Full Bleed 11
Matt vs. THE BLACK DOSSIER.
Matt vs. THE BLACK DOSSIER.
HELLBLAZER 230/231 -
At least I think that's the numbers. Who really pays attention to the numbers, anyways? Anyway, if Andy Diggle were here, I'd plant a wet one right on his kisser. Or at the least buy him a drink. Why? Because Diggle has given us back our dear old Constantine. Instead of being miserable and wallowing in his being miserable and having potentially no end to the miserableness in which he's wallowing, Diggle has made a U-turn with the character. This isn't gonna be shabby John bumming a fag from you because he's so down and out that down looks up to him. I'm figuring that we've seen an end to aimless wandering the occult slums of the UK, and instead see Constantine with something like...wait for it...purpose driving him. Sure, it might be a superficial purpose that'll blow up in his face, but it's PURPOSE all the same. Purpose drives character. Aimless characters that never change might be fun for awhile, but it does get old.
Seriously. I haven't felt this engaged by the book since Jamie Delano started out the run some...wait for it...TWENTY years ago or so. Yeah, roll that one around on your tongue for a while. Twenty years of the trenchcoat brigade. Twenty years of JC who's more or less the same character since Delano wrapped up his "Magus" storyline (with some really beautiful Dave McKean artwork) and actually explained why John was the way he was and gave him some sense of closure, having gotten past the things that fucked him up. Of course, that's no fun, so we've gotta just leave Constantine in neutral and have him parade through and endless menagerie of spectres and boogeymen. Sometimes entertaining, but I'd had other things to do with my time.
See, though, Diggle gets it. He knows why you can't get anywhere with the car left in neutral. I mean, that's fine if you enjoy the scenery right then, but if you want to move along, well, you gotta put things in gear. And he does so quite well in this two-part story. I'd had these on the read pile for some time now, and hadn't gotten to them, but you can be sure I'll make it my business to catch up and keep up as long as Diggle is on the case.
So, this week's comics, which were available today and not tomorrow like I previously thought.
Infinite Crisis #4
I want a shock. A surprise. I know, I'm probably looking in the wrong place. Though I get a chuckle out of the whole Crispus becomes the Spectre scene. Mostly because I saw it coming like three issues ago of GOTHAM CENTRAL. But then there was the whole "And if there is a God -- What'd we do to piss him off so damn much?" line.
Hey fictional characters! Good news! There is a god! He's called the author. I'm sure there's good reasons that he's all pissed off and in your grill, but as fictional characters, you don't get to know that.
At least, I think there's a good reason...
But let's talk about something more pleasant. I bet you know what I've got in mind. A little ALL STAR SUPERMAN #2. Oh yes.
If you're a hater, just skip the rest of this entry. That's okay, I won't hold it against you. Nor will I think any less of you.
What I really love about this series, besides the non-tortured Superman driven by angst and anguish (as oppsed to what we're getting a heaping helping of in the same as it ever was DCU--and if you think INFINITE CRISIS will change it, you've got another thing coming), besides the sense of scale and drama that Quitely puts on the page, besides the sharply, minimally-written characters, is the feeling of the casual impossible. That's something that's been totally lost in superhero comics (for the most part) of the last, I don't know, twenty years. And that was the thing that got me reading superhero comics in the first place.
The Fortress of Solitude encapsulates that better than even the trip to the sun in the first issue. The trophy room is home to both tragic icons (Kandor and the Titanic), but monuments to catastrophes averted (The space shuttle Columbia), as well as favorite comicbook icons. It's an impressive blend of symbols, and it's just out there. Morrison lets Quitely's art draw attention to these things, but there's no breathless prose explaining the significance of these objects. He doesn't need to, at least not by my reckoning.
And did I mention that the key to the Fortress fits in your hand, but weighs a billion pounds? Sure, it'd fall to the center of the earth and create its own gravitational pull with that kind of weight, but that's never a concern. Casual impossible. Like feeding a creature in the super-menagerie hand crafted miniature suns, or the time telescope which causes more problems than it solves. And is that Qward sitting in a storeroom?
Of course, the real casual impossibility is the destruction of Superman's secret identity as Clark Kent, as well as Lois' inability to believe it. Superman's hoisted on his own petard: his legendary honesty works against him and is undone when it's revealed that he's been lying for years and years. But even his honesty has limits, as he refuses to share with Lois the motivation for his words and actions--his impending mortality. Honesty and perception are the dramatic axis on which the story, yes, the story, revolves around. Sadly, there's a moment where that axis gets thrown with the revelation that Lois' increasingly paranoid actions is caused by exposure to some unknown chemical compound. Yes, that's right in fitting with the silver age Superman stories that Morrison acknowledges and references, but it does weaken the story he's telling right now.
However, the germ of that reaction, deceit in the face of Superman's supposed peerless honesty, still informs the story. And really, wasn't that what most of those silver age stories were all about? Superman finding a way to trick Lois and everyone else into believing he wasn't Clark Kent?
People complain that Superman is unbeatable, that there's no way to defeat him and that makes him boring, but Morrison's found a way around that. Even when he's ostensibly revealing all of his secrets and flinging himself wide open, he still can't let go completely. He can't publically acknowledge (or even privately to Lois) his own mortality. Nor can he let her enter his "forbidden room" (sort of a physical manifestation of the grim secret he's keeping. And that single secret makes even his innocuous birthday gift to Lois take on a sinister tone. That's where the conflict comes from. Sure, you may not be able to beat Superman physically, but he can trap up himself with doubt.
I said doubt, not angst. Just 'cause this version of Superman has doubts doesn't mean he's a neurosis-ridden mess. Thank goodness for that.
Finally had a chance to read the comics I bought a couple weeks ago, or some of them anyways. INFINITE CRISIS still manages to float to the top of the pile for some reason. Probably because I keep hoping for a shock or surprise to come along and gobsmack me. I'm convinced that it's going to happen sooner or later in this series, but it hasn't yet. So far, it's managed not to surprise or hit me with anything out of left field. But like a sucker, I keep coming back to it.
Close on the heels of reading IC, was the first issue of TESTAMENT, a new series by Douglas Rushkoff (who is apparently a Marshall McLuhan award winner--not that I even knew there was such an award) and Liam Sharp (who's also busy with EVENT HORIZON these days). I've been interested in checking out the book since it was announced back at SDCC last year (as well as a few of the other new, seemingly reinvigorated Vertigo books. And with a pull quote from Grant Morrison at the top, I seem to be ground zero in their target audience. We'll see if that holds true.
True to what I'd heard about the book earlier, we're presented with parallel narratives, one thread in biblical times--Abraham and the sacrifice of his son, the other in a near-future millieu rooted strongly in the cyberpunk tradition. Heh. Cyberpunk tradition. Kinda ironic when you mull that one over, eh? I mean, they were so iconoclastic, those young men with their mirrorshades. Not only are they parallel narratives, but more accurately, mirror narratives, each dealing with a father in a position of authority who's called on to sacrifice their sons (to the authorities that they serve). Though in one case, the impending sarcifice is literal (Abraham and Isaac in the biblical past) and the other figurative (Alan and his son Jacob). In the present day scenario, what's asked of the son is a chip being implanted under his skin, so that the smiley-faced Big Brother can keep better tabs on him, the implication that such is equivalent to servitude, if not walking death.
It's a common theme, maybe one of the ur-themes of literature/entertainment in the last couple hundred years: the choice between easy servitude or bucking authority. In the near-future scenario, we're presented with the unseen, yet frightening overlords of conformity or a ragtag band of artists and counter-revolutionaries experimenting with drugs. Another common theme. It's presented interestingly enough, but it's stuff I've seen before.
The only thing that's really making it stand out is the interlinking between the ancient and the now (or ten years from now.) That's most apparent in the last two pages, which is easily the highlight of the book, interlocking the two story threads and promising much more, by way of ancient gods moving through modern proxies, mixing ancient mysticism with black ops tech. Sharp's framing of the two threads is handled beautifully here, and gives me a lot of hope for something fresh coming out of the play of familiar themes.
But man, the single format is going to make reading this murder. I guess I'm spoiled, as the last great mystical conspiracy comic I read, that being THE INVISIBLES, I read as complete volumes so that I could keep everything straight, and get BIG CHUNKS of story at once. Makes me wonder if REX MUNDI, which is another similar book, would read better in the trades, even with the interminable wait between them.
At any rate, I've got hopes for TESTAMENT. It's not as pyrotechnic or dense as THE INVISIBLES, but Sharp's art does well by the story, well enough that I'll be following the story as it unfolds.
Is it so wrong to declare my boundless love for Seth Fisher?
If it's wrong, then I don't wanna be right no more. Just finished reading Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan after going through a relatively sucky work day and now I can't wipe the grin off of my face. Part of that has to be attibutable to the droll scripting by Zeb Wells, but the larger part of my glee is fueled by Fisher's imagination unleashed. Yes, there's been a lot of comparisons between his work and that of artists like Geoff Darrow and Jim Woodring. Though Wells is cleaner by far than the former and more frenetic than the latter.
He's certainly not a typical superhero cartoonist. I'm sure his lack of twitchy musculatures and heroic poses and pneumatic females does a lot to turn off the average cape fan. But the his determination to not do the Same Old Thing pleases me to no end. And it's odd, because there's not a lot of variation in his line (which is something that I usually keep an eye out for, and why I like a lot of the expressionistic superhero cartoonists like Darwyn Cooke and Cameron Stewart), but there's character. Man is there ever character on the page! His design sense is pretty flawless, too.
Chris Chuckry's colors should get a shout-out, too. Nicely modeled, but not overly fussy, and matching the tone of the artwork perfectly. And he managed to get a sense of dimension, which complements the flatness in Fisher's work quite well.
All in all, a pleasant surprise. Looking forward to more of this. And maybe even checking out some of his other work in the meantime.
I bet I’ve used that title line before, actually. Oh well, the classics never lose their lustre.
There was indeed a time, before Vertigo was a twinkle in Karen Berger’s eye, that most of the (good) weird, crazy stuff we associate with the imprint was actually part and parcel of the post-Crisis DC Universe. Animal Man talking deus ex machina with Grant Morrison? DCU. Morpheus putting the whammy on Martian Manhunter? DCU. Okay, a lot of the best of Hellblazer really took place outside the DCU. I’ll give you that one. But Swamp Thing facing off with Woodrue over the fate of animal life on the planet? DCU, baby.
And how about the now-retconned Doom Patrol? You know, the really loopy stuff. Oh yeah, the best of it took place before Vertigo happened (actually, I’d have to go back and look to see if Grant Morrison wrote any of the issues of DP that came out under the imprint. My impression is that he didn’t.) Of course, nobody told Geoff Johns that he shouldn’t use the Morrisonized Monsieur Mallah and The Brain in The Flash. At least, I’ve heard he has; I don’t read The Flash, but I understand the pair made an appearance in a recent issue. Yes, I’m passing on hearsay and not even bothering to research salient points. I’m a lousy journalist. I won’t deny it.
If you’re expecting me to dis the current Doom Patrol, you know, the all new same as it ever was version by John Byrne, then you should just stop reading now. Mr. Byrne’s assertions that his is the TRUE VISION aside, DC’s somehow seen fit to reprint the (rightly-dubbed) classic Grant Morrison/Richard Case/John Nyberg run just as Byrne’s debuts. I don’t take it as a coincidence. Short of coming into our homes in the dead of night and spiriting away our copies (not to mention all the digitized copies of the books floating around), Mr. Byrne can do nothing to supplant that vision with his own. Continuity exists to be changed. Retcons happen. As a friend of mine says “Life’s rough. Buy a helmet.” Besides, John Byrne can’t wipe the memory of Morrison’s take on the Doom Patrol from our minds. So hey, let him have his fun with the team (and by some reports, it’s a decent superhero romp, but I haven’t seen anything that really has convinced me to give it a look.)
Of course, people who haven’t read the Morrison run of Doom Patrol are probably asking “Just what makes this run so special, anyways? It’s all just weird for weird’s sake, right?” Not exactly. Don’t get me wrong. It’s damn weird. Consciously weird, even. Though I think it’s unfair to call the stories in the first two collections (Crawling from the Wreckage and The Painting That Ate Paris) obscure or obdurate or (as I’ve heard some call ‘em) mental masturbation. They, much like Animal Man, which preceeded these books, are superhero stories. All the elements are there: larger-than-life characters, flamboyant and gaudy villains, worlds hanging in the balance, and plans that are so crazy they just have to work. The elements are all there, just that they sometimes get…turned around a bit. If I were writing this for a term paper, I’d say something like:
“Morrison subverts the conventions of the super-hero genre masterfully, yet never pushes things so far that his actions can be dismissed as mere parody or attack. He playfully tosses expectations aside, the result of which is a celebration of those battling to maintain a status quo that sees them marginalized as freaks.”
I know. That would become kinda tedious, wouldn’t it…
Morrison, however, did indeed take the “hated and feared by a world they’ve sworn to protect” archetype to heart when writing Doom Patrol. Cliff Steele is hardly human (or is he?) having been reduced to a brain in a walking vat. Crazy Jane isn’t one person or even five, but something like sixty-four people walking around in one body. And Rebis, once Larry Trainor… Well, he’s not human any longer, either. Like Crazy Jane, he’s a composite entity, formed of the union of man, woman and the unknown quantity of the Negative Spirit. Compared to them, Niles Calder’s handicap of being confined to a wheelchair seems positively benign.
Compared to the enemies they face, the Doom Patrol are positively mundane. Uniformly insane, illogical, and toxic to consensus reality, this is a rogue’s gallery unlike any other. The Scissormen or Orqwith (who literally snip their victims out of this reality), god (who may or may not be Jack the Ripper and has a thing for butterflies), the nameless figments of auxiliary Doom Patrol member Dorothy Spinner’s imagination (who aren’t as bad as they seem at first glance), the Brotherhood of the Dada (ditto, but more on that later), the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (who eats imagination) and finally the Nameless Cult of the Decreator (who hire out a mini-rogue’s gallery of their own). Oh, did I mention Cliff Steele’s own body turns against him, and Crazy Jane’s mind turns against her?
There’s a lot of unbridled imagination here. But it’s not the same kind of overblown overmuscled, overpowered sort of thing that we usually get served up in superhero comics. These foes are often abstract, with undefined and undefinable powers, or powers that only work in a literary and not a literal sense. Take the Quiz, for instance, who can have any superpower, so long as her adversary hasn’t thought of it first. This runs the gamut from flight and invulnerability to the ability to turn policemen into commodes or make bullets grow to enormous size, spending their kinetic force far before they reach their target (or my favorite, making negative-spirit-proof glass jars. Never know when that’ll come in handy.)
Not only are the villains imaginative in scope and power, but also in terms of visual impact. When most artists were veering towards shoulderpads, spikes and GUNS GUNS GUNS, Morrison (and I’m fairly sure he was instrumental in the design of his characters) went in the other direction and just went nuts, putting his visual imagination to work in ways that may seem arbitrary and nonsensical, but that’s kinda the point. Morrison isn’t interested in making villains that would fit in the real world, nor even in previously existing comic book worlds. None of these characters would survive off the comic page, and that’s just fine. They look and read great just where they are. The villains don’t have human motivations or dimensions (for the most part), but then I don’t think they’re supposed to. They feel dreamlike, ruled by a subconscious logic ripe with implicit meaning and dodging the literal.
If you’re looking for a theme in Doom Patrol, one that jumps out pretty explicitly is the assault of illogic upon logic. Fantasy versus reality. Nonsense (but not necessarily chaos) versus the status quo. It’s freaks versus freakier freaks. Insane versus insaner. And like undergrad Matt said upstream, oddly enough the Doom Patrol fight hardest to keep things the way they are, even when that means they’re relegating themselves back to the freakshow. Not that they necessarily see it that way.
Is Morrison making comment on the superhero as enforcer of the status quo? Not quite, or at least if he’s doing so in these two volumes, it’s in a fairly subtle way. The Brotherhood of the Dada may indeed just want us to have a little more fun and loosen up a bit, but they’ve also managed to unwittingly unleash capital O Oblivion on the world. Of course, they also figure out how to shut it down (and in doing so, trap themselves in a “perfect” world of their own making, in what turns out to be one of the most bittersweet moments in the books.) Everywhere that illogic attempts to get a foothold in the Real World, the Doom Patrol manages to put it down (though sometimes resorting to illogic or deus ex machina moves in order to do so.) But for now, the Doom Patrol, as unbalanced as they may be, are enforcers of stability. Though those borders will become more porous and nebulous as time goes on (but don’t let me spoil it for you.)
Morrison dares to be artful, to embrace literary sources beyond Shakespeare or biblical themes. Whether it’s reference to Coleridge or de Quincey or the Fauves or Futurists, pop art or trash art or Impressionism, Doom Patrol is unafraid to run amok through culture (with such odd moments as the presaging of reality television or the issue-long meditation on the mind/body dichotomy that’s a hundred times more fun to read than I’ve just made it sound). Doom Patrol is smart and doesn’t talk down to its audience. Nor does it harangue the reader (though I’m sure that many will object to it’s deliberate and knowing cleverness) with its own depth. Morrison knows to keep things fun and light, particularly when dealing with meaty themes.
This stuff is regarded as classic for a reason. Kudos to DC for putting it out there again. I can only hope that they get the whole thing collected, even in the face of the whole Flex Mentallo court case fiasco. Because if you think these first two volumes are crazy fun, you’re in for a treat with the ones that follow. So get on the stick, DC. You’ve got our attention so far.
Which is today. One day shy of mine (and four years, if you want the full count.) At least *someone* in der Blogosphere is older than me, though you'd be hard-pressed to find more. But hey, it puts me right in the middle of the Big Two's current target market. Too bad, as a rule, they keep missing that target, at least where I'm concerned.
And in honor of today's occasion, I was going to review True Facts, but I see that Mikester of Progressive Ruin beat me to it. I'd only add that reading True Facts is like having Larry standing over your shoulder and giving you encouragement (even if it is a tad oblique, such as "be the bunny").
Except for one thing, Larry wouldn't ever do that. He'd ask how things were going, and answer any questions you had about the process, and even offer encouragement when you were feeling low. But he'd never, ever stand over your shoulder. Larry's not a hand-holder, a coddler, a protector. He's a stern taskmaster who will recognize efforts, but only saves applause for completed projects. He wouldn't stand over your shoulder because he'd want you and your team to finish the project on your own accord and not because he was egging you on. Larry makes a pretty lousy cheerleader, mostly because he doesn't look that good in chenille and short skirts.
Instead, I'll turn my attention to Steven Grant and Vince Giarrano's Badlands, which AiT/Planet Lar re-released a couple of years back. This isn't light reading, folks. This is not a happy-go-lucky "let's find out who killed Kennedy and wrap it all up tight" sort of thing. This is a big, mean, unflinching and more than a little disturbing book. I take that back, it's not mean. Steven Grant doesn't do anything out of spite or simply because he can, like a five year old sociopath pulling wings off flies. Everything that happens in Badlands happens for a reason. None of it's exploitative or revels in how seriously disturbed most of the cast is.
Conrad Bremen, the protagonist, isn't a cookie-cutter antihero spouting one-liners and cocksure platitudes while doing what man's gotta do. He's troubled (to say the least), self-loathing, wracked by doubt and indecision. Bremen lets others live through him, complicit in his string-pulling as much as the puppetmasters themselves. He's not a role model, not even for a career criminal. There's almost nothing redeeming about his actions. He's a pawn of persons and events far superior to himself. He is acted upon, and never acts himself unless his back is against the wall. This is not what heroic fiction is all about, people.
By contrast, the cast of characters arrayed around him are forceful, inventive, proactive in the pursuit of their own interests. Everyone but Connie knows what's going on, though the supreme irony is that the master puppeteer, or at least the prime mover between the figures who are calling the shots, a man known only as Janetty carries in him a shameful secret that he goes to grotesque lengths to protect. And it's a secret that Connie has known ever since the two met. While it eats Janetty, it does nothing to Bremen, and that's perhaps his one saving grace.
It doesn't take much work to see Connie as an everyman, buffeted and tossed by events completely out of his reach, and yet at the center of them. The pivotal moment of history that Badlands revolves around, the Kennedy assassination (it's on the cover and not much of a spoiler) becomes a redefining event for society, much as it is for Connie. I won't say that Connie draws new strength from his experience, because the only strength he shows draws from desperation, when he realizes that he's not only a pawn, but that his role was empty and a ruse and that his purpose was to be a public death in a Dallas parking garage. In the end, however, there's a shot at redemption, or perhaps more accurately, rehabilitation for Connie. But he has to lose literally everything to do it.
Vince Giarrano's art is spare, but doesn't flinch from portraying actions and events in brutal detail when the story calls for it. The art is solid and grounded in bits of historical detail that successfully evoke the barren heart of America in the early sixties.
I'll admit, the first reading of Badlands was a hard one. Not because it was laid out badly. Completely the opposite, everything was cleanly put together and easy to follow. But Steven Grant's relentless and unwavering determination to do what had to be done in the story made it a tough and uncompromising read. There's precious little innocence in Badlands. Everyone gets what they deserve, but for perhaps Anne Peck, who seemed to get it rougher than some of the others. A little distance between me and that first reading lets me look at the work a little more clearly and recognize its quality, unencumbered by my initial emotional reaction. And make no mistake, it was a reaction that was every bit as real as being kicked in the ribs or having your face slammed to a cold tile floor.
Badlands is not for everyone. But then most outstanding works are like that. I'd recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the many crime books out there, but Badlands doesn't rely on surface gloss or movie-emulating cool to grab hold of the reader. This isn't for suburban gangstas who want to kick back with a forty and talk about how badass they are. This is old-school crime intersecting with our history, making for a powerful blast to the reader.
Hmm. This is likely to be a disorganized and messy affair. Quite unlike the book in question, which was painstakingly paced and plotted. True that some commentators complained that the first issues were simply unconnected vignettes, but that’s one of the risks that you run when you read your fiction serially. It’s very tough (and wrongheaded) to criticize the whole based on the first couple of chapters.
That doesn’t prevent us from doing it on a regular basis, mind you…
I see a lot made of New Frontier’s appeal being primarily nostalgic (and some folks take it further and declare that it’s the book’s only appeal) in that it reads like a silver age comic. Make that a silver age comic written extremely smartly, with deft characterization and spot-on illustration, as well as the space to actually tell the story (Without. Coming. Off. Like. The. Author. Was. Stretching. Things. Out. Needlessly.) Sure it’s just like a Silver Age book, but you forget the political content, not merely subtext, and the opportunities for ruthless bastards to turn around and be revealed as truly heroic (not just to have their actions explained away as “merely following orders.”) And did I mention the whole mature take on your favorite DC superheroes thing?
You simply aren’t going to find darkly-tinged portrayals of Batman and Wonder Woman in silver age books. You’re certainly not going to see anything as shocking as Wonder Woman’s actions in issue #2 of New Frontier. Now I’m not talking Identity Crisis or Avengers Disassembled non-shocks. I’m talking about genuine and stirring did-I-just-read-that sorts of shocks. These are moments where real character is revealed, not just poking the reader and saying “Dig this exciting take on things! Isn’t it just HARDCORE?” It’s not about twisting the characters around, but giving them a shot at meaning.
Yes, a great deal has been made about the restoration of Hal Jordan, and his rehabilitation at the hands of Darwyn Cooke (conveniently timed just before his restoration at the hands of Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver). Personally, I could really care less about the continuing adventures of Hal Jordan and Green Lantern (unless in the hands of a master, say, Grant Morrison, though I doubt he’d have any interest), but Darwyn Cooke gave some dimension to the character instead of relying on easy answers or fan knowledge to drive him.
However, Mr. Cooke doesn’t get a lot of credit for the way he handled other characters. Much was made of Hal Jordan, but very little was made of Col. Rick Flagg, ultrabastard. We meet him before we meet Jordan, and long before Jordan becomes anything close to the Green Lantern. Flagg (and his more cerebral analog, the Oppenheimer-esque King Faraday) is at least as important in the story as Jordan, and maybe more so. Both Flagg and Faraday are the faces of a ruthless federal government, seemingly bent on maintaining their monopoly on superpowers and generally making life tough on the protagonists. They’re bad guys right?
Wrong. Lee Marvin (and I’m paraphrasing here) was once asked how it felt to always play the bad guy. He answered by saying that he never played a bad man onscreen. His characters always had their motivations and always did what they thought was best, which made his acting compelling even when the roles themselves were repellent. Darwyn Cooke manages the same trick with his portrayal of the faces of Government. Flagg, particularly, comes across as a near-psychotic badass who seems to revel in holding the obviously sympathetic characters down and questioning their ideals and finally stomping all over them. You figure that you’d want to cheer when he finally dies, right?
Wrong again. Flagg’s death is a heart-rending moment because we’re finally shown that indeed Flagg was another guy doing what he thought was right, what he thought needed to be done, learning the lessons that his world had taught him. And as hard as his exterior was, we’re revealed in his last moments that he has the same dreams and hopes as the best of us. It’s a powerful instant of identification and sacrifice that for all of its hyperbole of “the planet itself will perish if I fail!” is still one of the most moving in the entire story. We also see why he personally took the one thing that Hal Jordan most wanted and put it out of reach, and in that understanding Flagg becomes truly heroic.
He’s also got a deft hand when it comes to portraying the heroes of the DCU. As above, Cooke is a master at adding a touch of darkness to the proceedings, but he’s equally talented in giving a light touch as well. The Martian Manhunter and The Flash come to mind here. And just to show how well he does it, Cooke starts us off on completely the wrong foot with J’onn J’onzz (the Martian Manhunter, for those of you not versed in DC lore…). We’re given a creepy setting, an observatory draped in shadow and darkness. In it, a man lays on the floor dying, and even though he declares that it’s not the stranger’s fault, we’re given the feeling that the Manhunter is indeed responsible for the man’s death. Then we get the full-page reveal (whereas before we’d only seen silhouette and a pair of red and inhuman eyes) of a creature that may be humanoid, but is distinctly not human. And given these setbacks to reader sympathy, Cooke still manages to turn the Manhunter into a sypmathetic and empathetic character. Of course, Cooke knows how to play to the crowd (and even makes fun of it via Slam Bradley.)
And Cooke’s take on Superman is a sight to behold, even though he’s taken out of the big fight at the end (but is responsible for putting the big fight into the crowd of heroes). He’s also smart enough to contrast Superman’s Favored Alien status with the persecution that a similar alien (again, the Martian Manhunter here) feels in Red-Scare America. Jonn uses his power to blend in and pass as human (fearing discovery the entire time) and by his very existence, Superman not only draws attention to himself, but reinforces governmental strength, the very power that Jonn fears. They’re opposites, both in power and in status, but in the end, they’re opposites united and made whole.
Moments like this are what make New Frontier worth coming back to, what makes it a great story. Cooke understands that dimension is what separates character from caricature, and that informs all of his work here. Yes, Lois Lane is in love with Superman and she’s an ideal woman. She’s also more than a little manipulative and knows how to get men to do what she wants. And she can be forceful in getting her way (as well, so can Carol Ferris, another strong woman who plays a role in the proceedings). She’s also frail and vulnerable and the panel where she and Superman are reuinted after his apparent demise is one of the most powerful in the book.
Dimension. It’s all about being more than one thing. If you’re unrelentingly good, you’re just as boring as the unrelentingly evil chap over there. Granted, you’re likely to be more sympathetic than him, but not any more interesting. There’s very few, if any, stock characters (well, maybe the eggheads, but we don’t get to see them long enough to get a real feel for ‘em) to be found here. Hal Jordan is both fearless and wracked with self-doubt. Wonder Woman is a liberator and a destroyer, both callous and courageous. Batman comes across as both pragmatic and idealistic, fearsome and troubled.
The same is true of the America that New Frontier depicts. It’s a beacon of freedom and opportunity, as well as a land of repression and fear. It’s a place where bad is done in the name of the common good, where the government seems more concerned with vigilantism than the crimes that inspire it. I’m not going to stand here and argue that it’s precise and nuanced political discourse, but I will say that it’s striving to be a depiction that doesn’t shy away from the shadows at the edges of society. There’s the promise of wealth and ease, and the shadow cast by these isn’t simply ignored by Mr. Cooke. It’s given an uncompromised look. Lynchings and racial repression, such as those that inspired the fictional John Henry, were all-too real. Not that donning a hood and hammering justice into the KKK is a real-wold solution: it isn’t. This is story. This is a representation of conflict and counter-action, not a model of how to base a struggle for civil rights.
Still, the world feels real (even in the face of impossibilities such as superheroes and prehistoric leviathans that threaten humanity) because it’s visually grounded. Yes, the visuals themselves are idealistic, iconic, and there’s a reason for that. These images are impressed on the American (and Canadian) psyche as part of our history. Again and again and again, Cooke shows that he has a masterful eye for design and a keen historical accuracy that evokes a feeling of Postwar America (even if that America never really existed.) Edwards Air Force Base, Las Vegas, googie architecture and design, the first stirrings of the space race and the Cold War, sprawling noir cityscapes, newsreels, talking-head public affairs shows, Blue Note record covers, automobile design, commercial design and propaganda are blended together seamlessly into a visually stunning whole.
And Darwyn Cooke can draw the super-heroes, too. Not over-muscled pose-fests, but living breathing (and breathless) action. Cooke taps the power and cosmic majesty of Jack Kirby (and some nods to Steve Ditko in that regard), the shadows of Krigstein, Toth’s powerful simplicity (and expressionism) as well as a daunting knowledge of commercial design. And he makes it his own thing, not just a chance to play spot-the-influences. He’s also managed to take what works about decompression in comics and the “widescreen” format and really use it to its best advantage. No, I won’t lie to you. It eats up pages, fast. But when the pages are this gorgeous and cinematic, infused with a blend of raw power and great finesse, there isn’t much room to complain.
And I’m a guy who genreally hates splash pages, remember. But there isn’t a splash page here that isn’t serving the story, whether it’s the best single encapsulation of Aquaman in a panel that you’ll see, or the awesome spectacle of Superman getting sucker-punched by a behemoth from another time.
I’ve seen some comparisons made to Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns in terms of New Frontier’s importance and impression on the superhero genre. As flattering as those are intended to be, I’m not sure that they’re entirely fair. Watchmen even if the story had been subpar, (which it wasn’t) would be an important work for its mastery of structure, of form. Dark Knight was equally masterful in structure, though in a different way, obviously. New Frontier has its own feel and vibe, but I’m not sure that it’s one that will serve as a template for stories to come. It may not achieve the dizzying heights (or blackest depths) that Watchmen trod, but New Frontier certainly deserves recognition for being a strong story, skillfully told in a visual style that is indeed its own.
I wish I didn’t have to say this, but the above is an exceedingly rare thing these days. New Frontier should be celebrated for that, as well as all the other stuff that I’ve gone on at length about.
Now if only DC had the common sense to put the whole thing together in one affordable package. Oh well. I’m holding onto my floppies and will hold out for the hardcover.
It occurs to me
That in all my praise for The New Frontier I didn't give any credit to Dave Stewart's incredible coloring or the lettering of Jared K. Fletcher. I hang my head in shame.
As beautiful as the line art for New Frontier is, Mr. Stewart's colors add depth to the artwork without walking all over it and proclaiming "BEHOLD THE MAJESTY OF COMPUTER-AIDED COLORING THAT MAKES IT ALL SO VIVID AND CANDYLIKE." It's coloring that works with the style of the book and doesn't draw attention to itself beyond the fact that it's all there to help tell the story. Mr. Stewart's work blends seamlessly with that of Mr. Cooke and evokes a fifties that never was.
Jared Fletcher's lettering is spot-on as well, airy and eminently readable, the icing on what is a very rich cake indeed.
Okay, I really should find another book to talk about now...