Monster & Madman

A simple idea nicely turned out.

I want to emphasize the latter part. I like the look of this three-issue comic. Damien Worm’s art is very dark, as you’d probably expect just from the cover. It reminded me a bit of Dave McKean’s work on Arkham Asylum. There are pages where figures and faces are hard to make out, but that fits with the overall atmosphere. Frankenstein’s monster looks a bit too much like a buff goth dude, and his bride is a Marilyn Manson clone, but John Moore (formerly a doctor, now a mortician and part-time serial killer) is convincing as Saucy Jack. I only wondered why he never appears in the wonderful mask he’s wearing on the cover and in some of the drawings in the supplemental materials. I wanted to see more of that.

The let down here is the simple idea I mentioned, and the text by Steve (30 Days of Night) Niles. Basically the Monster tried to kill himself in the Arctic but wasn’t successful so he hitched a ride back to England where he winds up sharing digs with Dr. Moore, who is Jack the Ripper. Dr. Moore studies the Monster and decides he can make him another bride, this time out of the remains of the Ripper’s victim. This doesn’t go that well because (this is a point made earlier in the book) these reanimated people carry with them the memories of the former inhabitants of their dead flesh. So the bride obviously doesn’t care for Dr. Moore because he’s the guy who killed her. Which leads to a falling out between the Monster and Jack and then the Monster kills his bride because she doesn’t want to be alive anyway and he knows that dead is better.

That’s more like a premise than a story, and it doesn’t feel like much happens here. I also thought some of the writing was in need of an editor. The first words are “The Monster’s creator was dead, father, murder, creator and destroyer of life.” Was that supposed to say “murderer”? Because I don’t see how it makes sense as it is. Then later we get this narrative passage: “As the crewmen laughed and boasted, the Monster would hide in the dark, living conjure images of the bride he’d almost had . . .” What does “living conjure images” refer to? I can’t even think of a way to correct this to the point where it means anything. “Conjuring living images”? Beats me.

So it’s not very long, and like I say I don’t think it has much of a story to tell, but I think it’s the comic Niles and Worm wanted to make. It looks good, but I just didn’t think it was bringing anything new to the table or doing anything special with these classic characters.

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Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers

The basic story here is meat-and-potatoes stuff. It’s World War 2 and an elite force of Nazis headed by the Red Skull, Baron Strucker, Master Man, Warrior Woman, and Armless Tiger Man are off to Wakanda to steal some of that awesome vibranium stuff to power their secret weapons. But the African kingdom is protected not only by its reigning Black Panther (T’Challa’s grandfather), but some (very) paleface visitors in the form of Captain America and Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos.

What follows is a lot of fighting as the good guys kick Nazi ass in a manner a little bloodier than usual. The Wakandans decapitate an advance party of Nazis and stick their heads on stakes as a warning. Armless Tiger Man is a cannibal with sharpened teeth who tears into people mouth-first (since he doesn’t have arms, you see).

I actually liked this better than I thought I was going to. There were a couple of places where it seemed like a page was missing though, as the story kept skipping around different parts of the battlefield. And I wasn’t sure what Black Panther was using to take out Master Man and Warrior Woman. Vibranium? Perhaps I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.

The other thing I could have lived without was the lecturing from Black Panther about how post-war America will have to live up to its ideals of freedom, meaning civil rights and all that. “The true test of your ideals will come when the war is over. A nation at war has an enemy to unify them. A nation with no enemy often looks for one within its own borders.” The Panther was becoming a mouthpiece for stuff like this around this time, and it just sounds stiff.

Still, if you want a violent shoot-‘em-up you get it here. Also included as a bonus (since the Flags of Our Fathers storyline is only four issues) is Rise of the Black Panther #1 but I thought this was dreadful. Nothing at all happens, as it’s just backstory about T’Chaka, leading up to the point where he’s killed by Ulysses Klaw. And boy is the action ever talky! Now to be sure Black Panther has often been a talky comic. The Christopher Priest years were thick with text. And he’s always been political too, again in the Priest years but also going back to his fights with the Klan. But the talk here is really dull, just reciting biographical material I mostly already knew, and the art wasn’t working for me either. So that finished the book on a down note.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Volume 1

Another ‘Sixties superhero start-up, this time with Daredevil finding his legs.

It took a bit of time. He started out with a yellow uniform that had a black vest with a single red D on the front. It would later turn into the all-red outfit he’s best known for wearing, with the iconic double-D on its chest, but it’s never explained why they made that change. I mean, his name isn’t Dare-Devil.

The other issue they had trouble sorting out was his blindness. Championed (especially in recent years) for being a superhero with a disability, it’s actually nothing of the sort. In fact, the one thing the “man without fear” admits to being afraid of is having surgery to get his sight back and then losing his super powers. You see, the accident that caused Matt Murdock’s blindness involved being hit by a truck carrying radioactive material, resulting in his compensatory senses being jacked up to god-like levels. Because we all know that’s the way radioactivity works. You don’t just die a slow, lingering death from cancer but turn into a superhero. Or villain. Or expire right away in agonizing pain, like Dr. Van Eyck in issue #9.

So while Daredevil is blind that’s not a disability because his “atom-induced radar sense” can accurately judge the precise size, speed, and location of any physical body. His sense of smell is so advanced he can trace an individual, hours later, through the streets of New York City by the scent of their “unusual hair tonic.” Hair tonic, for Daredevil, being as distinctive as a man’s fingerprints, he can pick up a scent at any point “approximately within one city block of his quarry.” He can sense the heart rate of individuals standing anywhere near him and tell if they are lying or experiencing any stress. He can read books, not in braille but “merely by feeling the impression of the ink on the page!” He can tell what people are wearing by the sound the fabric makes when they move. He can detect (by radar, not by touch) whether someone is wearing a ring on their finger, and what sort of ring it is. Flying in a jet over the petty  European state of Lichtenbad he can “sense a walled city” thousands of feet below . Then, once inside the castle of the Lord of Lichtenbad his radar senses can “see” through several stone floors “as though it’s [the castle’s] made of glass.” That’s some radar!

You can tell by this that they were winging it. Effectively, Daredevil isn’t blind at all. Anything he needs to be able to do, he can do. Just like that billy club of his can do everything, including allowing him to swing through the streets of the city like Spider-Man.

If you put all that aside, what you got here was still a really enjoyable comic in the grand Marvel manner of the time. For the most part Daredevil is taking on B-list baddies who are nonetheless a lot of fun. People like Killgrave the Purple Man, the Matador, the Stilt Man, and the animal cos-players of the Organization. But when he goes up against Namor (in what is a genuinely funny adventure) he’s beaten up pretty badly, and this in his own comic! Even Iron Man got to knock out the Hulk in the pages of Iron Man.

Most of the titles here were written by Stan Lee, and that includes the usual good and bad. Fast-paced stories that don’t want to spend a lot of time explaining things. Colorful characters. Relentless boosterism. Item: the issue that has Daredevil’s “epic battle” with Electro “may well be remembered as long as literature endures!!” Right on the first page of issue #1 the lucky reader is congratulated for having purchased “another prized first edition! This magazine is certain to be one of your most valued comic mag possessions in the months to come!” Well, maybe not in the months to come. But if you held it for seventy years . . . in 1964 it had a cover price of 12 cents and now goes for between $1,500 and $5,000. That’s a decent return. Smilin’ Stan didn’t tell many lies. He just ran away with the hyperbole.

On the downside, and as I’ve mentioned before, there’s his hopeless portrayal of women. The love triangle going on between Matt, his law partner Foggy Nelson, and their secretary Karen Page is just an annoyance. This was a day when women really knew their place, and had no shame in delivering such self-deprecating lines as “I guess I’m just a silly female!”

I was never a fan of Daredevil when I was a kid but I enjoyed this book a lot more than I was expecting. In later years he’d go through some “adult” makeovers, especially highlighting his Catholic faith, but for sheer entertainment value these early adventures stand up well. I even love the “Here Comes Daredevil” titling, with its in-your-face promise of “get ready for fun!” And as for disabilities, they’re no handicap at all.

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