Young Avengers Omnibus by Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, et al., Part One

For Christmas, my wife got me the two Loki Modern Era Epic Collections from Marvel, which collect Kieron Gillen's acclaimed run on Journey into Mystery. I already owned Gillen's Thor run, so I was going to read those three collections, and then go from them into Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's Young Avengers run, where Loki appears as well; I've had the omnibus of it since it came out in 2015, but never gotten around to it. 

But I didn't want to read the second Young Avengers without doing the first; I borrowed part of that from the library way back when and enjoyed it a lot, and have always intended to pick up a complete collection of it. And if I was going to read both Young Avenger runs, which feature the Kate Bishop Hawkeye, surely this was the time to read both the Matt Fraction/David Aja and Kelly Thompson/Leonardo Romero runs on Hawkeye, both of which I've long been interested in!

So what soon emerged was one of my characteristically long and complicated comics reading projects, which will take in stories featuring the Young Avengers, Loki, and Hawkeye from Young Avengers vol. 1 (2005-06) to Hawkeye: Kate Bishop (2022), with fourteen stops along the way. The first of those is the first half of the omnibus of the original Allan Heinberg/Jim Cheung Young Avengers run:

Young Avengers by Heinberg & Cheung

stories from Young Avengers vol. 1 #1-12, Young Avengers Special #1, and Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #1-4

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 2005-06
Acquired: June 2025
Read: July 2025

Writers: Allan Heinberg, Zeb Wells

Pencilers: Jim Cheung, Andrea Di Vito, Michael Gaydos, Gene Ha, Jae Lee, Bill Sienkiewicz, Pasqual Ferry, Stefano Caselli

Inkers: John Dell with Drew Geraci and Dave Meikis, Drew Hennessy, Andrea Di Vito, Michael Gaydos, Gene Ha, Jae Lee, Bill Sienkiewicz, Pasqual Ferry, Jim Cheung, Rob Stull & Dexter Vines, Jay Leisten, Matt Ryan, Jaime Mendoza, Livesay, Mark Morales, Stefano Caselli

Colorists: Justin Ponsor, José Vilarrubia, Art Lyon, June Chung, Dave McCaig, Daniele Rudoni

Letterer: Cory Petit

The first thirteen issues here are the original twelve-issue run of Young Avengers plus the Young Avengers Special, which are entirely written by Allan Heinberg and mostly illustrated by Jim Cheung (he pencils everything but #7-8 and the special). I think it's a masterclass in how to set up a bunch of a new characters in a preexisting universe and instantly get the reader to actually care about them. The opening six-issue story is about the Avengers (who have been disbanded at this point in time) discovering the teenagers the press has dubbed the "Young Avengers" are running around and deciding to stop them; specifically, the story focuses on Captain America, Iron Man, and Jessica Jones. We discover the mystery of the Young Avengers along with them, as they uncover who these characters are—Patriot, Iron Lad, Hulkling, and Asgardian (later "Wiccan")—and then as two more end up joining the team—Hawkeye and Stature. 

As "Young Avengers," I think Heinberg and Cheung were particularly clever about their backstories because mostly, they are not obviously linked to whom they seem to be linked. Hulkling isn't a mini-Hulk but a shapeshifter (we find out in a later story arc that he's half-Skrull); Wiccan isn't actually an Asgardian but a sorcerer; Iron Lad looks like Iron Man but is actually using the futuristic technology of Kang the Conquerer. At first it seems like only Patriot is who he seems to be, the grandson of Isiah Bradley, the original, black Captain America, but we even eventually discover that his powers don't have anything to do with his grandfather. (When I first read this story, by the way, I had never read Truth: Red, White & Black, so rereading having done so gave me a lot of helpful context. There's even a brief mention of Josiah X from The Crew, who is Patriot's uncle.)

Not pictured: the Crew callback. You can't say Allan Heinberg doesn't love his Marvel universe, but I really appreciate that he loves all of it, not just the stuff he would have read as a kid.
from Young Avengers vol. 1 #3 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & John Dell)

But the characters aren't just successful in continuity terms—otherwise I don't think Young Avengers would have become the long-lasting series it is. Rather, every one of them leaps off the page as people with personalities. Patriot's earnestness but also lack of self-confidence, Iron Lad's determination not to fulfill his destiny, Hawkeye's playfulness and authority, Stature's lack of confidence, and so on. I basically loved all the characters right away, though I particularly liked Hawkeye, Stature, and Patriot. Patriot (Eli Bradley) I've discussed already, but I do like his determination to overcome his own powerlessness (even if I am a bit skeptical to the decision to make the one black character the one who is using drugs!) and do the right thing. 

Kate Bishop as Hawkeye is fun right from the off: powerless like Patriot, but unlike him, confident in her abilities, taking down bad guys in the middle of her sister's wedding while wearing a bridesmaid's outfit and deciding to become a superhero right there on the spur of the moment. You can see why she became a breakout success.

I like that it's the two team members who joined late to keep the team going after Iron Lad "quits"; it's a nice touch.
from Young Avengers vol. 1 #6 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & John Dell, with Dave Meikis & Jay Leisten)

I also really like Cassie Lang as Stature. She's the daughter of Ant-Man, and she aspires to heroism, but has spent her childhood largely isolated from her (dead) father, with a mother who wants her away from that life, and a cop stepfather who still sees her dad as the criminal he used to be. Like her father, she can control her size, shrinking and growing; it's the kind of on-the-nose metaphor that works so perfectly in superhero comics, that makes them what they are: this girl who feels like she's nothing can literally become nothing, but can also finally make herself seen.

I like Iron Lad a lot, which makes it a shame that the very nature of the character basically makes it impossible to use him in any stories other than his first one.
from Young Avengers vol. 1 #5 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & John Dell)

This first six issues are a single story, "Sidekicks," about the Young Avengers coming together and trying to avert Iron Lad's future as Kang the Conqueror. It's a great story, about what we have to do to avoid becoming who we're afraid we might be, and how sometimes we have to take steps we thought we never could. Cheung is a great artist, able to do action and character. I'm surprised he hasn't done more big stories than this, he seems like he ought to be one of the greats. (Maybe I'm wrong and he has.) Justin Ponsor also does great stuff on colors, manipulating tone and atmosphere effectively—the story is bright when it needs to be, gloomy when it needs to be, and he brings out the facial details really well.

The weak part in the first twelve issues is thus, not surprisingly, the second story illustrated by Andrea Di Vito, "Secret Identities": he just doesn't have Cheung's command of character in a story that really needs it. Other than that, the story is fine; this is where we learn that Patriot didn't really inherit anything from his grandfather, but rather is using "mutant growth hormone" to give himself powers. But he also learns that he can be strong without it.

I miss Jessica Jones. Maybe I should have added my unread Alias Omnibus to this project? ...no, cut it out!
from Young Avengers Special #1 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Michael Gaydos)

After this is the Young Avengers Special, where Jessica Jones interviews all the Young Avengers; we get a frame story illustrated by Jessica's co-creator, Michael Gaydos, and then short flashback tales for each of the Young Avengers by a variety of artists, including greats like Gene Ha and Bill Sienkiewicz. They're small but strong moments, deepening our understanding of these great characters.

Then comes the final story of volume 1, "Family Matters," where the Super-Skrull comes looking for Hulkling... because it turns out that Hulkling (Teddy Altman) is half-Skrull, half-Kree, and the rightful emperor of the Skrulls! It's a good set-up for a story, but I found the death of Teddy's mother an overly gratuitous moment that seems ultimately self-defeating: surely there was good drama to be mined from the revelations here, and surely this is a kind of trauma the series ultimately won't be able to cope with; it'll just be downplayed unrealistically. Dude saw his mother burnt to death right in front of him!

Surprisingly optimistic takeaway for a kid whose mother was just brutally murdered hours earlier. He's weirdly chummy with the Super-Skrull!
from Young Avengers vol. 1 #11 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & John Dell, with Jay Leisten, Jamie Mendoza, & Livesay)

This is also the story that introduces "Speed," Tommy Shepherd, who is apparently the twin brother of Wiccan (Billy Kaplan) despite different parents—both the lost souls of the children of Scarlet Witch and Vision from some storyline I've never read. As I've indicated, the series is deeply embedded in the mythos of the Marvel universe all long, but this is probably the point where it got a bit too complicated for me; there's a lot to keep up with. I wasn't too sure about Speed as a person, either; a bit too nasty for what I like in a superhero comic. He feels like a Geoff Johns creation, and that's not a compliment. 

If there is a flaw in the opening twelve issues, it's that—as you can tell from my summaries—that they're all bound up in the mythologies of the characters themselves. The stories are about Iron Lad's history, Patriot's history, Hulking's history, and clearly building toward something about Wiccan and Speed's history. This is all fine in isolation, but it stops Young Avengers from feeling like it has an ongoing premise. What are these characters trying to do when they're not dealing with their own backstories? What good are they accomplishing in the world? That's what I like to see in my superhero comics, and it's not here. This feels more like a movie, not a premise for an ongoing comic book. As John Seavey says, good superhero concepts should be "storytelling engines," but the Young Avengers don't have one yet... even if I think they could.

Oddly, then, it's up to a totally different creative team to try to come up with one. The last story I read was the Young Avengers tie-in to the Civil War event, which was a crossover with Runaways. This is written by Zeb Wells and illustrated by Stefano Caselli. Civil War was about an attempt by the government to create a superhero registry; some superheroes were opposed (led by Captain America), some on board (led by Iron Man). The Young Avengers are opposed, but Cap won't let them get into action because they're still young and untrained. The government is rounding up unregistered superheroes, and when the Young Avengers hear that the "Runaways" have been targeted, they spring into action.

I haven't read Runaways, but the basic premise is explained here: they're kids that discovered their parents were members of a supervillain group called "the Pride" and, well, ran away. They don't want to be heroes or villains, they just want to be left alone. Unfortunately, the events of Civil War means they can't be. Of course, when they first meet the Young Avengers, there's friction, but the two groups soon learn to work together to escape the threat of a government that's gone too far. There are some interesting connections between the groups; for example, the Runaways have their own Super-Skrull who is at first excited and then disappointed to learn that Hulkling is his prince, but refuses to embrace his destiny.

Whoops.
from Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #3 (script by Zeb Wells, art by Stefano Caselli)

As an introduction to an ongoing storytelling engine for the Young Avengers, Wells does a good job. Here they are not dealing with their own backstories, but they are earnest, inexperienced do-gooders, eager to help, especially help people they think are like themselves. As they learn, they are different from the Runaways; the Runaways don't want to help others, they just want to stay out of trouble. As the first person to write the Young Avengers other than Heinberg, he has a good handle on their characters. They're not really taken further here, but they all get good moments and feel true to themselves. I was surprised to particularly like how he writes Speed, who has a charming big-brother relationship with Molly, the youngest of the Runaways.

Just two juvenile delinquents having fun together.
from Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #3 (script by Zeb Wells, art by Stefano Caselli)

Unfortunately, I didn't care for the art of Stefano Caselli; I don't know if I could quite explain why, but it has a vibe I associate with mid-2000s DeviantArt that is just not my style, and it leans into the grotesque a lot. Probably the dark, murky coloring from Danille Rudoni doesn't help; it's often hard to see what's actually happening.

Still, I had kind of expected the first non-Heinberg/Cheung Young Avengers tale to be bad, and this isn't bad at all. Indeed, it made me think I should have included Runaways to this series of posts... but no, it's long enough, and I don't want to move backwards anyway. It looks like Marvel did a four-volume "Complete Collection" series of trade paperbacks; this story is collected in volume three. Someday I'll go back and read the previous fortysomething issues so I can get the full context... but not today, I have enough going on right now!

This is the first in a series of posts about the Young Avengers, Loki, and Hawkeye. The next installment covers Young Avengers Presents.

Hugos 2024: Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, and Nicola Scott

Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons

Collection published: 2023
Contents originally published: 2022-23
Acquired and read: April 2024

Writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick

Artists: Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, Nicola Scott

Colorists: Arif Prianto, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Wesley Wong, Annette Kwok

Letterer: Clayton Cowles

This is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story—my first, and indeed, my first Hugo finalist this year full stop. (I usually start with a Best Novel finalist, but none made it into my first batch of arrivals.)

It's branded as a Wonder Woman comic, but Wonder Woman does not appear here. It goes back to the origins of the Amazons, exploring how the tribe of warrior women that ultimately gave birth to Wonder Woman came into existence. Skimming a timeline of DC history, I can see this ties together and dramatizes some preexisting material, but it totally stands on its own, and doesn't feel like a continuity patch or origin story. Indeed, the greatest thing you can say about it (and I speak this as someone who reads a lot of tie-in and franchise fiction) is that it transcends its origins as a tie-in comic. I would feel comfortable handing this to someone who doesn't enjoy superhero comics but does like graphic novels and wants to read a bold, dynamic take on Greek mythology, because that's what this is. It's not a rewriting of George Pérez (or whomever), it's a new myth designed to take its place among old ones.

The story starts with the Greek goddesses, who reach their breaking point with the ways men treat women, but find the gods unwilling to do anything about it, and so take things into their own hands. It then follows the doings of the gods, especially Hera, who refuses to overtly move against her husband's will, in parallel with the rise of the Amazon tribes, and a would-be human midwife who ends up encountering the Amazons as they travel across the world slaughtering men who hurt women, and then into a war where the gods attempt to eliminate the Amazons. It's an epic story, but the presence of Hippolyta, the midwife, keeps it grounded; I enjoyed her trajectory very much.

More importantly, though, writer Kelly Sue DeConnick has three top-notch artistic collaborators here. Phil Jimenez's work I honestly don't know that well (aside from event comics like Infinite Crisis and Dark Cybertron, which rarely showcase an artist at their best), but he had a well-regarded run as a writer and artist on Wonder Woman; here, he turns in some brilliant and beautiful two-page spreads, one of jars(!), but in particular, a few depicting Hippolyta's desperate pursuit of a lost infant. Gorgeous, heartbreaking stuff. Gene Ha I've liked since his Top Ten days, but this is probably career best work for him, his attention to character really capturing the struggle and emotions of Hippolyta as she seeks to become an Amazon. And Nicola Scott I've thought a solid artist since her debut on Birds of Prey; here, she knocks it out of the park with the war between the Amazons and the gods. For all three artists, the art is beautifully colored, and the deluxe hardcover collection really shows it off to its utmost; I don't always buy Hugo finalists outside of the category of Best Novel, but I am so glad I'm not reading this comic on my Kindle Fire.

If I had a complaint, it would be that I found the parameters of Hippolyta's key choice in the last issue kind of confusing and rushed, but I'm sure on a reread (this is a tough book to read, but not in a bad way; sometimes it's just nice to read a comic that makes you work a little harder than normal) it would hold up fine. The backmatter tease two more sets of three chapters, but even if we don't get a trilogy of trilogies for Wonder Woman Historia, this will hold up as a tremendous work about what men do to women, and what women do to get away from it.

Review: Top 10: Season Two by Zander Cannon, Gene Ha, et al.

After reading all the collected editions of Top 10, the Alan Moore-created superhero cop drama, I sought out the one uncollected Top 10 story, Season Two, which reunites the original Top 10 artistic team of Zander Cannon and Gene Ha, with Cannon taking over for Alan Moore as writer. (I also tracked down the other uncollected Top 10 stories, in America's Best Comics 64 Page Giant #1 and the confusingly titled ABC A-Z: Top 10 and Teams #1, but neither of those was interesting enough to write about.)

Before reading it, I was a little surprised by the title "Season Two," which seemed like a disavowal of the Top 10 follow-up by Paul Di Fillipo and Jerry Ordway, Beyond the Farthest Precinct, as if they were saying the Alan Moore run was "season one" and now there was this, nothing else. However, once I started reading it, I realized that the title is actual a signal of its chronological placement-- Beyond the Farthest Precinct took place five years after the original run, whereas this starts right after it, simultaneous to the events chronicled in Smax. (Which is somewhat a weak point, because Toybox was very much the heart of Top 10, and Jeff Smax one of its funner characters, and they're both off in a fantasy world.)

Season Two seems promising at first. Cannon is a better writer of these characters than Ordway was, weaving together some fun superhero concepts into a crime framework; I really liked the idea of a dealer who's not selling kids drug, but magic words along the lines of "Shazam!" This subplot was complete with a burnt out magic user trying to go straight by informing the cops, but he keeps backsliding. Another character's husband has been assuming a new superhero identity on the side-- she cries that he's not the man she married, and ends up enrolling him in a seminar to get in touch with his real alter ego. Meanwhile, a new commissioner has been installed, and he's not very happy with what he sees at Top 10. Plus he's making them all wear uniforms!

Also: Girl One, the bio-engineered cop who died in the original run, is replaced by Girl Two. I was curious where this was going to go, because in Beyond the Farthest Precinct, a new "Girl 54" was introduced, which everyone was weirdly blasé about, one of the major defects of that series. Was Cannon overwriting that, or laying the groundwork to explain it better? It's one of many things we'll never know because the story of Top 10 isn't complete, it just suddenly stops at the end of issue #4.

It is followed by Season Two Special #1, which I had thought would wrap everything up (even if abruptly), but was actually a standalone done-in-one Top 10 story tying into the events of Season Two. Confusingly, Girl Two is no longer a cop in it, but a public defender, and she's dating one of the members of the force, Pete, something the main series was moving towards. The issue begins with a "TWO WEEKS FROM NOW" caption that must refer to the special's placement with respect to the rest of Season Two; I guess these changes were where Cannon's story was headed. This story's okay-- I do like Girl Two, though the conspiracy she unravels was a bit abstruse for me.

It's all a bit disappointing. I mean, I'm sure there were good sales-related reasons for the cancellation, but to not even get through a whole limited series is kind of pathetic. Moore's original Top 10 seemed like the kind of thing that could run and run; for it to just get twelve issues, a prequel, a disappointing sequel, and a cancelled sequel is sad. Still, it was nice while it lasted. Gene Ha is always good value for money as an artist, and Daxiong shows promise with his art on the special, too. Top 10 had a great, inventive premise-- colliding the anarchic genre of the superhero with the regimented one of the police procedural-- and it's a shame that more couldn't have been done with it. If you really liked Top 10, this is worth seeking out, but be forewarned that you'll get exactly no closure on everything set up within it.

Top 10: Season Two originally appeared in Top 10: Season Two #1-4 (Dec. 2008–Mar. 2009) and Top 10: Season Two Special #1 (May 2009). The story was scripted and laid out by Zander Cannon with Kevin Cannon; penciled and inked by Gene Ha (#1-4) and Daxiong (Special #1); colored by Alex Sinclair (#1-4) and Tony Avina (#3); lettered by Todd Klein (#1-4) and Rob Leigh (Special #1); and edited by Scott Dunbier (#1-4), Scott Peterson (#1-4/Special #1), and Kristy Quinn (Special #1).

Review: Top 10: The Forty-Niners by Alan Moore and Gene Ha

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2005
Acquired and read September 2016

Top 10: The Forty-Niners

Writer: Alan Moore

Artist: Gene Ha
Colorist: Art Lyon
Lettering, Logos and Design: Todd Klein

Alan Moore and Gene Ha return to Top 10 to fill in some of the backstory of Neopolis. Following World War II, the United States confines its "science heroes" to the city of Neopolis. Heroes accustomed to ruling the battlefield during the war, like Steve "Jetlad" Traynor and Leni "Sky Witch" Muller, must adjust to life as civilians, and figure out a use for their powers outside of a military setting.

It's a book about finding your purpose in peace. Steve and Leni find theirs, but many of their fellow veterans can't manage it. Leni joins the Neopolis Police Department; Steve becomes a mechanic for the Skysharks, an aerial squadron. Though, since he's the captain of the Neopolis P.D. by the time of the present-day Top 10 stories, we know he must join up eventually. The original run of Top 10 revealed at its very end that Steve was gay (which he seemingly kept on the downlow from his fellow officers), and his finding of purpose is as much a finding of himself, as he tries to force a relationship with Leni that neither of them really wants in order to deny part of his own nature.

C'mon, Steve, admit the truth!

I really liked Leni, too: a statuesque woman who initially fought on the wrong side during World War II, now trying to make good. Her subplot, like the original Top 10 books, blends superhero stories with police procedural in a way I found satisfying-- instead of the police vs. the mob, it's the police vs. organized vampires.

I guess you could say the police are... on a witch-hunt.

Gene Ha is always a strong artist, but this is probably one of his very best books, with great character, clear storytelling and emotion, and some beautiful scenes. Art Lyon's subdued coloring adds to the retro feel as well as to the book's morose, contemplative vibe as its characters find their places in a less colorful world than the one they knew during the war.

Ha captures the scale of Neopolis ever better here than in the original Top 10 series, I think.

Overall, a much better permutation of Top 10 than Beyond the Farthest Precinct. Now I just have to hunt down Smax!

Review: Top 10, Book 2 by Alan Moore, Gene Ha, and Zander Cannon

Doctor Who is a strange old thing; Doctor Who spin-offs sometimes even moreso. Today, I attempt to decode the long-delayed second series of Charlotte Pollard with the help of a Lance Parkin quote I had to dig up off the Internet Archive over at Unreality SF.

And now, on to the main course:

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2002 (contents: 2000-01) 
Acquired and read August 2016

Top 10: Collected Edition, Book 2

​

Writer: Alan Moore

Finishing Artist: Gene Ha
Layout Artist: Zander Cannon
Coloring: Alex Sinclair
Lettering: Todd Klein

This book wraps up the original twelve-issue Top 10 series by Alan Moore, Gene Ha, and Zander Cannon, and it's just as good as the first volume. My favorite part was probably what happened in the battle between the ultra-mice infecting Dust Devil's mother's apartment and the atom cats brought in by an exterminator: I laughed so hard when it was revealed their battles had triggered an multiversal crisis.

It's not all jokes, though. There's a surprisingly moving issue about a hyperspatial traffic accident that results in a collision between a tourist from Rigel and a piece in a gigantic galactic game. The two are fused together and slowly die while a couple cops can't do anything but watch.

Life is a game, but that doesn't mean it's not important: cosmic truth from a giant space chessman. Also swearing, though I'm not sure why it has to be bleeped out in a series that also deals with pedophilia and prostitution.
from Top 10 #8

The various plot threads from Book 1 are pulled together pretty comprehensively here, as we discover what links many seemingly disparate events together, and Top 10 shows their stuff in a couple devastating battles. I enjoyed the ongoing subplot about Shock-Headed Pete's racism against robots, though I guess it's easy to laugh about racism in this kind of context, where it's devoid of repercussions.

Totally dig whenever Alan Moore mocks the over-the-top nature of classic comics.
from Top 10 #12

I was a little on the fence for the first couple issues of Top 10, like I said, but once I reached the end of Book 2, I knew I wanted to keep up with the series through all its future incarnations: prequel The Forty-Niners, sequels Beyond the Farthest Precinct and Top 10: Season Two, and spin-off Smax. I like these characters and this concept, and I want to see what else can be done with them.

Review: Top 10, Book 1 by Alan Moore, Gene Ha, and Zander Cannon

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2010 (contents: 1999-2000) 
Acquired December 2011
Read August 2016

Top 10: Collected Edition, Book 1

​

Writer: Alan Moore

Finishing Artist: Gene Ha
Layout Artist: Zander Cannon
Lettering: Todd Klein

It took me a little bit to warm up to this book. I don't know if it was me or the book. Set in a city called Neopolis where everyone has a secret identity and a superpower, this book follows the cops that patrol the city. Though there is a new-to-the-precinct viewpoint character, there are still a lot of characters to acclimate to in a pretty short span of time. There are also a lot of ongoing subplots: drug dealers, someone killing prostitutes, suspects committing suicide. But when I hit Chapter Four (there are eight issues collected here), it started to click into place.

I've just realized I should have got a scan of the Top 10 HQ, which is based on DC's Hall of Justice, which is of course based on Cincinnati's own Union Terminal.
from Top 10 #3

Probably because this is the issue where the dad of a lizard Top 10 has in custody turns up demanding the release of his son. The son is basically human sized, but his dad is a Godzilla-esque giant lizard-- except his better days are long behind him, and he's more of a careening drunk now. In Chapter Four, the precinct captain, Jetman (who was "Jetlad" during World War II) must keep Gograh under control via conversation while his subordinates try to find a way to neutralize him. It's a fun riff on some familiar tropes, and that's basically what the whole of Top 10 is, mostly on the tropes of the superhero and cop genres. You have a police sergeant who's a dog with prostheses, a phantom pervert, a telekinetic Santa Claus in October, an investigation into the death of a Norse god that leads to Odin threatening to just end the universe if the crime isn't solved, and a cop's mother whose apartment is being terrorized by ultra-mice-- the only solution to which is atom cats. The book was constantly making me smile, and often laugh.

It only escalates from here.
from Top 10 #6

But it's not all jokes: the book is funny, but it also takes its duties as a cop procedural seriously. It's just that the things these cops investigate are incredibly far-fetched. But there are still killings and murders and prostitution to investigate, and it becomes clear that a longer story is unfolding as you read these issues, one that will continue into Book 2. I quickly become interested in many of the characters, especially Jetman; Duane "Dust Devil" Bodine the techno-cowboy; viewpoint character Robyn "Toybox" Slinger, who has some kind of dad problems; her partner Jeff Smax of gruff and mysterious past; and more. Like a lot of ensemble stories, what's most fun is seeing the way these various people and personalities all bounce off each other. Alan Moore, Gene Ha, and Zander Cannon do a great job bringing them all to life, and making Top 10 greater than the sum of its parts, filling the stories with little details, amusing and great.

Even super-cops have to take public transit home at night.
from Top 10 #1

Alan Moore is arguably a master of genre more than anything else: in Watchmen and Miracleman, he used that power to blow the superhero genre apart. But here he shows that power can be used for good as well as for evil. By fusing several different pop culture genres, he creates something hugely fun and enjoyable that presents familiar ideas in unfamiliar lights.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LVI: The World of Flashpoint featuring Superman

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

The World of Flashpoint featuring Superman

Writers: Scott Snyder & Lowell Francis, Rex Ogle, Dan Jurgens, Mike Carlin

Artists: Gene Ha, Eduardo Francisco, Paulo Siqueira, Roland Paris, Dan Jurgens, Rick Leonardi, Ig Guara, Norm Rapmund, Ruy José, Don Ho, Rags Morales, Rick Bryant

Colorists: Art Lyon, Stefani Renee, Nei Ruffino
Letterers: Rob Leigh, Travis Lanham, Carlos M. Mangual, Dave Sharpe

The way The World of Flashpoint slots together continues to be pretty neat. "Project Superman" starts many years back, with a soldier volunteering to undergo a process to have alien DNA grafted into his system-- we eventually find out this DNA comes from Doomsday. The process turns him into a monster called Subject Zero, but he sees everyone else as a monster, in a pretty horrifying dissonance. General Lane gives up on him when Kal-El's rocket crashlands in Metropolis, and the military begins working with "Subject One" instead, not knowing that Project Zero is covertly influencing him. Eventually things go nuts, and young Kal has no idea what to do or who to trust. The story then dovetails into where "Lois Lane and the Resistance" from the Wonder Woman volume ended, as Subject One seeks out Lois, who showed him some of the only affection he's even known. Things go downhill pretty quickly when Subject Zero shows up again, however. It's probably the best story in this volume, a nice dark horror tale, thanks especially to Gene Ha: unlike most stories in these volumes, this one has one artist all the way through, and he's a very good one to boot.

Lois Lane is a badass at any age in any timeline. Also the "Subject One" version of Kal-El is a weird mixture of creepy and cute.
from Flashpoint: Project Superman #2 (plot by Scott Snyder, co-plot & script by Lowell Francis, art by Gene Ha)

Next comes "The World of Flashpoint," which despite its broad title, is as focused as any of the other tales in this volume, with a tale of Traci Thirteen, the young Homo magi. In the usual DC reality she's a sometime Superman ally and Blue Beetle romantic interest. Here, half her family is killed thanks to the Atlantean geo-weapon from last volume, and her dad decides to nuke half the world to save the other half. Traci goes on a quest to stop him, which lets her encounter a number of random players from the world of Flashpoint like Red Tornado, Natasha Irons, Beast Boy, Jason Todd, and best of all, a Zen bartender Guy Gardner. The story itself is pretty so-so, but like many of these World of Flashpoint tales, it's pleasing for how it build the universe. I'll be curious if its events actually play into the main Flashpoint narrative or not.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Gotham, Part XX: Batman: Fortunate Son

Batman's back, baby! Forget about your multiversal crises, and sink your teeth into some good old-fashioned street crime...

Comic trade paperback, 90 pages
Published 1999
Borrowed from the library
Read October 2015

Batman: Fortunate Son

Writer: Gerard Jones
Artist: Gene Ha
Colorist: Gloria Vasquez
Letterer: Willie Schubert

Year Four, Summer
This is a weird book, no doubt about it. A rock musician that Robin's really into commits a crime, or seems to, Batman decides the team will investigate, as a favor to Robin. It turns out that Batman utterly despises rock music, and he and Robin (quite temporarily) split up. It also turns out that in additional to homicidal maniacs (right down the hall from them, in fact), Arkham Asylum houses rock managers who did too much drugs. Also also: the ghost of Elvis Presley, but blond, and only ever referred to as "God"!

Yet... I cannot imagine a better story of Batman and rock music. The weirdness of the story doesn't bother me, because it's operating by its own rules; this is a heightened world where rock music is powerful, where it instigates riots and sweeps people up at the drop of a beat. It's weird and kind of mystical without being magical or fantastical. People can be hypnotized by it, and terrible crimes can be committed by its adherents, all because of the music. It can do great good, but also great evil, and people will do anything to harness its power. You might now be saying, "this world sounds an awful lot like our world." That's the point!

Of course Batman hates rock music, then. Even at its best, it's disorderly, it's suspect. You don't need the scene where young Bruce Wayne is told to turn off that rock music, because it's time to go to the theatre, to make him hate it. Rock is about changing the world, but through disorder. It's accomplishing what Batman stands for the most, through means that are utterly alien to him.

Click to enlarge, duh.

I should also say that I really liked the look of Gene Ha's art, though his storytelling was often confusing. He draws Batman like a guy in costume, if that makes sense; you can tell his suit is something he's wearing, especially his cowl, not something that magically molds into his body. I don't think that approach would work for every Batman story (it's hard to imagine it in my next read, Batgirl: Year One, for example), but it is the right approach for this one, a story which emphasizes the fragility of who Batman is and what he does.

Next Week: And then there were three... the Bat-Family grows again in Batgirl: Year One!