Pop Culture Chronicles

Legends

When Executive Editor, Dick Giordano first pitched the idea for the Legends mini-series to Editor, Mike Gold, the series was pitched as "Crisis 2." It was a follow-up, but not a true sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths. With the outcome of Crisis having been a merging together of the multiverse into a single universe, heroes who once inhabited different earths could now have their first major crossover without it requiring inter-dimensional travel.

The series is notable for several reasons, including the first appearance of the post-crisis Captain Marvel (Shazam). It also includes the first appearance of Amanda Waller and the modern origin of the Suicide Squad before Harley Quinn was even a thought. Even President Ronald Reagan plays a prominent role. The story also introduces a new Justice League line-up, transitioning from the Gypsy/Vibe/Vixen version to a roster including heroes who prior to Crisis inhabited a number of different earths. There was Dr. Fate (earth-two), Blue Beetle (earth-four), Batman (earth-one), Captain Marvel (earth-S), and others, but now all inhabiting a single universe. 

The series had a fantastic creative team consisting of John Ostrander (plot), Len Wein (script), John Byrne (pencils), and Karl Kesel (inks). So the story is not shabby by any stretch and the art is even better. The story is a bit juvenile by today's standards, but still held my attention. The whole G. Gordon Godfrey thing was a bit lame IMO, with the now tired plot of a public figure trying to turn the populace against super-heroes and the government finally intervening. Not being a fan of Darkseid or the Fourth World, I prefer a crisis without his involvement. His discussions with the Phantom Stranger as they observe the human (and meta-human) responses to Darkseid's machinations, with Darkseid's low view of humanity and the Stranger's confidence in the heroic ideal, was reminiscent of the wager between God and Satan in the biblical Book of Job. This shouldn't be surprising considering Ostrander's background in theology and it was a welcome addition to the plot.

While the series was published in 1988, and I collected the series new, it took me until this month to finally read it. Only thirty years. But when it came out I was busy going to college and getting engaged. The start of a new vocation and an out-of-state move meant my comics hobby would go on hiatus for a while. I've been back into comics since around 1999, but just never got into Legends until now as I'm planning to read, or re-read, all of DC's major crossovers. Perhaps my reflections will be presented here. 

Phantom Lady

With Phantom Lady's recent return to DC Comics, I thought it would be a good time to study her history and share my findings. Phantom Lady's first appearance was in Police Comics # 1 back in August of 1941. The entire book was reprinted in 2000 as a part of DC's Millennium Edition imprint series. I'm thankful for the reprint since a back issue of the original could cost anywhere from $800 to $12,000 depending on the condition. I picked up the reprint at an antiques mall for about a dollar.

Phantom Lady has the distinction of being the first female super-heroine, tied with the original Black Cat. Both pre-date Wonder Woman by four months.

In her first appearance, Phantom Lady is Sandra Knight, the socialite daughter of Senator Henry Knight. Her weapons include a black light projector which puts her adversaries in total darkness and unable to see. She drove a car whose headlights could do the same. Her costume looked like a yellow swim suit with a green cape, what would later be dubbed a "lemon-lime" uniform (Justice League of America # 107). Her first adventure involved keeping a scientist's explosives formula, which he intended to sell to the War Department, from falling into the hands of enemy spies. The high level of patriotism was seen in most comics of this era. Police Comics # 1 was published less than four months before America's entry into World War II. 

The new heroine continued to appear in issues of Police Comics through #23 in 1943. She also appeared in crossovers of Feature Comics #69-71. Quality Comics dropped the character after 1943. 

A product of the Iger studios, who supplied comic content to publishers, Phantom Lady was sold to Fox Feature Syndicate in 1947. Her own title began with issue # 13, taking over the numbering of the unrelated Wotalife Comics. The new title ran through issue # 23 in 1949. Her two-year title with Fox coincided with her appearances in All-Top Comics. The titles were obviously cancelled when Fox went out of business.

During the Fox years, Phantom Lady was drawn by Matt Baker, the African-American artist who predates Frank Cho and Ed Benes as the king of cheesecake. In other words, Baker was one of the first to popularize "good girl" art. He redesigned Phantom Lady's costume, changing the colors from yellow & green to blue & red. He also gave her a plunging neckline. The cover of Phantom Lady # 17 is famous for having appeared in Fredric Wertham's 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent, a denunciation of comics which led to a congressional investigation and the Comics Code Authority.

Matt Baker's work is most recently featured in a new book published by TwoMorrows Publishing called Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour. The book is the artist's biography combined with full story reprints of both Phantom Lady and Sky Girl. The book should be released around the end of November 2012. Prior to this some of Baker's Phantom Lady stories were reprinted in a 1994 trade paperback from Verotik Publications. 

Following the demise of Fox Features, the character was later picked up by Ajax-Farrell Publications who did four issues of Phantom Lady from 1954-1955. Coinciding with the appearance of the code, her costume became more modest. She also appeared as a backup in two issues of Ajax-Farrell's Wonder Boy title.

I'll do a second part to this post soon which will include the subsequent history of Phantom Lady when she made her comeback during the Bronze Age of comics.     

Kingdom Come: Earth 22

I don't know if anyone reads this blog and after a three month hiatus I'm sure some have given up on it. All I can say is that it's been a busy summer and I hope to get back to it now. Speaking of getting around to things, I just got around to finally reading the Kingdom Come mini-series published by DC comics in 1996. I've owned half the series that long and tracked down the additional back issues a couple of years ago. I finally read the whole series in a couple of sittings.

Most fans, according to reviews I've read, seem to either love or hate Kingdom Come. I happened to love it since I am so retro and there is a lot here for a retro fan to enjoy. If you've read this blog for any length of time then you know that for many years I have grieved the loss of the original Justice Society of America who were revived as residents of Earth Two in the 60s and 70s when we saw annual JLA/JSA crossovers in the pages of Justice League of America.

The JSA really got the shaft in the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths since the multiverse was merged into one earth and the Golden Age Superman and Batman were retconned out of existence. But I loved the idea of an alternate earth where the heroes in mainstream continuity had older and more experienced dopplegangers in another universe. I enjoyed imagining the possible futures of the more modern incarnations of DC heroes.

One of my favorites was the older, graying-around-the-temples Superman of the Golden Age. The closest DC has come to filling the vacuum left by this character was the Superman in Kingdom Come. Here is an elseworlds story outside mainline DC continuity. It's a possible future of the DC heroes who in this series are older than their mainline counterparts. The big three, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are all older in this reality, retired from public life,  and a new generation of metahumans now roam the earth, but their brand of justice is vigilantism. They make a big mess of things leading the big three out of retirement to make sure the lawless metahumans are stopped before things get worse. Heroes remaining committed to the original ideals of the "never ending battle" are recruited to help the big three.

So other than older dopplegangers including a Superman who resembles the Golden Age hero, what did I like about Kingdom Come? Well, first that it was drawn (painted) by Alex Ross who is one of my favorite artists. Now that he works for Dynamite Entertainment he does a lot of plotting and covers, but I miss his interior art work. But I love Alex Ross because his characters always look so real. While not an extremely educated critique, that is, in a nutshell, what I love about Ross. From every fold in the clothing to the wrinkles on the facial expressions, I just love Alex Ross' work. It's no secret that Ross is often inspired by real (and imaginary) people for crowd scenes and such. But I suppose that an artist has to get his inspiration from somewhere.

So there is no telling who will be making a cameo in a Ross production. But on my first reading through Kingdom Come I was so caught up in the big picture of the story that I missed a lot of the cameos. After reading the wikipedia article on Kingdom Come, I went back through and looked for all the characters I missed. It was like hunting for Waldo of the Where's Waldo fame, but I think I found most of the "hidden" characters. Here are the ones that most interested me:

- The Gotham street gang stopped by Bat-robots in issue one bear enough resemblance to Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids to be their Kingdom Come dopplegangers. The Fat Albert of this universe has obviously failed to be the moral influence of the Albert we all know and love.

- In the second issue Phil Sheldon, identified by the eye-glasses and eye-patch combination, appears at the Justice League news conference. He was the narrator in Ross' Marvels over at the other company.

- The second issue nightclub scene has a lot of cameos. These include Ross' nod to retro music with lookalikes of Tommy and the Acid Queen from Tommy and the Village People. By the third issue a colorfully clad group of young men at a Justice League meeting bear striking resemblances to The Monkees. Also on hand are robotic members of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. A character named King Marvel looks like a blend of Captain Marvel, Jr. and Elvis Presley, which is fitting since I hear that Elvis' hairstyle was influenced by Cap, Jr., a childhood hero of the king of rock and roll. I can only guess if that's where Elvis got the idea for the capes, but I notice that King Marvel's cape looks like one Elvis would have worn. In the KC reality I think it was the King who influenced the Captain. 

- Also at the nightclub are Zan of the Wonder Twins as a waiter and Marvin, both from the Super Friends 70s TV series. I also managed to spot the Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, and Rorschach.

- Carrie Kelly from Dark Knight Returns waits tables at Planet Krypton.

- I understand that the epilogue of the graphic novel version includes cameos of Alex Ross, Mark Waid, and even Stan Lee. But I don't have the graphic novel version.

Those are the cameos that grabbed my attention. In my next post I'll write about the subsequent influence of Kingdom Come on the mainline DC continuity and especially on the JSA.              

Creative Talents: Roy Thomas

In this new category of posts I'll be blogging about some of my favorite creative talents in comics through the years. I'll begin with one of my favorite writers of all time.

Roy Thomas- I first began reading Thomas when he was writing The Invaders for Marvel back in the 70s. Having always been a fan of nostalgia, even as a child, the World War II setting intrigued me. Plus, I love Captain America and the Human Torch. As a fourth grader I picked up my first issue and wondered what Johnny Storm was doing back in World War II. Then I discovered that wasn't Johnny Storm at all, but that Storm was not the original Torch.  

Reading this comic sparked my interest in all things World War II. I am by no means an expert, but Thomas, by integrating his vast knowledge of war history with comic history, has inspired me to learn more about both. I plan to get the trade collections of this series soon.  

Thomas later did All-Star Squadron for DC, in which his knowledge of war history was brought to bear upon DC's Golden Age heroes. Add retroactive continuity to the mix as Thomas filled in the historical gaps of DC's history and I was hooked. Thomas solved such mysteries as why some JSAers dropped out for a time during the Golden Age and why the original members have aged at a much slower rate than normal. Thomas added narrative reasoning to what originally might have been publisher expediency. 

Infinity Inc. and Jonni Thunder were a couple of other Thomas titles that I loved in the 80s. He was also responsible for adapting Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja for comics. He has written nearly every notable character for Marvel and DC including some classic story-lines like the Avengers' Kree-Skrull War. 

Most recently, I hear that Thomas has been adapting classic literature for the Marvel Illustrated series. He is also editor of the comic fanzine Alter Ego, from TwoMorrows Publishing which focuses on Golden and Silver Age comics. The May and June issues will be Earth-Two companions. Thomas will be writing volumes for TwoMorrow's new series "American Comic Book Chronicles." He is one of the major comic historians of our time.