Backfill, in the mighty Marvel manner!

I've mentioned this before, and it's probably a pre-Crisis reader's problem; but every time there's a storyline where the timeline is altered, I think something like "...and in the new timeline, earth was destroyed in 1973, when Captain Man wasn't there to stop Hateface in Tales to Admonish #413." This probably dates back to the Challenge of the Super-Friends episode "Secret Origins of the Super-Friends," where the Legion of Doom travels back in time to throw various wrenches in the origins of Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Superman: in the altered present, a "Superman Day" parade becomes a "Hawkman Day," and I swear there's no timeline where he's ever looked happier.

But, hadn't Superman saved earth from asteroids and meteors and such, like dozens of times? Hawkman wouldn't have been set up for that, and earth would've been pulverized at some point. Take out the wrong load-bearing piece, and the whole thing'll collapse before you even get to a new present time. Let's see if that happens here!

From 1995, X-Men Chronicles #1, "Origins" Written by Howard Mackie, pencils by Terry Dodson, inks by Klaus Janson.

This is maybe what X-Men #1 would have been, in the Age of Apocalypse. Instead of being Jean Grey's introduction to Xavier's school, this was Mystique dropping Rogue off at Magneto's training base at scenic Wundagore Mountain. Magneto worked his mutant students hard, with a "Killing Zone" simulator instead of a Danger Room; but also waded in there with them: he was a bit more 'lead from the front' than Xavier. Feeling the students were perhaps a bit sheltered, he introduces them to some new dangers, with new member Weapon X, Logan.

Meanwhile, instead of Magneto attacking an air force base, in this timeline the Heralds of Apocalyspe attack it: Gideon, Candra, War, Death, and Sabretooth. Magneto leads the X-Men into battle, leaving his daughter Wanda in charge; neither realizing that Nemesis was approaching. As they leap from their damaged aircraft, Magneto wonders if they're ready: his X-Men seem gung-ho, but unaware of the stakes.

Back at Wundagore, Rogue and Wanda defend the younger mutants from Nemesis: Rogue had absorbed, perhaps permanently, the powers of Polaris, so she was able to fly. And at the air force base, Sabretooth is horrified that Apocalypse actually intended to use nuclear weapons, and Apocalypse orders the others to attack him. (With little prompting: Sabretooth was not particularly likable.) He's contained in a telekinetic bubble by Candra when the X-Men arrive, and manages to talk his way back onto the team: maybe he still dies, maybe he proves himself to Apocalypse. Sabretooth gives some strategy to the others, then throws down with Weapon X. While the other Heralds are defeated, Sabretooth is disabled with a severed spine. Somewhat surprisingly, Apocalypse orders his Heralds, save Sabretooth, back to him; I thought he would leave them to sink-or-swim. Apocalypse's Ship was going to open fire, but Magneto stops it, yet can't keep Apocalypse from leaving.

And at Wundagore, while she managed to save the others (and I'm pretty sure Nemesis was messed up but would live) Wanda was mortally wounded. She tells Rogue, that her father would need a friend, and Rogue promises to be there for him. Wanda probably didn't intend that to mean "please hook up with my dad," but sure. Also, we only see Quicksilver briefly after Wanda dies, but already he seems to have a less-weird relationship with her than in our world. 

I had thought this was a late addition-slash-cash grab, after Age of Apocalypse turned out to be a huge success, but these two issues of X-Men Chronicles replaced the usual quarterly X-Men Unlimited, so maybe they were always part of the game plan. There was another title, X-Universe, that followed some of the usual Marvels through the AoA, where I think they were by-and-large chewed up and spit out; and I also wonder if that was always planned or a later add.

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I've got a small bin of Age of Apocalypse figures, waiting for a callback.

I'm not very far ahead plotwise right now, but the current "homemade posts" storyline with Kurt, Satana, and the X-Force Nightcrawler was pretty obviously building up to a trip back to the Age of Apocalypse, right? Or, should I say "over to" instead of "back to," because I think in current continuity the AoA is its own world, rather than just being a blip in the timeline that gets reset. Somehow, it even got a lower number! The AoA is Earth-295, while of course traditional Marvel continuity is 616. 

But, here's a little story problem I've been trying to sort out: the comics with the Age of Apocalypse started in X-Men #40, published November 1994 and a cover date of January 1995. We're going to go with 1995 because it's a better number to work with and the bulk of the storyline would then have taken place in an altered version of that same year. Legion had travelled back in time, about 20 years, and accidentally kills his father, Charles Xavier, creating a paradox that changes history. Apocalypse had watched that fight, and decided mutants were ready to take over the world: Magneto didn't have Xavier's temperment to keep trying to prove mutantkind's goodness to humanity, and may have been a bit more isolationist than Charles, creating the opening for Apocalypse to conquer North America. (If I recall correctly, Apocalypse also inadvertently pre-empted most of the "Marvels" that way: the Fantastic Four never went up on that rocket, Namor probably died a bum, Captain America was probably still in an iceberg, etc.) 

All well and good. Except! Marvel is on a sliding timeline. The events that caused the AoA--and thus, the AoA itself--weren't thirty years ago; they were maybe five years ago, seven tops! This does weird things to the Charles/Erik dynamic, since Erik was still tied to WWII, unless Charles was somewhat older when Legion kills him, around 2000? My assumption is the timeline would proceed pretty much as before up until Xavier's death, then things would go completely off the rails when Apocalypse and his forces chew up most of Europe and take over North America, which I'm guessing would be around 2015: the sliding timeline is about ten years, and that would've had to happen before Fantastic Four #1 to keep those events off the board. 

Of course, I don't know if my numbers are even close; and it's kind of like the Empire in Star Wars: the general vibe was that it had been around for a long, long time; but in-story it really only lasted around 30 years? Less? Luke and Leia are born at the end of Episode 3 as the Emperor takes power; they probably weren't in their thirties in Return of the Jedi. (Mark Hamill was maybe 31-32 during filming, Carrie Fisher maybe 27.) The opening of the Age of Apocalypse made it seem like it had been going on for decades; but maybe things just got worse faster than I would've guessed. (I used to have this thing, called "optimism," and...) A lot of this figuring was because I wrote an offhand comment with Satana trying to explain Krakoa-era mutant rebirths as respawns, like in video games; and I wasn't sure the AoA would have ever had any! Not that the X-Men would've had a lot of time to play any: Fighting fascism is a full-time job! But, maybe they did before; and I guess the AoA would have cell phones now, if there were any towers left standing or anything. Your service plan under Apocalypse probably didn't have a lot of minutes... 

Then, the other day there was an announcement, about Jeph Loeb and the "X-Men of Apocalypse," which was teased as if the Age of Apocalypse was still Apocalypsing, even though it was allegedly destroyed or sealed off (or both) in X-Termination #2 in 2013. And it had been seen again anyway, in Doom-approved fashion, in Secret Wars...I know for a fact I've read both of those, but the details are vague as hell for me? I think that tease was different than the story coming up in the Ms. Marvel X-event Giant-Size Age of Apocalypse, but maybe that's just the kickoff. I had personally been working up to the "reveal" that the AoA/Earth-295 was still ticking along, although maybe having been rebooted or remodeled more than once. And I had a deeply stupid reveal to go on top of that!

Ah, time makes fools of us all: back in 2013, I wondered why AoA Kurt would even want to return to the 'dismal suckhole' of the Age of Apocalypse: here we've got...relatively fresh air? Peak TV? Food trucks? And today...yeah, getting the hell out of here now seems more than completely reasonable. Well, we'll see if I keep meandering the plot in that direction: I had an AoA Magneto figure from clearance that I hadn't even opened, and was going to pop him out for this; and now I don't know. I might wait a moment anyway, since toy show tomorrow! Wish me luck, and we'll see what turns up. 

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"Well, look at that. 'Start Ragnarok, all die.' Even had it underlined."

I watched the last season of What If? over the holidays, and while it didn't knock my socks off, I don't know why it's ending, either: plenty of other stories out there, although I suspect they're limited by what actors are available to use. (Just use voice actors! They usually do a better job anyway.) Here's a recent one, that maybe could've used a Watcher, to ask, what was Loki thinking? From 2023, What If..? Dark: Loki #1, "The Song of Mjolnir...in minor..." Written by Walt Simonson, pencils by Scot Eaton, inks by Cam Smith and Scott Hannah.

This was "What If...? Dark," not "Dark Loki," and I think there were a few one-shots here that were all downbeat endings. I was flipping through old Journey Into Mystery covers, since I thought this might be based of a story from that era; but it didn't immediately jump out. (Maybe around Thor #138!) While Thor fought Ulik, Loki steals Mjolnir, having used enchantments of his own and from Karnilla so he could lift it. He then stabs Dr. Donald Blake in the back with Mjolnir's walking-stick form, and murders Sif for good measure! Then, he makes a quick trip to Nornheim, to kill Karnilla before she could take back her magic. Three murders so far, and Loki's just getting started! He's mildly annoyed that Mjolnir doesn't return to his hand and he has to dig it out, but as the hammer sparks lightning while he holds it, he thinks Mjolnir is starting to learn who was boss.

Spying on Odin, Loki sees how Ragnarok usually goes down, starting with his torture, then the death of Balder. He opts to move up that timetable, using Mjolnir to force-grow a sprig of mistletoe into a mighty spear, with which he backstabs Balder, right after he got the bad news about Karnilla. Loki then frees Fenris, and rallies his allies: the Frost Giants, Hela, the Midgard Serpent Jormungand, and Surtur. Heimdall gets clobbered by Mjolnir before he can sound the alarm, and Loki's forces storm Asgard almost without a fight. Odin is eaten by Fenris, and Loki is now in charge...for about three seconds, as Surtur was going to light his sword, and burn all of the Nine Realms. Somehow this comes as a surprise to Loki; and he can't throw Mjolnir hard enough to stop him; nor can he turn the lightning on Surtur. Instead, Mjolnir lightnings Loki into ash. Surtur lights his sword and destroys everything; even himself. But, a flash of lightning heralds a new universe.

Feels like Loki should have kinda seen this coming; but gods might be locked in on some of their actions. Still, he had been on a roll; did he really need Surtur? All he does is show up at the end to set everything on fire; maybe leave him on the bench. This issue would've been on the racks just prior to the first episode of the second season of Loki, and feels like a conscious choice, to remind readers when Loki was consistently an amoral monster. Read more!

It sucks I'm never going to see the Capitol Building again without thinking of January 6.

Admittedly, I may have thought of this every time I saw it before: Anyway, today we have from 1980, Mystery in Space #111, cover by Joe Kubert.

This was a revival of the classic DC sci-fi title: the previous issue, MiS #110, had featured Ultra the Multi-Alien and was published in 1966. It still looked like they were in apocalypse mode, though: from 1979 to 1980 DC put out five big issues of Time Warp, which ran with the header "Doomsday Tales and Other Things." Time Warp #5 was on stands March 1980 and MiS #111 June 1980: vile speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if these stories were originally meant for Time Warp, then DC maybe course-corrected from the larger book to standard-size. This is a roundabout way of pointing out the stories here were maybe gloomier than usual for the title, or DC's traditional sci-fi stuff. "Final Warning!" finds an earth ambassador risking his life to get a transmission back to earth, warning of an upcoming invasion...He dies sending it, only for it to be denied unread as "postage due." I...I feel like even in 1980 they should've known that wasn't really how 'electronic mail' was going to work. (Written by Gerald Brown, art by Dan Spiegle.)

In "Viewpoints," a robot in a distant, humanless future looks back through a time viewer at a prehistoric family, and sees itself back in the past. It tries to destroy the machine so it wouldn't get sent back in time, which of course makes it happen; but the humans have something to teach him. It has some dark moments, but gets to a happy ending. (Written by Charlie Boatner, art by Marshall Rogers.)

"Sure Things" is a groaner with the last man on earth, then a sci-fi tale with Jim Aparo art: "The Singling," also written by Gerald Brown. An alien invasion has wiped out humanity, seemingly to the last man; but he's not who you'd think. Hey, the Capitol again, and the Washington Post, being about as goddamn helpful as it is today. I wouldn't even wrap fish in it!

"Once Upon a Time Machine!" is almost a palette cleanser after the rest of the issue, as a young librarian steals a time machine for his research project, into the origins of fairy tales. The beardy jerks at the Temporal Research Center laughed at him, but he wasn't taking no for an answer! But, when you observe a phenomenon you might affect it; especially if you repeatedly affect things, like causing beans to grow a giant beanstalk, or waking an ailing sleeping beauty. Still, is there really magic in those tales...? (Story by Mike W. Barr, art by Steve Ditko.) Read more!

This sounds like a boilerplate sci-fi adventure pitch: a soldier put in cryogenic freeze, to wait for the aftermath of nuclear war. Then he would execute the last orders of the last President of the United States, to either restore order, or exact retribution, as the "Apocalypse Commander." It doesn't go as planned, and this series might not be what you would expect. From 1990, The Last American #1-4, written by Alan Grant and John Wagner, art by Michael McMahon.

Disgraced soldier Ulysses S. Pilgrim is offered a final goodbye with his wife and son, before being interred in a cryogenic chamber in upstate New York. Twenty years after the bombs drop, Ulysses is revived, on July 4, 2019; by his three helper robots, Able, Baker, and Charlie. (That feels like a nod to another apocalyptic story, Silent Running.) With a fancy uniform, weapons, and a tank Judge Dredd would appreciate, they start exploring what's left of America in search of survivors.

The second issue is a nightmarish musical, in the ruins of New York City, as Bert the Turtle and the ghosts put on quite a show; although that might be more for the reader than Ulysses: Wagner and Grant might've swung for a musical issue more than once, and I'm not sure those were their best-received stories, but it feels like something they liked trying every so often. Ulysses visits Sing Sing, and finds records of the warden executing all the prisoners, since "they could hardly risk allowing hardened criminals to run loose." (That scene is echoed in Garth Ennis's Punisher: the End; and a pull quote from Ennis is on the cover of the trade!)

Of the three robots, Charlie is the most personable, as he seemed to have watched way too much TV during his wait in the bunker; and he was more tasked with keeping Ulysses sane then his fellows. Twice he lets Ulysses have a bottle, in the hopes to releasing some pressure, but after a rotten day in the city topped off with a visit to the fallen Statue of Liberty, Ulysses shoots up a derelict church, cursing out God, and has had about enough of his mission. He's ready to check out, but before he can pull the trigger, Charlie picks up a transmission, calling for him, the "deep reserve" unit. Is he the Last American...?

This series would've hit the shops October 9, 1990; the same month that Germany reunified. The threat of nuclear war probably didn't completely go away and probably never will, but it would've felt further away then, like a bad dream. A gloomy read, but a good one. Read more!

"The Savage Sword of Solarr!" has a ring to it...ooh, maybe not.

I don't usually blog comics that are this recent, but this one does attempt to correct a most egregious error. That and I may be coming around on the whole Krakoa thing...from 2022, X-Men '92: House of XCII #3, written by Steve Foxe, art by Salva Espin.

This was the House/Powers of X stuff, except set in the animated X-Men continuity; so not a one-to-one comparison, but this was reading like an accelerated version. This issue was X of Swords, sort of, as longtime X-antagonist Arkon challenges Apocalypse and the mutants of Krakoa, with Arakko as the stakes. Apocalypse gathers Krakoa's mightiest; mostly X-Men from the series, plus Archangel, Psylocke, Shatterstar, the Silver Samurai, Nightcrawler, and--Solarr!? He's a deep cut, an old Captain America villain, killed off in Power Man & Iron Fist #113; but he had made an appearance in the X-Men cartoon! He's also there strictly to be jobbed; as Arkon has cheated and brought in ringers, including Apocalypse's old Horsemen, Sauron, Erik the Red, Juggernaut, Arcade, and Ms. Marvel! Apocalypse had known Solarr wasn't going to cut it, as it were; but it was a strategic move: sacrifice him, to show the rest not to hold back.

Nightcrawler doesn't get to do a whole bunch (except almost get friendly-fired by Storm!) but at least he's off the bench, since he wasn't tagged in for the regular X of Swords. Deadpool also makes a snarky cameo, piloting an animatronic Brood and wanting to get in before the Jubilee reveal. Beast is killed trying to warn the others: if killed on Polemachus, they resurrected weird; and Apocalypse faces the surprised Arkon, who is immeditately decapitated by Apocalypse's wife, Genesis. While some stay there, thousands of the Arakkii mutants return to Krakoa; and Silver Samurai, Solarr, and Beast are reborn, but off: Beast very strongly resembles the AoA Dark Beast, and seems to know of Jubilee. Professor X and Magneto suspect earth's governments aren't going to warmly embrace the mutant population doubling, but Magneto suggests maybe they should be done with earth...

There are aspects of the Krakoa era that I could care less about--again, why anyone would consider Apocalypse for the romantic lead is beyond me, and I don't know or much care about Arakko society. But it's an ongoing trainwreck: everything the mutants do has unforeseen--or completely predictable--consequences. The humans of the Marvel universe, who by and large spent literal decades spitting on mutants and laughing at their deaths, are now sore that mutants can come back from the dead and won't share. (I thought they couldn't share; but I doubt that distinction matters much.) Mankind also seems to warmly embrace the Eternals, for standing up to those muties; despite the fact the Eternals have not helped humanity noticeably in centuries? There's been a few points in the Krakoa era where mutantkind makes business or strategic moves, in their best interests, screw "humanity" and their hurt feelings; and I am 100% for it.

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(Too late) A Review: Toynami's Thundarr the Barbarian!

Is it the best post-apocalyptic cartoon aimed at little kids? Quite possibly! From the 1980 Ruby-Spears cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian, today we have Toynami's 2004 figures, which I've wanted for years. Probably on and off since 1980.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, in the futuristic year...1994, a "runaway planet" (or comet or whatever) passes between the earth and the moon, wrecking them both up something fierce. Two thousand years later, earth is still solidly messed up, humanity barely up to a medieval level and having to face mutants, monsters, and magic. The titular Thundarr the Barbarian rises out of slavery with his companions Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel; together they ride across the land and fight evil and whatnot. Seriously, even as a kid, I never really knew and wondered where they were riding to, since everywhere they went was pretty much just as terrible as where they left; but they didn't seem to have any particular goal in mind.

The series was created by Steve Gerber, who was best known for co-creating Howard the Duck. I had thought Jack Kirby was responsible for the characters' designs, but I was wrong: Alex Toth did the main characters before having to leave the show, so Kirby designed the villains and secondary characters. Although the result of natural disaster and not nuclear war or monkeys or plague, the post-apocalyptic setting was unique; but the show did swipe fairly liberally from Star Wars. Thundarr's 'sunsword' should be no means be confused with a lightsaber, Ariel is a Princess because Princesses are cool, and Ookla's growling and general resemblance to a Wookie...means nothing.

Toynami put out this three figure set out in 2004, and I don't know how I missed them: I suspect I got beat to them, then figured they would restock eventually, and never saw them again. Then for some time, it was something I planned to spring for as a Christmas present to myself from eBay; until the figures seemingly disappeared entirely. They would resurface occasionally, but were about as expensive as refined plutonium. Luckily, I recently found a "Buy It Now" auction at a relatively reasonable price for three that were opened, but may have never been taken out of their trays. (For some reason, these seem to show up in batches on eBay, but shop it around.) I had to look up Toynami as well, since I was thinking they were no longer around, but they are! They still make Futurama figures, for one.

Let's talk the figures, for a bit. They walk the line between looking like the character model sheets and having a bit of articulation. Thundarr has ankles, mid-calves, knees, hips, waist, shoulders, elbows, forearms, wrists, and neck; for a total of eighteen points. The head is ball-jointed, but restricted by his barbarian Prince Valiant hair. His fur outfit is soft plastic, though; and he has a magnet in his left wristguard to store the hilt of his sunsword! The blade removes, and it works great, unless you get the magnets the wrong way and shoot it across the room...

Princess Ariel was the magic-user of the group, as well as being the brains of the operation. She also seemed to be fairly educated for the time, so she often had a vague notion of the history of the areas they explored. Like a lot of female figures, Ariel doesn't get as much articulation, as to not mar the sculpt. Her joints are mostly cuts: hips, boot tops, shoulders, wrists, and a restricted balljoint neck like Thundarr's. (Ariel may have forearm twists, but mine seemed sticky, so I didn't want to push them, and they're redundant with the wrists anyway.) She comes with a magical fireball-like sphere and spinny-shield.

Ookla the Mok, Thundarr's biggest companion, was probably children's favorite back in the day. He's basically Chewbacca the Barbarian, but I'm OK with that. Ookla's solid mane of hair means he has no neck, but he does have wrists, elbows, shoulders, waist, hips, knees, and boot tops. He also has swappable hands, open or fists; and a bow and arrow. I honestly suspect Ookla got a bow because Chewbacca had his bowcaster; Ookla seemed strong enough to just throw whatever was handy at anything he couldn't reach.

Wikipedia points out that although Thundarr the Barbarian was a Ruby-Spears production, the DVD release of the complete series seems to imply it was from Hanna-Barbera. And, so do the trays for the figures! And, checking the figures, so does Ookla's foot! The entry notes Joe Ruby and Ken Spears had been head writers for Hanna-Barbera before creating their own animation studio; but Hanna-Barbera may have ended up with the characters now.

Super-happy to finally have these three. I imagine we'll be seeing them around here every so often, too.


The above was pretty much what I thought the future was going to be. Cyborgs and road warriors fighting their way through a hellish wasteland of gangs and monsters. Best case. Read more!

Waiting for the End of the World

It's probably not tomorrow, but the post will be. Got my niece's birthday party at Build-A-Bear (and if that doesn't put you in the mood for the End...) and three of the books I was looking for and positive I knew where they were...weren't.

From Last Days of the Justice Society of America #1, written by Roy Thomas, pencils by David Ross, inks by Mike Gustovich. It's great, but dated in that the JSA's been killed off and brought back at least twice since then, there had only been one goddamn Crisis, Power Girl's chest wasn't outlandishly huge, and it only took one writer, artist, and inker to crank out 68 pages. Read more!

I wouldn't guess how we got from 'Great Caesar' to 'Prince Tuftan,' but here we are.

I was looking for a Justice League Adventures issue with Flash visiting the dystopian future of Kamandi, because I was racking my skull to remember the name of Kamandi's tiger friend: Prince Tuftan, son of Great Caesar. (You'll know why I wanted it when I get there.) I didn't find that issue, but I did find my few issues of Kamandi: water-damaged quarter-book rescues. This one's from Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth #14, edited, written and drawn by Jack Kirby, inks and letters by Mike Royer.

I'm not a huge fan, since I wasn't aware of Kamandi until years after it had come and gone, and to the best of my knowledge, it never got the reprint push that other Kirby books like New Gods or Mr. Miracle or even the Demon got. But then again, those three books can be used in the DC Universe pretty easily, and the animal-ruled apocalypse of Kamandi is a little tougher to work in. And others have pointed out, postulating that Kamandi's future will come to pass makes Superman (and other heroes) failures for letting it happen.

But in the letters page of one of the issues I have (#42) a writer advises against tying together DC's several sci-fi apocalypse books: Hercules, OMAC, even the New Gods in there somewhere. The weird part is, like I mentioned on a post about Hex, is that even that linking left a couple spare apocalypses floating around in the DC Universe, like the one in Warlord. OK, that one was probably never intended to be part of the DCU, but it ended up rolled in there.

In the same vein, Marvel also had a stable of future dystopia comics in the seventies: Deathlok, Killraven, Guardians of the Galaxy; all of which had ties to the regular Marvel Universe and crossovers, but didn't seem to line up with each other. Marvel also had Planet of the Apes comics, which I've barely even seen; and all of these predate all the Days of Futures Past and everything in X-Men. All of them spin off into their own alternate realities, so instead of one crummy future, there's a number of horrors to look forward to.

What I would like would be an all-apocalypse All-Star Squadron: Deathlok, Hex, Thundarr the Barbarian, Kenshiro of Fist of the North Star, and OMAC; all kicking the begeezus out of the Planet of the Apes and killer cockroaches. Throw in a talking dog, gas shortages, and maybe some radioactive dinosaurs and killer robots and we're in business.

Hey, wasn't there a Caesar in one of the Planet of the Apes movies? Doctor K's 100-Page Super Spectacular just finished Apes Week, a staggeringly in-depth look at the movies, the cartoons, the TV show, the whole Ape phenomenon. Little secret: I saw Beneath the Planet of the Apes as a kid's matinee when I was maybe seven or eight, and after the earth blew up (spoiler warning!) I remember sitting there, all furrow-browed and thinking "I hate those apes." (That's why I hated the Tim Burton one: I wanted the humans to finally kick some ape ass...frankly, I'm not sure what happened in that movie, but that wasn't it.)

This was a lot of off-the-cuff work for trying to remember a talking tiger that's not Talky Tawny. Oh, and while I'm not on the subject, there is no goddamn way, Crisis on Infinite Earths or no Crisis on Infinite Earths, that the kid that would become Kamandi, could instead grow up to be Tommy Tomorrow. Kamandi is cool as hell, Tommy T. is the opposite of cool, and the two couldn't even hypothetically be the same character. Couldn't happen. That would be like Jughead going to Vietnam and coming back the Punisher. Only in reverse, I guess...whatever. It's too damn impossible is my point. I guess he could've become Space Cabbie... Read more!

The Comic Book Shop has had a batch of sales lately, and while I replaced my lost Green Lantern #200 and Thor #356? (the Hercules issue, I might be wrong on the number, but moving on!), I've been spoiled on the quarter books. I read a ton of new Catwoman issues, and they were very good. I got the new Warlord and Man-Bat issues, and they were so terrible they stained the old issues I liked. (I've harshed on Bruce Jones' Warlord before, and I probably will again.) I got some books I had as a kid, with an added bonus this time, that we'll look at tomorrow. And, I got a complete run of Hex! That and a few issues of the new series ("The Ballad of Tallulah Black" among others) for under six bucks. Awesome.

(Panel from Hex #8, "The Shooting Gallery" Written by Fleisher, art by Wagner and Garzon.)

I'm not going to get all in depth, Dwayne at Matching Dragoons will take care of that (and his writeup of the Jonah Hex Spectacular was especially great!) For the price, I really enjoyed the series, in particular the last issue (#18, I had thought it was #20), which I had read on the racks when it came out and still think is one of the saddest single issues ever; but I have to admit I don't know that I would've loved it at full price, month to month.

Since I mentioned it the other day, let's look at the post-apocalyptic future poor Jonah found himself stuck in: it's very Road Warrior with just enough science-fiction touches, like the time-travel Macguffin that brings Hex to the future or the anti-radiation pills that keep enough of the populace alive to shoot at Hex. Towards the end of the series, the time-travel is tied to a scientist fighting an alien invasion in the even further future, which doesn't work great with Hex's usual milieu.

But, and this was probably more a sign of the times than anything, Hex and it's apocalypse was set in the DC Universe proper. Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes have a cameo in Hex #10, and a future Batman appears in #11. Both could be merely attempts to hype up sales, but they give the impression of utter doom; that no matter what Superman or Batman or whoever does, millions are going to die and civilization is going to collapse and fashion is going to be really shoddy for about a millennium or so. And this is like the third post-apocalypse future in DC that I can think of: there was another great one with time travel in the old, good issues of Warlord (post-Grell but before Fleisher, who wasn't great there) and then the Great Disaster of Kamandi.

I know I'm misremembering, but it's like the idea of a nuclear holocaust was a given, bound to happen. As a kid, I was horrified about the possibility of nuclear war for years, until eventually I accepted the idea that I may or may not be nuked or irradiated at any moment, and if I didn't die, I could get a crappy haircut and drive around the wasteland screaming a lot. Just like Hex!

One thing that I don't think Jonah's old book had was a lot of supporting cast, with the exception of his wife towards the end of the book. Still, I'm not sure Fleisher either knew what do to with them, or perhaps hadn't expected any to get popular enough to return.
Then again, others get a ton of page time, and:

The future Batman never returns, but I'm not sure if that's because of the cancellation, or if editorial realized what was going on.

And this guy looked like he was going to be a big bad, but his end foreshadows the last issue. (Texiera art on the other two panels.)

Depressing. Anyway, tomorrow we'll look at another apocalypse, maybe just as bleak, but shinier! That's something, right? Read more!