Random Back Issues #136 - GLA #4

Yep, we're starting with Identity Crisis jokes. Or, maybe "jokes" is more accurate. But that's the recap page, and Cable/Deadpool taught me that's not in continuity, so everything's fine!

Anyway, in the Quinjetta, Flatman is pretty sure if Maelstrom combines the chronal accelerator he stole with an atomic inverter, he could push the universe to the point of cosmic implosion. Doorman dismisses the notion the GLA could ever get mixed up in something so big, until they find Dr. Doom trapped beneath Bertha inside their HQ! Wait, no, it's not Doom, it's past team member (at some point), Gene Lorrene, aka Leather Boy. Angry at not being invited to rejoin during the membership drive that netted them Squirrel Girl, he killed Mr. Immortal (it didn't take, any more than Craig's attempts to get alcohol poisoning will), and, uh, oh, did something awful to Monkey Joe.

While Flatman and Doorman debate whether wearing leather makes a person homosexual, resulting in Flatman coming out of the closet, Deathurge shows up for Monkey Joe's soul. He's been hanging around Mr. Immortal all his life, but now he's in squirrel form, so Craig can beat him up for some answers about why. And the answer is. . .?

Yes, it's Craig's destiny to be the last thing alive in the universe - until Al Ewing insists he can be killed in Immortal Hulk, but that's 15 years away - and Deathurge has been preparing him for that. Why? If Craig can't die, there's nothing he can do except sit and wait for a lot of years to pass. Or is it no good if the grief and isolation drive him mad? Whatever, if Maelstrom succeeds in his plan, there's no cosmic destiny, because the universe will be gone.

Wouldn't Craig still be alive in whatever it is universes exist in? The gaps between the different realities or something? Whatever. Craig, as a one-man species, Homo supreme, has to stop Maelstrom. Does the comic then make a joke about the word "homo"? You know it.

The GLA arrive at Maelstrom's base, but he's got Batroc's Brigade to keep them busy, Batroc being unaware Maelstrom plans to end all existence. Mr. Immortal leaves that fight to the others, so it's fortunate Squirrel Girl brought the squirrel army. Zaran the Weapons Master's gonna have a hard time living this down next time he goes after Shang-Chi. Maelstrom activates the machine, but Mr. I's sure he could stop him if he could just get through the, 'impregnable dome of proto-natural force!' So Doorman throws himself against the barrier to allow Craig to pass through via his very-limited teleportation powers. And that's the third member of the team killed in 4 issues. 4, if you count Monkey Joe.

As the universe collapses in on itself and Batroc realizes he's not gonna get paid, Doorman arrives in Oblivion, finding a poker game held by his former teammates. Including Monkey Joe, so I guess he counts. Hawkeye's the exception, because the Internet says he's the Swordsman. I do not remember that rumor, but I wasn't in the comics blogosphere back then. Back in the waning moments of the universe, Craig talks it out with Maelstrom, who admits to feeling terribly alone as a unique being, a mutant and an Eternal. Mr. Immortal points out if Maelstrom destroys the entire universe save himself, he'll have nothing but his loneliness. Having not considered this, Maelstrom pleads for a solution to this self-created dilemma, which Mr. Immortal offers in the form of. . .shooting himself in the head. There's no way Maelstrom could be that stupid.

I bet Quasar will really feel like a loser when he finds out that's all it takes to stop this guy. Mr. Immortal gets back up, obviously, and deactivates the machine. But it was too late for many of the squirrels, save one plucky gal Doreen decides to name Tippy-Toe, not to mention Flat - oh, no, never mind, he's alive, just standing at an angle because his costume got sucked off. Before Mr. Immortal can explain Doorman died, Doorman returns! On skis. With a cape. 'Cause he's the new Swordsman. I mean, Deathurge.

The mini-series concludes with no mention of the GLA saving existence, and the team being sued by the Maria Stark Foundation to stop calling themselves Avengers. But hey, Mr. Immortal mentioned being some sort of mutant earlier! Squirrel Girl's a mutant - or not, per her own series, but that retcon's over 10 years away. So are Flatman, Bertha, and Doorman. So it's the Great Lakes X-Men now!

(The X-Men would subsequently use mind control to make them stop during the last issue of Dan Slott's The Thing series. Because the X-Men are gatekeeping assholes. But Mr. Immortal would win the name "Champions" in a poker tournament later that issue, much to Hercules' displeasure.)

{4th longbox, 209th comic. GLA #4, by Dan Slott (writer), Paul Pelletier (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Wil Quintana (colorist), Dave Lanphear (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 #100 - Fantastic Four #548

Imagine the Wizard describing someone else as having pretensions to relevance. How did this moron not die during Acts of Vengeance?

Reed and Sue's attempt to reconcile at Mentor's digs on Titan after Richards' rampant jackboot-licking in Civil War was interrupted by a weird space probe. While Reed was poking at it with Hank Pym, Sue got ambushed by the Wizard's latest version of the Frightful Four (him, Titania, Trapster, Hydro-Man).

We pick up after Reed's ship is destroyed by a booby-trap the Wizard somehow got on-board. Fortunately the Black Panther suggested remote starting the ship, but Sue's still being tortured because the Wizard's a sadistic little shit. They've got a back-up ship, but they still need a plan. So Reed sends the Wizard a little message.

The rest of the Frightful Four agree it's time to bail, also recognizing that they'd better kill Sue rather than risk her coming after them. The Wizard, however, is convinced Richards threatening to nuke him from orbit means Reed is charging in heedlessly. Dumbest smart man in comics. Yes, even more so than Reed. But hey, this house is really hi-tech. No way anyone could sneak up on them. Except maybe if one of the C-listers was an expert at that sort of thing.

(Plus, it's not like Reed Richards wasn't staying there for several days. He probably took everything apart while he was promising to never help the government throw people in Negative Zone jail again.)

It's hard to say who has the worst go of it in this issue. The Thing gets sucker-punched by Hydro-Man, then gets his foot stuck to the floor by a stray glue shot from Paste-Pot Pete as he's getting kayoed by the Panther. While he's stuck, Ben gets sent flying by Titania.

On the other hand, Hydro-Man's attempt to drown Ben got thwarted by the Torch evaporating his arm, and when he tries to take T'Challa prisoner, Storm simply turns him into humidity. As it turns out, a guy made of water fighting a guy made of fire and a lady who controls weather elements is in for a bad day. Who knew?

Reed's actually having trouble fighting the Wizard 1-on-1, but after Hydro-Dope gets dealt with, it's 5 against 1. Or is it, because the Wizard has a fancy briefcase! And inside that briefcase, is. . .a flowerpot? A hearing aid for Galactus? No it's the sonic cannon of the sound menace, Klaw! Hard to believe that guy was kept in reserve, considering the losers that made the starting lineup.

[4th longbox, 117th comic. Fantastic Four #548, by Dwayne McDuffie (writer), Paul Pelletier (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Paul Mounts (colorist), Rus Wooton (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #208

 

"The Happy Few, These Doomed" in GLA: Misassembled #1, by Dan Slott (writer), Paul Pelletier (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Wil Quintana (colorist), Dave Lanphear (letterer)

In the wake of the regular Avengers disassembling, the Great Lakes Avengers are the only ones who can stop Maelstrom from ending the universe. Assuming the GLA can avoid falling to pieces themselves. Not just because four team members die (not counting however many times Mr. Immortal offs himself, it's a lot). Most of the others are thinking about giving up for one reason or another. It's hurting their career, or it just doesn't seem like they're making a difference. Everyone has to decide what really matters, and whether anything they're doing matters at all.

It's not a serious mini-series. The first cover is an homage to New Avengers #1, except one of the lightning bolts is hitting Mr. Immortal while most of his team looks on in surprise or embarrassment. Grasshopper joins and get killed four panels after he accepts the offer. Squirrel Girl joins the team, but her partner Monkey Joe gets killed by former team member Leather Boy (see in the picture above), who has dressed himself up like Dr. Doom in that leather armor he made of his lover's skin in Waid's FF run. Mr. Immortal saves the day by tricking Maelstrom into a suicide pact to stave off loneliness.

Paul Pelletier's art works for the classic superheroics. The Kirby Krackle energy around Maelstrom's machine, the fights against Batroc, Zaran and Machete (who are unwitting hired help to their own extinction). He can also do the humor bits, or the attempts at humor, anyway. The after effects of Mr. Immortal's attempts to kill himself. The "Monkey Joe Says" panels with the squirrel as a cartoon rather than a more realistic squirrel.

But it's kind of an odd book. I could see the old "it's satire!" defense, but I don't know if it fits. Slott does this thing throughout where he makes what I assume is supposed to be a joke, then there's a small panel with Squirrel Girl's at that time partner, Monkey Joe, making some bit of commentary. For example, Big Bertha's secret identity is a super model. Slott and Pelletier do a bit where the way she gets rid of all the mass from her superhero identity is through. . .throwing up. In the lower right corner of the panel where the title of the issue is spelled out in projectile vomit on the bathroom wall, Monkey Joe reminds us bulimia is never funny. OK? It feels like when a comedian says something controversial, then immediately backpedals with the "I'm just making jokes here!" to downplay any backlash.

Slott establishes in the first issue that Dinah Soar's species lives a long time, and they can soulbond with one person who will then be able to understand them. She chose Mr. Immortal, and the idea they'll be together for who knows how long - centuries? longer? - is comfort to both of them. 

Maelstrom kills her one panel later. Pretty much so Slott can send Mr. Immortal into a tailspin for the next 2.5 issues. Because Mr. I is sick of Deathurge (who he can see) keeps taking everyone he cares about, but never Mr. Immortal. But eventually he learns an important secret about himself and accepts this fate. Dinah's death is kind of pushed aside. Is it commentary on killing female characters in a perfunctory fashion so male characters can be sad about it, or was it just a case of killing a female character in a perfunctory fashion so a male character can be sad about it? Or the fact Mr. Immortal repeatedly tries to kill himself out of grief and loss, but it's shown as a joke. Is that about how superhero stuff is always melodramatic, or is the reveal that Mr. Immortal has some great purpose a comment on the fact that once you're dead, whatever you might have achieved is gone. Never to be realized.

Before this 2005 mini-series, the Great Lakes Avengers were second-stringers (at best), but taken at least somewhat seriously as well-meaning heroes who maybe didn't save the world, but did their bit to keep their corner of the U.S. safe. Hawkeye and Mockingbird even trained them for a time. Sure, it was kind of silly when the GLA changed their team name to "The Lightning Rods" to capitalize on the T-Bolts' popularity, only to find out they were copying villains and decided to hunt them down. But Kurt Busiek played off that and wrote them as actual competent heroes the main cast underestimated. Not the most powerful, but a team who spent half that comic working well together and kicking the T'Bolts' disorganized asses, then helped them face down Graviton.

After this mini-series, they're pretty much a running gag. All the jokes about the high mortality rate of their roster, Mr. Immortal sort of succeeding at committing suicide (he dies, he just doesn't stay dead), Squirrel Girl joining the roster? Far as I can tell, this is where all that starts. Is that better than never getting used at all? I guess if you're the character who can't stay dead (until Al Ewing tries to make some big point about his Hulk mythos), it's not so bad. Everyone else is potentially fucked.

Sunday Splash #188

 

"Complications, of Many Sorts", in Fantastic Four #546, by Dwyane McDuffie (writer), Paul Pelletier (penciler), Rick Magyar and Scott Hanna (inkers), Paul Mounts (colorist), Rus Wooton (letterer)

Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Pelletier's stint on Fantastic Four isn't a long one, starting at issue #542, and ending at #553. It's wedged between what were undoubtedly more highly-publicized runs, following (finishing really) J. Michael Straczynski's run, and being followed by a Mark Millar/Bryan Hitch creative pairing.

Worse, JMS departed before the book's tie-ins to Civil War were finished, so it fell to McDuffie to clean up and address that mess as best he could. His explanation for Reed's actions - essentially, Reed made psychohistory from Asimov's Foundation a reality and the math said Negative Zone prisons and cyborg murder-clones of Thor were the best path forward - does nothing to lessen my desire to see Reed get punched in the face. However, it does feel very much like the sort of thought process Reed Richards would follow.

Doesn't change the fact that while Tony Stark (deservedly) spent about 18 months getting his ass kicked literally or figuratively by people for what he did, Reed mostly dodges any of that shit. His place as Marvel's Gladstone Gander, the one things always work out for, unchallenged.

(Until the Hulk returns royally pissed off, but he's mad at Reed over things besides the Registration Act, and beats up a lot of people who had nothing to do with it anyway, so it doesn't really count.)

Not that McDuffie ignores it entirely. The Four were fractured by Civil War in ways I'm not sure they had been previously. This wasn't Ben or Johnny temporarily deciding they needed a change, or Reed and Sue deciding to focus on raising Franklin. Sue and Johnny joined essentially a rebellion against a force Reed was a public face of, and Ben decided to go to France rather than end up punching his friends over legislation. 

Reed and Sue do have to patch things up, most of which is implied by their vacation on Titan. That leads to the Black Panther and Storm joining the team for about 8 issues. A Dr. Doom from the future shows up near the end to try and sow discord between the team, exploiting everyone's recent doubts about Reed. Doesn't work, naturally. The general theme seems to be Sue, Ben, and Johnny know Reed's not infallible, but they trust that his heart is in the right place. And Reed needs them for the times when he overreaches, or when they see something he doesn't.

McDuffie writes Reed as someone endlessly curious and not entirely aware of how brilliant he is, whose brain makes unusual intuitive leaps. Such as when he and Hank Pym are studying an alien messenger probe and it helps Reed decide he should bring Sue perfume of some sort. Ben feels things deeply (it's interesting how bothered he is by Gravity's grave being robbed), but is more observant and smart than some writers give him credit for. He was a qualified astronaut, he's gotta be fairly smart. McDuffie alternately plays up Sue's resilience and her presence as possibly the most dangerous member of the team, and her supportive nature. Johnny probably gets the short end of the stick, pretty much the impulsive goofball. Although it certainly takes confidence to try flirting with the Black Panther's bodyguards.

Black Panther and Storm make for interesting additions to the cast. T'Challa is brilliant, but in very different ways from Reed Richards. More cunning, more quick to suspect ulterior motives, and somehow both more blunt and more diplomatic. You can tell he's used to his decisions being followed, by how he goes for the throat when Ben basically tells him "you ain't the boss o' me" at one point. Storm's quite a bit more open with her feelings, probably because she's used to the sort of informal atmosphere the Four have. Ben and Johnny aren't going to seem that unusual to someone who spends a lot of time around Wolverine and Nightcrawler. And she tends to react similarly to the Thing and Torch. When she sees an injustice, she won't turn away or make a tactical retreat.

McDuffie has a bit of sport with the annoying fans who no doubt complained bitterly about things like the Black Panther handling the Silver Surfer. There's a panel where the Wizard dismisses Storm and the Panther as "B-listers with delusions" while looking at us. Which is hilarious coming from the Wizard of all characters.

Pelletier's art is pretty well-suited to what the story needs. It's very slick and classic superhero art, everybody with the perfect physiques, pretty straightforward presentation. No real wild layouts or character designs, but it always makes sure to tell you what you need to know. Shows the action and makes it easy to follow, expressive enough to carry the emotion of the story. The speculative look he gives Sue when she seems to be considering how she should kill the Wizard is a favorite. It's exaggerated, but Sue's also acting, so it makes sense she'd play it up. Pelletier's got enough design sense to make all the weird science stuff look futuristic and cool. It's too bad he and McDuffie didn't get more time on the book, I'd be curious what else they'd have done.

31 Days of Scans - Day 12

This took a while to decide on. If a location is going to be worth visiting, it probably has super-heroes and villains around which makes it exceedingly dangerous. Who in their right mind wants to go to Gotham City, or Marvel’s New York? You’d be dead in minutes, if you’re lucky. I considered Cynosure, but I go around the wrong corner and I’m in a dimension actively hostile to me. Then I thought of it. A most perfect, wonderful place. Give me the choice of where to go, I’m going nowhere.

Sorry, I mistyped that. I meant Knowhere.

Knowhere! A mecca set at the edge of the universe, floating within the head of a decapitated space god. A place where beings from all across time and space come to contemplate, to study, to buy and sell anything and everything. You can get it there, no matter what “it” is, or how distant the backwater world it hails from.

You can get anywhere, thanks to the teleport capabilities of the Continuum Cortex.

If there are any problems, it has the number one top dog in all the universe running security. What more could I ask for?

Drax learns the extent of wares available in Guardians of the Galaxy #2, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Paul Pelletier (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Nathan Fairbairn (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer). We get our first true look at Knowhere in Nova #8, and Cosmo explains their transport system to Rich in Nova #9, both written by Abnett and Lanning, penciled by Wellinton Alves, colored by Guru eFX, and lettered by Cory Petit. Scott Hanna inked issue 8, and Wellington Dian and Nelson Pererra inked issue 9.