Gerard F. ConwayRezensionen
Autor von Essential Spider-Man, Volume 6
Rezensionen
May favorite story lines were probably when Jack Russell and Topaz meet because the story picks up from there. Surprisingly the Spider-Man/Werewolf by Night team up was one of the weaker stories with little meat to the story.
This collection of 22 stories covering writer Gerry Conway’s tenure on various Batman titles from the mid 1970s to early 80s is a solid representation of the Batman with consistent characterization and a interesting take on his role in Gotham by questioning what it means to be a vigilante.
It is clear from these stories that Conway’s strength lay in the Gotham centric street level stories rather than the more fantasy aspects of the DC Universe.
Worth picking up as a primer on this period in Batman’s history.
Readable, but hard to recommend looking for.
The artwork is reminiscent of the time and the story/art was probably shocking at the time but I'm used to a good portion of my romance heroes being werewolves or shifters these days so all it did was made me smile.
Passed an enjoyable half hour.
The artwork is reminiscent of the time and the story/art was probably shocking at the time but I'm used to a good portion of my romance heroes being werewolves or shifters these days so all it did was made me smile.
Passed an enjoyable half hour.
The story is set in June 1942 on Earth-Two, and involves Superman and Wonder Woman independently discovering the existence of the Manhattan Project, as well as an effort by the Axis powers to steal its secrets. Though both don't want the bomb in Nazi hands, Wonder Woman doesn't want it in any human hands, while Superman has greater faith in America to do the right thing, and in the end, the two come to blows over it all-- though of course, they set their differences aside to punch some Nazis.
The story, to be honest, is not the point. The point of this is to see Superman and Wonder Woman battling rendered in the beautiful art of José Luis García-López at an enormous size. In this regard, the book utterly delivers. Superman fights robot planes; Wonder Woman throws cars at Nazis; Diana Prince sneaks into military file rooms; Superman and Wonder Woman fight each other in Chicago and then on the moon. It all looks great.
Perhaps for this reason, the book fudges some Earth-Two details. Superman and Wonder Woman are drawn how their Earth-One versions looked in the 1970s, not how their Earth-Two versions looked in the 1940s. But given García-López created the style guide all DC merchandise was beholden to in the 1980s, why would you have him draw anything other than these characters' most iconic forms? The book also has things like Clark Kent working for Perry White at the Daily Planet, not-- as would be the case on Earth-Two-- him working for George Taylor at the Daily Star. On the other hand, it features Earth-Two villain Baron Blitzkrieg, and even includes a footnote referencing the Earth-Two-set World's Finest vol. 1 #246 for those who want to know his origin. So I think writer Gerry Conway is trying to have his Earth-Two cake and eat it too; use the iconic Earth-One versions of the characters because this is a story with broad appeal, but slip in some Earth-Two references for the dedicated comics nerds who worry about how such a story can exist in continuity. (Conway was at the time the writer of the adventures of the Earth-Two Wonder Woman in her self-titled comic and in World's Finest.) As far as weird continuity details go, we also learn that the moon of Earth-Two is home to the ruins of an extinct civilization, one that destroyed itself with the atomic bomb. Did any other comics writers pick up that weird nugget?
While the story doesn't need to be very good, it actually has some nice touches that elevate it. It's framed as a series of declassified reports, the moral conflict is a good one, the appearance by Albert Einstein is fun, the way Diana Prince infiltrates military records is a great sequences, and the ending has a sharp piece of irony with President Roosevelt declaring to both superheroes, "As long as I am president... America will never use the bomb to kill. Never." Ouch. I understand that Roy Thomas depicted a post-Crisis version of these events in the Young All-Stars storyline Atom and Evil (as of this writing, I am on YA-S #14, and Atom and Evil begins in issue #21), but I would have liked to have seen him weave the pre-Crisis version of All-Star Squadron into these events, which I'm sure was his long-term plan.
Anyway, if you are at all interested in this story, this oversized reprint is a gorgeous way to experience it, and I highly recommend it.
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This arc has a poignant ending and it should have ended there. Unfortunately, a few years later Bill Mantlo had to dig it up again in the form of Carrion, allegedly the failed clone of Professor Miles Warren, Peter's university professor who cloned Gwen Stacy. Like Warren, Carrion blames Spider-Man for Gwen's death, and their battle goes on and on... Carrion makes no sense as a character. His powers are whatever he seems to need at the moment (oh, I'm also telepathic!) And where does he get his red dust of death? Does he order it from the Red Skull?
Conway returns several years later in a story that is part of 1988's crossover event, the Evolutionary War. I remember that this was when I quit reading superhero comics for a long time. Spidey gets involved in a dispute between members of the supposedly significant but actually super-lame Young Gods. (Will they change their name when they get old?) Terrible art heralding the infamous 90s look. The only point of this story is to reveal that Gwen Stacy was never really a clone, but another woman infected with a genetic virus. Because this is somehow more plausible than just having her be a clone. Gerry, you did so well the first time, why are you making this more complicated?
Finally, we get a couple issues featuring a new Carrion. At least they're drawn by Sal Buscema, though it's not his best work.
I really wish this book had only reprinted Conway's original story arc. The rest is a bunch of stuff I'll do my best to ignore/forget.
Great read and quick for any Spider-Man lovers.
DC inches ever closer to plugging the gap between the last Legion of Super-Heroes Archive and The Great Darkness Saga with this, the second and final volume of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. (The just-annonced Before the Darkness series will continue from where this collection leaves off.) I'm glad this collection exists, but it's not the Legion's best material.
I don't know much behind-the-scenes information for this era, but the book gives every indication of being jerked around. First we have the five-part Earthwar saga scripted by Paul Levitz, where Earth is invaded by Khunds working for Mordru (to be honest, I don't remember who Mordru is). This is okay: it does nicely subvert your expectations at points, and the events are big... but they never feel big. When Levitz came back to the book for The Great Darkness Saga, he would do much better and more epic work than he did here, and it would feel meaningful to the characters in a way this sorely does not.
Then we get a couple issues written or co-written by Len Wein that read like inventory stories to me, with small references to the recent big events shoehorned in. I did kind of like the idea of "Savage Sanctuary!", where the Fatal Five kind of go legit, though the actual story got a bit stupid. The rule forbidding married couples to be in the Legion is rescinded, and thus Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad rejoin, and Lightning Lad is elected to leadership in short order, replacing Wildfire.
Then we have a couple stories by Gerry Conway that more directly deal with the aftermath of Earthwar-- suddenly Earth is a wreck in need of repair. These are okay, nothing special. (Brainiac is extra jerk-like, which I assume is to set up the next story, though.)
Then we have a couple stories by Steve Apollo (better known as Jim Starlin) that were clearly orignally written to slot in around the time of Earthwar, with some last-minute dialogue tweaks: lip service is given to the fact that Lightning Lad is leader, but he and Saturn Girl aren't in the story even though it supposedly features all active Legionnaires (even Tyroc turns up!); Wildfire is clearly in charge. In this story, Brainiac is revealed to be a murderer, having gone insane, and Matter-Eater Lad goes insane, too. Not a lot of it makes sense. I didn't really buy any of this, and why do we need another giant attack on Earth when we just had one?
Then Gerry Conway takes over permanently, dealing with the fallout of Apollo's story... but his stories are repetitive (three different ones are about people coming to take revenge on the Legion for slights, real or imagined) and contrived (the one where Superboy makes people think Legionnaires are dead by activating a latent chemical in their bloodstreams is particularly bad). Brainiac is healed in an entirely unconvincing way, and the Legion undertakes bizarre lengths to do it. The only thing I liked was the subplot about how R. J. Brande went bankrupt... but then realized he was a hoarder and gave away all his money.
(There's also a couple issues of DC Comics Presents by Levitz included, where Superman gets told by the Legion that he has to let Pete Ross's son be kidnapped by aliens to preserve future history. I found this kind of gross.)
Finally, the last issue writes out Superboy from the comic that used to bear his name (Superboy vol. 1 became Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes became Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2). I liked how this was done, actually: Superboy finds out how his parents will die. The problem is that when he travels back to the 1950s, he loses his knowledge of future history only to regain it up returning to the 2970s. This means that every time he travels to the future from now on, he will be newly hit with the knowldge of how his parents die. Ouch! He promises to keep up his visits, but the Legion (okay, this part I like less) plant a telepathic block to stop him from doing so, so he flies off to the past for the last time.
Conway is often not a great writer (I found his run on All Star Comics around this same time pretty bleh), and Legion feels typical of his lesser output. Lots of bombast, not a lot of sense. Which you can kind of get away with in other comics, but Legion is trying to have an ongoing story with ongoing consequences, and those just don't play to Conway's strengths. There are some good artists on the book (e.g., Joe Staton, Jim Starlin), but it's no one's best work. James Sherman, who I really like, does the first couple issues but that's it. His characterful work could have kept this all a bit more grounded, I reckon.
1 
Stevil2001 | Oct 12, 2020 |
Stevil2001 | Oct 12, 2020 | 
1 star for the insipid Challengers of the Unknown, Superman, and many laughable villains.
At the point this came out, the Justice Society had guested in a number of Crisis on Multiple Earths stories, but this was the first time they appeared as the stars of their own series since they were shunted out of All Star Comics back in 1951.
That said, this isn't that great. I mean, it's totally serviceable superhero action... but that's about it, with a couple exceptions. Gerry Conway and Paul Levitz have the sort of storytelling where the JSA is plunged from adventure into adventure: usually each storyline ends with a hook for the next already underway. But this actually makes the adventures seem small-- the pacing is never able to emphasize anything. It also makes it feel like these characters don't really have any lives outside of this title, since there's no gaps where they can live their own lives and have solo adventues. I mean, they literally don't, since none of them have ongoing series... but I would argue that they ought to feel like they do. Where do Sylvester Pemberton or Power Girl even live? What do they do when not superheroing? They feel more like, I dunno, the Teen Titans or the X-Men, than they do the multiversal equivalents of the Justice League.
Most of the original threats here aren't very interesting, either. Vulcan, the astronaut who's always on fire? Some underground people? (Why is it always with the underground people in comics?) The writing is a little inconsistent, too. No one seems to know if Power Girl can fly or just jump really far. (In the earliest Golden Age comics, Superman could just jump really far, but by this point, he was long able to fly, and Power Girl ought to have the same power set.) Sometimes the book seems to be about a subset of the JSA called the "All Star Super Squad" but this is pretty inconsistently indicated, and eventually fades away.
I did think it was interesting that the "parallel Earth" angle was occasionally pushed: this Earth has no apartheid in South Africa, for example. Not much was done with that, however.
That said, this comic has some interesting seeds and nuggets. I liked the development of Dick Grayson, now American ambassador to South Africa. I liked the introduction of Power Girl, even if she was sometimes written too broadly. (I think you can write a confident feminist, and not have her come off like this.) I liked the secret origin of the Justice Society. I liked the Wildcat focus issue. I liked the idea of the Star-Spangled Kid being out of time. (In execution, I didn't always understand it. Why was he so lonely? Weren't all of the Seven Soldiers of Victory out of time? Go hang out with them!) I liked the introduction of the Huntress. I liked the death of the Earth-Two Batman. I liked the explanation for why the JSA was inactive from 1951 to the mid-1960s.
You can see how later writers, especially Roy Thomas in the 1980s, would pick up and develop what was done here. There's the kernel of a good premise here, but (as it often is in mass-produced superhero comics) it will take a while for it to develop.
(A couple quibbles about this collected edition. It's clearly from the same "masters" as the Justice Society, Volume 1 and Volume 2 collections of 2006. Those collections replaced references to issue numbers from the original comics with ones to collections of that era. Now, those make no sense: they should have been updated again or (my preference) changed back to the originals. Also, it would have been nice if Justice League of America #171-72 had been included here, between Adventure Comics #465 and 466, since those issues of Adventure lead into the JSA's appearance in JLA and follow up on it. Also, I remember it as being rather good! Also also, I think choosing "All Star Comics" as the series imprint is weird; I feel like people are far more likely to find what they want and know what they're looking at with "Justice Society" branding. Collections of issues of Action Comics are never called "Action Comics" on the cover, and if they are, it's "Superman: Action Comics.")
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