Post-Infinite Crisis, DC released several mini-series that were, I think, mostly meant to get people hyped for changes they'd made to one character to another. There was a Creeper mini-series, one about an OMAC (the Infinite Crisis types, not the Jack Kirby guy), yet another attempt to reinvent Billy Batson, and Tales of the Unexpected.
The lead story in Tales of the Unexpected was to sell former Gotham Central lead character Crispus Allen as the new human host for the Spectre. For some reason, DC thought having that story to end with Allen being forced to take vengeance against his own son, for the crime of killing the bent cop who murdered Allen, was a good idea.
As far as stories about the DC Universe being run by a cruel and capricious god go, the back-up story by Azzarrello and Chiang worked a lot better. Professional skeptic Doctor 13 and his daughter Traci get caught in the crosshairs of the mysterious four "Architects", who've decided they and a variety of other oddball characters - including Captain Fear, Infectious Lass and Genius Jones - from DC's past no longer have a place in it.
And Dr. 13's an odd character. Difficult to like, arrogant, condescending, cynical. A guy who calls Doctor Fate "Doctor Fake", and assumes every weird thing the DC Universe holds is the equivalent of a Scooby-Doo villain of the week. Can you have a character like that in a fictional universe like these, and not have him become a complete punchline? The guy who insists, no, that vampire is just some really determined cosplayer on PCP. No, there is no way Nazis trained a bunch of gorillas to try and fight for them. No, a caveman would not write a warning in modern French alongside their cave painting.
But that being the case, why wouldn't he deny that four weirdos - never referred to by name, and often masked, but it's Morrison, Waid, Johns and Rucka - even have the capacity to deny his existence, let alone erase it?
Chiang and Mulvihill make the whole thing look beautiful and bright. Let the weird characters look and be weird. I, Vampire gets hit by a subway train, he's still talking to Dr. 13 while his body is gruesomely chopped across the rails. Dr. 13 insists there cannot be a bunch of Nazi gorillas fighting a tank and a Confederate ghost, and Jeb Stuart's horse drops a load of ghost horse crap on his face. It's a big fictional universe, there are gonna be odd little backwaters. Or there should be.
While I'm not sure Dr. 13's appeared since, Traci was part of Jaime Reyes' supporting cast for a time, and I, Vampire got an ongoing series during the New 52. Though I'm pretty sure it was one of the first wave that got canceled, so it's still hard to get by out there on the stands.
2 comments:
Man, I LOVED the Dr 13 et al story in this mini-series. It was just so much fun (Nazi gorillas - I mean, come on!) and as you say it looked gorgeous with Chiang and Mulvihill's art and colors.
If only DC would still do the occasional off the wall mini like this.
I kind of regret not buying this until years after it came out, but waiting for the trade meant I didn't have to deal with the Spectre junk.
I feel like the things DC would let Giffen do sometimes, or maybe Mark Russell's stuff, are the closest they get these days. Maybe some of the Harley Quinn stuff is metatextual enough, or the Fire & Ice mini-series out now? I've only seen bits and pieces on scans daily, but the two of them running a beauty shop in Smallville, which Fire wanted to have been like a fight club (Or something)?
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