HOW SIKITTNEY WEAVER SAVED CHRISTMAS

Seasons greetings, yon sequential skinflints, and welcome to the last BARGAIN BASEMENT OF DOOOOOM of 2014. This is a bountiful time of year for the miserly at heart. Achieve sufficient levels of Scroogitude and you might just be rewarded with a paranormally fascinating visit from three ghosts of varying temporal dispositions, as well as one wrapped in chains – and who knows, sexy spectral times may even ensue if you’re lucky.

Today’s feature is, it’s fair to say, a blatant cheat. Instead of providing an overview of a title, it seemed apt to cover a Christmas special. However, most such issues are, frankly, terrible (JLA #60, anyone? Sensational She-Hulk #8? Yeesh). However, there’s one glaring exception, which is not only the greatest Christmas issue of all time, but a classic issue in its own right – namely, Uncanny X-Men #143 (1981). This was uber-penciller John Byrne’s last issue of his sublime X-run, and as such goes for a fair few grotes. However, it can also be picked up for next to nowt in #47 of the reprint series X-Men Classic (formerly Classic X-Men), and as such, with a little twisting and turning, qualifies for inclusion within the cheapskate remit of this column. 

Reprint cover by Steve Lightle (1990)

Original cover by John Byrne (1981)

Entitled ‘Demon’, this issue has a pretty simple storyline – not to mention a pretty familiar one. Forty or so issues earlier, the nascent post-Giant Size X-Men team had been plagued by some demonic types (the N’Garai) after Cyclops, wracked with guilt (as is his ongoing wont) had cathartically cut loose with his eyes, his accursed death-dealing eyes, ripped open an ancient cairn and unleashed the forces of hell. As usual, someone else had to clear up Scott’s mess, and Storm eventually managed to seal the gate to the underworld, entombing all the demons. Or so she thought.

Dave Cockrum, X-Men #96 (1978)

After a brief flashback to said events, #143 opens with the Christmas-tree-seeking adventures of Doug and Ellie Moore, a young, frisky couple keen to embark upon a long and happy life together, were it not for the leftover hellbeast that brutally extinguishes their future. Cut to the nearby X-Mansion, where the various team members are heading out for some Christmas Eve fun. After Wolverine introduces a note of tension into the evening by genuinely attempting to slice Nightcrawler in two for an etiquette misstep (the guy had severe anger-management issues in those days), everyone goes their separate ways, leaving the team’s newest and youngest member, Kitty Pryde, alone in the mansion. Her solitude is soon shattered, however, when the abode is invaded by the aforementioned demon, hell-bent upon feasting upon her entrails. The rest of the issue is essentially one long cat-and-mouse sequence, with Kitty forced out of the predatory role her name would imply. As she attempts to evade the creature, it becomes painfully clear that her mutant phasing power offers little defence, and she must rely on her wits to get out alive.

Beautifully rendered by Byrne (along with classic ink-partner Terry Austin), this issue not only borrows heavily from the recently released Alien, but is an entirely blatant homage – everything from the design of the creature to its eventual fate is taken almost directly from Ridley Scott’s film. As if the source material weren’t obvious enough, Kitty even directly references it – ‘Too bad I don’t have some king-size flame-throwers handy! They used them to fight the monster in that movie!’ There are also several instances of classic horror-movie tropes – the death of the sexually active couple, the severed phone-line, the Carrie fake-out.

For all its lack of originality, what’s great about this one-shot story is both its claustrophobic horror and its showcasing of Kitty’s capabilities and strength of character. The tension really gets ramped up as her attempts to use the mansion’s tech and resources to escape the demon prove increasingly futile (not to mention colossally destructive). ‘Demon’ is basically a Kitty Pryde solo story – she was only 13 or 14 at this time, had only appeared for the first time a dozen or so issues earlier, and had largely been behind the scenes since. She did play a role in Days of Future Past, but as her older self in her younger body (as you do). This is a great, rounded portrait of the young and inexperienced Kitty. She’s alone. Her power is unflashy and defensive. And she’s no warrior, grimacing confidently in the face of impossible odds. Naturally, she’s terrified – but, crucially, not scared witless… she beats the beast with brains, not brawn.

Clearly a favourite of Claremont’s, Kitty would go on to become a pivotal and much-beloved X-character, but #143 remains arguably her finest hour. All good Kittiness – from the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini through Excalibur to her Emma Frost-entombing exploits in Astonishing X-Men and beyond – stems from this.

That’s all for now… I hope you enjoyed this humble gift. May your Christmas be full of cheer, and relatively free from unstoppable 12-foot Giger-esque diabolical hellfiends intent upon ripping your flesh asunder and devouring your very soul.

(originally published on The Big Glasgow Comic Page) 

GOT YER A BIG PLATE OF ALAN

[NB: The following was originally a series of postings on the Ultron is My Elvis Facebook page, made to mark the birthday of Mr Alan Moore.]

With his clashes with other creators, disdain for cinema and disparaging of his fanbase, Alan Moore seems increasingly difficult curmudgeonly. And it's arguable that his work can sometimes be problematic in terms of gender politics. Nonetheless, this big ol' beardy wizard remains near the top of my all-time favourite comics writers list by virtue of his revolutionary approach to and undeniable impact upon the form. 

Below are five reasons to love Alan...

(Portrait by Frank Quitely)

#1: Promethea

Promethea's a really interesting book in Moore's canon – not only his most fantastical and experimental, but his most personal too. It's an exploration of his ideas about reality and magic and spirituality and storytelling, and the myriad points at which these things intersect, told via the medium of a Shazam/Wonder Woman analogue. Moore really gets to play with the possibilities of the medium here, and you can almost taste his glee in using comics to repeatedly do incredible, eye- and mind-boggling things that no other medium is capable of... like this double-page spread of infinite time-looped conversation.

J.H. Williams III, Promethea #15 (2001)

Of course, none of this would be possible without the unbelievable skills of J.H. Williams III – surely one of the most distinctive, gifted and innovative artists to grace comics since Kirby, Eisner or Sienkiewicz.

#2: Top 10

This and the Tom Strong line are perhaps Moore at his most light-hearted, and it's a real gem. Top 10 is essentially an old-school cop show set in a world populated almost entirely by super-heroes, aliens, gods, monsters, robots and intelligent dogs wearing exo-skeletons. Think Hill Street Blues or Brooklyn Nine-Nine only without the tiresome baseline humans. It's a magnificent, sprawling offering, with great, relatable, three-dimensional characters, sharp and funny dialogue, beautifully lush and detailed art by Gene Ha, thousands of references and sight gags aplenty. And while it's not afraid to be very, very silly, there are moments of incredibly effective drama, too.

My absolute favourite moment though, is a pretty ridiculous cliffhanger splash. A 7-foot lizard-like gang member, Ernesto Gograh, is being held in police custody when his dad turns up to get him out. Gograh Sr, it turns out, is a 100-foot-tall drunk hillbilly monster in an offensive T-shirt. Enjoyable enough in its own right, but even moreso if you realise that this is not, as it first appears, a Godzilla reference, but an homage to the 1961 British movie Gorgo. This film sees a monster captured, imprisoned and taken to a major Metropolitan area, only to be later rescued by his much, much larger mother, who spends the latter half of the film stomping on a model London and pleasing me greatly.

Gene Ha, Top 10 #3 (1999)

#3. Watchmen

It seems to have become a bit fashionable to knock Watchmen in some geeky circles. There are several reasons for this. It's one of the two or three comics read by people who generally don't read comics, therefore seen as the dilettante's choice. Its mystique was ruptured somewhat by a loud and garish (though still pretty good) movie and some needless (though sometimes pretty good) prequels. It's generally considered at least partly responsible for crushing the innocence of superhero comics and ushering in a new dark age of grim and gritty stories. And, alongside Maus and The Dark Knight Returns, it is tediously omnipresent at the top of any list of the greatest comics ever made – but on this point at least, I'll defend it to the death. It more than deserves its acclaim.

While it can be read on one level as a great murder mystery/conspiracy story, Watchmen is breathtakingly rich, literary and allegorical, full of symbolism, recurring motifs, hidden detail and powerful imagery. The amount of work and attention to detail that went into these twelve issues beggars belief – Moore's script for the first issue alone was 101 pages of tiny type. However, all of this does not result in some chaotic splurge of information and flights of insane imagination, but a incredibly tightly interwoven and brilliantly coherent tale, beautifully and vividly rendered. This is Moore and Dave Gibbons using word and image as one, using the medium of comics to its fullest potential, and few who followed in its wake have come close to its ambition or realisation.

Dave Gibbons, Watchmen #5 (1987)

If you think Watchmen is overrated, then fair enough – but I'd implore you to revisit it. Every time you read it, the more you see, the more you realise you've missed. I've read it half a dozen times, but I'm nowhere near close to unpacking it. To read it is to see yourself as a comics reader, to realise what the medium can do for you – appropriately enough, it's its own Rorschach test.

#4. This interview with Stewart Lee

This was the first time I'd ever heard Moore speak. I remember listening to this on Radio 4, absent-mindedly wandering the streets of Clerkenwell. Far from an eccentric, irascible wizard-cum-hermit, he came across as an affable and surprisingly down-to-earth human being, AND introduced me to the wonder of the Super Moby Dick of Space.

#5. Captain Britain

I'm generally averse to flag-wearing characters, but Moore's work on Captain Britain makes for a very odd and underrated read. Unlike most superheroes, the Captain is almost a supporting character in his own book – and not particularly effective, smart, admirable, interesting or charismatic, though not comedically inept, either. For all his (relatively low-key) powers, he's a slightly dull and irritable everyman figure rather than a walking demigod, a guy who tries to do the right thing, even though he's not always sure what that is or how to go about it, and takes far more dives and bruises than his similarly ranked compatriots America, Marvel and Atom.

Like us, he exists in a chaotic world that he barely understands, only his is amplified to an absurd degree, full of peculiarly eccentric weirdness, pan-dimemsional beings, myths and fairytales brought to life, homicidal assassins, insane politicians-turned-gods, unstoppable artificial beings and squabbling aliens. It's his futile attempt to get to grips with the ridiculous theatre of his life that makes Captain Britain compelling.

As an added bonus, these tales are illustrated by probably my favourite artist of all time – Alan Davis (*insert celestial choir sound effect here*). His work is not quite fully formed here, but it clearly has incredible potential, and the slight roughness of it is pleasing in its own right.

Alan Davis, The Daredevils #11 (1979)

EMBIGGENING THE BOUNDARIES

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm a big fan of G. Willow Wilson's Ms Marvel. And nor should I. It's ace. 

When the series was first announced, it sparked considerable controversy. A Pakistani-American Muslim superhero with a name previously used by a white American superhero?! IT'S THE END OF DAYS. Frankly, the comment threads about it were filled with a lot of really horrific naked racism and Islamophobia, the extent of which made me feel pretty ashamed of corners of the comics community. There was also a lot of howling about pandering to political correctness and such, because pandering to anything other than straight white guys is the work of the devil or terrorists or Obama or something.

Much of that tiresome hoo-ha has died down now, largely because people either a) are reading Ms Marvel because it's a fantastic book that transcends any gimmickry that may have been ascribed to it; b) aren't reading it and don't care either way; or c) are now channelling their duderage into a female Thor and a black Captain America. 

This episode of the Nerdist Writers' Panel, featuring an interview with Wilson, is quite something. The first audience question comes from a female Pakistani-American Muslim comic geek. At first, she’s very funny, but then she struggles to hold her composure and breaks down in tears, thanking Wilson for giving her and her friends a face and a voice in comics for the first time. As she puts it, 'We’ve always been here, we've just been invisible.'

Photo by Caroline Ballard/Columbia Radio News (from uptownradio)

It's pretty hard to listen to that when you consider the vehemence with which certain sections of fandom opposed this book. But it illustrates precisely why representation in media is important. Straight, white, male comic geeks (of which I'm one – hello!) have never had to properly confront this issue because we've always had an embarrassment of riches to choose from when it comes to relatable characters. You don’t like this straight white dude? Here, try this other straight white dude. Not that there's anything wrong with straight white dudes per se, but this archetype was not seen as a specific demographic, but the norm – a dangerously fallacious concept. 

Things do seem to be changing, particularly in terms of gender, and especially at Marvel, but there’s still more work to be done. Representation is not 1:1. You don’t have to be a white billionaire ninja bloke to identify with Batman, nor do you have to be a teenage Pakistani-American Muslim girl to dig Ms. Marvel. But especially when you’re young and getting into comics, when you’re searching for your point-of-view character, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a broad range of candidates in which you might see elements of yourself, your background, your culture, your family life.

It’s not about pandering, it’s about being welcoming and inclusive. Like Kamala Khan herself, comics are stretchy. They are a singularly flexible medium. There’s plenty of room for everybody.

WITH APOLOGIES TO MR NEBULA

This ’ere cosmic sundial indicates that it’s once again time to unfurl my bristly spiralled proboscis and use it to pick the rusty lock that needlessly secures the BARGAIN BASEMENT OF DOOOOOM. After a couple of Marvel-tastic instalments, it’s time to head back across the Bleed in search of cheapo-bin booty. Whenever I think DC, the first title that pops into my head is Justice League – and it’s a pretty close-run thing between the Giffen/DeMatteis and Grant Morrison incarnations of the team. 

Closely followed by the Detroit era. I'm only human.

Today, I’m going to take a look at a very much lesser-known title in the Justice League family. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Giffen/DeMatteis League was big news, and led to a number of spin-off titles, including Justice League Europe, the Martian Manhunter mini series, a Huntress special, Mr Miracle, Justice League Task Force and JUSTICE LEAGUE QUARTERLY. This meaty, 84-page fifth-week title, published (appropriately enough) four times a year, ran for 17 issues between 1990 and 1994. Most were anthology editions, though a handful consisted of one long story. And it’s fair to say that the majority were a big ol’ pile of G’Nort droppings. Lame, lazy stories, shockingly weak artwork, tenth-tier characters. Was the world really crying out for Praxis, Jack O’Lantern, Rising Sun and Stinky the Cat solo adventures? Who? Exactly.

Mind you, it was at least an attempt to branch out and diversify, and some pretty big names contributed to this thing: Mark Waid, William Messner-Loebs, Dave Cockrum, Phil Jimenez – and Mike Mignola, who contributes an absolutely stunning cover to an otherwise forgettable #14. 

And in amongst the astounding amount of unsupportable cobblers, there’s a handful of glittering gems. I’d recommend adopting an extremely selective approach to JLQ, so here are three specific issues that are worth your pentagonal coinage. Firstly, issue #1. 

Set not long after Booster Gold quit the team in Justice League America #37, this book-length tale by Giffen/DeMatteis follows Booster as he is recruited into a new corporate super-team, the Conglomerate, alongside the heavy-hitting A-listers Gypsy (ex of Justice League Detroit), Reverb (brother of the late Vibe), Vapor, Echo, Maxi-Man (human feminine hygiene product) and the aforementioned Praxis (who?).  The team sport the leather-jackets-over-lycra look that would come to be popular in the ’90s, but theirs are festooned with myriad corporate logos, including LexCorp. LexCorp! From a man who used to operate out of Metropolis… not known for his attention span, that Booster.

Booster’s shamelessly grubby sell-out shilling unsurprisingly irks his former friend and teammate Beetle, and tensions escalate between the two teams. Things come to a head when the Conglomerate are despatched to a South American nation state to unseat a dictator – ostensibly for humanitarian reasons, but in truth merely to protect the commercial interests of their sponsors. Despite the middling art and frankly underwhelming knockabout super-powered action, this it is a pretty interesting story by virtue of its pretty astute and surprisingly subversive political commentary, as well as some superb moments of ‘Bwah-ha-ha’-era League silliness.

Issue 3 is another book-length epic, this one written by Keith Giffen and Gerard Jones, with art by a young Mike McKone (lately, most famous for the Avengers: Endless Wartime graphic novel). This is some of his earliest comics work, and while a little raw and embryonic, it’s still fantastic. His is a really unique style, clean and light, a curious mix of ultra cartoony and highly naturalistic. The story follows on from the story in Justice League Europe #15–19 that found the team travelling to a dead world to battle a bunch of extermination-level villains (a great five-issue run, worthy of its own column at some point). During that adventure, the JLE encountered a guy named Mitch Wacky, who was anything but. Formerly a version of Walt Disney, he was a broken man, crushed by the death of his world, and would do anything to bring it back. In JLQ #3, he gets the chance. He and then-former Green Lantern Kilowog pool their tech expertise to build a machine that can travel through both time and space, and they head back to avert that disaster that killed Mitch’s world. Unfortunately, the process is not without its complications, and they find themselves shrunk to a few inches tall.

A hand-picked team of Justice Leaguers follow in their tiny footsteps in an attempt to prevent the space-time continuum being ripped to shreds. Much Giffen-esque ridiculousness ensues, including hyper-melodramatic Avengers parodies, an extremely creepy robot, a flying boot, mind-bending temporal paradoxes and Guy Gardner becoming intimately acquainted with the inside of a dog (where, if Groucho Marx is to be believed, it’s too dark to read). Yet this is offset by some moments of genuine anguish and horror – an unlikely mix, but Giffen and Jones somehow make it work.

Incidentally, I first read this issue while I was at university. It coincided with a period in which the metaphysics class was discussing the implications of time travel and its attendant paradoxes. I brought it up in a seminar as an example of the reverse grandfather (not a sex position). They looked at me strangely.

Anyway… #5 comprises four separate stories, three of which are stinkers. However, the lead tale, Mark Waid’s ‘Be Careful What You Wish For!’, again gorgeously rendered by a barely pubic Mike McKone, is a real beauty – the best of this bunch. Around the world, metahumans are falling ill and losing their powers. Thus far, it’s a bunch of the more interesting early ’90s second-stringers: Geo-Force, Valor, Red Star, Rebis (of Morrison’s Doom Patrol, in a relatively rare mainstream DCU appearance) and the Will Payton incarnation of Starman. Back at JL headquarters, Ice is suffering a crisis of confidence, feeling out of her depth and underpowered – though you’d think that having Blue Beetle and the Elongated Man as teammates would be quite the self-esteem boost for someone who can freeze your intestines with a thought.

As the JL get embroiled in the ailing heroes mystery, they encounter mysterious super-powered men in black and trace them back to an extremely creepy artificial Stepford-style small town. It turns out the power-stealing men in black are being controlled by an old League foe for a specific purpose… which I won’t spoil here. The setup is nothing special, perhaps, but the payoff to this story is hugely rewarding, weaving together both the mystery and Ice’s personal struggles in a satisfying and unexpected way, taking in some pretty sobering meditations on life and death along the way. Frankly, this one story is far too good for this title. 

It also features J'onn twatting someone with a locomotive.

While largely a stinking puddle of boiling monkey sputum, JLQ is not to be disregarded in its entirety. It offers a valuable lesson or two in discernment, in digging a little deeper to find diamonds, one of which is the size of my head.

Shop wisely, folks.

(originally published on The Big Glasgow Comic Page)