My best friend and I used to laugh at various comic nerds who grumbled over violations of canon, or if a story was imaginary or not. It was fish in a barrel, sadly, because most could not understand until thoroughly frustrated, that all stories told in comics are imaginary, except for those that biographical or factual history. And even they require imagination to tell. All publishers telling imaginary stories? Does that mean nothing matters? Or as one of the comic nerds would say, you can't have a black Spider-man and a white Luke Cage. Well the one you could, and the other would just be stupid... still, it is still all imaginary.
WONDER WOMAN: AMAZONIA "A 19th century Wonder Woman in corset, fights Jack the Ripper, while talking like Eliza Doolittle."
The reason a publisher like DC or Marvel has an agreed upon canon and continuity, is so that the reader can be certain that what they are reading fits into the intricate story that is those publishing house's universes. So, if Flash breaks his leg, in Flash #694 he won't be seen running with both legs in the same month or shortly thereafter. Marvel Comics had a solid single world universe, where everyone lived and acted in the same universe. This later changed in the late 1990s when Marvel was nearly unable to remain in print, so turned to opening up its characters, and canon to multiverse existences, and cross universe worlds. DC on the other hand had a multiverse that had been slimmed down to a single universe. How both use their past and present isn't about a great reward or artistic integrity, those might happen but, the real reason for multiple versions of one character or just one, or many realities or just one, is that the publishers try to keep their stories new and interesting. Money being made or not is the engine of change or conservative views on evolution.
KINGDOM COME: "A dark alternate future
of the DC Superhero Universe. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and
almost every other character from DC Comics must choose sides in what
could be the final battle of them all."
But, for a while, when DC had both a single world, with the characters it has, who are far more iconic than nuanced and flawed, tales could be told that showed how a different take on the character could be interesting, and show us how powerful the iconic character's mojo was. You have a legend, then you introduce it to a different setting, or the same setting with a different version of the character. The intention is, not to create new continuity, but to create stories without the encumbrance of having to worry if it could fit into the world as the publisher's canon would accept.
The DC Elseworlds broke the door open, and showed the world that these single stories or single series could enhance our appreciate of the main character, but showing a stripped down, or bulked up version of it. We could see why Bruce Wayne was who he was if he lived in the 1800s with his parents still dying, or how Gotham would still need a hero, even under a religious theocracy.
BATMAN: MANBAT "When animal rights
activist Marilyn Munro stumbles upon a lair of bizarre, bat-like
creatures, she finds herself in a world of madness. And that world is
about to receive another visitor: Batman."
So, here I present, 11 great Elseworld stories, that you can search for, or ignore. What the hell do I care what you do with it.
BATMAN: HOLY TERROR
Batman is a member of the clergy but sees troubling issues happening in the theocratic leadership's government.
SUPERMAN WAR OF THE WORLDS
Superman lands upon an earth that is beset by the Martians from HG Wells' novel, War of the Worlds.
GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT
Jack the Ripper visits Gotham in 1880s, but there is a Bat who protects the city.
JUSTICE RIDERS
Steampunk western featuring "Cowboy and Indian" templates of the Justice League.
SUPERMAN'S METROPOLIS
Superman is the great son of the city of Metropolis, only this Metropolis is from the movie by Fritz Lang.
BATMAN: NOSFERATU
Batman is a character of a surreal nightmare, ala the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
WONDER WOMAN: THE BLUE AMAZON
Wonder Woman is a reimagined heroine in a world gone mad, chasing the infamous Dr. Marbuse, of German cinema.
BATMAN: THE DOOM THAT CAME TO GOTHAM
Batman lives in the 1920s, fighting the beasts of the Cthulhu realms.
SUPERMAN: RED SON
In Ukraine a rocket landed, a boy was found with super powers, and he fights for the workers, and the Soviet state. He is the Red Son, Superman.
DETECTIVE COMICS ANNUAL 7 BATMAN: LEATHERWING
Batman is a pirate/swashbuckler known as Leatherwing, and he is in command of a ship.
BATMAN: MASTER OF THE FUTURE
Batman from Gotham by Gaslight is still active, and he is forced to hunt down a scoundrel, who is determined to destroy then rebuild Gotham in his own image.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Thursday, March 3, 2016
The Heroes of Dakota
Of the flurry of
aspiring comics companies created in IMAGE's image during the 1990s,
I think the most interesting was an outfit called Milestone Media.
It was established by a group of black creators who wanted to form a
more racially-diverse comic book universe. Although the Milestone
line of comics only lasted a couple years, the characters which came
out of them have been far more enduring.
Unlike the other
start-up comic book universes of that era, Milestone did not set
itself up as a challenger to the Big Two comic book companies.
Instead, they set up an agreement where Milestone existed as an
imprint of DC Comic, distributed by DC but separate from the DC
Universe. Milestone Media retained all rights to their characters
and creative control over their books. This was an unprecedented
arrangement at the time.
The books were based in
Dakota, a large city located presumably somewhere in the Midwest.
For that reason, the Milestone Universe has sometimes been called
“The Dakotaverse”. The company started out with four core
titles, and a bang. A Big Bang, to be specific.
The biggest street
gangs in the city were gathering for one ginormous fight. The cops
got word of the event and planned to raid the rumble and round up
every gang-banger in the city. To do this, they used an experimental
riot control gas provided by a local industrialist, which, this being
a comic book, had unforseen results, killing many of the victims
outright and mutating some of the survivors.
Many of the principal
characters in the Dakotaverse were “Bang Babies”, survivors of
“The Big Bang”; and all of the characters were affected by it in
some way. Most significantly were the characters of BLOOD SYNDICATE.
They were members of various opposing gangs, who had become warped
by the mutagenic gas. Before the Big Bang, they were deadly enemies,
from different neighborhoods and different ethnic groups. The only
thing they have in common is that now they're mutated freaks, and
they need each other to survive.
I never read BLOOD
SYNDICATE; it did not particularly appeal to me; but it was easily
the grittiest and most “street-level” of the Milestone core
titles.
At the other end of the economic spectrum, we have
HARDWARE. Curtis Metcalf is a brilliant engineer working for Alva
Industries. He has a nice home, a large salary, and his own personal
lab. Metcalf owns a pet canary that he lets fly loose in his
apartment. But when it does, it beats its wings against the windows.
As far as the bird is concerned, it's still in a cage; just a
slightly larger one. Metcalf comes to realize that his own situation
is not that different: his cushy job with Alva is just another cage
and he's nothing but a wage slave.
He's made millions for Edwin Alva, but gets no
credit for his inventions, and no share of the profits. He can't
even look for another job in his field because of a non-competition
clause in the fine print of his contract. Metcalf learns that Alva
has numerous criminal, or at least sleazy operations growing out of
his legitimate business. It was Alva who provided the experimental
riot gas used the night of the Big Bang. But because of his
connections and power, Alva is virtually untouchable by the law.
So Metcalf works subversively within the system.
He pilfers Alva Industry resources to build a suit of powered armor,
and as Hardware, strikes against his boss by attacking Alva's
criminal enterprises.
The best-known of the Milestone titles is STATIC,
which enjoyed a second life as an animated series after the comics
line ended. Virgil Hawkins is a bright but geeky high school student
with the normal problems of adolescence: awkwardness with girls,
annoying family members, trouble with a bully, and pressure to join a
street gang. It's because of the last that he finds himself in the
wrong place the night of the Big Bang. The mutagenic riot gas gives
him the power to wield powerful electric blasts and to “fly” by
riding on pieces of metal (originally a garbage can lid) that he
levitates using electromagnetic force. Virgil is a wise-cracking
hero in the Peter Parker mold.
Each of the main Milestone titles could with some
justification be called black versions of iconic comic book
superheros. BLOOD SYNDICATE was X-MEN, re-imagined as a street gang;
HARDWARE was IRON MAN; and STATIC was SPIDER-MAN. What might be
regarded as Milestone's flagship title, ICON, made no attempt to
disguise the fact that it was, essentially, SUPERMAN; but like the
other titles, it was Superman with a twist.
An alien being crash-lands on Earth. In order to
protect him, his survival pod reconfigures his appearance to resemble
the first native he encounters. Which happens to be a black slave in
the antebellum South. He is raised as a slave and keeps his
extra-human powers a secret, biding his time and waiting for earth
technology to progress to the point where he can repair his
spaceship. A century and a half later, he has come Up From Slavery
and is now a successful lawyer in Dakota, calling himself Augustus
Freeman IV. He still keeps his powers hidden, until a teenage girl
named Raquel Ervin learns his secret and persuades him to use those
powers to the benefit of society as a super-hero.
The dynamic between these to characters, Icon and
Rocket, is what I find most interesting about this comic: the older,
conservative Freeman and his outspoken, radical sidekick. I've read
one critic sniff that Icon is a liberal's idea of what a black
Republican is like, but that's only a superficial reading. The
writer, Dwayne McDuffy, said that in the two characters he was trying
to reflect a dialogue that has been going on in the black community
about civil rights for over a century. Early civil rights pioneer
Booker T. Washington emphasized education and hard work as the path
for blacks to earn respect in society. His rival, W.E.B. DuBois
insisted that blacks would not gain equality with whites unless they
fought for it. Washington was the safe face of black civil rights,
the one whites felt more comfortable with and the first black man
invited to the White House for any reason other than to say “Dinner
is served.” DuBois was the dangerous radical who criticized
capitalism and embraced socialist causes. Several decades later,
these differing philosophies were embodied by Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X.
Augustus Freeman has good reason to be a
Republican. After all, it is the Party of Lincoln, and since he was
alive when Lincoln emancipated the slaves, to him that counts for a
lot. And perhaps more relevantly, having worked his way from being a
slave to becoming an affluent lawyer, he has little sympathy for poor
blacks who remain in poverty. To which Raquel replies that it's
easier to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you can fly.
Yes, the writing showed a discernible political
bias, but Icon never seemed to me like a Strawman Conservative to be
punctured by the Good Gal Liberal. I felt his character was treated
with respect with a legitimate point of view. Much as Steve Ditko
tried to do with his HAWK & DOVE and Denny O'Neil attempted with
his use of Hawkman and Green Arrow in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, in
ICON the conversation between the two was more important that scoring
which side wins.
Milestone's comics line lasted for a few years;
longer than some other independent comics lines of the same era; and
added a few more titles, most notably XOMBI and SHADOW CABINET. It
was widely-perceived as a “blacks only” line of comics which
limited its sales. Even a big cross-over event with the mainstream
DC Universe, WORLDS COLLIDE, didn't help.
But although the comics line faded, Milestone and
its characters remained. Some years later, STATIC was adaped into a
successful Saturday Morning cartoon which lasted four seasons, and
the character made appearances in the animated DCU in the JUSTICE
LEAGUE UNLIMITED cartoon. More recently, Milestone and DC made a new
agreement to fold the Dakotaverse into the DCU. With the subsequent
re-shattering of the universe with the “New 52”, the Milestone
world is its own alternate earth, designated “Earth-M”, and there
are plans for new stories set in Dakota. The echoes of the Big Bang
reverberate still.
Labels:
Blood Syndicate,
Comic books,
Comics,
Dwayne McDuffy,
Hardware,
Icon,
Milestone,
Static
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