CHONG GOT THE HEAD-EXPLODIN' POWERS

Time once again to lift that dusty hatch and lower yourself gingerly into the increasingly malodorous Bargain Basement of Dooooom. For this instalment of our semi-regular celebration of cheapie-box culture, I’m going to look at a mid-1990s DC imprint – Milestone. Most of the Milestone series are worth investigating (and are always, always available for peanuts). But let’s start with SHADOW CABINET.

A wee bit of historical context is necessary here. In 1993, a group of African-American DC creators, in an attempt to counterbalance the overwhelming whitebreadness of mainstream comics, formed their own publishing house. Among said creators were Denys Cowan (penciller of Power Man & Iron Fist, The Question and Green Arrow, among others) and the late Dwayne McDuffie (writer of Damage Control and Dethlok, and later one of the main architects of the DC animated universe). Milestone’s remit was to publish ethnically and culturally diverse comics for an ethnically and culturally diverse audience. As an imprint of DC, it came under fire for its lack of independence, but its emphasis was nevertheless on ensuring that its creators retained the intellectual property rights to their characters – a point of contention that the Big Two had struggled to resolve over the preceding half-century or so.

Of the major Milestone titles, Icon and Hardware were the Superman and Iron Man analogues, respectively, while Static fulfilled the youthfully exuberant Spidey role, and even proved popular enough to star in his own animated series. Blood Syndicate, a book based around a super-powered street gang, brought an uncomfortably visceral, antagonistic edge quite unlike any other comics of the time. But it was the second wave of Milestone, a year after its emergence, that brought my favourite title.

Running for just 17 issues, Shadow Cabinet is, it’s fair to say, a pretty odd little book. We’re not talking Morrison-era Doom Patrol levels of incomprehensibly weird, but there’s a heightened sense of mystery, lack of resolution and a general air of uncomfortable messiness about the whole project. Created by writers Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III, and penciller John Paul Leon, the Shadow Cabinet was effectively a superhuman Black Ops agency tasked with morally obtuse missions for unclear reasons by their enigmatic leader Dharma. Cursed/blessed with precognitive abilities, Dharma knew what must be done to avoid unspecified future horrors, and was prepared to do anything, including dupe and sacrifice his operatives, to achieve this. It’s here that the appeal of Shadow Cabinet lies. Even more untrustworthy and dubious than 1960s Professor X, Dharma is a tricky bastard and generally unlikeable arrogant git. His motivations were never clear, and his self-professed wisdom was constantly challenged as he sent his loose collective of operatives into increasingly desperate situations.

A refreshing change from the macho homogeneity of standard superheroics, the Shadow Cabinet boasted an international membership largely consisting of women, led by the ferrokinetic Palestinian soldier known as Iron Butterfly. Other core members included Cheech Marin-resembling stoner shapeshifter Sideshow, the embodiment of Cronenberg-esque body-horror, constantly and often revoltingly morphing his body parts into crab claws, hooves and antlers; shrinking pink-clad jewel thief Iota; living interdimensional portal and walking Magritte painting Twilight; and Plus, twin sisters sharing one energy-manipulating body. Also on the team were Japanese speedster Blitzen and Russian strongwoman Donner, who quietly and unsensationally made their mark on comics history as a same-sex spandex couple long before Apollo and the Midnighter.  

Shadow Cabinet’s sometimes homicidal intra-team conflict, combined with some bizarre and sinister threats, driven by a leader with a decidedly cavalier, nay reckless, attitude toward his team’s survival, make this a compelling, if not exactly Earth-shattering title. JP Leon’s art is sketchy and scratchy and sometimes awkward, and relies on a moody, subdued, even murky palette – but all of this just adds to the general sense of ambiguity and unease. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something irresistible about a new concept that’s born and dies in only 17 issues, especially one so wilfully mysterious, which sets up and then abandons so many dangling threads. As any Bigfoot-hunting cryptozoologist knows instinctively but will deny till the last breath, the real fun lies in not knowing the full story.

Largely due to marketing and image problems, Milestone’s existence was short-lived, fizzling out of the comic-book world in 1997. The Milestone universe, including the Shadow Cabinet, reappeared to little fanfare in mainstream DC continuity during Duffie’s brief time on JLA. Yet some of this singular universe’s characters have had a new lease of life on TV over the past few years, with the Static Shock show and a number of Milestone alumni appearing in Young Justice.

Finally, it must be noted that the name ‘Shadow Cabinet’ probably sounds a lot cooler and more mysterious to American ears. For Britishers, it just brings to mind Ed Balls.

(originally published on the Big Glasgow Comic Page) 

HE'S GOING TO NEED A BIGGER UTILITY BELT

Welcome, once again to the dank confines of the Bargain Basement of Dooooom. In this yellow-fingered rummage through the three-for-a-quid box, I’m going to turn my bloodshot eyes away from the Big Two and turn them towards Dark Horse, and AGE OF REPTILES.    

Everyone likes dinosaurs. This is just an empirically and mathematically verifiable fact. And, as its title suggests, Age of Reptiles is filled with nothing but the prehistoric peanut-brained bastards. It was actually three separate limited series, published in 1993, 1997 and 2009, respectively: ‘Tribal Warfare’ depicts a tit-for-tat clash between a pack of deinonychus and tyrannosaurs; ‘The Hunt’ is an archetypal tale of an orphaned child out for revenge (essentially Batman, if Batman were an allosaurus); and ‘The Journey’ follows a mass migration.

What’s distinctive about all three series is that, given the famously non-chatty and distinctly unsesquipedalian nature of the titular terrible lizards, these are entirely wordless comics. Instead, the storytelling flows entirely from the pencil of artist/creator Ricardo Delgado. Quite a daunting task, but Delgado is a remarkably gifted artist, not only establishing strong narratives and choreographing breathless action, but also bringing real character and personality to his saurian cast.

Naturally, the heightened level of drama involves a fair bit of unrealistic anthropomorphism, in terms of both the animals’ expressiveness and their inner emotional life, though this aspect is pared back with every successive series, with ‘The Journey’ being relatively naturalistic. There’s another kick in the teeth for palaeontologists, as Delgado displays a cavalier disregard for the eras and areas in which his mighty protagonists live, throwing together species that in reality were separated by millions of years and thousands of miles.

But for those of us not elbow-deep in sauropod bone fragments and coprolites, these comics are a real treasure. The stories are fast-paced, explosive and extremely bloody, and the bold, beautiful art is a feast for gluttonous eyes, with sumptuously rendered oviraptors, carnotaurs, mosasaurs and more threatening to burst from the page and chew your puny human face right off. 

These issues have been compiled into a handsome omnibus, but are a regular feature in yer scabby bargain bins (it’s where I got all mine from). This is handy for the cash-strapped comics connoisseur, but also a bit of a shame – Age of Reptiles is no guilty pleasure, but a high-quality book that deserves a wider audience, a true classic of pure, mainlined sequential art.

With dinosaurs.

And dinosaurs are cool.

(originally posted on The Big Glasgow Comic Page)

THERE ARE NO TEACHER-TRAINING COLLEGES ON MARS

Welcome once again, grubby box-diggers, to the Bargain Basement of Dooooom. In this celebration of the oh-so-tasty dregs accumulating fungus in the discount bins, we visit a rarely celebrated spin-off title: JUSTICE LEAGUE TASK FORCE.

By 1993, it’s fair to say that DC’s former flagship, the groundbreaking main Justice League title launched by Giffen/DeMatteis in 1987 (to say nothing of its lesser cousin, Justice League Europe), was pretty deep in the doldrums. Conceived by writer David Micheline, Task Force was an attempt to bring some fresh energy to the franchise. It’s very much two completely distinct books sharing one title. The original concept was a superpowered riff on Mission: Impossible, in which a slightly shady UN representative tasked J’onn J’onzz – known to puny pink terrans as the Martian Manhunter – to put together teams of specialists for covert missions.

Aside from J’onn and JLA Detroit-era veteran Gypsy, the lineup changed between missions, involving everyone from big guns (Nightwing, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Arrow) to sweet second stringers (Bronze Tiger, Dolphin, Hourman, Vixen) to embarrassing, gimmicky non-entities that were shat out of a terrible crossover event that most people quite rightly pretend never happened (Joe Public, Loose Cannon – avoid #9 at all costs).

In its early run, the book’s creative team changed almost often as the team’s roster. This, combined with obligatory derailing tie-ins with the Knightfall and Judgement Day crossovers, meant the series struggled to gain momentum (and readers). But the individual stories are mostly strong – particularly issues 10–12, ‘The Purification Plague’, which found an unlikely ad-hoc team infiltrating a neo-Nazi movement bent on racial apocalypse. This arc adopts an appropriately sombre tone, and is a great spotlight for an ageing Rex Tyler, the Golden Age Hourman (coming soon to a TV screen near you, rumour has it) – who, as a former WWII-era hero, is none too fond of Swastika enthusiasts.

As the original concept began to drift perilously, the entire direction of the book changed with the Zero Hour tie-in issues #16 and #0. During its final 20 issues, the Task Force became a relatively stable team of heroes in training, with J’onn the surly, inscrutable headmaster. The new cast came pre-loaded with dramatic potential, with strong emotional ties between long-standing teammates J’onzz and Gypsy; youthful enthusiasm and ineptitude from the new Ray; and a disaster waiting to happen in L-Ron, a helpful artificial intelligence occupying the body of Despero (a purple intergalactic tyrant/monster, vintage League foe and murderer of Gypsy’s parents to boot). Most interesting was Triumph – retconned by Zero Hour as a founder member (leader, even) of the League but wiped out of history and completely forgotten, only to return as a man out of time. And if this retconned forgotten blonde-haired Superman-type sounds eerily similar to a later retconned forgotten blonde-haired Superman-type over at Marvel, well that's a matter for legal professionals. Resentful at being cheated out of his legacy and reduced to novice status, Triumph repeatedly comes into conflict verbally – and eventually physically – with the Manhunter.

With a focus on the troubled relationships within the team and how they relate to their increasingly distant and alien mentor, many of the stories featuring this lineup have a disorienting, insular quality. There’s little world-saving or traditional heroism going on, just a number of increasingly unsettling training exercises and misadventures. Written by some pretty well-respected names (Mark Waid and Christopher Priest), the story arcs take in Vandal Savage’s organ-harvesting scheme, a wildly bizarre and anachronistic interpretation of Dracula, and a trip to Skartaris, home of 1970s sci-fantasy icon The Warlord. Though not the most beautiful thing ever to grace a page, the art is at least interesting, switching between Sal Velluoto’s earthy, pungent Neal Adams-isms and the cartoonish yet expressively sketchy Ramon Bernado.

For me personally, the best thing about JLTF is its treatment of the Martian Manhunter. I’m massively fond of the big green guy, but before this point he was rarely given his due. Previously treated as a blank Cold War-era Superman doppelganger, a brooding loner or a straight man to comedic foils, here he’s brought centre-stage and portrayed as a domineering leader, a vast powerhouse of considerable longevity and an unfathomable teacher whose manipulative methods border on the cruel. (He plays this part consciously too – when Wonder Woman confronts him about his uncharacteristic behaviour and questionable tactics, he tells her: 'Relax Diana. I'm just spooking the kids.') In subsequent incarnations, J’onn was a spiritual creature, an emerald Zen philosopher – and certainly his compassionate side is reflected here in his quasi-parental affection for Gypsy – but there’s also something appealing about him as a possibly untrustworthy otherworldly badass. Interesting that the New 52 interpretation seems to be revisiting this persona… 

(originally published on The Big Glasgow Comic Page)