All Star Comics Vol. 11

1948-1952



Here is another trade I picked up off the library shelf somewhat randomly and decided to read simply because it fit roughly into my timeline.

One could make an argument that All Star Comics Vol. 11 jump-started my blogging hobby.

Oh sure, I posted blogs here and there. And sure, it was a fellow Gentleman who had been aggressively blogging and petitioned me to make the Quorum a reality.

But All Star Comics Vol. 11 was SO DUMB that I wrote in my Goodreads review, "One day I will write a blog dedicated to writing about how dumb All Star comics is".

This is that blog.

All-Star Comics was a series that started in the 40's during the formative years of DC comics. It is notable for the introduction of Wonder Woman and the Justice Society, the first-ever superhero team.

The trade All Star Comics Volume 11 covers the last issues featuring the Justice Society before the series gave way to the more popular western genre. They were overseen by editor Julius Schwartz. Schwartz doesn't quite have the reputation or resume of Marvel rival Stan Lee, but he was responsible for building the DC Universe as we know it now and most notably was responsible for helping bring Batman back to a more serious and shadowy crime fighter in the sixties.

When going back to read comics written before one was born, it is important to suspend the modern graphic novel state of mind. No one worried about continuity in the fifties. Adult content was simply not allowed in mainstream publishing. Art and writing weren't too experimental and the primary readership of comics was a demographic more likely to use them as coloring books than to save them.

So it was with an open mind that I borrowed this hard cover archive of golden oldies from the library and flipped it open to enjoy some old timey stories of the first superhero team, the powerful predecessors and inspiration of the modern Justice League, the groundbreaking travelers of space and time before space and time-hopping was hip, the Justice Society!

What a pisser. I believe that even as a nine-year old in 1950, I probably would have been compelled to write a letter to the editor complaining about the art and writing and demanding my ten cents back. To collect these stories and make money off of their reprints as anything other than historical curiosity is a serious insult to my intelligence. Oh, it's not all bad, I guess... But mostly it is. Take a look:


Yeah, this is exciting already.


Look, even the general public is bored of the Society. Their own friends can't wait to get out of their presence. Granted, they're in a hurry to go "do it", but still...


There is a redeeming fact about these old stories: They apparently provided a lot of inspiration for the writers of the TV show Lost.


Now, I'm no prude but I do want to warn you that the male members of the Society have very open-minded relationships, especially for the late forties, and I guess their superpowers and celebrity status allow them to be pretty open about it. Good for them.


My response here wouldn't be "A- a criminal!", it would be more like, "A- a gay clown!" I guess the villians are into tight clothes and same-sex relations as well. I'm not judging, it just seems like a weird choice to instill fear in your victims.


One neat aspect of the All Star Comics is that Schwartz often went out of his way to make sure that the science of the science-fiction was often backed up with educational tidbits for the kids. I like that, it's cool. Except for a few facts that maybe are off a bit: Like the fact that all hurricanes center around casinos.


Also, the heroes themselves are pretty dense for a group that includes several scientists. Take the example above. While investigating a mysterious race of Diamond Men, the Society attends this presentation by their spokesman and completely fail to connect the dots that the only attendee COULD BE A DIAMOND MAN. Despite his odd-looking DIAMOND FACE.
Side-note: Why is Hawkman sitting apart from the group? I understand his wings making chairs awkward, but he seems to be in dire need of going to the bathroom, and is slowly scooting his chair to the door in hopes that no one will notice as he dashes out the door to a restroom- or a flyby of a passing car.


Well, we've established that the Flash is a smart one. But just as Green Lantern tries to get in on the smart train by proposing a plan, all he has is a bee impression? That's not going to help, Dude.


Remember when the bell tower scene in Spider-Man 3 seemed like it was ripping off Tim Burton's Batman movie? Well, that was just ripping off All Star Comics 51.


"But shouldn't we capture the villian, now that we've found him, Hawkman?"
"Oh yeah, it's just that.. Well, I didn't know he'd be so dashing!"


Isn't Wonder Woman twenty times stronger than Hawkman? Oh, wait, I see... I think she's enjoying their attack. A little too much, methinks.


And here I thought Flash was the smart one. I could do a dozen different things to these hypnotized guys to stop their forced march, but I'll show off and build a bridge instead so they won't drown. Clever! While Black Canary patted him on the back afterwards, the soldiers continued on marching into a landfill where they fell to their deaths.


The stupidity abounds. You saw a guy walking around with a revolver and weren't at all alarmed? And you caught a detailed description of the gun, but NO IDEA what the gunman looked like? Things were different pre-911 I guess. This reporter wasted two panels of the comic with his lack of profiling abilities.


I'm actually a bit speechless about how to describe or mock this time machine. Or explain why it tantalizes the Justice Society. Best left unsaid.
Aha, but look! Mysterious numbers on the mysterious machine! I'm on to you, writers of Lost.
And the last panel here, where the Atom figures out that the machine eats guns and the Flash just happens to be carrying around a paper weight... What the hell, man?!


I love this full page spread! In this scene Green Lantern has actually time-traveled to the past to visit an ancient but far more advanced civilization. It looks like 2000 A.D., right? That's a pretty crazy guess at what earth would look like in 2050, much less 2000. At least they got the fact that Spanish is the dominant language right.
"I know you've never seen a gun before.." These people have rocketships. God, Green Lantern is a DOUCHE.


In this scene, we learn that the villian has a drawer literally full of guns, but prefers to use his muffler gun to shoot noxious fumes in the general direction of the superheroes. Good plan.


Despite the goody-two shoes nature of the JSA, this a prime example of the ruthless nature in which they excel at getting their enemies to commit suicide. They may be a bunch of dumb gays, but don't F with them- they will KILL YOU and then stand around moping that they were powerless to stop you.


I don't know about you, but I actually like quite a few of my co-workers. Nonetheless, I still don't really want to hang around with them on my free time. Much less at the circus. Much less in costume.


The absurdity of this circus speaks for itself. I mostly scanned this page for the weirdness of the mutual thought bubble. Is it true that they were all thinking the same thing? I don't mean a situation where you say, "Dude, I was just thinking the same thing!" I mean, they were all thinking the same monologue? And did they mutually choose to let Dr. Midnite finish the thought? The more I read these comics the more they really bother me.


This set of panels really angers me, in fact. Someone hits your prime witness in the head right in front of you, and NO ONE DOES A THING. Hey, we all have superpowers, but too bad we're all too dumb to try and catch the villian.
"We've got to know what he's saying! Oh, nevermind, it's just the alphabet."


"Pretend we're bees! They'll get bored when we don't produce honey!" OH, GL, you and your bee fixation.


Yeah, the JSA are pretty dopey, but if you mess with them they will NUKE YOUR PLANET. And make it look like an accident. This is the only reason you should respect the Justice Society of America.


Actually, their harsh treatment of criminals is a little hard to understand when most of their enemies are helpless old men, homosexual performers, and cute Disney characters.


Okay, I was joking before about the writers of Lost ripping off All Star Comics, but now I'm serious. This is ridiculous.


This panel is a lot funnier if you imagine the audience member's voice dripping with sarcasm. How else does that sentence make sense when what the JSA is doing is sending and reading cablegrams?


At least I feel a bit better knowing that all crimefighters are morons.


First of all- genius detective work, WW. Second of all, Wonder Woman's Robot Plane has Siri? That is so cool.


There you have it. The old-school Justice Society has a few strengths and cool points, but when the chips are down, even the strongest super heroes of the golden age can be taken down by a thug with a small billy club.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier

1958



We return to another installment of the series sure to pop up in the hundreds of Google and Bing searches for the Quorum of Gentlemen due to the number of times I can add the word gentlemen to a blog with the word gentlemen in the title. Gentlemen, start your engines.

Critic and fan reviews of this installment of Alan Moore's crossover fiction series were mixed (and that doesn't count the folks who conspired to ban it from libraries). Rather than a straightforward story told in a series of comic book installments, the Black Dossier is a coffee-table style book full of a mixed-media pastiche of things to look at and read. There is a linear comic story featuring the primary protagonists of the league, Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain, in which they largely spoof James Bond in the setting of Orwells' Big Brother London (who came to power in 48, not 84... Orwell had it wrong, you see). Other sections, however, are frequently comprised of text and prose, and jump over several decades hinting at larger adventures of the League and expanding on other fictional characters with little to no relevance to the League, other than Moore squeezing them into the LoEG world. Which suits me just fine. Yes, I am tantilized by pictures and stories about Fanny Hill. Sue me.

The bad: It's just so much. Where the League stories traditionally hint and tease at a world full of fictional characters, it is generally not necessary to research the characters and the 200 references in the background. But the Dossier is purely a vehicle for Alan Moore to flex his literary and cultural muscles and indulge in crossover self-pleasuring. Unfortunately, softer fans of crossover fiction who had hoped for a Watchmen style epic found themselves confused and longing for a more normal story. Yeah, Alan, you're just too smart.

The good: It's just so well done. Moore mimics a variety of writing styles, in addition to the core storyline which retains his own writing voice. And many of the included characters suprise- we expected HP Lovecraft, but we didn't know that the Unknown Ones would have to contend with Jeeves & Wooster! Kerouac gets in on the action, and 100 other folks which even I had a hard time getting through without using Google. The main story culminates in a transdimensional journey crafted in 3-D by an expert in the field, Ray Zone. I'm the first to agree that 3-D often isn't so great, but I contend that the 3-D artwork here is one of the finest things I have ever viewed while wearing stupid looking glasses. Granted, it would have probably been better on drugs, mostly because the story would have made more sense.

In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, the Black Dossier is a clumsy and overwhelming mess guaranteed to make anyone except Alan Moore feel like a moron. But it is a crossover fiction fan's wet dream and I loved it, loved it, loved it. I highly recommend that anyone who is a fan of comic book art at least get it from your local library in order to check out the 3-D section.

DIANETICS: The Modern Science of Mental Health

1950

DIANETICS

No, I did not search out this book, nor was it given to me by a friend. This came with the collection of science-fiction books my wife bought from an out-of-business bookstore. I am sure that it was included in the set due to Hubbard's backround as a sci-fi writer, although I'm sure many people would argue that this book is certainly not science-fact.

I was determined to read it despite my own pre-bias. I read all the books on my shelf... but more importantly I wanted to know what all the fuss is about. I did my even best to clear my mind of preconceptions and biases and read this book with an open mind.

And at first it went well. I was a little suprised at how reasonable the book starts, following theories along a path of common sense. The core concepts of Dianetics are not revolutionary or terribly controversial. It stands to reason that traumatic events in our past can lead to mental blocks in our psyche which can lead to mental, or even physical, ailments. The idea that one can achieve the status of a "clear", meaning a person free of major or even minor mental blocks and illness, isn't so different from ancient religious goals or modern psychology. The extent that Hubbard details this out reflects the amount of time he put into really thinking this idea out.

But by the middle of the book- once he's got his hooks into the readers of the 1950's who perhaps were not well versed in the study of psychiatry- he starts to really go off the deep end and use his "well-tested" theories as an excuse to blast every aspect of modern society he didn't care for. You see, no matter how hard you try to clear yourself, there will always be surgeons filling your unconscious mind with unpure thoughts while you are under anesthesia. The homosexuals and abortionists and degenerates surround you with their filth and your only salvation lies in following every piece of alien-spawned direction ole' L. Ron spoon feeds you.

Readers of my blog posts will agree, I think, that I can often find something nice to say about everything I read, even if it wasn't my cup of tea. And I really did want to educate myself on the contents and origins of Scientology before I said anything negative in a public forum. I thought that maybe some of the Xenu Galactic Confederacy space opera stuff would make for good sci-fi reading (even if considering it as such may be blasphemous). But I simply had to put the book away. I actually stopped reading a book because I was just that disgusted with the contents.

From the get-go Hubbard is clearly targeting uneducated readers, as evidenced by the fact that he includes definitions for any word more than four letters. As his statements of belief get wilder but are always supported by vague and undocumented lab testing, and are used to justify gross and nasty biases, I found myself increasingly offended. Hubbard offends both my intellect as well as my own beliefs as to everything that is moral and right about the world.

Sorry, L. Ron. Sorry, Tom Cruise. Sorry, Xenu. Scientology has its place in my crossover world of fiction- Hubbard had fleeting relationships with Aleister Crowley's group and Burroughs targets it multiple times in Nova Express, for example. But I had my fill of the trash in Dianetics and don't feel the need to read any more beyond the first half.

Wishing to remain somewhat PC in the more public forum of Goodreads, I rated it two stars (generous!) and my review read like this:

"I liked the hologram volcano on the cover!"

Sex-pol: Essays, 1929-1934

Sex-pol: Essays, 1929-1934

Yeah, I'm definately out of order. What I had intended to read was Listen, Little Man! but I couldn't find a copy handy. I'm sure I would've read that out of order, too. But this edition of Sex-Pol fell out of a library shelf and into my hands so I took it home to check it out.

Like a lot of my readings, I can't remember why I first added Reich to my list, or why I had picked any specific title of his. I am sure it was most likely a result of Bill Burroughs listing Reich as an influence- particularly in his Nova Express series, which I read around this time. Cut-up mentions of orgone machines and released sexual expression may have led me to believe that understanding Reich would have an important impact on understanding his influence on pop culture. Or at least Devo's hats.

My review of the book: Fans of Reich's controversial views on orgone machines and other sexual themes will be disappointed in this largely straightforward take on how sexuality fits into society, specifically within socialism and the communist movement. While views such as female independance and sexual freedom for youth (as well as his criticism of the CP and Hitler) may have sparked outrage in the thirties, it comes across as common sense now. Perhaps the greatest value of this tome, outside of it's importance in a historical context, is to illuminate how ahead of his time Reich is. But I recommend this book to students of psychiatry and socialism only- casual readers (like me) will find themselves skimming ahead looking for interesting bits.

Readers: Has anyone else read Reich's stuff? Is it worth revisiting the essays he wrote later in life which would still be considered controversial today? One day I plan on getting around to it.

Sally Forth

I used to read the comics in newspapers religiously. I adored the newer strips like Bloom County and Dilbert that took the daily funnies to a new level, and also loved the old has-beens like Peanuts for their genuine charm and the nostalgia of reading the Sunday paper together with my father when I was still young enough to fit on his lap.

And there are a ton of great comics out there today. I just don't read them like I used to on account of things like, oh, print media being dead, growing up... lame stuff like that. I still have funny videos my friend Mike sent me I haven't watched yet, I don't have time for Funky Winkerbean!

But today I happened to read the Sunday comics, and I was really taken aback by Sally Forth. As you probably know, Sally is a pretty plain comic about a whitebread normal family. It does a great job of balancing traditional family entertainment with a winking sarcasm enjoyed by intelligent adults. Now, I've been out of the loop for awhile, but I know that the comic has tackled some issues over the years like unemployment and the sports team you coach or play in always losing (subjects I can relate to). But today's strip struck me as... pretty out there.

CLICK HERE

The second panel hits pretty hard. Undistinguished career? Financial woes? Dude, I think Ted might have cancer! I can seriously relate to the first two concerns, but the man really needs to get that mole looked at.

And the bit about the guidance counselor? Does anyone really say that to someone?! That is simply cruel. And Ted may be a bit of a goofball, but was he retarded in high school or something? He just never gave me that gang-member-as-a-kid feeling. Granted, in my career guidance session in high school I was advised to be a janitor, but it was a computer program that said that, going off of cold hard logic.

"Let's rearrange our furniture and lives to look directly at it." This is perhaps the funniest bit for me. It is absolutely something I would say. For the first time ever, Sally Forth has made me feel that I'm not totally alone and unique in the world.

And then an unexpected bonus: A Gollum reference! From the lips of a lady who was in her forties thirty years ago! Sally is still hip! Then the strip wraps up with the one-two-three burial-100 years-invicibility punchline. Man. There were plenty of clever comics today, but Sally Forth really nailed it with some good old fashioned shock'n'awe.

ADDENDUM 1: In the process of writing this blog, the east coast hit midnight and the strip rolled over to Monday on the web. I had to select 'yesterday' to access the Sunday strip I was writing about. But I won't retro my references to "today's strip" since it's still Sunday for me.

ADDENDUM 2: An older SF strip I stumbled upon that I really loved. I never thought Sally Forth would sucker-punch me in the gut with the two best comics I read in one day!

Visual Bookshelf

It is the end of an era in online book reviews, one that will most likely be completely forgotton a year from now.

When I first started posting my thumbnail book reviews (2008?), it was on the website Visual Bookshelf. I was pretty excited about the website. It initially ran as a Facebook app, which I think they intended to expand out of but never did. It was listed as an affiliate of Living Social, the guys who have made a name for themselves as the main competitor of Tibet-mockers Groupon. Visual Bookshelf was actually the flagship program for Living Social, originally called Hungry Machine. Back then LS advertised itself as a sort of online social network geared specifically toward common interests, and in the beginning there were no deals- just sites to post and write about your interests and reviews. And probably buy your friends virtual cocktails, which provided none of the pleasure of a real cocktail, nor the warm feelings generally associated with real gifts of any kind.

Over the last few years things changed. While I was busy writing reviews and adding books to my online bookshelf along with a handful of friends, Living Social was busy changing their business model. Meanwhile, I noticed a handful of different friends were posting similiar book reviews on a different website, Goodreads. I debated what to do, wanting to absolutely maximize my online sharing (duh). Obviously I chose to join both sites. I wrote my reviews in the original VB, then copied and pasted them into copycat GR. Both programs interfaced with Facebook to allow me to post links to my reviews for 300 of closest friends who are dying to know what piece of steampunk fiction I had just finished. I posted both reviews, then went to FB to see which looked better and deleted the other link.

This went on for a year or two. But over time my original beloved Visual Bookshelf started to suffer some technical issues. It would re-route users to spam, often vicious spybots. Then it started crashing and the server would be down for hours, even days. Meanwhile Goodreads was steadily improving many of its functions and slowly gaining users. I was hardly suprised when I wandered onto a VB forum one day and found all of the posts ripping Bookshelf apart, and more than a few recommending Goodreads as a great alternative.

Then one day I noticed an ad in Facebook notifying people of a website to import their Visual Bookshelf collections to- while there is still time! 'Still time?', I wondered. I wandered over to the VB app only to find a letter to users slapped on the page instead of the usual website. You can see a version of that letter on the initial Visual Bookshelf link I posted. Basically, Living Social had shifted its focus into other areas of business (shocker) and rather than try to reallocate assetts into a website they had been ignoring pretty well and probably weren't going to start making money on anytime soon (despite an early affiliation with Amazon (the same kind I have on this blog (which similiarly does not make me any money))) they had decided to throw in the towel. I was only mildly suprised to see them straight-up recommending Goodreads as the most viable site to export your collection to. I was slightly miffed that there hadn't been an export option back when I re-created my account onto GR, but what was done was done and I understand the reasons why exporting may have been frowned upon back in the day.

In the end I'm happy, and think that even VB loyalists will be won over by GR's overall better features and technical excellence. I can only hope that Goodreads sustains a viable community and flourishes. There are a lot of people still grumbling about that 30-day issue. While VB did allow 30 days to export your collection before shutting down, they never did actually notify anyone. Folks who happened to not use the site recently, or who didn't happen to notice the news otherwise like me, and more importantly were people who had not backed up their collection and reviews... well, those people are plumb outta luck I guess. I understand Living Social's business priorities, but you can't tell me they couldn't afford the time and expense of sending out notifications to all users. That just seems like a bit of salt in the wound, and a bad piece of PR for a very public company.

Meanwhile, Google Offers is about to launch in most major cities, in an attempt to prove Google's dominance in all things internet. I have no problem admitting my own addiction to LS and Groupon's current deal systems, and I'm mostly happy with the experiences I purchase. Once GO starts offering deals in my city, I'll probably sign up. But will this power trio, combined with a hundred copycat systems, such as the one offered by the local newspaper company which I have also used with general satisfaction, oversaturate the market? Is it just a matter of time before the deals start to stink, or competition runs one of the companies to the ground? Do you, Dear Reader, use these bargain systems? What do you think is the future of the online deal industry? I anxiously await your replies.

Shambling Towards Hiroshima

1945



Obviously we come to a closure now on the second world war. I am sure I missed 100 great sci-fi/alt history stories taking place during WWII, and I know some of my more modern stories in the future re-visit the era in flashback or time machine, but 'shambling toward Hiroshima' is certainly what I have done over the past few months.

This book is a play on the creation of Godzilla, a giant reptile monstrosity bent on the destruction of Tokyo, born from the toxic fumes of nuclear destruction. I read recently that when the original Godzilla movie first showed in Japan, audiences sat in shocked silence, and openly wept. The anology of Godzilla's wave of destruction as representative of the nuclear bomb hit very close to home with the Japanese of the 1950's.

Morrow walks a very thin line when he uses this metaphor in his story of a B-movie actor recruited by the US military to masquerade as a monster trashing Tokyo in an attempt to end the war. The hope is that the threat of a monster invasion will force the Japanese into surrender. It will also buy them some time while they perfect the real life versions of the monsters.

I'm just not sure. Is this a comedy? A wry statement on nuclear bombs at the onset of the Cold War? A tongue in cheek look at the Hollywood horror / b-movie industry of the forties? A serious statement about growing old in Reagan's eighties? A book about Godzilla? It's all these things. Unfortunately, it fails to excell at any of the above genres, but rather muck about and hop from point to point. Yes, this novella is a fun and easy read, but if a mishmash of the mentioned subplots and genres doesn't hit any sweet spots of interest for you, you may wish to pass on 'Hiroshima'.

The Last Days of Krypton

The origin of Superman has been re-written so many times that it's hard to pinpoint when he landed on earth, much less how the travel across the light years affect what earth-year Krypton was destroyed. I suppose the purist in me would say that we should leave DC history as it was before it got hit with a series of Crises changing up timelines. This version is written purposefully vague enough to apply to nearly any version. Supes made his first public appearance in 1938, so Krypton was originally destroyed prior to that. Let's say in the early 1900's. Which makes this post pretty late.

I picked up this book in the library when I had first moved to Colorado Springs and had nothing else to read. Superman isn't my favorite superhero and we'll get to Kevin J. in a second. The cover was nifty. Basically I knew it would be a quick and easy read while I waited for something better to come along.

K.J. Anderson is my most favorite least favorite writer. He has made most of his fame writing spin-off material from popular sci-fi brands. I first became aware of him when reading his Star Wars Jedi Academy series. The Star Wars novels and offical 'expanded universe' had recently been launched with the spectacular Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn, and Anderson's trilogy was a major follow-up with the landmark re-establishment of the Jedi Order after the events in Return of the Jedi.

And it sucked. Like most of Anderson's work, it's overly simple and seems to read like young adult fiction. Where Zahn took a childhood movie and breathed new life into it, Anderson seemed to relish in taking Zahn's complex and adult take on the Star Wars and dumbing it back down to a childhood level. He has done the same with every brand he's touched, and fans of Dune particularly loathe what he has done to the Atriedes family.

But I give Anderson his due: He is the ultimate fan fiction writer. Where relative unknown Alan Dean Foster made a living out of adaptations of screenplays (famously ghost writing the original Star Wars novelization), Kevin J. Anderson has trumped him by writing spin-offs of most major sci-fi sagas, finally making his way to the world of DC comics. And crapping on it, based on this novel and his other recent works.

There I go again getting negative. KJ loves his material, he really does. He is studious in his inclusion of continuity, minutia, and easter eggs for fans. And I think he writes it in a way that reflects his love; it's what we would all do. I just don't know why he continues to enjoy so much "success" for such mediocre material.

'Krypton' has some nice elements. The Kryptonian society is fleshed out in a way that neither confirms nor denies most versions written in the past. Zod is believable, if cliche'. I enjoyed the inclusion of Braniac. But overall the story is bland, unoriginal, drawn out and just didn't need to be told.

I'll read Anderson's work again, and you'll hear more from me about how I am always disappointed by his work, but you'll keep seeing the posts. Because I love the same fantasy worlds he does, and I respect the fact that he enjoys being a creator in those worlds, just as I would if people paid me for my lousy writing.

YesNo by Markus Raetz