Blackhawk: Blood & Iron by Howard Chaykin, Martin Pasko, Rick Burchett, Mike Grell, et al.

Blackhawk: Blood & Iron

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 1987-89
Acquired: April 2025
Read: May 2025

Writers: Howard Chaykin, Martin Pasko, Mike Grell, Mark Verheiden

Pencillers: Howard Chaykin, Rick Burchett, Grant Miehm, Eduardo Barreto, Terry Beatty

Inkers: Howard Chaykin, Rick Burchett, Pablo Marcos, Terry Beatty, John Nyberg

Colorists: Steve Oliff, Tom Ziuko, Helen Vesik

Letterers: Ken Bruzenak, Steve Haynie, Carrie Spiegle, Janice Chiang

In the late 1980s, it came time to reinvent Blackhawk for the post-Crisis DC universe. This didn't just mean rethinking the continuity, but also rethinking the tone and style. Blackhawk had been a bloody and jingoistic war comic, a goofy sci-fi comic, a superhero comic, a nuanced war comic. What would it be in the 1980s?

The vehicle for this reinvention was a format I really enjoy, and have chronicled a lot on this blog: the three-double-length-issue miniseries. Previous examples include Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters (1987), Black Orchid (1989), Hawkworld (1989), Adam Strange: The Man of Two Worlds (1990), and Twilight (1990-91). These comics tend to be creator-driven, giving a somewhat old-fashioned concept over to a high-profile creator (or creative team), who uses it to sell a single story with more mature themes. In many cases, they became springboards for ongoing series (of the above examples, that's true of all of them except Adam Strange and Twilight), but they weren't necessarily designed to be. I tend to really like these, and I wonder if there's any I've failed to track down at this point.

Blackhawk was given over to Howard Chaykin, who wrote and illustrated the story. (Blackhawk vol. 2 #1 was, in fact, Blackhawk's first #1, fact fans, because the original Blackhawk run confusingly began with issue #9; see item #2 below.) Other than the premature existence of an atomic bomb (a common occurrence for the Blackhawks, I guess; see item #9 below), the series is devoid of fantastic elements; it's an espionage thriller set during World War II.

They didn't have scenes like this back when Dick Dillin was drawing Blackhawk!
from Blackhawk vol. 2 #1 (script & art by Howard Chaykin)

The major continuity change is that Chaykin reinvents Blackhawk himself: instead of "Bart Hawk," he's now "Janos Prohaska," thank God. (However, as a Star Trek fan, I find the name kind of jarring.) We just get glimpses of his backstory, but we do learn that he's a former Communist, he flew with some private outfits early in the war, and he established the Blachkawks as an independent but Allies-funded fighting force. (I'll do a post on Blackhawk's post-Crisis continuity once I've read all of the relevant stories, but Chris Miller at The Unauthorized Chronology of the DC Universe suggests that the Mark Evanier–Dan Spiegle run could have largely happened as written prior to this miniseries; that run was set in 1940, compared to this series's 1943.) He's more of a 1980s character in terms of personality, though, sleeping with random women; you can definitely see why Chaykin might have written this series and worked on James Bond.

Seemingly the problem with modern takes on "Chop-Chop" is that every one has to have a moment where they explain that he's not called "Chop-Chop."
from Blackhawk vol. 2 #2 (script & art by Howard Chaykin)

In terms of continuity, there are a couple other significant changes. One is that, for the first time, all the members of the squadron get last names! Olaf becomes Olaf Friedricksen (and he is relocated from Sweden to Denmark), Stanislaus is Stanislaus Drozdowski, Hendricksen is Ritter Hendricksen (he's from Holland here, which was true in some previous stories, I think, but in others, he was from Germany), Chuck is Carlo Sirianni, Andre is Andre Blanc-Dumont, and "Chop-Chop" keeps the name he was given by Evanier (he's Chinese-American here, not Chinese), Weng Chan (though Blackhawk still calls him "Chop-Chop," unlike in Evanier's series). The other members of the squadron aren't really focused on very much, though, and Stanislaus is killed off in issue #2 to prove the situation is serious.*

Beautiful, deadly, and believes in the people owning the means of production. The perfect woman?
from Blackhawk vol. 2 #1 (script & art by Howard Chaykin)

The other big change is the introduction of Natalie Reed nee Gurdin. Natalie is someone that Jan knew early in the war, from his Communist days, but instead of leaving the party like he did, she fully embraced it, moving to Russia in a pretty high-profile "defection" of sorts; she reenters his life here, proving herself a bit of a technical wizard by helping the Blackhawks out with their planes and other technologies. In one sequence, she exclaims, "I didn't build these planes so you could run off and get all the glory--I'm coming with you--I'm Lady Blackhawk--case closed..." So much for Zinda Blake?†

There are an awful lot of scenes of these people.
from Blackhawk vol. 2 #2 (script & art by Howard Chaykin)

Anyway, obviously I could talk about the continuity all day... but how's the actual story? I found it a decent but not outstanding example of the format. Like a lot of 1980s prestige comics, it's hard work. Not in a bad way, I'm just saying that there's a lot of different strands to the story here, and Chaykin moves back and forth between them pretty freely, leaving the reader to do a lot of work to put it all together. There's a big Nazi conspiracy whose members include an old comrade of Jan's, a former English movie actor who now leads a Nazi counterpart to the Blackhawk Squadron, the White Lions, and a U.S. senator who has Jan barred from the country on the basis that he's a Communist and Reba McMahon, a woman who's sexually involved with both Blackhawk and Lord Death. To be honest, it seemed like at times that Chaykin was more interested in all these other characters more than Blackhawk himself, who feels a bit lost in the middle of all of it. I did like Natalie Reed a lot; she seems like a character with a lot of potential that's not totally delivered on here, though I did enjoy her back-and-forth with Jan.

It looks great, of course; Chaykin is one of the medium's best, and in the 1980s, he was arguably at his height, aided by some excellent colors from Steve Oliff.

Can't believe they got rid of the perfectly good Polish names "Jack" and "Connie" for Blackhawk's siblings!
from Secret Origins vol. 2 #45 (script by Martin Pasko, art by Grant Miehm & Terry Beatty)

I read the miniseries collected in a 2020 hardcover called Blood & Iron after the series's first issue. The hardcover also collects a few other 1980s appearances of the post-Crisis Blackhawks. Chaykin didn't have anything to do with these stories, which are written and illustrated by other creators. The first of them is a Secret Origins issue that gives us the origin Chaykin only hinted at; it's basically the familiar pre-Crisis story but with the new elements of Prohaska's 1980's backstory, given a frame story set shortly after the miniseries. It does establish that the squadron also included character named "Boris" and "Zeg" at one point, but that they were dead by the time of Chaykin's story. (These are character names used as one-offs in early Blackhawk stories from Military Comics. Boris briefly reappeared during Steve Skeates's run; see item #7 below.)

The bulk of the second half of the book comprises Blackhawk's appearances in Action Comics, during that title's brief run as a weekly anthology title. There are two eight-part stories and one six-part story, each part being eight pages longs. All three stories are illustrated by Rick Burchett; the first is written by Mike Grell, and the other two Martin Pasko (who would go on to write the Blackhawk ongoing). I had actually read all of these before, when I collected Action Comics Weekly many years ago, but at the time I lacked the context of any other Blackhawk adventures.

You eventually find out she's a nun!
from Action Comics Weekly #603 (script by Mike Grell, art by Rick Burchett & Pablo Marcos)

These move the new Blackhawks into the postwar era; taking their cues from Chaykin's miniseries, they're all gritty espionage thrillers. Grell's initial story, "Another Fine War," only really features Blackhawk himself, at loose ends after the war, persuaded into helping a woman run down some treasure in the Pacific. I want to note that I've seen people complain Chaykin turned Blackhawk into a lech, but I think that's more Grell than Blackhawk; Chaykin had him sleeping with multiple women, but it's Grell who makes him into a sleeze.

Natalie has a surprising number of color-coordinated eye patches.
from Action Comics Weekly #615 (script by Martin Pasko, art by Rick Burchett)

Pasko's two stories bring back the other members of the squadron, including Natalie Reed, as the Blackhawks reconstitute as a supposed courier service (Blackhawk Express) whose real purpose is doing dirty jobs for the newly formed CIA. They're all fun enough, but also hint at bigger and darker concerns, especially with Natalie, who has a child... but one she can't raise herself, since her Communist affiliations mean she can't get back into the U.S. in the era of the Red Scare. Natalie is also a victim of domestic abuse to the extent that she lost an eye; we don't learn anything about the guy in question, but I did find a bit where Jan briefly thinks Olaf to be responsible fairly contrived. I think Pasko is clearly very interested in Natalie (in a way that I don't think Chaykin or Grell were), and I look forward to seeing what he does with the character in the subsequent Blackhawk ongoing.

I haven't said anything about colorist Tom Ziuko in this review, but actually, he's great. A big reason why Burchett's art works as well as it does.
from Action Comics Weekly #622 (script by Martin Pasko, art by Rick Burchett)

Burchett's style is certainly cartoonier than Chaykin's, but overall I found that it worked for these quick, action-focused stories, and he's got a strong sense of facial expressions. When the situation gets serious, Burchett does a good job shifting the art to match; there are a number of strong action sequences here. I think like a lot of Action Comcis Weekly creators, Pasko and Burchett struggle a bit with their small canvas, but they probably do better than most.

Like, he's CEO and it's been forty years and people still call him that just once in every appearance!
from Action Comics Weekly #635 (script by Mark Verheiden, art by Eduardo Barreto & John Nyberg)

Lastly, the book contains "The Crash of 88," a story that crossed over a number of Action Comics Weekly's ongoing features: Green Lantern, Black Canary, Superman... and Blackhawk!? It's set in the present day; the Blackhawk presence is Weng Chan, who is now running Blackhawk Express. His plane crashes in a South American dictatorship, and the superheroes eventually turn up to rescue him. 

The inclusion of Black Canary in the story is pretty random, to be honest, but I'm never going to say no to a chance to see Dinah Laurel Lance, in either of her guises. (I do kind of miss how she used to have short black hair in her civilian attire.)
from Action Comics Weekly #635 (script by Mark Verheiden, art by Eduardo Barreto & John Nyberg)

I'm glad it's in this book for completion's sake, but it does read very weirdly after all the much less fantastic material that makes up the rest of the volume! In the letter page to Blackhawk vol. 3 #1, editor Mike Gold promises more "Blackhawk Express" stories set in the present as an ongoing feature, but I don't believe this ever eventuated, though Weng Chan did make a number of appearances during John Ostrander's run on Hawkworld (also edited by Gold).

Overall, I'm very glad this collected edition exists, and impressed at how comprehensive it is. It would have been easy for DC to have collected just the Chaykin material and called it a day! The rest of the volume isn't as distinctive, to be honest, but it is competent, and it's nice to have it more readily available than back issues of Action Comics Weekly. A similarly sized second volume would fit the entire Blackhawk volume 3 ongoing, I think, and would make a great companion to this one... but without a high-profile creator like Howard Chaykin, it probably is unlikely to ever appear. Maybe is can get a DC Finest edition sometime? But more on that next time...

from Who's Who Update '87 #3
(art by Brian Bolland)

This is the tenth in a series of posts about the Blackhawks. The next installment covers volume 3 of Blackhawk. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Blackhawk Archives, Volume 1 (1941-42)
2. Military Comics #18-43 / Modern Comics #44-46 / Blackhawk #9 & 50 (1943-52)
3. Showcase Presents Blackhawk, Volume One (1957-58) 
4. Blackhawk vol. 1 #151-95 (1960-64) 
5. Blackhawk vol. 1 #196-227 (1964-66)
6. Blackhawk vol. 1 #228-43 (1967-68)
7. Blackhawk vol. 1 #244-50 / The Brave and the Bold #167 (1976-80)
8. Blackhawk (1982) 
9. Blackhawk vol. 1 #251-73 / DC Comics Presents #69 (1982-84) 
• Pre-Crisis Continuity 

* The DC wiki notes that Stanislaus does go on to appear in some later postwar Blackhawk stories, very much alive, and ascribes the change to the Crisis in Time.

† Except that, as a reader of Birds of Prey, I know she also continues to appear post-Crisis. I guess I shall see what explanation, if any, is offered for this. Blood & Iron does include all of the Blackhawk Who's Who pages, which include both one about the Blackhawk Squadron with Natalie on it and another about Zinda (complete with a beautiful Brian Bolland illustration), with no noting of the apparent contradiction.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes Tabloid Edition by Paul Levitz, Mike Grell, Vince Colletta, et al.

Legion of Super-Heroes: The Millennium Massacre

Collection published: 2021
Contents originally published: 1978
Acquired: March 2022
Read: November 2022

Writer: Paul Levitz

Artists: Mike Grell and Vince Colletta, James Sherman and Jack Abel
Lettered by Gaspar
Colors by Jerry Serpe & Tony Tollin

DC has been taking its "tabloid editions" from the 1970—massive oversized comics—and reprinting them as high-quality hardcovers. I previously read the Suerpman vs. Wonder Woman one; most recently, they've reprinted All-New Collectors' Edition #C-54, which depicts the marriage of Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad. This story was previously collected in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Volume One, but I wasn't passing up the chance to see some Mike Grell and Vince Colletta art at jumbo size.

Thankfully it looks great because as a story it's not up to much. Superboy travels to the future to see the wedding, only the timeline has changed, so everyone is mean. He still manages to convince the Legion to look into this; the team splits up into three groups to handle different aspects of a crisis. It has its moments—I do always like some Saturn Girl—but even by the standards of comic-book time travel, I don't think it really makes sense, and the Legion in twentieth-century New York doesn't seem to be worth getting Mike Grell to illustrate at enormous size. Give me something cosmic and epic! Still, I'll take Mike Grell drawing Dream Girl any day, and the new afterword by Levitz providing background and context is nice.

I read a Legion of Super-Heroes collection every six months. Next up in sequence: Before the Darkness, Volume One

James Bond 007: Permission to Die by Mike Grell et al.

There have been a lot of James Bond comic books from the 1990s onward; I don't have the inclination to pick up most of them. After his adaptation of Licence to Kill, though, Mike Grell wrote and illustrated a three-issue miniseries for Eclipse Comics and Acme Press, and that, I thought, had to be interesting. Grell is, of course, the writer and illustrator of Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, and he excels at stories about the brutality of masculine men. How could his take on Bond not be worth picking up?

I think that technically this is only based on the novels. Certainly Grell's Bond is a generic one, not based on any specific actor, and he does have the facial scar from the novels. When Felix Leiter shows up, he has a hook for a hand, so we know Live and Let Die happened. There are also a number of reference to From Russia with Love. There must, however, be some timeline sliding akin to the films, as it's definitely 1989 in this story (a newspaper about the fall of the Berlin Wall appears on the last page of issue #3), and those novels were both published in the 1950s, and nothing gives the impression that over thirty years have passed.

Indeed, stylistically, the whole thing is clearly patterned after the films. It begins with an action-focused teaser that's not relevant to the overall story; it ends with an enormous action set piece in a villain's underground lair that's about saving the world from destruction. Bond sleeps with four different women, I think, which is more of a film thing; in the novels, it's usually just one per book.

from Ian Fleming's James Bond 007: Permission to Die #2

Grell does a great job of it, on the whole. His artwork, combined with Julia Lacquement's coloring, is lush and detailed. The action is usually excellent, and I often don't care for big action sequences in comics, but Grell really makes them work. If in 1991, someone said this was going to be the basis for the next James Bond film, I would be pretty delighted, I think. The villain is a good one, a Phantom-of-the-Operaesque fellow who plays organ in a cave underneath a mountain from which he is launching a nuclear bomb. He comes across as deadly earnest in a pretty compelling way. Some elements feel a bit rushed, especially Bond's relationships with some of the women in issue #3; one does wonder if a fourth issue could have helped. (The issues are, though, double-length, so it's equivalent to a six-issue miniseries.)

I couldn't track down any firm release dates for these issues, but the first two have 1989 copyright dates and the third a 1991 one. There is a bit of a wonkiness to the plotting that makes me wonder about the original plans here. The first two issues almost work as a complete story; they're about Bond having to extract a woman from the other side of the Iron Curtain, smuggling her out through Hungary, while the communists desperately try to stop him. Despite their filmic touches (the teaser, how big some of the action gets), those two parts feel more Fleming on the whole with their emphasis on the details and logistics of spycraft. The main thing that stops them from working on their own is that the woman's backstory is somewhat too elaborate: if that was all the story was, we wouldn't need to know so much about her uncle.

from Ian Fleming's James Bond 007: Permission to Die #3

The third issue changes locale to America and focuses on her uncle and his plot to end nuclear war, which wasn't a thing at all in the first two issues. It's set up a little, but not very much, and so feels like the climax to a different story than the one we were reading. A solid revision could smooth it all out, I reckon, but given the apparent two-year gap between issues #2 and 3, was Grell hedging his bets in case there wasn't a third issue?

Like many post-1989 Bond writers, Grell has to reckon what you do with Bond if there's no Cold War anymore. I did really like the ending moment of the story where Bond thinks about the fact that his purpose in the world is coming to an end; it's the kind of masculine angst Grell did so well in The Longbow Hunters, and to be honest, I wish we had seen more of it here. Grell never did any more Bond comics, but I would have been all over them if he had.

Ian Fleming's James Bond 007: Permission to Die was originally published in three issues (1989-91). The story was written and illustrated by Mike Grell, with art assists by Dameon Willich (#1-3), Mark Jones (#2-3), and Rick Hoberg (#3); colored by Julia Lacquement; lettered by Wayne Truman; and edited by Catherine Yronwode and Richard Hansom.

The James Bond Film Comic Adaptations

As I read the James Bond novels and watch the James Bond films, I've also been reading the James Bond comics. I've previously discussed the Daily Express strips, but there are also the comic book adaptations of the films, of which there have been four (and a third).

The very first James Bond film comic was of the very first James Bond film. An adaptation of Dr. No was intended to be a Dell Movie Classic according to the Grand Comics Database, but I don't know why it wasn't. It was published in 1962 as part of the Classics Illustrated series in the UK. Though the UK series mostly reprinted the American one, they published (Wikipedia tells me) thirteen original stories, including this one. It seems a bit of an odd fit between Goethe's Faust and Tolstoy's Master and Man! Perhaps for this reason, it wasn't picked up by the American Classics Illustrated, and eventually found print in Showcase, DC's anthology series, in 1963. Again, it's an odd fit between stories about the Metal Men, Tommy Tomorrow, and Sergeant Rock.

I actually haven't read this comic: it goes for hundreds of dollars usually in any version. It has never been reprinted or officially digitized, though you can find scans if you poke around a bit.

In the 1980s, Marvel adapted two James Bond films into comic books. An adaptation of For Your Eyes Only was published as a 1981 issue of Marvel Super Special, a series that mostly consisted of adaptations of films. (For example, the previous issue adapted Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the following one, Dragonslayer.) It was then later reprinted as a two-issue miniseries of its own, which is the version I read. This one has an impressive creative team: Larry Hama scripts, Howard Chaykin pencils, and Vince Colletta inks. Surely if any comics illustrator was made to draw Bond, it's Chaykin, and surely if any illustrator was made to draw Bond girls, it's Colletta. But it's a pretty typical film-to-comic adaptation, in that it doesn't really breathe like it ought.

In 1983, another issue of Marvel Super Special contained an adaptation of Octopussy. This one is interesting to me as it was clearly the work of Marvel UK going by the creative team: Steve Moore, Paul Neary, and Annie Halfacree are all names I know from Doctor Who Magazine, Transformers UK, and Death's Head. I haven't ever found anything on the Internet to indicate why this arrangement might have come about. Again, it's a strong creative team, but again it's a pretty perfunctory adaptation.

The last complete James Bond film comic was an adaptation of Licence to Kill from Eclipse Comics. This was published as a standalone graphic novel, apparently in both trade paperback and hardcover (I have the former). It's oversized, as I think a lot of early graphic novels were. The cover trumpets it as being by Mike Grell, but it actually has a large number of contributors. Grell just did the breakdowns, while the script was by Robert Ashford, the pencils by three different artists, and the inks two.

Despite that, it's definitely the best of the three Bond film comics I've read. Grell, like Hama/Chaykin, seems like a creator born to do Bond, and this one does breathe as a comic book even if it has a lot of compression to fit the page length. (This is most notable in the very brief climax.) The art is strong and atmospheric, even if it seems to me that sometimes Bond looks like Timothy Dalton, sometimes he looks like Roger Moore, and sometimes he looks like the sort of generic, idealized Bond from the Daily Express strips. I assume the use of three different pencillers is responsible for this. Interestingly, he's often drawn with the facial scar he had in the books, but which was never used on screen! The painted style is a good fit for the atmosphere of Bond.

from James Bond 007: Licence To Kill:
The Official Comic Book Adaptation

The last Bond film comic was a three-issue adaptation of GoldenEye from Topps... the first issue of which was the only one to appear. I don't really feel motivated to track this down, to be honest.

I don't know what the rights issues are with any of these; it seems to me you could get a nice trade paperback out of bunging them all together. It's certainly the kind of omnibus I could imagine, say, Dark Horse or IDW doing. Boom has the Bond comics rights these days, and I don't know if they are interested in that sort of thing even if it is feasible. But if it meant I got to read "Doctor No," I would get it!

"James Bond: For Your Eyes Only" was originally published in issue #19 of Marvel Super Special (1981). It was republished as James Bond: For Your Eyes Only #1-2 (Oct.-Nov. 1981) The story was written by Larry Hama, pencilled by Howard Chaykin, inked by Vince Colletta, colored by Christie Scheele, lettered by Jean Simek, and edited by Dennis O'Neil.

"James Bond 007: Octopussy" was originally published in issue #26 of Marvel Super Special (1983). The story was written by Steve Moore, illustrated by Paul Neary, lettered by Annie Halfacree, and edited by John Barraclough. 

James Bond 007: Licence To Kill: The Official Comic Book Adaptation was originally published in 1989. The story had breakdowns by Mike Grell; a script by Richard Ashford; pencils by Chuck Austen, Tom Yeates, and Stan Woch; inks by Tom Yeates and Stan Woch; colors by Sam Parsons, Sally Parsons, Mel Jöhnson, and Reuben Rude; lettering by Wayne Truman; and editing by Dick Hansom and Cat Yronwode.

Review: Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Volume One by Paul Levitz, Mike Grell, James Sherman, et al.

Every six months, I read a volume of The Legion of Super-Heroes. This time around, it's...

Comic hardcover, 304 pages
Published 2017 (contents: 1977-78)
Acquired June 2017
Read August 2019

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Volume One

Plotters: Jack C. Harris, Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz, Paul Kupperberg, and Jim Starlin
Writers: Jack C. Harris, Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz, and Paul Kupperberg

Pencillers/Layout Artists: Juan Ortiz, Ric Estrada, Mike Grell, George Tuska, James Sherman, Mike Nasser, Walt Simonson, Jim Starlin, and Howard Chaykin
Inkers/Finishers: Bob Smith, Jack Abel, Vince Colletta, Bob McLeod, Joe Rubinstein, Rick Bryant, and Bob Wiacek
Colorists: Liz Berube, Jerry Serpe, Anthony Tollin, Mike Nasser, Adrienne Roy, and Cory Adams
Letterers: Ben Oda, Milt Snapinn, Gaspar Saladino, and Shelly Leferman

The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives series stalled out at volume 13 in 2012, collecting up through Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #233. The Great Darkness Saga: The Deluxe Edition picks up with issue #284, leaving a fifty-some-issue gap. Thankfully, in 2017 DC published this volume to begin to plug the gap, collecting #234-40, plus assorted other appearances from the late 1970s.

Very ominous! Yet they all do get on pretty well.
from Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #236 (script by Paul Levitz & Paul Kupperberg, art by James Sherman & Bob McLeod)

Thankfully also, it's good. The Legion Archives were wildly inconsistent. Superboy and the Legion is still somewhat inconsistent, especially since the book has no regular team, but Paul Levitz's developing writing style are beginning to make this the Legion I like best, one with character and history. Levitz is good at bringing out the characters' diverse personalities, aided by James Sherman, whose art is more interested in using different "character angles" and uses close-ups on faces to good effect. Nothing here is as serialized or as dramatic as what Levitz would later do in Great Darkness Saga, but I found it a consistently enjoyable volume, with a lot of neat standalone, character-driven adventures.

That's one big ship. It feels a bit Star Wars-y to me, and judging by its cover date, the issue would have been drawn right around the time it came out.
from Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #236 (script by Paul Levitz, art by Mike Nasser and Joe Rubinstein & Rick Bryant)

Highlights included Mon-El singlehandledly saving a science platform from a Khund assault; I particularly liked how Mike Nasser drew the space stuff in the more gritty style of DC's Time Warp, instead of the usual Legion style of cheesy early sf. I liked the exploration of Wildfire as team leader. Vhe story where Ultra Boy is a murder suspect was a little contrived, but gave some great moments as Ultra Boy and Chameleon Boy face off against each other. It was nice to discover a little more about Dawnstar.

I like that Cham is somehow both optimistically chipper (as per above) and deeply suspicious. I guess it makes sense as a personality for a friendly shapeshifter.
from Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #239 (plot by Jim Starlin & Paul Levitz, dialogue by Paul Levitz, art by Jim Starlin & Josef Rubinstein)

That's not to say it's not without its doofy low points. The Composite Legionnaire story was dumb, and the story about how Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad got married packed too much into its length: the idea of how the Time Trapper changed time seemed like it could have had more exploration.

You can overdramatically explain timeline changes to me any day, Princess Projectra.
from All-New Collectors' Edition #C-55 (script by Paul Levitz, art by Mike Grell & Vince Colletta)

I thought it was interesting that Levitz explained how the series could have been running so long but everyone is still a "Lad" or "Lass": the 30th century has life extension knowledge, so people in their twenties are still kids. But Superboy's mind is always wiped of that information, so that he won't be tempted to take it back to the 20th century and save the Kents! (Back in the 1970s, the Kents died before Clark became Superman.) I'm not sure it really needed attention called to it, but the idea that the future represents a temptation to Superboy is an interesting one.

I didn't know Dawnstar was in Legion Academy. I also didn't know she was such a jerk!
from Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #240 (plot by Paul Levitz, script by Paul Kupperberg, art by James Sherman & Bob McLeod)

Next Week: Back to Star Trek-- on Deep Space 9, it's time to Raise the Dawn!

Review: Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 13 by Paul Levitz, Jack Abel, et al.

Every six months, I read another volume of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and now it's time to catch up:

Comic hardcover, 251 pages
Published 2012 (contents: 1977)
Acquired November 2013
Read September 2014

Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 13

Writers: James Shooter, Paul Levitz, Gerry Conway

Pencils: Mike Grell, James T. Sherman, Mike Nasser, Joe Staton, Arvell Jones, Ric Estrada
Inks: Bob Wiacek, Jack Abel, Bob Layton

This feels like a transitional set of Legion tales: these come from Paul Levitz's first run, and are definitely mostly weird throwaways in the 1970s style, rather than the complex, character-driven plots he would perfect with Keith Giffen later on. Mike Grell also eases out of the title during this volume, and no one artist really takes over for him, though Jack Abel does ink a lot. As a result, neither the writing nor the art are very consistent. Flipping back through the volume to write this review, nothing really stands out for me, though Saturn Girl and Dream Girl remain my favorite Legionnaires, and Wildfire is a nice addition to the team-- he breaks up the cliquishness of the longtime members.

Next Week: Back to the beginning of the Legion of the Super-Heroes, with a celebration of 1,050 Years of the Future!

Review: Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 12

Comic hardcover, 239 pages
Published 2003 (contents: 1975-77)
Acquired November 2012
Read March 2014

Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 12

Writer: Jim Shooter, Cary Bates, Paul Levitz

Pencils: Mike Grell, Ric Estrada, Mike Nasser
Inks: Mike Grell, Bill Draut, Joe Staton, Bob Wiacek, Bob Layton

I enjoyed this more than volume 11 of Legion of Super-Heroes; the plots felt less insubstantial, the characters more rounded. I mean, some of these are just really not good (one of the stories is resolved via a machine that lets our heroes win by wishing they win, which they then just hide away; another is one of those aggravating stories where the Legion deceives a (potential) member for no good reason; and then there's the infamous one that "explains" the lack of black characters in this 1950s future by revealing the world's blacks all live on one isolationist island), but when it hits, it hits!

I particularly enjoyed "The Hero Who Wouldn't Fight!" (Cosmic Boy is the only member of the Legion available on a day where the people of his planet are forbidden from using their magnetic powers), "The Private Lives of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel" (that Mike Grell art is probably illegal), "The Super Soldiers of the Slave-Maker" (the Legion tries to save a planet of slaves who don't want to be saved, requiring quick-thinking and heroism from Superboy and especially Phantom Girl), and "We Can't Escape the Trap in Time!" (which has some cool panel transitions). More of the stories in this volume seem to have involved real thought to write, which makes a nice change over volume 11. Nothing amazing perhaps (those days are yet to come), but good outer-space adventure.

Review: Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 11

Comic hardcover, 218 pages
Published 2001 (contents: 1974-75)
Acquired March 2013
Read August 2013

Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 11

Writers: Cary Bates, Mike Grell, E. Nelson Bridwell, Jim Shooter
Artists: Mike Grell, Dave Cockrum, Curt Swan/George Klein
Letterers: Ben Oda, Joe Letterese

I was introduced to (and fell in love with) the Legion of Super-Heroes via later collections like The Great Darkness Saga, The Curse, and Legion Lost. This caused me to want to dip further back and see the Legion's earlier adventures... well, hopefully some of the others are better, because this stuff is the Silver Age at its goofiest. Tons of characters, developed in piecemeal and arbitrary fashion, weird out-there plots. I know I love these characters from their later appearance, but they're largely interchangeable exposition-spouters here; it's like reading a Gardner Fox Justice League of America story. I want Saturn Girl to be awesome, damnit! Lots of potential, but Cary Bates and Jim Shooter aren't Paul Levitz, apparently. Mike Grell's art is fantastic, though, even if I feel a little skeevy looking at all these very well-developed teenage girls.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Star City, Part XXI: Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters

Comic trade paperback, n. pag.
Published 1989 (contents: 1987)
Borrowed from the library
Read April 2010

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters

Writer / Artist: Mike Grell
Assistant: Lurene Haines
Color Artist: Julia Lacquement
Letterer: Ken Bruzenak

After years of feeling disaffected, Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance move to Seattle to start a new life... only to immediately be drawn into some mysterious killings. Of course. The plot here is convoluted, but that's not really the point of The Longbow Hunters, which is Green Arrow's emotional journey, as he transforms into a dark, urban hunter to fight this dark, modern world (it was the 1980s, after all). The worst of it is that Black Canary is kidnapped by a gang of thugs in the middle of an investigation and seemingly molested. It could easily be a case of women-in-refrigerators (and it very well might be), but as Meltzer does in Identity Crisis, Grell handles it so that it works-- it feels real and not gratuitous. I think it's a matter of Grell's fantastic artwork for the story, which completely matches his writing in tone, aided by some great coloring. This is a much less fun Green Arrow than the one of the early years, or of Kevin Smith's run, but it works fantastically nonetheless. Grell wrote another eighty issues of Green Arrow after this, and it's a dang-old shame that none of them have been collected.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Star City, Part XI: Green Arrow / Black Canary: For Better or For Worse

Comic trade paperback, 199 pages
Published 2007 (contents: 1969-2003)
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2009

Green Arrow / Black Canary: For Better or For Worse

Writers: Denny O'Neil, Elliot S! Maggin, Alan Moore, Mike Grell, Chuck Dixon, Kevin Smith, Brad Meltzer
Pencillers: Dick Dillin, Dick Giordano, José Luis García-López, Klaus Janson, Mike Grell, Lurine Haines, Rick Hoberg, Rodolfo Damaggio, Phil Hester
Inkers: Dick Giordano, Klaus Janson, Rick Hoberg, Joe Giella, Frank McLaughlin, Vince Colletta, Terry Austin, Robert Campanella, Ande Parks
Colorists: Julia Lacquemont, Lee Loughridge, Guy Major, James Sinclair
Letterers: Todd Klein, Ken Bruzenak, Steve Haynie, John Costanza, Sean Konot

At the time that Green Arrow and Black Canary were getting married, DC released this anthology, collecting the highlights of Oliver and Dinah's relationship over nearly forty years of comics. It has a rather nice introduction by Denny O'Neill, where he explains the genesis of their relationship and its appeal to him.

The book falls into two distinct halves, though more through accident than design. The first half is stories from the 1960s and 1970s. These stories are typically short and fun, and feature both Green Arrow and Black Canary... but not exactly their relationship, as they're more just stories both characters happen to be in. For example, "In Each Man There is a Demon!" (written by Denny O'Neil, art by Dick Dillin & Joe Giella) is simply narrated by the two of them (though it is important to their characters for other reasons). "The Plot to Kill Black Canary!" (written by Elliot Maggin, art by Dick Giordano) has Black Canary confess her love, but it's a one-page coda to an unrelated adventure. Most of the stories in this section do short shrift to Black Canary, too: despite her own status as a superhero, Green Arrow is always rescuing her. I don't understand why in "A Gold Star for the Joker" (written by Elliot S! Maggin, art by J. L. Garcia Lopez and V. Colletta) she simply stands around and does nothing while the Joker wreaks havoc: she's a judo expert and possesses a canary cry, for goodness sake! The two-part "Lure for an Assassin!"/"Terminal for a Tragedy" (written by Denny O'Neil, art by Mike Grell & Vince Colletta) has Black Canary trying to rescue Green Arrow for a change... but two minutes later she's captured by the villains and held hostage to make Green Arrow co-operate, so she sits out the rest of the story. Surely the Black Canary ought to be written differently than Lois Lane, yet she's just a damsel is distress. If you ignore that component, they're decent stories in the goofy way comics were in the period, and the art is usually strong. The Joker one was probably my favorite.

The second half of the book is stories from the 1980s through the 2000s. The tend to take a different tack, focusing more directly on the relationship between the two characters and treating them both like competent superheroes. The first of these is "The Hunters" (written by Mike Grell, art by Mike Grell and Lurine Haines), which shows us the moment that Dinah reveal to Oliver she doesn't want to have a child with him. But it's only part of "The Hunters", showing us the flaw of the second half of the book: there's not a single whole story or even issue in it. In some cases this makes sense, even when it's irritating to have some text filling the gaps for you: most of "Membership Has Its Privileges" (written by Kevin Smith, art by Phil Hester and Ande Parks) actually has nothing to do with the relationship. But in other cases it's annoying: "Auld Acquaintance" (written by Mike Grell, art by Rick Hoberg) does seem to be about their relationship, and it looks like Black Canary even saves Green Arrow from danger for once, but who knows, as half the story has been replaced with a two-paragraph synopsis. But even when you know it's justifiable, it's still annoying to read. I think my favorite in this half of the book was either "The Hunters" (wish we'd had more of it, though) or what we get of "Run of the Arrow" (written by Chuck Dixon, art by Rodolfo Damaggio and Robert Campanella), which has a great scene where Connor Hawke goes to tell Dinah about Oliver's death.

The relationship between the two characters is one I didn't know a lot about (Black Canary appeared very seldomly in the 2000s Green Arrow series), and I was glad this book existed to fill me in. But it didn't do so in an entirely satisfying fashion.