Black Panther: Doomwar by Jonathan Maberry, Scot Eaton, Robert Campanella, Andy Lanning, et al.

Doomwar is a six-part miniseries (with a double-length first issue) published in 2010; even though it was not branded as belonging to a particular Marvel series, it is clearly a Black Panther story. Despite having guest characters from across the Marvel universe (e.g., the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, War Machine, even Deadpool), the story picks right up from the end of Black Panther volume 5 by the same writer, and the protagonists are definitely T'Challa and Shuri as they struggle to defend Wakanda from an invasion by Doctor Doom.

from Doomwar #5

As a result, I didn't expect to enjoy it very much, having not really enjoyed Jonathan Maberry's "Prelude to Doomwar"... but by the time I was partway through issue #2, I realized I was pretty into this! I had been afraid this would be a big generic Marvel event, but as I said, it's very much a Black Panther story about the characters of T'Challa and Shuri, and about the politics of Wakanda. It would fit right into, for example, Christopher Priest's run without a lot of tweaking. Though I still feel like Shuri isn't a very strong character, mostly just being an angry young woman, I felt Maberry had a good handle on T'Challa here, showing how dedicated he was to his country even in trying circumstances. And while I felt like the populist uprising in vol. 5 was kind of contrived, Maberry does a good job with its consequences here. 

On top of all this, I kind of groaned when Deadpool showed up (especially when they put him on the cover of issue #4, but he didn't appear until the very end, presumably so they could also put him on the cover of #5), but Maberry makes good use of him, and he doesn't derail the book like I was afraid he might.

from Doomwar #4

The story was aided by two other things. One is definitely the artwork; Scot Eaton (mostly inked here by Andy Lanning & Robert Campanella) is the best penciler assigned to Black Panther since Jefte Palo's Secret Invasion story in volume 4, with clear storytelling and good character work. (I think he was doing Ioan Gruffud for Mister Fantastic and Denzel Washington for T'Challa. Of course I approve of the former.) And John-Francois Beaulieu, who I really liked on the Marvel Oz comics, does a great job as the colorist. Bad coloring can muddy the storytelling, but I felt that even with dark colors, everything popped and was visually clear—even though he obviously uses a very different palette here than he did in Oz!

The other is Doom himself. I haven't read many Fantastic Four comics, so I don't have much of a handle on the character, but I really liked Maberry's take on him here, especially when we find out how Doom was able to overcome T'Challa's locks on the Wakandan vibranium vault. It plays out exactly how I expected... but was nevertheless perfectly done. A great depiction of a great villain.

from Doomwar #4

I found the ending both interesting and frustrating. The characters can kill Doom, but don't, so that they're "better" than him. While I believe that, say, Reed Richards would have this philosophy, it doesn't make any sense for T'Challa and Shuri, and surely it only happens this way because Doomwar is part of a wider Marvel universe, and can't be the story that kills off a key character. On top of this, T'Challa makes a very interesting choice: he destroys all Wakandan vibranium rather than let Doom make off with some of it, preserving Wakandan values but perhaps at the cost of Wakandan security. But this happens at the very end of the story, so we get no implications of his choice. This isn't so much an issue for Doomwar itself (though I think the way that the country's rebuilding gets a single panel is) but one that I am afraid future Black Panther stories will not really engage with. I guess we'll see!

Doomwar originally appeared in six issues (Apr.-Sept. 2010). The story was written by Jonathan Maberry; penciled by Scot Eaton; inked by Andy Lanning (#1-5), Robert Campanella (#1-6), Jaime Mendoza (#6), and David Meikis (#6); colored by John-Francois Beaulieu; lettered by Cory Petit (#1-5) and Joe Caramagna (#6); and edited by Axel Alonso. (Note that issue #2 is called "Part 1" and #6 "Part 5" on their title pages.)

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Bloodstone by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Michael Lopez, Scott Hanna, et al.

from Bloodstone #1

In 2001, twenty-five years after Ulysses Bloodstone was killed off, Marvel brought him back... sort of. Bloodstone was a four-issue miniseries focused on the daughter who never knew her father. Eighteen-year-old Elsa and her mother move to Massachusetts, having inherited a mansion from Elsa's father; down on their luck, they have no other financial resources. Elsa's mother doesn't want her to know her heritage... but of course she soon stumbles on it and ends up taking her father's monster-fighting mantle.

As I said in my previous post (see item #1 in the list below), Bloodstone ends up retooled a bit here. Elsa inherits a piece of his bloodstone gem in the form of a choker, but other than that, there's no substantive connections to his original 1970s appearances, no mentions of the conspiracy he battled or the gem's importance to his quest to defeat monsters. Instead, he's a more generic monster hunter, battling the kind of creatures that might appear in a Universal monsters film, like Dracula or armies of mummies. He has a Frankensteinesque manservant and a vampire legal executor, and the ability to teleport around the world to deal with monsters.

from Bloodstone #4

So this all is what Elsa inherits, accidentally teleporting into danger and figuring a way out of it with the help of the manservant (Adam) and a nerdy teenage boy who has a thing for her. The result is pretty fun, actually. This is nothing deep, but if you don't want to read about a sarcastic teenage girl mocking an undead warlord trying to raise an army of mummies in Egypt... why are you even here? This is pure comics.

The art is occasionally a bit skeevy, and sometimes a little confusing, but it's exactly the kind of art the story calls for, I think. Notoriously, this story was recently revealed to be rewritten by Gail Simone in one of her earliest comic assignments; my understanding is that she punched up the dialogue (to make it more Buffyesque) after the comic was written. I think you can see the signs of this if you know; Joss Whedon talks about how he was once hired to punch up the dialogue on an already recorded film. This meant everything he added had to be done via ADR, and thus the characters became wittier when they were offscreen and he didn't have to match mouth movements. Similarly, here there's a lot of jokes that come from off-panel and aren't totally reflected by the visuals, tonally. Still, if you hadn't told me, I don't think I'd've noticed, it all works together fairly well.

from Bloodstone #2

Bloodstone has never been collected, though Marvel has twice solicited printings of Bloodstone & the Legion of Monsters claiming it will be included. When I first conceived of this project reading through Marvel's Bloodstone stuff, the four issues could be found fairly cheaply on the secondary market, but since then 1) the Gail Simone reveal came out, and 2) Elsa Bloodstone appeared in a MCU animated film on Disney Plus, so now people are more interested in the character, and the issues range from $30 to $150 apiece on MyComicShop.com. Thus, I had to settle for getting them on comiXology.

This iteration of Elsa Bloodstone made just one further appearance of sorts, in a handbook-style one-shot called Marvel Monsters. The book presents profiles of various Marvel monsters, from Bombu of Oobagon VIII and Devil Dinosaur to the Molten Man-Thing and Rorgg, in an in-universe style. It's made up of blog posts by Elsa and e-mails to and from her as she tries to assemble information on all sort of monsters from across Marvel continuity. Again, you can get it on comiXology. I found it hard to read every word—I just don't care about Marvel monsters that much—but I did find it occasionally interesting, and Elsa's voice gave it a lot of charm. There are a lot of goofy monsters in the Marvel universe!

Bloodstone was originally published in four issues (Dec. 2001–Mar. 2002). The story was written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning [with dialogue by Gail Simone], penciled by Michael Lopez (#1-4) and Tom Derenick (#4), inked by Scott Hanna, lettered by Jon Babcock, and edited by Mike Marts.

Marvel Monsters: From the Files of Ulysses Bloodstone and the Monster Hunters was originally published in one issue (Jan. 2006). The issue was written by coordinator Michael Hoskin, with Madison Carter, Jeff Christiansen, Sean McQuaid, Stuart Vandal, Eric Moreels, Ronald Byrd, and Barry Reese, and edited by Jeff Youngquist.

This is the second post in a series about Elsa Bloodstone. The next installment covers Nextwave, Agents of H.A.T.E. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Bloodstone & the Legion of Monsters (1975-2012)
   

Death's Head: Clone Drive / Revolutionary War (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 45)

Death's Head: Clone Drive

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 1988-2019
Acquired: January 2023
Read: February 2023

Writers: Tini Howard, Simon Furman

Artists: Kei Zama, Bryan Hitch & Mark Farmer

Colours: Felipe Sobreiro, Nick Abadzis

Lettering: Alessandra Gozzi, [Annie Parkhouse]

In the 2010s, the original Death's Head has experienced a bit of a resurgence at Marvel; one assumes this is because the 1980s kids who grew up on him are now in positions of creative authority themselves. Kieron Gillen, for example, used the character in his run on S.W.O.R.D., where he was still giant-sized and first adopted the designation of "freelance peacekeeping agent," indicating this was a prequel to Death's Head's Transformers appearances.

The one I decided to pick up, however, was Death's Head's first self-titled comic series since the 1980s. Death's Head vol. 2 was a four-issue miniseries by Tini Howard and Kei Zama from 2019 where the original Death's Head meets the Young Avengers and the new Death's Head V. It was collected under the title "Clone Drive" by Panini, along with a reprint of Death's Head vol. 1 #1.

Death's Head may have been killed off and absorbed into Death's Head II back in the 1990s, but he's still alive and well here. My understanding—such as it is—is that this is because originally Death's Head died in comics set in 2020. Back in the 1990s, Marvel UK's 2020-set comics were supposed to be the "real" future of the Marvel universe... but now we're up to 2020, so they're clearly an alternate timeline, and thus Death's Head died in this alternate timeline, but not in the real timeline, meaning he is alive and well and carrying on as normal. Evelyn Necker of AIM was responsible for the original Death's Head's death, and Clone Drive gives us the Evelyn Necker of "our" reality, who has become obsessed with finding and creating different versions of Death's Head.

I am not sure Death's Head really understands it... but maybe I do, yes?
from Death's Head vol. 2 #2

So anyway, this was pretty enjoyable. Death's Head is a fun character, but he is difficult to get right as a lead character; even his creator Simon Furman has struggled with that. What made Death's Head enjoyable in Transformers was the sense that he's outside it all, kind of. The Transformers may invest great significance in the was between Autobots and Decepticons, in their battles against Unicron, in the time-travelling antics of Galvatron... but Death's Head doesn't care about any of that, he just wants to get paid. But also Death's Head is at his best when he's a bit put-upon, when things get away from him and don't go as planned. So he's a great foil, but it's hard to make him a main character because how can you give your lead a vibe that what's going on around him doesn't actually matter? Furman occasionally managed this with the original Death's Head series; my favorite issue of this is the one where he gets involved in some guy's squabble over a treasure map with his wife, and it's clear Death's Head doesn't give a shit about any of this backstory or even who lives and who dies, he just wants the money.

Writer Tini Howard recreates that vibe here by combining Death's Head with the Young Avengers. Flung back in time from the future era of the original Guardians of the Galaxy (the 31st century), Death's Head takes refuge in the apartment of Wiccan and Hulkling. They are having relationship drama... and Death's Head just does not care at all. He just wants to get back to the future and stay alive. The teen angst of the Young Avengers is the perfect counterpart to Death's Head, because it's very clear he doesn't want to know about any of it, but they keep trying to explain it to him, and it keeps having an effect on him whether he likes it or not... plus, here's Death's Head V with his own existential angst!

The one thing that can give Death's Head angst is learning he's been rebooted as a millennial, yes?
from Death's Head vol. 2 #2

Howard is a fun writer, and does fun stuff with the characters here; in addition to Hulkling and Wiccan, we also get Hawkeye, who was my favorite in the original Young Avengers run. There's good jokes and good angst and good twists. Artist Kei Zama, appropriately enough, got her start on Transformers, and she's adept here with human and robot alike, capturing Death's Head expressiveness. There are some neat layouts.

Someday I need to get around to picking up Kate's solo series, yes?
from Death's Head vol. 2 #2

If there's a fault here, it's that I think the series wants the reader to care about the Hulkling/Wiccan drama more than I actually do. I'd rather be like Death's Head and be a bit above it all! The series ends with new, potentially set-ups for both Death's Head (with Evelyn Necker) and Death's Head V (with Hulkling and Wiccan). Alas, though, I don't think either character has had any subsequent appearances; specifically, Hulkling and Wiccan have returned but without any indication that "Vee" is still living with them.

I didn't mean for all of my scans to come from the same issue. It just happened, yes?
from Death's Head vol. 2 #2

My Panini trade paperback includes, as I said, a reprint of Death's Head vol. 1 #1, but since I've read that twice before in recent months (it was reprinted in Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent and The Incomplete Death's Head #2), I skipped it. It also has an introduction by Brady Webb, which gives background on Death's Head that unfortunately repeats the apocryphal, untrue story about Death's Head's supposed original appearance in "High Noon Tex."

---

After finishing Clone Drive, I took the opportunity to pick up one other modern return appearance for the original Death's Head, which was omitted from the Freelance Peacekeeping Agent trade paperback. Revolutionary War was a 2014 Marvel event which brought back a bunch of mediocre 1990s Marvel UK characters, among them Death's Head II. But in the Death's Head II–focused issue, DHII's friend Tuck hires the original Death's Head to help save his future self. This story was clearly working on the assumption that the 2020 future still was the future of the regular Marvel universe; here, Evelyn Necker thinks that the 2020 Necker is her future self, not an alternate self. But it definitely also sets up how Necker becomes obsessed with Death's Head in Clone Drive, so Howard picked up on it despite tweaking its details.

Death's Head II is still boring and I don't care about the broader premise of Revolutionary War at all, but this is fun enough because despite being the writer who killed him off, Andy Lanning clearly has an affinity for the original Death's Head, and like Clone Drive, this plays to the character's strengths: he is confused by the time travel and grumpy about having to work with his replacement, but happy to come in swinging with acts of gratuitous violence. Thankfully, it's illustrated by Nick Roche, who like Kei Zama, cut his teeth as an artist on Transformers, and thus is eminently suited to Death's Head. Thankfully, Roche is a lot better at drawing humans now than back when he did a fill-in for IDW's Doctor Who comic.

Unfortunately, it ends on a cliffhanger that leads into Revolutionary War: Supersoldiers #1, which I have never and will never read, but on its own, it's fun enough and I'm glad I spent the time reading it.

"Synchronicity II" originally appeared in issue #1 of Revolutionary War: Death's Head II (Apr. 2014). The story was written by Andy Lanning & Alan Cowsill, illustrated by Nick Roche, colored by Veronica Gandini, lettered by Clayton Cowles, and edited by Devis Lewis & Stephen Wacker.

This post is the forty-fifth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Skywatch-7. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
39. The Highgate Horror
40. Doorway to Hell
41. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1
42. The Phantom Piper
43. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 2
44. The Clockwise War
    

Wonder Woman: Past Imperfect by John Byrne et al.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths removed a number of Golden Age heroes from the Golden Age: without an Earth-Two, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman no longer had Earth-Two counterparts who could have been around during World War II. But as I have read my way through this project, I have read a number of stories drawing on a retcon that Wonder Woman's mother, Queen Hippolyta, travelled back in time and assumed the mantle of Wonder Woman during World War II: All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant, The Justice Society Returns!, Wonder Woman: The 18th Letter, JSA: Strange Adventures, and JSA: Ragnarok have all been stories to show a time-travelling Hippolyta as part of the Justice Society.

It dawned on me while reading Strange Adventures that I had never actually read the story that established this retcon! So I did some research and discovered it happened during an arc in John Byrne's Wonder Woman run, in issues #130 to 133, with a prologue in Speed Force #1 and an epilogue in Adventure Comics 80-Page Giant #1, and then Phil Jimenez had returned to the idea during his run on Wonder Woman. All these issues are on DC Universe Infinite, so I added them to my JSA marathon... which will clearly never end. (Except that the Adventure Comics issue isn't on the service, and I didn't realize that soon enough to get hold of a hard copy, so I'll have to read that sometime later.)

from Speed Force #1

The story begins with a prelude in Speed Force, where the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, narrates a story of how in 1942 he was once saved by a mysterious man who looked like his father, accompanied by a woman. This sets up the main story, where Jay sees footage of Queen Hippolyta as Wonder Woman and realizes that she was the woman—and therefore the man must be him from 1998, having traveled back in time to 1942. So Hippolyta and Jay travel back in time (as you do) and save his younger self to keep the timeline consistent... but then they accidentally become embroiled in a JSA adventure when Johnny Thunder is captured by Nazis looking to make off with his Thunderbolt. Soon they've revealed who they are, and are traveling with the JSA to Nazi-occupied Europe to rescue Johnny and his T-bolt.

John Byrne is one of the greats of comic bookdom, which makes this storyline's utter flatness all the more frustrating. Most of it is narrated retrospectively; Jay and Hippolyta leave in issue #130, and Jay comes back alone in the same issue, and then fills in everything that happened retrospectively in issues #131-33. There is just so much dialogue and narration that it feels like you are not actually experiencing the story in question but having someone summarize it for you. The dialogue is all people explaining things to each other, not actual conversations. Within Jay's flashback there are even further flashbacks with even more narration! When the story's not about Hippolyta and Jay, it cuts to what the dead Diana is doing with the Greek gods, which is all people explaining things to each other about godhood; there's a back-up strip about Artemis and Wonder Girl which is all explanations about Etrigan and Merlin. So much exposition! Byrne's art is good of course, but he smothers it.

from Wonder Woman vol. 2 #133

(The time travel is both a predestination paradox and changes the past. Jay and Hippolyta have to save the Flash so that history remains on track, but then everything else they do in the past changes it, so that when Jay returns to the present, he remembers knowing Wonder Woman when he was young even though he didn't remember this before he left.)

It feels to me like the thing that matters about this story isn't actually in it. Because it focuses on a pretty pedestrian JSA adventure, and because it's all told by Jay, the thing we don't get that we really should is Hippolyta! What does she feel about being in this time? Why does she decide to stay? Who knows! Byrne isn't interested in her as a character, he's interested in her only as a source of retroactive continuity. Mollmann's Law of Retcons, often quoted around here, is that the new version must be at least equal in interest to the previous version, if not moreso, but perhaps there should be a second one: the retcon should lead to a story, not be a continuity change for the sake of continuity. Byrne wanted to bring back the Golden Age Wonder Woman, but he forgot to tell a story to go along with it. It's four issues of nothing.

Thankfully, Phil Jimenez came back to it four years later and did tell a story. In his story, Diana is back to being Wonder Woman and on a time travel adventure when she is accidentally diverted to 1943. She bumps into her mother, but to preserve the timeline, disguises herself as the Golden Age hero Miss America. The two must work together to stop some Nazis from obtaining occult artifacts.

Unlike Byrne's story, Jimenez's actually focuses on Hippolyta as a person. Through this adventure, Diana gets to see a different side of her mother, where she's relaxed, part of a community... and friends with benefits with Wildcat! (I guess if anyone punches above his weight, it will be a championship boxer.) The ending in particular, where mother and daughter each talks about how they feel about their family, ties it all together in way that totally justifies the retcon in terms of story and that Byrne's actual story totally failed to do.

(As always, a continuity note: in All-Star Squadron, The Young All-Stars and Secret Origins, Roy Thomas established that in the post-Crisis history, what had been Wonder Woman's role in the JSA was taken by Miss America. I don't think a single writer after Roy Thomas, however, actually used this idea: she's not in The Demise of Justice, for example. Then Byrne made his retcon of the retcon, and Miss America was doomed, because anyone wanting to use Wonder Woman in a WWII-era JSA story could just use her. Diana calls her obscure in this storyline: so much for being a key member of the JSA!)

"A Stranger with My Face" originally appeared in issue #1 of Speed Force (Nov. 1997). The story was written and illustrated by John Byrne, colored by Noelle Giddings, and edited by Jason Hernandez-Rosenblatt.

Past Imperfect originally appeared in issues #130-33 of Wonder Woman vol. 2 (Feb.-May 1998). The story was written, pencilled, inked, and lettered by John Byrne; colored by Patricia Mulvihill; and edited by Paul Kupperberg.

"U-Boats & Dinosaurs" and "Her Daughter's Mother" originally appeared in issues #184-85 of Wonder Woman vol. 2 (Oct.-Nov. 2002). The story was written and pencilled by Phil Jimenez, inked by Andy Lanning (#184-85) and Larry Stucker (#185), colored by Trish Mulvihill, and edited by Eddie Berganza.

This post is forty-second in an ever-expanding series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Batman/Wildcat. Previous installments are listed below:

The Sleeze Brothers File (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 21)

The Sleeze Brothers File

Collection published: 1990
Contents originally published: 1989-90
Acquired: November 2021
Read: December 2021

Masterminds: John Carnell and Andy Lanning*

Writer: John Carnell
Blueprints: Andy Lanning, with Dave Hine and Stephen Baskerville

Colour-Man: Steve White

Calligraphic Crimes: Helen Stone and Bambos

Now that I've finished (mostly) tracking Death's Head's trajectory out of Doctor Who Magazine, I wanted to follow a different Marvel UK spin-off, the Sleeze Brothers, the shady P.I.s introduced in Follow That TARDIS! back in A Cold Day in Hell! At the time, I wrote, "The Sleeze Brothers went on to have their own comic series from Marvel. The Tardis wiki doesn't count it as part of the Doctor Who universe, but who knows why. [...] You can get it pretty cheap on the secondary market, but I am not sure I am motivated to do so..." And yet, I was! I am not sure if I could explain why, except that I found something charming and uniquely Marvel UK-ish about the whole thing. The pastiche-heavy future world of these strips struck me as being very much of a piece with Russell T Davies's "New Earth" setting, and thus something that fit into the Doctor Who universe in spirit, if not in continuity. (Though, having read them all now, they totally could be part of the Doctor Who universe.)

This contains six single-issue stories, plus an eight-page prologue establishing how the Sleeze Brothers—formerly minor criminals—became private investigators. If you read interviews about this series, it's often stated that despite the fact that though it seems like a Blues Brothers rip-off, it's really not; this is totally belied by this story, which opens just like the film, with El Ape Sleeze (or "El'ape" in some of the stories) meeting his brother Deadbeat after he's released from the penitentiary, following by a gratuitously destructive car chase. So who knows.

This is from the prologue, which if I understand correctly, was made specially for this collection. The inker credit is an informed guess. The usually reliable Grand Comics Database for some reason lacks detailed information on this series...
from The Sleeze Brothers File (art by Andy Lanning & Stephen Baskerville)

The six stories here are fine. None are works of genius, though by the end of the volume, I found there was a certain weird charm. Blues Brothers may have been a starting point, but it was never this weird. They get involved in gang wars, in attempts to use holotelevision to brainwash the city, in attempted presidential assassinations, in Clueesque murder mystery dinners, in behind-the-scenes shenanigans at award shows, in intergalactic peace conferences. Most of the time, they are almost gleefully unaware of the stories unfolding around them, not understanding why anything has actually happened.

I am always a sucker for detective parodies for some reason.
from The Sleeze Brothers vol. 1 #4 (art by Andy Lanning & Stephen Baskerville)

 I wouldn't say I loved any of these stories, but there was only one I didn't like, the presidential assassination one, which seemed to have little panel time for the ostensible main characters, and was too much on the convoluted side. (I think the cases should be beyond their understanding, but not mine!) Most of the time, I was enjoying the inane details and strange pastiche that makes up their universe. I mean, it's not high art, but it's so completely itself that I couldn't help but be charmed by it. 

Holding the book open flat to scan this page caused a 44-page section to detach itself from the binding! The things I do for blog posts no one will ever read...
from The Sleeze Brothers vol. 1 #3 (art by Andy Lanning & Stephen Baskerville)

As you watch the Sleeze Brothers going up against a two-headed pig police sergeant, crawling through sewers, ending up in an Alien pastiche, satirizing the sexual intrigues of the Kennedy administration, revealing the killer is a parasitic life-form living on his brother's back, encountering an army of ninja cats, it's clear that no one made this comic book to appeal to a preexisting trend or perceived gap in the market. No one here was out to make a quick buck, because this is not the comic that could make anyone one. This exists because John Carnell and Andy Lanning wanted it to exist, and because they loved it. And I think that comes through at its best moments.

I mean, it's not even clever parody!
from The Sleeze Brothers vol. 1 #2 (art by Andy Lanning & Stephen Baskerville)

I also tracked down the 1991 Sleeze Brothers one-shot, "Some Like It Fresh." This was a double-length story about the Sleeze Brothers going undercover at a temperance convention. It's nuts, in a delightfully madcap way; it was probably my favorite of all their stories, as it does that slapstick thing of just escalating throughout every time its protagonists make a bad decision. Shame that this was the last Sleeze Brothers tale, aside from an eight-page in Epic #2 I haven't yet tracked down, because it seems like they were beginning to perfect the whole thing.

* The credits in this collection are actually given narratively on the first page in the form of a police report. For example: "Up until the start of the second case (the so called 'Real to Reel' scam) it is believed suspect HINE, DAVE collaborated with LANNING on the blueprint work. After that point we believe BASKERVILLE, STEPHEN took over and was connected to the affair until the end." So I've done my best to convert this back into credits you can understand... sort of.

This post is the twenty-first in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The Age of Chaos. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
    

Review: Infestation v.2 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Scott Tipton, David Tipton, Erik Burnham, Casey Maloney, Gary Erskine, Kyle Hotz, and David Messina

Comic trade paperback, 117 pages
Published 2011 (contents: 2011)
Acquired February 2013
Read October 2016

Infestation v.2

Written by Scott Tipton, David Tipton, Erik Burham, Dan Abnett, and Andy Lanning
Art by Casey Maloney, Gary Erskine, Kyle Hotz, and David Messina
Colors by Luis Antonio Delgado and Dan Brown
Letters by Chris Mowry and Robbie Robbins

In this volume, the zombie infestation spreads to two more universes, those of Star Trek and Ghostbusters. Turns out that I don't give a crap about Ghostbusters (saw the first movie when I was a kid, enjoyed it, haven't really thought about it since and don't care to, and Kyle Hotz's artwork made the characters difficult to distinguish), but Star Trek-does-zombies is just perfectly nailed by the Tiptons, Casey Maloney, and Gary Erskine. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and two security guards end up stranded on a Federation colony that's been infested by zombies, and have to stay alive long enough to make it to their shuttle and/or send off a distress signal. It's a perfect little slice of the zombie genre infused into the Star Trek universe, down to this predictable but utterly satisfying moment:

No he's not!
from Star Trek: Infestation #1 (script by Scott Tipton & David Tipton, art by Casey Maloney & Gary Erskine)

And guess which of the five Starfleet characters end up as zombies?

Add in computers with reel-to-reel tape decks, and a comedy robot, and you basically have everything I could want out of this kind of tale. You even get Captain Kirk fighting zombie with a wrench and Doctor McCoy with a zombie-cure-serum gun.

You know, in the alternate reality where Paramount actually did make Phase II in the seventies to get some of that sweet Star Wars/Battlestar Galactica money action, this guy probably would have joined the main cast.
from Star Trek: Infestation #2 (script by Scott Tipton & David Tipton, art by Casey Maloney & Gary Erskine)

And I don't really understand what's up with the sexy vampire lady who appears in all four realities-- but when her form adapts to the Star Trek universe, it's of course in the form of a woman in a TOS miniskirt:

I guess miniskirts and go-go boots are an intrinsic property of the Star Trek universe.
from Star Trek: Infestation #2 (script by Scott Tipton & David Tipton, art by Casey Maloney & Gary Erskine)

I had thought that the finale issue would involve all the different series coming together in some way, no matter how small, to provide a final solution. Like, I didn't expect Captain Kirk, Optimus Prime, Bill Murray, and whoever the hell leads G.I.Joe to meet, but I did think all four side stories would somehow contribute to the end of the story. Well, they don't; all there is is a single shot of the four universes through a portal. Instead it's a bunch of tedious supernatural nonsense to wrap it all up, and I don't care. But at least this misbegotten mess gave me a good Star Trek zombie tale.

Next Week: Back to The Transformers universe to figure out what's been going on there, surely something More than Meets the Eye!

Review: Infestation v.1 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Mike Raicht, David Messina, Nick Roche, Giovanni Timpano, et al.

Comic trade paperback, 124 pages
Published 2011 (contents: 2011)
Acquired February 2013
Read October 2016

Infestation v.1

Written by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Mike Raicht
Art by David Messina, Nick Roche, and Giovanni Timpano
Prologue Art by Elena Casagrande with Claudia Balboni
Inks by Gaetano Carlucci
Colors by Joana Lafuente, J. Brown, and Scarlet Gothica
Letters by Robbie Robbins and Chris Mowry

I bought Infestation because it includes a Star Trek comic, but I read it now because it crosses over with IDW's Transformers tales. Infestation is more of a cross-through than cross over: a zombie outbreak begins in the Covert Vamiric Operations universe (a franchise original to IDW), and then escapes through a dimensional portal to four different realms, those of Transformers, G.I. Joe, Star Trek, and Ghostbusters, meaning each of those series has a short story about zombies. The first volume collects the kick-off issue and the Transformers and G.I. Joe tales. The frame story is boring (lots of characters you don't care about doing cliche zombie-fighting things), the Transformers story is a confusing mess (tons of robots and lots of gobbledygook, plus it draws on past continuity regarding Kup I don't know anything about), and it turns out that I just don't give a crap about a bunch of G.I. Joe villains (plus this one doesn't even feature Infestation's ostensible main villain). This should have been fun, but it wasn't at all.

I found the mass of robots confusing to sift through, a disappointing turnout from the usually dependable Nick Roche. But maybe it's the coloring? The later IDW stories in particular use shading to make robots stand out from one another and the background much better.
from The Transformers: Infestation #2 (script by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Nick Roche)

Next Week: The end to Infestation!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LV: The World of Flashpoint featuring Wonder Woman

My three days of Doctor Who reviews comes to an end with the best Fourth Doctor Adventure so far this series, Gallery of Ghouls.

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2012 (contents: 2011)
Borrowed from the library
Read July 2016

The World of Flashpoint featuring Wonder Woman

Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Tony Bedard, James Robinson

Pencillers: Agustin Padilla, Scott Clark, Vicente Cifuentes, Ardian Syaf, Eddie Nunez, Gianluca Gugliotta, Christian Duce, Javi Fernandez
Inkers: Jose Aviles, Dave Beaty, Vicente Cifuentes, Diana Egea, Don Ho, Gianluca Gugliotta, Walden Wong, Javi Fernandez

Colorists: Nei Ruffino, Val Staples, Andrew Dalhouse, Kyle Ritter, The Hories
Letterers: Travis Lanham, Jared K. Fletcher, Dave Sharpe, John J. Hill

I'm not sure where I got my reading order for the Flashpoint collections from, but so far, it seems to make sense to read the Wonder Woman World of Flashpoint collection first. The first two stories in here, "Wonder Woman and the Furies" and "Emperor Aquaman," lay out the status quo of this new timeline we're suddenly in, from different perspectives. The Wonder Woman tale spans the history of the Flashpoint universe, showing us Princess Diana first encounter with Man's World, which results in an engagement to Aquaman. Reactionary elements in both the Amazon and Atlantean societies think merging the cultures is a Very Bad Idea, and manipulate events to kick off a war that wrecks much of the Earth, with Great Britain becoming an Amazon fortress and much of Europe devastated by an Atlantean geo-weapon.

That's Angela Merkel, right? It always amuses me when actual heads of state turn up in superhero comics. Though, in one of the stories in The World of Flashpoint featuring Superman, Germany is represented by an actual Nazi, so how does that track with this?
from Flashpoint: Emperor Aquaman #1 (script by Tony Bedard, art by Ardian Syaf & Vicente Cifuentes)

As a story, to be honest, the Wonder Woman one doesn't have a whole lot to recommend it, from either a writing or artistic perspective; the writing moves too quickly for us to get attached to this version of Diana, and the art is weird, either plasticky under one illustrator, or kind of flat under another. But the story's real purpose seems to be exposition: read this, and you'll know the background for every subsequent World of Flashpoint tale. As a result, "Emperor Aquaman" seems to have more room to breathe, giving more personal focus to Arthur Curry in this mad world, showing his youth (he spent much less time on the surface world than his Prime equivalent, to his morality's detriment) and how the attacks detailed in the Wonder Woman tale affected him on a personal level. It's not particularly amazing, but it works.

I'm not sure what I like less, plastic-face on the left, or giant-eye on the right.
from Flashpoint: Wonder Woman and the Furies #1 (script by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Scott Clark & Dave Beaty) and #2 (script by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Agustin Padilla & Jose Aviles)

If there's anything to like about these tales so far, it's how they all interlock to create a larger tapestry. "Lois Lane and the Resistance" shows us the backstory of some key events of "Wonder Woman and the Furies": like, we learn how come Lois is broadcasting a distress signal to the world from Great Britain, and how Diana figures out that her aunt has set her up. Other than that and some once again goofy art (the outfits Eddie Nunez puts Lois into are ridiculous, though I thought the issue illustrated by Christian Duce showed some real design sense) and a team up between Etrigan the Demon and Grifter, there's not much going on here.

At first I was gonna scan some of the art I didn't like, but then I was like, 'c'mon, self, accentuate the positive.' Looking at it again, I think it's the inking that really makes it work: Walden Wong is pretty reliable.
from Flashpoint: Lois Lane and the Resistance #3 (script by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Christian Duce & Walden Wong)

The book closes out with "The Outsider," about an asshole criminal from India. This story isn't very strongly linked to the other three and probably could have gone in a different volume. James Robinson has written some good magnificent bastards before, but the Outsider isn't one of them: there's little to care about here, and fewer familiar characters and concepts from the DC universe appear, either. I found this one sort of joyless and grim in an uninvolving way.

Next Week: Okay, but what about Superman? Time to find out what happened to the Man of Steel in The World of Flashpoint!

Review: Legion of Super-Heroes: 1,050 Years of the Future edited by Anton Kawasaki

Comic trade paperback, 223 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 1958-2002)
Acquired December 2012
Read May 2015

Legion of Super-Heroes: 1,050 Years of the Future
edited by Anton Kawasaki

Writers: Otto Binder, Jerry Siegel, Edmund Hamilton, Jim Shooter, Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen, Mark Waid & Tom McCraw, Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning

Artists: Al Plastino, John Forte, Curt Swan & George Klein, Mike Grell, James Sherman & Jack Abel, Keith Giffen & Larry Mahlstedt (with Kurt Schaffenberger, Howard Bender & Frank Giacoia, Dan Adkins, Dave Cockrum, and Joe Staton & Dick Giordano), Stuart Immonen & Ron Boyd & George Freeman, Olivier Coipel & Andy Lanning

This collection came out in 2008 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Legion of Super-Heroes. As a result, it contains stories spanning (most of) the full history of the Legion, from their first adventure to the first reboot. There are some weird omissions, though: nothing from the Five Years Later version (1989-94), nor anything but a cover from the "threeboot" (2004-09). That's a full fifth of Legion history not represented, and some key parts of it to boot. I've never read anything from either version, so just for my personal edification, it would have been nice to have.

Focusing on what is here, though, there's some good stuff. Of course, there's the first Legion story... which on reading it, I don't think I'd ever read the whole thing before, just synopses and excerpts. There's a lot of Silver Age goofiness here, of course, and though what I like about the Legion is nascent in that, I'm starting to realize that what I really like about the Legion doesn't really click until the Levitz/Giffen run, when the Legionnaires are finally written as real people, and not Silver Age assholes pranking each other. But I did enjoy seeing Saturn Girl, possibly my favorite Legionnaire, lay the smackdown on all the others in "The Stolen Super-Powers!"

It was also nice to see a number of historically important, oft-referenced stories, like the death and resurrection of Lightning Lad, or Superman's trip into the future of the future to meet the "Adult Legion" (Cosmic Boy's receding hairline is hilarious). The inclusion of "The Future Is Forever!" (which I already read in The Curse: The Deluxe Edition), on the other hand, is just dreadfully confusing out of context. To be fair, I'm not totally sure I got it in context; it seems to have been written for the hardcore Legion fan who's been there since Day One. A hard-hitting standalone like "The Day after Darkseid" seems like it would have been a better choice to represent the Levitz/Giffen era. On the other hand, to a parliamentarian like myself, getting to read the Legion charter is totally fascinating!

I also really enjoyed my peeks into the reboot Legion, who've I've previously encountered only in Legion of the Damned and the excellent Legion Lost. Here are three of their tales: their very first issue (which I really liked), a short story of the Legionnaires reflecting on Superman (it felt very Elliot S! Maggin to me), and a glimpse of the Legion's reunification after Legion Lost. These were all really solid comics that seem to make the Legion work for an audience of newbies and oldies alike; I look forward to reading more from this era someday.

So overall, a decent primer on Legion history, with only one "bad" inclusion. Swap out the overly-long "The Future Is Forever!" for a different Levitz/Giffen tale, a 5YL tale, and a threeboot tale, and this book would have been perfect.

Next Week: I begin a new project: one novel from every season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine!

Review: Legion Lost by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Olivier Coipel, & Pascal Alixe

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2011 (contents: 2000-01)
Acquired May 2012
Read August 2012

Legion Lost

Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Art: Olivier Coipel & Pascal Alixe
Inks: Andy Lanning
Colors: Tom McCraw

Despite how much I enjoyed the two Legion of Super-Heroes deluxe editions DC released over the past few years (The Great Darkness Saga and The Curse), Legion Lost largely flitted by without my notice-- until  I found the hardcover in a used bookstore for half-price.

Legion Lost technically stars a different version of the Legion than the one in The Great Darkness Saga and The Curse, but this is largely the same cast of characters, just thrust into a different situation, and it's pretty easy to go from the one to the other without being confused; everyone just has new, "hip" codenames, and there's no babies. Legion Lost opens with nine Legionnaires waking to find themselves trapped in a completely different part of the universe, with no apparent way home. And this isn't the bright, shiny world of the United Planets; it's a rough, dark corner of space, where might makes right. Basically, it's Star Trek: Voyager with superheroes.

Each chapter of Legion Lost is told from the perspective of a different character. The story starts with Shikari, a native of this region of space, stumbling across the Legion while fleeing her pursuers; her unfamiliarity with the Legion and familiarity with the locals adds to our disorientation, as she doesn't explain her reference point, and our own reference points have become alien. The best part of this chapter is definitely when Shikari finds a recording of Element Lad from who knows how long ago: he put the others into hibernation and lived alone until he died! It's a haunting message from the past, and lets you know how bad things are before the story even starts.

From there, we move from Legionnaire to Legionnaire. My favorites were definitely Monstress-- the one-time sheltered elite turned hulking brute by a gene bomb-- who operates as the heart of the team, and Saturn Girl-- the team's telepathic leader, who finds herself pushed to the limit keeping the team together under these circumstances. She does some terrible things, perhaps, but I loved her all the better for it. She might be my favorite Legionnaire overall.

The pushing to darker places works really well: Legion Lost shows what the Legion of Super-Heroes is by showing us what it isn't and what it could be. It's Star Trek: Voyager with superheroes, yes, but it's also Voyager done right. You never got the sense that Janeway and her crew were tested by their ideals like you do the Legion here, in the darkest of places.

The art, by the team of Olivier Coipel, Pascal Alixe, and Andy Lanning, is scratchy in a way that just reeks of the 1990s to me, but is also perfect for the story, really representing the dark places the team finds itself. Also the colors by Tom MacCraw really make the darkness come alive, even if the Legion itself is wearing fluorescent spandex.

I finished my review of The Curse stating I'd become a fan of that particular incarnation of the Legion of Super-Heroes; I think we can safely state that now I'm a fan of the Legion full-stop. Some more of the Abnett/Lanning Legion comics are being collected next year, and if they're half as good as this, they'll be fantastic.