Saturday Splash Page #215

"Roadkilled," in Resurrection Man #8, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Butch Guice (artist), Carla Feeny (colorist), Ken Lopez (letterer)

Mitch Shelly has been homeless and wandering for a while. He doesn't know much about himself, not even that his last name is "Shelly." One day, during a drive-by, he learns he can fly. And gets shot. Sees flashes of a life that might have been his, then dies.

And then he's alive again, with a different superpower. He doesn't know the "why," isn't even entirely sure about the "who." But he's got a few leads to start chasing.

Except there are also lots of people chasing him. People who intended for Mitch to stay dead. People certain he was never dead to begin with. People interested in why he doesn't stay dead. People who think they know why, because they think they know who he really is.

In that sense, Resurrection Man's 27-issue run (plus a DC One Million tie-in issue) is one big continuum of chases and pursuits. Mitch pursuing answers about himself. Insurance investigator Kim Rebecki pursuing Mitch, who she suspects of faking his death. The bounty hunting pin-up model duo Body Doubles pursuing Mitch for their employer. A walking corpse that consumes parts of people to keep going and will not shut up, that wants what Mitch's got. The Forgotten Heroes - a version of them, anyway - show up late in the series wanting Mitch's help dealing with Vandal Savage.

Some of it works better than others. While it makes perfect sense Mitch would want to learn who he was and try to regain what he'd lost, it never interested me much. Abnett and Lanning have Mitch's past involve being a scummy lawyer, but by the time we figure that out, we've seen him die multiple times protecting innocent people. Unless you're going to really delve into what makes a person who they are in terms of why Mitch changed before and after his first death (or you're going to tease him reverting over time), the guy he was before doesn't make much difference.

I was more interested in the deal with his powers, even if I had no idea who this "Immortal Man" was the Forgotten Heroes and Phantom Stranger each assumed him to be. Especially the cat-and-mouse game with the Body Doubles, where Mitch sometimes had the upper hand, but sometimes got caught flat-footed or unprepared. He's running a lot early, but as he gets a better handle on his powers (and lands a potent power thanks to some help from a two-issue guest appearance by Hitman, who Abnett and Lanning do an excellent job using in a tone that matches Ennis'), he can turn the tables.

Guice drew the entire series (minus a couple of fill-ins.) There's a strong Joe Kubert influence to his work in the scratchy lines and Mitch's wiry frame and ragged look. Even when Mitch tries shaving and trimming his hair, he still looks like a guy who's been living rough for a while and shows it. It gives Mitch an everyday appearance, rather than that of some costumed hero. Mitch will act to saves lives he sees in danger, but most of the time he's focused on own problems. He eventually recognizes there's a greater threat to be confronted, but initially agrees to work with the Forgotten Heroes because Vandal Savage was involved in the experiments Mitch was subjected to.

(In DC One Million, Mitch has embraced being a hero, as something like the senior tactician of that time's Justice League, what with all the experience he's got. Guice draws him in a more superheroic outfit, and gives him a more bulked-up physique, reflecting the change in perspective.)

Mitch survives the big conflict at the end of his series, but doesn't seem inclined to embrace being a hero. Instead he returns to his home town and Kim Rebecki, since the two had started something of a relationship amid all the different people killing Mitch. Which might be why nobody much used him after the series ended, although he seems like the Hero Dial in that he would be an opportunity to play around with weird powers.

Abnett and Lanning took another crack at the character in the initial New 52. Of the 3 books I tried at the start, it was the one that held out the longest, until it was canceled around 10 months in. But I was probably buying it from inertia as much as anything. They again spent more time digging into Mitch's past than I would have liked. I wasn't exactly disappointed when the book ended.

Random Back Issues #165 - Guardians of the Galaxy #10

That's King Monkey-Face, to you, beardo. 

Last year, we looked at 3 issues of this series from around and after War of Kings. Here, the cast is still picking its way out of the mess Secret Invasion tie-ins caused, where it was revealed Star-Lord had Mantis telepathically nudge several members of the team into joining.

Given the roster, it's a miracle no one got stabbed, but Drax left to search for Cammi, Phylla-Vell in tow (they're not in this issue.) Earlier, the team fought the Universal Church of Truth, so Adam Warlock's decided to confront them, with Gamora. Warlock tells the "Matriarch" he's the messiah their religion foretells, and while she allows there is prophecy of a Warlock, how do they know it's him? Adam vows to prove himself by saving the universe from the "war of kings" his visions warn of, and departs.

This leaves the Matriarch with a conundrum: if Adam Warlock's out and about, who's in the cocoon the Church already has? Whoever it is, they don't appreciate the Matriarch touching the cocoon, but she still seems determined to have it opened as soon as possible. ('As soon as possible' won't be for over 10 issues, and it won't be her doing when it happens.)

Feeling guilty, Star-Lord went solo to investigate reports from Kree space and found them building a Babel Spire like the Phalanx had, as a potential defense. He objected, Ronan overruled, and Quill wound up dumped in the Negative Zone, into Blastaar's hands. Sorry, King Blastaar, busy trying to break into the prison Tony Stark and Reed Richards built, so he can invade their universe.

Quill agreed to negotiate with the prisoners (the guards fled through the portal and sealed it behind them.) He instead teamed up with former Captain America sidekick Jack Flag (in a wheelchair after Bullseye knifed him in the spine in Ellis' Thunderbolts) to try and get some help and keep Blastaar out. Unfortunately, one of the prisoners, Skeleton Ki, opened the prison gates, so Blastaar's inside and pissed at Quill. The Guardians - Rocket, Mantis, Major Victory, Groot, and Bug - tried to teleport to Quill's location, but the locator was in his helmet, which was he wasn't wearing. So they landed in the middle of Blastaar's army.

Quill and Flag are in the middle of fighting off three inmates they got into it with last issue when Mantis telepathically locates Quill and sends the coordinates to Cosmo, who beams them to Quill to make the save. Especially as King Blastaar Kool-Aid Mans through the wall just in time to watch the Guardians and Jack Flag teleport away. Still, Blastaar soon controls the prison, everyone either joining him or dying. On the joining side? Skeleton Ki, who is ordered to find a way to open that portal, or else.

(Abnett and Lanning never pay off Blastaar's anger at Quill saying he'll act as negotiator then immediately switching sides, but they also never did anything with any hard feelings about Mantis' continued presence on the team after her part in Star-Lord's manipulations.)

Later, the Guardians visit Earth to tell Reed Richards and a couple of those dickheads from the Initiative comic (the soldier with the bionic arm who always ran down the New Warriors, and the literal Nazi mad scientist) to never open the portal. None of the Earthers seem all that impressed by Star-Lord's explanation they're the Guardians of the Galaxy. Reed should at least know Mantis and have some idea who Major Victory is, right? Ben Grimm teamed up the with OG Guardians, and the future New Warrior version of Vance is Ben's buddy. Then again, Quill refers to them as the "Fabulous Four," so there's disrespect and ignorance flying all directions.

Back in Knowhere, a doctor fixed Jack's spine with space medicine, but he's got nowhere to go, seeing as he's a criminal on Earth, and hates 'cosmic stuff.' So he joins the team. And Major Victory visits the Starhawk (not one he knows) the team captured a few issues ago, who keeps speaking of an 'error' that signals the end of everything.

{5th longbox, 91st comic. Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #10, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (penciler), Victor Olazaba and Livesay (inkers), Wil Quintana (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #397

"Welcome to Knowhere," in Nova (vol. 4) #8, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writer), Wellinton Alves (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Guru eFX (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Richard Rider, aka Nova, was I think, Marvel's attempt to create Spider-Man in the '70s, via combining "teenager gets powers," with Green Lantern's "part of an interplanetary police force." Kyle Rayner, but 15 years earlier. Also less successful. Rich's first series ran just 25 issues, but I've not read any of it. There were two attempts in the '90s, running a combined 25 issues, the last (Erik Larsen's attempt) canceled after just 7. I've read a few issues of volume 2, the "Time After Time" crossover with New Warriors and Night Thrasher, but none of volume 3.

After, Nova's part of Jay Faerber's New Warriors, but he's written as overly concerned with his image. Trying to get a movie deal, resisting rejoining the Warriors because he feels it's a demotion. He's still banging that drum in Zeb Wells and Skottie Young's reality TV show mini-series. In neither book does he look competent enough to ever reach the "big leagues" of super-heroing to which he aspires.

And then, Keith Giffen made him a central figure in Annihilation. The only member of the Nova Corps to survive the assault on Xandar by Annihilus' Negative Zone army, Rich is forced to take on the entirety of the Nova Force, despite having seen up close (in the mid-third of New Warriors volume 1) how that drove Garthan Saal mad. But Rich has the Xandarian Worldmind, a vast repository of knowledge and experience, to help him use the power, and keep him on an even keel. Nova learns to fight a war. He learns to lead an army. Kills Annihilus by pulling his digestive tract out through his mouth.

Nova, volume 4, written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, is what he does after. In a universe reeling from a war that wiped out the Skrull Empire and tore up half of the Kree Empire, with all the destabilization in communication, trade, and stability that implies, there are lots of people that need help. Rich has the power to do it, but he's only one man. So there's a push-and-pull between the Worldmind, which wants to rebuild the Corps and be housed in a safe storage bank, and Richard, who wants to help the people in danger now, and needs all this power to do it.

Abnett and Lanning keep it from being as simple as Richard wanting to be the big hero. A lot of it is trauma from the war. All the people who died because there was no one alive to help, or there were other, bigger crises to fight. Plus, rebuilding the Nova Corps isn't as simple as just giving people power and a bucket-hat. You have to teach them how to use it, how to survive, else you're just creating corpses. That takes time to do properly. Time Nova doesn't feel they can spare because, again, people are dying now.

Most of the stories take place in outer space, against threats big enough Nova is still outclassed, or close to it, even with all the Nova Force. So, periodically, the plot takes Nova back to Earth. This includes the first 3 issues, drawn by Sean Chen, where Nova gets a look at his home post-Civil War. Spoiler alert: it sucks! Rich is as flabbergasted by "Speedball as Penance" as I am! We do get a bit where Iron Man, unaware of everything that went on in space, even though Nova sent a warning to Reed Richards, asks what happened to Annihilus. Nova's response? 'I pulled him inside out and saved the universe. What have you done lately, Tony?'

Alongside the issue of JMS' Thor where Thor beats the piss out of Iron Man over creating a cyborg murder-clone of him, it's my favorite example of characters giving Tony Stark the business for his bullshit.

Where was I? Right, the trip back to Earth serves to show how far Rich has come, with other characters reacting to how different he is, and how easily he handles problems. A Thunderbolts squad with Moonstone, Venom, and Radioactive Man want to try and arrest Nova for being unregistered? He can shrug off everything they throw at him. He can take out one of his old enemies, Diamondhead, in one panel. Iron Man shows up on his parents' doorstep with a few dozen SHIELD agents? Nova isn't freaked out, nor does he rush to an attack. He's calm, and very clear to Stark this better not happen again.

From there, it's back to space, straight into Annihilation: Conquest tie-ins, and Abnett and Lanning's biggest misstep. They introduce Ko-rel, the highest-ranking survivor of a Kree ship downed during Annihilation, trying to keep her crew alive while waiting for rescue, hoping to get home to her son. Worldmind taps her to protect Rich from the Phalanx when he's badly injured. She fails, her crew dies, and while trying to kill Richard and keep the Phalanx from getting the Worldmind, hesitates and is knifed in the back by Gamora. The guilt over this (plus the little bit of Nova Force he gets back with her death) is what finally gets Richard to shrug off the Phalanx control.

So she dies, so he can feel bad. Boooo. Abnett and Lanning do, sort of, bring her back later. When the Worldmind's been corrupted and needs a new sort of interface set-up, it picks Ko-Rel as the template. So the Worldmind becomes less clinical and drily sarcastic, but more prone to bust Rider's chops since he did, after all, get her killed.

Still, I think there was potential in having her help Richard so he could escape, even if reduced in power, and her doing her best as a lone rookie Nova trapped inside the bubble the Phalanx used to seal off the Kree Empire. A person on the ground view, from one not as accustomed to the craziness as the rest of the characters. After that, you can have her kid alive, where Ko-Rel wants to be decommissioned and Rich is for it while the Worldmind objects, or she can stick around as the first trainee if you figure the kid is already dead.

This is also where the book's struggle to maintain a consistent artist starts coming into play. Chen draw parts of each issue of this story, with Brian Denham handling the rest. Chen's art is solid, a heavy line, squared-off characters, a little Sal Buscema in it, where Denham's is slicker, thinner lines, glossier color. Chen shows Nova's speed and power by having the ports on his uniform almost constantly venting orange smoke, like rocket exhaust. Denham gives Nova more of a fiery aura, like Cannonball's blast field. The division of pages seems to be set so each artist handles a different perspective. If Chen draws pages focused on Ko-Rel, Denham draws pages focused on Gamora. (Denham also, during a scene set in Richard's mind, shows us there was a Nova Corps member who was a blue Pikachu, which was a cute touch.)

Richard regains control and escapes Kree space, but these are still unofficial Conquest tie-ins, since a Phalanx-controlled Gamora and Drax are on Nova's ass as he tries to find a cure for the transmode virus raging inside him. (In this case, rather than pit Nova against an outer space threat where he's outclassed at full strength, Abnett and Lanning nerf him by having most of his energy spent holding back the infection.) At which point Wellinton Alves becomes penciler. Alves draws the two issues that introduce us to Knowhere, the mecca set within a severed Celestial head floating at the edge of the universe, and Cosmo the Spacedog, head of security for Knowhere and a very good dog. Alves will remain primary penciler for most of the next 14 issues, minus the two set on the Technarchy homeworld drawn by Paul Pelletier.

Alves has a thinner line than Chen, his Nova is slimmer, more angular. The energy tends to crackle from his ports along his body like lightning, and there are also a lot of faint, arcing lines visible. Like someone faintly traced over the page with a Spirograph. Never sure what those were meant to convey. Scott Hanna inks, and goes heavier on the shadows for Alves than he did with Chen, but Alves, in the early-going, is drawing more horror-themed stories. The visit to Knowhere coincides with an alien group of heroes trying to dump their worst foe off the edge of the universe, and somehow being turned to zombies by him instead. Once Conquest is finally done, Nova ends up trying to save a world's inhabitants from Galactus. Not the world; he accepts that's doomed, but to give the people a chance to escape.

The Surfer lends a (reluctant) quiet hand, but Nova doesn't want to abandon anyone, so he stays, against the Worldmind's suggestion, seemingly trapping them and dooming them to die. I didn't really get that part. OK, something about Galactus' machine makes forming a stargate impossible. Nova is a Human Rocket; he can't fly fast enough to hit escape velocity? Anyway, there's also a creature that trails after Galactus, feeding on the psychic terror he causes in the worlds he visits, drawn as jagged black lines floating above its victim, which is the horror element as Rich tries to apprehend it for murder.

Rich escapes the planet, but the Worldmind seems to crash, leaving Rich on his own to make it home when he learns about Secret Invasion from Super-Skrull. That leads him to Project PEGASUS, where his little brother Robbie is working as a scientist, and Darkhawk is head of security. (Another opportunity for Nova to show off, as he's much calmer and more tactical than Darkhawk.) It's also when we and Nova learn the Worldmind has been secretly recruiting new Novas and setting itself up inside Ego, the Living Planet. (A page of that was going to be my fallback if this double-page splash didn't turn out well.) During this stretch, Geraldo Burges is co-penciling the book with Alves, but either his pencils are very similar, or Hanna's inks mute the differences to where it isn't always easy to tell.

This is where the ideological conflict between Richard and the Worldmind comes to a head. Richard worries the Worldmind is recruiting too many people, plucking them directly from the streets, including his little brother. It's too fast, and feeding combat info into someone's head isn't the same as them knowing how to fight. But maybe Richard just likes being the big hero too much. Doesn't want to go back to just being another Nova, same as all the others, including his much smarter little brother. Maybe he's just too traumatized by all those deaths to recognize one man can't do it alone. Especially a reckless man who regularly endangers the Worldmind and all that it holds.

Rich is stripped of Nova Force entirely, and learns his body was altered from holding so much power, he can no longer survive without it. Too bad Worldmind-Ego took off for deep space with all its Novas, to get involved in War of Kings. The book has a real weak spot, not necessarily its fault, that it constantly sprints from one status quo to another, with little time to explore any of them. The effects of Annihilation are really only addressed in the first issue, and Conquest barely gets any play before War of Kings, and what issues there are, most are spent on Earth dealing with Secret Invasion. There's always another event banner to slap across the top of the cover.

And now, here's Andrea Di Vito as penciler. Di Vito is the closest the book gets to a regular artist, drawing 10 of the final 15 issues. (Alves drew parts of 12 issues, but was only credited as sole penciler for 6 of those.)  His style is cleaner than Alves or Chen's, closer to Pelletier's, but not as exaggerated in body types or facial features (Pelletier does a great job drawing Warlock as extremely expressive with his body.) The colors for Di Vito's issues are also brighter shades and tones. Which is perhaps an odd choice for issues about a bunch of rookies being thrown into a war where neither side wants them there, and Vulcan has a black ops Imperial Guard that commit war crimes like killing surrendered enemies. The image of a pile of empty, busted Nova helmets is effective.

Richard makes it to the fight with an assist from Quasar (currently a being of quantum energy), gets the Worldmind free of Ego's influence (this is when Ko-Rel "returns"), and reclaims the title and power of Nova Prime. Then rockets into battle to find his brother, who is trying to bring in essentially a female version of Gladiator on his own. This also gives us a funny scene where Nova talks his way out of a fight with Blastaar by loudly praising his kingly wisdom, while whispering threats he'll do to him what he did to Annihilus. Sadly, we never got a showdown between the two.

Most of the Novas are sent home, minus a handful who ask to stay and get proper training. There's now a huge tear in space-time, and a ship drifts out of it. Kevin Sharpe (who drew one fill-in during War of Kings) handles a two-parter involving an old Nova lost in another universe for decades, Monark Starstalker, and a gang of Mindless Ones, called the Black Hole Sun Gang, led by a not-so Mindless One. The gang is dealt with by dumping them inside an awakening Ego, Starstalker sets out to do his own thing, and Zan Philo (the Nova Centurion) sticks around to train the new kids and offer wry comments, while his ship acts as the Worldmind's new home.

(Abnett and Lanning also start a subplot involving the Shi'ar named Nova Prime in Rich's absence, who is captured by Gladiator and apparently forgotten by the Corps, being approached by Garthan Saal about starting their own "Super-Nova Corps." That never went anywhere, probably just as well. The book didn't need its own Sinestro Corps.)

The series wraps with Nova running into 2 versions the Sphinx within the tear in space-time, fighting each other over the power of 2 Ka Stones. Abnett and Lanning use the odd properties of the Fault to bring back Namorita, albeit one I'm not sure could have existed. She's very affectionate with Rich, which didn't kick off until she left the team in the middle of volume 1 and started physically changing, but she's in the classic white, blonde, green swimsuit look. But hell, I was just glad Millar's nonsense was undone one way or another.

Then the book was canceled, and Thanos Imperative kicked off. Like I said, the book never really settled into a status quo long enough to dig into it. Always on to the next event, but it was also selling pretty low, so do what you must for survival. Better to get three years of good issues, even if it leaves some untapped potential on the table.

At 36 issues, plus an Annual, this is the most successful run Nova's had so far. Jeph Loeb created a new kid after Thanos Imperative, Sam Alexander, who found out his dad was part of some black ops branch of the Corps. That lasted 31 issues. Sam got a second volume post-Secret Wars, which ran 11 issues, and looks to have been derailed by Civil War II tie-ins. Another volume, pairing Sam with a returned Richard Rider, died after 7 issues. I didn't even stick with it past issue 4. Sam got some run as a Champion, and on at least one New Avengers squad. Richard has mostly stuck to space, appearing in various Guardians of the Galaxy books. Plus, he was on Mars during some of the Krakoa stuff. But he's getting another shot at a solo series starting next month. Jed MacKay's writing it, so it'll probably last at least a year.

Random Back Issues #138 - Guardians of the Galaxy #17

We've seen an issue prior to this and one showcasing some aftermath. The dice must be big War of Kings fans this year.

The decapitated Celestial head that's the home to Knowhere just woke up and warned everyone of a massive threat to the universe. That's good (the warning.) Too bad the Inhumans' big bomb already went off. That's bad. But Black Bolt and Vulcan died in the explosion. That's good! But it also tore a massive hole in the fabric of the universe. That's bad.

While Warlock, Gamora on his heels, seeks a solution, what's left of the team - Rocket, Groot, Drax, Major Victory, and Phyla-Vell - teleport aboard the Inhumans' big ship. In theory, they want to make sure there's no second bomb, but it's mostly the Guardians berating the Inhumans for being idiots. Fair.

This much deserved finger-pointing is interrupted by massive tentacles emerging from the Fault to reel in the city-ship. While the Inhumans and some of the Guardians try to fend off the invaders, Rocket, Crystal, and Groot stick with Maximus the Mad, to find some way. But really, it's just Maximus and Groot talking it out, while Crystal and Rocket watch. All we see Groot saying is, "I am Groot," but Maximus insists that's because of the hardened formation of Groot's larynx, and you need to listen to the 'breeze beneath it.' Rocket and Crystal agree Maximus is as crazy as a bag of spanners, which is not an insult that makes much sense, but hell, it's been a long day for everyone.

Maximus and Groot somehow unmake the creature by uncreating its reality and imposing their own. Whatever that means, that's good! The Fault is still growing and the ship lost enough velocity it's falling into the Fault. That's bad. A bunch of templeships of the Universal Church of Truth arrive! That's bad. Phyla investigates and finds Adam Warlock preparing a big spell to arrest the Fault's growth by grafting their timeline to an inert future. That's. . .good? The spell is powered by the faith generators of the Church of Truth, and the engines are powered by the belief of their followers, burning them out in the process. That's bad.

Warlock casts his spell, the Fault stops growing, Maximus looks very confused as Crystal hugs him, Adam takes a moment to appreciate his act, while aware of the dangers, and then Phyla stabs him through the chest with her sword. She made a deal with Oblivion to get Moondragon back, and it involved killing the Avatar of Life at the right moment. Gamora objects, they fight, Phyla gets stabbed in the chest. See how you like it.

Gamora rushes to Adam's side, but Warlock's not home. Instead it's the Magus, but the inert timeline Warlock used was the one where he turns purple. Gamora bemoans Warlock dooming himself to save the universe - ignoring that the universe ain't gonna be in great shape with this putz on the loose - and Magus snaps her neck and tosses her body into space. This outcome would subsequently appear to be averted - time travel shenanigans - but that would be a fakeout, too.

{5th longbox, 38th comic. Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #17, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (penciler), Victor Olazaba and Scott Hanna (inkers), Jay David Ramos (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)}

Arcing to a Conclusion

I don't know. A solid portion of the U.S. sure loves the Confederate Army, who definitely lost. Or, for another example, Trump. Multiple times bankrupt, convicted of several crimes, lost an election. Complete loser, but beloved by a disturbingly large portion of the dumbasses in this country.

Tangent Comics Volume 3 collects the last 8 one-shots from the original Tangent Comics run. *Deep breath* In order, Superman (Mark Millar, Jackson Guice, Lovern Kindzierski, Comicraft); Wonder Woman (Peter David, Angel Unzueta, Jamie Mendoza, Pam Rambo, Comicraft); Nightwing: Night Force (John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, Gloria Vazquez, Comicraft); The Joker's Wild (Karl Kesel and Tom Simmons, Joe Phillips, Jasen Rodriguez, Moose Baumann, Comicraft); The Trials of the Flash (Todd DeZago, Paul Pelletier, Andy Lanning, Joe Rosas, Comicraft), Tales of the Green Lantern (James Robinson, J.H. Williams III and Mick Gray, Lee Loughridge, Comicraft, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Mike Mayhew, Wade von Grawbadger, Georges Jeanty, Drew Gerard, Ostrander, Ryan Sook), Powergirl (Ron Marz, Dusty Abell, Dexter Vines, James Sinclair, Chris Eliopoulos); and JLA (Dan Jurgens, Darryl Banks, Norm Rapmund, Rob Schwager, Comicraft)

I'm not sure why they distributed the comics so unevenly between the volumes (6 for the first volume, 5 for volume 2, but 8 here.) Especially given the differences in goals of some of these stories. Superman, Wonder Woman and Powergirl fit in theme with the comics from volume 2. Each provides an origin and introduction for this universe's version of these characters, albeit with wildly different approaches.

Millar's Superman (real name Harvey Dent) is the sole survivor of a covert government experiment performed on a largely African-American town in an attempt to perfect a way to give people super-powers. It worked on one baby, in the sense that his mind is evolved far beyond a normal human's. A Man of Tomorrow. Wonder Woman's the result of an attempt to broker peace between two alien races by combining their genetics into one perfect warrior. Except both races consider her an abomination. And Powergirl is China's second attempt to create a superhuman warrior. She's a real success, but she's not sure she wants to be.

Millar's is fairly cynical, as Dent grows increasingly detached from humanity, dealing with crises because he just wants problems to solve rather than actually caring much about the people he helps. I mean, I doubt those people care, but his girlfriend does care that he's distanced himself from her. The bit where she confesses cheating on him and Harvey responds that he's a telepath, so he knew she was going to cheat before she did made me roll my eyes. I feel like this character heavily informs how Millar writes Reed Richards, but maybe it's just Millar in general.

Peter David turns his story into a running gag, as the title character spends an entire fight having an existential crisis. She's can't help but "wonder" whether she has any right to exist, or if she even does. It gets obnoxious after about three pages, but the payoff is apparently that she can reorder reality by thinking (or wondering) hard enough. She erases the aliens attacking her from existence by simply insisting they don't exist, to the extent all the damage from the battle vanishes, because the two who started the fight never existed to cause the damage in the first place.

Marz only actually brings Powergirl out at the very end of his issue, fitting into the idea of her as a designed weapon who wishes to make her own decisions. None of the people the story follows up to then - the U.S. President, formerly part of a black ops group, the guys from Nightwing, the Chinese government - see her as any thing but a tool to gain advantage. They're all just fighting over who has their finger on the trigger. When she finally arrives, in a design that makes me think of an elaborate doll crossed with NASCAR, they're left standing there gawking as she casually revives the dead and then leaves.

Trials of the Flash, The Joker's Wild, and Tales of the Green Lantern follow-up on the earlier appearances of each character. Green Lantern's is "multiple origins", as she relates three different possible ways (each by a different creative team) she came to exist. Sook seems to channel a lot of Mignola in his story, the characters very angular and sharply defined, while Jeanty's work is very similar to the Dodsons.

Dezago and Pelletier make Trials of the Flash into an extended cartoon, as the Flash's dad spends the entire issue trying increasingly elaborate super-science weapons to capture or kill her, only to have each backfire on him.

So that leaves Night Force and JLA, the former of which heavily leads into the latter, albeit with a lot of stuff about different covert organizations at war with each other. There's Nightwing, but also Meridian, which is like Nightwing but in Europe. Night Force, who think they're fighting Nightwing, but are actually being used by it. And there's a "Dark Circle" which may stand above both, or not. Really feels like something that needed more time to play out. But hey, we find out the USSR is still run by Vampire Josef Stalin. I still think "cryo-frozen, uses a giant mech suit" Stalin from Simonson's FF run is better, but that's pretty cool.

The big ending though is that Stalin's attempts to harvest the souls of three-quarters of the Doom Patrol goes haywire once Night Force shows up and end up combined into some missing puzzle piece monster calling itself the "Ultra-Humanite". Or maybe like a mech whose joints are connected by electric arcs. That rolls into JLA, where the Humanite somehow has armed soldiers surrounding the U.S. capitol building, while he's still busy crushing the Secret Six in two pages somewhere else. And yet another secretive cabal decides they need to kill every superpowered being they can find (except the Ultra-Humanite), and their fuck-ups bring together Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and the resurrected original Atom.

It doesn't really work, since it's hard to believe they could actually work together. Jurgens dials back Superman's detachment a bit (though he ignores that Millar's story ended with Dent offering his girlfriend the same powers), but this group just doesn't seem likely to mesh. Wonder Woman's off in her own world half the time and Batman's got his big redemption quest. And Atom's only around for as long as Green Lantern's power let him stay that way. And how did Batman get from London to Missouri so quickly? And why the hell not wait to try and kill the other superpowered types after the Ultra-Humanite's dealt with? See if they solve your problems for you, or failing that, at least wear each other out.

Maybe I just liked the Secret Six group more and wanted to see more of them in action.

Random Back Issues #131 - Guardians of the Galaxy #21

"Cancerverse" is such inflammatory language. Call it a "Fecundiverse"; that only sounds vaguely dirty.

The last time we looked at the Guardians, they were in the process of failing miserably to convince the Inhumans and the Shi'ar to stop fighting a war that would endanger the very universe. Well, Black Bolt and Vulcan are dead now (hooray!), but not before the Inhumans set off a bomb that tore a hole in space-time continuum, dubbed the Fault.

The Luminals, an irritating band of superheroes that hang out on Knowhere and basically fuck everything up, sent some of their team into "The Fault", and came back infected. The alien tries to attack Moondragon, but she's able to create a telekinetic field to trap it.

The rest of the Guardians arrive, but so do a bunch of followers of the Universal Church of Truth, who think the many-tooth alien squid-thing is their god (due to the particular psychic emanations it produces.) All the excitement of the dumbshit fundamentalists exercising their religious freedom drives the creature nuts and it breaks loose, killing several of them, before attacking the Luminals' leader, Cynosure. The only option Moondragon has is to lure the creature into herself instead.

Now in quarantine, Moondragon's using her telepathy to keep the thing under control. But, it gives her a chance to learn some stuff. The creature comes from a universe on the far side of the Fault. A place where life has won. Star-Lord doesn't get what that means, but he'll have to parse it later. The Luminals are here to be fuck up again!

The creature killed one of their teammates, so they want to "extradite" it. How is not elaborated because Cynosure cuffs herself to Moondragon with something that'll blow them both up without the combination. The Knowhere Council want the creature off the station, but the Guardians are not about to let the Luminals handle that. And fortunately, they've got Drax to claim parental rights, which at least buys the team a few hours.

But since it's all down to whether Moondragon can get the thing under control so they can expel it from her and back into the Fault, Rocket uses the time to jab at Drax about almost sounding like he actually cares about his daughter. Which spurs Drax to go visit, only to find the church loonies kidnapping her and Cynosure. Which gives Drax a chance to do what he does best, kill people. It's going pretty well until the Church's Matriarch does a vaguely Penance Stare-like move and Drax goes into the fetal position.

{5th longbox, 42nd comic. Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #21, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (penciler), Andrew Hennessy and Victor Olazaba (inkers), Wil Quintana (colorist), Joe Carmagna (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #124 - Guardians of the Galaxy #15

Pity we never got a proper team-up.

We're smack in the middle of War of Kings, aka the War of Stupid Assholes, and so are the Guardians. The team tried splitting up and approaching the respective rulers, Black Bolt and Vulcan, separately about ending the war before they tore apart space-time.

Vulcan's a psychopath, so that was a no-go. Worse, the Imperial Guard has a mage who tagged Adam Warlock with some sort of "witch-mark" that allows them to track him back to Knowhere. The Inhumans were no more receptive, and then Phyla-Vell took Crystal hostage when the Guardians left. And the Inhumans have a teleporting dog that allows them to follow.

Beseiged from both sides, Warlock and Cosmo's shields fall. Mantis and Star-Lord convinced Crystal the threat of universal destruction is real, but Black Bolt doesn't care. He grabs Crystal, and the Inhumans bounce like the useless jackasses they are. Which still leaves two-thirds of the Guardians hounded by the Imperial Guard.

The Guardians scatter - that is literally how Star-Lord describes his plan, "Scatter!" - unable to communicate because Oracle is somehow a stronger telepath than Cosmo, Mantis and Moondragon combined. Sounds like bullshit to me, but whatever. Star-Lord appeals to the ruling council on Knowhere, and the Luminals (essentially the Avengers of planet Xanth) for help, but is told to surrender for everyone else's benefit. Yeah, surrender to the tender mercies of people who serve Vulcan.

Mentor, the Brainiac-5 of the Imperial Guard, plans to take control of Knowhere and its ability to send forces anywhere to strike directly at the Inhumans, but the Guardians rally. Gamora and Phyla aren't down with "Scatter!" as a strategy and opt to hack their way through the Shi'ar. The mage and some other soldiers use the mark to track Warlock, but he's able to transfer it to her. When the soldiers use their enchanted weapons, they track the mark and kill her. Nifty, and all it took was Warlock's skin turning purple, which, combined with him rending the soldiers limb from limb certainly isn't concerning!

Mentor loses the Continuum Cortex when the remaining third of the Guardians - Rocket, Groot, Drax and Major Victory - 'port in. Rocket gets a little feral, clawing up Mentor's face while telling him they just reinstalled Lilandra on the throne. Even with Phyla, Gamora and Warlock joining the fray, Mentor has a good laugh as he runs with his oversized dome between his legs. Lilandra's just been assassinated (by a Raptor in Darkhawk's armor.) The bad news doesn't stop there, as Knowhere comes alive to warn Adam the fate of all existence depends on him. All existence is pretty fucked, then.

Oh, and the Starhawk the Guardians have had prisoner for several issues was able to manipulate the freshly-resurrected Moondragon into releasing her, and has vanished, taking Mantis, Cosmo, Star-Lord, Bug and Jack Flag along for the ride.

{5th longbox, 36th comic, Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #15, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writer), Brad Walker (penciler), Victor Olizaba and Livesay (inker), Jay David Ramos (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #307

 

"Orbital Dynamics," The Legion #8, by Dan Abnett (writer), Andy Lanning (writer/inker), Olivier Coipel (penciler), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

So after all of the events of the preceding weeks - Blight invasion, section of the cast hurled across the universe, Legion disbanded - Abnett, Lanning, Coipel and McCraw bring it back together in another ongoing series, starting with the rough arrival of the survivors of Legion Lost on an Earth different from the one they last saw.

Abnett and Lanning use the familiar play of bringing a 20th Century threat into the 31st Century, although Ra's al Ghul was a clever choice. His goals had shifted somewhat - not so concerned with preserving Earth, but with countless inhabited worlds know, it probably seemed less of a priority - but he's played as having all the advantages of years to prepare.

A little curiously, Ra's being traditionally a Batman foe, M'onel is set as his opposite. There's a whole thing that's only referenced about M'onel having been responsible for seeding life over the course of some amount of time on many of the worlds that made up the United Planets. So I guess that's the point of contrast: M'onel spent his time trying to help life to grow, but on its own terms, while Ra's wants to push life forward, but at a pace he determines, with little regard for cost.

After that, the book shifts to paying off at least a few plots that had been running in the background. The odd robot attack that was so fixated on Brainiac 5.1 in their first issue of Legionnaires, comes to a head with an artificial intelligence based invasion of Earth. It feels a bit like a reprise of the Blight invasion, although with most of the cast locked out of Earth, rather than trapped or turned to the other side. Shadow Lass, who had been written as withdrawn and hostile since being taken over by the Blight, gets a spotlight issue where she returns home to try and address some issues. Timber Wolf, who escorted Phantom Girl and her exceedingly powerful baby to Earth, joins the team. Though nothing ever comes of his apparent attraction to her, or whatever started to brew between Ultra Boy and Saturn Girl in Legion Lost.

(Nor is there any payoff to Phantom Girl's mother having her declared incompetent in Legion Worlds as part of a scheme to steal her grandchild. I would have at least liked to see the lady get punched in the jaw for that shit.)

Coipel remains as the primary penciler for the first year and change, still inked by Lanning, but with a smoother hand. There are still a lot of shadows and heavy inks, but the characters don't look as weary and battered. They're mostly back together, mostly feeling good, things are looking up.

Kev Walker starts to take the reins during the Robotican invasion story, and then Chris Batista handles the arc about a villain seizing the control of the vast telepathic communication network the UP were using. Those two artist don't have a lot in common stylistically, but much of the Universo story is an illusory world he tries to use to keep Saturn Girl occupied, so it looking much cleaner and smooth adds to the artificiality of it. Comparatively, Walker's art evokes the roughness of Coipel's during the Blight story. Characters even look a little wilder, if not quite as dark. Tom McCraw keeps the shades and tones a bit less washed out here than in some of the other books.

The third year of the book is more of a mixed bag, as Superboy (Conner Kent, Kon-El, '90s Superboy) is brought there from the past, but also Abnett and Lanning bust out a Darkseid story. Superboy is somewhat interesting, as he laps up the adulation of the public, no longer being compared to Superman and found wanting, probably because these people all figure he's just young Superman. But he also catches a lot of flack from Cosmic Boy in particular about being reckless and careless. Part of the problem of people thinking you grow up to be Superman, is they also expect you to behave like Superman.

This could theoretically have been used as some form of character development, but back in Geoff Johns' Teen Titans, we got the whole thing about Luthor being the human half of his DNA, and then Superboy-Prime killed him.

Abnett and Lanning left the book around issue 30 or so, and so ends our time in the Year 3000. It's back to the rapidly approaching dystopian hellscape of the 21st Century for us.

Sunday Splash Page #306

 

"Open Grave Space," in Legion Worlds #4, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Duncan Rouleau (penciler), Jamie Mendoza (inker), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

A six-issue mini-series started a couple of months after Legion Lost concluded, Legion Worlds was an overview of what several other members of the Legion were getting up to in the year since several members of the team died in the big gate accident, and the Legion of Super-Heroes were disbanded under orders of the United Planets.

Each issue focuses on a different planet, and different Legionnaires, and is drawn by a different artist. This includes, to my surprise, Steve Dillon drawing issue 5 (which focuses on Karate Kid and Ferro Lad, hanging out on the equivalent of a monastery planet.)

The gist is, the United Planets aren't so united at the moment. The "stargate" system was taken offline after the Blight's tampering caused the massive failure that threw the cast of Legion Lost to the far side of the universe. Which makes travel and shipping difficult, which has ripple effects. The lightning siblings' homeworld of Winath relies on weather control technology, but it's harder to get parts to sustain it, and with longer shipping times, it's harder to sell produce.

Beyond that, a lot of it is setting up status quo for the next ongoing series. The new president of the U.P, a Leland McCauley, has his own team of superheroes, for which Mon-El decided to be frontman. Certain members of the Legion are working under-the-radar to be ready for the next big problem. There's some sort of advanced, artificial intelligence code working to purposes the people on Earth aren't sure of (though the people on Xanth sure as hell know.) Phantom Girl's pregnant with Ultra Boy's kid, and hanging out on his homeworld to hide from her domineering bitch of a mother. Which is also how Abnett and Lanning work to bring a new Timber Wolf into the picture.

Despite being build-up, each issue does also function as its own distinct solo adventure, with each character or characters having come to some sort of decision about what they're going to do next. The mini-series concludes with the lost Legionnaires reappearing in orbit above Earth, and that's where next week's entry will pick up.

Sunday Splash Page #305

 

"Silence Speaks Louder," in Legion Lost #8, by Dan Abnett (writer), Andy Lanning (writer/inker), Oliver Coipel (penciler), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

Legion of Super-Heroes ended with a squad of Legionnaires having given their lives in an attempt to stop a star-gate from collapsing and causing a massive explosion. Except, they hadn't actually died, they were just thrown very far away from home. To a section of the universe they didn't recognize or know, with no immediate sign of what direction home was or how to even get there.

Legion Lost was that group trying to find a way home. Abnett and Lanning actually start with an outsider perspective, as Shikari, a member of an nomadic, insectile species with remarkable tracking/pathfinding abilities stumbles upon the remains on the Legion's outpost while hiding from some vicious little pillbug looking guys named the Progeny. Some crystals left behind by Element Lad explain things to both her and the reader before the Progeny attack her, inadvertently awakening the Legion members.

That establishes early on that the Legion members are a) in a place they don't know, b) in the middle of one group's attempt to exterminate anyone they consider "variant", and c) that whatever Element Lad did to get them to their current location, he didn't make the journey with them.

From there, each issue is filtered through a specific team member's perspective. Monstress in issue 2, Kid Quantum in issue 3, and so on. It's a time-tested approach, but it serves to reinforce certain things (Night Lass/Umbra's increasing hostility is noted by just about everyone else), without seeming too repetitive by approaching it from different perspectives. Lightning Lad feeling as though there's a wall between he and Saturn Girl plays differently if accompanied by Lightning Lad's internal monologue, versus if it's Wildfire or Chameleon observing it from the outside.

Oliver Coipel draws most of the 12 issues, again with Lanning inking him for a rougher, darker look than Coipel's art would in later years. There's not a lot of opportunity for characters to show much emotion beyond glares and downcast eyes, but when Coipel can have Brainiac's cheeks puff out in a frustrated exhale, or two characters can share a laugh, he pulls it off. He's got a good sense for when to focus attention on a face by making the panel widescreen, large without necessarily using a lot of space. Or when to use a lot of space to show the immensity of a spaceship or some mysterious floating pyramid. When a battle between Umbra and the protector of an alien world (with Ultra Boy and Monstress in the middle trying unsuccessfully to play peacemaker) is tearing down a city, his panels shift to diagonal sides, tilted and slanted the like pieces of street being thrown up in the fight.

Pascal Alixe, who handles 3 issues, roughly every third one, doesn't quite have that knack. Tends to stick to 2-3 rectangular panels per row, 3 rows per page. Doesn't use widescreen panels for effect much, and sometimes when he tries to overlay smaller, more focused panels over a larger establishing shot, the ratio's not great. The panels are too close in size, too much overlap, which mostly doesn't give the scale for the larger panel or the focus for the smaller ones.

It also doesn't help Lanning seems to go nuts with the hatching and shading, especially on faces. It makes Alixe's art look much busier than it needs to, when he's already quite good at expressive body language and expressions.

Tom McCraw goes back to darker tones like in the Blight story as the group struggles to hold together in the face of long odds. McCraw and Lanning both pull back on it in issue 8, when it seems like the rest of the Legion's found them and they'll be home soon.

The story comes together nicely at the end. A few characters die, most get home. The team rallies behind their core beliefs to save the day, even though it hurts. I wonder if all of it - the reveal of their enemy, the deaths - had more oomph to longtime Legion fans. I think the beats work, but I don't have the history with the characters (plus I'm old and jaded.) So the deaths don't hit as hard, and I don't know if the turn of the final antagonist outraged anyone as out of character.

When Lightning Lad describes Element Lad as always having been 'spiritual', well, the character got about three panels of dialogue in DnA's run prior to this mini-series. I hadn't seen any spirituality. (Also, got to love Lightning Lad summarizing floating alone in the void of space for literal billions of years as 'experiences' which may have pushed Element Lad over the edge.)

But with (most) of the the lost Legionnaires back, what did they find on their return?

Sunday Splash Page #304

 

"Silent, But Devastating," in Legionnaires #80, by Dan Abnett (writer), Andy Lanning (writer/inker), Oliver Coipel (penciler), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)

Probably should have done Legionnaires first, since Abnett and Lanning's first issue of that appeared before their first issue of Legion of Super-Heroes, but oh well.

I don't know if there was a functional difference in the two Legion books over most of their run. if one was the "big events" and the other "small character stuff". For the 4 issues before both books ended, there's not really any difference in evidence. Abnett and Lanning's first Legionnaires serves to both get a handful of Legionnaires off Earth, so they can return in the midst of the Blight's conquest and go "WTF?", and also to set up something that wouldn't be paid off for a couple of years.

The Legion defeat the Blight, and then the books deal fallout from the invasion. Earth and several other worlds are heavily damaged, and the United Planets are reluctant to risk exposure by helping. There's also a power play to oust Legion booster R.J. Brande, and ban the Legion entirely, in favor of superheroes who are legally adults (and presumably more amenable to how the adults running the U.P. want things to be.) There's some push and shove around a failing stargate, and several members of the team are killed in a massive explosion.

(I assume the cast's ages were reset by Zero Hour, since I can't imagine they would still have been teenagers after the Five Years Later thing I know Giffen and the Bierbaums did years earlier.)

So let's try and talk about artists. That first Legionnaires issue was drawn by Jeff Moy, who I think had been drawing one or the other of the Legion books for a while. The art's very clean, kind of a early Bryan Hitch (when he was imitating Alan Davis) look. Tom McCraw's colors are bright. It's futuristic adventure and teen melodrama, but things are mostly OK for the heroes.

Then the Blight story starts, and Oliver Coipel steps in as penciler. Lanning inks his work heavily, thick outlines for characters, lots of shading lines on faces and bodies. Everyone looks ragged and underfed, worn down. The cities, when we see them, are shattered and sometimes barely distinguishable shapes. If there are people in those shots, they're tiny scurrying dots, like early mammals in some artist's depiction of the extinction of the dinosaurs. It's a long way from the approach Coipel would take on, for example, his Thor run with JMS, where there were a lot of panels spent on showing the grandeur of a new Asgard, and the gods tended to look very clean and neatly defined.

Angel Unzueta (with Jamie Mendoza as inker) handle the last two issues of Legion, while Adam Dekraker and Lanning draw the last Legionnaires finale. Dekraker's closer to Moy's style, albeit with a tendency to give character a look of shock that's almost a duck-face (pursued lips extending noticeably from their face.) Unzueta's got a little manga to his art, less exaggerated Humberto Ramos. In either case, the characters look more composed than during the Blight arc, closer to the optimistic teens they were before. McCraw lightens the colors up again. A lot fewer panels overwhelmed with shadows, less dark purple. The costumes pop off the page again. Things were bad, but they're going to fix the damage, if the United Planets will let them.

Sunday Splash Page #303

 

"Hide and Seek," in Legion of Super-Heroes #122, by Dan Abnett (writer), Andy Lanning (writer/inker), Oliver Coipel (penciler), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft

Welcome, to The Year 3000! I don't have much Legion of Super-Heroes stuff, and it's all from the Abnett/Lanning team, but we're giving it the next 5 weeks here on Sunday Splash Page.

After a main feature story in Legion of Super-Heroes Secret Files #2, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning took over writing both Legion of Super-Heroes and Legionnaires. I know, I'm struggling to conceive a world where the market supported two Legion books. Although it only did that for another 4 months, so maybe I shouldn't bother.

Most of the brief runs on both books were taken up with the "Blight" storyline. A fore swoops in and takes control of the Earth, isolating by disabling the stargates. The Blight takes control of members of the Legion, using them to bring captives to "The Stem" a mysterious tower where no one is sure what's going on. A few Legionnaires are left hiding in the shadows, doing their best to bring civilians to safety, but running low on hope, until reinforcements arrive.

Abnett and Lanning used a similar outline for Annihilation: Conquest when they were writing for Marvel about 7 years later. It's not a perfect mirror. The Blight are a species so advanced the only thing left to conquer was death. So one of them seems to have contacted Entropy itself, turning them into essentially vampires. The Phalanx didn't have much of a goal until they encountered Ultron's consciousness and were subsumed. And he was trying to work towards the perfect melding of organic and technological. But the heroes being scattered, outnumbered, cut off from any retreat. Faced with former friends forcibly converted to enemies.

The Legion, being the Legion, find a way to free a sort of sentient energy species the Blight had enslaved, enabling it to reach the next stage in its life cycle in a brilliant display of light and color (although it doesn't really come off in the art. A few panels of a cream-colored ribbon traversing a stellar sky.) Whereas the Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova basically wrecked Ultron and did their best to wipe out the Phalanc, so different strokes for different folks.

There are a lot of characters, but Abnett and Lanning tend to break the team up into smaller groups and focus on one or two. Maybe write an issue from one specific character's perspective. I don't know most of the casts' backstories, but I get enough about their powers and personalities for it to work. There's a fair amount of romantic drama and general angst flying around in the background. Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad thinking about marriage. Ultra Boy being a little too clingy with Phantom Girl. I didn't feel wildly invested in all that, but it adds depth, and helps to illustrate the personalities.

Saturday Splash Page #90

 

"Flashy Entrance", in Thanos Imperative: Devastation, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Rain Beredo (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

Following up on Thanos Imperative, the one-shot set the stage for the next bit of cosmic action the Abnett and Lanning writing team had planned. Set against the backdrop of Blastaar launching a sneak attack against the Kree-Inhuman Empire, we see Cosmo the Spacedog going around recruiting different heavy hitter space characters - Gladiator, Quasar, Silver Surfer, Beta Ray Bill, Ronan the Accuser - for a team-up of problem solvers.

Turns out, just before he went off to (not) die alongside Nova in an attempt to keep Thanos in the collapsing Cancerverse, Star-Lord tasked Cosmo with recruiting a team of the biggest badasses he could get to protect the universe. Because Peter Quill tried it once, and could only recruit what Cosmo describes as, 'team of misfits and outcasts and also psychopaths.' The big shots weren't interested, but now, after the entire universe nearly fell to extra-dimensional creature hosting mirror versions of everyone, there's a bit more perceived need.

I don't think Beredo's coloring does Sepulveda's art any favors, as it seems to make facial expression land in the uncanny valley, and the Silver Surfer looks more like a multi-faceted piece of quartz someone tried spiffying up real good.

This resulted in the two Annihilators mini-series, but I was much more interested in the Rocket Raccoon and Groot back-up stories in each (see Sunday Splash Page #62.) I hoped at one point we might see those two characters pull together the other surviving members for a group to handle slightly less massive threats, or else handle the big threats with a bit more finesse. As much finesse as you're going to get, given Rocket's love for large firearms. 

Either way, I guess the minis didn't sell, because Marvel handed Guardians of the Galaxy to Bendis of all people - because when I think of writers to tell rollicking outer space adventures, I think Brian Michael Bendis - and things progressed (degraded) from there.

Saturday Splash Page #89

"All Aboard?" in Thanos Imperative #2, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Jay David Ramos (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

At the conclusion of Ignition, the Cancerverse is invading the 616, led by a version of Mar-Vell loyal to the Many-Angled Ones. He seeks the Avatar of Death, meaning Thanos, so he can perform a ritual to kill Death in the 616 as well. To that end, he and his "Revengers" are gathering up every "anomaly" person they can find. Like Major Victory, who's from the future, or Namorita, who came out of the Fault. 

Thanos is, unhappily for everyone involved, with the Guardians of the Galaxy, who infiltrate the Cancerverse to try and figure out how Death was killed there to possibly undo the process. Meanwhile, Nova is trying to halt the invasion, without much success.

That's basically all the plot there is. The Guardians snoop around the Cancerverse, rendered by Sepulveda and Ramos as a muddy, destroyed mess. I don't know why life overtaking results in everything falling apart. I guess if you can't die, you don't worry about protecting yourself from the elements or maintain infrastructure. Drax (donning the classic purple cloak look but still carrying large firearms) eventually loses it and tries to re-kill Thanos, only to find he can't (as in, Thanos just regenerates from a skeleton) and ends up dead himself. Nova grabs a bunch of heavy hitters for a surgical strike on Mar-Vell's ship. They mostly get their asses kicked. I don't recall Mar-Vell being enough of a force to shatter the Surfer's board, but I guess that's the boost from the Lovecraftian horrors.

There is a nice bit where the Scarlet Witch is revealed to have been a sleeper agent for the Vision and other artificial intelligences, only pretending to serve Mar-Vell all this time (which was nicer than Wanda had been treated in the Marvel Universe at that point in like 10 years.) but it really does feel like a lot of running in place that could have been pared away.

End result, Thanos pretends to switch sides, offering Mar-Vell the chance to kill him so he can be dead again. I thought the idea was he can't die, so this lets him see the ritual and reverse-engineer it to destroy Mar-Vell. Wrong. What it does, is bring Death from the 616 into the Cancerverse, and she just kills Mar-Vell herself. Which trashes the Many-Angled Ones, since he's their connection or something, and will supposedly cause the collapse of that universe from the immense loss of mass. Seems contrary to how I understand current theories on universal expansion, but sure.

Death basically dumps Thanos, having gotten what she needed, and he's insanely pissed and still unkillable. So Nova and Star-Lord stay behind to try and keep the Mad Titan there until the universe collapses. Otherwise he's headed back to the 616 and everybody's fucked. Nova's got the entirety of the Nova Force and Star-Lord has that damaged Cosmic Cube.

I mentioned last week to keep in mind that, during Ignition, Star-Lord announces the Cube is exhausted. No power left. He and Rocket had been running tests together, so they both know this, and they were telling Moondragon, a telepath with less regard for the sanctity of other's minds than your typical Marvel telepath. No indication he was lying, until it just suddenly has enough for two or three more uses. What? How?

The plot elements don't really add up. Most of the casts of the books Abnett and Lanning had been writing up to that point, the ones we'd presumably be most invested in, are useless. The other Guardians don't get to do much but tag along behind Thanos and Star-Lord. The rest of the Nova Corps is barely involved. Now, that could be by design. We'll see next week that Abnett and Lannig did have a sort of plan behind the Guardians' ineffectiveness.

There is a point made, that this war is on an entirely different level from the previous events. The Cosmic Abstracts, Celestials and Galactus and whatnot, all show up to confront the invasion from the Cancerverse. None of them bothered when Ultron conquered the Kree with the help of the Phalanx (Annihilation: Conquest), or when Kree and Shi'ar went to war (War of Kings). Galactus was dragged into Annihilus' plan by Thanos' scheming, but the moment he gets free and exerts himself, he wiped out 80% of Annihilus' army in one shot. The point being, all that stuff was ultimately the concerns of little mortals, and didn't matter a whit to the truly big guns.

This? This requires their involvement. Sepulveda draws them just floating there, but the Surfer tells us the Abstracts are fighting on levels mortals can't perceive. Taken from that angle, that this ends with Nova and Star-Lord just trying to slow Thanos down long enough for a collapsing universe to hopefully kill him, could almost be seen as a logical end. They've survived a lot of close calls going back to Annihilus, but this is another scale. Against that, all they can do is fight until they can't any longer.

Saturday Splash Page #88

 

"Mar-Evell", in Thanos Imperative: Ignition, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (penciler), Andrew Hennessy (inker), Wil Quintana (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

In April of 2010, Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy both ended (temporarily dropping the number of ongoing series I was buying from Marvel to 1). The next month, the last hurrah of the late-2000s, Abnett and Lanning-written Cosmic Marvel run kicked off with this one-shot, which picks up where the two ongoings concluded.

War of Kings ended with the formation of The Fault, a giant rip in the fabric of the universe. It was discovered that on the other side was a universe much like the 616, except there was no death. A universe entirely overtaken by life, filled to the bursting by the Many-Angled Ones. A Cancerverse, looking to spread.

Nova pursues the Cancerverse version of Quasar back to the Fault, and finds millions of Universal Church of Truth worshipers waiting to use their lives as a beacon. Curious how the end of millions of lives attracts more life, like diffusion, flowing from high concentration to low. But the interlocked nature of death and life was a recurring thing throughout Abnett and Lanning's Guardians of the Galaxy run.

The Guardians of the Galaxy deal with the fact Thanos is alive again, and really pissed about it. Drax isn't happy either, having gone to a lot of trouble killing Thanos in the first place. Neither is Moondragon, since Thanos' first act was murdering her girlfriend. And the damaged Cosmic Cube Star-Lord used to deck Thanos the first time is out of juice.

(Keep that last point in mind, it'll be relevant next week.)

Boiled down, though, the one-shot is all about the last page reveal of the high priest, so to speak, of the Many-Angled Ones. Good old sainted-ass Captain Mar-Vell, apparently strong enough now to burn Adam Magus to ash with zero effort. (I quite enjoyed seeing a version of Adam Warlock get incinerated. Points to Abnett and Lanning for giving me that at long last) This sets up Thanos versus Mar-Vell, for the fate of the universe, again. But this time, with Thanos in the position of having to defend it from life run amok.

Sunday Splash Page #244

 

"Easy Rider," in Heroes for Hire (vol. 3) #2, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (penciler), Andrew Hennessy (inker), Jay David Ramos (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

The second volume of Heroes for Hire started during Civil War and ended in 15 issues. It was most notable for the cover to issue #13, with Misty Knight, Colleen Wing and the Black Cat shackled and menaced by dripping tentacles. Because that's what I'd think of when you say, "World War Hulk tie-in". Yeesh.

Three years went by before Marvel tried again, this time with the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning writing team, fresh off the conclusion of Thanos Imperative, largely concluding their 4-year stretch writing a lot of Cosmic Marvel stuff. They took a somewhat different approach to the "heroes for hire" concept. 

Rather than the public hiring the heroes, Misty Knight, as the Oracle-like "Control", would hire heroes to carry out operations for her, receiving something in return. In some cases, such as Silver Sable's, that was money. For Moon Knight, it might be information on another problem. I'm not clear what Misty was offering Ghost Rider. It allowed for a rotating cast, with only Misty and Paladin of all characters, as central cast.

Misty had been revealed to be pregnant at the very end of Immortal Iron Fist, but somewhere in the 18 months between that title ending and this one starting, that got handwaved to a phantom pregnancy. This was played as part of Misty's decision to stay out of the spotlight, acting as more of a puppet master than field operative. Not only due to physical recovery, but an attempt to exert control, keep things distant. Of course, not everything was what it seemed.

Brad Walker drew most of the series, although Kyle Hotz drew the 3-issue Fear Itself tie-ins. Walker tries to inject a lot of energy into a book that often has an action movie feel to it. Inset, close-up panels of faces or just eyes and mouths, combined with a lot of slanting or diagonal panels for the fighting that slash across the page. Most of the issues revolve around superheroic twists on more ordinary crime: Drug trade, but Atlantean drugs. Gun dealing, but demonic guns that feed on souls. Slave trade and illegal animal trade, but from the Savage Land. Walker does well at mixing the elements. The base human impulses and the fantastic elements they want to exploit.

Sadly, the book ended one month after the aforementioned Fear Itself tie-ins, only lasting 12 issues. Abnett and Lanning did teams up with Renato Arlem on a 5-issue Villains for Hire mini-series that followed on from this, but Arlem's art was depressingly stiff after Walker's and I didn't really care for the story, so we won't be seeing that in Saturday Splash page.

Random Back Issues #91 - The Legion #2

Shikari, artists don't like it when you point that out.

The Legionnaires who got tossed across the universe in Legion Lost are back on Earth, with a disbanded Legion, a new president of the United Planets, a new team acting as protectors (including their buddy Mon-El), and someone trying to kill them.

That someone is the new team. Who could have guessed characters called "Brainstorm", "Repulse", and "Abyss" might not be on the up-and-up? Despite having the numbers advantage, the Legion doesn't know the powers of their opponents and get their butts kicked, necessitating the ol' strategic withdrawal.

President McCauley, the one behind this, is busy making sure Mon-El sticks close to him, and away from his old friends. The Legion are wandering through tunnels with technology even Brainiac-5 can't analyze. Umbra's also worried because her shadow powers cut out halfway through the fight.

Mystery for another issue, the bad guys caught up again, with reinforcements. The Legion are still doing better, except for the mysterious Venge. He acted like an aide to the president earlier, but he's strong enough to toss Ultra Boy around, immune to Saturn Girl's telepathy, and all Wildfire can manage is to ruin his suit. Quantum's able to slow his 'personal time field,' and the Legionnaires make their second strategic withdrawal of the issue.

Into a sewer tunnel. A sewer tunnel that serves as outflow for a major reactor. Kind of sad that even in the 31st Century they're still using polluting energy sources. But at least the administration recycles, because the outflow tunnel is also where they dump bodies. Like. . . President McCauley. So, who's hanging out with Mon-El? I'll give you a hint, he's a villain from the 20th Century with strong facial hair game. (I do not, however, remember off the top of my head who Venge is.)

The team seems caught between a lot of gallons of ultratoxic coolant water and a long fall without flight rings - although between Ultra Boy, Wildfire and Chameleon, shouldn't they have enough fliers to carry the rest? - but it seems not all the Legion have retired.

[6th longbox, 140th comic. The Legion #2, by Dan Abnett (writer), Andy Lanning (writer/inker), Oliver Coipel (penciler), Tom McCraw (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)]