Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1985 (week 1)

My mission: to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis. This week, I start a new year in cover dates. I'm looking at the comics that were at newsstands in the week of October 4, 1984. 

In the "Meanwhile..." column this month, Giordano announces that Justice League/Avengers isn't happening and gives his side of the story as to why this is, taking issue specifically with comments by Shooter in Marvel Age that he feels mischaracterized the situation.

Swamp Thing Annual #2: As a kid I thought this issue was amazing, a real tour de force. It sees Swamp Thing journey into the afterlife, first Heaven and then Hell, to recover the soul of Abbie. Along the way he meets some DC supernatural stars: Deadman, Phantom Stranger, the Demon, and the Spectre. Seeing these guys spouting (semi-)profundities and presented in a more mystical than superheroic context gave then a gravitas they didn't seem to possess before. 

It's a good issue, undeniably. One that pretty much lays the blueprint for a lot of what we'll see in Sandman, both in content and style. Reading it as an adult, though, it isn't perfect. It seems really more a standard issue amount of story expanded to annual length just to give us a chance to have all these guest stars. It feels like there could have been a little more to it, and it comes off as a bit slight, beyond the worldbuilding.

Atari Force #13: The editorial column announces this is Conway's last issue; Mike Baron will be taking over as scripter. Conway and Barreto/Villagran definitely do a lot to bring this long arc to a resolution. The Dark Destroyer takes a few minutes to gloat and reveal how he came to be in a copy of Martin's body. All this taunting, though, just enrages Martin who attacks the Destroyer, and the surprise of that allows the other Atari Force members to break free. They can't stop the antimatter bomb though, so they are forced to escape, leaving a beaten Destroyer behind. The bomb explodes, seemingly killing him and destroying the world.

There's another "humorous" Hukka backup by Kupperberg and Manak/Giffen.

DC Comics Presents #77: Wolfman and Swan/Hunt bring back the Forgotten Heroes who we last saw in Action Comics #553, some 9 months ago. Mr. Posiedon frees Ultivac, and the robot's rampage attracts the attention of the Forgotten Heroes who are giving a press conference nearby. Poseidon is partnered with the Enchantress (still a villain, but now blonde for some reason) who is trying to free the sorcerer, Kraklow. The b-list Superman villain Atom-Master allies with them and we've got the Forgotten Villains, though they don't get that name this issue. The Forgotten Heroes have to contend with Superman who gets turned into a dragon by Kraklow's magic. Thankfully, Animal Man's powers to copy animal abilities apparently extend to mythical creatures as well. In the last panel, the villains are bolstered by the arrival of the Faceless Hunter from Saturn.

Fury of Firestorm #31: Tuska's guesting on art so there's a pretty big stylistic shift, and some characters are off model. Conway's back to tie up the story, in a way that feels like a season-ending TV episode rushing to tie up all the loose ends. Firestorm reveals he was sort of baiting Mindboggler this time. She leads him to Breathtaker, who he deals with pretty easily, having figured out that he also is about mind games. Mindboggler then offers to help Firestorm and Firehawk against the 2000 Committee, who likely have Lorraine's father captive. The assault against the Committee is over pretty quick (some of the fight is even handled off-panel!) and Clarissa's perfidy is also revealed. That's that, everybody goes back to their lives, with the bad guys going to jail--except for Mindboggler who the heroes let go.

Justice League of America #234: Conway and Patton continue the New Teen Titans inspired character stuff as Steel goes out with Vibe's sister, Zatanna chastises Aquaman for being too hard on the new guys, but most of the story goes to Vixen who finds out a terrorist organization is working for her uncle, the dictator of M'Changa and the man who killed her father. She goes after his men to learn his whereabouts but tries to keep the rest of the League out of it. Meanwhile, the Monitor and Lyla watch as a being known as the Overmaster recruits and trains the Cadre, which includes Crowbar from last issue.

New Teen Titans #4: This is an odd issue to me because Wolfman and Perez don't play things the usual way. Trigon and Raven seem to have achieved victory. The Titans (among other heroes) are physically embedded in a column and Lilith can only observe as her friends, trapped in nightmares of their own worst fears and taunted by sinister doubles, one by one give in to anger and kill their tormenting duplicates. Often in comics, overcoming one's evil doppelganger rather than cowering or giving in is the correct solution, but here besting them gives Trigon his victory. Then the evil Titans, freed from their softer emotions, attack and kill Raven! They return to their normal selves, but Lilith reassures her horrified friends that that was what needed to happen, which again, is certainly a zag instead of a zig for this sort of story.  Trigon awakens to take vengeance for the death of his daughter, but I have to wonder: Didn't he realize something like this might happen when he turned the Titans evil?

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #1: Kupperberg is still trying to make Maaldor a thing. Having him as a Superman foe must not have been getting him there, so now he gets to menace the Green Lantern Corps, with Kane giving him a whole new, more orcish appearance. Something has drained the power of the Main Battery on Oa and kidnapped three Guardians. A group of well-known lanterns (but not one from Earth) set out to find them. It's a trap to drain yet more energy by Maaldor, whose breaking out of his other-dimensional prison. Arkkis Chummuck bravely goes hand-to-hand with the villain, as the other lanterns back him up. Arkkis and Maaldor appear to die together. Well, except Maaldor will appear in Crisis. But he's defeated for now!

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

Maybe there's a game or setting I'm unaware of, but I feel like there's a missed opportunity for a dinosaur themed "incursion from elsewhere" post-apocalypse. I realize Rifts has a Dinosaur Swamp and could have dinos elsewhere and probably Torg has some somewhere, but neither have made it as central as I think it could be.

Another interesting approach would be a fantasy world that plays to the Lost World tropes (like the Warlord's Skartaris or Ka-Zar's Savage Land) but is ultimately a post-apocalyptic setting like, well, Warlord I guess (though it's an Atlantean apocalypse) or Corman's Teenage Caveman with dinosaurs and magic. 

Sorry if I spoiled the twist of Teenage Caveman for you.

Weirdest of all possibilities: you take Valley of the Gwangi and combine it King's Dark Tower series to get Western, dinosaur, post-apocalypse.

[Rifts] Some thoughts on the Coalition

Overall, I think the Coalition is a nice set of bad guys, in the sense that they've got a distinctive look, a lot of scary toys, and a suitably odious and belligerent outlook, ensuring the PCs will come in conflict with them. I think there are a few things I would do differently with them than what I've seen in published material.

Let's start with something really basic: I'm not fond of the despot of the Coalition being "the Emperor." That sounds like the leader of, well, an Empire, not a Coalition. My view of the Coalition is as a military dictatorship that perhaps seized power from an earlier, more collaborative group that called itself the Coalition. Prosek might call himself Director, General, or even President, but I'm inclined to prefer something like Supreme Leader or Supreme Commander.

Good paint job for a Coalition robot

I like the idea that the Coalition is, at least rhetorically, out to restore America. There should be an aspect of palingenesis to it in line with the fascist regimes that inspired it. It does bug me it doesn't drape itself more in American symbols, but I can retcon the Coalition flag to be the U.S. stripes with the skull and lighting bolts instead of stars, maybe. 

We are told that (at least in Chi-Town) the majority of Coalition citizens are illiterate. I assume that doesn't mean complete illiteracy, because the art in the original book with its signs and graffiti suggest a level of basic literacy is present. I assume that, transplanted to our society, the average citizen would be considered functionally illiterate, though within their own culture they are not so impaired. Chi-Town, like other cyberpunkish settings, is to a degree post-literate. What the Coalition educational restrictions take from them is an understanding of the past and a level of abstract reasoning and means communicate those thoughts.

The brings me around to Coalition media. I think there is probably a lot of it, but not much of it worthwhile. It will be blatant propaganda when it isn't just vapid. The pervasive TV of American Flagg! seems good inspiration here. As always, sex will sell. I figure Coalition news magazines/morning show sort of lite journalism programs, would do their hiring of effervescent hosts accordingly.

Wednesday Comics: DC, December 1984 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on September 27, 1984.

All-Star Squadron #40: We continue on from the events of last issue with Green Lantern and Hawkman showing up to end the riot--and mostly, unfortunately, looking like they are taking the side of the white bigots. Hawkman even seems swayed for a moment by the Real Americans rhetoric, suggesting some kind of influence is at play. The two meet up with the other All-Stars, and they all head down to the jail to try to protect Amazing Man and his father from being lynched by an angry mob fired up by hate and the words of the Real American. When Robot Man sees the other All-Stars starting to fall for the message, he frees Amazing Man and broadcasts loudly to the crowd to drown out the Real American. Amazing Man battles the masked racist and reveals him to be a robot! So, it turns out the Phantom Empire was provided the Real American android with mesmerizing voice by the Monitor. That seems pretty strange. So, the Monitor has been active in multiple time periods all at once (to the extent that means anything with time travel involved)? Is he going to show up in Jonah Hex next? Sgt. Rock?

Action Comics #562: The team-up no one demanded! Rozakis and Schaffenberger/Hunt bring back the Planeteer (the guy who thinks he's a reincarnation of Alexander) and ally him with Queen Bee (whose last appearance was in Super Friends #45). They've got some plot involved super-magnetism, and they would probably have succeeded in capturing Superman had they not turned on each other. In the B plot, the Daily Planet staff gets invited to see their old co-worker Steve Lombard in Damn Yankees.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #26: Kupperberg and Sherman-Tereno/Rodriquez get Arion back to Atlantis, but he finds things in a bad state. The king is in seclusion and hasn't been seen for some time, leading to unrest in the streets. Lady Chian is gone, and Wyynde is in some sort of catatonic state. To make matters worse, the cult of a malign deity, Kr'Rth, has secretly returned to town, looking to use the rising chaos to summon their lord. Arion makes an attack on their church but winds up getting captured.

Detective Comics #545: Moench and Colan are still going "decompressed" with this storyline. Here with catch up with the Night Slayer as he crawls away following being shot by Nocturna. He escapes through the sewers and winds up on a beach where he is found by a blind woman and her service dog. Believing he is Batman, she takes him back to her shanty and nurses him back to health, developing a crush on him. Knight begins to play on her affections, but the real Batman is now on his trail.

Jonah Hex #88: At the end of last issue, Jonah discovered Emmy Lou's wanted poster painting her as the "Blonde Bandit," but he knows somethings fishy. He spends most of the issue trying to find her, first encountered a gang dressing a male member up like her and bringing those guys in. Then, he tracks down the real deal only to burst in the door to save her and have her accidentally shoot him. Meanwhile, poor Adrian is on the drain robbed by the copycats and gets hit on the head and gets amnesia. She winds up believing she is another young woman (who was actually killed on the train) and takes work as a saloon girl.

Spanner's Galaxy #1: A space opera from Cuti and Mandrake. They are so focused on worldbuilding this issue, they don't really make a compelling story. An unseen and context-free interrogation narrate the events. We follow Polaris Spanner from boyhood, where a visit to a market planet introduces him to individuals that will play a big role in in his life. His father buys a fancy alien weapon for the power stone in it but then gets into conflict with knights of an equanoid alien race that want their fallen comrade's weapon back. Later, these Kaborians show up on the Spanners' giant ameba farm to buy the item just in time to rescue Polaris from getting engulfed by one of the stock. They take him back to their homeworld and decide to train him as the first human Kaborian Knight. He's father is all good with this and gifts him the weapon (a shek) that started this whole thing on graduation. Polaris also learns how to "castle" which is teleporting via exchanging places with a willing castling-capable individual through some advanced alien tech. For unclear reasons, Polaris is branded a criminal and goes on the run from various forces. It's a lot for one issue, and it's a bit of a slog.

Sun Devils #6: Rik, Anomie, and Shikun meet up with a group of escaped slave sauroids who agree to get them out of the tunnels beneath the city. They meet up with the other Sun Devils, which is a good thing, because the way is blocked by soldiers. They manage to fight their way out, but not before Pook, Anomie's pet, is killed.

Tales of the Legion #318: Levitz and Shoemaker/Kesel have the remaining Legionnaires debating what to do about their diminished strength with some of their members on leave and others missing. Meanwhile, Shadow Kid, brother of Shadow Lass, infiltrates the camp of some rebels on Talok VIII and gets captured by the Persuader, the right-hand man to the rebel leader, Lady Memory. When Shadow Lass find out, she and Mon-El rush to help. They deal with the rebels and the Persuader easily, but Lady Memory reveals her power and brings Mon-El to his knees.

 

World's Finest Comics #310: This is a bit of standard Bronze Age, done-in-one fare, but I like it better than the extended arcs we were having before. Cavelieri and Woch/Maygar provide a story similarly structured to the last couple of issues, where Batman and Superman are pursuing separate cases but come together in the end. In the main story, the guy running a boy's club in a Metropolis slum is disappointed that the kids idolize a neighborhood petty criminal over Batman and Superman, who they see as square. The decides to give then a new role model, and using his engineering knowledge, he becomes the budget costumed-hero Sonik. On his first outing, he meets Batman, but they both run afoul of the mod assassination group Batman has been tracking. They escape through Batman's know-how, but Sonik accounts himself well in the next encounter, one that the kids' witness. 

Meanwhile, Superman has thwarted an assassination attempt against an Arab terrorist in Metropolis for a peace meeting. He catches up with Batman and meets Sonik and the kids. Sonik reveals his identity which makes the boys really interested in the club. Later Bruce Wayne shows up to announce he is funding the club, and Clark Kent comes by to do a news feature on it.

DC Sampler #3: This final issue of the DC Sampler looks toward 1985. It opens with a Swamp Thing teaser, then has two pages each plugging the limited series Robotech Defenders and Conquerors of the Barren Earth. Next up are single pages on Hunger Dogs and America vs. The Justice Society. There's two pages on the shakeup doing done with Green Lantern, then two pages on the Who's Who. Spanner's Galaxy gets 2 pages. Then, we see the silhouette of the enigmatic Monitor that has been appearing so much, and we are told all will be revealed in a title called DC Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths, though in the opening "Meanwhile..". column of this issue Dick just calls it Crisis on Infinite Earths. We get a hint of what's in store for Atari Force, and a primer on Batman and the Outsiders. The upcoming Superman: The Secret Years gets teased, as does the return of Amethyst. Blue Devil, World's Finest (which mentions Sonik), and the twice monthly Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes are featured. The issue closes with teases for DC Challenge and Jonni Thunder aka Thunderbolt.

The Runaway Shadow

 We had a couple of players out, so we postponed our Land of Azurth 5e game until next week. So instead of gaming, I got a chance to work on the Land of Azurth comic story starring Waylon the Frogling called "The Runaway Shadow." This was originally planned for Underground Comics #2, but that hasn't happened unfortunately. Also, Jeff Call, the original artist, got a new job in animation in California and moved before being able to complete the story back in 2018. I did get this page out of it, and it was great. Lettering here, by me:

The project was shelved for a few years, but then I picked it back up in in 2021, at least enough to commission comics artist Mike Kazaleh to draw the whole thing. I told Mike I was looking for a bit of Harvey Comics vibe, without being a pastiche, and he did a great job. Here's the the first page, again lettered by me:

I started coloring it last night, using digital halftone brushes to mimic old school comic's coloring, but I'm not done with that yet.

Planning for Rifts

With my 5e campaign winding down perhaps (or at least switching to a new phase) in the near future and the Bundle of Holding I mentioned before, I have been giving serious consideration to running Rifts. No, not the system; I left that behind in high school. The setting is what I'm looking at likely to be run with Savage Worlds as it offers the advantage of requiring little work to get started and the VTT support several of my players will desire.

It's been over a decade since I thought about what I might do with Rifts, and almost as long since I riffed off it. I think I will have a slightly different approach that what I imagined in 2014, partly because it's been 11 years, but mostly because I am now thinking about running it with a specific group of players in mind that I know well thanks to playing with them for a long time.

Here are my updated notes:

"I'm Different!"

Characters in should be distinctive and have their own niche. Having a lot of character types helps that but even characters of the same type ought to have their own signature style. This is a trait that makes Rifts sort of comic book-like, but of course it's common to all sorts of pulpier media.

Coded For Easy Identification

I feel like the setting at times suggests a sort of cartoonish, easy recognizability where inspiration is often barely disguised, if at all. This can be taken too far; I certainly don't mean in terms of racial/ethnic stereotypes in portrayals of non-U.S. countries. More that locations within the former U.S. ought to mix signifers of their flavor and the sort of adventures they support.  There ought to be a lot of cowboy hats in Lone Star and the West, and just sub-Firefly or Bravestarr Western cliches. The Dinosaur Swamp might mix a bit of hicksploitation with its saurians.

Totally 80s

In 2014, I suggested Rifts perhaps was best approached as an alternate history.  That may still be the best way to go, but I think I will focus on "this is the level of technology which has been recovered" and be vague about the past. And that tech level would by something like "1989+super science." Being somewhat post-apocalyptic, obviously, some of the late 20th Century tech wouldn't exist due to lack of suitable infrastructure, but the most advance places are just a projection from the 80s standard: broadcast TV, physical media, and a lack of smartphones or 21st century internet.

"I'm Making it My Business"

This isn't the only way to go, certainly, but the setting lends itself to rogues with hearts of gold setting out to make a buck and colliding with evil. Knowing my players, they will readily take to that approach. It's a mode with a lot of examples from Westerns and Space Opera that make "what are we supposed to do?" readily understandable.

Toyetic

Rifts has a lot of space devoted to gear and equipment. While the accumulation of too much stuff by the characters can be a problem in some games (and possibly here), I think it would be a mistake to too not have all the toys in the catalog available.

More Adventure than Survival

Post-apocalyptic media and games are often about just getting the basic necessities. Rifts isn't Oregon Trail, though. The game focus feels better placed on having cool adventures. I do think the setting should touch on that survival aspect, but it's largely window dressing.

Wednesday Comics: DC, December 1984 (week 3)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at comics that were published on September 20, 1984.

Legion of Super-Heroes #5: The culmination of the Legion of Super-Villains story, sees the heroes rally, Lighting Lass best her older brother in one-on-one combat, and Princess Projectra exact vengeance on Nemesis Kid for Karate Kid's death. Orando is left in the pocket dimension, which may have been one of the narrative goals of this whole arc, and Projectra leaves the Legion. 

Batman and the Outsiders #16: The Barr/Aparo team is back, as Halo upset by nightmares that point to her unremembered past. Batman makes some highly dubious leaps of logic and deduces enough to send Jason Bard to Missouri to potentially track down her parents. Some of the Outsiders go to watch their friend reunite with her family. Meanwhile, Metamorpho meets with Sapphire in secret, but her father Simon Stagg has foreseen this event and attacks Metamorpho with men each armed with an Orb of Ra. Despite getting a device from Dr. Jace to protect him from a single orb, Metamorpho is effectively killed. When Outsiders return to their headquarters, they are startled to find Dr. Jace and Sapphire waiting with their dead teammate!

Blue Devil #7: This issue shows we an integral part of the creative team Cullins is. Even with Gil Kane on art duties, it Mishkin's and Cohn's story just doesn't work as well. Sharon and Dan try to go out on a date in L.A., which is of course complicated from the start by Dan being bonded to the Blue Devil costume. It gets even more complicated when the Trickster shows up at the restaurant asking her Dan's help. He's being chased by some sort of organization with advanced technology, and they've hired Bolt to kill him. Blue Devil is able to hold off Bolt for now, but his nice suit and the date are ruined.

Green Lantern #183: Wein and Gibbons/Farmer have Major Disaster poised to destroy Baldwin Hills dam and flood the city unless Green Lantern faces him, but the guy he's looking for isn't a Lantern anymore. And the poor villain is unable to say the name of the guy he wants even though he knows it because of something Jordan did to his brain in a previous encounter. In anger, Disaster destroys the dam, and it's a rocky start for Stewart as his lack of experience almost leads to his failure and his own death. He learns quick, though, and is able to defeat the villain through a psychological ploy that probably tears the last shred of sanity Major Disaster has. Jordan, seeing this all on TV, really feels he made a mistake giving up the ring.

Speaking of mistakes, in the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Cavalieri and O'Neil, Yron's brash actions lead to the Guardians demanding he return the ring. He refuses, and foolishly escalates his conflict with the Krydos, putting himself in a position where they are able to kill him with a new weapon. As he dies, he realizes his errors and uses the last of his life force to somehow resurrect Stel, wo defeats the Krydos and erects a memorial to Yron's bravery.

Infinity, Inc. #9: The title page promises this is the "penultimate chapter" in the "Generations" story, which is good, because it has dragged on too long. Brainwave, Jr. and Star-Spangled Kid encounter the Brain Wave in Limbo, while Starman, Jade, and Obsidian fight Green Lantern in space. Meanwhile, Northwind manages to let Hawkman escape. Huntress and Power Girl are making progress, though, with the former heading back to Colorado to end the threat of the waters, and the latter grabbing some kryptonite to use against her cousin. A number of the heroes wind up back in Colorado and are greeted by the Ultra-Humanite.

New Talent Showcase #12: Nothing really memorable this issue. Kessler and Orzechowski do a time travel story involving ancient Egypt. Klein and Chen have a kid meet the unusual, magical family living next door. The (Mis)Adventures of Nick O. Tyme come to a conclusion. 

Scianna and Grindberg deliver what may be the highlight (such as it is) of the issue, with a story about a dystopian society where only those with "privilege" aren't granted basic services and rights, and a teen seeks out to get his. The last story is a very typical, white guy is the chosen one of an ancient Asian-coded mystic order, and he breaks all the rules but is just so damn good, with a semi-clever name: 21st Sentry A.D.

Saga of Swamp Thing #31: Moore and Bissette/Alcala have the Monitor so scared by events in Houma even he wants to turn away! Most of this issue is Arcane following Swamp Thing and gloating about his triumph, and his murder of Abby. When they get to the swamp, though Swamp Thing makes his retort, revealing his new understanding of what he is and his power. He quickly weakens Arcane to the point Matt Cable can regain control of his body. Though the effort costs him his life, Matt uses his reality warping power to restore Abby's body to life, but her soul is still gone--in Hell now, according to Arcane. This is the first issue I believe that has had the "Sophisticated Suspense" banner.

Sgt. Rock #395: The cover of this issue touts it as "All-Kubert," and he is the artist on these two Kanigher written stories. The first is a reprint from 1968 that has a sleep deprived Rock on the verge of a nervous breakdown after 4 green recruits appear to be killed on a patrol. He seems to be visiting by the Ghost of Noble War (or something. The apparition isn't name.) and wants he pulls himself together, he finds the noobs didn't die after all. The longer (and better) story is also a reprint from '68. It's told in verse as Easy picks up a hayseed guitar player who looks anachronistically like something of a hippie. He seems spacey and unreliable until a German officer messes with his guitar.

Warlord #88: I reviewed the main story here. In this final installment of the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, Jinal gets to make her appeal to the mysterious masters of D'Roz, as apparently does the Qlov she captured. The Qlov is allowed to leave, and Jinal receives the answer for her request for aid: "No!" Jinal angrily vows to do this without them, and we're promised this will play out in the Conquerors of the Barren Earth limited series.