The DC Spirit - First Wave Part Two!

Following the mini-series The First Wave, The Spirit is awarded a second DC series which begins with a new number one. The first issue features an alternative cover by Mark Shultz who also writes the first three issues. Ladronn is the primary cover artist and does a magnificent job for most all of the series. The interior artist is Moritat who gives us a gritty but potent and atmospheric Central City, just right for crime. The Octopus is in this one but reimagined as the mysterious leader of eight crime families. The tone is more serious as The Spirit must fight for his life and the lives of his allies. In this one Ebony White is reimagined as a woman, a tough and sassy young lady who gives as good as she gets. The Spirit is also assisted by a what I dub the "Central City Irregulars", a gang of street kids who feed him info. Commissioner Dolan is presented as somewhat more corrupt police man but one finds his way in a dangerous environment. Ellen is present and empowered as well. 

David Hine takes over as the writer and remains steadfast alongside the artists for most of the run. We get some hard-hitting stories about drugs and their deadly effects. 

In the first nine issues of this run each issue also included an black and white short story back-up by a wide range of talents including writers Denny O'Neil, Harlan Ellison, Michael Uslan, Marv Wolfman, David Lapham, Brian Azzarello, Jan Strnad, Walter Simonson, and Paul Dini. The artists were Bill Sienkiewicz, Kyle Baker, Justiniano, Phil Winslade, Mike Kaluta, Eduardo Risso, Rich Corben, Jordi Bernet, and Mike Ploog. 

Hine and Moritat continue with their ongoing saga of The Spirit's battle against The Octopus gangs. The mystery of the Octopus is never solved though, and I guess we'll just have to live with that. 

Matthew Sturges and Victor Ibanez step in for one issue which offers up a light-hearted romp all about the tragic death of a cartoonist and original art. 

John Paul Leon steps in on the art for the penultimate issue. 

The final issue features a trio of short stories in black and white by writers Howard Chaykin, Paul Levitz, and Will Pfeifer. The artists are Brian Bolland, P. Craig Russell and Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez. The comic looks magnificent. 

I'm not aware that any of these issues were ever offered up in trades, but they should be. The black and white stories would make for a true-blue all-star offering of some great Spirit stories. And that wraps up The Spirit's stay at DC in new stories with a single exception produced in conjunction with IDW. But more on that later. 

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Crisis On Infinite Earths Day!

George Perez was born on June 9th in 1954. Perez was one of the Bronze Ages most significant artists. He began at Marvel on such projects as the White Tiger and later the Avengers. It was this work that allowed him to migrate to DC and work with Marv Wolfman on The New Teen Titans. The huge success of that series made it possible for Wolfman and Perez to revamp the entire DC Universe in the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

Doubtless one of the most significant publications in comic book history the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths was a true game changer for the industry. Twelve glorious issues produced with ardor and gusto by Marv Wolfman and the spectacular George Perez transformed not only the landscape of the DC Universe but also the landscape of how comic books were conceived and manufactured.

(World War II Heroes Before The Crisis)

It served as a capstone to my DC buying interests at the time and soon after the series, I traded away my originals, since having replaced them with a handsome trade some time ago.

(World War II Heroes After The Crisis)

I haven't the strength to try and cobble a clumsy attempt at a summary of this story, but suffice it to say that the assembled heroes of all the worlds of the former DC multiverse battle a godlike being who seeks to destroy nearly everything and create an anti-matter counterpart so he can have absolute control over what's left. Nearly all the worlds are obliterated and the heroes on them either disappear into the ether of memory or become part of a brand-new world which contains fragments of all that had preceded it.

I will not bother with spoilers, but if you haven't yet read Crisis, you really need to, and don't read further because I will assume everyone has a thorough knowledge of the events now thirty or more years gone. I am just going to comment on events which stood out for me in individual issues. 

I loved Earth-3 and the villainous Crime Syndicate was given a pretty heady send off. Loved seeing Blue Beetle in a new comic book and drawn exceedingly well by George Perez.

Loved seeing the original Superman on the team sent by the Monitor into the past. His presence gave the whole affair a real gravity.

The battles are furious and it's hard to keep track, but the western heroes were fun to see assembled and the deaths of The Losers was a harbinger (pun intended) of things to come.

It all ends, and we for the first really get a sense of the scale of this epic. The new Doctor Light never really gelled for me, but I admit her acerbic tone does add some nice spice to this story, her heroism not certain by any means.

George Perez at his mightiest with a spaceship full of heroes. I cannot think of a single other artist who could've done this series so well. (Many have tried, none have succeeded so well.)

One of the weaknesses of the series is that the Anti-Monitor is a rather bland uber-villain. He wants the end of everything, but that seems such a callow desire it is difficult for me as a reader to find resonance with it. Of course, compared to later examples of his ilk (Onslaught comes to mind) he was a giant among pygmies.

The passing of Supergirl is seen as a watershed moment for the series and comics, as a major character dies, really for the first time with a sense of finality. It stung.

But not as much as the death of the Flash which was so much more tragic since one of my favorite heroes died mostly alone and unnoticed. He gets his just recognition later of course, but the decision to have him pass so far away from his peers was staggering. Flash was my favorite DC hero, so his demise was an apt time for me to leave the fold.

The villains are plentiful, and this issue shows they are true to form. Often in these big events the prosaic motivations of the baddies are difficult to reconcile with the larger threats to reality. The Joker works well throughout, that I'll grant you.

The climatic battle does seem a bit underwhelming since so much has been spent in its set up, but that's almost inevitable. Given the power of the Spectre in these kinds of things, it's hard sometimes to get too worked up about the threats. He's so totally over the top in terms of what he can do.

Death comes so quickly and often in the final issues that much of the effect is lost. I've always assumed that was intentional, the fog of war and all that.

The Crisis left a world behind which to my mind was less rich than the one that preceded it, save of course of the addition of the Charlton heroes of Earth-4, as briefly as it existed. But otherwise, the DCU for all its energy was a lesser place, though as we all know now from this vantage point that didn't last.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a dandy story, there's no disputing that. Fans dislike the results, I dislike some of the results. But like any great yarn it moved you to care about what happened and in the DCU once upon a time, when that was a rare thing indeed. This masterpiece featuring George Perez's magnificent artwork transformed the way superhero comic book stories were told. 

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The Man Called Nova Day!

Marv Wolfman was one of the first of the comic book fans to become a professional in the 1960's as the Golden Age talents were reaching retirement. He brought with is a great enthusiasm for a form which most thought was on its last legs. He and his close friend Len Wein made their first marks at DC but soon were shuttling back and forth between there and Marel. Wolfman would write one of comic's greatest with The Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

The Man Called Nova burst onto the comic racks in the late Bronze Age and was a breath of fresh air. Marv Wolfman had the notion of Nova rumbling around in his imagination since his boyhood but brought the idea to Marvel with fantastic effect. He'd first used the character in fanzines, magazines of his own creation. 

(You can see the back of Nova in this fanzine cover.)

The character combines aspects of Spider-Man (angst-ridden teenager struggling to be a superhero) with aspects of Green Lantern (part of a space-spanning police force). I really loved the villains in Nova, they all had a nifty retro glow to them. The creators really worked overtime to make the villains distinctive and colorful. Diamondhead, Condor, Powerhouse, and the mastermind the Sphinx all tingle the memory.

Sal Buscema inherited the book from his brother's debut and "Our Pal" Sal was the perfect artist for the title, his style clear and light. Later when Carmine Infantino took over, I was less enthusiastic as his artwork at that time was exciting but felt muddled to me somehow. In retrospect, he was an ideal choice. 

Nova only lasted a couple of years, but the character like most all Marvel characters became a part of the broader universe and has been revived and revised more than a few times. 

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The Essential Punisher!

With the exception of Wolverine, there's little doubt that of all the great Marvel Bronze Age creations, the Punisher has been the most successful. Erupting onto the scene in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, the Punisher was a quasi-villain of sorts, then a reluctant ally, before becoming a new kind of Marvel "hero". 

The Punisher was created by Gerry Conway and designed by John Romita, inspired doubtlessly by Don Pendleton's The Executioner, a paperback avenger who was popular in those days of Dirty Harry and Death Wish. 

When we first meet Frank Castle, he's a large and powerful man dressed in black with an enormous skull emblazoned on his chest. He's presented as a modern agent of death for those who commit crimes. He works in concert with Spidey's enemy the Jackal at first, convinced that the Web-Slinger is a criminal, just as J. Jonah Jameson had been preaching for years. By the end of the story the Punisher doubts that and ends his alliance with the Jackal. 

When he next returns, he teams up with Spidey (sort of) to stop the Tarantula, a pirate of sorts who has taken it on himself to waylay a tour boat. Ross Andru does a superlative job of rendering the Punisher, making him imposing and threatening, yet retaining that nobility which elevates (sometimes only slightly) him above the thugs he chases. 

The Punisher next shows up in Giant-Size Spider-Man and once again works with Peter Parker's alias to bring down slaver Moses Magnum, who operates a concentration camp of sorts in the jungles of South America. 

Frank Castle gets his own feature in Marvel Preview which sports a stunning cover by Gray Morrow. In the comfort of the black and white magazine world, the Punisher is free to be even more aggressive than the Comics Code will allow in the four-color environment.  In a grim story by Conway and artist Tony DeZuniga we learn at long last what motivated the Punisher's war on crime as we see in flashback the murders of his family. 

The same team returns to tell another rough and tumble Punisher tale with the assistance of Rico Rival in the pages of Marvel Super Action. Sharing the book with The Huntress (eventually to become Mockingbird) and Howie Chaykin's Dominic Fortune, it seems clear Marvel is testing the waters for a possible Punisher magazine. Bob Larkin's cover is powerful stuff. 

But that was not to be, and the Punisher returns to his role as an occasional guest-star in the Spider-Man books. In one notable two-parter he contends with both Spidey and Nightcrawler, the member of the recently minted New X-Men. For the first time a writer other than Conway handled the character as Len Wein handled the chores. Reliable Ross Andru was still the artist. 

That same talented duo brought out another two-parter sometime later when Punisher and Spidey work together to save J. Jonah Jameson from the clutches of the Hitman. Turns out the Hitman was a felllow soldier from Frank Castle's past. 

Frank Miller gets his first chance to draw the Punisher on the cover of an issue of Captain America in which the enemy of crime comes up against the Living Legend. Needless to say, that Cap and Castle don't get along and his approach to fighting crime even reminds some of the Nazis. When he almost kills a cop, the Punisher allows himself to be arrested. This comic was written by Mike Barr and drawn by Frank Springer and Pablo Marcos. 

But that doesn't last as he's out and about when he joins Spidey yet again to battle drug pushers and the mob that supports them. Marv Wolfman and Keith Pollard are the talents who bring this team-up to the masses. 

In Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15 Frank Miller draws a script by Denny O'Neil which pits the two heroes against Doctor Octopus who is scheming to ransom the city by killing five million citizens using the pages of the Daily Bugle itself. Once again the Punisher is arrested at the end of the story. 

That arrest seems to take as we find Frank Castle in prison when his team-up with Daredevil begins. This is another rugged tale by Frank Miller which focuses on the drug PCP and its pernicious effects. Matt Murdock struggles to save the innocent while the Punisher works overtime to bring down the guilty. At the end of this intense tale, the Punisher is again captured. 

The next time we see Frank Castle he's escaping jail yet again and goes on a rampage against drug dealers. This time he has to contend with not only Spider-Man but the mysterious Cloak and Dagger as well. The Punisher seems to lose control of himself in this story which pits him against the Kingpin, punishing with extreme prejudice people who commit the most innocuous of crimes such as littering and jaywalking. He is finally brought down in this trilogy by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Al Milgrom with help from the always reliable Jim Mooney. By the end of this story like so many before he's headed back to prison. 

This collection wraps up with the very first Punisher color comic book limited series. The five issues are written by Steven Grant and the first four are drawn in magnificent form by Mike Zeck and John Beatty. Mike Vosburg steps in to wrap things up in the fifth and final installment. The story is a wild one with many twists and turns as Castle battles his way out of prison, gets recruited by a secret cabal to fight crime and discovers the terrible truth about his supposed allies. Allowed to be the focus of the story, this limited has a real potency, and proved to this comic book fanboy that The Punisher could carry his own comic. Soon he would, in fact, he'd become the star of two. 

(Romita's original design)

This impressive Essentials tome brings together over a decade of Punisher stories and allows the reader to see how the character was developed over the years. At first, a character with the mission of the Punisher was a hard sell for a Comics Code world, but as the years passed and the audience for comics became more sophisticated (according to some) the true nature of the character could be explored more fully and robustly. 

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