Saturday Splash Page #202

"A New Sentinel of the Spaceways," ROM: Spaceknight #66, by Bill Mantlo (writer), Steve Ditko and Steve Leialoha (artists), Petra Scotese (colorist), Janice Chiang (letterer)

By the end of issue #58, the war against the Wraiths is in full swing, as Rom has alerted Earth's governments to the presence of alien shapeshifters. The Wraiths, growing desperate, ramped up their attacks in turn. Contaminating blood supplies in hospitals, destroying towns and leaving badly wounded victims behind, even sorcery capable of mutating things at a sub-atomic level.

That also happens to be Sal Buscema's last issue as artist, at which point he's replaced by Steve Ditko working with a host of different artists. P. Craig Russell's the most frequent one credited for "finishes," working on 6 of the 17 issues Ditko penciled, but also Bob Layton, John Byrne, Brett Breeding, Joe Sinnott, and in the issue above, Steve Leialoha.

Most of the time it's still recognizably Ditko's later work, which is both good and bad. He's good at drawing the weird stuff, like when Rom ends up on Ego, the Living Planet. His human faces have an odd quality. Eyes and mouths too big, a lot of awkward postures for characters where I'm left wondering what they're doing with their arms.

Ditko's first 8 issues are the war's finale. Rom and Earth's forces learn what the Wraiths' plans are for Earth - turn to it into a new version of their old homeworld via a magic portal that will replace Earth's Sun with their own - and so the question becomes what Rom and Earth's defenders are prepared to do about it.

Specifically, what is Forge prepared to do about it. He was able to make a lesser version of Rom's Neutralizer, and could create one that would, powered by Rom's weapon, work on a planetary scale. But his neutralizer, in reliable Government Dickhead Peter Gyrich's hands, took away Storm's powers. And Gyrich, looming over Forge and Rom's shoulders like the most pervasive fart you've ever encountered, is not someone that needs a larger, more powerful version of that same weapon. So it's going to take some doing to convince Forge to build it. Which leads me to the conclusion some general ought to have just shot Gyrich in front of Forge and hey presto! Problem solved!

(Not really. The "problem solved" part, anyway. Always another dangerous lunatic in a position of power. Killing Gyrich is still a good plan.)

Once the war is done, Rom leaves Earth, and the book drifts for most of its last year. The lack of any supporting cast doesn't help. Brandy Clark, who had her humanity placed in the Starshine armor after the original was killed, and who was growing more brutal the longer the war ran (to be fair, the Wraiths had killed everyone in Clairton by that point), was turned back into a human in one of the Annuals. So she can't come along.Rick Jones, who got swept up after the Wraith attack with the tainted blood (because his attempt to give himself powers via gamma radiation is killing him) had hung around to, well basically be really fucking annoying. He yells at Rom or Brandy about different things, usually not being compassionate enough. How the hell did the Hulk not squish this idiot? No wonder Rom was so eager to leave Earth once the fighting was done. 

Mantlo sends Rom to a few different alien worlds, until he starts finding his old friends, the half-dozen or so Spaceknights that formed a sort of distinct unit with him during the war to defend Galador. Their homeworld got moved to another galaxy(?) by Galactus after Rom juked him out of eating it during his last trip home, hence Rom's wandering. They manage to find it, about the same time Brandy does (courtesy of the Beyonder in a Secret Wars II tie-in), and find things aren't great.

After Galactus pulled that stunt, Galador, feeling vulnerable, tries the Spaceknight program a second time, but the people selected this time sacrifice almost all their humanity. And with no immediate threat the new Spaceknights start throwing their weight around until they simply conquer the planet. (The person who tells Brandy all this allows that if there'd been an enemy to face, these Spaceknights might have fought for the planet. My suspicion is, most volunteered precisely because there was no immediate threat.)

The last 3 issues are a war (maybe a skirmish, it's pretty small numbers) between the 2nd generation Spaceknights, the few remaining human Galadorians, Brandy, and Rom and his Spaceknight friends. Brandy's threat to destroy their humanity flops, because most of them have no interest in becoming human again, and Rom keeps hesitating to go lethal. The combination of the two results in the deaths of everyone else, but hey, Rom keeps his hands clean. Even the very last of the 2nd generation, who did harbor plans of becoming human again, swipes Rom's Neutralizer when his humanity is lost, and kills himself.

It's a strange end. The other 1st generation Spaceknights are able to follow a signal from Scanner, one of Rom's friends, to Galador's new location, but all their humanities are destroyed. Tough shit for them, but Rom's, due to convoluted circumstances from his previous visit, still exists. So he gets to be human again (somehow adding the glowy orb of his humanity makes all his Spaceknight armor vanish), and he and Brandy get an entire planet to themselves, the 1st generation opting to watch over them from somewhere in space.

The last issue of ROM was the first I ever read, part of a batch of comics I got for Christmas. It didn't mean anything to me. Rom, Spaceknights, Brandy, Galador, what is all this? Heck, before I got the rest of the series, I thought the Brandy Daredevil meets during his time away from NYC in Nocenti's run was the same lady somehow. Looking at the entire series now, just, why? Why that approach? Why kill every single other Galadorian, or destroy their humanity? That's not what Rom fought for, sacrificed 200 years to achieve. To lay down his weapons and regain his humanity, yes. To find love, sure. To come home to an empty world, to live in the ruins of the civilization he once knew, no. Why not let the rest of the 1st generation regain their humanity, or the rebellion surviving, and Rom and Brandy working together to help the others rebuild Galador?

It's not a war allegory, where Rom returns from battle and finds himself unable to reintigrate in a society that knows nothing of what he experienced, because there is no society left. What there was, had been living in a state of desperate rebellion for however long it had been since his last visit, trying to avoid annihilation at the hands of their former fellow citizens. Which is a little like Brandy's experience when she first learned about the Wraiths, learning there are enemies all around. Except for the part where it was easy to see a Spaceknight coming.

If anything, it's like if Rom reached Earth too late, and the Wraiths plan to replace the Sun with their Black Sun already succeeded (which sounds like an issue of What If? Who is leading the rebellion? Captain America? Magneto? A Wolverine altered with Wraith science?) He'd still have to fight the Wraiths, but got an entire world arrayed against him, with no back-up from other Spaceknights this time. Would he hold to his principles then? If his stance here is anything to go by, yes. No killing. Is that the right call? Seems to have worked out for him here, not so much for anyone else. Yeah, really not sure what Mantlo was going for.

Sunday Splash Page #341

"Grievous Bodily Harm From Above," in Marvel Team-Up (vol. 1) #82, by Chris Claremont (writer), Sal Buscema and Steve Leialoha (artists), Ben Sean (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)

It feels like Marvel Team-Up started as a co-starring book for Spider-Man and the Human Torch, only to become essentially a second ongoing for Spider-Man after 3 issues. The Torch gets the occasional starring role in the first 50 issues (18, 23, 26, 29, 32, 36), plus a couple of co-star spots. There are a couple of issues focused on the Hulk teaming up with someone later on (Spider-Woman, Ka-Zar, Heroes for Hire) but it's Spidey's world for ~90% of the book's 150-issue run, so maybe that was always the intention.

Most of the time, each issue stands by itself, with some set of circumstances bringing Spider-Man in contact with another hero, and they have to work together to defeat some greater threat. Chris Claremont takes over as writer in issue 57, starting a 30+ issue stretch. While it wasn't unheard of before that for the events of one issue to spill into the next, Claremont seems to lean into that a lot more, and he sometimes stacks the guest stars, rather than coming up with reasons with last issues hero is gone by the next issue. Spidey gets tangled up in Davos stealing the chi of Shou-Lao from Iron Fist in issue 63, then works with Misty Knight and Colleen Wing in issue 64 to try and help Iron Fist not get killed fighting Davos.

Some of those work better than others. By the end of the story that starts in issue 82, Nick Fury's recruited Shang-Chi to help him, Spider-Man and the Black Widow. Maybe the Master of Kung Fu had some backstory with Viper or Silver Samurai I didn't catch, but it seemed a bit random.

Sometimes Spider-Man gets to be the hero, sometimes he gets bailed out by the guest star, or does something that helps the guest star save the day. Ms. Marvel might be the one who ultimately beats the Super-Skrull, but Spider-Man had to keep him busy until they could set things up for her to have the chance to win. Frog-Man catches the White Rabbit, but after Spidey caught the getaway van and took down the rest of the gang.

Like a lot of books we've looked at lately, Marvel Team-Up lends itself to selective reading. I own 16 issues out of the 150, with 10 of those written by Claremont. Mostly drawn by John Byrne or the Buscema/Leialoha duo. But looking at a cover gallery, there's almost that many other issues I read at some point. The cover promises a character I'm interested in, or at least a wild premise that makes me want to know more about what's actually happening.

Saturday Splash Page #134

"The Big Headache," in Spider-Woman (vol. 1) #45, by Chris Claremont (writer), Steve Leialoha (artist/colorist), Tom Orzechowski (letterer)

Take what meds you need for your arachnophobia, because Saturday Splash Page is kicking off a Summer of Spiders!

I assume the thinking behind Spider-Woman was that people loved Spider-Man, so why not Spider-Man, but a lady? Of course, Jessica Drew's powers are very different from Peter Parker's, her origin involved her parents being scientists and HYDRA sending her to kill Nick Fury (or something, I never bothered that much with that part of her history), the most similar part of her costume is the webs under the armpits.

And that's good, that she isn't just Gender-Swapped Spider-Man. Just, feels like kind of an odd approach.

Her first ongoing series ran 50 issues, a number none of the subsequent attempts have even gotten halfway to matching. But the book doesn't have much stability, with regular changes in creative teams. From what I could tell, Marv Wolfman wrote 8 issues. Mark Gruenwald handled 9 solo, plus one he wrote with Josh Wilburn and two with Steven Grant. Michael Fleisher took over for 12 issues, J.M. DeMatteis for 1. Claremont wrote 12 issues, plus 2 others where he and Leialoha are given co-writer credits. Then Ann Nocenti handled the last 4 issues.

I own about 10 issues now, and I know the gist of the early part of the run because another blogger was doing recaps of them once upon a time. (Sadly, all that's left of his Fortress of Fortitude blog is the farewell post back in '09.)

But the arc of the book is about what you'd expect with a constant rotation of creative teams. Each writer takes their own slant, largely discarding the cast the previous writer constructed in an effort to either find something that works, or just plays better to their strengths and preferences.

Jessica starts with an old magician for a friend and a SHIELD agent as a possible love interest while she tries to learn about her past and start a life. Gruenwald sends both those guys out a year into the book and while Jessica continues to struggle to keep a civilian life going, she faces a string of second-tier (or worse) villains, several of whom Gruenwald would use in his Captain America run as part of The Shroud's "Night Shift" crew.

Fleisher pairs Jessica with a paraplegic named Scottie, who seems to act as her version of Oracle, guiding her crimefighting remotely. Except Scottie is more than a bit of a chauvinist, who gets annoyed when Spider-Woman does silly things like focus on saving endangered civilians instead of beating up the bad guy.

Claremont and Leialoha make her a private detective, because it's an easy way to meld her civilian life with the superhero side. Claremont also brings in Yakuza and ninjas, because of course he does. At least it feels like they have a strong idea for what they want the book and her status quo to be. The character's not flailing for some bit of stability any longer.

Leialoha's one of the artists with the longest tenure on the book, as he was drawing some of the Fleisher-written issues as well. It's either him or Carmine Infantino, who drew a lot of the first two years. I prefer Leialoha, he does some strong layout work for the fight scenes, whether she's up against Flying Tiger in the skies over San Francisco, or fighting an entire group of ninjas in the shadowy confines of a high-rise construction site. His version of Jessica Drew dresses for comfort, while Spider-Woman is, I can't describe it. Leialoha uses a heavy line that makes her both solid and defined, but sparingly enough she looks smooth. He really emphasizes her quickness and grace when she's gliding, and the art plays to that very well. She looks like she wouldn't encounter much wind resistance, but she'd hit like a tank once she caught you.

The book ended on issue 50, with the conclusion of some long-standing grudge between Spider-Woman and Morgan le Fay. Really seems like Jessica punching out of her weight class, tangling with a sorceress Dr. Doom would respect.

Random Back Issues #116 - Daredevil #154

"Sinister yo-yo?" Matt's taken one too many shots to the head.

It feels like all the recent selections have been issues focused on set-up or exposition. Not this one. It's time for violence!

Daredevil's been hunting the Purple Man (rocking a cloak he must have stolen from Dracula), but Purple Man's got Matt's girlfriend, Heather Glenn under his control, along with a prison full of guards and convicts. If Daredevil doesn't play nice, Heather will shoot herself in the head.

Which leaves Hornhead up against four of his old foes: Gladiator, Jester, Cobra and Mr. Hyde. Oh come on, at least half those guys are total losers. What, the Enforcers weren't available? There's also no teamwork between the villains. Daredevil catches the sinister *chuckle* yo-yo and chucks the Jester Hyde's direction, but Hyde just backhands the moron away. Cobra tries to shoot Daredevil in the back, Matt simply ducks and lets the darts hit Gladiator.

Hyde's through fooling around and starts choking the life from Daredevil, shrugging off the best hits DD can throw. A mysterious shot knocks Hyde flat, courtesy of Paladin?! Who is also rocking a cape. I guess if you got Gene Colan drawing the book, everybody gets capes.

Paladin's after the bounty on Killgrave, but apparently he didn't read up on his target, because he gets close enough to be subject to the mind-control whammy. Still, he fights it off enough to shoot Purple Man instead of Daredevil, then seals up his costume so he's on internal air supply. Cobra and Gladiator are the only two left standing, and if they couldn't handle just Daredevil, they fold fast when the sides are even. Gladiator doesn't even get to finish saying "Great Ceasar's Gh - " before Daredevil says they've all heard that one before and gut punches him.

But Killgrave still has Heather pointing a gun at her own head. Paladin stands down, so DD grabs his gun, shoots the pistol out of Heather's hand, and now Killgrave's really up shit creek. He runs to a watchtower and tries blinding Daredevil with the spotlight. He'd learned Murdock was Daredevil, but assumed the blindness was a ruse. Realizing it wasn't, he lunges at Daredevil, screaming that he won't lose to a blind man.

Daredevil ducks and Killgrave falls into the ocean. Matt reflects it was too fast for him to save Killgrave, but also, he didn't he really try. Nor should he. Unfortunately, Purple Man would be back, repeatedly. Heather Glenn and Matt would eventually break up, and then Denny O'Neil would have her commit suicide during his tenure on the book. Because Murdock needed another dead girlfriend to self-flagellate over, apparently.

* See Sunday Splash Page #120 for a double-page depiction of the evil assemblage - Self-promoting Calvin

{3rd longbox, 50th comic. Daredevil #154, by Roger McKenzie (writer), Gene Colan (penciler), Steve Leialoha (inker/colorist), Novak (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #112 - Fantastic Four #296

Yes, more of that.

The 25th anniversary issue of Fantastic Four feels like it's following up on the conclusion of The Thing's series, where Ben was mutating further and decided to go off alone to die (pausing briefly to save the West Coast Avengers in issue 10 of their book).

Here, though, Ben is rocking (no pun intended) his traditional look as he tromps through the rain to where Reed's defective rocket crashed down. Bemoaning how he's still a 'walkin', breathin' monster', Ben enlists pilot and childhood friend Hopper Hertnecky to fly him to Monster Island. Hopper then visits the FF to tell them, Ben asked to be left alone, because he knew Reed would track him down sooner or later.

On the way out the door Hopper also, correctly, points out it's Reed's fault Ben's how he is, and makes his own plea to drop the issue. While Johnny flies around stopping bank robbers and beating himself up about dating Alicia, Sue finds Reed brooding and tells him, no, it's not Reed's fault Ben was transformed by cosmic rays Reed swore his spaceship was shielded against, and that Ben has been tormenting Reed all these years by sulking over his fate. His fate of being transformed into a rock monster because Reed was too certain of his own genius to allow more testing on his ship before asking Ben to pilot it.

Amazing that Sue manages to be more unlikable than Reed. Of course, she's the one who called Ben a coward for expressing doubts about the cosmic rays in the first place. So maybe she's just covering her own ass. I'm starting to think Sue deserves being married to Reed Richards.

Anyway, Reed's determined to have it out with Ben one last time, so the Fantastic Three fly to Monster Island, leaving She-Hulk, Alicia, and Wyatt behind. They find themselves immediately overwhelmed by all the monsters.

On Monster Island. Because they didn't bring the super-strong member of their team. What genius is driving this clown car?

They wake up to find The Thing standing over them, dressed like his new pal. That's right, Mole Man's got an entire society for ugly people, and Ben's his general! Having found a place he thinks he belongs, Ben wants to apologize to Reed for 'taking it out on him all those years.' I choose to believe Ben's just saying this to get them to go the fuck away. The last thing Reed Richards needs is people apologizing to him. Ben decides to be a good host and give them a tour, including showing them the enormous machine Mole Man promises will cause a new island to form in the middle of the Pacific, just for their society.

Reed's suspicious, especially once Mole Man calls them back, worried about such a breach of security. Then Alicia shows up, having asked Hopper to fly her to Monster Island. Quite why he listened, after insisting they should leave his friend be, I don't know. I guess Ben Grimm just has lousy taste in friends. Before she passes out, Alicia mumbles she had to come, so great was her fear of what Ben might do to Johnny. Ben later has an unproductive conversation with Alicia, where she says he was too self-absorbed and she needed someone gentle and understanding.

Re-read those qualifications, then consider she's dating Johnny Storm. Alicia might just be an idiot.

In a sour mood, Ben finds Reed and Sue making a ruckus looking for Johnny. Reed of course insists Ben needs to listen, so Ben punches him in the face. But it turns out Mole Man took revenge for Ben, using some machine to make Johnny, gasp, physically unattractive! Ben orders the lot of them sent to the surface, but Reed, never one to know when not to poke the bull, is determined to go back down. He's sure Mole Man's machine is going to create a new island through vulcanism, the resultant tsunamis killing millions.

He also describes Ben as, 'an innocent dupe whose only mistake is putting his trust in the wrong man!' What else is new? Meanwhile, in trying to get answers out of Mole Man, Ben learns his buddy has a private holosuite where he pretends to hang out at parties with conventionally attractive women.

Confronted with the distressing reality his new friend would rather be with the pretty people up above and not the "uglies" he claims are like him, Ben is not in a great mood when he finds his old friends trying to trash island-maker. But he listens to Reed and helps wreck it, which causes the entire place to collapse. Johnny's hit by falling ceiling and Ben carries him to Mole Man's lab, and convinces him to undo what he did to Johnny. Matchstick can't be moved for 7 minutes, so Ben stands there holding up the ceiling while Mole Man retreats to seeming certain death in his crumbling dream world. He would, at minimum return in Byrne's second Sensational She-Hulk stint, trying to force her to marry him.

Reed, Sue, Alicia and Hopper watch the island collapse from an inflatable raft. Reed's determined to swim(?) down to get Ben and Johnny, over Sue's objections, but the guys surface and it's now six people, including a 500-pound rock guy, in one inflatable raft. But Ben seems willing to rejoin the FF rather than use Reed for dental floss, so, whoo-hoo?

{4th longbox, 112th comic. Fantastic Four #296, by Jim Shooter and Stan Lee (writers), Barry Windsor-Smith, Kerry Gammill, Ron Frenz, Al Milgrom, John Buscema, Marc Silvestri, and Jerry Ordway (pencilers), Windsor-Smith, Vince Colletta, Bob Wiacek, Klaus Janson, Steve Leialoha, Joe Rubenstein, and Joe Sinnott (inkers) Glynis Oliver (colorist), John Workman (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #251

"A Talking Duck Walks Into a Diner," in Howard the Duck #10, by Steve Gerber (writer), Gene Colan (penciler), Steve Leialoha (inker), Jan Cohen (colorist), Jim Novak (letterer)

After his team-ups with Man-Thing and some early solo adventures in Cleveland in Giant-Size Man-Thing, Steve Gerber got the go-ahead for an ongoing series for Howard the Duck.

Gerber continually gets Howard mixed-up in adventures that are somehow both bizarre and mundane. In the first two issues, a sorcerer tries to gain control of the universe, but really he's more of an accountant trying to balance - or perhaps cook - the universe's ledger to grant him that power. That adventures is also where Howard makes his friend real friend among the hairless apes, in the form of Beverly Switzler, who was there for what she thought was a modeling gig but turned out to be a human sacrifice.

From there, even as Howard and Beverly try to find some way to handle stuff like paying bills or finding some measure of satisfaction in life, he keeps running afoul of a mentally ill woman who accuses him of wanting to steal her kidneys. When Howard finally hits his boiling point and they get in a fight, it ends in court where she appears as an entirely reasonable and ordinary woman who was brutally attacked by this crazy duck. Later on it's Dr. Bong, who is really just a yellow journalist who made a career off writing headlines that weren't technically lies, but were phrased so people would take them in the worst, most salacious manner. He's also had a fixation on Beverly and resents Howard because of it.

Instead of a bell over his head, he oughta be wearing a fedora.

Howard's in a world he never knew, but one where he can recognize many of the things he (or Gerber) think are wrong with it. But he can't seem to grasp it well enough to avoid nearly constant pitfalls. Or maybe he just has too many principles to let things slide. Gene Colan, who takes over as the regular series artist with issue 4 and remains on the book up through issue 31 (minus a couple of fill-ins and a two part reunion of Gerber and artist Val Mayerick), is a good fit. With the swirling shadows and slightly distorted expressions, there's a nightmarish quality to the world Howard inhabits. It's a big, dark, crazy world full of things that try to harm a duck just wanting to get by with sanity intact.

Somewhere around the time Howard is anointed a third-party presidential candidate, I start to feel like I'm watching a slow-motion picture of Gerber having a mental breakdown. Howard grows steadily more frustrated and irritated and cynical until finally, when confronted with a nutty Canadian that ruined his campaign (now wearing a beaver-themed exo-armor), Howard simply walks away. He can't take any more, and he sort of drifts for the next year of the book. He gets sucked into things, or things happen to him, and Howard just reacts, survives, and keeps shuffling along.

It's during this stretch where Klaus Janson takes over as Colan's regular inker from Steve Leialoha. Personally, I think the book looks better with Leialoha. Janson's inks solidify the characters and the world too much, the shadows recede. Given Howard in this stretch really seems beaten, just going through the motions with his head down, content to forget about Beverly, to simply hope Dr. Bong will be content with his victory and leave a poor duck in peace, it feels the world ought to be more terrifying. Howard's surrendered, he's vulnerable.

But I guess you could argue that by not fighting the madness he's broken some of its terror on him. He doesn't care any longer, so why should it bother him? Your mileage will vary.

Bill Mantlo's actually the one who writes Howard's eventual big showdown with Dr. Bong, concluding in issue 31, which is where the collections I have ends. The way I understand it, Gerber had fallen out with Marvel by then, and he didn't write the book again, although he did use Howard during his stint on Sensational She-Hulk (which I think I prefer to Byrne's, honestly). 

Howard was I think persona non grata in Marvel for a long time, or smply didn't fit with the '90s, Image-ized Marvel. I guess after Keith Giffen, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning brought Rocket Raccoon back out of mothballs (and ignored Peter David apparently turning Rocket into a trophy, which, good call), Marvel figured, what the heck, why not the angry talking duck that hangs out with Man-Thing? Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones gave Howard an ongoing series as a private detective in the mid-2010s, though I only read the parts where he interacted with Gwenpool or Squirrel Girl. My impression is, rather than use Howard to comment on our society like Gerber did, Zdarsky commented on the world the superheroes inhabited.

Sunday Splash Page #120

"The Good Old Days Weren't So Good," in Daredevil #154, by Roger McKenzie (writer), Gene Colan (penciler), Steve Leialoha (inker/colorist), Novak (letterer)

I only own one Daredevil comic from the pre-Miller years, and I don't remember how I ended up with this one. Someone gave it to me, but the identity of the person is lost. But hey, Gene Colan art, I couldn't pass that up, right?

I feel as though the broad strokes history of Daredevil is that he was a cheerful swashbuckler type until Frank Miller threw him into a world of ninjas and dead girlfriends, and that's largely where he's stayed ever since, minus the occasional creative team that goes against the flow in one way or the other.

Don't know if that's true or not. This issue is about Daredevil being forced to fight several of his worst foes or the Purple Man will make his girlfriend, Heather Glenn, kill herself. Daredevil spends the entire issue being desperate and furious. Paladin, of all characters, ends up coming to the rescue. It's the only time I've ever seen that guy wearing a cape. The Purple Man knows Daredevil is Matt Murdock, and deduces that Murdock really is blind after his attempt to use a spotlight on him proves ineffective. Purple Man even falls to his "death" by lunging stupidly at Daredevil, because he can't accept losing to a blind man. The enemies are more brightly colored and grandiose in their speech than Miller's, but the broad strokes are kind of similar. If there's any swashbuckling in here, it's Paladin, whose a cocky merc.

This issue does end with DD and Heather walking off together, so that's a bright spot compared to how things went with the whole Bullseye/Elektra thing.

Heather Glenn seems like the forgotten woman in the long string of Murdock's failed relationships. It's always about Karen Page, or Elektra, or maybe the Black Widow (the only one to survive largely unscathed). But I think Heather got engaged to Matt, then forced into breaking it off, and then the late Denny O'Neill had her commit suicide about 65 issues after this one. In that one, she calls Matt up, drunk, and pretends to be in trouble to get him to come visit. He ignores a domestic disturbance as a result, the woman ends up being killed, and then Matt yells at Heather when she calls again. You'd think the time a deeply depressed woman reached out to Daredevil for help, only to get shoved over a cliff instead, would get more play. More guilt for the good Catholic boy.

That comic might actually be the first Daredevil comic I owned. If not, it's the second behind the issue of Born Again where Matt loses it, tries to fight the Kingpin in plainclothes and gets his dick kicked in.

Sunday Splash Page #111

"Hell, Man, Who Doesn't?" in Chronos #7, by John Francis Moore (writer), Paul Guinan (penciler), Denis Rodler and Steve Leialoha (inkers), Mike Danza (colorist), Ken Bruzenak (letterer)

I bought all of Chronos in a back issue hunt a few years back. It doesn't seem to come up as often as a lot of the other '90s DC stuff that usually gets touted - Starman, the Peyer/Morales Hourman - but I must have seen a few favorable mentions somewhere. Plus, it only lasted 11 issues, so it's not like it was a massive undertaking to hunt down. Although I just realized I forgot to get the DC One Million tie-in. Whoops.

Walker Gabriel starts as someone who befriends the original Chronos, and builds himself a suit that can temporarily freeze time. He gets manipulated by a guy who wants to become the master of all time, and things just spiral from there. He struggles to return to his time, and keeps drawing the attention of other people who move through time. All he wants to do is get home and get back to committing crimes, but he's surrounded by people trying to preserve time in one manner or another, or bend it to their will. Surprisingly only runs into Rip Hunter once. Does encounter Destiny of the Endless, though. Not sure if that's better or worse. Probably worse. Means you're playing in the deep end of the pool.

Paul Guinan draws the whole series, and Steve Leiahola inks most of it. I don't know if the clothing in the past time periods is accurate, but they make it distinctive. Helps that the settings are usually wildly different. Renaissance Italy versus late-1800s Kansas. Also that the Star City of 2113 is having a Neo-Victorian revival. Everything old is new again. Leiahola seems to have a lighter touch with his inking than Rodier in this issue. Shadows aren't as heavy, not as much linework on faces. The art's clean, straightforward, expressive. It works for drawing regular people and it works for drawing weird monsters and beings from outside time.

Random Back Issue #10 - Chronos #4

Sir, I can assure you, wrapping a towel around your head the same color as your bathrobe does not work as a "look".

Hey, a comic from 1998! Chronos was not about the Chronos who used to fight the Atom a lot, flying around on a hoverboard shaped liked a sundial. Although that Chronos does appear at the beginning and end of this issue, discussing the negative side effects of jumping around through time.

This series was about Walker Gabriel, who built a suit that lets him freeze time to steal stuff. But things have gone wrong, and now he's being tossed through time. We start in a city called Chronopolis, where we find out that Walker helping a guy named Vyronis to build a machine called a Timesmasher last issue, he's helped that guy become Lord of All Time, or something. Demonstrated when the guy shows up and kills Rip Hunter (who I would swear is wearing a suit and tie under that spacesuit. Clearly not a trait he picked up from Booster Gold.)

So Walker's back to the 15th Century to fix his mistake, with a improved, untested version of his suit. Through the magic of Comic Book Science, the machine being hit by "particle bursts" somehow soups up his suit to where it can jump through time and space at will. Which gets him and Vyronis temporarily dumped in Kamandi's time before they return to Italy, and then Walker returns to the present, rather than let himself be arrested by the "Linear Authority", represented by one guy wearing a dumb suit of armor and a monocle.

I never thought you could look bad with a monocle, but this Traven guy managed it. Great hustle.

I don't think Walker ever makes a return trip to the confines of the 23rd Century. If I remember right, he may have stopped the wrong threat back in the 15th Century. Either that, or he's trusting the wrong person. I can't remember which. Time travel story, could be both at the same time.

[Longbox #3, 66th comic. Chronos #4, by John Francis Moore (writer), Paul Guinan (penciler), Steve Leialoha (inker), Mike Danza (colorist), Ken Bruzenak (letterer]