Saturday Splash Page #204

"Monkey Business," in Rocket Raccoon (vol. 1) #3, by Bill Mantlo (writer), Mike Mignola (penciler), Al Milgrom (inker), Christie Scheele (colorist), Ken Bruzenak (letterer)

Released in 1985, Rocket Raccoon was a 4-issue mini-series set on Halfworld, a bizarre planetary asylum where the "Loonies" are looked after by talking animals, including their protector, the raccoon himself, Ranger Rocket.

It's a strange book. Halfworld is divided into two halves, one for organics and one for robots. The robots, while they do produce the toys the animals devise to keep the Loonies entertained, are mostly busy building an enormous Oscars trophy of a ship, for reasons unknown. After all, there's an energy barrier around the world that should prevent anyone entering or leaving (the Hulk having been a notable exception.)

Most of the series revolves around a war between the two chief toymakers, Lord Dyvyne and Judson Jakes, because Jakes wants to be the sole toymaker and charge exorbitant prices. Rocket is really more concerned with translating the "Halfworld Bible", left behind by those who founded Halfworld and originally tried to treat the "Loonies." Yet he's drawn in because his lady love Lylla will assume ownership of the toy company Jakes runs once she's old enough, and that's enough to make her, and Rocket, a target.

The overarching feeling I get of Halfworld is that it's a system that outlived its viable lifespan. The robots adapted and grew and decided caring for illogical humans was exhausting, so they modified the animals meant as companions for the patients, and left the job to them. But increasing the intelligence of the animals has given them their own desires and needs. "To serve," is no longer good enough. Jakes and Dyvyne each turn their toymakers towards weapons of war like cybernetic killer clowns that speak in rhyme as they blow you up, or clouds of living bad breath that erase anything they touch. There are mercenary groups, led by Blackjack O'Hare, who serve only the highest bidder, or their own desires. The patients are now just, in the way. Collateral damage in a war for control.

Even Rocket, who never hesitates to leap into the fray and protect the loonies, is weary of them. He's trying to translate the Halfworld Bible for answers, but mostly he wants out of the Keystone Quadrant. He wants to know if sanity exists, somewhere out there, because he doesn't see any around him.

This is early Mignola, so it's quite different from what'll be on Hellboy. Busier, more complicated, shadows not nearly as large a presence. Which is not to say he can't still draw some terrifying things. The panel of a patient tearing off his face to reveal a leering clown mug underneath has stuck with me ever since I bought this mini-series. There's a 3-panel sequence in issue 2 of a partygoer being erased by the "Red Breath" Dyvyne unleashed. The coloring sometimes muddies Mignola's lines, but he's also cramming a lot into some of these panels, so that may have been unavoidable.

(Rocket also smokes a pipe, which feels like it codes him as much older than Lylla, who apparently can't take control of her deceased parents' toy factory from Jakes until she's old enough. And while Rocket can be melodramatic, he's not making a lot of quips or banter. He's a straight-laced, if somewhat resigned, hero.) 

Mantlo's script shifts from gags about the bizarre rituals the Loonies have concocted around the Halfworld Bible, or gags about "gorilla wars" and "Keystone Kops", to an extended "Masque of the Red Death" homage in issue 2, and a desperate fight in a Star Wars-style scummy cantina in issue 3. At times it feels like he's being satirical, at others, entirely serious. Which is maybe the point. Halfworld is a planetary insane asylum, and what goes on there may look crazy to us on the outside, but for those living there, it's life. Being the sole toymaker, and the power it would provide, is a big deal to Jakes. Enough to kill for.

Sunday Splash Page #161

 

"Failed Their Stealth Check," in Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, by Roger Stern (writer), Mike Mignola (pencil artist), Mark Badger (inker/color artist), Jim Novak (letterer)

The premise of the story is that Strange passes a test of several mystics engineered by the Vishanti, but Doom is the only other person standing at the end, and by the bizarre rules of the test, he's owed one favor from Strange. To Strange's surprise, Doom requests his help rescuing his mother's soul from Mephisto. That proves as difficult you'd expect stealing a soul away from the Devil to be.

I know we're in Master of the Mystic Arts March (and April), but this is one of my favorite Dr. Doom stories. Doom is arrogant, but not oblivious to Strange being vastly better at magic than him, and more than willing to learn from him. Strange expects Doom to demand help enslaving the world, while Mephisto offers to give him the world, and Doom rejects them both, stating basically that he can take the world whenever he chooses. He doesn't need help.

He keeps his word, but exactly to the letter of it. During the mystic challenge, when one of the others argues Doom has no business there, as reliant as he is on technology, Doom states he will remove his gauntlets and deactivate all his offensive weaponry. That does not, however, prevent him from using his armor's sensors to analyze and help him mimic the other mystics' gestures and spells as they're using them. Doom is willing to do whatever it takes to free his mother, and able to use that to play others' expectations of him. He's determined to succeed, but not so blind as to trust Mephisto to keep a bargain.

He's not a good man, but he still has a certain level of honor he plays by. Mignola's Doom is a big, boxy thing, with the cape giving the appearance of broad shoulders and the oversized joints of the armor working together to give him a looming, imposing presence. It makes the moments where he's slumped over in exhaustion or despair, like a toy that's run out of power, more effective. Every so often, the art moves in close enough to offer the glimpse of the eyes and the scars around them that remind the reader there is a person in there.

Strange is definitely the confident (but not over-confident) veteran Sorcerer Supreme Stern wrote during his stint on the ongoing series. Mephisto's demons attempt to beat him by attacking his inner self, insisting he's only the selfish jerk he was as a surgeon, and it doesn't work. He consistently recognizes when a frontal attack isn't the right approach, and finds a way around. Whether it's unraveling the Vishanti's challenge, or figuring out how to beat Mephisto. Strange has been through too much to be suckered into thinking raw power and flinging spells around is always the answer.

Badger's inks and shadows aren't nearly what we'd see from Mignola's art once he started Hellboy (although I'd say the difference between his art here and what he did for the Rocket Raccoon mini-series just a few years earlier is pretty stark), and his inking makes things a bit fussier than that later blocky, solid, almost minimalist style Mignola adopted. But there are effective moments in there. The mystics who fail the Vishanti's tests become less distinct green outlines of what they were. Mephisto is depicted as this looming, shadowed form. His eyes are yellow voids, and his face is usually hidden so no expression can be seen. Especially when he's making someone an offer. It's only when he thinks he's won, or the tables have been turned on him, that the shadows fall away and whatever he's really feeling becomes readily visible.

Sunday Splash Page #8

"That's Death in the Big City" in Alpha Flight #31, by Bill Mantlo (writer), Mike Mignola (penciler),Gerry Talaoc (inker), Bob Sharen (colorist), Jim Novak (letterer)

I have one issue of Alpha Flight, and this is it. It's probably still here because it's part of the first batch of comics I ever received. And I figured I'd talk about it one of these days. The large fellow needing clothes is Deadly Ernest, and he can kill people with a touch. More accurately, he steals their souls. If you get the soul back to the person in time, they might live. Which is good, because otherwise about half the team would be dead after this issue. Puck chops up Ernest with a soul-drinking sword to recover their souls, all while engage in long internal monologues about killing, as well as his feelings for Heather Hudson. The kind of standard melodrama you find in a lot of '80s Marvel comics.

As I understand it, Mantlo's time as writer on the book is not well-regarded, generally. The next issue tells us Puck is short because he's keeping a demon with a different soul-drinking sword imprisoned inside, and it stole much of his soul before he managed that, so I can see why. That's not going down as one of his better creative choices.

Mignola's style hasn't developed into his trademark look yet; there's a big difference even from where it's at here in 1986, and where it'll be by the time Triumph and Torment comes out in 1989. He is starting to use heavy shadows selectively, over eyes, things like that. I can't really pin down who his style here reminds me of. My brain keeps saying "Michael Golden", but hell if I know his work well enough to figure out why. The way he draws musculature reminds me of John Buscema, a bit. In places, there's a very light touch, fine, thin lines, but clearly defined. Much more detailed, but not busy style here. With all the dialogue balloons, he's too constrained to get too detailed.