Unsung Heroes

Booster Gold is a loser from the future who stole some technology and inserts himself into the past where he hopes to cash in and strike it rich.

I never really read Booster's adventures much in his first solo book. That lack of familiarity made it easy to just accept the idea that the character was a bit of a joke and move on. Most of what I DID know of him came from the occasional Justice League books I read during the "Bwa-ha-ha" days, or his few guest-appearances in other heroes' books and crossover events. In those cases, Booster's buffoonishness was played up all the more. So, he was a bit of a one-trick pony for me, and not all that much of a trick was ever really expected from him.

My first inkling that there could be more to Booster was his star appearance in the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Greatest Story Never Told." In this episode, the entire Justice League is engaged, mostly off-camera, battling the wizard Mordru. The senior members of the League seem to think of Booster much the same as I always had, and thus assign him to handle "crowd control." In the episode, Booster bemoans this assignment as beneath him and longs for the front lines of the battle where he can show-off. Collateral damage from the main battle causes a S.T.A.R. Labs experiment to go awry, and Booster is forced to handle a situation which could prove even more disastrous than Mordru's attack, but of which no one else is even aware.

I have no idea if this episode had any influence on what was to come, but it foreshadowed changes in Booster's mission in the comic books, as he was about to become the "greatest hero the world has never known."

These changes are set-up in the pages of 52, where Time Master Rip Hunter begins to work with Booster, and continues into the 2007 re-launch of Booster's own title. Now, Booster must monitor and correct time anomalies in the past, present and future, policing the DC Universe time stream from threats great and small. And all the while, he must maintain that buffoonish image, so that time villains will not suspect him and move to eliminate the threat he poses to their nefarious plans.

This is the kind of concept that could go horribly off the rails quite easily -- time-travel stories can cause anyone to suffer from headaches and continuity snafus -- but here things are handled by some very talented and capable creators. Geoff Johns was one of the architects of 52, and he and Jeff Katz wonderfully guided the first year's worth of the re-launched Booster series. They were wonderfully assisted by Dan Jurgens, creator of Booster Gold, first on art chores, and later when Jurgens assumed the writing responsibilities shortly after Johns and Katz left the book.

The plots may sound quite complicated and confusing, but wonderfully imaginative tales are told, often touching on events that at least this reader found near and dear to his heart. Initially, Booster only agrees to help Rip Hunter police time if he is first allowed to save his friend, Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle, from being gunned down in the run-up to Infinite Crisis. Rip tries to explain to Booster that time can't be changed like that, in fact, this is the very kind of thing Rip wants Booster to help prevent. But Booster won't listen, goes back in time, saves Ted, and returns to a present very much altered.

Other time-correcting jaunts involve the crippling of Batgirl Barbara Gordon at the hands of the Joker and the initial meeting between the New Teen Titans and Deathstroke the Terminator. In the earlier adventure, Booster tries to save Batgirl from her fate, again only to learn that no matter how hard he tries, he is unable to change how things were "meant" to be. In the latter, an evil adversary travels back in time to assist the first Ravager and Deathstroke to defeat the Titans in their first meeting. With the Titans slain, no one was prepared the first time Trigon the Terrible sought to conquer the heroes' dimension, and the Justice League, as well as most solo heroes, all fall to the inter-dimensional demon. These story arcs were presented well and involved characters and events that I enjoyed the first time around. They do nothing to detract from the original tales; in fact, these new stories were like visiting old friends and reliving common memories from new angles.

I'd be very happy to see this kind of story continue, especially from Jurgens and current artist Norm Rapmund. But alas, that is not meant to be. A new creative team and a new direction for the title are set to begin. Possibly the new creators will find an equally successful direction for Booster Gold, but I've grown fond of the time-traveling, unsung hero he became for a few short years.

You Look Mahvelous!

What's the difference between the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe? The heroes in the DC Universe are, with few exceptions, bright and cheery god-like beings who have the respect and admiration of the citizenry, whereas the heroes of the Marvel Universe are just as likely to be misunderstood and reviled for their heroic acts as appreciated. Some, most notably mutants and Spider-Man, are even feared by a sizable chuck of the MU populace.

I can't take credit for that observation, but I know a good point when I hear it. Apparently, so does Kurt Busiek. The fear and loathing denizens of the MU often have for their heroes is one of the central themes of his 2009 limited series, Marvels: Eye of the Camera.

This book is a sequel to Busiek's Marvels series which also featured beautiful painted artwork by Alex Ross. Jay Anacleto handles the artwork chores on this new book and does a fantastic job following in Ross's photo-realistic painting style. The artwork alone in these books is simply breath-taking.

The first book, for those who don't know (and shame on you, if you don't; run out and get a copy of the trade right away, if you don't already own this book), centers on photojournalist Phil Sheldon. Sheldon was a celebrated photog during World War II, capturing fantastic images of soldiers in combat, as well as some of that generation's better-known celebrities like the original Human Torch; Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner; and Captain America and Bucky. Sheldon is getting older and feeling less-than satisfied by his life and career when the new age of heroes begins with the advent of the Fantastic Four. Invigorated with a new sense of purpose, Sheldon chronicles the debut of this team and the other Marvels who follow -- Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men and others. Many of the great moments of Marvel Comics history are revisited in the series through the lens of this man's camera as he captures the sense of wonder the average person must have felt with such events going on around him.

Ever since the book was released, fans have clamored for a sequel, and Eye of the Camera is it. This new story re-visits just enough of the previous territory to catch new readers up to speed, enabling this series to stand on it's own. From there, it continues Sheldon's story as he marvels at how quickly the public turns on its heroes, one day embracing them as saviors and the next criticizing them for not doing more, not helping enough, or suspecting them of having less than pure motives.

The heroes of this second tale are the same Marvel heroes readers know and love, reliving more great events from Marvel history, but they are also the victims of rumors and smear campaigns along the way. Sheldon assigns himself the task of defending the heroes and blasting their sometime-worshipers/sometime-critics.

Both books are solid reads with truly inspiring artwork. They work as fantastic, entertaining fiction for the uninitiated, or avenues to revisit favorite scenes in a new light for longtime Marvel fans. Kudos to all involved. These books are great comics!

Great Expectations

I want a director's cut of DC Comics' The Mighty by Peter J. Tomasi, Keith Champagne and Chris Samnee. Well, OK, not a "director's cut" exactly -- I guess in comics we call them an Absolute edition. I want to get inside the creators' heads on this story.

First a little set-up: Tomasi sold me on this book, so I tend to credit/blame him solely for it, and for that, I apologize to co-creator Champagne and artist Samnee. I've seen both their names attatched to other projects I've liked, and feel they do solid work, as a rule. But I bought this book because Tomasi was one of the writers, and I was on a Tomasi high at the time of the book's debut last year.

Peter J. Tomasi was an editor on several DC books who decided he wanted to write and bring forth some of his own ideas first-hand. His first writing gig for me was when he took over the reigns of Green Lantern Corps. I don't hate Green Lanterns, but I also don't seek them out on a whim, but I was getting into the Corps book, as well as the main GL title, in the run-up to Blackest Night. And Tomasi was doing a good job; he had a huge cast of characters but was still telling interesting individual stories. He made me care about some of these alien GLs I'd never even heard about before. Then he blew me away taking over writing for Nightwing after Marv Wolfman. Tomasi got Nightwing, if not in EXACTLY the same way I do, at least in a way that felt right to me. Tomasi's Dick Grayson acted like he had spent a great deal of time learning under the Batman and leading the Titans but was still his own person, capable on his own and capable of being lighter in tone than Batman while still more serious than Changeling/Beast Boy. Tomasi's run on Nightwing was cut way too short by the companywide One Year Later event.

So along comes The Mighty. I don't recall if this is true or not, but when The Mighty was first solicited, I was under the impression that it would be an ongoing series, not the 12-issue limited series it became. Take a Superman-like character and introduce him to a world without superheroes of any kind -- been done before many, many times. But I was willing to give the book a try based on what I'd seen so far from this writer. The first couple issues introduce the main characters. They convey a sense of wonder at this being, Alpha One, with all these abilities and his fantastic origin, all seen through the eyes of the "point-of-view" character, Gabriel Cole, the person all of us kids who grew up reading comics want to be and can identify with.

When the book starts to take a somewhat darker turn, hinting that things may not be all that they seem, I again recognized a familiar plot twist that has been done to death. But even "supposed hero has a hidden, dark agenda" can be done well when handled by a writer (or writers) who really knows his craft. That was the case here. Hints were dropped, tidbits revealed, but in a way that you wanted to know more, you suspected where you were being led but became engrossed in the journey and the way the tale unraveled so that you were hooked for the full ride. I even began to suspect that Alpha One's "dark agenda" might ultimately have a perfectly normal explanation, something which would make all he had done seem perfectly rational in this new light, some knowledge he had that we, like Cole, weren't privy to.

Maybe that's where things got derailed a bit.

I became so invested in this story along the way, I began to project where I thought the story was headed. With each new "bad" action by Alpha One, I began to thrill more at the explanation I became certain was coming but couldn't see how it would make sense. I wanted this book to surprise me at the end with honest justifications for Alpha One's actions that would justify him as a hero once again, in not only my eyes, but Cole's, too. When that didn't come, the actual ending of the story, as nice as it was, left me feeling a little underwhelmed.

Don't get me wrong: this is a good story, and I recommend it as such. But I can't shake the feeling that the ending doesn't quite live up to the beginning and middle for me. Maybe that's just me because it didn't end how I thought it might. Maybe that's because it ended prematurely if this was intended to be an ongoing series that got canceled. The ending it has certainly could lend itself to sequels or continuation of some sort.

That's why I want an Absolute edition of The Mighty. I want to know what Tomasi and Champagne were intending, if they considered other directions and lengths for the story. I guess I'm still looking for that "more satisfying" ending somewhere in their notes, thoughts or musings. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Thank You, Sir, May I Have Another

Today, I'm going to talk a bit about a series that isn't even being published right now. But there are plenty of trades available, so if what I have to say sparks an interest, rush out and buy some of those, thus maybe signaling to the publishers involved that they should devote some of their budgets to producing more.

The comic in question is Fallen Angel by writer Peter David. This book began its life in 2003 at DC Comics, believe it or not, but it was set apart from the DC Universe proper. We don't get much of the title character's back story at first, but we do know that her "code name" is literal. A former guardian angel, Lee has great strength and a number of other unique abilities. We know a disagreement between her and her former "boss" led to her fall, and that she is basically a good person, but she is not quite happy with life or its circumstances. We see glimpses of Lee's life during the day where she works as a gym instructor for a local girls' school. But most of the stories revolve around Lee's nights in a city know as Bete Noire.

Bete Noire is of vague location and populated by a number of colorful characters. There's Benny, who seems to be a street bum but is in reality the serpent from the original Eden story. There's Dolf, the German bar owner who looks after Lee sometimes and serves as her closest confidant, but also may be one of history's most notorious figures. And there's the Magistrate, the local authority in Bete Noire, who both controls events in the city and is controlled by them.

Lee spends her nights in this desolate city of last resort, often drinking in Dolf's bar. Occasionally, some poor soul will come to Bete Noire seeking the assistance of one called the Fallen Angel. If Lee chooses to listen to the person's story, and if she chooses to care, she might help the person with whatever problem has brought them to Bete Noire.

The existence of superheroes would muddy the waters somewhat in a book like this, where most things are of the real world, with only an occasional intrusion by the spiritual or supernatural. The book was quite a good one but only lasted 20 issues despite the great stories by David and the fantastic art by David Lopez. The problem, I think, was that the book had trouble placing itself. The supernatural aspects of the story line and the more mature themes would have made this an excellent Vertigo title and would have led to the book getting into the hands of more readers who I think would've appreciated it for what it was. Instead, the decision was made to brand this a mainstream DC title instead. But the absence of costumed heroes, even in cameos, killed the book's chances with the superhero crowd. Obviously, I believe there to be overlap between the two audiences, I'm proof of that, but apparently not enough to save this worthwhile title.

Thankfully, when DC canceled the book, it was picked up by IDW Publishing. They relaunched the title under the same name with a new No. 1 in 2005. Wisely, IDW opted not to change much of the format. The book jumped ahead several years in time with the change, but the stories were still in the same vein by the same writer. David Lopez didn't make the switch; if memory serves, he had an exclusive contract with DC at the time. But Peter David and IDW replaced him with J.K. Woodward who provided both painted covers and painted interiors.

This series continued the story of Lee and Bete Noire, adding in a new twist with Lee's adult son, a character who had just been born about the time the DC series ended. We get to see more of Lee's background in this series, including the event which led to her fall. We are also introduced to more characters who have known Lee longer and to whom she is not such a mystery, which helps the reader learn more about her along the way.

This series, too, was canceled, this time after 33 issues, but it didn't go away completely. The final issue promised the series would be back with a new story arc in a limited series. That series, Fallen Angel: Reborn, materialized in 2009. It matched Lee up with a character named Illyria from the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" television program and comics. I'm not very familiar with either incarnation of Buffy, so the Fallen Angel series was my first exposure to Illyria, but David does an excellent job incorporating what you need to know about the character into the current story. This latest FA series, because of its dual focus, wasn't quite as good as the earlier FA titles, in my humble opinion, but it was still a good story. It gave a tad more character development to Illyria than to Lee, which might be fine for Buffy fans, but left me wanting more Fallen Angel stories.

At this point, I'm not sure if there are more Fallen Angel stories coming or not. I've heard indications that other limited series will continue, but to date, nothing new has been solicited. I truly hope David is not done with the character as there is still a great deal of story potential in Lee. But the stories presented thus far are solid reads well worth your time. And hey, if my hawking the past trades gets someone to take notice and produce more Fallen Angel comics, we all benefit, right?

Nasty. Raw. Brutal. Excellent.

We've talked here before about characterization and it's importance to story-telling. The characters have to be people the reader cares about for reading and enjoying to occur. The characters that populate Image Comics' Walking Dead series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn literally come alive with their characterizations.

The series, for those unfamiliar with it, involves a cop who wakes up from a coma to find no one around but zombies. He has no idea where the zombies came from or what the heck is going on, but he sets out to track down his family and finds other survivors among the many Walking Dead. But this is more than just a typical zombie horror-fest. Kirkman describes the book as "the zombie movie that never ends," focusing not so much on the zombies themselves, but the living folk trying to stay that way. "I want to explore how people deal with extreme situations and how these events CHANGE them," he adds. "This is a very character driven endeavor."

Is it ever.

I'd heard good things about the book and was curious to try it. When I read rave reviews for something online, it is often hit or miss whether or not I will like it, and I DON'T care so much for zombie movies. So I decided to really give the series a try if I was going to try it at all. I bought the first three trades, collecting all of the first 18 issues of the series. If at the end of that, I still didn't like it, no one could say I hadn't given it a chance. I read all three trades in one weekend.
I could hardly put it down. The drama is intense. The action is exciting. The artwork and the gray tones are brilliant. And, as promised, the writing focuses on strong characters you come to care about as they try to survive in this world they barely understand. There are zombies, but they are more minor characters, almost scenery sometimes, for the main characters to play against.

Those first three trades were so good, I quickly found the fourth and fifth collections. I just read those two in two sittings recently, only pausing in between to go to work, and that only because my wife insisted I must. I have the next six trades -- Nos. 6-11 on order. When they get here, I fully expect to devour them hungrily and then die from waiting the many long months before the 12th collection is released.

This book is awesome! Check it out!!

And do so quickly, before these characters invade your television set in Ocotber. That's right! If you haven't already heard, Kirkman is involved with the production of making The Walking Dead into an hour-long drama series for AMC. The show doesn't even begin shooting until this summer, but AMC has already pledged to debut the show in October during their Halloween-season programming.