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Post by rberman on Jan 18, 2019 16:00:55 GMT -5
Seven Soldiers of Victory #0 “Weird Adventures” (April 2005) Art: JH Williams III on pencil and ink. Dave Stewart coloring.Prologue: A boatman takes a man known as “I, Spyder” travels to a cabin in Slaughter Swamp, where “Seven Unknown Men,” an unseen cabal of authors, cast him as a major character in the drama which is about to unfold. The cabin has many clocks, none showing the same time, reflecting the temporal fluidity of this place. He is stripped of his clothes and then, stepping into a shower, is stripped of his colors as well, becoming a black and white character, ready to be re-colored and re-dressed in a new role. With each page, the panel borders become more fractal, intertwining into a jigsaw puzzle.  Scene change: The Whip, “The Girl with No Fear,” swings through an urban landscape like Daredevil, punching a team of criminals riding pogo sticks powered by Kirby Krackle. A dirigible floats overhead, signifying (per Watchmen) that this is not our world. Later at home, she answers a classified ad for a new super-team. She’s tired of being a grim 90s urban vigilante and would like to join a stereotypical team with “a veteran, some newcomers, a tough guy…” I, Spyder turns out to fill that last role on the team. “I hate this man,” says Shelly about him, one panel before they’re shown having sex. “Sleeping with I, Spyder is my contribution to the complex intergroup dynamics essential for any super-team,” she rationalizes. The team sets out the next morning and defeats a mechanical spider with a saddle but no rider – a mystery! Alas, before the Six Soldiers can investigate further, they are slaughtered by beings from the Otherworld, led by Neh-Buh-Loh. Ouch. The Seven Unknown Men go back to the drawing board, selecting a new group of heroes for their next attempt at saving the world.  My Two Cents: More like ten cents this time! There's so much to discuss. Morrison is back in full-on meta mode again in this series, whose title comes from a Golden Age team, and whose members will include re-imagined versions of some of those characters. This series will present a grim-and-gritty version of comics’ Golden Age, a counterpoint to the optimistic version of the Silver Age which Morrison assayed in his JLA run. As mentioned in my introduction, we’ll see numerous examples in which a team of six heroes is simply not enough to carry the day. The issue title appears to be a portmanteau of the Weird Worlds and Strange Adventures anthology comic books. Or was there a specific “Weird Adventures” title as well? Either way, Morrison is announcing his intention to take superheroes from off the beaten path. "They're not the JLA," says Sanders, earning Shelley Gaynor's disdain. Let’s run through our ill-fated Six Soldiers, even though most of them only appear in this issue. “I Spyder” homages Paul Gustafson’s Golden Age hero Thomas Ludlow Hallaway, alias The Spider, an archery-themed hero from Crack Comics #1 (1940). He had a cameo as a member of the Freedom Fighters in All-Star Squadron #50 (1985, Roy Thomas). I Spyder is the alias of Thomas Ludlow Dalt, the son of Thomas Ludlow Hallaway. Thomas talks about his brother also wearing the same costume; we'll get details on that later.  The prologue’s title, “True Thomas,” connects Thomas Dalt to a seventeenth century anonymous poem which Thomas’ boatman quotes (the eleventh and twelfth stanzas) while taking Thomas Dalt to his destiny. The poem concerns True Thomas’ seven years of servitude to a faerie queen, which we'll see is quite relevant to this mega-series. Note the appearance of “spied with his eye” in the second line, which explains why our “hero” has been given the name “I Spyder.” It’s full of brogue but a quick read, and it sets the tone for Morrison’s tale, so it’s worth your time to digest: As Spyder sheds his clothes (his old costume) and prepares for rebirth, the boatman quotes this poem and speaks of the poem’s “middle road” between heaven and hell, namely the path into faerie which will give Dalt, new clothes, a new identity, and a new allegiance, just like True Thomas. “Comic book colors as the means of the transforming identity” was a feature of Morrison’s The Filth as well.  Slaughter Swamp outside of Gotham City has a long pedigree in DC Comics, having first appeared in All-American Comics #61 (1944, written by renowned sci-fi author Alfred Bester) as the rebirth-place of Solomon Grundy. I Spyder’s boatman mentions the legend of Cyrus Gold, which was Solomon Grundy’s birth name. Grundy has been given numerous origin stories over the years with incompatible details.  It's hard to think that that water-level image of a boatman poling through the swamp past floating flowers has nothing to do with a similar image at the beginning of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing #64:   Like Thomas Dalt, Shelly “The Whip” Gaynor is a legacy character, the grand-daughter of Golden Age hero Rodney “Whip” Gaynor from Flash #1 (1940, John B Wentworth). Whip Mark I was incorporated into the All-Star Squadron by Roy Thomas in the 1980s. Shelly keeps a DC “Super Men and Women of the Golden Age” book to look up reference material on her "mystery men" like her forebearer.  With her dominatrix garb and whip, she reflects Morrisons’s conviction that Golden Age superheroes were ciphers for sadomasochism. See our thread about of Flex Mentallo for more on this frequent Morrison theme. Shelly’s comments about her grandfather’s “secret life” suggests the shame associated with his costumed identity, and she’s written a memoir, “Body Thunder,” her confessional about “how I came to terms with this choice… this life.” But the original Whip was much more of a Zorro type.  She says that she doesn’t want to be an urban vigilante (i.e. a 90s hero); she wants to go up against cosmic powers. I guess she got her wish! Morrison stated this as his intention for his JLA run as well.  On to other members of her ill-fated group of Six Soldiers. Vigilante (Gregory Sanders, sometimes spelled "Saunders" for some reason) was a cowboy hero first seen in Action Comics #42 (1941, Mort Weisinger). As we saw in Wein's JLA #100-102, Sanders was a member of the original WW2-vintage Seven Soldiers, then was transported back to frontier times by Nebula Man. Now he’s back in modern day as an aged hero looking for one last hurrah. “He’s our Ahab,” says Shelly concerning Sanders, referring to the obsessed whaling captain in Moby Dick. He’s got several gold records on the wall from a “singing cowboy” career, and he’s spent his royalty money on high-tech gear for his hero squad.  Boy Blue has a horn, as befits his origin in the “Little Boy Blue come blow your horn” nursery rhyme. But this horn blows mystic Norse runes whose effect we will learn down the line. One character comments that Boy Blue has a Mexican accent; this will be important later. The original character was from “Little Boy Blue and the Blue Bloys” who appeared scores of times in Sensation Comics (beginning with #1 in 1942, Bill Finger).   Dyno-Mite Dan parodies comic book fanboys with more enthusiasm than common sense. He spends money he can ill-afford to acquire Golden Age memorabilia, in the form of power rings worn by the hero TNT and his sidekick Dan the Dyna-Mite. Shelly calls him a “Hero-Vestite,” which again recalls Morrison’s linkage of superheroes to fetishism. Remember when Basilisk called Magneto a “Xorn-vestite” in New X-Men? Same motif. Dan also turns down liquor, saying “My body is my temple.” This was also the mantra of the “straight edge” Beak in New X-Men, a character who represented teen Grant Morrison.   Gimmix is another legacy character, the daughter of “Merry, Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks,” who appeared in back-up features of Star Spangled Comics #81-89 (1948, Otto Binder). She wears a wig to match her mom’s red hair. (Or maybe mom wore a wig too?) Gimmix alludes to a history of demon possession, being a guest at hero conventions, and attending a therapy group that includes Zatanna. Those plot elements will be unfolded in future issues.   Each of the Six Soldiers is given a graphical motif which I'm told is a direct lift from artist JH Williams' previous work on Alan Moore's Promethea series which came out just before this one. How bold to clearly copy the author Morrison is often accused of copying!  Worlds within worlds motif: Slaughter Swamp’s mosquitos are steeds for tiny people called Sheeda, living on another scale of reality where they are but pests to I Spyder. (Note that the blood sucking is actually being done by a harpoon attached to a hose, collecting the blood in a jar strapped to the back of the tiny warrior! He's sucking the color out of a comic book character. The symbolism to be explained later.) This echoes the way that humans themselves are but sport for the vast gods of the Arizona mesas at the end of the issue. Shelly Gaynor looks at the mesas and comments, “For a moment, I feel the presence of a much bigger reality.” The Sheeda were previously seen as mind-controlling parasites working for Neh-Buh-Loh in JLA Classified #1-3 to set up the current story.  The slaughter occurs on Miracle Mesa, which Sanders says revolves between several dimension. When the Sheeda appear there, overhead we see a distorted castle in psychedelic colors, twisting as if it were revolving at different speeds along its length. Did Morrison place the action here as a tribute to the mesa where he took psychedelics with his buddy, as recounted at length in Animal Man? What about the Seven Unknown Men orchestrating this whole thing with notes scribbled on torn spiral bound notebook paper? The seven bald men? Don’t let their number fool you. It is simply seven, the number of perfection. Just as the “seven spirits of God” in the Book of Revelation are actually one perfect divine Spirit, so too the Seven Unknown Men are one man, and his name is Grant Morrison. He is the one who has forced not only I Spyder, but all his teammates, into the shower that strips them of their old colors and prepares them for rebirth as dysfunctional, depressingly realistic 90s characters.   On the last page, the Seven Unknown Men quote the anonymous 14th century Arthurian poem “The Spoils of Annwn,” (sometimes Anglicized as “Unwhen”) which describes Arthur leading his men on a raid into Annwn, the Welsh land of faerie; three boatloads of soldiers go in, but only seven soldiers return. See here its translation by Sarah Higley. If you’re the sort that would rather listen to the musical version, here it is: We see the Seven Unknown Men gathering the signifiers of the story to come: Guardian’s helmet, Shining Knight’s Tunic, Zatanna’s magic supplies, a gun that looks like a locomotive, and so on. They also have a sewing machine which sews time itself, but it is infested by Sheeda mounted on flying insects. Doesn’t it kind of look like a train engine? It reminds me specifically of the diesel train that Billy Batson boards to travel to meet Shazam the wizard. Maybe some other train is intended, but the shape is clearly intentional. Morrison will more specifically homage Batson’s train in Multiversity, though.    Whew! That was a lot to say about one issue!
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 19, 2019 0:41:36 GMT -5
If you ask me, a lot of Morrison's theories about fetishism and Golden Age characters is a projection. He has talked of cross-dressing "magic rituals" and similar things, and copious amounts of drug use and I think he sees what he wants to see, like most readers. Comics are filled with iconography and the reader often projects or fixates on elements that match their own interests or desires, even when not intended by the authors. Comics made use of certain things, like bondage, for dramatic tension, though some publishers knew that such imagery sold well (like Fiction House, who used such things on a lot of their covers), much like cheesecake images. Some authors used such things on multiple levels and some had overt fetishism, like Marston, in Wonder Woman. Bondage was both a metaphor for liberation of ideas, as well as pure kink and dramatic device. Marston and assistant/lover Olive Byrne had done research on hazing rituals in sororities, of the period and incorporated some of them in Wonder Woman stories (with the Holiday Girls and some of the Amazonian contests, such as a rodeo, where Amazons riding giant kangaroos lasso and hogtie one another). Torture by sadistic villains was common (especially the misogynistic Dr Psycho and Baroness Paula Von Gunther) and there were even female-to-male crossdressing villains. Sadistic torture was quite common in comics, as it carried over from the seamier pulps (like Martin Goodman's).
Madame Fatal gets brought up, for the concept of a male character who cross-dresses as an old woman, to hunt down the kidnappers of his daughter (or niece, can't quite recall); but, such devices had been used in mystery stories and stage plays and it was hardly as fetishistic as it was made by later commentators. Even Captain America indulged in a bit of cross-dressing, in one adventure, when he went on a mission, disguised as an elderly nanny, with Bucky playing the part of a Little Lord Fauntleroy youth. The Jimmy Olsen thing was one of many disguises, as a gimmick for his stories, mostly played for comedic effect, placing it more with Some Like It Hot and Monty Python than The Crying Game or Trans-America. There was hardly that deep a parallel to the forced feminization cartoons of Eric Stanton, as those reflected power exchanges, rather than literary devices.
Of course, Moore brought up fetishism in Watchmen; but, that was part of the psychological underpinning of these specific characters and it was certain ones, not the entire cast.
What I see in Morrison's work is either more his own interests or him trying to push specific buttons, in an attempt to appear edgy. He's got a lot of company there, with other creators. Chaykin does it, Perez has done it, others have, too.
Leaving that aside, I have to say I preferred James Robinson's approach to GA characters and legacy characters. Too many of Morrison's strike me as disposable (same with Geoff Johns) or darker versions, while Robinson seemed to find the "cool factor," in a lot of old characters and give them more interesting legacies and relationships with the children and proteges. He was particularly good with some of the more obscure Quality Comics characters, since their relative blank slate gave him more leeway. I do think his use of Madame fatal, in a panel in The Golden Age, and for a narrative joke in JSA, showed a rather juvenile attitude towards the character. However, Morrison has shown a greater consistency in the quality of his work, compared to Robinson, whose work seemed to suffer after he crashed and burned in Hollywood (and there is a lot of issues mixed up in that, aside from his Hollywood experiences). Robinson wrote an excellent Vigilante mini-series, City Lights, Prairie Justice, where the vigilante runs up against Bugsy Siegel, during his time in Vegas and Hollywood, mixing in the real crime figures (Siegel, Mickey Cohen) with characters from the old Vigilante stories. It was an excellent period tale, mixing in the dying West with the seedy underside of Hollywood (ala LA Confidential) and the birth of the mob era in Las Vegas.
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Post by rberman on Jan 19, 2019 5:01:28 GMT -5
If you ask me, a lot of Morrison's theories about fetishism and Golden Age characters is a projection. He has talked of cross-dressing "magic rituals" and similar things, and copious amounts of drug use and I think he sees what he wants to see, like most readers. Comics are filled with iconography and the reader often projects or fixates on elements that match their own interests or desires, even when not intended by the authors. Comics made use of certain things, like bondage, for dramatic tension, though some publishers knew that such imagery sold well (like Fiction House, who used such things on a lot of their covers), much like cheesecake images. Some authors used such things on multiple levels and some had overt fetishism, like Marston, in Wonder Woman. Bondage was both a metaphor for liberation of ideas, as well as pure kink and dramatic device. Marston and assistant/lover Olive Byrne had done research on hazing rituals in sororities, of the period and incorporated some of them in Wonder Woman stories (with the Holiday Girls and some of the Amazonian contests, such as a rodeo, where Amazons riding giant kangaroos lasso and hogtie one another). Torture by sadistic villains was common (especially the misogynistic Dr Psycho and Baroness Paula Von Gunther) and there were even female-to-male crossdressing villains. Sadistic torture was quite common in comics, as it carried over from the seamier pulps (like Martin Goodman's). I agree for the most part. As is often the case, there's a grain of truth in what Morrison says, but also a dollop of reading his own life into other people's work. On the one hand, it's hard to argue against prurient motive in, say, Phantom Lady's costume, or the frequent element of implied sexual danger on late Golden Age covers. Claremont and Byrne were particular Bronze Age offenders, and their stuff sold like hotcakes, perhaps in part because of this; see the 80s X-Men scene below for one of scores of examples. But when Morrison thinks of Silver Age stories about "Superman becomes king of the ants" or "Jimmy Olsen becomes Elastic Lad" as sublimated sexual adventurism (see All-Star Superman for his exposition of this theme) he's reading too much into simple adventure stories desperate for a sci-fi plot hook for exhausted character concepts.  All of these issues will come up again when we get to the Bulleteer mini-series in a few weeks. |
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Post by rberman on Jan 19, 2019 6:08:21 GMT -5
Shining Knight #1 “The Last of Camelot” (May 2005)
 Art Team: Simone Bianchi on pencil and ink, Nathan Eyring on colors. The Story: The last of King Arthur’s knights face off against “Sheeda,” albino elves riding monsters and wielding laser weapons. Gawain, Lancelot, Caradoc, Peredur, Bors, and Galahad ride to battle. Neh-Buh-Loh rides a giant spider and picks them off one by one. Finally only one knight remains…. Justin? Never heard of that Arthurian knight before, and his zombie foes call him a “false knight.”  Justin rides a "Pegazeus" named Vanguard into the Sheeda’s spaceship/fortress and pulls the fairy princess Olwen from a magical cauldron, then seizes the sword Excalibur from the faerie queen Sorceress Gloriana Tenebrae and throws Gloriana’s cauldron into the time-stream. But “princess Olwen” is really a changeling who stabs Justin. Wounded, Justin mounts Vanguard and leaps into the time-stream, landing in modern day Los Angeles, where he is arrested. Vanguard, apparently dead, is left lying in the street.  My Two Cents: The first issue of this saga was drowning in Golden Age DC lore; this issue is all about Irish and Welsh mythology, through the lens of epic poems like “The Spoils of Annwn,” which we discussed yesterday. Justin says that the cauldron Undry “sang once in Murias, at the mighty Dagda’s table.” This refers to Irish folklore’s “Mythological Cycle” concerning the deity-race of Tuatha Dé Danann. The Dagda was the chief god, and Morrígu was the Phantom Queen. In these stories, the four fabled cities of Fallas, Gorias, Findias, and Murias were associated respectively with four poets (Morfessa, Esras, Uscias, and Semias) and four magic treasures (The Stone of Fál, the Spear of Lug, the Sword of Núadu, and the Cauldron of the Dagda). In myth, the cauldron overflowed with endless food, but in this story Justin calls it a “cauldron of youth” that sustains the succubus queen Gloriana. “Tenebra” is Latin for “shadows,” so Gloriana Tenebrae is “Gloriana of Shadows.” She calls Justin “pretty little knight,” which will be significant a few issues down the line. Gloriana has taken possession of Arthur’s sword Caliburn (Excalibur), “The treasure of Findias,” which Justin (but not Gloriana herself) is pure enough to draw from its scabbard. But although the mythological "treasure of Findias" is indeed a sword, in Irish mythology it’s Núadu’s sword, not Arthur’s sword, so Morrison is mixing his Irish and Welsh mythoi, giving a novel origin to Excalibur. Speaking of which, Gloriana eats an apple, declares herself “Fairest of them all,” and them transforms into a monster, simultaneously recalling the two wicked witch-queens from the Disney films Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. By the way: Simone Bianchi’s art? Amazing. Here's a scene of Gloriana getting her Maleficent on.  The battle takes place at “Castle Revolving,” one of several locales mentioned in “The Spoils of Annwn.” Vanguard the Pegazeus also mentions “The catacombs of Oethanoth,” another battle locale from the same poem. Greg Sanders alluded to a place of the gods which “revolves” through different dimensions in Seven Soldiers #0. Justin commands Gloriana to return her army to Unwhen. Olwen, the fairy girl, comes from a Welsh fable in which the shepherd Einion travels to the underground Otherworld (Annwn or Unwhen) and returns a year and a day later with a faerie bride. In a different version of the tale, Culhwch the Welsh prince takes Olwen as his bride. These “human/elf” intermarriage stories resemble Tolkien’s twin tales of Beren and Luthien Tinuviel as well as Aragorn and Arwen Undomiel, both of which allegorically retold his own life story as a sixteen year old Catholic courting an "older woman," the nineteen year old Edith Bratt, an Anglican.  Sheeda come from “Summer’s End, The Vampire Sun.” This calls to minds Morrison’s previous creations Solaris the Living Computer (from Dc One Million) and Maggedon the Anti-Sun (his final JLA arc). As we’ll see, that guess is not quite right but not far off. This mini-series features regular narrative text captions done in a verbal and lettering style reminiscent of Prince Valiant, as befits its medieval subject matter. A police officer examining one of Vanguard’s feathers comments, “This is sick. No wonder I have bad dreams.” The implied reason is that dreams are the means by which we access other dimensions. He has bad dreams because somewhere else, bad things are actually happening. This is a favorite Morrison motif, going back to Gardner Fox’s report that his stories about alternate universes came from his dreams. Not to mention a long-history of dream-related mysticism in civilizations around the world! 
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Post by rberman on Jan 20, 2019 8:57:14 GMT -5
Guardian #1 “Pirates of Manhattan” (May 2005) Art Team: Cameron Stewart on pencil and ink. Moose Baumann coloring. The Story: Jake Jordan was discharged from the police force after shooting an innocent teenager. His girlfriend’s dad convinces him to apply for a security job with the great metropolitan newspaper The Guardian. His job interview consists of a fake terrorist attack on the building, which he successfully overcomes. The Guardian’s owner, Edward Stargard, appears only on screens, apparently somehow one with the building. Jake is hired!  But all is not well in the city. Two pirate gangs are at war in the New York subways, wreaking mayhem and murder in the service of their leaders No-Beard and All-Beard. Guardian’s girlfriend’s family are among the victims, and Guardian ends up holding on for dear life as a pirate-commandeered subway train lurches out of the station, with his kidnapped girlfriend Carla aboard. My Two Cents: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon debuted Jake “The Guardian” Harper, their second shield-using crime-fighter, in 1942. His teenaged entourage The Newsboy Legion (reflecting the rough and tumble teen gangs of Kirby’s youth) is replicated here by Edward Stargard’s Newsboy Army.   Stargard’s name seem symbolically laden, especially when he literally is “The Guardian” in a different sense than Jake is. This story appears to need all the cosmic guards it can get. And leave it to a Brit like Morrison to think of a newspaper with he thinks of “The Guardian,” since that’s the name of one of the biggest newspapers in Britain. Stargard says he created “The Golems Four” when he was a child. I’m not aware of any DC lore behind that factoid, but it seems like a riff on "The Demons Three" and the like. The text on the Golem’s forehead changes direction from one panel to the next. I’ve got to think this is on purpose, but it goes unexplained. The ideal of deactivating a golem by erasing the word on its forehead comes from the legend of the Golem of Chelm.   The taxi in this street scene has a pumpkin on the side. Weird. I wonder whether we’ll see that again later. (Yes, we will.) Guardian’s own car looks a lot like Rick Deckard’s police spinner from Blade Runner.
 The Guardian’s “See yourself as a hero” advertisement seems related to the Charles Atlas ads which were a focus in Flex Mentallo. A magazine invites the reader to be a hero!  This mini-series features regular narrative text captions in a verbal and lettering style reminiscent of Silver/Bronze Age purple prose with incessant exclamation marks, as befits its Kirby subject matter. Elliot S! Maggin reports that his middle initial gained an exclamation mark because letterers were so used to making exclamation marks instead of periods; periods were too small and were easily missed on cheap newsprint. The cover also features the 80s DC logo, giving a hint as to the era for which Morrison is shooting. 
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Post by rberman on Jan 20, 2019 23:41:07 GMT -5
Call me "Mr. Slow on the Uptake," but I just belatedly realized two things:
1) The "pumpkin cab" connects to the radio voiceover describing New York City as "the Cinderella City," referring to its also-ran status in the DCU behind Metropolis and Gotham City, wherever they may be.
2) The voiceover about Mister Miracle describes what Shilo Norman will do in his own mini-series, coming up soon.
Morrison really did put a lot of details in these comics. It's hard to catch them all even on the third read.
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Post by rberman on Jan 21, 2019 0:41:00 GMT -5
Zatanna #1 “Talking Backwards” (June 2005) Art Team: Ryan Sook on pencils, Mick Gray inking, Nathan Eyring coloring Frame Story: In San Francisco, Zatanna regales her "superheroes with low self-esteem" support group with her tale of being a “spellaholic.” After she’s done, she chats with Gimmix, declines a ride home with Mind-Grabber Man, and grudgingly accepts a sidekick/apprentice.  Zatanna’s Story: She recalls being a bumbling assistant in her father’s magic act during an appearance on David Letterman’s TV show.  One lonely drunken night more recently, she tries to conjure up for herself a perfect boyfriend but ends up summoning a spirit named Gwydion. His presence proves fatal a few nights later when she’s in a séance with several other mystics, crossing dimensional barriers in search of her father’s four lost books. Gwydion shows up and incinerates the other five participants, sparing her alone.  My Two Cents: I mean, she’s not really a spellaholic, is she? We don’t see any evidence that she can’t resist using her magic. We just see her make one really bad decision while inebriated. Does she get plastered a lot? If so, a different support group might be right for her. Zatanna is adult Morrison (who describes himself as a “chaos magician” regularly), full of regret, having experienced enough of life to look back and realize how many people he incinerated in his quest to find the mate of his dreams.  In 2005, the main witchcraft for which Zatanna had to repent was her role in Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis (2004), tampering with the memories of Dr. Light and Batman. But this was under pressure from Hawkman, not something she just couldn’t help doing.   Zatanna has written a book, “Hex Appeal: The Modern Guide to Magic” which is said to be “down to earth and non-preachy,” which is how Morrison wants his own magics to be remembered. (Some have seen a dig at Alan Moore in this comment; I wouldn’t know.) She’s wearing a T-shirt with eight arrows pointing out from the center of a compass.  This is the sign of chaos in Michael Moorcock’s Elric books. Aleister Crowley used a related symbol on his version of the Toth Tarot card representing the Eight of Wands, and we all know how Morrison loves Tarot and Crowley. Crowley’s “Book of the Perplexed” is mentioned near the end of the issue as well. This refers not to an actual book but to Crowley’s alleged last words, “I’m perplexed.” Morrison may or may not also be referring to Maimonides’ 12th century “Guide to the Perplexed” which sought to reconcile orthodox Judaism with then-modern science.  I couldn’t find an issue of Science Fantasy that fit the description, but here’s a Cawthorn image from Stormbringer:  This brings up a question that shows my ignorance: Was the name “Zatanna” ever intended as a way to have a character named “Satan” within the strictures of the Comics Code? I never thought of that before now, but it seems obvious. All the stories I ever read showed her more in the tradition of the stage magician than anything devilish. But note below that the Gypsy Cab that picks up Z and Misty is number 13.  This issue is mainly about two things. The first is Morrison’s ongoing love affair with the idea that magic exists, and its nature is to allow you to cross into higher dimensions, gaining a vantage point from which lower dimensions looks flat, like a comic book page. We’ve seen this in so many of his works, I begin to lose count, but let’s see: We3, The Filth, Flex Mentallo, Animal Man, the Dada story in Doom Patrol, the “Starro the Dreamer” and Qwsp stories in JLA… if I left any out, I probably haven’t read them yet, but I bet there are more.   The second thing this story is about is also not new: It’s Morrison thumbing his nose at anyone who thinks the old characters are dumb. Rehabilitation has been his chief project at DC, finding Golden Age and Silver Age characters like B’wana Beast (shown below from his appearance in Morrison's Animal Man) that had been written off as outmoded or cheesy, and putting them into contexts where they make sense – sometimes more sense than they made originally.  He’s showing that there are no bad characters, only bad writers, and that he’s the man to take a character like The Whip or Queen Bee or Animal Man or Ibis the Invincible and make readers say of them, “Have you seen that great new story about…?” However, we have to subtract points when Morrison brings back these old chestnuts only to slaughter them to establish how powerful his new character (in this case, Gwydion) is. Gwydion “the man of Zatanna’s dreams” (her ideal mate? Or just idealized) is a Welsh mythological character, a version of Merlin, tying our story into the Welsh material from Shining Knight, another also-ran character by the 2000s. Perhaps he also intends an implicit rebuttal of anyone who thinks that his JLA series only sold well because he got the big guns back in the group. With that in mind, let’s look at this issue’s two casts of characters. The frame story has the members of her superhero support group, while Zatanna’s tale has a group of mystical Golden Age heroes. Running through them all: Support Group Members Etta Candy- From Sensational Comics #2 (1942) onward, she was a short, round, exuberant Wonder Woman sidekick. During George Perez’ post-Crisis run on Wonder Woman, she became a more three-dimensional character who hit the gym and slimmed up quite a bit, but Morrison has returned her to obesity and comic relief.   Gimmix- Seen here prior to her demise in Seven Soldiers #0, she talks about her plans to join Vigilante's team and make a name for herself in the hero biz as a stepping stone to a JLA audition. She talks about going "out West," which makes no sense if she is already in San Francisco.  Misty Kilgore- A new character whose ominous name (Mist + Kill + Gore) does not actually appear in this issue, she asks to become Zatanna’s sidekick and displays magical acumen. She’s a goth girl with a white forelock (the inverse of Abby Arcane from Swamp Thing?) who channels her power through a six sided die. Mind-Grabber Man- We’ll learn more about him in Bulleteer #3, which puts him in a more favorable light. For now, he’s just a creep who wants to take Zatanna home with him in his sports car, the “Mind-Grabber Machine.” Being a Morrison character, he too is into Brane Universes, talking briefly about his “two dimensional plate holographic theory.” A blonde teen declares herself to be 75 years old. We’ll learn more about these eternal super-teens in Bulleteer. If this is supposed to be the super-teen later identified as Sally Sonic, she certainly looks different here. That's Mind-Grabber Man seated beside her in the image below.  Three other unnamed male heroes are also at the support group, but their identities are never revealed to us. Magicians Baron Winters, host of the séance, led the Night Force team of supernatural adventurers which debuted as an insert in New Teen Titans #21 (1982).  Timothy Ravenwind is a 17th century warlock whose only previous appearance was in Swamp Thing #5 (1973) by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. He mentions a Red God described in the Omninomicon, very Lovecraftian stuff. Despite his death in this issue of Zatanna, he appears in subsequent Swamp Thing stories. He presumably has extended his use of magic beyond "turning people into flowers."  Golden Age hero Ibis the Invincible and his gal pal (now wife) Taia date from Whiz Comics #2 (1942). They were ancient Egyptian mystics suspended in time and awakened in the 1940s.  Doctor Terry Thirteen, a skeptical “ghost breaker” in the spirit of Dana Sculley of “The X-Files,” dates from Star-Spangled Comic #122 (1951). Terry has just published a book and may have just broken off a relationship with Zatanna, judging by some of the dialogue. As a scientist studying the occult, he describes this issue’s inter-dimensional journey in terms of “Brane Universes,” and “extra superstring dimensions”, both of which refer to Princeton physicist Edmund Witten’s real-world “M-Theory” about multiverses, one without any empirical evidence to date, so I guess it’s more of a hypothesis. Morrison will rebrand this concept as the “Orrery of Worlds” in future series for DC.  Ra-Man was an Egyptian prince reincarnated with the mind of Mark Merlin, a modern mystic detective. He was sometimes on Earth and sometimes in his own Ra-Realm, as here. First seen in House of Secrets #73, 1965. Here, his realm is powered by a cubical (six-sided) sun. Watch for this cube motif to recur.   This issue involves massive callbacks to Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing #49-50, in which seven mystics gather at Baron Winter's mansion for a séance that allows them to participate in a battle against ultimate evil on a spiritual plane. So once again we have the motif that seven prevailed, whereas in our current story, six fail. Also, Zatanna’s father Zatara died at that previous séance, propelling the plot of this series’ search for his writings.   Whew, another busy issue!
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Post by rberman on Jan 21, 2019 21:40:19 GMT -5
Klarion #1 “From This World to That Which Is to Come” (June 2005) Art: Frazer Irving did it all: Pencil, ink, and color.  The Story: Klarion lives with his family in the subterranean Otherworld village of Limbo, where zombie Grundy servants mine rocks to trade for goods from other villages. The stern Submissionaries enforce the conformity against which teen free thinker Klarion chafes, though his stepfather Ezekiel seems kindly enough and also is a member of a Parliament which exists in some sort of political tension with the Submissionaries.   Klarion thinks about running away to see the wide world beyond the Wicket Gate, perhaps even making his way to a legendary land with “blue rafters” instead of a stony roof from which rain somehow pours. But three Submissionaries, alarmed by the prospect of the return of Sheeda, cast a horrid spell that joins them into Horigal, a three-faced monster that goes on a rampage to prevent Klarion from departing.   My Two Cents: This story seems pretty straightforward so far, with Puritan rulers (always evil in fiction) standing between the smartypants goth teen (Morrison) and his self-actualization. “Why even bother being born?” he moans. One interesting detail is that the Submissionaries’ summoning of the Horigal involves looking at a map of the surface world, so clearly this village is not so ignorant of the higher realms as it pretends. The Submissionaries show themselves to be an entrenched power structure, more interested in retaining their own positions than in carrying out the protective task assigned to them.  Klarion, his cat Teekl, and the monstrous Horigal all come from Jack Kirby’s mind and pen through The Demon #7 (1973). In that story, Klarion’s witchy brethren came from “the Beyond Country,” which is pretty close conceptually to the faerie Otherworld. By the time Morrison is done, he will have produced a mini-series that can wrap back around to Klarion’s original appearance.  In this story, Grundies are zombified family members, raised from the dead to work as slaves. Apart from how grotesque this seems to us (perhaps a commentary on how blithely we accept inhumane worker treatment in our own society), it also varies with older DC continuity in which Grundy was (1) singular and (2) made of vegetation, like Swamp Thing. Hence this scene in JLA #91 (1972):  The people of Limbo Town worship the absent god Croatoan. This word is associated in our world with the mysterious disappearance of the colony which vanished from Roanoke Island in the year 1590. Morrison is implying that the colony was sucked into the Otherworld and has survived underground, either persisting for the intervening 400 years without any social or technological advance. “Croatoan” was found carved into a tree at the site of the vanished colony, and the decontextualized word has fired many imaginations in the intervening years, including Harlan Ellison, whose 1975 short story Croatoan concerns fetuses and crocodiles wandering the sewers of New York City. We shall soon see both abandoned children and crocodiles beneath NYC in this story. The Limbo Town scriptures are found in the ”Book of Shadows.” In Wicca, this is not a specific text but refers to an individual practicioner’s own personal “magic cookbook.” Morrison probably keeps such a book himself. Seven Soldiers Theme: The creation outlives the creator. Pretty easy this time; Klarion’s father is presumed dead, and Klarion lives with his mother, step-father, and sister.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 22, 2019 0:50:23 GMT -5
Zatanna #1 “Talking Backwards” (June 2005)Art Team: Ryan Sook on pencils, Mick Gray inking, Nathan Eyring coloring Frame Story: In San Francisco, Zatanna regales her "superheroes with low self-esteem" support group with her tale of being a “spellaholic.” After she’s done, she chats with Gimmix, declines a ride home with Mind-Grabber Man, and grudgingly accepts a sidekick/apprentice. Zatanna’s Story: She recalls being a bumbling assistant in her father’s magic act during an appearance on David Letterman’s TV show. One lonely drunken night more recently, she tries to conjure up for herself a perfect boyfriend but ends up summoning a spirit named Gwydion. His presence proves fatal a few nights later when she’s in a séance with several other mystics, crossing dimensional barriers in search of her father’s four lost books. Gwydion shows up and incinerates the other five participants, sparing her alone. My Two Cents: I mean, she’s not really a spellaholic, is she? We don’t see any evidence that she can’t resist using her magic. We just see her make one really bad decision while inebriated. Does she get plastered a lot? If so, a different support group might be right for her. Zatanna is adult Morrison (who describes himself as a “chaos magician” regularly), full of regret, having experienced enough of life to look back and realize how many people he incinerated in his quest to find the mate of his dreams. In 2005, the main witchcraft for which Zatanna had to repent was her role in Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis (2004), tampering with the memories of Dr. Light and Batman. But this was under pressure from Hawkman, not something she just couldn’t help doing. Zatanna has written a book, “Hex Appeal: The Modern Guide to Magic” which is said to be “down to earth and non-preachy,” which is how Morrison wants his own magics to be remembered. (Some have seen a dig at Alan Moore in this comment; I wouldn’t know.) She’s wearing a T-shirt with eight arrows pointing out from the center of a compass. This is the sign of chaos in Michael Moorcock’s Elric books. Aleister Crowley used a related symbol on his version of the Toth Tarot card representing the Eight of Wands, and we all know how Morrison loves Tarot and Crowley. Crowley’s “Book of the Perplexed” is mentioned near the end of the issue as well. This refers not to an actual book but to Crowley’s alleged last words, “I’m perplexed.” Morrison may or may not also be referring to Maimonides’ 12th century “Guide to the Perplexed” which sought to reconcile orthodox Judaism with then-modern science. I couldn’t find an issue of Science Fantasy that fit the description, but here’s a Cawthorn image from Stormbringer: This brings up a question that shows my ignorance: Was the name “Zatanna” ever intended as a way to have a character named “Satan” within the strictures of the Comics Code? I never thought of that before now, but it seems obvious. All the stories I ever read showed her more in the tradition of the stage magician than anything devilish. But note below that the Gypsy Cab that picks up Z and Misty is number 13. This issue is mainly about two things. The first is Morrison’s ongoing love affair with the idea that magic exists, and its nature is to allow you to cross into higher dimensions, gaining a vantage point from which lower dimensions looks flat, like a comic book page. We’ve seen this in so many of his works, I begin to lose count, but let’s see: We3, The Filth, Flex Mentallo, Animal Man, the Dada story in Doom Patrol, the “Starro the Dreamer” and Qwsp stories in JLA… if I left any out, I probably haven’t read them yet, but I bet there are more. The second thing this story is about is also not new: It’s Morrison thumbing his nose at anyone who thinks the old characters are dumb. Rehabilitation has been his chief project at DC, finding Golden Age and Silver Age characters like B’wana Beast (shown below from his appearance in Morrison's Animal Man) that had been written off as outmoded or cheesy, and putting them into contexts where they make sense – sometimes more sense than they made originally. He’s showing that there are no bad characters, only bad writers, and that he’s the man to take a character like The Whip or Queen Bee or Animal Man or Ibis the Invincible and make readers say of them, “Have you seen that great new story about…?” However, we have to subtract points when Morrison brings back these old chestnuts only to slaughter them to establish how powerful his new character (in this case, Gwydion) is. Gwydion “the man of Zatanna’s dreams” (her ideal mate? Or just idealized) is a Welsh mythological character, a version of Merlin, tying our story into the Welsh material from Shining Knight, another also-ran character by the 2000s. Perhaps he also intends an implicit rebuttal of anyone who thinks that his JLA series only sold well because he got the big guns back in the group. With that in mind, let’s look at this issue’s two casts of characters. The frame story has the members of her superhero support group, while Zatanna’s tale has a group of mystical Golden Age heroes. Running through them all: Support Group MembersEtta Candy- From Sensational Comics #2 (1942) onward, she was a short, round, exuberant Wonder Woman sidekick. During George Perez’ post-Crisis run on Wonder Woman, she became a more three-dimensional character who hit the gym and slimmed up quite a bit, but Morrison has returned her to obesity and comic relief. Gimmix- Seen here prior to her demise in Seven Soldiers #0, she talks about her plans to join Vigilante's team and make a name for herself in the hero biz as a stepping stone to a JLA audition. She talks about going "out West," which makes no sense if she is already in San Francisco. Misty Kilgore- A new character whose ominous name (Mist + Kill + Gore) does not actually appear in this issue, she asks to become Zatanna’s sidekick and displays magical acumen. She’s a goth girl with a white forelock (the inverse of Abby Arcane from Swamp Thing?) who channels her power through a six sided die. Mind-Grabber Man- We’ll learn more about him in Bulleteer #3, which puts him in a more favorable light. For now, he’s just a creep who wants to take Zatanna home with him in his sports car, the “Mind-Grabber Machine.” Being a Morrison character, he too is into Brane Universes, talking briefly about his “two dimensional plate holographic theory.” A blonde teen declares herself to be 75 years old. We’ll learn more about these eternal super-teens in Bulleteer. If this is supposed to be the super-teen later identified as Sally Sonic, she certainly looks different here. That's Mind-Grabber Man seated beside her in the image below. Three other unnamed male heroes are also at the support group, but their identities are never revealed to us. MagiciansBaron Winters, host of the séance, led the Night Force team of supernatural adventurers which debuted as an insert in New Teen Titans #21 (1982). Timothy Ravenwind is a 17th century warlock whose only previous appearance was in Swamp Thing #5 (1973) by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. He mentions a Red God described in the Omninomicon, very Lovecraftian stuff. Despite his death in this issue of Zatanna, he appears in subsequent Swamp Thing stories. He presumably has extended his use of magic beyond "turning people into flowers." Golden Age hero Ibis the Invincible and his gal pal (now wife) Taia date from Whiz Comics #2 (1942). They were ancient Egyptian mystics suspended in time and awakened in the 1940s. Doctor Terry Thirteen, a skeptical “ghost breaker” in the spirit of Dana Sculley of “The X-Files,” dates from Star-Spangled Comic #122 (1951). Terry has just published a book and may have just broken off a relationship with Zatanna, judging by some of the dialogue. As a scientist studying the occult, he describes this issue’s inter-dimensional journey in terms of “Brane Universes,” and “extra superstring dimensions”, both of which refer to Princeton physicist Edmund Witten’s real-world “M-Theory” about multiverses, one without any empirical evidence to date, so I guess it’s more of a hypothesis. Morrison will rebrand this concept as the “Orrery of Worlds” in future series for DC. Ra-Man was an Egyptian prince reincarnated with the mind of Mark Merlin, a modern mystic detective. He was sometimes on Earth and sometimes in his own Ra-Realm, as here. First seen in House of Secrets #73, 1965. Here, his realm is powered by a cubical (six-sided) sun. Watch for this cube motif to recur. This issue involves massive callbacks to Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing #49-50, in which seven mystics gather at Baron Winter's mansion for a séance that allows them to participate in a battle against ultimate evil on a spiritual plane. So once again we have the motif that seven prevailed, whereas in our current story, six fail. Also, Zatanna’s father Zatara died at that previous séance, propelling the plot of this series’ search for his writings. Whew, another busy issue! I really, really hate the more fetishy look they gave Zatanna. Yeah, she was already the object of comic reader fetishism; but, her original look was a traditional stage costume, which fit. By this point, she looks like a stripper. To me, it says the modern creators are way more repressed than their forefathers; or just more blatant in their pandering. You decide. There was no hidden message in Zatanna's name. Her father was Zatara and her name was basically a feminization of it. Pretty much the end of the story. Anything else is a retcon. I'm also not a fan of turning every past character into a neurotic mess, as an attempt at characterization. Zatanna was generally a pretty confident and capable character, who had a certain naivety, due to inexperience (in the Silver Age); but was a pretty together character after joining the JLA and post-Crisis. Some characters better fit this personality type, like a Cyclops, or red Tornado, as they were shown to be more insecure, throughout their career. It doesn't seem edgy or relevant, to me; it just shows a lack of respect for the character's past. Morrison likes to push nostalgia buttons, while also sticking a knife in. By contrast, James Robinson (especially throughout Starman) would be true to the character, usually have a good rationale for a weird of bad element of the character's past (like Sardath, in the Adam Strange mini, drawn by the Kubert boys). He might add something new; but, it was usually a more positive hook. He had a times past with Phantom Lady, establishing her as a cousin to Ted Knight, which stuck by her past as mostly cheesecake, while also showing her some respect for going out and taking on criminals. He reminded us that Adam Strange was more than a guy in a Buck rogers cast-off suit, whose gimmick was swiped from Flash Gordon (and John Carter). He made Ralph and Sue Dibny cool again; not just comic relief. In his hands, they were a superheroic Nick & Nora Charles. Morrison latching onto Crowley doesn't surprise me; the man was a charlatan and I have trouble believing a lot of things Morrison has said in print. I read a couple of interviews, with talks of drugs and mysticism and what not that sounded like he was trying to create an image for himself and was mostly to get a reaction. I tend to think the same thing for Alan Moore, in similar interviews. His worship of Moorcock (especially Jerry Cornelius) is well known and he has ticked off the man himself, with some of it. Moorcock is a huge influence on Morrison's generation of British comic book writers, given how revolutionary he was as an author and an editor, in their youth. Moore, Morrison and Gaiman have all drawn from him (and Gaiman wrote a short story in tribute to the man and how his work caught his youthful imagination). This was pretty much where I decided I had no interest in continuing this whole cycle. For everything I thought was interesting, there were three things that rubbed me wrong or just left me cold. By contrast, the younger Morrison had really grabbed me with things like Zenith, Doom Patrol (to a point) and Animal Man (to a greater degree) and would impress me with All-Star Superman. That felt like honoring the past and giving is a post-modern gloss. Don't get me started on Identity Crisis. For all of his faults, Morrison never did a hatchet-job like Brad Meltzer. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 22, 2019 0:52:17 GMT -5
Call me "Mr. Slow on the Uptake," but I just belatedly realized two things: 1) The "pumpkin cab" connects to the radio voiceover describing New York City as "the Cinderella City," referring to its also-ran status in the DCU behind Metropolis and Gotham City, wherever they may be. 2) The voiceover about Miracle Man describes what Shilo Norman will do in his own mini-series, coming up soon. Morrison really did put a lot of details in these comics. It's hard to catch them all even on the third read. Think you mean Mister Miracle. Miracleman was the man in the lawsuits, who came about because of someone else's lawsuit. A hero beloved by lawyers everywhere!  |
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Post by rberman on Jan 22, 2019 7:55:14 GMT -5
Call me "Mr. Slow on the Uptake," but I just belatedly realized two things: 1) The "pumpkin cab" connects to the radio voiceover describing New York City as "the Cinderella City," referring to its also-ran status in the DCU behind Metropolis and Gotham City, wherever they may be. 2) The voiceover about Miracle Man describes what Shilo Norman will do in his own mini-series, coming up soon. Morrison really did put a lot of details in these comics. It's hard to catch them all even on the third read. Think you mean Mister Miracle. Miracleman was the man in the lawsuits, who came about because of someone else's lawsuit. A hero beloved by lawyers everywhere! Whoops! Yes indeed. Correction made; thanks. |
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jan 22, 2019 12:46:33 GMT -5
The Whip, “The Girl with No Fear,” swings through an urban landscape like Daredevil, punching a team of criminals riding pogo sticks powered by Kirby Krackle. A dirigible floats overhead, signifying (per Watchmen) that this is not our world. Later at home, she answers a classified ad for a new super-team. She’s tired of being a grim 90s urban vigilante and would like to join a stereotypical team with “a veteran, some newcomers, a tough guy…” I, Spyder turns out to fill that last role on the team. “I hate this man,” says Shelly about him, one panel before they’re shown having sex. “Sleeping with I, Spyder is my contribution to the complex intergroup dynamics essential for any super-team,” she rationalizes. Morrison had earlier plans for the character as a separate DC proposal: S&M Superheroics, inspired by the fetish clothing found in Skin Two magazine, particularly the photography of Craig Morrison. The original proposal for the character, submitted to the nascent Vertigo line post-Doom Patrol, later essentially became King Mob in The Invisibles. From the Anarchy For The Masses book: "The King Mob character was based on... DC had an old character called The Whip from the '40s. No one had ever touched it; I found it and thought that was great, I can do this real kind of S&M superhero. The Whip is basically King Mob. The original designs for that, I just had this character who was bald and based on the fetish stuff at the time, which again was established in the underground and magazines like Skin Two." |
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Post by rberman on Jan 22, 2019 13:13:09 GMT -5
My Two Cents: I mean, she’s not really a spellaholic, is she? We don’t see any evidence that she can’t resist using her magic. We just see her make one really bad decision while inebriated. Does she get plastered a lot? If so, a different support group might be right for her. Zatanna is adult Morrison (who describes himself as a “chaos magician” regularly), full of regret, having experienced enough of life to look back and realize how many people he incinerated in his quest to find the mate of his dreams. In 2005, the main witchcraft for which Zatanna had to repent was her role in Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis (2004), tampering with the memories of Dr. Light and Batman. But this was under pressure from Hawkman, not something she just couldn’t help doing. I really, really hate the more fetishy look they gave Zatanna. Yeah, she was already the object of comic reader fetishism; but, her original look was a traditional stage costume, which fit. By this point, she looks like a stripper. To me, it says the modern creators are way more repressed than their forefathers; or just more blatant in their pandering. You decide.... I'm also not a fan of turning every past character into a neurotic mess, as an attempt at characterization. Zatanna was generally a pretty confident and capable character, who had a certain naivety, due to inexperience (in the Silver Age); but was a pretty together character after joining the JLA and post-Crisis. Some characters better fit this personality type, like a Cyclops, or red Tornado, as they were shown to be more insecure, throughout their career. It doesn't seem edgy or relevant, to me; it just shows a lack of respect for the character's past. Morrison likes to push nostalgia buttons, while also sticking a knife in. By contrast, James Robinson (especially throughout Starman) would be true to the character, usually have a good rationale for a weird of bad element of the character's past (like Sardath, in the Adam Strange mini, drawn by the Kubert boys). He might add something new; but, it was usually a more positive hook. He had a times past with Phantom Lady, establishing her as a cousin to Ted Knight, which stuck by her past as mostly cheesecake, while also showing her some respect for going out and taking on criminals. He reminded us that Adam Strange was more than a guy in a Buck rogers cast-off suit, whose gimmick was swiped from Flash Gordon (and John Carter). He made Ralph and Sue Dibny cool again; not just comic relief. In his hands, they were a superheroic Nick & Nora Charles. Morrison latching onto Crowley doesn't surprise me; the man was a charlatan and I have trouble believing a lot of things Morrison has said in print. I read a couple of interviews, with talks of drugs and mysticism and what not that sounded like he was trying to create an image for himself and was mostly to get a reaction. I tend to think the same thing for Alan Moore, in similar interviews. His worship of Moorcock (especially Jerry Cornelius) is well known and he has ticked off the man himself, with some of it. Moorcock is a huge influence on Morrison's generation of British comic book writers, given how revolutionary he was as an author and an editor, in their youth. Moore, Morrison and Gaiman have all drawn from him (and Gaiman wrote a short story in tribute to the man and how his work caught his youthful imagination). This was pretty much where I decided I had no interest in continuing this whole cycle. For everything I thought was interesting, there were three things that rubbed me wrong or just left me cold. By contrast, the younger Morrison had really grabbed me with things like Zenith, Doom Patrol (to a point) and Animal Man (to a greater degree) and would impress me with All-Star Superman. That felt like honoring the past and giving is a post-modern gloss. Don't get me started on Identity Crisis. For all of his faults, Morrison never did a hatchet-job like Brad Meltzer. Morrison was apparently quite mouthy and free with his criticism of colleagues early in his career, deliberately cultivating an enfant terrible persona which he now regrets. But I think the Chaos Magic stuff is for real in his mind; he really does dress up as a woman and take hallucinogens and climb mountains in Kathmandu in an attempt to reach a different world than the one he's in. Superheroes (such as he understands them) are his religion, and he is devoted to his faith as more than a means of income, but as the organizing principle by which he coped with the experiences of his childhood. As for Zatanna, obviously she's a wreck in this issue. My take is that Morrison is taking her as he found her (at the end of Identity Crisis) and rehabilitating her. This mini-series is the story of how she got her mojo back, so first he has to show her without it for the journey to have meaning. Morrison has said that he saw Arkham Asylum as doing the same for Batman, taking the late 80s grim Batman and putting him through a wringer where he hits bottom and emerges on top to become the super-confident, super-capable depicted in JLA. Similarly, the Zatanna seen in issues #2-4 here is progressively more competent and decisive. Regarding the added stripper elements of Zatanna's costume like the garters, I too am not a fan. I prefer her Bronze Age costume, weird headpiece and all, to the stage magician suit that doesn't make any sense off the stage. Really she'd wear a Cloak of the Archmagi +3 or something, right? |
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jan 22, 2019 13:18:49 GMT -5
Zatanna #1 “Talking Backwards” (June 2005) I was quite happy with this one! I always liked Zatanna as a character but never got over the backwards-speaking; when Lee Marrs (possibly under the direction of DC editorial) tried to get rid of it entirely it never sat well with me though, because (a) then she became generic, and (b) I knew it was temporary anyway! Morrison's approach to not ignore the backwards-speaking but to focus more on her other magical skills, intelligence, and personality, made her completely workable for me. It doesn't help that she's drawn to be lovely rather than cartoonishly sexy. I love this character (and the fact that she's obviously Brainwave's kid sister). I wish we'd seen more of her. He was originally Mind-Grabber Kid who annoyed the JLA for one issue, and someone who ought to have been revived earlier. I wasn't too happy with this depiction. In his original series, Dr Thirteen eventually acknowledged that there was actual magic in the world, but that's since been forgotten and DC only brings him back to make him look like a foolish denialist. [/quote] |
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jan 22, 2019 13:24:29 GMT -5
Klarion #1 “From This World to That Which Is to Come” (June 2005) Not much to say here yet, but I do want to add that Klarion was far and away my favorite or the individual character miniseries. Often the plots didn't make a hell of a lot of sense, but his whole rebellious goth teen troublemaker persona endlessly entertained me and I wish a savvy writer had continued on in the same mode. |
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