Rick Burchett

In the early 1990s, comic book writers decided to kill off Superman, knowing that it would allow them to sell a bazillion copies, even to schmucks who don't buy comic books. Rather than have someone awesome kill of Superman, like Lex Luthor, they decided to invent someone totally lame to do it instead. Meet the Darth Maul of the DC Universe: Doomsday.

We're introduced to Doomsday as a big green fist smashing its way through a wall. The best part of this is that breaking your way out of a show more subterranean capsule apparently makes the sound effect KRAAKK! KARAAKK! KRAKA-DOOM! I hope someone out there is collecting the stupid textually-represented sound effects comics are filled with; this one deserves to be on the list. As the issue's main plot progresses, we get little snaps of what this gigantic fellow is up to. His first act of violence? He kills a bird. Exactly how this is supposed to establish him as a threat is beyond me. "Oh no, how will Superman defeat the horrendous... BIRD KILLER? He has the power to crunch two-pound lifeforms with his bare hands!" He can also fell trees.

After that excitement-filled, opening, we cut to an orphan kid buying spraypaint in a hardware store. Apparently, his mother's been kidnapped by a gang of thugs looking to "steal electricity". Lois Lane gets some sort of tip, and leaves Clark a message on his computer. "Very high tech of her," comments Clark when he shows up at work. I think this is sort of putting paid to the notion that this story somehow takes place four years ago as DC's current timeline would claim. The underground monsters end up stealing Metropolis's electricity, but Superman defeats them fairly easily. They're lead by a scruffy homeless man named Charlie who's actually working for Superman in any case; we're not exactly talking about a strong opposition. They come from a place called "War World"; no one ever bothers to explain why they're hanging out in the sewers or what they're going to do with their electricity. Superman leaves Charlie in the sewer in the end, because homeless people can't aspire to live better lives.

After this thrilling adventure, we cut back to the monster thing, who has just attacked a tanker... in Ohio! Apparently the monster thing came from Ohio. This makes me mildly better disposed towards him. Actually, I think this is the first time I've ever seen Ohio in a superhero comic. I bet he comes from Cleveland, though. The Justice League has been called in to deal with the tanker fire, as apparently they don't have firefighters in the DC Universe. An officer of the highway patrol thanks the Leaguers for helping out: "I'm well aware that Ohio is out of your normal area of jurisdiction--" What! I'm pretty sure this is set during the era when the Justice League was all "International" and worked for the UN; is Ohio not a UN member?

After the monster kills a deer, the Justice League springs into action (in Blue Beetle's totally awesome flying beetle) and combats him. They catch up to him outside Lex Oil's Ohio facility, where they are trounced pretty easily. Superman ditched a TV talk show where he's been doing an interview and flies to the rescue. "How could one man stand against the whole League?" he thinks. Whoa, slow down Superman. It's not like Wonder Woman, Batman, or even the Flash are part of the League now; we're talking about Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Bloodwynd, Fire and Ice, Guy Gardner, and Maxima. These aren't exactly heavy hitters. Guy, as much as I love him, is in one of the periods where he's been kicked out of the Green Lantern Corps, so he's dressed even worse than usual, and I'm pretty sure I could take out Blue Beetle. And I've never even heard of Bloodwynd or Maxima. This comic doesn't exactly inspire me to want to know more about them, either. I'm pretty sure Maxima's power is being stupid. And having an invincible midriff.

Superman finally shows up after half the League has been incapacitated. "I'm telling you, right now--" says Booster Gold "--it's like doomsday is here!" Yes, Booster, I can certainly see how wiping out a tanker and an oil facility would make this the biggest threat the League's ever seen. For some reason, Superman decides that "Doomsday" must be the monster's name. Not good with comprehension, our Superman.

It's the early 1990s, so unfortunately about half of Superman's opening battle with Doomsday is intercut with a long-haired teenager with attitude who hates his mother. Superman hates this kid even more than I do, however; when he's trapped in a rampaging inferno, Superman flies away, thinking, "I have to... block out that plea for help!" What a nice guy.

Superman decides that even if the whole Justice League couldn't take Doomsday down, he can. He's got a point. Superman refers to the monster as "Mr. Destructo" at one point; I wish that name had stuck instead of "Doomsday"; it would have given this story the gravitas it deserves. We learn that the battle is occurring in "Kirby County, Ohio"-- there's no such place, though Wikipedia informs me that there is a "Kirby, Ohio" south of Findlay. On the other hand, Route 110 runs through the area, which is actually an 11-mile state highway in Henry County, west of Bowling Green. The governor of Ohio is mentioned; during this time, that would have been George Voinovich. The lieutenant governor actually particaptes in a phone conversation, where he is repeatedly insulted. Poor Mike DeWine.

For some reason, there's a sequence where Jimmy Olsen is dressed as a giant turtle. Then, a news anchor informs us that "It appears 'Doomsday' is on a straight path crossing from Ohio through New York State... Some theorize that the creature is on a straight course to-- or through-- Metropolis." Apparently, the news has magically got wind of Superman's misbegotten nickname for the creature. And Pennsylvania does not exist in the DC Universe. Thank God.

Superman fights Doomsday by a gas station. Can't anyone ever catch up to this guy not in proximity to flammable materials? Now we learn that the gas station is in "the village of Griffith in upstate Kirby County." Doomsday must be fluctuating the fabric of space or something, because Griffith is in eastern Ohio, nowhere near Kirby or Route 110. Alarmed by the fact that the writers don't know a thing about geography, Jack Kirby's Golden Guardian shows up. Now, I like random appearances by Fourth World characters as much as the next guy, but all he does is talk to Superman and telepathically commune with Dubbilex. Thanks a lot, dude.

All of a sudden, Doomsday's attacking a Lex-Mart in Midvale, which is about fifty miles northwest of Griffith. So much for his beeline towards Metropolis. And "Lex-Mart"? Are there any other megacorporations in the DC Universe? At the Lex-Mart, Doomsday watches an ad for a wrestling match at the Metropolis Arena. Why wrestling matches an eight-hour drive away are being advertized on this TV station is beyond me. Doomsday is intrigued by this ad and decides to head for Metropolis... despite a reporter telling us fifteen pages ago that he was heading straight towards it.

Superman and Doomsday continue to punch each other a lot. This has been going on for about fifty pages, now. I'm starting to miss the sewer folks. They might have been stupid, but that made them entertaining. Doomsday is pure tedium.

More proof that it's the early 1990s materializes with Lois Lane's awful aviators and Lex Luthor's long, flowing locks. Since when did Lex Luthor have hair, anyway? Or hang out with Supergirl?

Doomsday looks at a sign and learns that he's only sixty miles from Metropolis. Which would place him and Superman somewhere in New Jersey, I think. What the heck? What happened to Midvale? Or all of Pennsylvania, for that matter? If you're wondering why I'm focusing on the geography so much, it's because it's the only interesting thing happening here. Unless you count Superman and Doomsday throwing each other at things again and again. Including the Wild Area, which is a giant treehouse outside of Metropolis. Why wasn't this retconned out of existence during the Crisis? The Golden Guardian is still tagging along, still doing nothing. He finally decides that Doomsday is too big for Superman to handle alone... and promptly never appears in the story again. Way to go, dude.

It wouldn't help much, though. Supergirl attacks Doomsday and gets turned into a featurelss purple thing with googly eyes. I don't know what kind of punch can do that, but it's one I'd stay away from.

"This insanity ends in Metropolis!" Superman shouts outside of a Lexpark Garage. What, were the geographically confused inhabitants of Kirby County, Ohio not worthy of your best efforts? I guess not-- Ohio's not part of the UN after all.

As sensitive as ever, Jimmy Olsen (thankfully not dressed like a turtle) is excited that Doomsday's killing hundreds of Metropolis residents because it gives him some good photographs. No wonder he can't ever get a girlfriend.

Superman's cape is torn off and wraps itself around a convenient wooden pole.

Superman and Doomday punch each other for a series of one-panel pages. Superman takes one in the jaw. "Bony protrustions... so sharp.. he cut me!" he shouts. Yes, my natural reaction getting punched is also to describe the punch.

PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH. PUNCH. PUNCH.

Finally, Superman decides to punch Doomsday really hard. Hard enough to kill him. Why didn't he think of this earlier? I don't know, but it's too late. Because he dies.

The narrator tells me that everyone will remember this day for years because Superman dies. He doesn't bother to mention that he only stays dead for a few months. Personally, I wasn't crying; I was rejoicing. Because the whole mess was finally over. show less

Doomsday. The villain that exists with no past and no future, apparently arriving on the scene for one purpose, to create a believable way for Superman to die. Okay, two purposes: to sell a collector's item, the comic book in which Superman dies. This was the 90s after all. This collection, which includes issues of Superman, Superman: Man of Steel, Superman in Action Comics, The Adventures of Superman, and Justice League America, is not good. It is six issues of various heroes getting their show more butts handed to them by Doomsday, a bad guy who has bones protruding from his body (again, the 90s), who laughs as he chokes a deer and destroys a Lex-Mart. The final issue, Superman #75, is odd in that every page is a splash page, with the final two pages being one double-sized splash page. That makes for a lot less story and, for me, it doesn't work. And the death, well, it wasn't very heroic. This is Superman. He should die saving the planet, or the universe, or Lois Lane or Ma and Pa Kent. Instead he proves ineffectual for seven issues as Doomsday causes billions of dollars in damage and murders countless civilians, and then both he and Doomsday appear to battle each other to the death off-screen (because of the lack of story room thanks to the splash pages). This is anti-climactic to the nth degree. I do not miss the comics from the 90s. Well, okay, I miss Valiant comics from the 90s. And now Dark Horse is re-doing most of them. Go figure. show less

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

Justice Society of America vol. 1 was an eight-issue miniseries consisting of Vengeance from the Stars!, a story set during the Golden Age. Just this year, in a bit of fortuitous timing for me, it was collected in a nice hardcover edition under the title The Demise of Justice, along with two extra stories, both "final" adventures for the JSA: their last Golden Age appearance from 1951's All Star Comics #57 and the retconned show more story of their disbanding from 1979's Adventure Comics #466. Justice Society #8 actually sets up Adventure #466, and Adventure #466 mentions All Star #57, so the whole thing reads pretty well. (The book also contains a foreword by Mark Waid, where he gives exposition on ten JSA members... six of whom do not actually appear in the main story... but doesn't give any background on one who does... the woman one... hmmmm...)

Vengeance from the Stars! is a great little story, using its somewhat broader canvas to good effect. The first four issues focus on, in turn, the Flash, Black Canary, Green Lantern, and Hawkman, each reacting to a crisis as America's power grid is dismantled by a shadowy figure, and as they come under attack by living constellations. Then #5 is a Flash and Hawkman team-up, #6 is a Black Canary and Green Lantern team-up, and #7-8 bring together all four characters along with Starman. It's a really pleasing structure, ensuring that each JSA member gets some great moments in the spotlight, and also giving you the fun of them teaming up together; it feels triumphant when all five of them come together at the end because the anticipation has been building for six issues.

I didn't think I'd ever read anything by Len Strazewski before (I just checked, and it looks like only his Phantom Lady feature in Action Comics Weekly), but this shows him to be a solid, un-pretentious writer. The story takes the sensibilities of the Golden Age JSA and updates them without losing what made them charming to begin with. There are a lot of fight scenes, which in the hands of a lesser writer would annoy me, but each issue's fight is distinct, and there's a lot of focus on how each member of the JSA thinks their way out of the problem using their unique abilities. The eight issues give each encounter space to breathe. There are a lot of nice touches here, like Hawkman's Native American archaeologist friend or the way Solomon Grundy is woven into the story. Strazewski has a great handle on Black Canary, who's my favorite of the five characters spotlighted here.

I was a bit worried by the fact that the eight issues feature four different pencillers and three different inkers, but there are no hasty fill-ins here. Each artist does a great job of capturing character and action, and the style is the late 1980s/early 1990s, pre-computer coloring one that is my favorite. If all comics looked like this I wouldn't complain!

After this, Strazewksi, along with Parobeck (who pencilled #3 and 5), put out a short-lived Justice Society ongoing, and on the basis of this, I am looking forward to reading it. It did strike me that I don't think there are any references to any post-Crisis retcons; this could be set on pre-Crisis Earth-Two without any issues.

The bonus issues are nice. All Star #57 is dumb, of course, like most Golden Age JSA stories, but I appreciate its inclusion. The JSA put on a detective exhibition (!?) featuring the world's four greatest detectives; a villain kidnaps them right from under the JSA's noses, and so the JSA has to substitute for them back in their home countries. Adventure #466 has a frame set in the then-present featuring Huntress and Power Girl; I skipped the frame (I had read it before, in Only Legends Live Forever) so that I was immersed in the 1950s for my reading experience.

The Justice Society and Earth-Two: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence » show less

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In the late 1980s, it came time to reinvent Blackhawk for the post-Crisis DC universe. This didn't just mean rethinking the continuity, but also rethinking the tone and style. Blackhawk had been a bloody and jingoistic war comic, a goofy sci-fi comic, a superhero comic, a nuanced war comic. What would it be in the 1980s?

The vehicle for this reinvention was a format I really enjoy, and have chronicled a lot on this blog: the show more three-double-length-issue miniseries. Previous examples include Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters (1987), Black Orchid (1989), Hawkworld (1989), Adam Strange: The Man of Two Worlds (1990), and Twilight (1990-91). These comics tend to be creator-driven, giving a somewhat old-fashioned concept over to a high-profile creator (or creative team), who uses it to tell a single story with more mature themes. In many cases, they became springboards for ongoing series (of the above examples, that's true of all of them except Adam Strange and Twilight), but they weren't necessarily designed to be. I tend to really like these, and I wonder if there's any I've failed to track down at this point.

Blackhawk was given over to Howard Chaykin, who wrote and illustrated the story. (Blackhawk vol. 2 #1 was, in fact, Blackhawk's first #1, fact fans, because the original Blackhawk run confusingly began with issue #9.) Other than the premature existence of an atomic bomb (a common occurrence for the Blackhawks, I guess), the series is devoid of fantastic elements; it's an espionage thriller set during World War II.

The major continuity change is that Chaykin reinvents Blackhawk himself: instead of "Bart Hawk," he's now "Janos Prohaska," thank God. (However, as a Star Trek fan, I find the name kind of jarring.) We just get glimpses of his backstory, but we do learn that he's a former Communist, he flew with some private outfits early in the war, and he established the Blachkawks as an independent but Allies-funded fighting force. (I'll do a post on Blackhawk's post-Crisis continuity once I've read all of the relevant stories, but Chris Miller at The Unauthorized Chronology of the DC Universe suggests that the Mark Evanier–Dan Spiegle run could have largely happened as written prior to this miniseries; that run was set in 1940, compared to this series's 1943.) He's more of a 1980s character in terms of personality, though, sleeping with random women; you can definitely see why Chaykin might have written this series and worked on James Bond.

In terms of continuity, there are a couple other significant changes. One is that, for the first time, all the members of the squadron get last names! Olaf becomes Olaf Friedricksen (and he is relocated from Sweden to Denmark), Stanislaus is Stanislaus Drozdowski, Hendricksen is Ritter Hendricksen (he's from Holland here, which was true in some previous stories, I think, but in others, he was from Germany), Chuck is Carlo Sirianni, Andre is Andre Blanc-Dumont, and "Chop-Chop" keeps the name he was given by Evanier (he's Chinese-American here, not Chinese), Weng Chan (though Blackhawk still calls him "Chop-Chop," unlike in Evanier's series). The other members of the squadron aren't really focused on very much, though, and Stanislaus is killed off in issue #2 to prove the situation is serious.*

The other big change is the introduction of Natalie Reed nee Gurdin. Natalie is someone that Jan knew early in the war, from his Communist days, but instead of leaving the party like he did, she fully embraced it, moving to Russia in a pretty high-profile "defection" of sorts; she reenters his life here, proving herself a bit of a technical wizard by helping the Blackhawks out with their planes and other technologies. In one sequence, she exclaims, "I didn't build these planes so you could run off and get all the glory--I'm coming with you--I'm Lady Blackhawk--case closed..." So much for Zinda Blake?†

Anyway, obviously I could talk about the continuity all day... but how's the actual story? I found it a decent but not outstanding example of the format. Like a lot of 1980s prestige comics, it's hard work. Not in a bad way, I'm just saying that there's a lot of different strands to the story here, and Chaykin moves back and forth between them pretty freely, leaving the reader to do a lot of work to put it all together. There's a big Nazi conspiracy whose members include an old comrade of Jan's, a former English movie actor who now leads a Nazi counterpart to the Blackhawk Squadron, the White Lions, and a U.S. senator who has Jan barred from the country on the basis that he's a Communist and Reba McMahon, a woman who's sexually involved with both Blackhawk and Lord Death. To be honest, it seemed like at times that Chaykin was more interested in all these other characters more than Blackhawk himself, who feels a bit lost in the middle of all of it. I did like Natalie Reed a lot; she seems like a character with a lot of potential that's not totally delivered on here, though I did enjoy her back-and-forth with Jan.

It looks great, of course; Chaykin is one of the medium's best, and in the 1980s, he was arguably at his height, aided by some excellent colors from Steve Oliff.

This hardcover also collects a few other 1980s appearances of the post-Crisis Blackhawks. Chaykin didn't have anything to do with these stories, which are written and illustrated by other creators. The first of them is a Secret Origins issue that gives us the origin Chaykin only hinted at; it's basically the familiar pre-Crisis story but with the new elements of Prohaska's 1980's backstory, given a frame story set shortly after the miniseries. It does establish that the squadron also included character named "Boris" and "Zeg" at one point, but that they were dead by the time of Chaykin's story. (These are character names used as one-offs in early Blackhawk stories from Military Comics. Boris briefly reappeared during Steve Skeates's run.)

The bulk of the second half of the book comprises Blackhawk's appearances in Action Comics, during that title's brief run as a weekly anthology title. There are two eight-part stories and one six-part story, each part being eight pages longs. All three stories are illustrated by Rick Burchett; the first is written by Mike Grell, and the other two Martin Pasko (who would go on to write the Blackhawk ongoing). I had actually read all of these before, when I collected Action Comics Weekly many years ago, but at the time I lacked the context of any other Blackhawk adventures.

These move the new Blackhawks into the postwar era; taking their cues from Chaykin's miniseries, they're all gritty espionage thrillers. Grell's initial story, "Another Fine War," only really features Blackhawk himself, at loose ends after the war, persuaded into helping a woman run down some treasure in the Pacific. I want to note that I've seen people complain Chaykin turned Blackhawk into a lech, but I think that's more Grell than Blackhawk; Chaykin had him sleeping with multiple women, but it's Grell who makes him into a sleeze.

Pasko's two stories bring back the other members of the squadron, including Natalie Reed, as the Blackhawks reconstitute as a supposed courier service (Blackhawk Express) whose real purpose is doing dirty jobs for the newly formed CIA. They're all fun enough, but also hint at bigger and darker concerns, especially with Natalie, who has a child... but one she can't raise herself, since her Communist affiliations mean she can't get back into the U.S. in the era of the Red Scare. Natalie is also a victim of domestic abuse to the extent that she lost an eye; we don't learn anything about the guy in question, but I did find a bit where Jan briefly thinks Olaf to be responsible fairly contrived. I think Pasko is clearly very interested in Natalie (in a way that I don't think Chaykin or Grell were), and I look forward to seeing what he does with the character in the subsequent Blackhawk ongoing.

Burchett's style is certainly cartoonier than Chaykin's, but overall I found that it worked for these quick, action-focused stories, and he's got a strong sense of facial expressions. When the situation gets serious, Burchett does a good job shifting the art to match; there are a number of strong action sequences here. I think like a lot of Action Comcis Weekly creators, Pasko and Burchett struggle a bit with their small canvas, but they probably do better than most.

Lastly, the book contains "The Crash of 88," a story that crossed over a number of Action Comics Weekly's ongoing features: Green Lantern, Black Canary, Superman... and Blackhawk!? It's set in the present day; the Blackhawk presence is Weng Chan, who is now running Blackhawk Express. His plane crashes in a South American dictatorship, and the superheroes eventually turn up to rescue him.

I'm glad it's in this book for completion's sake, but it does read very weirdly after all the much less fantastic material that makes up the rest of the volume! In the letter page to Blackhawk vol. 3 #1, editor Mike Gold promises more "Blackhawk Express" stories set in the present as an ongoing feature, but I don't believe this ever eventuated, though Weng Chan did make a number of appearances during John Ostrander's run on Hawkworld (also edited by Gold).

Overall, I'm very glad this collected edition exists, and impressed at how comprehensive it is. It would have been easy for DC to have collected just the Chaykin material and called it a day! The rest of the volume isn't as distinctive, to be honest, but it is competent, and it's nice to have it more readily available than back issues of Action Comics Weekly. A similarly sized second volume would fit the entire Blackhawk volume 3 ongoing, I think, and would make a great companion to this one... but without a high-profile creator like Howard Chaykin, it probably is unlikely to ever appear. Maybe it can get a DC Finest edition sometime?

The Blackhawks: « Previous in sequence

* The DC wiki notes that Stanislaus does go on to appear in some later postwar Blackhawk stories, very much alive, and ascribes the change to the Crisis in Time.

† Except that, as a reader of Birds of Prey, I know she also continues to appear post-Crisis. I guess I shall see what explanation, if any, is offered for this. Blood & Iron does include all of the Blackhawk Who's Who pages, which include both one about the Blackhawk Squadron with Natalie on it and another about Zinda (complete with a beautiful Brian Bolland illustration), with no noting of the apparent contradiction. show less