Month: October 2023

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The Spectre Volume One: Crimes & Judgments

This is a review of The Spectre: Crime & Judgments, which collects the first twelve issues of John Ostrander (writer) and Tom Mandrake’s (artist) 1990’s run of the Spectre. It is no secret that I’m a huge fan of John Ostrander, the man responsible for the creation of Grimjack and the modern version of The Suicide Squad.

The Spectre is an older character who appeared in the Justice Society way back in the 1940’s. Basically, The Spectre is the Wrath of God. His purpose is to wreak vengeance on evildoers, and since he’s beaucoup powerful, he can do whatever he wants. The Spectre’s anchor/human host is Jim Corrigan, a cop killed in the 1930’s. Corrigan’s ghost still hangs around, even though sixty years have passed. Evil never sleeps, and neither does he.

My favorite issue of The Spectre features a trio of kidnappers who bury a child alive and die before they can reveal the child’s whereabouts. The Spectre storms into Hell and fights a devil for one of the kidnapper’s souls. When the kidnapper reveals the child’s whereabouts, the Spectre tosses him back into the eternal flames like a piece of garbage.

I don’t want to say a lot about the plot. If you are the type who’s easily triggered, I might skip this book. I myself had trouble reading the last four or five issues, but then again I’m a sensitive sort. The B-storyline features a character who mirrors the Spectre, in that he says he’s destroying evil. This character is also an enormous monster. Make of that what you will.

Great art, great writing. Highly recommended, especially if you like nihilistic horror.

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Night Force: The Complete Collection

This is the first comic I’ve ever read put out by a mainstream comic publisher (Marvel/DC) where one of the characters talks about his wife wanting an open marriage. Welcome to Night Force, one of the weirdest comics I’ve ever read.

Night Force is a horror comic put out by DC in the early 1980’s. It lasted fourteen issues before it got canceled. It’s written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Gene Colan, a creative team with impressive credentials. Despite some issues, Tomb of Dracula is a classic. Unfortunately, Night Force is not a classic.

The plot: Baron Winters lives in a grand old mansion in Georgetown. The Baron has a pet cheetah and can’t leave his house, because reasons. However, his house has portals that allow him to travel into the past. We never find out why, because the book gets canceled and I don’t really care anyway. BTW, Georgetown is also the setting of The Exorcist. Vanessa Van Helsing, one of the characters in Night Force, is about the age Regan MacNeil would be in the early 1980’s.

Vanessa is a physical medium who can channel evil. She’s been institutionalized ever since she was a child, and spends most of this graphic novel getting beat up, kidnapped, and jabbed with hypodermic needles. She has absolutely no agency at all. Her only purpose is to be rescued, so she’s a damsel in distress on steroids.

The Russians want to kidnap Vanessa and channel her psychic powers. Baron Winters, who is Vanessa’s guardian (again: because reasons) assembles his Night Force to counter the Russkies. So who’s on the team? Jack Gold is a writer who can’t keep a job. His marriage is finito. Spurred on by the Baron, he takes a liking to Vanessa. They have sex. Since this title exists under the auspices of the Comic Code Authority, they only show the aftermath. One other thing: Vanessa is twenty years old, while Jack is at least twice that age.

Donovan Caine, the second member of Night Force, is a parapsychologist. He’s doing experiments on Vanessa for the CIA. This involves having his graduate students dress up in black robes, draw pentagrams on the ground, and perform pretend Satanic rituals. Caine wants to help Vanessa channel evil, and boy oh boy does he succeed. Unfortunately, that evil kills his wife.

Donovan Caine is important, not because he does anything (in some ways he’s as much a damsel in distress as Vanessa), but because he’s the only person in this comic who has any agency that makes sense. Caine blames the Russians for his wife’s death. He’s wrong about that. Picture this: say you know a person who can manifest evil in physical form. Say you start performing Satanic rituals to summon that evil, which indeed starts manifesting. Does that sound safe to you? Maybe you’d ask, what are your safety protocols? What, you say you don’t have any? Okaaaay.

When Vanessa is kidnapped and sent to Siberia, Caine and Gold try to bring her back. Caine hates Gold so much it’s comical, even though Gold saves his life three times (at least). The first storyline lasts seven issues and still feels truncated to me. The twist at the end is good, but also reinforces the unpleasantness of the characters.

There are two other storylines after this one. The second, which involves a criminal fighting a walking garbage mound that imprisons a bunch of people in a brownstone, is pretty good. The third and final storyline makes no sense.

My guess is that this was an experimental comic. The stuff about manifesting evil and psychic powers is interesting, but the characters are mostly unpleasant assholes, which makes it difficult to care. They’re led by the biggest asshole of all, Baron Winters. So I can honestly say I’m not sure what to make of this comic.

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Secret Warriors Complete Collection Volume One

This is a review of Secret Warriors Complete Collection Volume One. The cover of this graphic novel is misleading. The writer of this volume is Jonathan Hickman, not Brian Michael Bendis. At the time Mr. Bendis was the biggest name in comics, so it makes sense they’d want him on the cover, and he did contribute material. However, Mr. Hickman wrote sixteen of the sixteen-plus (+) issues.

The question you have to ask yourself is do you like espionage comics? If yes, this is the graphic novel for you. Norman Osborne, aka The Green Goblin, has become the most powerful man in the United States. He’s in charge of HAMMER, which used to be SHIELD, a NATO based espionage outfit. That doesn’t sit well with Nick Fury, former head of SHIELD. He forms his own army, spearheaded by decommissioned SHIELD agents, the Howling Commandos (his outfit during the second World War), and three caterpillar teams. Caterpillars are kids with superpowers, btw.

HYDRA is undergoing its own renaissance, spearheaded by Baron Strucker. In this volume, HYDRA are portrayed as Nazis and ex-Nazis. Not to be undone, LEVIATHAN – a Soviet era secret organization – rises from the ashes. By the end of this graphic novel, HYDRA and LEVIATHAN have gone to war and one of Fury’s caterpillar teams has a traitor.

This volume has a large ensemble cast, but the main players are Nick Fury, Daisy Johnson (the leader of one of Fury’s caterpillar teams), and Baron Strucker. It is mostly self-contained, thank god. The twenty eight plus issues of this series are one BIG storyline, emphasis on the capital letters. The plot features lots of back and forth, twists and turns, backstabbing, wheels within wheels. Most of Mr. Hickman’s plot twists are foreshadowed.

This graphic novel takes place in the post-Secret Invasion Marvel era, called Siege, and IMO is the best thing to come out of that era. Highly recommended, especially for fans of espionage comics.

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Batman The Golden Age Volume Three

This is a review of Batman The Golden Age Volume Three. You can read my reviews of Volumes One and Two here and here. Batman’s adventures continue in this volume. The Penguin makes his first appearance and evades capture three times. The Cat also appears, which is great because she’s an interesting character who adds something different to these stories.

But the real guest star of this volume is The Joker, who is basically in every other issue. The best Joker – er, Batman – story involves the Clown Prince turning himself in to the authorities and being tried and executed for his crimes. Luckily, the Joker just happens to have a serum that can raise him from the dead, if it’s injected within fifteen minutes of his death. Thus, the Joker is reborn with a clean record. Citizen Joker, lol.

I give this creative team props for consistency. All the stories so far have been one-shots, which can’t be easy. The downside is that they all blend. You’d think at some point the thugs that capture Batman would just put a bullet through his head rather than tie him up and put him in a deathtrap, which has been spoofed ad infinitum in the 1960’s Adam West Batman series, but no dice.

This is the first volume I’ve read where the creative team might break the fourth wall. Weird stuff happens, highlighted by a bizarre spanking scene. The other standout is the strange relationship between Batman and the Joker. There’s a point in most of these stories when the Joker has Batman in his power, but apparently he relishes capturing and putting Batman into deathtraps more than killing him. The Clown Prince has no such compunctions about murdering Robin, whom he almost kills – I think it’s twice – so far.

Entertaining for Batman fans, but don’t read more than two or three issues in one sitting.