Jimmy Olsen’s Blues

Comics flow through a marketplace so fickle and so resistant to innovation that getting off on the right foot is damn near essential to any sort of success. While certain comics have been able to overcome a non-descript opening story (Daredevil came to mind while breaking out this list), today we tip our hats to these ten, who have made it particularly easy for subsequent writers to show us something worth reading each month, some of them for decades. In no particular order:

Oracle. “Babs” Gordon’s transformation from the “cute if not especially interesting” Batgirl into the “sexy in a Hot Librarian way and far, far more useful and interesting” Oracle was rooted in one of the seminal Batman stories of the last 20 years, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke. The sequence where the Joker inflicted the genesis for this change on her might have been sickening to behold, but the worst thing to ever happen to the character has also proven to be the best thing to happen to her from a storytelling perspective. And while we’ve been given a couple of (mostly well done) “it sucks to be in a wheelchair” moments, they’ve been few and far between and outnumbered by page after page of just how little of Barbara Gordon’s heroism was wearing that cowl.

Spider-Man. Spidey’s origin works so well less for its details — though those work, too — but for its thematic significance. The phrase “with great power comes great responsibility” is now so well-known and so associated with Spider-Man that it’s taken on its own life, used for other non-Spidery purposes — though if you search Wikipedia for “with great power comes great responsibility,” you get redirected right back to the entry for Spider-Man.

Preacher. When most preachers recount their experience “finding God,” doesn’t it always seem more like God found them? Garth Ennis thought so and gave us a fresher, more accurate use of the phrase. By hitting drunkard and reluctant man of the cloth Jesse Custer in the mouth with Heaven’s dirty little secret angel-demon baby, Ennis set Custer on a far more literal “finding God” story. (Now that I think about it, we could probably have included Preacher’s Saint of Killers and Herr Starr on this list as well.)

Captain America. If loving this tale of one man so patriotic and devoted that he gave up polio for his country means I actually love propaganda, then you can go ahead and sell me the “I <3 Propaganda” t-shirt today. Seriously though, the same basic Cap ideal (One man is Superman, the living embodiment of all that is Good and Right about America, and at the same time Everyman) that thrilled millions in the 40’s has managed to sustain an ongoing comic series for nearly a year and a half (and counting) without him in it.

Superman. Not only does Superman’s origin hold up — and has been used as the basis for the origins of plenty of other heroes, both literally and metaphorically — it’s also a powerful metaphor for the American Jewish experience in the early part of the 20th century. So says Michael Chabon, and I believe him.

Batman. This story’s so good, so primal, that the many, many interpretations of “Which one’s the mask: Bruce Wayne or Batman?” and “What’s Batman’s mission?” — not to mention the many interpretations of Batman himself — have only made the core origin better. Unlike the origins for most superheroes with actual superpowers, Batman’s beginnings resonate because it’s easy for us to imagine ourselves and our reactions to a similar situation. Batman’s the ultimate DIY story.

The Fantastic Four. So sixties “bad science,” it’s almost “good science.” Who knew “cosmic rays” could be so flexible in their application?

Jewel. Teenaged Jessica Jones was about to tell nerdy Peter Parker how she loves him for him — only to get interrupted by a freak accident involving a radioactive spider. Then she gets into a freak accident of her own involving a truck of radioactive chemicals (a bit of origin detail stolen directly from Daredevil’s) which kills the rest of her family. She goes comatose, only to awaken when Galactus sets foot on Earth for the first time and the Silver Surfer flies by her window. You wouldn’t think a casserole of metacomic wink-wink would read that well, but it damn sure does. J.J. might actually be a character created this century that actually sticks around for awhile. If she’s not a Skrull.

Cyclops. OK, yes, mutant — that part’s not especially memorable at this point (though to be fair, Cyke was one of the original five X-Men, making him one of the first official Marvel mutants). But having young Scott Summers’ father shove Scott and his little brother out of a malfunctioning airplane, only to have the parachute strapped to Scott’s back catch fire, leading to a high-velocity crash into a forest, leading to massive head trauma for Scott (largely because Scott was protecting his brother from the impact), thereby causing him not to have any control over the optic blasts he develops when his mutant genes kick in as a teenager? Yeah, that’s an origin.

Iron Man. While Tony Stark’s unfortunately suffering from a bit of the “timeslide” too common to characters whose origins are rooted too deeply in a certain era (like the Punisher, Stark’s story was originally rooted in the Vietnam conflict), the basic details of his origin (war profiteer/inventor kidnapped, injured, builds super-powered armor for survival/escape) have stood up to time well, as the recent blockbuster flick displayed so well.

Astonishing X-Men #25 might be the twenty-fifth issue of this series (twenty-sixth if you could the Giant-Size issue), but for all practical purposes, it might as well be the first. This issue serves as a fresh introduction to largely the same cast we’ve been reading about previously — though the issue contains almost no action whatsoever, it manages to move along quickly and provide plenty of necessary character and plot information in an entertaining — frequently hilarious — way.

One advance reviewer claimed that the characters’ voices don’t sound the way they did during Whedon’s issues. And that’s true enough, I suppose, though of course it’s to be expected with the change in writers – Whedon and Ellis have very different writerly voices. They don’t sound like Whedon’s writing them. They sound like Ellis is writing them. The important thing, though, is that their underlying personalities and motivations are fundamentally the same. Anyone who’s been reading the previous issues of this series won’t feel like they’ve been dropped into an entirely new batch of characters.

What has changed is the title’s overall feel and direction. Unsurprisingly, given Ellis’ involvement and his noted disdain for superheroes, the book feels a little less superhero-y and a little more science hero-y and more than a little more detective-y. But he’s also not forsaking the superhero motifs, either, and in fact plays them up and riffs on them several times, especially where costumes and code names are concerned.

Simone Bianchi’s artwork, while beautifully rendered, is too murky and difficult to read. Bianchi seems as to come at page layout strictly from a design point of view and not so much from a storytelling one. I’d rather he stuck to covers and design work (though if I were an artist on one of the other X-books now forced to draw these overly intricate costume designs, I’d be cursing Bianchi’s name at the drawing board). While the Whedon-to-Warren transition wasn’t especially jarring, going from John Cassady’s clean lines to Bianchi’s heavily textured work truly makes this issue feel like the launch of an entirely new series rather than a continuation of the previous one.

So far, I’m most enjoying Ellis’ take on Hisako, the young X-Man who, in shades of early-80’s Kitty Pryde-Sprite-Ariel-Shadowcat, doesn’t like her code name (“Armor”) [1]. Hisako’s very much an updated version of Kitty, though she’s a little savvier and more confident of her place in the X-world at this point than Kitty was early on – I’d imagine having already survived her first offworld adventure as an X-Man would give her a substantial confidence boost. She has no problem standing up to her older teammates, and interestingly enough, seems to have a relationship with Emma Frost which is exactly 180 degrees from the one Emma and Kitty had.

(Also: it’s nice to have Storm back in an X-book, where she belongs.)

If you enjoyed Whedon’s run on this book, you’ll still find plenty here to enjoy, even if the flavor is a bit different. If you’ve enjoyed pretty much any of Ellis’ mainstream superhero work, you’ll find plenty of Ellisian bits here to make you happy.

GRADE: A-

[1] Ellis seems to be setting up something to do with names and naming in this issue and I’m curious to see where’s going with it; it’s not the kind of thing he tends to do by accident.

Presenting the Greatest T-Shirt In The Habitated World:

From R. Stevens, mastermind/provacateur at Diesel Sweeties. (Note that the link doesn’t take you directly to the shirts. That’s the plan–don’t go straight to the shirts, read the comics, which are mighty fine.)

Getting this in the mail today drained nearly all the heat from the burning glare I’ve sported since I was told, “We sold out of Astonishing X-Men #25 in 20 minutes.”

UPDATE! Totally forgot he threw this in for free, in convenient sticker form:

Batman (arguably) places higher on the fanboy scale than Superman^[1], but why? If comics specialize in wish fufillment and escapism, you can’t get granted a much cooler wish than being bulletproof and able to fly, agreed?

Thing is, once you get beyond the first few pages of a Superman story, you know (or at least are reasonably sure) you’re never gonna fly your girlfriend to the Eiffel Tower, in your own arms anyway. Sure, he looks like you and me, has a real job and a wife and adoptive parents and that outsider subtext, but as a reader you never fully accept him as “like us”.

Batman’s another story. He is, for all his abilities and talents, only human. And that’s why we like Batman better. At the end of the day, he’s closer to us, and we like to feel like we have something in common with a hero. But it’s not just Batman readers can relate to. Many of us here in the real world have more in common with comic books than we think or care to admit.

They say art imitates life. And sometimes, comics imitate crazy. Here’s ten examples of ways we can all be like funnybooks, as usual in no particular order. And if you have three or more of these, you’re not mentally ill. You are, in fact, Batman.

1. Alcoholism/Chemical Dependency - Oh yeah, the suit’s cool and all, but Marvel didn’t sell tons of comics or cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark because the Iron Man suit is that cool. Ms. Marvel lost a prestigious job because she liked to get loaded. On the other side, DC loves to put a monkey on its bad guys’ backs, with Bane hooked on steroids (since cleaned up, I believe) and Mirror Master actually using his powers to be inside a mirror, the better to snort a line from the other side.

2. Schizophrenia – Again, Marvel loves to put the mental screws to its heroes, while DC has a separate cottage industry in nutjob villains (Arkham Asylum, anybody?): Marvel’s Sentry has this particular affliction bad, leading most of his writers to bring it up way more than they should. Just because he’s got two or three personalities doesn’t earn him three times the space in Mighty Avengers, okay? DC trots out Rose and Thorn, Dr. Polaris, The Ventiloquist, The Mad Hatter, and yes, Two-Face.

3. Stockholm Syndrome-

Y’know, where someone who’s kidnapped, a hostage, or a prisoner begins to sympathize or otherwise feel warmly towards their captor? Robin, take a bow. We don’t care which one.

4. Pyrophobia-

J’onn J’onzz, rest in peace. Captain Ultra, you get to carry the torch now. (Let it sit for just another moment… wait… not yet…okay, that was bad.)

ADDENDUM: Just realized most of you might not actually have read the above from Fantastic Four #177, in which Captain Ultra auditions for the Frightful Four (who do run into the Human Torch from time to time) IN THE BAXTER BUILDING.

 5. Sex Addiction -

The best of examples of this are probably on the hero side of the ledger (because bad guys with names like the Shocker just aren’t going to get that much action): Oliver Queen can’t seem to keep the Horndog Arrow in the quiver and routinely screws up his life, a common result of sex addiction. Batman? For somebody who “works alone”, he’s certainly gets busy, hooking up with one arch enemy and actually impregnating another foe’s daughter.

6. Claustrophobia

Um… Storm still suffers from it, I guess. This one’s not nearly as common in comics as the real world, as far as we know. But hey, these people operate in giant cities or huge mansions or even outer space, so maybe the situation never comes up. I just thought it was cool and dramatic and surprising in the early days of the Claremont/Cockrum X-Men.

7. Napoleon Complex -

Again with the DC villains and Marvel Heroes: Dr. Psycho has been a much better (and dangerous) character since DC started playing up the doctor’s overcompensation. On the Marvel end, I gotta think Hank Pym was operating under a fog of this Little Man Syndrome early in his career. After all, he only lasted one issue of Avengers as Ant-Man(with the Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man), before he had to do a 180 on day two, showing up as “Giant Man”.

8. Chiroptophobia -

Gotham City wouldn’t have been living in fear of bats for going on 60 years if this wasn’t cool. Anybody can be afraid of heights.

9. Megalomania/Delusions of Grandeur -

Pretty common in villainy across the board, but Lex Luthor and Victor Von Doom rewrite the texts nearly every year. (Except for Doom getting all street on Ms. Marvel in Mighty Avengers a few months back. That’s a whole other maladjustment that’s not on the list.) And give both publishers credit–both are the most enduring foes of their first superheroes, and neither has ever been a copy or caricature of the other, despite having similar motivations.

10. Fregoli Delusion

Not common at all, in either our world or the capes-n-tights one, but it does exist. Primarily so I could toss this image in. And the comic underneath this cover’s pretty bad-ass as well.

 

 

 

 

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[1]I say arguably, but how many more Batman stories do you find in most fans’ top 20 list of all time comics than Superman stories? I rest my case.