Scoundrels: Behind the Cage Part 1

by Gavin Jasper of 4thletter!

Before I had really read all that much with Luke Cage and Iron Fist, I was always in love with the concept. You had these two very different characters based on the movie fads of the 70’s (blaxploitation and martial arts) and gave them solo series destined to fail because, well, fads die out. So to cut their losses, they just put the two guys together into a makeshift team that worked like no other and lasted for eight years as a series. You couldn’t do that with just any two ailing comics. You can’t just release something like Atom and Infinity Inc. and think it’ll last past issue 6. The ingredients with Luke and Danny are perfect. These days the characters are stronger individuals for it, but are quick at teaming up without a single fuss.

You can’t forget their beginnings, though. Before the days of Iron Fist taking a break from beating up ninjas because he just saw Cage kick an alien shape-shifter in the lady business, the two were loners trying to rise up the Marvel ranks. Iron Fist’s series, a spin-off of his debut storyline from Marvel Premiere, lasted a paltry fifteen issues. It was cancelled so abruptly that Claremont had to get an Iron Fist/Spider-Man storyline made for Marvel Team-Up just to tie up the loose ends. That said, Iron Fist was a really solid series and adds a little punch to the details of the current series by Brubaker and Fraction.

What it didn’t have was a good rogues gallery. Yes, Iron Fist was the first guy to be shown fighting Sabretooth, but other than that, his enemies were really generic and forgettable. Power Man didn’t have to worry about that.

Luke’s comic didn’t have as much of an involved storyline as Danny’s did, but there’s a reason his comic lasted nearly 50 issues. Luke Cage, Hero for Hire was a fun comic. Insanely fun. The guy’s average day involved hanging out with his janitor sidekick, walking down the street in his gaudy outfit, punching a random thug, getting shot at, making sure to note that bullets don’t work on him, fighting a ridiculous villain, then going back home.

And what a bunch of villains he had. You always knew you could read the next issue because whoever Cage was going to fight next was definitely going to make things worth it. Even his villains borrowed from others were pretty entertaining, like Dr. Doom and Zzzax.

Here is part one of a two part look at the colorful characters Luke had to contend with before sharing his comic with Iron Fist on a regular basis. Also, to waste all our time, I’ve rated these guys from 1 to 5 for how threatening they are, how weird they are and how long they would stick around in Marvel.

CAPTAIN RACKHAM
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1
Threat Level: 1
Bizarreness: 1
Lasting Ability: 2

Who better to be the origin-pushing antagonist for Luke Cage than a pig-faced, corrupt, white prison guard that refers to him as “boy”? Rackham was originally the captain at Cage’s prison and when Cage (back then just plain old Carl Lucas) refused to be his inside man, he had him beaten by the guards. Lucky for Lucas, a new warden had come in, who was far more compassionate than anyone expected. He had the guards fired and demoted Rackham as punishment.

Lucas was chosen to take part in an experiment with Dr. Noah Bernstein. Things were going fine until Rackham, wanting revenge, locked Lucas in a tank meant to merely increase his immune system and turned up all the dials. Instead of killing our hero, it made him invulnerable and able to break out of his prison. From there, he punched out Rackham so hard that he thought he killed him. Afraid that he lost his one chance for freedom, Lucas just ran off and escaped prison, while making most believe he had been shot and killed.

The warden was fired and Rackham spent his time letting out his frustrations on the inmates that were the closest things Lucas had to friends. Finally, he too was fired for his constant brutality. When trying to get a new job, he was discovered by Phil Fox, a sleazy reporter who had evidence that Carl Lucas was alive as Luke Cage. Rackham first thought about using the evidence to send Cage back to prison and getting his job back, but Fox convinced him to use it for blackmail. Rackham went overboard with his revenge, leading to him murdering Fox and kidnapping one of Cage’s loose acquaintances before shooting her too. During a confrontation with Cage, Rackham’s house was demolished by the newcomer villain Stiletto. Escaping the wreckage, Rackham heard police sirens and went mad with fear at the idea of becoming a prisoner. In his crazed staggering, he got run over and killed by an ambulance.

DIAMONDBACK
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1
Threat Level: 3
Bizarreness: 2
Lasting Ability: 1

Willis Stryker is the reason Carl Lucas went to prison in the first place. The two used to be best friends and worked as criminal partners. Then the two got in a fight over Stryker’s girlfriend Reva. As a way to get Lucas out of the way, Stryker framed him for drug-selling and had him put away. Though, really, when you get down to it, Lucas had done a lot of stuff that deserved being arrested. This was just your usual Punisher/Lobo example of putting your asshole protagonist up against a bigger asshole antagonist. It just so happened that our hero had intent to change himself for the better.

Reva got shot and killed in a mob hit meant for Stryker. Stryker showed no remorse for her sacrifice. He rose up the ranks in the underworld and became Diamondback. His whole deal was that he used trick knives and had Bullseye-level precision with them. He became furious once this new Hero for Hire character on the streets began beating down on his operation.

Cage finally confronted Diamondback and the two fought on a rooftop. With all his other knives thrown, Diamondback pulled out an exploding knife which may have had the power to kill Cage. When backing up to throw it, Diamondback stepped onto a pane of glass, fell through the roof and the knife landed right next to him. The explosion killed him, cheating Cage out of both his revenge and the only way to clear his name.

SHADES AND COMANCHE
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1
Threat Level: 2
Bizarreness: 4
Lasting Ability: 5

Shades and Comanche were prisoners in Seagate along with Cage and tried to get him to join their gang. Cage refused, but also refused to be snitch on them. After Cage’s escape, Rackham mainly focused his anger on Shades and Comanche, beating them daily and tossing them in the hole for little reason. The two became filled with murderous hatred, made even angrier when Rackham was fired. In response, they broke out of prison and made it their mission to both get revenge on Rackham and take over Harlem.

They also started wearing really stupid outfits for absolutely no reason, but they did used to hang out with Cage, so that’s probably expected.

The two occasionally worked with a reluctant Cage, but were mainly his enemies. Out of respect, they kept their mouths shut about Cage’s true identity. They would return to plague Cage after his teaming with Iron Fist a couple times, especially after getting weapon upgrades. Comanche had Oliver Queen-style trick arrows and Shades had a Cyclops visor that shot lasers.

Years later, Shades appeared in Marvel Knights, back to his old criminal tricks, but no longer in a flashy outfit.

GIDEON MACE
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #3
Threat Level: 4
Bizarreness: 4
Lasting Ability: 4

I find it suspect that Nicholas Cage, an actor who named himself after Luke Cage, starred in a movie where the villain is almost exactly like a major Luke Cage villain. Gideon Mace is so much like Ed Harris’ character in The Rock that I’m wondering if it’s a coincidence.

He was a colonel in Vietnam where during an unauthorized mission, one of his soldiers stepped on a landmine. The explosion took out Mace’s hand. Due to his mental gnarliness, defiance of authority and new physical handicap, Mace was forced into retirement. Using an inherited family fortune, he bought enough weaponry to attempt to take over Manhattan for one day as a way to awaken the people to see how badly treated people in the military are. Caged nipped this one in the bud before it could happen and Mace ended up seemingly drowning due to his giant mace hand weighing him down.

Yes. You see, what makes Gideon Mace so laughable is that he’s so damned literal. He replaced his missing hand with a spiked ball that shoots eye-stinging chemicals! And his name is Mace! That’s both beautiful and stupid at the same time! It’s like Jessica Simpson in comic form!

Well, turned out he didn’t die after all. Cage and his sidekick D.W. Griffith stumbled upon Mace’s newly-created community Security City, where all outsiders are met with gunfire from its citizens. Cage exposed the city to the people as a way for Mace to farm his own army, leading to a massive riot. Cage and D.W. walked out the backdoor and let the others duke it out.

Once again, Cage inadvertently walked into a Gideon Mace plot when Mace attacked him on a train to Chicago. Mace was convinced that Cage knew of his master plan to hold Chicago for ransom with a giant bomb, but in actuality, Cage had no idea that Mace was on that train in the first place. Cage did end up stopping Mace’s plans, but it turned out the bomb was a fake anyway.

Mace never fought Cage again, but he did briefly tangle with White Tiger and Spider-Man. I’d kind of like to see him make a comeback. In fact, they should use him for Punisher: War Journal. He’d be right at home there.

THE PHANTOM
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #4
Threat Level: 1
Bizarreness: 5
Lasting Ability: 1

This one is pretty weird, but also one of the more boring stories. One night, sleeping in his office, Cage was attacked by an 8-foot tall ghost in a white cloak. The Phantom was strong enough to tangle with Cage and even hurt him a bit. When the cloak was pulled back, there was nothing underneath except a disembodied, decaying head.

Some rather lucky detective work led the Hero for Hire to figure out that the ghost was really just a Haitian strongman wearing black with an acrobatic dwarf standing on his shoulders, wearing a mask. They were after a painting or something. I don’t know.

Like many Cage villains, the dwarf ended up falling to his death.

BLACK MARIAH
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #5
Threat Level: 2
Bizarreness: 3
Lasting Ability: 2

Black Mariah is a 400-pound mountain of a woman that ran a drug racket with her nephews. Her original plan used to be based on sending her nephews around in a fake ambulance to take in dying rich men and take their wallets. She was able to fight Cage toe-to-toe, mainly because he couldn’t bring himself to hit a woman. Instead, he opted to jump through her getaway boat, causing her to float in the water and be taken in by the police.

She came back in Power Man and Iron Fist, succeeding in getting D.W. hooked on her peddled drugs.

I just hope that when they do make the Luke Cage movie they don’t have Black Mariah in it because she’d totally be played by a has-been male comedian in a fat suit.

UNNAMED CHRISTMAS VILLAIN
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #7
Threat Level: 4
Bizarreness: 5
Lasting Ability: 1

Oh, man. This fucking guy. Steve Engleheart was on drugs when he made this issue. He had to be. Just look at the cover for this one. Why hasn’t Alex Ross remade this masterpiece? Where are the zombie and Skrull versions of this cover?

Hanging out with his love interest Claire and Dr. Bernstein, Cage saw a boy being beaten outside by what looked to be a Charles Dickens character. It was a man claiming to be Scrooge sidekick Jacob Marley, angry that the boy was charging him fifteen cents for a newspaper when he had never paid more than two cents. After a brief altercation, Cage shattered the man’s cane and got him to leave. He decided not to go after him since it was Christmas Eve.

Cage and Claire went out for a walk, soon crossing paths with a legless homeless man, insane from his experiences in Vietnam. He snapped and fired at Cage, surprised to see the bullets bouncing off his body. Cage understood that it wasn’t the man’s fault for being so loopy, but shattered the guns and told him he’s lucky he dealt with a guy who can withstand bullets. The “legless” veteran soon after stood up and snuck away while laughing to himself.

Cage was, once again, confronted by a crazy man on the street. This time it was a man dressed in a futuristic uniform, carrying a gun and saying that it’s 1984 (which would be the future when this comic came out, natch). Having taken enough jive for one day, Cage finally got his hands dirty and fought him off until he ran away. When looking for this futuristic security guard, Cage came across a guy dressed as Santa Claus. When Cage wasn’t looking, Santa clocked him unconscious with a bell.

This nameless guy dressed in a black executioner-type outfit told the chained-up Cage how he stole an atomic bomb and planned to blow up New York City because the world sucks. He just had to test Cage to see just how pure-hearted he truly was. Our villain was surprised and inspired by Cage’s actions, but not enough to stop his plans. He just figured that Cage earned the right to watch the city explode along with him.

Suddenly, there was a rustling in the chimney, distracting the villain. Cage broke out of his chains and pummeled the crap out of him. The big Christmas miracle coming down the chimney wasn’t Santa, but just a prowler hoping to rob the place. The end!

What I can’t get over is this villain’s costume. It’s mostly pretty nondescript, except his belt buckle has a knife going through it, with the blade right over his crotch. Is that really a good idea, having that so close to your goods? Can you even sit down right with that on?

SENOR SUERTE/MUERTE
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #10
Threat Level: 4
Bizarreness: 5
Lasting Ability: 3

Ramon Garcia was one of the most outlandish and hilarious villains Cage has ever had to face. He ran a series of underground casinos and wanted to be known as both Señor Suerte (Mr. Lucky) and Señor Muerte (Mr. Death) because he was equally both. He was so lucky that as a child he would get a perfect score on the SATs just by guessing.

He went out of his way to prove just how lucky he was. If someone rubbed him the wrong way, he would walk away and change into his maskless supervillain tights. On his chest was a mini-roulette wheel with a button, connected to two wires that ran down his arms and into his gloves. He would press the button, the roulette wheel would go and one of his hands would be electrically charged. Then he would confront whoever he didn’t like and ask them to shake one of his hands. The poor guy would always choose the charged hand and die an electrified death. Because Suerte’s both lucky and deadly.

I know the term gets tossed around a lot these days and a lot of people find it insensitive and politically incorrect, but I just can’t think of anything else to say: that is absolutely retarded.

Luke Cage could withstand Suerte’s electric shock and only pass out instead of die, but rather than just shock him once or twice more, Suerte just chained him up in a sewer and tried to drown him. At the end of the story, Cage had removed his chain belt and tossed it at Suerte. The chains wrapped around his arms, meaning it didn’t matter which arm was the electric one. Señor Suerte got electrocuted to death just the same.

In later comics, Garcia’s younger brothers Jaime and Phillip took up each of his names. That just doesn’t work as well. Having one guy named Señor Muerte and another guy named Señor Suerte isn’t nearly as golden as having one idiot named both.

Chemistro
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #12
Threat Level: 5
Bizarreness: 2
Lasting Ability: 5

If you had been paying attention to the Hood storyline in New Avengers, you might recognize Chemistro. He’s the villain that got a “finders fee” for Dethlok’s rampage.

Curtis Carr worked as a chemist for Mainstream Motors, where he created an alchemy gun. Rather than let the company reap the benefits of his genius, he instead allowed himself to be fired and kept the gun for himself. He began working out to get himself in supervillain shape and tried to attack Mainstream Motors for both the revenge and the money.

His alchemy gun is able to transform just about any substance, but the molecules become unstable. If the changed object is near too much heat, it turns to dust. This is what happened when fighting Luke Cage, as Chemistro shot himself in the foot and turned it into solid steel, allowing him to kick Cage away. A nearby fire caused his foot to disintegrate and Chemistro became hysteric. He was horrified at his own folly.

“No! Don’t you see – I got forty – fifty – sixty years o’ livin’ still to go! I ain’t even got started yet. There’s s’posed to be a wife out there – kids! But all that’s there now is crutches, an’ prison! All for one lousy GUN!”

There were, I shit you not, two other Chemistros. One was a fellow inmate who bullied Curtis into giving him the secrets to the alchemy gun. The other was Curtis’ younger brother Calvin Carr, who stole the alchemy gun. Against both copycats, Curtis was always instrumental in stopping them. He turned his life around, built a prosthetic foot and got work at Stark Enterprises. After helping Iron Man and Jim Rhodes thwart Calvin, Curtis became known as High-Tech.

Though, for some reason, it’s Curtis Carr who works as Chemistro in New Avengers. He specifically says so when ratting out the Owl to the Hood. This could just be a typo and he’s really Calvin. It could just be that Bendis just wanted to make Curtis a bad guy again for the hell of it. Or it’s very possible that Chemistro is a Skrull.

Speaking of which, in the same storyline, Iron Fist is surprised to find that Luke Cage didn’t even recognize Chemistro. This initially comes off as a joke because, ha ha, 70’s Hero for Hire villains are so lame and forgettable that even Cage can’t keep them straight. But Chemistro? Getting past the fact that there were three Chemistros and that they fought Cage a lot, Curtis Carr was Luke’s friend. Forgetting about him is pretty damn suspect.

Not to mention Cage’s supporting cast. Not counting Iron Fist and the Daughters of the Dragon, has Cage ever even talked about any of his old friends or villains since Bendis revitalized him? D.W. Griffith is still alive. I checked. Dr. Bernstein is probably still alive too. Luke has nothing to do with them anymore.

I’m going to cry “Skrull!” on this one, folks.

Lionfang
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #13
Threat Level: 3
Bizarreness: 4
Lasting Ability: 1

Alejandro Cortez was a professor with a love for the circus. He created a helmet that could create a symbiotic mental link to others, allowing shared instincts and information. He was denied funding, so he later got his revenge by having some guys mauled by tigers.

He mainly used his helmet (hidden under a giant lion’s mane) to work with jungle cats. They became smarter and able to speak – in both English and Spanish – and, in turn, he gained their agility and ferocity. He also had electro gauntlets for the hell of it.

During a confrontation at Madison Square Garden, Cage beat down all of Lionfang’s cats and went after the ringmaster himself. Lionfang began to trapeze away. Unable to match his speed, Cage ran shoulder-first into a trapeze support pole and caused Lionfang to fall to his death. As dumb as Lionfang was, he still had a great death scene.

“Cortez! Christmas, man, I was just tryin’ to stop you! I never figured—”

“Cage… I… uh… Cage…”

“I’m listenin’ Cortez. What is it?”

“You… son of a…”

*Luke gets up and sadly walks through the exit*

Big Ben Donovan
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #14
Threat Level: 3
Bizarreness: 3
Lasting Ability: 3

Man, I love this guy! Big Ben Donovan was awesome!

Big Ben was a mountain of a man in platform shoes with six-inch iron heels who happened to be a lawyer. He had hit on the widowed Mrs. Jenks, a former employer and constant pain in the ass to Luke Cage. She went on a date with him, but before they could go too far with it, she turned him down and left. Feeling that she was just leeching off of him, Big Ben got very, very drunk and very, very mad. Mrs. Jenks came to Cage to explain the situation, just before Big Ben came crashing through the wall.

“AH-HAH! Thought you was jivin’ me for anotha dude, afta spendin’ up all my party-timin’ money, huh? Ain’t no jive-time broad gon’ shuck me ’round after I spend fifty bucks on ‘er – ’specially for no otha stud!”

Luke Cage and Big Ben Donovan brawled throughout the entire issue, almost evenly, until Big Ben screamed uncle and declared that he’d rather be on Cage’s side. From there on, Big Ben became Cage’s personal attorney. This had potential to rock. Just the idea of Luke Cage having this gigantic dude handling his law problems and giving him street information while occasionally fighting thugs as the two stand back-to-back is a neat concept. Sadly, it didn’t work out that way. Big Ben was forgotten about after that storyline. By the time Iron Fist had come into play, they already had Danny Rand’s lawyer Jeryn Hogarth filling in the spot as Cage’s attorney.

Big Ben returned to villainy during the Power Man and Iron Fist series. He also made a brief comeback in the pages of Marvel Knights, where Daredevil knocked him out fairly easily. Last seen, he got really tubby and formed a prison gang with Tombstone, Rocket Racer and Hypno Hustler. He never did wear those iron platforms again. He deserved better.

Stiletto and Discus
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #16 (Stiletto)/Power Man #22 (Discus)
Threat Level: 3
Bizarreness: 4
Lasting Ability: 5

Stiletto was the first to show up, stalking Luke Cage during the Rackham/hostage situation. Neither the reader nor Cage himself knew what Stiletto’s deal was, other than that he shot tiny, rapid-fire knives from his wrist and dressed like an even gayer Plastic Man. Like all good weapon-based villains of the 70’s, he didn’t just carry knives, but trick knives as well.

He returned at a later time with his brother Discus. Same deal, only with trick throwing discs. Remember that warden that got fired earlier in the series? These are his sons, each wanting vengeance for their father’s unfair treatment. Stiletto is supposed to be the brains, with Discus as the more athletic one. It was a cool concept when you look at it. Their father was a compassionate man interested in reforming criminals, so his children respond by being closed-minded, murderous vigilantes.

The two fought Cage and Iron Fist for a bit before being reduced to simple henchmen for Justin Hammer. Stiletto and Discus quit the villain business a couple times, but kept coming back. While obscure, they’re still active to this day, showing up as recent as Civil War: War Crimes. Stiletto’s costume thankfully got better.

After #16, the series changed titles to Luke Cage, Power Man, so this is a fitting place to stop for now. I’ll look at the other half of ridiculous villains next week. Yes, this includes Mr. Fish.

Criminal gets four reviews this week and three out of four dig it! Our team this week: David Uzumeri of Funnybook Babylon, Ernie Estrella, Samantha of Neither Doormat Nor Prostitute, AHR of Geekanerd and Jason Michelitch of Jason Michelitch.

Geoff Johns

Johns’s Jawns

by David Uzumeri of Funnybook Babylon

Geoff Johns is a complex writer, albeit not particularly a subtle one.

In the aftermath of Sinestro Corps, and now the Alpha-Lanterns story, we’re starting to rocket into the third act of his grand Green Lantern epic that started all the way back in 2004 with Green Lantern: Rebirth #1. It’s been a huge commercial success for the company, firmly raising both Hal Jordan and the entire Green Lantern mythology into DC’s conceptual A-list while also performing huge acts of world-building and defining the modern ideal for a DC crossover event with Sinestro Corps War. It’s been, undoubtedly, a success for the company.

On a commercial level.

Critically, the book has been more than a little bit beleaguered largely due to its scribe, Geoff Johns. Make no mistake, Johns can be – and largely completely was back in 2004 – a fan’s writer. His enthusiasm for the characters he writes can be either infectious or obnoxious, and when he returned Hal Jordan to the lead role in the franchise, many people felt his enthusiasm for Hal bordered on blind hero-worship. It was a similar concern that Rebirth largely signified that the Green Lantern franchise would forget about more recent characters and devolve into simple Silver Age nostalgia.

Three and a bit years later, it’s pretty clear that wasn’t the case. Johns has, in a manner similar to Braction/Frubaker on Iron Fist, extended the mythology of his corner of the DC Universe to such an expansive system that it doesn’t even really need the containing universe anymore. He’s made a large number of retcons that haven’t discounted early stories but rather just exposed new perspectives on them and incorporated them into a whole – using the emotional spectrum not only as the thread with which many previous enemies and events (Parallax, Star Sapphires, Black Hand) are sewn together, but as the springboard for what was DC’s most successful event since Infinite Crisis. (I realize that was only 2005, but we’re in Event Country now and that’s forever ago.)

It certainly doesn’t take an English professor to figure out the central theme of Green Lantern is overcoming fear. As Johns grows as a writer, his stories’ reliance on and willingness to explore these kinds of themes strengthens. It’s a theme that’s reflected in every aspect of the book, from Hal’s relationships with his family to the internal politics of the Corps to the Star Wars-esque mystic mumbo-jumbo that forms the core of the book’s newly expanded mythology. Nothing he comes up with is out of thin air – the Guardians always rejected emotion, the yellow ring was already in play, the Star Sapphires and Effigy didn’t take much tweaking to fit into the framework Johns built. Honestly, I think it simplifies things, too – if you’re trying to explain where these different aspects of the Green Lantern mythology relate to the central concept, all you really have to do is point at a color wheel. A little Power Rangers, yeah, but it’s more succinct than explaining the history of Maltus and why the Controllers and Zamarons left Oa.

Another very common complaint against the series is that Geoff Johns has some kind of “hero worship” for Hal, and therefore is incapable of portraying him as a flawed character. This is a reading that baffles me – while Johns may not feel that turning Hal into a drunk driver (Emerald Dawn) was the best course of action, his interpretation is still an immature, stubborn, selfish hotshot that very unglamorously tore his family apart, continually wasted Air Force resources, and arrogantly refused to wear his ring while flying, leading to a months-long stay in a Chechnyan prison camp with his friends. He’s been a bad brother, a bad son, a bad soldier and, thanks to Parallax, a really shitty space cop. He’s certainly not perfect.

This imperfection and why Hal keeps on going have been the fuel for his journey over the course of Geoff Johns’s tenure. In Green Lantern: Rebirth #6, at the end of a pitched battle, Parallax implores Hal to give up and he responds he “doesn’t know how.” It was a line that many dismissed as an action movie cliche, but it’s a philosophy that’s formed the core of his decisionmaking process since. No matter how much he fucks up, he’ll try again, and that’s the lesson he learned from Parallax. Before, Hal Jordan had no fear – his cockiness stemmed from an innate urge to utterly deny its existence. To bottle it up deep inside, to never let it affect his thought process. And when the chips came down and the hits kept coming, and he lost his hometown, he completely snapped and gave in, and Parallax had him.

Now, Hal recognizes it and overcomes it. It’s not about pretending the threat and the fear aren’t there; it’s about recognizing them, rationally weighing them, and going ahead anyways. Fear has always been a powerful weapon, and that’s no less true today – and as long as it is, the book’s theme remains relevant. On top of that, Hal’s journey isn’t even over. Johns has stated this is his most personal work right now, and from the fireworks and Photoshop effects of Sinestro Corps War, it’s easy to see how that could be a mystifying claim. However, I think that, like all great science fiction and superhero epics, the large-scale conflicts act as effective metaphors for the personal struggles that give the story resonance.

Geoff Johns isn’t a perfect writer, but he’s learning. Every year, I see more and more complex and varied comics coming from him, from the Norman Rockwell Americana charm of Justice Society of America to the tongue-in-cheek character humor of Booster Gold. While his recent work has certainly improved his critical cachet, there’s still a strong undercurrent within the community that he’s still a “fan’s writer”. While I think his work on Zoom back in Flash was evidence to the contrary, the negative reaction to much of his 2005 work (especially Infinite Crisis) really set this impression into stone for a while. The phrase “big dumb crossover” was used to describe SCW a great deal, but the role that story played in thematically tying up the journey of Coast City in overcoming its own fear, as well as the implications of Sinestro’s master plan, fit into Johns’s grander narrative in a way that is hardly dumb.

Geoff Johns is a very good writer. Within a few years, he’ll be truly great. I really wish he’d give creator-owned concepts a try for a little while, just because I think it would expand his horizons as a writer, but with each new project his understanding of structure and narrative improve to a huge degree. The genuine enthusiasm that fuels his craft is not only infectious to the reader but also the driving force behind his constant (and stated) desire to learn. There is a reason Grant Morrison is mentoring this guy – he has the potential to be far more than another Roy Thomas, Kontinuity Kop (I’d say he’s already there). His work isn’t empty – there are ideas, themes, hooks to all of his stories. They may currently lack subtlety sometimes, but that will come with time. The more his work is treated as something real, the more likely it is to become that. I can’t wait to see what he’s doing in three years – I just hope it doesn’t take that long for people to realize he can get there.

We’re getting going a little late this week, but we still have David Uzumeri of Funnybook Babylon, Ernie Estrella, Samantha of Neither Doormat Nor Prostitute, and Jason Michelitch of Jason Michelitch. Jason even hooked us up with a lengthy review of Ganges #2. Read on.

The K.O. and Return of Superman

by Gavin Jasper of 4thletter!

Last weekend was Wrestlemania 24, where boxer Floyd Mayweather fought “The Big Show” Paul Wight. The whole idea of an outsider celebrity making an appearance to fight off a wrestler on their home turf has been done a lot, especially at Wrestlemania. It’s usually the same thing, where the celebrity is the good guy, the wrestler is the bad guy and the celebrity wins to the cheers of the crowd. Things were a little bit different this time around.

Sure, Mayweather did win, but the crowd wasn’t happy about it. Even though Big Show was supposed to be the bad guy, he’s way too likeable and being wrestling’s version of the Juggernaut, the crowd refused to buy the tiny Mayweather as winning. Not just that, but Mayweather’s on-air persona was completely unlikeable and almost impossible to get behind. The most important aspect is that the people watching the event are wrestling fans and wrestling fans are tired of seeing their guys lose to a special guest appearance.

That makes me think of a comic with a similar match-up. The most popular boxer of the era takes on an almost invincible superhero in the ring. Unlike Mayweather/Show, this crossover worked out quite well. Of course, I’m talking about Superman vs. Muhammad Ali by Denny O’Neil and Neil Adams.

When I discuss comics with people who don’t know too much about them, I always like to bring up Superman vs. Muhammad Ali. The mere mention of its name always gets an amusing reaction, only to be followed up with the even more shocked realization when I insist that not only is it good, but it’s one of my all-time favorite comic books.

First off, look at how great that cover is. It’s a wrap-around with the audience made up of DC characters, 70’s celebrities and the DC staff. As far as I know, it’s the only time Juan Epstein and Plastic Man have ever been seen together and that in itself is very special.

At the time, back in 1978, the issue took a while to come out. By the time it did, Ali was no longer the champion. In the Marvel world, Spider-Man made reference to this.

Hey, Spidey, you know what? Fuck you! When Marvel did their own “blue alien boxer fights Earth’s superheroes to see if their planet is worthy” story four years later, they didn’t even invite you! They had Wonder Man, Doc Samson and Sasquatch there but the Champion of the Universe wouldn’t give you the time of day. And while I’m at it, Spider-Man, when Superman was convinced Lois Lane was murdered by Manchester Black, he took it like a man. No devil deals or trying to exact vengeance while wearing a black costume. And you know what else? When Superman became an asshole in his awful third movie, at least he was man enough to grow stubble to show he was dark. Yeah, that’s right. None of that emo douche shit, you dancing pansy.

Sorry, where was I? Oh, right. Muhammad Ali.

The lateness of the issue may have been annoying at the time, but now it doesn’t matter. The fact that Ali wasn’t the champ doesn’t matter. Muhammad Ali is Muhammad Ali. He’s one of the few who would become more than just a celebrity, but an icon. He is the face of boxing, far more than Leon Spinks or Mike Tyson (who could have been like Ali if he hadn’t become a psycho) or Floyd Mayweather. Ali is someone who transcends being just a real person and becomes a larger than life personality. He’s like Lincoln, Elvis, Bruce Lee, Mr. T, Frank Sinatra, etc. That’s why this entire confrontation is so perfect. After all, what is Superman if not a larger than life personality that stands the test of time?

The story begins with Clark, Lois and Jimmy interviewing Ali at a Metropolis blacktop. A blue alien named Rat’lar shows up, immediately smacking Lois and getting punched back by Ali for it. Clark sneaks off to become Superman and sees that Rat’lar’s people, the Scrubb, have the world surrounded by a huge armada. They’re more than powerful enough to beat Superman and even if he tried to stop them, he wouldn’t be able to protect all of Earth.

Rat’lar explains that his people see Earth as a threat due to their destructive ways and challenge their champion to fight the Scrubb’s champion for the fate of Earth. If they lose or forfeit, the world will be destroyed. Superman and Ali each argue over who should represent Earth.

I suppose you could make this argument an analogy over hero worship. Superman may be able to crush a lump of coal into a diamond, but at least Ali is a real guy. He’s something you can aspire to be.

It’s agreed that Superman and Ali will box each other to decide who will defend the Earth, with Superman’s powers nullified by a red sun. The two are given 24 hours to train, but using some of his Kryptonian gizmos, Superman is able to stretch that one day into two weeks. During that time, Ali teaches Superman the sweet science. Seeing him go over each kind of punch is one of the book’s highlights.

“Okay… First, a jab. A jab is a question: ‘Hey… You there? You got anything to show me?’ A hook begins as a question and ends as a statement! If the statement is strong, he’ll be starin’ at the ceiling! A right-cross is an argument! You’re arguin’ that he oughta go to sleep! ‘Course, you gotta be convincin’! An uppercut is a clean statement – comes out of nowhere… and when it connects, the statement ends in an exclamation point!”

Soon the two find themselves on the Scrubb’s craft, where they meet the winner’s eventual opponent, Hun’ya. Rat’lar goes over how strong he is and asks for a demonstration.

When it’s time for the fight, much of the universe tunes in. They dropped the ball by not having any major DC aliens check it out. Imagine Desaad and Kalibak sitting on the couch, eating popcorn. Maybe Despero and Starro throwing down bets somewhere. At least they do have Adam Strange checking things out. That’s good enough, I suppose.

Jimmy Olsen is given the job of commentating for the fight. He announces as our two heroes go at it. For a little while, it seems pretty even. Superman has learned enough to handle himself against even Ali. Still, he’s only the pupil and he’s no longer invulnerable. Once Ali gets some steam going, Superman can’t keep up and gets the tar beaten out of him. The thing is, he won’t go down.

Superman takes the beating of a lifetime from the professor himself and stays on his feet. Lois begs for someone to end the fight. Finally, deciding enough is enough, Ali walks away from Superman. The robot ref holds Ali’s hand up in victory, a moment before Superman finally gives in and passes out.

That is probably the best way to have done the fight. For a fight that’s lopsided either way, both guys come out looking good. Superman showed that behind all the superpowers, he’s still a spirited man willing to sacrifice his body. Ali defeated Superman in a fight. Even when you go into the circumstances, it’s still pretty major. Hey, if we give Batman credit for beating Superman while wearing a kryptonite ring, we can give Ali a little consideration. Still, you can easily argue that he still needs to prove himself. Good thing he still has that fight with Hun’ya.

As for Superman, his beaten body is taken away and sent back to Earth. There’s some crazy stuff going on where Superman and Ali’s corner man have switched places. Superman sneaks around, punches out guards, impersonates Rat’lar, tells the armada to leave Earth, steals a spaceship and flies towards a yellow sun until back to his normal invulnerable self. There’s a cool part where when preparing to attack a guard, Superman kisses his own fist. I guess it’s more than just ring skill that’s been rubbing off on Kal-El.

Things get even stranger when the goddess Athena shows up out of the blue and deems herself referee. Uh… okay.

The following few pages and the exchange between Rat’lar and Ali are absolutely fantastic.

“All right, Ali – You are famous for predicting the exact round in which you win. Then predict!! Predict! –Or has the power of Hun’ya so numbed your brain? Has fear of our superiority finally wiped out your arrogant defiance? Predict, arrogant buffoon! And should you be wrong – my ARMADA – WILL – REDUCE – YOUR – WORLD – TO – A – SMOLDERING — ROCK!”

“Okay, alien – you want a prediction, you got one! He’ll hit the floor in four! He’ll hit the floor in four! An’ furthermore…

“I promise you… I promise you… Hear my voice now—I’m gonna knock Hun’ya out! I’m gonna destroy Hun’ya! DEE-STORY Hun’ya! They’re all gonna tell me after this fight – Muhammad Ali is the greatest of all TIME-AND-SPACE! I’m gonna destroy Hun’ya! I’m getting’ MAD! I’m gonna knock Hun’ya OUT!

“I’m ready… I ain’t never been so ready! If I got any badder I’d be scared of myself! After this fight, they gonna say Ali is terrible!! They ain’t gonna say I’m good – I’m GREAT! I’m BAD! They’re gonna say I’m TERRIBLE! I’m gonna hear the word terrible… I’m MAD! I’m terrible! I’m gonna DEE-STORY!!

“I’m glad I got the stage set! All these suckers are thinkin’ this is a tough fight! I’m gonna give ‘em all a lesson! I’m gonna whup ‘im an’ spank ‘im! I’m the GREATEST! I’m the KING!!”

Come, now. Is it really too much to ask that they get a time-displaced Muhammad Ali circa 1978 to join the Justice League? He’s way better than Geo-Force.

Against Hun’ya, Ali starts off looking good, but much like Superman in their earlier fight, the moment he takes some real damage, he loses his cool. Hun’ya demolishes Ali and succeeds in knocking him down again and again. It’s only the ringing of the bell that saves Ali from more punishment. By the time round four begins, Rat’lar makes a proposition. If Ali gives up and Earth surrenders, he’ll allow everyone on the planet to live as slaves.

The very idea pisses Ali off something fierce. He gets back into the fight and terrorizes Hun’ya. Fearing that Hun’ya might lose, Rat’lar calls up his armada to get their asses back to Earth and blow it up anyway. Rat’lar’s fears are correct as not only does Ali punch out Hun’ya, but he punches him through the ropes and into the crowd.

Rat’lar announces to everyone that the fight was won with trickery and he’s going to destroy Earth despite the victory. On his projector screen, everyone sees Superman take on Rat’lar’s entire armada, trying to disable them before they can reach Earth. Hun’ya gets his bearings and watches in awe.

But while this is the super-strong Pre-Crisis version of Superman, he still can’t hang with the Scrubb armada. There are too many and he overexerts himself. Soon he floats lifelessly in space as Rat’lar laughs. Hun’ya doesn’t.

The giant yells at Rat’lar for being a coward without honor and threatens to tear his throat out if he says another word. Go Hun’ya!

They take in the unconscious Superman and revive him. Hun’ya apologizes for Rat’lar’s actions. He had convinced them all that Earth’s people were evil and dishonorable. Rat’lar screwed himself over by forcing this tournament, which showed what its two champions were made of. Ali and Lois seem pleased that in the end, it was fair play that saved Earth.

Days later, Ali and Superman meet up again and do the usual Silver Age final page recap. You know, the point where they fill in the blanks for the rest of the story. Ali congratulates Superman on putting up a real good fight and then refers to him as Clark Kent. Back in the very first scene, Superman made a slight mistake that Ali picked up on and used it to figure out the dual identity. Not offended at all, Superman instead shakes Ali’s hand as the boxer announces, “Superman, WE are the greatest!”

No matter how many crossovers they do, there will never be another comic like this one. Not only does Ali come off as a badass here, but it’s one of the most enjoyable Superman stories I can think of. It’s a wacky concept, but then again, isn’t that what Superman’s all about? We have an alien in colorful underwear flying around and shooting stuff with laser eyes, but when you add a real person to the mix it becomes too strange? Okay.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drink a McDonald’s vanilla milkshake. I don’t know why. Their shakes aren’t even that good. They’re really just kind of fair.

…goddamn Spider-Man…

The Ten Cent Plague

So What If They’re Just For Kids?

by Bob Proehl of Diagnosis: No Radio

Like jazz, the other great indigenous American art form, comic books started out produced almost exclusively by and for outsiders. In cramped New York City offices, young, hungry artists, unable to find work in the more established and lucrative field of formal illustration and largely of Jewish or Italian descent, with names like Eisner, Kane, Siegel, Schuster, Infantino, worked long hours for page rates, inventing the visual language of a new medium, unrestricted by the formal constraints of tradition or the content supervision of outside parties like the MPAA or the FCC.

Their audience was a group that had yet to be defined as a distinct demographic; “children’s entertainment” in the 1940s amounted to little more than guidebooks for teaching kids how to become well-adjusted adults. The idea that children might have tastes, might desire something in their entertainments other than primers on cultural conformity, was revolutionary. And like most revolutionary ideas, it quickly came into disfavor with those interested in maintaining the status quo.

In his latest book, “The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America“, David Hajdu, author of “Positively 4^th St” traces the rise and fall of the early comic book industry in post-war America. While most long-time comic book enthusiasts know some version of the story and can name check Wertham, the Code and EC Comics, Hajdu goes into painstaking detail in an attempt to tie the comic book scare to other oppressive cultural and political forces in 1950s, as well as mapping the rise of comic books onto the birth of youth culture.

Hajdu presents early comic book artists simultaneously as hacks and rebels. Many took work in comics to simply to pay the bills, shunning the idea that comics could ever be considered art, and even before the backlash against comics, working in the industry had a certain social stigma attached to it, due in part to anti-Semitic sentiments that persisted in the US even after the revelation of the Holocaust. Regardless of their artistic aspirations, these creators were, for the first time, giving kids what they wanted, and the kids were buying in droves. Even at 10 cents a copy, the comic book industry was making millions of dollars and reaching millions of readers in the early fifties. For a time, it was a more successful form of mass media than traditional print books or television.

Starting from this freewheeling period, when the market embraced superhero comics alongside romance, westerns, crime and horror, Hajdu slowly paints the story of the industry’s decline into violent self-censorship. The book centers on three characters: the iconoclastic Will Eisner, a business pioneer and artistic innovator, frustrated in his pursuit of artistic recognition to go along with his financial success, the tragic Bill Gaines, determined to make his company successful if only to spite the Christian conservative father he’d inherited EC Comics from and bullied into near bankruptcy by forces inside and outside comics, and the spectral Frederick Wertham, once a liberal minded clinician who opened the first mental health clinic in Harlem, convinced comic books were at the root of the rise in “delinquency”, a blanket term which covered every form of what we now accept as the standard rebellious nature of youth. Hajdu evokes an atmosphere of paranoia through descriptions of book burnings in the American heartland, only years after WWII and Senate hearings on comic books, sandwiched neatly between hearings on organized crime and the McCarthy hearings on the communist infiltration of the armed forces. The culture at large seemed to be strictly enforcing hegemony, eliminating anything outside the norm. “It was a bad time to be weird,” artist Al Williamson put it.

With an overload of detail, including a list of nearly 800 writers and artists eventually put out of work once the Comics Code eliminated most books on the shelves, Hajdu presents an almost untold story which makes the more well-known outcry against rock and roll seem like a faint echo. In fact, it’s a fight that has recurred throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first: a form of media specific to youth (heavy metal in the eighties, video games in the nineties) comes under fire from adult “watch-groups” who fail to understand something novel as anything but strange and therefore evil. Culminating in the introduction of the Comics Code, one of the most oppressive forms of regulation any media industry has imposed upon itself, the book expands on the standard narrative of Wertham as demonizing the evil trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as representatives of Fascism, Homosexuality and Sadomasochism (probably not how Kurt Busiek will be presenting the trio, but one can hope), to show an entire apparatus of parent’s groups, media groups and legislators, trying to make the case that taste lies solely in the hands of those in power; the tastes of comic book readers and creators are, by definition, “deviant”. The book shows one of the earliest battles between youth and authority. Authority may have won out, cursing comics with decades of Code-approved super heroics instead of the beautiful chaos of imagination that came before, but, inspired by the sheer uniqueness of comics, a medium all their own, youth was prepared for the next round.

Eyedol Worship: Killer Instinct

by Gavin Jasper of 4thletter!

Back in the mid-90’s, fighting games were a pretty big thing. Over the span of several years, an untold amount of sequels and forgettable copycats oversaturated the videogame market. Once all of that calmed down – somewhere around the turn of the millennium – only the big names remained: Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, King of Fighters, Guilty Gear, Virtua Fighter, etc. They continued to have sequels and updates as the others just got thrown to the curb.

And yet, for whatever reason, Killer Instinct fell off the face of the Earth despite its popularity. In the mid-90’s, the first game was huge. It was a huge seller on the SNES and the sequel was one of the first big games for the Nintendo 64. After that, it just died. Rare just kind of forgot it existed and instead made a bunch of games starring talking animals.

But you know what? I still remember Killer Instinct. I remember it enough that when I found out that it had its own comic back in the day, I had to get my hands on it. Scoot over, kids, and I’ll tell you the story of a ninja monk, a killer robot, a disgraced boxer, a secret agent, an animated skeleton, a man made of fire, an alien made of ice, a cyber Native American, a cloned dinosaur, a two-headed Cyclops and the evil organization that brought them all together. Let’s look at the Acclaim-released Killer Instinct comic book.

Each cover uses the rendered style that came with the games. While the style is a bit dated, it still just feels… right. That would get old quick if the interiors were like that, but thankfully they are not. Amazingly, the interior art is excellent throughout the series. They’re done by Bart Sears, Sean Chen, Steven Butler, Dale Eaglesham, Doug Tropea-Wheatley, Scot Eaton and David Boller. What the hell? The comic has seven different pencillers for six issues and somehow it feels totally consistent! That’s weird. There are a handful of different inkers too, so they can’t be to blame. Huh!

There is only one writer, though. Art Holcomb takes the reigns in all six issues of this. What’s interesting is how the series is laid out. The first three issues are a basic retelling of the first Killer Instinct game. The latter three issues are special one-shots that take place afterwards. This came out in the latter half of 1996, around the time the second game was making its way to the arcades.

Killer Instinct takes place in a future where corporations have taken over the governments, including the very corrupt Ultratech. Ultratech is run by a very deranged and nameless chairman who resembles Wilson Fisk. Ultratech entertains the people with its bloodsport tournament known as Killer Instinct. Most of these competitors are part of the tournament due to Ultratech’s crooked ways. Some fighters are their own creations, while some fight in return for answers to their own dilemmas.

The first issue mainly focuses on T.J. Combo, a former boxing champion who became disgraced after it was discovered that he fought with cybernetic enhancements. Now he cleans clocks in the Killer Instinct tournament to regain that lost glory. As we see here, it includes him beating the dinosaur Riptor to death.

Combo acts like he’s fighting legit to the media, but in actuality, the Chairman is constantly amping up Combo’s bionic implants. Combo is always being tended to by a voluptuous female tech, but by stealing items behind the Chairman’s back, we see that there’s more to her than being a simple flunky. Combo annihilates the skeleton warrior Spinal, but the Chairman decides that in the next match, Combo will no longer be allowed to charge up his bionics. Pissed off, Combo sneaks off and gets his cyber fix via a back alley dealer.

Meanwhile, Jago is shown visions of the Combo vs. Spinal fight. Jago is one of the main protagonists of the series, with his origin being that he was an orphan discovered by Tibetan monks as a child. Worshipping a wise Tiger Spirit, Jago has trained to be a great warrior with hopes to conquer his own inner darkness and all that jazz. By the second game it’s revealed that the Tiger Spirit is really just a villain Gargos using Jago to his own ends, but they never get far enough to reveal that here. The Tiger Spirit tells Jago to seek out the Killer Instinct tournament because it needs someone heroic to cleanse its evil.

Combo’s ready for his next big fight, finding out he’s up against Fulgore. Fulgore is the first artificial soldier and a blatant knockoff of the Predator, created by Ultratech for the sake of selling to as many countries as possible. Of course, when one guy in the Ultratech boardroom points out how it’s not such a good idea to put faith and money into a robot that has been shown to ignore and refuse orders, the Chairman just calmly tosses him out the window. So he’s Predator AND Skynet mixed in one. That’s a bargain.

Luckily, Combo is amped up and ready to beat down that…

Oh. Never mind.

While this is going on, we find Combo’s personal tech sneaking off to use a stolen key to enter the Chairman’s quarters. Turns out that she’s another one of the game’s main characters, the secret agent Black Orchid. Finding out about the Fulgore project, she knows that this is going to lead to a cliché humans vs. robots war. For whatever reason, she figures that rather than all this covert stuff, she should just enter the tournament and work it out from there. That’ll show them!

The next day, they have the Killer Instinct semi-finals, showing that Art Holcomb doesn’t have much of an idea of how tournaments work. Especially when you consider that Orchid and Jago just joined the thing and there are more than four guys active. Anyway, they focus on Orchid, Jago and Killer Instinct veteran Chief Thunder, which makes sense. These three are the only good guys in the story who aren’t dependant of Ultratech.

Orchid debuts against Thunder. The fight goes back and forth, but after Thunder misses a killing blow, Orchid goes to town on him.

Orchid lets Thunder live and leaves, despite personnel explaining to her that they can’t register the win if she doesn’t finish him off. Jago watches this with great interest and begins to rethink his own reasoning.

Later on, in a brutal and rather pretty fight against the werewolf Sabrewulf, Jago wins and gets ready to decapitate him with his sword. Sabrewulf, long suffering from his own disorder, begs him to get it done. Instead, Jago walks away. From his hospital bed, T.J. Combo watches this, confused. Later on, he confronts Jago about it.

As you can see, this comic desperately needed an editor.

There’s a subplot going on about the Chairman and his obsession with listening to “the voices”. Much like Jago hearing the Tiger Spirit’s voice for most of his life, the Chairman has been listening to another set of voices that have led him to greatness. This has led him to work towards creating a portal generator to Limbo. As the Ultratech employees look on in horror, Eyedol, a large, two-headed monster with a club and goat legs enters our realm. The Chairman welcomes him with open arms and calls him master.

The second issue’s climax shows Orchid vs. Fulgore. Again, a well-drawn fight with cheesy dialogue (like Orchid telling the robot, “DIE IF YOU CAN!”). After destroying Fulgore, Orchid is congratulated by the Chairman, who voids her victory by revealing that he now knows who she is and what she’s been doing. With her snooping around so much, the Chairman believes that he should be doing something to improve security. That segues into him revealing Eyedol to the world.

He reveals to the world that Orchid is a traitor who wants to end the Killer Instinct games. Jago and Thunder are guilty by association, which is like saying that you are associated with the guy who held the door open for you at the bank. Because of Orchid’s “threat” to Ultratech, Eyedol has declared martial law on Ultratech City. This means that a bunch of Fulgores are going around stabbing people for their own protection.

The good guys are to deal with Glacius, another Riptor clone, Spinal and two more Fulgore models. T.J. Combo powers through the crowd and makes his way into the fray, coming to the rescue of Orchid, deciding that he wants to be one of the good guys. Orchid and Jago tear apart the two Fulgores and make their way to the Chairman’s quarters.

Eyedol lectures the Chairman on how lame martial law is. “We have commanded legions of the undead. Fought battle to where bodies of our enemies littered the landscape for as far as our eyes could see. You have merely made your people… inconvenienced. We will soon show you what power is.”

Orchid and Jago bust in. Eyedol recognizes the Tiger Spirit presence that comes with Jago and decides to fight him, while commanding the Chairman to deal with Orchid. After some hesitation, the Chairman just high-tails it out of there with Orchid giving chase.

Jago wins the fight and the Tiger Spirit makes his presence known. The Tiger Spirit admits to having battled Eyedol in Limbo and eggs on Jago to kill Eyedol and end the terror once and for all. Jago decides that he won’t kill, even if it’s someone as evil as Eyedol. While the two are having this conversation, Eyedol stands back up and heals back to full strength.

Orchid corners the Chairman and gets ready to kill him, but the Tiger Spirit calls to her with insistence that Jago needs help. Orchid leaves the Chairman, who feels a bit disrespected, and joins Jago in the fight. She turns the portal back on and the two toss Eyedol back to Limbo. Jago feels that this way, he can keep Eyedol in check without having to sacrifice his own soul.

The epilogue has Jago and Orchid discuss their plans. Jago no longer senses the Tiger Spirit, but feels pulled towards the mountains in the east. Orchid feel the need to stick around and help rebuild. They should probably do something about all those Fulgore robots killing civilians, but that’s just me. Before going their separate ways, Jago states, “Stay forever vigilant. For I tell you, the night is coming!”

Um… okay. Overall, not too awful. The story wasn’t all that hot, but considering what they had to work with, it wasn’t the worst thing ever. Three more issues didn’t sound all that bad. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.

In terms of the game’s storyline, after Eyedol was defeated, a time rift happened and some of the competitors were pulled back 2,000 years in the past. The Tiger Spirit manifested itself as Eyedol’s evil rival Gargos and a couple lame new characters showed up to help kill him. Not great, but it was a development at the very least. They decided not to go with that in the comic.

Instead, the final three issues – labeled as specials – take place after the first three issues, but act like the tournament is still going on. Orchid and Jago, despite the stuff they said they would do, are still competing in the Killer Instinct contest for no reason. Hell, in the next issue, the Chairman kills his own replacement and gets back to work like nothing happened. Except now he has a blond henchwoman named Kara doing his dirty work.

The first special opens with Jago fighting Riptor. It’s stated that the day before, Jago had a rematch with Sabrewulf, where Sabrewulf had wounded Jago pretty badly. Jago still takes on the next challenge, which annoys Orchid. Chief Thunder is quick to point out that Orchid would do the same in that situation, working as a bit of foreshadowing.

Jago succumbs to the wound during the fight and Orchid is the only thing keeping Riptor from finishing the job. After making sure Jago is tended to, she confronts Sabrewulf and finds out that he may have accidentally infected him with lycanthropy. D’oh! Sabrewulf defends his actions by bringing up the reason he’s in the tournament in the first place: Ultratech has the cure for the werewolf virus and will give it to him if he fights in the tournament long enough. Since Orchid knows the Chairman won’t flat out give the cure to Jago, she and Sabrewulf decide to figure out where Ultratech is holding it.

While in Orchid’s quarters, Sabrewulf notices the only photo she has of her long-lost family. Sabrewulf makes mention of how much Orchid looked like her brother and then sulks about how he has no family. During a Thunder vs. Cinder match, Orchid and Sabrewulf sneak around and enter where they figure the cure is kept. They’re met by Kara and a couple Riptor clones, out to protect the serum. Sabrewulf is having none of that shit.

He tears into the dinosaurs and finds a flask of bubbling liquid. Not listening to Orchid, he downs a bunch of it without thinking twice about it. Instead of being cured, he gets covered in this nasty green goop, grows into a giant and smashes out of the building. Turns out it wasn’t the right serum. Whoops. Now, you’d think turning into a giant, walking swamp on a rampage would be a major setback, but surprisingly no. There’s no actual closure to this. He’s just back to normal in a later issue with no explanation.

Orchid goes to visit Jago and finds him almost completely covered in brown fur. The Chairman is excited as they can finally remove Jago’s mask. The doctor there says he wanted to respect Jago’s wishes and keep it on for as long as he could, but the man needs a respirator to stay alive. They take the mask off and you really can’t make out much of his face due to him having become a full-on werewolf. A full-on werewolf with a birthmark on his upper-lip. A full-on werewolf with the same birthmark on his upper-lip as the one Orchid’s brother has in her old family photo.

The doctor says that the only way he can cure Jago is by either getting some of his DNA from before the infection or getting the DNA of a parent or sibling. Orchid figures out that Jago is her long-lost brother and the issue just plain ends right there.

The next story is more of a mess. It’s about Glacius, the icy alien whose ship crashes near a ski resort. He uses the surrounding snow to heal himself, sends a beacon to his brethren to pick him up and searches a hardware store for parts to help repair the ship. Entertaining bit is when he sees a barbecue grill and believes it to be an alter for a fire god.

Ultratech finds him and takes him in. The Chairman says that if Glacius fights in the tournament during his time on Earth, he’ll let him live to see his people again. With no choice, Glacius reluctantly agrees. He’s handed over to Cinder for fight training. Cinder is a criminal turned into a permanent Human Torch, thanks to a faulty Ultratech experiment. As he later explains to Glacius, he wants one of two things: either to get cured by Ultratech as a reward for his fighting or to get killed.

Right on cue, the sprinkler system goes off in the training room. It causes Cinder to collapse in paralyzing, agonizing pain. So he’s in that room just about everyday, but it just so happens that this time his fiery body sets off the sprinklers. Sure, okay! It looks like Cinder’s going to die from this, but Glacius saves his life. Cinder reacts by pointing out that he wants to die. Furious, he tells Glacius that he’s going to kill him the first chance he gets.

I should also add that the sprinklers were turned off by Black Orchid, not as an undercover tech, but as a fellow fighter in her trademark green leotard. Continuity just exploded.

In the tournament, Glacius dominates against everyone he goes up against. He begins to get into it and enjoys the cheers of the adoring crowd. By the point where he finds himself holding Spinal’s disembodied skull in his hand, he finds that the quicker he leaves this planet, the better. Thankfully, the Chairman has agreed to set him free to meet with his alien people, who should be arriving on Earth any day now. Cinder seems to be a bit bitter about this.

On the site where Glacius’ ice alien brethren are set to land, there are a ton of witnesses. Mainly, they are Ultratech soldiers and other Killer Instinct fighters. Glacius slowly comes to realize that Ultratech is going to attack his people. As pissed as he is, Glacius doesn’t do anything about it, since he figures his boys could wipe out Ultratech’s army easy. A shuttle is released to pick up Glacius and Cinder all of the sudden runs off towards the control console for the cannon they are going to use to shoot it down. He fries the console and gets attacked by a handful of Killer Instinct combatants. Glacius joins the fray and fights alongside his fiery counterpart. For some reason, a bunch of good guys like Combo and Thunder are on Ultratech’s side in this.

A tank fires a laser blast at Glacius, but Cinder takes the brunt of it instead. Seeing the severity of Cinder’s wound, Glacius holds Cinder in his arms and cools him down to the point that Cinder will finally get the sweet death he’s been craving. For the first page, this is a fantastic death scene. Cinder’s face becomes more human, he smiles a bit and says how he can feel the fire dying. His word bubbles begin to lose the orange gradient and go back to normal white. Then his eyes close, his head goes limp and he somehow sheds a tear. Really nice.

Only on the next page, he then flies upwards, yelling, “I AM FREE!” Uh… okay.

With Cinder gone, Glacius says, “In the next few minutes, the humans will meet my people… and the next few minutes will seal all our fates.” Meanwhile, more military vehicles show up, as do news vans. It looks as if the battle between Earth and the ice aliens is about to continue with a huge climax… but it doesn’t. It just ends. No conclusion whatsoever.

The final issue looks beautiful, especially in terms of the panel layouts, but feels as if the writer was in a massive rush to get it done. The main character is Chief Thunder, which fits pretty well. What I mean is that this is the last issue before cancellation and it centers on the guy so unpopular that he didn’t even make the game’s sequel. He doesn’t even get to be on the cover for this issue.

Chief Thunder had originally entered the Killer Instinct tournament to get answers on the disappearance of his brother, Black Eagle. As shown via flashback, Black Eagle won the previous year’s tournament. When flashing back to that tournament, it shows Orchid fighting Jago. How do they screw up continuity this badly when they only have six issues to go on?

Eagle wins, does a moving “corporations suck” speech and is never heard from again. Thunder figured he could find him and bring him back home, but now thinks that he’s gotten too into the fighting. He has a tribe to lead and a hot wife to go back home to, so he needs some closure quick. With Orchid’s help, he meditates and calls upon the great spirits to give him answers.

What he gets is a vision where he fights Fulgore, who seems a bit different for reasons he can’t comprehend. The two hit each other at the same time, causing Fulgore to fall and Thunder to become so distraught that he too falls to the ground. An eagle flies down and lands between the two.

There’s a lot to laugh about with this panel. The unnatural dialogue exchange, the completely unnecessary emphasis in Orchid’s word bubble, Thunder looking to have the same facial scars as Heath Ledger Joker. I’m glad this is the last one of these I have to review.

The Chairman is finally getting yelled at by the stockholders, meaning he has to cut back on some of his projects. To keep the Fulgore project under budget, he’s had to make some adjustments. He and his assistant Kara will have a control box to shift the new Fulgore’s power during the match. At a crucial moment, they’ll drop the power completely so that Thunder can easily destroy it. For the reader, it’s pretty obvious by this point that Black Eagle is inside the Fulgore costume, tying in with Thunder’s vision. That just goes to show what a really awful villain this Chairman guy is. He’s going to deface and discredit his top moneymaker for the sake of ruining one guy’s day. I liked it better when Eyedol was around.

The fight happens and it’s mostly what you’d expect. They turn the power down on Fulgore and Thunder smacks him around. Black Eagle breaks through the programming and talks to his brother. Thunder removes the Fulgore helmet, showing Eagle to look like post-cyborg Anakin Skywalker, and they both leave the arena. That’s it.

This comic is just a series of badly-written endings. Even when we get a semblance of closure, they don’t even give it space for a real conclusion. It just ends.

It looks to me that the writer took the three issue arc somewhat seriously, but decided he didn’t give much of a damn after that and phoned it in for the remainder.

On the upside, it did have this scene.

The line-up: David Uzumeri of Funnybook Babylon, Ernie Estrella, Gavin Jasper of 4thletter!, and AHR of Geekanerd.
The big winners: All-Star Superman #10, Blue Beetle #25
The reviews:

Alan Moore’s Black Dossier: Another Look

Alan Moore Is At It Again

by Dyfrig Jones of http://bloganswyddogol.blogspot.com

First of all, apologies for being late. This being the Internet, there’s no excuse for falling behind. And since League of Extraordinary Gentlemen : Black Dossier was originally published nearly four whole months ago, this piece is seriously behind schedule. But then I do have a defence – I’m British, and getting my hands on a copy isn’t as simple as walking in to your average neighbourhood comic store. Alleged copyright infringement by the author means that while the book has surfaced in the US, DC have decided not to run with it in the UK.

There has been a predictable amount of speculation and rumour-mongering regarding these legal wrangles. Some fans have questioned whether there is a genuine problem, while others have asked how the first two volumes managed to get around infringing the copyright of existing fictional characters while the third book failed. For what it’s worth, I think the answer to this second question is fairly straightforward. In the previous books, Moore chose to work with characters that were out of copyright, or with characters whose identities were tweaked sufficiently to separate them from their source material. Moore has taken a similar approach in the Black Dossier, but may have sailed a little close to the wind.

There can be little doubt that one of the main villains of the book is fairly closely modeled on England’s most famous secret agent. His surname is never mentioned, but there are plenty of heavy-handed hints to his identity, including a reference to a Jamaica based Asiatic super-criminal that was “No Doctor”. In and of itself, the publisher may have got away with it – as they did in volumes 1 and 2 – had “Jimmy” the spy been a slightly more sympathetic character. But making him a rapist might not have been the wisest way of currying favour with the copyright holders, and may be the reason for DC’s nervousness. Their legal counsel may have come to the conclusion that imitation may be permissible as long as it is flattering, rather than venomous, in tone.

Whatever the reason, the Black Dossier remains, officially, an exclusive treat for American readers. Which is a curious state of affairs, considering that this is a book that exists, essentially, as a compendium of mid-20^th century British popular culture. This is not, after all, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 3. It is, to borrow a wholly anachronistic classification, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Version 2.1 – a strange combination of graphic novel and background source book.

Set in England in a post-Nineteen Eighty-Four 1958 (if that makes any sense) the narrative follows Mina Murray and a rejuvenated Allan Quartermain as they steal the eponymous Black Dossier. The book, which details the history of the many incarnations of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (among other things), is in the possession of the British government, who have recently ousted Big Brother’s Ingsoc tyranny. As our two heroes make their escape, they frequently pause to read extracts from the dossier, re-prints of which make up the majority of this book – a combination of prose, retro comic book pastiche, and literary ventriloquism.

So far, so Alan Moore. Mixing media has always been a hallmark of Moore’s work, and part of what gave Watchmen it’s appeal was the back and forth between the main plot, the “source material” – Hollis Mason’s Under the Hood, pages from the New Frontiersman – and the secondary narrative, Tales of the Black Freighter. To be fair, the same device was present in the first two volumes of League as well, in the form of the story Allan and the Sundered Veil and the mock travelogue The New Traveller’s Almanac.

Now this is where I make my confession. Until recently –until I sat down to write this piece, in fact –I had never read The New Traveller’s Almanac from beginning to end. Neither did I bother with Allan and the Sundered Veil. I began to read both of them, but found that they lacked the interest of the main narrative. Unlike the prose section in Watchmen, they seemed supplementary, appendices that – like their anatomical equivalents – weren’t really necessary. If you wanted to write an academic paper about Alan Moore, you’d need to read them. But for the general reader’s convenience, they were tucked away in the back of the book, to be ignored.

The problem with Black Dossier is that the same sections are no longer tidied away neatly. While the first few page of main narrative is classic Moore, once our heroes get their hands on the book itself, it simply becomes a device for getting us from one piece of source material to the next. If you start skipping them, you miss the point of Black Dossier. To do so would be like watching commercials on TV and then fast-forwarding through the programme itself. Now this wouldn’t be a problem, if the source material was any good. But the sorry fact is that it doesn’t make for very interesting reading. And it illustrates a central point about Moore as an author.

Moore’s problem is that while his work is always well written, it isn’t always enjoyable. Now a statement like this raises a point about writing in general. Does “good writing” exist, or is anything you enjoy reading, by definition, good writing? I would argue that there are certain criteria that mark out good or bad writers. Originality is certainly one, but the ability to structure a story well; to ensure that characters act in a way that is consistent with their motives; to string words together in a coherent and stylistically interesting manner; to explore themes in an implicit, subtle, manner; and to weave together disparate storylines are all necessary skills for a good writer.

The problem is that a book can contain none of these elements – it can be predictable, ridden with clichéd language and characters, and lack any narrative unity – and people will still enjoy it. Bad writers produce books that people like –the enduring career of Frank Miller is testament to this fact. And likewise, good writers can produce books that contain every element of great literature, and be phenomenally dull to read.

Perhaps the central problem of Black Dossier is that it is the work of a man who is determined to prove what a good writer he is. Moore’s most disappointing work often feels as if it is trying to make a point. Reading Supreme or Tom Strong , you feel that you’re watching a man desperately trying to answer his imagined critics, a man who is screaming at them – “Look at how clever comic books can be. Notice the post-modern intertextuality. Bow down before the deconstructive knowingness.” And like the super-villain of old, he becomes crazed by his power, and it destroys him.

Black Dossier falls firmly into this category of Moore book. It is heavily inter-textual, and stultifying dull; as much of a puzzle book as a story. It contains well observed pastiches in many literary styles – from Shakespeare to Jack Kerouac – and is engorged with tiny references to 1950’s British pop culture. But how many of Moore’s readership are sufficiently familiar with either Shakespeare or Kerouac to truly appreciate how well Moore has managed to mimic their voices? How many of his readers will recognise one percent of the supporting characters? Some may argue that the fun is in the finding out, but I suspect that the answer is much simpler, and more disappointing. The fun of Black Dossier was probably in the writing. It’s only a pity that there’s none left for the reader.

Whoops! We’re running a little behind schedule today, mostly because I got the great idea to try a new P&P design. It lists more info, but it’s also a little longer. Give us some feedback on it! Does it look good? Awful? Too much, too little, too late? Let us know.
However, our Picks & Pans gang is in full effect, with Samantha of Neither Doormat Nor Prostitute, Jason Michelitch, David Uzumeri of Funnybook Babylon, Ernie Estrella, and Gavin Jasper of 4thletter! talking about this past week’s comics. There were a number of big winners– Captain America #36 and Incredible Hercules #115 being particularly well-reviewed. Ernie even managed to say everything I wanted to say about 100 Bullets, too. Jason’s got a full review of War Is Hell #1 up here, if’n you’re interested.