The partnership continues for another generation

Batman & Scooby-Doo! Mysteries No. 3 of 12
DC Comics
Creators: Ivan Cohen, Dario Brizuela, Franco Riesco, Saida Temofonte and Michael McCalister
Release date: June 2021

A little shorter post today, but be sure to read to the end for a small announcement.

The Caped Crusader and the canine crime-buster have worked together on many occasions. Batman and Robin first teamed up with Scooby and Mystery Inc. in two episodes of “The New Scooby-Doo! Mysteries” in the early 1970s. The pairing made sense as Hanna-Barbera, the creators of Scooby and the gang also owned the rights to the Super Friends. The reaction was so positive that Batman and Scooby have continued to cross paths on television in more recent shows, including “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” (2009) and “Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?” (2019).

These team-ups have also happened in the comics. Batman and Robin were the first guest stars in the Scooby-Doo! Team-Up comic book that began in 2013, which I discussed on the blog here. The title paired Mystery Inc. with a variety of DC superheroes and other Hanna-Barbera characters during its 50 issue-run, and members of the Bat-family appeared in several of those issues.

Is it any wonder that DC has returned once again to that very popular idea for this new 12-issue limited series?

To be sure, these are simpler stories than one might typically find in a modern Batman comic book. Keeping things fun and light is the entire point. But that doesn’t mean these are childish or dumbed-down stories.

Ivan Cohen does an excellent job capturing the voices of each of the familiar characters, even making this Batman seem to be a believable mix of all past interpretations. Dario Brizuela’s art maintains the cartoony look of the Scooby gang while not making Batman look out of place. Also, Brizuela was the artist on many of the Scooby-Doo! Team-Up issues, so he’s no stranger to this task.

This issue centers around Scooby-Doo and Ace the Bathound being invited to serve as honorary guess judges at a Gotham City dog show. The abundance of two-themed items in the story make it pretty clear for any long-time readers that the villain of this issue is Two-Face, but readers are left to wonder how the heroes will thwart the villain’s schemes.

My only complaint with this issue — or the series so far — is hinted at in the page above. Fred and Velma are missing from the events in the beginning of this issue, although they show up before the end. Read Daphne’s explanation to Batman on the pair’s absence and tell me that wouldn’t have been the perfect moment to at least name-drop Swamp Thing. But sadly, that isn’t the route the writers take.

I have no problem recommending this series to fans of either property as a fun, enjoyable read. And who among us couldn’t use a little more fun in our lives, right?

And now, briefly, to the announcement: I’m going to switch the blog’s frequency to every other week rather than weekly. When I started the blog back up a few months ago, I had a number of comics I wanted to write about, making for a nice backlog of possible posts. But my time to read of late has been a bit more limited. Rather than having the posts become sporadic, I thought I’d try to post a little less often, but still maintain a regular schedule.

So, I hope to see you back here in two weeks for another, somewhat lengthier post. Until then, happy reading, and make sure you are enjoying the comics you are reading. Otherwise, what’s the point?

They were right; this IS a worthwhile read

Preacher Vol. 1: Gone to Texas (collecting issue Nos. 1-7 of the original series)
DC/Vertigo
Creators: Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
Release date: March 14, 1996

Strap in, folks; it’s a lengthy post today.

I wasn’t much into Vertigo titles in 1996 when Preacher made its debut on comic store shelves. I was in the thick of buying mostly super-hero titles at the time. I was still holding onto buying New Titans in hopes the title would return to its former glory, and I was, of course, picking up Aquaman and Green Arrow at the time. Nightwing’s solo series had not come along quite yet, but most of the other Bat-books were on my pull list, including Robin. I was a regular buyer of the Superman titles at the time. Other DC titles I was grabbing included Damage, Darkstars, Deathstroke, Flash, Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, Legionnaires, Showcase and Wonder Woman. I was also picking up occasional issues of the Spider-Man titles with some regularity, as well as Dark Horse’s Ghost.

That’s not to say I was ignorant of the Vertigo titles. I bought and enjoyed the first several issues of Grant Morrison’s Animal Man before the magazine was even considered a Vertigo title. I was also vaguely aware of Swamp Thing, Sandman and Hellblazer, several other Vertigo greats. Likewise, shortly after the debut of Preacher, when the title really started to generate some buzz, I’d heard of it and had a simple awareness of the title’s existence. It just wasn’t something I had much interest in.

So why am I reading the title now? Because it came highly recommended. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that I also listen to and enjoy a number of fine comics-themed podcasts. I like a number of shows out there and have gotten to know some of the various podcasters through their respective shows and through friending a number of them on Facebook.

I was recently listening to an episode of “Views from the Longbox” by Michael Bailey that featured guest hosts Andrew and Micheal Leyland of “Hey Kids, Comics!” The specific episode was No. 166 from October 15, 2013, and was titled “TC and the Chicken.” On this episode, the three co-hosts discussed the Preacher series in general, and focused specifically on the third story arc, “All In the Family.” All three gentlemen talked about the series in glowing terms.

For instance, Andrew Leyland, while describing the series as “depraved” also said that he followed Ennis and Dillon from Hellblazer to Preacher and considered the pair of creators “one of the best comic book teams ever.”

Leyland continued: “I can see how it wouldn’t be to everybody’s taste, but I think it’s genius. It is the single best piece of work in Vertigo’s history, and one of the best finite comic series ever.”

That’s pretty high praise indeed. And Leyland wasn’t alone in his opinion of the series.

Michael Bailey said, “The strength of the series is Garth Ennis’ ability to have you care about these characters and how he engages you as a reader. Even as messed up as this story can get, at heart, you still like these people and root for them.”

After hearing that kind of praise, I throw the question back: How could I not give it a try?

Again, while these guys talked a lot about the series as a whole in the episode, they focused on the third story arc of the series, specifically issue Nos. 8-12. But I can’t give something a genuine try starting in the middle of the series, so I started with this first trade, collecting the first two story arcs.

I’ve said before that I try to focus this blog on comics that I have enjoyed and can feel good about recommending to someone else. So it should come as no shock to regular readers that I enjoyed this first bit of Preacher very much, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it, and you wouldn’t be reading about it here.

Everybody has to decide for themselves about the level of gore, sex and language they want to accept in the comics they read, but I was expecting something a little more graphic from what I’d heard about the series before reading it. Maybe the series will get worse later on, and maybe my expectations were at a level where what I got in this first trade was not as bad as I feared. But I had no problem with what was shown and what happened “off panel.”

For anyone like myself who had not read Preacher before, the title character is Jesse Custer, a small-town Texas preacher who is suffering a bit of a crisis of faith when something miraculous/disastrous happens to him. Jesse’s transformation leaves him merged with Genesis, an angelic/demonic entity recently escaped from captivity in Heaven. The merger leaves Jesse with the Word of God, the ability to command others to do whatever he says, and they have no ability to resist. The merger of Jesse and Genesis leaves the rest of the town dead.

The death of everyone in a small Texas town brings Jesse to the attention of the police, as well as the Saint of Killers, another supernatural entity sent by Heaven to recapture Genesis. By chance, Jesse is first found by Tulip, a former girlfriend Jesse abandoned five years earlier, and Cassidy, an Irish vampire. Tulip and Cassidy first met the day before when Tulip failed at her initial attempt to pay off some debts by becoming a hitperson. Fleeing the ensuing gunfight, Tulip happens on Cassidy and begs for his help getting away.

The first story arc in the first Preacher trade introduces these three major players and the situation they find themselves in. The three fugitives must first deal with their initial pursuers, the Texas authorities and the Saint of Killers. In the course of doing this, they learn that God has left Heaven, and the three decide to seek out God to have a word with him about his behavior. This leads into the second story arc in the trade: Cassidy leads the trio to New York City, where they meet up with an old friend of his and try to gather intel on God’s possible whereabouts. Instead, they end up running afoul of a serial killer.

To be sure, this is some violent content, and there is plenty of swearing in the dialogue. Many people are killed and/or tortured in the course of these two story arcs, and there is a lot of graphic content some may find more disturbing than others. But again, from all I’d heard, I’d expected much worse than I got. I’ve also read Ennis’ later series, The Boys, which is also very violent and graphic. So Preacher didn’t bother me as much as I expected it might. Your tolerance may vary.

One thing that counters the graphic violence is the series’ sense of humor. Ennis can have a biting, nasty edge to his humor at times, too, to be sure, but there are some genuinely touching and simply humorous moments between the characters in this series, especially between the three leads. Ennis writes them as three-dimensional characters, not cookie-cutter caricatures of real people. The writing is often filled with subtle moments that counter the more over-the-top ones. Michael Bailey and the Leylands also mentioned the subtlety in Ennis’ writing for this series in their review, and I very much agree with that assessment after reading this first trade.

I’d never read Preacher before as it never seemed like a good match for my tastes, but after hearing this podcast enthusiastically recommending people give it a try, I decided to do just that. I enjoyed the first trade as I got to meet these three characters on their initial adventures together, and I’m looking forward to reading the next story arc, which Bailey and the Leylands covered so well in their podcast review, and beyond. If you’ve never read the series either, maybe this post will inspire you, too, to try Preacher.

The time was ripe for betting on green

Maestro: War & Pax Nos. 1-5
Marvel Comics
Creators: Peter David, Javier Pina and Jesus Aburtov
Release date: January-May 2021

This series was timed just right to grab my attention.

I’ve long been a fan of the Hulk. I like most of the more “monstrous” Marvel characters like Hulk, Thing, Beast after Hank McCoy sprouted his blue fur, and Nightcrawler. They appeal to me visually, I guess, but I’ve also liked the characterizations of Hulk and Thing a great deal.

When I was a kid, my family watched the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno “Incredible Hulk” television program every week. I also read and very much enjoyed a nice run of Incredible Hulk beginning with issue No. 212 while visiting a friend around that same time in the late 1970s. I’d read some other issues of the character from time to time, but never on any consistent basis.

I also enjoy the writing of Peter David, be it in the form of Star Trek and other prose novels or in comics. I like how he makes his stories character-driven and always includes touches of humor. Some of my favorites among David’s comics writing include Young Justice, Fallen Angel and Supergirl. I’ve long been curious about David’s lengthy run on Incredible Hulk. He lasts a good long time on the title, and it’s a character I like, but I’d always been unsure where to start reading.

I decided to do something about that curiosity several years ago by picking up the first couple Hulk Visionaries: Peter David trades, but then they got dropped on my to-be-read-sometime pile. Last year, I decided it was time to finally satisfy that curiosity and make sure I did the big Hulk read-through by tracking down the rest of the Visionaries series of trades and the Marvel Epic trades that picked up Peter David’s run on the title.

I also picked up a number of back issues from before Peter David’s run and settled in for a lengthy but enjoyable reading project that stretched from Incredible Hulk No. 195 through No. 448. There were some gaps, especially early on, but I revisited that run from my youth and read a number of later issues I truly enjoyed for the first time. And Peter David’s run was mostly complete, including every issue from No. 331 through 448. I was not disappointed. In fact, I enjoyed reading these Hulk adventures so much, I began following the new Immortal Hulk title in trade form as well, and I’m also enjoying Al Ewing’s take on Hulk.

Included in those Incredible Hulk Epic Collection trades of Peter David’s run was the two-part Future Imperfect story arc. This prestige format limited series by Peter David and George Perez was originally released in 1992. I bought and read these issues when they were released and enjoyed the tale of the modern-day Hulk being transported to a dystopian future where he has to fight a twisted version of himself named the Maestro.

Re-reading this series as part of David’s collected Hulk run, I was better able to appreciate the context around which Future Imperfect was written. I got to not only read Future Imperfect again for the first time in a long time, but I was able to see the beginnings of the story slowly develop in the regular monthly title and then explore the repercussions of the limited series on the characters going forward in future issues. Then shortly after I finished reading those collected Hulk editions, it was announced that Peter David was going to return to the concept of the Maestro for more tales nearly 20 years after the original story was printed. Now that’s serendipitous timing.

These new series would focus on how the Maestro came to be, and I was excited to try them. The first of the announced trilogy of miniseries was simply titled Maestro and explained how Hulk came to be alive in this future war-torn time. It also showed how he encountered another familiar face, who was then using the title of the Maestro.

This second series, War & Pax, picks up the story after Hulk has assumed the mantle of the Maestro and shows him coming into opposition with Dr. Doom and the members of the Pantheon, Hulk’s former teammates. I’m sure this was a welcome callback for any fans who first read about the Pantheon 20 years ago, but it was also a nice callback for me, who had just discovered the Pantheon members about 20 months ago, give or take a few weeks.

Both of these first two Maestro series were fun codas to Peter David’s earlier run writing Incredible Hulk. I’m looking forward to the third installment to begin in a few months. And I expect it to be just as much fun.

Pricey but worth the cost of admission

Friend of the Devil hardcover: A Reckless Book
Image Comics
Creators: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Release date: April 2021

Welcome back for another great comics read recommendation. This time out I’m offering up the second hardcover original graphic novel to chronicle the adventures of Ethan Reckless, the latest invention of writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips. This creative team has my full confidence; they’ve produced a couple comic series that, while not among my absolute favorite reads, were still solid tales. But they have also produced titles like Scene of the Crime, Criminal and Kill or Be Killed, some of the best comics, in my humble opinion.

The new Reckless series is a little different than these creators’ past offerings. Instead of being released in single-issue format, then later collected in trades, these are full, done-in-one hardcover OGNs, a new one released every few months. That means these books have a little more hefty price tag than most of the comics and trades I usually buy. But again, this creative team has earned my trust, and so far, the Reckless series has not disappointed.

Much of the action in the stories takes place in the 1970s and 1980s, and the action is very reminiscent of television private detective fare from that same era, but told with a definite modern sensibility. So far, both adventures have gone in some very dark directions. This latest volume is more than the surface missing persons case it appears to be as Ethan Reckless follows the trail through various cultists, neo-Nazis and worse. If you enjoy shows like “The Rockford Files” or “Mannix,” then you will like these tales. But also, if you just like a good story that is hard to put down until you’ve finished it, then this still might be just the read you’re looking for.