Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue at random, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

Continuing our vague theme of making the Dusting Off features relevant or topical to something we’ve written about recently, let’s have a look – with the news that it’s due to finally be collected as part of the forthcoming Starman Omnibus – at the first issue of James Robinson’s Shade miniseries from 1997.

A spinoff from the main Starman title, The Shade was, in truth, something of an inevitability. Over the course of the series, and even from quite an early stage, it was apparent that by far the most compelling character was this one-time Golden Age villain – originally a somewhat silly footnote in Flash lore, Robinson turned the Shade into a character of considerable depth, wit, style and moral ambiguity. I can’t say too much about the way that he managed to provide justification for the coexisting portrayals of the character – originally a petty supervillain, then a cold-hearted murderer, and finally the morally-layered individual of Starman – without spoiling certain events from the last couple of books; but nevertheless, even at this point in the series’ life (just short of halfway along) it was clear that this was a character about whom we yearned to know more.

And so this four-part miniseries, which delved into his background – specifically, the tale of his century-old feud with an English family called the Ludlows. It’s a neat, dark little tale of betrayal and murder - and while the twist is somewhat predictable, it’s no less enjoyable for that. It’s also unusual, really, in that - aside from a single moment where the Shade uses his mysterious new powers for the first time - it’s a purely historical story, with next to no fantastical elements. While I can think of many other comics that have set stories in the past - and even in this particular setting of nineteenth-century London - it’s rare to see one that feels that so authentic. Building an entire story around the Shade allows Robinson to indulge even further the “literary” voice he’d given the character in Starman - and it’s telling just how long some of the narrative caption boxes are. At times, this feels more like an illustrated story than a comic book.

Rather than regular series artist Tony Harris, each issue of the miniseries was drawn by a different artist – in this instance, it was Gene Ha. And his work is, in fact, one of the strongest things about the issue. He employs a part-pencilled, part-painted style, and the results are absolutely stunning. Perfectly suited to the tone of the book, his vision of London is somewhat unreal - but in a gothic, Tim Burtoney kind of way rather than a snow-drenched Dickensian wonderland. His muted colours, meanwhile, give a sepia tone to the whole thing, while also emphasising such details as splashes of blood and the uncharacteristically light colouring of the Shade’s outfit when we first meet him.

The Victoriana style of the story, and its somewhat sombre tone, mean that this may not appeal to the widest spectrum of comics readers – but it’s a supremely confident piece of work in every aspect of its execution, and affords us a valuable opportunity to spend a bit more time with one of recent comics history’s most fascinating characters. Impressively, too, it’s a story in and of itself - you don’t need prior knowledge of the Shade or Starman to read it - although I’d hesitate to unreservedly recommend it to a new reader for the simple reason that there’s so much more enjoyment to be had simply from picking up Starman at the beginning, spinoffs and all…

While I criticised the first issue of The Last Defenders for having a lack of direction, the second issue quickly gets to the point. The idea behind the Last Defenders, as a series, is taking cues from all the previous versions in establishing that Defenders teams don’t last very long - the current team, assembled last issue, is quickly disbanded after a disasterous first mission with too much collateral damage for Stark, who was never quite sold on the idea of a Defenders team in the first place.

The idea of breaking up the team after a mission gone wrong is an original use of the Initiative concept - as Stark reasons, they’ve seen what happens when teams don’t work well. Much as how the idea was used to form the Defenders, it’s fitting that it’s also the reason that the team is broken up. It also lends some weight to the Initiative - up until now, they’ve basically been little more than a super-hero gestapo tracking down “vigilantes” and causing more damage than they prevent, but this decision shows them actually doing what they were supposed to - having a system of checks for super-heroing and weeding out what doesn’t work before the small problems become big ones.

With the team broken up, I realise what we’re actually more in line for is closer to being a Nighthawk miniseries - he takes the repeated failure of the Defenders very personally, and the focus remains on him the entire issue. Alone in the Defenders’ former base, he finds the location of a SHIELD agent in trouble and goes to investigate, taking She-Hulk with him. The two uncover a plot to brainwash the public, and meanwhile a subplot involving Hellstrom, the Son of Satan (in 1973) seems to be introducing links back to the earlier incarnations of the team.

Still, even with the new-found appreciation for where the series is going, it’s not really grabbing me. Muniz does a good, Frank Cho-esque bulky Iron Man that actually looks as if there’s a person inside the suit, and Casey’s writing has no obvious flaws. It’s just a question of how interested you are in the idea of a Nighthawk/Defenders title. After what appeared to be an attempt to jettison the Defenders nostalgia last issue, it appears to be that, actually, it is relying on it after all. Ah well. I’ll stick with the series for one more issue just to catch that Atlas appearance, but I strongly suspect I’m not going to have the drive to finish this one…

First off, this issue is something of a landmark as Amazing Spider-Man reaches the same number as Marvel’s longest published-title, Fantastic Four. Later this week, Spidey will storm into the lead. That’s a side-effect of going thrice-monthly that one imagines is neither unwelcome nor unexpected. After all, Spider-Man, while not the first, is the very template that Marvel’s heroes are built on, so it’s fitting he should have the highest numbering, I suppose.

More’s the pity that this issue doesn’t really set the world alight. While those who read the review on CBR will know that I enjoyed Wells’ first issue, I found this one far more generic and uninteresting. The villain of the piece is a little too cartoonish to be threatening, and the Mayans, used as a fake-out, were barely at the level of background characters before their untimely sacrifice.

The really interesting part of the episode is the snowstorm that’s afflicting the city as a result, and Spidey’s attempts to work despite that. Unfortunately, due to more of the timing problems that afflicted Strange’s appearance last issue, this is the most wintery issue of Spider-Man ever to be published in April (not that the UK isn’t have its own jokes with hailstorms this spring, but still.) Another glaring omission is last issue’s guest star, Wolverine, who has disappeared from the story without much of a send-off. Looking back at last issue, he’s gone to check on Dr. Strange, but I have to admit I expected some follow-up to that thread. There’s still one issue to go, I suppose, but it doesn’t look like he’ll be back now, and it’ll seem like a really odd way to structure a story if he doesn’t come back at some point.

Bachalo’s art is still the strongest thing about the title, and the opening scene with Jameson attempting to escape from hospital showcases Bachalo’s gift for comic timing that hasn’t been seen in god knows how long. The minimalist cover is fantastic, and one of the many things the Brand New Day team has done right is bring the iconic nature of covers back into focus - it’s been years since Bill Jemas and his ”Single Character Cover” policy ended, but things never really snapped back after that. Things are still a little generic - it’s fairly damning that the majority of Marvel Zombies cover homage/parodies didn’t come from recent issues, that’s for sure.

I found this to be a disappointing second issue from Wells, only slightly saved by Bachalo’s best work in some time. As the last of the “brand new day” writers, Wells is the first to hit a really duff note with me (despite Gale’s variable effort last month) and the first not to introduce a genuinely memorable new villain, so I’ll definitely have my eye on his next arc, whenever that turns up.

Do you like Starman? Do you like Paul Cornell and the Fantastic Four? If so, there’s probably something worth reading in here, I guess. If nothing else, why not come in and read my latest Alternate Cover column? A must for people who like the Buffy and Angel comic, though an even bigger must for people who don’t like it! And we tell you who to vote for in what nobody calls “the comics industry’s BAFTAs”, the Eagle Awards. Continue reading »

Just like many other British readers of around my age, my first real exposure to American comics came in the shape of UK-based reprints in the late ‘80s. First out of the blocks on this front were the early John Byrne issues of Superman – but not far behind were some stories featuring the Marv Wolfman and George Perez New Teen Titans. And while I never subsequently became a huge fan of Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Gar Logan and the rest, I enjoyed those stories enough that I’ll give any book that attempts to reunite them a passing glance.

This one doesn’t exactly get off to the best of starts, though, with the revelation on the credits page that it’s “Part Two” of a story. Er, what? I’m buying an issue #1, you cretins. I’m probably not alone. There are a lot of us who’ll have seen that big massive number on the cover – you know, the one where you helpfully even put the words “FIRST ISSUE” underneath – and thought “Great! Here’s a brand new book to try out!” So where the hell was part one of this sodding story? Turns out it was in a one-shot special called Titans East. Released, er, six months ago. Slow clap.

Still, if it hadn’t been for that caption, I’d never have guessed that the issue was following on from anything. It consists solely of a series of disconnected scenes in which various people who are, or used to be, Teen Titans get attacked by a variety of ludicrous B-movie-esque monsters, before each escaping and finally banding together in an attempt to work out who’s behind it all. Winick attempts to make us engage with each of the characters by falling back on the device - currently de rigeur for a DC team book - of having each character “narrate” the pages they appear in. Where this fails spectacularly, though, is in the complete lack of any distinctive character voices. Once again, the utterly lazy assumption seems to be that simply giving each caption a differently-coloured background will somehow mask this - but when you’ve got half-demon mystical sorceress Raven coming out with favoured Winick insult “brain donor”, it really doesn’t manage that in the slightest.

For anyone who remembers his nippletacular run on Supergirl, meanwhile, the prospect of Ian Churchill on art duties must surely be a cause for trepidation. What’s surprising, though, is how much Winick panders shamelessly to his, uh, “speciality”: treating us to three pages of Starfire flying and lounging around Animal Man’s garden completely starkers. Worse, he attempts to justify it by having Kori comment to herself (with as much subtlety as a neon sledgehammer) on American society’s apparent aversion to nudity. In a way, this actually managed to offend me more than the scene itself (which really is otherwise just embarrassing, in an “Oh God, sometimes they’re right about comics” kind of way) – if you’re going to objectify your characters for the sake of a bit of titillation, at least be honest about it. Don’t attempt to justify it by shoehorning in a genuine issue whose basis is in fact completely at odds with what you’re doing. Really, you have to wonder why he even felt it necessary – it’s not as if Churchill needs any prompting to go nuts with the cheesecake, and elsewhere in the issue we see Donna, Starfire (again) and some random gang members positively bursting out of their costumes, while the (high school age. HIGH SCHOOL!) Raven is given that ol’ Michael Turner standard: visible thong straps.

You suspect that Winick is just hoping this will get by on some hazy sense of nostalgia for the characters featured. But beyond their names, there’s very little to connect these cardboard cutouts with the people that grew and developed over Wolfman’s original run. As such, it’s very difficult to care about anything that happens to them. Furthermore, in the closing pages of the issue we learn that a bunch of other (apparently less important) characters actually did get badly hurt - and, in one case, killed - only, er, we didn’t actually see that scene. I’m guessing it happened in the ethereal “part one”, but the fact that I’ve had to guess should tell you everything about the paucity of storytelling ability on show here. It feels like an attempt to ape the style of the current Justice League of America series - and it succeeds, but that’s not exactly a good thing. All it means is that it’s a hollow, gaping void of a comic, with absolutely nothing to engage any reader. Unless they’re a brain donor, of course.

After a third issue stuffed with exposition and plot, the pressure was on writer-artist Jamie McKelvie to satisfactorily wrap up the myriad threads in his first solo mini (though in calling it that, let us not forget Matt Wilson’s invaluable contribution of his colours.) It would’ve been a difficult task even for a more experienced writer to bring everything to a believable conclusion, so it’s pleasing to see the promise of the early issues realised as McKelvie does indeed manage to pull it off.

Since it’s a comic, you can be forgiven for expecting the last issue to contain a big fight scene - and, since it’s a comic, it dutifully does, allowing McKelvie to silence forever any critics still claiming his work lacks dynamism. When one of Morgana’s goons finds themself on the receiving end of some old-fashioned guitar-smashing action, you can really feel it. Astrid manages to prevent the fight from going too far, and dispatches the battling factions, before reconciling with Dave and returning to a normal life - more or less. She’s now got access to her Fae powers, which includes a rather trandy-looking set of magical wings.

In the opening pages, it became clear to me that I’d actually been judging Suburban Glamour on slightly incorrect terms. Rather than looking for the origins of a mystical, Buffyesque super-heroine, I should’ve seen it as the modern fairytale that, with this issue, it plainly becomes - a magical coming-of-age. In meeting her “real” family, Astrid quickly realises that the grass isn’t actually greener on the other side of the fence, and accepts her small-town lifestyle for what it is as Suburban Glamour’s promised allegory makes a full return.

Certain threads of the plot do feel a little truncated - the Fae disappear as quickly as they appeared, putting up little fight when Astrid gets angry at them, though the intention to follow up those characters in future Suburban Glamour tales is clear. Instead, Astrid’s character arc is the focus of the first mini, and the seeds of any ongoing plot-arcs are only being sown in this issue. SG #4 completes a miniseries in the best way possible - wrapping up one story while preparing for the next.

And, until the next story arrives, remember that you can amuse yourself with the Suburban Glamour Soundtrack, made up of bands mentioned in or which inspired the title. Almost entirely guaranteed to get you down with the kids. Almost.