Detectives, Inc. (Collected Edition)

Detectives, Inc. by Don McGregor, Marshall Rogers and Gene Colan (Material from the 1970's and 1980's; this IDW edition 2009): IDW is really winning my heart with its reprints of great comics from the 1980's and 1990's. 

This B&W collection of writer McGregor's Detectives, Inc. comic stories comes along with several prose pieces on the genesis of the detective comic, along with a piece on the filming of the Detectives, Inc. movie. My only caveat about the volume is that it's unfortunate that it couldn't be reprinted in a larger format -- the hyper-detailed art of Marshall Rogers on "A Remembrance of Threatening Green" originally appeared in a larger album size, and things do get a little squinty at times.

Still, this is a tremendous achievement both in writing and art. The world of McGregor's private detectives, Rainier and Dennings, gets the hypercrisp, hyper-detailed treatment from Marshall Rogers (best known for his Batman work in the 1970's), and the moodier, more humanistic approach from Gene Colan (best known for Tomb of Dracula and about a dozen other books). 

Both art styles work, and both look great in black and white. Indeed, this may be the late Rogers' greatest work. The attention to detail is stunning, and Rogers experiments with some really fascinating one and two-page designs.

Private detectives aren't all that common in comic books unless they wear costumes or have occult powers. Rainier and Dennings remind me a lot of revisionist 70's PIs from the movies -- not so much Jake Gittes in Chinatown, as Rainier and Dennings are less cynical than Robert Towne's PI, but more the characters we see in films like Night Moves (with Gene Hackman on the case) and Cutter's Way (in which non-PI's John Heard and Jeff Bridges try to solve a case). They're battered and bruised sometimes, emotionally as well as physically, but they stay on the case. 

McGregor invests his characters with a lot of heart -- he's one of the great comic book writers in terms of creating sympathy and empathy, at creating plausibly flawed and self-doubting protagonists, and at incorporating both sex and romance into a comic book without being prurient or exploitative. Highly recommended.

Guest-starring Congorilla and Dr. Phosphorus

Showcase Presents Superman Volume 3: written by Jerry Siegel, Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, and others; illustrated by Curt Swan, Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, and others (1961-62; collected 2007): Superman's Silver Age adventures move forward into more absurdity, cosmic happenings, and classic tragedy. 

The last is thanks to an Imaginary Story written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and illustrated by the great Curt Swan, who drew Superman adventures in five decades. It's The Death of Superman, and it puts all other stories about the Man of Steel's death on the back-burner. But it's Imaginary -- it didn't really happen, dear reader!

We also get non-Imaginary stories featuring the Man of Tomorrow battling the mischievous 5th-dimensional imp Mr. Mxyzptlk, arch-enemy Lex Luthor, and various forms of Kryptonite. Ah, Kryptonite. Invented for the radio show back in the 1940's and meant to give Superman a weakness, by the early 1960's it had metastasized into a Krypton-sized headache. There seems to be more Kryptonite on Earth than actual Earth elements, and every two-bit hood has at least one chunk stashed in his pocket. Honestly, it's amazing that every issue wasn't The Death of Superman.

As a bonus, Krypto the Super-dog teams up with Titano the giant, Kryptonite-eye-beam-wielding gorilla back in dinosaur days because Why Not? Lois Lane tries to learn Superman's secret identity on a number of occasions. Superman reveals Supergirl's existence to the world after several years as his 'secret weapon.' 

The citizens of the Bottle City of Kandor, a Kryptonian city shrunk by Superman villain Brainiac and now housed in Superman's Arctic Fortress of Solitude, help out Superman on numerous occasions. And in the final story of the volume, Superman believes he's dying for real in a tale that heavily influenced Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's All-Star Superman and Alan Moore and Rick Veitch's Superman/Swamp Thing team-up, "The Jungle Line." Highly recommended.

Batman: Strange Apparitions: written by Steve Engelhart and Len Wein; illustrated by Marshall Rogers, Walt Simonson, Al Milgrom, Terry Austin, Dick Giordano, and others (1977-78; collected 1999): This Batman reprint volume spans the entire tenure of 1970's Batman greats Steve Engelhart and Marshall Rogers on Detective Comics. And it really is great. And unlike other previous and subsequent reprints from this run, it starts with Engelhart's arrival and ends with Rogers' departure, neither of which were synchronized. Thus, Walt Simonson does the penciling chores early and Len Wein writes the last two issues included.

Despite the shortness of both their tenures (the whole volume spans about a year's worth of issues), Engelhart and Rogers generally get ranked as one of the top-five Batman creative teams of all time. And I think I agree. Engelhart writes Batman as a sympathetic hero who's not completely bonkers and not an absurd control freak (as he would become in the 1980's). 

And he gives us fresh takes on Batman villains mainly old -- in some cases really old. Engelhart brought back Deadshot, unseen for nearly 30 years and redesigned by Rogers with a costume that's pretty much used verbatim now in stills from DC's upcoming Suicide Squad movie. He also resurrected Professor Hugo Strange, unseen also for decades and one of the early Batman's pulpiest mad-scientist foes.

We also get nifty takes on old foes that include the Penguin back before movies and TV and comics started portraying the Penguin as a character only slightly less insane than the Joker. And the Joker himself appears in a great two-parter about... copyright law? Rogers and Engelhart nod to various Batman tropes throughout, most notably the Giant Versions of Ordinary Household Objects beloved by the late writer (and uncredited Batman co-creator) Bill Finger.

The art of the late Marshall Rogers was almost never better than it was here. I prefer this more realistic (though eminently stylized) Rogers to his later, more cartoony stuff. Moreover, Rogers' attention to the details of Gotham City is second to none. And in a full-page panel that may have imprinted upon a young JJ Abrams, Rogers throws in... a lens flare. Oh, that Rogers! 

The work in which Engelhart and Rogers aren't paired isn't quite up to the same standard, but it's still solid stuff. Len Wein and Rogers' legacy villain Clayface (III) is one of the most horrific creations in Batman's Rogues Gallery, beautifully and occasionally grotesquely rendered by Rogers and inker Dick Giordano. Terry Austin inks the rest of Rogers' run, and he's a perfect, sharp-edged complement to Rogers' style. Highly recommended.