John Byrne (1) (1950–)

In these issues John Byrne did something no other creators have ever done; he made the Sub-Mariner interesting. I remember buying these issues when they first came out and they were a revelation. Beyond his usual excellent art, Byrne had taken a character I had never cared for and presented him as a complicated, interesting individual (it didn't hurt that he gave Namor a great supporting cast of both allies and enemies). It's not often that comics can make me reexamine my feelings about a show more property, but these issues did just that. show less

This is a weird one. Yes, it's got great John Byrne art all through it, from finished, polished work right through to quick doodles. It's got commentary by Roger Stern, Terry Austin, and Chris Claremont. It has a long interview with Byrne, all of which is interesting.

However, it is shockingly full of ridiculous spelling errors (half of which seem to be other artist and author names, which is simply unforgivable), and all those people who write about Byrne seem to be doing their best to say show more nice things about him, but you can almost see the strain beneath the smile. Claremont's the only one who seems mostly comfortable, but it wouldn't be long before he and Byrne would have their falling out.

The interview is most illuminating in how Byrne casually bashes others...Bob Layton, Jim Shooter, hell, even the guy who made Byrne look good, Terry Austin...though it's interesting to feel the dislike toward Shooter while also seeing Byrne grudgingly admit that Shooter pushed him to be a better storyteller.

You can also clearly see that Byrne is, sadly, starting to not just believe in his own press, but getting ready to wallow in it. It's too bad because, while Byrne still had some decent years and ideas ahead of him, he was also about to quietly flame out from all that hubris and not playing well with others.

Which is too bad. While he's still secured his place among the top comic artists, he literally could have been right up at the top. show less

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

I get a weird little frisson out of comic book titles that use the character name in them, as opposed to a series prefix, like this or World Without a Superman. I don't know why; it's just neat. Anyway, this book adds support to my Jim-Starlin-and-Jim-Aparo-are-better-apart-than-together theory by pairing Aparo with John Byrne. This short book begins with a silent chapter where the Gotham City police find a dead Batman, the show more best efforts of a hospital can't save him, a nosy reporter's leak means the whole city quickly knows, and then a second Batman corpse turns up. John Byrne used to infuriate me with his excess verbosity on Alpha Flight, but like issue #13 of that series showed, he can do great stuff without them when he wants to. The chapter is a masterpiece of storytelling by Aparo, communicating a whole story with only a single, well-chosen word.

When the second issue begins, there's a ton of text and I got worried, but Byrne actually balances the word and image well throughout. The core of the story is that someone is dressing people as Batman and then killing them, often in grotesque fashion; it's actually kind of a dark 1980s take on a Silver Age story, and it works quite well, as Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and the rest of the police have to mobilize against this increasingly bizarre threat. Eventually the answers materialized and they're improbably convoluted, even for the kind of story this is imitating, but the ride up until the point was so enjoyable it was hard for me to care. This is a "typical Batman" story: no huge stakes, no deranged supervillains, and it works as a very solid example of that genre.

As a side note, I read this book where it takes place, between A Death in the Family and A Lonely Place of Dying. I didn't gain anything from the experience: the Batman here doesn't show any effects of the death of Jason Todd.

Batman "Year One" Stories: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence » show less

I have always been a massive fan of John Byrne's artwork, having "discovered" him back when he was doing Doomsday 1 for Charlton comics. When he moved to Marvel's Iron Fist and a few other comics before becoming a force of nature on X-Men, I simply couldn't get enough of him.

But I also stopped reading comics around the time he landed on Fantastic Four, having graduated high school at the same time as my parents divorced. I needed the money to pay my way through college, so I sold off my show more beloved comics collection for just about enough to cover a year of college in 1981 (those same comics would likely pay off my house today, dammit), and I couldn't afford to pick up new issues, so I fell away from comics for the better part of two decades.

Which all a long-winded way to say I missed Byrne's run on FF. It was time to correct that, so I am now working my way through his run.

The first thing I'll say is, as much as I love Byrne's art, I will always love it more when Terry Austin inked him. He just made everything so crisp and sharply focused. Byrne's inks over his own pencils, while very good, always seemed a bit more muddy, and carried a little less snap than when Austin did his thing.

But still, Byrne blew into the Fantastic Four and immediately put his distinctive stamp on the book, through the visuals—it was the best the Human Torch had looked in years, and he freshened up and modernized the Invisible Girl's (and oh, how that term rankles) hairstyle and dress, then he went back to the more classic Kirby-style Thing—that all had a feeling of a breath of fresh air on a book that, while not necessarily stale, had not necessarily lived up to its World's Greatest Comic Magazine! title in a while.

But the biggest difference was in the writing. Is there some evident growing pain, cringe-worthy writing here? Oh yes. But overall, Byrne made a very conscious decision to step away (at least for a bit) from the Really Epic! Earthshaking! Godlike! Foes! that the team had been taking on lately. Yes, there's a time and a place for a cosmic, universe-shaking storyline to come along, but there's got to be some smaller stories that throw a light on the four heroes, and Byrne did that. And for the most part, did it well.l

Probably the best of the bunch in this collection was three issues in, The Man With The Power, an almost Bradbury-esque story that was as endearing as it was fun.

Byrne reminded us that Reed and Sue are a married couple, that Johnny was Sue's brother, and that both he and Ben had lives and relationships outside of the team. And that, more than anything, these four are family.

It's definitely a good start to his run. show less