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It's been a minute, and someone pinned this thread! (Probably a forum first, for me).
Speaking of Batman, there's a story arc in Grant Morrison's fantastic Batman Incorporated that (I think) draws heavy inspiration from Steranko art. It's a globetrotting mystery that leads to an aged Nazi criminal mastermind, with a specialty for elaborate mazes and dramatic deaths for superheroes. The old monster has developed alzheimer's, and comes up with a way to inflict that condition on Batman, trapping him in a loop that he keeps forgetting over and over.
(This was, perhaps, a flimsy excuse to post a bit of a book I like. Perhaps.)
I went back and re-read Squadron Supreme since you brought it up, and I'd really forgotten how much I love Mark Gruenwald. As a kid, it wasn't even for his actual comic books runs; there was little I enjoyed as much as reading and memorizing the Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe. They were like my moms encyclopedias, but for important shit. Sure, I guess Napoleon surrendered in June of 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, but who cares? What I need to know is how an alien agent named Lucifer - and his secret base/super weapon with a computer brain, Dominus - crippled Charles Xavier as a young man for thwarting his plans to conquer Earth, as related via flashback in X-Men #20 (vol. 1)! That's important, because Young Me had Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers/Thunderbolts crossover where Hawkeye moves the T-Bolts into what was left of Lucifer's secret base, and an ensuing fight with the Avengers activates a sub-routine of Dominus that plans to destroy Earth for resisting the initial invasion thirty years prior! It's called Dominex, this time around, because....90's! Motherfuckers put X in everything.
(....sorry, let's try that again!)
Squadron Supreme! What a fantastic series concept, taking the off-brand Justice League that they cooked up for the Avengers to slap about and having them decide to become the scariest thing in superhero books: Proactive. Hyperion (Superman) and the Squadron (JLA) simply vote amongst themselves, "What if we fix America?" The motion carries, with Nighthawk (Batman) as the only holdout, resigning in protest.
The comparisons to Watchmen are common, and it's understandable. Both books feature a group of pastiche superheroes dealing with contemporary political issues of the 80's; both are a 12-part miniseries, and they released within about a year of each other. That said, this is unmistakably still a story set in a comic book world, where Watchmen is rather more grounded. Writer Mark Gruenwald gives us plenty of big, dramatic super-villains, sweeping heroics, and haymakers that level mountains. The tension is in the ethical dilemmas that keep coming up, there's a new dilemma in nearly every issue.
To name a few:
You got it, hoss. End of the week sound okay?
I adore this progression of panels as she declines his offer.
It's no Watchmen, but what is? For 1985, this was pretty wild, and a clear inspiration on later work like Kirkman's Invincible. The story gets side-tracked on occasion - the author of my beloved Handbooks can't resist any opportunity to share a comic book history lesson - but it's a lot more focused than mini-series of the time tended to be. The story ratchets up the tension as compromises keep stacking up, as the cast struggles to do the right thing in the face of difficult questions.
(There's an interesting bit with the Aquaman character; he's consistently voting against the majority, and halfway through the story he breaks all of the BMU's and leaves for the ocean. He declares he'll never return to the surface, and he means it. There's no dramatic return at the end, he's just gone. It's anecdotal, but I feel like writers - in most any medium - can't really get away with that anymore. Not for anything with a fandom, at least).
I don't have a ton to say about the artwork, unfortunately. The artist, Bob Hall, does some pretty great work with faces, which serves the story pretty well. Most everything else is kinda boilerplate, though. Typical layouts, very few splash pages (I suspect on account of how much dialogue and thought balloons they have to get through), and the majority of panels are dominated by characters. I didn't notice any interesting backgrounds or landscapes worth sharing, at least.
So, I was going to post about the last two weeks of new comics, but I read Squadron and lost my train of thought, and now it's late and I'm rambling. (I don't wanna sleep, there's work on the other side of that fuckin' thing!)
Ah well, to be continued! (With Absolute Flash, probably!)
Oh thank you, I had *completely* forgotten about Incognito! It got recommended to me by a sweet dork at a comic shop back when it was new, and I've always meant to read it. I've got a fondness for pulp like The Shadow and the Phantom, which I'm ashamed to admit *did* come from their terrible movie adaptations in the 90's. (Dick Tracy, too).
Sorry for my late response! Nick Fury is such an odd duck; from rough-and-tumble infantry in the European Theater to psychedelic secret agent in the vein of James Bond or Harry Palmer. Then he starts running the super C.I.A., America's top cop in a sense. In one character, Fury encompasses all manner of military and clandestine action from the viewpoint of rank-and-file grunt all the way up to the highest levels of government. He's kinda like Marvel's Batman, in the sense that nearly every writer seems to have at least one great Batman/Nick Fury story to tell. Oh, and getting Chaykin to sign the Scorpio Connection is amazing!
Speaking of Batman, there's a story arc in Grant Morrison's fantastic Batman Incorporated that (I think) draws heavy inspiration from Steranko art. It's a globetrotting mystery that leads to an aged Nazi criminal mastermind, with a specialty for elaborate mazes and dramatic deaths for superheroes. The old monster has developed alzheimer's, and comes up with a way to inflict that condition on Batman, trapping him in a loop that he keeps forgetting over and over.
(This was, perhaps, a flimsy excuse to post a bit of a book I like. Perhaps.)
I went back and re-read Squadron Supreme since you brought it up, and I'd really forgotten how much I love Mark Gruenwald. As a kid, it wasn't even for his actual comic books runs; there was little I enjoyed as much as reading and memorizing the Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe. They were like my moms encyclopedias, but for important shit. Sure, I guess Napoleon surrendered in June of 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, but who cares? What I need to know is how an alien agent named Lucifer - and his secret base/super weapon with a computer brain, Dominus - crippled Charles Xavier as a young man for thwarting his plans to conquer Earth, as related via flashback in X-Men #20 (vol. 1)! That's important, because Young Me had Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers/Thunderbolts crossover where Hawkeye moves the T-Bolts into what was left of Lucifer's secret base, and an ensuing fight with the Avengers activates a sub-routine of Dominus that plans to destroy Earth for resisting the initial invasion thirty years prior! It's called Dominex, this time around, because....90's! Motherfuckers put X in everything.
(....sorry, let's try that again!)
The comparisons to Watchmen are common, and it's understandable. Both books feature a group of pastiche superheroes dealing with contemporary political issues of the 80's; both are a 12-part miniseries, and they released within about a year of each other. That said, this is unmistakably still a story set in a comic book world, where Watchmen is rather more grounded. Writer Mark Gruenwald gives us plenty of big, dramatic super-villains, sweeping heroics, and haymakers that level mountains. The tension is in the ethical dilemmas that keep coming up, there's a new dilemma in nearly every issue.
To name a few:
- The initial question, to unmask and commit to creating Utopia.
- Curing cancer at the cost of betraying a friend, essentially weighing the good of the few against the few.
You got it, hoss. End of the week sound okay?
- The biggest plot element, behavioral modification units (BMU's) to rehabilitate convicted felons/supervillains.
- Said BMU's see immediate use actually, when the Green Arrow expy proposes marriage to the Squardron's Black Canary and gets rejected, and uses one of the devices to re-roll that answer like a fucking charisma check.
I adore this progression of panels as she declines his offer.
- Hyperion is replaced by a doppleganger - his Bizarro in a sense - who sets his romantic sights on Power Princess. (Wonder Woman in all but name). To that end, the fake kills her elderly husband, basically a Steve Trevor who'd aged ahead of his immortal partner. It's a pretty straight-forward dick move, but the Princess doesn't know he's a fake, and she's always had feelings for Hyperion. The two genuinely fall for one another, before the genuine article returns and beats his imposter to death, leaving him to die in the arms of his lover. Girl, it's messy. (I fucking love it).
- A fair bit of killin', with multiple questions as to lethal force and how it gets used. The diet Green Lantern kills a fellow teammate who goes wild with grief, basically self-defense. Hyperion has to commit to pulling the plug on a comatose member of the Squadron, as their power is running unchecked without a concious mind to control it. Also, the finale is a brawl with like seven fatalities; it's a pretty high body count for 80's capeshit.
It's no Watchmen, but what is? For 1985, this was pretty wild, and a clear inspiration on later work like Kirkman's Invincible. The story gets side-tracked on occasion - the author of my beloved Handbooks can't resist any opportunity to share a comic book history lesson - but it's a lot more focused than mini-series of the time tended to be. The story ratchets up the tension as compromises keep stacking up, as the cast struggles to do the right thing in the face of difficult questions.
(There's an interesting bit with the Aquaman character; he's consistently voting against the majority, and halfway through the story he breaks all of the BMU's and leaves for the ocean. He declares he'll never return to the surface, and he means it. There's no dramatic return at the end, he's just gone. It's anecdotal, but I feel like writers - in most any medium - can't really get away with that anymore. Not for anything with a fandom, at least).
I don't have a ton to say about the artwork, unfortunately. The artist, Bob Hall, does some pretty great work with faces, which serves the story pretty well. Most everything else is kinda boilerplate, though. Typical layouts, very few splash pages (I suspect on account of how much dialogue and thought balloons they have to get through), and the majority of panels are dominated by characters. I didn't notice any interesting backgrounds or landscapes worth sharing, at least.
So, I was going to post about the last two weeks of new comics, but I read Squadron and lost my train of thought, and now it's late and I'm rambling. (I don't wanna sleep, there's work on the other side of that fuckin' thing!)
Ah well, to be continued! (With Absolute Flash, probably!)
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