Welcome to Seven Soldiers of Spring! For the next two months, we'll look at each of the mini-series Grant Morrison and a variety of artists created back in 2005. I've opted to ditch alphabetical order in favor of the order the mini-series were released, since I think the order was an intentional thing.
So we start with Shining Knight, which itself started 10,000 years ago as Camelot falls to a race of invaders known as the Sheeda. The Sheeda, in addition to riding around on giant spiders, have all sorts of advanced weaponry against which the bravery of the remaining Knights of the Round Table can only do so much. Still, Sir Justin (or Ystin) infiltrates the Revolving Castle to confront the Sheeda Queen. The Queen is wounded, but so is Justin, whose flying horse carries them both through a pool of liquid and emerges in the present (for 2005) day.
From there, Justin struggles not only to adapt to a very different world, but also survivor's guilt, although Morrison and Bianchi make it an actual weapon of the Sheeda. The 'Mood 7 Mind Destroyer,' a bulky, man-shaped specter with spider eyes, seemingly made of a million little black motes, that follows Justin around enumerating his failures.
(I think someone else already did it back when this came out, but I was trying to map these mini-series to different ones of the heavenly virtues. I wouldn't say I had much success, not the least of which because I'm not sure which set I should use, but I lean towards Diligence for Shining Knight, in that Justin is able to withstand the "mind destroyer" by refusing to abandon the principles and ideals of Camelot, even in a world that seems to have no use or respect for them.)
Justin's horse, Vanguard, descendant of Pegasus, ends up in the hands of Don Vincenzo, a mob boss known for coming back from the dead. Because he has something of the Sheeda Queen's, and as her forces reveal themselves in the present day, they aim to get it back. Justin, in an attempt to prepare this world for the Sheeda, surrenders to the authorities. But the only translator the FBI agent he speaks with can find turns out to be something other than what she plays at.
At times, Bianchi's style looks like it's leaning into photo-reference, at least for the more human characters, which makes some of the expressions look awkward. The giant spiders don't look particularly terrifying, and Nebulon (because Morrison brings out the foe of the 1940s Seven Soldiers as one of Sheeda's top guys) doesn't maybe capture the otherworldly horror of being confronted with a living universe. Still scarier than the Beyonder, though, jheri curl or no.
But Bianchi shifts seamlessly between making Justin look like a brave warrior and a confused or hurt teenager as the scene requires. Shadows are more prominent once the story reaches the present day, which is presented as a lesser, polluted time compared to the one Justin hails from.
The big reveal of the final issue is that Justin is a young girl, or female at birth at least. I'm not sure if Justin thinks of herself as a woman, and wears bindings because the knights wouldn't let her hang around otherwise, or is a trans man. Galahad refers to Justin in flashback as 'a schoolboy,' but that could be read either way. He doesn't know, or he knows that's what Justin would prefer. At any rate, Justin ultimately has to face and destroy a twisted vision of something beloved, and then keep fighting. Because the foe's not beaten yet, and a knight of Camelot can't stop until the battle's won.
5 comments:
Looking forward to this series of posts. I remember enjoying Seven Soldiers to an extent, but also feeling a bit lost, as it all seemed a bit Inside DC Baseball.
Will you also be covering "chapter zero", that bizarre JLA Classified three parter?
Oh! And I read somewhere that the original idea was to do an Avengers analogue in the DCU (putting aside that there's already an Avengers analogue in the DCU) but it became 7S as Morrison refined it.
Re-reading the minis to prep these posts has really helped draw connections in my head and to make some sort of timeline for when things are happening in relation to one another.
I don't think I knew anything about 7S until it was coming out, or maybe after, when other bloggers started digging into it. Morrison's stuff seemed like it was more interesting to read people's analysis of (and arguments over said analysis) than actually reading the comics themselves.
I definitely didn't know there was a 3-part JLA Classified arc that kind of kicks this off (I never picked that book up.) I am going to do a post for the zero & 1 issues (that J.H. Williams drew) that bookended all the mini-series, but I'm saving it for last.
You're not missing much with the JLAC arc. Nebuloh is in it, and the villains turn out to be the Sheeda, although no one in the story really picks up on them, so the connections to 7S are tenuous.
As for 7S itself, I enjoyed it but I always got the feeling that I would have got more out of it if I'd known who the characters were. That said, from what I've found out since, Morrison reinvented most of them to the extent that they were basically new characters anyway.
Good to know it's not critical.
As far as the versions in these minis versus prior portrayals, yeah, a lot of them are entirely different characters, so I don't know how much knowing about the prior versions would help. All I knew about Shining Knight was from the Justice League Unlimited cartoon, and he's the version from the 1940s 7S, while this Sir Justin is entirely different.
Guardian's gear is from the Cadmus Guardian - he was told they bought it off some 'military R&D project' - but all-new guy. Bulleteer's a new character, I'm guessing this was a new vision of Frankenstein. I know Shilo Norman had been Mr. Miracle at times, but I don't know how much Morrison changed him. Ditto Klarion, but I was at least able to follow these stories. Zatanna's mini-series obliquely mentions her mindwiping people without directly mentioning "Identity Crisis", but you don't need to know the specifics.
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