Five Years (Stuck On My Eyes)

Pushing through the market square...

.....It's just a few weeks until this blog's fifth anniversary, at which point I had thought I'd be wrapping it up. Not only is life "what happens when you're making other plans", apparently it happens even after you've made them. Every time I get a notion to add something I hold off, thinking that with just a little more research I could make it more whole, more complete, closer to perfect (what the hell, let's just say "closer to fine" and make every sentence paraphrase a rock song).

.....Any of you who've bumped into me commenting elsewhere in the comics 'blogosphere' (is it a sphere or a cube? Ooh, ooh-- let's make it a dodecahedron! I think it's the largest regular polygon solid and-- bonus-- it's yet another perfectly legitimate word that triggers a Spellcheck warning. Why does that feature even exist...?) will know that I have followed many other comics besides Doom Patrol.
.....And that I go off on tangents. (I realize that I unfairly ignored it in the above digression, so my apologies to tetrahedron fans-- sonnuvabitch, I could have sworn Spellcheck would flag "tetrahedron". Huh.)

.....I've been able to find cheap reading copies that have filled holes in my collection due to a shift in the secondary market that puts a much greater distance between high and low grade copies than I've seen in my lifetime. Mint condition books go for sky high prices; low grade books go for so little that they wouldn't recoup the cost of pre-grading. 20-, 30-, even 40-year-old comics might sell for less than current comics. You sacrifice resale value, of course, but being able to finish reading story arcs I put aside decades ago has a certain gratification to it. It also has been eating up much of my spare time. It will continue to, be assured, but I am also going to recommit myself to this and, eventually, my other blogs by rationing my time, cutting back on television and being more willing to share what I've learned/found as it comes to me, perfect or not. And if I can get a handle on some basic technology I've been ignoring, oh boy, will it be imperfect.

DP09-AB Giffen Period update

.....[Both this post and the previous one were saved for editing and needed to be altered prior to posting. That explains, if not necessarily excuses, the gap between their stated dates and their eventual publication. Since this blog usually deals with the past and is meant to be a record to be referenced for some time to come I don't generally worry about those gaps. In this case the prior post was delayed because three weeks ago I came close to losing an eye. Don't panic; the damage has nearly reversed and I will have stopped needing medication soon. But until recently it meant that I would have to limit my time in front of the screen to reading (and briefly commenting) e-mails, other blogs et al to keep myself current. If you've seen the previous post, I don't have to explain why proof-reading and fact-checking it was out of the question. Until I've fully recovered (very soon now) I'll be keeping myself to conversational essays like the one below which really only require a read-though for grammar and spelling, or recording existing playlists such as the recent Hüsker Dü post on one of my music blogs.]

.....Yesterday the last issue of Keith Giffen's run on the Doom Patrol shipped on schedule. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Giffen period is over, per se. While it is true that this had been the third series in ten years, each failing to exceed the two year mark, this blog has already identified extraneous guest appearances in other periods published immediately before or after the nominal series proper. I'm holding off identifying a specific cut-off for this period just yet, but need to acknowledge the cut-off of the series.

.....An excellent statement about the use and significance of death in the Doom Patrol franchise can be found at the Histories Of Things To Come blog. The post is part of a larger, open-ended series on the permanence (or impermanence) of death in comics. Here's a shortcut:

http://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2011/05/reflections-on-revolving-door-of-death.html

.....Now, as to the future of the group? There's no word yet that I've heard, but it may turn out that their last ten years has been a dress rehearsal of sorts for a larger trend at DC. We're nearly a year and a half from the twentieth anniversary of the Vertigo imprint, which launched by converting six mature readers' titles from DC continuity to a separate, parallel continuity. Each month during that first year they would be joined by new ongoing titles and mini-series, often based on other DC characters excised from super-hero continuity. Doom Patrol was one of those Cardinal Six, all of which but Hellblazer were cancelled before the end of 1996. In a previous post, "DP05-AB The Wilderness Years" (intended as an appendix to the Pollack Period), I listed the appearances of the group (or more often, merely Cliff) between the Pollack and Arcudi tenures. The cumulative effect is the distinct sense that writers and editors alike missed having quirky and fringe characters to contrast their mainstream heroes. When those characters were already engaged in their own titles in another imprint, not being allowed to use them must have been easier to accept. But to see them sitting in the cancelled pile while you've got two dozen Bloodlines characters to work with (or not, as was the case with nearly every one but Hitman) must have been unbearably galling. After 2000's Totems the efforts at reintegration became more overt than the period pieces and cameos of The Wilderness Years. There was the Arcudi Period, of course, but also Animal Man's appearance in Hawkman and his much higher profile roles in the Rann/Thanagar War and 52, both spun off from Infinite Crisis. But it was during the Giffen period that the gate started opening in both directions.

.....Not long before the (until recently) current series began in the DCU, Madame Xanadu began under the Vertigo imprint. She debuted in the seventies as a DC horror host, eventually stepping forward as a character in her own one-shot. She was one of the few hosts who did not become characters in Sandman. [Side note: considering how many did become Gaiman's cast (Cain, Abel, Eve, Destiny, Lucien and the Three Witches, at least) I've often wondered if there's an old DC, Charlton, Fawcett or Quality horror comic out there hosted by Mad Hattie.] Since 1996 the Vertigo imprint has predominantly introduced original characters and features. It is commonly assumed that the explanation for Vertigo's early success was some combination of three factors: it retained older readers who had become disenchanted with the conventions of adventure fantasy; it brought in new, previously non-comics-reading audiences who had never been enchanted by super-heroes in the first place; and it freed creators from obligations to continuity, an incentive that would attract the most creative contributors. Whatever cache an established character might have, to remove them from the DCU in order to publish them under Vertigo might not impede any of those factors, but that cache also ceases to be the advantage it might have been in the DCU. There have been occasional attempts at re-imagining existing characters, some successful (Human Target), some not (The Creeper) and some forgotten (Vertigo Visions:Tomahawk). But the greatest volume of Vertigo's publishing since 2000 has been legacy titles (Hellblazer, Fables, House of Mystery, House of Secrets) and original properties (100 Bullets, Y the Last Man, Transmetroplitan- originally Helix, DMZ). The last that I had noticed Madame Xanadu in the DCU, she had been blinded by the unanchored Spectre during Infinite Crisis. The Vertigo title takes place in the past, moving forward from the days of King Arthur in the first issue and ending the first arc with the 1930's (and the start of DC Comics) in issue #10. Along the way she meets Jason Blood, the Phantom Stranger, Zatara and a few other surprises from DC's supernatural history. For the second arc, Exodus Noir, she meets the Golden Age Sandman (Wesley Dodds) and Dian Belmont in 1940. Wes and Dian had their own long-running Vertigo title without ever really being removed from the DCU, but Wes became inactive for health reasons in the Justice Society Of America series that was cancelled just as his Vertigo title Sandman Mystery Theatre began in 1993. Right after it was cancelled in 1999 the Justice Society returned in a series of one-shots (fighting Steve Ditko's 1975 Stalker character of all people). While his Vertigo series went on his old teammates appeared individually (Jay in Flash, Alan in Green Lantern Quarterly, Nabu in Fate, and Spectre in his own title-- more on that later) but outside of Zero Hour the Justice Society rarely appeared as a group. It would almost appear as though Wes was complying with the continuity quarantine, give or take a Starman arc. But the next Madame Xanadu story really raised an eyebrow when it used the Martian Manhunter as a guest star (and given J'onn's eyebrows, that's saying something). Set in the 1950's, Broken House Of Cards may have been a nod to Gerard Jones' American Secrets prestige mini-series, but there's no precedent for the JLA stalwart being anything other than squarely in the DCU, Final Crisis or not. Now the last six issues of Madame Xanadu are scheduled to be collected on August 10th as Extra Sensory. They are six stand-alone issues each by a different artist with the only unifying themes being the 1960's and the senses of perception. There are no DCU guests until the last issue, the sixth sense, when the Phantom Stranger reappears. Their exchange, on pages 19-20, is a pretty explicit acknowledgement of the DCU:

• PS: "A new age dawns. A return to the time of heroes...Such an era will see dramatic changes, a procession of nearly infinite crises...You have, I assume, foreseen such a confluence of grandeur?
• MX: "I-- yes...I have seen their coming. A new speedster and a green guardian. A micronaut and a sea king. An archer and his siren. Even... a Martian. And this pantheon shall spawn a trinity of epic scale-- three champions who shall fight for and inspire the entire nation... but that doesn't explain why you are here..."
• PS: "I merely seek to understand your position in these upcoming events-- and to react accordingly... Do you still plan to...what is the saying? 'Sit this one out'?"

.....Well, that's what we all want to know. All 29 issues were written by Matt Wagner with #13 on edited by Shelly Bond. While the two of them aren't going to be dictating companywide editorial policy, the Stranger is asking of Madame Xanadu what we the audience would like to ask Vertigo as a whole. As you might guess from the gaps in the quotes above, I've heavily edited the exchange for brevity's sake. Xanadu's response is, in essence, "if it happens, it happens". Well, it's been happening more and more. Last year Death had a major part in Action Comics #894 (12/10). Shade (the Changing Man, or Rac Shade) featured in two Hellblazer arcs; "Sectioned" in #267 (07/10)- #270 (10/10) and "Bloody Carnations" in #271 (11/10)- #275 (03/11). He was last seen on the planet Meta on a single page in #272, but will appear again this year as one of at least three DCU mini-series featuring ex-Vertigo stars:

• Flashpoint: Secret Seven - A three part series written by Peter Milligan, who wrote the Hellblazer arcs, and drawn by George Pérez. It will include, at least, Shade, Amethyst and Enchantress.
• Flashpoint: Legion Of Doom - A three part series written by Adam Glass and including Animal Man among others.
• Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing - The title sort of explains itself. It's another three part series, this one written by one-time Hellblazer editor Jonathan Vankin. This one will most likely be in for the greatest amount of preemptory bile owing to the fact that there had been plans for a China Miéville-scripted Vertigo Swamp Thing series due to begin publishing in 2010 that was cancelled in the scripting stage. After considering the series, DC had made a decision about returning the established characters who had migrated to Vertigo back to their native DCU soil and no one's soil is richer than Swamp Thing's. While the publisher didn't have misgivings about Miéville's work to my knowledge, an age-restricted script with no connection to any other publications in their roster would be inconsistent with their plans beyond 2010. To Swamp Thing fans this translated to knowingly shelving a good script in favor of one that had not been plotted yet. It's difficult to rail against a blank spot on a rack but when the BDA series arrives it will provide a locus for the resentment over a lost year of Swamp Thing stories.

.....So what does all this mean for the Doom Patrol? With the series cancelled it means less than it could. At best the greater the number of characters with similar marketing histories and, by implication, audiences makes it more likely that DC can cultivate a group identity functionally like the shared identity that the Cardinal Six had as mature readers titles before they were formally rebranded as 'Vertigo'. It's commonly understood that the Vertigo name was created so that the identity that those titles already shared could be extended to new titles and projects. There was no need to build a brand; it already existed, it just didn't have a name. This year it seems DC has decided to remove the stone from the stone soup. Frankly, Vertigo no longer needs Shade or Kid Eternity to sell Fables or American Vampire. At worst, DC could create a pointless, bureaucratic imprint-for-its-own-sake like Marvel's Marvel Knights or Midnight Sons. At best it could trust their audiences to make those associations among repatriated titles and perhaps create a group editorial page unique to them in place of On The Ledge or DC Nation. Doom Patrol and other characters not currently under their own titles could move amongst titles in the group during the year but still participate in annual Crisis events, providing those events are once a year and last 6 or 7 weeks instead of 6 or 7 months. A quarterly anthology wouldn't be a bad idea, but a proper Doom Patrol story needs a few issues to, first, lay out the weirdness and, then, make sense of it, or at least sense enough to wrangle it. Ultimately, it may go direct-to-trade.

.....I mentioned earlier that there would be more on the Spectre. There will be, but not in this post. And Mento is involved.

DP02-06 Beast Boy and Mal Duncan Part 3

[Apologies for the delay, but this had to be rewritten a few times. Big chunks that were extracted from this, mostly to make it manageable to edit and read but also for the sake of maintaining coherence, have been distilled into a much more practical 'reading list' for a future post. Likewise, the Part 4 post about Mal has been rewritten into a similar list of appearances so that the more ambitious essay I wanted to write will be easier to understand (and shorter).]

.....Putting aside the encapsulations typical of the Who's Who and Secret Files publications DC has done at different times (for now), Garfield Logan's origin story explaining how he turned green and gained the ability to change into animals at will has also been retold several times within the comics he's graced. I've found detailed origin stories in the following issues:

1. Doom Patrol #100 (12/65) "The Fantastic Origin Of Beast-Boy"(8pp) and "The Origin Of Beast-Boy Part 2"(8pp). In the main story, Gar's legal guardian, Galtry, refers to him as "Craig" throughout. At no point elsewhere in the story does anybody else refer to him by any name, except for Doom Patrol members calling him "Beast-Boy", hyphen included. Bizarrely, in the four page origin flashback his parents Mark and Marie (no last name) call him "son", "boy" and even "the child" but never give him a name. In the previous issue (his first appearance) he was called merely "Gar" exactly once and by a female classmate. In the following issue he's called Gar by both Galtry and the DP. The misnaming in this story is therefore commonly dismissed as a clerical error or (if a writer is in a mood to tie up loose ends) explained as evidence of how unconcerned Galtry is about Gar's welfare, that he doesn't even bother to get his name right and Gar has given up on correcting him. For the record, he gets the last name Logan in issue #102 (03/66).
2. Doom Patrol #112 (06/67) "Waif Of The Wilderness"(10pp). The first installment of four back-up features explaining how Gar came to be under Galtry's supervision. At first glance it looks as though much of the four page flashback from #100 was reformatted with some new panels added, but in reality the story was newly redrawn with those same scenes (complete with paraphrased dialogue) integrated into an expanded story. Both versions were drawn by Bruno Premiani and written by Arnold Drake. An important detail added was the location of Mark Logan's research lab: Upper Lamumba. Because he healed and befriended the local King Tawaba, Gar was adopted by Tawaba when the Logan's died and is legally a prince of Upper Lamumba.
3. Doom Patrol #113 (08/67) "The Diamonds Of Destiny"(8pp). Crooks Kurt and Stokes arrive in the village to loot the tribe's diamonds from an underground cavern. A struggle with Gar leaves the boy unconscious and the cavern caving in. Unable to take the diamonds in time, the crooks kidnap the boy.
4. Doom Patrol #114 (09/67) "The Kid Who Was King Of Crooks" (8pp). Kurt and Stokes teach toddler Gar to steal gold and diamonds in Johannesburg. Bored, Gar decides to play a joke on them and hides the loot while they're out of the apartment. The joke backfires when each return separately and suspect the other of cutting out with the goods. When they find each other a shootout leaves both of them dead; Gar has lost his third 'family'.
5. Doom Patrol #115 (11/67) "General Beast Boy-- Of The Ape Brigade!" (8pp). Now on his own, Gar is kidnapped while in the form of a gorilla by neo-Nazis rounding up gorillas and brainwashing them into becoming an army. Gar changes shape before the processing takes place, observes the scheme and helps the yet unprocessed gorillas overthrow the Nazis. At that point Galtry finally catches up with Gar's trail. Galtry was aware of Gar's inheritance and needed to have physical custody of the boy to secure power of attorney (and the access to the money that goes with it).
6. The New Teen Titans #10 (08/81) On page 5, Gar (now called Changeling) narrates a truncated version of his pre-Titans life to relatively new teammate Cyborg (Victor Stone). It correctly recalls the name of the disease sakutia responsible for his father resorting to the drastic experiment that saved his life by inducing the animal transformations that we know as Gar's super power. That incident and his parents' deaths (from Doom Patrol #100) are mentioned but the details of the backup stories (in #112 to 115) are omitted. I'd concede they're unessential for a one page sequence, but Galtry isn't mentioned at all and he claims that when his parents died "I was about ten at the time" and "a year later, I was found by Niles Caulder". Given his behavior and speech in his first appearance, it sounds about right that he would be eleven or twelve years old at the time. The problem is that he was obviously much younger when his parents died, both in the first version (#100) and expanded version (#112). Also, he sought out the Doom Patrol and repeatedly begged to go on missions with them in his early appearances. Caulder didn't 'find him', and initially balked at having Gar join them. At the end of this issue Gar receives a potentially lethal attack from Deathstroke, prompting Wonder Girl to take him to Paradise Island in the hopes that the Purple Ray could save his life. When he emerges from a coma in The New Teen Titans #13 (11/81) his powers have expanded to include changing into extinct and mythological creatures, not just animals he has seen. In a way, that parallels his origin story which an emergency medical procedure results in a super power.
7. Tales Of The New Teen Titans [LS] #3 (08/82) [no title] In this four-issue mini-series, Gar and the three new characters created for the 1980 New Teen Titans series each get a spotlight issue featuring their origin. The framing sequence that links the series has original members Dick, Wally and Donna camping in the Grand Canyon with Gar, Vic, Koriand'r and Raven as a bonding experience. It takes place between issues #20 and 21 of the regular series. This is now the fourth formal retelling of Gar's origin that I could find, and in each case Gar is narrating them. In Doom Patrol #100 he told the story to the DP; in #'s 112-115 he told the story directly to the readers (and a dictation machine); in The New Teen Titans #10 he told the story to Vic and here he tells it to the rest of the team. With 25 pages to work with all the salient details of the previous versions are included: Upper Lamumba; sakutia; becoming a mongoose to save his mother from a black mamba; his parents dying in a waterfall; King Tawaba; Kurt and Stokes (unnamed here but described) and finally Galtry. This version adds the detail of him being eight years old when Galtry found him, meaning that he couldn't have been ten when his parents died. It then mentions his girlfriend Jillian Jackson, who had appeared briefly in Doom Patrol #99 and 108 before her role expanded in #118, just before the end of the series. This is so that, after a two-page spread depicting the DP and Titans West (from 1977), Wolfman and Pérez can fill in the gap between the cancellation of Gar's TV series, "Space Trek 2022", and the formation of the NTT with a new story in which Galtry kidnaps Jillian disguised in the armor of an old DP villain, Arsenal, demanding a ransom. Gar defeats him, but Jillian is unsettled by the violence in his life and their relationship temporarily ends. For what it's worth, Mal and Karen appear in the two-page spread.
8. Tales Of The Teen Titans #55 (07/85) On page 7 Gar narrates his life story yet again, this time to himself. This time the events are described in generalities, not specific names: "taken to Africa"[not Upper Lamumba]; contracted "some damned tropical disease"[not sakutia]; "adopted by an African King"[not Tawaba]; "kidnapped by criminals"[not Kurt and Stokes]; and "a thief became my guardian"[not Galtry]. It hasn't escaped me that Marv Wolfman has at this point done not only one full issue devoted to Gar but two pages like this that dutifully check off each of the few solo stories he's had in a twenty year career with one exception: the Nazi plot to brainwash gorillas into forming an army. Too silly? For a company that's made talking gorillas its own meme, brainwashed gorillas can't be that much of a stretch, can it?
9. Legends Of The DC Universe 80-Page Giant #2 (01/00) Gar once again ruminates on his origin story for two pages of "Passenger 15B", a 10 page lead in to the four-issue mini series Beast Boy, also by Ben Raab and Geoff Johns. It really functions more as a hasty introduction to the character. It does add odd details I couldn't recall seeing elsewhere, for example: "I'd always wanted to be a superhero. Ever since I saw The Flash in Central City." I don't know if that is meant to be a call-back to some post-Crisis event, but I haven't found any stories with flashbacks to the time between Galtry taking custody of Gar in Africa and keeping him a virtual prisoner in the States until Gar finds the Doom Patrol. Seeing The Flash on TV is more plausible, but seeing him in action in Central City before becoming a costumed hero himself seems improbable. In fact, during the Legends LS Gar and Wally are the only active Titans. Wally has only been wearing the red Barry Allen costume for a few months since Crisis and is agonizing over whether he's made the right decision. At no point does Gar ever mention that Barry was his inspiration for being a hero. Gar passing up an opportunity to comfort a grieving friend is unlikely; Gar passing up an opportunity to talk about himself is inconceivable. I'm reluctant to believe this little bit of trivia until I see some kind of flashback or period story corroborating it. The first issue of the LS explains the source of his powers again (on page 13), but it falls short of being even a capsule origin story. The LS also introduces Matt Logan (Gar's previously unmentioned cousin) and Gemini (Madame Rouge's previously unmentioned daughter).
10. Teen Titans #13 (09/04)- #15 (11/04) "Beast Boys And Girls", the story that lent its name to the paperback containing these three issues and the four issue mini-series mentioned above but for some reason omitted the "Passenger 15B" lead-in story. Here some major liberties are taken with the origin, adding Dr. Samuel Register to the Logans' tiny Upper Lamumba lab. He even replaces Mark Logan in a panel redrawn from the 60's stories. In this version the Logans are doing research funded by a grant, but in the original Mark raised the money by selling patents before he even went to Africa. According to the story, Register went on to become a S.T.A.R. Labs abnormal disease specialist obsessed with duplicating the accident and treatment that gave Gar his powers. While working with mutations of the sakutia virus he became infected gained the same animal-based shape-shifting powers, but turned purple rather than green.

.....The scarcity of post-Crisis origin stories could be attributed to an increased reliance during the late 80's and 90's on text pieces. The Teen Titans Spotlight issue featuring Changeling doesn't give an origin sequence, nor does the 1987 Secret Origins Annual featuring the Doom Patrol or the 1989 Secret Origins Annual featuring the Teen Titans. The ongoing series covered Hawk and Dove, Nightwing, Speedy and even the Titans Tower-- yes, the building they used as a headquarters gets its own origin,-- but not Changeling. Actually, with the 60's stories in B&W Showcase Presents formats and everything before 1985 in Archive format there's little impetus to retell the story yet again. If anything, fans will probably be referred to an online database in the future.

.....ERRATA:

.....If you were to click on the comments section below you'll see that the shout-out for corroboration about the Flash incident in "Passenger 15B" was answered, and much faster than expected. ToB [Tamaran or Bust; now that's a Titans call-back] found a scan on a fan-site devoted to Gar and maintained by Lady Timedramon. I not only followed the link to the scan, I zipped around the rest of the site and it definitely rates a link for "Following History" on the left of this blog. I've recommended ToB's own blog before and it's worth your time to follow her icon to "Histories Of Things To Come" and add yourself to the 'follow' board while you're there.

.....The story in question was from Secret Origins #50 (08/90) "Flash Of Two Worlds" by Grant Morrison and Mike Parobeck, a post-Crisis retelling of the story by the same name from Flash #123 (09/61). The original was the story that first posited the theory that the DC universe was made of alternate, parallel worlds where the Golden Age heroes have aged and in some cases retired. In the earliest appearances of the Barry Allen (or Silver Age) Flash, he's seen reading comic books of the Jay Garrick (Golden Age) Flash's adventures. As Allen grew in visibility, he inevitably caught the attention of people who were aware of the original and prompted demand that the two meet. This became a critical point in the company's direction; they could say "screw continuity, this will be popular" and have Jay show up out of the blue, ignoring the fact that they had established that he was fictional to Barry; they could have said "that horse has left the barn" and ignored the requests; but instead editor Julius Schwartz stood by his life-long dictum, "pseudo-science is always the answer!" and the established science fiction premise of parallel worlds was introduced to comic books with explosive consequences. It's difficult to overestimate the impact this one story has had on pop culture. Not only has the cover been parodied repeatedly (including on Dark Horse Presents and The Overstreet Price Guide) but a copy of the issue was the coveted object of a wager on an episode of the TV series "The Big Bang Theory".

.....In the original version of the story Barry is entertaining children for the Picture News Orphan Fund Group. While vibrating he hits a sympathetic harmonic and is transported to Earth-2. After Crisis OIE, there not only wasn't an Earth-2, but there never was one. A New Earth was created with a synthesized history in place, incorporating parts of various alternate Earths but not the totality of any of them. In the Morrison rewrite, Barry senses the tone while he's vibrating and follows it to the source: Jay's hometown of Keystone City, hidden for years by The Fiddler, The Thinker and The Shade (the same villains from the original story) who keep it out of synch with the rest of the world with a giant vibrating violin. The whole story is told by a young Gar Logan on three-ring binder stationary, drawn in crayon and signed "Garfield Logan age 8". The conceit here is that Gar (pre-sakutia) is on summer vacation while his parents are in Africa and he's in the audience of orphans. There's no indication of whose custody he is in while he's in the States, or why he's with a group of orphans while his parents are still alive. What this story really establishes is that Gar's infection and transformation and all the known events leading up to his meeting the Doom Patrol would have to take place between the ages of eight and ten. This is only plausible if the dialogue in the 60's stories (especially Doom Patrol #'s 112-115) is radically different. However, in the "Beast Boys And Girls" story Gar is only six when he's infected. Where's Jonni DC when you need her?

.....Of course, I can't go without pointing out that a story in which a boy tells his own story using hand-drawn comics is a device Grant Morrison has used several times. At least two examples, Cliff Baker's Kannibal Kid in Animal Man and Wally Sage's Flex Mentallo in Doom Patrol, were published roughly contemporaneously to the story in Secret Origins.

.....[END ERRATA; any further additions or corrections are always welcome in the comments ]

.....Next up, where to find Mal.

News and Irresponsible Speculation for the New School Year

.....The good news is that the technological problems that interrupted my flow here and on the "So, What Kind Of..." music blog I had been cobbling together have (I think) been overcome or at least circumvented by upgrade. The bad news, if there is any, is that, obviously (a) in technology there are no permanent solutions, only current situations and (b) no amount of technology can make me less lazy. And before some smart aleck out there adds that no amount of anything could possibly make me any more lazy, I just want to say while researching DC's publishing history leading up to the 1978 "Implosion" I got distracted by a more ambitious project that I set aside years ago-- and still will not have finished once I get back to analyzing the Showcase arc. Since the two research projects involve a lot of overlap and much redundant handwriting, I decided to combine them, at least until I follow them past the period where they dovetail. When I want to return to the larger project, its notes will be waiting, half completed. Well, I'm assuming we all live that long. It's a more of perpetual hobby than something that could conceivably bear fruit.

.....I mentioned news in the post title. Here 'tis: as of yesterday (September 13, 2010) I noticed that Amazon is offering pre-orders for the trade paperback "DOOM PATROL: BROTHERHOOD", collecting the second helping of the current series. Elsewhere on this blog I have a history of DP trades entitled DP08- AT Trade Format Survey that should link when you click on the "D". (Cross your fingers.) This entry will have to be updated soon since the Black and White trades of the Original Period apparently don't include the Challengers portion of their crossover, nor the Flash team-up from Brave And The Bold. However inexpensive the Showcase Presents... format is, I think it is extremely unreasonable to ask readers to buy both the DP volumes as well as the yet-unreleased third Challengers volume, totalling over sixty issues, in order to read a three-issue arc. If anyone at DC is reading this, could I respectfully suggest collecting the two DP issues, the Challengers' chapter between them, the Flash team-up, Beast Boy's guest spot in Teen Titans #6 and the Niles Caulder appearance in Plastic Man, all tied up into a color paperback that could fit neatly between the two DP 'phonebooks'? That would account for absolutely every DP appearance outside of their own title during the 1960's. The details are on page DP01- AA.

.....If the Amazon entry for the upcoming trade is correct, it will ship (from them) on January 18, 2011 for a list price of $17.99. The direct market shipping will likely be the previous Wednesday, January 12. (For reasons lost on me, Amazon lists availability of books on Tuesdays, the day brick-and-mortar stores conventionally release new titles. Both the first Giffen trade, "WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE...", and the second Showcase Presents... volume were listed at Diamond on the Wednesday prior to their respective Amazon dates in the past few months.) Two weeks from now you can expect to go to your local comic book store and find distributor catalogs soliciting DC comics for December and trades for January. Most stores will take advance orders if you want to reserve a copy, or at least give you more reliable stats than a non-specialist web-site. For instance, they say the volume will be 168 pages, but are vague about what issues that covers. Most likely it will be #'s 7-12.

.....Speaking of the new series, I haven't noticed many people making much of a familiar name being dropped into the conclusion of that arc. In issue #12 (09/10), page 4, a memo from MSE is signed "E. Garguax". Granted, if we have the daughter of Egg Fu/ Dr. Yes running around then it's not too far-fetched that Garguax left an heir. Or perhaps it's the original and the 'E' stands for "Emperor"? To the best of my knowledge, Garguax died in the aftermath of Invasion! when his space ship crashed into Arani's Kansas DP HQ. When I saw the signature on the memo I filed it away in my memory as a bit of foreshadowing for an eventual appearance by lime-green invader (or his successor) but the subsequent story arc, in which The Chief simulates Superman's powers, got me to thinking about the circumstances of Garguax' death. Because it occurred in both a mini-series and multiple monthly titles, the Invasion! storyline had multiple elements concurrently at work. There were a few main elements that determined the outcome however (not to disclose too much of the plot), including our own Cliff Steele trading on his non-human appearance to infiltrate an enemy base and the intervention of the Daxamites. Before all the recent foofarrah with the Kandorians, the Daxamites were the only post-Crisis folk who shared Superman's solar-based... talents. They were generally only seen in the Legion of Super-Heroes' 30th Century stories, but a story about several alien races coming to Earth seemed the perfect vehicle for explaining how they originally discovered the effects of our 'yellow' sun. It was very clever how the whole thing played out. It also hinted at how Earth might confront someone with Superman's powers should they become unstable. Who plotted that story, anyway? Wellllll..... whaddayaknow? It was Keith Giffen...

Technical difficulties, please stand by

.....I'd like to apologize to any regular readers about the delay in posting, although this (unlike some previous delays) can't be attributed to my personal lethargy or shifting priorities. My hard drive blew and I'm only able to write this due to public library access. It may be the end of August before repairs or replacement are possible. On the plus side I am hand writing a back log of material and re-editing it before I transcribe to the blog. I am also updating unconfirmed appearances for the period overview entries. Confirmed appearances will be listed in the comments section for now until there are sufficient revisions to warrant a revised entry.
.....Our library (wisely) limits computer time to meet the considerable demand. I have also been spending some of the allocated time to maintain personal correspondance. For now, if you're new to the blog, enjoy the backlog and take advantage of the links. I'll update when possible.

Your Call Is Important To Us

.....If anybody is waiting for the reviews to Showcase #'s95 & 96 I promised about a month or so ago, I'm sorry that I've put them off up to this point. The review for #95 has already been rewritten once and "it's about to be writ again", to quote David Bowie. I've recently acquired a sizable number of like-period comics and , sure enough, I found bits in them that come to bear on what I'm writing. Don't worry, this will not become the Scorpio Rose of blogs. (Google it.) I just need to expand my notes. I'm also haven't eliminated the possibility of books or fanzines that I thought were lost emerging from a storage center. There may also be more old reading copies from a source I haven't got to yet. Cross your fingers.

.....In the meantime, if you were not already aware of it, there is a throwaway blog that I have been maintaining daily since New Year's Day. It's really just my way of forcing myself to sit in front of the computer, something that I realized I needed after missing a number of self-imposed deadlines last year for far less legitimate reasons. The link is at the bottom of the list of links to the left of this column. The theme is to write a joke a day. Some are old favorites of mine and some are original, but nothing is simply cut-and-pasted from other sources. The point of doing it is to require me to be mentally engaged, even if that means just retelling a chestnut in my own words. As of today there are 120. Some are even family friendly. Consult your physician. Check them out when there's nothing new here. If you start from the beginning and read a week's worth every day, the new review might be ready by the time you're done. It's called, "You're Welcome".