My Classic Comics ABCs: U, V, and W!

Just three more letters to go in my Classic Comic ABCs as I wind through the ol' comics collection. Here's U through W!

U is for Ultimate Spider-Man #13

I'm of two minds about Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis has becomes one of comics' top selling writers in the last decade, with his name on about half of what Marvel puts out. He brought a fresh, sharp eye for dialogue -- characters that speak like real people! -- and interesting "reinventions" that got a lot of ink. I wouldn't have thought Spider-Man, Wolverine and Luke Cage would work as Avengers, but he's more or less made it work. But on the other hand, Bendis' quirks can become annoying, and his dialogue can sometimes try too hard to be "hip." He also has a knack for starting a story in a gripping way and having it all fall apart in the end. But anyway, Bendis got his big mainstream start with "Ultimate Spider-Man," which should not have worked -- an "alternate" version of Spider-Man starting at age 15 or so, told from the beginning without all the burdens of existing stories? Yet "Ultimate" has often been more entertaining than the established Spidey in the past 10 years. This issue, #13, is one of Bendis' best -- no villains, no costumes, just an issue-long conversation between Peter Parker and his girlfriend Mary Jane as she learns his secret. Bendis' strengths for human interaction are in full flight here. A great single issue where nothing happens, but everything happens.

V is for V for Vendetta #1

I've written about Alan Moore a couple of times here on this list, so this time, I'll turn to the artist. "V for Vendetta" is Moore's giant "F--- you" to the era of Thatcherism/Reaganism, and as chilling a story of paranoid fear and fascism as comics have produced. There was a movie based on this series a while back, which was better than I thought it'd be but lacked the omnipresent dread of the original. Much of the mood of this series comes down to David Lloyd, whose shadow-drenched art flowed richly on the page. He used chiaroscuro to give his work an incredible depth; the grime and decay of post-war London oozes off the page. The colours in the paperback I have are muted, dulled and nearly sepia in approach, letting the blacks dominate. Lloyd also devised the iconic look of the "terrorist" V himself, all dancing cape and frozen, ever-grinning mask. Back when I drew a few scribbly comics myself, I remember studying Lloyd's panels endlessly for tips. Moore's words often get most of the attention in his comics -- and well they should -- but in "V for Vendetta" Lloyd really rose up to become a totally equal partner in the series' creation. It's hard to imagine it drawn by someone else.

W is for World's Finest #258

Some things just go well together. Peanut butter/chocolate, Lennon/McCartney, fish/chips, Superman and Batman. I've always loved the old "World's Finest" series that ran up to the 1980s where Supes and Bats would team every month in a comradely fashion and fight crime. Back then, Batman wasn't so grim and the duo had a real friendship that shouldn't have worked but did. This tale is hardly the best story of the era but I got it 30 years ago in 1979 -- it was one of these wonderful "Dollar Comics" DC did for a while, a 68-page anthology that besides the Dynamic Duo also included Green Arrow, Hawkman, Captain Marvel and whoever else was floating around at the time. The lead story this issue has Batman turning into... well, a were-bat thanks to some Kryptonian disease. It's the kind of story that scares the hell out of an 8-year-old -- Were-Batman was freaky, man! I can still read the yellowing pages and summon up how the story felt to read some 30 years ago. Batman and Superman still team up all the time these days but darn it, they never turn into werebats or battle giant dishwashing machines or aliens quite like they did back in the day.

(*Previously in this series: A: Amazing Spider-Man, B: Batman, C: Cerebus, D: Doom Patrol, E: Eightball, F: Flaming Carrot, G: Give Me Liberty, H: Hate, I: Incredible Hulk, J: JLA, K: Kingdom Come, L: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, M: Miracleman, N: Naughty Bits, O: The One, P: Peter Parker, Q: The Question, R: The Rocketeer, S: Star Wars and T: Transmetropolitan.)

My Classic Comics ABCS: Miracleman #15

It is one of my great comics-collecting mistakes that about 8-9 years ago, I took a punt and decided to sell my entire run of Alan Moore's comic book series "Miracleman" on eBay. As the series was mired in lawsuits between various creative parties, the original issues were very rare and hard to find, and paperbacks were out of print. I figured I'd make my cash and inevitably within a few years the lawsuits would be settled and I'd get shiny new "Miracleman" paperbacks then.

More fool me! Sure, I made a couple hundred bucks, but as 2010 draws near, the "Miracleman" legal labyrinth remains a mess; in theory a settlement came up recently involving Marvel Comics but nobody really knows what it'll mean, or if the original Moore/Neil Gaiman series will finally be brought back into print. Likely, Marvel Comics will stuff out some markedly inferior "new" material first.

I hope the old stuff is reprinted soon, though, as it truly is one of the best superhero comics series I've ever read, and worthy enough to boast a repeat turn by Alan Moore in my "Comics ABCs" list after he turned up last installment with "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." The comic I'd like to focus on today is 1988's "Miracleman" #15, otherwise known as the ultraviolent epic that blew young Nik's mind, man.

"Miracleman," when Moore first took to it in the early 1980s, was a then-novel concept -- superheroes done "realistic." Moore took an old British Captain Marvel rip-off character, "Marvelman," and reinvented him (*quick nerdy note: the character later became known as "Miracleman" when Marvel Comics objected to the revival; while fans tend to prefer "Marvelman," I maintain "Miracleman" is actually a better, more evocative name and that's the one I use). We've seen "realistic" takes on every superhero under the sun in the 25+ years since Alan Moore redid Miracleman, but few have done it as well. The idea of a man who says a magic word and turns into someone else was nothing new, but Moore gave it real thought over "Miracleman's" run. He was joined for the final issues by John Totleben, one of comics' best artists, who leant an almost Renaissance painterly feel. By the end of Moore's series, a final battle was set up between Miracleman and his one-time young protege, the now hopelessly insane Johnny Bates, "Kid Miracleman."

And that's where the mind-scarring came in. "Miracleman" #15 is relentlessly intense, a purgative burst of horror in a full-scale battle issue that devastates London and sees Johnny Bates turn its citizens into his own hideously inventive slaughterhouse. John Totleben's art for this issue is gorgeous and awful -- packed with hideous, intricate details of what an insane superhuman really could do in a city -- skinned corpses hanging on a laundry line, cars hurled into the sky with screaming cargo on board and perspective horribly skewed, a pile of human heads -- trust me, this comic gave me nightmares and ain't for the kids. But Alan Moore didn't just deliver exploitative carnage without a kind of moral; in #16, we see Miracleman's reaction to this battle -- he and his comrades systematically take over human society, remaking it into a kind of utopia. By #16's end, the entire world has changed -- war, crime, money, even death is eliminated, and Miracleman is basically its benign dictator. There's a cost for having superheroes in "real life."

The series theoretically continued from that point, with some very fine issues by Neil Gaiman examining this brave new world, but as good as they were, they couldn't help but seem a bit redundant. In the space of two issues, #15 and #16, Alan Moore pretty much deconstructed and rebuilt the superhero to its omega point. Many writers have gone there since, but none have quite succeeded for me in capturing the superhuman as Moore and Totleben do with their final graceful shot of a no longer slightly human Miracleman, gazing at the glacial perfection he's created from the ashes of London. This is the superman. This is where heroism ends.

(*Previously in this series: A: Amazing Spider-Man, B: Batman, C: Cerebus, D: Doom Patrol, E: Eightball, F: Flaming Carrot, G: Give Me Liberty, H: Hate, I: Incredible Hulk, J: JLA, K: Kingdom Come, L: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

My Classic Comic ABCs: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen V. 2 #5

I can't believe I've gotten nearly halfway through the alphabet in my letter-by-letter survey of favorite comics in my 25+ years of comic collecting, and I have yet to bring up Alan Moore. But where do you start with the man who, I think it's fair to say, is regarded as quite probably the finest writer ever to delve into comic books? Do you go with "Watchmen," "From Hell," "Swamp Thing," "V For Vendetta," "Miracleman"?

But trying to come up with a comic that begins with "L" to fit this here series, one title kept hopping in my mind -- "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." It's a shame that the general public only knows about this through the shockingly awful Sean Connery film bomb, because the original comics, to my mind, are perhaps Alan Moore's most interesting work since his 1980s explosion of ideas. "League" tells the tale of a group of characters from popular Victorian fiction who've banded together – Captain Nemo, Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man, Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Mina Harker of "Dracula," Allan Quatermain and many more. But over several miniseries and graphic novels the concept has expanded to, as Moore has put it, an opportunity to "merge all works of fiction into one world."

If I had to pick one single issue of "League" that dazzles me the most, it's the unforgettable fifth chapter of the second serial, "Red In Tooth And Claw." As London battles the Martian invasion from H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," the League try to stop an impossible foe. But Moore intertwines the Martian invasion with a deconstruction of the League itself -- Mina and Quatermain become lovers, several League members die, and Victorian fiction never seemed quite so disturbing. In perhaps the most famous scene in this book, the terrifying Edward Hyde slays the evil Invisible Man, who has turned traitor to the Martians. The death of the Invisible Man here would rank in my top 10 most disturbing comics scenes ever. (Perhaps more because of what's not shown than what is shown). It's old hat to "reimagine" old tales but there's something truly disquieting about how artist Kevin O'Neill shows us the unseemly, icky side of characters like Dr. Moreau or Sherlock Holmes.

Comics have, over their history, becomes a vertitable ouroboros -- a snake eating its own tail – as they spiral back on their own history more and more. Alan Moore acknowledges this in much of his work, but what's so cunning about "League" to me is his encyclopedic scope in expanding his eye to all realms of fiction.

Of course, it doesn't always work -- the "Black Dossier" League installment became so sprawling and meta-fictional that it kind of lost track of the simple pleasure of the story. But when League is firing on all cylinders, you get a sense that "everything is connected," and it kind of makes you rethink your relationship to stories as you witness such a vast and never-ending tapestry. These tales work first as stirring old-fashioned adventure, but secondly as a kind of passageway into the past. In fact, entire books have been written annotating Moore and O'Neill's laundry list of homages and cameos in these books -- and I'd have to say reading the chatty and well-researched annotations of Jess Nevins is just about as interesting as the original stories.

It's impossible for me to pick the one best Alan Moore tale -- that's like choosing your favorite Beatles song or John Updike's best single sentence -- but "League" is certainly in the top five in my book.

(*Previously in this series: A: Amazing Spider-Man, B: Batman, C: Cerebus, D: Doom Patrol, E: Eightball, F: Flaming Carrot, G: Give Me Liberty, H: Hate, I: Incredible Hulk, J: JLA, and finally K: Kingdom Come.)