Lazarus Churchyard

Warren Ellis & D'Israeli Lazarus Churchyard (2001)
As you may recall, Lazarus Churchyard was approximately the main feature in Blast!, a monthly anthology comic which lasted for seven issues back in 1991 at the height of the hoohaa of the comic having grown up - meaning Batman was suddenly allowed to say rude words and kill the occasional paedophile. Blast! had replaced Speakeasy, a mag about comics rather than specifically featuring them, which pissed me off because I liked Speakeasy, and Blast! wasn't actually that good. Lazarus Churchyard sounded like something which couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to be in either 2000AD or Deadline, and even the name seemed to be trying far too hard to be weird, like one of those lazy steampunk juxtapositions - Jedediah P. Mainframe or whatever; plus it's Warren Ellis. Apparently his work is amazing, except for the stuff I've tried to read, which is weird.

Anyway, Nick Sweeney seemed to rate this thing and suggested I give it another go, and then a week later I happened across this collection in Half Price Books, which seemed too timely a coincidence to ignore.

To be fair to Warren Ellis, Lazarus Churchyard is pretty much him finding his feet as a writer, learning on the job, so to speak. It's more or less a list of shocking or startling juxtapositions like one of those Sigue Sigue Sputnik songs which is just a tally of futuristic sounding things - dead man butterfly effect sex toy foetal heroin and so on; and Lazarus Churchyard - Keith Richards reimagined as that Sisters of Mercy album which no-one bought, the one with Tony James on bass - moves from one startling thing to another, then to another, and that's the story. I'm a little cynical regarding this narrative technique because I was once involved in an unfortunately similar enterprise, so I can tell when a comic book writer is trying to distract from the possibility of his having no fucking clue what he's doing. The ability to gift one's characters with sardonic or ostentatiously edgy observations is not the same thing as being able to tell a story.

However, none of this takes into account the art of D'Israeli, which is rich, angular, and absolutely breathtaking, and so much so as to take up most of the slack; and some of what we have here is surely sufficient to warrant his canonisation in one of those greatest of all time lists. Therefore, unless I'm just making excuses, the problem with Lazarus Churchyard may actually be to do with expectations, specifically my expectations. It seems to present itself as something profound and revealing when actually it's just a Ramones album which ticks the boxes you would expect it to tick, and ticks them very well. It's nothing deep - it's simply a list of things which seem cool or interesting, and I guess maybe that's enough.

Fantastic Four versus the X-Men

Chris Claremont, Jon Bogdanove & Terry Austin

Fantastic Four versus the X-Men (1987)
I chose this as light bedtime reading on evenings when it seemed like Philip K. Dick's Exegesis might be a bit too much, which could justifiably be characterised as a retreat into childhood - although I was twenty-two when I first read this and not technically a child, just emotionally behind and lacking in worldly experience.

I brought the occasional Marvel comic back from school when I was a kid, usually borrowed from a friend. I quite specifically recall my mother sneering with unusual severity at the cover of Spiderman Comics Weekly #111, which would have been January 1975*, and which imprinted on me the idea that these things were trashy, shameful, and therefore forbidden. Normally she wouldn't have seen the comic but I had to get a parental signature so that I could join FOOM, or Friends of Old Marvel.

I didn't really go anywhere near superheroes after that, excepting a few issues of the Defenders and something or other reprinting the Inhumans. 2000AD and Doctor Who met most of my science-fiction needs and didn't seem to draw quite such opprobrium, possibly because there was no-one wearing a cape on the cover, meaning they could therefore be smuggled past the border patrol as something faintly cultural by virtue of not being American.

Then within about a year of leaving home at the age of eighteen, it suddenly dawned on me that I could now read that caped shit until my eyes hurt, and there was no-one to stop me. Furthermore, I now had the means to buy many different titles thus enabling me to keep track of what the fuck was going on in the wider Marvel universe. Part of the appeal of the Defenders had been the glimpse it afforded of a more expansive but otherwise mysterious narrative. I slipped into monthly expeditions to Forbidden Planet up in that London, usually spending about fifty quid at a time. I accrued a massive collection of American comics. Then around '92 it became obvious that I had to shed some of what I had accumulated for practical reasons, and it was mostly the Marvel stuff. Rob Liefeld had become involved and the current titles had all turned to shite, plus it seemed like a clean break might not hurt - kicking the habit as though it were an actual chemical addiction, all or nothing, and most of the caped stuff went.

Thirty years later, my curiosity has built such a head of steam that I've started buying back all those issues I once owned, which as mid-life crises go is probably healthier than sports cars or banging teenagers. The element of curiosity is my specifically wondering how bad those comics really could have been given that they clearly meant a lot to me at the time; and would the magic, whatever it was, have endured? Strangely, it has in most cases, despite my now reading these things with more brain cells at my disposal, being arguably more educated and more emotionally developed. I cleared out the caped stuff because it struck me as childish and therefore symptomatic of my own immaturity, and of course I held onto all that sophisticated stuff by Alan Moore and the rest; but only now have I noticed that this was itself an immature perspective.

I'm reading Watchmen instead of X-Factor. I'm a big boy now!
 

Anyway, I read the Mephisto limited series a few nights back. It was a lot of fun, but definitely a children's comic, and there's not much more to be said about it. Fantastic Four versus the X-Men is likewise a children's comic, but one written by Chris Claremont which might therefore be seen to epitomise everything which drew me to the genre and then kept me reading.

The story is fairly simple. Shadowcat of the X-Men is unwell and only Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four has the scientific knowhow to save her, but he experiences a crisis of confidence and refuses, fearing he will only make the situation worse. Dr. Doom, mortal enemy of just about everyone but also a brilliant scientist steps in, offering to cure Shadowcat; and they all have a fight.

Where Claremont succeeded was emphasising the soap opera aspect of these stories, and either sufficiently downplaying the more ludicrous elements of the genre so as to keep them from getting in the way, or else disguising them as something more like science-fiction. So maybe the superpowers, mutant or otherwise, are preposterous, but by passing our guys off as sympathetic monsters, we never have to think about the truly stupid stuff such as why anyone would dress up as a bat in response to the death of their parents, or even the absurd frequency with which strangers need rescuing from burning buildings. Instead of something which pulls towards the status quo of upholding justice and jailing bad guys, the world of our mutant superheroes is actually pretty fucking weird with plenty of wiggle room for shifting moral foundations, playing on the sort of subjects which will tend to preoccupy all but the most stupid teenagers. This dovetails nicely with that thing about comic book narrative being a case of messing up everyone's lives and then trying to get them straightened out - reforming the villainous Magneto as a sympathetic character for one. Claremont did this a lot, but framed his dilemmas in such a way as to present the illusion of there being something real at stake. Here we have Shadowcat, whose molecules are drifting apart, faced with her own extinction, and the writing, pacing, timing and art are so perfectly judged as to evoke genuine tragedy.

Claremont writes in the tradition of Stan Lee, moving his story along with a third person subjective narrator prone to rhetorical questions in Marvel Shakespearian.

Did you really think to do that much, Reed Richards?

As narrative, it's the opposite of Warren Ellis trying to fool us into thinking we're watching a film. It's chatty and probably a bit camp, but as with anything, you have to make some effort to work with the genre rather than expecting Sartre with capes and superpowers - an approach which will lead only to disappointment.

Here Claremont tells a story spelled out in huge, brash brush strokes with everything sign posted and plenty of sentiment, and somehow he gets the balance absolutely right, resulting in a story which is never too much or too little of anything, meaning that while it remains a book which seems obviously aimed at ten-year old boys, I can still read it at the age of fifty-three without feeling like I'm watching Dora the Explorer; because the elements which keep it interesting - the shock of the weird and the soap opera - don't speak to any one specific reading age.

I'm really glad that I grew up so much as to be able to read this sort of thing again.

*: I had to look this up, scanning through page after page of internet to find a cover I recognised. This search has additionally brought to my attention the fact of this particular issue having been drawn by Gil Kane, so I probably shouldn't have placed so much stock in my mother's verdict on this occasion.

New Universal

Warren Ellis & Salvador Larroca New Universal (2007)
New Universe was a line of eight related comic book titles published by Marvel back in 1986, in part to mark the company's twenty-fifth anniversary. New Universe introduced superheroes to a world without Gods or aliens, in other words, a world pretty much like our own. The sales pitch was that back in the sixties, Superman was able to lift up the corner of a building as though it were simply a massive box resting on the ground, but Marvel had introduced buildings with electrical wiring and plumbing as well as heroes who worried about acne and mortgage repayments; and now they were taking the realism one step further, possibly having become aware of industry buzz preceding the publication of Watchmen; or it was Marvel arrogantly thinking they too could do independent comics, as Neil Gaiman suggested because he's a fucking genius and is able to understand the sort of stuff which thickies such as you or I might need explaining. At least I think it was Neil Gaiman. It could have been Rick Veitch.

Anyway, with the best will in the world, the New Universe titles were still very much eighties Marvel comics - low on moody homages to noir cinema, but plenty of captions and thought bubbles expressing the fear that Lulabelle might not be quite so keen if she finds out about the terrible power which I now wield. These were still comics for kids, and being of developmentally equivalent age at the time, I personally thought they were a lot of fun; which is probably why it had all gone tits up by the early nineties. Imagine then, my excitement when I discovered that Marvel had given it another shot back in 2007, when I'd been looking the other way.

Warren Ellis too; and I've heard such good things about Warren Ellis, even if what I've actually read of his has been distinctly underwhelming. Perhaps inevitably, this isn't the New Universe I remember, but a re-imagining of the same characters and situations, something taken much more seriously, because there's nothing which isn't betterised by being taken much more seriously; so it's reet classy sans thought bubbles or any of those silly captions which spoil the illusion of our watching summink sophisticated like one of those French films where nobody says nuffink and you usually get to see tits at some point. Also there's the superflow which is a bit like something from The Authority, and there are secretive government meetings discussing what is to be done about the superhero problem, just like you'd get on an episode of Torchwood.

Brilliant.

It looks very nice, but I preferred the New Universe when it was stupid.

So what was the thing Warren Ellis wrote which was good?

Anyone?

The Ultimates

Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch & Andrew Currie
The Ultimates volume one (2002)
I'm confused. For some reason I was under an impression of this having been the gritty version of Marvel's Avengers which inspired The Authority by Warren Ellis and prompted Alan Moore to apologise for that whole violent, unhappy superheroes with herpes and criminal convictions trope resulting from the entire comics industry having missed the point of Watchmen; but the dates all seem to be in the wrong order, so I have no idea which came first, who inspired what, or whose fault it is.

Well anyway, if nothing else, it's fairly clear that The Ultimates was a significant influence on Marvel's big screen version of the Avengers, a film I very much enjoyed as it happens, although  enjoyed without necessarily wanting to rush out and see it again. The Ultimates, I guess taking cues from The Authority, re-imagined Marvel's Avengers from the ground up, and being sprung forth from the biro of Mark Millar, it's well told, brilliantly observed, and undeniably cinematic - partially helped by great art, of course. The marginally more fanciful elements of the mythology are revised to aid suspension of disbelief, so the Hulk no longer results from Banner's exposure to transforming radiation, and we learn that basic biology prevents Giant Man from growing taller than sixty feet, this being the limit beyond which his bones would no longer be able to support his body. I'm sure Richard Dawkins would still find something to moan about, but you have to make a few allowances, otherwise you're just left with a story about a guy called Marty who sells shrimp from the back of his van.

As a comic book, it's impressive and kind of fascinating, but is let down by the fact of most of its characters being horrible tossers, presumably for the sake of Alan Moore patented gritty realism, without much in the way of wit to redeem them - which is why the film worked better, I thought. Additionally, the scene in which Hank Pym beats up his wife, and the rampaging Hulk's apparent intention to rape some former girlfriend cast an extraordinarily unpleasant tone over the whole endeavour, and enough so as to ensure that I probably won't be bothering to pick up further volumes. I've defended Mark Millar's gratuitous use of shock on previous occasions because for the most part I tend to think he gets it just right and has thus generally been able to justify a few readers throwing up over their comic collections, but this is horribly misjudged, and is probably exactly what his critics have been talking about all along.

Despite everything this book has going for it - yuck!

The Authority volume three: Earth Inferno

Mark Millar, Frank Quitely & Chris Weston
The Authority volume three: Earth Inferno (2001)
Just for the sake of a recap, The Authority, created by Warren Ellis - the most talented writer ever to sit down in front of a computer with a nice cup of tea, a packet of biscuits, and a freshly ironed thinking cap - is the most violently innovative comic ever published, effectively inventing the superhero genre, for there were no superhero comics prior to The Authority.

No there weren't.

Sarcasm aside, The Authority is frequently cited as the first big-screen superhero book, or at least it's cited as such in the three places I've looked, one of these being the back cover of an earlier volume. This amounts to admittedly beautifully drawn pages of costumed types throwing planets at each other, or something similarly reliant on scale, combined with a dearth of the requisite captions, subtitles, or thought bubbles by which our living God might lament how Ellie-Sue never seems to notice him in class on account of only having eyes for that big bully, Brad Bradford. It's the sort of thing that I would impertinently suggest is a piece of piss if you've got a decent artist on board, just as it's a piece of piss making spooky music if you have a good microphone, a ton of reverb and a stack of shitty teenage poems about skulls and skeletons and stuff; so I'm saying that I don't really buy The Authority as anything particularly startling, or at least as anything that hasn't already been done by Jean Giraud thirty years ago; or even Jack Kirby, I suppose it could be argued.

That said, as is often the case with that which appears wrought by simple means, it takes genuine skill to get it right, and Mark Millar continues to impress in this respect, even when teamed up with Frank Quitely, the natural shoe-in for that long awaited Jimmy Hill and Lionel Richie crossover graphic novel. Whilst much of Earth Inferno superficially resembles the biggest Hollywood action blockbuster ever to be shoved up the Andromeda galaxy's back passage with a fist made out of purest anti-time - it works in ways far beyond the means of all those noisy, soulless Bruce Willis vehicles, achieving scale with great art and conveying tone through the magic of genuine wit and knowing when to shut up; as opposed to ramping up the orchestra into an endless cycle of empty emotional crescendos punctuated by jokes about not losing face as someone has their face sliced off with a penisary quantum laser.

I know I'm about a decade late to this party, but Mark Millar really does seem to make the work of so many other comic book writers read like fanzine level tailored-to-order hack work, as unfortunately indicated by shorter back up strips from Joe Casey, Paul Jenkins, and Warren Ellis included in this collection, none of which are terrible, but none of which I can actually recall in any detail despite only having read them yesterday evening.

The Authority volume one: Restless

Warren Ellis & Bryan Hitch The Authority volume one: Restless (1999)
What can I say in my defence? I'd already read volume two and concluded that the work of Warren Ellis was probably mostly wank smuggled in under the comics radar on the grounds of him holding a British passport, but it was cheap and Bryan Hitch's art is beautiful throughout. Give the fucker a second chance, I thought to myself.

The Authority is the first great superhero team book of the twenty-first century. Beside it, everything else seems pale and stale and repetitive. Be honest.

That would be Grant Morrison's introduction. Quite aside from wondering which Alan Moore title he was probably referring to in the veiled terms of everything else, I really don't get how The Authority constituted a major departure from a million other examples of late twentieth-century caped landfill. It's set in a world where super-powered humans actually do big scale stuff like saving the starving millions, and threats tend to be threats to the entire planet illustrated by splash page after spectacular splash page of four million epic occurrences all exploding at once, but I wasn't aware of any of that being particularly revolutionary even back in 1999. If anything, it just reads like a template for modern Doctor Who - everything being the biggest everything that has ever been scored to the four billion loudest Philharmonic orchestras ever to drown out the big bang itself punctuated by the usual generically cinematic dialogue just to remind you there's a story buried under there somewhere - this ends here, you don't have to do this, and the usual crap that passes for wit in whatever action-packed blockbuster Matt Damon landed this week. I'm not saying it's terrible, just that if you like a side order of narrative content whilst having your eyes burned out by page after page of prog rock album cover artwork as big as the sky itself, you might be disappointed. The second half of the collection gets a little better as Ellis daringly recycles one of Alan Moore's old Captain Britain stories, garnishing his versions of alternative England with the inevitable Dan Dare pastiche, although at times it's difficult to tell what's supposed to be happening over the noise of amplified awesome.

That said, the art really is fantastic; or don't know about your brain but you look all right, as Graham Bonnet so charmingly sang on Rainbow's* 1980 hit single 'All Night Long'. In other words The Authority is fine providing you don't expect too much in the way of conversation.

*: Obviously here I'm referring to the version of Rainbow formed by Deep Purple trombonist Richie Blackmore as opposed to the popular children's television show which brought George, Bungle and the somewhat futuristic Zippy to the forefront of the nation's consciousness.

The Authority Volume Two: Under New Management

Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch, Mark Millar & Frank Quitely

The Authority Volume Two: Under New Management (2000)
I seem to have heard a lot about Warren Ellis, but nothing more detailed than yeah, he's really good. I recall wincing at his Lazarus Churchyard strip in the understandably short-lived Blast!, and considering that back in 1991 it only took an X-prefix or references to Aleister Crowley to fool me into believing I had experienced quality product, that must have been some serious wank. Even the name Lazarus Churchyard - if it was music you just know it would have been some post-ironic steampunk-goggle-wearing technogoth toss buried under four tons of digital reverb. I browsed a copy of Warren's apparently amazing Transmetropolitan in a comic shop at some point, but it bore an uncanny resemblance to self-consciously edgy cyberpunk landfill so I presumed it had nothing to offer. I could be wrong, but y'know...

The Authority is a revisionist superhero series, because if there's one thing the world needs, it's another team of super-powered cartoon characters with tidily flawed personalities and erectile dysfunction...

Okay - bit harsh maybe. The Authority actually isn't bad, and no-one could possibly deny that the art is beautiful, although the Warren Ellis issues reprinted here - and keep in mind that he created this title in the first place - do little to contradict or expand favourably upon my impression of him as a writer. Snappy lines punctuated by entire pages bereft of dialogue can work, or it can read like shorthand cool - the comic book equivalent of underlighting one's face by flashlight whilst pulling stern expressions and growling Shakespeare with a German accent. I mean it's okay, but it's a bit obvious.

The key to writing superheroes used to be in getting Doctor Octopus to a branch of Subway so as to have Spiderman crack jokes specifically tailored to the situation about knuckle sandwiches or whole wheat rolls of justice or whatever, and this is surely just the ergonomic modern equivalent. I have no idea whether Warren Ellis is currently working on some steampunk title, or whether he's pooped out a fucking Torchwood novel, but I wouldn't be surprised at either.

However, once we come to the Mark Millar issues reprinted herein, things definitely look up. For some time Millar was allegedly known within the comics trade as - if you'll excuse the schoolyard sexual politics - Grant Morrison's bum boy in reference to the obvious influence of baldy's writing, unless of course those two really were engaged in red hot manly action. Millar may well be no more than the Poundland Grant Morrison, or it could be that they both tend to to laugh at the same jokes; but either way he's still immensely entertaining, writing loud and stupid without losing any of the more delicate touches - even doing a bit of a Pat Mills with a thinly disguised parody of Marvel's Avengers. If it's value brand Grant Morrison, then at least it forges the Grant Morrison who used to tell stories rather than just photocopying a pair of Genesis P. Orridge's underpants and give you a spooky look meaning it's all connected!

To pause for a moment of potentially monumental pretension, in Studies in Classic American Literature D.H. Lawrence wrote:

An artist is usually a damned liar. Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

Even with a slightly poor fit in terms of Mark Millar being writer rather than critic, he nevertheless does a good job of saving this tale from its creator. Frank Quitely still has some weird shit going on with all those massive chins, but never mind.