Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman Spin-Offs, Part I: The Absolute Death

Comic hardcover, 360 pages
Published 2009 (contents: 1989-2003)
Borrowed from the library
Read October 2010

The Absolute Death

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Chris Bachalo, Mark Buckingham, Mike Dringenberg, Colleen Doran, P. Craig Russell, Malcolm Jones III, Mark Pennington, Dave McKean, Jeffrey Jones
Colorists: Steve Oliff, Matt Hollingsworth, Daniel Vozzo, Lovern Kindzierski, John J Muth, Alex Bleyaert, Rob Ro
Letterers: Todd Klein, Jeffrey Jones

This last Sandman Absolute Edition collects the adventures of Dream's sister, Death. It leads off with two Death-centric issues from The Sandman, which was probably done to pad out the book, but I still appreciated the chance to reread "The Sound of Her Wings," which features Death's first appearance. In retrospect, it stands out: Dream narrates part of it, which rarely (never?) happened again in the series, and it also seems to set up some of Dream's decisions in The Kindly Ones, a full fifty issues later. But the primary point of this collection are the two Death-focused miniseries it collects.

The first of these is The High Cost of Living, which tells the story of a 24-hour period spent by Death as an ordinary, living person in modern New York. Primarily told from the perspective of a layabout teenager, it's a nice story with a lot of fun moments and couple reappearances by Sandman stalwarts such as Mad Hettie and Hazel and Foxglove. Death's adventures are alternately entertaining and horrifying, as you might imagine, and I enjoyed this one a lot.

The second is The Time of Your Life, which isn't really about Death at all, though she appears; it's more about Hazel and Foxglove, and how they deal with having a child and the pressures of fame. I liked getting to focus on these two because, for me, Death doesn't really work as a principal character-- even more so than Dream, she's all-powerful and all-knowing, and what's worse, she likes what she does, so what's at stake for her? She works better as a side character in the stories of others. Hazel and Foxglove go on a stranger journey in this tale, and learn a bit about themselves-- though unfortunately the story occasionally descends into the kind of cheesy aphorisms you might see inside of chocolate wrappers. Also the ending is a convenient cop-out.

The art of both tales is ably provided by Chris Bachalo. I especially liked his art in the second story, where Mark Buckingham's inks are clear and gorgeous. The use of color in The Time of Your Life is really great, too.

After this, there's a few mini-stories about Death, all of which look pretty good, but maybe didn't do a whole lot for me. The one about 9/11 also descends in cheesy aphorisms, I think. The AIDS awareness story featuring Death was worth it for John Constantine holding a banana while Death put a condom on it.

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman, Part IV: The Absolute Sandman, Volume Four

Comic hardcover, 608 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 1993-96)
Borrowed from the library
Read October 2010

The Absolute Sandman, Volume Four

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Marc Hempel, Michael Zulli, D'Israeli, Richard Case, Charles Vess, Teddy Kristiansen, John J Muth, Kevin Nowlan, Dean Ormston, Glyn Dillon
Colorists: Daniel Vozzo, John J Muth
Letterers: Todd Klein, Kevin Nowlan

With this volume, The Sandman storyline hurtles to its inevitable conclusion. I had this spoiled for me ages ago, but it still totally works, and besides, Volume Three has a sequence that gives the game away anyway. The story is slow to start, but it really comes together as it goes, and as we see people throughout the universe of the series react to what is about to happen to Dream-- or what Dream is about to do? The final storyline makes a lot of sense of Dream's inactivity throughout the series (though I don't know that it excuses it as good storytelling), and I was happy to see Lyta Hall, wife of the 1980s Sandman, make a return. As the series' longest storyline yet, The Kindly Ones really works: I was riveted as I read, wanting to know what was going to happen next even thought I knew. There were lots of great little moments, especially the last stand of Merv Pumpkinhead during the assault on the Dreaming, and Cain's grief at what has happened to Abel. Marc Hempel has a different pencilling style from most of the other artists on the series, which would have been fine-- except that it often made it difficult to recognize brief appearances by preestablished characters. Though not quite as good as Brief Lives in Volume Three, The Kindly Ones provides an excellent finale to the series.

I need to say a few words about Matthew the Raven. Though Merv makes me laugh the most, Matthew is my favorite of the characters to inhabit the Dreaming, a mortal man who died and was offered a chance to live on in dreams as Dream's raven. He's your "average guy" amongst the far-fetched characters of the Dreaming, a little baffled but often able to cut through the crap. He got some good material in Volume Three, and he shines here in Volume Four, providing a human anchor for the massive events unfolding. The climax of the The Kindly Ones wouldn't be nearly as powerful without him, and he's what makes the last storyline in the book, The Wake, work as well as it does, as he struggles to come to terms with what happened. A great supporting character.

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman, Part III: The Absolute Sandman, Volume Three

Comic hardcover, 616 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 1991-2000)
Borrowed from the library
Read September 2010

The Absolute Sandman, Volume Three

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Jill Thompson, Vince Locke, Bryan Talbot, Mark Buckingham, P. Craig Russell, Michael Zulli, John Watkiss, Dick Giordano, Michael Allred, Shea Anton Pensa, Alec Stevens, Gary Amaro, Kent Williams, Tony Harris, Steve Leialoha
Colorists: Dave Vozzo, Lovern Kindzierski, Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh
Letterer: Todd Klein

As I'd mentioned earlier, I was somewhat lukewarm towards the earlier volumes of The Absolute Sandman. There was certainly an amazing mythology at work, but I found it hard to be interested in Dream as a character; often, I was more invested in the random people who got caught up in his adventures. (Curiously, all of these substitute protagonists seem to usually be women. I wonder if there's anything in that.) But the substory Brief Lives, collected here, changed all that. This story features Dream and his sister Delirium searching for their lost brother Destruction-- and in the process of that, Dream finally has to come to terms with his relationship with his son. It's half a road-trip comedy, half a meditation on knowing when to move on, and half a very dark fairy tale. It's definitely the funniest of the Sandman storylines... but it's also the most touching. I enjoyed every aspect of this one a lot, from Delirium's inane attempts to try to drive a mortal car, to Dream and Destruction's conversation on reuniting, from the first appearance of Merv, the pumpkinheaded janitor of the Dreaming, to the moment where Dream finally goes and sees Orpheus. Most of all, it's great to finally get a sense of Dream as a person. (Inasmuch as an anthropomorphic personification of an abstract universal concept can be one, I suppose.)

What struck me as I was reading it is that The Sandman really is a literary comic book. I mean, there have been plenty of literary graphic novels produced-- non-superhero fare that is done in one sitting. But The Sandman unlike most "highbrow" sequential art pieces, is completely and utterly a comic book: an ongoing, indefinite story. In total, the series comprises some 75 issues, and stories and characters and ideas weave in and out of these issues the same way they might in a Superman or Spider-Man ongoing. Gaiman really utilizes the potential of the comic ongoing to its maximum here, and that is the reason I like The Sandman as much as I do. It might have taken until Brief Lives for me to like The Sandman, but Brief Lives would never have worked without all the preceding issues to lead up to it. Gaiman has utterly mastered one of my favorite aspects of the medium here, and I find that delightful.

A brief word about the other storyline collected in this volume, Worlds' End. This is a collection of one-issue stories set in the world of The Sandman, but unlike many of the other ones, they're connected with a frame narrative. They're also the weakest; most of these did nothing at all for me. Strangely dull for Gaiman.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Star City, Part XXIV: Green Arrow and Black Canary: Big Game

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2010 (contents: 2009-10)
Borrowed from the library
Read August 2010

Green Arrow and Black Canary: Big Game

Writer: Andrew Kreisberg
Pencillers: Mike Norton, Renato Guedes
Inkers: Joe Rubinstein, Bill Sienkiewicz, José Wilson Magalhães
Colorists: David Baron, David Curiel, Allen Passalaqua
Letterers: Sal Cipriano, Pat Brosseau

Enumerating everything that is wrong with Green Arrow and Black Canary at this point would take more time than I want to put into it. I'm not sure if this is better or worse than Judd Winick's run on the title.

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman, Part II: The Absolute Sandman, Volume Two

Comic hardcover, 616 pages
Published 2007 (contents: 1990-98)
Borrowed from the library
Read June 2010

The Absolute Sandman, Volume Two

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Sean McManus, Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenberg, Bryan Talbot, John Watkiss, Matt Wagner, Stan Woch, Coleen Doran, Duncan Eagleson, John Bolton, Malcolm Jones III, George Pratt, Dick Giordano, P. Craig Russell, Vince Locke
Colorists: Dave Vozzo, Steve Oliff
Letterer: Todd Klein

There's two big storylines collected in this volume of The Absolute Sandman. The first is Seasons of Mists, which opens with a meeting between Dream and the rest of the Endless. They suggest that Dream was a bit of a jerk for exiling his lover to Hell ten thousand years ago (described in a side story in Volume One), and that he should get her back. Apparently that's all it takes to change someone's mind, because Dream launches himself into Hell to reclaim her soul. Why? No one knows. Upon getting there, he finds out that Lucifer has opened the Gates of Hell and let everyone go because he's tired of the whole thing, and Lucifer hands the place over to Dream and promptly absconds, leaving Dream with the question of what to do with Hell. Various claimants come to petition Dream, and I was initially excited-- who Dream chose would give me some insight into his character surely, or even just watching him deliberate would-- but the whole storyline just stops with a literal divine intervention. Seeing Gaiman's depictions of the various claimants is fun, though; I think my favorites were Thor and the Lord of Order. His Loki is pretty underwhelming for the ultimate trickster, though. The best part of the storyline, however, is the side story about the boy left behind at a boarding school when all the souls are released from Hell.

The second story, A Game of You, is much better for the reason that it doesn't focus on Dream at all, but rather Barbie, a human who previously appeared in Volume One. Her dreams are starting to spill over into the real world and into the lives of those who share her apartment building. We see almost everything from the perspective of Barbie, her transvestite friend Wanda, the lesbian couple Hazel and Foxglove (one of whom is pregnant!), and a witch named Thessaly. Barbie soon becomes lost in her dreams, which are a little girl's depiction of a fantasy land, with herself as the princess, surrounded by a cast of goofy animal characters. Watching these characters try to make sense of the weird world they've been projected into, as well as their own personal lives, is great, and I was totally on board with every moment of it. The ending is a bit underwhelming, however, as Dream just shows up all of a sudden and takes care of everything. But other than that (and the epilogue), this was my favorite Sandman storyline yet.

There's also a quality side story about Emperor Norton I of the United States, which I just loved. A fun look at a fun historical personage.

My reviews of the first two volumes of The Absolute Sandman might make it seem like I'm down on the series, and I'm not-- I think the writing is usually sharp, most of the characters are fully-fledged people, the tone and atmosphere are great, the Dreaming is a fantastic mythology, and Matthew the Raven is pretty much awesome. But it's hard to get too enthused about a series whose protagonist leaves you so little to connect to, even at supposedly defining moments.

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman, Part I: The Absolute Sandman, Volume One

Now that I've finally finished up with Green Arrow, I've moved on to a new comics project: Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Long considered some of the most literate comics, I've never read them, and I've long felt that to be something of a deficiency. As a result, I'm forcing the ILL staff to get hold of the swanky Absolute Editions of the series, which takes some time, but lets me move through the series a bit quicker.

Comic hardcover, 612 pages
Published 2006 (contents: 1988-90)
Borrowed from the library
Read June 2010

The Absolute Sandman, Volume One

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Charles Vess, Michael Zulli, Kelley Jones, Chris Bachalo, Malcolm Jones III, Danny Vozzo, Colleen Doran, Steve Parkhouse
Colorists: Daniel Vozzo, Steve Oliff
Letterers: Todd Klein, John Costanza

The protagonist of these stories is Dream of the Endless, a personification of the abstract concept of "dream"-- the other Endless, who are all siblings, also personify abstract concepts that begin with "D" in English (odd, that). He can enter into people's dreams, and acquire whatever he needs from them. Despite his enormous power, he's imprisoned by a human sorcerer, but the series begins with him finally making his escape after almost a century. Now, he must return to the world and re-establish his kingdom. All of my problems with this series can be traced to Dream himself, I think. How does he feel about being locked up and powerless for such a long period of time? No one knows, since Gaiman never gives us much insight into his interiority. Dream embarks on a series of quests upon his escape in an attempt to track down and recover artifacts stolen from him during his imprisonment, but it's hard to root for a protagonist whose powers are so all-encompassing and ill-defined. There's not really any circumstance where he won't triumph; even his journey into Hell is anti-climactic; he turns out to have a power that Lucifer's demons don't.

Where this volume succeeds much more is with its depiction of the small characters, human or otherwise, caught in the wake of Dream's machinations. The snippets of those affected by Dream's imprisonment in the opening issues are the first sign of this, but it gets better with those who are subject to the evil machinations of Doctor Destiny (who just happens to escape imprisonment and steal Dream's magic ruby at the exact moment Dream comes looking for it), and even Doctor Destiny himself. Even better, however, is the substory called The Doll's House where a "dream vortex" begins to form. No one, not even Dream or Neil Gaiman, seem to know what a dream vortex actually is, but the exploration of its effects on the tenants in a Florida house is well done, as we see the snippets of all these people's dreams, and thus the snippets of themselves. Rose Walker is a good character, well drawn as a teenager struggling to come to terms with all the enormous things suddenly happening in her life. I even liked the appearance of poor Hector Hall, one of the substitute Sandmen who filled in for Dream during his imprisonment. He's a buffoon, but a well-meaning, manipulated one. The ending of the story, with Rose Walker and the heroic Gilbert at a serial killer's convention, is great. Even if Gaiman continuously tops himself in the gross-out stakes with the serial killer stuff.

Perhaps the best part of the entire volume are the side stories that show other aspects of the Dreaming. "The Sound of Her Wings," Dream's first meeting with his sister Death after his imprisonment, and "Dream of a Thousand Cats," the story of the secret dream of cats, were both good, but my favorite was "Men of Good Fortune," which is about an ordinary English granted immortality that Dream meets with every century-- the closest thing Dream has to a friend, and a rare insight into Dream's character. Curiously, the award-winning "A Midsummer Night's Dream," where Dream hires Shakespeare to write the titular play for him, left me cold. Clever, but uninvolving.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Star City, Part XXIII: Green Lantern: Emerald Allies

This is it! With Green Lantern: Emerald Allies, I have officially and finally read every single trade paperback to feature Green Arrow, a voyage I began exactly a year ago in May 2009, taking me through twenty Green Arrow comics, plus a few related stories.

Comic trade paperback, 206 pages
Published 2000 (contents: 1996-97)
Borrowed from the library
Read May 2010

Green Lantern: Emerald Allies

Writers: Chuck Dixon, Ron Marz
Pencillers: Rodolfo Damaggio, Dougie Braithwaite, Paul Pelletier, Darryl Banks, Will Rosado
Inkers: Robert Campanella, Robin Riggs, Romeo Tanghal, Terry Austin
Colorists: Lee Loughridge, Pam Rambo, Rob Schwager
Letterers: John Costanza, Albert De Guzman, Chris Elioupoulos

The only part of Connor Hawke's time in the title role of volume 2 of Green Arrow is collected in this volume, labeled as part of the Green Lantern series despite the fact that five of its eight issues were originally Green Arrow releases. They all feature team-ups between Connor and Kyle Rayner, the then-Green Lantern of Earth, both young men unexpectedly thrust into a long-running superhero mantle. The material that works with this is probably the best stuff here.

The first story is "Bad Blood," a one-issue first meeting for the two heroes that is decent, but not spectacular. The largest section of the book is "Hard-Traveling Heroes: The Next Generation," which apes the GL/GA team-ups of old by having the two of them travel the United States looking for Kyle's father. Denny O'Neill's early team-ups were known for their over-earnest social commentary, and there's some of that here, but it fits oddly. The story is okay, but let down by a villain plan that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The best story in the book is the last one, "Hate Crimes," which sees New York City pulled apart by racial rhetoric from both white and black commentators, and gets some nice material in as a result, as well as showing us both heroes in their element.

I liked this brief chance to get to know both Connor and Kyle; it some ways it's a shame that both had to be replaced in their roles by the returns of their predecessors. It's not long after this story that Oliver Queen is resurrected, bringing us to Quiver, back where I began all that time ago.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Star City, Part XXII: Batman/Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow

Perfect-bound comic, n.pag.
Published 1992
Borrowed from the library
Read April 2010

Batman/Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow

Writer: Dennis O'Neil
Penciller: Michael Netzer
Inker: Josef Rubinstein
Colorist: Lovern Kindzierski
Letterer: Todd Klein

This short graphic novel unites Batman and Green Arrow to combat a new threat from Poison Ivy, who has indirectly poisoned Black Canary (lame) and will soon poison the entire planet. The story is pretty average, a lot of running around punching things while Green Arrow snipes at Batman, even though I don't think their methodologies are terribly dissimilar at this point in time. (If anything, Green Arrow is more "street-level" and brutal, given that Batman doesn't believe in killing and is in fact running around with Justice League Europe pretty publicly.) I've never found Poison Ivy a terribly interesting villain, and her co-conspirator here is even more boring. The story would get by, but it's let down slightly by Michael Netzer's art, which is exaggerated in weird ways, such as Batman's huge ears and Oliver's ridiculous handlebar mustache. Gotta love that last page, though-- pure Batman.

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 XX: The Black Canary Archives, Volume 1

Comic hardcover, 227 pages
Published 2001 (contents: 1947-72)
Borrowed from the library
Read April 2010

The Black Canary Archives, Volume 1

Story: Robert Kanigher, Gardner Fox, Dennis O'Neil
Art: Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella, Bernard Sachs, Murphy Anderson, Alex Toth

Collecting all of Black Canary's solo adventures, this volume mostly concerns the character we now know as Dinah Lance née Drake, mother of Dinah Laurel Lance, the Black Canary who ultimately became involved with Oliver Queen. The character is actually somewhat impressive for a 1947 comic book character: after her early adventures with the "humorous" Johnny Thunder, she acquired her own setup, a mild-mannered florist secretly fighting crime with her judo skills at night, much to the consternation of Larry Lance, private detective-- who could never one-up the Black Canary, nor get a date with her. It's an inversion of the good old Clark/Lois dynamic, and it works wonderfully for it. Except not quite: Carmine Infantino's introduction to this volume claims that Dinah Drake "spent much of her time yearning for a good lucking detective whose only interest was in her alter ego", but that's not actually the case; Dinah taunts Larry and never shows a sign that she's interested in him romantically. She's no milquetoast like Clark Kent can be! This unusual setup (and some sharp art) raises Robert Kanigher's twenty-two 6-10-page stories out of the repetitive rut they could easily fall into (see Showcase Presents The Green Arrow). The plots are typically contrived, but I enjoyed the tales nonetheless, especially once Johnny Thunder was nixed in favor of Larry Lance.

Two longer stories come from later in the Black Canary's lifespan, after Dinah Drake has married Larry Lance. "Mastermind of Menaces!" and "The Big Super-Hero Hunt" by Gardner Fox unite Black Canary and Larry Lance with fellow Justice Society member Starman in a pair of stories that are fairly enjoyable, especially the former one. These stories manage to balance all three protagonists well-- Canary isn't sidelined in favor of the male hero in Starman, and even Larry Lance gets to be a semi-competent detective for once.

The last story, "The Canary and the Cat!" by Denny O'Neil is the only one in the book about the second Black Canary... and it shows that O'Neil doesn't really get her character beyond the fact that she knows judo and is in love with Green Arrow. Would Dinah ever sit around thinking about how great Oliver is for fighting crime? Seems unlikely. "I'm an expert at judo... that's all!" she thinks. Geeze, what happened to your floral business, Dinah? Or your own crime-fighting abilities? She does get to kick some butt, though, and Alex Toth's stylized artwork is very nice to look at.