On 2002 Elseworlds series JLA: Destiny

1.) I'm not entirely sure how I missed it, but I blame the covers. JLA:Destiny was a four-issue, prestige-format Elseworlds Justice League comic by writer John Arcudi and artist Tom Mandrake that was published in 2002. I did not read it, nor do I remember even being aware of it, back then.

I find this odd for a few reasons.

First, in 2002 I was living in Columbus and visiting The Laughing Ogre religiously each Wednesday, where I looked over the new rack in its entirety, even though I generally already knew what I wanted that would be out on any given week, given the fact that I made a habit of reading the solicitations when they were released each month. I also read Previews on a weekly basis and the comics news sites on a daily basis, and this was when those sites were almost entirely focused on comics to the exclusion of all the other forms of entertainment that now confuse their coverage.

Second, I was a JLA fan. While I didn't read every Elseworlds special with the team's name in the title, I generally at least took notice of any JLA comics' existence. For frame of reference, 2002 was when Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke took over the title from Mark Waid, so while the title was far-ish away from its heights under Grant Morrison, Howard Porter and company, it was still a good two years away from becoming an anthology title, during which time each and every arc read a little like an Elseworlds story, they were all so unmoored from continuity.

Third, I was a Tom Mandrake fan. As I mentioned in the previous post, I had admired Mandrake's art ever since I first encountered it in a 1990 issue of  DC/TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and my esteem for him had only grown after reading he and John Ostrander's excellent The Spectre and, even more in my wheelhouse, JLA spin-off Martian Manhunter, which this series almost immediately followed. 

So a Tom Mandrake-drawn JLA series certainly seems like something I would have wanted to read in 2002 but, like I said, I don't remember even noticing it at the time. 

What can account for this? I don't know, but I'm going to blame the covers. 

That of the first issue is above, here are those for the rest of the series:

As you can see, there is a pretty uniform sense of design to them all: A close-up image of a character's face in a heavily shadowed, background-less space, with an extremely limited color palette. They are striking images, and would have, one imagines, stood out sharply from many of the other superhero comics they would have been sharing shelf space with on the weeks of their release. 

What they don't look like, at all, of course, are JLA covers. None features more than a single character on them, which means one can't tell by looking at them that they are essentially about a team of superheroes, and none save the last features a member of a familiar version of the Justice League, although, because of how stylized the image is, you might not even recognize that as a close-up of Green Lantern Guy Gardner, his ring lighting the Black Mercy flower attached to his chest.

I like each cover well enough individually, but it's not hard to see how poorly they convey the fact that they are JLA comics. If they ever collect the series, and I find it unlikely that they will unless it appears in an Elseworlds: Justice League collection,  one hopes they'll commission a new cover showing either the book's Justice League posing, or engaged in battle with the other team of super-people they spend most of the book fighting.  

2.) There are basically two kinds of Elseworlds stories, and this one is something of a blend of both. The best Elseworlds comics tend to change one thing in a familiar story, and then follow that line of thinking to wherever it leads, crafting a compelling story in the process. This might be, for example, that the rocket that sent Kal-El to Earth was found not by Jon and Martha Kent, but instead by Thomas and Martha Wayne, or that Bruce Wayne was chosen to be Earth's Green Lantern instead of Hal Jordan. Often times it may be a simple change of setting, putting Batman in, say, cowboy times or on a pirate ship, for example.

The other kind generally just scramble things at random; they may still have a premise that boils down into a pithy pitch, but the many changes to the milieu and the characters have more to do with the general preferences of the creators than the nature of the Elseworlds story. These can be fun, even great, but are also sometimes confused, and their quality relies much more on their execution than on the strength of the concept. (Think, for example, Kingdom Come, or the Dark Knight sequels, or Sean Murphy's Batman comics).

There's an easily articulatable, "What If...?" style premise behind Destiny, and its the one that appears on the back cover. The first two lines seem to be the starting point for the plotline, but here's the whole thing: 

A world without Superman. 

A world without Batman.

A world where their absence has had as great an impact as their existences has had in this reality.

A world where the super-criminals are less afraid, more confident, better organized, and more focused.

A contentious, frightening world, where global terrorism masquerades as super-politics.

A world that desperately needs a Justice League of its own.

Or does it? 

Some of what makes the setting of Destiny unique follows from that removal of Superman and Batman from the DC Universe, but much of it just seems scrambled at random. 

For example, Arcudi first has to remove them from the proceedings. This he does by having Jor-El testing the escape rocket himself when Krypton explodes, and, with his wife and infant son thus killed, he takes it to Earth himself. And as for getting rid of Batman, here the mugger murders Martha and Bruce, but Thomas Wayne survives.

Superman and Batman's dads have a great deal of influence over the world of superheroes and the story told in Destiny, but how does the world change without Superman and Batman?

Some characters are completely unchanged, like Wonder Woman and The Flash Wally West (although they dress differently). Some changes follow, like, perhaps, that the alien J'onn J'onnz decides to pose as a human superhero rather than coming out as an alien, perhaps because he doesn't have the example of the alien Superman to follow. Others don't, like Aquaman being a heroin addict working for a foreign leader against the interests of the U.S. 

Much of the state of this world seems to be the way that it is because that's the way Arcudi wants it, though. There is a swathe of minor Golden Age character reintroduced as modern age characters, which I can't really see Superman or Batman having otherwise somehow prevented, and something of a divide between the super-powered and the non-powered  heroes but, again, it's somewhat foggy as to how that follows the absence of the World's Finest. 

3.) There are some pretty interesting characters chosen to appear in this story. These include new versions of Midnight, a Golden Age Spirit pastiche created by Jack Cole, reimagined as a paramilitary type with, at least in flashback, a costume that seems to blend those of Batman and Judge Dredd and to have an "M" and skull motif (that's him on the cover of the first issue, and to the right of the above image); The Clock, who Wikipedia says is the first masked crime-fighter to appear in American comics, but here somewhat resembles Deadshot; Mr. Scarlet, the Golden Age Fawcett hero reimagined as a monstrous-looking magician of some sort; Manhunter, the Paul Kirk version in the costume familiar from the Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson comic; Nightshade, the Silver Age Charlton character, here a retired vigilante plagued with apocalyptic visions of the future; Widow, a black warrior woman wearing a fishnet and W-theme, with a huge-ass axe; The Human Bomb, the Golden Age Freedom Fighter who here uses his ability to detonate himself as an incredibly effective terrorist targeting the United States; and Captain Thunder, a black version of Captain Marvel.

Many of these are extremely minor character who have little or nothing to do with the proceedings of the comic itself, but simply fill up the ranks of the super-teams involved. Some don't even have lines, or appear only in brief flashbacks. Still, it's noteworthy to see any attempt at using, say, Midnight or The Clock, who are otherwise mostly just waiting around in the dustier corners of DC's character catalog, waiting for some writer somewhere to remember them. 

4.) This is the story. After his wife and young son are killed in a mugging gone wrong, Thomas Wayne devotes his wealth to the creation of The Justice League of Gotham, which here consists Midnight, The Clock, Nightshade, Mr. Scarlet and Manhunter. After they all but eradicate all crime in Gotham, Wayne realizes the world might benefit from such a team, and he thus creates the Justice League of America which, in the present, includes Midnight, Widow, Marksman, Captain Thunder, Wonder Woman, Triumph, The Flash and The Unknown (the last of whom isn't around long; he seems to bear more in common with The Spectre than Neon The Unknown, but lacks the former's omnipotent powers).

This Justice League is most concerned with the constant attacks by launched from the rogue Middle Eastern state of Kamburu, and it's mysterious shadow leader Khouriga Edjem. In addition to The Human Bomb, Edjem's agents include super-people Black Adam (here a robot built by Dr. Sivana, as is mentioned in passing), Kondor, Aqualord, Wildfire and the vaguely Norse mythological figures, the  Thor-like Thane and a pair of trolls. 

The League has an edge in their battles against this anti-league from former Nightshade's psychically-derived intel, which warns them ahead of time of various attacks. 

Meanwhile, "Lex Luthor", seen in his older, fatter version and here sporting a white beard, giving him a Santa-like appearance, apparently had some sort of change of heart during a terrible accident that badly scarred him. No longer the amoral weapons-developer he once was, he devotes his time and genius to creating inventions of benefit to all mankind....and has his work funded by Wayne. As it turns out, he is not the real Luthor at all, but Jor-El, who gave the real Luthor access to his rocket and knowledge of space travel to get rid of him, and took his place on Earth.

It is this move that inadvertently created "Edjem," however, as the space conqueror Mongul encountered Luthor in space, and then targeted his home world, where he attempted to take over in a, for him, new and novel way, transforming a poor, desert country into a paradise of sort, and then engaging in geo-politics and international terrorism as part of a long-term plan to conquer the world. Wheat harvests are involved, as is the goddam Black Mercy, an Alan Moore invention that DC writer simply can't stop revisiting. 

There are multiple superhero fights and a few out-of-left field revelations, but ultimately Edjem/Mongul is defeated, and Jor-El takes him off into space, to apply super-capital punishment. 

It's fine, but I found myself far more interested in seeing panel-time given to the minor characters than to the pursuits of Batman and Superman's dads. I think Destiny's greatest point of interest today is probably as an early attempt to reckon with real-world terrorism like that of 9/11 in a superhero universe. 

5.) Some of the costume designs are kind of neat.  I already mentioned the Midnight redesign and that of The Clock and Widow, the latter of whom Wikipedia insists is a new version of the Golden Age character Spider Widow, a Quality Comics character that technically belongs to DC now (That's her above, on the right).

Wonder Woman's costume is of note in that it presages later redesigns for the character. She wears the same red and gold bustier with a W-shape that she usually does, but rather than star-spangled shorts or panties she sports a black pair of tights. She also has long black sleeves under her wristbands, so that it looks like she's wearing a black body-suit under her bustier. 

With the long sleeves, it rather resembles the costume worn by current Wonder Girl Yara Flor in some respects, and it also pre-figured Wonder Woman's brief, New 52 flirtation with black pants. 

For some reason, she doesn't have her lasso in the story. 

The Flash is generally drawn in movement, so that more often than not he appears on the page as multiple images flowing into one another, the character having an almost liquid quality. It's interesting that Mandrake gives Wally his own Flash costume, rather than having him inherit Barry's. Rather than a cowl covering his head, his hair is exposed, and he has a Cyclops-like visor.

I like Captain Thunder's costume okay. It's not as strong as the original Captain Marvel costume, a classic it's hard to compete against, but it's less busy and complicated-looking than the current Captain Marvel Shazam costume. 

I also rather liked Green Lantern's costume, which has a Frank Miller-like quality to it, in how stripped-down to the essentials it is. It's basically just a black body stocking with a huge Green Lantern symbol on it. That's The Clock next to him above, by the way.

The short career of Pagan, the feminism-themed Gotham vigilante

Von Eeden/Giordano

Every once in a while I'll remember the character Pagan, and wonder what some of the more vocal members of the modern, extremely-online comics readership would have made of this character had she debuted in, say, 2005 or 2019 instead of way back in 1992. 

Pagan was on the many, many original creations of long-time Batman writer Alan Grant, although she is one those many creations that never caught on with other writers (along with the likes of Joe Potato, Wilde Chancer), unlike the handful of Grant creations who became mainstays in Batman comics (Mister Zsasz, Scarface and The Ventriloquist, Anarky). 

A brutal vigilante who played too rough for Batman's taste, Pagan's "theme" was essentially a cartoonish version of feminism. Not only did she dress like a female gladiator and wear the symbol for woman over her left eye, but she would spout dialogue like "Very clever--for a man!" and, after he introduction, seemed to devote herself to the protection of the women of Gotham City from being preyed on by men.

You can see why she's an interesting comic book figure to consider in the twenty-first century, given how much superhero comics have become more welcoming to female readers, the backlash against it from certain, terrible but vocal corners of the fandom and, of course, the way the comics industry itself and certain terrible creators have targeted and victimized women in a variety of ways.

So, like I said, I often wonder how the character would be received today, and if Alan Grant and artist and co-creator Tom Mandrake might have presented her were they introducing her twenty years later, or if they even would have created such a character in the 21st century.

There are certainly aspects of the character that seem potentially problematic—including her origin, which is a sort of "fridging" with a twist—perhaps foremost among them being the fact that she was, of course, the creation of men who appeared in a comic targeted towards teenaged boys, and thus her brand of radical, ultraviolent feminism has more than a touch of the cartoonish about it.

Of course, this was at a time when Batman was presented as, if not exactly a pacifist, not nearly as violent as he would later be depicted, and was as adamant that vigilantes use minimum force as he was that other superheroes stay out of Gotham (Batman's main issue with The Huntress at the time, you may recall, was that she was too rough on criminals).

Pagan made her first appearance in Batman #479, late in Grant's run on the title. His long-time collaborator Norm Breyfogle had recently left the title, and, after a two-part fill-in by writer John Wagner, Grant would do just two more issues before the title was turned over to writer Doug Moench for a few more issues, before the build-up to the "Knightfall" saga began (Grant would leave Batman, but not Batman, launching his own, new title Batman: Shadow of The Bat with Breyfogle).

This issue, then, was the penultimate one of his Batman run, and was pencilled and inked by artist Tom Mandrake, with Adrienne Roy providing colors. Let's read it together, shall we...? (If you don't have a copy of your own, it's being collected in Batman: The Caped Crusader Vol. 6, scheduled for a February release; you can come back to this post then, if you like. It will still be here waiting for you. Promise.)

Mandrake

COVER: There are a couple of interesting notes about the cover. It depicts the new character Pagan at its center, but Batman's still present in the form of his instantly identifiable shadow, falling across the new character, whose response to it shows that they appear to be in a somewhat adversarial relationship.

It's a pretty nice drawing. I've been a fan of Mandrake's since I first saw his work in the pages of 1990's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #23, a fill-in issue on the series his wife was working on (and the first comic book series I read regularly), and I liked seeing him drawing superheroes. His depiction of Batman was pretty great, working within the design so perfected by Breyfogle, where the character was at once at thoroughly human-looking figure form the neck down, but with an incredibly expressive, almost alive-looking cape and cowl attached to him, through which he seemed to channel a more fantastical visual appearance (a taste of that is evident in the shadow on the cover, where you see the very human-looking broad shoulders, bunched with muscles, but every other element is an abstracted, grasping-looking shape of a giant nightmare bat).

As nice as the figure work on Pagan might be, you've probably already noticed it is a pretty classic example of the "brokeback" pose, in which the (usually male) artist draws a woman twisting her spine in a way that is maybe technically possible, but extremely uncomfortable unless your back is, you know, broken. This is usually done so that the artist can highlight both the character's ass and breasts in the same image. 

It's ironic to see the image applied to this character, in one of only two covers she will ever appear on, because, as I said, her costumed crimefighting "theme" is feminism.

Also of interest may be the fact that she is wearing tights on the cover, but not inside the comic. Were here bare legs deemed to sexy for a mass market comic book aimed at younger readers in the year 1990? Wonder Woman dressed similarly though, and always had bare legs; did Mandrake simply draw the character's thong too small, necessitating editorial to have the colorist color her legs and ass so that it looked like she was wearing tights...?

PAGE 1: The first page of the issue is as silent splash-page, in which a nude man is seen bound and hanging from a fire escape, Batman posed dramatically just below him, and a newspaper headline in the background, with the headline "MISSING BANKER FOUND NEAR-DEAD!" 

Mandrake

PAGES 2-3: Batman and Lieutenant Kitch, a member of the GCPD who often appears in Grant's Batman comics, visit the missing banker, Bob Buick, in the hospital. He was missing for over a week and, the doctor says, had been "whipped-- beaten-- and there are definite signs of severe emotional distress!"

Mr. Buick is drawn covered in bandages, and is extremely cagey with Batman and Kitch, eventually throwing himself into his pillow and saying "Leave me alone! I don't remember anything! Please-- Just leave me!"

When the nurse comes in to ask them to leave, Buick reacts poorly: "Y-you stay away from me! I want a male nurse-- A male, do you hear?"

Batman and Kitch compare notes briefly in the parking lot, and then Batman throws a Batarang with rope attached off-panel, sailing up into the night like a kite. This is a pretty neat image by Mandrake, in which Batman's lower body seems to disappear within his cape, and he all but transforms into his own bat-symbol.

Mandrake

PAGE 4: Batman wasn't leaving, though. He was just swinging up to the ledge outside Buick's room to spy on him. He witnesses Buick dial a number , and leave a frantic message for a Peter, telling him it's  urgent and that Peter could be killed.

Batman, who saw and memorized the number he dialed, then sails off into the night in search of this Peter.

Mandrake repeats the image of Batman on his bat-line, but here from a greater distance, and we see the shadow he casts on the side of the hospital, which resembled the bat-symbol exactly.

Mandrake

PAGES 5-7: Meanwhile, Peter is leaving The Glitz Club, his friends asking if he wants to go to Fat Martha's next, which is a weird name for a club. Peter declines, gets in his sports car and heads for home—until he's run off the road and directly into a lamp post. He's in the middle of yelling importantly at whoever totaled his car when the other driver opens the door and he slides out to behold the woman on the cover of the comic book.

"You can crash into me anytime!" he tells her. "You sure dress to please, sweetheart!" 

"I dress to please myself," she says before kicking him in the face (BOOF!).

"I'll show you, girl--!" he responds in a fury, to which she replies, "The name is Pagan"  and judo tosses him over his shoulder and directly onto the pavement (KRAAK).

PAGES 8-9: Batman follows some clues, starting with the wrecked sports car.

Mandrake

PAGES 10-13: Peter is in an abandoned warehouse somewhere, with Pagan beating the shit out of him, taunting him as she does so, "Not very nice when someone makes you plead, is it? Makes you sick when you realize they have all the power and you have none, doesn't it?"

The scene jumps back and forth between Pagan and Peter and Batman. While she's beating on him, Batman finds her vehicle and realizes from the small footprints at the scene that it's a woman who took Peter. 

He calls Kitch to see what ties Peter to Buick, and Kitch says bother appeared in court together a couple of years ago, "Case not proven. They walked." 

The charge? "Assault and battery... on a girl."

Meanwhile, Pagan asks Peter if he remembers Sondra, and he begins to plead anew, "L-look-- we were drunk! It... it was an accident!" 

"Beating a seventeen-year-old girl unconscious was an accident? You lying rat! Is that how you salved your conscience?"

Mandrake

PAGES 14-16:  Pagan and Batman both talk about Sondra now. 

Pagan does so to Peter, crawling over the prone figure and noting the inherent unfairness of the judicial system when it comes to rich white guys accused of rape: "The judge was a man! He was guaranteed to believe two wealthy respectable yuppies! Of course the under-age drunk was lying! She was only seventeen. You left scars that could never heal. You stole her life!"

Meanwhile, Batman visits Sondra Mercer's parents, who talk about what those "animals" did to their daughter, and how she ruined them...and their whole family.

I should note here that the script never mentions the word "rape," only "assault," but it seems pretty clear that Sondra Mercer was raped. If the two men had really tortured her in some other way, well, the story doesn't really make sense unless she was sexually assaulted, but the Grant and/or DC seem reluctant to come right out and say the word "rape," even in the story that revolves around a rape.

Batman obviously expects Sondra might be the woman behind the abductions, and tells her parents that it's important he find her. 

Her father responds, "Is this some kind of bad joke? Sondra committed suicide a week after the trial!"

This causes Batman to make a very weird sad/aghast/surprised face, furrowing the forehead of his cowl in a way that Jim Aparo excelled at drawing. 

Mandrake

PAGES 17-20: Batman's on the hunt again, there's a great seven-panel sequence in which we see him from afar, a bat-shape drifting over a scary urban environment, pausing long enough to note clues, and hurrying towards his appointed destination.

Pagan has pulled a knife on Peter, when Batman punches open the door, shouts "That's enough!" and batarang's the knife out of Pagan's hand. 

The two argue, Batman telling her he knows she's really Marian, Sondra's sister. Here then is a case where a female character is raped and dies to motivate a character to action (i.e. "fridge"), but it's a female character motivated to action, rather than a male one. 

"I'm not Marian!" Pagan screams, then continues:

She's dead-- buried in the same grave as Sondra!

I'm Pagan! I've turned my back on your so-called civilization Pagan, do you hear!

Batman is still trying to talk her down when she throws Peter at him, then kicks him in the face in a pose that looks...not quite right to me, but hell, I can't recall seeing anyone being kicked directly in the face like that, so I can't really judge.

Batman just blocks and dodges her blows, eventually tripping her. She rants about how her breaking the law and beating the hell out of these two men will be worth it if even if just one man stops to think about what she did before hurting another woman, Batman saying she needs help and that she's broken the law and just has to pay. She then throws herself out the window. 

There's a line outside the window though, which she grabs and slides down to her waiting motorcycle. 

"A little forward planning Batman!" she tells him, and then, as she's about to ride off, "But you haven't heard the last of me! Gotham's a man's city-- it needs a woman to redress the balance!"

Batman doesn't need anyone to tell him the virtues of forward planning, of course. He had tied her motorcycle to a lamp post, so that when she sped off and the line grew taught, she flipped off her bike and hit the ground, knocked unconscious. 

Mandrake

Peter rushes to thank Batman, but he shoves him away to arms length: "--Don't ever thank me again!"

Was that the last we heard of Pagan? 

No, no it was not.

She reappeared in 1993's Batman: Shadow of the Bat Annual #1, the title's tie-in to the "Bloodlines" summer event that introduced the "New Blood" heroes and villains to the DC Universe (That's her real tiny under the clock face on Brian Stelfreeze's cover). 

The annual's New Blood was Joe Public, a public school gym teacher who fashions himself a vaguely patriotic costume and who is inspired to take down the local drug dealer who he holds responsible for a student's overdose death. A total amateur who Batman advises to go home and watch TV after he gets in his way, Joe Public gets a super-power from the Parasite alien: After he's bitten, he has the ability to temporarily 'borrow" strength and stamina from those around him, retroactively making sense of his name (Fun fact: I hated Joe Public when I first read this, particularly his design, with his shaved mullet hairstyle, but re-reading it today, I kinda like the idea of a coach-turned-hero, and even the patriotic get-up; taken together, he's like a local, bargain version of Captain America).

Batman encounters Pagan as she's beating up a trio of thugs who threatened her in a typically comic book way ("What's the hurry, sister? All rush an' no fun makes Jill a dull girl!"). Afterwards, she catches him up on what she's been up to since Batman #479: She was acquitted, the jury saying she was justified in beating up the men who drove her sister to her death.

Von Eeden/Giordano

"I vowed then to help the women of this city against the beasts that pray on them," she says to Batman. "That's why Marian Mercer became Pagan. It's a vow I'll keep till I go to my grave!"

As to why she's in an alley in the first place, she was acting as a decoy, hoping to find the mystery slasher who has been attacking people in Gotham lately, a slasher we already know is actually the Parasite on the cover. His name is Gemir, and he's the coolest-looking of the Parasites, all of which look like a cross between H.R. Giger's Aliens, which obviously inspired them, and dinosaurs; Gemir was red and looked a bit like a half-fossilized dragon. In his human form, he looked just as dumb as all his fellow Parasites. 

Batman suggests they team up, to which Pagan agrees, reluctantly: "If this is some kind of patronizing trick, so you can keep an eye on me..." They eventually spot Gemir flying off to Blackgate Island with one of his latest victims; there he's storing the victims it doesn't kill and drain immediately in a sort of larder. 

Batman tells Pagan to call the cops while he straps on a bat-shaped hang-glider and gives chase. She doesn't listen, but commandeers a boat to follow, ultimately saving his life with a bolo and a well-placed kick when Batman tries fighting Gemir hand-to-hand.

Von Eeden/Giordano

Ultimately Joe Public saves the day, when his powers trigger, and he borrows enough strength from the crowd of victims to punch Gemir through the wall, survive a direct hit from him and chase him off.

"I'm just a phys ed teacher from the East Side--" Joe tells Batman as the Dark Knight theorizes about his sudden onset super-powers, "And after tonight's little drama , you can bet that's where I'm heading back! In the future, I'll leave crime to professionals!"

Despite that, Joe would return a few more times...including in the very next place Pagan appeared!

Her last appearance is more of a cameo really, and occurred in 1996's Batman: Shadow of The Bat #50. Alant Grant reteamed with five artists he had worked on the title with before (including Caleb-favorites Norm Breyfogle and Vince Giarrano) for this anniversary story that both introduced a new villain and included a premise that allowed for the appearances of all the villains and vigilantes that had previously appeared in the book and from throughout Grant's career on the character. 

That new villain is named Narcosis, and he's vaguely Scarecrow-like, which might be the reason we never saw him again after this three-issue arc. He gases Batman in an in media res chase, after which Batman thinks he sees Clayface (the Ultimate Clayface that Basil Karlo became at the climax of "The Mud Pack"). Then he turns around and sees The Ventriloquist and Scarface! Than Amygdala, The Tally Man, The Corrosive Man and the demon Mahakala, until he finally realizes that he's dreaming—Narcosis' schtick, as we'll become aware, is to use chemicals to put people to sleep and subject them to terrible nightmares. At that point, Batman realizes that "if my mind can create villains-- --it can also create the means to defeat them!"

At that point we get a pretty great double-page splash in which a bunch of characters from Grant-written comics appear, Batman summoning an army of allies to help him against the army of villains. These include Robin Tim Drake and Commissioner Gordon, of course, and Anarky, but also plenty of minor characters, like The Human Flea, Joe Potato, Wilde, The Hood and, of course, Joe Public and Pagan. 

Kitson, probably

It's a pretty awesome image though, with almost every figure in it a particular one from a Grant-written or co-written comic, all fighting in a single, silent moment. I don't think there are many Batman writers who have created enough name heroes and villains to fill a crowd of this size, even 25 years later. I think it's penciled by Barry Kitson, but I'm not 100% sure; the artists involved aren't given credit for which pages they drew.

Kitson, I think

And that seems to be the last we see of Pagan. 

Outside of Batman's dreams, he's able to defeat Narcosis, who plans to poison Gotham's milk supply with his nightmare potions, and he does so with the help of Gordon, Alfred and Robin, not Pagan.

Hopefully she's still out there beating up would-be rapists in an alley somewhere...

Compare and contrast these pages from 1987's Shazam: The New Beginning and 2012's "Shazam!"

A CYNICAL BILLY BATSON RELUCTANTLY SAYS "SHAZAM" AT THE WIZARD'S INSISTENCE:

BLACK ADAM RETURNS TO THE PRESENT, MEETS SIVANA AND HOLDS HIM ALOFT BY HIS COLLAR:

BLACK ADAM FLIES SIVANA TO THE TOP OF A HIGH STRUCTURE SO THEY CAN DISCUSS THEIR ALLIANCE:

In 1987, DC Comics had writer Roy Thomas reintroduce C.C. Beck and Bill Parker's Golden Age superhero Captain Marvel to their DC Universe shared setting. This followed the 1986-1987 Crisis On Infinite Earths limited series, in which that shared setting was refreshed and recreated, with older characters being reinvented for more modern times. Thomas and co-writer Dann Thomas wrote the four-issue Shazam: The New Beginning, which was penciled and inked by Tom Mandrake and colored by Joe Orlando. In 2017 it was collected along with another Thomas-written story from the era and re-released in a hardcover format as Shazam: The New Beginning 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition.

In 2012, DC Comics had writer Geoff Johns reintroduce Captain Marvel, now re-named "Shazam," to their DC Universe shared setting. This followed the 2011 Flashpoint miniseries, in which that shared setting was rebooted and recreated, with classic characters being reinvented for more modern times and introduced to readers as if for the very first time. Johns wrote a "Shazam" strip as a back-up in his Justice League ongoing series. It was penciled and inked by Gary Frank and colored by Brad Anderson. It was later collected into a trade paperback under the title Shazam Vol. 1 and, later, republished as Shazam: Origins. It was the basis of the 2019 film.

Interestingly, in rather broad strokes, the two miniseries, which had identical mandates, resembled one another in terms of their plots. In both, scientist Dr. Sivana frees the Wizard Shazam's first champion, Black Adam, from his centuries-old imprisonment and the two villains become allies. Meanwhile, orphan Billy Batson is given a magical word by the wizard in order to transform himself into a superhero. Both stories even end with the teasing introduction of another of Captain Marvel's most colorful villains, Mr. Mind.

Despite the similarities of the broad shape of the two Captain Marvel reintroductions, they differ quite a bit in the details (Thomas' story posited Sivana as Billy's uncle, and included versions of the pre-existent characters Uncle Dudley, Magnificus and Beautia and even Hoppy, The Marvel Bunny; Johns', meanwhile, included versions of Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Mr. Tawky Tawny and Ibac...plus three new "lieutenant" Marvels).

Still, I was struck by the degree to which certain scenes in the Johns/Frank comic so strongly echoed scenes from the Thomas/Mandrake take. Obviously, Johns and Frank drew inspiration from their predecessors, even as their Captain Marvel/Shazam story was quite different in tone, emphasis and in so many of the particulars.

I really like the way Tom Mandrake drew the rats on this cover.

Eighteen thoughts about Superman and Batman vs. Vampires and Werewolves

—I’m fascinated by the title of this miniseries. There’s an admirable obviousness and, yes, a certain amount of stupidity to it, but it’s the sort of stupidity that is at least leaning in the direction of awesomeness (See All-Star Batman and Robin and Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern for examples of DC comics that have achieved a perfect balance of stupid and awesome).


—Additionally, I’m extremely curious how the title for this project came about. Its construction mirrors that of 2007 series Superman and Batman Versus Aliens and Predator, a of quadruple franchise crossover that possibly did extremely well for DC in trade paperback (I know the trade collection made it onto a Young Adult Library Services Association list of recommended books for teens, for example).

So I suppose it’s possible DC saw that the S&BvA&P trade did unexpectedly well in certain markets and they wanted to replicate that particular formula, but rather than teaming up with Dark Horse Comics again, they decided to pit their Superman and Batman team against public domain adversaries. Instead of choosing, I don’t know, Dracula and Mr. Darcy or Moby Dick and the Headless Horseman they went with two popular species of monster in the generic.

If that wasn’t the case, then I find this project’s existence as a six-issue miniseries a little harder to guess at. Remember, DC already has a Superman/Batman team-up book, in which the two heroes team-up to fight various adversaries about once a month, give or take a shipping delay.

That book is also almost completely divorced from DCU continuity—the stories probably technically all “count” in that they’re not “imaginary stories” or anything, but they rarely reflect what’s going on in a given month or even year within the Batman and Superman titles—so why put this story out under that odd title as a standalone miniseries, instead of as an arc of Superman/Batman?

I was curious enough to look up what sales data was available, and according to The Beat’s monthly sales analysis, the story would have certainly sold more comics as part of Superman/Batman.

According to The Beat, the first issue of Superman and Batman Vs. Vampires and Werewolves sold 27,825 units, and the declined to just 17,273 by the sixth issue. During the same October to December of 2008 period, Superman/Batman only shipped two issues, missing the November ship date. These sold 48,187 and 45,968 units, respectively. So if Superman/Batman pushed back the start of the four-part “Super/Bat” story arc a couple months to accommodate a six-part, bi-weekly “Vs. Vampires and Werewolves” arc, they would have sold a hell of a lot more issues.

Alternately, I wonder if this might have sold better if it was just branded as a Batman book or a JLA book. Batman is the main character, and there are just about enough Leaguers to hold up the weight of JLA branding (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Nightwing and Jason Blood/The Demon…throw in a few cameos for cover and it’s a JLA story if you want to call it one). In fall of 2008, Batman and Justice League of America were DC’s #2 and #3 best-selling comics.


—One more thing about the title and I’ll shut up about it, I swear. It’s also somewhat curious given the story within. As I mentioned, there are a lot of other superheroes involved, and while Superman gets more panel-time than any of them who aren’t Batman, a new character introduced in the series gets a lot more than he does, and that character and Batman are the only ones present in all six issues. That character, by the way, is a vampire, and there’s a werewolf character that also allies itself with Superman and Batman. So really, this thing is more like Superman and Batman and A Vampire and A Werewolf (and Some Other Superheroes) vs. Vampires and Werewolves and Lovecraftian Monsters (and a Mad Scientist, if You Want to Count Him Too).


—Writer Kevin VanHook and artist Tom Mandrake have the ideal last names to work on horror comics. The names “Van Hook” and “Mandrake” look simply perfect on a spine with the words “vampires” and “werewolves” on it.


—I love Tom Mandrake. Love love love love love him. He’s one of the first comics artists I knew by name and whose work I could tell at a glance. I think his work on The Spectre and Martian Manhunter is underrated, and he’s fantastically well-suited for horror stories.


—Wait, when I said I loved Tom Mandrake above, you know I meant his artwork, right? Because I don’t even know Tom Mandrake, let alone know him well enough to be in love with him.


—I kind of hate the cover of the trade (and the first issue of the series) though. That’s a great werewolf face, and a pretty good vampire face, and there’s nothing wrong with his Superman or Batman, but, I don’t know, this just seems kind of lame for some reason. Maybe I’d like it better if the split vampire/werewolf face were green, and it was supposed to be Composite Dracula or something…


—I was happy to see this trade contains an introduction. I love introductions in trade collections of serialized comics, and I think they should be pretty much mandatory. This may be in large part simple nostalgia on my part, for a time when trade collections were much, much rarer and almost always accompanied by an introduction that argued, at least in part and usually even subconsciously, why the comics in question were even being given a spine, collected between two covers and sold outside of comic shops in the first place.

The fact that trade collections are now so common we don’t see introductions as often is a good sign, demonstrating how much more accepted comics are now then they were in the late eighties and early nineties. But I don’t think it hurts for someone to have to spend a few paragraphs explaining what’s so special about what you’re about to read, you know? Also, it’s just a little value added, so if you are buying a story twice (as serial comics and then as a collection), or are paying a little extra for a hardcover or whatever, you’re getting something extra. (Original graphic novels, on the other hand, probably shouldn’t have introductions, as they need to stand on their own in a way that, say, Superman/Batman #45-#49 might not need to).


—This introduction is by John Landis, director of An American Werewolf in London, making him a good “get” for a comic featuring werewolves.


—Unfortunately, Landis premises part of his intro on Superman’s vulnerability to magic, which Landis suspects might be VanHook’s original invention.

Superman can be weakened and even defeated by Kryptonite, but I discovered in Keven VanHook’s new story that Superman can also be affected by “magic.” Exactly how one defines “magic” can also be broadly defined. Whether or not this “magical effect” on Superman’s powers has been long established or not really does not matter.

Come on, Landis!


—The lettering in this book is huge. Like, gigantic. I think it’s because that instead of bolding and italicizing the stress words in sentences—a peculiarity of DC superhero comics that has long bugged me—letterers Steve Wands and Travis Landham use all-caps on the stress words, so that the narration boxes seem to take up more space than they might actually take up.

And there’s a lot of narration in this thing. Not an ungodly Brad Meltzer amount, and VanHook avoids that irritating Batman and Superman narrating about one another constantly strategy that Jeph Loeb used on Superman/Batman, but there is a narrator in this book, and that means narration boxes getting between my eyes and Tom Mandrake’s lines.


—There are a lot of guest-stars in this, as I mentioned above. Wonder Woman, Nightwing, Green Arrow, Jason Blood/Etrigan, The Demon and Dr. Kirk Langstrom/Man-Bat. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself. I certainly enjoyed seeing Mandrake’s GA for what may have been the first time, and he does a mean Man-Bat too, in a rather cool scene in which Man-Bat fights some werewolves and rips off one’s head (And it takes a pretty good artist to be able to draw a were-bat fighting a werewolf and keep the character’s distinct in close-up).

It’s kind of odd how the characters who aren’t Batman seem to come and go, though. Wonder Woman is in the first issue—appearing well before Superman, who doesn’t enter the story until the last page of the second issue—and she fights a vampire, then completely disappears from the story. Her only other mention is Batman mentioning that she called him to tell him about the vampire.

Nightwing similarly appears, fights a monster, hands it over to Batman and takes off. I didn’t really get a sense of why most of the characters were there and where they went, and found myself distracted by it in a couple of instances. In general, I got the impression that certain Justice Leaguers were always dumping their work on Batman’s lap.

I liked Nightwing’s exit though, as it just made him look like a big wussy. He chases down and KOs a werewolf, brings it back to the Batcave for Batman to examine, talks some shop with his boss for a bit, and then when Batman is ready to take on the source of all the vampire and werewolf activity, Nightwing thinks of something more pressing he needs to do:
Ha ha, whatever Nightwing! I’ve read your comic, you never have things to take care of.

—I like page 13, in which Mandrake frames Batman by the jaws of his mechanical dinosaur:


—The mad scientist seeking to pierce the veil between the world of the living and the dead and accidentally brings Lovecraftian monsters to Earth in the process is named Dr. Herbert Combs. Like Dr. Herbert West, the lead character in Re-Animator, the movie based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story, and Jeffrey Combs, the actor who played him. Get it?

Actually, I probably would have thought that was clever when I first started reading Batman comics….maybe it would have even turned me on to the work of Lovecraft and/or stupid/awesome 1980s horror movies earlier…but now it seems over-obvious. (On the other hand, I suppose complaining about an over-obvious character name in a comic entitled Superman and Batman vs. Vampires and Werewolves is kind of silly of me, huh?)


—In one panel, Batman kicks a demon frog-like fetus creature monster thing so hard in the stomach that a shower of its organs pour out the other side,
and in the very next panel Batman flying kicks its head off.


—Mandrake draws pretty cool Lovecraftian horrors:


—Superman, Batman and Green Arrow all kill the hell out of vampires and werewolves in this. It’s established early on that the monsters are essentially already dead, but it’s still weird to watch Superman and Batman slaughtering their enemies. GA’s killed before, I think, but Superman and Batman?

Even with the caveat that their opponents are already technically dead, it’s somewhat strange to see either of these heroes using lethal force, given the extraordinary lengths each goes to preserve life, in Batman’s case usually going to completely insane lengths (i.e. not only not killing The Joker, but usually going out of his way to save the mass murderer’s life whenever it’s endangered).

It’s made even stranger given that Superman spends the majority of his time in the story trying to save a kid who is infected by the synthetic vampirism disease from going all the way vampire. His reluctance to take a life that might be saved—no matter how slim the chances of success—is a part of the story.

I think pitting these two particular heroes against foes that can only be stopped with lethal force raises some extremely interesting questions about who the characters are and why they behave the way they do. This isnt' a story exploring issues like what constitutes life and where Batman, Superman and their allies draw the line between life and not-life, between killing that’s acceptable and killing that's unacceptable. I’d be a lot more excited to read such a story, though.

I should note that the fact that they can’t get around killing their enemies seems like something of a failure on their part to me. Is it impossible to stop vampires and werewolves without killing them? Is searching for a cure completely hopeless? Maybe, but then isn’t that what Batman and Superman are all about? Finding a way to do the impossible?

And at the end of the day, it’s VanHook manipulating what’s happening on the page. They can find a cure if he can think of one for them to discover; they can take out vampires and werewolves without ending their lives or un-deaths as long as VanHook let’s them, you know?

But perhaps that’s something for a different story.


—I’ve seen Mandrake’s Etrigan before, so it wasn’t a great surprise to see how cool his version of the character is or anything, but wow, I love his Etrigan:
Look at the paws on him!

And that’s 18 thoughts about Superman and Batman vs. Vampires and Werewolves.

Auf Wiedersehen, Dinosaurier!

This week, DC will release the first issue of The War That Time Forgot, a new, 12-issue limited series dealing with the 1950s WWII G.I.s versus dinosaurs premise of Robert Kanigher’s. Judging from the solicitations, the dinosaurs won’t be the only time-lost combatants in the book, as the cast seems plucked from various times as well.

So not only will we be seeing WWII soldiers versus dinosaurs, a concept that is entertaining for at least 500 pages, but we’ll be seeing Firehair, Tomahawk and Viking Prince fighting dinosaurs. And, of course, Hans Von Hammer, The Enemy Ace.

Enemy Ace versus dinosaurs, is there anything more exciting in the world of comics? No, no there’s not. (But please don’t get too excited; it’s being written by Bruce Jones, the guy who wrote a Hulk-free Hulk comic and some of the worst Nightwing comics ever written which, considering the low standards of Nightwing comics, is an incredible accomplishment).

Now, I know what you’re thinking (or at least I know what I like to imagine you’re thinking)— World War I flying ace in a rickety old tri-plane versus the gigantic killers of the Age of Reptiles? How can even the Hammer of Hell hope to prevail in such a situation?

Just by being himself, a born killer who, once in the cockpit of his blood-red Fokker Dr.I, is completely unstoppable.

Besides, it’s not like this is his first dinosaur rodeo. According to my longboxes, Von Hammer has come up against dinosaurs on at least two previous occasions, and he totally killed the fuck out of them.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Let’s start in 1992, which is when the earliest Enemy Ace vs. dinosaurs comics I have in my collection were published. I refer to four-part miniseries Armageddon Inferno which, despite its name, didn’t really have anything to do with Armageddon 2001, aside from prominently featuring that previous event's protagonist, Waverider.



This book is not available in trade, something that is at once a little bewildering and also completely understandable. See, as far as DC events go, this is a pretty huge one—this is the story in which the Justice Society of America escape their post-Crisis status quo, trapped in a Valhalla-like dimension forever fighting off the forces of Ragnarok to keep the end of the world forever in check. That is, after being taken off the table for so long, this is the story in which they get put back on it, leading to a pretty good (but under read) Justice Society of America monthly by Len Strazewski and Mike Parobeck.

On the other hand, it’s not very good or terribly well-written, as I discovered upon rereading it (This was actually a bit of a shock, since 15-year-old Caleb loved it). However, as bad a comic as it is, it’s one of DC’s best not-very-good comics, due in large part to the art, and the unusual nature of how it was doled out.

The story, by John Ostrander, involves a monstrous nigh omnipotent entity known as Abraxis transforming a small group of followers into “daemons,” each with a supervillain name and often rather cool power. Abraxis is attacking the world in a rather unusual way, building himself giant bodies in several different time-periods.

To defeat him, Waverider must call on different bands of heroes from throughout history, but he’s limited in who he can send when without completely destroying the timestream. The end result is a four-front war between Abraxis’ daemons and DC heroes from various time-periods, each drawn by a fan-favorite and, frankly, awesome artist.

Luke McDonnell handles the framing sequences and those involving Waverider solo and, as much as I’ve liked McDonnell’s work elsewhere, these are kind of weak. However, that could be simply compared to whose work his work appears next to.

So we’ve got Batman, Firestorm, The Spectre, The Creeper and plainclothes Ultra Boy of the Legion of Superheroes, as drawn by Tom Mandrake, a guy with plenty of Batman and Firestorm experience, who would go on to draw the best Spectre stories ever.


We’ve got World War II heroes Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, Navaho Ace Johnny Cloud, Gunner, Sarge and Pooch and the Thanagarian Hawks of the early ‘90s, all as drawn by Mike Netzer.


We’ve got the super-powerful superhero squad Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, The Flash, Power Girl and Donna Troy (in her least terrible costume ever), drawn by Art Adams (Who does some pretty incredible design work on his daemons).


And, most relevant to the discussion of Enemy Ace vs. dinosaurs, we get a team consisting completely of people-who-you-would-not-want-mad-at-you: Starfire, Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Lobo, Orion and, of course, Enemy Ace, as drawn by Walter Simonson.

Now, Simonson’s best-known in superhero circles for being the guy who best made good comics out of Jack Kirby’s cosmic mythology concepts. So no surprise that he does a really good Orion (and, about a decade later, would base a series around the character which fellow Best Shots @ Newsarama.com contributor Michael C. Lorah tells me is the greatest DC comic in, like, ever).

But who knew Simonson could do so much with an essentially silly character like Lobo, and his giant-ass skull cycle? Or Guy Gardner; this is probably my favorite Guy Gardner ever. Or the subject of this post. I love how rigidly straight the wings on the plane are.

So, each of these specially assembled strikeforces are sent to a different point in time to destory the giant Abraxis statue monster things before they can be animated. Simonson’s squad is sent back to dinosaur times, giving Von Hammer the chance to discover if he truly is the deadliest killer to ever fly the killer skies:


Take that, giant pterodactyl thing!

The other Enemy Ace vs. dinosaur comic in my longboxes is also a four-issue miniseries from the nineties, but it has a much higher quotient of Enemy Ace vs. dinosaur scenes, as the focus of the series is on dinosaur-fighting.

It’s 1998’s Guns of the Dragon, written and illustrated by Tim Truman, master of the two-fisted pulp tale of manly action.


This manly action is set in 1920s Singapore, where aged, roguish cowboy Bat Lash has fled due to some disagreements with some folks in the U.S. He’s set up a bar there, where he employs Slam Bradley’s brother Biff Bradley as his bouncer, and, one fateful night, ends up serving drinks to one Baron Hans Von Hammer.

The trio of adventurers are hired to visit the island that would eventually become known as Dinosaur Island to retrieve a pair of swords and a living dragon to fulfill a prophecy about ruling China or the world or something. They make for a pretty sweet team, but they’re only part of the cast. You’ve also got Blackhawk characters Miss Fear and Chop-Chop, plus the immortal villain
Vandal Savage, looking better under Truman’s pen than just about anywhere else I’ve ever seen him,
Chiang Kai-Shek and
Mao Tse Tung? Really? Wow.

Lash, Bradley and Von Hammer race for the prizes against Fear, a band of Japanese ninja were-creatures and Savage’s crew, with dinosaurs constantly complicating matters.

Here’s the Enemy Ace taking advantage of the distraction provided by a Tyrannosaur to get into his plane. But his noble conscience refuses to allow him to leave the ninjas to be eaten alive by a dinosaur, so he does what he does best:





Man, this new War That Time Forgot series is going to have to try awfully hard if it wants to top Guns of the Dragon, which features Enemy Ace machine-gunning a dozen ninjas and a Tyrannosaurus Rex to death in the space of a single page.

Later, Von Hammer is fighting a sword-wielding ninja were-rat with the biggest wrench in the German air force as a flock of a pterosaurs close in on his plane. One flies a little too close to the propeller, leading to the best propeller-generated gore jokes in comics history:




And while those are among the better Enemy Ace scenes with dinosaurs in Guns of the Dragon, they’re not even the best part of the series (I think that’s probably the part where Biff Bradley rides a rampaging Triceratops straight into Vandal Savage's chest).

Sadly, Guns of the Dragon hasn’t been collected in trade yet either, but hopefully DC will get around to it now that there seems to be more interest in these characters and the island full of dinosaurs, thanks in large part to their Showcase reprints and, of course, this new War That Time Forgot series.