Yesterday the BBC announced that the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special has been cancelled. Further, the BBC have parted ways with current showrunner Russell T Davies, and they are “putting the series out to tender” i.e. they are inviting other production companies to submit competitive bids to produce the show. All of which means that Doctor Who will be off the air for the foreseeable future.
Okay, this is very disappointing news, but it is not entirely unexpected.
Like a lot of fans of the series, I don’t feel that Doctor Who has been genuinely, consistently great for several years now, not since Peter Capaldi left the role of the Doctor. Unlike some, I did actually like the Jodie Whittaker / Chris Chibnall era, but even so I will admit that the writing on those three seasons was very uneven.
And then Russell T Davies returned to the show in 2023. Yes, Davies was the man who brought Doctor Who back to life in 2005 after it had been cancelled and all-but-dead for 16 years. And he did a brilliant job during his first tenure on the revived series. But two decades later, I feel that the weaknesses in Davies’ writing, which had been present yet fairly negligible in the past, were now terribly magnified. There was way too much emphasis in his scripts on feelings & emotion, with a lot of really poor plotting, big mysteries with weak payoffs, and bombastic season-ending climaxes that fell flat.
Ncuti Gatwa could have been a brilliant Doctor, but he was all too often let down by the writing by Davies & company. It also did not help that both of Gatwa’s seasons were so short (eight episodes each plus two Christmas specials), and the production of Doctor Who overlapped with his other series Sex Education, meaning that he was barely present in several episodes.
I also feel like Disney, who began co-producing and globally distributing Doctor Who in 2023, never really knew what to do with the series, and were not all that invested in its success.
Over the past two decades, Doctor Who did become something of a global phenomenon. I’ve heard some argue that this success was a double-edged sword, and that along the way some of the magic of it being a smaller series with a devoted cult following was lost.
I mean, as someone who grew up watching the show in the 1980s, when it seemed almost no one else in America knew what it was, it was quite a thrill in recent years to then see Doctor Who advertised on the sides of busses and in subway stations, and to witness hordes of eager teenage fans at New York Comic Con eagerly buying up Doctor Who merchandise. But, yeah, at the same time, maybe instead of focusing on big budget special effects and capturing a global market, the show should concentrate on quality writing and acting.
So, perhaps it is time, after all, for the BBC to give Doctor Who a bit of a rest, and allow them the chance to find a new star who is fully committed to the role of the Doctor, a new showrunner with fresh ideas, and a new production company that will get fully behind supporting the series. Then hopefully Doctor Who will be able to return to television stronger than ever. Fingers crossed.
It’s also important to keep in mind that Doctor Who is not disappearing completely. There are still new Big Finish audio adventures, comic books and novels coming out. So, I think that, in one form or another, Doctor Who will be with us for a long time to come.
Spinning off from the popular streaming series The Mandalorian on Disney+, The Mandalorian and Grogu is the first theatrical Star Wars movie to be released since the divisive The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. The Mandalorian and Grogu is written by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni & Noah Kloor and directed by Favreau.
Several years after the events of Return of the Jedi, the Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin, aka “Mando” (portrayed by Pedro Pascal, Brenda Wayne and Lateef Crowder) is now working for the New Republic to hunt down fugitive Imperial warlords. Accompanying him is his ward, the Force-sensitive diminutive Grogu. Mando is dispatched by his supervisor Ward (Sigorney Weaver) to Nal Hutta, headquarters of the infamous Hutt crime cartel. The Hutt twins have information on the location of the elusive Imperial fugitive known as Coin, and they agree to share it with the New Republic if Mando retrieves Rotta, the son of the deceased Jabbha the Hutt, who they say has been kidnapped. Accompanied by veteran Rebel fighter Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios (voiced by Steve Blum), Mando and Grogu travel to the planet Shakari, which is controlled by the criminal entrepreneur Janu (Jonny Coyne). Mando quickly locates Rotta (voiced by Jeremy Allen Dale) only to discover that things are not as he had been led to believe.
The Mandalorian and Grogu is a fun, exciting movie with a great deal of action. I enjoyed it. That said, I did have a few issues with it. Chief among them, it definitely had a meandering storyline. It felt like Favreau took what was intended to be the fourth season of The Mandalorian and condensed it into a 132 minute movie. At times I did find myself wondering if it really needed to be a theatrical release. On the other hand, it was great to see Mando, Grogu and all of these other characters on the big screen.
It was interesting to see Rotta the Hutt again. He was previously introduced in The Clone Wars animated movie in 2008 as an infant. I wondered if we’d ever see him again, so it was nice to have him return here as an adult. All of the Hutts we’ve seen until now have been criminals, so it was refreshing to have a member of that species who wants to make a different life for himself, outside of his father’s infamous shadow.
As a fan of the animated series Rebels, I really enjoyed seeing Zeb return here, paired up with Mando and Grogu on their missions. The CGI animation bringing the character into live action looks really good.
I liked the character of Ward, but I did feel that she was a trifle underused. If you have an actor of Sigorney Weaver’s caliber, I would think you should want to feature her prominently. Still, I appreciated seeing her here, and hopefully she’ll reprise the role again at some point in the future.
That brings me to my next point. There are hardly any female characters in The Mandalorian and Grogu. Other than Ward, there’s a brief cameo by director Deborah Chow as an X-Wing pilot. And that’s it. I find it strange, because you would expect differently from Favreau and Filoni. All three seasons of The Mandalorian, which Favreau created, featured numerous interesting female characters. As for Filoni, he co-created Ahsoka Tano, and he wrote a lot of other great women in both The Clone Wars and Rebels. So, to me it’s a really glaring omission on this movie.
Anyway, as is apparent, The Mandalorian and Grogu is not without flaws. If you are a huge, longtime Star Wars fan like I am then yes, it’s worth catching in the theater. However, if you are a more casual viewer, you might want to wait for it to stream on Disney+ so you can watch it at home.
In my last blog post I took a look at the Superman story arc “Time and Time Again” that was published in early 1991. Following on from this was a three-part fill-in story “Red Glass” after which the Superman titles really leaped into high gear with the launch of a fourth ongoing title. To commemorate the Superman books now coming out on a weekly basis, DC Comics editor Mike Carlin had a storyline running across all four books that came out in May 1991.
“Revenge of the Krypton Man” ran thru the double-sized issues Superman: The Man of Steel #1, Superman #57, Adventures of Superman #480 and Action Comics #667. It was written by Louise Simonson, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway & Roger Stern, colored by Glenn Whitmore, lettered by Bill Oakley, John Costanza & Albert de Guzman, and drawn by an all-star lineup of artists.
Previously the mysterious Kryptonian artifact the Eradicator had attempted to take over Superman’s mind and have him transform Earth into a new incarnation of Krypton. Superman had thrown the Eradicator into the Sun, hoping to destroy it. Instead, as Superman discovers in “Revenge of the Krypton Man,” the Eradicator was transformed by the Sun, and it returns to Earth, now possessing a humanoid form. The Eradicator is once again attempting to recreate Krypton on Earth, causing catastrophic storms & earthquakes across the planet. Superman attempts to defeat the Eradicator in its new form, only to continually find himself outmatched by the awesomely powerful artificial being.
The highlight of “Revenge of the Krypton Man” was the arrival of writer Louise Simonson and penciler Jon Bogdanove to the Superman team of creators, launching the Superman: The Man of Steel series with inker Dennis Janke. Simonson & Bogdanove had previously worked together on Power Pack and X-Factor over at Marvel. I really liked Simonson’s writing. As for Bogdanove, he had a fun, cartoony style to his work. I feel that when he was on X-Factor he had the misfortune to be unfavorably compared to Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, the hot young artists who were penciling X-Men and New Mutants at the exact same time. Bogdanove’s style fit in much better in the Superman group of titles, at least in my humble opinion, and I’m glad he found a home there in the 1990s.
Last month on Facebook there was a post about how in the last couple of decades superhero comics at both Marvel and DC have lost an important feature: civilian supporting casts, and that nowadays, it seems that every regular character has super powers & a costumed identity. Mike Carlin himself re-posted this item on his FB page. And, yes, I have to agree with the sentiments expressed. A couple of years back I was following Action Comics again for a while, and while I did like the stories, it bothered me somewhat that there was something like a dozen different superheroes now operating in Metropolis, and all of them had very close ties to Superman.
Back in the 1990s, when Carlin was editing the Superman titles, those series had a large civilian supporting cast. Superman was the only major super-powered hero in Metropolis. Yes, you also had Gangbuster and the Guardian, but those two were more or less normal human beings. And re-reading “Revenge of the Krypton Man,” I was reminded that the stories of the supporting characters were just as compelling as Superman / Clark Kent.
Lois Lane continues her career as an investigative reporter while learning to cope with the knowledge that her fiancee Clark Kent is actually Superman. After a long illness, Lois’ mother finally gets released from the hospital. Jimmy Olsen moves out of his mother’s place and gets his own apartment, only to get laid off from The Daily Planet on the very same day. Perry and Alice White, struggling to salvage their marriage after the tragic death of their son Jerry, go on a cruise, where they meet Jonathan and Martha Kent. Cat Grant faces sexual harassment from her scummy boss. Cat’s son Adam goes missing. Jose Delgado gets kidnapped by a street gang. Professor Emil Hamilton helps Superman investigate the mysterious gem belonging to the villain Mister Z and eventually plays a vital role in defeating the Eradicator. (Hamilton even gets an appearance on the cover of Action #667 by Dan Jurgens & Bob McLeod.) And good old Bibbo Bibbowski is running his dive bar watering hole the Ace o’ Clubs. So, yeah, there’s a lot going on!
Simonson & Bogdanove introduce a new member to the Superman supporting cast in Man of Steel #1. Keith is a young African American boy who lives with his aunt in Metropolis. He’s first seen when Superman rescues his cat from a tree. Keith would go on to become a regular presence in the Man of Steel title. Simonson has always been brilliant at writing children and teenagers, as previously seen in Power Pack and New Mutants, and she did really great work with the character of Keith throughout her run on Man of Steel.
The “Triangle Era” of the Superman titles throughout the 1990s (so called because each issue had a triangle on the cover showing you what number that issue was in the overall ongoing storyline) was a really magical era, at least in my estimation. The writers & artists did a great job with the characters, telling a compelling ongoing storyline that continued week after week.
And I cannot believe that it’s been 35 years this month since these four books came out! Time really does fly… just like Superman!
It has been said that everyone’s definitive version of a character is from when they first began following them. That is certainly true for me with Superman, whose comic books I first began reading regularly in 1990 and followed throughout most of the decade. In this installment of “It Came from the 1990s” I’m going to be looking at one of the great Superman storylines from that period, “Time and Time Again” published by DC Comics in early 1991.
Beginning in 1991, the Superman titles, under the auspices of editor Mike Carlin and assistant editor Dan Thorsland, officially became an ongoing serial that ran through all of the books. This is known as “The Triangle Era” as each cover had a little triangle on it which contained the year and the order number in which to read the books.
I’m actually first going to look at the two issues that precede “Time and Time Again” because they are among my all-time favorite Superman stories.
Action Comics #662 was written by Roger Stern and drawn by Bob McLeod. Previously, Clark Kent and Lois Lane had actually gotten engaged. Now, Clark is feeling that he really needs to be honest with Lois and tell her that he’s also Superman. The couple is canoodling in Lois’ apartment on a dark & stormy night. Clark is about to spill the beans when his old foe Silver Banshee comes crashing in, looking for Superman. Not realizing Clark and Superman are one in the same, the Banshee leaves, and Clark makes his excuses to Lois so he can change into his costumed identity and track down the mystical menace. After finally defeating her, Clark returns to Lois’s apartment. There, he reveals to his fiancée that he’s Superman.
The cover to Action #662 by Kerry Gammill & Brett Breeding announces “At Long Last… The Secret Revealed!” And, yes, this is the big one, where Lois Lane finally learns that Clark Kent is Superman. The post-Crisis Superman era was only about four and a half years old at this point, but I’m sure in the minds of most readers there was the awareness of all those crazy old Silver Age tales where Lois futilely tried to prove that Clark was Superman, and the Bronze Age stories where Lois and Superman are actively dating, but he still refuses to tell her he’s Clark. So, Action #662 was a breath of fresh air, at least as far as I was concerned. It really moved the Lois and Clark relationship forward. Stern wrote a great story around the reveal, and McLeod, a very underrated artist, really delivered on the storytelling & mood for this monumental revelation.
Events lead directly into Superman volume 2 #53, “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” written & penciled by Jerry Ordway and inked by Dennis Janke. Lois tells Clark that she needs time to process the big reveal. Understanding, he leaves her apartment, and the next day, Superman finds himself at the Pentagon. The hero is tasked by the military with extraditing the Middle Eastern nation of Quarac’s deposed dictator Marlo to the United States for trial. Ordway does an exemplary job on this issue, showing Superman attempting to navigate the murky world of international politics.
Years later in an interview, Ordway revealed that part of the inspiration for this story was the depiction of Superman by Frank Miller in The Dark Knight Returns as a pawn of the US government. Ordway wanted to show that Superman believes in the American Dream, but he sees himself as “a citizen of the world,” he does not want to be beholden to any particular government, and he possesses a healthy skepticism about politics (which makes perfect sense to me, since as Clark Kent he’s an investigative reporter). I felt Ordway did a fine job with Superman’s characterization in this story.
That at last brings us to “Time and Time Again,” which kicks off in Adventures of Superman #476 written & penciled by Dan Jurgens and inked by Brett Breeding, with cover inks by Art Thibert. The mysterious time traveling Linear Man journeys to the 20th Century in an attempt to capture Jurgens’ creation Booster Gold and send him back to his proper time in the future. The Linear Man lures Booster to Metropolis, where Lois and Clark are again discussing their complicated feelings for each other. Clark is forced to leave when he sees the fight between Booster and the Linear Man. Interceding, Superman is accidentally sucked into a time portal. He ends up in the 30th Century, where he encounters Lighting Lad, Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl, the original line-up of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
It’s important to remember that this is the post-Crisis version of Superman. In this continuity, Clark never was Superboy, and he never met any of these characters before. So, this is Jurgens having Superman discover the original Legion for the first time.
Continued in Action Comics #663, Superman attempts to aid the Legion with handling a huge disaster, only for an explosion to once again hurl him into the timestream. This time, Superman finds himself back in 1943, where he joins a traveling circus. The circus eventually arrives in Metropolis, where Superman saves President Roosevelt from a Nazi assassin. Roosevelt suggests to Superman that he go to Washington to join the Justice Society of America. Realizing the JSA might be able to help him return to his own time, Superman goes to Washington DC. However, before he can ask the JSA for help, the supernatural Spectre intercedes, and transports Superman to Warsaw, Poland.
That leads to Superman #54, where Clark discovers that the Nazis have their own atomic research program. Here, writer & penciler Ordway does something clever. A few months earlier, in issue #51, our hero encountered the villainous Mister Z, who claimed that he had fought Superman fifty years earlier in Eastern Europe. Superman, of course had no idea what Z was talking about, but here we are, three issues later, and our time traveling hero encounters Z for the “first” time. Z is working with the Nazis to develop an atomic bomb. Superman is able to destroy the weapon, but the atomic explosion once again sends him into the timestream.
Adventures of Superman #477 returns Superman to the 30th Century, several years after he was previously there, and Jurgens now has Clark meet the 1970s line-up of the Legion. A new Sun Eater is menacing the galaxy. The Legion’s plan to destroy it with an Absorbatron Bomb fails, and it falls to Superman to lead the team and come up with a new strategy to defeat the apocalyptic menace. Superman’s plan works, but yet again a massive explosion hurls him out of time.
Moving over to Action Comics #664, Superman finds himself waaaay back in the Jurassic era, among the dinosaurs. (And artist Bob McLeod draws the heck out of those prehistoric creatures!) Realizing that he’s being moved through time by explosions, Superman ponders how he can possibly find one big enough millions of years in the past to send him back to the present. After weeks stranded in this era, an encounter with the time-displaced supervillain Chronos finally enables Superman to locate another explosion and escape forward into time.
Unfortunately, as we see in Superman #55, Clark ends up in England, during the mythical days of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. He gets caught in the middle of the long-running feud between the wizard Merlin and the evil sorceress Morgaine Le Fey, and encounters Jack Kirby’s Demon Etrigan. Once more an explosion propels Superman into time.
That, finally, brings us to the finale of “Time and Time Again” in Adventures of Superman #478. Jurgens has Superman meet the Legion a third time, and on this occasion it’s the dystopian “Five Years Later” version of the team. Superman learns that the Superboy of the “pocket universe” created by the Time Trapper fell in battle, and he mourns the loss of his other self. He then aids the Legion against the insane renegade Daxamite Dev-Em, who is terrorizing the Moon colonies of the 30th century. Then the Linear Man intercedes, at last sending Superman back to the present day, in a truly shocking act that had reverberations in the Legion’s own title.
I’m going to take a moment here to briefly touch upon the next issue, Action Comics #665. Back in 1991, Superman returns to Lois, for whom only a couple of hours have passed. Clark unburdens himself to her about his time traveling experiences, which from his perspective took place over a five month period. I feel this scene really demonstrated the importance of Clark revealing his secret identity to Lois. It made her a friend & confidant that he could share all of his experiences with. This issue is also the first Superman story penciled by Tom Grummett, who went on to have a long association with the character. He’s inked here by Jose Marzan Jr., another regular artistic presence during the Triangle Era.
I have to give credit to letterers John Costanza, Albert DeGuzman & Bill Oakley and colorist Glenn Whitmore, who worked on these issues. They each did a solid job.
So, yeah, this was definitely my era of Superman, and when I think of the character, it is usually the versions drawn by Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway that come to mind. I really enjoyed revisiting these stories.
All of these issues, and a whole bunch of others, were recently collected together in the massive DC Finest: Superman: Time and Time Again trade paperback. It’s a really great collection, clocking in at almost 600 pages long. If you’re a fan of this period of the character, I definitely encourage you to pick it up. And I definitely hope that DC Comics continues to collect the Triangle Era in the DC Finest format.
I was very sorry to hear that artist Charles Barnett III had passed away on April 1st at the too young age of 65. Barnett worked in the comic book industry throughout the 1990s as an inker, and I was a fan of his work. He had a very Bronze Age (i.e. 1970s and early 1980s) sort of style to his inking that gave a very nice finish to the various pencilers he worked over. I guess I would sort of liken Barnett’s style to that of the legendary Joe Sinnott, who gave a very smooth polish to the various pencilers he was paired with.
I previously mentioned Captain America #423 on this blog, but I’m going to share the splash page from it again here. Roy Thomas penned a story that revealed the first encounter between Cap and Namor the Sub-Mariner during World War II, and it was very effectively illustrated by M.C. Wyman & Barnett. I enjoyed Barnett’s inking over Wyman, and their collaboration sort of resulted in a John Buscema-type of style. Over on Facebook, commenting on this issue, editor Mike Rockwitz said “I had fun working on this.”
Another occasion on which Wyman and Barnett were paired was Captain America Annual #12 in 1993, the cover of which is posed below. And, yes, Cap IS fighting against a man dressed as a rooster. This was the Summer in which both Marvel and DC, desperate to prove that they could create hot new characters without the recently-departed Image founders, pumped out a whole bunch of new creations in their Annuals. Of course, the majority of these characters soon vanished into obscurity. Among the more oddball concepts was the Battling Bantam. I feel like Wyman & Barnett did their best to bring to life such a crazy concept, and it’s a nice cover.
Barnett worked with classic Marvel artist Herb Trimpe on a few occasions. As I’ve explored before, in the 1990s Trimpe, in order to continue working, began drawing in a style that attempted to emulate the work of some of the then red-hot Image artists. The results were, unfortunately, sometimes exaggerated & confusing pages. However, I feel like when Barnett was paired with Trimpe, it helped to dampen down some of the rough edges of this new style. Barnett inked Trimpe on the first half of Avengers Annual #21 in 1992, and as seen below, it’s quite nice work.
Barnett also inked penciler Larry Alexander at Marvel. Now, truthfully, I always found Alexander’s work to be just too quiet for superhero comics. However, I really did like how he looked when inked by Barnett, who again gave it a very nice polish. The two were paired on a four part story featuring Code Blue, the NYPD special force designed to combat superpower menaces who were introduced by Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz in the pages of Thor. I don’t know if the Code Blue story was originally intended to run as its own miniseries, but it was published as a flip book in Thunderstrike #13-16 in 1994. It was written by Roy Thomas & Jean-Marc Lofficier. This scene from Thunderstrike #14 sees Thor fighting the Wrecker, and it’s very nicely illustrated.
In addition to his work at Marvel, Barnett also did inking for DC Comics. In 1994 he worked on a Star Trek: The Next Generation miniseries, and on Viper, a four issue miniseries based on the sci-fi action adventure TV series created by Danny Bilson & Paul De Meo. Looking at the Grand Comics Database, I see that Barnett also inked a number of issues of Elfquest for Warp Graphics.
I really wish Barnett’s career in comics had lasted longer, because I definitely enjoyed the work he did over various pencilers, giving them all a nicely polished, traditional look. Unfortunately, I imagine that as mainstream comics became more & more slick & stylized, the type of inking he specialized in probably fell out of favor with editors & publishers.
I was fortunate enough to meet Barnett on several occasions at comic cons. He always came across as a good, friendly person. I obtained a few con sketches from him. The best of these was a really nice Batman he drew for me, which you can see above.
My condolences to Charles Barnett III’s family and friends for their loss. Speaking of a fan of his work, I can say that he will definitely be missed.
If you are a longtime Doctor Who fan, you are undoubtedly aware that there are a significant number of episodes from the show’s first six seasons in the 1960s that are missing from the BBC archives and presumed to no longer exist. From time to time over the years, we have been fortunate that a number of these missing episodes have been discovered in all manner of locations.
Rumors began floating around last October that there had been new missing episodes located and returned to the BBC. Finally, yesterday it was announced that two Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s had indeed been located, bringing the number of still-missing episodes down from 97 to 95. And if that sounds like a lot still missing, well, the number used to be much higher. Believe it or not, in the late 1970s there were 152 episodes of Doctor Who missing from the BBC archives! So 95 is a definite improvement.
So, what was recovered this time? The two episodes are “The Nightmare Begins” and “Devil’s Planet” aka the first and third episodes of the serial “The Daleks’ Master Plan” that aired in the mid-1960s. These two episodes were broadcast on the 13th and 27th of November 1965, and have not been seen by the public since.
For the uninitiated, “The Daleks’ Master Plan” was an epic twelve-part serial that ran from November 1965 to January 1966. It starred William Hartnell as the Doctor and Peter Purves as Steven Taylor and of course featured the Doctor’s arch enemies the Daleks. It was preceded by a standalone episode “Mission to the Unknown” which aired on 9th October 1965, written by Terry Nation and directed by Derek Martinus. “The Daleks’ Master Plan” itself was co-written by Nation and Dennis Spooner, script edited by Donald Tosh, and directed by Douglas Camfield, who is generally considered to be one of the best directors to have worked on the series.
“The Daleks’ Master Plan” sees the Daleks align themselves with a host of hostile alien powers to create a doomsday device known as the Time Destructor with which to conquer the galaxy. The TARDIS deposits the Doctor and Steven on the planet Kembel, the base of the Daleks’ operations. The Doctor discovers the Daleks’ plans and steals the Time Destructor’s power core. The Doctor and Steven are henceforth pursued across space & time by the Daleks and their ally Mavic Chen, the treasonous Guardian of the Solar System portrayed by Kevin Stoney, who are desperate to recapture the power core.
As I said before, “The Daleks’ Master Plan” was only ever broadcast once. From the plot descriptions and the memories of the really old Doctor Who fans who watched it that one time in the mid-1960s, it sounds like it was an ambitious, exciting, and at times dark & gritty storyline.
The fifth and tenth episodes of “The Daleks’ Master Plan” were recovered back in 1983, and the second was returned to the BBC in 2004. I’ve seen those three episodes when they were released on the DVD set Lost in Time. Based on watching those, and on reading the two-volume novelization written by John Peel published in 1989, I have to conclude that “The Daleks’ Master Plan” must have been a quality story. So, I’m looking forward to seeing these two newly recovered episodes of the story.
I don’t know if there are any more episodes of “The Daleks’ Master Plan” out there; I certainly hope so. If not, now that five of the 12 are available, perhaps the BBC will animate the remaining seven and pair it to the existing audio tracks, as they’ve done for so many other missing Doctor Who episodes, and we’ll finally be able to experience the complete story in some form close to the original. I guess we will have to wait and see.
I’m really happy to announce that another article I wrote is going to be published. “Maggie and Hopey: Anatomy of a Friendship” examines the long, complicated relationship between the two main characters in Jaime Hernandez’s acclaimed Locas stories from the pages of Love and Rockets from Fantagraphics. The article will be appearing in Back Issue #166 from TwoMorrows Publishing.
Here are the details about Back Issue #166:
In Back Issue #166, it’s time to Partner Up! Whether it’s teammates, friends, employer/employee, sidekicks, or significant others, we look at the partnerships between Superman and Lois Lane, Love and Rockets’ Maggie and Hopey, Batman and Alfred, Milk and Cheese, and others. Plus, behind-the-scenes with Rick Veitch’s Brat Pack. Featuring the work of Jerry Ordway, Dan Jurgens, Marv Wolfman, Jaime Hernandez, Rick Veitch, Bill Mantlo, Doug Moench, Evan Dorkin, Steve Englehart, Al Milgrom, and others. Clark Kent and Lois Lane cover by John Byrne and Terry Austin. Edited by Roger Ash.
This is going to be my third piece published in Back Issue. I previously had articles appear in BI #104 and #141.
Back Issue #166 will be shipping to stores on March 18th. If you cannot locate a copy at your local comic shop, it is available for purchase directly from TwoMorrows Publishing via the following link:
The newspaper adventure strip The Phantom is 90 years old this month. Created by Lee Falk, who had also created Mandrake the Magician two years earlier, The Phantom made its debut on February 17, 1936.
What is The Phantom about? Well, in the words of Falk himself, for those who came in late…
In the year 1536, the English ship Matilda was traveling through the Indian Ocean when it was beset by pirates from the notorious Singh Brotherhood. Captain Christopher Walker and his crew fought valiantly, but they were overwhelmed by the marauders. The entire crew was slain, save for the Captain’s teenage son Kit, who was cast out to sea. Young Kit Walker washed up on the shores of the African nation of Bangalla. He was discovered by a tribe of pygmies known as the Bandar, who nursed him back to health.
Later, returning to the beach where he was found by the Bandar, Kit discovers the corpse of the Singh pirate captain who attacked Matilda. Grasping the skull of the dead pirate, Kit swore an oath upon it:
“I swear to devote my life to the destruction of all forms of piracy, greed, cruelty and injustice. My sons, and my sons’ sons, shall follow me.”
Donning a skintight costume & mask, Kit became the first Phantom. When he eventually died fighting against crime & injustice, his son took his place as the second Phantom, and so on down through the ages. In the present day the current Kit Walker is the 21st Phantom, continuing his family’s crusade against evil. Because the Phantom seemingly never ages throughout the decades, he becomes known as “The Ghost Who Walks” and “The Man Who Cannot Die.”
The origin of the Phantom, retold by DePaul & Manley on February 7, 2025
The 21st Phantom is aided in his quest for justice by a number of individuals: the Bandar tribe, who to the present day have served to train & guide the Walker family, his girlfriend, and later wife, Diana Palmer, a world class athlete, their two children, Kit and Heloise, who are preparing for the day when they will follow in their father’s footsteps, Bangalla’s law enforcement agency the Jungle Patrol, and last but not least, Devil and Hero, a wolf and a white stallion, respectively, who often accompany the Phantom on his missions.
I think that Falk conceived an absolutely brilliant setup for The Phantom. Not only could he tell the adventures of the current Phantom in the present day, but the fact that the character was a legacy hero meant that there were 20 previous versions of the hero whose stories could also be explored in a variety of historical settings. There have even been a few stories that have flashed forward to the future, looking at the exploits of the current Phantom’s descendents.
I first discovered The Phantom courtesy of the 1996 movie adaptation, which starred Billy Zane, Patrick McGoohan, Kirsty Swanson, Treat Williams and Catherine Zeta-Jones. I didn’t see The Phantom movie in the theater, but I bought it on VHS tape in 1999, and I found it to be really fun & enjoyable. I subsequently picked up several of The Phantom graphic novels published by Moonstone Books in the early 2000s, which I also enjoyed. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the movie had been extremely faithful to the source material.
The Phantom newspaper strip continues to be published in the United States to this day. However, it is outside of America that The Phantom’s real following lies. It is extremely popular in countries such as Sweden and Australia.
Painted cover artwork by Joel Naprstek
Here in the States, the current writer of The Phantom is Tony DePaul, who took over the strip in 1999 following the death of Falk. The daily strips are drawn by comic book veteran Mike Manley, and the Sunday strip is drawn by Jeff Weigel. The Phantom strip can be read on the Comics Kingdom website, which is where I have been following it for a number of years now.
If you have not read The Phantom before, I encourage you to give it a try. It’s a really exciting, action-packed series, one of the few remaining newspaper adventure strips in the 21st Century. Here’s hoping for many more years of The Ghost Who Walks.
I was very sorry to hear that longtime comic book artist Sal Buscema had passed away on January 24th, just two days short of his 90th birthday. As I have written on several occasions on this blog, “Our Pal Sal,” as he was affectionately referred to by his fans, was one of my all-time favorite comic book creators.
Sal Buscema was born on January 26, 1936 in New York City. Sal was the younger brother of acclaimed comic book artist John Buscema. Enduring some harsh yet undoubtedly effective critiques from big brother John, Sal entered the comic book field in 1968, working for Marvel Comics, where he would remain for the majority of his career.
Buscema initially intended to focus on inking as his speciality, and among his earliest jobs was embellishing the pencils of his brother on the Silver Surfer series for several issues. However, Buscema soon transitioned into penciling, replacing his brother as the artist on Avengers in 1969. Avengers was undoubtedly a baptism of fire for Buscema, as it was a team book with multiple characters, requiring clear storytelling so that the action was not confused or cluttered. Buscema immediately rose to the occasion, turning in dynamic pages that were easy to read, a quality that would remain a hallmark of his for the entirety of his career.
Throughout the next three decades Buscema had lengthy runs on a number of Marvel titles, among them Captain America, Defenders, Incredible Hulk, Rom Spaceknight and Spectacular Spider-Man. Buscema was also called upon to provide fill-ins for numerous late books during the 1970s. Described as a workhorse, he never missed a deadline.
As I’ve previously recounted, it was via his work on Incredible Hulk that my seven-year-old self first discovered Buscema’s work in 1983, and I immediately became a fan. His pencils on Incredible Hulk #285 were powerful and dynamic, making a huge impression on my young mind.
I did not really get into comic books regularly until 1989, when I was 13 years old. By that point in time Buscema was doing full artwork, pencils & inks, on Spectacular Spider-Man. Paired up first with writer Gerry Conway and then with J.M. DeMatteis, Buscema did some of the very best work of his career on Spectacular, and it was a title that I followed regularly.
DeMatteis’ writing on Spectacular Spider-Man culminated in the epic issue #200 (May 1993) which saw the tragic death of Peter Parker’s longtime friend Harry Osborn at the end of the issue. DeMatteis was so impressed by the power of Buscema’s artwork & storytelling that he chose to have the two pages appear completely dialogue-free, allowing Buscema’s pictures to carry the emotional scene all on their own. I cannot think of a greater testament to Buscema’s work than that.
As the 1990s rolled around, I frequently attended comic cons, and I was able to pick up a lot of Buscema’s earlier work on Captain America and Rom Spaceknight, two other titles on which he had excelled.
After the comic book market crashed in the mid-1990s and Marvel filed for bankruptcy, Buscema went to work for DC Comics for a few years, working on a variety of titles there. On some he was providing layouts for up-and-coming artists, on others he was doing inking, and on a few stories he did full artwork. The jobs where Buscema got to illustrate Batman were, in my opinion, especially good. One of my favorites was “The Prison” in The Batman Chronicles #8 (Spring 1997) which was penciled by Buscema and written & inked by John Stanisci.
Entering the 21st Century, Buscema mostly retired from penciling, concentrating mostly on inking. He was paired with penciler Ron Frenz on a lengthy run of Spider-Girl at Marvel, among other projects.
Buscema also worked frequently with artist Guy Dorian Sr. on a variety of books. These included a short return to Rom Spaceknight, which was now being published by IDW. The work of Dorian & Buscema on Rom for IDW was definitely of a high quality, and they made an effective art team. The two continued to work together right up until Buscema’s passing.
I was fortunate enough to meet Buscema on a couple of occasions. I used to have a few pages of artwork that he did, but I regrettably had to sell them years ago to pay the bills. But I am happy that I still have the two convention sketches that I obtained from him. One was of the Green Goblin, and it can be viewed in my Spider-Man sketches blog post. The other sketch is of Captain America, and it can be seen below.
As I’ve written before, for an extremely in-depth look at Sal Buscema’s career, I highly recommend picking up the excellent book Sal Buscema: Comics’ Fast & Furious Artist, written by Jim Amash & Eric Nolen-Weathington, from TwoMorrows Publishing. The print edition is unfortunately sold out, but it is still available digitally.
In a career that lasted nearly six decades, Sal Buscema produced a huge and, more important, highly impressive body of work. I regard him as one of the finest craftsmen in mainstream comic books. In certain respects he was underrated, as he was one of those good, solid, reliable artists who the industry was heavily dependent upon for many decades. I’ll always be a fan of his work.
I have not previously been following the new Absolute Batman series from DC Comics, set in an alternate reality in which Bruce Wayne / Batman is a working-class vigilante. However, the series has been wildly popular, and I may have to rectify that oversight soon.
My attention was first drawn to Absolute Batman with the publication of the Absolute Batman Annual #1, which came out in October of last year. Artwork from it circulated on social media, which showed Batman fighting against a gang of white supremacists. This predictably triggered some right-wing trolls, but the majority of the opinions I saw online were cheering this on. I wanted to pick up the Annual, but it seems that it immediately sold out everywhere.
I had to wait until this week to finally read the Annual, when DC released a second printing. The reissue is topped with a brand-new cover by writer / artist Daniel Warren Johnson, which depicts Batman wielding a flamethrower.
Now, it really shows how out of the loop I am that I was previously unfamiliar with Johnson’s work. It seems he worked on a well-regarded Transformers comic book series recently, and has received a fair amount of acclaim.
Johnson’s untitled story for the Annual features coloring by Mikes Spicer and letters by Clayton Cowl.
The story opens with Bruce Wayne outside of Gotham City, on the outskirts of Slaughter Swamp. Near the Swamp is a camp of day laborers who have been living there with their families ever since a massive construction project unexpectedly shut down. Bruce is in the process of buying weapons for his Batman identity when he witnesses a gang of masked men beating up a Hispanic mother & son. Bruce leaps in to try to save him, but is ambushed from behind by the man from whom he was purchasing his equipment. He is only saved by the intervention of Father Peters, a priest who has been working to help the laborers.
Peters mends Bruce’s wounds, and the priest informs him how the hate movement sprung up…
“Six months ago, we had an outsider come, recruiting. I don’t know much about him, except that he’s been filling the holes in the hearts of our boys. Of all the men here, really. He’s given them a dark place to go.”
Peters tells Bruce that the hate group plans to attack the encampment that night. Bruce prepares to leave so he can suit up as Batman. As he tells Peters…
“Sometimes peace isn’t an option. Sometimes words don’t work.”
The hate group, aided by the local police, mask up and attack the camp. Batman then arrives and engages in a brutal fight with the white supremacists. Peters tries to stop Batman, telling him his actions won’t make anything better, but the vigilante angrily rebuffs the priest. Batman pursues the hate group to their headquarters, which he burns down with a flamethrower.
In the aftermath, Peters treats the wounded hatemongers, and when Batman asks him why, the priest responds “You have your way. And I have mine.”
The battle over, Batman begins to think back to his father, who was a peaceful, compassionate man. Feeling that he has failed to live up to the example set by his father, Batman is overcome by grief.
Johnson’s story is definitely a very timely, topical one. The United States is currently in a very dark place. The Trump Administration is absolutely a fascist, white supremacist movement that has trampled upon the Constitution. ICE is abducting & brutalizing people, and now is even outright committing murder. With these horrors in mind, there is definitely a cathartic value to seeing Batman beating up a gang of racist thugs.
At the same time, though, Johnson’s story also poses the question, does violence accomplish anything? Can white supremacy really be defeated by punching it out? It’s certainly tempting to want to fight back against racists, because all of the non-violent protests of the last year have sometimes felt like exercises in futility. But will fists or guns really solve any of these problems, either? It’s a very frustrating time, because there are no quick, easy answers to this grave crisis that threatens to erode the country from within.
I have to give credit to Johnson here. Most superhero stories are predicated on the notion that violence DOES solve everything. It’s rare to see a high-profile story like this Annual that argues that dressing up in a costume & beating up the bad guys is a simplistic attempt at solving complex, pervasive societal issues.
Absolute Batman Annual #1 also contains back-up stories by James Harren and Meredith McClaren. I guess I liked both of their efforts well enough. I just get the feeling that I would have enjoyed “Sanctuary” and “Let’s Learn About Bats!” more if I was familiar with the ongoing Absolute Batman series. Having enjoyed this Annual, I’ll probably pick up the trade paperback collection of the first six issues in the near future.
In My Not So Humble Opinion 