Multiple Earths

Showcase Presents Justice League of America Volume 6: written by Len Wein, Martin Pasko, Elliot S! Maggin, Cary Bates, Denny O'Neil, and Gerry Conway; illustrated by Dick Dillin, Frank McLaughlin, Dick Giordano, Nick Cardy, and Ernie Chan (1973-1976; collected 2013): Fun collection of 1970's Justice League stories that synchronizes with my own first JLA comic books.

While editor Julius Schwartz used a lot of different writers at this point on the title, penciller Dick Dillin was a constant throughout. Indeed, JLA only had two different pencillers for the first 17 years or so of its existence, Mike Sekowsky and then Dillin. Dillin was solid, straightforward, and dependable -- so far as I know, he never missed a deadline, and he only left the book because he died (!).

He's "the" JLA artist for people of a certain age, an emblem of professionalism who knew how to tell a story, and could occasionally startle with some effects (here, he does some really interesting and memorable things with a wisp of smoke that gradually resolves itself into The Spectre over the course of an issue, as well as a fascinating couple of pages in which supervillain Libra expands while also losing all materiality). Also, Dillin's clean pencilling really looks good in the black-and-white Showcase format.

The stories are a lot of fun as well, with the post-Marvel psychology boom resulting in a certain amount of hand-wringing and soul-searching on the part of the Super Friends. Three unusual inter-universal crossovers appear, including a trip to Earth-X, where the Nazis won World War Two, and to Earth-2, the home of the Golden Age Justice Society which comes under attack by...a super-powered DC Comics writer named Cary Bates, previously of "our" Earth, Earth-Prime. Oh, Meta! All this, and Black Canary knits Red Tornado a new costume to replace the purple-and-red horror he'd been stuck with since his first appearance! Recommended.

Before Watchmen!

I've returned from the farflung future of 2014, in which remaindered copies of the trade paperbacks of the various Before Watchmen series are currently being used to build flood levees in Louisiana. Without Before Watchmen, New Orleans would have been destroyed again. Thanks, DC!

But what a tremendous prequel to writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons's 1986-87 12-issue Watchmen limited series humanity got, despite the non-involvement of writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons. While Before Watchmen will neither be listed as one of Time magazine's 100 books of the century (as Watchmen was) nor become the best-selling American graphic novel in history (as Watchmen was), it does offer many delightful surprises. Excelsior!

So here's a spoiler-heavy rundown of the awesome delights that await you at your local comic-book shop in the summer of 2012.

Minutemen (6 issues), written and illustrated by Darwyn Cooke: The Minutemen engage in a number of exciting and life-affirming adventures that make absolutely no sense given what we saw of them in Watchmen. In one of them, a 50-year-old Comedian defeats Cassius Clay in a boxing match. Hoo ha, that's attention to historical detail! Their world is almost just like ours!

Rorschach (4 issues), written by Brian Azzarello, illustrated by Lee Bermejo: Rorschach shows how tough he is in various tough corners of New York over the years. Also, his 'The End is Nigh' sign finally gets a proper origin story. Guess what: it's the secret hero of Watchmen! As with most recent Azzarello-penned projects, all four issues combined will take less than 5 minutes to read.

The Comedian (6 issues), written by Brian Azzarello, illustrated by J.G. Jones: The Comedian demonstrates how tough he is in various tough locales over the years, as he turns out to be behind the assassinations of Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Phillie Phanatic. As with most recent Azzarello-penned projects, all six issues combined will take less than 5 minutes to read.

Dr. Manhattan (4 issues), written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by Adam Hughes: In order to reconnect with humanity, Dr. Manhattan starts walking across the United States. However, he quits halfway through and gets someone else to finish the walk.

Nite Owl (4 issues), written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by Andy and Adam Kubert: Nite Owl discovers that his non-existent superpowers derive from The Owl Totem. Much brooding ensues. He loses an eye, but it grows back. At some point, he yells, "Not on my watch!"

Ozymandias (6 issues), written by Len Wein, illustrated by Jae Lee: 6 issues of hardcore, photorealistically rendered gay sex. The big surprise of the Before Watchmen event.

Silk Spectre (4 issues), written by Darwyn Cooke, illustrated by Amanda Conner: Silk Spectre's giant boobs take part in a variety of exciting adventures with life-affirming conclusions.

Curse of the Crimson Corsair (backup), written by Len Wein, illustrated by John Higgins: This is the story that's the comic-book equivalent of having a Beatles reunion with only Ringo Starr and George Martin involved, as original Watchmen editor Len Wein and original Watchmen colourist John Higgins give Watchmen fanatics the pirate story they've been waiting 25 years for, though what they were hoping for involved some combination of Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and the late Joe Orlando.

Before Watchmen: Epilogue (1 issue), various writers and artists: Surprise! The Epilogue to Before Watchmen is a lavishly recoloured Watchmen that slathers the art you loved in layers and layers of quasirealistic full-process colour! Written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, and coloured by the Computronic Colouring Robot 3000.

Swamp Thing

DC Comics Classics Library: Roots of the Swamp Thing, written by Len Wein, illustrated by Bernie Wrightson, Nestor Redondo, Mike Kaluta and Luis Dominguez (1972-1974, 1991; collected 2009): Swamp Thing (who never calls himself that) is one of those DC characters with a loyal following that stretches back 40 years to his first appearances. That's mainly thanks to the spectacular artwork of Bernie Wrightson, with an assist to the melodramatic writing by Wein, who makes Swampy into a brooding, quasi-Byronic hero. Well, if Byron were a scientist who'd been changed by a lab accident into a 7-foot-tall "muck-encrusted mockery of a man."

DC was cooking with gas in the early 1970's, the result of an influx of astonishing new writing and artistic talent. Marvel, mostly moribund, was in the process of becoming what DC had been -- a conservative comic-book company with a highly controlled house style for both art and story. Meanwhile, DC seemed to keep stumbling and bumbling along into mostly short-lived by influential and critically revered series. Swamp Thing was one of those.

Wrightson was great at grotesques, at horror and the macabre, and Wein supplied him with a ten-issue run of horror tropes for Swamp Thing (really Alec Holland, or so he thought at the time) to shamble into battle against, including a Frankenstein's monster, a werewolf, a witch, and a Cthulhoid monstrosity living in a mineshaft in Maine. Here, of course, the misunderstood monster is the hero, as are some of the monsters he first battles and then befriends. It's a horror-tinged paean to outsiders. Wrightson also gave of one of the most interesting artistic imaginings of Batman up to the time.

Some moments clunk, of course -- Wein was a young writer, and his solutions to some of the problems he creates for Alec Holland can be a bit on the ridiculous side. I'm also not entirely convinced Wein knew what "brackish" meant. So it goes. Wrightson would leave after ten issues, followed by Wein three issues later after a capable but not Wrightsonesque artistic run by Nestor Redondo.

The book would go on for several more issues, be cancelled, and return in the early 1980's to accompany the release of the woeful Swamp Thing movie. Eventually would come writer Alan Moore (Watchmen), with his entry into American comic-book writing coming on Saga of the Swamp Thing. But that was still nearly a decade away. This stuff, though, is golden. Muck-encrusted gold, but still. Highly recommended.

Gas Crisis on Earth-One

Showcase Presents Justice League of America Volume 5, written by Mike Friedrich, Len Wein, Robert Kanigher, Denny O'Neil and Gardner F. Fox, illustrated by Dick Dillin, Mike Sekowsky, Neal Adams, Nick Cardy, Joe Giella and Dick Giordano (1971-73; collected 2011): The so-called Bronze Age adventures of DC's premier superteam continue here, as DC attempts to 'Marvelize' their big characters that include Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and the Flash by giving them personal lives, self doubt, and the occasional acid flashback. OK, I made that last one up.

Friedrich, a very young gun at this point, sometimes goes off the rails into total loopiness, most notably in a story starring "jaded TV writer Harlequin Ellis," a thinly veiled homage to writer Harlan Ellison that includes Friedrich addressing the reader at the end. The cosmic adventures go down pretty smoothly, with the JLA facing big guns like Starbreaker the Cosmic Vampire and The Nebular Man and the somewhat overpowered Shaggy Man and Solomon Grundy. Solid pro Len Wein takes over the writing chores with issue 100, and things get a lot more cohesive and less loopy.

Of note here are new members Phantom Stranger, Elongated Man and Red Tornado, along with Friedrich's answer to a Marvel Avengers story by Roy Thomas that pitted the Marvel heroes against thinly veiled versions of DC's JLA. For all the occasional craziness, this is still enjoyable superhero storytelling in which plotting had precedence over decompressed longeurs and fanboy sexuality. Of interest is the fact that this covers the period in which DC had decreased the superpowers of Wonder Woman, Superman and Green Lantern in their own books. The move didn't increase sales, and so these three would soon be back to their previous overwhelming mightiness.

Another nod to Marvel seems to be the revamped Red Tornado -- like Marvel's The Vision, he's a superpowered, red-faced android looking for friendship and love and, for some reason probably born of nostalgia, my favourite B-list DC hero. He can generate massive tornadoes! How awesome is that! Recommended.