Like a book out of hell - fan the flame

I know you expected something special for the 8th anniversary post but I had everything already lined up for this post so instead we´re going to continue with our look at the X - MEN : INFERNO crossover books.

I still haven´t found the time to re - read the hardcover collection I got from amazon but I did read the next ones we are going to talk about - AVENGERS and FANTASTIC FOUR - as they came out back in the day.

INFERNO : THE UNTOLD STORY ( WELL, PART OF IT WAS IN GERMANY )

Now before we get to the meat and bones of the post I wanted to mention that one of the reasons why I decided to delve into the netherrealm of old 80s Marvel crossovers is that the INFERNO storyline was never published in german - at least the main part with the X - Men and all the important mutants. That´s right, here in Germany one of the most important sagas ( where resolution of plot points which have been dangling for decades is concerned ) was deemed not important enough to be published. Condor was publishing Marvel Comics around the time and while the X - Men had two formats they stopped just before that with the floppies at issue 16

and with the much dreaded pocket books at issue 21 which still was in the period when John Romita Jr was penciling the book as you can see.

With other titles like FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS or the SPIDER - MAN books they were further ahead the publishing schedule so german readers got some of the crossovers but not the main story which was a bit weird.

Although not as weird as when Panini started publishing the X - Men again and the entire mutant landscape was different. I mean, they not only skipped INFERNO but also MUTANT MASSACRE, FALL OF THE MUTANTS also everything by Jim Lee and began right before AGE OF APOCALYPSE.

Which is one of my favorite alternate reality X - Men stories and not only because Joe Madureiras was really firing on all cylinders then. It was a really cool story and one of the few instances where the fans prevailed over the comic critics who have downtalked this event since day one. But I still think it would have been better if the guys at Panini would have gone back a bit further than that when they brought the X - Men back.

So for german readers there were huge chunks of x - continuity missing and while some were published later on INFERNO wasn´t among them.

And I really have no idea because I tried - very unsuccessfully - for years the get german publisher Panini to release it. But the answers were always the same. Either the quality of the art wasn´t there ( yeah, who would pay money for such hacks like Marc Silvestri, Walter Simonson or Brett Blevins ) or nothing important happened ( like the resolution to the whole Madelyne Pryor thing, who she really was, what became of her, what the deal was with Scott Summer´s baby, you know, the one who becomes Cable later on, hello the entire Cable backstory ? etc, etc ) or they just didn´t want to do it. I have talked to a few german comic readers who bought the INFERNO hardcover when I pimped it on my blog way back when amazon offered it at a real bargain price or who opted for the ESSENTIAL version. They were all numbstruck by the sheer amount of absolutely important things for the x - teams that happen. Most of them can´t understand why it was never released in Germany and neither can I.

But that´s not what I wanted to discuss in this post since the mysteries behind german comic book publishing have baffled the wise ones ( as well as those with simple common sense ) for centuries. Coming back to the pocket books by Condor all german readers love ( not really ) I want to point out that it hasn´t been easy to find out which parts of the INFERNO crossovers have been published in Germany. Which should be easy, right ?

Just look for the ones that have the corresponding covers from the US issues and that´s that. Well, it´s not as simple. You see, some of the pocket books really did have the same covers as the original version.

On others they didn´t even bother with the original covers and just took some images from the comic to make their own cover, oh the humanity !

And sometimes they redid the cover so extensively that it´s almost unrecognizable. Here is the cover to SPECTACULAR SPIDER - MAN 148

and this is what was left after the guys at Condor had their way with it :

They look like two totally unrelated covers if it weren´t for the identical tombstones. Everything else was taken out from the original cover and they filled it up with other stuff like Hawkeye fighting some villain. Oy.

Which might have been the back up story, because back then they used anything they could get their hands on to fill those 48 pages. Another reason why they made their own cover may have been that they thought the original cover was too scary for german readers. Also you don´t want to land on the Index of Writings Harmful to Young Persons, which happens very quickly here in Germany so most publishers exercise a form of self censorship before they can get censored. Germans are big on censorship.

But back to the INFERNO storyline and how it was published in Germany. While the main story is still unpublished here to this very day big parts of the crossovers did see the light of day in various scattered publications. Unfortunately most of it was in the form of pocket books where you could not see much of the art and the text was cut to 30 percent of the original content - at least. So even if you have read the german version it´s still worth getting the omnibus to finally see the art in good reproduction and to be able to read the story in its entirety. Not to mention the parts that we never got in Germany like the issues of EXCALIBUR or POWER PACK.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE or HOW QUICKLY THOSE AVENGERS FORGET

Now, when we last left the Avengers - there were no Avengers ! Jarvis had his solo action ( or was about to get some ), the Avengers were still very much disbanded and out of business while Steve Rogers a.k.a The Captain just jumped into the brawl to get his hands on a few demon delinquents.

Like I already said in my last post about the INFERNO CROSSOVERS, the very nature of the Avengers dictates that they redefine themselves from time to time by splitting up, changing their roster or even ceasing to exist for short periods of time. But you always know that the Avengers will be back to fight those foes no single superhero can withstand.

So it´s no big surprise that issue 299 starts immediately sowing the seeds for what shall be one of the shortest teams of Avengers. Because two of the members never make it beyond issue 300. I´m talking about Reed and Sue Richards who return to the Fantastic Four as soon as the crisis with Franklin is averted. Which I found a brilliant way to bring in Marvel´s first family : the demons are abducting babies and who is the most powerful infant in the Marvel universe ? Franklin Richards. Although he´s not abducted by demons ( at least not at first ) but by Nanny and the Orphan Maker, two villains who are not really popular with the Marvel readership.

And speaking about guys who weren´t popular I don´t think many Avenger readers remember the horny guy Walt Simonson introduced in this issue. What was his name again ? Oh yes, Gilgamesh ( I had to look it up ).

He was one of the Eternals who had been absent so long from Earth that everybody had forgotten about him. Which was why he was called The Forgotten One and we have Reed to thank for naming him Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh has never gotten much fans and he´s always on the list of most insignificant Avengers members or The Top Ten Avengers who will never make it to the Big Leagues . It´s not only the name that gets associated with one of the worst CGI movies it´s also having one of the ugliest costumes ever. And then there´s all the pathos surrounding him. I think the only ones who could make such a character work would be Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis if they used the angle that people would keep forgetting him, a gimmick they already employed to great effect in the METAL MEN back up series which ran in Keith Giffen´s DOOM PATROL.

They had a new member called Copper and they always forgot about her. They either forgot her completely or forgot where she was supposed to be or what she said and sometimes even her name. The series was just full of brilliant ideas and I have to say I´m a little pissed that I bought all the issues of DOOM PATROL to read it - only to learn later on that the Metal Man parts were released as part of the DC COMICS PRESENTS line.

Which is a really great reprint line if you want to get your hands on a big chunk of reading material cheap. They have Mark Farmer´s and Alan Davis´ SUPERBOY`S LEGION, issues of SUPERMAN ADVENTURES, THE KENTS, LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.

There´s even an issue which contains the first 4 issues of Gene Colan´s and Marv Wolfman´s NIGHT FORCE series which I just had to get as a Gene Colan fan. Another series I have to look for in Erlangen. Sigh.

In any case, you just have to check out METAL MEN by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire. I hate to say it but the series is only half as hilarious without his pencils. I´m not kidding, there are some parts done by guest artists and they are not as good as the real deal. This book has my highest recommendation and at eight bucks it doesn´t cost the world.

And I´m afraid that´s all we have time for Today. I thought this would be a quick post to write because I already had all the pictures I needed and then I go into all this other stuff that wasn´t scheduled. Just typical.

Anyway, we´ll have to continue with the INFERNO CROSSOVERS in the next part where we will talk more about the Avengers, their new roster with the horny guy and issue 300, which was a Big 64 Page Spectacular.

So that was the post for the big 8th year anniversary of this blog. I thought it would be more about the Inferno issues instead of german cover crimes, the Metal Men and Night Force but that´s how it goes.

Last year I didn´t get to write a post on the anniversary - in fact I didn´t manage to write the whole month of April - so I don´t know how the stats compare to last year. What I DO know is that I finally managed to crack the 1,000 clicks per day bar ( twice already ) and that I also just went over 750,000 page views. Also I think that the quality as well as the regularity of my posts have improved. Or at least haven´t deteriorated which isn´t too bad either. I just wish I could have enjoyed it more.

Okay, enough with the self centered BS, here are the usual links which this time are all over the place - just like this post. A DISPENSABLE LIST OF COMIC READS has Recommended Reads : Metal Man for all those who don´t know where to begin reading ( they also recommend The Brave and the Bold 187 which I mentioned in my last Jim Aparo post ) and there´s another review at the G33K Life blog. At least I think that´s the name. I also want to mention THE RAGING FANBOY blog where I found the bit with Doc Magnus and Platinum. SCANS DAILY has a post on Night Force 8 , that provided the cover I posted here and RAGGED CLAWS NETWORK has a post with scans from issue 4 . The post covers the announcement of a NIGHT FORCE trade in 2011 that was pushed back to 2012 and hasn´t been heard of since. At least to my knowledge. What´s up with that DC ?

Since a lot of Todays post has been about german comics I want to pimp a new german comic show on YouTube. The name is Geekplauze and my brother made me aware of it. Man, if he continues with this I would have to pay him royalties if I earned any money with this. Of course I picked the video about the controversy of Power Girl´s missing boob window.

So I didn´t manage to do my 450th post on the big anniversary but I think with any luck I can still do something special for that occasion. It´s only two posts away and I already have something in mind although it depends on my latest order from amazon arriving on time. For now I want to thank my readers for the last 8 years, I hope you had fun reading my ramblings and here´s the promised video from Comicplauze with some graphic novel reviews and - most important - Power Girl and her boob window. Enjoy !



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Mon - El spells Monday. Das ist M - O - N - D

I know I said I would put the DAYS OF FUTURE PAST cover homages in the next post but I have decided to do a different Deja Vue post Today.

Usually I put up ONE original cover followed by all the various cover homages from different series. If I manage to get it into one single post.

Now some people may think that I started posting these redone covers because I wanted to comment on how unoriginal the comic industry has become since it has to recycle old covers. But that´s not it. I´m not against using old covers as inspiration or model for a new cover. Well, unless it´s EVERY cover like on the DEADPOOL series. Now mind you, this is only speculation on my part but IF the cover artists do homage covers for every other issue I start wondering if anything exciting happens on the book. And if it does : why isn´t it on the cover ? Wouldn´t that be better suited than version xy of a famous cover that has nothing to do with the series and only reminds readers how good comics should be ?

But I´m not here to bash the DEADPOOL series, or books since for some mysterious reason he always have to have at least half a dozen spin off series. Man, I wish somebody would put him out of his misery for good.

Okay, back to cover homages, sometimes they are a cop out. No doubt about it. Sometimes the artist has no idea so cover xy gets rehashed.

And there´s nothing wrong with that as long as it´s done in a good way, or even better yet in an unexpected way, like showing the scene from a different angle, interchanging bad guys for good guys or only using the basic layout while putting your own spin on it. Sometimes the same cover is used again to show the readers that this new story is either connected to the old story or that it is kind of like that old story. As a kind of visual shorthand if you will. David Mack - as an example - used the same images over and over again in one of his first KABUKI series to get an effect of connection in the story. Without having to show previous scenes in full you instantly knew what a certain person was feeling or thinking because that was what that particular image represented. There also was the effect that a mood was heightened through constant image repetition.

Like I said : visual shorthand. It´s like in Doctor Who when the words " Bad Wolf " are used. It´s a complex code that has so much info on so many levels that it´s difficult to explain to the uninitiated. Back to topic.

Now that we have cleared up that I´m not posting these homages because I find them boring let´s get to the covers of this post. Unlike most Deja Vue posts that are all different versions of the same cover in this post all covers are homages to different covers but all of them have to do with one of my favorite comic series : The Legion of Super - Heroes.

And since originally this post was supposed to be all the DAYS OF FUTURE PASTS covers here´s the Legion version ( I think it´s by Bob Layton ).

I don´t know who did the next one but of course it´s an homage to the first issue of NEW TEEN TITANS by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.

The Legionnaires on the cover really don´t have the same powers as their Titans counterparts or a similar personality, which is something George Perez would probably have done. You know, back in the day when New Teen Titans was the best series published by DC the Legion of Super - Heroes was also one of their top sellers. I always wondered why they never made a crossover of these two groups of super powered teenagers. Aside from Robin I don´t think any Teen Titan ever met a Legion member.

Okay, I know the artist of the next one. It´s Kevin Maguire with another version of his cover for the first issue of the post crisis Justice League also known to fans as the Giffen League or the Bwa - ha - ha League. And instead of the heroes this time it´s the Legion antagonists the Fatal Five.

Here´s another homage cover, this time from Rich Buckler and it took me quite a while to track down the original cover for this on the internet.

Of course I first looked if there really was a series called ALL STAR LEGION. No such luck. Then I looked for ALL STAR SQUADRON and also came up empty handed. Because ( as I finally found out ) it´s ALL - STAR SQUADRON with a hyphen. Here is the cover that was used as a template.

It was also used as a variant cover for issue 1 of the JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA by Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham after INFINITE CRISIS ( back when he wrote good comics ). You know, this is our first homage cover that was used in an actual comic series. And I even read the series.

And speaking about reading series, as I was going over the covers of ALL - STAR SQUADRON I realized that this is a series that I should have read.

First of all you have the brilliant Roy Thomas writing it and he´s especially good when it comes to these World War Two super hero teams like Justice Society, Young All - Stars, Invaders or Liberty Legion. Then you have great artists like Curt Swan, Paul Kupperberg, Jerry Ordway, Pablo Marcos, Dan Jurgens and Mike DeCarlo on it. And then you have just dozens of characters in one team. Most of whom I knew nothing about before I read the Geoff Johns JSA like the Seven Soldiers of Victory or Amazing Man.

But wait, it gets even better because you have these crossovers between super heroes from Earth 1, Earth 2, Earth 3, Earth X and Earth Prime.

I know that some people get a headache from that but I just love this stuff. They even had some crossover issues with CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. Which reminds me, DC never did a companion book to Crisis like Marvel did for such big crossover events like ACTS OF VENGEANCE ( nope, they really did this ) or INFERNO ( which I should continue reviewing one of these days ). I mean they would have to do a number of these books since Crisis crossed over into all books DC had at that time. Okay, you probably read most of the important crossover series but there must be some interesting ones - or at least some strange or bizarre ones - left.

In any case, I´m definitely going to look for this series on my next visit to the Sammlerecke. Or maybe I can find some issues in Erlangen now that my boss has given me a free Saturday so that I can go all four days. But ALL - STAR SQUADRON definitely looks like a book worth reading to me.

And speaking about stuff worth reading, if you want to read more of Roy Thomas´ work our good pal and link partner Groove from DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND ( which can be found on the blogroll ) posted issue 29 of MARVEL PREMIERE just Yesterday featuring the Liberty Legion. The title is " Lo, the Liberty Legion ! " with art by Don Heck and Vince Coletta.

Okay, back to the Legion of Super - Heroes homage covers, this is issue 54 of LEGIONNAIRES, part of the Threeboot Legion one - two punch.

With all the negative things you can say about ZERO HOUR, as a mini series that was supposed to clean up DC´s continuity and didn´t, some of the fall out of it like the two new Legion series or the stellar STARMAN series was just incredible. And Catwoman wasn´t a prostitute anymore.

I´m not sure if I stayed on the Legion books until they wrapped up, I think I jumped ship just four or three issues shy of that which is a shame. As far as I can recall I had to shorten my pull list and I wasn´t into LEGION LOST. When Panini Germany tried to restart the Legion franchise here after that particular storyline I was a bit miffed because everybody was talking about how great that series was and it was such an important prolog to the stories in the Monster Edition and it was referenced continuously within the stories. But what I could read of LEGION LOST has only encouraged me in my belief that this series was not written for me. So it might have been for the best that they didn´t publish it in german.

Oh yes, the original cover in this case is ALL - STAR COMICS 3 featuring the Justice Society of America. Strangely enough it´s an all male group.

Another popular design was what I like to call the " six square special " cover which was also used for WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW ? It was used for the cover of ADVENTURE COMICS 300

as well as for THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES issue 301

and for LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES 41, which introduced the Legionnaire clones. Yes, there was a clone saga that didn´t suck and it was from DC.

It was also used on issue 24 of the Keith Giffen run on the Legion.

The next cover homage is issue 46 of LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES ( do we even care which volume that´s from at this point ? ) by Jim Shooter

which is a nice throwback to ADVENTURE COMICS 346. It´s a very good example of the point I tried to make earlier because while it is exactly the same scene the different camera angle makes it look more exciting.

With the next cover we turn things around a bit because this time a Legion cover is referenced. This is the cover for issue 15 of EDISON REX

after one of the greatest stories in Legion lore, The Great Darkness Saga.

I have to admit, I never read it. Or I may have read some parts of it in spanish or german but I never read the entire storyline. Shame on me.

It was one of the few trades that DC published in the 80s and though I was a big Legion fan I never read it. I mean this was always in stock so how good could it be ? You know what also always was in stock ? The Judas Contract. Boy, was I stupid. Anyway, a few years back amazon offered the deluxe hardcover at a bargain price and I waited too long. I was short on money or I just had ordered something before or whatever and now it´s out of stock. It´s like I always say : if you seize such an opportunity and the comic sucks it´s still better than if you don´t and it´s the best ever.

Coming back to homages in the concluding chapter of The Great Darkness Saga, Legion of Super - Heroes issue 294 Keith Giffen does this double page spread after Michelangelo´s famous Creation of Adam fresco .

You can find more of these homages in comics and other media at this article from IMAKINARIUM , it´s in spanish but with nice pictures.

Since I mentioned Mon - El in the title ( just for a play on words that only works in german ) I have to include him in some form. Here he is looking a bit miffed on the cover to LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES 4 by Keith Giffen

and here´s Jim Lee´s version of it ( also an issue 4 ).

It´s really getting late for me so it´s time to come to an end. I started this post with a cover that was not so much an homage but rather an altered cover with a crossover that never happened between the Legion of Super - Heroes and The Dark Phoenix. Here´s another imaginary crossover featuring the Legion and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The cover used for this cool combo is LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES 281.

And for anybody who wants to know, the original cover for the Legion / Dark Phoenix cover is LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES 277, the first chapter of one of my favorite Legion stories, the great REFLECTO SAGA which sadly hasn´t been collected by DC in trade or hardcover format yet.

And last but not least, here´s a gorgeous pin up by Anthony Carpenter with a team up of the JSA´s Green Lantern, Alan Scott, and Saturn Girl.

Once again, here are the usual kudos to websites and dropping the links I found during the making of this post. I want to mention PENCIL INK one more time since I found the cover to Legion of Super - Heroes 281 there.

Thanks also to the guys from SUPER - TEAM FAMILY for the Legion / Dark Phoenix and Legion / Guardian crossovers. Go to their website to check out all the other cool combos they have like Indiana Jones and the Hulk

or Dexter and The Spectre ( most awesome crossover EVER ).

Also worth mentioning is COMIC COVERAGE, who has a nice post on all variations of Crisis to Infinite Earths 7 , of which I posted a few.

Well, basically it´s all the covers which have a fallen hero who is carried by another hero but it is an impressive collection nonetheless. Other Legion related links I found during my research is an interview with Paul Levitz from NYC GRAPHIC NOVELISTS , EARTH`S MIGHTIEST post titled WHO THE HELL IS KEITH GIFFEN ? that counts down his top ten works ( and you all know how I like my top ten lists ), the TOP TEN BRONZE AGE WRITERS from COMIC BULLETIN by Andrew Wahl and SCANS DAILY´s Great Darkness summary post . I also found 2 new blogs you might check out : SEDUCTION OF THE INDIFFERENT and COMIC BOOK VIOLENCE . And this ends post number 447 whichs means I have only three more to go till post number 450 which will hopefully be on this blog´s big anniversary.

Since most videos you find on YouTube about the Legion of Super - Heroes are from the animated series ( and you should have already seen all the episodes ) Today I´m posting a video I just watched this Sunday instead.

This would be better suited for a Halloween post but since it´s still a few months till then I´m posting it now. I just found a few cartoons from the Doctor Seuss series I didn´t know since we never get the good stuff here in Germany. It´s HALLOWEEN IS GRINCH NIGHT and I hope you enjoy it. 



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