My Classic Comics ABCs: The grand finale, X, Y and Z!

...And finally, we reach the end of the alphabet of my Classic Comics ABCs. Took me a little longer than I thought it would to make a journey through the ol' comics collection and some of what I've read and loved these past 25+ years, but 'tis been kinda cool, too, doing brief looks at everything from "A for Amazing Spider-Man" to "Z for Zap Comix." And without further ado, away we go into the end of the alphabet!

X is for Uncanny X-Men #168

If you were a teenage boy reading comic books in the early 1980s, at one point, you had to fall in love with Kitty Pryde. It was the total 12-year-old kid kinda crush, nothing creepy, but the youngest X-Man -- the reader's viewpoint on the team -- was kinda adorable. For me, the prime X-Men era will always been circa #160-#200 when Paul Smith and later, John Romita Jr. were on the artwork with writer Chris Claremont. Yeah, the earlier Claremont/Byrne issues are awesome stuff too, but I didn't read them till much later. Unfortunately, the "X-Men brand" has been so utterly diluted in the years since by endless spin-offs, impossibly complicated continuity and everything from movies to action figures to beach towels that it's hard to forget how simple and revolutionary they once seemed. Unlike the rather stiff Justice League or Avengers or even Fantastic Four, the X-Men in the 1980s seemed real. Chris Claremont had his flaws but at his best, he utterly got the whole outcasts fighting for a society that hates them motif. This issue is a great sampler of the era, featuring Smith's terrific cover, with young Kitty "booted out" of the X-Men for the new younger trainee team. She has a tantrum, fights some stowaway aliens, wins Professor X's respect and is back on the team, the end. It's got superb Smith art and doesn't meander all over like most X-Men stories do today. And man, did I love that Kitty Pryde a bit.

Y is for Yummy Fur #22

Chester Brown is one of indie comics' most interesting creators. His works include the sicko surreal fantasy "Ed The Happy Clown," strangely direct Bible adaptations, Canadian historical nonfiction -- but my favorite of his work remains his unsparing, gripping autobiographical stories. Towards the end of his run of "Yummy Fur," Brown started telling tales from his childhood, focusing on the small moments of being a nerdy kid growing up but making all these moments add up into a rather devastating portrait of boyhood. My favorite among these is "The Playboy," a tale about, well, Brown's first issue of Playboy, and his obsessive compulsive attempts to hide it, his shame, shredding it, hiding the bits again and so on. I won't say I ever did such a thing (no really, I won't) but Brown's eye for detail and his fine, almost wood-cut like art take tiny moments and make them big. He's rather unprolific now compared to what he once was, but Chester Brown is definitely one of comics' greats.

Z is for Zap Comix #0

It's appropriate to end the ol' Comics ABC with Robert Crumb, who helped mark the delineating line between "kid comics" and "adult comix" with his seminal '60s work, including this here issue of "Zap Comix." I'd characterise myself as a "middling" Crumb fan – I'm a huge admirer of his draftsmanship and his ability to let his id utterly flow forth onto the page, although sometimes he gets a little too id for his own good. I find he works best in sampler packages like the "R. Crumb Coffee Table Book " or his excellent sketchbook collections. And then there's the movie "Crumb," which I'd easily put in my top 5 documentaries of all time list -- rarely has a creator let himself be so thoroughly dissected for the screen, and it's a fantastic film. "Zap Comix" #0 is a total artifact of its time, all hippie dreams, Mr. Natural, raining meatballs and Crumb's vaguely disturbing stereotypical drawings of women and black folks. It's a perfect little peek at his odd mind, and while I think he'd go on to do much better work in years to come, "Zap Comix" is still 100% pure Crumb. So we start with Spider-Man, and end with Crumb. That's comics for you!

(*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 , T: Transmetropolitan, U: Ultimate Spider-Man, V: V For Vendetta #1, and W: World's Finest #258.)

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: S and T!

S! And T! Near the end of the alphabet we be! (Can you tell I've been reading Dr. Seuss lately?)

S is for Star Wars #58

Oh, this is a pivotal moment in the alphabetical meander through the ol' comics collection. This tattered and battered 1982 issue of Marvel Comics Star Wars is my first time. The comic, that is, that started off my multi-decade, my oh-my-god I don't want to think about how much money I've spent comics obsession. Sure, I'd read comics before, but casually like any kid, not as a "fanboy." But this one tipped me over the edge. It was a fun comic, during Marvel's rather underrated series following up on the movies, and at this point the great team of artist Walt Simonson and stories David Micheline were on board. The issue itself -- well, nothing "epic," I guess, but it had a cool story about C-3PO and R2-D2 floating in outer space waiting to be rescued. That dazzling Simonson image on the cover -- scarlet sky, boiling sun, vaguely haunting image of robots floating in the void -- it kindled something primal in the ol' mammal brain and I had to pick up every issue of "Star Wars" I could, and soon, many, many other comics as well. All thanks to this issue. I've gotten rid of many of my "floppy" single issue comics over the years, trading them in for paperbacks of the material when I can, but this one issue I'll never get rid of.

T is for Transmetropolitan #8

Cynical, hard-boiled journalist tearing up the streets? Why, it's my life story. ...Nah, I've never really been that kind of journo, but that doesn't keep me from admiring the hell out of Spider Jerusalem, the bald, sneering take-no-prisoners Hunter Thompson meets Mad Max scribe of Warren Ellis' futuristic classic. Ellis is perhaps my favorite comics sci-fi writer, because he makes the future seem so damn plausible and scary. "Transmetropolitan" was bitter, brutal, thoughtful and mercenary, and it was one of my favorite comics of the 1990s-2000s. Ellis' vision of the future, wired-to-the-gills and corrupt as hell, is one of the great settings, and in this issue, Ellis compares then and "now." The political conspiracies and journalism rampages of other issues are set aside for one tale of Mary, a woman who dies in the 20th century, has her head frozen and then is revived in Jerusalem's twisted future 200 years later. This story, written as a Spider column, tells of us Mary's life and the horrible shock she gets from the future, which is meaner and more baffling than anyone could imagine. What would it really be like to visit the future? Maybe we don't want to know. This is a heartbreaking little gem of a story, and one of Warren Ellis's best creations.

(*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.)

My Classic Comics ABCs: Q and R!

Onwards, onwards, through my alphabetical tour of my favorite comics in my collection over the years -- the end is in sight!

Q is for The Question #1

There are "minor" superheroes every comics fan has a thing for. They aren't the giant marquee heroes who get movies made about them like Batman and Wolverine, but they're still cool. I've got mine -- Black Panther, Omega the Unknown, Mr. Monster, The Atom, and the faceless man of mystery himself, The Question. Steve Ditko's Question has one of the best, simplest looks in comics -- a man in a suit, but with no face (thanks to a pseudo-science mask). The Question had a marvelous run back in the 1980s-1990s for DC Comics under writer Denny O'Neil, who for my money is one of comics' most valuable players. O'Neil has written tons of classic Batman, Green Arrow and more stories, and his edgy mix of humanism, relevance and good ol' action still holds up. The Question #1 is vintage O'Neil, a relaunch of the character who'd more or less been in limbo since his 1960s debut. There's a bit of Batman, a bit of the Shadow and a bit of Caine from "Kung Fu" in the Question, who's kind of a "zen detective." The stories are less about comic superheroes than they are tight little vignettes of the human condition. This is pulp crime comics close to their best, aided by superb art by Denys Cowan. Oh, and at the end of this very first issue the Question is beaten to a pulp, shot in the head and thrown in a river. Now that's a cliffhanger!

R is for The Rocketeer

Dave Stevens' "The Rocketeer" was pure pulp comic art, and it's a real shame there was so little of it. I remember first seeing the dazzling, near photo-realistic art of The Rocketeer back in the mid-1980s -- it was a revelation. The story wasn't anything visionary -- a charming 1930s adventure about a man with a rocket jet pack -- but the intensely detailed art was among comics' best. It didn't hurt that Stevens helped fan the Bettie Page revival with his thinly veiled inclusion of the pin-up queen as a character. There was a not half-bad movie too based on the series in 1991. Unfortunately, the gorgeous art showed how much of a perfectionist Stevens was -- it'd take him years to produce pages, and in the end his Rocketeer story was only a hundred pages or so. He died of leukemia in 2008, his comics output having slowed to a trickle over the years. He did an awful lot of "good girl" pin-up art -- and it was great stuff, never truly sleazy like much of the field. It's a real shame that he didn't leave us with more, but what Rocketeer work he did produce was "choice," as they say.

(*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.

My Classic Comics ABCs: N, O and P!

OK, it's time to speed this up a little bit, because I began my "alphabetical journey through my comics collection" all the way back in June 2008, and here I am just coming up to "N"! I'd love to finish this series while I'm still hale and hearty, so, it's a three-for-one alphabet extravaganza this time as I look at comics that've blown me away for various reasons in my nearly 30 (urk!) year hobby:

N is for Naughty Bits #6

It's sad that there are pitifully few comics by women compared to those for the blokes (although I gather manga is doing better in that respect). But one of the great comics of the alt-explosion of the 1990s was Roberta Gregory's "Naughty Bits," which was as raw and unguarded a look at a woman's mind as anything by R. Crumb was for men. Gregory's signature character is, ahem, "Bitchy Bitch," a frustrated single 30-something hugely unpleasant office drone whose life is unending misery and, well, bitching. Bitchy is bitter, cynical and battered by life, and her ranting interior monologues are great visceral fun to read -- Gregory captures a truer voice for women than most comics artists have, even if this character isn't a pretty picture. Her comics are very lewd with plenty of sex, cussin' and bad behavior, but under all the naughty bits is a fair amount of heart, I think, which makes them worth hunting out. Perhaps my favorite story in the series was the three-parter that began in #6, called, er, "Hippie Bitch Gets Laid," which is a both tragic and witty tale set in the 1960s about Bitchy Bitch's teen days, her first time and first abortion. It's hardcore stuff but relentlessly honest. A great sampling of Gregory's bitch-fest is in "Life's A Bitch."

O is for The One #1

I have a particular love for this very oddball, somewhat forgotten 1985 miniseries about the end of the world, an early but kind of amazing work by Rick Veitch. It's a strange bit of 1980s paranoia time-capsule, all Reagan and Soviets and nuclear angst wrapped up in a superhero sandwich and crossed with a fair bit of hippie utopia. It's kind of like Veitch was trying to do his version of "Watchmen" but it's filtered through an LSD experience, with colorful superheroes, goofy punk rockers and plenty of ultraviolence. Veitch swings between loopy cold-war satire and a genial, optimistic dream. For 1985, and published by Marvel Comics of all places, it was pretty out there -- any series that ends with a giant rat devouring Washington, D.C. and a naked love-in probably would be. For my mind, "The One" holds together as a unit better than some of Veitch's other work like Maximortal and Bratpack, which are also quite spectacular superhero-deconstruction visions but marred by feeling rather unfinished. "The One" is a trippy comics experience indeed, and worth seeking out.

P is for Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #72

I know, I already had Spider-Man once on this list (as in Amazing...") but hey, I'm a webhead, so I can do him twice. And I had a strong spot for this long-gone 1980s series with the bulky title, which ostensibly focused as much on hapless Peter Parker, college student, as it did the superhero stuff. There was an excellent run on this series from #50 up to #100 or so, and many issues featured inventive, playful covers by the superbly underrated Ed Hannigan. I picked out #72 as a quite fun representative of the time -- Spider-Man is searching for an escaped Dr. Octopus, but ends up tangled up with a misguided misfit kid who idolizes the villain and has created his own makeshift "Dr. Octopus" costume. The tale of goofy fan Ollie Osnick is a fun romp that touches on Spider-Man's own outcast history. This one wasn't a pivotal comic that changed the medium forever or anything, but for me it sums up the essence of Spider-Man.

(*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 and finally, M: Miracleman.

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.)

My Classic Comic ABCs: Kingdom Come

I'm of two minds about Alex Ross.

He's been probably one of the most-praised artists of the past 15 years or so in comics, with his distinct photo-referenced painterly style and undying reverence for the classic superheroes, on display in series like "Marvels," "Earth X," "Justice" and many more. When Alex Ross paints Superman, you can see why they call him the Man of Steel -- all granite jaw and stern power, done with a photorealistic detail that often leaps out of the pages.

Yet Ross's sheer talent and reverence also gives way to stiffness sometimes, and his affection for "revisiting" classic superheroes can start to seem a bit dead-end, endless nostalgia without much forward motion. I admire Ross tremendously as a technician – his coffee table art book "Mythology" is a gorgeous testament to his skill -- but I think as a storyteller, he's a bit hit or miss. The characters often pose rather than move with the fluidity of a Will Eisner or Frank Miller. To me, his work struggles to escape the frame of pin-ups.

Lest I sound like I'm bagging on Ross, I think his peak remains his collaboration with writer Mark Waid, 1996's "Kingdom Come," an epic tale of heroism and failure in the future of the DC Universe, featuring Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and their various protege and successors in a twisting and bombastic morality tale. Ross has a lively power to his artwork here – I don't think I've ever seen Bruce Wayne's face seem quite so spot-on for the character, handsome yet a bit devious and scarred. Ross's aging Superman has also rightly become an iconic presentation. Waid's script is among his best work, too, and he doesn't succumb to the weaknesses that have marred some of Ross's other collaborations.

The whole "alternative dark future where lots of characters die" story trope has been done to death, but "Kingdom Come" succeeds because it touches some universal chords about what it means to be a hero. It nicely comments on the comic industry vogue for "grim 'n gritty" killers as heroes in the 1990s. There's a reason staid and steady Superman has remained in print for 70 years now, and Waid shows us what it is.

Many of these big everything-and-the-kitchen-sink tales haven't worked for me because they're so overstuffed, but despite the acres of capes and cowls on display in "Kingdom Come," there's a quiet moral center at the core, nicely portrayed in the humble human preacher Norman McKay. I find myself moved when I re-read "Kingdom Come," something that doesn't happen in a lot of the other big superhero pile-ons. Of course, DC has gone on to milk "Kingdom" for all it's worth, using its speculative alternative future as a basis for endless changes and permutations in the "real" universe. But the original is still a hell of a read, and marks Alex Ross' apex as a creator I think.

(*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, and J: JLA.)

My Classic Comics ABCs: JLA #14

One of the first comic books I ever read was an issue of "Justice League of America," circa 1980. How could you go wrong with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and more all on one team? More heroes for your money. The Justice League is the Greek Pantheon of superhero comics -- but it's a shame the potential of the title has rarely been met. For much of its 40+ year existence, the Justice League weren't really all that super. They were a club, rather than an army. Memorable tales were far apart.

Until writer Grant Morrison got a hold of it, for a run in the late 1990s, and made the "JLA" must reading for several years. He got back to "the big Seven" -- Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter -- and took the concept utterly straight. Morrison is going for pure, granite-hewed iconic, with his gods-made-flesh watching over the earth (it's no coincidence that their Olympus, the Watchtower, is on the moon). It's by far the most evolutionarily advanced take on the Justice League, which had bounced about in a variety of incarnations from serious to jokes.

Morrison takes a chunk of the "push everything to 11" excess of Warren Ellis' "Authority," with the added resonance of these characters being established legends. Pretty much every foe is massive, every clash threatening to shake the foundations of reality -- which is the perfect way to do the Justice League. If you've got the biggest heroes, go big. Fight Martians, fight Gods, fight the essence of primordial evil itself. I'd rank his run on "JLA" with the best of anything Morrison's done -- I think he tried to recapture the glowering armageddon vibe with the more recent "Final Crisis" but fell short.

By the sixth issue of "JLA", Superman is wrestling with rogue angels. Morrison uses the young Kyle Rayner Green Lantern and Wally West Flash as our "man on the street" heroes, breathless and cocky and amazed to be in the company of legends. "Man, doesn't it ever just hit you how awesome this all is?" Green Lantern says at one point. That's not something you'd catch Superman or Batman saying, but Morrison cleverly uses the younger heroes to give his tales a sense of scale and power.

My favorite sequence of "JLA" issues remains "Rock of Ages," which started in #10. Morrison throws in everything -- an Injustice League led by Luthor, Darkseid, time-travel, gigantic future hero-gods, magical wishing-stones, the end of the world, holographic duplicates and so many "gee-whiz cool" moments that my fanboy brain ached. The convoluted plot avoids some of Morrison's later excesses. Perhaps the sheerest distillation of Morrison's "JLA" run is a sequence in #14 set in a distant ruined future, where second-tier heroes Green Arrow and the Atom face off alone against the greatest evil in the universe -- and in a fist-pumpingly cool fashion, triumph. (My favorite line of the entire series? "Ray? You and me, man - we just killed Darkseid.")

Howard Porter's art on here came up for a lot of flak at the time. His figures are stiff and dense, with fierce black lines and chiseled dynamism. Panels crackle with energy. It's harsh artwork, without smooth edges, and admittedly Porter's anatomy is sometimes a bit rough, but it generally worked well to bring that sense of action movie-times-10 passion to Morrison's impossibly tall tales of heroes and villains. I'd rather look at Porter's art over Jim Lee, myself.

(*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.)

My Classic Comics ABCs: Incredible Hulk #340

OK, I've gone highbrow with some parts of this series, but forget your "Cerebus" and your "Eightballs" as we continue an alphabetical gallop through my comics collection. This is straight-up jaw-trembling muscle-straining sinew-bursting superhero action, effendi! Or in other words -- HULK SMASH!

"Incredible Hulk" #340 boasts one of the most iconic covers of the past few decades, and a delicious Hulk vs. Wolverine battle that is still probably the best clash these two have had. Wolverine is so overexposed as a character that good stories are rare, but this one does a nice job of showing Wolverine trying to "mature" (he actually declines to brawl with the Hulk at first). It ain't Shakespeare, but for hero-on-hero action it's a decent read. But this comic also feels so 90s, even though it came out in 1988. A lot of that is due to the art of Todd McFarlane.

I never was a huge fan of the whole "Image comics" school of art, but of them McFarlane was probably the best. His work seemed a bit of fresh air at the end of the '80s, a sharp contrast to more conservative draftsmen like Herb Trimpe or Dave Cockrum. McFarlane specialized in sharp angles, peculiar lines and dynamic tension; I never really got into his absurdly pretentious "Spawn," but his work on Hulk and Spider-Man at the time had a trashy power that still holds up. I particularly liked how ugly he made the Hulk, all gnarled muscles and bubbling anger. He captured the Jekyll and Hyde essence of the character better than many artists. His "pretty" characters, by contrast, looked like eerie Barbie dolls.

But the McFarlane art is only part of what made "Hulk" #340 such a solid superhero-vs.-superhero romp. Peter David was just starting off his record 12-year run on the character, and he had a ball playing with the basic concepts of the Hulk - in his run we had gray Hulk, smart Hulk, crazy Hulk, a variety of personality takes on Dr. Banner and his alter ego. David's mix of humour and psychological angst worked well on the Hulk, and I still treasure his run as the best the character's ever had. In this issue you feel him start to unfurl his wings and try some new ideas out. He ran out of steam towards the end, but for most of the duration he made the Hulk truly exciting -- something the childlike green giant the Hulk had been for many years wasn't. Writers since have tried to capture David's invention with mixed results. ("Red Hulk"? Please.) When I think of the Hulk, I think of Peter David's definitive work on him.

(*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.)

My Classic Comics ABCs: Hate #3

Here we are at the latest in my every-so-often series* taking an alphabetical random jaunt through my comics collection. (OK, every so often means every couple months, really). Anyway, when I think of comics and when I think of "H," I think of one word ---

HATE. ...Not y'know, bashing people and so forth, but rather, Peter Bagge's classic time capsule of 1990s nostalgia featuring ne'er-do-well Buddy Bradley. I've written about "Hate" before on this blog, so this might be a bit repetitive. But go read the previous post to tell you a little of why "Hate" is great.

Now, the first issue of "Hate" I remember picking up was #3, a wonderfully twisted Dante's inferno of a "date night" for Buddy Bradley and his rather aggressive new gal pal Valerie. A simple romantic dinner at home goes haywire as a procession of ever-more-twisted roommates interrupts the night with their various neuroses. It's a simple plot, but Bagge has a keen eye for lunacy; the nerd loner George, the manic id Stinky and the depressed self-pitying Lisa. They're like a roll call of "Hate"-ful behavior, topped off by the rants of Buddy and Valerie.

Nobody in "Hate" is really likeable, I guess, but back in the 1990s they all seemed to still be a lot like me and people I knew. Just exaggerated a bit. In fact, this mildly obscured panel here to your right tells you much of what you need to know about "Hate" #3 -- sick and twisted but funny as hell, too. I've been trying to find a use ever since for the phrase "get your genitals away from my plate" but have failed.

A lot of the "grunge" era I guess seems rather dated now; that strange halcyon era of photocopied "zines," plaid shirts and mobile phones that were the size of a briefcase. An era without text messaging or any real internet! "Hate" captures well what it was to be coming of age in that in-between daze, and I hope it's not sacrilege to say I see it to the '90s as R. Crumb's comix are to the early '70s. All that and it be funny, too! While the trappings of the era have changed, one of the sly genius of Bagge's cartooning is that the fundamentals of human interaction haven't. We're all mildly or majorly screwed up, and "Hate" is an ode to the way people sometimes get.

(*Previously in this series: A: Amazing Spider-Man, B: Batman, C: Cerebus, D: Doom Patrol, E: Eightball, F: Flaming Carrot, G: Give Me Liberty.)

My classic comics ABCS: Give Me Liberty

G was a hard one. As you might vaguely recall, I've been working my way alphabetically through the ol' comics collection, picking out one of my favorite comic books for each letter, and there was usually an abundance of choices for each letter -- until I got to G. While there were lots of good comics starting with a G -- Groo, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Gumby -- nothing really leapt out at me to write about. But then I remembered "Give Me Liberty". Given the whole recent wind-up of the political season, this tale of a future America gone wrong and trying to redeem itself seems particularly apt.

A gem with the words of Frank Miller and the art of Dave Gibbons, "Give Me Liberty" boasts a heavy pedigree. Yet it never quite seems to get the acclaim of Miller's "Dark Knight Returns" or Gibbons' "Watchmen." Still, it's a heck of a fine satire. Martha Washington is a young black woman who overcomes impossible odds to become a military hero in a collapsing America. All kinds of horrible things happen to Martha as she cavorts through wars and conspiracies, but she never gives in. Unlike the invincible Marv of Miller's "Sin City" or the aging Bruce Wayne, Martha seems a bit more human despite her tortures.

It's quite strange now, to re-read "Give Me Liberty" and realize those far-out future dates Miller has set his story in are here, or nearly here. Reading it back in the early 90s, seeing the years 2009 and 2010 pass by still had the tang of mystery. Like "Watchmen," "Liberty" is packed with tiny details that fill out its elaborate imaginary world -- the barely-glimpsed table of contents of a "This Week" magazine from January 2009 (!) shows tantalizing glimpses such as "Australia's Aborigines revolt" and "zero gravity surgery."

Miller didn't foresee 9/11, or exactly what the world would become, but he did imagine a world where factionalism takes hold, where America breaks apart into separate nations, such as the American Indian renaissance in a blasted southwest. In my mind, the satire here works far better than it did in "Dark Knight," where the talking heads TV antics always seemed a sideshow to the story. Here, the multi-media interruptions and expositions are integral to the world of Martha Washington, with the advent of the Internet heavily foreshadowed. Despite the brutality, assorted nuclear mutants and holocausts, "Give Me Liberty" is a fundamentally optimistic series.

Miller's trademark blend of tough-guy talk and way over-the-top action is running at a high here, coupled with the typically stunning art of Gibbons. (Miller is very good at keeping the script tight when it needs to be and just letting Gibbons' art tell the story; it feels more like a partnership.) After "Give Me Liberty," Martha Washington came back in a series of elaborate sequels with diminishing returns, but the original is still a fresh, startling take on sci-fi with a kind of hero who's still, sadly, rather unusual in genre fiction. (Quick -- name three other black female women sci-fi action heroes.)

"Liberty", too, foreshadows the change Frank Miller's career has seen from more traditional noir action into broad, sometimes too broad satire. "Liberty" came after the whole Dark Knight/Daredevil/Elektra run of the 1980s, his most mainstream superhero work, yet pointed toward his work like Hard Boiled and "Sin City"; it also had some of the clenched-jaw excess that has marked series like "All-Star Batman" or his bizarre "Dark Knight" sequel. (The demented Surgeon-General villain would fit just fine in "All-Star Batman.") It was a crossroads in his career; one could argue all night as to whether his career has peaked since or not, but "Give Me Liberty" is still a high point in Frank Miller's comics legacy.

My Classic Comics ABCS: Flaming Carrot #5

Here we are at #6 on my alphabetical journey through my 25+ years of comic collecting, and we hit the heart of surreal superhero-dom -- the fabulous Flaming Carrot.

I first discovered the Flaming Carrot during the glorious black-and-white comics boom of the mid-1980s, where long-gone publishers like Renegade, Eclipse, First and more sat side-by-side with Marvel and DC at your comic shops. For a lad of 14 or so, it was a cool time to dabble, and nothing on the racks was weirder than Bob Burden's cartoon creation. With the wacky name, eye-catching design and tangible sense of fun that jumped out of the pages, Flaming Carrot Comics was something I had to check out.

The first issue I saw, #5, was like diving into a Lewis Carroll poem or something – a drunken, amnesiac kind-of superhero Flaming Carrot wanders through the city having bizarre adventures with the Frankenstein Monster, martians, hot groupies and a guest appearance by Death himself. Burden's comic was quite stream-of-consciousness – the art, admittedly, was competent rather than dazzling, with a chunky amiability despite the lack of polish. It was less a story than a series of goofy moments strung together, like Marx Brothers meets Spider-Man or somesuch.

A highlight for me this issue was an out-of-nowhere soliloquy by the Carrot that achieves a kind of T.S. Eliot grandeur to me -- "I sit on the lawn ... a child in the summer ... holding my head and looking at it carefully..." Tremendously oddball yet evocative stuff, and you sure didn't see that in Marvel Comics then. It struck a spark in me then, a kind of creative match that made me want to create my own strange characters.

Burden's infectious creativity showed me that no idea was really too strange to not just go with, that you didn't have to be all smooth and refined, and I soon ended up scribbling away pages and pages of a quasi-comic short story called "The Spongy Chronicles" largely inspired by the Flaming Carrot's insane world. It's daft stuff looked at now, of course, but a few years later I took some of the things from that and used it to create the small-press comic Amoeba Adventures, which I started in college and ran with through much of the 1990s and am moderately proud of. It was hardly Nobel Prize-winning material but it did win some fans and friends and was a hell of a lot of fun, and I have to admit I wonder if I would have been inspired to do it if it weren't for the Flaming Carrot. (In fact I even named a villain in the series "The Asbestos Mushroom" in a tip to the Carrot hat.)

Bob Burden has continued sporadic adventures of the Flaming Carrot to this day (the muddled movie misfire "Mystery Men" was also based on some of his creations), and it's best when it still has that what-the-hell randomness that drew me to it in the first place. Flaming Carrot, I salute you. Ut!

Previously in this series: A: Amazing Spider-Man, B: Batman, C: Cerebus, D: Doom Patrol, E: Eightball.

My Classic Comics ABCs: Eightball #5

Man, the late '80s and early '90s were a fantastic time for 'alternative' comics, weren't they? This was a golden age, my friends, where Peter Bagge's Hate, Roberta Gregory's Naughty Bits, Paul Chadwick's Concrete, Cerebus of course and many others shared space with Batman and Spider-Man. And perhaps my favorite of the alterna-gang, Dan Clowes' wacky anthology Eightball. The first issue I picked up of it was #5, and indeed it was one of the first of the alternative comics age that I was soon drawn into. In my ongoing alphabetical look at comics in my collection, "E" is for edgy, exotic and Eightball, by gum.

The gem of this issue was part five of his 10-part David Lynchian epic, "Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron." A man wanders through a night in a strange city and an awful hotel room, with a headless dog, horrifying dreams and a prostitute crashing in for good measure. It all floats by in a haze of imagery -- few words -- and it's kind of incomprehensible on its own yet it caught my interest. Reading this was like taking a shower in surrealism -- Even when I pieced together the entire story (now in a nice collection of its own), I realised plot wasn't the point. It was mood, mystery and menace. Images from "Velvet Glove" still haunt me -- the misshapen girl-fish thing "Tina," the dreams of animals chewing at your legs or even just the throwaway lines filled with desperation. Clowes tapped into the world of nightmares, a Kerouac-meets-Dada haze, and the uneasy feeling was just increased by his '50s-ish, straight-lined artwork.

"Velvet Glove" was the bulk of the issue but there were also several of Clowes' more straightforward short satires. The one that really hooked me was "Playful Obsession," taking a page straight out of R. Crumb or the Freak Brothers with his take on the Harvey Comics characters like Richie Rich and Casper -- except, y'know, naughty. (I can't see "Little Dot" without thinking of Clowes' depraved fetishist "Little Octagon.")

There's an ongoing sense within Clowes' work that the world is tissue-paper thin, and far stranger and weirder beneath than we'd ever imagine. Later issues of Eightball brought forth the masterful "Ghost World" and stuff like "Art School Confidential" (which both became movies -- one great, one, eh, not so much). Clowes -- and Eightball -- is still cartooning, but it seems like the publication has radically slowed down (I'm not sure how many years ago the last Eightball came out!). In fact a lot of the same group of artists I followed so much 15 years ago or so - Bagge, Gregory, Chadwick -- have either faded away or their work has dropped a lot in quality. Clowes is still chugging away, but it might be selfish of me to say I wish we'd see his work a little more often.

Previously in this series: A, B, C and D.

My Classic Comics ABCs: Doom Patrol #21

And here we go, another installment in my ongoing alphabetical look at the comic books that have meant the most to me in my 25+ year hobby/clinical addiction.

D brings us to lots of cool comics -- Daredevil, Dark Knight, Defenders. But for me, D has to be Doom Patrol. The very name is awesome and evocative, and while the comic has been kind of hit-or-miss over the years (and revived about 74 times with varying durations), when it's worked, Doom Patrol is totally cool. The DP was created just about exactly at the same time back in the 1960s as the more famous X-Men, and follow a similar template – strange superpowered "misfits" who protect humanity despite being scorned by them. The original comics are some of the Silver Age's weirdest and most enjoyable romps, but it was a revival in the late 1980s that first caught my eye, and together with his equally revelatory Animal Man of the same era, introduced me to the work of Grant Morrison.

Morrison took the idea of the Doom Patrol and twisted it into a ball of surrealism, David Cronenberg-ish bodily squeamishness and wry satire. The Doom Patrol had always been a team of freaks, but Morrison really went nuts – hermaphrodite energy beings, sentient transvestite streets, an abuse victim with multiple, superpowered personalities, living incarnations of the Dada art movement. Ideas poured from Morrison with crazy abandon and the world of superheroes never seemed weirder. The 1980s were a golden time for "revisionist" superhero notions, but Morrison took them into stranger places than anyone I think.

So. Doom Patrol #21. This is early in Morrison's 40-issue or so run, and it's when things start to get seriously peculiar. I believe this was the first issue I checked out, and typically of me, I came in at part three of a four-part story with little idea what was going on. Basically, a fictional world created by a bunch of intellectual vandals becomes real, threatening to overwhelm the real world with a bizarre mix of German expressionism, dream demons and menacing gibberish-spouting "Scissormen." Morrison's idea-packed script is brimming with throwaway lines and ideas and often has the nightmarish feel of a fever dream where anything can happen. At one point the notion of bringing Superman in to stop the invasion is mulled, but no – this is too weird for Superman. That's the kind of world the Doom Patrol live in.

One of the geniuses of Morrison's run is how he used the character of Cliff Steele, "Robotman," as the everyman perspective into his spiraling labyrinth of oddities. Robotman is a remainder from the old Doom Patrol comics, the usual man-whose-brain-was-transplanted-into-a-robot deal. But despite being encased in steel, Robotman is the most human of the entire group, and his wise-guy stunned asides (drinking game: see how many times Robotman says "Oh my god" or something similar as a reaction) provide a grounding for Morrison's explorations of the underworlds.

The early issues of Morrison's run are more "superheroey," but his ambitious tales get more and more distant from traditional expectations as his story goes on. I love 'em all, but this first glimpse at his keen imagination is still one of my favorite Doom Patrol stories. Beware the Scissormen!

Previously in this series: A, B, C. Next: E is for... ?

My Classic Comics ABCs: Cerebus #83

OK, this is a weird issue to continue my alphabetical countdown of my favourite comics over the years.

On the face of it, Dave Sim's Cerebus #83 is actually one HELL of a boring comic - the middle of a verrrrry long storyline and a bizarre digression that I'm still not quite sure makes much sense, in which a housewife basically spends the entire issue giving a rambling monologue to our aardvark hero Cerebus. It's right in the middle of the epic "Church And State" storyline that ran like 60 issues, but it's a strange pause in the action – lots of exposition. "Church and State" is overall a fantastic storyline. But this issue – really, not the best part. (The teaser at the end of the issue even acknowledges this, saying "Next: Patience, Folks, She's Getting To It.")

I picked Cerebus on a whim, not really "getting it." Yet this and a couple other random issues I bought around this time stuck with me. There was a sense that there was a heck of a lot going on here I didn't understand, and the sheer denseness of it all intrigued me. There was something going on here that was a lot more ambitious than most comics I read. I was mostly a Marvel and DC superheroes kind of guy, and the ornate beauty of Dave Sim and Gerhard's black and white artwork was amazing. (Dig all those zillions of little crosshatches in Gerhard's background - every grain of wood on the beams! I still don't understand how the man had the patience for that.) A little later, around "Jaka's Story" I think, I started buying Cerebus full-time and kept on with it up and down (mostly down, sadly, in the final act) till #300 in 2004.

But here's the main reason Cerebus ranks for me - I met my wife through it. Yep, I wouldn't be here in New Zealand without Cerebus – y'see, my wife read Cerebus too, and I had a letter printed in it circa #150 that she read. She was looking for American pen-pals and so we began exchanging letters ... and give or take 7 years or so of friendship, long-distance courtship and other diversions, we ended up together, spawned a baby boy, and still like to read the comics together (she's not big on superheroes though). It's strange to think what my life might have ended up like if I hadn't randomly tried out a few issues of Cerebus back in the 1980s.

As for the comic Cerebus – well, about halfway through I think Dave Sim lost or fatally redirected the plot big-time, and the story basically became a series of absurdist set-pieces that never quite led anywhere. I read it to the end out of a sense of duty, but honestly, post-#200 it sputtered out. His own peculiar obsessions about gender and religion took over the story, obscuring it. The creator overwhelmed the character. The sense of fun, of mystery and hidden potential that I found in my stray issue was never quite met. But for sheer longevity and skill, it's still one of the milestones of the comics medium.

However, I did net a wife and kid out of reading this comic, so y'know, there's that. I owe Cerebus a lot, arguably more than any other comics I've read.

Previously in the Comics ABCS: A, B.

My Classic Comics ABCs: Batman From The 30s To The 70s

We move on to letter #2 in my alphabetical survey of the comics that have meant the most to me in my 26 years reading 'em. B is for "Batman," and specifically, the gigantic classic hardcover collection "Batman From The 30s To The 70s," a heaping slab of comic reprints that shaped many a dreamers' life back in the day.

Batman From The 30s to The 70s

When I was a boy, I got this as a gift, and it's fair to say I was never quite the same since. Batman graphic novels could fill a library but this is perhaps the essential Batman overview, even though it only covers the character's first 30 years.

What a cornucopia of Bat-adventure this thing was. The very first Batman story from Detective Comics #27 looks crude and silly. Yet by the time the first Joker appearance comes around, the grinning clown is horrifying – and when we get to Batman battling the devilish Dr. Death in a burning basement, I was hooked.

The stories, moving through the years into the 1950s, took a turn for the lighter, which highlighted the swashbuckling fun side of Batman -- a trip back in time for "Batman - Indian Chief!", the introduction of the increasingly wacky Batwoman, Batgirl, and, um, Ace The Bathound (who actually seemed rather plausible for an 8-year-old). In "Dimension of Doom" Batgirl and Robin are riding around an alien jungle on polka-dot horse-beasts and Batman and Batwoman have become electrical creatures trapped on another world. The most terrifying notion in the story is that Batman might actually have to kiss Batwoman! Even then, it started to seem a little far-fetched.

But the final section of the book, "The 1970s," suddenly slapped you upside the head with a dunk in realism – "One Bullet Too Many," the classic 'grass roots' Batman tale where Robin moves out, off to college, and Batman abandons the Batcave and toys for a "streamlined" approach to fighting gritty '70s crime. The stories in the final section were darker, the art suddenly a lot more polished, and scary -- stories like "The Secret of The Waiting Graves" and "The Demon Of Gothos Mansion" were so stark and ominous that I remember not actually reading them for a long time, merely scanning the art with one eye, afraid of what these complex-looking tales might contain. The interesting thing about Batman From The 30s To The 70s is the stories start dark, then get lighter and more fanciful, before plummeting back to earth with the grimmest stories yet.

I read my first copy of this so many times it eventually fell apart completely, scattering Bat-pages everywhere. Picked up another copy relatively cheap on eBay (without the dust jacket, but heck, that's the way my copy always was too). A Batman who fights a maniacal Dr. Death in the shadows, then dances on giant typewriter keys while punching green aliens, and lastly chases ghosts around misty moors, all at the same time – that's my Batman!

My Classic Comics ABCs: Amazing Spider-Man #230

I've been reading comic books religiously for 26 (!!!) years now, and I'm having great fun introducing my 4-year-old boy to 'em. (Nothing quite perks up the dormant geek in me like having him say, "Read me a superhero story!"). Thousands of comics by everyone from Kirby to Crumb, tales of characters from superheroes to gods to spacemen to unemployed bookstore clerks, have passed my eyeballs by.

So let's begin an irregular blog series taking a trip down memory lane with My Classic Comics ABCs (a tip of the hat to Comics Should be Good who I shamelessly stole the format from) – head through the alphabet with me picking out comics from my collection that have meant a heck of a lot to me in the past 26 years. Starting, of course, with A and in my humble opinion the greatest comic-book hero of 'em all...

Amazing Spider-Man #230, July 1982

Nothing quite like coming in on part two of a two-part story, but what a part – this story is universally regarded as one of the finest Spider-Man stories in the character's 45+ year history, and with good reason. Spider-Man's swell against foes on his playing field, but what happens if you put him against someone with Hulk-like strength? "Nothing Can Stop The Juggernaut" takes one of the X-Men's classic villains and pits him against the wall-crawler, and Roger Stern's fantastic script takes a rote notion and turns it into near Greek-myth level pathos as poor Peter Parker just keeps on fighting against a seemingly unbeatable foe.

Picking this up at the Lucky's drugstore spinning comic book rack in spring 1982, I was thrown right into the action – part two, like I said, and basically the entire issue is one big chase-fight scene as the hulking Juggernaut walks out of Manhattan, with a hopelessly outmatched Spider-Man trying to stop him. Spidey uses fists, webs, construction equipment, even, in a dazzling sequence illustrated by the young John Romita Jr., a loaded gas tanker. Nothing works, until the most humble of solutions presents itself. As far as underdog stories go, this is one of the greats.

Perhaps the defining element of Peter Parker's character over the years has been that he's constantly beaten down, but always gets back up again. This story takes that element and pushes it to its limits, with crisp, clean storytelling. Roger Stern wrote a run of Spider-Man in the early 1980s that most consider among the character's best moments. For an 11-year-old kid picking up comics for the first time, it kinda felt like having the Beatles be your first rock band. I still have my battered 1982 Amazing Spider-Man #230 somewhere, and fondly recall it as one of the kindling sparks for a lifelong love of comics and an abiding appreciation for my favorite character, the good ol' Amazing Spider-Man.