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The Deadman Collection 2001 (HC TPB) 354 pages

Written by Arnold Drake, Jack Miller, Neal Adams, Bob Haney, Robert Kanigher. Illustrated by Neal Adams, with Carmine Infantino. Inks by various.
Colours/letters: various. Editor: Jack Miller, Dick Giordano.

Rating: * * * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: various

Reprinting: Strange Adventures #205-216, Brave & the Bold #79, 86, Aquaman #50-52, Challengers of the Unknown #74 (1967-1970)

Published by DC Comics

Cynical circus aerialist, Boston Brand (under the stage name "Deadman"), is murdered in mid-performance, however an Eastern-style supreme deity, Rama Kushna, "The Face of the Universe", grants his ghost a chance to track down his killer, a mysterious man with a hooked hand. Deadman will remain unheard and unseen, but can possess the bodies of living people. Thus empowered, and understandably embittered, Deadman sets out to find the Hook, following various red herrings over the course of 12 issues of Strange Adventures and two of The Brave and the Bold (teaming up with Batman) that invariably led to him helping others, before finally tracking down his killer.

This epic saga -- really a bunch of individual stories, loosely forming a story arc by the search for the Hook -- remains surprisingly fresh, thanks to its off-beat mix of ideas. The series was a blend of crime thriller (as opposed to super-hero adventure, since there were no costumed villains in sight -- an absence that was surprisingly effective), human drama, eerie mysticism with an Eastern flavour, superhero (with Deadman's circus costume providing an appropriately macabre "costume") and, of course, a premise that was a supernatural spin on TV's The Fugitive (with the Hook replacing the One-Armed Man). The circus milieu, though only exploited in a few of the stories, was also wonderfully evocative -- an environment never before or since used as a backdrop for a comic book series. The stories were a mix of anthology, with Deadman sometimes in different locations, dealing with new faces, and on-going series, with periodic returns to the circus and the irregularly used supporting players like Vashnu and Tiny.

Even Deadman himself was an off-beat personality. Hard-boiled and coarse (though with a heart-of-gold, natch), he was middle-aged, weathered (with a broken nose) and, of course, dead. His frustration and rage, often seething below the surface, made him a passionate character and his utter isolation made him one of the most poignant. And his sense of personal mission (though he was easily sidetracked by a sense of altruism into helping others) gave the character and the series a focus and an intensity. And dig that '60s dialogue, baby.

Neal Adams art and unusual panel composition, of course, added a lot to the mood. Adams, admittedly, is an uneven artist, but when he's "on", well, there's a reason he's something of a legend. Though, ironically, it's the first story, by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino (neither of whom did another, though Infantino was given story credit on a couple of other issues) that remains the most memorable, with the characters and scenes vividly realized and Infantino using striking panel composition.

Actually an e-mailer pointed out both Drake and Infantino did work on Deadman again -- Drake wrote a few issues of The Challengers of the Unknown that guest starred Deadman, and Infantino drew a Batman-Deadman team-up as one of the stories in the anniversary Detective Comics #500 (a good issue to track down, though the Deadman team-up was one of the lesser stories).

Though I was familiar with Deadman, I didn't realize the character had ever been a lead feature until I came upon back issues of a 1985 reprint series. I picked up one issue just on a whim, then another, then another -- I was, much to my surprise, hooked. It was intended as a slightly more "grown up" series than a lot of DC's comics at the time (I'm not judging, I'm just repeating what I've read) and the uniqueness of the series and its various ideas make it a shame that DC hasn't bothered to re-collect it as a more economical TPB.

This is a review based on the issues reprinted in a mid-'80s reprint series

Cover price: $___ CDN./$71.00 USA.

Death Defying 'Devil 2009 (HC & SC TPB) 120 pages

Written by Joe Casey, Alex Ross, with Jim Kreuger. Illustrated by Edgar Salazar, with Andy Smith.
Colours: Romulo Fajardo, Jr., with Debora Carita. Letters: Simon Bowland.

Rating: * 1/2 (out of 5)

Reprinting: Death Defying 'Devil #1-4

Number of readings: 1

Reviewed November 17, 2009

Published by Dynamite

I find myself a bit amazed at how awful Dynamite's super hero line is.

Yeah, that's harsh -- and, obviously, subjective. I've certainly come across some reviews of their comics that were more favourable. But for me, there's a bizarre, well, amateurishness to what I've read. And the reason I'm "amazed" is because Dynamite is a glossy, professional comics publisher, one that got its foot in the door producing decent enough comics licensed from other mediums like TV's Battlestar Galactica. When they decided to finally jump into the super hero market -- the genre that largely dominates mainstream comics -- they didn't go about it tentatively, instead creating an instant universe of characters by resurrecting dozens of Golden Age comic book characters that had fallen into the public domain. And to oversee it, they recruited Alex Ross, the artist whose fully painted art (along with some plotting credits) had made him a fan favourite for his involvement with such seminal works as Marvels (for Marvel Comics) and Kingdom Come (for DC). Ross doesn't provide art for Dynamite's comics (other than covers) but he is clearly the guiding force -- which is why I tend to think of Dynamite's line as a single entity, rather than a product of different creators, with the potential for highs and lows.

Dynamite's super hero line begat with the first Project Superpowers mini-series, in which a bunch of 1940s heroes found themselves resurrected in (more or less) modern times. It was used as the launching pad for a bunch of mini-series, including this one featuring the original Daredevil -- here generally referred to as 'Devil so as not to get into copyright entanglements with Marvel Comics who have owned the name for decades.

And this four part story (plus a sixteen page prologue released as part of the annual Free Comic Book Day) is, like Project Superpowers, a strangely muddled, confused effort that fails to satisfy as a story...or to convince you it'll get better if you stick around for future adventures.

Part of the problem is that the Dynamite Universe is based on resurrecting decades old characters that most readers have barely heard of...yet in which little effort is made to explain things for the newer readers. I mean, I have some passing familiarity with Golden Age comics, and even I found a lot of the background poorly articulated.

The story has 'Devil, who is mysteriously mute ever since his re-appearance in Project Superpowers, and Justine, a female French agent, tackling minions of The Claw, an old war time super villain who seems to be at the centre of some global terrorist cult. They also team up with the super fast Silver Streak and the masked aviator, The Ghost. Which is a little what I mean about lack of explanation. The Silver Streak is easy enough to get -- he's just a Flash/Whizzer/Quicksilver type. But the Ghost isn't as clear who/what he is or the extent/limits of his powers (and one suspects they've completely re-invented him from his Golden Age stories, given how different he looks in a one page flashback).

Anyway, thrown into this mix is Dragon, a guy who dresses in a similar costume to 'Devil, and attacks him -- insisting that 'Devil's not the true 'Devil, but an imposter who has usurped a great man's legend.

The art by Edgar Salazar is reasonably good -- arguably more consistent than the art in Project Superpowers. It perhaps helps that Dynamite gave up on the faux-painted colours of the Project Superpowers series, which tended to just look muddy, for more conventional colouring. But though the art is certainly good, viscerally it left me mixed. The action and talky scenes both tend to be a bit stiff, and there aren't too many striking images or panels (save a few shots as we see the Ghost's plane looming overhead).

But it's in the writing where the saga is let down. I mentioned near the beginning that it occasionally seemed "amateurish". In a way, it's as if Ross hasn't quite shaken off his fanboy roots when it comes to plotting, as it almost seems like something a kid would do. The focus is mainly on the action/fight scenes, as if he and co-plotter Casey see story and characterization as being like panel borders -- just a necessary evil to be squeezed in around the cool pictures.

The "reality" in which the characters exist is a bit confused, which is the problem with creating a "new" universe as opposed to DC and Marvel's long established ones. The Superpowers world isn't quite like ours, but it's not always clear what are the rules. There are also technical questions, like why is a French agent running around on U.S. soil, using lethal force? Isn't she out of her jurisdiction? And despite her clearly having authority and government resources...when she and the heroes go to thwart the Claw's next scheme, they have no back up. And during a briefing she announces the Claw is using brainwashed operatives -- "sleepers" who might not know they are the Claw's operatives. But, um, we didn't see this earlier. Well, except one scene where a Claw operative starts murmuring to himself, but it wasn't clear this was the result of brainwashing -- he could've just been spouting dogma (blame Salazar's visuals? Or Casey's script?). Me, I prefer a story where we see when the heroes come to their realization...not where they toss off an explanation after the fact.

Likewise, how the characters make deductions is basically just left up to the French agent announcing information derived from unseen and unknown contacts as opposed to anything depicted in the pages. And the Claw's plan remains, well, non-existent, with even the heroes left to speculate about why the Claw is doing what he's doing. Again, it's a bit like a kid who's just trying to get to the cool scenes, and doesn't really care how or why he gets there.

Which then gets us to the characters...of which there aren't any. Not really. I mean, the 'Devil is mute, so remains a pretty blank slate, with Justine (the French agent), The Silver Streak, and The Ghost pretty non-descript, generic personalities. There to utter a line or two, but not really to be people through whom the scenes are filtered. The closest we get is a scene where, during some particularly anarchic violence, The Ghost cheerfully says it's like "old times" (referring to their war time exploits) and Silver Streak grimly echoes him, evincing less enthusiasm. But that's about it.

And even the fight scenes are pretty bland and generic, as 'Devil fights Dragon a couple of times, and the heroes fight the Claw's minions a couple of times. But you could pretty much mix and match the panels to little discernable effect.

And to top it all off, this is yet another mini-series which isn't really a mini-series -- that is, a stand alone, beginning-middle-and-end sort of affair. By the end, the Claw is still loose, still with (or without) a master plan; Dragon is still running about; we are left to infer Dragon was right -- 'Devil isn't the original, true Daredevil. But we have no hints or clues as to who he might be...nor do Silver Streak and the others really care. And there's another, sinister, sub-plot introduced that is left dangling.

So, let's recap: it's a not very interesting, poorly developed plot featuring not very interesting, nor well defined heroes that, after a lot of page consuming fighting, doesn't really take you anywhere or resolve much. But it has okay art.

Man, I think I'll tell the guys at my local comic shop that if I try to buy another Dynamite super hero comic co-plotted by Alex Ross, that they should refuse to sell it to me. Better yet, they should just shoot me.

This is a review based on the original the mini-series and the FCBD one-shot.

Cover price: $___ CDN./$14.99 USA.

Marvel Masterworks: The Defenders, vol. 5 2015 (HC TPB) 280 pages

Written by Steve Gerber. Pencils by Sal Buscema. Inks by Klaus Janson, Jim Mooney.
Colours/letters: various

Reprinting: The Defenders (1st series) #31-41, Annual #1, and the main story from Marvel Treasury Edition #12 (1975-1976)

Rating: * * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

Reviewed Oct 2018

Published by Marvel Comics

Marvel's Masterwork collections (like their black & white Essential volumes, and more recently their Epic Collections) simply reprint chronological issues -- with occasional ancillary comics thrown in. But whether by accident, or some clever juggling in earlier volumes, or the divine hand of fate, sometimes these collections do end up collecting specific story arcs with beginnings, middles, and ends, and emerging as almost "graphic novels."

And such is the case with this fifth MM Defenders collection which, as luck would have it, reprints the long-celebrated Headmen epic (plus a couple of extra stories). Which makes it a nice book to pick up if you're looking for a "graphic novel," as well as a sample of the peculiar creative vision of writer Steve Gerber, or as an example of the quirkiness that was infusing some of Marvel's 1970s comics when the industry was undergoing a bit of a creative upheaval as new creative blood was moving in and the old rules were being re-written.

It's fair to infer that Gerber's Defenders run -- and these issues inparticular -- probably had a lot of influence on later "edgy" writers, notably Grant Morrison when he assumed the revived Doom Patrol in the 1990s (and indeed we can assume Gerber himself was influenced more than a bit by the original Doom Patrol from the 1960s).

The Defenders as initially conceived by Roy Thomas was supposed to be an off-beat counterpoint to Marvel's more conventional The Avengers and The Fantastic Four (even being literally described as a "non-team"). A misfit team combining characters who seemed an unlikely fit for a group (a mainstay of the Defenders was the irascible Hulk who had been dropped from the original Avengers after about two issues!) And so when Steve Gerber took over the writing chores -- Gerber the poster child for the maverick auteur at a time when comics were seeing an influx of maverick auteurs -- it couldn't help but get even more quirky and misfit-y.

At this point the roster was comprised of Dr. Strange, the Hulk, Nighthawk, and Valkyrie -- and with hanger on, Jack Noriss. Jack was technically Val's husband, except Val's consciousness was no longer that of Barbara Noriss, creating frustration for them both (and a good illustration of the series' innate quirkiness...that a central character is not a super hero, has no powers, and doesn't entirely want to hang out with them, and they don't entirely want him there -- but he's nonetheless part of the team). During these issues they also recruit Luke Cage/Power Man, and a Soviet super-heroine, the third incarnation of the Red Guardian.

Before we jump fully into the story, the art throughout is supplied by Sal Buscema, a workhorse and Marvel stalwart from that era who at one point or another probably worked on every character and every comic at the company. I'll admit, as a younger person I wasn't a huge Sal Buscema fan (and considered his work less dynamic than, say, his brother John's). But as I get older I appreciate the basic fundamentals of his style -- his composition, his storytelling, and yes his drawing and anatomy. His style wasn't especially dramatic or eye-popping, but it got the job done. The first few issues are inked by Jim Mooney (of whom much the same could be said). But for most of the saga he is paired with Klaus Janson to even better effect. Janson would go on to be a much regarded inker, partly because he had such a distinctive, heavy-brush style -- but it's a style that though ramping up the mood and atmosphere, could also obliterate the penciller's detail. But in this earlier phase of his career he struck a better balance between respecting the underlining pencils, while enhancing them with moody shadows and atmosphere.

And given how weird and wacky some of Gerber's ideas were, the straight-forward, conventional superhero art of Sal Buscema actually maybe provided a nice counterpoint -- making it all quirkier precisely because the visuals remained down-to-earth.

This saga came to be called The Headmen saga but comic book epics were written a bit differently back then. Instead of a straightforward tale unfolding in chapters it's a bunch of threads that weave in and out of each other, sometimes fading into the background behind an issue or two adventure, before re-emerging. The Headmen only appear in a few issues, hence why it is sometimes also identified as the Nebulon saga, or the Celestial Mind Control story. Along the way there is plenty of superhero adventure -- plus social commentary, (and satire), philosophical rumination, and just out-and-out comedy. It doesn't always hold together, but it makes for an engaging ride!

The story begins with Nighthawk being attacked by a group of villains calling themselves the Headmen -- and literally having his brain replaced by Chandu the Mystic, one of the Headmen, so as to infiltrate the Defenders (physically, surgically, stored-in-a-glass-jar type of brain swap -- and we're just supposed to accept that once Nighthawk gets his brain back he's back on his feet feet fighting bad guys within an issue or two!).

And that's not even the weirdest part!

This allows Gerber to delve into Nighthawk's childhood and background via flashbacks -- and as an illustration of stylistic weirdness, as Nighthawk dreams about his youthful self...he envisions himself wearing his costume!

When the Defenders figure out what's going on, they swap out Chondu's consciousness with Jack Noriss' mind -- so Nighthawk's body has Chondu's brain and Jack's consciousness! Oh -- and Chondu's consciousness gets placed in the body of a fawn that the child-like Hulk keeps identifying as Bambi!

And that's only the first few issues!

Because in an (initially) completely unrelated plot twist, Nebulon the Celestial Man pops up. Nebulon was a bad guy alien the Defenders had fought many issues before -- but he's undergone a kind of spiritual enlightenment and has decided he's going to save the human race...regardless of whether the human race wants to be saved by him. Not only does this put him at odds with the Defenders, but also with the Headmen who, surprise, also don't see themselves as straight bad guys but also want to save humanity, but their way. Nebulon sets up his own self-help cult promoting the virtues of Celestial Mind Control (which in part involves wearing clown masks and identifying your unenlightened self as a "Bozo"). Remember, this was the 1970s when cults and self-improvement seminars really took off, so Gerber's is riffing on and satirizing current events.

Along the way Valkyrie gets arrested (after a fight with one of the Headmen) and spends a few issues in a sub-plot locked up in a women's prison (again probably a bit of a pop cultural riff -- as prison movies, especially women-in-prison, were a thing then). Plus the Defenders battle second string villain, the Plant Man, for a couple of issues. And other things are going on (including temporarily recruiting both Power Man and the Russian super-heroine, the new Red Guardian, to the team -- the latter because her alter ego is a brain surgeon and they need to get Nighthawk's brain back in his head...but this also allows Gerber to make comments on American-Russian relations).

And, to be fair in some ways it's a bit of a mess. Oh, not a mess, per se. But it's not exactly focused. I mean, that was part of the thing about comics back then: they were mostly written from month-to-month, sagas evolving kind of freeform -- and with no expectation of a collected edition when completed. Unlike with modern comics where multi-issue stories seem to be blocked out and before the first issue even hits the stands. It does mean modern sagas are maybe more focused and coherent -- but equally, it can also make them kind of sterile and bland in comparison, too.

I mean the whole appeal of something like this (and other classic Marvel epics of that era: Englehart's Captain America arcs, Starlin's Warlock and Captain Marvel, Thomas' Avengers Kree/Skrull War, and so on...many reviewed elsewhere on this site) is you can't really predict where it's headed, as the story is constantly fracturing off in different directions, the characters themselves getting shunted off into plot threads. Modern long form stories are often just multi-issue comics -- sagas like this can genuinely lay claim to the pretentious label "epic."

But as I say, there's a feeling it gets away from Gerber from time to time, where even he's not sure where he was headed with it. Or he was headed somewhere -- only to realize he completely forget to work plot points into the story. When the saga finally builds to its climax in the first (and I think only) Defenders Annual, he starts throwing in elements out-of-the-blue that really needed to be better woven into the story (notably suddenly having the characters talk about a third party political candidate) as if either a last minute creative inspiration, or something he had meant to work in earlier...but forgot to do so.

Likewise Val's sojourn in prison basically just feels like an opportunity for Gerber to run with his innate cynicism and distaste for humanity (based on his volume of work, I'm pretty sure Gerber could be labelled a misanthrope) as it's mostly just a lot of scenes of Val dealing with belligerent cons and corrupt guards -- but then in the end he tries to make it seem like it was meant as a story about prison reform. Which is either something he decided at the last minute, or he just kept getting sidetracked by the "hell is other people" theme (although it's interesting to note that decades later he co-wrote a comic set entirely in prison!). The Defenders Annual climax also throws in a bit of globe hoping, as the team splits up and goes off to different parts of the world -- with, y'know, typically problematic results coming from a 1970s American pop writer.

As well, the saga is very much about the threads and sub-plots developing from month-to-month, without too many of the foreground adventures-of-the-month emerging as notable stand alone plots.

But if Gerber doesn't ride herd on his ideas, nor the Headmen saga come together as well as some other memorable '70s comic book epics, it still gets you flipping the pages. And as I say: the very appeal is precisely all the wild ideas, the left turns and weird tangents, the mix of super hero action, eccentricity, social commentary, and character-driven human drama.

It's also possible Gerber may have been hastily wrapping up his ideas, since I believe this was right around the time he had a creative blow-up with Marvel and left the company (leaving minor threads to linger enigmatically, such as a recurring sequence involving a murderous elf...which would be resolved just as enigmatically a few years later by Gerber's successor, David Anthony Kraft, who attempted to maintain the quirky Gerber feel, most notably with his brilliant who Remembers Scorpio? saga).

I mentioned that you could imagine Gerber was being influenced by Arnold Drake & Bruno Permiani's 1960s Doom Patrol -- which kind of set the early bar for "quirky" superhero teams. The give-away is the Headmen themselves, a weird gathering of villains including Dr. Nagan, with a human head atop a gorilla's body, and Ruby, a woman with a ruby globe for a head and the ability to shape shift. The Doom Patrol's arch foes were The Brotherhood of Evil which included a gorilla with human-level intelligence and Madame Rogue, a woman with shape-shifting abilities. Likewise you can't read Grant Morrison's later work on the revived Doom Patrol and not think how much it evokes Gerber's Defenders.

Rounding out this collection is Defenders #41 -- not really part of the Headmen saga (and I think Gerber's final issue) and a 25 page tale originally published in a Howard the Duck Treasury-sized comic in which The Defenders team-up with Howard -- Gerber's most idiosyncratic and signature creation. Buscema and Janson are still along as artists, but since it's more a Howard story than a Defender's story, it's more blatantly silly and comedic -- but the fact that it doesn't jar too much with the rest of this collection tells you just how quirky the main monthly Defenders issues were.

This is a review based on the original comics

Cover price: $___ CDN.

Devi
is reviewed here

District X: Mr. M
   is reviewed here.

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