Trekking to the Oldies

Star Trek: Gold Key Archives Volume 1 (1967-69/ This edition 2014): written by Dick Wood; illustrated by Nevio Zeccara and Alberto Giolitti: Oh, those loopy Gold Key Star Trek comics of the 1960's and 1970's! The first six issues collected here were originally written and drawn by people who had never seen an episode of Star Trek and had been handed what seems to be the briefest of Show Bibles. 

The artists had photo references, but no idea how big the Enterprise was (a cutaway illustration makes it seem about as big as a B-52 bomber) or what James Doohan looked like (Scotty is unrecognizable). The stories themselves are generic space opera, albeit with a few clever moments. The first story is pretty much full-blown scifi horror, an area the real Trek delved into very infrequently. And as a piece of horror, and body horror, it's actually pretty effective, though unrecognizable as Trek. 

Subsequent stories gradually move closer to Trek, with a clever story about rogue machines endlessly building cities being the strongest, Trekkiest of the stories. Why Dark Horse devoted a fairly pricey Archive series to these books is a bit of a mystery: these things are best enjoyed on cheap paper, preferably in a massive, inexpensive collection. Recommended.


Godhead: New Gods/ Green Lantern (2015): written by Robert Vendetti, Charles Soule, Van Jensen, Cullen Bunn, Justin Jordan, and others; illustrated by Ethan Van Sciver, Billy Tan, Dale Eaglesham, and others: DC tried to reinvent Jack Kirby's iconic Fourth World characters for its post-Flashpoint, rebooted superhero universe of the 'New 52' in this crossover event with the Green Lantern books. It's pretty much a failure on every level, burdened with a plot that's mostly massive battle scenes and a lot of fussy, often confusingly laid-out art. And oh so many Lanterns! 

The leader of the 'good' forces of the 'New Gods,' Izaya the Inheritor, has gone from reflective philosopher-king to violent imperialist. So, too, such previously peaceful New Gods characters such as Lightray, who's now just another soldier in a Cosmic Cold War. Design-wise, nothing of Kirby's has been improved upon. Metron and his Mobius Chair are now a fussy, over-rendered mess. Orion now wears an outfit that makes him look like a bellhop when his helmet is removed. Izaya is just another guy in over-rendered armour.

The 'event' involves the New Gods, self-appointed defenders of the entire multiverse,  discovering the existence of Green Lantern rings, oh, about 5000 years into the existence of those Green Lantern rings. That's some nice universal monitoring, boys. Of course, this is the expanded universe of Green Lantern rings. Which is to say, there are also thousands upon thousands of humans and aliens flying around not only with Green Lantern rings, but with Red and Yellow and Orange and Blue and Indigo and Violet Lantern rings. And there are collector's item, one-of-a-kind White and Black Lantern rings as well. Plaid rings are surely on the horizon.

Izaya decides some combination of these rings will allow him to defeat cosmic menace Darkseid once and for all. Or maybe he just needs the White Lantern ring to do that. Whatever. Much fighting and blowing things up ensues. There's about enough plot here for maybe 50 pages of a comic book, extended to fill 300 increasingly interminable pages. Now that DC has executed a soft line-wide reboot again with the Rebirth event. one can only hope that this dismal bunch of Fourth-World wannabes has been consigned to the ash-heap of continuity resets. Not recommended.

Complicated without Complexity

Darkseid, fussy.

Justice League: Origin: written by Geoff Johns; illustrated by Jim Lee and Scott Williams and others (2011-2012): Fan favourites Johns and Lee seem to have turned the rebooted Justice League into DC's most popular monthly title, one that is still outselling every other title, DC or other, seven months after its launch.

The League has seemed to move through a set cycle, reboot or not, since the late 1970's: a line-up fronted by one or more of the 'Big Three' (Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman) makes the book popular; some or all of them leave; the book becomes less popular as lesser-known heroes take over; the book gets cancelled and then relaunched with one or more of the Big Three; and so on, and so forth.

Johns and Lee certainly make this an event book again, as the League forms for the first time to combat a massive alien invasion. Along with the usual suspects (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, and Green Lantern) and without original founding member Martian Manhunter, the league's seventh founding member turns out to be Cyborg in this iteration.

Historically, Cyborg did appear on the 1980's version of Super Friends, and he is a founding member of the League on Smallville. And he's African-American, which make the League look a little less white.

A lot of things blow up. Much Marvel-style bickering and posturing occurs among the superheroes before they figure out how to work together. Humanity, afraid of these relatively new super-heroes, comes to embrace them after they see them battling aliens in defence of humanity.

Lee's often hilariously fussy costume redesigns are distracting and often far goofier than previous iterations. His Darkseid is especially ugly, fussy, and over-complicated. Not much of interest happens here, but it happens loudly and repeatedly for emphasis. Lightly recommended.

Reboot Attacks

Superboy: Smallville Attacks: written by Jeff Lemire; illustrated by Pier Gallo, Marco Rudy, Pete Woods, Cafu and others (2010-2011; collected 2011): Canadian indy comics writer-artist Lemire (Essex County, Sweet Tooth) moved further into the mainstream with his work on DC's Superboy comic book in 2010. Like William Messner-Loebs's similar move to DC back in the 1980's, Lemire's move came while maintaining his unique perspective and sensibilities. The result was the best Superboy comic I can think of for...decades? Since he was teaming up regularly with the Legion of Superheroes, anyway (whoops -- wrong Superboy!).

This Superboy is the, um, genetic love-child of Luthor and Superman, whipped up in a test tube from Luthor and Superman's DNA and revealed to the world nearly 20 years ago in the aftermath of 1992's Death of Superman storyline. Kon-El, or Connor Kent, or Superboy, now lives in Smallville with Ma Kent and Superdog Krypto, having recovered from a serious case of death in 2005-2006's Infinite Crisis event.

Lemire cleverly brings the supernatural into the storyline, a relative rarity in the Superman family of books, with "The Hollow Men" arc running throughout these 11 collected issues. DC's go-to guy for supernatural mystery, the Phantom Stranger, guest-stars, as does Batman villain Poison Ivy and grotesque Superman foe the Parasite. Lemire also has fun with Superboy's supporting cast. Pier Gallo's art is clean and straightforward, suiting the material perfectly.

Unfortunately, DC's line-wide reboot ended this comic with issue 11, resulting in a 'new' (or at least differently written) Superboy on the stands right now. Lemire moved on to Animal Man and Frankenstein in the normal DC universe, both fine and weird books, but I'll miss his take on Superboy -- it, like several other pre-reboot DC superhero comics, was a baby thrown out with the continuity-contaminated bathwater. Recommended.

The Last Race

Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash, written by Cary Bates and Joey Cavalieri, illustrated by Carmine Infantino, Dennis Jensen, Frank McLaughlin, Klaus Janson and others (1983-85; collected 2011): I can't think of a major superhero who became tragedy's punching bag more than DC's Flash did in the late 1970's and early 1980's. And I'm not sure why this was allowed to happen. But happen it did. His greatest villain killed his wife, and that was just the beginning. A couple of years later that same villain -- 25th-century speedster Professor Zoom, aka The Reverse-Flash -- tried to kill the Flash's fiancee on their wedding day. In the ensuing super-speed struggle, the Flash breaks Zoom's neck, killing him.

And so begins one of the longest storylines ever contained in a single DC title, The Trial of the Flash, which would ultimately span nearly three years and end with the cancellation of that title. It was a story so long that several peripheral issues of the title are omitted here to allow the collection (still the longest in the Showcase reprint series) to avoid requiring two volumes. It's still enough, and maybe too much.

By 1985, DC had decided to reboot its entire line of superheroes, beginning with a massive crossover event/line-wide reboot and purge called Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Flash would play a pivotal but heroically self-sacrificing role in that event. After the Crisis, his nephew Wally West would take over as the Flash in the brave new post-Crisis world. Ultimately, this is The Last Flash Story But One. Sort of. To paraphrase Algis Budrys, in comic books death is always conditional.

The Barry Allen version of the Flash helped usher in DC's Silver Age in the 1950's, as new characters were given the names of cancelled heroes of the 1940's, most prominently the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom and Hawkman. They apparently lived on a different Earth than their 1940's forebears (in the first appearance of the Barry Allen Flash, Barry is seen reading a comic-book issue of the 1940's Flash from whom, after gaining his super-speed powers, Barry ultimately takes his superhero name).

Writer John Broome and penciller Carmine Infantino made the Flash a zippy, fun, quasi-super-scientific thrill ride over the character's first decade. (In-story 'Flash Facts' gave explanations of certain speed and scientific effects seen in the story, such as how a boomerang works). In The Trial of the Flash, Infantino has returned to the character after nearly 20 years away, staying with him to the end with pencils that are much more stylized and 'loose' than his Silver Age work, but still often possessed of a quality of speed and quickness and time-bending simultaneity that most other Flash artists have lacked.

Longtime Flash writer Cary Bates puts the Scarlet Speedster through quite a wringer here, as various parties try to wipe out the Flash's defense lawyers, kill him before the trial, or just do the usual super-villain thing of mayhem and thievery. It's a surprisingly harrowing and often downbeat ride, though it does have a conditional happy ending -- conditional because the Flash's fate in Crisis will supercede any ending in his own title and, indeed, that fate had already been published before the storyline herein ended.

It would take more than 20 years for the Barry Allen Flash to return from the dead -- several eternities in superhero comics -- and his history has recently been purged and restarted once again. There are some absurdities here, and one major annoyance (that would be the frankly ridiculous mental health issues of Flash's fiancee Fiona), but overall this is a lot of melodramatic fun. It would have been interesting to see what occasional cover inker Klaus Janson (so integral to Frank Miller's art on Daredevil and The Dark Knight Returns) could have done with Infantino's interior pencils -- the Infantino covers Janson inks are terrific -- but the interior art remains solid and sometimes startling. Recommended.

Legion Regained

Legion of Superheroes Volume 6, 1-16, Annual 1, Legion of Supervillains Special 1, Adventure Comics 521-529 , written by Paul Levitz, illustrated by Geraldo Borges, Marlo Alquiza, Phil Jiminez, Andy Lanning, Sean Parsons, Jeffrey Moy, Philip Moy, Ransom Getty, Rob Hunter, Francis Portella, Keith Giffen, Scott Koblish, Yildiray Cinar, Wayne Faucher, Daniel HDR, Bob Wiacek, Jonathan Glapion, and Raul Fernandez (2010-2011): DC's 31st-century superteam finally got most of its pre-Crisis, pre-Zero Hour history back a few years ago -- complete with a young Superman as a time-travelling member -- only to run smack-dab into yet another company-wide continuity reboot. What that means will become clear once yet another LSH#1 hits the stands in September. For now, a longtime LSH reader can at least bask in the enjoyment of a truly gigantic arc written by pivotal LSH writer Paul Levitz.

In the main book, the arc's events kick off with the destruction of Saturn's moon Titan, inhabited by a telepathic species of humans in the 31st century. This is masterminded by the Legion of Supervillains, the Legion of Superheroes' opposite number. A weird blue thingie materializes and starts giving orders before taking off for parts unknown. The LSV starts gathering new members. The LSH tries to stop their violence and discover what the masterplan happens to be. And on Oa, home planet of the lost Guardians of the Universe, the last Green Lantern looks to rebuild the Green Lantern Corps in order to help the LSH face this new cosmic threat.

Because the LSH has a cast of hundreds, characterization has to come in quick spurts as we jump from character to character within the overall structure of the plot. Smaller arcs play out as we go along, including the travails of the current crop of would-be heroes at the Legion Academy, the redemption of super-powered xenophobe Earth-man, and long-time Legion powerhouse Mon-El's acclimation to being the first of a new Green Lantern Corps.

The weight of villainy is carried almost exclusively by familiar villains, most importantly super-telepath Saturn Queen, who's basically the lieutenant of the mysterious blue thingie. The reveal of the blue thingie's true identity -- and indeed the climax itself -- seems a bit short and rushed, almost certainly because the arc ran straight into the Reboot Wall.

Still, this is an enjoyable return to glory for the Legion, with fine artwork from a lot of artists, most notably Yildiray Cinar (who, alas, will leave the Legion in September). I'll be interested to see what happens next after the relaunch, though I hope we're not stuck with the unfolding of yet another lengthy explanation of a new Legion's history. Recommended.