Quarantined Comics

Ever thought about going to a farm upstate? How about an interdimensional pocket reality that you can never escape from?

This week we're reading Black Hammer, the Eisner award winning series by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston. This is an really fresh take on a lot of familiar tropes...which also brings our journey into subversive superhero stories to a close. It's got all your favorite superhero archetypes: the foul-mouthed lightning powered lass, the patriotic populist patriarch, the mellow morose Martian, the goth witch with butterfly wings, the Astronutty adventurer...and his wacky robot sidekick.

Sounds like a really great Secret Wars type team up with Lemires favorite action figures?

In 2002, superstar writer Grant Morrison dissected the familial relationships underpinning Marvel Comics' first family, with the four-issue Fantastic Four 1234. The result was a dark, distorted version - aided by artist Jae Lee - of the Fantastic Four, with the family fracturing as their arch nemesis Dr. Doom readies his final assault.

Ryan dug it, Raman hated it. And in this episode, we agree on what Morrison is trying to do and disagree on whether they accomplished it.

And just a few years later, Morrison uncorked an amazing 12-issue run with artist Frank Quietly on the limited series All Star Superman. Morrison and Quietly reimagine the Man of Steel, bringing to the forefront the sense of fun, ridiculousness, and oddball pop science that has characterized his adventures for decades.

This run is unequivocally amazing, yet while the first six episodes is pure delight, presenting some of the most innovative Superman stories ever written, the narrative starts to lose its way in the latter half.

This week we're talking about Planetary, written by the now-controversial Warren Ellis and drawn by the always-astonishing John Casaddy (who, in hindsight really has bad taste in comic book partners). Planetary broke onto the comics scene in 1998, and was unlike anything anyone had seen before...running sporadically for just 27 issues from 1998 to 2009 (do the math...that is a long time to wait between monthly issues)

Revisiting Planterary was like reconnecting (and having lots of fun)) with like an old weird, sometimes troubling friend — as many would argue Planetary is one of the greatest comics created at the turn of the century...

Planetary follows the eponymous Planetary corporation, a global organization dedicated to unearthing the secret histories - and mysteries - of the world. With seemingly unlimited resources at their disposal - the company's "field team" consists of powerhouse Jakita Wagner, techno-whiz Drummer, the mysterious Elijah Snow, and even the reality-altering Ambrose Chase (R.I.P?)

These 3 (4?) trot the globe, encountering reminiscent phenomena like Japanese monsters, hardboiled Hong Kong cops, giant sized nuclear bugs, strange visitors from another planet, wild westerns, pulp action heroes...and even bizarro-world evil dick doppelgängers of the Fantastic Four....it's kind of hard to tell if this was just one giant convoluted middle finger to Marvel's First Family.

As reclusive comics great Alan Moore said of Planetary:

What do you do if you're saddled with a stale, tertiary superhero? You hire writer Warren Ellis to inject some fire. Or at least you did. Ellis's superstar has lost a lot of shine following multiple allegations of his behavior around women.

This week, we'll take a look at how Warren Ellis reinvigorates stale forgotten superheroes - but we'll have to do so within the context of Ellis's behavior, and whether or not his creations can be separated from their creator.

It's hard not to have an opinion on Zack Snyder, and his movies are always heavily produced and luxuriate in the epic-ness of their subject matter - whether it's Superman hurting into space or a janitor setting down a mop.

And that tendency both hinders and helps his version of Justice League - which after years of anticipation, has been released. The mystique of The Superhero Film That Never Was turned the Snyder Cut from an idea into a reality. But now that Snyder's complete, unadulturated vision has gone from myth to reality, what happens when mere mortals are fully exposed?

CAN WE HANDLE FULL EXPOSURE TO SNYDER'S BRAIN? WILL THE ICY COLOR PALETTE FREEZE OUR BLOOD? WILL WE BE ABLE TO HANDLE THE FACT TAHT 10% OF THIS FILM IS MUSIC VIDEO? IF WE CUT THE SLOW MO, CAN WE REALLY ADD THREE FULL HOURS BACK TO OUR LIVES?

find out...

This week we're continuing our "subversive superhero series" and reading Matt Fraction's 2020 reboot of "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olson," illustrated by Steve Lieber. Fraction's an Eisner award winning writer is known his unique, sometimes edgier, realistic take on books like Hawkeye, Iron Man, Iron Fist, and Sex Criminals.

Sure, Jimmy Olson is an ace photographer, turned content creator. He's a bow-tied bon vivant and adventurer. But as the book asks, why does Jimmy get to be Superman's best friend?

In a book that embraces it's own madcap weirdness, Jimmy wanders the weird corners of the DC universe to solve the mystery of his own murder with some zany characters old and new...marrying an interdimensional jewel thief, being tormented by blood vomiting cat, hanging with Metamorpho, decoding his crazy criminal conspiracy with Lois Lane, starting a prank war with Batman, and of course avoiding his best friend Superman. The narrations alone made this book an oddly fun read. But was that enough weirdness, or did the attempt at a plot get in the way?

DC's Young Animal imprint, developed in 2016 by Umbrella Academy writer Gerard Way, gave visionary creators a platform to put their stamp on existing DC properties.

As part of this initiative, Way recruited acclaimed sci-fi author N.K. Jemisin to spin up her unique take on the Green Lantern mythos. Her take: Sojourner Mullein, a young black woman who grew up in post 9/11 NYC and who went through the ringer both in the army and as a member of the NYPD.

A rookie Green Lantern whose ring is powered very differently than her peers', Mullein is dispatched to the furthest reaches of space, alone, to investigate a homicide. In Mullein, Jemisin has brought to live perhaps the most unique and distinct Green Lanterns ever. She might be a space cop but Lantern Mullein is very much a product of America's inability to deal equitably with issues of race.

What's more American than Apple Pie and Baseball? Up in the sky - it's a bird, it's a plane...it's Superman RED SON, which reimagines the Man of Steel had he been raised in Mother Russia. Sign me up Komrade!

We continue our subversive superhero series ...with Superman REDSON, the 2003 miniseries that reimagined the Man of Steel had he been raised in Mother Russia

Written by Mark Millar with the artist team of Dave Johnson, Andrew Robinson, Walden Wong, Killian Plunkett, and colorist Paul Mounts - RED SON, has the last son of Krypton's rocket ship landing on a Ukrainian collective farm. the book starts decades later in 1953 - at the beginning of the Cold War, with the Soviets revealing Superman to the world as "the Champion of the common worker who fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact."

The book's premise actually was actually imagined during writer Mark Millar's childhood. Millar is a Scottish comics superstar known for later creating many popular comics that were eventuat adapted to film like Wanted, Kingsman, Kick-Ass, and even Captain America: Civil War, and even Red Son, which was released as a DC Animated feature in 2020.

Red Son's alternate reality also features lots of familiar faces: from Lois Lane to Bruce Wayne, from John Kennedy to Joseph Stalin, from Pytotr Roslov to Jimmy Olson, CIA operative. And as you can imagine with a figure as powerful of Superman now at the center of the Cold War, a very different world history unfolds.

In our second episode of SUBVERSIVE SUPERHEROES, we'll try to unpack the enigma of ARKHAM ASYLUM. Grant Morrison's and Dave McKean's disorienting ride takes its cues from haunted house narratives, classic horror stories of escaped prisoners visting their former keepers, and Alice in Wonderland, to deliver a Batman tale the likes of which you've never read before.

Arkham Asylum is highly influential as well - and its presence can be felt in the Arkham Asylum video game series, the Batman: The Animated Series cartoon, and in Christopher Nolan's definitive Dark Knight trilogy.

SUBVERSIVE SUPERHEROES! This will actually be the first in a series of QTD episodes where we talk about some of the more...subversive takes on some of DC Comics greatest heroes.

What happens when you're a war veteran, were in the CIA, saw some shit, decided to start making PTSD-inspired, superhero comics?

This week we're talking about 2018's "MISTER MIRACLE" by Hugo award winning writer - and ex-CIA officer - Tom King and artist Mitch Gerads ... the same team behind “the Sherrif of Babylon.”.Mister Miracle is an ambitious new take on one of Jack Kirby's most beloved New Gods - and his dysfunctional family.

Mister Miracle is about SCOTT FREE, the son of the Highfather - a good-guy demi-god who rules over New Genesis To make the peace in an all out war amongst gods of good and evil, Scott is traded at birth with the Highfather's opposite - the stone cold evil that is Darkseid of Apokolips (pretty much DC's version of Thanos before Marvel ripped off DC).

Growing up a nameless youth, Scott is tortured. But along the way, he becomes a master escape artist (escaping “Scott Free”), finds love in the fiery pits of Apokolips, becomes the superhero "Mister Miracle" and and moves to earth to join the Justice League with his new wife Big Barda,...and domestic bliss ensues.

it's basically a pleasant rom-com of a comic!

…OK, not really, this is some PTSD-laden shit, and one of the best new comics we’ve read in awhile…and a great book to kick off our “Subversive Superheroes” series...