House to Astonish Episode 214
A small but perfectly formed episode for you this time round, with news about Die: Loaded, the new Infernal Hulk and Doctor Strange, DC’s upcoming Batman/Static: Beyond and the announcements of the murderers’ row of creators working on Batman/Deadpool. We’ve also got reviews of Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum and Uncle Scrooge: Earth’s Mightiest Duck and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a bit of both. All this plus the Thing’s ’92 Subaru, Green Lantern’s trick or treating habits and the Wuzzels revival.
The episode is here, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Bluesky, via email, and if you want something from our Redbubble store I would get in there quick because it’s going away soon, to be replaced by something hopefully better.
As long as a pod is at least in the 45-50 minute range, I wouldn’t call it small or short. I’m not a fan of micro pods. I even felt bad when my short form episodes barely go to 30 minutes.
I told Al I was hoping the pod was last week as I was hoping to hear them discuss that new Rucka heist book at DC w Cheetah and Cheshire. I don’t read a lot of new stuff,but since I did, was hoping for some thoughts.
I would definitely agree with Al that the 70s is Marvel’s weakest decade. There’s a few high points, obviously, but the median quality is much lower than the 80s and even 90s and doesn’t have the novelty and kitsch factor the 60s stuff does. For all Jim Shooter’s flaws, he at least got Marvel to the point where you didn’t have writers quitting in the middle of storylines to be replaced by someone deliberately spiking it off into a different direction (hello Marv Wolfman replacing Englehart on Dr Strange) as often or books ending five pages early because that’s all they had ready before the print deadline (hello 70s Iron Man).
Modern Ducktales series was excellent (I say, with zero nostalgia for the 80s series). I loved that Norse mythology pro wrestling episode. And the golf one!
The interesting thing about Star Lord being retconned into 616 is that DnA had him as a genuinely legendary hero with a legacy and reputation he was trying to hide from, which works with the 90s one trying to fill in for him. It was only the movie and its synergised backwards overflow afterwards that made him an idiot, which frankly doesn’t work with *anything* that preceded it. Ugh, those post-DNA GotG comics make me so sad. Especially how seemingly no-one at Marvel actually read Thanos Imperative, even when they write direct follow ups to it.
I love Marvel in the 1970s. It’s my favourite decade for Marvel Comics (now DC, on the other hand…). It was a creative high-point for the company. I also love Marvel in the 1980s. The quality objectively improved, but the level of spontaneity and “anything can happen” in the plots was lost. Regardless, I can pick up and enjoy almost any comic book published by Marvel from the ‘70s and ‘80s and enjoy it. I can’t say that for any other decade at Marvel (especially the 1990s, from which decade I can pick up very few comics and not want to stop reading comics altogether). The 1960s certainly had a charm and quality, but outside Lee/Ditko Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, and Lee/Kirby FF, a ‘60s Marvel Comic wouldn’t be my first choice to randomly read. I think the level of outthereness and creativity from the Silver Age found fulfillment in Marvel’s 1970s output.
I wouldn’t argue that there were misfires in the 1970s, such as Englehart quitting on Dr. Strange (which is one of my favourite comic runs), but the 1980s also ended up giving us US 1, Team America, and jhericurl Beyonder alongside all the greatness.
Plus, my two favourite comics ever published by Marvel were both from the ‘70s: Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck and Man-Thing.
There have been been great series published by Marvel after Shooter left, but I don’t think Marvel’s overall quality ever again reached the level of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
*I wouldn’t argue there were NO misfires in the 1970s.
“…the 1980s also ended up giving us US 1, Team America, and jhericurl Beyonder…”
…and the New Universe line, and Star Comics, and Crystar, and Sectaurs, and I know thay there were a lot of other flops in there that I can no longer recall the existence of.
I can agree that ’70s Marvel wasn’t as strong as ’80s Marvel, but I’d like to know what metrics we’re going by here to argue that it wasn’t even as strong as ’90s Marvel, because I strongly disagree with that assertion.
Bovril!! We have that too in Canada! I also grew up with Bovril’s TV ads, like this one made in Québec.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz0ouodOYBI
As someone who lived thru it as an adult and worked in a comic shop, 90s Marvel is a lot of stuff i’d politely call not great and unploitely call dreck. A lot of stuff younger people have nostalgia for that I don’t get.
@Mark Coale – Same here. ’70s Marvel had its own share of crap, but when it comes to ’70s Marvel, you don’t have to dig too deeply to find a good read. Digging through ’90s Marvel for a good read requires a shovel.
70s Marvel is full of experimental stuff, admittedly not of all it hit the landing.
Not sure i can say that for 90s Marvel they way I can for 90s DC.
To say the least. If I had to choose between the Big Two in the ‘90s, I would unhesitatingly choose DC. There was some real dreck at DC in the early-‘90s too, but they were still willing to take risks and not try to rely on a couple of artists’ style. Now, if we figure in the Vertigo imprint as part of DC Comics, then DC was on a completely different level than Marvel. Even without Vertigo, for every “Knightfall” there was a comic that didn’t read as if it was written specifically for the speculator market.
Thunderbolts. That’s it. As far as experimental goes (the ’90s also gave us Deadpool but I don’t really see him as much of an experiment) that’s the only concept born from the ’90s that truly stuck the landing (that I can think of, at least). And that was a happy accident. If Heroes Reborn hadn’t happened, there wouldn’t have been a vacuum in the MU proper for writers to attempt to fill. Funny that the best thing to come out of Heroes Reborn wasn’t even a Heroes Reborn book.
When was Grist’s Daily Bugle mini, 90s or 00s? Other than that, give me Ostrander H 4H and Quicksilver and Kesel’s DD.
Whereas 90s DC gives you Starman, Chase, Chronos, Primal Force, Hitman, Major Bummer, Young Heroes in Love and even some low profile spinoffs like Superboy and the Ravers.
About nicknames being shorter. In Swedish nicknames are typically two syllables (I assume this is because of rhythm), including for the myriad of one syllable names.
Don’t forget John Ostrander’s ‘90s DC work…the classic Spectre series and suitably depressing Martian Manhunter.
You also left off Grant Morrison’s DC contributions, like JLA. Plus, the one time that Aquaman was cool under Peter David.
Both Alan Grant and Garth Ennis on the Demon.
Let’s see…what else? William Messner-Loebs stuck around and had some contributions to DC after his definitive post-Crisis version of the Flash.
The majority of the first hundred issues of Legends of the Dark Knight (the first DC Comic series I ever read), including the Jamie Delano done-in-story which ranks as one of my favourite Batman stories.
Heroes for Hire disappointed me. I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed it more if the heroes actually got hired by someone since that was the supposed premise of the book, but maybe that was expecting too much.
I quite enjoyed Kesel’s Daredevil, though.
@Chris V- I’ve got issues with Messner-Loebs. Having Speed McGee get back with his wife who he was horribly abusive to had Unfortunate Implications. (Though arguably it was no worse that the X-Men letting Emma teach Generation X after what she did to Angelica.) And having Wonder Woman work at a fast food joint because of a computer error with the Justice League’s payroll system just made the League look (a) incompetent and (b) unsympathetic. (I can’t believe that they wouldn’t find some way to pay Diana. She wasn’t asking for an advance- she was asking to be paid for work she’d ALREADY DONE.)
Yeah, 90s Marvel is all about finding hidden gems or runs that produced a few standout stories, like J. Marc DeMatteis’s Spectacular Spider-Man run or the Todd DeZago/Mike Wieringo Sensational Spider-Man era. Both books were inconsistent to some degree, and they both had to deal with crap like the Clone Saga, but when they were good they were very, very good.
And there’s also the short-lived but excellent Mark Waid/Ron Garney Captain America run that was cut short by Heroes Reborn. The “Heroes Return” stuff wasn’t anywhere nearly as strong.
I’ll also stand up for the first twenty-five issues of New Warriors.
Omar-The first DeMatteis Spectacular run, which was the stronger of his two and an example of a ‘90s Marvel book I would choose to read today, predates the Clone Saga. DeMatteis finished his run on Spectacular and moved to Amazing (which is not a comic I would recommend) just in time to get roped into being one of the architects for the Clone Saga. His second run on Spectacular is also worth reading but is much more spotty, and that second Spectacular run is where DeMatteis was stuck still having to deal with the Clone Saga fallout.
@Omar – Yeah, Waid’s pre-HR Cap run was wonderful stuff, and I agree that his second stint didn’t even come close to it. I don’t know. Maybe the HR interruption broke his stride and he wasn’t able to get it back, or maybe he’d spent all the inspiration he had on his first pass at the character.
@Chris V: You’re right. DeMatteis left as soon as “Maximum Carnage” was over. I think that I just sort of mashed together that overextended event story and the Clone Saga, along with remembering the Sal Buscema art of that period. But I agree about DeMatteis’s first Spectacular run being far stronger than the second one.
@Moo: There’s definitely a change in storytelling when Waid returns to Captain America for the “Heroes Return” event. Instead of doing a superheroized take on military/espionage action films, Waid moves fully over to fantastical, high-powered threats like the Skrulls and Nightmare and plays up Cap’s symbolic status a lot more.
I think there’s a solid comparison to be made with Waid’s two Red Skull stories. The first run has a desperate Skull pulling in Steve Rogers to tackle the creeping threat of the Hitler-possessed Cosmic Cube, which is slowly growing in strength. But functionally, it’s a “base under siege” plot that ends with Cap having to let go of the past.
The second run has the Skull come back as a full-on Cube-powered reality-warper, toying with Cap until his ego gets used against him, and also gets tangled up with the cosmic, time-hopping villain Korvac. It’s “bigger” in terms of spectacle, but at the cost of being much shallower in terms of character stakes and suspense.
I think Waid got a few strong one-and-dones in that second run, like the issue with the corrupt senator taking money from AIM or the single issue of the Korvac story that was mostly about Cap’s refusal to give up and Korvac’s failure to understand why his ideal society wasn’t sustainable. But those are the stories that rely more on what Steve Rogers wants or feels than on Captain America as “the American Dream.”
For similar reasons, I also really like the originally scripted version of the issue about the Red Skull being trapped in his idea of hell, as opposed to the clumsily editorially rescripted version that was originally published. I was quite glad that Marvel later found a way to publish Waid’s originally intended version when those issues were collected.
The problem I had with Waid’s first run is that Sharon’s anger toward Steve for thinking he was dead when he saw her die on video was completely INSANE. Especially since they later said that she agreed to fake her death in the first place.
Regarding. Waid’s second run, have they ever explained why they changed the villain from Kang to Korvac? It’s been suggested that it was because Kang was also being used in Avengers Forever but villains appear in multiple series all the time. Just today, Tombstone appeared in THREE different series.
From a 2011 interview with Waid on CBR (“Reviving Mark Waid’s Red Skull”). It also talks about the original version of Captain America #14 (the rescripted Red Skull issue) and how that got changed.
“Another example of it is that we had we had Kang show up in that first issue, and Kang was a subplot player in the entire first year. But then by the time we got ready to play the Kang card, we were told “Oh no, Kurt Busiek is getting ready to use Kang over in ‘Avengers Forever,’ so you’ve got to use someone else.” We were sort of non-plussed and going “But but but…” However, we made it work. Spoiler alert, but we made it into a different villain and gave him a reason for looking like Kang, but that’s the kind of stuff we had to leap through on what seemed like a monthly basis.”
In retrospect, Korvac’s repeated time reboots in Captain America v.3 #18 seem a lot like the sort of thing a powered-up Kang might have done, since it’s all about time manipulation.
Likewise, Korvac’s willingness to let Cap keep challenging him fits a lot better with Kang’s desire to not merely rule, but to win against some enemy.
I was only discussing the 90s DC tertiary books. Maybe should have b mentioned Aztek if we are talking about Morrison/Millar stuff from that era. Obviously there was good stuff going on with the big guns.
I also agree Waid Cap v1 > v2. Also, the Waid/Kubert Ka-Zar should go in the 90s Marvel hidden gem discussions..
Had DC called it “Young & Restless Heroes in Love” that series would still be ongoing today.
Mark-Well, ok (less talk of Millar though, even though I know he was Morrison’s buddy back then, heh). I accept Aztek as a quality replacement choice. I then raise you Alan Grant’s Anarky mini-series and the forgotten gem that was Elizabeth Hand’s Anima.
But seriously, how do you write a book called “Heroes for Hire” and not think to tell stories where the heroes get hired? How do you fuck that up?
Mind you, Ostrander also wrote a book called “Suicide Squad”, and while it’s been years since I read it, I don’t recall it being a book about villains downing bottles of sleeping pills or hanging themselves in their cells. Suicide is a voluntary action and, maybe I’m mistaken, but my memory of that series is that those villains were largely forced into service. That’s not a “Suicide Squad.” That’s a “Wrongful Death Lawsuit Squad.”
I’ve had it with false advertising.
When it comes to 1990s DC, I may be the only living soul who actually liked Steven T. Seagle’s Primal Force, though the final three or so issues were an obvious rush to wrap everything up.
Also, while everyone talks up Waid’s Flash, those first twenty-five issues of Impulse might be even better. Some of the best issues were one-shot, day-in-the-life stories.
Bart’s first day at his new high school was great
So was the story about his efforts to be less popular and noticeable so as to preserve his secret identity.
And then there’s the issue in which he tries to sleep through the night.
Or his brief foray into sports (“Keep your eye on the ball!”).
Oh, and the issue guest-starring Zatanna. Poor, poor Zatanna….
Part of the fun was that Waid wrote Bart as fundamentally quite intelligent and talented despite his impulsivity and naivete. That was a big part of what made the book touching and funny, and why it works as a great allegory for both the shortsighted sense of invulnerability of so many adolescents and, I’d argue, as a character who can be read from today’s perspective as neurodivergent.
I have no idea why the question “What is a green lantern?” led to me singing this to myself, but it did, so I thought I should make everyone else suffer as well.
Think of all the heroes that you ever heard about,
Like Spider-Man, the Flash, or Wolverine.
There are lots of superheroes who have silly names,
But have you ever seen a lantern that is green?
A lantern that is glowing emerald green?
Well, here he is, the Green Lantern,
The cleanly Green Lantern,
He’s named after a lantern that’s green.
He really has a power ring,
And he can use it to make constructs of just everything.
He’s on the scene, the Green Lantern,
The cleanly Green Lantern,
And it’s as plain as your face,
That in day or night, villains beware the light,
Of the emerald Green Lantern patrolling space.
Anyway, I probably need to start checking out DC Black Label titles, having irrationally turned against the whole imprint when the first few announcements sounded like things I’d never read in a million years. (Oh, yes, please sign me up for Frank Miller’s Superman, that sounds great.) I’m particularly pleased to learn that Kryptonite Spectrum isn’t a piss-take, since I think the last time a new colour of Kryptonite was introduced was (deep sigh) Pink Kryptonite, which caused Superman to develop an interest in fashion and stand uncomfortably close to Jimmy Olsen. I wish I was making that up.
Moo: The criminals in the ’80s Suicide Squad were given a choice. You could refuse and serve out your sentence, or sign up and, if you survived a mission, it chopped some undefined amount of time off your sentence.
I will second Omar mentioning the Niceza/Bagley New Warriors, and I like Thunderbolts, so I’ll throw my support in for that as well. I was surprised no one mentioned PAD’s Incredible Hulk, but I hadn’t realized he started writing the book in ’87, so even though most of it was in the ’90s, it’s too early (or is it too high profile of a character?) I was going to nominate the Damage Control mini-series, but the first came out in ’89, the second across ’89 and ’90, and the third in ’91, so probably don’t qualify.
Some other ’90s Marvel I’ll throw out for the commentariat’s consideration: Alan Davis’ Excalibur, Walt Simonson’s FF (may have started the last few months of ’89, but was 90% during the ’90s.) Spider-Man 2099 (the first two years, with PAD and Rick Leonardi.)
I’ve not read enough of them to comment, but I remember PAD’s first X-Factor run, and the Warren Ellis Doom 2099, being discussed favorably. I liked Gerber’s work on Sensational She-Hulk (with early Bryan Hitch art), but that’s only roughly a year long.
Marvel Comics Presents had some good stuff scattered throughout, but the ratio of trash:treasure is probably skewed too far the wrong direction (plus it started in 1988.)
Is Untold Tales of Spider-Man too retro a book? A book in the ’90s pretending to be a book in the ’60s?
@ Michael – Diana’s time at Taco Whiz was close enough to the Bwa-ha-ha era that I have no problem accepting that the JLA was incompetent, at least when it comes to admin stuff.
Moo-Count Vertigo’s story-arc on Suicide Squad was that he was suicidal. His powers gave him bi-polar disorder. He loved the mania but couldn’t deal with the depressions. He asked Deadshot to kill him when he was ready, but Deadshot told him to be sure because he never misses. When Count Vertigo’s plot ended, Deadshot confronted him if he wanted him to kill him or not. No spoilers.
Calvin Pitt-Those are good choices. I agree with all of them except MCP, as I definitely thinks there’s way too much trash. There were a few decent stories though. Gerber’s return to Man-Thing was one I would recommend (great story), but I associate that story with the late-‘80s. Nocenti’s Colossus…not sure if that was still late-‘80s or was 1990.
“Is Untold Tales of Spider-Man too retro a book? A book in the ’90s pretending to be a book in the ’60s?”
Style doesn’t matter. We’re talking about books that the publishers saw fit to publish throughout the ’90s and that was definitely one of them. Great book. Too bad the price point killed it.
@Chris – Ah, okay. That vaguely rings a bell. Thanks.
@omar – Primal Force was on my list above. I always like Jack O Lantern and Tornado. The only thing I didn’t like about that book was the weird lettering.
Impulse was a very fun book, especially Ramos’ art, a perfect choice for the tone of the series.
Will also mention the second JSA series, the one drawn by Parobeck. Has one of my favorite subplots at the time, Jesse Quick writing her thesis about super heroes. That was one of two pitches I ever made, a Jesse quick mini about balancing heroics and academics. The other was a 8-pager about young Wally West as Kid Flash fighting the newlyweds Sportsmaster and Huntress/Tigerss.
@Daibhid C- Even DC has acknowledged that the name Green Lantern makes no sense. In Ch’p’s origin a villain is trying to take over his planet and a Guardian offers him the chance to save his planet by becoming a Green Lantern. Ch’p is confued- he doesn’t see how turning into a piece of furniture will help the situation.
@Chris V- Nocenti’s Colossus was 1988-1989.
Here’s why I think ‘70s Marvel is way less than the sum of its parts (yes, I know I’m over generalizing):
FF – mediocre
Iron Man – mostly mediocre
Thor – mediocre
Hulk – mediocre
MTU – mediocre
MTIO – split between good and mediocre
DD – some decent comics and a whole lot of mediocre
ASM – split between good and mediocre
PP: SM – mostly mediocre
Werewolf By Night – mediocre
Ghost Rider – mostly mediocre
Captain America – split between good and mediocre
Iron Fist -split between good and mediocre, short-lived
Red Sonja – people like Thorne’s art, I guess? Short-lived
Man-Thing – GOOD, short-lived
Luke Cage – more GOOD than mediocre, short -lived
Dr. Strange – more GOOD than mediocre
Avengers – more GOOD than mediocre
Defenders – more GOOD than mediocre
X-Men (post-Giant Sized) – GOOD
Conan – GOOD
MoKF – mostly GOOD
Tomb of Dracula – GOOD
HtD – GOOD
Warlock – GOOD, but short-lived
Various minor character spotlights – mostly mediocre
Not a ton of GOOD comics, although not terrible. Hulk, for example, was readable issue-to-issue. It just never added up to anything super-impressive in the ‘70s. Thomas, Wein, Wolfman, Mantlo, Conway and other writers were inconsistent at best. Englehart, Starlin, and Gerber wrote some great comics, but most follow-up creative teams were meh. Many of the best ‘70s Marvels didn’t last long. Claremont, Byrne, Miller, Perez, Simonson, and others started cooking, but their best work lay ahead of them. God bless Sal Buscema, but he couldn’t elevate half the line the way some artists who stopped working for Marvel in the ‘70s could (e.g. Neal Adams, Frank Brunner, BWS).
Still better than ‘70s DC, though.
You’re not wrong. Here’s how I see the issue though.
I would rather read Conway’s Thor than Tom DeFalco’s Thor, but I’d rather read Walt Simonson’s than any of them.
I would rather read Peter David’s Hulk than any other Hulk run. I consider the absolute peak of David’s Hulk to have been issues published in the 1980s, but I would recommend reading his entire run.
I would rather read Denny O’Neil’s Iron Man, but I’ll take the pure insanity that was being published in ‘70s Iron Man over Teen Tony.
So, I do give the ‘80s the nod as far as quality.
However, I’d rather read comics from the decade that was willing to publish comics like Howard the Duck, Tomb of Dracula, Omega the Unknown, Thomas’ Conan, Warlock…which I consider a lot of the greatest comics published by Marvel. Those sorts of risks were mostly lost in the ‘80s, at the same time as we got reinvigoration of Marvel’s core characters from the Silver Age.
Then, in the ‘90s, even with some interesting comics managing to get published, for the most part both aspects were lost.
I will throw in the Good in a Kitschy way – Godzilla, shogun warriors, Micronauts and ROM.
I loved and have fond memories of ’70s DC, but I’m a child of the ’70s, so admittedly that’s probably nostalgia bias.
Also, the Wonder Woman TV show. Lynda Carter was my first crush.
Mindy was mine. Sadly, I don’t have Mork & Mindy comics to look back upon fondly.
Yes, Mindy! Carter was my first boyhood crush, but not my only boyhood crush. Pam Dawber (Mindy) was another and, like every other boy on the planet my age, Carrie Fisher.
In genre terms, you can likely throw Catwoman (Julie Newmar in particular) and Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) on that list. And your various Star Trek guest stars and/or Dr Who companions. Probably also Agent 99, Cinnamon Carter and Mrs. Peel for Gen Xers on both sides of the pond.
Jacqueline Smith.
Farah Fawcett was the big star, but Jacqueline was my favorite original angel.
Yes, Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) was another early crush. Again, lacking a comic book. I idolized Maxwell Smart. I wanted to play Get Smart with the other kids on the playground at recess in elementary. No one else knew about Get Smart (it was the early-‘80s and I was watching it in syndication, after all), but they were happy enough to divide up into KAOS and Controll agents. I even chose Maxwell as part of my first internet handle to reflect my early idolization of Get Smart. Sure, Max was cool, but I’m sure the fact that Agent 99 gave him the time of day certainly played into why I wanted to be Maxwell Smart as a child.
Peter David’s Hulk was definitely a good 90s Marvel thing. Probably the most consistent, since it lasted all the way until mid-1998.
(Although … well … there were a couple of weak years in there. 1995 and 1996 were both pretty iffy.)
@Jason – I don’t think Peter David was in a very good place during the iffy period you mentioned. He and his wife of nearly twenty years separated in 1996. I’m not saying that’s why it was iffy, because I obviously don’t know, but I’m sure that would throw me off my game and affect my work.
Those Gold Key Get Smart comics were probably relatively expensive even in the early 80s. I know them and the IMF and Man From uncle books nowadays are pricey in higher grades.
@Moo- PAD admitted killing Betty to spite his wife, so he definitely wasn’t in a good headspace back then.