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

In recent discussion with Comics Daily Cohort James Hunt, an assertion that I’ve often made about comics reared its head – that Spider-Man: Maximum Clonage Omega was the worst single issue comic I’d ever read. James scoffed at this – worse than Jeph Loeb’s recent efforts? I confessed that it had been years since I’d read it, but that I was fairly sure that yes, in the intervening time, I’d never encountered anything worse. He remained sceptical. Well, with a Dusting Off rolling around on the schedule again, I figured it would be the ideal opportunity to refamiliarise myself with it.

I was wrong.

There is never an ideal opportunity to refamiliarise oneself with Spider-Man: Maximum Clonage Omega.

Originally intended as the capstone to the infamous Clone Saga – at least, the bit of the Clone Saga that was going to wind up with the newly “I’m-a-clone”-ified Peter Parker going off into the sunset and Ben Reilly taking over as Spider-Man, although you’re a fool if you think that was ever really intended to be the end of the story – the six-part “Maximum Clonage” (topped and tailed by these ludicrously-named “Alpha” and “Omega” issues) is, quite simply, one of the most wretched and pointless exercises in the history of comics. Featuring the final stages of the irrevocable destruction of the character of Dr Miles Warren – turning the Jackal into a green, pointy-eared goblinny figure (yeah, like there aren’t enough of those hanging around Spidey) whose agenda has inexplicably shifted from “hate Spider-Man because he let the woman I loved die” to “I want to kill everybody on the planet and replace them with clones”, not to mention one of the most appallingly-conceived and named characters (”Spidercide”) ever unleashed by Marvel, it’s a confused mess on every conceivable level – and the scene in which Peter is confronted by thousands upon thousands of costumed clones of himself a genuine nadir in Spider-history.

But that scene had already taken place by the time Omega rolled around. And Omega is even worse. “Scripted” by Tom Lyle, an artist promoted to writing duties far beyond his horrendous level of inexperience simply because, it seems, no-one else would touch it (so he was the ’90s equivalent of Tony Daniel, in other words), the ludicrous plot is delivered by way of unbearably trite dialogue (”No! I think that you must still die.”), inane exposition (”No wonder I thought that I was the clone so easily.” “Oh, that? When I took the cell samples from you that I used to create your clones, I implanted that thought in your head while I was there.”) and page after page of tedious, circular events. The bomb’s going to go off! Look, it’s the Jackal! They’ve webbed up the Jackal! Quick, stop the bomb! Wait, the Jackal’s free, stop him! Get back to the bomb! Oh no, the Jackal’s free again! Gwen’s got his gun! She’s going to fall! No, he’s going to fall! It’s honestly enough to make you pound your own head against the wall. And it doesn’t even manage to achieve its stated aim – in the closing pages, the question of who’ll be Spider-Man afterwards is still, staggeringly, left wide open.

What really pushes this into “downright appalling” territory, though, is the art – honestly some of the worst work I’ve ever seen in a mainstream comic. I mean, you know, at least Ultimates 3 had Joe Mad going for it. An incredible four pencillers (including Mark Bagley, although I can’t see anything that actually looks like his work) and five inkers are credited on a 48-page comic (one telling, lest we forget, a single story – this ain’t an anthology), and so even if they were turning in good work, it’d still look as horrendously inconsistent as it does. They’re not turning in good work, though – not at all. Unclear storytelling, absolutely dreadful (and mostly distorted) character work from all concerned… I know that at this point the editors were in a tremendous rush just to get the thing out, but it honestly feels like an insult that anyone thought the work contained within these pages was worth charging people nearly five dollars for. Maybe they reckoned the chromium cover (oh yes) would make it worthwhile.

Is it the worst comic I’ve ever read, though? I’m not sure. Since I first read this I’ve read not only recent history’s Ultimates 3/Ultimatum, Titans and All Star Batman, but also things like Caitlin R. Kiernan’s Dreaming, and Tom Veitch’s Animal Man. Although to be fair, all the aforementioned had better art than this. Story-wise, though… well, it’s rotten, and trite, and pointless, but it’s a very comics-y kind of trite, and people have been churning out guff like it all over the place for years. It’s at least lousy in a more amusing way than the obnoxiously-bad-and-kind-of-proud-of-it work Miller and Loeb have been doing recently, and even Lyle probably can’t be blamed too much for pages that were apparently subject to a bajillion rewrites. In the end, an accolade such as “worst comic ever” is not one to give out lightly, and I’m not sure I’d ever be able to definitively state what I think that is. But I’m pretty sure you’d have to work hard to find something worse-looking – or with a worse title – than this.

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

Despite the vast success he’s enjoyed over the past decade, reader opinion continues to be split on the subject of Brian Michael Bendis. For many, though, he’s earned the right to have stumbles such as Secret Invasion overlooked in perpetuity, courtesy of his top-end work on the likes of Ultimate Spider-Man, Powers and – perhaps most notably – Alias. A quite superb fusion of Bendis’ knack for crime fiction and characterisation, and his knowledge and grasp of the Marvel universe, the twenty-eight issues for which it ran represent one of the most consistently excellent comics runs of the past decade – and in the shape of failed superhero turned private investigator Jessica Jones, it introduced by far the publisher’s most compelling new character since… well, since I can’t remember when, quite frankly.

Something of a format breaker, this standalone issue is presented, rather than in standard comics format, as scripted dialogue alongside uncharacteristic painted art from Michael Gaydos – and one can’t help but wonder whether this was planned all along, or if the issue was forced into this style after Bendis realised he’d written too much dialogue. Either way, it somehow works perfectly, and is exemplary of the book’s wit and characterisation at its finest.

The story is a fairly straightforward one – Jessica is hired by J. Jonah Jameson with a view to uncovering Spider-Man’s secret identity, but disliking both the assignment and the editor’s attitude, pulls something of a fast one on him. There’s nothing more elaborate than that, but what makes this a real joy – aside from the reveal of the precise nature of Jessica’s clever trickery – is, quite simply, the way Bendis plays with character. Quite aside from the ranting of Jonah (of which more shortly), there’s a nuanced precision to his handling of Ben Urich, Robbie Robertson and even Betty Brant, and more specifically the dynamic within the Bugle offices. This particular corner of Spider-Man’s supporting cast has always been one of the MU’s strongest assets, and Bendis gets that, just as he gets how to write fluid, believable, characteristic and downright hilarious JJJ dialogue. More than that, he gets to the nub of the neuroses that lie at the heart of Jonah’s anti-mask paranoia, as well as exploring the more active side – from hiring Jessica to compiling a “Spider-Man map” of repeated sightings around Queens and ESU – of his Spider-hatred campaign.

Michael Gaydos’ art throughout the series was as consistently excellent as Bendis’ writing, but here he breaks out of his comfort zone somewhat to illustrate Bendis’ dialogue with a succession of paintings – and while it wouldn’t necessarily have worked every month, it’s fair to say he outdoes himself on this occasion. Stylised and yet with a tangible realism, they’re an aid to immersing the reader in the immediacy of what are, essentially, a pair of single-set, real-time scenes (split by two months). I’m not sure they could really be described as “storytelling” in the purest sense, but from an absolutely lovely Spider-Man panel (which I think I’m right in saying was the webhead’s only in-costume appearance in the series) to a superb two-page vista of Jonah looking out over the city, the entire issue is a visual delight.

Aside from setting up the later plot element of Jonah’s distrust of Jessica (not to mention a neat touch that jumped out on re-reading: an early mention of Jessica’s “Knightress” identity, a backstory thread that wouldn’t be picked up until long after the series had finished), this doesn’t do a huge amount to move the series along. But as an amusing standalone piece, it’s lovely – and nothing short of superbly crafted. Modern mainstream comics honestly don’t get much classier than Alias, and if you’ve never read it, you could do yourself a hell of a lot worse than starting from the beginning the next time you’re down the LCS.

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

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It might surprise some newer comics fans, but there was once a time when John Byrne was considered a credible comic creator instead of the walking bad mood that he is now. In fact, Byrne wasn’t just credible, he was practically his era’s Brian Bendis or Ed Brubaker, reinventing and redefining every title he touched. One such title was Fantastic Four, which he wrote and drew for 6 years from 1981 to 1986. The run was eventually collected in its entirety in 8 volumes of “Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne” but almost over 15 years prior to that, Marvel took the unusual step of packaging certain issues together into a TPB collection – a rare move at the time, when the industry was still heavily focussed on monthly sales.

The story itself sees Reed Richards (rather than Galactus) placed on trial, accused of repeatedly aiding the devourer of worlds – and, in a story included at the start of the collection – even saving his life on one occasion! It’s full of the epic moments Byrne’s run became known for, though the most famous of these is perhaps Frankie Raye’s transformation into Galactus’ herald Nova.

While the former deals specifically with the Four and, specifically, Johnny’s relationship with Frankie, the latter half of the book becomes a cosmic tour of the Marvel Universe – indeed, it was the inclusion of Lilandra and Gladiator in the title that caused a young me to get it out from the library in the first place, at a time when I didn’t read anything without an X-Men connection.

The “Trial of Galactus” story actually ran sporadically across a 20-issue period of Fantastic Four – issue #242 to #262. In order to ensure the focus of the story remains on the plot at hand, some issues are only partially collected, with unrelated material cut out and rearranged in order to make the collection read as a “single” story. It’s not a seamless job, though neither is it particularly disorganised, and the foreword helpfully prepares the reader for the few irregularities that do appear, such as Ben Grimm’s mysteriously changing appearance, and the otherwise inexplicable presence of Byrne himself in the climactic act (actually mandated by Marvel’s “Assistant Editor Month”)

Also included in the collection is Byrne’s issue of “What The…” – Marvel’s best-left-forgotten humour comic. At the time it would’ve been little incentive to buyers but now its satire of the industry and fandom actually makes for an interesting historical document, if nothing else.

Although the collection is now out of print, it remains a favourite of mine, and comes heartily recommended as the best story in a justifiably lauded run – superhero comics at their bronze-age finest.love potion no 9 divx

Every month the bodacious Comics Daily dudes take the phone booth back in time through their most resplendent longboxes and totally give their thoughts on a non-heinous back issue

How’s it goin’ Comics Daily reading dudes? Whoa. Okay. So, in 1991, in the wake of the most triumphant movie Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, the righteous dudes at Marvel comics decided to publish a spinoff comic featuring the totally unprecedented ongoing adventures of Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan, together known as the righteous “Wyld Stallyns”. Beginning with an equally triumphant adaptation of the previously mentioned theatrical feature, the truly stellar writer/artist Evan Dorkin carried on for thirteen most excellent issues before the comic was subjected to a totally bogus cancellation.

Ahem. Right, enough of that (you’re just lucky I decided against carrying it on for the entire review). Anyway, Evan Dorkin’s Bill & Ted comic is a marvellously fan-pleasing effort that maintained the spirit and style of the two excellent (sorry) movies moreso than any other spinoff venture (the first series of the cartoon having been entertaining but a little lightweight, and the less said about the live action series the better). This first issue carried directly on from the remarkably faithful Bogus Journey hard rain free

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download caretaker the adaptation (which had also included deleted scenes from the film), and is a particularly successful merging of the two distinct setups of the movies – you’ve got the various historical figures from Excellent Adventure gathering in the same place as Bogus Journey’s Death and Station (the occasion being the “second wedding” of the boys and the princesses, with the slightly flimsy rationale that the offscreen/panel weddings in Bogus Journey hadn’t had their families and friends present), and the characterisation (along with Bill and Ted’s unique speech patterns) is pretty dead on in terms of consistency with Solomon and Mathieson’s original scripts.

Speaking of characterisation, it’s Death that’s the real standout of the comic. Setting up a subsequent plotline in which he’d get fed up and give up his duties (one that was published, funnily enough, only shortly after Terry Pratchett’s similarly-plotted novel Reaper Man), the Reaper gets most of the best moments – getting drunk, telling off Billy the Kid for blithely firing his guns into the air (”I’m not working today! You hear me, kiddo? Don’t mess with a guy who knows how you die!”), and attempting to get up and tell jokes before being pelted with bricks. Death aside, the comic’s not desperately

funny – but that too is in keeping with the movies, with a warm and gentle feel allied to a trademark sense of the surreal.

Dorkin’s art is a draw, too – it’s initially disconcerting, as his dense, black-and-white style is perhaps the one thing that sets the book apart from the films somewhat (you can’t help but wish, on occasion, that it had some of Bogus Journey’s veritable explosion of colour), and with the odd exception, he shies away from trying to make the characters look like their movie counterparts (particularly Death, although in that instance he was hamstrung by having drawn the character in “classic” skeletal form for the movie adaptation before it had actually been made). But it’s an energetic and vibrant style, bursting with background detail that rewards a slower and more meticulous read than the pacey action and dialogue would suggest. All in all, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book is a most triumphant continuation of the films’ mythos, and generally a non, non non, non non non, non heinous comic-based expedition.

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

Handily reprinted recently by Oni in order to provide an outlet for all those Scott Pilgrim fans fresh off the back of book five and jonesin’ for another Bryan Lee O’Malley fix, Lost at Sea offers the opportunity to see the Canadian writer/artist honing his technique in the format with which he would subsequently enjoy stellar success.

Despite the similarities in form, though, Lost at Sea is a wildly different proposition to Pilgrim. It’s a more thoughtful and introverted work, centering as it does on a more thoughtful and introverted lead character. It’s a little hard to get a handle on to begin with, as its largely symbolic nature isn’t hugely clear – coming into it off the back of Pilgrim, you’re fully prepared to take shy teenager Raleigh’s musings about what’s happened to her soul entirely literally. It’s also perhaps a surprise just how light on jokes it is – there are definitely funny moments, still (I was particularly fond of the cigarette packet warning), but it’s certainly not really a comedy.

Instead, it’s a gentle meditation on loneliness, and missing someone, and never really feeling like you click into anywhere. As such, it’s probably a less easily accessible and identifiable story – it’ll certainly strike a chord if you’ve ever felt like Raleigh does, although even then, in much the same way as Pilgrim is probably best read if you’re of a similar age to the lead character, so too is this. Reading it from my wrong-side-of-twenty-five point of view, it does at times come off as a little… juvenile’s probably not the word, but there’s a touch of naivety to it – and its characters feel a little less defined than Pilgrim’s immediately-perfectly-formed bunch of miscreants.

It’s beautifully atmospheric, though, and even if the more obvious stylistic elements that would make O’Malley’s name aren’t in place, the storytelling ability and craftsmanship certainly are. He employs a more distinctly unconventional character style – all high foreheads and small mouths – but he’s consistent with it, and it works well. Even at this early stage in his career, he’s a master in shade and greys, one of those artists who clearly grasps working in monochrome to the extent that it feels far more a deliberate choice than a practical necessity. It’s also something of a surprise to discover that, contrary to the evidence offered by Pilgrim, he can

actually draw cats – they’re fairly simply-drawn cats, it’s true, but they exude a clear sense of that intangibly catty

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character, and the cat-hunting sequence (er, not as alarming as it sounds!) is one of the book’s high points.

If you’re in any way interested in O’Malley’s work, then the book is of course a must-read – and while it’s almost entirely devoid of plot, it’s nevertheless a charming and fairly engaging piece of work. The occasional foray into teenage angst is made up for by the chance to see a truly gifted visual storyteller displaying his flair for tone and atmosphere so early in his career.

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

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After the smash hit of his Azumanga Daioh four-volume series, and its accompanying TV adaptation, creator Kiyohiko Azuma settled on something radically different for his next offering. In contrast to the high-school drama’s theme of belonging, Yotsuba & !’s core concept is that of exploring the world through a child’s eyes, and the unlikely sources of entertainment that brings.

At the start of the fifth volume, covering chapters 28-34, the book’s set-up is fully established, with Yotsuba and her long-suffering father undertaking a variety of low-key escapades with the latter’s acquaintances. The structure of the series is strongly episodic, although ongoing elements, such as Jumbo’s bid to outperform another character’s knowledge of Hawaii and the gradual introduction of new characters, ensure that reading in order is rewarded. In contrast to Daioh, which explicitly included surreal and board line supernatural elements in the story, such as the girls’ growing conviction that one of their number is the offspring of a demonic cat, the only source of the unusual is the star’s mindset, and the logical yet curious way she goes about tasks.

By this point, the title’s initial teething troubles are long-gone, with the book having completely found its own identity. The series initially tried to hook readers in through the mystery of Yotsuba’s origins- we know that she’s adopted, and her original father’s account of how they ended up living together was slightly mysterious. This story strand has been quietly forgotten, with the simply stories of Yotsuba’s gradual discovery of the world now enthralling on its own merits. Another initially anomalous element was the three teenage sisters living next door to the pair, apparently left over from Azuma’s previous work. Over time, the Ayase family have been more organically incorporated into the book, as a relatively normal backdrop to contrast with Yotsuba’s worldview. That’s not to say that the instalment is purely comfort food, however, as this collection includes the now-traditional “jarring” chapter, showing the child’s violent hatred of one of her father’s acquaintances.

Lacking the publicity of an anime tie-in, Yotsuba has enjoyed a much lower western profile than Azuma’s previous work, and the appearance of translated books has been slow and protracted. This is regrettable, with the five-year-old’s adventures arguably superior to Azumanga Daioh. Effortlessly charming, and soaked in a lazy summer atmosphere, Yotsuba & !’s small-town innocence has a unique appeal.

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