It’s been three weeks since my last post, and I feel like the entire world has changed during that time. As I write this, my wife and I are in our seventh day of self-quarantine. My work is closed until at least mid-April, although my wife is able to work from home. While sometimes it feels like there’s too much big, crazy stuff going on to talk about comics and stuff, I’ve been finding that I need to find whatever corners of normal and familiar that I can. For me, that means watching a TV show with my wife, playing with my kitties, walking on the treadmill, listening to audio dramas, and reading comics. So I thought I would talk about a couple of those comics this week, starting with Marvels Snapshot: Sub-Mariner, drawn by Jerry Ordway and written by one of my favorite writers, Alan Brennert.
I’ve written about Brennert’s work here before, when DC Comics collected almost the entirety of his comics output in a single volume. In this, his first comic in 20 years, he tells the story of Namor, the Sub-Mariner, half-human/half-Atlantean sometimes hero/sometimes villain, reuniting with his girlfriend, Betty Dean, in 1946. The two go on a date to New Jersey amusement park Palisades Park, where they encounter a supervillain wearing a shark-themed exoskeleton manufactured by the Nazis. Namor fights the villain while the rest of the All-Winners Squad (a super team from that period) protect the civilians.
That’s what happens in the story, but it’s not what the story is about. What makes it special, to my eyes, is the way that Brennert can take a classic superhero tale and imbue it with so much depth of character and emotion, and yet still tell a classic superhero story. He doesn’t alter the sort of story he is telling to make it more “realistic.” Instead, he takes a story that would not have seemed out of place in an issue of All-Winners Squad (or whatever comic they appeared in) in 1946, but fleshes the characters out so completely that the story ends up not being about the Sub-Mariner fighting a guy in a super-shark outfit. It ends up being about how all the characters—including Betty Dean—are dealing with post-war trauma in their own ways. Or perhaps not dealing with it. The battle features in a good number of pages of this story, but in the end, that only serves as a vehicle for Betty to examine her own life and relationships.
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| The full story behind Eddie's French Fries can be found in Brennert's novel, Palisades Park |
This is why I love Alan Brennert’s superhero comics so much. He manages to make his characters (and by “his,” I mean those populating his stories, whether he created them or not) human and believable. He doesn’t take the easy road by simply giving them feet of clay, nor does he make them human by forcing them to only deal with “human” issues. He makes them human by giving them the same concerns and worries and fears and joys that the rest of us have, even if, on top of all that, they’re fighting costumed villains.
Artist Jerry Ordway helps convey that humanity a great deal. Another long-time favorite of mine, Ordway’s art feels influenced by classic illustrators of the past. He’s fantastic at drawing individuals, people you can tell apart for more reasons than just the costumes they are wearing or the color of their hair. He also does a great job illustrating complete, believable environments, which really helps in a period story like this. The idea of two of my favorite creators working together made this comic a must-buy for me. I’ve never been much of a fan of Namor as a character, but this has me interested in at least reading some more stories about him from some other favorite creators.
A couple of weeks ago, 2000 AD took a break from their regular lineup of comics to feature an “All-Ages Takeover Issue!” They’ve been flirting with all-ages stories the past couple of years, under the brand “2000 AD Regened.” First they published an all-ages version of 2000 AD as a Free Comic Book Day giveaway. Then they published a special Regened issue of the regular weekly comic. This year, fully four issues of the comic will be Regened, and I am just fine with it.
As 2000 AD have been trying to make clear repeatedly, these comics are truly intended to be for all ages, rather than just children. In fact, when 2000 AD was created, back in the seventies, that was the intended audience. Consequently, rather than feeling like stories from a kids comic, this issue—and the Regened ones that preceded it—feels, more than anything, like classic 2000 AD.
Because these issues are coming out quarterly, the stories are all self-contained, and a bit longer than most weekly 2000 AD comics installments. Of course, the lead feature has to be Dredd, although in this case, it’s a tale of Dredd from his days as a cadet. Here, we see him and his fellow cadets fighting off an invasion of monsters from another dimension. It’s a fun story, but the real star is the art by Ilias Kyriazis; here’s hoping this isn’t the last time we see him on a Dredd strip.
Finder & Keeper returns from the previous Regened prog. I’m glad to see this pair of teenage ghost-hunters back again, from the same creative team of Leah Moore, John Reppion and Davide Tinto. If one of the goals of these Regened issues is to bring in new readers, then 2000 AD needs to create new strips and new characters for those readers to call their own. There needs to be more than just, “Hey, I loved these old characters when I was a kid 30 years ago; love my old favorites, too! Hooligans!”
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| I should mention these are not consecutive pages |
We also get a staple of 2000 AD: a Future Shock. Future Shocks are short, self-contained stories with twist endings. I feel like that kind of storytelling, whether we’re talking about the stories of O. Henry, Twilight Zone, or the (early) movies of M. Night Shyamalan, is something that viewers or readers love, and there’s a reason the format has endured, in addition to featuring in 2000 AD since the beginning. So I’m glad to see it represented here.
With the sad passing of Strontium Dog co-creator and artist Carlos Ezquerra last year, it’s nice to see that series represented by a Gronk story. The Gronk, a metal-eating alien who was afraid of everything, was always an odd addition to a grim series about bounty-hunting mutants in the future, but this story works just fine. And, like every other story in this issue, the art is gorgeous.
Finally, writer Cavan Scott and artist Nick Roche bring back another classic: Rogue Trooper. I’ve become quite the fan of Rogue Trooper in the past few years, and this story feels very much like it would fit in alongside the original stories.
I guess my only real question is where do young readers go from here? Read the next prog, with a bunch of more mature stories already in progress? Wait for the next Regened issue in three months? Read collections of classic 2000 AD stories like early Dredd and Rogue Trooper?
All that aside, this is a really good issue of 2000 AD, and very much for all ages.
Speaking of 2000 AD and Dredd, 2000 AD has made Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files volume 5 available for download for free. It’s a great collection, and I really recommend taking advantage of this offer.
2000 AD publisher Rebellion has also made the first Roy of the Rovers novel and graphic novel available for free. I wrote about my love for that series here; now’s your chance to check it out for yourselves.
This is a tough time right now. I don’t know what the future holds; I am just trying to get through every day without succumbing to despair and depression and anxiety. My wife and I are making a point of walking on the treadmill every day, which gives me a chance to listen to audio dramas from Big Finish; I am currently working on the next eighth Doctor set. We are also trying to get outside and walk around our neighborhood park every day or so. And we’re continuing to take voiceover classes online, so we are distance-interacting with people. Our immediate families are safe, as of now.
I want to be more productive and get more writing done; this post is the first step. Hopefully, you’ll see more regular posts for a while, because what else do I have to work on right now? But the uncertainty about the future has me on edge a bit.
I also don’t want to take for granted how lucky I am. My work is closed, but I am still being paid. Many people don’t have that luxury. And right before we closed, I was talking to a social worker about the then-hours-old announcement that the schools were closing. He said the foster kid he was working with was upset about that, because it meant he would be stuck in his foster home instead of being able to go to school.
I’m trying to limit my reading of news stories to a minimum, because a steady barrage of COVID-19 stories is just wearing me down. But I feel like too many people are treating these unprecedented closures as a snow day, rather than a chance to get this virus under control before it kills millions. And that gets me down.
And then remember that we’ve probably got like 2-3 weeks of toilet paper in the house, and 2 months worth of cat food, and we haven’t had any trouble getting groceries. So there’s that.
I hope everyone reading this is doing okay. If you need to talk, feel free to reach out, either directly if you have my contact information, or in the comments here if you don’t.
Take care of yourselves and your loved ones, and take care of the people you don’t know, too. We’re all in this together.
And that’s about all I have in me at the moment. See you in two weeks!
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