Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Re-Reads (Now Reading: Swamp Thing: 1971 through 1985)

Funnily enough, Lardy, some of the things that you find off-putting about the Inhumans, Eternals, and New Gods are the same reasons I love them! Specifically, the formal airs and the purple prose -- I think it gives them a gravitas I find lacking in some of the more colloquial, down-to-earth teams.

In the late 80s, Ann Nocenti wrote what I thought was a very good OGN focusing on the Inhumans. I feel it succeeded in demystifying the Inhumans and exposing their failings as sentient beings, while still maintaining the gravitas.

Unfortunately, it was drawn by Bret Blevins.

But I still think it's worth reading. It was finally reprinted last year in the "Inhumans: By Right of Birth" trade.

I haven't read any of Marv's FF run other than the last year's worth with Byrne. Those issues seemed pretty good, though Byrne's art probably elevated the scripts considerably. It's certainly interesting that you view the Moench/Sienkiewicz run as a big step in the right direction

Probably the only Inhumans story I kinda got into was that Marvel Knights series by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee. The themes were pretty innovative for the property, but I think the biggest draw was Jae Lee's stunning and dramatic art. I think it's probably the best project that either Jenkins or Lee have ever done, but it still didn't make me a long-term fan of the Inhumans.

My only problem with the Paul Jenkins/Jae Lee mini-series is that Crystal was hardly in it at all. I seem to remember that as being the first sign of the apparent Anti-Crystal embargo at Marvel which is now going into its third decade.

And before anyone says anything, yes, I know that Crystal is currently headlining one of the books in the Inhumans franchise, but she has a different look and a different attitude, both of which I find off-putting. As far as I'm concerned, if it's not an organic evolution of the Crystal I know and love, then I'm not reading it.

Crystal often seems to fall by the wayside in the context of her fellow Inhumans. She seems more interesting away from them with the Avengers or the FF.

To a lesser extent, this also seems true of Medusa. It always seems like she loves Black Bolt just because she does. Just one reason why it's hard for me to get into the royal family.

Good points well taken, Lardy. But I do think that there is a writer out there who could make Crystal work within the context of the Inhumans and, better yet, playing up the sisterly dynamics between her and Medusa, sort of like a loose superhero version of the prose novel "The Mists of Avalon," which I started reading on Harbi's recommendation.

Fantastic Four 249-250

After a year-and-a-half of exploring various moods and styles and themes with extremely mixed results, Byrne finally delivers a FF story that is pure, unpretentious, comic book-y fun.

It's clear from the get-go that Byrne is having a ball -- just look at that cover, where Byrne makes it abundantly clear that, underneath the purple skin and Mohawk hairstyle, Gladiator really IS Marvel's version of Byrne's beloved Superman. Hyperion who?

Gladiator, for the laypersons, was introduced by Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum in Uncanny X-Men, in what turned out to be Cockrum's last issue of his first X-Men run. He was the leader of the alien Shi'ar race's goon squad, the Imperial Guard, all of whom suspiciously resembled members of the team that had been Cockrum's previous gig, the Legion of Superheroes. It was all done in a spirit of playfulness, and judging by an interview I read with Cockrum, he doesn't seem to have been sure at the time whether Gladiator was supposed to be Superboy or Mon-El or a hybrid of the two. But when Byrne replaced Cockrum on Uncanny X-Men, and he and Claremont brought back the Imperial Guard for the climax of the Dark Phoenix Saga, there was no doubt whatsoever that Byrne saw Gladiator as Super-MAN! Who just happened to be Byrne's favorite superhero.

So I'm guessing that Byrne figured that as long as he was working on his favorite Marvel superheroes, the Fantastic Four, he might as well bring in the closest thing Marvel had to his favorite DC superhero. Especially considering he had an anniversary issue of FF, 250 to be exact, coming up.

And THEN, just to sweeten the pot, Byrne throws in the X-Men (or is it really them?), Spider-Man, and Captain America, delivering a rock-'em, sock-'em romp that is a joy to read.

This story's pleasures are entirely superficial, but there's nothing at all wrong with that. I even find it easier than usual to forgive the dubious physics and science (not that I've ever cared that much about such things in a superhero comic book, unless it's so ridiculous that it's an insult to the intelligence of someone who barely understands basic science.)

Lardy, would you prefer that I waited until you catch up before I review FF 251-252, or should I go ahead? Either way is OK with me.

D'Oh! I read those a few days ago but forgot to review! I'll try to do mine tonight or tomorrow. But if you really want to, you can go ahead.

It's all right. I don't mind waiting. One of the things I've been enjoying the most about this particular re-read is the flexible, leisurely pace.

Yeah. Not to besmirch the Legion Re-read threads, but the rigid structure with no allowance for breaks is something I get burned out on over time.

(Sorry for the wait, Dahling! )

Going into reading the two-parter that appeared in FF 249-250 ("Man and Super-Man"/"X-Factor"), I thought that this might be a story to challenge my top three faves in this re-read, based upon my fond memories of said story I originally read as a teenager. Turns out, though, that adult-me is not nearly as impressed, so the top three stand as ranked.

Don't get me wrong: there is nothing terribly wrong with this story. It's both action-packed and well-rendered. But it's also overblown. It's basically a 2-issue slugfest in which the second issue happens to also be double-sized. It also comes off as a blatant attempt to drum up some extra sales for the book with what appears to be an X-Men cross-over. To add insult to injury, the X-Men who appear are not actually those characters at all.

Though fighting is obviously an aspect of the FF's adventures, they are also about more than that. Mysteries to be solved. Worlds to explore. Wonder, amazement and spectacle. Discovery. Family. Though there is an element of mystery to this tale, it is basically a simple story that could have been told in any standard superhero book, and the mystery isn't even well-explained in the end.

I think the title of the first issue, "Man and Super-Man", gives away Byrne's impetus for creating this tale: exploring these Marvel characters taking on a stand-in for Superman. It may not have crossed my mind if not for the title, but looking ahead to his later work on DC's flagship character, it's easy to see that Byrne may have been jonesing to work on big blue at that point already. Gladiator was created as a Kryptonian-type analogy for the Imperial Guard (itself a LSH analogy), so it's easy to see Byrne using him.

Also: look at these two covers:



Byrne homaging Byrne with the analogies spelled out, right?

So apparently Supes would wipe the floor clean with the FF, according to Byrne. I'd like to think Reed could figure out a way to at least make the FF look more respectable, but he's probably right.

Anyway, what amounts to 2.5 issues of the FF battling what is essentially a good guy (with a few Skrulls put into the mix) seems a bit much. Plus, I don't think Byrne puts much juice into the plot. 1) There's some buildup about the nature of Gladiator's powers, but Reed doesn't explain them very well beyond there being a psionic element to them. It wouldn't bother me if there hadn't been such an emphasis on the mystery throughout. I, for one, love it when Reed gives us detailed explanations for things; it's part of his charm. 2) Gladiator's confrontation with the FF was caused by his being "dazed and confused" in the aftermath of his initial Skrull confrontation. Good enough for a one-off story but very much a waste of 2.5 issues!

It certainly had some entertainment value, especially in getting to see Byrne render some of the X-characters he'd left behind in a prior classic run as well as always welcome guest appearances by Spider-man and Captain America. But it doesn't hold a candle to Byrne's best FF stories already behind him and still ahead in his run.

^Wow! I never noticed that Byrne featured the best possible Legion stand-ins for the FF in that Superman cover!

BTW, Ficque, I avoided reading your review until after I'd done mine to kind of make mine as fresh as possible. While you note that the "story's pleasures are entirely superficial", you're review is overall much more positive than mine comes across. I know that mine may seem harsh, but it is primarily under the lens of what makes a good or great FF story that I view it. i think it would have been great as a one-off, but the sheer number of pages devoted to it seems like overkill.

I'm curious, though, as to whether this one enters your personal top three of the run to this point.

Awwww...that's very sweet of you, Lardy. Thank you.

But no worries, because, like we were both saying a few posts ago, this is a very leisurely and flexible re-read.

I did want to tell you that I'm very busy ATM, having taken on a couple of side projects in addition to my novel, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to make a considered reply to your recent posts. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, though, I do have a moment right now to quickly answer the question in your most recent post:

As much as I enjoyed the Gladiator story, I wouldn't put it in my Top Three, mainly because of its lack of substance. All my favorite Byrne FF stories have both style and substance.

I had never noticed it before, either. That is so awesome! Clever Byrne.

Thanks for pointing it out, Lardy.

I don't think your review is excessively harsh, Lardy. I think it's critical but fair and well-thought-out. And I agree with you that it should have been a one-off, with everything squeezed into issue 250. That would have kicked ass.

In a way, the Gladiator vs FF story reminds me a bit of the Simonson FF, though it's not nearly as satisfying as Simonson's best issues, including the one where Simonson himself used Gladiator. IMO, Simonson always emphasized cosmic spectacle over characterization, but there were always lively ideas percolating under the shiny surface (with the possible exception of the Spidey/Hulk/Ghost Rider/Wolverine arc, by far the weakest story in the otherwise outstanding Simonson FF run.) Byrne's Gladiator vs FF story is simply infectious fun, and I certainly respect that you found it somewhat less infectious than I did.

Oh, definitely!

I think one of the better parts of the story is the subtext I mentioned, most of it unintended at the time by Byrne. He definitely intended to use Gladiator as a Superman analogy, but he couldn't have known then that he would go on to relaunch Superman a few years later and define him for around 10-15 years. He'd already worked on X-Men, was currently producing a lengthy, soon-to-be classic run on FF and would afterwards do the Superman relaunch. So this one 2-parter, ironically, incorporated elements of all three runs that probably now define his career more than any other works of his! Weird, huh?



That's a good analogy comparing similar, more frivolous points in Byrne's and Simonson's runs. I liked, though, that there was a broader point behind Simonson's story in which he attempted to show us that a what the fans might want (a new FF all-star line-up comprised of characters from top-selling books) isn't really the FF at all. Unfortunately, I think many fans missed the point and ate it up. But it was fun for what it was, and Art Adams was a genuine delight on guest pencils.

Well, I'm just about ready to resume the Byrne FF Re-Read, but first there's a couple items of business I need to take care of. The first is my belated reply to Lardy's last post:



Agreed 100%. It was positively dripping with smart meta-commentary, and I think Simonson completely outdid himself with the meta-text in what proved to be his final FF arc, the one with the time-space continuum being run as a heartless corporate bureaucracy by identical clones of Marvel's top continuity cop at the time, Mark Gruenwald. I'm assuming Gruenwald was in on the joke, as he was then-EiC Tom DeFalco's second-in-command, but it still must have stung on some level. The point Simonson seemed to be making, IMO, is that too much adherence to continuity is counter-productive to creativity.

The second item of business is to explain that, while I've been MIA from this thread, it's been due to Byrne-relevant reasons. Very much so, as it involves not only another work of Byrne's from during his 80s peak, but also one that Byrne more or less cut from whole cloth. I'm talking about Alpha Flight, eh?

For some reason, the planets have aligned in such a way recently that I've been doing a major re-evaluation of a large chunk of the Byrne oeuvre. And Alpha Flight was long past due for me to approach with a fresh perspective. Until recently, my position on Byrne's Alpha Flight was that the relatively light-hearted first issue was great, but it was all downhill after the second issue, where Byrne pulled a jarring shift in tone with the scene where Marrina disembowels Puck. This was followed by a lot of horror-movie-styled mystical/conspiracy stuff that I just could not wrap my head around on my first read of it, many years ago.

This recent re-read was done with a much more open mind on my part. I had finally come around to being willing to accept Byrne's weird and creepy Alpha Flight run on its own terms! And when read with that attitude, it's actually quite good! I now believe that Byrne did some of the most dynamic and powerful art of his career on Alpha Flight. And the stories weren't half-bad either. The characters weren't that deep, but they were really cool to look at, and there was a lot of potential in the characters that was eventually explored by the more talented of Byrne's successors (James Hudnall from 67 to 86, Fabian Nicieza from 87 to 101, and...uh...that's about it. But that's still almost three consecutive years of solid stories.)

Such an impression did this Alpha Flight re-read make me, that it inspired me to take a break from my stalled novel-for-adults project and get back into fan fiction (temporarily) with my first Alpha Flight fic ever! Details and a link are in the "My Non-Legion, Non-DCU Fanfic Projects" thread in the Bits forum.

Okay. Done. Coming this weekend, reviews of FF #251-252, the beginning of Byrne's Negative Zone Saga!!

(And thanks for your patience, Lardy. You rock.)

Gawd, I loved me some Alpha Flight! Byrne's run and my love for the characters he instilled captivated me so much as a teenager that I stuck with the book thru the lower 100s, including Mantlo's too-long, depressing run that basically did all it could to tear down what Byrne did. Yes, Byrne's run had a large share of darkness, but Mantlo clearly took those elements what he felt must have made the book successful. So he reveled in it.

At that age, I was fiercely devoted to books and favorite characters, so I stuck with it, even when there were very few bright spots. What he did with Roger Bochs/Box was especially unforgivable. Here you had what should have been a breakthrough character, a rare parapalegic action hero, and you make him utterly pathetic and kill him off. Not a good message.

You're right that there was a resurgence with Hudnall and Nicieza, and it was good for a while and restored some of what Mantlo had torn down. But I feel that the damage had indeed been done regardless and that Alpha Flight has never recovered because of it.



Aw.....

Very well said, Lardy. And I think Hudnall and Nicieza's work is all the more accomplished considering what an utter dog's breakfast the Mantlo run was. Furthermore, Mantlo not only sent negative, ignorant messages about disabled people, but also LGBT people. Byrne had intended for Jean-Paul to be revealed as gay at some point, but then-EiC Shooter kept a lid on it and it was still unrevealed after Byrne left. Mantlo intended to have Jean-Paul die of AIDS, which would have been even more offensive than what he did with Roger. And then there's the Mantlo thing about Walter's consciousness taking over Narya's dead body and becoming a woman. Those scenes are some of the most cringe-inducing in the original AF series' long run, because it's obvious that neither Mantlo nor anyone in editorial at the time understood either the psychology of the transgendered, or made the slightest effort to bring plausibility and humanism to the concept of a heterosexual man suddenly finding himself living against his will as a woman. (Vague digression: Blake Edwards' early 90s movie "Switch" actually did a half-decent job with that premise, IMO. Certainly, it was one of the few entertainments of that time to deal with LGBT themes in a way that wasn't completely embarrassing.)

Rant over. I'll just reiterate, thank the Gods for Hudnall and Nicieza (and Danny Fingeroth, who edited the best AF issues by both writers.)

I'll admit I was a bit young to process the implications of "Wanda" Langkowski's story. Even now, my recollection of all the handling isn't very sharp. But I was glad at the time to see Sasquatch not dead anymore, though it being at the expense of Snowbird was a bummer. I clearly recall, however, all of Roger's beats, and it still pisses me off even more than it did back then.

I remember being extremely disappointed in what Mantlo did with the twins' origin (though I'm glad Jean-Paul didn't die of AIDS) and especially Puck's backstory. Mantlo showing that Puck wasn't always a dwarf cheapened that groundbreaking character almost as much as the sickening Roger Bochs shit.

I wish Byrne had stayed for a longer run or that maybe someone like Roger Stern had taken over for him, so that all those plot threads Byrne left could have been better tied up. But it's pretty well-known that Byrne was never overly fond of working on the book and was glad to leave. I'm glad, though, that the body of work itself doesn't reflect his apathy for the material. He still put excellent effort into it that will be remembered fondly by his fans and even by many of his detractors.

Thanks for mentioning Puck. I fully agree with you, and I don't know how that additional offense on Mantlo's part slipped my mind, especially considering that Puck's my favorite male Alpha Flight member. Maybe because Nicieza did a good job of undoing what Mantlo had done to Puck?

Agreed, too, that even if the "Asgardian Elf" origin for the Beaubier twins was another embarrassment from the Mantlo era, at least it ensured Jean-Paul's survival. And that one was especially easy to undo, since lies are pretty much Loki's specialty.

Regarding Byrne's apathy for his Alpha Flight run, it is really something how, with a lot of creators, what is considered in hindsight to be among their finest works were just paycheck jobs to the creators themselves. I guess it's a testament to Byrne's high standards at that time. And I think credit should also go to Denny O'Neil, who edited Byrne's entire AF run and has said that he enjoyed doing it, adding that he became especially fond of Puck and Heather.

Ficque, will we be resuming soon? I must admit that I'm missing these!

Most definitely, Lardy. I'm so sorry for the delay. I promise you I'll have posted a review of #251-252 before I go to bed tonight.