Cliff Chiang Remembers John Hughes Better than I Ever Could

“Dear Batman: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole
Saturday in Bat-detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you’re
crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us
as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient
definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is an archer, and a
speedster, and a swimmer, a princess, and an acrobat. Does that answer your
question? Sincerely yours, The Teen Titans.”

Thank you, John Hughes. Rest in peace.
-Cliff Chiang

Care of CliffChiang.com



Cliff Chiang is one of the best, and one of my personal favorite illustrators around.

And John Hughes is of course the man who made the phrase "Everything a Teenybopper Movie Should Be" have meaning in the first place.

Wednesday Comics

Under the direction of editor Mark Chiarello, who was last responsible for the absolutely astonishing SOLO series, DC Comics is currently putting out one of the most groundbreaking comics on the stands today, and at the same time one of the most retro: Wednesday Comics. A weekly art extravaganza, WC is printed on classic newspaper paper like the old days, filled with full page strips serialized over the course of three weeks by some of the greatest names working in the industry - from the mainstream to the indies. This is a celebration of comics as an art form embracing the present, past, and future of the medium in one fell swoop. And it is gorgeous. Not every strip is as spot on as the others but as a whole it's a wonderful package, and some of the strips (like Azzarello and Risso's Batman) are already establishing themselves as weekly must reads. The project is on such a scale that USA Today is serializing John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo's Superman story on their website, with the first portion included in the print edition.

The roster is as follows:

- Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso (the team behind Vertigo's award winning 100 Bullets) on Batman

- Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook on Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth (a Jack Kirby character done in the style of Prince Valiant)

- John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo on the aforementioned Superman

- Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck on Deadman

- Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones on Green Lantern

- Kyle Baker takes on Hawkman

- The absolutely All-Star team of Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred on Metamorpho: The Element Man

- Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway on Teen Titans

- Paul Pope on Strange Adventures

- Husband and Wife team Jimmy Palmiotti and the sensational Amanda Conner do Supergirl

- DC Comics Executive Editor Dan Didio, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Kevin Nowlan take on the Metal Men

- Ben Caldwell on Wonder Woman

- Father and Son Joe and Adam Kubert on Sgt. Rock

- Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher on The Flash

- and finally Walter Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze bring the unlikely combination of The Demon/Catwoman

That right there is a veritable Justice League of comic's talent. At $3.99 a pop it's not the cheapest entertainment investment (the whole series should run you $48 plus tax) but this is a really beautiful tribute to the old Sunday pages back when Will Eisner and Walt Kelly ruled the roost. It's also doing quite well, and while nothing has been confirmed, there's talks of another Wednesday Comics event next year - which means people are already assembling their dream teams, and as a would be one day comic's editor, here's mine.

(Note: for the sake of this game I'm trying to be as realistic as possible in the current environment - no repeated creators, and no one ezclusive to Marvel (like Brian Bendis) or on such bad terms with DC that they would never be invited (Chuck Dixon, Mark Waid). Characters may repeat from year to year because I sincerely doubt DC will run something like this without a Superman or Batman feature to anchor it.)

Jason's Dream WC2 Roster:

- Darwyn Cooke on The Spirit (The Spirit returns exactly where he belongs - the oversized Sunday section he debuted in - guided by the best talent to touch him since his creator)

- Geoff Johns and John Cassaday on Superman (I'm literally drooling just thinking about it)

- Garth Ennis and Brian Bolland on Batman (Bolland on interiors? Heaven)

- Grant Morrison and Doug Mankhe on Shazam (All-Star Captain Marvel by the Scottish God of Comics himself)

- Keith Giffen, JM Dematteis, and Kevin Maguire on Blue And Gold (The JLI team provide a Bwa-Ha-Ha a week with the buddy comedy of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold)

- Warren Ellis and Steve Dillon on John Constantine: Hellblazer

- J. Michael Straczynski and Jim Lee on Aquaman (I'd beg for a monthly but we know Lee can't hit those deadlines)

- Peter Milligan and Cliff Chiang on Human Target (the team behind my favorite comic book series of all time reunite just in time for the new TV show)

- Paul Dini and Bruce Timm on Zatanna (Magic. Mayhem. Fishnets. By the team who brought you Batman: The Animated Series)

- Denny O'Neil and JH Willliams III on The Question (Denny O'Neil, who wrote The Question's ground-breaking 1980s series brings more Vic Sage and Zen Noir accompanied by perhaps the best illustrator working today)

- Adam Hughes on Wonder Woman (The All Star line seems pretty much dead - lets see what he had in mind)

- Matt Wagner on Green Arrow/Black Canary

- Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra on Dial H for Hero

- Joe Kelly and Ethan Van Sciver on Plastic Man

- Sam Kieth on Arkham Asylum

I couldn't even find a place for JG Jones... maybe in round 3...

Oh man. I've just made myself so sad realizing this will never happen.

I ought to go buy issue 3 and cheer myself up.

Secret Files and Origins... coming soon weekly to TG.

One Year in Four Colors - Captain Atom: Armageddon

So I've decided to write a review or analysis of every Graphic Novel I read in 2009. I'd try for every comic, but none of us have that kind of time.

*Spoiler Warning* should be considered general practice.

Captain Atom: Armageddon

Writer: Will Pfeifer
Artists: Giuseppe Camuncoli & Sandra Hope
Publisher: DC/Wildstorm

Captain Atom: Armageddon is one of those weird beasts you only find in the world of comic books and collected editions, given how many masters this book is attempting to serve. This book acts in many ways as connective tissue - a transitionary story to move people and places into the appropriate spots for their next appearance and major events that are lined up. What makes this particular book stand out is that it is attempting to do that with two entirely separate super-hero universes and publishing plans. In order to function properly, this book has to tell it's own fulfilling story from beginning to end - but also take Captain Atom of the DC Universe from where we last saw him and lead him to where he's going, but also leave the Wildstorm universe in an entirely new place.

The plot of the story is about Captain Atom mysteriously arriving in the Wildstorm Universe with no way to get home. He soon discovers that the nature of his trip has led to something gone wrong inside him and unless he returns home immediately, his very presence on this alternate Earth will lead the the absolute destruction of this Universe.

Captain Atom is a DC hero, who originally started as a Charlton hero. In the '60s, Charlton was it's own comic book company - publishing characters like The Question and Blue beetle. Eventually they went out of business, and during the 1980s DC bought the rights to their characters and during the landmark Crisis on Infinite Earths integrated those heroes into their line - the conceit being that they had been a part of their history the whole time. The Charlton characters were actually the inspiration for the groundbreaking book Watchmen, and Captain Atom was the direct inspiration for Dr. Manhattan. Since Crisis, Atom has been a part of the DC Universe - acting as both a government operative and member of the Justice League. His backstory is that of Nathaniel Adam - a government agent falsely accused of treason. Rather than rotting away in prison, he chose to undergo an experimental quantum procedure in exchange for his freedom should he survive. Instead, the accident sent him twenty years into the future and imbued him with atomic energy and a quantum shell. Since then, despite being one of the most powerful beings on Earth, he's always felt overshadowed as both a hero and a man by people like Superman - never attaining A-list status.

The Wildstorm Universe began as one of the founding studios of Image Comics. In the '90s, a group of extremely dissatisfied and extraordinarally popular Marvel artists banded togather to form their own company based around creator rights. It was a shot heard round the industry - and one of those artists was Jim Lee, famous for his work on the X-men. A loose collection of individual studios, his was called Wildstorm and became it's own self contained super hero universe including title like WildC.A.T.S., Deathblow, and Gen13. Eventually Lee sold Wildstorm to DC comics, remaining it's Executive Editor, and Wildstorm became a separate publishing arm of DC (like Vertigo, CMX, or the now defunct Minx line). Along the way Wildsorm became known for darker, more morally ambiguous heroes with a sci-fi edge - leading to books like The Authority, Sleeper, and Planetary.

After a huge boom in the early 2000s, the Wildstorm Universe had sort of cooled off, and a revamp was planned. Across the continuity stream, DC was gearing up for it's Crisis sequel, Infinite Crisis. And so Captain Atom: Armageddon was born - to help draw attention to the Wildstorm reboot by including a DC character in the lead up, as well as to set up Atom for his next story beat in Infinite Crisis. The story started with Atom's last appearance in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies when he appeared to sacrifice his life to save the Earth piloting a giant rocketship into a Kryptonite meteor, and attempts to address some lingering continuity errors from that title.

But aside from all the publishing concerns, this is a story unto itself. And what really drives this story is the difference between the DC and Wildstorm Universes using Atom as a viewpoint, and a man just trying to get home. And in that, the story does a wonderful job. Captain Atom is portrayed as an honorable hero - always looking to avoid confrontation in the name of sanity and discussion, his attempts constantly being thwarted by an entire world of metahumans who hit first and MAYBE ask questions after the funeral. His horror at seeing an entire people subjugated by fear is palpable, his anger at seeing the human race cowering under the bootheel of morally ambiguous super-powered 'heroes' is justified. This book shows Captain Atom as the best kind of hero, and a good man - who despite constantly feeling lessened in his shadow still says "Thank God - Superman" when he sees a flying man in a cape coming towards him. This book really invigorates Atom as a character - and does a good job of showing why the Wildstorm Universe deserved a Noah like flood at the end to wipe away their sins.

So what makes this book harder to enjoy in hindsight is the knowledge of what came after, and how much potential was squandered. Instead of capitalising on this book with a Captain Atom arc that finally saw him become the hero in the DCU that he always had the potential to be, editorial decided to pursue a failed idea from decades back and turn Atom into Monarch, an insane power hungry villain with absolutely no explanation. And the big Wildstorm reboot? Dead in the water after two flagship titles never made it past two issues, and has already gone through another reboot since - DC usually waits twenty years between Crises and Marvel has never had one, so that's bad.

This was a fun story that made me love Nathaniel Adam a little bit more, and it's reccomended if you want to see what makes this character so cool - this is Captain Atom at his absolute best. But for the novice comic book reader, not the best starting point.