Back in action! Yes, I may have driven for 6 hours today, and I may smell like unbagged comics and children's tylenol, but I'm here with new content; because the world needs to know what I think of comics from twenty years ago.
So, I did have a great time on vacation and seeing my relatives and swimming and skiing and so forth...but, that's not what this blog is for, is it? Back at my parents', I did find a box of comics; which was like a little time capsule of what I was reading about 15 years ago. (Give or take: some were purchased as back issues then.) You ever find those? 9 times out of 10, it's most likely a batch of early 90's X-Men, or early Image books: books that were printed in such crushing numbers that everyone has them.
I didn't have time to re-read all the comics I found, but I did snag a few for blog purposes. These panels, for example, are from Power of the Atom #13, "Rattling the Cages," written by Bill Messner-Loebs, pencils by Graham Nolan, inks by K.S. Wilson. I was reading it in high school (old...so old...), and it was the short-lived relaunch of the Atom, who had previously had a couple of successful but dead-ending "Sword of the Atom" limited series and specials.
(Previously: the Atom, his marriage over, had found a shrunken hidden city in the Amazon, and married a woman there, leaving his life in the outer world and Justice League behind. In the first issue of Power, the city is destroyed, and his wife and new friends are presumed dead. Ray Palmer has no choice but return to his old life in Ivy Town, which is complicated by his ex-wife, her new husband, and the tell-all biography he had allowed to be published before he left. That's what happens when you burn your bridges, kids!)
I liked this series, and consider it a bit underrated. The art isn't maybe as flashy as might have been needed, but the story worked pretty well. This issue was guest-written by Messner-Loebs, who would go on for a stretch of Flash and Wonder Woman, and he keeps all the previous subplots from Roger Stern going.
One of those subplots was that Ray was having trouble readjusting to polite society, after living the life of "Atom the Barbarian" in the Sword of the Atom series. He was a college professor, that could conceivably stab any given villain in battle, and Ray had trouble accepting that. Mostly.
This issue also features the Atom vs. a sub-dural hematoma ("You got that from TV, right?"), Ray bonding with his ex's husband while Jean wonders what's going on, and a brawl at a writers' party. Good stuff. I'm not sure if Messner-Loebs wrote the brawl as based on an actual incident, or wishful thinking; and there's a thinly veiled Capote in there for good measure.
One last complaint: if you're going to write something like Identity Crisis, it's certainly unreasonable to hold you to every little bit of continuity for a character with over thirty years of publishing history. That said, it would be nice if you held to more than a couple of Justice League of America issues. Or just break clean: there was a Crisis, things are different now. Done.
Enough. More fun tomorrow, kay?
No comments:
Post a Comment