The Clockwise War (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 44)

The Clockwise War: Collected Comic Strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Scott Gray, John Ross, Alan Barnes, Adrian Salmon, Charlie Adlard, et al.

Collection published: 2019
Contents originally published: 1994-2018
Acquired: December 2019
Read: December 2022

The twelfth Doctor's run comes to an end with this somewhat odd collection, which includes just one twelfth Doctor story as well as a number of outstanding uncollected color stories from various sources, basically everything color that was left except for a few strips that made their way into The Age of Chaos.

Anyway, for obvious reasons I didn't follow my usual principle of reading each collection in original publication order: it just wouldn't make sense to go from The Phantom Piper to a bunch of other stuff to The Clockwise War, when The Clockwise War picks up right from The Phantom Piper.

The Clockwise War, from Doctor Who Magazine #524-30 (May-Nov. 2018)
story by Scott Gray, art by John Ross, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

This story caps off the twelfth Doctor era with a story that pits the Doctor and Bill against erstwhile companion Fey, who's out for revenge against the Time Lords after suffering through the horrors of the Time War. I think there's a lot to like about this story but it didn't totally work for me. I like the return of Fey, I like the installment told from the perspective of the War Doctor, I like the reveal about Shayde, I like the return of Jodafra and the use of his death to prove the situation is serious, I like the stuff with Wonderland and especially Annabel Lake. John Ross probably turns in his best-ever DWM work here, it's propulsive and beautiful to look at. On the other hand, the black-and-white monsters are too similar to what we just saw in The Phantom Piper, and while it's nice to see some of the supporting characters from The Parliament of Fear return... I'm not actually sure why they're there! Ultimately I think it's at least partially a victim of the sudden page cut: there's little room to breathe, and just like in the last story, Bill feels a bit forgotten in the middle of it all. This is her last story, but she doesn't get the kind of moments or send-off that Rose, Donna, Amy, and Clara got in theirs. Lots of moments of love but I didn't love it altogether.

from Doctor Who Yearbook 1994

A Religious Experience, from Doctor Who Yearbook 1994
story by Tim Quinn, art by John Ridgway, letters by Janey Rutter, colours by Chrissie McCormack

In this first Doctor story, he and Ian watch a religious ritual on an alien planet. I didn't care for this at all: overly talky and nihilistic, I felt. Plus, John Ridgway's art usually doesn't benefit from being colored, especially coloring this crude.

Rest & Re-Creation / The Naked Flame, from Doctor Who Yearbooks 1994 & 1995
scripts by Warwick Gray, art by Charlie Adlard, colours by Helen Nally and Steve Whitaker, letters by Janey Rutter and Jane Smale

These are both fourth Doctor stories where he re-meets old monsters: the Zygons in the first and the Menoptera in the second. They're by a young pre-"Scott" Scott Gray, and I found both kind of boring and confusing.

Blood Invocation, from Doctor Who Yearbook 1995
story by Paul Cornell, art by John Ridgway, colour by Paul Vyse, letters by Jane Smale

The fifth Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa take on Time Lord vampires in this story that's almost but not quite a prequel to the Missing Adventure Goth Opera; in the extras, Paul Cornell explains that he doesn't know why they aren't consistent. I didn't find much to enjoy here; again, I think I'd be more into John Ridgway drawing vampires if it was all in black and white.

from Doctor Who Magazine #223

The Cybermen, from Doctor Who Magazine #215-38 & 504 (Aug. 1994–May 1996, Nov. 2016)
by Alan Barnes & Adrian Salmon, lettering by Peri Godbold

This was a series of one-page strips published in the magazine across about two years; even before reading the commentary it was obvious to me that it was based on the old Daleks strips: it focuses on the Cybermen on Mondas in the old days, encountering weird threats, where we're usually meant to identify with the monsters, not the people trying to stop them. Like those old strips, they're kinetic and weird and fascinating, and I kind of felt like reading them all in a row wasn't doing them justice. They're very visual stories, and I often didn't know what exactly had happened, and felt I ought to have spent the time working through the art of the (as always) brilliant Adrian Salmon, but instead I went on to the next. But still: where else can you get Cybermen battling dinosaurs, Cybermen with blimps, Cybermen battling Cthuluoid menaces. The use of stuff like the Silurians could be overly fannish, but Barnes and Salmon make it work; I don't know how this actually fits with previous Cybermen stories, not even The Tenth Planet, but I don't really care.

from Doctor Who Yearbook 1996

Star Beast II / Junk-Yard Demon II, from Doctor Who Yearbook 1996
stories by Gary Gillat and Alan Barnes, art by Martin Geraghty and Adrian Salmon, colours by Paul Vyse, letters by Elitta Fell and Peri Godbold

It would be easy to attack to self-consuming nature of DWM pre-TVM: the best it could come up was two sequels to Steve Parkhouse strips? But actually these were my favorites of the various yearbook stories collected here. Fun, straightforward stories with good artwork. Beep the Meep is always good fun, of course, and it's nice to see Fudge again. I don't know that Junk-Yard Demon demanded a sequel, but if it had to get one, this one is suitably grotesque.

from Doctor Who Magazine #526

Stray Observations:

• Branding this collection "Collected Multi-Doctor Comic Strips – Volume 2" is one of those things that's technically correct but seems a bit confusing. Far better to brand it as the fifth and final of the "Collected Twelfth Doctor Comic Strips," since that's the series it actually ties into.
  
• I liked the return of Jodafra, but on the other hand I didn't remember who Gol Clutha was at all even though she appeared much more recently, in Hunters of the Burning Stone and The Stockbridge Showdown!
• I know the name came from Moffat (it debuted in this comic, but Scott Gray e-mailed Moffat to find out if the character had a name), but I find "Kenossium" as a name for Ken Bones/T'Nia Miller's General character really really stupid.
• In the extras, Tim Quinn complains that editor John Freeman added a reference to the planet Quinnis from Inside the Spaceship to A Religious Experience. He seems to think the name "Quinnis" is intrinsically dumb-sounding but I'm not sure why.
  
• These are Charlie Adlard's only Doctor Who contributions, and he seems faintly bemused by the whole things in the notes. He also did a lot of Vertigo work in the 1990s, but most notably went on to be the penciller on 187 issues of The Walking Dead, making him the person in this volume with the biggest non–Doctor Who comics career.
  
• Star Beast II picks up from the end of The Star Beast; when Big Finish eventually did its own Beep the Meep story (2002's The Ratings War), it would actually pick up right from the end of Star Beast II, with Beep escaping Lassie.

This post is the forty-fourth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Death's Head: Clone Drive and Revolutionary War. 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
    

Chase by J. H. Williams III, Dan Curtis Johnson, et al.

Chase

Collection published: 2011
Contents originally published: 1998-2002
Acquired: February 2022
Read: March 2022

Plotter/Penciller: J. H. Williams III

Writers: Dan Curtis Johnson, Doug Moench
Inks: Mick Gray, John Beatty & Shawn C. Martinbrough
Artists: Kelley Jones, Bob Hall, Charlie Adlard, Eric Canete, Rick Burchett, Yanick Paquette, Eduardo Barreto & Greg Scott

Colors: Gregory White & Lee Loughridge

Of the four collections I'm reading before starting JSA, this one's connection is the most tangential. Indeed, as far as I know it doesn't connect forward to JSA at all; rather, it connects back to Infinity, Inc. But more on that later; first let me discuss the book on its own term.

Chase is about Cameron Chase, a former P.I., now an agent of the DEO, a federal agency with jurisdiction over matters relating to superheroes. It's easy to see that this comes out of the same cultural moment that also brought us Alias and, later, Manhunter. All three series focused on women who work in law enforcement (broadly defined), largely without superpowers (sort of), with an emphasis on what it is to be ordinary and powerless in a world of power. (Gotham Central is not too far off this, either.) Chase has a live-in boyfriend, a sister who loves superheros, and a sort-of ex-partner; we eventually learn that her father had a brief superhero career that ended in his death. She herself doesn't trust those with powers.

Williams and Johnson are pretty fond of the lots-of-text-next-to-silent-image technique, and it works well given the subject matter and focus of the series.
from Chase #1 (script by Dan Curtis Johnson, art by J. H. Williams III & Mick Gray)

It's a good storytelling engine, and gives us a set of engaging tales: Chase goes to Ohio to investigate a teenage boy with pyrokinesis; Chase goes to South America to escort the Suicide Squad; Chase is assigned to watch over a Teen Titans publicity event that goes horribly wrong when the Clock King attacks; Chase goes to Gotham to see if the DEO can figure out who Batman really is. J. H. Williams III is always a solid artist with great layouts but also good storytelling and character, and that definitely comes through here; he co-plots with scripter Dan Curtis Johnson as well. Other than the Suicide Squad story (I didn't buy that such a new agent would be assigned such a difficult task solo), these are good stories, with an interesting angle of superheroes and an interesting main character. My favorite was surely the one where she tries to figure out who Batman is, which had some good twists, and a neat use of Alan Scott; I also really liked the pyrokinetic one, which really captured the "ground-level" Alias vibe. (The series is never quite that downbeat again, though, which is probably for the best.)

I felt like this subplot didn't go much of anywhere in the end, for example.
from Chase #6 (plot & script by Dan Curtis Johnson, plot & pencils by J. H. Williams III, inks by Mick Gray)

Its main downfall is that it just didn't last long. There were just nine regular issues of Chase; three of these were flashbacks, so there were only six in the ongoing narrative, plus the prequel story in Batman #550. So you can very obviously tell that Williams and Johnson are gearing up a long run with lots of threads... and it just doesn't happen. If this had lasted twenty-eight issues like Alias did, it would be a classic, I suspect; as it is, it has to be one of those things people call "a cult favorite."

Pretty nice dress on a government salary.
from Chase #8 (co-plot & script by Dan Curtis Johnson, co-plot & pencils by J. H. Williams III, inks by Mick Gray)

This collection also chucks in Chase #1,000,000 (about the DEO in the 853rd century) and a number of small Chase appearances from various DC "Secret Files" issues. These are okay, but of course mostly focused on doing things like foreshadowing about Gorilla Grodd. Weirdly Chase is barely in DCU Villains Secret Files #1, which is included... and has a footnote telling us to see DCU Heroes Secret Files #1 for more Chase... which is not included!

Like, this is just not explained or clarified!
from DCU Villains Secret Files & Origins #1 (plot by D. Curtis Johnson & J. H. Williams III, script by D. Curtis Johnson, art by Eric Canete & Shawn Martinbrough)

Anyway, though I've long been curious about Chase, I picked it up now for one reason: Mister/Director Bones. In Manhunter, Bones was a director in the DEO, a mid-level bureaucrat addicted to cigarettes... and with transparent skin and muscles and a cyanide touch. Then, I read Infinity, Inc., where he was a young supervillain who eventually made good. How did he go from the one to the other? The answer was, ostensibly, in Chase. Chase is indeed the series where Bones first appears as DEO director, his first appearance in a decade since Infinity, Inc. #53. But it's actually not really addressed in Chase because he's mostly a background figure here, just appearing in four issues, none of which delve into who he is. (If you know, you know—there's some Infinc nods in his office—but nothing in the text would tell you he's a reformed supervillain.) It doesn't really get spelled out until JSA Secret Files #2, three years after the series was cancelled! So is there a comic out there that actually delves into this transition? I will have to keep searching...

Why did he stop speaking in rhyme, anyway?
from Chase #6 (plot & script by Dan Curtis Johnson, plot & pencils by J. H. Williams III, inks by Mick Gray)

This post is twenty-sixth in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Stargirl by Geoff Johns. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
6. Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
7. America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
8. Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
9. Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
10. Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]
11. Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
12. All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
13. Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
14. Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two (1977)
• Wonder Woman: Earth-Two (1977-78)
15. Secret Origins of the Golden Age (1986-89)
16. The Young All-Stars (1987-89)
17. Gladiator (1930) ["Man-God!" (1976)]
    
18. The Crimson Avenger: The Dark Cross Conspiracy (1981-88)
19. The Immortal Doctor Fate (1940-82)
20. Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice (1951-91)
21. Armageddon: Inferno (1992)
22. Justice Society of America vol. 2 (1992-93)
23. The Adventures of Alan Scott--Green Lantern (1992-93)
24. Damage (1994-96)
25. The Justice Society Returns! (1999-2001)
    

Review: The Walking Dead: Compendium Four by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, and Stefano Gaudiano

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2019 (contents: 2015-19)
Acquired October 2019
Read December 2019

The Walking Dead: Compendium Four

​

Creator, Writer: Robert Kirkman

Penciler, Inker: Charlie Adlard
Inker: Stefano Gaudiano
Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn
Letterer: Rus Wooton

Finally our long national nightmare is at an end. Finally no one has to read anymore Walking Dead comics.

I found this a volume of two halves. The first half was enlivened by the "Negan reforms" subplot, Negan being one of basically two characters I have ever given a shit about in this series.

But then Negan departs the series and it goes on to be more "Rick waffles about a thing." Rick's community discovers a massive society out in Ohio, but they are dystopian. I found a lot of this improbable. The first journey to the other society was very lengthy and protracted over weeks; by the end of the book, it felt like the characters were zipping back and forth in hours. (There's one bit where a group of characters comes to the rescue of another by coming a day later. Why would you decide one day after someone left to follow them in the case they needed help at the end of their weeks-long journey? And how come you couldn't get one group member to run a little faster and catch them up?) The new society has a rule that everyone automatically gets the same social status as they had before the zombie apocalypse... but like, why? And how would that be enforced? Why would everyone buy into it?

There's potential in finding a new group of survivors who did things differently than Rick and thus were more successful (usually they only find less successful groups), but as always Kirkman manages to strip the debate of all nuance by making the people with a different perspective slatheringly evil. And as always Rick seems like he's going to face a moral dilemma, but doesn't have to make an actual hard choice because events take it out of his hands.

The epilogue issue is dumb, too. Everyone venerates Rick, but I don't know why, because what useful thing did Rick ever actually do? In his final issue, Rick talks about how they can create a new society with potential to undue the mistakes of the old one... when we actually see the new society, it's just as shitty as ours. Well done, mate, you sure showed how good your values were.

Plus the revelation that the series's back cover blurb is an in-universe inscription on a statue of Rick is staggeringly stupid.

Anyway, I don't know why I staggered all the way to the end even though I never really liked this series except in short spurts, but it was always a quick read at least. You couldn't pay me to start watching the tv show, though.

Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman #617-20: Superfiction, Part 2

"Rather, Rinse, Repeat" / "Four on the Floor, Break Stuff" / "Prestidigitation Nation" / "Martyr Party People"

The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #617-20 (Aug.-Nov. 2003)

Writer: Joe Casey
Artists: Charlie Adlard and Derec Aucoin
Colors: Tanya & Rich Horie
Assoc. Editors: Tom Palmer jr and Lysa Hawkins
Editor: Eddie Berganza 

Now that Superman is an avowed pacifist (except when punching General Zod, I guess) Casey can't write a series of issues of where big bad guys punch their way into Metropolis, and Superman has to punch them back out again (not that he ever really did, anyway). So the last few issues of Casey's run on Adventures of Superman have to be more inventive in the kind of threats they pose, so that Superman can be more inventive in the kind of solutions he comes up with. (Good thing, I suppose, that Doomsday didn't pop by to menace the city during this phase.)

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #618 (art by Charlie Adlard)

This chunk of Superfiction consists of two two-issue stories. The first one (#617-18) is about two encyclopedia salespeople who come to Metropolis, hawking the Encyclopedia Universal. Their previous attempts to get people to buy it haven't gone well; we get a montage of flashbacks of them traveling around the world, talking to different leaders. Then, more flashbacks of them traveling even further afield, which poke fun at DC Comics itself: the Guardians on Oa ("What year is this...?" moans one), the ruling council of Thanagar ("Which reality is this...?"), and the Legion of Super-Heroes ("What is this? Some sort of delinquent youth center...?"). Their attempt to sell it to Perry White renders him comatose, so Superman tackles them, only to fall afoul of their nigh-omnipotent powers himself... and realize that they're a guise for his old foe Mxyzptlk.

Wait, what? I have no idea how Superman put that together. Like, okay, they've got lots of powers and like to be annoying... but surely if you're a superhero, that's the kind of person you meet on the regular? If there was some kind of other clue, I missed it completely.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #618 (art by Charlie Adlard)

The sibling salespeople fight back by removing Earth's gravity, so we get some high-concept sci-fi as Superman needs to figure out a way to hold the Earth together while he takes care of the villains; with the help of the Atom and the JLA, he places a miniature white dwarf star in the Earth's core! So that's cool.

But that's eighteen pages of the second issue; in the last three pages, he just buys a set of encyclopedias after all, Mxyzptlk makes a speech about how they're going to be more evil these days ("you'll know what we're capable of. [...] No more games. No more saying our name backwards to get rid of us. We're in the mood to be a real super-villain... and next time, we won't hit the reset button."), and then that's it, it's over. I mean, it's slightly clever action, but it's still one big action sequence, and one that's heavily dependent on made-up super-science. The first issue sets them up as fun villains with a weird plan, but once it's revealed that they're not really salespeople, just Mxyzptlk in disguise, it all kind of fizzles out.

It's fun enough, though, like I said. There's a sub-plot about a S.T.A.R. Labs spaceship in Earth orbit; it's staffed by people who Charlie Adlard draws with uniforms like the Imperial Navy's in Star Wars for some reason. (In a brief aside in #617, they help Superman defeat "the ghost of a dead parallel Earth [...] invad[ing] our galaxy!") There's also a bit in #618 where it's finally explained where the Persuader got his powers from in #610:

DOLORIS: I know! Let's do a ret-con!
DALE: Oh, excellent! [...] What should we do...? So many inconsistencies to choose from...! [...] Does the name "Cole Parker" ring a bell? He was a social anarchist who attacked the Daily Planet and got thrown into Stryker's Island... while he was inside, he hooked up with a mysterious stranger who used his powers to transform Parker into the Persuader. Who was that mysterious stranger...?
DOLORIS: Don't tell me, he was us...?
DALE: He is now. Kinda wraps thing up neat and tidy, eh?

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #620
(art by Derec Aucoin)

I admire the sheer brazenness of it. One imagines Casey had plans for the mysterious stranger, but decided to never follow them up, and tied off the dangling thread with the most lampshaded of retcons!

The other two issues are about a new candidate for president, set to oppose Luthor in the upcoming election. He's known only as "the Candidate," his campaign promises are vague: "We can achieve." Later he says, "America is ready for change! Well, guess what, America...? I am change!" Reading in 2019, it's impossible not to see something of Obama's 2008 "hope and change" in him and some of Trump's 2016 populist rhetoric as well. Coastal elite Lois Lane sniffs about how people tailgate at the Candidate's rallies. The Candidate-- like Obama and Trump after him-- shows disdain for the press, preferring to speak directly to the people. He's the big hero who will single-handedly save America. But of course, Casey was just extrapolating from what was already happening in 2003: "Show biz politics. Perfect for modern voters. They don't have to think..."

The Candidate won't give interviews; when Lois and Clark bicker over who should get the assignment to obtain one, Perry White gives it to both of them: "You two engage in the strangest foreplay..." What follows is pretty fun, as the two compete; Clark promises no superpowers, but is hampered by his need to keep flying over the world taking care of random crises. Lois, in the meanwhile, dons a catsuit to do some infiltration. Previously in Casey's run, the status quo of Lois and Clark has been in flux. Not because of his writing, but because of what was happening in the other titles: for a while they were separated as Lois traveled the world; later, Clark was suspended from the Daily Planet. But here they are, together, and both reporters, and it's great stuff, showing their competitive streak, and their love for each other. Derec Aucoin is great at this stuff by now; their love comes through even in their body language.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #619
(art by Derec Aucoin)

While Superman is distracted by a "cannibal planet" that eats the sun's heat, dooming the Earth, an alien assassin attacks the Candidate, only for Lois to intervene and save him. The Candidate is not pleased: "...martyrdom is the final act of political legend, social action through social trauma... The object of government is to prey on the ignorance of the masses... They want it simple...heroes who will die for them...and now it's all gone...who'd vote for me now...?" It's a weird ending to a weird issue, almost an anticlimax, but I enjoyed it anyway.

I think there must have been some kind of directive from editorial that even if Superman was a pacifist, there had to be some big action anyway, because every issue here has a big sequence, even if it's not plot-related. #617 has the dead parallel Earth, like I said; #618 the dwarf star business; #619 has a few panels where we see Superman in Cairo defeating Osiris, god of the dead, because "Superman is the personification of life"; and in #620, there's Superman's big fight with the cannibal planet (though we eventually learn the alien bounty hunter brought it in as a distraction!). These are usually careful to maintain Superman's pacifism, so he's never punching these enemies to death, but I guess you can't sell a Superman comic where people just talk it out.

I would like to see Casey try to write one, though.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Review: The Children's Crusade by Neil Gaiman et al.

Last year, I read DC's long-time-coming collection of the 1990s Vertigo crossover The Children's Crusade. At the time, I remarked that it actually made me more likely to want to pick up the original issues, not less, as the collection replaced the middle five of the seven issues with newly written content, to provide a smoother reading experience. So what was the original like, if it seemingly necessitated such a reworking?

The answer is that it's actually not that bad. I mean, these stories don't cohere tremendously, or seem to have much of a point, but I'd argue that's no different from many of DC's 1990s annual crossovers, like Eclipso: The Darkness Within, Armageddon 2001, or Bloodlines. Though, I suppose DC hasn't collected any of those, so maybe that tells us something. In my comments here I'll focus on the issues not collected in Free Country collection, as I covered the bookends pretty well in my original review.

In the first bookend, The Children's Crusade #1, we learn that children are disappearing, spirited away to a mysterious realm known as Free Country, and that five special children are being targeted next: the children principal characters in five Vertigo ongoings of the early 1990s (Suzy from Black Orchid, Maxine from Animal Man, Tefé from Swamp Thing, Dorothy from Doom Patrol, and Tim from The Books of Magic). Edwin and Charles, the dead boy detectives, set out to find and protect these five children. You might expect that these stories would be pretty formulaic, with an agent of Free Country coming and taking each character in turn, but they're actually reasonably distinct from each other.

The Black Orchid story, for example, inserts an agent of Free Country into the history of the series, showing that the mini-Black Orchid known as Suzy has actually met Junkin Buckley repeatedly before, and that he was responsible for some of her decisions in earlier issues (unbeknownst to the readers at the time). Then he returns for Suzy one last time, recruiting her to Free Country. On the other hand, the Animal Man story is mostly part of the ongoing events of that series (somewhat confusingly; there are lots of characters who are never clearly introduced to the new reader), but at the very end, when Maxine ends up in a tight spot, Jack Rabbit convinces her to escape with him to Free Country. (And to leave a clone of herself behind, an occurrence that would be expanded upon in The Children's Crusade #2. I don't know if this ended up playing into the events of the Animal Man ongoing.)

At this point, I figured each annual would end with a child recruited into Free Country, ready to play their part in the big crossover, so I was surprised when in the Swamp Thing tale, Tefé goes to Free Country on page 8, and most of the issue (they're all about 58 pages long) concerns her adventures in Free Country with Maxine, and ends with her leaving Free Country, clearing up a point that confused me in the Free Country collection. The way Free Country is depicted here doesn't really line up with what we see in the bookends, but then again, much of it seems to be an illusion created for the benefit of Tefé and Maxine.

The Doom Patrol story is a lot like the Swamp Thing one, showing both Dorothy's recruitment and the events that drive her back home, only of all of these, this one made the least sense to someone not reading the relevant ongoing. Like, why does Dorothy normally hang out with feral children who live in the woods?

Finally, the Books of Magic story shakes things up again, but in a way that's baffling: it has two parallel stories, one about Tim being kidnapped into a mystery realm by a mystery assassin, none of which is ever explained, and one about the Free Country agent sent to recruit him wandering London, which was actually pretty cute. I guess maybe the kidnap plot is a set-up for something that happens in Tim's ongoing series? But I don't even get how he escapes, he just does.

In my review of the collected edition, I complained that in the middle chapter, the dead boy detectives just pointlessly turn up too late to help Maxine and that's about it, but in the original it's actually worse. Their quest having been set up in the first bookend, they don't even appear in the first two middle chapters-- then in the third, they claim they got to both recruitments a moment too late even though we never saw them. It's a little goofy, and of course they fail to accomplish anything in the chapters in which they do appear-- but such, I suppose, is the very nature of the crossover, whose design requires they can't make it to Free Country until the final issue. Amusingly, we see Tim travel into Free Country in both the Books of Magic issue and in The Children's Crusade #2, and the dead boy detectives are shown to be there in the second instance, when they clearly weren't in the first!

The final part isn't really rendered any more enjoyable by reading the middle issues. Some parts of it make more sense because we've seen them dramatized, but other ones make less sense, because the collection fleshed them out. It's still kind of a disappointment, because the dead boy detectives are set up as the main characters, yet Tim Hunter saves the day-- and it's still a disappointment even if you focus on Tim because he doesn't actually do anything, he saves it by accident! Still, Gaiman and his co-writers on the final issue provide some good jokes at least. Actually, they're probably the best part.

So, overall, this is a weird story, and not one I can particularly recommend-- you probably really are better off reading the Free Country collection with its new middle chapter. The original issues are much more part of their ongoing series than they are parts of The Children's Crusade, as they almost all read just fine without the bookends, but not vice versa.

The Children's Crusade originally appeared in The Children's Crusade #1-2, Black Orchid Annual #1, Animal Man Annual vol. 1 #1, Swamp Thing Annual vol. 2 #7, Doom Patrol Annual #2, and Arcana: The Books of Magic Annual #1 (Dec. 1993–Jan. 1994). The story was written by Neil Gaiman, Dick Foreman, Jamie Delano, Nancy A. Collins, Rachel Pollack, John Ney Rieber, and Alisa Kwitney. It was illustrated by Chris Bachalo, Mike Barreiro, Gary Amaro, Jason Minor, Charlie Adlard, Phillip Hester, Bruce McCorkindale, Russell Braun, Tom Sutton, Rafael Kayanan, Mark Buckingham, Dennis Cramer, Kim DeMulder, Mark Wheatley, Peter Gross, and Peter Snejbjerg. Colors were provided by Daniel Vozzo, George Freeman, Tatjana Wood, and Suart Chaifetz, and the issues were lettered by John Costanza, Clem Robins, Tim Harkins, John Workman, and Richard Starkings. The crossover was edited by Stuart Moore, Tom Peyer, and Tom Stathis.

Review: The Walking Dead: Compendium Three by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, and Stefano Gaudiano

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2012-15) 
Acquired October 2015
Read February 2016

The Walking Dead: Compendium Three

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Creator, Writer: Robert Kirkman

Penciler, Inker: Charlie Adlard
Inker: Stefano Gaudiano
Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn
Letterer: Rus Wooton

I have sort of a hate-love relationship with The Walking Dead. I don't know if it's Stockholm Syndrome, but I found this volume pretty enjoyable. Basically, my main problem with it at this point is all the boring characters. Like, huge swathes of the cast are interchangeable nobodies that I can't muster enough enthusiasm about to even tell them apart from one another. But Robert Kirkman must realize this himself, because Compendium Three sees a bunch of them get killed, and other just fade out of the narrative, leaving mostly the interesting and distinctive characters, as well as adding some good ones.

This is the guy who's having the most fun in the postapocalypse.
from The Walking Dead #108 (art by Charlie Adlard)

Basically, my favorites were introduced in this volume. The first is Ezekiel, ruler of a community called "The Kingdom," a guy who has set himself up as a king and has a pet tiger and knights who ride around on horses. He adds a splash of color to this usually subdued and grim series, and it is amazing every second of it. Kirkman backs off on this as the volume goes, though, unfortunately, and Ezekiel becomes more "normal." Second there's Negan. Now, Negan might be an awful person (he totally is), but he's hugely entertaining because he's entertained. He seems to treat this whole postapocalyptic survival thing as a personal lark, and he finds everything funny, and I found that funny. The Governor irked me to no end, but Negan is amazing. Mostly I think it's the cursing.

The cursing, and that I love villains who are the smartest guy in the room.
from The Walking Dead #114 (art by Charlie Adlard)

Do you know who's not amazing? Rick Grimes. There's a part of this book where everyone's like, "Rick Grimes will save us!" and I like, "Why would you think that?" Whenever Rick has a plan, it's a terrible plan. Yet he's the leader, I guess because everyone knows he's the main character. I can't decide if this is Kirkman's commentary on a certain type of straight white cismale, or if Kirkman's just bad at writing Rick as a good leader.

Like, why is anyone surprised by this? Has Rick Grimes ever known what to do? Has he ever had a good plan?
from The Walking Dead #98 (art by Charlie Adlard)

The story seems to be shifting, from one of sheer survival to one about rebuilding, though the ending promises some wrinkles in that. This has potential, though so far, it's pretty un-nuanced: whenever someone disagrees with Rick or Maggie's decisions, Kirkman writes them as sniveling, evil idiots. It'd be nice to see how the new society emerging here handles disagreements between reasonable people.

Review: The Walking Dead: Compendium Two

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2012 (contents: 2008-12)
Acquired August 2013
Read September 2013

The Walking Dead: Compendium Two

Creator, Writer: Robert Kirkman
Penciler, Inker: Charlie Adlard
Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn
Letterer: Rus Wooton

So help me, I think I'm actually coming to like The Walking Dead. Not that I like Rick Grimes-- well, actually I don't mind Rick as a character, I just don't get why all the characters think he should be the "leader" because he is demonstrably, factually bad at it. C'mon, Rick, whine a little bit more about how tough it is being the patriarch. I'm starting to realize this book is about Rick's, and even moreso Carl's, descent into complete and utter monstrousness. And I'm okay with that.

But when the survivors get into that D.C.-area gated community, the book suddenly becomes a very interesting examination of how you enforce societal rule. How do you make someone stop from beating his wife after the apocalypse? There's not always easy answers, though I feel like the book often pull back from that point, with people being killed off when it makes the writing a little more convenient and less problematic. But when it goes there, when Rick holds a gun to another man's head, it's gold.

If I was writing this, I'd end it with them settling down here, and if I was smart, I'd quit reading it now. But I'm neither, so I'll be there for Compendium Three in 2016.

Review: The Walking Dead: Compendium One

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2010 (contents: 2003-08)
Acquired January 2012
Read March 2013

The Walking Dead: Compendium One

Creator, Writer, Letterer: Robert Kirkman
Penciler, Inker, Gray Tones: Tony Moore
Penciler, Inker: Charlie Adlard
Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn
Letterer: Rus Wooton

What I really want is for The Walking Dead to come to an end, but that's the one thing I can never do. The forty-eighth issues collected here are relentless, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. Characters are killed off, maimed, tortured, &c. in a way that's rare in serial fiction-- but you soon learn not to get to close to any of the characters as a result. (Except for poor, perpetually subjugated and neglected Carol. She was my favorite.) Luckily(?), there's an eternal flood of new characters to come in as old ones depart, so that there's always someone that Rick Grimes can feel bad about when they're killed.

But this means it will all never end. What I want is for the characters to successfully build a new civilization and fly off into the sunset, utopia in their wake. But The Walking Dead is very specifically design to stop that from happening: it's about the impossibility of human kindness in these circumstances. Or perhaps, all circumstances. No matter what you do, someone else will come along and screw it up. For the series to end, positively or negatively, would be dishonest, so it must continue to lurch forward from contrived plot to contrived plot, aimless like the zombies that litter its pages. And like the main characters often do, I feel like I should end it all because nothing worthwhile is ever going to happen... yet I'll continue to slog through until the bitter end, because knowing is better than not knowing, even when there's nothing good to know.