Danger ! It´s Time - Travelling Thursday !

I guess a lot of people visited the blog Yesterday in the hopes of finding a new post celebrating my birthday. Well, as is my usual luck I had to work Yesterday and I got home pretty late so I didn´t go on the internet. But Today I wanted to do a new post - even if it´s a short one - giving props to one of my all time favorite comics, THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES.

Thanks to a lot of appointments at my doctor´s, the orthopedist and at the clinic in Markgröningen ( I´ll have to tell the tale how I wasted one of my free days with that one of these days ) I´ve already finished vol 10 of The Legion of Super - Heroes Archives and am halfway through vol 11.

TRAVELLING BACKWARDS AND FORWARD IN TIME

Since I still haven´t gotten past the first day of my Erlangen travel - logue I should probably cover the part how I got those Legion archive editions first. After the very taxing first day things started out rather quietly. Like I already mentioned I slept very good - even if the pillow was to soft for my taste - which is not always a given when you are sleeping in a hotel room. Since I had already made the acquaintance of the slippery shower floor I was very cautious while freshening up ( also not too long although not as extreme to qualify as a catlick ) . Speaking about acquaintances : during breakfast I had the good fortune of meeting up with Haggi, who longtime readers might already know from previous posts as the artist of the brilliant HARTMUT comics, and who was staying at the same hotel. Sadly that was the only time we could talk quietly about comics and stuff outside of the con since I didn´t get up that early for the rest of the con.

Now on the first day I already found out that my plans would not work out and I did a lot of things I have never done before. Since I had problems with my knee and was towing my trolley behind I was always taking the ramp instead of the stairs. On the second day I decided to leave my trolley at the hotel so this was naturally the day when I got the most and heaviest comics. So I spent a lot of time the day before going up and down that ramp until I decided to check out the dealers booth that was behind the ramp. They had some comics for 1 EURO but also a lot of DC Archive Editions at half price which is a real bargain so I got three.

There were more volumes of the Legion, but even for that price you can´t go crazy or you end up spending a hundred bucks or more for mediocre art and forgettable stories so I stuck to the ones I knew and loved from my comic reading youth, which were drawn by Dave Cockrum and Mike Grell.

I already had seen some of them in my regular comic shop but at full price they were just too expensive. There were some other comics I got there but I´ll go into detail about that when I do the full rundown of the comics I got in Erlangen. The only other thing I have to mention is that later on the same day I spent a few hours going through the " comics per kilo " table of the Sammlerecke ( I was too tired to continue on walking through the convention hall so I picked a table where I could spend a lot of time ) and made one of my luckiest picks ever : MV - Comix issue 23 from the 4th of November 1972. It is like the holy grail for german Legion fans.

Because aside from another chapter from ASTERIX AND THE SOOTHSAYER it also contains the first printing in the german language of ADVENTURE COMICS issue 326 and the story " The Revolt of the Girl Legionnaries ! "

Now the reason why this comic is so sought after by german Legion fans is the fact that it was reprinted in 1976 in SUPERMAN 7. SUPERBAND.

But not only was it reprinted here, since the MV Comics were done by the same publisher they used the same text and even the same layout as one can see as there was some space in the MV Comics they had to fill and they did the same in SUPERBAND 7. And it also was explicitly mentioned that this story had been published four years earlier in MV Comics 23.

So that was unusual as most stories that had been published in Germany before changed comic companies and most often got a new translation.

But SUPERMAN SUPERBAND 7 is a good example how comic stories of certain characters or groups like the Legion were published in Germany. The cover blurb reads " Everything about Superboy and the Legion " and while that is true to some extend it´s also a real hodge podge of Legion stories. Normally I wouldn´t delve further into it but thanks to my new Legion archive editions I know where some of these stories were taken from so I´m going to indulge your curiosity and see if I can track them all.

WHERE ARE MY LEGION DOGS AT ?

The first story " The Origin of the Legion ! " by E. Nelson Bridwell and Pete Costanze was first published in SUPERBOY issue 147.

The cover story is the second story in this book, FLAMMENDE FINSTERNIS in german or " The Final Eclipse of Sun Boy " from SUPERBOY issue 215.

I´m sure various bloggers have commented on the fact that Element Lad should know better than to transmute the cloth of his costume into asbestos. Being from the future he should know that it causes cancer.

Next up is STAY SMALL OR DIE, a six page story from SUPERBOY 214. In the german version the " Legion of Super - Heroes " blurb was erroneously changed for " I was with Sunboy " which was part of the previous story.

Following are 2 pages of character profiles from the " Lore of the Legion " section contained in SUPERBOY 202 with art by Dave Cockrum. These pages - and the ones following later - are where I learned the real names of the various Legion members since I read them at least a dozen times.

THEY CALL ME MISTER TYROC !

Following is one of the most infamous Legion stories " The Hero Who hated the Legion " from SUPERBOY 216 which introduced Tyroc

the black Legion member with the most " deus ex machina " - esque super power ever created. He could do whatever the story needed by screaming very loudly which was kind of fitting since he always reminded me a bit of the late Bobby Farell, front man of the 80s disco band BONEY M which was very popular in Germany. They always topped the german charts.



A lot of the Legion costumes were very disco. Or at least very skimpy.

I guess when I first read the story it made more sense since I was very young but looking back at it it from Today´s viewpoint a lot of the things in the story become really strange and bizarre. For those readers out there who still haven´t read the story, the Legionnaries visit the city of Marzan where they are met with outright hostility by the populace and their champion Tyroc, who is your typical " angry black guy with a chip on his shoulder " - much like John Stewart in the Green Lantern comic.

According to Mike Grell he had tried before to introduce a black member into the Legion ( there are differing versions out there which story that was ) and this was the final, more or less successful try. Tyroc and the people of Marzan are not on good terms with the Legio of Super - Heroes because they feel neglected by them and Tyroc refuses to be held down by the man. But in the end all their problems are neatly resolved because the " racial profiling " Tyroc accuses the Legion of doesn´t hold up due to the fact that Legion members have " blue skin, yellow skin or green skin. "

While the idea that a society 1,000 years in the future is above such things as racial stereotypes and skin color is very comforting and nice - and I guess that is what writer Cary Bates was going for - it is kind of strange that all black people are living in one city that is cut of from the rest of the world. Also Karate Kid´s skin wasn´t really colored yellow. But in later issues Mike Grell drew him very much to look like Bruce Lee.

Tyroc became a very difficult member not only because of his powers and so he first was used very sporadically and then Marzan was turned into a Brigadoon - like city that could only be accessed every thousand years. In the end the black brother gets the short end of the stick once again.

BEST OF THE REST

Next up is a double page spread of the Legion headquarters from ADVENTURE COMICS 403 followed by " The War of the Legions ! " by Jim Shooter, Curt Swan and George Klein from ADVENTURE COMICS 355.

This is a bit strange because it was the second part of the story " The Adult Legion ! " from issue 354, which was never published in Germany.

Up next are two more pages of character profile pages by Dave Cockrum from SUPERBOY issue 202 and the already mentioned " Revolt of the Girl Legionnaries " story with a text insert between the first and the second part about Superboy and the Legion. Then we have another Dave Cockrum character profile page and the second story from SUPERBOY 216, " The Private Lives of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel ". In the story Bouncing Boy has lost his powers and has to prevail against a gang of hooligans. This was a good example how strict the Legion code was : Bouncing Boy had lost his powers so he had to leave the Legion. Of course he bounced back from this setback ( pun intended ) by getting hitched with Duo Damsel.

The SUPERBAND ends with two more Legion member profile pages, this time by Dave Cockrum and Curt Swan and taken from SUPERBOY 205.

Now while the selection seems very arbitrary you have to keep in mind that the available material was limited by the fact that a lot of the Legion stuff had already been published in Germany in issues of SUPERMAN / BATMAN or SUPERBOY. So the comics that were chosen for this SUPERMAN SUPERBAND were not of a certain period but rather seemed to fall into the category of important stories or at least stories that brought across infos or certain aspects of the Legion and it´s member like an early version of the Legion Oath. Together with the profile sheets - and the fact that the SUPERBÄNDE were album sized and of a more sturdy paper - it was an invaluable resource for german Legion fans so it was a part of almost everyone´s comic collection. I still got my battered and worn out copy.

LEGION LINKING EXTRAVAGANZA

So, as usual this post has become longer than intended but I think I have said all I wanted to say about SUPERMAN SUPERBAND 7 and if there´s something I forgot I´m sure to include it in one of the following Legion posts. Before closing for Today I have to give kudos to the websites that have helped to make this post a reality beginning with this THE DORK REVIEW post which provided the profile pages from SUPERBOY 202 and 205. BRONZE AGE BABIES has an extensive post about SUPERBOY 216 and this edition of COMIC BOOK LEGEND REVEALED examines the two stories which Mike Grell cites as his first attempts to introduce black characters.

A story I didn´t get to mention in this post is " The Legion of Super - Executioners ! " from SUPERBOY 205 which mostly stuck in my mind for the scenes where Timber Wolf goes on a rampage and binds Superboy with his own cape, Lana Lang as Inscet Queen stinging Ultra Boy in the back - but mostly because of the way Mike Grell drew Lana Lang in her tight sweater, ( one of the reasons why it took me so long to do this post was that I tried to find a picture of that but only found these inked pages ). I don´t know if I can get around to do a post on that issue but you can find post about it on EIGHTEEN WITH A BULLET , PRISM COMICS and also on Dave´s SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES blog.

More Legion goodies : BRONZE AGE BABIES also has entries on SUPERBOY 197 , SUPERBOY 208 , SUPERBOY 231 and SUPERBOY 233 and Dougie from the MATERIOPTIKUM blog waxes philosophic about SUPERBOY 204 which contained two stories : " The Legionnaire Nobody Remembered " and " Brainiac 5´s Secret Weakness ". STARS AND GARTERS has two Legion entries in its FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS - FEET OF FURY series, one from SUPERBOY 205 and RAGING FANBOY examines The Miracle Machine .

PULP AND DAGGER has a post about The Madness of Brainiac 5 Saga while THE COMIC TREADMILL takes a look at ADVENTURE COMICS 307 to 309 and issue 500 and MAJOR SPOILERS examines ALL - NEW COLLECTORS EDITION 55 , the tabloid sized treasury edition of the Legion. And if you want more Mike Grell art our fellow blogger Old Groove at DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND cover his most famous series WARLORD in these posts about the first story in FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL 8 , WARLORD ISSUE 1 and MAKING A SPLASH : MIKE GRELL`S WARLORD part one and part two .

And last but not least I wanted to post this drawing of the Mighty Crusader´s  Shield by Steve Rude for fellow blogger Terry Hooper Scharf.

BONUS LEVEL : POP, FRAGGLE ROCK AND ROLL ( AND MUPPETS )

After such a long post my faithful readers deserve something special, so since I already put a Yaya Han video in my last post here´s a street performer doing a wicked rendition of SULTANS OF SWING. Enjoy !

         
Okay, maybe one video is not enough after such a long post and since the weekend is approaching - and I probably can´t do another post before Monday - here´s a little something extra to help you bridge the time.

Some readers might be curious what " Die kleine Kneipe " by Peter Alexander is ( and if not I´m posting it anyway ). I don´t like all of his stuff - like when he walked around in women´s clothing in his movies - but that´s one of song I like, even if I´m not the biggest Schlager fan. It´s a song about the little pub at the end of the street where people used to meet and which have vanished almost entirely in our modern society.



Now since this is more for my german readers I wanted to also include a few videos for the rest of my followers. One of the things I´m enjoying right now is THE MUPPET SHOW as I recently acquired the first three seasons on DVD. Usually they are very expensive but amazon had a sale and I grabbed the opportunity. Maybe there will even be a new post about The Muppet Show in the future ( I already wrote about Roger Langridge´s excellent Muppet Show comic in one of my Gratis Comic Tag 2011 posts ).

But for now I want to post one of the really excellent musical numbers they do on the show : Billy Joel´s wonderful " New York state of mind ".



Right now I have started with the third season of THE MUPPET SHOW and when I´m finished I´m going to rewatch all the episodes - but in german.

You see, when the show was dubbed in german not only were all the spoken parts translated there are also different people singing the musical numbers in german so it´s like watching Earth 1 and Earth 2 versions of the same show. Except for the Swedish Chef. I´m watching him in german already because in the english version you can´t understand a word he says - which in itself might be funny but I prefer it better when I can understand him. The only negative thing with the german version is that they have the same finale every time. And I have the sneaking suspicion we german viewers are missing out because you can hear the guests and the Muppets continuing in the background.

It´s even more obvious with the third season because they changed the music and now it´s a bit out of synch with the old finale. Anyway, I also wanted to include a longer Muppet video so here is the 1987 special A MUPPET FAMILY CHRISTMAS. Not only is it a really wonderful Special it also served to introduce Jim Henson´s new show FRAGGLE ROCK.



Now the only reason why I knew this pop culture tidbit is that the guys at COMICGEEKSPEAK mentioned it in their Fraggle Rock spotlight and if you have now a nostalgic feeling and want to revisit those familiar stomping grounds again - or if you are a new visitor to it - here is the first episode.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best

When you least expect it - comic news

Yes, I know I have been a bit sporadic in posting these over the last few months but most of the stuff I came across was DC news and that was just too depressing. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.


But there are also some positive news that I wanted to comment on in the world of comics. The last few days I´ve had the flu, in fact all of us here at home have it. But my brother who works for the post is the only one who can afford to get a sick note. Not that I think it would help me much since I´m feeling better on the days I have to work than on the days I can stay at home.

I have been trying to finish my last post for the last days but it seems that every time I put my mind to it something else comes up. Well, Today I was putting the finishing touches on it and looking for some final things to add when I came across a few comic news that I finally decided to put in this post.

JUST WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT - SECTION ZERO RETURNS

When I was still entertaining the notion of ever finishing my last post I was thinking about doing a post called WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MEN OF TOMORROW ? in the near future. And I still might. The thing is, whenever I order new comics I usually get them in nice comic bags and I use them to bag other comics.

But I don´t put one comic into a bag, put a bord in and then close it. No, the way I do things is I put three, five, six or how many comics I can fit into the bag and try to do this with whole series. At the moment I have most of the comics in my reading box and most of the other important comics in my room bagged so that when about two dozens of comic bags had piled up on my table I had to go back to my old longboxes. And the one I picked was the one that contained the issues of ACTION COMICS, ADVENTURE COMICS, MAN OF STEEL and SUPERMAN starting with John Byrne´s relaunch of the character.


I don´t know about you, but whenever I bag a series ( at least if it´s a good series ) I can´t help it but I start to flip through the pages, look at the art and then I´m reading an issue here and there.

Which lead me to the realisation that I started reading the SUPERMAN books in their Golden Age. Somehow DC managed to put out three ( and later four ) monthly SUPERMAN books that you could read on their own but also worked if you read all of them. There was a little Superman logo on each one with a number that told you in which order to read them and the artists list was really impressive : John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, George Perez, Mike Mignola, Lee Weeks etc. Well, being the nostalgic fool I am I wanted to do a post about those artists that were among the regulars and who don´t get much work Today like Kerry Gamill, Bob McLeod or Jon Bogdanove. And possibly find out what they are doing now.


One of the names on the list was Tom Grummet who became one of my personal favorites because he was the artist on NEW TITANS when I started reading the book which was just before the WILDBEEST HUNT saga, one of the best Titans storylines ever. Which - not surprising - hasn´t been traded yet.


Well, Tom Grummet has done tons of books after his heydays on SUPERMAN / SUPERBOY like NEW EXILES or X - MEN FOREVER and is now working on AVENGERS ACADEMY ( I think I mentioned this last month ) so I was not sure about including him but it seems I have another reason to write about him. In the comic industry there are always the comics that become a success, those that never had the potential to succeed and those that were destined to greatness but for whatever reason failed to take their place in the comic pantheon. Tom Grummet has worked on two such books ( at least that I can think of ) and while the really brilliant POWER COMPANY that was cut short way before its prime still languishes in comic limbo SECTION ZERO is making a triumphant return.

If you have never heard of SECTION ZERO, in 2000 a few prolific artists gathered under the Gorilla banner of Image to do their creator owned series. There were some really great books like TELLOS that was cut short by the death of Mike Wieringo


and it seems the whole Gorilla imprint of iMAGE was cursed as most of the other titles suffered a similar fate. George Perez´ CRIMSON TIDE managed to finally get the second issue in the can but stopped after that, SCHOCKROCKETS never made it to the second season, I think the only one that was really finished was Mark Waid and Barry Kitson´s EMPIRE series. A really great series about what happens if the villain finally DOES triumph over the hero.

Another series with great potential that ended after only three issues was SECTION ZERO and the Hollywood pitch would be a cross between X - FILES and WAREHOUSE 13 although this came out before there even was a WAREHOUSE 13. A really original series with great art by Tom Grummett and a brilliant story by Karl Kesel. Reading each issue you just couldn´t wait to find out what happens next - until the book ended.


Well, now the series is back although only as a webcomic so far
courtesy of the original creative team of Karl Kesel and Tom Grummet. And the best twist is that they are playing the story so that in the book also 12 years have passed. I for one can´t wait to find out what happened to my favorite freaks in the meantime and who knows, if the series has enough success in it´s second try there might even be a printed edition somewhere down the line.

JUST WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT - VALIANT COMICS RETURNS

This may not be as unexpected for my longtime readers as I already reported in June 2011 that while the DC universe was flushed down the toilet Valiant Entertaining was planning on bringing back the properties published by Valiant / Acclaim Comics.

Well, finally the publishing schedule has ben confirmed and they are giving the starting shot with X - O MANOWAR on May 2nd followed by HARBINGER on June the 6th . Then BLOODSHOT in July and ARCHER & ARMSTRONG in August ( interview with writer Fred Van Lente ) .


Now this may be finally some good news after the whole DC fiasko. I mean, I heard that one sign of the Apokalypse is when AQUAMAN is the best DC book and it currently is. Which in theory could mean that either the new AQUAMAN book is sooo good or that all other books suck. I think at the moment both statements are true. But Back to Valiant.

" I think there was a reason why Valiant had such a tremendous impact in the industry, initially, " Valiant Executive Editor Warren Simons told CBR in January. " I think the characters they have really are exceptional. When I was thinking of coming onboard the company, the first thing that I did was research the IP. The thing that I found, time and time again, whether it was X - O or Harbinger or Bloodshot, the core concepts driving the characters really are fantastic. When you have that, you have the foundation for a really incredible universe. The thing about Valiant is that it's not just about a single comic; it's about the tapestry of the larger universe and how these characters play a role in it. "

Yes, the concepts of the series were really great in some cases ( I haven´t read all the books so I can´t be sure ) but where most books lacked was in the art departement. I´m not saying that it was really bad but it was just too old school in some cases, with which I mean there was good layout, exposition and solid storytelling but it lacked in dramatic art, action sequences and sheer " blow your face off " graphics. Now don´t get me wrong, I read a good amount of the series but in the graphic departement they didn´t give the big ones competition. At least in the beginning. Later on they managed to get people like Bart Sears, Andy Smith, Joe Quesada ( yes, at that time he was a regular artist ) or Brian Hitch and that´s when they really took off.


Since some of my readers might not be familiar with the idea behind the series I thought it would be good to write a bit about them, first the books that are going to be relaunched and then about the rest of the books I read. As usual this will all be drenched in off topic remarks and funny anecdotes that my readers seem to enjoy. So let´s start right away.

X - O MANOWAR

The first. The best. The gold standard.

Okay, I´m not sure if X - O MANOWAR really was the first series Valiant published, it might as well have been HARBINGER or HARDC.O.R.P.S. But for me X - O MANOWAR was their big book.

The idea of the series was as simple as it was brilliant and after you heard it you wondered why nobody thought of something like this before. It´s Conan the Barbarian in Iron Man´s armor.


Aric of Dacia is a Visigoth from the 5th century who gets abducted by spider aliens but manages to escape with one of their battle armors. Because he travels at light speed it´s the 20th century as he finally arrives on earth and he has the usual problems adjusting to 15 centuries of technological progress until he becomes the head of a multinational corporation. And I´m really a sucker for timetravel stories which means this was right up my alley.

So you got the Rip Van Winkle timelost aspect, you got the Conan with Iron Man´s armor aspect, you got the corporate espionage and intrigue aspect and you even had some rather brilliant remarks on modern society.

And the thing was that the armor was more sophisticated than Iron Man´s armor at that time. It had a camouflage mode long before Tony Stark incorporated his cloaking device, it could morph to incorporate new tech and every few issues it would look different.




Because it kept adapting to its human host who was evolving as the series went along. And you weren´t confined to one main character. Unlike Marvel or DC Valiant took risk like somebody else wearing the armor - a woman to be exact.


For a certain time they shared the armor or took turns or something like that and I think she even took over for a bit when he was busy with his corporation. They even had storylines in which Aric was eviscarated by a robot dinosaur and was trapped in the armor for ten years or one in which the armor was destroyed.


While the series started out strong and had great storyarcs it really kicked it into overdrive with issue 44 when Ron Marz took over writing duties and Bart Sears became the new artist. As Bart´s level of quality would have endangered a monthly schedule Andy Smith did the art on alternating issues and since he drew very similar to Bart Sears at that time it gave the book a unified look.


Those were really the best times of the series until they decided to go with the old " Oh, it was all just a bad dream. " trope when they had to wrap the book up.

When Acclaim later tried a relaunch the whole book crashed and burned because someone had the brilliant idea of replacing Conan the Barbarian ( or Aric the Visigoth in this case ) with the ultimate computer geek. Which may make sense but it´s not very entertaining. Someone like Aric was interesting because he would use the armor in unexpected ways and he was used to fighting on the battlefield. But stick some science kid into the driver seat and you got - well, what every kid does when he´s playing MEDAL OF HONOR or HALO. And do I really need to read a comic for that ?

So, the original X - O MANOWAR series was a really good read and it´s one of the books I´m going to keep forever in my collection. I don´t know if I have all the issues but if not it´s ALMOST complete.

HARBINGER

Okay, I have to admit I didn´t read many issues of this one. I probably have the issues that were part of the big UNITY crossover that all had covers by Frank Miller and Walter Simonson. I bought the trade with the first issues along with two other Valiant trades on the last Comicbörse in Stuttgart because they were selling them at one table for an Euro each. At that price there isn´t much you can do wrong.


Of course the first thing I noticed was the art which was a bit unspectacular but the story was their kind of take of the X - Men. When it came out I wasn´t really interested in some cheap X - Men knockoff but I have to say after reading the trade they played it much more real world style. I´m not sure how much Jim Shooter had with the series but I´m sensing hints of his NEW UNIVERSE in here. Not really a bad series and I might be interested in reading more.

BLOODSHOT

There´s only one issue I have of this series, issue 30 which was drawn by Norm Breyfogle and I ordered from blackdog comics for 1 EURO or less.


I think the story was about a guy turned into the perfect soldier by nanotechnology but at the time it came out I just wasn´t interested in another gun toting musclehead.

ARCHER & ARMSTRONG

Now this was a series I most definitely read and that was in greatest part because of the art of Barry Windsor Smith who did a lot of covers for the Valiant books.


Archer & Armstrong has been called " The best buddy team book of all time. " by Ain't It Cool News, and " Superhero buddy book of the decade " by Wizard Magazine. Ain't It Cool News also said that " Not since Batman & Robin has a more important duo hit the comic world. "

Archer is the world´s greatest hand - to - hand fighter, an expert marksman, a cross between Bruce Lee and Ghandi who was raised in a monastery. Armstron is a desilusioned, overweight and really strong immortal who would rather have a nice drink or tell a tale of his inceredible adventures than fight for justice or honor. He´s like a pissed off Hulk with Wolverine´s longevity but on a grander scale. He´s what Highlander would have been if he had been cool.


Of course those two totally opposite characters have to band together and the main point of the series was the interaction between those two. As I am a big fan of Michael Moorcock´s Eternal Hero epos I was especially interested in Armstrong and his brother who also got his own book.

Armstron also has a mysterious satchel that contains a variety of mysterious and interesting artifacts that he has accumulated throughout history, and like the satchel of Shaman from Alpha Flight it´s depths are said to be endless. Now as somebody who also has a satchel that he takes to work I can relate to Armstrong and I know that you can´t possibly know everything you packed into your satchel. Why, just Today I found a CARAMAC bar in it that I had totally forgotten.


Or sometimes I think I have something in it only to find out later that I must have taken it out at some point. It´s crazy which kind of things you can find in your satchel.

So I totally believe that he remembers certain things he put in while he draws a blank on other things especially when he put them in while he was drunk or without really looking. And another thing we seems to have in common is the look. I may not wear the barret and my pants are rather blue than pink but aside from that we could have been separated at birth.


SHADOWMAN

This is the one you probably know in videogame form. If X - O MANOWAR was my number 1 Valiant series SHADOWMAN was a close second. I really liked the setting of the story and the simple design of the costume. The whole look and feel of the series reminded me a bit of the NIGHTMASK series although I´m pretty sure they are completely different. The book is about jazz musician Jack Boniface who barely survives being attacked one night and from then on feels the urge to find criminals and punish them when night falls. Which could be problematic if that was all there is to it. But after the attack he has changed and he becomes stronger, wilder, more resilient but also more violent.


The whole New Orleans setting with the vodoo stuff and the morbid cemetary scenes and the jazz music was something I found really intriguing as well as the fact that they never clearly defined Shadowman´s powers. They kept it a bit vague so that it may be connected to vodoo or the darkness or maybe just Jack going crazy but too many comics fall into the trap of overexplaining the main character´s powers and end up being boring. SHADOWMAN was anything but and lastest the longest which was around 80 issues. This was the second trade I bought at the last Comicbörse in Stuttgart and even though I already had most of the issues ( the first ten issues are hard to find ) I didn´t regret buying it.

So this book was all about mysteries, the dark things and - of course - playing jazz on your saxophone with your bike in a graveyard.


And he met Aerosmith.


ETERNAL WARRIOR

Now this was the aforementioned brother of Armstrong Gilad and as it also was an immortal in the ETERNAL WARRIOR vein ( it´s even in the title, dude ) I just had to read the book.


Where Armstrong was desillusioned and wary of the ways of the world Gilad was much more of an action hero going out and kicking butt. And while ARCHER & ARMSTRONG had clear hints of what Highlander might have been ETERNAL WARRIOR definitely showed it. The art was rough in some cases but all things considered an enjoyable read.

NINJAK

I was young and needed the money. No, wait. That was Joe Quesada, not me. All joking aside it was of course the great art by Joe Quesada who at that time was just starting to be known.


I mostly have the issues with his art in it and I think I stopped buying when he left the book. No idea what the book was all about, but I guess it was something with - ninjas ? Not that it really mattered.

THE VISITOR VS THE VALIANT UNIVERSE

Another book I bought solely for the art. You see ? I told you later Valiant comics had some exceptional art on them. Brian Hitch drew this when he was still very much Alan Davising his style although you could start to see hints of individuality.


Two issues that came out and had lush art by Brian Hitch and in the story this Visitor guy alien ( I think ) went up against the whole Valiant universe, as the title says.

And isn´t it just the best when a dozen of heroes fight or pile on some well deserving alien ?

RAI / RAI AND THE FUTURE FORCE

This is the third trade I bought at the Comicfair in Stuttgart last year and in this case I didn´t have any of the issues since I never read the series. Which is kind of strange since I´m very into things like asian culture, their views on duty, obligations, legacies and family. I guess the whole deal with RAI turning into RAI AND THE FUTURE FORCE deal got me confused so I never tried this one.


As far as I can remember this Rai thing is like a hereditary thing and the mantle of protector of Japan. There´s this new guy who is Rai in some kind of futuristic version of Japan who has to take the role of protector of a nation but not everybody´s happy with that. Large parts of hte population are against him and there´s also the whole deal with his predecessor as Rai - Daddy dearest.

A series I would have enjoyed if I had tried it, I´m sure.

SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM

Not to be confused with this guy, who is called Solar Man.



SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM is another book I should have read as I heard it involves time travel, weird science and a normal human gaining almost godlike powers. Together with MAGNUS, ROBOT FIGTHER and TUROK, SON OF STONE this was one of the three characters which was originally published by Gold Key comics and which are currently written by Jim Shooter for Dark Horse.


MAGNUS was the one series my brother was reading and I was kind of jealous because it had really good art. I´m not sure where I had read some MAGNUS stories before ( maybe in some issue of MV Comix ) but I remember some pages done by Russ Manning that I really liked.

Russ Manning was my favorite artist on TARZAN but I have very few comics from him. I think I might have one issue of an obscure comic that reprinted old newspaper comic strips and that had pages from Russ Manning´s TARZAN and Will Eisner´s SPIRIT in it.

QUANTUM AND WOODY

I know that it´s not really a Valiant series. After all the Valiant comics had been canceled Acclaim tried another go by relaunching a few series in an all - different way but they all weren´t as good as the previous incarnation. Except QUANTUM & WOODY which is one of the funniest books I have read in my whole life bar none.


The team of Priest and Bright really kicks it out of the ballpark with this one and if you ever wondered where I got my mannerisms and vocabular from, this is the true origin of s - word, f - word or n - word. This was truly the best superhero buddy comic. And it even had a goat in it. With a mask and a cape if I remember correctly. This book gets my unconditional recommendation and if you ever see one of the trades somewhere and you haven´t already read it go and buy it. You will bust a gut laughing.

And with that I think I have covered the most important parts of the Valiant comics published. There are a few things I could add as well as some stories but it´s once again time to wrap things up as it´s again very late. And it´s been more than a week since I started this post.


Since I mentioned MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER and Russ Manning Today´s video shows some Magnus art by the master himself. Now on one side I have no idea why this hasn´t been turned into a major feature film by now. On the other hand I´m afraid it will be turned into something like Disney´s new JOHN CARTER OF MARS movie.



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