NEW 52: Villains Month … sigh.

DC announced recently that September will be Villains Month. I’m delighted that Cyborg Superman is returning to the DCU, and I like that his cover is a nod to the green circuitry cover of Superman #82. I’m thrilled at the idea of Joker’s Daughter, Bizarro, and Reverse Flash making comebacks as well. I’m just not crazy about the idea that they’re doing it in the DCnU, a place where Lilith is an insane clown-faced girl with gouged-out eyes.

Bringing back fan favourites only to present radically-different versions of said favorites seems antithetical to the idea of relying on nostalgia to create hype, and comes off as yet another bait-and-switch guaranteed to send more of DC’s long-time readers scurrying to their competitors.

What else will Villains Month entail? Four different versions of each title that comes out that month (for example, instead of issue #7 of Justice League of America we’ll see the release of issues #7.1, #7.2, #7.3, and #7.4), each focusing on a specific villain. And they’ll all have 3D covers, because apparently nobody learned from the mistakes made in the 1990s.

Let’s not overlook the creepily blatant corporate synergy used to deploy this news, either: “exclusive” announcements via popular comic book sites USA Today, Huffington Post, and Maxim (alongside genuine comic book sites like Newsarama and Comic Book Resources).

I know people have been saying this since the New 52 began, but: how about a moratorium on the stunts and maybe just focus on making good comics, DC? Your Vertigo imprint just published Astro City #1, a continuation of one of the greatest comic series of all time. Maybe pin a copy of that to the wall above your desks.

WTF, DC? Elongated Man/Digital Comics

I’ll be spending the next five months in a remote location for work, and both the Windows 7 and Ubuntu partitions on my laptop have rebelled against the cross-country move by refusing to connect to the internet at anything other than molasses-quick speeds. My iPad works fine, however, so I’ll be iPadding it up for the near future.

This means I’ll be dependent on an app called Comixology for scans. Scans like this one:

That’s from a comic book I already paid $3.99 for when it first came out four years ago. Cost of the digital version? $2.99. Now, I’m not on here to bitch about the fact that I have to re-pay for something I already own. I’m here to bitch about the price.

DC, Marvel, et al: use the iTunes model and charge $0.99 for back issues, $1.29 if it’s a comic book you can’t find easily in real life. Price newer issues whatever the hell you want, since it’ll encourage people to go out and seek out paper copies and they can feel like they’re getting their money’s worth. But $2.99?!? Seriously? There’s a big part of me that wants to scream “Get f**ked, you greedy pricks,” but I won’t. I’m classy.

In DC’s defense, most back issues are $1.99, and some are $0.99 and plenty of first issues are free, but for the most part it’s a solid $1.99 for books you can pick up from your LCS for a buck (or less) and new issues (and some older titles like Blackest Night) are $2.99-$4.99. Aside from labor, digital comics are relatively inexpensive to reproduce and distribute, and I understand the economy’s in the toilet, but publishers: make them $0.99 because a) you can afford to and b) they’ll start flying off the (virtual) shelves.

That said: digital comics on Comixology have one advantage their paper brethren don’t: Guided View™ technology. Tap on a panel and it fills the screen, tap again and the panels swipe, zoom, pan out, and do all manner of fancy camera tricks that actually enhance the experience of reading the damn things. It’s no substitute for a paper copy – and the thrill-inducing effect you get from reading a physical copy of Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan #4 would be impossible to recreate on a computer – but it’s still pretty neat, and takes the edge off getting the shakedown from Time-Warner yet again.

Moving on.

I won’t dwell too much on the early days of Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man. The two-page recap in 52 #13 covers it fairly well:

Ralph was the class clown of the Justice League back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, if only because it’s hard to take seriously a man whose superpower is to stretch parts of his body (the one part of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Strikes Again that I find believable is that these sorts of powers would drive someone like Plastic Man to perversion and insanity).

He went from comic relief to heavy hitter with 2004′s Identity Crisis, a landmark series in which Brad Meltzer had Ralph’s wife Sue raped and murdered, blew up Firestorm, led Batman to develop OMAC after realizing Zatanna had been mind-wiping people (including himself) for years, and killed the third Robin (Tim Drake’s) father Jack.

Identity Crisis, aside from continuing DC’s mind-boggling tradition of killing off fan favourites and leaving the dullards alive, was either a clever inversion of the Women in Refrigerators trope (a woman was killed to get the attention of a male character, but it turns out the killer is a woman) or the most Women in Refrigerators-y moment in all of comics history (not only does a woman get killed, she’s also raped, and her killer is a man-hungry psychotic ex-wife). Hey, did I mention Sue was pregnant at the time of her horrific murder?

The fun times didn’t end there, however – the Infinite Crisis follow-up 52 introduced one of the most infamous moments in recent memory: Wicker Sue. Because Ralph just hadn’t suffered enough, a resurrection cult stapled a photo of his wife’s face to a female body made of wicker in an attempt to bring her back to life. And she sort of does, in as creepy a manner as possible:

And then Ralph ends up going nuts and cradling her charred “corpse” beneath a bridge like some sort of lunatic troll:

Later issues of 52 reveal that Sue’s implausible “return” was actually plain-old magic, and Ralph was just playing along, but dang was it convincing(ly horrifying) at the time. Ralph eventually dies battling Felix Faust but in death is reunited with Sue, and the series ends on an up note as the two of them appear as ghost detectives:

Pretty sweet, if you ignore all the awful crap that had happened to these two leading up to this moment. (“Oh good, he finally died,” readers of 52 remarked between audible, empathetic sighs of relief.)

Oh, but there’s more: audiences got to see Ralph and Sue back in action in 2009…when zombie versions of them bludgeoned and stabbed their former friends Hawkman and Hawkgirl to death in the opening issue of Blackest Night:

Yeesh. These two can’t catch a break.

Fast forward to the final issue of the series, when a dozen heroes and villains are resurrected by the power of the White Lantern. Among them? Not Ralph and Sue Dibny. Watch the Flash as he says out loud what everyone reading Blackest Night is thinking:

That’s right, an absolute nobody like Hawk (of Hawk and Dove) is walking the earth again but Ralph and Sue Dibny are doomed to slowly spin in their graves while Osiris whimpers his way into one of the worst incarnations of the Teen Titans this side of Devin Grayson.

Mercifully, the Dibnys have yet to make an appearance in the New 52.

NEW 52: What We Talk About When We Talk About Carrie Kelley

1. The ridiculous cover of Batman and Red Robin #19

The latest publicity stunt for DC, the branding of April’s gatefold-cover shockers as “WTF Certified,” fell apart when DC realized people don’t enjoy cuss words in 2013. We’re just beyond that as a society, I guess. The letter f is just too much for our fragile collective consciousness to bear at this point in history. Also, it wasn’t a particularly bright idea to begin with, since it sets DC up for failure and fans up for disappointment (how “WTF?” could these covers be, exactly?). I was originally going to do a post on just “WTF Certified,” examining the rigorous certification process, going through the educational and professional backgrounds of the board members vetting these potentially heart-stopping pieces of cover art, but some truths are so self-evidently stupid I figured why bother.

In this month’s Batman and Red Robin #19, the gatefold cover flips open to reveal none other than Frank Miller’s creation, Carrie Kelley, who served as Robin in the classic The Dark Knight Returns and the not-so-classic The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Carrie Kelley as an in-continuity Robin? I’ll take that. I discussed the possibility a year ago, and there’s a lot of reasons why it could work, but the cover of Batman and Red Robin #19 has nothing to do with anything in the actual issue itself. Carrie dresses up as Robin for a superhero-themed costume party and that’s that. She’s certainly not swinging through the lightning-filled sky with an older, grizzled Bruce Wayne. People thinking, “Wow! Carrie Kelley as Robin!” when they look at the cover are going to be thinking something else by the time they get to the last page (probably “F–k DC. F–k DC so hard.”)

2. The Dark Knight Returns Carrie Kelley versus New 52 Carrie Kelley

Frank Miller’s Carrie Kelley was a 13-year-old. Peter J. Tomasi’s Carrie Kelley is an 18- or 19-year-old. What difference does it make?

Well, being a teenager is a pretty terrible experience: your body is essentially an amorphous ever-changing blob with acne reserves on standby, your hormones are raging but your parents forbid you from having intercourse and it’s unlikely most members of the opposite/same sex are interested in banging you anyway, and biology has determined that you’ll be more angry, depressed, shallow, and cruel than at any other point in your life. Now cram several hundred people going through the exact same thing into an enclosed space and force them to interact with each other. That’s high school.

Navigating those treacherous waters is Miller’s Kelley, who still finds the time to fashion a homemade Robin costume and spend her after-school hours wandering into gang territory to fight crime. That’s pretty awesome for a 13-year-old.

If you can afford to go (which is an entirely different can of worms), college is that post-teenagehood respite period where you can stay out as late as you want, drink alcohol and smoke, sleep in, skip class, engage in casual sex, and basically do whatever the hell you want without being under your parents’ thumbs. Plus, you’re being inundated with a ton of world-changing ideas that you can barely grasp let alone convey to strangers, which is why college kids can be some of the most boring human beings in the world.

Tomasi’s Kelley is spunky enough to throw a pizza at some creepy strangers, but she’s not overcoming any obstacles greater than finishing a term paper. She’s a computer nerd advising Damian on television-filming techniques. That’s dull. Her natural Tim Drake-like curiosity regarding Damian’s disappearance is understandable, but she’s not exactly gearing up for a career fighting evildoers by playing Wii Fitness. If she’s destined to take up Damian’s mantle, I fear she’s going to have a pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Jason Todd origin where she just sort of stumbles into the Batcave and winds up Batman’s sidekick.

And where are her green glasses?

3. Before Watchmen

Alan Moore, despite his famously easygoing nature, made a remark about DC going back to the Alan Moore well for Blackest Night (and be sure to check out Ethan Van Scriver’s response, linked to on that same page). And while Moore may have been wrong about the specifics, DC does tend to spend a lot of time attempting to repeat past successes.

Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns did a lot: took the grimness of ’70s comics and made them de rigueur, popularized the phrase “graphic novel,” and stood as two of the greatest stories ever told in the history of the medium (I understand Miller’s Batman: Year One was also quite popular and influential, but I think TDKR was more of a revelation than B:YO).

There was considerable uproar over DC taking everyone’s beloved Watchmen and cranking out a series of prequels of varying quality, the main argument being: leave well enough alone. Now that the Watchmen well has been re-tapped and run dry, introducing TDKR‘s Carrie Kelley to New 52 continuity feels, for lack of a more eloquent phrase, needlessly stunt-y and desperate. As those sad commercials for Secret anti-perspirant will tell you: stress sweat smells worse than regular sweat.

4. Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown

Quick: name two characters that are fan favourites, people are desperate to see, and have yet to be introduced to New 52 continuity. If you said Ralph and Sue Dibny, you’re right, and I’ll be examining Elongated Man’s storied history in my next post.

There’s also ersatz Batgirls Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown. Cassandra’s career met a rather undignified end while Stephanie Brown returned from the grave (more or less) to become surprisingly popular before the New 52 put an end to her adventuring. Why re-introduce Carrie Kelley when two established female characters with large and loyal followings are waiting in the wings?

5. Continuity

At one point during Batman and Robin #19, Batman says this:

Does this mean Death of Superman and Batman R.I.P. happened? I fully admit I haven’t spent much time on the near-impossible task of reconciling New 52 DCnU history with pre-Flashpoint DCU history, but can readers at least be given some sort of half-hearted History of the DC Universe or something?

NEW 52: Sword of Sorcery #1

This post got deleted somehow and when I restored it from the trash, it was an earlier version sans pictures but attached were the comments that appeared on the final, published version. I can assure you  it was a witty, insightful, hilarious yet poignant post and I’ll re-do it when I get a chance.

NEW 52: Earth 2

The problem with the DCU pre-New 52 was the same problem with the DCU immediately pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths: DC was worried new readers would be turned off by years of twisted continuity (in theory – worrying about the bottom line played an integral role too). But now that the DCnU is currently riding its Fourth Wave in 18 months, I can’t say DC is in a better position that it was pre-Flashpoint. Not only do old readers have to get used to new histories for old characters, but new readers have to reconcile new characters with 70+ years of back issues that don’t match up to what they’re currently reading. And all the winks and nudges toward the past aren’t exactly helping matters.

Case in point – and I’ll say right now that I enjoy this book – is Earth 2. Earth 2 is the new Justice Society of America, similar to how the new Worlds’ Finest (note the apostrophe) is actually the new Superman/Batman which in turn was the new World’s Finest. The reasoning behind the apostrophe change, from what I can gather, is that new readers will immediately understand that these stories don’t take place on Earth-1. Makes sense, but the multiverse is a concept that’s difficult even for DC vets to wrap their head around (see my second Bette Kane entry for an example of how the Earth-1/Earth-2 division can fall apart under the most assured of hands).

To show how different things are on this earth, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman are all killed off in the first issue:

They leave behind a non-Linda Danvers Supergirl named Karen Starr (later known as Power Girl) and a non-male Robin named Helena Wayne, who’s also Batman’s daughter and will eventually grow up to become the non-Helena Bertinelli Huntress. It’s worth noting that shortly before the New 52 happened, Earth-1 Helena Bertinelli was revealed to have actually been Earth-2 Helena Wayne all along (an idea carried forward to the first issue of Worlds’ Finest), yet another plot point that indicates the New 52 went from concept to execution in a lightning-fast period of time.

Supergirl and Robin are magically blasted onto Earth-1 and five years pass before we meet a bickering couple named Joan and Jay:

It’s puzzling that so much of Earth 2‘s potential enjoyment comes from what you do or do not know about these characters pre-New 52. It’s both amusing and distracting to see Jay Garrick arguing with a woman who will (presumably) eventually become his wife, but is this a tip of the hat to veteran readers, or lazy writing?

We follow Garrick as he gets his powers from the dying god Mercury in a clever send-up of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. The Garrick Flash looks sort of like a cross between the Jace Allen Flash and Well-Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash, and maybe it’s because I’m partial to speedsters, but Garrick’s story is pretty fun, particularly in the early stages where he’s learning how to use his powers and be a hero:

Elsewhere, Earth-1′s Mister Terrific lands on Earth-2 to find his arrival not completely unexpected, and we’re introduced to a wealthy businessman named Alan Scott:

It should be noted that Alan Scott will eventually (in the following issue) become Green Lantern, his heroism motivated by the death of his boyfriend, Sam. His gay boyfriend. In case you’ve been living in a cave for the last eight months or so, you may have missed the news media/blogosphere proclaiming “GREEN LANTERN IS GAY” everywhere and anywhere prior to Earth 2‘s release.

While I applaud DC for adding diversity to its stable of characters and putting a spin on the traditional love interest role, the Green-Lantern-is-gay announcement was a bit of a cheat, since “Green Lantern” in this case was presented/interpreted as “Hal Jordan” rather than “alternate universe Green Lantern who’s not even a Green Lantern as most people know the term.” Making Hal Jordan gay would’ve been truly groundbreaking; having his lesser-known multiverse counterpart be gay, while laudable, feels like a bait-and-switch.

No matter: it’s effective and makes sense in Earth 2 continuity. The elation caused by Scott’s proposal to Sam is cut brutally short when their train explodes and Sam is killed. This goes over about as well as you’d expect:

While Scott is busy letting a green fireball talk him into becoming Earth’s new defender, Flash is running into another semi-familiar face – Hawkgirl, who’s as sassy and tough as ever. She’s also Latino now and, again, I applaud DC for being diverse, I just wish diversity wasn’t introduced with the subtlety of a jackhammer:

Scott, meanwhile, gets a fancy new costume, a ring, and an observer makes a joke that should tickle the ears (eyeballs?) of Earth-1 Green Lantern fans:

Scott is now champion of “the green” and at the end of the issue, Solomon Grundy (who’s basically a Black Lantern now) shows up talking about “the grey.”

Issue #5 is when things start getting good, by which I mean the Atom shows up and suddenly the team (not yet called the Justice Society) forms. They look pretty good together, and the dynamic between them (Garrick’s optimism versus Al Pratt’s pessimism, for example) works right outta the gate.

And though the issue is heavy on action, an intriguing moral quandary is presented to Scott at the end: fight “the grey” or give up and be reunited with (what clearly isn’t) his dead lover:

I’d never been terribly invested in the old Justice Society prior to Earth 2, and I wasn’t even that invested in Earth 2 until issue #5, but now I feel like Earth 2 has accomplished something the New 52 tried really hard to achieve with relatively limited success: it made these characters and this concept seem fresh.

Scott, of course, doesn’t fall for the bait and figures out a way to get Grundy gone for good: by throwing him onto the moon:

Green Lantern rejects Flash’s suggestion that they form a team, and Hawkgirl eventually tracks Scott down at his apartment, which he’s destroyed in a mournful rage.

There’s something elegant about the ending of the Hawkgirl/Alan Scott meeting. It’s not the dialogue-free way in which Hawkgirl provokes Scott into following her, but rather the single feather left behind in that last panel. It doesn’t need to be there (we know where he’s going – into the sky) but it adds a little something, and it makes me think of that page in the last issue of Final Crisis that showed the two feathers meant to symbolize Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s deaths (which was almost immediately rewritten as a close call so Elongated Man could spear them to death in Blackest Night):

Some familiar faces show up: military “Sandmen,” the displaced Mister Terrific, and Red Tornado, who’s slighly more Red Torpedo-ish than the Red Tornado we’re used to. Oh, and a “Captain Steel” gets mentioned, though it’s not clear to which Heywood they’re referring:

Issue #7 brings back the Trinity-killing Steppenwolf, who’s sadly lacking in magic carpets. Despite killing the Big Three, he seems kinda lame, but luckily what seems like a powerful new opponent emerges to combat him:

As the nametag indicates, that’s Fury. Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths she was daughter of Earth-2′s Wonder Woman. That origin has been restored here, though she resembles Diana Prince more than the platinum blonde daughter of Steve Trevor:

In an interesting twist, she’s working for the man who killed her mother, rather than against him. I predict a heartwarming changing of sides in the future, but who knows.

I was never a big fan of James Robinson prior to Earth 2 (I found the Robinson/Mark Bagley Justice League pretty dire) but he seems to be improving, or maybe he’s just found his groove. Whatever the case, this is definitely a New 52 title that isn’t a complete waste of your money, and I’m excited to see where this story goes.

WTF, DC? Batman: The Long Halloween

In the introduction to The Long Halloween, director Christopher Nolan says, “The Long Halloween is more than a comic book. It’s an epic tragedy.” David S. Goyer, who shared writing duties on Nolan’s films Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises says, “It is cinematic. I think that The Long Halloween stands out as probably the most ambitious Batman story that’s been told. It certainly feels like the most densely plotted.” Goyer goes on to say that the major influences within Batman lore are Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, Neal Adams’ darker ’70s-era tales, and The Long Halloween.

Substitute Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke for The Long Halloween and I might agree with Goyer’s statement.

You can see The Long Halloween‘s influence all over Nolan’s Batman films: Carmine Falcone, the phrase “I believe in Harvey Dent,” the meeting between Batman, Dent, and Commissioner Gordon, the big pile of mafia money set aflame in a warehouse, and Batman convincing Catwoman (who must suffer from the same poor hearing and eyesight that afflicts Lois Lane) that Bruce Wayne is a friend:

Nolan and Goyer are correct in stating that The Long Halloween is incredibly cinematic, evoking a film-noir take on the Caped Crusader, all dimly-lit rooms, underworld figures, and a central mystery begging to be solved.

And yet…the central mystery seems rather simple: gimmick killer Holiday is wiping out Gotham citizens once a month, with deaths on Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, et cetera, until we get to August, at which point the narrative passes over the less-deserving National Ice Cream Sandwich Day and the decidedly unsexy Women’s Equality Day to focus on the “Roman Holiday,” which is less a calendar date celebrating our Italian friends than it is a figurative anytime-occasion to revel in schadenfreude.

Also, the killer can be guessed in the first book. And the twist is over the top in its far-fetched stupidity.

In The Long Halloween‘s defense, people love this book (including talented auteurs like Nolan), but I think it’s one of those Batman R.I.P.-style love-it-or-hate-it things. Dense plotting and stylized noir-ish visuals can quickly tip over into lazy writing and sub-Sin City art. Tim Sale’s work is either incredibly unique and moody or it’s remarkably simple and frequently takes a Rob Liefeld approach to design.

Can you see what’s happening in this panel?

That’s Batman addressing the Scarecrow, in a panel seemingly designed to provoke the involuntary physical response of squinting at it in order to make out what exactly is going on.

Speaking of Scarecrow, what seems like Batman’s entire Rogue’s Gallery is trotted out for guest appearances with only the flimsiest of justifications. “He couldn’t have been working alone” is used an excuse repeatedly, when something as equally plausible could’ve been used instead (“There’s ice in his glass. Penguins live on ice….I’ll go visit the Penguin to see what he knows, which will be nothing!”). Whenever Loeb includes a story beat involving the Joker, Poison Ivy, or whatever other villain happens to be wandering by, the seams in The Long Halloween begin to show.

Say cheese, Bat-villains:

And holy crap are the thematic tie-ins to that month’s holiday laboured as hell (the Mother’s Day/Father’s Day ones are particularly strained). If you’re looking for a less-cluttered version of Harvey Dent’s transformation from principled lawyer to villainous Two-Face, Andy Helfer’s “The Eye of the Beholder” from 1990′s Batman Annual #14 offers an equally compelling take for a fraction of the cost:

The Long Halloween is a continuation of Frank Miller’s seminal Batman: Year One, prompted by editor Archie Goodwin’s suggestion to Loeb that he explore the story of Year One‘s mafia figures.

This is where fans of The Long Halloween might disagree with me most vehemently (and they’re more than welcome to), but Batman: Year One was a near-masterpiece, and putting The Long Halloween next to it is like reading Frank Miller’s Spawn/Batman right after reading The Dark Knight Returns and realizing Spawn/Batman is meant to take place in the same universe.

If you’re looking for a continuation of the Batman: Year One setting/storyline, the ’90s-era Legends of the Dark Knight (at least in the first few years of its run) captures the Year One look and feel pretty well:

And issues #6-#10 of Legends are Grant Morrison’s stellar Batman: Gothic! While it’s doubtful The Long Halloween will ever stop being one of the most lauded Bat-stories in existence, I’d argue that there are worthier tales if you’re willing to ignore the (undeserved?) hype and do a little digging.

OMG, DC: The Brave and the Bold #27

My first encounter with Dial H for Hero was a single back issue that found its way into my collection as a kid: Adventure Comics #490 (1982) which ended a year-long run of Dial H for Hero stories, as well as the book itself. Adventure Comics would last another year, but without any original content appearing between its covers, just reprints from earlier issues – a fitting end considering Adventure Comics began life as a title devoted to reprinting comic strips from newspapers.

Dial H stories focused on regular folks given incredible powers after spelling out a certain word on a magical “H-Dial” (I’ll let you guess what that word was). And though I was about a decade too late to do anything about it, the 1980′s run of Dial H in Adventure Comics offered a unique spin on this premise: readers submitted character ideas (names, powers, costume design) via old-fashioned snail mail to DC Comics, and whenever Dial H’s plucky teenagers Chris and Vicky spelled out that magical four-letter word, they would transform into a user-submitted hero or heroine drawn and scripted by DC writers and artists, to the delighted squeals of winners across North America (who would also receive a free Dial H t-shirt for their efforts).

And though I was partial to Adventure #490′s Stuntmaster, Centaurus, and Spinning Jenny…

…some characters got a measly one-panel appearance, as though Bob Rozakis was desperate to get rid of those t-shirts:

There was a small caveat that the characters became property of DC Comics after being selected, which meant readers were essentially giving DC free content with little to show for it (how long do cotton t-shirts last?). None of the characters wound up being runaway successes, however, which meant readers weren’t being robbed of a potentially lucrative career (in theory). One character was submitted by a name you might recognize, but he doesn’t really count since his creator was already a success at the time:

Chris King would later show up in Marv Wolfman’s early-’90s “Titans Hunt” storyline in New Titans and recently made an appearance in the New 52 reboot Dial H. He was noticeably absent from the 2003-2005 series H.E.R.O., which did away with the idea of dual protagonists and multiple transformations and instead focused on the H-Dial’s (or H-Device’s) transition from user to user, like a Dial H version of Astro City.

In 2007, DC resurrected The Brave and the Bold, showcasing a different hero team-up in every issue, and in 2009 J. Michael Straczynski took over the title, his run commencing with issue #27′s Batman/Dial H for Hero team-up “Death of a Hero,” arguably his best contribution to the series (the Flash/Blackhawk team-up in the following issue is pretty good, too).

“Death of a Hero” opens with an old man and his grandson checking into a motel. The grandson’s name is Robby Reed (which, not coincidentally, was also the name of the protagonist in the original 1966 House of Mystery-set Dial H tales). Robby pulls out his H-Dial for some stealthy late-night adventuring and finds he’s gotten a little more than he bargained for:

Quickly deciding to end the evening’s would-be heroics, Robby exits the motel the following morning minus his beloved H-Dial. Things get complicated when a former Joker goon named Travers Milton decides to rob the now-vacant room and does what anyone would do after stumbling upon a magical doohickey:

Milton becomes a hero called the Star and suddenly has a chance to make something of himself rather than take a bullet for, or from, the Joker. Batman shows up to investigate Gotham’s newest caped crusader and…some other stuff happens.

There are two twists to Milton’s story that I won’t spoil here. The first is a poignant character moment and the second is more of an expository reveal, but they’re both effective in different ways. And while “Death of a Hero” isn’t flawless – I don’t agree with the justification Batman provides for the dick move made by one of the characters – it’s everything I’d want from a one-off, self-contained story, and I’ve already discussed my fondness for Straczynski. Dude can write.

“Death of a Hero” reminded me of one of my favorite Astro City tales, “Newcomers,” in which a doorman is given an opportunity to be a hero, despite nobody noticing or really caring (it can be found in Astro City: Local Heroes if you’re interested). Milton’s journey is similar, and like in “Newcomers,” the city’s biggest hero (Batman) doesn’t contribute much to the action beyond exposition and atmosphere.

The fringe characters in the DCU rarely get a chance to shine, and “Death of a Hero” is an interesting take on one of the nameless thugs populating Gotham. Issues of The Brave and the Bold can probably be found for a bargain price at your local comic shop, and this one’s definitely worth the three bucks (or less).