DC Versus Marvel Omnibus Pt. 4: DC Special Series #27

Superman and Spider-Man made perfect sense as candidates for a DC/Marvel crossover. Both were the flagship characters of their respective publishers; not only the most popular, but something of signature characters, each representing elements common to their respective fictional universes. 

They also had similar elements in their backgrounds, like the fact that their secret identities both worked for big city newspapers, for example, that made them somewhat fun to compare and contrast.

Batman and The Incredible Hulk, on the other hand, were an odd pairing, not only a particularly unbalanced match-up physically, with Hulk being one of comics' most powerful characters while Batman didn't even have any superpowers, but seemingly having nothing in common with one another aside the first name "Bruce." 

So how was it that the two became the focus of the third DC/Marvel crossover, the first to not feature Superman and Spider-Man...?  

The answer is, apparently, quite simple: They were, according to Paul Levitz in his introduction to the DC Versus Marvel Omnibus, "perceived at the moment to be the next most familiar characters to the general public."

In other words, it was basically a popularity contest, with Batman and the Hulk both coming in second behind Superman and Spider-Man.

However it came about, it worked, a fact for which we can probably credit the book's creative team.

This one was a DC in-house production, being officially published in 1981's DC Special Series #27 in an over-sized, "treasury" format, the same larger size afforded to the two DC/Marvel crossovers that preceded it. 

DC's Julius Schwartz had apparently approached writer Len Wein to handle the script, a smart choice given that Wein had by that time written runs on both characters (In fact, in his introduction to the crossover, reprinted from the pages of 1991's Crossover Classics, Wein says that his two longest regular runs were on those particular characters, and he counts them as his favorite from each publisher).

As for the artist, DC chose the incomparable Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, an artist so good that, the following year, DC would have him draw their official style guides. He would be inked by Dick Giordano (who also served as editor on the book). Giordano had previously inked the initial Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man crossover five years earlier, a task he was chosen for because, in the words of Levitz, he was "regarded by both companies and most of his peers as the premier inker in the field."

Obviously the book would look good then, and, with Wein at the helm, the two lead characters should be accurately depicted and feel true to their past characterizations...however it was that Wein ultimately decided to bring them together.

Just as integral to these crossovers as the heroes and creators are, of course, the villains, and for a Batman foe, Wein chose the most obvious one, The Joker. As for a Hulk antagonist to feature, Wein went with a far less likely choice, The Shaper of Worlds, who first appeared in the pages of the Incredible Hulk in 1972. 

If you're wondering why Wein didn't choose a more popular Hulk villain, like The Abomination or The Leader, do note that both did in fact appear briefly in the proceedings; the Shaper's particular powers seem fairly integral to the plot, and his status as a godly cosmic being made him somewhat more compatible with The Joker...or, at least, their alliance made sense in this story, and it's not always easy to make sense of The Joker as a team player.

As with the previous crossover, the book opens with two parallel columns of text with black and white illustrations, here detailing the origins of the two Bruces (I thought it odd that a sentence of Batman's origin was devoted to his proficiency with disguises, saying "He devoted himself to the art of disguise, until he was virtually a human chameleon who could assume a thousand different faces--", but throughout the story Batman adopts several disguises). 

After the title page depicting the characters facing off, with the villains in the background and the title ("The Monster and the Madman") and credits below, the 64-page story officially began, opening with two bizarre scenes. 

In the first, a Gothamite is thinking cool thoughts to help himself fall asleep on a 90-degree summer night, only to awaken to find his apartment was now full of snow and his nightclothes replaced by the sweater, parka and boots he was previously wearing in his fantasy. (Look closely at his walls, and you'll see a Superman poster hanging on one, and a Captain America on the other; this story, like the first two DC/Marvel crossovers, apparently takes place in a shared world, rather than either of the respective universes, the borders of which have apparently not yet solidified.)

And then the scene shifts to a movie theater, where two young lovers are occupied by making out and completely ignoring the monster movie playing on the screen in front of them...only to disengage and find themselves surrounded by bizarre monsters.

It's an intriguing beginning, and one that will eventually be made clear to the reader, but not for some time.

Meanwhile, The Joker, wearing a purple overcoat and wide-brimmed hat over his classic ensemble, is gathered in a waterfront warehouse with his gang, negotiating with someone kept off-panel, the tails of the unseen character's dialogue bubbles terminating in darkness ("You must act quickly--the pain is growing unbearable!", the voice says and, later, "Go quickly, Joker--Time is running out!")

Though Wein and Garcia-Lopez play coy about who the voice belongs to, with one of Joker's men referring to the character as "that freak in the warehouse" once they're outside, a blurb on the cover has already spoiled readers to the fact that The Shaper of Worlds would be in this story, and the character is briefly depicted, if not named, on the title page.

A splash page then introduces us to "Dr. Robert Bruce Banner", working undercover doing grunt work at the Gotham branch of Wayne Research, where the scientists are working with an experimental gamma-gun, which Banner hopes can be his "ultimate salvation!" 

Though working under an assumed name and wearing a uniform shirt and security badge, that shirt is tucked into a pair of Banner's signature purple pants, so perhaps it's not the greatest disguise in the world.

Suddenly, everyone starts laughing uncontrollably, and the quick-witted Banner dons a radiation suit with its own air supply, curing him of the sudden urge to laugh himself. In strolls the Joker and his men, intent on stealing the gamma-gun, and Banner manages to sound an alarm before he's tackled and wrestled to the ground, violence which, of course, summons his worse half.

Hulk's emergence is followed two pages later by the arrival of Batman—a svelte, athletic, dynamic figure under Garcia-Lopez's pencil—and Joker is able to talk The Hulk into smashing Batman. "If anyone around here is your enemy, Hulk," Joker says pointing, "it's HIM!!"

That, of course, brings us to the The Two Heroes Fight One Another part of the crossover ritual. The Hulk vs. Batman should not be a very interesting fight, as Hulk could and should crush Batman the second he gets his big, green mitts on him. And, remember, this is the 1981 Batman, not the 2024 Batman; this is a version of the character that far predates the prepared for any eventuality, master-planner version of the character who seems to have always manage to pak his utility belt with whatever he'll need to take on any character he might have occasion to throw hands with, including some Kryptonite should he need to take on Superman.

Of course, the one-sidedness of the fight is exactly what makes it so fun, as Batman is clearly facing an opponent he can't overpower. It only lasts about four pages, but they are fairly panel-packed pages, with Batman's racing thoughts appearing in clouds above his head, narrating about just how much trouble he's in.

He dodges Hulk's assaults ("You are fast, Pointy-Ears-- --But Hulk is strong!"), throws a few useless punches as he searches for Hulk's non-existent weak spot and, after an exceedingly close call, ultimately resorts to sleeping gas from his utility belt, a surprise kick to Hulk's solar-plexus forcing the jade giant to breathe it in. That knocks him out...for a few moments, anyway.

As to why The Joker wanted the gamma-gun at all, it is because The Shaper of World requested it, thinking it could heal him, as he is currently losing his dream-absorbing powers, and his mind. The Shaper, a character I am meeting here for the first time, is a pretty weird character, especially for a Batman narrative. 

In appearance, he looks something like a giant vampire from the waist up, although some of his body parts seem mechanical. From the waist down, he's a big square of mechanical parts, perhaps meant to resemble the 1970s idea of a giant, high-tech super-computer...? 

He explains his powers, origins and current predicament in a three-page sequence; the gist of it is, he has the power to manipulate reality, but he personally lacks any form of imagination, and thus siphons off the dreams of others to power his creations (The weird fantasies that became realities at the beginning of the book? That was obviously his doing). Caught in a supernova, he found himself losing his ability to absorb dreams properly, and thus a way to guide his creation powers. He struck a bargain with The Joker—who has "a mind unique in all the universe!"—to help him, in exchange for...well, we'll find out.

The next attempt at a cure for The Shaper's condition is to kidnap The Hulk, who also possesses potentially healing gamma energy. The Joker's men eventually succeed, finding Banner working in a special lab on a boat three miles offshore of Gotham, a lab outfitted to him by Bruce Wayne, who is funding his search for a cure for The Hulk (Wayne has even lent Banner the aid of Alfred, who is present on the boat to help police Banner's temper and keep him from Hulk-ing out.)

Capturing Hulk and holding him are two different things though, and Hulk escapes, with The Joker eventually turning to Batman to help him track down the green goliath (Their teaming up here reminded me of the recent-ish miniseries Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo, and I wondered if its creator Marc Silvestri had read this crossover before...although Batman and The Joker have of course teamed-up on several other occasions, too). 

This leads to another, brief Batman/Hulk battle, one which the Dark Knight manages to survive but not win, before Batman and The Joker eventually resort to trickery to get The Hulk to return to The Shaper, this time with Batman at his side. 

On the way, The Shaper's out-of-control powers summon manifestations of the pair's villains, which appear to fight them for the space of two pages. It is here we see The Abomination and The Leader, as well as Marvel's The Rhino and Batman villains Two-Face, Scarecrow and...Killer Moth? Huh.

Anyway, this time The Shaper is able to absorb enough of Hulk's gamma radiation to restore his powers and mind, and to fulfill his bargain with the Joker. "Whatever The Joker now dreams," The Shaper intones, "I shall make live!"

That's right, The Joker gets the power to alter reality to suit his whims. "From this moment on--," he screams as his attire transforms into that of particularly fancy court jester, "I'm KING OF THE WORLD!!" (For a second time, I found myself thinking of much later comics and wondering if the writers were inspired by this one, in this case the Jeph Loeb and company Superman story arc from 2000, "Emperor Joker," wherein The Joker acquired near omnipotent reality-altering powers from Mr. Mxyzptlk.)

Though brief in terms of page-count, the sequence is a bravura one, allowing Garcia-Lopez to cut loose with some really fun artwork, as The Joker sails above our heroes on a magic carpet, turning them into clown versions of themselves. And then, responding to Batman's attempts to manipulate him, he gives the world an Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-inspired look, complete with "Tweedle-Bats" and "Tweedle-Hulk." Then there are a few pages of art-inspired transformations that homage Escher, Dali, surrealism and cubism, with a Batman and Hulk that look like they could blend into the crowd of characters in Guernica. 

Finally, Batman's goading the Joker on and on forces the madman into a brief enough fit of creator's block that Batman is able to punch him out.

"It is over," The Shaper declares, "The bargain has been fulfilled!" He then leaves Earth, The Joker and our heroes behind. Forever. (Or, perhaps, forever-ish, as I guess it's possible he met The Hulk in some future story I have never read.)

The Joker ends up in a straitjacket in a padded cell, and Batman tells Commissioner Gordon that he decided to let Banner go, to face his "living nightmare!"...which he will, but not in this or any other DC comic book. 

The final panel contains a little orange block containing the words "The End-- For Now!", which might have made 1981 readers hopeful that there might be a sequel, but this is the last time Batman and The Hulk would appear in the same story, at least until the '90s, when both would be players in the DC Versus Marvel miniseries (Although they, obviously, wouldn't be opponents in that series of inter-company match-ups).

Beautifully illustrated by Garcia-Lopez and Giordano, this book features what must be the Platonic ideal of Batman art, and I can only imagine how it must have blown minds all those decades ago, appearing on over-sized pages. (My favorite image is probably that on page 29, where Batman strokes his chin and thinks out loud, his other hand on his hip and his foot resting on the pile of criminals he has just knocked out...although those pages at the climax where the Joker is control of reality sure are something).

Their Hulk ain't too shabby looking either, although the Gotham setting and the appearances by Batman's supporting characters Alfred and Gordon make this read a bit more like a Batman comic book, or at least a Batman team-up, then it does a true DC/Marvel crossover (Hulk supporting characters General Ross and Doc Samson do appear as well, but only for a panel).

Overall, this is a pretty great comic, one that, perhaps, feels even greater given how random the very idea of a Batman/Hulk crossover feels...and must have felt at the time.

For the next DC/Marvel crossover, which would come the very next year, the publishers would choose two teams of heroes that seemed to have a lot in common in terms of make-up and their place in the comics market of the time.

Next: 1982's Marvel and DC Present Featuring the Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans #1

DC Versus Marvel Omnibus Part 1: All the non-comics content

I'm not a fan of the giant omnibus format. 

The inches-thick hardcovers are just too big, too heavy and too unwieldy. Those that I've handled before, both the ones I've bought and the ones I've seen at the library (where they tend to suffer a lot more damage than smaller comics collections and need repairs far more often), tend to make unwholesome sounding creaks if I hold them at the wrong angle or open them too wide, as if threatening to break on me. 

They're certainly hard to take with you anywhere, barely fitting in a messenger bag and threatening to bust out of it, so they aren't books that I can read on my lunch breaks, or when dining out alone at a restaurant. And even in the comfort of one's home they can be difficult to read, as one can only read them in certain positions.

If publishers must release giant omnibus format books, I would prefer they do so in paperback form, like the recent-ish Sandman Mystery Theater Compendium Vol. 1 that DC released last year. At 980 pages, it was of course still very big, very heavy and very unwieldly, but it was doable, and its basic integrity didn't seem threatened by its own weight or seem unstable like an old rickety, ramshackle house in a storm.

All that said, I do find myself occasionally attracted to the books that get published in the format and have even bought one: DC's 2022 Batman No Man's Land Omnibus Vol. 1, a thousand-pager collecting the many stories published under the "No Man's Land" banner. I only made it about 100 pages into it before giving up, though; it was just too hard to read. 

Despite my dislike of the format, I couldn't resist the DC Versus Marvel Omnibus, a huge hardcover collecting about half of the stories the two publishers have collaborated on over the years, with the other half relegated to a second volume, DC Versus Marvel: The Amalgam Age Omnibus, which looks like it's currently slated for a late December release (More on which publications are in which books below). 

While there's some historical significance for these rare-ish publications, and an awful lot of work by some of the greatest and best-known talents to work in mainstream comics among them, I've read remarkably few of them, partly because many were published before my time, partly because of my ambivalence about the Marvel characters (I didn't really read any Marvel until a good decade after I started reading comics, and never developed the sense of loyalty or ownership of their characters and universe that I felt for DC's) and partly because they were relatively hard to find. 

This then, offered a chance get them all in one fell swoop, even if it was awfully pricey for a single comic book. Still, I've been buying fewer and fewer comics in any format, I could afford it. (As long-time readers have surely noticed, I gave up on serially-published comics some years ago—with only very rare exceptions—and I now try to buy as few trades and collections as possible, given how quickly they can fill up my bookshelves, and my bookshelves then fill up my living space.)

Given the enormity of the book, which contains almost 20 over-sized comics stories and hundreds of pages of extras, it would simply be too big to review in a single "A Month of Wednesdays" blog post, or even in a single blog post devoted to the book alone.

So, as I mentioned the other day, my plan is to tackle the book crossover by crossover, and basically review my way through it. 

Before reading the first crossover story, though, I decided I should devote a post to all the...stuff in the book, given how much of it there actually is. So let's here take a look at all the stuff other than the comics content, before digging into the first of the crossovers. 

Let's start with the basic outline of the tome. 

The 960-page collection includes almost every DC/Marvel character crossover, from the classic 1976 Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man to the millennial Batman/Daredevil. That means that, in addition to those two stories, the omnibus includes (deep breath) Marvel Treasury Edition #28 (Superman and Spider-Man again), DC Special Series #27 (Batman vs. The Hulk), Marvel and DC Present: The Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans #1, Batman/Punisher: Lake of Fire #1 (featuring the Jean-Paul Valley version of Batman, weirdly enough), Punisher/Batman: Deadly Knights #1, Darkseid Vs. Galactus: The Hunger #1, Spider-Man and Batman #1, Green Lantern/Silver Surfer: Unholy Alliances #1, Silver Surfer/Superman #1, Batman/Captain America #1, Daredevil/Batman #1, Batman/Spider-Man #1, Superman/Fantastic Four #1 and Incredible Hulk Vs. Superman #1. 

So, what's missing? 

Well, most obviously given the title of this cinder block of a collection is 1996's four-issue miniseries DC Vs. Marvel. That's slated to be collected in the upcoming DC Vs. Marvel: The Amalgam Age Omnibus, along with all of the Amalgam one-shots, and the two sequel miniseries, DC/Marvel All Access and Unlimited Access. This makes sense, given that the Amalgam comics, each of which featured brand-new heroes that combined DC and Marvel characters, resulted from the events of the DC Vs. Marvel series, as at one point during the proceedings the two fictional universes are fused into a new combined universe.

Also missing is 2003's JLA/Avengers, which is not slated for inclusion in the Amalgam Age Omnibus. It's a curious, and quite unfortunate, omission, as that four-issue crossover series by Kurt Busiek and George Perez is the best of the DC/Marvel crossovers (at least of those that I've read) and one of the better inter-company crossovers of all time. 

It's also, one imagines, the single crossover that would be of the greatest interest to the largest number of readers, given not only its quality and the reputation of its creators, but also the current high profile of the two teams, particularly the Avengers, who weren't exactly the household name they are now 20 years ago.

JLA/Avengers was first collected in a 2004 hardcover set, and then again in 2008 as a trade paperback. An extremely limited edition was released in 2022 to help the now late Perez with his medical bills, and demand then was quite high, which made me assume it would be collected herein. Perhaps if these two omnibuses sell well enough DC and Marvel will see fit to also re-release JLA/Avengers. 

As for this collection, it actually starts out with some Perez art, as the cover is a Perez piece referencing the first couple of DC/Marvel crossovers, repurposed from the 1991 Crossover Classics collection. (If you bought or buy the omnibus through the direct market though, you also have the opportunity to choose a variant cover edition featuring a new image by Jim Lee and Scott Williams; it's not the greatest work from Lee, and, compositionally at least, is nowhere near as strong or dynamic an image as the Perez cover, but, given Lee's early years as a superstar artist at Marvel followed by a career as an executive at DC, he's probably one of the best choices to produce a cover for a book like this.)

Given just how many pages of comics content there are in this book, it might be surprising that the publishers found room for other miscellanea to include, but there are several introductions and forewords, two afterwords and plenty of backmatter.

First here's a brand-new introduction from Paul Levitz dated February of this year. Levitz notes that he was "in the room where it happened" when it came to that first Superman/Spider-Man crossover that was the very first collaboration between the two publishers, which for a majority of their history were among the most bitter rivals in the industry. 

Levitz was, at that time, an assistant editor to DC editor to Gerry Conway, who was chosen by the executives to write the crossover, as he was, at the time, the only person to have written both characters. The art team was similarly chosen to best represent the two publishers and their respective flagship characters: Pencil artist Ross Andru was the only artist to have drawn both characters and was then working as Spidey's primary artist, and inker Dick Giordano was chosen because he was widely regarded as the best inker in the business.

Levitz would go on to be involved in the next round of inter-company crossovers: The next Superman/Spider-Man crossover, that of Batman and The Hulk, and that of the X-Men and Teen Titans, after which things fell apart, and the publishers wouldn't see fit to try again for another decade or so (That decade, of course, was the '90s, the decade in which the vast majority of the stories in this collection were published).

Levitz's introduction is followed by not one, not two, but three forewords, each of which was previously published in the previously mentioned Crossover Classics collection. These are by Conway, Giordano and Tom DeFalco, and all focus on that initial Supes/Spidey book. 

The next prose piece, also culled from the pages of Crossover Classics, is by Marv Wolfman, and details how he almost wrote the second Supes/Spidery crossover (Instead, Jim Shooter would get the honor, though the comic's credits include a notation reading "Special thanks to Marv Wolfman for plot suggestions.") He also mentions being pegged to write the second X-Men/Teen Titans crossover...a crossover that never actually came to pass. 

That's followed by two story-specific introductions from Crossover Classics, one by Batman/Hulk writer Len Wein and another by X-Men/Teen Titans writer Chris Claremont. 

About 300 pages in we get another prose piece original to this volume, this one from long-time Marvel and DC editor Mike Carlin, dated March 2024. In it, he discusses the resumption of DC/Marvel crossovers with 1994's Batman/Punisher: Lake of Fire #1. This comic, and the dozen or so crossovers that followed, resulted from, as Carlin explains, a new generation of writers and editors coming in at both publishers, ending the "cold war" between Marvel and DC (And it helped that these newcomers were all comics fans turned comics pros, and thus had an entirely different attitude about the characters than their predecessors). He also seems to intimate that a new cold war began in the early years of the century (with JLA/Avengers being the sole exception of new DC/Marvel collaborations), seemingly because "some new players would join the mix in the early 2000s."

After the last pages of 2000's Batman/Daredevil: King of New York #1, we get a pair of afterwords, both written specifically for this collection.

The first is from writer Ron Marz, who is quite familiar with the intercompany crossover, having written the DC Vs. Marvel miniseries, as well as Green Lantern/Silver Surfer (and several DC/Dark Horse crossovers). He cites one of the crossovers collected in this book as having reignited his passion for the medium when he was a teenager and had drifted away from super-comics: Claremont and Walt Simonson's X-Men/Teen Titans book, which he reveals he still keeps a copy of in his desk to pull out and flip through whenever he feels the need for inspiration.

That's followed by a very interesting piece by Tom Brevoort, who reveals the original idea for the Superman/Spider-Man team-up was not for a comic book at all, but for a movie. That was the idea of David Obst, the literary agent that kickstarted the first DC/Marvel crossover, anyway. (The idea of such a film sounds pretty insane to even imagine in 1976, two years before the first Superman movie and 26 years before the first Spider-Man movie. Even today, in the years after characters as unlikely as Ant-Man, Aquaman, The Guardians of The Galaxy and Blue Beetle III have all had a movie or two or three, the idea of a DC/Marvel crossover movie still seems so unlikely as to sound crazy.)

Brevoort also discusses a few tidbits about that original Superman/Spider-Man crossover, like the fact that Neal Adams and John Romita Sr. did some uncredited touching up of the art, and the mathematic specificity that went into the story, with each hero appearing in the exact same number of panels and being drawn at the same size in aggregate (If Superman appeared in the foreground and Spider-Man in the distant background of one panel, for example, there would be another panel where Supes was in the background and Spidey foregrounded).

And if you're beginning to think that this sounds like an awful lot of bonus material for a book that pretty much sells itself, wait—there's more!

There's Conway's nine-page story outline for the original Superman/Spider-Man crossover, about 100 pages of art (much of it in black and white) with notes from many of the creators who worked on the pages (Darryl Banks, J.M. DeMatteis, Barry Kitson, Ron Lim, Ron Marz, Roger Stern), the covers from the four Crossover Classic collections (pencilled by Perez, John Romita Jr., Salvador Larroca and Ed McGuinness), Alex Ross' homage to Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man (from a 1999 issue of Wizard Magazine), a fold-out of Dan Jurgens' and Ross' cover to Superman/Fantastic Four, a fold-out by John Byrne and Terry Austin promoting DC Vs. Marvel (which also adorns the cover of the collection, under the book jacket), a few pages of house ads promoting the various crossovers and, in the edition I got anyway, a fold-out of Jim Lee's variant cover for the omnibus, full-color on one side and black and white on the other.

It's an awful lot of stuff, without even accounting for the comics stories themselves. As much as it is, it's welcome. This is, after all, a book selling for over a $100—it's labeled for $150, though I didn't pay that much for my copy—so it's nice to see the publishers seemingly doing as much as they can to make it worth that high price. 

Now, with all that out of the way, I guess I'm ready to start actually reading the comics themselves, huh?

Next: 1976's Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man #1

"The traditional methods"...?

It was my understanding from every zombie movie I've ever seen and every zombie comic I've ever read that the way to kill a zombie was to destroy or severely damage its brain, usually by shooting or somehow smashing its head. Not so, according to The Shade in this week's Swamp Thing #2 by Len Wein and Kelley Jones. Filling a zombie's mouth with salt and then sewing it tightly shut sounds infinitely harder, even if we're talking about the slow, shambling zombies of Romero's movies or The Walking Dead, rather than the "fast" zombies of more modern movies.

I mean, I've never held a firearm, nor am I an expert in hand-to-hand combat or anything, but I'm pretty confident I could pull a trigger or swing a baseball bat or shovel in the general direction of a walking corpse's head. But sewing...? I mean, I can barely thread a needle, and I always forget how to tie off the other end once you're done stitching. Think how hard surviving the zombie apocalypse would be if The Shade is right!

Also, think how boring all those movies, TV shows and videogames premised on the killing of zombies would be...

2013: The Year DC Comics Officially Becomes Parody-Proof

The other night I was enjoying Kelly Thompson's always-enjoyable "Drunk Cover Solicits in Three Sentences or Less", focusing on DC's solicitations for February of this year, and I noticed she pulled out the above gem.

It is, of course, the cover for Before Watchmen: Dollar Bill #1 (Apparently those Before Watchmen comics are selling well enough that they're going to keep making them, and giving every character named in the original their own comic at some point; Bubastis and Seymour should get their own one-shots before the Fall quarter).

It reminded me of this post Tom Spurgeon wrote in 2010, back when rumors of a Watchmen expansion project involving Darwyn Cooke started circulating, a joke proposal for a four-issue miniseries entitled Dollar Bill: Bank On It.

Weird how what was simply someone making fun of a ridiculous project for a serious publisher to even consider—by suggesting the most ridiculous direction possible—is, a few short years later, a serious reality.

Sadly, it looks like DC passed Spurgeon over in favor for Len Wein. Sadder still? An artist of Steve Rude's caliber is apparently so desperate for work that he has to sully his reputation by working on the most unsavory publishing initiative the Big Two have embarked upon in pretty much ever.

That's odd.

It doesn't look like Red Tornado's happy to see them all again.



(Panel from DC Comics' Justice League of America #35, written by Len Win, penciled by Tom Derenick and inked by one of the four different inkers to work on the book).

Satellite Era Spotlight: Justice League of America Annual #1

Justice League of America Annual #1 (1983), by Paul Levitz, Len Wein, Rick Hoberg and Dick Giordano

Twenty-two thousand and three hundred miles above the Earth, a handful of Justice Leaguers are in pitched battle against massive, armored aliens that seem to each be as powerful as Superman. While Ralph "Elongated Man" Dibny struggles to hold one, it's fist punches a hole in the JLA Satellite's plasteel walls, and



But it turns out it was all just a dream!



Whew.

Hmm, and it turns out I was wrong about Ralph’s favorite ice cream. But who could have guessed guacamole ice cream? I didn't even know such a thing existed...

Sue offers to talk about his nightmare with him, but Ralph laughs it off and she rolls over to go back to sleep. He stares out his bedroom window, thinking dark thoughts, and worrying that maybe some day someone will get hurt because of his choice to become The Elongated Man. Ha! Like that would ever happen!

Then we cut to...





Hey, when the credit box on the first page referred to Wein as "wordsmith," it wasn't kidding! Man, this is some nice narration. It almost sounds like a poem...

Elsewhere, in a room
Without number
In a place
Without name
A shadowy figure sits before a
Massive Materioptikon
His gloved fingers flying across
The control board as if playing
Some perverted calliope
But his is not a happy song

But who is this shadowy figure? Hobbers' panels slowly tease out his idenity. Why, it's...



...Skeletor!



Alright, alright, Doctor Destiny.

Special guest star Commissioner Gordon notices that Destiny escaped from his cell at Arkham Asylum, leaving an illusion of himself in his cot. Gordon can't reach Batman, who is busy invading Markovia in the pages of the then-just launched Batman and The Outsiders (The Showcase Presents volume of which is totally worth $16.99). So Gordon turns to the League, apparently inviting them all down to his kitchen for a meeting.



No, I guess that's actually the Justice League's meeting room. Hoberg just draws it like a kitchen. Anyway, after Gordon tells them about Destiny, the League decides that they'll split up into teams to search for the villain.

Firestorm, The Atom, Hawkman and Hawkgirl head to a psych-lab at Ivy University, using a Thanagarian cerebrumeter to follow a trail of unusually high concentrated delta-waves.

Using his molecular restructuring powes, Firestorm creates a revolving door in the wall of the building, and a mustachioed scientist immediately shows off his deductive skills:



“Sorry, I didn’t recognize you at first. The hawk-shaped helmet, the giant hawk-wings and the symbol of a hawk on your chest confused me. I thought you might be Batman and Batwoman.”

Destiny's not there, but when he sees that the League is, he uses the Materioptikon to summon green monsters from the dreams of slumbering test subjects to attack his foes.


What, you didn’t believe me this was from 1983?

Fresh out of quips with short shelf-lives, Firestorm manages to awaken the students whose dreams are generating their foes, thus ending the battle.

The Leaguers then show off what good teammates they all are, by all speaking one fourth of the same sentence



Now that's teamwork!

Meanwhile, the all-blonde squad of Aquaman, Black Canary and Green Arrow journey to a Greenwich Village art fair, because several of the artists participating have disappeared.



Note that when alone, the nearest civilians a good twenty feet away, these three Leaguers, all of whom know each other’s secret identities, even the two of them who are living together, don’ use their eal names. Even their nicknames are based on their codenames: "Arrow," "Archer," "Pretty Bird."

Now, one of ex-Justice League of America writer Brad Metlzer’s most obvious and annoying affectations was to always have the heroes calling each other by their first name, whether or not the character's knew each other's real names, or if there were villians around, or if they were out in public, or if no one reading the damn comic knew the characters' first names (See "The Lightning Saga;" surely fewer readers are on a first-name basis with the fantasy Legion of Super-Heroes that Meltzer and Geoff Johns created for the story than people reading the book, right?)

But what's the source of Meltzer's weird habit? Obviously the so-called Satellite Era has had a huge influence on Meltzer; these are the characters he likes most, the stories he references the most and all of the mistakes and continuity gaffes he made tended to come about from him trying to honor this Pre-Crisis (on Infinite Earths) continuity rather than the Post-Crisis continuity (It could even be argued that the sole reason DC rejiggered their continuity in Infinite Crisis was to realign it with Meltzer's vision of how it should be).

But here we have a Satellite Era comic, and the characters aren't calling each other Ollie and Arthur and Dinah.

Back to the story, the Blonde Batallion's investigation goes a lot like that of Firestorm's team. Destiny's not there but he's watching, and uses the Materioptikon to summon something for them to fight, which they do.

Meanwhile, Wonder Woman and The Flash race to Gotham City to search for Destiny, where they meet a surprise guest star...



Aw, come on, Wonder Woman! I was just complimenting you guys on your restraint and discretion regarding your real names, and there you are blurting John’s full name out in public!

(Actually, does John have a secret identity? I remember he made a big deal about not wanting to wear a mask, so maybe he's always been out? Short of one issue in the GL/GA trades, the one in which he first gets his power ring, this is the earliest story featuring him I’ve read, I think.)

Now, why is Flash so unhappy to see him? Why does Barry Allen hate black people?

John makes with some exposition (and refers to his costume as "cockamamie") before conjuring up a gigantic, glowing, green blood hound to sniff out delta-wave radiation.



Is the dog just for show, and the ring's detecting the delta waves? Or did GL use the ring to create a delta-wave detector and put it in the dog's nose or...?

Anyway, I like the fact that Wonder Woman's all, "This should get us upstairs unnoticed," and then they float up the shaft in a glowing green bubble attached to a giant, glowing green blood hound.

Anyway, you know what happens by this point, right? Destiny's not there, but he's watching, summons some dream foes for the Leaguer to fight, and they fight them off.

Meanwhile, Zatanna uses her magic to find Doctor Destiny, thus proving the last 20 pages or so a huge waste of everyone's time. First she and the League leftovers of Elongated Man and Red Tornado magic to the dream realm for their own version of the same scene we've already seen three times.

Then she summons the League, and they splash page their way forward.



I really like the top half of this panel, and the way all the fliers have their own flying style. Particularly John. He really looks like he’s being propelled through the sky by a force, instead of adopthing the gegneric Superman flying pose, and in fact, he isn’t really posing at all, just flying. Heck, that’s how I’d fly if I could fly. Good job, Hoberg!

And where are they splash-paging off, too? Why, to this familiar setting:



Oh wow, no way! It's the Kirby-created Sandman! The one that came long after Wesley Dodds, but long before Morpheus of The Endless! I honestly did not see that coming. With The Sandman and hsi servants Brute and Glob captured, Destiny controls the realm and all the nightmares and dream monsters within it, which he sics on the League.

They beat back the bad guys, however, and are closing in on their nemesis, when he decides to fight dirty, and thorw sand in their eyes



And not just any sand, but "The Sandman's somnolent sand," which puts them asleep. Ralph's the last one to go down, but he's able to stretch a finger to the eject button on The Sandman's tube, shooting him into the Dream-Stream. Doctor Destiny's all like, "Ha, who cares if I lose The Sandman; I've got the whole Justice League!" So he puts them all in glass collector's cases and gloats.

The Sandman uses his newfound freedom to journey to Earth and wake up a napping Clark Kent, who ripss off his suit to become Superman, and, in short order, they're in the Dream Dimension, kicking ass and opening glass cases:



With Destiny successfully defied, the League and their new ally retire to the Satellite for a post-mortem of the adventure. And then Firestorm pops the question:



Now, I'm sure it didn't occur to Levitz and Wein when they were writing this scene, and it may not even look like it now at first glance, but this is actually a momentous moment in comics history right here. The JLA is asking The Sandman to join their team here and, no exaggeration, which way Levitz and Wein decide to have him answer this question would have had a gigantic impact on the medium's creative and commercial growth.

To back up for a second, I should note there’s no real reason for The Sandman to say no here. He fits in perfectly well, even more so than Elongated Man or Firestorm or Red Tornado, in terms of Justice League worthiness. He's an iconic character and household name kind of hero of hero (Like Uncle Sam, he's a DC-owned superhero whose name alone makes him as familiar as Batman or Superman, even if he's not as popular as a comic book character).

While he's not Kirby's most inspired creation, not even his most inspired DC creation, he's not a bad character. Hes costume's decent and seems to fit in among the rest of the Leaguers, his powers are interesting and unique and, like the vast majority of the heroes on the League at the time, he works far better on a tea than he would alone. His book didn't last very long, but, like Elongated Man or Green Arrow or Zatanna or Red Tornado, eve if he couldn't support a book of his own, he could certainly help support a team book.

Long sory short, Levitz and Wein could have easily made him say yes and join the Justice League.

Now, imagine if he did. Imagine if he becomes a character like Elongated Man, Red Tornado, Firestorm or Zatanna, a member of the League's B-team who is forever associated with the team. That means he’s not in limbo and half-forgotten for the remainder of the '80s, and then, come 1989, maybe he’s joining on the JLI instead of lending his name and an element or two to Neil Gaiman’s dramatic reimagining of him in The Sandman.

Then what? Hard to say for sure, but, at the very least, there's no Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, one of, if not the, best American comic books produced (I once read an article that that said it wasn't just one of the best comics of the latter half of the 20th century, but it was one of the best works of fiction of that period, and I’m inclined to agree).

But the quality of Gaiman's Sandman series aside, it undoubtedly had a huge impact on our pop culture, and a hard to over-estimate one on comics.

Without The Sandman, what would become of Neil Gaiman’s career? Would he have simply taken over Swamp Thing after Alan Moore left? Would he have turned Books of Magic or Black Orchid into a sufficeintly Big Thing to replace The Sandman? Does he find success elsewhere?

What about all the superstar artists that came out of iThe Sandman, finding much bigger and more appreciative audiences than they had before working on it?

What about Vertigo, foundation of which was certainly laid by Moore, Grant Morrison and others, but the spine of which has long been Gaiman's little Sandman universe. It was his Death The High Cost of Living that was the first official Vertigo book. WithoutThe Sandman, is there a Vertigo? (At the very least, there wouldn't be that or the Death book and other Endless and Dreaming related spin-offs, and probably not Sandman Mystery Theater or The Books of Magic or Lucifer and all those The Sandman Presents books.

Without Vertigo, think of all the creators who might not have found their way into U.S. pop comics, or at least not in the same way or at the same level of popularity that they ultimately did—Morrison, Peter Milligan, Garth Ennis, Mark Millar...

Without The Sandman and Vertigo, does the graphic novel revolution ever get here? Does it just come a little bit later, or does it take a different form entirely? Is it pushed along by manga, and Western companies are rushing to reach this new bookstore audience at the beginning of the aughts?

Talk about a nightmare world! A world where The Sandman joined the Justice League is a world where The Sandman was never published, a world where Vertigo may never have existed, where graphic novels never became the prominent format ath athey are now and AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!



Whew! It was all just a dream. The Kirby Sandman turned the offer of Justice League membership down, and thus entered limbo to be transformed into Gaiman's Sandman at the end of the decade.

It’s a good thing that when The Sandman said that his condition of only being able to leave the Dream-Dimension for an hour at a time would make joining the team impractical, nobody was like, "Oh, that's cool. Aquaman had the same problem with being out of water, and he founded the team, and has been with us for years now."