Dong Xoai

Over the last 60 years, Joe Kubert has been one of the steadiest, and arguably greatest, artists of all time.  His work has spanned everything from Hawkman and the Flash in the 1940s to his own caveman creation Tor, (which he still revisits as recently as two years ago) to perhaps the work he is best know for, Sgt. Rock. It also includes almost every other DC war hero ever created to Tarzan in the 1970s to his most recent work, Dong Xoai.  I would highly recommend all of his work and I am going to review a handful of his prodigious output in this column.

Let me start with his new work, Dong Xoai. Dong Xoai tells the story of a special forces team in Vietnam in 1965 that was supposed to play the role of advisers but ended up being anything but. It is a true story, filled with tension and suspense, and, as with anything Kubert does, the art is amazing and detailed. This is not a traditional graphic novel done in nice clean panels, but is more of a hybrid of an old fashioned childrens’ book with text blocks and illustrations to go with it.  That said, this book is by no means for children, but the design and style do work perfectly together to telling this gripping, and amazingly true, story.

Tor #1

Joe Kubert first did Tor in 1953. As a collaboration with Norman Maurer (and originally published by St. John Comics), it only lasted five issues – but the caveman’s adventures were always in the back of Joe’s mind.  Tor was brought back in the short-lived newspaper comic Sojourn in the 1970s and was once again brought back for new adventures in 2008 in a brand new series from DC Comics.  Luckily for Kubert fans, DC has collected all the Tor work prior to the most recent series in three beautiful oversized hardcovers in full color.  These volumes take a little work to find [Editor's Note: for less work, check the link above!], but they are breathtakingly beautiful and are a great read.

Showcase Presents: Sgt. Rock Vol. 01

Over the years, Kubert has been most closely associated with the DC War books:  Sgt. Rock, Haunted Tank, Losers, Unknown Soldier, and so many more. And he has done the covers to almost all the books these characters have ever appeared in. (Note: I am talking about the 1960s/1970s versions of these characters and not the recent Vertigo reexaminations of the Losers and the Unknown Soldier.) The easiest book to find, and arguably his best war book, is Sgt. Rock. There are three Showcase Presents: Sgt. Rock collections reprinting over 500 pages of rip-roaring action, almost all of which are written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Kubert. Most of the stories are 8-15 pages long and each one is like a little war movie unto itself. As with all of Kubert’s work, his way of telling a story and his meticulous craftsmanship is amazing, making you feel like you are right there, be it 1,000,000 Years BC (which was the title of the first Tor comic) or the Sahara desert with Rock and Easy Company chasing Rommel.

Tarzan: The Joe Kubert Years Vol. 02 HC

Kubert’s craftsmanship and drawing style lead into my final recommendation of his work: Tarzan.  In the early 1970s Joe Kubert did Tarzan for DC Comics, resulting in a mix of adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and new stories featuring Tarzan, Jane and the great apes of darkest Africa. I recently went back and re-read all of these stories and I have to say they are just amazing. The art is perhaps the best he has ever done and the stories are sparse and action-packed, proving that you do not have to employ verbose and convoluted twists and turns to tell a good story. Fortunately, Dark Horse has collected all of Joe Kubert’s Tarzan in three full color hardcover Archive editions, all of which I would encourage anyone who likes a good story to get and read (whether you like  Tarzan or not).

As I am sure you can tell from reading this installment of the blog, I am a big fan of Joe Kubert’s work over the years.  A few other pieces he has done over the years that are well worth tracking down if you can find them (which may be a challenge) are as follows: Tex, a western he did many years ago for a European publisher; Yossel, a graphic novel about the holocaust; and Showcase Presents: Hawkman Vol. 1 (in which Hawkman never looked so good and there’s art by Murphy Anderson as well). There are numerous other works by Mr. Kubert whose praises I will sing another time.  As always, any comments, review copies, or attacks can be sent to MFBWAY@AOL.COM. This column represents my opinions and not the opinions of Westfield Comics or its employees.



Heroic Age

by KC Carlson

This month, the big news from Marvel and DC is, respectively, The Heroic Age and Brightest Day. Most details on The Heroic Age are still CLASSIFIED, other than the fact that it will launch in May with the publication of a new Avengers #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita Jr. (No word yet on when the numbering will revert to the long-standing Avengers numbering, as most Marvel titles eventually do, but at this point, with several more-or-less interconnecting Avengers titles over the past few years, it might be just too difficult – or controversial – to calculate.) Assuming the image that Marvel released for The Heroic Age is, indeed, the new Avengers line-up, then I’m pretty happy about the following:

* The return of “the Big Three” – Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America, although that looks like Bucky-Cap to me, instead of Steve-Cap, and as good a character as the former is, it’s just not the Avengers without Steve Rogers. I hope that will be addressed.

* Hawkeye back AS Hawkeye (makes up for it a little). But where’s Bobbi?

* Black Widow. Very cool! Always a good Avenger. And, hey, she’s in a movie this summer and getting her own title! But the ONLY female?… not so cool.

* Ben Grimm. Finally. Served with the West Coast Avengers for a short time, but never interacted much with the East Coast team. And I hope that since we see his usual FF belt buckle, he’s not leaving them in the lurch. My secret hope is that with Ben an Avenger, we also see the return of the floating Marvel poker game, after way too long a time.

* Returning Spider-Man. Excellent! Non-returning Wolverine. Also okay. Guessing he’s going to be busy elsewhere.

* The Beast. My favorite Ex-Avenger. But isn’t he usually just as busy as Wolverine is?

* Gorilla-Man? Hmmm. Wait-and-see.

‘Course there’s the question of where are all the other characters? Well, I’m guessing that there are probably going to be a couple of new Avengers-related concepts that will need members. And we might have to deal with the fact that not everyone’s gonna survive Siege. More on this as it develops.

Brightest Day

Brightest Day starts up this ordering month, with the publication of Brightest Day #0. This will be the linking book between the finale of Blackest Night and the new Brightest Day bi-weekly series, written by Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi, with art by Fernando Pasarin and featuring the DC debut of David Finch as regular cover artist. Again, details are skimpy pending the ending of Blackest Night, but speculation is rampant regarding the possible resurrection of several formerly deceased characters. We’ll find out for sure in April.

What we do know is that the Brightest Day series will alternate weeks with another bi-weekly series: Justice League: Generation Lost, which will be written by Keith Giffen and Judd Winick (artists to be announced) and will feature stories of Justice League International. Membership will include Captain Atom, Booster Gold, Fire, Ice, and Rocket Red as well as some TBA members. Blue Beetle has also been mentioned as a member, but which one? (And isn’t one of them pretty famously dead?) JL: GL (weird initials, eh?) has not been officially scheduled yet.

Flash #1

Brightest Day is also the title of a blanket concept that will involve several of DC’s major titles, including Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Justice League of America, the newly re-launched Flash title (#1 listed this month) by Geoff Johns and art by Francis Manapul, the two bi-weekly titles mentioned above, a soon-to-be-revamped Titans title, and the recently announced revival of Birds of Prey by Gail Simone and Ed Benes. These last two titles have yet to be officially scheduled. Geoff Johns is said to have a coordinating role in all the Brightest Day titles, in much the same way he coordinated the Blackest Night event.

I am cautiously optimistic about all of these announcements. I get the feeling that just “pockets” of the MU and DCU are going to be affected by this sudden (and scarily simultaneous) upswelling of good times and promises of the return to traditional heroic traditions. But that may be enough for me. I fear a little for the Giffen JLI book, which traditionally has been a “fun” book, being published by a man who had admitted to not liking the previous Giffen run and who seems to not have a professional sense of humor. Can writers like James Robinson and Geoff Johns really curb their tendencies to beat and maim their characters? The omnipresent Norman Osborn and his uptight Dark Avengers not withstanding, the underlying tone and playfulness of the Avengers books has actually been pretty good of late (thanks to Spider-Man and his complete ineptness around women), so I’m actually hoping that the current writers stick around for The Heroic Age. Bendis-lite works great on Ultimate Spidey – I’d love to see it on the “real” Avengers.

I know I’ve been on everybody’s case of late about this, and now that it looks like I’m getting what I wanted from the big two for their core super-heroic characters, I’m a little greedy and want a little more. I’d feel a lot more confident about the whole thing if some of the classic writers of fun and heroic characters, like Mark Waid, Roger Stern (both on Team Spidey, thank Wacker!), Todd Dezago, Kurt Busiek, Walt and/or Weezie Simonson (yay, X-Factor Forever!), Chuck Dixon, Tom Peyer, and probably others I’m forgetting, were asked back to participate. Trust me, Giffen on JLI and Simone on Birds is a big deal, but let’s see more!

Further, I’d like to see up-and-comers Jeff Parker and Paul Tobin, who have been working on Marvel’s kid versions of the classic characters for several years, finally get the call to the “bigs”. Parker’s Fall of the Hulks: Alpha was SO good. We need more writers who can successfully reclaim the classic (and occasionally goofy) old characters and make them work for a new audience. And while I (sadly) don’t see her being asked to draw the next Civil War – give Colleen Coover all the work that she can handle!

End of soapbox. For now.

Beasts of Burden

Speaking of fun, check out Beasts of Burden from Dark Horse this month! Written by Evan Dorkin and wonderfully illustrated by Jill Thompson, Beasts is an action-adventure story staring a heroic pack of dogs – and one cat – who band together to ward off supernatural menaces that threaten their community. This 168-page hardcover also includes the original stories from the Dark Horse Book of … series. I’ve seen a lot of weird trends in comics over the years, but it looks like we might have a full-fledged pet invasion brewing! (See also Marvel’s Pet Avengers, David Peterson’s Mouse Guard, and The Mice Templar.) Hey, Paul Levitz! If there was ever a time for a Legion of Super-Pets mini…

Red Tide

Although light on animals, Dark Horse is also (finally?) publishing Steranko’s one and only Chandler visual novel, Red Tide. (I say “finally” because Dark Horse had originally planned to reprint the book in 1999, but the book did not materialize then.) Red Tide was first published in 1976 as part of Bryon Preiss’ Fiction Illustrated Vol. 3 in a digest format. According to Steranko, the book was originally designed as a fill-in of sorts for another very late story, and the original Chandler work was produced in just 2 1/2 months. (Hyper-speed for a Steranko project!) Dark Horse’s version will be published as a 7” x 10”, 128-page hardcover graphic novel. Substantially re-worked and “remastered” with all-new state-of-the-art coloring by Dave Stewart, Red Tide tells a tale of the hard-boiled detective, Chandler, in a specially designed fusion of text and graphics. But the main reason you should buy it is because it’s by Steranko – and there’s just not that much Steranko work available for you to miss it.

Kids Komics

I am all over The Golden Collection of Klassic Krazy Kool Kids Komics being offered by the Yoe Books imprint published by IDW. Just check out this line-up of creators: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Frank Frazetta, Walt Kelly, Dr. Suess, Syd Hoff, Jules Feiffer, George Carlson, John Stanley, Dan DeCarlo, Sheldon Mayer, Carl Barks, and others! I don’t know exactly why, but as I get older I find myself drifting away from more traditional current comics and rediscovering the comics that I read as a kid (before I discovered superheroes) and even those kids’ comics published before I was born. They have even more meaning to me now as I continue to learn about the men and women who created them. This information is finally becoming more widespread, and these talented, and mostly unsung, folks are finally getting their due. I’m always thankful to see collections like this (and other recent books like The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and & Francoise Mouly), because the original comics are often so hard to find. This is good, funny stuff. Try it! It’s better than spinach!

Oddly Compelling

I seldom have anything in common with R. Crumb (except maybe a love for really odd music), but I certainly agree with what he says about the new Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen volume coming from Dark Horse: “I think ‘oddly compelling’ is a very good title for a book of Denis Kitchen’s work, and describes it very well.” I concur completely, as that was exactly my thoughts upon discovering Denis’ work in underground comix back in the early 1970s – which is, not surprisingly, the focus of this 220-page collection of rubber-limbed appendages on otherwise stiff figures, eerie black backgrounds, crazy eyes, and lord knows what else lurking in the corners of his panels that you don’t see because his drawings have lured your eyes in the other direction. As the proud owner of Denis’ childhood copy of Archie’s Mad House #2 (he wrote his name on the cover with turquoise ink), I highly recommend this book from this truly unique artist, and hope you find it oddly compelling as well.

SHIELD

“Leonardo Da Vinci was an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. So was Isaac Newton.” Okay, I’m sold. S.H.I.E.L.D. has always been my favorite Marvel concept, so I don’t need much of a push to check out this month’s S.H.I.E.L.D. #1. Written by Jonathan Hickman (who is doing wonders on Nick Fury’s new book, Secret Warriors, as well as making the Fantastic Four a fun read!) and pencilled by Dustin Weaver, doing a spectacular job, this issue also has a special Black & White variant. Did you know that Da Vinci and Newton teamed with Imhotep, Zhang Heng, Galileo, and other geniuses to be the first heroes to defeat Galactus? Holy Monty Python! This sounds freaking awesome!

Black Widow

I’m also excited that Marvel is showing some love to theBlack Widow, with a new ongoing series, written by Marjorie Liu and illustrated by one of my current favorite cover artists, Daniel Acuna (love his super-design-y covers!). Unfortunately, she starts the series severely injured, after an attempted murder. Plus, a special back-up feature gives up the backstory of the mysterious Natasha – just in time for her appearance in Iron Man 2!

Cover Run

CREATOR WATCH – AH! It’s so sweet that our pal Adam Hughes is the focus of Cover Run: The DC Comics Art of Adam Hughes, a new hardcover art collection. Besides the actual finished covers, there will also be sketches and commentary from Adam. I wonder if there will be any babes in it? … Want to see some of Adam’s work in 3-D? Check out his design for the new Cover Girls of the DC Universe: Poison Ivy statue, also listed this month! … Author Neil Gaiman and artist Charles Vess have re-teamed for Instructions, a 40-page picture book that looks incredible. Vess provides fantastic full-color illustrations for Gaiman’s lyrical poem about the rules to follow and how to get around if you accidentally find yourself in a fairytale world. (Where was this book 20 years ago, when I first started working at DC Comics in NYC?) It’s beautiful. Get it! … Alan Davis is rapidly stealing George Pérez’s thunder with his massive wall-to-wall hero covers. Last month was his amazing piece on the Marvel Women, and this month he’s drawing the wraparound variant for the final issue of the brilliant The Marvels Project (#8), featuring most of Marvel’s Golden Age greats! … Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber’s creepy cave-bound Underground miniseries is being collected this month by Image. … Sam Kieth writes and draws the first new Batman graphic novel in awhile – Batman: Arkham Asylum – Madness, a 112-page hardcover out in June (but order now!). Kieth also finishes up his Ghosts storyline this month in Batman Confidential #43 … Bryan Hitch pencils the New Avengers Finale this month, written by Bendis and wrapping up the various Avengers plotlines. The 64-page Finale also features a bunch of super-star artists paying tribute to their work on the Avengers … The Power Pack dream-team of Weezie Simonson and June Brigman return to their creations in a special story in Girl Comics #2. Look for the “Snow White”

Neil Young's Greendale

cover by Jill Thompson! … Cliff Chaing illustrates a retro-looking Wonder Woman, Zatanna, and a red-headed Batgirl in Brave and the Bold #33, written by JMS. Chaing is also the artist for Vertigo’s impressive Neil Young’s Greendale project, written by Joshua Dysart. It’s a 160-page graphic novel based on Young’s very personal album of a politically active young woman defending her hometown when a mysterious stranger comes to town – and everything goes to hell … Walter Simonson provides interlocking covers for The Authority #21 and Wildcats #22 … Craig Rousseau is the artist on Marvel’s new kid-friendly Marvel Her-Oes, featuring Marvels greatest females as if they were in high school. As if! Yeah, it sounds like a weird concept with an awful name, but if anyone can make it charming, it’s “Crafty” Craig!

Daffy Duck

SHORT TAKES – Wondering why there wasn’t a Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set in your Christmas stocking last year? It might have been because there wasn’t a new collection! But Warner’s DVD animation department remains committed to eventually getting every classic Warner Bros. cartoon on DVD – they’re just going to do it in smaller packages – and themed towards more specific characters or concepts. First up is Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire and Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl, two new single-disc sets featuring 15 new-to-DVD cartoons each, all remastered and shiny. They’re available in April, but you can order them right now! … Starfire joins the R.E.B.E.L.S. in issue #15 of their book. But wait, didn’t she just join the JLA? And she’s still in the Titans? I’m so confused … The team-up you never thought could happen! The evil Egghead meets the eerie Egg-Fu! Is Batman and Wonder Woman’s day going to be scrambled – or over easy? Find out in Batman: The Brave and the Bold #16.

Doc Savage: Man of Bronze

THIS AND THAT – How weird is it that there’s a 1970s Marvel Comics cover (by John Buscema) attached to the solicitation for DC’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze collection this month? Even weirder, the collection reprints Marvel’s Doc Savage miniseries from 1972, featuring work by Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, Ross Andru, Tom Palmer, and others. And I thought it was weird that Dark Horse was reprinting Marvel’s Conan material. But DC publishing old Marvel series?!? Holy Moonshadow! … By the way, don’t miss DC’s new Doc Savage series this month, written by Paul Malmont with art by Howard Porter and Art Thibert, part of the DC’s new pulp-oriented First Wave line … As is The Spirit #1, with a lead feature by Mark Schultz and Moritat and the beginning of a new The Spirit: Black & White back-up series, kicked off with a story by Denny O’Neil and Bill Sienkiewicz … No, you’re not imagining it. Deadpool IS in EVERY Marvel comic book this month, even if you don’t actually see him. Deadpool’s actual blood has been mixed into the red ink that every Marvel comic is printed with this month (even the Black & White comics!). Special issues will also include bits of his fingernails and toenails and… what’s that Roger? It’s too early for April Fools? Nah… besides all these books ship in April!!!

Seven Soldiers of Victory

BOOKSHELF – There’s a second volume of DC’s Greatest Imaginary Stories available for ordering this month, and this time it’s all Batman and Robin stories! Most of these weren’t labeled as Imaginary Stories back in the day, but how else to explain Batman battling space aliens or giant robots or the existence of Bat-Mite, Bat-Girl, or Bruce Wayne, Jr.? (Funny cigarettes?) Can’t wait to see Brian Bolland’s new cover for this collection! … Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory is getting the hardcover treatment this month with Volume 1 featuring SSoV #0, plus The Guardian, Klarion, Zatanna, and Shining Knight miniseries. Personally, I’d love some annotation or creator comments for this, or perhaps Cliff Notes for both this and Final Crisis. I’d buy that! Surely I’m not the only confused one out there … DC’s got another great Silver Age hardcover collection of some tragically near-forgotten material – Joe Kubert’s Viking Prince series from the earliest issues of The Brave and the Bold, plus the great Viking Prince/Sgt. Rock team-up (???) from Our Army At War. Bob Greenberger will have much more on these classic stories – and this long-awaited collection – in his column any day now, right here at th’ Blog! … Bob is also spotlighting the excellent Panther’s Rage storyline from Black Panther #6-24, by Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Billy Graham, and Gil Kane, which is the latest (and super-big at 352 pages!) Marvel Masterworks, the 141st volume in this wonderful long-running archive of the classic material from Marvel’s formative years … Another must-have classic Marvel collection this month is the hardcover of The Infinity Gauntlet, the first major stand-alone story of Jim Starlin’s Thanos cycle of event stories. Illustrated by George Pérez (amazingly, while also writing and drawing War of the Gods for DC at the same time) and Ron Lim, who took over for Pérez when he left the series, after realizing that he had seriously overcommitted himself. For my money, this 1991 event story, featuring most of the then-Marvel Universe, blew Secret War (I and II) out of the water. The lynchpin story for the cosmic side of the MU.

Rip Kirby

STRIP TEASE – Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume 2 from IDW reprints strips from 1982 through 1984, which kicks the strips into more “classic” Berkeley Breathed Bloom County mode. There will be substantially fewer un-reprinted strips than Volume 1, but still some surprises to be found, I’m sure. Intro by Ted Koppel! … Bloom County Volume 1 is now available in a limited (to 1,000) signed edition … Alex Raymond’s Rip Kirby is back for a second IDW volume, collecting strips from 1948 to 1951. And if you don’t know why this strip is important, Howard Chaykin explains it to you in his introduction … More classic comics are on tap from the aptly named Classic Comics Press folks, including new volumes of Leonard Starr’s Mary Perkins On Stage (Volume 7 collects strips from Dec. 1964 through May 1966) and Stan Drake’s gorgeous The Heart of Juliet Jones Vol. 3, collecting strips from Dec. 1957 through Jan. 1960, and featuring an introduction by Bill Sienkiewicz … Hermes Press is back with the fourth volume of the popular Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Dailies, with strips from 1934 to 1936, featuring five complete stories … and Jerry Robinson’s lost SF strip Jet Scott is back for Volume 2 from Dark Horse, collecting daily and Sunday strips from Sept. 1954 to Sept. 1955, when the strip concluded. These are the first time these strips, by the popular Golden Age Batman artist, have ever been reprinted

KC CARLSON: Buying and reading comics since 1960. Oh, my head!

Flash #0

by Josh Crawley

In honor of New Avengers #61 shipping this week, I’d like to talk about Mark Waid’s first run on The Flash.

I know that seems like an odd leap to make, but I don’t want to spoil anything.

Remember my column a few months back, Collecting in the Beginning? Well, before Waid and Ron Garney brought some much-deserved attention to Captain America, Waid had been crafting some amazing stories on DC’s slightly more symmetric of their Scarlet Speedsters, Wally West.

I don’t recall the exact reason I decided to ask a friend to buy Flash #0 for me. I do know I wasn’t regularly making the half hour trip to Madison to buy comics (at Westfield Comics), but I don’t know why I would’ve even wanted that issue. I hadn’t bought many DC comics at that point in my life, and it isn’t like the internet was quite as prevalent then as it is now. Maybe it had something to do with the Zero Hour #0 retelling of origins of characters. Why am I still babbling about this? No clue.

Flash #0 is one of my favorite comics ever. It very well may be one of the best comics ever, too. Waid was joined on art by his regular Flash collaborator Mike Wieringo, who’d settled into drawing what I consider the iconic Wally West: fun and youthful but mature, cartoony but believable, and topped with sideburns and a pompadour. Sadly, this would be the last issue of Flash Wieringo would draw, though he went on to do plenty of other great work, including some great Flash covers!

The issue reads as a great stand alone story, yet it still answers a question Wally had been asking himself for a number of the title’s preceding issues. It also leads into the next storyline: Terminal Velocity!

In Terminal Velocity (Flash #95-100), we’re treated to the return of Impulse (who made his debut in Flash #92-94, collected in the Impulse: Reckless Youth softcover along with Impulse #1-6), who’s now being trained by Wally. Also, Kobra is in town, there’s a plethora of speedsters, and Wally names the successor to the mantle of the Flash! His motivation? The love of his life, Linda Park.

Yeah, I’m a sap. Whatcha gonna do about it?!

The art in this storyline is primarily by Salvador Larocca, but we also get treated to Carlos Pacheco and someone who would soon be a regular artist on the title: Oscar Jimenez. Others who shouldn’t go without being named are Jose Marzan, Jr on inks, Gina Going on colors, the amazing Gaspar Saladino on letters, and all edited by Brian Augustyn. I’m sure I’ve left someone out, and for that I apologize.

I can’t easily recommend you buy Terminal Velocity, however, because DC felt some reason to let it go out of print. Lame. I’m going to blame Dan Didio, Geoff Johns, and Barry Allen, though I swear there’s no hard feelings!

Race Against Time

And now that I check, Dead Heat is out of print, too. Dead Heat was a crossover between Flash and Impulse titles (issues 108, 109, 110, 111 and issues 10 & 11, respectively) that featured the death of a speedster! Anyone reading Blackest Night: Flash can probably guess who. Dead Heat leads directly into Race Against Time, which is in print!

Race Against Time has more art by Jimenez, as well as some by a young Jim Cheung! It also features the return of future-Flash John Fox, who first appeared in an earlier Flash Special #1 way back in 1990.

Since buying all of these trades, I’ve gone back and read more Waid work on the Flash in single issues, as well as the Return of Barry Allen (in print!) and Born to Run (essentially Wally West Year One; not in print) softcovers. The new edition of Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told, while it not only has a vast majority of stories different from the first edition, also ends with another great Wally West Flash tale by Waid, Wieringo & company.

If for some reason I ever lose all of my belongings, these would be on the short list of things I’d have to replace. They really are that damn great.

And so ends the column for this week. Want more of me running my mouth? Check Twitter. Need to tell me something? Email & post info below!

josh@westfieldcomics.com

Westfield Comics
ATTN: JOSH
7475 Mineral Point Rd STE 22
Madison WI 53717
______________________
Josh Crawley is the tenured Master of Disaster for Westfield Comics, not to be confused with Josh Crawley, the keyboardist for Everclear.

The cover to Flash #0 came from The Comic Book Database.

Welcome to the latest regular feature here at Westfield Comics. During each order cycle, I’ll be identifying one or two collected editions that merit your attention and try to explain why reading this will be worth your time and money. Having grown up a reader and professional, I know a little something about the field and after years assembling collected editions contents, I think I know what makes for an excellent volume.

Al Williamson's Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic cover

This month, Flesk is taking orders for Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic. While Williamson did not create the legendary science fiction character, in many ways he inherited Alex Raymond’s artistic legacy. The artist was born in 1931, three years before Flash Gordon colorfully hit the Sunday newspapers.

Raymond is considered one of the finest illustrators to work in syndicated comics, along with Hal Foster, with a photorealistic style that brought his world of Mongo and its varied denizens to life. While Buck Rogers was the first SF strip, Flash Gordon was the best as the stories were epic in scope. The landscape of Mongo was unlike any realm seen in comics before and through the years that special feeling evaporated in the hands of others. Until Williamson.

In 256 page, we are treated to the three stories produced for King Comics, the short-lived imprint from King Features Syndicate in addition to the his adaptation of the unfortunate 1980 film that looked better than it played. There’s also Williamson’s last major series work, the miniseries produced for Marvel in 1994. The King material is exceptional because it was the first time original material had been produced for comics with the character that actually resembled the original strip. It’s lush and fast-paced with Williamson actually writing the first story. The other two were penned by his long-time collaborator, Archie Goodwin, one of the most respected people in the field… ever. Their work earned the two a chance to inherit Raymond’s Secret Agent X-9, later renamed Secret Agent Corrigan which they produced from 1967 until 1980.

Williamson’s style was very much like Raymond’s and his settings and characters felt just right. The deering-do is quick-paced and while the stories tread familiar ground, they are still head and shoulders above much other science fiction in comics. The three stories, brief as they were, earned him the National Cartoonist Society’s Best Comic Book Cartoonist award. His movie adaptation didn’t win awards but earned him a new generation of fans who may have only known his name in association with the legendary EC Comics.

Peers hold Williamson in high enough respect that this book features essays from Mark Schultz and Sergio Aragones, which also tells you something about this material and this artist.

DC's Flash Chronicles Volume 1 cover

Short Take: Another book I call to your attention is Flash Chronicles Volume 1 from DC Comics. Many dislike reading black and white reprints, while others complain about the high price of the Archives series. Finally, in full-color and at an affordable price, you can see the birth of the Silver Age. With Flash: Rebirth reimaging Barry Allen for today’s readers, this volume allows you to see how it all began with what may well be the first truly successful reboot in all of comics.

Purchase

Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic SC

Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic HC

Flash Chronicles Vol. 1 SC

Collecting Batman Annuals #1-3 (1961-1962). DC Senior VP and Creative Director Richard Bruning calls the early DC Annuals, in his informative Afterword, “the first DC collected editions.” So this is actually a collection of collected editions. Dude, you just totally blew my mind!

If there ever was a cosmic comic concept that totally deserved something like an Infinity Cover, it would be this book. Instead we get a gorgeous cover by artist Rodney Ramos and colorist Allen Passalaqua, based on the original work of the classic Bat-artists of the era: Sheldon Moldoff, Dick Sprang, and Charles Paris. It’s not quite an Infinity Cover – but close! The effective layout – big, bold Batman and Robin figures in front of a color-muted selection of elements from the actual covers – has an eerie, multi-dimensional look. It’s contemporary and yet immediately tells the reader he’s looking at a Batman from another era.

The Batman stories from the Batman and Detective Comics of the 1950s were a mixed bag of influences from all over the pop culture landscape. The best of the Bat-stories during this era (largely written by Bill Finger, the legally unsung co-creator of Batman) revolved around expanding the whole concept of Batman, including origin stories (or recaps), stories about Bat-gear (Batmobile, Bat-cave, utility belt, Bat-Signal, Hot-Line), or the Bat-villains (the Joker, Two-Face, the Mad Hatter). Many of the weaker stories of the era were those based on fads or trends in other media, including Davy Crockett-inspired adventure tales, or worse, a long-running series of ill-conceived time-travel stories with bizarre aliens similar to sci-fi and monster movies and comics of the era.

In his Introduction, Batman film producer and historian Michael Uslan presents his list of Bat-things he hated from the era:
“• giving him super-powers
• making him imitate Superman
• transporting him to other planets
• making him fight aliens
• making him fight giants
• making him fight robots
• making him invisible or making him fight invisible foes.”

Fortunately, the Batman Annuals generally avoid the worst of all of these types of stories, although a few occasionally drift in, including one in Batman Annual #2 that includes everything on this list! By the way, there’s a wealth of meticulous information in Uslan’s very informative introduction. Editor Jack Schiff (and later, E. Nelson Bridwell) usually made excellent selections for their still-memorable Batman Annuals and 80-Page Giants.

Another little thing I was very happy to see was “A Word from the Publisher” where Paul Levitz spends a couple of hundred words defining just what the DC Comics Classic Library is, exactly. Paul describes the series as a companion series to the DC Archives, sort of Archives-lite. The books are not printed on the thick archival paper used in the regular Archives – and mostly because of this, the cover price of these books are lower than the $50-$60 dollar price tag of the current Archives.

It would have been nice to know this information when these books were first being solicited. I was initially avoiding them because I thought that they were printed on the crummy newsprint that they’re using in some of their other books. I couldn’t check, because most comic shops frown on letting you open up shrink-wrapped books to investigate the paper stock. For the record, the paper stock is quite nice – not archival quality, but not cheap newsprint either. It’s sort of heavy-duty, smooth, off-white newsprint with some minor, but not bad, bleed-through. The paper holds colors well and does not succumb to the day-glo look from too-white paper. My one, minor, complaint is that the paper smells funny, but since I’m probably the only weirdo on earth that goes around sniffing stock, that’s certainly a complaint that can be discarded. (I’m also possibly the only person on earth who still uses the word “weirdo.” So it goes.)

The other major difference between these books and the DC Archives is that the Archives generally deal with comic series, and the DC Comics Classic Library is seemingly going to concentrate on one-shot storylines (see list below). The Batman Annuals is an exception, due to the “Volume One” appellation. Here’s my vote for continuing this series, especially since DC defines Batman’s “Silver Age” as starting with the “New Look” material of 1964 and everybody else’s “Silver Age” somewhere in the late 1950s (or whenever their new series started). The collected Batman Annuals may be the only logical way to “archive” the better (often great!) stories of Batman’s much maligned sci-fi days of the late 50s/early 60s, especially since the actual Archives, Showcase, or Chronological collections aren’t going to get to this material for a very long time, if ever.

Looks like I’ve got some catching up to do. Here’s the list of DC Comics Classic Library books to date, as well as a few upcoming ones:

Superman: Kryptonite Nevermore!
Legion of Super-Heroes: The Life and Death of Ferro Lad
The Batman Annuals: Volume One
The Roots of the Swamp Thing (the Wein/Wrightson stories) is due this month.
The Flash of Two Worlds (the origin of the original multiverse) ships in July.
The Justice League of America by George Pérez, Vol. 1, ships in August.
Batman: A Death in the Family (the death of the Jason Todd Robin) ships in September.

Also Available:
Camelot 3000: The Deluxe Edition (technically, not labeled as a DC Comics Classic Library title, but mentioned in Paul Levitz’s essay as part of the concept in general).
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KC Carlson has been working in, around, and adjacent to comic books since the 1970s, most notably for DC Comics as an editor (including Collected Books) in the 90s. KC’s Bookshelf is an ongoing attempt to catalog the great comic book collections and history books that should be on your bookshelf.

What we meant to list them as was in fact “Limited Series”. This should be fixed shortly, and we apologize for any additional stress this may have caused! (We’re hanging our heads in shame, really.)