Comic Book Journal

This is a more personal, subjective list than last week’s. As such, it’s open to debate, interpretation, and of course, argument. These are the most important comic books seen through the filter of me.

In other words, I wouldn’t be here writing this if it weren’t for these.

10. G.I. Joe by Larry Hama - It’s fitting that I begin with this one, because it links right back to “Top 10 Accidental Comic Book Discoveries”. The comic below is billed “The Most Unusual G.I. Joe Story Ever!” with good reason - because a mistake somewhere down the production line caused the comic to be printed without dialogue. Fortunately, it just so happens the titular ninja on the cover - Snake Eyes - doesn’t speak at all, and Marvel went ahead with it as is. G.I. Joe might not look like much in a stack of comics, but often times the action series penned by Larry Hama performed heads and tails over its animated counterparts.

Favorite Moment: After a spirited chase with his rival/former blood brother Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes finally learns the truth - Storm Shadow didn’t betray him, didn’t kill one of his Masters, and has infiltrated Cobra for revenge. By the time fellow Joes catch up with Snake Eyes, he’s slumped against a wall processing everything that just happened. When Scarlett asks Snake Eyes where’s Storm Shadow, the shadowy ninja gives no indication he’s heard her. A jilted Scarlett replies, “Nevermind. You never answer.” as she walks away.

9. Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley - Most simply forget that its just an awesome story. During a time when Mary Jane was dead and Spider-Man was spiraling back into the “Why me?” category of whiners, Ultimate Spider-Man fixed so many problems which had plagued the Spidey continunity in the regular line. It wasn’t just Peter Parker in trendy clothes - it was how a young and scrawney Peter Parker would respond verbatum if he was some regular kid in New York. Mary Jane was no longer simply a sexy party girl outclassing Peter, but a fellow science geek with heart. And the best parts of the book - from the highest moments of Spider-Man’s rise to the most tender and soulful aspects of Peter and MJ’s relationship - were entrusted to powerful art with absolutely no words in between.

Favorite Moment: When Peter Parker reveals he’s Spider-Man to MJ - she falls off the bed laughing, and then freaks out when she realizes the truth. Moments later, MJ is more at ease with the prospect, but Aunt May isn’t - she bangs on the door and demands the two stop with the “hanky panky” and even asks if Peter about “protection”!

8. The Shade by James Robinson - As much as I love Starman, I have to admit the highlight of the book is the enigmatic Shade, a (semi)-reformed supervillain with immense longevity in every sense of the word. Given his own series by Robinson, The Shade is one of the great buried treasures of the comic world, and a pain in the bins to track down since often confused with Shade: The Changing Man. The Shade sheds very little light on the exact nature of the English gentleman’s origins, instead focusing on a treacherous family called the Ludlows, whom Shade butchers after their manipulations backfires. The mini-series centers around the complex relationships the Shade has with the future generations of Ludlows, who are often inevitably drawn into the centuries-old bloodfeud with the immortal. After two hundred years crossing country and genre completely, the Shade has one final confrontation with one last Ludlow in the heartland of America - although another shows up later in Starman.

Favorite Moments: After saving his arch-nemesis Jay Garrick (the Golden Age Flash) from a particularly nasty variation of Ludlow in the 1950’s, the Shade writes in his journal of a subsequent encounter with the Flash while bank-robbing. The two smile at one another in mutual respect before “Jay punched me in the jaw. He was good at that.”

7. Green Lantern/Green Arrow by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams: Wikipedia defines Green Lantern/Green Arrow as “a socially-conscious, left-wing creation that effectively took over Green Lantern’s book to use him as a foil and straw man . . .” Part of this is true - the social conscious part as well as the forcing of Green Lantern to share the spotlight with the boisterous Oliver Queen. But what made such a concept work is the even-balance of the characters - one a lot more fair and balanced than the talking head newscasts of today. O’Neil did make Green Lantern quite a bit more of a wallflower than today’s version, but he complimented the works by making Green Arrow an over-the-top loudmouth who makes Howard Dean look tame. Even more stunning was how the book forced both intergalatic policeman Hal Jordan and streetwise man’s man Oliver Queen to challenge and change their beliefs by confronting real life issues instead of soap-boxing about them.

Favorite Moment: After Green Arrow kicks out his ward Speedy for . . . ummm . . . doing speed, his sidekick goes into a tailspin trying to sort his life out. Eventually enlisting the aid of Hal and G.A.’s on-off lover Black Canary, he is successful is kicking the habit - but to Oliver’s unwelcome surprise, Speedy ends up kicking his not-so-canny mentor along with the habit, citing how his friends were ones who helped him through this - not trash talking or tough love rhetoric.

6. Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon - Flipping through a trade of Preacher is one of the most macabre sensations you’ll ever come across. I dare you to try it. Inside, you’ll see grosteque, disturbing and downright blasphemous illustrations which will make you wonder “Why on earth am I even standing here doing this?” But if you read all the way through that same trade, you’ll find heart and hilarity attached to each one of those literally gutsy installments. Preacher is all about Jesse Custer, a disillusioned preacher on a not-so-metaphysical journey to find God, and must literally fight Heaven, Hell and everything in between to do so. While I don’t necessarily agree with Preacher’s sacreligious tone, I totally dig the content - immensely insightful social commentary on the darker side of faith and freedom. Ennis intelligently imports John Wayne and the Wild West to find a light at the end of a vastly nihilistic journey through the American Dream. This is Garth Ennis’ best work - also his saddest and also his funniest, and definitely his liveliest.

Favorite Moment: You think The Da Vinci Code is bad? In one storyline we’re introduced to the bloated yet bulimic Allfather - a grossly obese parody of the Pope, who charges an ill-suffering guard to watch over “the kid” - the inbred descendant of you-know-who. The poor guard watches as the kid prances around drinking gasoline while claiming to turn it into wine, but things get even worse in the end, as the guard watches as the Allfather is flung from a helicopter during a coup - and splats right on top of them!

5. Aquaman by Will Pfeifer - Will Pfeifer has the makings of a comic book legend, but you’d never know it save for a few choice reviews. A couple years ago, he was charged with writing Aquaman - probably a death sentence for most writers. But Will was actually a local favorite of mine - I knew of his columns in the Rockford Register Star and his work on the series H.E.R.O. Then, halfway through the story arc, it hit me - this guy is really good. I soon found I was liking Aquaman in a way I never had before. He was back in the orange and green scales costume, but the artistic execution didn’t bring back laughable memories of Superfriends. Instead, it proved one natural constant - Aquaman is the best at what he does, even if, or especially if, that’s talking to fish. The storyline itself was brillant - with San Diego falling into the ocean to form Sub Diego, and giving Aquaman a new reign as commander of the disaster-ridden city, filled with Americans turned water-breather virtually overnight. DC really threw pearls to swine with this one - favoring Kurt Busiek’s new Arthurian take over Pfeifer’s street-bound business, and Sub Diego, to my knowledge, hasn’t appeared all that much since, although the new Aquagirl, established by Pfeifer, appeared as a member of the makeshift Titans in 52.

Favorite Moment: The immense details Pfeifer employs in the rebuilding of Sub Diego, as huge humpback whales support falling buildings while electric eels are used to restart a man’s heart, and, far more sinister, an army of sharks provide a toothy border for any water-breathing citizen who tries to flee to the now-poisonous surface.

4. Spectacular Spider-Man #200 by J.M. DeMatteis and Sal Buscema- I bought this one at Odd Lots in a “value pack” of comics supposedly totalling more than $20 in worth for just 7 bucks. The pack included a few lame 90’s Avengers, a lot of Power Ranger comics, and this one, with a silver cover and artist signature at the bottom. The issue itself focuses on the final fate of Harry Osborn, as he escalates his conflict with Peter Parker by stalking his former friend through the streets of New York. Along the way, Pete and MJ deal with marriage problems while the picture-esque home life of Harry and Liz Osborn, with their son Normie, threatens to trigger the Osborn madness a generation further. The real crux of this issue is the ending. I don’t profess to know what will happen to Harry Osborn in the upcoming Spider-Man 3 less than a month from now, but if this is his final chapter in the Spidey franchise, this should be the basis. This issue tells you everything you need to know about Harry - who he is and what he does - in the face of his father’s bloodcurdling madness.

Favorite Moment: Again, the ending. I don’t want to spoil it in case the filmmakers do indeed chose to purse a direction similiar to this, but the final scene with Harry and Peter is touching and tragic combination all rolled up into one. Definitely one of the best-written Spider-Man moments to come out of the soon-to-be-Clone-dominated 90’s.

3. Daredevil by Frank Miller - In my stack of 80’s comics, it was easy to see Darevil stood out the most. The coloring, the shading and the point of view were all so radically different from the time. I’ll bet it was a bit like reading “The Spirit” in the 40’s or anything by Jack Kirby in the 60’s - it was an entirely different perspective. Though there were still plenty of other comics in my uncles’ collections I would give a read, Frank Miller’s writing on Daredevil was as diversive as the artwork. Daredevil wasn’t just the gimmick hero - the blind guy - he was a living and breathing figure, one who made mistakes and learned to make payments for them. The covers often touted the complex themes and tones within, with tag lines like “How does a man search for his soul?” While I didn’t have any of the groundbreaking comics dealing with Kingpin or Elecktra, what I saw in the issues I have showed just how powerful this medium could be.

Favorite Moment: I’m terrible with issue numbers, but my favorite comic has Daredevil playing Russian Roulette with a bed-ridden Bullseye, discussing how their last much-publicized battle caused a media-frenzy which pushed a young boy often the edge - eventually wounding a classmate at school with his father’s gun. In the end, Daredevil reveals the gun is empty, and says “I guess we’re stuck with each other.”

2. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons - What you have to understand is I found out about Watchmen through Wizard Magazine. So I knew all about the high body count, the break-neck ending, and the uncoventional adversary. I didn’t actually read it until two years ago. And that’s when I saw the true core of Watchmen - the characters. Though deconstructionist and nihilistic, every character - from the abusive Comedian, the impotent Nite Owl, the removed Dr. Manhattan - show their humanity at one point, and when they do, the result is absolutely amazing. Moore even succeeds in bringing sympathy and humanity to Ozymandias, the ultimate villain of the piece, after all he has done - so much so that I liked him a whole lot better than the remaining so-called heroes.

Favorite Moment: Wizard was wrong to frame Rorscharch as the bad-ass of the piece. Rorscharch is sociopathic, absolutist, and I suspect, possibly homosexual (given his frosty reaction to Silk Spectre), all of these contributing to the all-consuming hatred and rage seething beneath the mask. Yet despite all of these flaws, and a great deal of others, Rorscharch doesn’t crack, doesn’t accept anything less than the truth, and stands alone as the only hero who refuses to give into the world peace/mass murder trade-off the other heroes accept. This is the sole brillance of Watchmen - though cosumed by his flaws, Rorscharch’s willingess to sacrifice himself for his ideals define him as the piece’s true hero.

1. Astro City by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson - Hidden behind the view of superheroes fighting out-of-this world threats and monsters, Busiek and Anderson’s Astro City explores the masks people wear day-to-day just as much if not more than the masks heroes wear fighting supervillains and bank robbers. While I love and recommend each one of these books, my favorite by far is Confessions, which follows a young man named Brian as he serves as superhero sidekick Alter Boy to the methodical and mysterious Confessor. Aliens are laying siege to the space around Earth, while the citizens of Astro City are becoming paranoid following a series of grisly murders. And it doesn’t help matters any that the Confessor has a secret of his own that will change everything for Brian and the heroes of Astro City.

Favorite Moments: Like Spectacular Spider-Man #200, I don’t want to give too much away. Suffice to say, after Brian learns his mentor’s secrets, he asks the Biblical-themed Crossbreed what they thought of the revelation of the Confessor’s true nature, to which Noah, leader of the Crossbreed replies, “What matters more, the burdens we bear or the way we bear them?” Like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s X-Men before them, Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson’s characters work on so many different levels, with layers only limited by the reader’s perpsectives.

Well, that’s all for me today. I’ve told you mine, now I would like to hear yours. What comics out there propelled you further into the medium and kept you coming back to the shop for more?