In which I ponder, weak and weary.

filed under Categories marvel, publishing 1 Comment

[Minor SPOILERS for Marvel’s Midnight comics ahead]

And so, the day has come. Marvel’s new Midnight imprint has been unleashed upon the world, and a lot of what I’ve been considering is about to pass. From the retailer perspective, I am curious if this will succeed in achieving at least a smidgen of the traction that DC’s Absoluteline of books has. From the reader perspective…are these any good?

Let’s take that first question first, even though I don’t quite have the data necessary based on the fact that I’m writing this the night before it’s on sale at my shop. Judging from the pull lists and the in-store requests, interest is reasonably high. However, once I knuckled down and started to process the pull lists, I received a lot of late orders for the variant covers, and usually the same specific variant covers. Everyone wanted the connecting covers, for example, which traditionally is not the sort of variant my clientele usually asks for, so naturally I did not have enough to go around. I’m hoping I can get a reorder on these, but we’ll see.

That’s all just sales stuff that I’ll know the answer to in just a few hours. The important part is, again, are they actually good comic books? I think the answer is “yes,” by and large. The stated purpose of Midnight is to bring Marvel’s superheroes into a more horror-tinged narrative, and overall I think they succeed to varying degrees. But the implicit purpose of this line is to duplicate DC’s creative success with the Absolute line, and its sales success in bringing new readers into comic shops. In this latter consideration, I think Marvel may be moving in the right direction here, mostly.


Midnight Fantastic Four #1 may be the best of the bunch, not just in terms of storytelling but in its emulation of the “Absolute” line’s “formula,” inasmuch as it has one. We begin at square one, where a disgraced Reed Richards’ scientific services are acquired by Susan Storm, who is accompanied by her bodyguard Ben Grimm and her brother Johnny. Like the Absolute books, we’re starting with our characters lacking their particular advantages, in this case specifically Reed not having his respected credentials, and in a larger sense, lacking his familial connection to the others in what would have been his team. There’s a definite tension to the proceedings, and while the horror elements are present, they aren’t necessarily overwhelming, though there is a bit of inferred body horror awaiting us, especially if you got a look at some of the variant covers.


Midnight Spider-Man reminds me a little of this Stephen King quote:

“I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.”

There’s a lot of exploding bodies and blood ‘n’ such in this one, as Oscorp is experimenting on live human subjects who do not survive the process. Again, we’re starting from scratch, as young genius Peter Parker is recruited by the company, and from there…well, the body horror is more explicit in this one, so you can probably guess where things end up. It’s generally an interesting story, with a simplistic but effective conflict in Peter’s motivations. The art is…a little loose in places, where I’m not sure what I’m even looking at, but that may be my aging eyes more than anything else.


Midnight X-Men #1 is the odd man out, as we’re basically put in, as my old pal Dorian put it, a What If story. This isn’t a “ground floor” book, this is a world where the X-Men are already established, building a premise off old X-Men storylines, in which the mutants are mostly all vampires and we’re at war with them and so on. There’s nothing explicitly wrong with it — I mean, it’s all professionally told, though I tend to find writer Jonathan Hickman a bit dry at times — but of the three books, this one didn’t quite understand the assignment of “we need our own Absolute line.” To hear Midnight Spider-Man writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson tell it:

“…When people are making comparisons to Absolute and all that, but it’s really, I’m trying to think of a more apt comparison. I mean, the only similarity really to Absolute is that it is a reimagine. It’s like a Rebirth kind of a thing. And that way that it’s similar in that we’re completely burning the script and starting over. But we’re what we’re replacing it with is super different.”

Well, that’s not this book so much. Maybe we’ve got a lot of backstory in our future, and I imagine we do, but I don’t know if that will be as effective as an X-title that starts from the beginning rather than in medias res. If Midnight Spider-Man started with Peter Parker at around issue #100 of Amazing Spider-Man, and all that business where he had six arms, and continued from there…that’s basically Midnight X-Men #1.

…I don’t think it’s bad, I should emphasize. I’m actually interested to see where this is going, which is unusual for me since I’m not an X-Men guy. At least on that level, “does it keep a reader’s attention,” I think it’s managed that. That said, this isn’t really differentiated enough from the regular X-books to feel like it’s “new” and “different” enough to be its own thing. It leans hard on the “NEW IMPRINT FIRST ISSUE” status to make that hoped-for jump from “just another new Marvel #1” to “huge sales hit that’ll still be selling tenth printings of #1 two years from now,” and I don’t know that’ll be enough.

Look, I know I may sound hard on a couple of these. I don’t mean to. I want these comics to do well. DC hit that magic formula with their Absolute line, with comics that just continue to sell and sell and sell, printing after printing, with the trade paperback collections also selling, bringing new customers into comic book stores while also selling to the already converted. It’s great, and I’d be out of my mind if I, a comic store owner, didn’t want that again, but from Marvel.

So, we’ll see what happens. As a store owner, I hope it’s a hit. As a fan, I hope they continue to be enjoyable to read. As an observer of the industry, I’m sure they’ll give me plenty to write about in the near future.

Not being prurient in the slightest.

filed under Categories publishing 12 Comments

So I was chatting with Amy Chase (writer of Fixation, first issue currently available at your better comic shops, and at mine as well!) as I was ringing up her comic book purchase, when she pointed out the bagged copies of the Not Safe for Work cover of Gastronomique #2 that I had at the front counter. Why are they at the front counter? Because I’ve had problems with these particular types of variants…walking out the door without my knowledge, if you get my drift. Thus, I just keep them discreetly by the register, where the Normal Folks won’t pay attention but the Real Heads know what’s goin’ on.

Anyway, the reason Amy pointed out said bagged variant was to wonder aloud what the first “bagged adult variant” may have been. I mean, not the naughty comics, like Black Kiss (discussed here) where there was only one cover (oh, for those days again), but it was a bit rough for open display on the shelf, and the comic was polybagged with a card over that cover. She meant the comics where there were a handful of “all (appropriate) audiences” covers, along with one, or two, or five Not Safe for Work variants that were polybagged with boards or some other feature that hid the imagery.

I mentioned in that post I’ve already linked once that maybe the best known version of this particular publishing strategy was Sex Criminals where, say, issue #11 would have your wholesome cover suitable for Sunday schools:


…and you’d simultaneously have the Adults Only cover available in this opaque polybag:


…containing Godless filth distributed by Zdarsky and Fraction, Professional Pornographers.

Amy said that she thinks Sex Criminals was the first series to have a standard cover accompanied by a polybagged NSFW variant, which…I couldn’t dispute. At least, not without research (AKA Googling).

Sex Criminals #11 came out in 2015, and as far as I can tell, that was the first issue of the series to have the polybagged NSFW variants. (This is where I miss having access to Diamond Comics’ stock catalog, where I could look this up for sure.)

The first thing that came to mind was the 1989 Leather and Lace series, which came in a polybagged Adults Only version and a “general audiences” version (which I go into detail about here). But it’s not really the same thing, as these are, technically, two different comics: one with X-rated material and one with the X-rated material removed. Yeah, I know. The bagged adult edition did have slightly racier covers, but this wasn’t really the same thing as the Sex Criminals reg-vs.-NSFW covers, as in Leather and Lace‘s case, the adult comic is the main book, the “general” version is the weirdo variant. And oddly, I don’t think even the L&L adult covers featured any outright nudity.

Anyway, I thought about this question for a bit, dredging what’s left of my memory for any earlier examples of regular ol’ comics with bagged naughty variants. Ultimately, I turned to that aforementioned Googling, and turned up this:


Perg #6, published by Lightning Comics in 1994, came with a couple of Gold variants, both polybagged. One was just the same cover pictured here, just on a gold-foil paper. The nude gold polybagged edition had a similar but different image, this time with everyone in the altogether. (You can see all the covers here.)

This isn’t quite the same thing, as the polybag is clear and doesn’t hide the image (unless the included Certificate of Authenticity was put over the front of the cover). But so far this is the earliest comic that had a standard cover accompanied by a nude polybagged cover (obscured or not). But in terms of comics that had a Not Safe for That Workplace variant in an opaque bag, Amy may be correct that Sex Criminals was first out of the gate.

Now is the time where I’ll throw things out to crowdsourcing. Can you think of a comic with a main Safe for Work cover with a nude polybagged variant, either in a clear bag or not, that predates either of the comics above in either category? I promise not to call you a pervert if you have suggestions.

An elemental disagreement.

filed under Categories publishing 15 Comments

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here, but I’ve certainly brought it up on Bluesky that I now have about 92% of the Elementals comics from the ’80s and ’90s, missing only a couple of the issues from the mini-series, and the very last couple of Elementals minis spit out by a dying Comico. (I’m only bothering with the first Elementals Sex Special since it’s the one with actual work from the series creator Bill Willingham.)

Anyway, I held off reading the Elementals Specials (not to be confused with the Sex ones) until after I finished the entire first series. I know Special #1 fits in somewhere during that first run, while #2 leads up to launch for Elementals #2. As such, as I was reading through the first series, I saw some letters page reactions to the first Special and it seems to be a fairly positive reaction.

I’d known for years Special #1 was a Very Important Issue, addressing the problem of child abuse, probably hinted at by that cover of haunted children’s faces (and one kid with glowy eyes, which is a thing from the story). Willingham draws the book with Rich Rankin inks, while Jack Herman scripts, and the story is…mmmm, not the greatest. A member of the Elementals, Tommy AKA Monolith has psychic visions of children being killed by some mysterious being, and we get a slew of dead kids in this issue, which is, needless to say, distressing. Which is the point, of course.

Spoilers for a 40-year-old comic, but the supernatural murderer turns out to have been the victim of abuse himself as a child, “repeating the cycle” as they say, and he’s talked down and neutralized.

Aside from that last little bit, we don’t really get too deep into the whys and wherefores of the topic at hand…it’s a lot of action and killing and Elementals lore and I don’t know what anyone would have taken from this, really. I mean, it’s fine as what is basically a solo Monolith adventure, but feels kinda shallow.

Of note, though, is the editorial page in this issue. Included is a letter where Comico’s rep reached out to an organization that was working against this sort of treatment of children, asking if they wanted to place an informational page in the comic as outreach.

The response that garnered was as follows, from the director of the organization:


Hoo boy, As it says in The Muppets (2011):


Now, I think she’s justified in saying no…the story is pretty violent, and I would imagine off-putting to someone I’m guessing hasn’t had much experience with comics. Willingham provides an editorial response, stating that this is a comic presented in the Elementals milieu, with supernatural beings and serial killers simply being just part of the context into which the topic of abuse has been slotted. Also, that “violent, upsetting” content should be used to get the point across to audiences. And here, in this case, I think I get what Willingham is saying

Not directly addressed is this accusation from the director’s letter:

“The graphic violence and physical abuse that occur probably will not help prevent child abuse and in fact may encourage it.”

Oh man, I think if I were Willingham that bit would have pissed me off the most. What a thing to say to someone, “your comic is so bad it may cause murders.” I mean, holy shit. Honestly, I can understand most of the points being made from both sides of this argument, but this add-on is just over the top.

This was the mid-1980s when all this was goin’ on. The general public’s increasing awareness of comic books was slowly creeping up. Watchmen wouldn’t come out until a few months after Elementals Special #1 was released, and thus hadn’t yet entered the conversation, but Batman: The Dark Knight had come out just the month before. Comics were on the verge of booming into enormous popularity, and with wider availability and access comes wider criticism.

At the time of this letter exchange, we weren’t quite there yet, but the stirrings of public unrest were there, as more “mature” content began to get mainstreamed (as much as a comic shop was “mainstream” then) into store racks. Discussions of violence in comics were increasing, like in this article from a 1985 Comics Journal: “The Ratings Debate – Violence and Sex in Comics: How Will Publishers Cope with It?” Or this article by Heidi MacDonald, which has lived rent-free in my head for nearly 40 years. And c’mon, X-Men fans had been long debating whether Wolverine was too violent…or not violent enough.

I don’t know that this director was exposed to any of this early tumult in the comics biz…well, actually, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t. This exchange, however, remains as a precursor to the debates and accusations and straight-up witch hunts that were to follow in the coming years.

Like I said, I didn’t think the Elementals Special was a great comic. I mean, kudos to the creators for using their platform to address an important topic, but it feels more exploitative than educational. That may just be the nature of the series’ overall tone, or the story in which it was expressed, or whatever. Just overall, the execution just didn’t work for me, but other folks wrote in and really liked it, so Your Mileage May Vary, as it always does.

EDIT: Lars recently did his own overview of this issue, with more visuals of the actual contents than I provided.

The one with Miss Piggy and Emma Frost was pretty good, too.

filed under Categories fantastic four, this week's comics, variant covers 6 Comments

So in general I usually just stick with the main covers of books, letting the variants stay on the shelves for the customers who want them. But sometimes…sometimes there’s a cover I have to have. Last time it was a variant featuring you-know-who, and this week it was this one:


Marvel’s celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Muppet Show, you see, so we’re getting these swell mash-up covers (as well as the equally-swell Muppets Take the Marvel Universe comic from last week). I couldn’t resist Statler and Waldorf and the Watcher. What an image.

Helping me make the choice was that I didn’t entirely care for the main cover, which looked like this:


…with a big portion given over to a banner identifying the book as part of the “DNX” crossover, sort of in the fashion of previous Marvel crossover events like Civil War. I’m not reading the DNX series, I’m not even entirely sure what it’s about, which is probably a bad thing to admit given I order and sell this stuff, but it’s basically another “event” book I’m not personally following.

Interestingly, the previously provided artwork for this cover for Fantastic Four #17 looked like this:


…with the artwork taking up the entire area. Come to think of it, the Muppet variant image we were provided prior to release did not contain the dialogue balloons:


Frankly, I liked it better that way…far more foreboding.

Now as to the issue itself, since I’m not reading the event, how did I like the book that’s tying into it? Now look, as a verified expert in comic book reading, I’m no stranger to reading a story that ties into another series I’m not reading and have no interest in doing so. I can usually extrapolate what I missed from what I have read, and if it’s a good comic book, the creative team will briefly catch you up under the assumption this book is the only one you’ve ever read, ever.

Needless to say, this is writer Ryan North we’re talking about, and he, along with artists Vincenzo Carratù and Edgar Delgado, presents us a story that requires no (or at least very little) previous knowledge of what’s going on elsewhere. The FF are stranded…somewhere, and none of them have their memories. Thus, it’s a story of them trying to work out who they are and where they’re at, and it is both amusing and exciting. It’s not ’til the end we get the explicit tie-in to DNX, but judging by the next issue blurb, it doesn’t seem like you’ll need to read any other comic to be able to follow part two of this story. Which is nice.

I suppose if you are reading DNX, this will enhance the experience. But if not, you’re good there too.

I did spot another variant this week I was tempted by:


…but alas, I’m not reading any of the X-books. Not even for Pepe the King Prawn.

My Fantastic Four-ay: Part Thirteen.

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Before I get into the main “trying your patience” portion of this post, let me note a couple of things:

First, pal Tegan celebrates installment #1000 of her “Tegan Reads a Comic Book” video series, where she looks at that anniversary issue of Fantastic Four I discussed not too long ago. She was kind enough to acknowledge my efforts here researching the origins of that comic, and she has, as she always does, interesting things to say about the book.

Second, I just discovered a few days ago that there was a five-part podcast series looking at the Fantastic Four movies entitled “Fantastic Fouray,” which was news to me. Well, I don’t think there should be any confusion between that podcast and my overlong text pieces, but just in case: I Am Not Affiliated with That Podcast, Honest, I Wasn’t Trying to Step on Any Toes Here. Anyway, reviews of the FF films sound like fun, so go check ’em out, let me know how they are.

Now, onto the mainstream of this evening’s symposium:

So when we last met, we were at that point in the Fantastic Four run, in late 1986, where John Byrne’s direct involvement has been over and done with for several months now. However, his influence still lives on, as we saw in the extra-sized anniversary issue #296, which followed a general outline of his initial plans but shaved off some of the details. And here we are in #297, by Roger Stern, John Buscema and Sal Buscema, dealing with the emotional detritus left behind by some of Byrne’s storytelling decisions.

As you can see on this cover (which I presented last time):


…the Thing is clearly not in a great place. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spend another full post on just a cover again, but there is a distressfully dark tone to that cover. Without actually saying the word “suicide,” you clearly get what is implied here. Needless to say, ol’ Ben is not in the best place right now. I mean, this cover isn’t a patch on “This Man, This Monster” as drawn by Jack Kirby:


…but it’s of a kind.

The cover only tells part of the story of what’s inside, as it’s got subplots a’plenty in the Mighty Marvel Manner, but you’d be disappointed if it didn’t. What supposedly are the A and B plots of the issue are the Fantastic Four working on some science doohickeys for the U.S. government to address some strange fluctuations in the Sun. Meanwhile, somewhere out in space, there’s war raging on a distant planet between two powerful warlords who just happen to be brothers. Here’s a quick family photo of the two of them:


If you think those initial two plots are going to collide at some point, well, give yourself a cookie.

And, of course, the third plot, the emotional journey of Ben Grimm from “depressed” to “probably even more depressed.” Despite the A & B plots clearly being on a collision course and the apparent main driver of the book, it’s C that, frankly, we’re all going to be the most concerned with. This is likely the main reason I kept reading the book, even considering Byrne’s departure and the mostly wet thud of the anniversary issue. I wanted to know what happened to the Thing.

At this point, in the few years I’d been reading Fantastic Four and related materials, I’d seen Bashful Benjy go through a lot. Gained his humanity, lost his humanity, been devolved, been further mutated, was stuck adventuring on an alien world, found out he could always turn himself back to human but lost the ability on said alien world, lost his girlfriend Alicia to his best friend, et cetera and so forth.

It wasn’t like I was waiting for an eventual “happy ending,” as the very nature of serialized superhero comic book adventures is happy-ending-adverse. I think I was looking more for an “equilibrium,” some middle ground where the Thing could have something resembling a normal life while still going on adventures. Like, right now, in the Ryan North scripted Fantastic Four series, the Thing is married (to Alicia…yes, that whole situation is eventually resolved, wait ’til you find out how if you don’t already know), he’s not constantly mutating, he’s not emotionally tortured…that’s about what I mean when I say “reached an equilibrium.”

In this issue, though, the Thing isn’t quite there yet, as he remains in a bit of turmoil, angered and shamed by his physical condition and brusque to the man he feels put him in this position, the FF’s leader Reed Richards. Unfortunately, Ben’s attitude results in a little friendly fire involving Reed’s young son Franklin:


…which of course only exacerbates the Thing’s renewed self-consciousness about his appearance, a symptom of recent events involving mutations of his form and his stint on Monster Island from the anniversary issue.

This drives Ben to don a suit that fully covers his body:


…as seen in this bit of business, where he, somehow unseen, overhears Johnny’s proposal to Alicia:


…that of course does nothing for his current state of mind.

The ultimate payoff of this plot thread comes when the FF all hop aboard their ship and take off into space to deploy their Sun-energy-detector-siphon doohickey. Once that’s deployed, the Thing decides to just let himself drift off into oblivion, like what we saw on the cover, only to be caught in the process by Johnny (wearing a Reed-designed outfit that allows him to Human Torch-ify himself in space):


Ben just lays out the reasons why he feels he’s no longer needed (including She-Hulk’s continuing presence on the team, which comes to a head of sorts shortly). Johnny of course thinks it’s a load of bunk and drags him back to safety, nearly doing himself in due to the limited supply of air in his special suit.

By the end of the issue, Ben’s back on board the ship and ready to pilot everyone back home, until the sun-device somehow makes contact with that alien world and drags the warring brothers back to our solar system, somehow merged into one being:


…and that’s our cliffhanger for the next issue.

I didn’t say much about the whole warring alien brothers situation, because, like I said, the important part of the story is the Thing’s continuing alienation from the rest of the team, and from the rest of humanity itself. It’s just all set-up for the big action-packed conflict for the next issue, but that said, I feel there’s still a connection between these two elements of the story. The alien warlords (named Umbra and Jaagur, just for future reference) could be seen as being in parallel to the relationship between Ben and Johnny. And Reed, too, perhaps, but given the main conflict for this story is for the former pairing, that’s the match that makes the most sense.

Between Ben and Johnny, we see an emotional conflict that is…well, not “resolved” as such, but at least brought to a position of understanding. With Umbra and Jaagur, the conflict between the two brings them into outright violent physical conflict, which gets interrupted by outside forces (Reed’s machine). And one presumes being merged into the same body doesn’t resolve those issues, but we’ll see what happens in the next chapter.

The Too Long, Didn’t Read version is that we have two different conflicts between two sets of brothers, both put on hold, with Ben and Johnny in a “but for the grace of God” circumstance in relation to Umbra and Jaagur. I mean, I don’t think Ben and Johnny were in any danger of being merged into a single body or anything, but Ben does bring up the bit of business from Monster Island where Johnny was made “ugly” by the Mole Man’s machinations, so in a way they did “share” a body, or at least a circumstance…and already my Too Long, Didn’t Read summary is longer than the bit I was trying to summarize.

In the end, what we have is a deep dive into the mental state of the Thing, still feeling the aftereffects of what he’d been through as a result of Byrne’s tenure on the book. Even after being gone for most of a year, Byrne still casts a long shadow. But of the remaining explicit changes Byrne made, the Thing’s issues find an eventual resolution (or equilibrium, as I talked about earlier), with Johnny’s marriage to Alicia, and Sue Richards’ alternate identity of “Malice,” stretching on even further still. But, more on those in future installments.

Especially Punisher Armory.

filed under Categories collecting, retailing 14 Comments

Loureedrichards stretches in to street hassle me with

“The post on war comics and the reaction to it was interesting. Several people mentioned not being interested in war comics when they were younger, but they now have a greater affinity for them. I felt much the same way and now find I am as interested in war, horror, romance, and funny animal comics as I am in superhero comics. That may partly be due to the histories of those genres and many of the creators not being covered quite as extensively.

“Is there much demand for any of those genres outside of the EC titles (obviously) and something like early romance comics by Simon and Kirby? Is there a large Fox and Crow or Jerry Lewis fandom that I’m not hip to? If so, could you hip me to them so I’m not stuck out here in squaresville daddy-o?”

Look, I’m tuned in to your scene, Kookie, and it’s the absolute end! Honestly, when it comes to the war comics, or really any genre outside of superheroes, it may just be that they were overlooked when you were at the stands picking out your regular faves. The war books may have looked more “mature” or “serious” to you at a young age, and thus didn’t appeal. Which isn’t to say there weren’t some seven-year-olds out there desperately waiting each new issue of G.I. Combat, because obviously there had to be some, or the series wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did.

It may be a self-fulfilling prophecy from the publishers, too…”our war books don’t sell as well as the superhero books, so we’ll focus our efforts on the superhero books, and hey our war book sales have dropped further still, how’d that happen, better not waste effort pushing those.”

Another aspect is availability. Comic shops carrying back issues (by which I mean the good ones, possibly even mine) can expose you to a wider variety of books outside your initial experience. As you get a little older, a little more interested in reading something other than the same ol’ same ol’, and as you maybe hopefully have a little more disposable income (a tricky assumption at this current moment), you might peruse the stacks and come away with material you’d skipped before.

And when you’re older, you might just have more of an appreciation (sincere or ironic) for the craft of the books. Maybe that war book or horror comic looked “weird” to you as a kid, but looks fascinating to you now. I’ll tell you, not long after I started working at my previous place of employment, I’d be processing stacks of old war books, and I learned quickly that some, especially Sgt. Rock, had perfected the Intriguing Cover™. Each one set up a situation that was so mind-bogglingly compelling that you had to look inside and see what was going on. It was the ol’ “things that always work on covers” list (usually attributed to Carmine Infantino, but apparently actually from former DC honcho Irwin Donenfeld) but turned up to eleven. Or fifteen.


I mean, what the hell, dude.

Like I said above, this isn’t everyone‘s story. Some people read a lot of comics that weren’t superheroes as a kid, and just never made the move over. Or some, like me, were reading a lot of Disney and other kids comics in the ’70s, got roped into Star Wars comics in ’77, was reading a lot of Mad Magazine during this period, and occasionally read superhero comics as well. So, I was getting a good mix of stuff, but it helped that there was a good mix of stuff on the stands for me to get. As superheroes pushed other genres off the rack, the choices became increasingly limited.

Oh, and I suppose one more thing that helps people rediscover old comics they missed out on before: the internet. I hear that’s a big thing nowadays.

But anyway, yes, there is currently an enormous market for non-superhero comics of an older vintage. If I suddenly got a crate full of Golden Age romance comics, they’d be gone within a week. And that’s just from walk-ins. I’ve got people I can call who would rush right in and buy ’em by the armload. It’s no problem. And those war books I got recently…they’re selling nearly as soon as I price them, even in the condition they’re in.

“Do comic collections ever come in with superhero AND romance comics?”

Sure, all the time, if the collections are of a certain age. Granted, it’s usually 1% romance comics, 99% superheroes/other, but it’s rare when, despite my wishful thinking in the previous paragraph, that I get in a collection that’s nothing but romance. Unless you count Archie. Or Punisher, that’s kind of a romance comic if you really think about it.

“Unrelated, but are there any comics you would not sell due to ethical concerns about the content or the creators? Nothing springs to mind right off, but you have much vaster knowledge.”

The last time this was really an issue was the whole Orson Scott Card thing, which I wrote about here (warning: linkrot). And there are creators who have been involved in scandal and bad behavior which disinclines me from supporting future endeavors.

But the one line I am not crossing is carrying any Harry Potter items. It’s not likely there’ll ever be a Harry Potter comic (JKR probably thinks that’s beneath her), so it’s obviously easy to boycott that. I do, however, get inundated with offers for HP junk from my various toy/merchandise wholesalers, and man, No Huey, No News, No Thanks. I like my trans friends too much to stab ’em in the back like that.

“Just saw a video of someone being ripped off by a counterfeit Hulk #181. Obviously with your experience you could spot a fake a mile away, but I’m curious if anyone has ever tried to pull a fast one on you?”

Not that I’ve noticed. Boy, I hope none of that giant pile of Man of Steel (1986) #2 I have in the back are fakes. But, boy, with home tech advancing to the point where you can assemble a reasonable facsimile of a Hulk #181 to foist off on people? That’s a new worry unlocked.

One example I can think of was at the old shop, where we once acquired a ’60s Spider-Man toy still in the box, but that box was newly printed and we somehow missed that. I don’t believe this was nefariousness on the part of the seller, she was likely oblivious to its nature. (And I’m not trying to be mean, here…this particular person was likely not capable of either making this box or spotting it was fake. And we didn’t spot it either, so there you go.)

And I know one of our old customers got taken by some fake Jack Kirby “original” art, poor guy.

We did buy a counterfeit Cerebus #1 at the old shop once, but we knew it was a counterfeit, which is now sort of a collectible in and of itself. We bought it at the same time as a real #1, and they both sold to the same person. (Huh, I wonder if Cecil still owns those? Boy, I’d like to have ’em myself.)

“Like I said, forgive me if you’ve covered these topics before.”

Friend, you’re talking to a person who has a wildly extensive “Death of Superman” category, I ain’t afraid of repeat topics.

The legend returns.

filed under Categories collecting 14 Comments

So one of the things about providing content to this site is that it is often sourced from material at my store, rather than comics in my own personal collection. I’ll be processing comics, something will catch my eye, and the next thing you know a post like this shows up.

Before I had my own shop, when I was the manager at the previous place of employment, I often found inspiration in the many comics I’d process and handle there as well. And, occasionally, I’d take advantage of the store scanner to copy an image or fourteen and email them to myself for incorporation into Progressive Ruin.

One of the comics at the old shop, from which I had purloined some digital pics, has long since become an intrinsic part of this site’s DNA. I did not keep the comic, only scanned images from it and put it back in the stacks, and it was sold long ago to unremembered parties. Did they appreciate it as much as I had? As my readers had? It’s hard to say.

Thus, that comic had long since departed from my life, while my scans and posts remained. Notably, readers like YOU would still occasionally bring it up here on the site and on social media…why, it turned up in the comments just yesterday.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before this, but I decided the other week that I should in fact own a copy of this monumental comic, one that has inextricably embedded itself into this site’s history.

Which is how, one eBay purchase later, I am now the owner of Battle Stories #5, published in 1952:


…containing the most important comics page of all time:


…the one that holds the “THEN…KOREA” panel.

I’ve since re-scanned said panel at a nigh-Lichtenstein-esque size and resolution for future use, as seen in this fan-favorite detail:


Now that it’s part of the actual Vast Mikester Comics Archive forever and all time (or at least the next couple of decades or so), maybe that will encourage me to dip into the “THEN…KOREA” well a little more often than I had. Like so:


Or maybe “Feldspar.”

filed under Categories legion of super-heroes 31 Comments

So I asked for some questions/post suggestions a while back, and in comes customer Sean, trying to kill me:

“I stumbled upon an Instagram post the other day regarding a story from the ’60s where Superman goes to the future and visits the grown up iteration of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

“He walks through a hallway with sculptures of the Legionnaires who have perished in battle–Ferro Lad, Invisible Kid, Chemical King, etc., and Brainiac Five (who is smoking a pipe!), shows Kal , via tele-screen, Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl, who have started a family, at their home. There are also references to Lightning Man and Saturn Woman, Cosmic Man and Night Woman, and Timberwolf and Light Woman as married couples.”

Superman does indeed! This brings to mind the fact that initially, DC was going to make things even more confusing in regard to Legion of Super-Heroes continuity. Superboy, as we all know, would travel 1,000 years into the future to visit his Legion pals and have adventures and punch Validus an’ stuff. However, someone had the idea that Supergirl should also be able to travel to the future and hang out with the Legion.

And as you also know, DC Comics aficionados that you are, Supergirl was introduced into the Superman comics when Superman was…well, a man. Having Supergirl travel into the future and hang out with the same folks that also hang out with her cousin when he was a boy and hadn’t yet met her…well, you see the problem here.

The solution was, of course, not to have Supergirl travel into the future and meet the Legion. But instead of doing that rational course of action, she went to the future anyway. Like, just a little bit further into the future (or maybe less, given the relative starting points of Superboy initiating time travel from an earlier point in the timestream than Supergirl, but perhaps I digress) to meet…the children of the original Legion of Super-Heroes!


This is in Superman #267, from 1960, and obviously this solved all the continuity issues and…nah, just kidding, someone clearly decided “this is insane” and the Legion Kids just kinda went away. And if Supergirl met Superboy during some Legion adventure, there was just some kinda memory-adjusting hand-waving so that Superboy wouldn’t remember certain details about his trips to the future. There’s probably a citation for this in one of the comics somewhere, but I’ve already done enough research for this post.

But let’s get back to Sean’s invoking of that Superman Meets the Adult Legion story, which takes place in Adventure Comics #354 and #355 in 1967, the first issue of which is pictured here:


An interesting note about that cover: for the panels ‘n’ such I’m presenting here, I’m generally capturing them from DC Comics’ digital comics service, to save the wear and tear on my Legion of Super-Heroes Archives hardcovers from flattening ’em out on my scanner to get a good image. However, the cover for this issue that they have on this service has “Shadow Woman” colored blue, to match the famously azure Shadow Lass from the non-adult Legion. I pulled the above image from an eBay auction, which shows how the cover was originally colored. (And I should note, the cover is colored correctly in the Legion Archives.)

Speaking of those panels, here are a couple demonstrating what Sean was talking about, with Superman wandering through the memorial wing here:


…followed by the Hall of Hookin’ Up, with, I guess, the 30th-century equivalent of wedding pictures:


Now, I get what DC was trying to do here…they wanted Superman to have his own adventures with the Legion, but not in a way that would result in, say, meeting his younger self during one of his adventures with the Legion. So, like they tried to do with Supergirl by giving her a distinct Legion team of her own to visit, they were attempting to give Superman his own distinct team. Basically, the same team, but older. The “Adult Legion” made a handful of appearances, but again, someone decided that having two versions of the same team like this was too convoluted, so the idea was phased out.

However, the army of Legion fans did not forget, and the specter of this glimpse into the future weighed heavily over Shadow Lass, when she first appeared a few months later in Adventure Comics #365. The fact that she had blue skin when the “Shadow Woman” statue had Caucasian skin tones didn’t seem to matter much. It was presumed that her fate was maybe kinda sorta sealed.

You know who didn’t like the Adult Legion stories? Paul Levitz, the guy who would spend much of the ’80s writing the Legion, that’s who. When it came time to write Legion of Super-Heroes #300, the extra-sized anniversary issue, he decided to devote a portion of the story nodding towards the predictions made by that old Adult Legion story. (Also part of the issue was devoted to this.)

Even down to Shadow Lass putting on pink make-up and calling herself “Shadow Woman.”


This was Leviiz’s explicit thumbing of the nose at the Adult Legion stories being the “official” future of the Legion, as Shadow Lass does indeed save the Science Asteroid, and does not die. And that, as they say, is that. ‘Til we get to the whole “Five Years Later” thing, which is Adult Legion x1000, frankly.

Oh, and I forgot to show you Smoking Brainy, in his, I’m pretty sure, one appearance:


…smoking that soup ladle, or whatever the hell that is.

So all that actually answered a few of Sean’s other questions about the Adult Legion, except

“Have Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl’s offspring ever been mentioned or featured in stories again?”

…and I’m going to say “no,” I don’t feel like they popped up again, but I’ve not read all these stories in forever. They do have a kid in one of the many rebooted versions of the Legion, according to my Googling, but I don’t think it’s meant to be the same as what you see in the Adult Legion.

“Instead of constantly rebooting the Legion, why doesn’t DC Comics try an approach where the offspring of the original classic Silver/Bronze Age Legion (1958 – 1994) form a legacy Legion team? Clearly at least Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, and Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl did have/will have offspring at some point. So, we can assume other Legionaries did or will as well. This way new characters could be added more organically, and we could also get new power sets for new Legion recruits who aren’t offspring, but are teenagers.”

Hmmmmmm, they already tried the Legion Kids with Supergirl way back when. I think keeping the Legion as just This One Thing In Space/Time in relation to DC’s other heroes is the best idea, reducing complications and confusion.

“Also, would the offspring of Wildfire and Dawnstar be named ‘Wildstar’ or ‘Dawnfire?'”

Well, “Wildstar” is already taken by Jerry Ordway, so “Dawnfire” is it! Unless that’s taken too.

“What would Blok and White Witch’s offspring be like?”

I don’t know…a big chunk of gypsum, maybe? I’d probably be careful about naming the character after that, though.

Seriously, someone find that old Benb book for me.

filed under Categories kickstarter 9 Comments

So I’ve been a little Kickstarter-crazy over the last several months, despite the fact that I have a to-read and to-watch pile already teetering over my head and the last thing I needed was…well, more things. But people keep putting out (or not putting out, as I’ll get to) good things I want to enjoy, and thus here we are.

I talked about several of these items back in April, but I thought I’d at least update you on what’s going on with them.

Starting with the items that I either already have in my hand or have experienced:

The Megaton Man Microbus:


This is a very nicely made softcover book reprinting the Megaton Man webcomic that ran in the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, featuring the wild superhero universe Don Simpson built around his Man of Molecules as seen in Bizarre Heroes and other publications.

The book is in black and white, with new scans of all the art. Simpson also provided a PDF to backers that features the strips (at their original web-ready resolution) in color. Also in the book are reproductions of all the sketches he included in folks’ books who paid for that level in the campaign. (I didn’t since I already got a character sketch from him in a previous campaign, though now I kinda wish I’d splurged for one this time.) Anyway, good book, glad to have it.

Here’s something that’s not comics:


…Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Rifftrax Experiments, picking up where the original TV show left off when it was cancelled by the Sci-Fi Channel. Rifftrax is of course the movie riffing/commentary track endeavor created by the main cast of MST3K when it went off the air, so those folks returning to play those parts is a real “full circle” kind of thing. Now, I supported the campaign at the “gimmie that Blu-ray set” level, which won’t ship ’til December, but I did go see the premiere of the first of the new episodes (Sting of Death) in a theater, so I’m pretty sure I’ll see fulfillment of this particular campaign.

Here’s a campaign that’s still active as I write this:


…Nexus: Triplets, a graphic novel written by Nexus’s co-creator Mike Baron. I’ve written about my love of Nexus many times before, and while I’m sad the other co-creator, Steve Rude, won’t be doing any more stories with the character, I have enjoyed Baron’s recent work on it (with some caveats). Splurged for the signed hardcover with the digital download, in case my eyes aren’t up to the print edition.

One I just supported and is ending the same day I’m posting this:

…well, it’s technically Steve Lafler’s campaign for his 1956 graphic novel, but one of the add-ons, which can also be purchased separately, is Benb #1. I don’t know quite how to explain the enigmatic Benb, who often appeared in Lafler’s Dog Boy comics, but he’s endlessly endearing and boy, just look at the Kirby-riffic cover.

By the way, I’m still looking for a copy of Benb and Gerald from 1980, if any of you happen to see it.


And here are a couple I mentioned last time that are still pending:


…Steve Bissette’s Complete Tyrant, collecting his sadly-curtailed indie book along with plenty of extra material. I went for the trade with the signed bookplate. Not shipped yet, but getting plenty of updates as to its progress. Estimated delivery this month, so we’ll see if they make it!


Roy from Space is a remastered Blu-ray edition of a lost Mexican animated sci-fi film, that I admit I mostly supported on a whim. It sounded interesting, and I like having oddball movies in my collection. Plus, the Gilbert Hernandez-covered edition that was available didn’t hurt. Supposed to ship in July, but I’ve been getting plenty of progress updates so I’m not terribly worried.


E. Nelson Bridwell: First Fan is a graphic novel retelling of the life of this prolific if still somewhat mysterious writer and editor for DC Comics. I always enjoyed Bridwell’s contributions to comics, so this was a no-brainer for me to support. I just went for the physical hardcover and the digital download, though I probably could have pitched in the extra 10 bucks for a signed and numbered copy. Ah well. And speaking of the digital content, I forgot it’s available now, and I just spent a few minutes reading the book instead of writing this post. Book’s good, hope it makes it to store shelves. The actual hardcover was supposed to ship in August, but again, still getting regular updates, and the digital material is here, so no worries.

And now, the campaign I pledged for and have been receiving no updates:


…the Dreadstar Vs. Dreadstar book, the campaign for which ended in April, and was supposed to ship in June, but the updates from the campaign creator ended in mid-May. A look at the comments reveals a lot of unhappy people, including me, with ain’t no response from nobody. I even reached out to a couple of folks who are listed as being associated with the campaign, and they were all like “yeah, I don’t know.” They both revealed that there were…personal reasons why things were delayed, which I don’t feel like I can share here. If this is indeed the case, the reasons are legitimate, but the extreme lack of communication is not. Even a simple “sorry, there’s been a delay” message would be nice, but nuthin’ doin’. All it looks like now is that the folks running the campaign took everyone’s (in my case) eighty bucks and split town.

I’m obviously not saying that is what happened, particularly with what I’ve been told is the actual reason for the hold-up, but boy it seems like every crowdfunding thing Jim Starlin’s had ends up with some kind of problem. Big Jim needs to rethink future efforts along these lines, I think.

Anyway, those folks I contacted said they’d try to let the person in charge here know that the comment section on their campaign page has gone feral, and hopefully that’ll goose things along? I don’t know. And I was really looking forward to this one, too.

WARNING: HUGE SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #4 (unless you’ve been on the internet during the last few weeks).

filed under Categories marvel, this week's comics 19 Comments

I’ve read the Avengers on and off over the years, never sticking around for a long time but long enough to experience some pretty good stories. The 1980s run by Roger Stern, John Buscema, and Tom Palmer may be primarily remembered now for containing the first appearance of future Marvel movie star Nebula, but it really peaked with the multi-part “Masters of Evil” storyline. It’s a knock-down, drag-out battle between our heroes and a powerful group of villains, containing enough characterization, drama, and heart to keep it from just being action figures being smashed together.

The next, and ’til now, last time I read the regular monthly Avengers title was in the ’90s, when Kurt Busiek and George Pérez gave us a superhero adventure comic filled with solid writing and great art. It really was the top of the line when it came to Big Two superhero books of the period, emerging from the “Image” style and showing how coherent storytelling and professional illustration could tell memorable stories.

Aside from the occasional annual or special issue, and that first Avengers Forever mini, that was pretty much that.

And then there was this Avengers: Armageddon series. I’ve been a fan of its writer, Chip Zdarsky, for a long time, and enjoying his current superhero work. And on top of that, Avengers: Armageddon was tying into current and/or recent Marvel storylines that I am following, like the Red Hulk stuff, and all the Doctor Doom shenanigans, and Zdarsky’s own Captain America series. And even though I held that first issue of this new mini in my hands as I thought about whether or not I wanted to read this, I still decided “no.” Despite everything going for it, I just felt like I didn’t need another comic to try to keep up with, given the backlog I’m still trying to work through.

However, I came across some online chatter about what was supposedly going to happen in this comic, and my interest was piqued. If what was being talked about was true, then I was absolutely going to want to read this series and see what was going on.

“And what was going on, Mike?” I’m glad you asked, and I hope you clocked the SPOILER WARNING in the title of this post, because I’m a’gettin’ into it.

Last chance. No one to blame but yourself at this point. It starts after the cover scan here.


So anyway, Miracleman is back, and this time he’s firmly in the Marvel Universe. Well, kinda sorta. It’s finally the payoff to this one-shot from a few years ago, hinting…well, okay, not so much “hinting” as “straight up saying” that the character would pop into the Marvel Universe eventually. It’s still too early to say to what extent, if any, this is connected to the Miracleman storyline by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, et al., but I suspect, given the latter writer’s current scandals, this is an entirely separate iteration.

Long story short, Marvel spent some cash establishing its ownership over the somewhat confused legal status of this intellectual property, and by golly if they’re no longer able to monetize the other stuff, they’re gonna make some new stuff with it. Plus, the stuff they were trying to monetize was hampered by problems even before Gaiman’s current troubles, many of which I cover in this post. Basically, format issues, printing errors, and the simple fact that the property was old and mostly forgotten was keeping Marvel’s attempts at revival from getting any traction.

As I say at the end of that post, I’ve held for a long time that when it finally happened, Marvel would revert back to using the “Marvelman” name for their Marvel Universe version of the character, to keep it separate from the different, pretty-much-its-own-thing Miracleman run. (I believe I first theorized that in this 2013 post.) Again, we just got Miracleman, or somebody like him, in this new Avengers: Armageddon issue, so I don’t know where we’re going yet. Tellingly, the “next issue” page for the issue directs readers to a “Who Is Miracleman?” story on their digital comics platform, so maybe they are sticking with the name? Too many characters with “Marvel” in their names already, perhaps?

By the way, that “Who Is Miracleman” comic, produced in 2023 presumably for the return of the Gaiman/Mark Buckingham “Silver Age” chapter, seems like it would be mostly confusing, if not incomprehensible, to anyone actually new to the character. It’s a short “highlights” reel of What Had Gone Before in the Moore/Gaiman era, and the huge gaps and jumps I can fill in myself because I’ve read it all, but I wonder how someone who hadn’t could deal with it. (And notably, aside from a Miracleman special by other creators, there is no other Miracleman material on the digital service.)

How much is any of that going to apply to what’s currently going on, anyway? To keep it very short, David Colton, who had been a replacement Captain America for Steve Rogers, is given new powers by a New Super Powers Machine (an “Origin Box” from the Ultimate Universe — yet another long story), putting him in the Miracle/Marvelman costume and presumably giving him that same power set. It’s even down to the same ability to do a Captain Marvel/”Shazam!”-esque transformation by saying the magic work “KIMOTA” (in a sequence deliberately cribbed from Moore’s very first Marvelman short). It doesn’t appear to be tied to the Mike Moran (Marvelman’s civilian identity) version of the character at all, but again, we’re still way early in the process here.

As I said, before this issue even came out, there was a lot of talk about this happening, which is probably the most interest the character has had in a long time. By forcing Marvel readers to engage with Miracleman (or whatever, I just keep using both names) by putting the concept squarely in the center of an Avengers comic, fans can’t just ignore it like they could some weird decades-old thing that was revived solely for people in their late middle age who 1) are still alive, 2) are still reading comics and 3) remember it from the last time it was on the stands. It is now officially A Marvel Thing, so, I guess, coming soon to a movie screen near you? We’ll see.

At any rate, I don’t know why I’ve been so antsy about spoiler warnings when Marvel itself just plain put Miracleman on one of the variant covers for this issue, which you can see if you click the Avengers: Armageddon cover I posted above. And yes, that’s the cover I took for myself. (And yes, by all rights I should put this post under the miraclemarvelman category, but I didn’t want that being an inadvertent spoiler right at the top of the page. I’ll add it later.)

EDIT: Marvel has put out a press release specifically identifying the character’s name as “Miracleman.”