|
|
Post by rberman on Mar 8, 2018 12:18:57 GMT -5
Whoopsie! Didn't keep track of which one was next. I will post the actual next issue later today. Looks like you and I are the last ones standing! Maybe nobody else here read The Dark Age... |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Mar 8, 2018 13:09:09 GMT -5
Whoopsie! Didn't keep track of which one was next. I will post the actual next issue later today. Looks like you and I are the last ones standing! Maybe nobody else here read The Dark Age... I think it's just that I work odd hours and am at the computer at weird times. |
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,202 
|
Post by Confessor on Mar 8, 2018 14:22:22 GMT -5
Maybe nobody else here read The Dark Age... I did -- I have a complete run of Astro City, but it was the AC story that I have enjoyed the least. The Dark Age was over-long to begin with, but the erratic, seemingly never ending publishing delays sucked all the momentum our of the story for me. As a result, I have never felt like revisiting it. That said, the arc would almost certainly read better as a TPB or read altogether, rather than reading each issue separated by months and months, over a period of five years, which is what it was like to read it as it came out. The reason I haven't chimed in lately, and on the subject of the Dark Age in particular, is simply because my memory of it is hazy. I really should get round to re-reading it sometime. |
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 8, 2018 14:31:11 GMT -5
Maybe nobody else here read The Dark Age... I did -- I have a complete run of Astro City, but it was the AC story that I have enjoyed the least. The Dark Age was over-long to begin with, but the erratic, seemingly never ending publishing delays sucked all the momentum our of the story for me. As a result, I have never felt like revisiting it. That said, the arc would almost certainly read better as a TPB or read altogether, rather than reading each issue separated by months and months, over a period of five years, which is what it was like to read it as it came out. The reason I haven't chimed in lately, and on the subject of the Dark Age in particular, is simply because my memory of it is hazy. I really should get round to re-reading it sometime. Yep. Me too. It's been a fair piece since I've read it. |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Mar 8, 2018 14:54:16 GMT -5
OK... just checking to see who was still alive out there! I have the advantage of coming to these stories when they were already intact. The Dark Age certainly has a different feel overall. I'm having much more difficulty identifying a specific theme in each issue. The story is much more serialized instead of anthologized, and plot points get repeated that wouldn't have done so in earlier issues of the series, such as seeing all the different beats of Charles' Serpico story and the repeated reminders of the fire in the Williams' apartment. Each issue is about 50% "the next part of Charles and Royal" and 50% "superheroes having partial adventures appropriate to their own genre, but not really resonating with exactly what's happening to Charles and Royal in this issue."
|
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Mar 8, 2018 16:57:53 GMT -5
The Dark Age Vol 1 #4: Execution Day (December 2005)
Theme: Family devotion rewarded Focus Villain: Madame Majestrix finally makes her skyscraper-tall debut, a cross between Lilandra and Hela. (John Byrne’s version of Morgan LeFay in Wonder Woman looked similar as well.) She sends a horde of Monstro City dwellers down a blue Bifrost into Astro City, enraged that her son Rex has betrayed her. She has also installed 360 indestructible “inertial bolts” (Marked with the letter “M”!) across the continent, and soon they will fling North America into space. All the heroes turn out to face the threat, even The Apollo 11 and a couple of heroes wearing Union Jacks. Focus Hero: The Monstro City battle is stalemated until a giant-sized Silver Agent appears floating in the sky, calming down Madame M and ending the crisis. He shrinks to normal size and winks out of existence. The crowd notices his tattered suit and realizes that this is the Silver Agent who appeared in the jail cell, and who minutes later (minutes after this Madame M business; he appeared in the jail cell part was some time before) is executed. But he just saved the city! It turns out that a mind-controlled Silver Agent had killed a decoy Mad Maharajah as part of a frame-up. So now I really do wish Vince Oleck had been running defense counsel; he would have made those claims anyway, whether true or not. We could have even had a courtroom scene of the prosecutor saying, "We don't fall for that one any more!" or something. Focus Civilians: Even in the midst of the battle against Monstro City, Blue Knight reappears to pursue Royal Williams. Charles intervenes, pleading that Royal is his only brother. Blue Knight relents, and the brothers separate after a wordless semi-tense semi-reconciliation. Other Heroes: Starfighter proves that The Sterling Foundation is a front for aliens, and they abscond. Names and Places: ARC is a brand of TV whose font looks a lot like RCA. My Two Cents: As you can tell, the big brawl is the center of this issue, with the Silver Agent story integrated into its conclusion and the Charles/Royal/Blue Knight drama resolving in the footlights. “Giant godlike creature can’t be defeated, only pacified by a family member” was also the core plot of the previous Thunderhead story. The Silver Agent part seems quite Deus Ex Machina at the moment; we certainly haven’t seen anything from him before to prepare us for his giant-sized manifestation, or his ability to teleport the First Family and Rex down from orbit to pacify Madame Majestrix. One also suspects that the rest of the world won’t really care whether Silver Agent saved Astro City; they will still want to see him pay for his crimes, until it’s belatedly revealed that he was innocent. The bloodthirsty world may be something of an anachronism; the United Kingdom abolished the death penalty in 1965 for instance. 
|
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Mar 8, 2018 17:40:09 GMT -5
Byrne's Morgan, was his take on Kirby's design, from The Demon. When it comes to cosmic, everyone is either ripping off rither Kirby or Ditko.
I read the Dark age is collected form. I had given up on monthly comics, as I was getting so few, it might be weeks before I would go to the comic shop to pick up my pathetic stack. Way down from what you see in the ""30 Year Ago This Month" thread, where I was building to my highest levels (which was while I was a naval officer, with money to brun). I read the first trade, then got the entirety via digital and read the whole thing as one piece, over a couple of days. Something like that works better when it isn't serialized and I applaud the decision to move into graphic novels, as Busiek has been writing more and more of the material that way.
The US hadn't executed anyone after 1967 and the Supreme Court struck down the legality of it in 1972, based on existing laws. After that, some states enacted new death penalty laws (addressing the things that led to the Supreme Court decision), especially later in the 70s, as hysteria over crime statistics (related to declining economic figures) reached a fever point. In 1976, the Supreme Court affirmed the legality of the death penalty in a Georgia case. In 1977, Gary Gilmore became the first to be executed in the US, in ten years (by firing squad). Death penalty statutes vary from state to state, though there are Federal crimes that carry a death penalty. The last Federal execution was in 2003. The last in the military was 1961. The period in the comics reflects, somewhat, the return of the death penalty, in 1977. The Gilmore case was national news, right up to the end, leading to a movie dramatization of the case. A radio station I listen to has "flashback" weekends, where they have intros to a year, with entertainment/news/pop culture introductions to a specific year, followed by two songs from that year. 1977 is introduced, in part, with an ABC News piece announcing Gilmore's death.
|
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Mar 9, 2018 7:09:38 GMT -5
The Dark Age Vol 2 (Eyes of a Killer) #1: A Cold Wind Blowing (January 2007)
Theme: The punishment for a job well done... Focus Brothers: We open on another establishing shot of the Empire State Building, the Baxter Building, and Grandenetti Cathedral, this time in December snow. The brothers don’t see each other much, and Royal burns his time and money into the tap at Dandy’s bar. He now works for Sweatshop crime boss Joey “the Platypus” Platapopoulous, (a wink at the equally preposterous The Penguin) dodging gunbirds deployed by the competition. Deke (the Deacon?) announces that the Chicago mob is sending the psycho villain Jitterjack, the Divided Man to help them. When Braintrust rampages against the Platypus, Royal is forced to accept a handgun to participate in the upcoming gang war. Charles has been promoted to the Major Crimes department, where he gets to arrest supervillains lying on the ground after battles with heroes. Darnice has married Charles, spending all his money and hanging out with his cop partner Lannie on the side. Lannie is involved in graft and doesn’t trust Charles’ refusal to do the same. He presses an envelope of money against Charles. Will Charles take it? Other Heroes: “ Starfighter and Honor Guard had saved the Infra-Dauphin from some vast alien armada, and got invited to witness the birth of the new generation of Universals as payback.” I can’t summarize this two page spread more concisely than its own caption does. The First Family visit The Ring of Worlds. Starwoman pushes back the Dark Aurora. “ The Apollo Eleven saved Australia from the Golden Horde.” Street Angel assaults lowlifes to interrogate them about the Suzzie Mortellaro kidnapping, and we hear for the second time that he used to be a wisecracking hero but is now grim (an obvious Kingdom Come-style commentary on how comics heroes got ugly in comics). Street Angel’s spooky Asian-looking partner Black Velvet (Cloak meets Raven meets Manta) prevents Lefty Carson from leaving the scene Semi-heroes: Charles and Lannie get caught between the Jade Dragons, who are kung fu versions of Northstar and Aurora (by way of Danny Rand and Colleen Wing), and Sagra and his rocket backpacked “air ninjas.” Sometimes, regular ground ninjas just won’t do. Energy Brown menaces mobsters in an alley. Civilians: Peej works at Dandy’s bar, and Pete works with Royal. My Two Cents: The Charles plot is turning into the Al Pacino film Serpico, the true story of an honest cop facing constant pressure from his corrupt associates to join them or suffer an “accident” in the line of duty. This is the first time I’ve felt that Busiek was replaying a story written in another medium without putting some super-spin on it. Charles isn’t the only one rethinking the wisdom of his promotion, as Royal finds (as Vince Oleck did) that a job well done for the mob inevitably leads to a more insidious and hazardous next job. Success is becoming its own punishment in both stories of normal men. Only the supers get to actually enjoy winning. 
|
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Mar 9, 2018 10:58:02 GMT -5
This is pure 70s cinema: Godfather, Serpico, and kung fu films; plus violent vigilantes.
|
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Mar 10, 2018 7:42:25 GMT -5
The Dark Age Vol 2 (Eyes of a Killer) #2: The Out-of-Towners (April 2007)
Focus Brothers: Royal is working at The Platypus’ casino, occasionally going along on missions to mess with Braintrust and his Gunbirds, but Royal manages never to fire his gun, which he doesn’t even load. Black Velvet watches Royal from the rooftop but leaves him alone. Deke plots to betray Platypus to his rival Tommy Gunn. Unstable supervillain Jitterjack arrives with his Pyramid handler Aubrey Jason and promptly kills mob flunky Ricky before being tased into submission. Royal eventually recognizes Aubrey as the Pyramid soldier who killed his parents and set fire to his apartment. Charles twice refuses to help the Internal Affairs investigator Saaf. He turned down the graft money, and Darnice left him. Other Aliens: The giant humanoid silhouette of The Incarnate appears in the sky, befuddling E.A.G.L.E. and First Family alike. The civilians dub the inactive floating figure “Big Joe” and get on with their lives. He starts taking clearer form, reconstituting an expanding nervous system across his frame, Dr. Manhattan style, then suddenly he expodes, revealing The Apollo Eleven within him. They flee arriving E.A.G.L.E. troops. Other Supers: A dossier reveals that the Jade Dragons are half-siblings, sires of Dragon Shogun. Black Velvet was a prostitute subjected to experiments. They’re part of an ambiguous generation of superheroes who are not very heroic. (In cinema, the 1970s were known for anti-heroes, but in comic books it was the 1990s. This story takes place in January 1977.) Simon Magus does a TV interview with Jane. Hellhound brawls with The Dominos in a casino, then takes care of Braintrust.
Other Civilians: The Deuce, Rocky, Lindo, and Bamboo (daughter of Lord Talon) are mobsters. Places: The Apollo 11 had touched down in Gavin Werner Square. The Apollo members finally have some names: Carruthers, McCaleb, and Garrison are named within the story. The sketches at the end of the trade collection give us some descriptions of their types, though not the names they end up having in the story: “Guru, Star Pilot, Gas Giant, Mercury Red, The Outlaw, Walking Black Hole, Comet Head, and Fish Guy.” My Two Cents: As the title implies, this issue is dominated by two stories of strangers from elsewhere: The Apollo Eleven and Jitterjack. Charles gets the short end of the stick plotwise, with two very similar interactions with the ironically dangerous Saaf from IAB. 
|
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Mar 10, 2018 23:34:15 GMT -5
Eh, the 70s launched several anti-hero characters, starting with the Punisher. To a lesser extent you had Dominic Fortune, though he was more of a pulp adventurer, though a less sterling version (himself a modified version of Chaykin's Scorpion). At Atlas you had the Destructor, Demon Hunter, Brute, John Targitt. Marvel added Deathlok and Wolverine was a bit of a "t'weener". Blade was a bit more of an anti-hero; heck Dracula kind of was, in some stories. DC had Code Name: Assassin, in First Issue Special. For the most part, DC didn't really go there, until the 80s, and Marvel was there with them; but, yeah, the 90s were the decade of the gun-toting, claw-slashing "hero".
|
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Mar 11, 2018 7:50:50 GMT -5
Eh, the 70s launched several anti-hero characters, starting with the Punisher. To a lesser extent you had Dominic Fortune, though he was more of a pulp adventurer, though a less sterling version (himself a modified version of Chaykin's Scorpion). At Atlas you had the Destructor, Demon Hunter, Brute, John Targitt. Marvel added Deathlok and Wolverine was a bit of a "t'weener". Blade was a bit more of an anti-hero; heck Dracula kind of was, in some stories. DC had Code Name: Assassin, in First Issue Special. For the most part, DC didn't really go there, until the 80s, and Marvel was there with them; but, yeah, the 90s were the decade of the gun-toting, claw-slashing "hero". I only got a small slice of 70s comics myself, mainly DC works like Green Lantern/Green Arrow, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, and some Ra's al-Ghul Batman stories, plus 70s reprints of 60s material from Batman and LSH. For some reason, my cousin (whose comics I was reading) had essentially no Marvel, though I knew Spider-Man from The Electric Company, and later from his Amazing Friends (namely Iceman and Firestar). Also the FF cartoon with Herbie. Marvel was smart to enable those characters to get pushed to kids through TV. Branding works! |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Mar 11, 2018 8:00:52 GMT -5
The Dark Age Vol 2 (Eyes of a Killer) #3: Street Fighting Men (June 2007)
Theme: 90s comics sucked. Plot One: Cops and Robbers: Charles takes his co-worker Darlene on a date, but he’s so preoccupied, she has a miserable time and stalks off in a huff. Charles’ partner Lannie puts further pressure on Charles and then ambushes him “just to be sure,” as expected from this Serpico plotline. Hellhound and Jack-in-the-Box (I) clobber some thugs together while talking shop. Jitterjack shows up and wipes the floor with heroes and villains alike, then lumbers his way back the Platypus’ hideout, where Royal contemplates telling his brother what’s up. He pleads with Deke to relocate him to a safer city. No such luck! Plot Two: Dark Grey Heroes: Black Velvet is implicated in the murder of Dr. Lewis Oscar Croft, the criminologist/mad scientist responsible for her super-existence, as well as that of “Energy” Brown and The Thumper. Her partner Street Angel accosts her and criticizes her roughly spooky way of dealing with miscreants, and she accuses him back of being none too careful with the injuries he’s inflicted on criminals himself. Black Velvet calls Street Angel “ Ramon,” but we later learn he is not the idealistic barrio lawyer Ramon Vega we met in El Hombre’s story. At work, Charles reflects on how ugly and non-heroic modern superheroes are. Plot Three: Halos and Horns: Simon Magus, a Doctor Strange type, floats in lotus position within his brownstone sanctum sanctorum. He and his partner Grimoire engage in sex magic to discover an impending demonic attack. The First Family briefly return to our dimension between missions. Then they’re off with their government attaché Trilling to a deserted Island with a giant, ancient door leading down into the earth. The door opens thanks to a tip from Qestoth Sul and a gizmo from Tuuli. They find The Innocence Gun, an ancient weapon. Simon Magus appears to give exposition about it and point out a vast army of leather-winged humanoids approaching from the distance. It’s clobbering time!
Other Heroes: The Apollo Eleven cope with a suspicious crowd of rock-throwers at the United Nations. The Silver Agent warps into an alley, dressed in a trenchcoat and fedora over his chainmail. Huh?? Other Villains: Deuce employs Shaders who fade in and out of corporeality. Johnny Dark and The Birdman are crime bosses in other cities. Civilians: “Scars” Gorham was a party to the experiment that created Black Velvet. McManus (probably a reference to a criminal played by Stephen Baldwin in the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects”) is Deke’s surname.
My Two Cents: I love the 70s “neon” font used on the issue title. I suspect all the issue titles in this sequence are from 70s movies, though I did not look them up. Simon Magus’ coupling with Grimoire plays out more explicitly than Steven Strange’s relationship with Clea did, making the implicit rather explicit. Busiek juggles two noir plots, one super (Street Angel and Black Velvet) and one not (Charles and Royal) while adding a third more traditional “save the world” super-plot for contrast. Hearing about Black Velvet’s rampage, Charles muses, “We wondered how much difference there was between the good guys and the crooks any more.” That’s true enough with the supers, but just as much with the cops who shoot him in the back and leave him for dead. Even the villains have to cope with Jitterjack, a maniac prone to turn on his masters. All told, this series seems to be Busiek’s version of the same general ground Mark Waid covered with Alex Ross in DC’s “Kingdom Come” miniseries: 90s heroes were too grim. We need some actual heroism in our heroes. Where are Samaritan and The Gentleman when you need some inspiration? 
|
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Mar 11, 2018 10:57:22 GMT -5
Street Fighting Man was a Rolling Stones song. Out-of-Towners was a movie (Jack Lemon).
Tantric magic was a key feature of the character Fortunato, in the Wild Cards prose anthologies, edited by George RR Martin.
|
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Mar 12, 2018 7:54:36 GMT -5
The Dark Age Vol 2 (Eyes of a Killer) #4: Saturday Night Fever (November 2007)
Theme: Second Advent F ocus Brawl: When Jitterjack kills Black Velvet, he releases all the bad vibes she’s been storing up from all of her previous kills, and they fly out a la Ghostbusters, possessing the good people of Astro City; madness and rioting ensues. The Irregulars, Bravo, the Jade Dragon twins, three Fursts (Nick, Natalie, and Rex), and Energy Brown show up. Somebody (Energy?) looks like a giant afroed Pam Grier. Hellhound transforms into an actual monster. Silver Agent’s appearance amazes everyone, since he was executed four years ago. He absorbs all of Black Velvet's hurt and pain into himself, and she dissipates into nothingness. The crowd has a lot of questions for Agent, but he just tells them to tell Honor Guard (who were out of town during this fight) to meet him “by the Falls” at a date and time in 1982, and he disappears. Focus Brothers: Royal is at Platypus’ hideout in the Down Under Club (since platypuses are from Australia). His boss wants him and Deke to get the tunneler ready to dig a path to Canberra. I am not sure that plan will work due to magma. Regardless, Deke has other plans; he offs his boss, which explains why Deacon (his new name as of now) was shown as a crime lord in stories set in the 1990s. Royal stumbles into the very alley where his brother lies bleeding to death, having been shot in the back by his corrupt cop partner last issue. Royal finally fires a gun (actually, lots of guns), but only to draw police attention to the position of his wounded sibling. It works; Charles gets medical attention, and Royal gets arrested. Royal whispers to his dying brother that he knows who killed their parents ( Aubrey, the Pyramid goon who now serves as Jitterjack’s handler). The thought of avenging his parents gives now-hospitalized Charles the strength to survive his wounds. Other Heroes: Simon Magus cautions Augustus Furst that the Innocence Gun can only be used against demons, and only by a true innocent. That’s a rare species in Astro City at this point! So… what happened to the army of demons the Fursts were staring down on the island last issue? It seemed like they were going to use the gun against them, but I guess not. Hellhound returns to Vietnam; Street Angel takes medicines to Africa. (What powers does he have germane to trans-Atlantic shipping?) Miscellanea: I thought Brent Anderson was drawing Black Velvet as a Southeast Asian, maybe Vietnamese, but her name turns out to be Barbara Vane, so I guess not. My Two Cents: This second Book of Astro City: Dark Age ends with a satisfying “calling all heroes” brawl, as have several of the previous other story arcs. I see a whole lot of Christian imagery going on here. As at the climax of the first Book four issues ago, Silver Agent is presented as a Christ-figure. That time, he suffered an undeserved execution. This time, he saves people by taking evil, hate, and pain onto himself, as the Apostle Paul described here: “ one has died for all, therefore all have died; … in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them… For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:14, 19-20, English Standard Version) Despite Gene Roddenberry’s later atheistic reputation, the episode “The Empath” in the original Star Trek series also dealt with a healer who took the hurts of others onto herself. We still don’t know where Silver Agent got these powers of propitiation, not to mention teleportation and time travel, but he’s the main beacon of hope in this saga so far. But even Royal makes a sacrifice, getting himself thrown in prison to save the life of a brother he’s not spoken with for years, mirroring the way Charles saved Royal from the Blue Knight at the end of Book One. More Bible stuff: Agent’s brief interaction with the civilians, and his instructions to them for Honor Guard, mirror these events recorded in the Gospel of Matthew after the death of Jesus: ‘ Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb…And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”’ (Matthew 28:1,9,10. English Standard Version) 
|
|
