Crisis of Infinite Continuities - narrative upon narrative in the DC multiverse and beyond

Since I started paying more attention to superhero comics, I have been drawn naturally to DC rather than Marvel. But it hasn't been a particular character or story that has appealed to me the most - really, it's their constantly evolving and expansive universe - plot holes, retconning and all. In the bigger picture, though, we are looking at a contained world made up of many others (including our own!), which is correcting, repairing and improving upon itself constantly. This post will look at key events in the history of the DC multiverse (not all of 'em, don't panic) but also try to point out the ways in which it exemplifies several things: the ability of the comic book medium to remain fresh by reinventing itself; the impact of industry conditions to narrative (i.e. the perceived commercial necessity to reinvent); and the way in which the medium is unique in its knack for having multiple narratives at once, free to run in different directions without needing to affect any others, and by extension the way in which narratives in the comic book world are able to 'course correct' at any point. Imagine the multiverse as a train track being laid out one section at a time, without a map, diverging, revolving, and resolving. Or, just enjoy this tour of some of the most important milestone books of the last 50 years.


A Flash of Two Worlds (1961)

Although our story begins much earlier, let's start in September 1961 with The Flash #123. I wonder if anyone could really have anticipated the effect this book would have upon the next 50 years of DC continuity at the time. During the Golden Age of comics, DC had a roster of superheroes who had in time given way to  new breed, as writers, editors and demands changed, heralding the Silver Age in the late 50s/early 60s. The first book to acknowledge that both epochs existed within the same continuity was this book, which contained the story 'A Flash of Two Worlds'.

The premise of the story involves Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash and the fastest man alive, meeting the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, also the fastest man alive, for the first time. This blows Barry's mind, because in his universe, Jay Garrick is a fictional character who appeared in a comic book written by Gardner Fox (which just happens to be the name of the writer of this story too...) Understandably, Jay too thinks this is kind of weird. "How can you possibly claim to be the Flash, Barry Allen - when I - Jay Garrick - am the Flash - and have been so for more than 20 years?!" he exclaims. Eventually, we will learn that Barry has inadvertently vibrated at the same frequency as Jay's Earth, and thus they are able to co-exist. This is a fundamental building block of the DC multiverse, sewing together two disparate worlds into one, and allowing multiple continuities to exist while still maintaining the idea of one contained world. This is a concept you could go crazy with. So they did...

In the next 20+ years, DC writers embraced the multiverse to the point where its continuity had become virtually inpenetrable. Barry, being the one to have discovered the second universe, earned the right to call his universe Earth-1 and the Golden Age universe Earth-2. Earth-1 had the Justice League of America, while Earth-2 had the Justice Society. More possibilities, more stories... how could it possibly go wrong? Let's keep expanding! Earth-3, Earth-4, Earth-5, 6, 7, 12, 14, 96, 97, A, C, D, X, Prime, etc... Well, possibly because no kid could buy every title and keep up with every single thing every version of their favourite character was doing. As a reader, how do you begin to process this? Who is your 'true' character? Which would you prefer if they were inherently the same? The entire multiverse could collapse under its own weight... it was crisis time.

For every Monitor, there's an Anti-Monitor - Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985)

In 1985, the DC Multiverse underwent an unprecedented housekeeping exercise. Written by Marv Wolfman and pencilled by George Perez, Crisis on Infinite Earths was a dense 12-issue series which incorporated virtually every character from Earth-1, Earth-2, and of course all the rest. After at least two years of research, Wolfman pulled off the unenviable task of sewing together multiple existing narratives into one cohesive arc which would redefine every character's origin, backstory, and inform what they were to do in the future - with a dash of retconning of course.

And so, in Crisis, we learn that Krona, one of the Guardians of Oa and superiors of the Green Lantern Corps, was obsessed with learning the origins of the universe, despite warnings that if he discovered the secret of creation it would have drastic effects. Going ahead with it anyway, his experiments cause the event of creation to occur in infinite instances, bringing about the existence of every one of the worlds we've seen and more. At the same time, an Anti-Matter universe is created (uh-oh), containing a being called the Anti-Monitor, who systematically visits and destroys parallel earths, turning them into anti-matter. His opponent is this multiverse's Monitor, who assembles the superheroes of the remaining universes to fight the Anti-Monitor (ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME?!)

Twelve issues of destruction and death later, the Anti-Monitor is defeated, but not without cost. Notable deaths have occured in Kara Zor-El (Supergirl of Earth-1) and our dear old friend Barry Allen, among many more. A consequence of the Anti-Monitor's defeat is that all universes have become smooshed into one, establishing a new continuity, a great jumping-on point for 1985 readers, and in theory, this means $$$ for DC...

I'm now going to skip ahead another 20 years. That's not to say nothing happened in this time, but I can't tell you everything, can I?


You'll believe a boy can break reality with one punch - Infinite Crisis (2005-2006)

A major plot point at the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths is the fate of Superman and Lois Lane of Earth-2 (i.e. the Golden Age versions), Alexander Luthor of Earth-3 (son of Lex, sole survivor of that Earth, played a major role in resolving the crisis) and Superboy-Prime (from Earth-Prime, where Superboy is the only superhero and all others are fictional). Having survived the Crisis without being erased from the timeline, the four characters travel to a 'paradise' dimension which exists outside the uni/multiverse. Where they live happily ever after (or rather, for 20 years). Believing that the world has lost its way in the time they have been gone, they force their way back into the universe, an action that changes history once more!

The "retcon punch" that changed the world... literally

Very quickly, it becomes apparent that this is a mistake. Superboy-Prime, for one, believes himself to be the one true Superman, and that he was the one that should have lived. This sets the stage for a major conflict with the current Superboy, Conner Kent, who ends up sacrificing his life to defeat the now-demented Superboy-Prime (very sad). Meanwhile, Superman of Earth-2 is trying to find a way to cure an ailing Lois, who has developed a mystery illness. He tries to enlist the help of Power Girl (who is Kara Zor-El's Earth-2 counterpart, Kara Zor-L) to whom he is able to restore knowledge of her past in the pre-Crisis multiverse. However ultimately she disagrees with their plans to restore the multiverse, a little too late because Alexander Luthor is already hard at work recreating it. As he recreates Earth-2, its Superman and Lois travel there, and Lois sadly dies just as the younger Superman of the current universe (Kal-El) shows up. Cue a sly nod to Action Comics #1 in my favourite panel of the series:

Luckily the two Supermen can be convinced to work together when it becomes apparent that Alexander Luthor has also gone batshit crazy, and with the aid of numerous other heroes, Luthor is defeated. The extra Earths he has created all merge into one to create 'New Earth', re-establishing a single universe once more. Or does it?



52... 52... 52 (2006-7)

At the end of 52, an ambitious weekly series which took place directly after the events of Infinite Crisis and featured many minor characters of the DCU while Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman were all absent for various reasons, we learn a little more about New Earth...

It all starts with Booster Gold, who, in the Big 3's absence becomes a more prominent superhero. His companion from the 25th Century, Skeets, helps him with his superhero-ing using his extensive knowledge of the 21st cenntury. Booster becomes jealous of the new superhero kid on the block, Supernova, who keeps beating him to the scene and appears virtuous and much less of a jackass. Before long, Booster sacrifices his life to save many others, leaving Supernova behind, along with Skeets, who is revealed to be actually EVIL (I know right)! Eventually it is revealed that Supernova actually is none other than Booster himself, who had faked his death and travelled back in time (with the aid of time guru Rip Hunter) in order to thwart Skeets' plan. Skeets himself is revealed to have been replaced by a villian called Mister Mind, who morphs into something basically giant, weird and fucking gross. Also, he eats universes! Comics, everybody!

Mister Mind chases Booster and Rip back through time to the end of the Infinite Crisis, where they witness not only the birth of New Earth but 51 other universes (52, geddit?) which are in essence all identical and occupying the same space, but vibrating at different frequencies. Mister Mind, however, begins noshing on the essence of each of the universes, fundamentally altering them on various levels and creating a new multiverse. When Mister Mind is finally defeated, Booster and Rip agree to tell no-one about the new universes... but of course, as long as we know about it, we know that something else might be coming. Ready for another crisis?


Countdown to Final Crisis & Final Crisis

Countdown is really about the death of the Fourth World (to be discussed in a future post) but does take a whistle-stop tour of many universes and reintroduces the concept of the Monitor, as several characters look for Ray Palmer (Atom). In the newly restored multiverse, it is revealed that there are now 52 Monitors, one for each world.

 

Working together, the Monitors set about eliminating 'abberations' such as Duela Dent, a one-time Teen Titan known as the Joker's Daughter, also identifying returned-from-the-dead Jason Todd, who 'should not exist'. Initially working as one, the Monitors begin to develop individual personalities, which proves to be the undoing of their efforts - and that, along with the machinations of the evil god Darkseid, causes the destruction of Earth-51. The crisis of Final Crisis itself is not necessarily a game-changing multiversal one, focusing on the peril of New Earth itself, but involves the Multiverse in that the Monitors observe it as a pyramid with New Earth at the top - meaning that if New Earth is destroyed, all other Earths would follow. The next big reset, however, would be a controversial and confusing one.


Flashpoint and The New 52 (2011)

Fittingly, the end of the latest DC multiverse and the close of what might be regarded as an overarching continuity is centred around the actions of the man who discovered it fifty years previously, Mr Barry Allen. Returning from the dead during the events of Final Crisis, Barry has picked up where he left off as The Flash in the present day. However, one morning Barry wakes to find the world has been turned upside down. No-one remembers him, Thomas Wayne is Batman, and the Atlanteans and Amazons are at war. A series of events causes Barry to believe that the Reverse Flash, Eobard Thawne, is responsible - until Thawne himself reveals that it was actually Barry who changed the past in his attempt to stop Thawne from killing his mother. Oops! And so, Barry attempts to put things right by running through the timestream, merging with his younger self to stop himself from stopping Thawne. You got that? Good, because things are about to get weird.

So what are we looking at here? Who the fuck knows. In the space of one two-page spread, the entire history of the multiverse is rewritten. The little exposition we are treated to has Barry querying why he can see three timestreams... the answer being that in the moment of creation, the timeline was split into three, and that the time has come to restore them to one. What this actually means for us real-world readers is that Barry is not restoring the original timeline but is instead witness to the birth of a new multiverse, one which contains the DC Multiverse, the Vertigo universe, and the Wildstorm universe. This enables the three DC properties to co-exist in the same space for the first time, and have characters interact that could not have done so in the past.

What it also means is that DC have the power to relaunch their entire line for the first time in history. The 'New 52' launched in September 2011, with the cancellation of every existing DC title and the launch of 52 new #1 issues. The reboot has come under fire from many and has been lauded by others, and you'll just have to make up your own mind. There are some great titles out there, but reading between the lines there are many stories of writers and artists leaving the company for various reasons: lack of editorial direction, too much interference... and for some, the notion that the left hand doesn't know what the right one is doing. It's sad that in the new order of things, effectively everything we've known and that I've detailed above did not happen - but there are still stories to be told, and who knows, one day we may face another crisis and return to the original timeline in some form. There's a great article here which explores the ending of Flashpoint and how it relates to the New 52, and by extension how there's still a 'back door' should DC ever want to return.

For now, though, there's a new multiverse, and plenty to explore...

Stop-Gap Sorry Excuse for a Blog Post: Current Recommendations, by Mark

Believe it or not, there is life outside comics, and recently I have been experiencing it (although it feels quite a lot like working a lot of overtime and drinking heavily). But, however hectic the modern world becomes, there's always a little time to fit in a book or ten. So, while we work on 'major' posts I thought it would be cool just to share a little bit of what I'm reading at the moment which hasn't yet been covered by any of my posts (or Andrew's). So without further ado, welcome to the pull list!

THE LI'L DEPRESSED BOY
S. Steven Struble & Sina Grace, Image

I've been picking up this title for a year now and it still maintains the dreamy, simplistic charm it had in issue one. Our hero is a perpetually unhappy sack doll desperately trying to make sense of friendship, girls and near adulthood. Dialogue is sparing and delicate where it does occur, while the pace gives the melancholy atmosphere room to breathe. There are also moments of absolute joy to be had, and for the cool kids among us, cameos from real-life hipsters such as The Like and Childish Gambino. If you like your books with a bit more heart than biff-bang-pow, this is for you. Issues 1-8 are collected in two trade paperbacks.

RACHEL RISING
Terry Moore, Abstract Studios
 
Terry Moore is a name many of you should know well. His 'Strangers in Paradise' was one of the most acclaimed dramatic comics of all time, a complex love triangle/espionage opus that ran for over 100 issues. More recently Moore gave us Echo, a book which combined his acclaimed and realistic portrayals of women with sci-fi and fantasy. And in the last year we have been treated to Moore's take on the macabre with Rachel Rising. Part mystery, part zombie/occult shocker, part ghost story, Rising is a wonderfully absorbing tale which begins with the eponymous Rachel waking from her apparent death - and that's just the first of many weird, frightening and puzzling developments in this haunting and snow-covered saga. Issues 1-6 have just been published in trade format.

HIGHER EARTH
Sam Humphries & Francesco Biagini, Boom! Studios

Another absolute gem from wunderkind writer Sam Humphries, filling the void left by the eternal wait for his fourth issue of Sacrifice. It must be difficult to come up with fresh and interesting stories based around the idea of a multiverse, but Humphries pulls off the task with aplomb. Bagini's art and layouts are a smorgasboard of fast-moving, sprawling chase sequences and add perfectly to the feel of an expansive and fragmented multiverse. The 'Higher Earth' of the title is an Earth which has conquered 99 other Earths, and our main protagonists are Heidi, a strong outlaw, and Rex, a rogue soldier who serves as her protector. Three issues in so far, and well worth catching up with.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS
Jonathan Hickman & Nick Pitarra, Image

This book is just incredible, and knocks it out of the park every single month. Presenting what is in effect an alternate history of twentieth century scientific discovery, the premise poses the question (from the cover of #1): "What if the research and development department created to produce the first atomic bomb was a front for a series of other, more unusual, programs? What if the union of a generation's brightest minds was not a signal for optimism, but foreboding? What if everything... went wrong?" Cue one of the most mind-melting, frightening, unsettling comics you'll ever read. Each issue so far has focused primarily on a different (real) character from the (real) Manhattan Projects, providing each with a psychopathic, sociopathic or otherworldly spin. Hickman's imagination is unstoppable, and Pitarra's art is somewhere between cartoony and nightmarish. Issues 1-5 are now collected in trade format, #6 is out now. Do it!

FERALS
David Lapham & Gabriel Andrade, Avatar

This is one you'll either love or hate. If you're a sucker for horror comics, then this will not disappoint: gore, gore and more gore, with a little gratuitous nudity thrown in for good measure. A spin on the werewolf genre, Lapham's book centres around law enforcement officer Dale Chesnutt, who is thrown into the world of the 'Ferals' when he meets a woman named Gerda in a bar while investigating the death of his friend. Gerda gets into Dale's head instantly, and may not be what she seems... As Dale investigates further, it becomes apparent that Gerda comes from a community which is hiding a terrible secret - they're not entirely human - and maybe Dale isn't either! Andrade's art is just great, and while I was worried that the story had run its course, the second arc has successfully refreshed and spun the story in a new direction. You can pick up the first 7 issues now.

BATWOMAN
JH Williams III & W.Haden Blackman, DC
WONDER WOMAN
Brian Azzarello & Cliff Chiang, DC
SWAMP THING
Scott Snyder & Yanick Paquette, DC
ANIMAL MAN
Jeff Lemire & Travel Foreman/Steve Pugh, DC

 

I LOVE these four books from the New 52. Initially last year I was only picking up Animal Man, which Andrew's already looked at here, but thanks to the thematic tie-in of Swamp Thing I started getting that too. The art in both books is incredible, especially Yanick Paquette's layouts and Foreman's work on Animal Man. Both books are now converging to a full blown crossover, with the epic 'Rotworld' storyline to follow this months #0 issues. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman is just great, the art by Cliff Chiang especially making it stand out - and the revelation at the close of last month's #12 is something to get us Kirby/Fourth World fans salivating. Batwoman, meanwhile, is my favourite of the Bat family of characters - the quality here standing up to Rucka's 'Elegy' run from Detective Comics (get the trade, it's amazing). All four have had their first arcs collected in trade format.

Speaking of DC, as promised to those who give a shit on our Facebook page (like us at www.facebook.com/ifckinglovecomics) my post on the history of the DC multiverse is almost done. Maybe next week... in the meantime, please keep checking back. I know we are not the most prolific bloggers but we really do fucking love comics.

SAGA by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

 

 

The posters promised one thing from Saga: it would be EPIC. The title itself immediately identifies itself as something large in scale, an important event, a major book. And a major work, too, which would be no small feat for a writer responsible for one of the most engrossing and popular books of the last 20 years, Y: The Last Man (which I may one day write about here). Usually such things cannot live up to what has been promised, but the cynics among us were proved wrong, as the book dazzled upon its release earlier this year, with the first issue going back for an unprecedented five printings. 

Now on its sixth issue, it seems like the perfect time to reflect on what Saga has given us so far. Many readers have remarked that such a grand and detailed story lends itself to being read in trade format, and that buying monthly is a bit stop-starty. I totally get that, but I finf myself reading each issue two or three times each month, absorbing the tiny details and quirks that make it so good. However, a book must have an arc, and I think we just hit the end of our first. So what's it all about? Perhaps now is a good time for you all to jump into this beautiful world...

 

Marko and Alana are an odd couple. And really, that is the crux of the book in many ways and drives many areas of the narrative. First and foremost, they are a couple from very different races. She comes from the Coalition of Landfall and has wings, he from the planet Wreath and has horns. Sadly, these two factions are at war, and their union represents a great transgression. The story begins with their escape and subsequently the birth of their child, Hazel, who narrates the book with a series of childlike scrawls which appear floating over the traditional panels. Of course, their difference also drives the book in terms of their personalities - both are very well-crafted characters and their relationship is played out, intentionally no doubt, as a democratic partnership. Their debates are immensely enjoyable, the dialogue crackles, the comedy simmers through even in the most perilous situations.

Speaking of perilous situations, they are pursued by a number of equally different and wild characters, notably one main antagonist from each of the pair's kingdoms. In the red corner, from the Robot Kingdom, Prince Robot IV:

 

This guy is a huge douche. And he's got a TV for a head for reasons I can't explain. He's affiliated with Landfall, from which Alana comes, and is not very nice. And in the blue corner:

 

This is The Will, and he's a bounty hunter from Wreath. And that's his cat, er, Lying Cat. Kind of reminds me of Bubastis, Ozymandias' pet from Watchmen. Anyhow, you know that anyone named The Will is going to be a badass, but the reason he's my favourite character to have appeared so far is that he seems to have a moral code. The best sequence in the book so far, in my opinion, revolves around The Will's visit to a territory called Sextillion (more in a bit) where his objection to being presented with a child as a sex slave disgusts him to the point where he will jeopardise his mission and safety to protect the child (by essentially clapping the head of a pimp to bits)

Sextillion, which we encounter in issue four, is a perfect case study for us to examine the scope of the world Vaughan and Staples are invested in creating. It's a debauched free-for-all where anything goes. We have hookers who have heads and legs but nothing else next to... well actually, I don't want to spoil it because every turn of the page has 1,000 more ideas on it ready to blow your mind. Sorry I teased it, you'll just have to fucking buy it.

For all its otherworldliness, Saga has its roots firmly in our own conflicts, both large and small scale. It's a masterstroke that the universe depicted in Saga is full of liminal characters, blinding in their originality but themselves made up of amalgams of familiar motifs and tropes representative of our own world, where we may as well have TVs for heads or just be faces with a pair of legs. Hell even Sextillion isn't a million miles from our tabloid porn fests. Star Wars with a social conscience maybe? In the middle of it all, certainly, we can find community in the most unlikely of places - and from those places, hope can be born, like Hazel, a symbol of two worlds coming together.

Let's hope that the sales keep going the way they are, as Vaughan and Staples are clearly in for the long haul on this book, and so should we be - whether monthly, trades, in a year maybe hardbacks, in five years maybe this will all be collected in a tome that will outsell the fucking Bible! 

In the meantime...

 

Godzilla: The Half Century War #1 by James Stokoe

Picture what you would want from a Godzilla comic...visualise it clearly in your mind. got it? good!

Now go and buy a copy of Godzilla The Half Century War #1 and revel in how shitty your imagined version of Godzilla smashing Tokyo up actually was, because this comic looks like this:

yeah, i know right!

That's right people, this Godzilla comic is written and drawn by James Stokoe. For those of you the don't know Stokoe is the supremely talented mother fucker responsible for Orc Stain, one of the greatest comics out there on the stands. It was announced earlier this year he would be helming a five part Godzilla miniseries, whilst this means we probably won't get an issue of Orc Stain this year I think it's a fair trade off because, again, we get to point our greedy little eyes at shit like this:

i mean seriously! SERIOUSLY!

It was very tempting to run a review of this comic that comprised of just images of Stokoe's pencils and the word 'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK' because the pencils in this book (like EVERYTHING Stokoe draws) are FUCKING INSANE. 

Every panel is hyper detailed, crammed with rubble or smoke or explosions or broken glass or debris. There is so much to look at in the pages of this comic. Hell, you know you are reading something special when you have genuinely just spent about fifteen minutes looking at how awesome all the explosions and plumes of smoke are. 

But the primary focus of this book is the big green bastard, Godzilla. The sense of scale in this comic is like nothing i've seen since I last read Akira. Stokoe makes Godzilla tower above the Tokyo skyline, smashing buildings in half with his tail and letting off massive beams of irradiated energy and toppling skyscrapers. The first glimpse of Godzilla we get is a giant foot looking from behind a building, I audibly gasped when I looked at it:

FUCK

Stokoe's linework comes off like a radiation soaked hybrid of Moebius and Akira Toriyama. Godzilla looks towering and indestructible whilst the humans scampering around beneath his feet are fleshy and vulnerable, like our protagonist Lt Ota Murakami.

A special mention should be made about the tank in Half Century War, I haven't seen a tank imbued with such personality since the Fuchikomas from Ghost in the Shell. As Murakami and his war buddy (Kentaro) attempt to distract Godzilla and draw him away from the populace of Tokyo the little green tank looks like it is running for his little life!

holy shitsnacks!

The plot of Half Century War is simple. Murakami first encounters the irradiated beast in 1954, destroying Tokyo. This issue chronicles his first encounter and how he became involved with this hulking reptilian leviathan. Incoming issues promise to explore this bizarre relationship throughout the decades.

As pure spectacle this comic excels, Stokoe's lush manga informed style is so exciting to look at, the rich and lurid colours burn off the page into your retina. But the story itself is also of equal quality. It feels like the first half of the first act from a really badass Godzilla movie, a proper Toho one not that walking abomination that was the Hollywood effort (with pastry faced Matthew Broderick, god that was a shitty movie). I'm hooked already, I didn't even need to read this comic to know I would be as James Stokoe is one of the industries most gifted story tellers. Go. Now. Buy it, read it and thank god you don't live in coast Japan...

DEBRIS #1 : an immersive and engaging apocalypse

 

 

KURTIS J. WIEBE is a busy boy. In the last year, we've seen some great stuff coming from him, his THE INTREPIDS and GREEN WAKE among the best books of 2011. The former was a FUN 6-part limited series following a bunch of superspy teens led by a mad scientist, who battled a series of increasingly bizarre robot-mammal-monster hybrid creatures woven in with a very human backstory which was ultimately a heartbreaking tale of betrayal and loyalty. The latter was an incredible (sadly cancelled) dark masterpiece. In direct contrast with The Intrepids' cartoonish art by Scott Kowalchuk were Riley Rossmo's surreal and jagged painted lines, suiting the tone of grief and darkness that pervades the story's setting perfectly. I bloody loved that book... just look at this for a second - this is the kind of blood-spattered psychological nightmare we got over its 10 month run...

In more recent months, I've not been massively turned on by Wiebe's projects. Peter Panzerfaust was obviously a labour of love for the writer, an update of the Peter Pan story set against the backdrop of 1940s occupied France. Hugely ambitious and critically well received, it was well executed but ultimately didn't hold my attention. Following swiftly was Grim Leaper, an interesting concept based around a protagonist stuck in a Quantum Leap scenario - albeit with added violent death... which again didn't pull me in like his earlier series. Meanwhile Rossmo worked on the limited series Rebel Blood, which he drew and co-wrote with Alex Link - a confounding, mulit-layered zombie(ish) tale where you're never really sure what's real and what's not, perfectly suited to the dark and often very gory nature of Rossmo's art:

Yeah, this book is disgusting

And so this brings us to Debris which is Wiebe and Rossmo's first post-Green Wake co-venture. I'd heard about the premise a few months back in the solicitation and been instantly excited: "In the far future, humanity has doomed planet earth to rot and decay, covering her surface with garbage. Now, ancient spirits called the Colossals rise from the debris and attack the remaining survivors, forcing the human race to the brink of extinction. One warrior woman, Maya, sets out to find the last source of pure water to save the world before the monsters bring it all to an end."

...the FUCK is that?!

 This book doesn't fuck around with exposition. It immediately immerses you in a new world and demands that you make sense of it on your own, in a similar way to Brandon Graham's Prophet. We've very quickly got to get used to a new world, new creatures, a new way of speaking.While perhaps not to the same degree or level of sophistication as that title, it shares the same sense of a future far-flung from our comprehension. However, similar to another current Image title, Brian K. Vaughan's Saga, we quickly understand the emotional stakes and the plight of the protagonists, even if we don't fully understand the world they inhabit just yet.

Naturally, the art is top notch. What's actually refreshing about Debris is how light the colour palette is, especially given the darkness of Rossmo's other recent work. We've got bright blue skies instead of murky swamps, which helps the book breathe - this is a large, expansive world we are entering, not a claustrophobic psychological prison like Green Wake or the world of Rebel Blood.

Oh yeah, did I mention how freaking cool the creatures in this book look?

Wiebe and Rossmo have consolidated their status as somewhat of a dream team here, as Wiebe's sparse scripts let Rossmo's art do the talking. Here's hoping this book does well and they continue to work together in the future.

Aliens Salvation By Dave Gibbons and Mike Mignola

The Alien films (specifically Aliens) resonate greatly with me as I'm sure they do for any self-respecting fan of all things nerdy, I saw it for the first time when I was probably too young, already obsessed with 'video nasties' my first viewing was on a now ancient vhs copy. The heady mix of sci-fi, horror and Ripley's fuck off, massive power loader really spoke to me as a small boy (and continues to speak to me as a nearly 30 year old boy to this day)

GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH!

The Nineties are responsible for many, many shitty comics (Hey, Marvel! the Clone Saga in Spider-Man ringing any bells with ya!?) and even more movie tie-in's and company cross-overs of varying quality. I vaguely remember looking through a friend's older brother's collection of Batman Versus Predator comics at the time and being intrigued (I would would have been around 12 at this point, I imagine).

Predator, there...probably still speaks in a more intelligible manor than Tom Hardy's Bane!

These Batman Versus Predator comics were written, I found out years later, by Dave Gibbons (you know, the fella that co-created Watchmen and drew Rogue Trooper for 2000AD!).  I duly forgot that Gibbons had written comics of this nature until about a fortnight ago. I was 'round at a friends house and we were talking, as one does, about Mike Mignola (Legendary artist and creator of Hellboy), my friend mentioned Mignola had drawn an Alien comic. After laundering my undergarments after the mild soiling I googled this information and was presented with the following:

Well FUCK ME!....

A few Clicks later and I had bid on this comic on Ebay and around a week later, after winning, it arrived in the post (I'm sorry you are all aware of how ebay works but please indulge me...)

I had in my hands an Alien graphic novel written by Dave Gibbons and illustrated by Mike Mignola....To say I was excited was an understatement.

what a delightful smile...

Aliens Salvation saw the light of day in 1993, Both Gibbons and Mignola had already established themselves with their own projects and work for the Big Two (Marvel and DC, obviously...) which might be why this comics has slipped under my radar for so long (well that and the fact that I was 11 when this came out!). A slim 'graphic novella' of around 50 pages unleashed right around the time there were a shit-ton of Aliens and Predator comics bursting out all over the stands. 

The narrative thread of this story is delivered in the form of an extended plea to god for salvation by the chaplain of a cargo ship carrying something back from deepest space for the very shadowy sounding Nova Maru company. After a violent and bloody altercation on board said cargo vessel the chaplain finds himself crash landed on a big, jungley planet with an injured, brutish member of the ships crew. They had found the cargo they had been carrying was very much alive and very dangerous, the injured crewman complaining of an acid like burn of his leg should hint a little at what we are dealing with here. YES! XENOMORPHS!

oh did i not mention...THATS RIGHT MOTHER FUCKER! PTERODACTYLS!

This first act shows us how the chaplain chooses to survive in this hostile terrain (pterodactyls, son....damn!) with his hostile crew mate and the threat of being impaled on one of the aliens weird, little extending mouth things. Whilst not as brutal and depressing as something like, say, The Walking Dead this first section shows what lengths the chaplain already has had to go to to survive and how much of his humanity he is willing to sacrifice, even under the ever watchful eyes of his god.

Having never read anything written by Gibbons and not really knowing what to expect I was seriously impressed. I'm a sucker for the narrative technique Gibbons uses in this comic, a long monologue stretching the length of the story (peppered with dialogue, of course). It feels like a prayer, a desperate plea for salvation. The is a really pleasing three act structure to this story, it feels lean and focussed. The dialogue, especially between the crew of the cargo vessel feels authentic to the source material, for instance 'Screw 'em....dead anyway...only one lifeboat on this bucket'.

yes, it's in French...at least that way there won't be any spoilers...

After freaking the fuck out for a few pages the chaplain goes in search of the cargo vessel. He finds it and the lone survivor of it's fiery descent, First Officer Dean. Dean is basically Ripley. Ballsy is not the word, the chaplain sees her as his angel, his way out of this hell he has found himself in. The second act follows them through the jungle undergrowth and soon become a really awesome chase and fire fight with the rampant xenomorphs! 

more french.....

Mike Mignola is a huge favourite of mine, his art is so distinctive, you can tell his pencils a mile off. His work in Salvation is no exception. As you can see from the pages in this article, he can pretty much make anything look amazing. The balance of black negative spaces and the muddy earthy colour tones used in the jungle chase scene (see above, yo!) are just beautiful, thanks to Kevin Nowlan's masterful inking and Matt Hollingsworth's restrained colour palate.

But no amount of me waffling on about how amazing Mignola is will ever be able to top just looking at this: 

sexy, sexy shit...

I have yet to see a Mignola pencilled comic and be disappointed and Salvation is no exception, all the Mignola staples are here; the aforementioned masterful use of negative space and silhouette, the stunning, almost poetic, panel layout and a real, palpable atmosphere on every page.


By the End of the third act everything has gone straight to hell in a hand-basket. We see how far the chaplain is prepared to go to stop the xenomorphs and we learn a few shocking surprises to boot. As a standalone sci-fi comic this works really, REALLY well. Its short enough to read in one sitting but doesn't feel like it is missing anything story and art wise. As part of the extended Alien universe I think this excels, it has the used, gritty and grimy feel the Nostromo had. The xenomorphs themselves are seen infrequently enough to retain suspense but do get chance to smoosh some heads with their weird mini-mouth things (YES!).

i didn't draw the moustache on....still funny though..

I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this comic. I already knew I'd love the pencils but the story blew me away that little bit more. It's a genuinely gripping and at times shocking tale that is executed by masters of the craft. Seriously pick a copy up if you see it (or I'll lend it you or whatevs)






Not bad for £2.99 on eBay!

Bulletproof Coffin Disinterred OR Hine & Kane made me cut up my comics!

The first Bulletproof Coffin series, by David Hine and Shaky Kane, was a lurid, Silver Age infused, psychedelic tale of a man obsessed with comic books and childhood nostalgia...and the places that his nostalgia takes him. The first series blurred the lines between fiction and reality as you were never sure (or at least i wasn't, i'll get caveat out the way early on) whether the protagonist was really jumping between real and fictional words or if he was, as professional head doctors say, a bit of a mental!

So just to confuse things even more i'm going to be taking a close-up look at all six issues of the follow on from Bulletproof Coffin, the appropriatley entitled Bullproof Coffin Disinterred.

But first, an English lesson:

Disinterred: Verb:

1. Dig Up (something that has been buried esp. a corpse)

                      2. Discover (something that is well hidden)

seriously, hold on to your hats...

Issue 1 immediately links up to the very last panel in this series, I feel pretty confident that I can say that with out ruining this series. A naked man tunnels away from the 'toxic wastelands' he grew up in only to have his head vaporised by The Coffin Fly the possibly fictional character from the first series who is being dug up by his similarly, possibly fictional ally; The Unforgiving Eye.

Add caption

As the headless cadaver falls into an empty grave the tone suddenly shifts from the bright, brash world that Coffin Fly and Unforgiving inhabit to a thoroughly different kind of beast. We suddenly join Johnny P Sartre, hard-boiled, world-weary detective. Satre is investigating the Full Moon Killer, anticipating the next murder Johnny becomes more and more uptight, complaining to his buxom partner, Ginger, that:

'something is out of whack, ginger'

Something IS out of whack, Johnny and Ginger are moonlighting as The Shield and Lady Justice, at least in Johnny's head they do. In Johnny's fantasy he and Ginger cruise the streets dishing out justice to hordes of Commies and lay down on the floor of their secret base and make love. Reality is a lot more grim for poor old Johnny, The Full Moon Murder is leaving a trail of mutilated corpses and only Johnny has the chops to solve the case.

'dame' - classy!

Johnny remarks that he 'still I can't shake the feeling there's a bigger picture here, something I'm missing'. Its almost as if Johnny feels the lines blurring between fiction and reality! Could it be something to do with the weird, irradiated, Swastika ring, lighter and necklace Johnny has hidden in a cigar box? 

I think if your boss would be annoyed about shit you keep in a cigar box, you need to get rid of the cigar box..

The weird, glowing Nazi paraphernalia seems to be making Johnny freak out, by the end of the issue Johnny has gone full on crazy and killed his partner and made his own The Shield costume.

Fuckin' Commies!

It feels like there is something just lurking out of view throughout this issue. The moon looms over this issue (and the rest of the series) in a big way. When attempting to track down the killer the moon is describes as looking down on the scene like a 'pockmarked skull'. Johnny then mentions 'space, deep space, the hate that comes from…' a theme that is explored further into this series.

The feeling of escalating panic and paranoia that we feel through Johnny's impending breakdown almost bleeds off the page and seeps in through our skin, the radiation of the Nazi artefacts adding to our delirium. 

We enter this issue seeing a man emerging from a tunnel into a new world, as readers we are crawling through tunnels too, hopping between the fictional and the real....but which is which? is The Shield even real or is it just an extension of Johnny's increasing mental instability? 

With that we move onto issue 2, opening the cover of this issue immediately reveals another cover for Tales From The Haunted Jazz Club (issue 17, only 10 cents!) and again, another shift in tone. Join me in the jazz club, baby!

Rather than continue the narrative thread directly in issue 2, we join Johnny in a Beat poetry club, complete with host Edgar Landru, who announces 'if you want fiction, go back to the funny papers'

are there any clubs like this still around? i wanna go to a club like this!

Johnny is present in the bar of the beat club and he doesn't look too good, a sweaty, drunken mess. But Johnny is not why we are here. We are here to hear a trio of freaky tales presented to us by folk in the bar getting up on stage and retelling these tales. I won't spoil them as they really are gold, especially the chillingly freaky 'Fixing Suzi'.

Each of the freaky tales is presented as a narrative of it's own. Each tale is particularly grim and  often involves blood, vomiting hair, amateur brain surgery again all illustrated with Kane's signature Silver age heft and sickly, vibrant colour palate.

its that creepy necklace again!

One narrative thread from the previous issue is the the glowing artefacts (you remember! the thing's Johnny kept hidden in a cigar box!) This time it appears in the form of a single jewel sometimes present in a piece of jewellery, sometimes in an old stone idol but still casting the same sickly light and causing unseen trouble just out of view! A character in one tale explains the jewel was 'fashioned from an asteroid....a gift from the stars!', this links nicely back to Johnny's 'hate from outer space' comment last issue! 

It's clear by now that Hine and Kane are leaving clues or dropping little pieces in to the other stories in this series. It reminds me of how when reading Watchmen you pick up on little details and hidden things each time you read it. We almost become like johnny our selves, trying to piece together fragments of narrative into a story. 

The moon features again at the end of issue two, still hanging there like a 'pock marked skull'. An interesting conversation occurs between Johnny and Landru, the moon silently looking down at them from above in the lurid pink sky. Landru is revealed as The Red Wraith, also a superhero from the first Bulletproof Coffin series. A 'lunar flare' bursts from the surface of the moon, Johnny remarking 'signs and portents, pal', implying that there is something just lurking around the corner, or maybe just off panel? by turning the pages of a comic we lead the heroes to their ultimate goal, conflict! That's when you realise at just what level Hine and Kane are working at here.....just how many tunnels are we going to be crawling through during this rest of this series?

The lid well and truly blows off this series with issue 3. The first three pages entirely play out the first three pages of the first issue (you know, when Unforgiving Eye digs up Coffin Fly and vaporises the head off of the guy who tunnelled out of his house in the nude), only in issue 3 it is all being played out by a small kid called Timmy. 

Timmy is called inside by his mum and it is revealed that he is Johnny's nephew, Johnny is always 'coming along with inappropriate presents' like Unforgiving Eye and Coffin Fly action figures, monster truck toys, communist soldiers and.....a weird lighter with an eerie glowing jewel in it!!!!

There is a wonderful moment when Timmy starts playing with his toys and Coffin Fly is crammed into the drivers seat of the monster truck and you turn the page and you see this:

yeah, mother fucker!

The next five pages are Timmy playing, but presented as a gung-ho, sci-fi adventure. The Red Menace and his Kommunist Kill Kadre have captured 8 of Americas most famous monuments and turned it into a giant kill-bot......ON THE MOON! A fight ensues which looks like this:

FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

The climax of this battle causes a large explosion not unlike the 'lunar flare' in issue 2, so where does this leave us now?

Well, the line between 'reality' (Timmy's home life) and 'fiction' (Timmy playing with his toys) is clear but it only serves to further twist my mind as elements of his playing appeared in the previous issue, is Timmy acting out the scene on the moon actually making it happen in the 'real world'?

just stare into the void, maaaaaaaan!

Issue 4 removes narrative as you would normally expect to find it (though at this point we are all well aware that this series is far from normal), instead this issue is comprised of 84 panels arranged randomly, this comic instructs us to ‘immerse yourself in this comic book…. beginning at the page of your choice and progressing in any order or direction through the image'

I chopped up all 84  panels and had a play around with them, I was going to write about what I discovered but I swiftly realised that there was no real point writing about it, the idea of this cut up technique is for a new narrative to emerge through chance. The panels are already arranged randomly. So by cutting up the panels and re-arranging them you are doubling the random nature.

Red Wraith being tortured by some kids, Commies on the moon...

Granted there are themes and there are certainly panels that I feel could be placed sequentially but why would I want to do that?  The idea of cut up technique is to 'alter reality' and to reveal 'the true meaning of a text' (these are William Burroughs quotes, check this link), I found it much more fun to examine each panel individually and line them up at random.

This issue feels like a David Lynch film or a Murakami novel. The pieces are there but the order is not important. I was given advice when I first saw a Lynch film (Mullholland Drive, fact fans!) to 'just take everything in and let it piece itself together in your mind…like a dream'. Just let your mind absorb the pictures.....

again, trippy shit!

I've never seen a comic like this issue before, after reading issue 3 I was really anticipating a further criss crossing of narrative thread to twist my mind round like a Mobius strip, issue 4 was like having a grenade into my mind. There are nods to the three previous issues, in one panel an asteroid is seen falling to the surface of the earth, in another we see the headless corpse laying headless in the grave. But the majority of these 84 panels is a mixture of freaky, Jack Kirby acid-trip visuals and it is SO engaging, I found myself pawing back and forth through this issue, revelling in the psychedelia of it all! 

And then we get to issue 5....

shit just got real...

Issue 5 pushes us right through the deepest darkest tunnel of all, a tunnel trough which we are made to claw through fists of damp earth emerging in the Mekong Delta....in the world of The Hateful Dead!

This issue is entirely comprised of a recreation of a set of  Hateful Dead trading cards referenced in the first series (the cards themselves are published by the fictional Golden Nugget Publications). Basically a gruesome (and very awesome) picture and a piece of text telling the story of how these zombie soldiers came to be...yeah! zombie soldiers, its very, very cool:

yeah!

The Hateful Dead were created by chunks of a planet that was 'so consumed by hatred and violence that the very surface of the planet  was transformed into the physical aspect of death' that exploded apart after centuries of war and travelled to our planet as asteroids…..asteroids that have been falling throughout the series in the other issues. Another link to the previous Bulletproof Coffin series is the Hateful Dead escaping through a portal to 'earth's future' where we briefly encounter them in the first series.

i want a Hateful Dead tattoo...

This whole issue feels like the line between the fictional world(s) in Bulletproof Coffin and the world we inhabit (which may or may not be either of the worlds within the comic) are totally erased…we feel like johnny, holding on to his fantasy of being a masked hero and we feel like Timmy gleefully immersing ourselves in the vivid, gory world of these images. When I turn the pages of this comic I feel like I am there in the sweaty humid Mekong Delta watching my squad buddies being torn apart by blood thirsty reanimated corpses.

And just because this issue abandons a traditional comics format (panels, speech bubbles etc) don't think there aren't callbacks to things from the previous issues. The cause of the zombie infestation is revealed to be a part of a planet that has been destroyed by war and hate that has crashed to Earth as a meteor, could this be the source of the weird items Johnny has? 

terrifying....

We emerge from the final tunnel at issue 6 only to be presented by another tunnel. The original tunnel from the first issue. Only here, at the end of the series, we find the beginning of the tunnel in a boy called Deacon's bedroom. 

However the issue starts with a creepy dream sequence in which a woman and her daughter a trapped in some sort of world populated by evil looking children's toys (like a darker version of Timmy's play time). The fantasy world is soon replaced by the grim reality. Amelia is a chronically over weight woman, she shares a house with her abusive husband. Amelia is obsessed with Kiss the Clown, a lascivious children's entertainer. She ends up breaking into Kiss's house. What's interesting is a panel near the end where Amelia's husband seems to be writing the events that are happening to Amelia, he even ends up saving Amelia from Kiss' sex dungeon (where an eerie glowing rock is present, expelling a sick glow)

really creepy

This issue seems to take us full circle….or circles by this point I don’t know how many circles there are, like one of those tricks a magician does where rings are linked together and pulled apart and it seems easy…that’s what this series is like narratives, universes, fiction and reality overlapping and moving closer and further away from you and each other. Sometimes you are standing right in it all (The Hateful Dead issue) sometimes you feel acutely distanced from the chaos (84 the cut up issue). The only thing I can recommend is you read this series, the trade will be out soon or just buy the individual issues, HELL! I’ll even lend you them myself. You just need to see this series, I’ve never been so baffled but at the same time excited by a comic. Its brash, vivid and confusing in massively positive ways..

I'm going to be thinking about this comic for a long time, it's not that I didn't get anything from it.... I really did, it made my brain fire up in a different way to reading a standard superhero tale. It challenged me and forced me to approach each issue differently. No, i'll be thinking about it because I want to, like Johnny at the start of the series, solve the mystery...even if there is no mystery to solve. I'll keep digging up the same coffin and keep crawling through the tunnels...