Monday Memories #46 - Zero Hour #1

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Monday Memories #20 - Justice Society Of America #8

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Who Was Who Is Who #23

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see if I can predict who will make it over to the new DCU by the end of 2012, who might make it and who hasn't got a J. Wilbur Wolfingham's chance.

JONNY DOUBLE - private eyes have never really regained the popularity they had in the 50's and 60's have they? For that very reason, I can't see Jonny showing up any time soon.

Global Guardians #6 - Red Winter

For the next few weeks, I'm going to be running through the DCU appearances of the Global Guardians post-Crisis and pre-Flashpoint (or at least all the appearances I have) and try to find out where they are now. Or were, pre-Flashpoint.

Following the last couple of posts about the Global Guardians, it should be clear by now that they were closely linked with the Justice League in its various forms.

Their next appearance came in the Red Winter storyline that ran throughout Justice League Europe #54 - #50 although the Guardians themselves has a relatively small part to play in it.

Earth-2 And Worlds' Finest Covers

DC have revealed the covers of the forthcoming Earth-2 and Worlds' Finest series, so what do we have:

Earth-2's variant cover gives us Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman fighting against Parademons which makes me wonder (as it's a variant) whether this is meant to echo the recent battle of the Justice League against Darkseid and his minions in their title, or whether it is actually story related. Either way, the cover gives us no clue as to when the story will take place or whether the Earth-Two heroes are connected to either World War II or the Justice Society.

Was Brad Meltzer Right?

With Earth-2's announcement the other day (and yes, I'm really excited about it) the possibility of a crossover between it and Justice League of America started to occur which, in turn, made me remember this page from Brad Meltzer's run on JLA:

The Earth-2 that's shown there features characters from both the classic Justice Society and what appears to be the satellite-era League (am I the only one who prefers that blue and white costume on Zatanna?)

Will we see anything like it over the next year or two? Difficult to call when, but it would be just like Geoff Johns and James Robinson to do a crossover between the two titles when JLA gets to issue #21 in eighteen months or so . . .

Sometimes I Hate Being Right

Just a couple of days ago, I wrote a post about the possibility of some DC titles being cancelled fairly soon and ended with this:

"if I had to put my money on one book I'm getting that won't make it to a number 12 . . . I guess I'd have to offer up Mr Terrific."

And what do I read over at the DCU Source blog just a day or so later but this:

"In May of 2012, DC Comics will release a “Second Wave” of titles as part of its historic DC COMICS-THE NEW 52 initiative. Six new, ongoing series will build on the shared universe and bold concepts introduced in September 2011 with the renumbering of DC Comics’ entire line of comic books . . . The six new series will replace BLACKHAWKS, HAWK AND DOVE, MEN OF WAR, MISTER TERRIFIC, O.M.A.C. and STATIC SHOCK, all of which will conclude with their eighth issues in April."

So, farewell Michael Holt, it was a nice experiment, just a shame it didn't work.

Still, there's some good news as the six series replacing these include the following:

"EARTH 2 – Writer: James Robinson. Artist: Nicola Scott. The greatest heroes on a parallel Earth, the Justice Society combats threats that will set them on a collision course with other worlds. 

WORLDS’ FINEST – Writer: Paul Levitz. Artists: George Perez and Kevin Maguire. Stranded on our world from a parallel reality, Huntress and Power Girl struggle to find their way back to Earth 2. Perez and Maguire will be the artists on alternating story arcs."

Earth-2 we sort of knew about as the Justice Society title that's been spoken of for a while, but check out Worlds' Finest - Huntress and Power Girl in an ongoing with art by George Perez and Kevin Maguire!

It's official - today is a good news day.

Monday Memes #39

Wondering who to invite on to your new team or wondering if you've got the right people already on your team? Grab a bunch of photos and shuffle them round:

Oh, and if you're in the Justice Society, having them upside down from your point of view makes no sense at all!

And if you're advertising something, then a poster or graffiti's the way to go.

Justice Society Returns!

Earlier today I wrote "with no revealed plans for the JSA in the new DCU, you have to wonder what's going to happen to these guys."

Mere hours later I check my feed reader and what do I find:

"James Robinson confirmed that he is working on a new Justice Society project with artist Nicola Scott, and that the parallel world Earth-2 will make a return."

Now I'll be honest and say that Robinson's recent Justice League stories have been more miss than hit but I'm still excited by this news.

And Earth-2, too!

Cherry Picking Canon

Erin over at Exploring The Time Lab posted a simple yet interesting question the other day:

"What would you change or keep in canon if you were in charge of the DCnU?"

She has her own ideas, most of which I agree with (particularly "Countdown never happened. Countdown happened for no one.") and it got me to thinking about my own choices.

First, I'd keep everything pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths. Even the really weird stuff because by keeping all of that, we get to keep this:

Yep - Crisis... itself. It's a great story and one of my all time faves. You keep Crisis... and you can then get to keep the good stuff that came out of it, principally the revamps of Batman and Superman. But you also get to keep Power Girl (as survivor of Earth-2 - the Arion stuff never happened) and Helena Bertinelli's Huntress which then leads into Birds of Prey which is well worth keeping.

I'm happy with keeping Infinite Crisis as it does form a good sequel to the original, but we can lose both Identity Crisis and Final Crisis from my new DCU. Keeping Infinite Crisis allows us to keep Villains United which means we keep Secret Six so all's well and good there.

I'd keep the Justice Society and, in general, keep most of the legacy heroes as well - Ryan Choi's Atom, Mia Dearden's Speedy, Conner Hawke's Green Arrow and Jaime Reyes's Blue Beetle off the top of my head.

52 would remain canon as well because I like having a multiverse, dammit, though Grant Morrison would not get to keep it all to himself and his long-touted yet never appearing Multiversity which, I suspect, will do for the multiverse what the original Crisis... did to Hawkman: make it so toxic no-one will approach it for years.

Oh and Ice has her original origin restored, though that should go without saying.

This Looks Like Another Job For...

There's been one major thing bugging me about the New 52 / DC Relaunch / Reboot / DCnU or whatever it's being called this week and it can be summed up in one word:

Continuity.

We've learned that the new stories from September will take place five years after the dawn of the superhero - five years from the start of Superman's adventures and the formation of the Justice League.

But we've also been told that many things that have happened over the last few years in real time are also part of the timeline. Obvious examples are The Killing Joke and Identity Crisis but there's also been mention of the more recent Blackest Night still being part and parcel of DCU history.

What about the original big summer event, Crisis on Infinite Earths? Did that still happen? If so, did Infinite Crisis happen? Then there's a whole bunch of other things - Batman's crippling by Bane; Superman's death by Doomsday; Wonder Woman being turned into a goddess; were Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown all Robin within those years?

It's a whole mess of things which fanboys like myself will bitch and moan about. The Killing Joke's in continuity but the Justice Society aren't?

Justice League Detroit - Crisis On Infinite Earths

Over the next few weeks on a Tuesday, I'll be working my way through the Justice League of America titles from 1985 to 1987, trying to work out if the Justice League Detroit era really was as bad as we think it was. Why am I doing this? Why the hell not.

INFINITY INC. #19, written by Roy Thomas with art by Todd McFarlane and Steve Montana;
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #244 - #245, written by Gerry Conway with art by Joe Staton, Mike Machlan and Luke McDonnell;
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA ANNUAL #3, written by Dan Mishkin with art by Rick Hoberg and Mike Gustovich.

With the revelation in Justice League of America #243 that Steel's grandfather was the World War II hero Commander Steel (shown last week - you are reading these, right?) we pick up the story in the pages of Infinity Inc #19 where we find the Commander, with the aid of the mysterious Mekanique, has headed over to Earth-Two in order to recruit the Infinitors:

Commander Steel isn't exactly being honest, describing JL Detroit as "a bunch of super-powered young criminals" that he wants the Infinitors to defeat. Note the red sky in the background - the Crisis on Infinite Earths has begun making this one of the last times that Earth-Two would appear.

Retroactive - The 90's Part 3

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

And here we are, finally at the end of the 90's.

Retroactive - The 80's Part 2

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

Welcome back to the 80's!

Retroactive - The 70's Part 3

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

Any excuse to look at old comics, eh? 

Time Flies By

It can sometimes be a little daunting - even scary - when you look at your comic collection and think "How long have I been buying these things?" I've got just under 6,000 or so comics and trades in my study, not counting the 300 or so that are in piles waiting for me to get my arse in gear and put them on to e-bay and while that may be small in comparison to some, it's been built up over a fairly long time.

As the old song goes, "It was twenty years ago today . . ." and, just for the hell of it, here's what I was buying all those years ago - at least, everything I still have with a cover date of April 1991.

Green Arrow #45

Back when Green Arrow had to carry a "Mature Readers" tag in order to show Ollie blood and guts. How times have changed, huh? This was still a good couple of years before Mike Grell left the series and it was quickly absorbed back into the DCU proper. I remember reading somewhere that throughout his run, Grell never actually referred to Green Arrow by that name . . . or am I confused?

You Are The Writer!

I don't spend a great deal of time over at the DC Comics message boards - I'll drop by if I'm shamelessly advertising one of the Annotations sites I've done but mostly when I do visit, I'm happy to just read the posts. I'm a lurker more than a contributor there if I'm honest.

Whenever I do call over there, though, there's one thing that always baffles me: the fan-fic threads. Pop along to just about any board and you'll see a thread where someone has started a story about that hero or team whether it's Booster Gold:

the Doom Patrol:

or even Zatanna:

Who's Who In The JLA/JSA?

Last week's issue of Justice League of America (#48) had a couple of things that kinda threw me off balance when I was reading it. Hopefully long time readers know that I like to be as positive and upbeat about the comics I read as I can - Cthulhu knows there are plenty of comic blogs out there that bitch about things and I've never wanted to do that.

However (you just knew that was coming, didn't you?), like I said, Justice League... #48 had some things that I had to drag out here.

In an attempt to disrupt the Starheart taking over more heroes, Mr Terrific ropes in both Supergirl and Power Girl to help him build a device that will sort things out. It's great that Terrific recognises Power Girl is more than just a fighter - he specifically has her help because of her "scientific abilities" - and her reasoning about not really getting involved in that side of things with the Justice Society rings true. She wants to keep her Power Girl and Karen Starr personas separate. But then James Robinson has her say this:

Charles?! Who the hell is Charles?! The only Charles in the JSA was Charles McNider, the original Dr. Mid-Nite and he's been dead since Zero Hour! Was she confusing McNider with Pieter Cross, the current Dr. Mid-Nite?

Later on in the book, the good guys of both the JLA and the JSA take on Green Lantern Alan Scott who's possessed by the Starheart:

Now I'm not going to go on about the coloured and mini-icon styled caption boxes - others have done that better than I could - but I do need to pick up on something in them.

The captions at the top belong to Hourman, those below (mostly) to his wife, Jesse Quick. Here's what Jesse's say:

It's clearly Jesse's captions because she's got the Liberty Belle logo on the side . . . despite the fact that she's gone back to using the Jesse Quick name but that's almost by-the-by because she refers to her husband, Rick Tyler, as Rex.

Rex Tyler was the original Hourman and is Rick's father!

I'm not suggesting that Jesse and her father-in-law are having an affair that she can't stop thinking about when she's in the middle of a fight alongside her husband. What I am suggesting is that James Robinson (and I'm being charitable here) is obviously confused as to which heroes are currently in the JSA.

This book has three editors listed - Assistant Editor Rex Ogle, Associate Editor Adam Schlagman, and Editor Eddie Berganza. You'd think one of them would have caught these mistakes, surely.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #86

The understatement of the year from Blackest Night #4

• The Boys #43 - remember that time when you were reading Preacher and you realised that beneath the cheeky charm, the devil-may-care attitude and the all round bloke-iness, Cassidy wasn't a nice guy at all? I just had the same feeling about Butcher.
• Brightest Day #4 - man, is Hawk a complete idiot or what?
• Crossed: Family Values #2 - it could be so easy to turn this series into another zombie story but, for better or worse, David Lapham throws in some hideous family relationships that make the series more than a little repulsive. It's not gratuitous, though, and because it's deftly done it remains readable.
• Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - The Journey Begins #2 - Aileen, billy-bumblers and invisible men, oh my!
• DC Universe: Legacies #2 - ah, the Justice Society facing off against the HUAC hearings never gets old, does it? And while part of me cringes at the stilted, Chinese accented language of Wing's journal entries in the back-up story, part of me can't help thinking that it's appropriate for the time of the story.
• Magog #10 - so that wraps up Giffen's run on the title, then? Not the most earth-shattering of reads, I have to admit, but enjoyable from a Giffen point of view.

And what made me smile:

Man, and I thought I was attached to my computer . . .

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #72

I'm actually away this weekend but thanks to Blogger's scheduling function, I can still get my Cocktail post in!

• Battlefields: Happy Valley #3 - a sombre ending which came as no real surprise but was handled delicately and with care by Ennis who once more showed he's more than swearing and violence.
• Blackest Night: The Flash #3 - as much as the White Lantern (?) symbol over Reverse Flash's chest was intriguing, the most interesting part of this issue, like those before it, were the Rogues. It comes to something when the bad guys hold more fascination than the main character.
• Green Lantern #51 - more blood on Parallax's hands than the Anti-Monitor? Spectre, dude, the Anti-Monitor wiped out thousands of universes! Universes! And that bit with Hector Hammond? Can anyone say "groundwork for up-coming storyline?!"
• Green Lantern Corps #45 - the whole "battle your personal demons" thing was a little cheesey but it's good to have Gardner back at last.
• Justice League of America #42 - okay, a little all-over-the-place but not bad on the whole, though the couple of two page spreads weren't incredibly clear and I ended up reading down the page instead of across, but I'm liking the new villains.
• Magog #6 - tying in with Justice Society of America Annual #2 from a couple of weeks ago, this is Magog's side of things concerning the big JSA vs Magog fight along with the aftermath.
• Marvels: Eye of The Camera #6 - my god, this has actually arrived?! I'm not going to bother reading it until I re-read the earlier issues again, it's been so long.
• Power Girl #9 - did no-one tell Satanna that leopard-print went out with the 70's? Another damn fine issue where sub-plots from previous issues crop up again, making the story feel genuine. And hey, Terra's back to save Power Girl!
• The Stand: Soul Survivors #4 - damn, those were some big weasels!

And what made me smile wince:

Owwwwwwww!