Dropping some recommendations for the holidays

This post is dropping the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, so I thought it might be appropriate to do something a little bit different. Instead of a single comic, trade or story arc, I’m going to briefly recommend a number of genre-related items that might have made very small posts on their own. Several are genre-related shows and films currently streaming, just in case anyone out there is looking for something to watch. I hope you enjoy them.

First up is something I recently enjoyed on Netflix with my family and can’t believe I failed to mention a few weeks ago: The Netflix re-boot of “Lost in Space.” I spent some time this fall discussing some Lost in Space comics. If you missed those posts, you can find them here, here and here.

I can’t believe I failed to even mention this latest incarnation of the Space Family Robinson’s adventures when discussing the comics. I discovered the show on the streaming platform shortly after it debuted in 2018 and, while it was very different from the original, I very much enjoyed the presentation. The third and final season of the program dropped on December 1, 2021, and the show did not disappoint. Again, the characters follow a very different path in this re-imagining, but there are echoes of the original show and a few cameos, too. I and my entire family enjoyed the show and heartily recommend it.

Next up is a fun little animated film streaming on the Disney-Plus platform right now called “Ron’s Gone Wrong.” I heard of it in a friend’s Facebook post. He said the entire family watched and enjoyed the film and laughed all the way through it. I thought it might make a good family movie night for my wife, my 10-year-old daughter and I, and we enjoyed it, too. The film took about 10 to 15 minutes to set everything up and get rolling, but then it was full of laughs. The story centers on one unpopular boy and his efforts to fit in while everyone around him is obsessed with personalized robots and the tech giant that sells them.

Another Facebook post led me to my next recommendation: “Slugfest,” a Roku channel original documentary about the lengthy rivalry between DC Comics and Marvel Comics. This 10-episode series just dropped on Christmas Eve, but each episode is only about eight- to 10-minutes long, so it runs pretty quickly. I’m a longtime comics fan myself, and there was not much new information in this series, but it was very well and entertainingly presented. Kevin Smith narrates, and a number of comics pros contributed to the series. There are also flashback segments showing the comics pros as younger men and women in past decades, and these creators are portrayed by several big name genre actors and actresses. If you’re still not sure, you can find a trailer for the series here.

My next TV recommendation is the just completed six-episode Marvel series "Hawkeye," also on the Disney-Plus streaming platform. I watched the original Marvel/Netflix collaborations on “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage,” “Iron Fist,” “Defenders” and “The Punisher” as well as the more recent “Wanda/Vision,” The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and “What If...?” on Disney-Plus, and I’ve enjoyed all of them. But the latest, involving both Clint Barton and Kate Bishop was a very fun adventure. I’ve never followed Clint Barton in the comics much and don’t know a lot about Kate Bishop beyond the original Young Avengers series. But this was a nice little storyline with some interesting twists, creators playing on the expectations of comics fans and more development for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But mostly, it was a fun show to watch.

Switching from one archer to another and from one medium to another, I would also like to heartily recommend the two recent 100-Page Super Spectacular issues DC Comics devoted to the 80th anniversaries of Green Arrow and Aquaman. Both issues are collections of short stories taking place at various times throughout each characters’ publishing history. They touch on a number of favorite eras in each character’s history and include a number of familiar creators and co-stars along the way. Both books are great reads, but then I’m biased when it comes to these characters.

Lastly, I want to recommend one other creator and comic title: the Collectors webcomic by Eddie deAngelini. You can find the home of Eddie’s web comic here. Eddie write about himself, his wife and his collecting habit to very funny effect. I first came across Eddie’s art several months ago, once again on Facebook. I’ve read a number of his random comics in the months since then and liked them enough to back his recent Kickstarter campaign to publish the sixth annual collection of his comics. He’s a creative and funny guy I’m happy to support, especially because I can readily see myself and my non-collector wife in some of his comics.

So there you have it: a small collection of genre-related recommendations for the holidays. I hope you enjoyed them and maybe discovered something new along the way. Come back in two weeks for a more traditional post to kick off 2022. I’m thinking something from Image that proved to be a pleasant surprise for me. See you then!

Something for young and old alike

Ghosts
Scholastic Graphix
Creators: Raina Telgemeier
Publication date: 2016

This is not an original graphic novel I discovered on my own. My 10-year-old daughter came across the book in her school’s library. She was intrigued by the title and cover, borrowed the book and read it. And she loved it. So much so, that she bought her own copy of the book at the next school book fair. She read it again, and afterwards, she talked it up so much that her mother read it next, and I read it after they each did.

The story is written and illustrated for a younger audience, but like most of the best children’s fiction, is not written down to younger readers. That makes it an enjoyable, if quick, read for adults, too.

Catrina, who prefers to be called Cat, is the main character in this story. While Cat’s age in not specified in the book, my daughter thought she was likely junior high age. I think 12 or 13 sounds about right. Cat’s family has just moved to a new town, Bahia de la Luna in northern California. Cat’s younger sister, Maya, has cystic fibrosis, and it was recommended the family move to the coast to help Maya’s breathing issues. So the family of four moved in August, ahead of the new school year. Cat is a little resentful of the move. She loves her younger sister but misses her friends from the family’s old hometown.

One of the first people Cat and Maya meet in their new town is Carlos, a neighbor boy who happens to be Cat’s age. Carlos offers to take the girls on a tour of Bahia de la Luna and tells them all about the emphasis the residents of the town place on remembering and celebrating the dead — ghosts.

Maya is particularly interested in ghosts. Cystic fibrosis is a degenerative disease, meaning she will never get better and will likely get worse over time. She has questions about death and dying she hopes ghosts can answer for her. She would also like to meet one special ghost — her maternal grandmother whom she has never met.

Cat is much less anxious to meet any spirits. She grows increasingly worried and paranoid about ghosts the more she hears about them, and everyone in Bahia de la Luna seems to talk nonstop about ghosts. Things only get worse when Maya ends up in the hospital due to complications from her illness. Cat blames herself for the dark turn Maya’s illness has taken.

But rest assured, this being a book meant for younger readers, everything works out well in the end.

I found this book to be an enjoyable read with good lessons about family, friendship, courage and empathy for readers of any age. I wasn’t familiar with Raina Telgemeier’s work before this, but she has written a very engaging tale that includes some weighty subjects like death and cystic fibrosis in a way that helps younger readers understand and accept them. Her artwork is very cartoony and simple, but she still includes a wealth of details in the backgrounds and history.

I’m also very happy my daughter is growing to enjoy reading as much as her mother and I do, and I’m pleased that she is branching out to discover books beyond what her mother and I suggest for her, finding her own tastes and styles. It helps that she also likes superhero books, like I do, too. But I like to read other genres besides superheroes, both in comics form and prose. I enjoy seeing her find things she likes on her own, especially if she is choosing books like this one.

At last it can be revealed … to me, at least

The Tick: The Naked City trade
New England Comics Press
Creator: Ben Edlund
Release date: July 1996, according to Wikipedia, but mine is the second edition version, dated May 1998

This trade was a very fun read, and I was glad to finally read the Tick’s “true” comic origins as this volume collects the first six issues of the Tick’s comic adventures.

Note, I did not say this volume includes the Tick’s first appearances.

According to Wikipedia, the Tick was created in 1986 by an 18-year-old cartoonist named Ben Edlund as a mascot of sorts for his local comic book shop, New England Comics of Brockton, Mass., to use in its newsletter. Edlund later expanded his use of the Tick, beginning with a three-page origin story in which the character escapes from a mental institution. Unfortunately, that three-page tale is not included in this trade.

I’ve never seen that three-page origin myself. I don’t now and have never lived anywhere near Massachusetts. But I was aware of the Tick’s existence even without reading any of his early adventures. The Tick was like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in that regard; if you were a comics fan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, even if you’d never read any of their comics, you were aware of the characters. They quickly became that popular.

The Tick is a parody of the superhero genre, but unlike other parodies that poke fun at the genre in what often seems to be a mean-spirited and denigrating fashion, the Tick seems to be poking fun in a more good-natured way. Plus, the comic is funny!

If you don’t know anything about the character, the Tick is a heavily-muscled powerhouse in an all-blue bodysuit with a pair of prehensile antenna on top of his head. While his heart is clearly in the right place, the Tick is not the smartest tool in the shed. Although he does have moments of very keen insight amid the nonsense he typically spouts.

But again, I was aware of the character’s existence while never having read any of his comic adventures for the first 15 years of his existence. That changed in 2001 when Fox produced a live-action television series based on the character starring Patrick Warburton as the Tick. An earlier animated series had been produced by Fox in 1994 and lasted for three seasons, but I never watched that program. Sadly, this live-action series only lasted for a handful of episodes, but I thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.

In the pilot episode of the Patrick Warburton series, the Tick has sworn to protect a bus station. In this incarnation, the Tick only changes his focus to protecting his unnamed city after he is tricked into leaving the bus station by the station employees, who he continuously annoys. The show also starred David Burke as the Tick’s reluctant sidekick, Arthur; Nestor Carbonell as Batmanuel; and Liz Vassey as Captain Liberty.

I enjoyed the series so much, my family bought me the DVD collection when it was released, and thankfully, this DVD collection featured all of the episodes of the show, even the unaired ones.

In 2016, Amazon produced another series based on the Tick, and my family and I have watched and enjoyed both seasons of this series as well. This version of the live-action Tick starred Peter Serafinowicz as the Tick. In this version, Arthur was traumatized as a child, along with most of the city, by a supervillain known as the Terror. When the Tick arrives in the city, he befriends the now adult Arthur, and along with the help of Arthur’s sister, Dot, and another hero named Overkill, they vow to fight crime and evil throughout the city. While this version still had its comedy moments and characters, the action was taken much more seriously.

All of that brings us to this trade, The Naked City. I enjoyed the Fox television series so much, I wanted to try out the comics that inspired the show. But in a story by now familiar to regular readers of this blog, I tracked down a copy of the first trade, bought it and tossed it on the pile of books to read when I had the time. That’s why I’m just now trying out the collection. And while it is very different from either television program, it was still very good.

In this trade, the Tick arrives in the City looking for crime to thwart and adventures to enjoy. What he finds are a group of slightly incompetent ninjas threatening a young woman. Through the course of this adventure, the Tick briefly joins the staff of the Weekly World Planet newspaper and comes into conflict with another hero named The Caped Wonder. After a few misadventures with the staff at the newspaper, the Tick joins forces with Paul the Samurai to defeat the ninja empire. Along the way, Jack and Tick are joined by Arthur, who Tick later decides to take on as his sidekick.

Some of the humor comes from the obvious parodies of Superman and his supporting cast and later parodies of Elektra Natchios and the Hand from Daredevil comics in this tale. But most of the humor, as it should, comes directly from the Tick himself, from his obvious delusions about crimefighting, and from his seemingly inexplicable success despite his lack of true understanding in most situations. If you have a sense of humor about your love of comics, I think you’ll find much to enjoy in this trade collection.

An epic conclusion I can heartily get behind

Lost in Space: Voyage to the Bottom of the Soul trade paperback
Bubblehead Publishing
Creators: Bill Mumy, Michal Dutkiewicz, Thom Zahler and John P. Severin
Publication date: October 2005

We’ve been looking at some continuations of the “Lost in Space” television program in comic book form.

Four weeks ago, I wrote about a couple hardcover collections based on some unproduced scripts written for the fourth season of the television series that never happened. As discussed previously, these tales read and felt very much like episodes of the program, which was no surprise, being based on scripts from one of the television program’s writers.

Last time, we looked at the first 14 issues of the Innovation Lost in Space comic book series. This series launched in 1991, and I bought many of those first 14 issues when they were originally published. Many of those issues were very good, especially the ones written by Bill Mumy, the actor who originally portrayed Will Robinson on the show and who served as creative consultant on the Innovation comic. This series continued the adventures of the Robinson family — Professor John and Maureen Robinson; their three children, Judy, Penny and Will; Major Don West; Dr. Zachary Smith; and the Robot — picking up the story three years after the end of the television series.

I enjoyed this Innovation series when it came out, and my enjoyment was no less today, reading or re-reading the various first 14 issues (12 regular issues and two annuals) 30 years after their initial release. Issue No. 12 of the Innovation series, one of the several penned by Bill Mumy, was to serve as a bit of a turning point for the comic series, as discussed in my last post. Issue No. 12 depicted the Robinsons and company finally finding the correct route to their destination, Proxima 4 in the Alpha Centauri star system. It also gave a glimpse at the beings of Aeolus 14 Umbra, the original saboteurs of the Jupiter mission who enlisted Dr. Smith. These beings awaited the arrival of the Robinson crew so they could finish the job of killing the earthlings when their ship landed.

The plan was for Bill Mumy to be the sole writer of the next 12 issues, the entire second year of the series, and these 12 issues would tell the tale of the Jupiter 2 finally arriving on the fourth planet in the Alpha Centauri system and what became of the crew after. The subtitle for this year’s worth of stories was “Voyage to the Bottom of the Soul.”

In a text piece at the back of issue No. 12, Bill Mumy wrote about his thoughts on the comic series so far and where he thought it should go. He wrote:

“Well, we’ve learned a lot about our friends on the Jupiter 2 since Innovation began publishing this comic book: The Jupiter 2 was constructed from a crashed alien ship; the mysterious organization known as Aeolus 14 Umbra has been unmasked; the complicated Colonel/Doctor Zachary Smith has shown us his best and his worst; the loss of one Robinson child; Judy’s conflict with abandoning her professional career as an actress; Will’s frustrations as his sexuality awakens; Professor Robinson’s deep religious beliefs; Maureen’s ability to see the positive in all situations; and Don being the focus of not only Judy’s affections, but Penny’s, as well.

“... I personally wanted to take Lost in Space to the next level … change things … resolve things … take the characters to places I felt they needed to go. … We’re going to ‘stir the soup’ up here, quite a bit.”

The Innovation title had a rather erratic release schedule during its publication history. According to Mike’s Amazing World of Comics, it took 23 months for those first 14 issues to be released. The irregular release is why I stopped buying the title when it came out; I simply lost track of it. Issue No. 13, the first installment of “Voyage,” was released on July 13, 1993, again according to Mike’s Amazing World of Comics. Issue No. 18 was released a mere four months later, on November 1, 1993, according once again to Mike’s site. Simple math will tell you that issue No. 18 would have been “Voyage” part six of the planned 12.

And then Innovation went out of business.

I wasn’t buying any Innovation books at the time, but the closing came as a shock, according to Bill Mumy’s text piece at the beginning of this trade volume. And the story of the Jupiter 2 crew went unfinished for more than a decade.

As far as I know, Bubblehead Publishing — an obvious reference to the physical appearance of the Robot — has only one book in its publishing catalog. This volume was published in 2005, just in time for the 40th anniversary of Lost in Space, and it finally published the complete “Voyage to the Bottom of the Soul” storyline that Bill Mumy and Michal Dutkiewicz planned.

I came across what I felt at the time was a reasonably priced copy of the trade while trying to complete my run of the series over the years. But I confess, this was also the reason I was a little hesitant to re-read the Innovation series, culminating in my first reading of this story. As I said, I really liked what I had read previously of the series, especially the issues written by Bill Mumy. But I was nervous as to whether I would like this “final” story.

I needn’t have worried.

The story begins where issue No. 12 left off, with the Jupiter 2 and its crew entering the Alpha Centauri solar system. The Robinsons, West and Smith have been lost in space for nearly eight years by this point, and they are temporarily uncertain as to how to proceed. Did humans launch other missions that have already arrived and begun to colonize Proxima 4 as planned? Or did the disappearance of the Jupiter 2 spell the end of the Alpha Centauri mission? Lacking any concrete information, the decision is made to follow the original plan and find a place to land on Proxima 4.

The Jupiter 2 crew is unaware that the Aeolians are waiting for them, but readers learn for the first time that not all the Aeolians are in agreement on how to proceed. The Aeolians are not native to Proxima 4, but they have been there for more than 100 years and seek to exploit the seemingly abandoned technology they discovered on the planet. One of the Aeolians, J’Ahl, has manipulated events to lead the humans to their destination so he can torture and kill them. He believes all humans are responsible for the death of his son.

Shortly after the Jupiter 2 lands on Proxima 2, the Aeolians disable the robot and capture the humans. J’Ahl decides he is going to use the humans as test subjects for “the great machine,” one of the pieces of technology the Aeolians found on Proxima 4 but don’t truly understand. Some of the Aeolians oppose this plan, but J’Ahl, driven insane by grief and revenge, begins slaying his own people rather than listen to opposition. Finally, J’Ahl uses the great machine … and the humans disappear. But what happened to them?

The 360-page story is not without a few problems to my mind. The depiction of the Aeolians, for example, seems to fluctuate quite a bit throughout the tale. There are several instances where the coloring in the book hinders the storytelling of the art. The transformation that John Robinson goes through in this story, while a nice nod to longtime fans of Guy Williams — the actor who portrayed John Robinson in the show — stretches the reader’s suspension of disbelief a bit too much. There are several lettering mistakes throughout that can be a bit jarring.

But overall, this was a terrific story that takes the Robinsons, Major West, Dr. Smith and the Robot on an epic journey and leaves them in the only place fans of “Lost in Space” could ever truly accept. I applaud those connected with producing this story, and I’m glad to have it in my collection. If you’re a fan of the property, especially the original television program or the Innovation series that led to this trade, I think you’ll enjoy “Voyage to the Bottom of the Soul,” too.

This series provided a solid wrap-up and more

Lost in Space (1991)
Innovation
Creators: David Campiti, George Broderick Jr., Bill Mumy, Matt Thompson, Mark Goddard, Miguel Ferrer, Kevin Burns, Terry Collins, Karen May, Robert M. Ingersoll, Peter David, Eddy Newell, Mark Jones, Michal Dutkiewicz, Peter Murphey, John Garcia, Barb Kaalberg, Dan and Dave Day, George Perez, Joe Dunn, Shane Glines, Jim Key, Scott Rockwell, Vickie Williams
Release date: July 1, 1991, to June 1, 1993, for issue Nos. 1-12 and two annuals, per Mike’s Amazing World of Comics

Strap in; this is going to be one of my lengthier posts.

Last time, we discussed a pair of Lost in Space hardcovers published about five years ago and adapted from some unfilmed scripts written for the 1960s television series. I wanted to read through those hardcovers before re-visiting this early 1990s comic series because they were chronologically earlier adventures of the Jupiter 2 crew.

I bought and enjoyed the first 11 regular issues and the first annual of the Innovation Lost in Space series when they were released, but the title came out somewhat sporadically. I enjoyed what I’d read of the series and had since purchased the later issues. The plan was to someday re-read this series to see if it still held up and finally read the issues I had missed the first time around.

I was prompted to moved that Lost In Space reading project from sometime to now after a very nice retrospective article in the pages of Back Issue magazine published by TwoMorrows Publishing. The specific issue was No. 128 from July 2021, and the issue focused on a number of Bronze Age TV tie-in comics. The Lost in Space article covered a number of topics, but my interest in this series was rekindled by the excellent coverage Back Issue did on the Innovation title. The article included a lot of quotes and behind the scenes information from David Campiti and Bill Mumy, among others.

The Lost in Space comic Innovation launched in the summer of 1991 begins following the Robinson family — John and Maureen Robinson and their three children, Judy, Penny and Will — Major Don West, Dr. Zachary Smith, and the Robot three years after the end of the television series. That means the ship has been lost for six years by this point. The series involved a number of creators, as evidenced by the lengthy list above, but also featured input by several of the original cast members, most notably the adult Bill Mumy, the actor who portrayed Will Robinson in the three-season television program. Mumy wrote several of the stories in these first 14 issues (12 regular issues and two annuals) and also served as a creative consultant for the overall series.

There had been efforts to either re-launch the show or otherwise continue the adventures of the Robinson family, but many of them were reportedly stymied by none other than series creator Irwin Allen. Bill Mumy himself had created and tried to launch a motion picture that would resolve the Jupiter 2 crew’s story only to be told “no” by Allen, according to a text piece Mumy wrote for one of the Innovation issues.

Then along came David Campiti, a fan of the show and the then-publisher and editor-in-chief at Innovation Comics. Campiti wanted to bring Lost in Space to comics. At the time, Mumy told Campiti the chances were slim that approval would be forthcoming, but that if Campiti could get the go-ahead, Mumy would like to be a part of the process. Obviously, permission was granted, but various difficulties among the initial creative team led to further delays.

Finally, the stars aligned and Innovation’s Lost in Space debuted on July 1, 1991, according to Mike’s Amazing World of Comics. That first issue depicts the Jupiter 2 crew being forced to land on yet another planet for repairs. Once there, they are beset by some plant monsters, the ship is further damaged and Dr. Smith discovers a hidden memory chip buried deep inside the Robot — a chip which has not only recorded his original sabotage of the Jupiter 2 but many other details from before the launch of the Alpha Centauri colonization program.

The first issue cover (and many of the subsequent covers, too) featured a gorgeous painting of Will, Penny and Judy Robinson along with the Robot in peril outside the Jupiter 2. The story presented the familiar characters, and while plant monsters might immediately conjure mental images of some of the sillier television episode plots, the threat is presented in the issue as a serious one, and the crew reacts accordingly.

I very much enjoyed the first issue, and I apparently wasn’t the only one to do so. The series was popular, and the first two sold-out issues were each reprinted in a couple of specials that featured new covers and additional behind-the-scenes materials. The third and fourth issues, a two-part story, were the first to be written by Bill Mumy. Those two issues were also later collected and re-presented as a square-bound comic, again with a new cover and bonus materials.

The Innovation Lost in Space series explored a number of interesting topics. Issue No. 9 of the series, for example, features another tale written by Bill Mumy and sports a George Perez cover. This issue details the environmental and sociological impacts on a planet resulting from one of the Jupiter 2’s many forced landings. Issue Nos. 3-4, that first story written by Mumy, involve the Jupiter 2 landing on an inhabited planet with several warring factions and depicts how the denizens of that planet react to the space travelers. Other issues go more deeply into the various characters’ lives and motivations before the Jupiter 2 mission began. Along the way, readers are even given their first glimpse of the mysterious Aeolus 14 Umbra, the individuals who hired Dr. Zachary Smith to sabotage the Jupiter 2 mission that resulted in the Robinsons — and Smith himself — being lost in space.

Issue No. 5 was another stand-out, helping as it did to reconcile the sillier aspects of the television show with the more realistic presentation of the Jupiter 2 adventures in the comic. This issue presented the story of the Jupiter 2’s accidental encounter with a meteor shower from two very different perspectives. The image at the top of this post is from issue No. 5. The top half of each page is devoted to John Robinson’s log recording and presents the events in a realistic manner in keeping with most of the rest of the Innovation series. The story on the bottom of each page is the same adventure, but told from the perspective of Penny Robinson’s diary, where she details the family’s adventures, but in a more fanciful fashion. The Robot is less logical and more humorous, for example, in Penny’s version of events. And while Dr. Smith’s actions in both narratives are similar, his motivations and the circumstances around the events are very different.

A central theme throughout the Innovation series is the adolescence and resulting loneliness of Penny and Will Robinson. I don’t know that exact ages for these two were ever given in the television series, but I know from interviews that Bill Mumy was 10 when the series began filming. Assuming his character was the same age and Penny was about 12, the pair are 16 and 18, respectively, when the Innovation series begins. They have their family with them, and Judy and Don were always a couple, but there are no other humans with whom Penny or Will can form friendships or romantic attachments.

While this would be a very real issue the Robinsons would have to deal with at some point, the artists involved, especially in the early issues of the Innovation series, took the concept to an extreme with Penny. The familiar diamond pattern on Penny’s uniform tops in the television program became a cut-out emphasizing her cleavage. I’m not opposed to “good girl” art or pretty pictures of pretty women, but things got a bit out of hand when several of the early issues of the comic depict Penny in her underwear or barely-there pajamas. But thankfully that tendency went away as the series continued.

Bill Mumy’s was not the only influence from Hollywood on the Innovation series. Issue No. 7 focuses on Major Don West, and Mark Goddard, the actor who portrayed West in the television show contributed to the plot of the issue. Miguel Ferrer, an actor and friend of Bill Mumy, contributed to the plot of the first Innovation Lost in Space annual, which features a villain who physically resembles Ferrer.

Then, in issue No. 12 of the Innovation series, the Jupiter 2 crew manages to finally find their way to the Alpha Centauri solar system. The events of the comic series to that point have taken another one to two years of the characters’ lives, so they are faced with the prospect of finally touching down at their destination after being lost in space for nearly eight years. Unless the agents of Aeolus 14 Umbra can finally end the Robinson family once and for all, that is.

The Innovation comic series didn’t end after these first 14 issues, although it very easily could have. But let’s hold off on exploring issue Nos. 13 onward for next time. Join me back here in two weeks for the epic story titled “Voyage to the Bottom of the Soul.”

These hardcovers cover the spectrum of the television series

Irwin Allen’s Lost in Space: The Lost Adventures
American Gothic Press
Creators: Carey Wilber, Holly Interlandi, Kostas Pantoulas, Patrick McEvoy, Marshall Dillon, Steve Stanley, RC Aradio and Jenn Pham
Release date: September 2016 and February 2017

Irwin Allen’s Lost in Space: The Lost Adventures was a six-issue limited series based on two unproduced scripts for the television show’s never-realized fourth season. Both scripts were written by veteran television script writer Carey Wilber, who had penned previous episodes of “Lost in Space,” “Star Trek,” “The Time Tunnel,” “Bonanza,” “Maverick” and other television programs.

I missed out on watching “Lost in Space” during the program’s initial three-season run, but I watched it and enjoyed it as a child in reruns. In fact, there was a period in my childhood when my younger brother and I would watch television most Sunday afternoons and catch syndicated reruns of “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” “Land of the Giants,” “Lost in Space,” “Star Trek,” “Maverick” and then “The Wonderful World of Disney” one right after the other into the early evening.

Each of the two Wilber “Lost in Space” scripts were adapted into comics format by Holly Interlandi and published as three issues of this six-issue series. Then each three-issue script adaptation was collected into a nice hardcover format, which is how the books came to my attention. As a fan of the show, I decided to give the two hardcovers a try and bought them when they were solicited. When each hardcover was released, in a move familiar to frequent readers of this blog, I tossed them onto a pile of books to read when I had time.

For reasons I’ll go into more next time, the time to read these hardcovers has finally arrived. And I enjoyed them, although I enjoyed the second volume a little more than the first. Both stories feel like authentic “Lost in Space” episodes, and the dialogue sounds true to the various characters, but that is to be expected since the author of the original screenplays had written for the show previously. The artist of the first story, Kostas Pantoulas, didn’t quite capture the likenesses of the different actors of the show as well as the artist of the second story, Patrick McEvoy, but the art in both was very good.

The tone of the first story felt most like a first season episode to me. “The Curious Galactics” focuses mainly on John and Will Robinson, Don West and the Robot off on a mission away from the Jupiter 2. A pair of aliens conducting experiments on lower lifeforms stumble onto the mission and decide to put the Robinsons and West to the test next. The story was interesting, but it lacked some of the humor the show was known for in later seasons.

The second story, “Malice in Wonderland,” felt more like a second- or third-season episode of the television program. As one might guess from the title, it is a take on “Alice in Wonderland,” making use primarily of Will and Penny Robinson, Dr. Smith and the Robot. While the adventure often puts the characters in peril, the writing is full of laughs and mischief along the way.

One additional element of this second story further intrigued me. At the outset of the story, the two youngest Robinson children, Dr. Smith and the Robot are joined by a purple llama named Willoughby, who wears glasses, can speak and seems to be quite familiar with the members of the Jupiter 2 crew and they with him. I didn’t recall a purple llama in any of the episodes of the show, so I was curious about this element of the story.

Each of these hardcovers contains bonus material such as copies of the original Wilber scripts and other production notes about the making of the comics and the television program. One such note cleared up the Willoughby mystery for me. Willoughby appeared in the next to last episode of the series titled “The Great Vegetable Rebellion.” In that episode, however, Willoughby was portrayed as a slight man with purple hair and glasses, not a llama. According to the notes in the hardcover, the original “Vegetable Rebellion” script called for Willoughby to be a llama, not a man, and says the change was made because Jonathan Harris, the actor who portrayed Dr. Smith, refused to work with a llama. But this being a comic, the creators involved decided to revert to the original llama form for the character.

Each of these hardcovers was a fun trip down memory lane and worthwhile additions to my collection. Come back in two weeks, and I’ll share some more Lost in Space comics memories.

My history with Captain Marvel

SHAZAM! The World’s Mightiest Mortal Volume 3 hardcover
DC Comics
Creators: E. Nelson Bridwell, Don Newton, Gil Kane, Kurt Schaffenberger, Dave Hunt, Joe Giella, Bob Smith, Steve Mitchell, Frank Chiaramonte, Dan Adkins, Larry Manlstedt, John Calnan, Adrienne Roy, Cory Adams, Milt Snapinn, Ben Oda, Gaspar Saladino, John Costanza, Todd Klein, Shelly Leferman, Philip Felix, Albert DeGuzman, Jean Simek, Peter Iro, Pierre Bernard Jr. and Michael Cho
Release date: May 18, 2021

Like many children around the same age, my first exposure to Billy Batson and his alter ego, Captain Marvel (That’s right, his name is Captain Marvel; Shazam is the wizard’s name.), came in the form of the live action Saturday morning television show “Shazam!” which began airing in 1974 and starred Michael Gray, Les Tremayne and Jackson Bostwick. I was 7 when the show premiered. These simple stories entertained me and my younger brother, but Cap never quite broke into my personal top-tier level of favorite superhero characters.

I knew nothing at this point about Captain Marvel’s publishing history — how he debuted in the Whiz Comics title published by Fawcett Comics in 1940; the legal battles that followed the character into the 1950s; the acquisition of the character by DC Comics and the demise of Fawcett; or the launch of a new Shazam! title by DC in 1973.

Fast forward to the early 1980s and Captain Marvel — and the extended Marvel family — began appearing again on Saturday morning television in animated shorts as part of “The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!” These shorts were my first introduction to Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Uncle Dudley and Mr. Tawky Tawny. The cartoons were a much more fantastical version of Cap than I’d known from the live-action “Shazam!” or its follow-up 1970s series “The Shazam!/Isis Hour.”

Over in the comics, that DC Shazam! title was not doing well, and the feature had become much shorter back-up stories in Worlds Finest Comics. That move happened in 1978 and continued into the early 1980s.

At this point in my life, my access to comics was very limited. My brother and I would accompany our mother on weekend shopping trips to the grocery store or department stores once or twice a month, and we would occasionally be allowed to pick out a comic or two from the meager selection offered by those venues. One such trip resulted in my getting a copy of World's Finest Comics #270, which contained the Shazam! story “Our Son, the Monster!,” one of the many great tales reprinted in this volume.  

Fast forward again to me being an adult collector. I don’t recall exactly when, but at some point, I purchased the first two volumes of The Shazam! Archives from DC Comics, which reprinted the earliest Captain Marvel adventures from the 1940s. I found I really enjoyed those early adventures of the Big Red Cheese, as Captain Marvel was often called. Likely, this purchase was spurred on by the 1995 reboot of Captain Marvel by the extraordinary Jerry Ordway in 1995, The Power of Shazam!, a series I tried and enjoyed and need to someday track down again.

Over the years, I’ve developed a fondness for Captain Marvel, and while he still isn’t numbered among my top three heroes, I do enjoy reading many of his adventures from throughout his history. So I tend to consider buying each new relaunch attempt or collected edition.

I decided to skip the first two hardcover volumes of this Shazam! The World’s Mightiest Mortal series when they were first announced. Partially that decision was motivated by the knowledge that many consider those early- to mid-1970s stories less than great. But mostly, I decided not to buy the fancy new hardcover collections because I already had most of those stories in the cheaper Showcase Presents Shazam! paperback collection from several years prior. I hadn’t read that Showcase collection yet. Best to wait and see how much I enjoyed the Captain Marvel tales from this period first.

But then I heard that this third volume would collect all of the later Worlds Finest Marvel family stories, AND that they almost all featured Don Newton artwork. Like Captain Marvel, Don Newton isn’t really in my top two or three as far as artists go, but he is definitely in my top 10 favorites, possibly even in my top five. Newton isn’t as prolific or as known for being a Batman artist as someone like Neal Adams or Jim Aparo or Norm Breyfogle, for instance. Newton isn’t as well known as an Aquaman artist as Aparo or Nick Cardy or Ramona Fradon. But I love Newton’s interpretation of both those characters.

And Don Newton is known as a very dynamic Captain Marvel family artist. He did the artwork on nearly every story reprinted in this volume. That made me curious to go ahead and spring for the full-color, hardcover treatment. And I was NOT disappointed. These tales are quirky and certainly they feel a bit dated now. But they are truly fun stories showcasing not only Cap, Mary and Junior, but the Lieutenant Marvels also make an appearance in one of the multi-part stories, playing a vital role in helping the main trio defeat the Monster Society of Evil. This collection also includes the origin of Mr. Tawky Tawny and reveals a connection between the Marvels and Kid Eternity, of which I was previously unaware.

All in all, this was a very wise purchase, and I enjoyed it very much!

Come back in two weeks, and we'll look at a pair of books that is not only a few years older even that this collection but they also come from a completely different publisher. I know I've been on a bit of a DC kick for the last several posts. That is about to change as I cover a couple related series from some non-Big Two publishers. See ya then!

Wow! Just Wow!

Nightwing No. 83
DC Comics
Creators: Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo, Adriano Lucas and Wes Abbott
Release date: August 2021

If you have any appreciation for Nightwing or Dick Grayson as a character and haven’t bought and read this issue already, do yourself a favor and go out and get a copy of this book.

This issue wraps up the first story arc by this creative team on the title, and they have hit it out of the park, especially with this issue.

I’m deliberately keeping this post SPOILER FREE for a reason, but this story arc has brought about a big change in Dick Grayson’s status quo on a couple levels. One of those changes, in the hands of lesser creators, might have been a disaster, but these guys have pulled it off in such a way that I believe it could be real rather than a misdirect, and I’m onboard with the change.

The second change is the one telegraphed on the cover, which I love! Again, my acceptance and enjoyment of it is all about the execution. There are a number of cameos in this issue, some big and some small, but all of them are meaningful. I got the feels in a very good way reading this issue. I want to read it again for the first time, if such a thing was possible.

Short post this time around. I promise next time will be longer and a slightly older book. I just wanted to share that this title, and especially this issue of this title, are phenomenal.

Enjoying being in the moment

Infinite Frontier Nos. 2-4
DC Comics
Creators: Joshua Williamson, Paul Pelletier, Jesus Merino, Xermanico, Norm Rapmund, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Tom Derenick, Raul Fernandez and Hi-Fi
Release date: July and August 2021

I’m a big proponent of not judging a story based solely on a single chapter or collection of chapters. I’ve said that before, and I stand behind it. Don’t decide a story is crap based on something not making sense in the first or even second part when the author might have a perfectly valid rationale waiting for a reveal in the fifth or sixth installment.

With that said, I read these three middle issues of a six-part series in one sitting the other evening, and I had a definite reaction to them that I wanted to share.

To be fair, this story isn’t finished yet. I know at this point that the story won’t even be wrapped up after I read the sixth issue of this six-issue series because advance solicits have already revealed that it will lead directly into another limited series, a modern comics trend I tend to find very frustrating.

But I wanted to go ahead and share this particular reaction because at this precise point in time, I am enjoying this story as it unfolds.

The 2021 limited series Infinite Frontier is a follow-up to the standalone Infinite Frontier No. 0, which was released back in March 2021 in the wake of Dark Nights: Death Metal. It introduced the new DC concept of an Omniverse. After it ends in Infinite Frontier No. 6, the story threads will be picked up by another limited series, Justice Incarnate.

Now I don’t read all of DC’s titles each month. In fact, I don’t read most of them. But I read several on a monthly basis and have for a very long time. So it is safe to say that I am fairly familiar with the main DC continuity. And that is what had me enjoying this title when I sat down to read this middle chunk of story. I feel like I’m in on the overall story. I’m invested in the universe and its characters. I’ve been along for the ride through most of the Crises and reboots through the years.

I enjoy seeing Roy Harper in this title, and I’m invested in his safe return. I’ve read of his adventures alongside Green Arrow and the Titans for several decades. And I know who Lian Harper is to him, and would be happy to see her safe return, too.

I remember when D.E.O. Agent Cameron Chase had her own short-lived series, and it was nice to see her brought back for this series.

I didn’t read about Jade and Obsidian when they were first introduced in Infinity Inc., but I did read a lot of their adventures as part of Green Lantern, the Titans, Manhunter and the JSA. So they, too, are welcome returnees to my reading matter.

It was even nice to see old characters in a new light, like the re-imagined Hector Hammond in this story. I recognized the name before the in-story reveal that this was an old character being used in a new way.

I have concerns, too, to be sure. Everything seems to be headed toward a big Darkseid confrontation, and I’m not a huge Darkseid fan. But like I said, I just really enjoyed reading this story chunk the other night. I felt a little moreso than normal that this story was written with me and my sensibilities in mind. That’s not always the case, but for this brief bit of time, it was. And it was nice.

I hope that feeling continues. That’s what I read comics for — the enjoyment, after all.

Another solid read no longer delayed

Y: The Last Man
DC Vertigo
Creators: Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan Jr., Paul Chadwick, Goran Parlov and Goran Sudzuka
Release date: July 2002 – January 2008

I’ve been on a bit of an unplanned Vertigo kick of late.

Now, I’ve never been a stranger to Vertigo titles. I started buying Fables while it was still in the midst of its first story arc and continued to buy the title in single issues throughout its entire run. I read the entire run of Transmetropolitan in trade form shortly after the series ended. I’ve also read a number of limited series and tried various issues of other titles released under the DC Vertigo imprint through the years. Some I’ve liked. Some I’ve really enjoyed. Others were simply meh.

But I unexpectedly decided to try reading Preacher for the first time not long ago after hearing the series recommended on a podcast I was listening to. You can read about my first impressions of that title here, if you haven’t already done so.

Since writing that post, I have finished reading all of Preacher, including the various one-shots and the Saint of Killers miniseries. Overall, I continued to enjoy the read-through, and hold the series in very high regard. I especially like how Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon make you care about the characters and root for them as they move along their respective journeys, even though they are not very likeable people. Even the protagonists in the story do things that I would otherwise find abhorrent and despicable, but I still wanted those protagonists to come out on top in the end.

Speaking of the end, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the ending of that series. After liking and rooting for those protagonists through some seventy-plus comic issues, they didn’t exactly end up where I might have hoped they would. That’s not to say I think the writing was bad or faulty. The ending just left me unsure of how I feel about it.

My family has also recently watched and very much enjoyed the entire first season of “Sweet Tooth” on Netflix. I’ve never read the Vertigo title by Jeff Lemire in any form. But I’d heard some good reviews of the show by friends online, and my wife had heard many of the same positive reviews. We decided to try the show and were pleasantly surprised by just how much we enjoyed it. We definitely plan to watch the announced second season when it drops.

And that brings us, finally, to Y: The Last Man. I read the Transmet trades in late 2002 or early 2003, shortly after that series ended. Just before Transmet came to an end, Y: The Last Man began publishing. I decided to buy it in trades, but I also decided to wait until the series ended and I had the complete story before I would read it. That’s how I’d read Spider Jerusalem’s story; I figured it would work well for Yorick Brown, too. I bought each of the Y: The Last Man trades as they were released, and then I put them on the pile of books to read later, after I collected the entire thing.

I bought the series based on liking Transmet, so it seemed fitting to decide now was the time to read it after reading and liking another Vertigo title, Preacher. There was also the incentive of reading the entire series before it, too, becomes a streaming television program. “Y: the Last Man” the TV series is set to debut on the FX network next month, I believe. So I have spent the past couple weeks reading all 60 issues of Y.

Like the characters in Preacher, the people readers meet in Y: The Last Man are flawed individuals who do not always do the right thing. But I still found myself liking the main protagonists, being drawn into their world and rooting for them through all the twists and turns of their story.

The set-up for the story is a mysterious plague which immediately kills every mammal on the planet with a Y chromosome — every one except for a young man named Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand. The other principals in the story include Hero Brown, Yorick’s older sister and an EMT when the pandemic hits; 355, a government agent assigned to protect Yorick as he travels; and Allison Mann, a researcher who thinks she might be able to find a way to counter the effects of the pandemic with Yorick’s and Ampersand’s help. The story follows their adventures as they seek answers and solutions in the world that remains.

Of course, there are many, many more characters in the cast along the way. Our heroes come across hate groups, zealots, soldiers, former supermodels, secret agents, scientists, actors, astronauts, sailors, pirates, spies, journalists, ninjas and many others in their travels to Washington, D.C.; Massachusetts; California; Australia; China; France; and other stops all along the way.

Honestly, I don’t want to give away too many details of the story for anyone who hasn’t read the books or who plans to watch the upcoming FX program. Overall, Y: The Last Man was a fun, enjoyable read. Brian K. Vaughan writes an engaging tale that kept me riveted page after page. Primary artist Pia Guerra’s work is a nice mix of realistic and cartoony, and the fill-in artists, when used, produce a similar style, giving the entire series a uniform, cohesive look.

I’m glad I finally made time to give this title a try, and I’m looking forward to seeing what FX does with the streaming series. Once again, I had a bit of an issue with the ending of the series. I was not entirely happy with how some things turned out, including the explanation(s) of what exactly caused the plague which killed most male mammals on Earth. But I will say I liked the ending of this title a bit more than I did the ending of Preacher. And I have no problem recommending the series to anyone interested in giving it a read.

I think they gave too much away last time

Batman: Earth One Vol. 3
DC Comics
Creators: Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Jon Sibal and Brad Anderson
Release date: June 2021

I bought and enjoyed the first two volumes of the Batman: Earth One series. The twists and turns these creators took with the familiar Batman origin tale kept me guessing a little bit, entertained even when I saw twists coming, and left me feeling satisfied with the final product. This third and final chapter is still a good read. But something feels just a little bit off or not quite as good as the first two installments.

I’m not a fan of the Earth One idea, in general. I tried the first two volumes of Superman: Earth One, and while I found them — especially the first one — entertaining, the stories just didn’t quite feel like "my" Superman. They didn’t feel quite right. Your specific reaction might have been different. That’s part of the fun of comics. Not every comic is every reader’s cup of tea. But for me and Superman: Earth One, something was off.

I tried Teen Titans: Earth One and hated it. Several of my favorite characters were excluded, and the story was so different, that I didn’t recognize the characters that were “included.” Based on those two experiences, I’ve never even tried Wonder Woman: Earth One or Green Lantern: Earth One. Flash: Earth One and Aquaman Earth One graphic novels were planned at one point, but neither has been printed to date.

But when I decided to give Batman: Earth One Volume 1 a try, I was pleasantly surprised.

First, the creators wisely opted to ignore the Joker right out of the gate. Too many similar projects feel a need to make the Joker the premier Bat villain, and that has led to the Joker being way overused. He’s no longer exciting if he’s everywhere and in every story.

Second, this Gotham was different from previous iterations of Gotham City. Bruce Wayne was different from previous iterations. And Alfred was introduced in a different way. That set the stage for many great changes to come — changes to heroes, to villains and to supporting cast members.

I normally try to keep spoilers to a minimum on this blog, but there will be a few here, especially for the earlier volumes of Batman: Earth One. Stop reading now if you want to avoid spoilers, and just know that I liked the series overall, but the most recent chapter a little less than the others.

******** SPOILER WARNING! ********

You’ve been warned.

The first volume of Batman: Earth One begins with Thomas Wayne running for mayor against a corrupt opponent. His campaign staffers are celebrating some early polling victories when Alred Pennyworth arrives at Wayne Manor. Alfred is a former member of the Royal Marines. He and Thomas Wayne served together or worked together in some unspecific capacity. They forged a friendship, and Thomas has sent for Alfred to head up his campaign security team. But first, Thomas and Martha have promised their young son a night at the movies.

That sense of foreboding you now feel is well-deserved as Bruce’s parents never make it back home from the theater. But rather than being killed by Joe Chill or a random mugger after seeing “The Mark of Zorro,” the Waynes never even see the film they planned to see. Instead, the theater’s electricity is cut before the movie begins, and the Waynes are attacked as they exit the theater through an emergency exit.

Bruce is left an orphan. Alfred, who wasn’t even certain he wanted the security job, now finds out that the Waynes have entrusted Bruce’s care to him in their wills. He feels honor-bound to accept the responsibility to keep the boy from becoming a ward of the state, but he has no real interest or knowledge of caring for a child.

Bruce vows vengeance as readers expect and is firmly convinced that the corrupt mayor was behind the hit on his parents. That mayor — Oswald Cobblepot — wins re-election, at least a couple more times, as he is still the mayor of Gotham when Bruce returns from boarding school a young man with a plan built on revenge.

The Batman that begins his career in this tale is new and inexperienced. He makes some mistakes. He has very few detective skills to draw upon, but he is smart. Alfred thinks the entire idea is ludicrous and tries to talk Bruce out of his plans. When that tactic repeatedly fails, he insists on training Bruce in a number of fighting techniques.

The big bads of that first volume are a new creation called The Birthday Boy and Cobblepot, who I don’t believe is ever referred to as Penguin in the story at all. But there are a number of other familiar names with not-so-familiar backgrounds and roles. Some of these include Jim Gordon, Barbara Gordon, Harvey Bullock, Lucius Fox, Harvey and Jessica Dent and Killer Croc.

The second volume continues the trend of giving readers familiar names and faces, but often throwing them into the mix in unfamiliar ways. For instance, I strongly suspected that Barbara Gordon might become Batgirl in the second volume of the series. She was introduced in Volume 1 and was shown to have a keen interest in the Batman’s activities. Instead, the creative team sidelines her throughout this second story with an educational trip abroad.

The villain of this second installment is the Riddler, but he sets himself up as a punisher of Gotham’s ongoing corruption. Mayor Cobblepot is no longer in the picture, but others have taken his seat of power and continue to benefit off the citizens of the city.

Batman faces off against the Riddler, but he does not do so alone. He continues to grow his team of misfits, or Outsiders, as more familiar names and faces are added to the mix. And along the way, the creators do a bit of foreshadowing that easily telegraphs the villain for the third installment, at least in my mind.

The third and final original graphic novel under the Batman: Earth One banner begins with a new “mystery” villain supplying weapons and materials to all the criminals of Gotham. No secret is made about this being Two-Face; but who is Two-Face? That is the question the characters in this story face. But most any reader who read Volume 2 already knows the answer to this question. There’s no mystery here.

Johns, Franks and the crew try to mask that fact by also adding a long-lost relative of Bruce’s and some Wayne/Arkham family history into the mix. But ultimately, while this is still an engaging read, this third installment in the series feels weaker, in my opinion, because of the too-early reveal.

As I said at the top of this post, this is still a worthwhile read. More familiar faces make an appearance, including some not usually associated with the Batman family of titles. More characters are introduced or fleshed out within the story itself. The wrap-up also shows where the story would likely head next, further expanding Batman’s team of Outsiders and finally bringing the Joker into the mix.

Overall, this is a good series, and the best of the Earth One titles I’ve read. But if I’m being honest, this third installment is the weakest of the Batman series.

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.

Celebrate our independence, but safely and quietly, please

 

I'm taking a little break from the comics talk this week in honor of American Independence Day -- the Fourth of July -- this weekend.

I don't wish to dictate the right or wrong way for anyone to celebrate; we all celebrate our independence in our own way. But I do want to make a short appeal on behalf of my own and others' four-legged friends.

Pets don't understand the bright lights and loud noises often associated with July Fourth festivities. In fact, many pets experience stress and are frightened into running away from their owners in fear because of such celebrations. That's not fun at all.

Here are some basic tips to consider when planning your own Fourth events:

- Don't take pets to large fireworks presentations.

- Ensure pets have a safe, comforting retreat away from the noise and lights.

- Monitor pets' behavior during nearby celebrations.

- Never aim fireworks at pets or deliberately try to frighten them.

- Be respectful of neighbors with pets when planning your personal celebrations.

For more on considering pets when planning Fourth activities, visit here and here or Google ideas.

Be safe, everyone, and have a happy Fourth!

Here’s another comic-adjacent project with an interesting sci-fi pedigree

Leonard Nimoy’s PriMortals: Target Earth prose paperback
Aspect Science Fiction/Warner Books
Author: Steve Perry
Release date: March 1998

Leonard Nimoy’s PriMortals was a comic series first published by Tekno Comix beginning in 1995. The actor most known for portraying Spock in "Star Trek: The Original Series," as well as in subsequent films and Trek television series, reportedly got the idea for the series after visiting a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) installation. Science fiction author Isaac Asimov was credited with adding several more concepts to the narrative, and a variety of comics writers and artists also contributed to bringing the series to life.

A race of aliens called the Paxus Majae visited Earth during the Jurassic age and harvested a number of species from the new planet. In the centuries since, the Majae have elevated the intelligence of those former Earthlings and others from a number of other planets. Zeerus, a criminal Avitaur (think a humanoid pterodactyl), escapes from Majae custody and heads back to his native Earth in the late 1990s in a stolen spacecraft. His goal is to trick humans into helping him fight the Majae, who are likely following him.

I was curious about a number of the Tekno Comix titles including Gene Roddenberry’s Lost Universe, Isaac Asimov’s I-Bots, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Danger and others. Most of the company’s initial offerings focused on the concepts and contributions of known authors and celebrities, and I must confess, their strategy worked on me.

The comic version of Leonard Nimoy's PriMortals followed Zeerus as he makes first contact with a number of humans on Earth. Zeerus is indeed pursued by representatives of the Majae, chief among them a being known as PriMaster, who looked like a slightly more alien Martian Manhunter to me. The story was indeed interesting and lasted for 15 issues before Tekno Comix changed its name in 1997 to Big Entertainment and relaunched most of its existing titles with new numbering.

The second volume of PriMortals lasted nine more issues, plus a two-issue limited series and a few one-shots. The story never ended, but as I recall, Zeerus made planetfall on Earth, followed by PriMaster and his entire crew, drastically changing mankind’s view of our place in the cosmos as well as throwing the planet into the middle of an interstellar conflict.

As I said, the story never ended. Instead Big Entertainment stopped publishing its comics titles. While I liked the series when it was coming out, the lack of an ending caused me to lose interest over time, and many of the Tekno and Big Entertainment titles I once owned have since been sold off to other comics readers.

Just before Big Entertainment stopped publishing comics, however, this prose paperback novel appeared on book store shelves in March 1998. The story is much the same as I remember the comics portraying, but this must have been intended to be the first of a series of novels, fleshing out only the earliest stages of the comic tale. Many of the characters in this novel were also in the comic series, but their respective stories are much more detailed, and this novel makes for an interesting read.

As the escaped Zeerus enters our solar system, he send a message to Earth. It will still take the Avitaur nearly six months to travel to our planet, but he wants to reach out, establish contact and begin his manipulation of humans as soon as possible before PriMaster arrives. Among the human characters are Stewart Davies, a college student, computer game designer and part-time SETI worker, who first receives and de-codes Zeerus’ message; Jake Holcroft, the young computer hacker who stumbles on the top-secret communications; Major Steve Hayes, the Army officer charged with tracking down Jake; General Larry Hightower, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States; and Hightower’s girlfriend, White House Chief of Staff Laurie Sherman.

The novel focuses on Zeerus’ and humanity’s preparations for this historic first contact and ends when the giant Avitaur lands his craft on Earth. PriMaster and a few members of his crew are mentioned in flashback thoughts Zeerus has to give the reader Zeerus’ background, but the tale is really just getting started when this nearly 300-page book comes to an end. I’ve looked for subsequent books in the series, but while Steve Perry has authored many other novels, this is the only PriMortals book I have ever found besides the comics themselves.

Having said that, Target Earth is still an excellent read that held my interest despite my already being familiar with the story being told. It has my heartiest recommendation, and if anyone connected with Big Entertainment is still out there looking, I would be interested in more of the story.