Great Moments in Comics!

I overlooked a comics title last week, but that's just as well, because the comic I'd have written about contains another Great Moment in Comics, and last week I hadn't yet come up with that stellar concept - so the timing is better this way. Fear not: this week's comics will get all the consideration they're due!

In the meantime, the moment in question comes in the 5th issue of the 6-issue limited series of Marvel reprints of the old Stan Lee/Jack Kirby "Tales of Asgard" backup feature that once ran in "Thor." You'll recall that I praised this reprint series not only because it's a damn refreshing odd choice for a reprint series (surely the monthly "Thor" comic can't be selling that well) but also because the reprints fantastically enhance the color, texture, delineation - the entire viewing experience of the originals. These reprints are done on high-quality paper, and the refurbished colors glow on the page; tremendous, picky care was taken in re-crafting these images, and it shows on every page.

Issue #5 contains the highlight of the entire series, the issue I've been waiting for throughout the run. The storyline goes like this: a warlord in Muspelheim, Harokin, has seized the unbeatable Warlock's Eye (it's a gigantic helmet that blasts its wearer's enemies with unstoppable waves of energy) and is threatening to march on Asgard itself. Odin dispatches Thor and the Warriors Three (Hogun the Grim, Fandral the Dashing, and Volstagg the really, really fat) to stop Harokin and retrieve the Warlock's Eye, and while Hogun and Fandral are fighting Harokin's henchmen (Volstagg contrives to be elsewhere, not being much for the unpredictability - not to mention the exertion - of combat), Thor tackles the warlord himself. Since Harokin is only a mortal man, Thor flattens him with one punch, and pretty soon the Warlock's Eye is in his possession and Muspelheim is liberated.

But it turns out Thor doesn't know his own strength - Harokin is dying (Harokin claims it's the result of a lifetime of fighting, but you don't accrue many injuries when your hat's doing your fighting for you). Shortly, Thor and his comrades hear a steady, ominous beat of muffled drums. "What foul infamy is this?" Volstagg asks. "Do they dare summon their forces against us once more?" But grim Hogun knows better: "It summons the great black Stallion of Doom! It means the death of a mighty warrior is near at hand!"

Kirby's artwork is perfect here, full of shadows and frightened faces, as a black horse steadily clop-clop-clops toward Harokin's citadel. The warlord is too weakened to stand; his men dress him in his armor and prop him onto the Stallion of Doom - and just in time, as Volstagg notices first: "Dost thou not see? From out of the mists she hath come, she before whom all who live must one day bow! For she is Hela, the ever-emotionless goddess of death! And behind her ... the silent, unyielding Valkyrie Guard!"


Towering, stolid Hela (who's shown up in these comics-entries before, as you'll recall - and if not, as always, just follow the labels at the bottom and do some catch-up reading!) and her valkyries lead the stricken, slumping Harokin away, until they reach the borders of their destination. "Thus far have we journeyed," Hela says. "No further may Hela venture forth! That which lies ahead may be viewed by none but the valkyrie maidens ... and by him who rides the Stallion of Doom!"

The horse moves forward across a glittering bridge as mists part and Harokin sees the towering hills of Valhalla and hears the enthusiastic calls of the warriors assembled there: "Know thou, Harokin, that death is more than an ending ... 'tis the greatest beginning of all!"


And Harokin lifts his face. "The weariness doth leave my limbs! I feel new strength within me ... vigor, such as I have never known! The sound of battle - the clang of armor - the most joyous music ever heard! To arms, then ... one and all! Let the trumpets blare! Let the flags unfurl! The call to battle fills the air! Now shall a warrior ride!"

And then comes the Great Moment, brought to you with the unabashed Cecil B. DeMille corniness of Stan Lee and the shorthand kinetic brilliance of Jack Kirby: a renewed Harokin, charging over the bridge toward an endless afterlife of battle:


It would be over twenty years before another "Thor" writer captured a similar moment with that kind of happy gusto (the true-blue geeks among you will know who I'm talking about, and perhaps even the precise issue - but if not, again, fear not! It, too, is a Great Moment and so will be featured here eventually), but in 1966, comics had seen nothing like it before. Glorious, dumb stuff, as all the best "Thor" moments invariably are!

Comics: Several Blasts from the Past!

It was like stepping into a time machine last week at the comic shop (and not just any comic shop - the great Comicopia in Boston, which sports not one but two stunning rarities for comic shops: the owner is a comics-biz nerd who's actually interesting to talk to, and the staff is largely comprised of really smart, really funny young women who are all also gorgeous)(if you're in the neighborhood, feel free to stop in, chat, and ogle!)(and buy something, of course...): everything old is new again.

Well, not everything - the Legion of Super-Heroes is still frelled up. But at least three things are!

First: the New Mutants. This one harks back to the early 80s, when Chris Claremont and excruciatingly static artist Bob McCleod created a weirdly-sized, oddly-bound oddity called a graphic novel (it was like the third one every published - who knew it would catch on?) starring a younger generation of mutants, some 'gifted youngsters' to fill out the ranks of Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters mutant training-facility. At the time, of course, I intensely disliked this idea (as indeed I intensely disliked Claremont's all-new all-different additions to the core X-Men team shortly before this): at the time, I wanted everything Marvel comics to remain entirely static in terms of time - no babies for the Fantastic Four, no high school graduation for Peter Parker, and likewise no graduation for the original X-Men. But Claremont envisioned a comic about a group of freshly-recruited young mutants who Xavier never intends to forge into a crime-fighting super-team; they're only at Xavier's to learn how to control their powers.

The new team had one thing in common with the old team: both were seriously weak-ass in the super-powers department. There was Cannonball, who could blast off like a rocket but couldn't control his flight path; there was Sunspot, who could absorb sunlight to increase his physical strength - for about five minutes, then he fainted; there was Wolfsbane, who could turn into a wolf (not a werewolf, just a big dog); there was Mirage, who could create images of people's worst fears (but since they could see that's what she was doing, welllll...); and there was Karma, who could possess the mind of another person (but only one person at a time, and she herself is just standing there like an archery target the whole time). Clearly, Claremont drew these limitations intentionally, to enhance the drama - but it mainly ended up enhancing the boredom, and within the first year of the resulting series two things happened: the kids' powers were slightly increased, and new members were added. There was Doug Ramsey, who could instantly translate any language (and whose floppy hair and combat inefficiency translated into "gay" about ten years before any other mutant came out of the closet); there was Warlock, a annoying techno-organic lifeform from space; there was Magma, a girl from a hidden ancient Roman civilization (...) who could kinda-sorta channel molten magma into molten magma-blasts, and there was Magik, who could teleport and act creepy.


Distinctly underwhelming adventures followed, and eventually other writers broke up the team and messed around with the characters (Cannonball gained control of his flight, Wolfsbane learned to turn into a bad-ass werewolf, Mirage got adopted by some Norse Valkyries .... you know, normal comics stuff). And now, after twenty five years (yeesh), Marvel brings the original band of characters back together in the new first issue of New Mutants.

And it's still underwhelming! Writer Zeb Wells does a solid enough job, gets in a few good lines, but there's nothing arresting here, and he's certainly not done any favors by the artwork - it's distinctly journeyman stuff, even though the artist - Diogenes Neyes - has the single coolest artist name imaginable.

The problem here is the same one that plagues the entire X-Men continuity: too much damn water has gone under the damn bridge. If this were a re-telling of the team's original adventures, a good writer could mine all the potential Claremont studiously ignored, but an almost un-synopsizable amount of stuff has happened to each of these characters in the intervening quarter-century, and this book tries to have it both ways, giving us a simple team-reunion ... but with the adult versions of all the characters. Either one of those things might work separately, but they can't possibly work together. Fortunately, this wasn't Marvel's only recent attempt at delving its own past! There was also:


Tales from Asgard - no doubt spurred by the recent sales success of the relaunched Thor (just follow the tags, everybody! that's why they're there!), Marvel here reprints the one-shot "Tales of Asgard" collection from 1964 - but oh! what a reprint job! The colors and textures of Jack Kirby's original artwork have been incredibly revivified - amplified, so that this is one reprint that's actually visually superior to its original material. I don't know how Marvel did it, but I'd sure as Hell like to see everything they've ever published revamped in this way.


The tales themselves are stirring, stupid stuff - basically Stan Lee retelling some of the greatest hits from Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of Asgard and throwing in a little Lord Dunsany along the way. There's humor, pathos, derring-do, and plenty of mythological mumbo-jumbo of the kind that had those of us who gave a crap forty years ago wondering why a Norse god of thunder would ever even bother to hang out with mortal heroes like the Avengers. No, it's the visual remastering that's the star of the show here, and it has that in common with our last item:

Nexus! We're back in the early '80s again for this one, a 'remastered' version of a remastered revamping of a character's stand-alone origin issue, which itself was issued a decade after the character's first appearance .... yes, a bit confusing - as is pretty much everything about Mike Baron and Steve Rude's signature and beguiling creation, Nexus, executioner of mass murderers.


This is Nexus' origin story, and it was originally issued in 1992 on good-quality paper with high-definition color (the collaborating creators even go so far as to use the front cover of that issue as the back cover of this issue), which started me wondering why it would need to be re-re-issued in 2009. Granted, it has a new cover (although not that new - it's a mirror-reverse image of a Nexus comic book cover from way before 1992)(go figure) and a few digital brush-strokes of new color or definition on the inside artwork ... but hardly enough to justify this issue, which means something else must be justifying this issue.


Aside from its convenience as a tie-in to the ongoing (and somewhat pricey) series of hardcover Nexus reprints, it's not hard to see what that justification is: Mike Baron and Steve Rude must on some level realize that they're not two strapping lads from Madison, Wisconsin anymore, and that Nexus and the wonderfully fertile mythology they built up around him ("Great Goulessarian!") are almost certainly their claim to comics immortality. That both of them see this is reflected in this constant returning to and fussing with their epic creation; that both of them resist it is reflected in the consistency with which they refuse to simply buckle down and regularly produce new Nexus material (for obvious reasons, we'll call this the Mike Mignola Syndrome).

In any case, though, it's a treat to revisit this great story about a man who's given tormenting dreams of mass murderers - and who's given the vast cosmic power necessary to bring them to final justice. And since Steve Rude's artwork is some the best in all comics history, even a marginal improvement in what was already top-notch color reproduction is sufficient excuse to pour over every electrifying page.

All trips down comic book memory lane should be so much fun! Atari Force, anyone?