States, but author Tom Taylor is an Aussie and can be forgiven that colliqualism (while we lay the body at the door of DC’s editorial).

Following these three single issue tales came two three-part tales. First up was “Crisis in Identity” by B. Clay Moore and Ben Templesmith, which has been my personal favorite arc of this young series. This was a lacanoic and darkly-humorous take on the Joker’s plot to unhinge Batman by hypnotizing select Gotham citizens into thinking they were Batman, then setting them loose to battle Killer Crock, with predictably fatal results.

Then came the three-part “Letters to Batman” by Steve Niles and Trevor Hairsine, which revolved around the tales exhumed from sacks of letters sent to Gotham City Hall by the city’s citizens, thanking Batman for his thankless service.

Author Steve Niles weaves his epistilary plot-lines together nicely and provides an unexpected judo-flip when one of the letters comes from an otherwise annonymous criminal opponent of Batman, but I found the final installment confusing — not understanding how Batman deduced where to find the bad guys from the letters he was reading — and I think this tale suffered a bit from also featuring the Joker, who maybe needed some time to cool down after having just been at the heart of the previous arc.

Calling these multi-issue stories “arcs” is a bit of a misnomer. Each installment of Legends of the Dark Knight clocks in at 22 pages … but those pages are formatted to fit the landscape orientation of an iPad, and so it might be more accurate to say that each issue is about eleven pages long, based on an equivalent print comic. That means a “three part” story runs around thirty print pages, which is longer than a single print comic, but still well short of a graphic novel or trade paperback. Actually this feels like a good length to let the story breathe a bit and permit creators to explore their idea while not being so long that the tale gets flabby or stale. The serial nature of weekly distribution also ensures each story hits a little climax every dozen “pages” or so.

On balance, Legends of the Dark Knight has been a bit better than I expected. I would likely hold a print book to a higher standard, but as an inexpensive and easy weekly Batman fix, this series pushes all the right buttons for me. Niggling technology issues aside, I expect I will keep my weekly lunch date with the Bat … so long as DC can resist rebooting or retconning the book! Kids these days may be all about the New 52 but I’m the Old 50 and I can only take so much change.

Enjoy Legends of the Dark Knight … and stay off my lawn, you rotten kids!

• Title: Legends of the Dark Knight
  
• Published By: DC Comics, 2012-present (ongoing) (Schedule through Fall 2012 HERE)
• Issues Reviewed By The Longbox Graveyard: #1-9, June-August 2012
• LBG Letter Grade For This Run: B-minus
• Read Online: DC Comics Online

NEXT WEDNESDAY: #62 Six Degrees of Jack Kirby

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“… I hate this comic with all my heart.

And it has nothing to do with the creative. It’s all business. Mister Miracle was one of the titles created by Jack Kirby when DC triumphantly gloated over his arrival from Marvel. I remember the big ad campaigns; for months DC touted “Kirby Is Coming!” followed by “Kirby Is Here!” It was a big deal and DC made the most of it, splashing Kirby’s name in bold letters wherever and whenever possible.

Now with the revival, less than 36 months after the last Kirby issue, there’s no mention of Jack anywhere at all. None.

That’s right, but it’s also so very wrong. Nowhere in this issue at all does anyone bother to credit or mention Jack Kirby.”

Read all of Tom’s comments over at Comix 411.

Like Longbox Graveyard, these Super Tuesdays have showcased a lot of Marvel Comics material, but I don’t mean this as a slight to DC Comics.

It is true that I am more of a “Marvel Guy” than “DC,” but this mostly reflects the composition of the Accumulation I showcase here at the blog. For example, I’ve been reading a lot of the DC New 52 collections lately … but haven’t felt a need to write about them here. And since I started my Super Tuesday series, almost all of my scanning time has been devoted to support of older Marvel books, so there’s been little opportunity to discover and capture vintage DC ads.

This notice for the DC Direct Currents newsletter did catch my eye, though, and I’m especially interested if that “giant” 13 x 18 poster cover was really a poster or just the cover of a newsletter. It’s also interesting to see the characters DC chose to spotlight in this ad, with Black Lightning and Steve Ditko’s Shade The Changing Man stuck near the back of the lineup. Sgt. Rock brings up the rear, gun at the ready, like he’s marching the other heroes off to some grim, marketing-driven fate.

I assume Direct Currents was just marketing material, rather than a fanzine (reinforced by a look at these scans). In one form or another I recall the Direct Currents branding appearing on DC editorial pages through the 1980s.

Did anyone ever subscribe to Direct Currents? Let me know in comments, below … and someday I suppose I will have to further confirm my Marvel allegiance by writing about Marvel’s in-house fan mag, FOOM!

Join me tomorrow for another kind of direct current …

TOMORROW AT LONGBOX GRAVEYARD: Panel Gallery: Button Men

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I’ve been on a Captain Marvel kick. Earlier this month, I wrote about Jim Starlin‘s swan song in Captain Marvel #34 for my Dollar Box column at StashMyComics.com, and one of my first articles here at Longbox Graveyard was on Starlin’s full Captain Marvel run in the 1970s. But what has most interested me recently is the original Marvel Comics take on Mar-Vell … the stranger from Kree in the funky old white-and-green uniform who first came to earth in the pages of Marvel Super-Heroes #12, in 1967.

I shouldn’t be nostalgic for this character. This isn’t “my” Captain Marvel, as I came to the character well after Marv had adopted his more-familiar red-and-blue cosmic space togs:

I really can’t defend my affection for the original Mar-Vell. I think his 1950s space aesthetic look is retro-cool (and Neal Adams agrees) …

… but by any measure this is a pretty hopeless character. Marvel’s Captain Marvel was published only to assert a trademark claim after rights to the original Captain Marvel, published by bankrupt Fawcett Comics, were coming up for renewal. Only the need to assert control over that name has kept the character around this past (near) half-century, through a series of cancellations and revolving creative teams. In fact, the character might be best known for his death!

But I come here not to bury Captain Marvel, but to praise him!

If you look at this character in the rear-view mirror AND you squint just the right way AND you exclude some of his less-inspiring adventures, you kinda-sorta arrive at one of the few genuinely complete character arcs in superhero comics. In a sum-of-the-parts equation — and completely by accident — Captain Marvel backs into being a mature and well-rounded fictional character, with a beginning, a middle, and an end; victories and defeats, loves and losses, significant transformation and a meaningful death. This unlikeliest of comic book characters — himself little more than a walking trademark case — has by strange twist of publication fate avoided the curse of the “eternal now” imposed on these ultimately-unchanging heroes of ours, some of whom have been in print as twenty-something-year-old crime fighters for seventy-five years or more.

We’re not talking Moby Dick here. I’m making my case for Captain Marvel — like all the comics I review at Longbox Graveyard — against the backdrop of other superhero comics of the past century, not against the timeless classics of world literature. But here in our four-color subculture I do think this tertiary character of Captain Marvel deserves greater study and respect. He’ll never be a Batman or a Superman or a Spider-Man, and I doubt he’ll ever get screen time in a Marvel movie (though with Rocket Raccoon on the way, stranger things have happened), but I do think Mar-Vell is a more complex and worthy figure than we’ve given him credit for, and I’m going to tell you why.

Sorting out this character’s powers and history is above my pay grade, but I will try.

We first encounter our hero as part of a Kree response team tasked with finding out how one of their innumerable sentries had gotten whacked back in issue #64 of Fantastic Four. In this, the basic plot of Captain Marvel borrows from a classic science fiction trope — the tale of the super-advanced alien race keeping tabs on earth’s development, which we’ve seen in pictures as diverse as The Day The Earth Stood Still and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Kree are militaristic, imperialistic, paranoid, and (to judge by our hero’s murderous crew) eager to abuse their authority when far from the home office — early issues of Captain Marvel make much of the Captain’s superior, Colonel Yon-Rogg, trying to get Marvel killed so he can make time with Marv’s lover, the beautiful ship’s medic, Una.

with friends like these …

It’s worth saying something about our hero’s name. The book is called Captain Marvel, but the character is Mar-Vell, a Captain in the Kree military. Yeah, I know, it’s a real groaner, but it gets (a little) easier the more you say it. Aside from providing a convenient reason for our hero to have a trademarked name, Mar-Vell also conjures images of another strange visitor from another planet who becomes a defender of Earth — Kal-El, better known as Superman. Like Superman, Marvel enjoys enhanced strength and leaping abilities thanks to Earth’s reduced gravity. Confusingly, he also has a jet belt (but I thought he could leap tall buildings …?), and a “Kree battle suit” that helps him absorb damage. His signature weapon is the “Uni-Beam,” which is a laser, basically, though scripter Roy Thomas would later characterize it as a special “lens” that could channel all kinds of light effects, maybe groping towards something like the eponymous device from E.E. Doc Smith’s 1930s Lensman science fiction pulp series.

Mar-Vell is also weakened by exposure to Earth’s atmosphere, and he has to gobble down potions once every couple hours or he’ll suffocate like a fish out of water, and there are other wrinkles that are too tedious to mention, and also unimportant, because this character’s abilities and powers would prove ever-changing as subsequent creative teams re-built him on the fly. What is important about these early stories is what they establish about Mar-Vell — that he is a Kree war hero who loves his homeland but is also a man apart in that he does not blindly follow orders, and has compassion for the people of Earth. He has a keen tactical mind, and he’s a man of honor who respects the chain of command, even when his immediate commander is an incompetent dolt deliberately trying to get him killed.

Mar-Vell is also a bit of a fool when it comes to politics, letting himself get railroaded into a sham trial where he is judged guilty of treason against the Kree race, then becoming a pawn of Ronan the Accuser in his plot to overthrow the Kree Supreme Intelligence. The stories can be tough sledding to read today, but in retrospect they serve to explain why the loyal Kree Captain Marvel first turns against his home planet, then later comes to reject his militaristic ethos entirely when he achieves enlightenment during a mystical transformation in issue #29.

But that is getting ahead of ourselves, as Marv still has a series of lesser transformations to experience, including a new Gil Kane-designed costume, and blast of radiation that confines him to the Negative Zone, which he can escape only by clashing together the Nega-Bands on his wrists, and changing places with his Earth-born sidekick, Rick Jones (late of sidekicking it up with the likes of Captain America and The Hulk).

My defense of this character is starting to argue against itself, with sentences like that last, but these are comic books and external transformations like new costumes and powers are a big deal. The gimmick of linking Captain Marvel with Rick Jones also harkened to the relationship between the original Fawcett Captain Marvel and Billy Batson, while making Marvel a prisoner of the Negative Zone was a more actionable and dramatic weakness than the hoary old gotta-drink-my-atmosphere-potion liability. By fits and starts, Mar-Vell was transforming into a capable superhero who was no longer a captive of his heritage, his equipment, or his adopted home, and who was now able to roam the spaceways and chart his own destiny in life.

this never happened, but it is one of several cross-company superhero showdowns you can see at the blog of this Simpsons artist

Not all of Marv’s transformations are external. His interior life is also one of change. His romance with Una ends in her death, caught in the crossfire of Mar-Vell’s betrayal by his Kree masters, providing an early shadow of tragedy for a hero who will be characterized in many ways by the things he has lost. One-by-one, Mar-Vell’s identity is stripped away — his rank, his heritage, his homeland, his reputation are all lost.

A two-year period of cancellation of Captain Marvel between issues #21 and #22 saw Marv better integrated into the rest of the Marvel universe through guest appearances, most notably at the center of the Kree-Skrull war, one of the first great Marvel Comics cross-overs (and which I wrote about here). But it is when the character returns in his own book that he becomes something special, especially when Jim Starlin assumes full creative duties with issue #27.

I’ve already written about Starlin’s Captain Marvel, and while I was a bit dismissive of the stories, I didn’t mean to be dismissive of what they meant. The issues from this era are for the most part energetic and stylish superhero fist operas, characterized by Starlin’s emerging talents as a comic book storyteller, but they are also notable for the development of Thanos as an A-list Marvel villain, and for Mar-Vell’s transformation into a “cosmically aware” warrior in the cause of life and balance in the universe.

The “Cosmic Awareness” Mar-Vell gains in issue #29 of his book is an ill-defined concept, and not even Jim Starlin seems to know entirely what it means. As I noted in my review, Mar-Vell mostly demonstrates his enlightenment by admonishing other characters for their violent ways (right before he punches them in the mouth). Like most every other element of my argument that Captain Marvel is greater than the sum-of-his-parts, this part doesn’t hold up well to individual scrutiny. But what’s important here is not what happened in the books themselves so much as where the ideas would lead — by making Marv an enlightened guardian of the universe, Jim Starlin opted Captain Marvel out of the common superhero rat race and set him on an inevitable path toward martyrdom.

The path wasn’t inevitable at the time, of course — Captain Marvel still had thirty-odd issues of largely-forgettable superhero stories to endure before the book was cancelled in 1979. These issues are distinguished mostly by Marv firmly separating himself from the Kree and (near the end) meeting his second great love, Elysius, but it would be in death where Captain Marvel became immortal.

the Death of Captain Marvel, by Jim Starlin (after Michelangelo!)

With Captain Marvel cancelled, but a need to periodically refresh that trademark defense, Marvel brought Marv back one more time for Jim Starlin’s Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel in 1982. Following on from the events in the final issue of his Captain Marvel run that Starlin had created eight years before, The Death of Captain Marvel was an at-times maudlin and ruminating tale that followed Marv through his last days as he succumbed to cancer. It is a touching story, even after all these years, and it is made even more significant by the degree of admiration and respect shown to Captain Marvel by seemingly every other Marvel character, who appear in the story to pay their final respects.

Captain Marvel’s enlightenment is completed and his tale comes to an end in a memorable climax, where Captain Marvel and his greatest foe, Thanos, are at last in accord in their embrace of Death.

What makes Captain Marvel’s death so poignant is not only that it proved permanent (more-or-less) these past three decades, but that it marked the kind of resolution and final transformation rarely granted to characters in the continuous publication format of comic books. The trademark-enforcing title of “Captain Marvel” has been taken up by other characters since Mar-Vell’s death (at the present time it is held by Carol Danvers, the former Ms. Marvel, who is another character for which I have indefensible affection), but aside from a few cameo flashbacks or spirit appearances, the man who was Mar-Vell has remained dead, and his story can be appreciated as a completed whole.

And what a whole it is … though you have to stand back from the tapestry to really appreciate it. As I’ve let on in this conspectus, most individual issues of Captain Marvel don’t bear close scrutiny. But taken as a whole, they are a Marvel Comics accidental masterpiece. Here we have a hero who is the product of an evil and corrupt military machine, who betrays the world of his birth to protect the people he was tasked to destroy. We see Mar-Vell as patriot, traitor, ex-patriot, and a citizen of the universe as his life evolves. He becomes a great and respected hero, and transcends the normal brotherhood of superpowered champions through his enlightenment, becoming a cosmic entity and protector of the universe, a nearly-omnipotent being who loses his last battle with a very human disease. He has great loves — and great losses — in his life, and about the only aspect of life Mar-Vell does not experience is raising children (though Marvel Comics would find ways to posthumously continue his line).

And so out of this holocaust of trademarks, changing costumes, new powers, and rotating creators emerges a hero. His faults are many (and really, I can’t recommend many issues of Captain Marvel itself), but his achievements are visible in the mosaic of his existence, the product of many hands and no definitive plan. Captain Marvel matters — maybe because nobody really tried to make him mean anything at all.

I miss him! And I like it that way. Returning Mar-Vell to life couldn’t help but diminish his legend. He is my favorite hero I hope to never see again … except in the yellowing old pages of the largely-forgotten comics I write about each week here at Longbox Graveyard. Thanks for reading, and please share your thoughts on Mar-Vell (or your own unlikely-yet-favorite heroes) in the comments section, below.

NEXT WEEK: #80 Marvel Super-Hero Holiday Grab Bag (Of Coal)

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I’ve already afforded Swamp Thing a place of honor in my Top Ten DC Characters list, and today in my Dollar Box column at StashMyComic.com I go on at length about Swamp Thing #1, but the full Bernie Wrightson/Len Wein run on this book merits a column of its own. It seems like Swamp Thing has been with us forever … and he’s going on four decades of funny book adventures … but that such a seemingly shallow and exploitative character is still a vital part of the comic book landscape speaks to the inherent quality and intrigue of the creation. Swamp Thing was comicdom’s first significant swamp monster (that would be The Heap), and he didn’t even beat Marvel’s Man-Thing into print, but Swamp Thing is unquestionably the best of the muck monsters, and I think one of the more significant and underrated characters in comics.

Much of Swamp Thing’s present appeal owes to his many reinventions, first by Alan Moore in the 1980s, in what is arguably the finest run of comics of all time, but more recently from creators like Grant Morrison, Brian K. Vaughn, and even Scott Snyder in Swamp Thing’s current book (which I offered backhanded praise in my recent “Few 52″ podcast). But at the root of all these reinventions are the original issues of Swamp Thing, by co-creators Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson. These worthy tales provide a foundation for a character still vital nearly half-a-century later, and they remain greatly entertaining comics in their own right. Not bad for a shambling mockery of a man in mud monster form!

I enthuse at length about Swamp Thing’s origin issue in my Dollar Box column, so I won’t repeat myself here, aside from noting that Swamp Thing #1 is a top origin issue, creepy and entertaining as a stand-alone story while still delivering all the meat-and-potatoes expected of an origin tale. Swamp Thing’s genesis is iconic and likely familiar to all readers by now — the story of scientist Doctor Alec Holland, set afire by a bomb while working on his “bio-restorative” formula in a remote swampland laboratory, the poor devil plunging into the swamp to put out the flames only to rise later as the monstrous Swamp Thing.

Later creators would re-spin the tale, with Alan Moore most famously turning the whole thing inside-out in “Anatomy Lesson,” but when Swamp Thing debuted in his own book in 1972, the origin was on-the-nose — yep, that was poor Doctor Holland trapped in that muck-encrusted body, a character purpose-built to be a misunderstood monster, with a human soul yearning to reverse its hideous physical transformation.

well before Alan Moore, Wein & Wrightson did an “anatomy lesson” of their own

That straight-ahead story style continues in the following three issues of Swamp Thing I review here, but this isn’t intended as a criticism. Rather I see it as a case of clear and deliberate storytelling, standing apart from other, more embroidered Silver Age tales in that it is so bare bones. These stories are simple and they recycle monster movie tropes but they do it so well that everything old seems new again.

I’ve seen this tale many times before, but with Wein & Wrightson I’m happy to see it again

Much of this is down to Bernie Wrightson’s tremendous artwork, but before I spin off in rhapsodic praise for the pencils I want to offer a few words for Len Wein’s scripting. Wein is easy to marginalize in any team that includes Bernie Wrightson but the exhaustive ten or fifteen minutes I spent on Wikipedia doing background for this piece indicates Swamp Thing emerged from a close collaboration between Wein and Wrightson. While it is difficult to extract at this late date who did what, exactly, we can look at Wrightson’s post-Swamp Thing work and see that he definitely benefited from his partnership with Wein. For the most part, Wein’s scripts are content to set the scene and establish tone and then let Bernie do what he does best, but in this it is possible to laud an writer for restraint, and also to recognize a case where a comics author contributes so perfectly to a piece of visual storytelling. I’m not the kind of comics fan who thinks pages must be swarming with clever word balloons to feel a comics writer has done his job; quite the opposite, in fact, and Wein’s work on Swamp Thing is this better sort of comics scripting, hand-in-glove with Wrightson’s art, fully a part of the piece and better for leaving unsaid what those Wrightson images so clearly communicate.

Ah, and those images! Wrightson’s art is as startling today as it was all those years ago, a beautiful blend of horrific character designs, expressive faces, perfectly-composed set pieces, and rock-solid storytelling. Greatly benefiting from silky Joe Orlando inks, Wrightson’s pencils transport us to all the gothic locales you’d expect of a 1970s horror book — murky swamps, creepy European castles, fog-bound Scottish moors — they’re all here, they’re all exactly what you’d expect, and they’re all jaw-droppingly wonderful.

For the most part, Wrightson breaks little new ground here, though I was was taken with the weird designs of Arcane’s Un-Men, particularly that talking hand mastermind …

… but it isn’t invention but reinvention that’s the point. I loved seeing Swamp Thing face off against Frankenstein’s monster, and the Werewolf too, and it didn’t matter to me that they were monsters by some-other-name. Copyrights be damned — Swamp Thing is a kick-ass monster and I want to see him fight other kick-ass monsters! Frankenstein vs. The Wolf Man can never compare with Bride of Frankenstein, but in his heart of hearts you know which one a twelve-year-old prefers.

It’s not all central casting monsters, either. Wein wrings some pathos out of the reveal of which brain resides in that Frankenstein form (and how he got there, too), and there’s even a bit of emotion in the Werewolf’s inevitable demise, a doomed child more than ready to move on but held on this mortal plane by parents all too unwilling to let go of their little boy, however murderous he has become. Wein’s around-the-gothic-world in eighty pages plotting does require some leaps of logic — the pontoon plane at the center of Swamp Thing’s transports does not withstand close consideration, unless we want to believe that hand-for-a-head Un-Man was somehow at the controls — but these are forgivable sins in service of a fast-moving and delightful plot, no more jarring than Indiana Jones hanging on the periscope of that Nazi sub for a thousand nautical miles. In a world filled with swamp monsters and a body-hopping arch nemesis such things can’t rightly be called ridiculous.

And by keeping the tale moving along and refusing to apologize for or dwell on its inconsistencies, we have that much more room for the main events, the monster versus monster fighting, the pathos of the twisted human souls stuck in those monstrous forms, and the minimal but emerging subplot of the human characters who misunderstand Swamp Thing, and are doomed to hound him to the earth’s end (among whom is Abigail Arcane, introduced in the second issue as a not-quite-damsel in distress, who will loom large as one of the most complete female characters in comics under Alan Moore’s eventual tutelage).

Abigail Arcane, white hair and fetching black go-go boots

There was an era when superhero books weren’t afraid to be superhero books, with big-shouldered muscleheads striking wide stances and smashing each other through the sides of skyscrapers — and this is a monster book in the same vein, full of crazy kanted angles and reaching shadows, and contriving to hang Swamp Thing on a cross in a cart because, well, it’s just looks so damn cool.

This whole run is like that … you can ignore the words and appreciate the art, or you can delve into the narrative and enjoy the whole package even more. Plus there are some places where words-and-pictures come together in ways that the comic form does best, as when Swamp Thing surrenders his recovered humanity to thwart the evil designs of Arcane …

… or when our hero tumbles down into the roots of Arcane’s castle.

However you slice it, this is a superior comics run, and I’m affording it a top grade, dented only slightly by a very minimal lack of originality, and that tiny bit of storytelling slight-of-hand that catapults Swamp Thing back and forth across continents on the wing of a pontoon plane, in service of a location-driven plot. Even then, I am picking nits — this is a series to be cherished and enjoyed.

So why am I restricting my review to four issues? That’s all the reprints I have! I am now on the lookout for the remaining six issues of Wein and Wrightson’s run, but perhaps a more seasoned hand can tell me if I should bother. Like the Silver Surfer, does this original Swamp Thing series peak in its forth issue, going into a painful decline, or do the remaining issues build on this very strong start? Let me know your opinion, in the comments section below!

Either way, I remain tremendously impressed with Wein & Wrightson’s Swamp Thing. Long may he shamble!

• Title: Swamp Thing
  
• Published By: DC Comics, 1972-1976
• Issues Reviewed: #1-4, November 1972-May 1973
• LBG Letter Grade For This Issue: A-minus
• Own The Reprints: DC Special Series

NEXT WEDNESDAY: #82 Reader Appreciation Award!

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Dark Genesis!

Yesterday I wrote about the first four issues of Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson’s Swamp Thing, and I take an even deeper dive into the muck with this month’s Dollar Box column over at StashMyComics.com., which is all about Swampy’s origin tale from Swamp Thing #1!

This is one of the finest comics origin tales of all time, and it is well worth reading and remembering even forty years after it was originally published! Head on over to StashMyComics.com for more!

Thanks to StashMyComics.com for hosting The Dollar Box!

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How do YOU pronounce, “Darkseid?”

Jack Kirby‘s signature villain from The New Gods is one of the King’s greatest creations, a universe-spanning threat famous (infamous?) for his relentless pursuit of the Anti-Life Equation. He has battled the Justice League, appeared in cartoons …

… and gotten his own action figure …

… but he’s one of those characters — the kind with the name you’re not confident saying out loud.

Do we call him Dark-SEED? Or do we call him, Dark-SIDE?

(I’m inclined to call him, “Sir,” if I call him anything at all.)

There seems some consensus on the web that we should be calling this character Dark-SIDE, and no less an authority than Mark Evanier writes that is how Kirby himself referred to his creation.

But how do YOU pronounce this bad guy’s name? Take my poll!

Defend your choice in comments, below!

NEXT WEDNESDAY: #88 Fire And Ice

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