Bulleteer #2 “Who Killed Seven Soldiers?” (February 2006)



Art Team: Yanick Paquette penciled it. Serge LaPointe inked it. Alex Sinclair colored it.

Creative Team: Grant Morrison wrote it. Yanick Paquette penciled it. Serge LaPointe inked it. This holds true for subsequent issues as well.

The Story: Agent Helen “Sky High” Helligan recaps the deaths of the heroes from Seven Soldiers #0. We learn that Thomas Dalt killed his brother Lucas and assumed the identity of their father, Golden Age costumed archer Spider,  has Punishe-style adventures, gets his new costume from the  Time Tailors, then joins Vigilante's new team in the desert. Bulleteer had intended to join Vigilante’s team too but backed out at the last minute.

Helligan takes Bulleteer along on her visit to the prison where Ramon “The Iron Hand” Solomano (see Wein's JLA #100-102) is imprisoned. Helligan has also brought along Solomano's prosthetic super-glove, pilfered from a museum, and Alix starts destroying it piece by piece until Solomano starts talking. He recounts the back plot of his previous JLA appearance and reports that his young nephew infiltrated Vigilante’s newest team and “used the device to summon the Nebula Man.” Solomano collapses on the floor, reporting that the ghost of Vigilante shot him “in the soul” last night. This thread will get picked up in the next issue of Bulleteer.

Helligan stops her sister from marrying a werewolf, a revelation out of left field. Alix heads home, where she accepts a boarder into her home. It’s a young woman with super-strength and a secret grudge…



My Two Cents: This issue is all exposition, with the lead character standing around listening to Helligan and Solomano. Helligan is the exposition queen last seen in Shining Knight #3, while her story here would mean little to those who haven't read Seven Soldiers #0. Now that Alix has entered the superhero lifestyle, she has to be ready for all its tropes, both superficial elements (Supervillains, werewolves, time travel, vampires, ghosts) but also narrative tropes (coincidence, plot and counterplot). “I felt like Alice through the Looking Glass,” she says, which reminds us of the first and last pages of her origin story, in which she stood before her full-length mirror gazing upon her own transformed body. She makes the reasonably attractive Helligan look dowdy in comparison.



Ramon Solomano blames his actions in Justice League of America #100-102 on temporary insanity brought on by receiving a terminal diagnosis. Similarly, Vigilante led his soldiers on a suicide mission in Seven Soldiers #0 due to a terminal diagnosis he recently received. This was also the motive for The Key’s attempt to murder the JLA in Len Wein’s JLA #110 (1974).

Helligan stole Romano’s iron hand from the Manhattan Museum of Superhumanity during the events of Klarion #3, but looking back on that issue, I don’t see either the glove or Helligan in the background. Oh well. A missed opportunity.

Solomano’s young nephew was one of the Six Soldiers in Seven Soldiers #0. Remember when Shelly Gaynor said that Boy Blue “sounded like a 15 year old Mexican kid”? That’s some good set-up and pay-off! Monsters appeared and slaughtered the team right after Boy Blue blew his horn, emitting mystic Norse runes. We can assume he didn’t expect that to happen, making Uncle Solomano quite heartless to sacrifice his nephew in this way.



Solomano saw Vigilante bullying a Latino criminal and assumed it was racially motivated, but really it was because Vigilante has secretly been infected with lycanthropy and can recognize others similarly affected.



Dying Solomano calls out the names of his villainous teammates from his original Golden Age appearance, as also recounted in his 1970s appearance.

Back in Shining Knight #3, Helligan discussed her sister’s upcoming wedding. Helligan was also poisoned by Gloriana Tenebrae. She has partially recovered but appears on the verse of a relapse. Helligan says that “the starry guy and the fairy folk are from the future.” We already knew from JLA Classified that Neh-Buh-Loh is the grown-up infant galaxy of Qwewq, traveled back in time.

A street scene has a sign for “Lacombe Sweat Shop” with a logo that looks like a fir tree with a face on it. Surely this references something, but I don’t know what. I did find French comic book artist Benajamin Lacombe, who has worked on material like Notre Dame de Paris and Tales of the Macabre.

Helligan tells “Brian” on the phone, “Sorry about the milkshake,” a throwaway reference to something she said back in Shining Knight #3. Then Bulleteer flies Helligan to stop her sister’s wedding. The groom, whom Helligan accuses of being a werewolf, confusingly looks just like Brian, with sandy brown hair and a soul patch. But his name is Lido Lupelino (a wolf pun).

Also, where is the wedding? At one point she says it’s a secular affair at “the registrar on Express Street.” But then she asks Alix to “get me to the church on time,” which is a quotation from David Bowie’s song “Modern Love” as well as the title of an oldie by Lerner and Lowe. The ceremony proves to be in a civic building, in a room with pews. Only five members of the bride’s family are in attendance, and none of the groom’s.

Seven Soldiers Theme: The creation outlives the creator. The iron glove survives the Iron Hand, albeit in vandalized form.

Vigilante teamed with Superman in World's Finest #214 to fight a werewolf (which he killed with a silver bullet). I thought this might have been when he was infected, but Grant tells us it was in the 4th year of his crime-fighting career. It does tie in, though, by explaining why Vig would have been carrying a silver bullet with him in the first place, and was probably the inspiration for including this unexpected aspect of the character in Seven Soldiers.

Mister Miracle #3 “Radio Bedlam” (March 2006)



The Story: The new escape artist Baron Bedlam steals Mister Miracle’s stunts and headlines. Careful study of Bedlam’s video footage shows him being destroyed, so how does he survive? Shilo Norman’s buddy ZZ is hooked on Flat, a drug released from a glowing sphere, and consorting with the bondage prostitutes that Norman rejected in issue #1. They convert Norman’s entourage to the Dark Side, capture Norman, and take his Motherboxxx. Then Dark Side speaks the Anti-Life Equation to him, driving him mad; then he’s beaten, set afire, and castrated. How can he escape from the Life Trap of being a hopleless cripple?



My Two Cents: Well, here’s a depressing tale. Shilo Norman has been robbed of all agency, going from peak celebrity to invalid irrelevance in the course of just one issue, without putting up any meaningful resistance. This is what happens in a world ruled by Dark Side: the good guys never win. It’s the same idea raised in JLA: Earth-2, but we never got to see it actually play out. Norman’s world seems like a dream, with people appearing and disappearing from his home, and abrupt transitions. ZZ’s shirt shifts from panel to panel whether it contains a giant Z or an inverted 2.

Every artist worries about usurpers who beat him at his own game. Even Grant Morrison, who has himself been described as a second rate Alan Moore. Dr. Dezard describes Baron Bedlam as “a hollow man who has learned to copy you, a plastic man who smoothes (sic) away all the rough edges for maximum appeal.” The twist of Bedlam being a set of clones who can afford to be destroyed is reminiscent of the 2006 Christopher Nolan film (and 1995 Christopher Priest book) The Prestige, a story about rival illusionists in the late 19th century.

“There’s a storm eating up Florida.” This would be Hurricane Gloria, mentioned back in The Guardian series.

Norman’s girlfriend Jonelle reads about the Bulleteer transformation, “this new cosmetic thing that makes your skin like enamel.”

As he’s in the grip of the Anti-Life Equation, Norman staggers into the street and is nearly run over by the pumpkin cab carrying Klarion and his teen gang. Then he stumbles past the scene of Guardian and his girlfriend arguing about getting engaged. We get one extra panel compared to last time (in Guardian #3), showing Jason picking up the discarded engagement ring. Note that the pumpkin-cab joyride depicted in Klarion #3 was not during the rain, so this is either another similar (and earlier) occasion, or something else is going on. (Probably the latter, as we shall see eventually.)




Norman is snapped out of his Anti-Life funk by seeing a marquee advertising a symphony concert of “Heroica.” This is a riff on Beethoven’s Sinfonia Eroica (1805), which was originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte when he seemed like a brave anti-monarchist. Beethoven erased the dedication when Napoleon turned out, well, different.

Bulleteer #3 “21st Century Schizoid Supermen” (April 2006)



Art Team: Yanick Paquette penciled it. Serge LaPointe inked it. Alex Sinclair colored it.

The Story: I Spyder is stalking Alix Harrower, who has taken a job as bodyguard for mermaid celebrity Suli Stellamaris at a superhero convention in Zenith City. Alix recognizes Thumbellina as one of the eternal superteens from the “hero porn” website she found on her husband’s computer. The two talk in the bathroom, with Thumbellina explaining that the Harrower’s marriage was only one of the many that British ever-teen Sally Sonic has destroyed, and Bulleteer realizes that Sally is the British girl who has rented a room at her home. I Spyder shoots at Alix and misses, perhaps on purpose, and the ghost of Vigilante appears to claim him.



My Two Cents: Morrison gets plenty of mileage of a story set in the strange world of comic book fandom, making for plenty of annotations. It’s full of character cameos and references connected to previous issues in the Seven Soldiers series, including Etta Candy and Mind-Grabber Kid (from Zatanna #1), L’il Hollywood and Millions the Mystery Mutt (from Guardian #4), Vincenzo “Kid Scarface” Baldi (likewise, and also from the Shining Knight series). Booster Gold is the emcee.

Li’l Hollywood used to be on a TV show with Frank Gorshin, who played The Riddler on the 1966 Batman TV show. Dumb Bunny of the Inferior Five (first appearance: Showcase #62 in 1966) is there in all her ditzy glory, giggling her way through an autograph session. Grant Morrison has been itching to bring back Dumb Bunny, preferably in a feminist context like Bulleteer, ever since his days on Animal Man.





Thumbellina’s costume is one big (or little?) double entendre, with a downward arrow which could indicate shrinking but also points right at her crotch. Shrinking Violet’s Bronze Age costume was only a little more chaste. I Spyder is able to listen in on Thumbellina’s bathroom chat with Alix, but we don’t know whether she’s in on his plot or simply had her bag bugged at some point.



Suli Stellamaris is a parody of Superman’s mer-girlfriend Lori Lemaris, while Suli’s imbecile son Nepton is a parody of Aquaman’s half-breed origin. We previously saw a Stellamaris billboard in Shining Knight #2.

At one point there’s a discussion of how teams with six members are doomed to disaster. No kidding! We’ve seen that happen several times so far in Seven Soldiers. One of the other Blue Boys is there.

The issue title refers to King Crimson’s 1969 track “21st Century Schizoid Man.”



Seven Soldiers Theme: The creation outlives the creator. Alix also meets the widow Susan Parr, the original Bulletgirl, who is not impressed with her. In Golden Age stories, The Human Bullet and his wife Bulletgirl were Jim and Susan Barr, not Parr. Just another of Morrison’s slight misspellings to keep the parallel world concept alive. Susan speaks for all Golden Agers, tsking the over-sexualization of modern comic books.



The reference to timid secret identities and growing up in orphanages wouldn’t reflect the realities of orphans in the modern foster care system, but I suppose the eternal superteens might have been in orphanages right alongside Linda Lee “Supergirl” Danvers decades ago.

Lucian “Mind-Grabber Kid” Crawley debuted in JLA #70 (Denny O’Neil). In this story, he’s pretending to be gay for ulterior motives. Beast did something similar in New X-Men to embarrass an old girlfriend. Lucian wishes he had ascended to the big leagues of the JLA Watchtower instead of peaking at “Special Guest” status at nerd conventions. Is this Grant Morrison expressing regret that he never made it in Hollywood or as a “serious writer”?

I wonder whether Father Time bears any deliberate resemblance to Big Ben, the Man with No Time for Crime, from Warrior? Morrison never wrote Big Ben but he did write two episodes of 'The Liberators' which are in the Big Ben continuity.

Mister Miracle #4 “The Life Trap” (May 2006)



Art: Freddie E. Williams II on pencils and ink. Dave McCaig on colors.

The Story: Shilo Norman, disfigured and disabled, chases a bottle of pills with a bottle of beer to commit suicide, escaping from his hellish life. He relives a series of lives: His childhood practicing escape tricks. An idyllic suburban existence with a wife and daughter, with his policeman brother still alive and well. Living into his dotage, seeing his daughter assume his mantle. Joining Dina Bell (from Birds of Prey #12, 1999) as a U.S. Marshall instead of becoming a celebrity. Dying at the hands of Oracle (here called Aurakles), the Beyonder-type seer from Len Wein’s Seven Soldiers story in JLA #100.



Over and over through many deaths (or perhaps one life experienced severely out of chronological order), Norman conceives of Darkseid's Omega Sanction itself as sentient and offers to help it escape its own tormented cycle. His last vision is of himself as a child dealing with the “shackles” of survivor’s guilt in the wake of his brother’s death. Then the punch line: Norman is still inside the black hole he entered at the beginning of issue #1; the entire series has been a subconscious wrestling with his own inner demons. He finally frees himself from guilt, and the black hole spits him back out, a week after he entered it.



My Two Cents: Two previous Morrison stories come to mind. One is Resurrection Man #1,000,000 in which the titular hero is trapped in an endless cycle of instantaneous death and rebirth, doomed to never make any progress. The other is the death of Jean Grey in New x-Men, in which she hallucinates a distant, dystopian future populated by versions of all her friends and foresees Scott Summers’ need to let go of his attachment to her. Morrison will do something similar in a two-part Batman story in Final Crisis, recapitulating the character's whole history in isolated panels.



Shilo Norman is the latest of Grant Morrison’s characters to commit suicide by pill overdose. See also Wally Sage, the mom of the demon-child Xorn met in New X-Men's Monster Town, Buddy Baker (who didn’t go through with it), and the protagonist of The Filth.

At the time I read this comic and I remember that these panels struck me.


Really, how the heck in a Superhero universe do you distinguish some crazy person from an authentic superhero/villain/etc?!?! 

In our universe, if you put on a tights and decide to fight crime, you probably do not have all your marbles. There, it's a completely acceptable career choice....