Scary Heroes

Hey, it's time to get some free candy today from the neighbors! But before you do, let's remember some of the scarier "heroes" who tried to save the day from time to time even though they didn't look like Captain America.

Swamp Thing

I never really understood the appeal of this guy, but I used to watch him on Nicolodean's late 70's/early 80's comic book show where they read comic books with sound effects. Definitely low-key for a kid's show, but I loved it (I still hear the theme song of "Flight of the Valkyries" every time I go through the back issues of an old comic store).

From what I understand the comic took a freaky turn after he became a part of the Vertigo line. He's recently returned to the DC universe as the "big reveal" of the Brightest Day storyline.

The Spectre

Ok, so he's not that terrifying to look at, but you'd better believe that when he showed up to hurt you, it was not going to end well.

Jim Aparo took this otherwordly character and made him one serious avatar of justice, having him deal with criminals by cutting them in half with giant scissors, turning them into a wooden statue before cutting it to pieces with a buzzsaw, and having their flesh melt off. Yep, he was someone even Batman thought was too tough on bad guys.

Aparo's entire run can be found in a trade paperback collection that you really want to read. Even though the Spectre today has been turned into a caricature of himself, the Aparo version will make you respect him again.

Deadman

Again, not scary to look at, but how tough must it be to be a superhero no one else can ever see or talk to?

He can possess anyone and has often gotten involved in many JLA adventures and teamed with Batman quite often in the original Brave and the Bold series of team-ups. The thing that really makes him fresh and tragic is the fact that he was the bearer of the White Lantern ring for a while, got to come back to life and be normal again, and then died saving Dove only to become Deadman again rather than have peace in the afterlife. I have to give DC credit on this one: they really did it right for this character in recent books.

Neal Adams' work on this character is unparalleled. While there have been a number of folks who've drawn him, I think Adams still stands as the best.

The Phantom Stranger

While Deadman was the hero no one could see or hear, the Phantom Stranger is the hero no one understands. DC has never (to my knowledge) given this hero a true origin--and I'm absolutely fine with that! Wolverine shall forever stand as a lesson for those who wish to take the mystery man and give him a backstory thinking it will make him interesting. Wrong move, Marvel!

What powers does the Phantom Stranger have? Mysterious magic stuff. Nothing definite, but he can pretty much defend himself against most magic attacks. He appears when needed and disappears immediately afterward. He's never been a regular member of any team, and has pretty much kept the same costume since his first appearance. Like the character, the look is timeless and always a fun read.

Werewolf By Night

Jack Russell (yep, just like the terrier) became Marvel's Werewolf by Night every time the full moon came out (which in the Marvel Universe was whenever he needed to become the monster rather than once a month). And he somehow always wore green pants. I guess he got his clothes from the same color-changing tailor the Hulk got his always-purple pants from.

I don't know how Marvel managed to keep this character going through his own series for so long, but they did. The gimmick seems simple enough--man becomes wolf, doesn't want to be wolf, tries to find cure while not hurting those he loves, etc--yet he found his way working through a number of Marvel titles, helping Spider-Man and even fighting Dracula himself. The title even introduced the world to Moon Knight, who was originally a werewolf-fighting hero.

Ghost Rider

I couldn't finish the list without including this guy, the original Spirit of Vengeance. He suffered a rather less-than-stellar movie adaptation (and a sequel that will at last give every comic fan something they've always wanted to see: Ghost Rider using the bathroom), but the title started out interesting enough.

Ghost Rider was a member of the Champions for the entirety of their existence, and he was a part of the new Fantastic Four along with Wolverine, Hulk, and Spider-Man for a very short bit.

It was very fortunate Johnny Blaze became Ghost Rider. Think of how much less you would respect the hero if his secret identity was Cecil Feather.

The Legion of Monsters

I'm just throwing this in to grab a few remaining ones I missed. Morbius, Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night (as opposed to Werewolf By Day, which isn't nearly as scary) and Ghost Rider teamed up to fight the baddies for an issue of Marvel Premiere.

Give Marvel credit on this one, it was a fun little group. I'm just glad they didn't throw Howard the Duck in there with them.

Now go grab some free candy!

Moments That Made the Bronze (and Modern) Age: The Dark Knight Returns

This one was from the 80's, I know, but I consider this a game-changer for the character. Growing up the 70's to Neal Adams' Batman interpretation that later gave way to the awesome Jim Aparo, I knew Batman was cool and tough. I missed the campy 50's and 60's "fat" version of the character, so I'd always seen him that way. But sales on the title were at a lull and he needed a boost.

And along came Frank Miller.

"The Dark Knight Returns" couldn't be considered a reboot. It's supposed to take place in the future, and to my knowledge it's never been branded an "Elseworlds" title, but at the same time the ramifications were felt back into the "real" version of the character as Alan Moore stepped in with "The Killing Joke" and soon the comic book had a gritty hero again.

What makes The Dark Knight Returns stand out to me is the hopeless view given of Gotham City without its hero. We see this place where anarchy pretty much rules and the police can do little to stop it. Then, over the course of several pages, an aging Bruce Wayne decides to suit up again and stop the madness. He has a monster Batmobile that was a nice precursor to the Tumbler we see now in the movies. In one particularly awesome scene, we see Batman pulling along the mutant leader, goading him into escaping Gotham jail only to find himself in a fight with Batman himself. That's the cool stuff.

I also like how we find Superman aging as well, and not quite the same in his views on everything while still holding on to enough Clark Kent to give us someone to cheer for. And then the Joker was crazier than we'd ever seen him before. I think this story was instrumental in helping everyone perceive him as a true threat to Batman rather than the caricature he'd become over time. 

SPOILER ALERT FROM THIS POINT FORWARD:

Of course, the to-the-death fights in here are what made the story stand out to me. First of all, there is the Joker. How many times have we read: "No more! Tonight this ends!" in Batman comics (even today) and known ahead of time he was just going to put Joker away and let him escape again? But this time...this time was different.

Even though Batman technically didn't kill the Joker (the madman broke his own neck to frame him), it was still nice to see a little closure on this never-ending conflict.

And then we had the throwdown with Superman himself. This fight actually changed the way people saw Batman and Superman after this, with Jim Lee letting him beat Superman down in Hush and everyone else practically making him invincible since then.

And of course, the ending is killer. While the story itself is good, it wouldn't be anywhere near that great if it didn't end well. Fortunately, it does.

Unfortunately, when Miller went back to this universe several years later, he gave the world a horrible sequel that could be consider the "Batman and Robin" movie of the comic book world. It successfully killed the universe for all of us.

The coolest part of this is the fact that the upcoming Batman:Arkham City game will have the option for you to play as TDKR version of Batman, gritty looking and all! It's one of the key reasons I'm buying the game.

While not the best Batman story ever necessarily, it's definitely in the top 5 for me.

Next week, we start a new series of posts called "What I Hate About the 90's". Feel free to chime in about your own hated moments of the "Dark Ages" of comics.

Moments That Made the Bronze Age: Wolverine Begins

When we talk about shining moments of the Bronze Age of the 70's, there is one hero that we have to mention: Wolverine. His first sighting was an almost-unnoticed-at-the-time appearance in Hulk #181, a battle in which he fought the Wendigo and the Hulk, and lost when the Hulk sucker punched him.

He disappeared for a while until he was picked up in Giant-Sized X-Men #1. Ironically enough, the hero wasn't supposed to be a mutant, and his claws were actually just supposed to be attached to the gloves. That meant technically anyone could have become Wolverine later on. The guys are Marvel decided he'd make a good fit, turned him into a mutant, and threw him into the team.

Wolverine was a hit with the rest of the group, but unfortunately Thunderbird and he were both deemed too close to the same character and one had to go. Instead of just retiring the guy, they decided to kill Thunderbird in a toss-up decision that turned out to be the best one they could have made. Imagine how differently the next few years would have turned out if Wolverine had been the one they chose to kill off!

When John Byrne picked up the X-Men, he immediately focused on Wolverine as his favorite because they were both Canadian (true story) and he wanted a cool Canadian superhero. With Byrne's artwork, Wolverine became a superstar and helped propel the X-Men to one of the most popular comic titles of the 80's.

I can still vividly remember the first time I read X-Men #132 and saw that final panel where a soaked and beaten Wolverine finished the issue off with "Now it's my turn!" I couldn't wait for the next month!

When X-Men #133 came out, it did not disappoint. Wolverine was finally given the spotlight with his first solo cover! Inside he was basically the last free X-Man (the rest were captives of the Hellfire Club) and he tore through the faceless bad guys with some amazing action! There was no graphic scene of blood or guts like there would be today, but the story itself was so incredibly effective in every way. After the Dark Phoenix Saga ended, Wolverine got a new costume of brown and orange, and slowly the book focused more on him with the appearance of Alpha Flight, and even the return of the Wendigo.

If you missed out on this golden age of the X-Men, I highly encourage you to grab a copy of the "Essential X-Men" from that time. Even in black and white, Byrne's artwork and Chris Claremont's stories show you why everyone flocked to the title.

Today Wolverine is in just about every Marvel comic you pick up, either as a guest star, team member, or focal point, but back in the 70's and 80's all we had were these once-a-month appearances (imagine that: just one X-Men title a month!) to feed our Wolverine frenzy.

Then in 1982, Frank Miller gave us what we were hoping for: Wolverine's own title. Granted, it was just a four-issue miniseries, but it was wonderful. Having grown used to seeing Wolverine's sleek look from John Byrne's pencils, it took a bit to adjust to Miller's gritty style and his odd way of drawing Wolverine's claws like they were coming out of his fingers rather than the back of his hand. Still, it was Wolverine and he was solo, so I was a happy camper.

Eventually Wolverine moved to a regular solo title with Madripoor as the setting, and the rest is history. Unfortunately, the Marvel execs soon realized that every comic with Wolverine as a guest star sold a bunch, so they started dropping him into every comic out there. His first showdown with Captain America was cool...his "battle" with Power Pack was not. It was a hit-and-miss affair that eventually diluted the character to the point where it was actually more fun trying to find a title that went six months without an appearance by him.

Today he's in Wolverine, X-Force, X-Men, and a few other titles on a regular basis. They've stripped him of his adamantium claws, given them back, killed him off, brought him back, gave him a son and a female clone daughter, and the list goes on and on. But for me, I'll always remember him as the cool yellow-and-blue guy in the X-Men who really gave us something to look forward to each month. I guess in hindsight giving him his own title was the beginning of the end. Maybe he was just one of those awesome secondary characters who was best in smaller doses.

Moments That Made the Bronze (and Modern) Age: Crisis On Infinite Earths

In the mid-80's, DC took a bold step and admitted it had a problem. They just had too many different Earths floating around out there! Initially it was used to explain how the Justice Society of the 40's could exist and still work with the JLA 20 years later, which was a good idea. Unfortunately, they soon started creating new worlds whenever they needed a convenient excuse, giving us Earth 3 with the Crime Syndicate, Earth X with the Freedom Fighters, and many more.

The time came for a clean-up, and DC gave it to the world in a big way. Creating a 12-issue maxi-series, giving it to one of their best artists ever (George Perez), and deciding it was time to kill some major heroes, DC boldly stepped forward and blew my mind with every issue. But the one that truly blew me away had to be the death of my favorite hero at the time: The Flash.

Now I've mentioned Barry Allen's death before in other posts, but that pivotal moment in the series changed the landscape of the comic book world for me. This was years before the Internet, so finding exact issues where other heroes had died wasn't something I'd been able to do with regularity. Yes, I knew the Batman of Earth 2 had died somehow, and I'd seen the JLA issue where Mr. Terrific died, but most hero deaths were stuff that happened in books I would never get to read. The Flash's death, however, I held in my trembling little hands and couldn't believe as I sat in the floor of the drug store in front of the magazine rack.

The Flash's death was preceded by Supergirl's in the previous issue, but I'd never been a big fan of her's so it didn't bother me nearly as much. I kept waiting for the next issue to come out and say that Barry was alive somehow, but it never happened. Wally West stepped in and became the first major sidekick to take on the role of his mentor.

Marvel didn't sit on the sidelines though, as they unleashed Secret Wars and tried to make some changes. They gave us the symbiote Spider-Man suit, and...and...um...well, the suit was cool. They just weren't able to pull off the universe-altering effect DC did with this series.

Another favorite of mine who died was the original Dove, Don Hall (his death is pictured in our blog's title image). Again, I'd hoped for a return, but it never happened. Even up to this day, Don has never come back, even though Supergirl, Barry Allen, and even the Crime Syndicate has found their way back to the land of the living. Oh well, if I ever get the chance to write for DC...

The thing that makes this series stand out is that the changes here were long-lasting--for comic books anyway. Wally West stayed the Flash for the next 20 years as Barry Allen stayed dead. We had just one Earth to deal with, but all the heroes were on it.

Then someone got the stupid idea to try and write a sequel to this hit and we ended up with the "Phantom Menace" of the comic book world: Infinite Crisis. That series decided the hero of the last maxi-series should actually become the villain of the new one. Fortunately for them, Grant Morrison took everyone on such a mind trip in the follow-up Final Crisis, that he was able to make IC look almost readable.

All cruel words aside, Crisis on Infinite Earths was, to me, a pinnacle for the 80's. I still hold it as a standard I judge other miniseries by and think DC really knocked it out of the park with this one. I consider the Absolute Edition of this story a must-have simply because seeing George's artwork in the larger-than-life format is a real treat.

I have just a couple more stories to mention over the next two weeks, and then I want to dive into the black hole decade of the comic book world as we discuss what went horribly, horribly wrong in the 90's. But first, next week: A guest shot in another comic had this hero defeated in his first fight, but his next appearance in the comic world helped create one of the most popular titles of all time...

Moments That Made the Bronze Age: The Death of Gwen Stacy

People sometimes wonder why I'm so big on the Bronze Age of comics and not so happy about the way things are going today (thus my blog title). I thought I'd highlight a few Bronze Age moments over the weeks to come that show why those comics rocked.

When I was a kid, my first comic book and favorite hero was Spider-Man. I truly cared about the character, thinking Peter Parker was actually just as much a star of the book as Spider-Man himself. I actually started reading the comic a couple of years after the death of Peter's girlfriend, but thanks to Marvel's reprint Spidey title at the time, Marvel Tales Presents Spider-Man, I was able to read it for the first time.

This was the storyline that, for a while anyway, shaped Spider-Man's world. The woman he loved most in the world, and potentially the one he would have married if the storyline had been allowed to progress, was suddenly killed. And this was a serious death in the comic books, not an imaginary story or hoax that would later by wiped away as so many other comic book deaths had been.

Several things make this a pivotal moment in comics to me. First, well, she died. It was the woman he loved, killed by his arch-enemy...but not necessarily killed by his arch-enemy. Oh, Green Goblin had a part in it by knocking her off the bridge, but when you look at that fateful panel as Spidey is shooting his web to catch her you see that tiny "snap" just at her neck, indicating that Gwen was alive when she fell, and that Spider-Man himself had killed her while trying to save her. In other words, Spider-Man failed in the biggest way possible.

Yes, some might say that was a cold-hearted way to do it, but I think it was some powerful writing for the time. Her father had died saving a small child a few months prior and she blamed Spider-Man for that death, never knowing that it was Peter behind the mask. And now, just as Peter is reeling from his death, he loses his love.

Her death elevated her to the status of the perfect woman for Peter. And it shocked comic fans everywhere. The storyline finished up with the death of Green Goblin by being impaled with his glider (a fate that was used in the first Spider-Man film), and he stayed dead for years afterward.

After that, Harry Osborn, Norman's son and Peter's best friend, picked up the mask of Green Goblin and came after Spider-Man for what he did (again, a storyline borrowed for a Spider-Man film...the bad one). This even eventually led to the death of Harry Osborn many years later because he'd been poisoned by the formula used to make him the Green Goblin.

So in this one huge story arch that stretched for years, Peter Parker lost his girlfriend, his arch enemy, and his best friend...and began a relationship with Mary Jane Watson that led to one of the greatest comic book marriages ever. That truly was "amazing".  It shaped Spider-Man's legacy for comic fans everywhere.

Then a man named Quesada stepped in and destroyed all of that for us.

In "Sins Past" he revealed Gwen Stacy--Peter's perfect girl--had actually had Norman Osborn's (the Green Goblin) kids. And those kids grew super-fast and tried to kill Spider-Man later. He brought Norman Osborn back, and then he wiped everything out for the previous 20 years and started all over again. Harry Osborn was back now, but Gwen was still dead. Mary Jane was not and never had been Peter Parker's wife (hey, if Quesada ain't gettin' any then neither is Spider-Man, right?). Quesada's fanboy dreams for the character were complete.

So there you have it, a moment I consider above-the-standard for the Bronze Age of comics (it may have actually snuck into the Silver Age, but again I read it as a reprint in Marvel Tales so it was Bronze to me). It was one storyline that truly did change a hero's life forever until Quesada stepped in.

As we start looking into these strong moments in Silver and Bronze Age comic book history, which ones do you think deserve mention? Which comic book moments stuck with you long after you read them?