Reign of the Supermen #249: Superman/Quex-Ul Mash-Up

Source: Phantom Zone #4 (1982)
Type: The real deal (since retconned)
At the end of the Phantom Zone mini-series, Superman and Charlie "Quex-Ul" Kweeskill (an exonerated and amnesiac Phantom Zone villain from 20 years prior) are trapped inside the crystalline mind of Aethyr the Oversoul, who creates the Zone with its mind. As they start to merge with the Oversoul, losing their identities, they somehow manage to squelch away to another corner of Aethyr's mind and get their costumes mixed up.
Superman's new "calendar" chest emblem doesn't do much for him, but Charlie is inspired to confront Aethyr...
...but is consumed in soul-devouring flames. Superman's costume flutters back down and Supes quickly changes back into his red and blues for round 2. Where Quex-Ul failed, he succeeds, escapes the Phantom Zone and returns all the escaped villains therein, that green monstrosity of a costume but a memory.

Now of course, the reason I chose to post this particular iteration of Superman is because we lost Gene Colan this week, and I was happy to find he had drawn a project that featured Superman in clothes other than his own. He was going to be 85 this September, and had been working in comics since the 40s. His work on Daredevil, Tomb of Dracula, Howard the Duck and Batman is probably what most fans will remember, or perhaps Night Force, Nathaniel Dusk, Jemm Son of Saturn or Silverblade. Either way, his art looks like no one else's. A true original, there's something incredibly sinister and creepy about it that made it the perfect match for Wolfman's Code-approved horror books and Gerber's weirdness, two name two writers he often worked with. What makes Colan Colan? The last panel I posted above is a good ambassador for it, I think. Characters are defined not by linework, but by where shadows fall on them. Lighting schemes akin to putting a flashlight under your chin. There's an unfinished quality to contours that dissipate into mist. Strange panel shapes giving the reader a feeling of sustained anxiety. But most of all, that "dead eye" he often gives faces. Sometimes dwindling to a point like Aethyr's here, sometimes simply blank and pupiless, sometimes completely in shadow. He was a master of fear and I wish I'd appreciated him more when I was a kid, but I was so dang SPOOKED by the art, I probably didn't.

Heaven's relaunching Howard the Duck, I hear. Hope the angels can stand it.

Sarah Jane Smith Tribute

Liz Sladen was taken away from us too young, but we'll always have Sarah Jane Smith...My CCG tribute to the First Lady of Who.

She Was My First Companion

It is with great sadness that I found out last night that Elisabeth Sladen had died at age 63. Her portrayal of Doctor Who companion Sarah Jane Smith is still held up as the gold standard for the role, and with good reason. She imbued the often thankless job of getting into trouble, screaming at monsters and asking questions to the Doctor with a humanity and depth of expression all her own. Sarah Jane was a real person, not someone who read out lines or stood clumsily around. Her popularity would endure beyond her 3½ seasons with the 3rd and 4th Doctors, returning in both the 20th Anniversary special and in a pilot for her own show, K-9 and Company (she was the Company). Though that didn't work out, her reappearance in New Who's "School Reunion" would propel her to new heights as the star of her own popular series, The Sarah Jane Adventures, which I think had been picked up for a fifth year.

I'm looking at my autographed picture of her on my wall, right over my computer right now, misting up. She will be missed. My thoughts go out to her friends and family. For us fans, she has been forever immortalized as perhaps (no, as surely!) the Doctor's greatest companion ever, as beautiful and as positive a heroine in the last few years as she was in the mid-70s. Thanks for all the memories, Ms. Sladen.

Reign of the Supermen #126: Icon

Source: Milestone Comics, esp. Icon #1-42 (1993-1997)
Type: AnalogNot two days ago, at the much too young age of 48, comics writer Dwayne McDuffie died from complications following surgery. I'm shocked and saddened and my thoughts go to his friends and family. The only thing I can do is pay tribute to the man and his legacy. And he's got a big one.

His pet project, the Milestone Comics imprint at DC, allowed him to take on the lack of diversity in superhero comics by creating a number of series headlined by black characters, comics that lasted for the better part of five years! Hardware, Static (which went to cartoon), Shadow Cabinet, Xombie, Blood Syndicate, and Dakota City's analog of Superman, Icon, showed there was a place and market for minority heroes. Or perhaps rather that it wasn't important what color your skin was or what your ethnic background was, you could be a hero, one that readers found engaging no matter what THEIR ethnicity was. Even confined to their own universe, they still managed to thrive and are still fondly remembered.

I suppose I should talk about Icon a bit, since he's today's Reign character. Icon fills the Superman niche in the Dakotaverse by being a strange visitor from another planet with powers not unlike those of the Man of Steel. Of course, the details differ. Icon crash landed on Earth in 1839 and took human (baby!) shape to blend in, copying the DNA of his adopted mother, a black slave. He stayed out of history's way, waiting for Earth's technology to catch up with his pod's so he could leave, but committing random acts of charity here and there. When the heroic age arrives, he is rumbled by a young woman and gets himself a costume and a higher profile. That young woman becomes his sidekick, Rocket, and that's the most crucial thing about Icon, you see. There's no reason to do a Superman analog book unless you want to tell a Superman story that cannot be told in the pages of Superman. Icon is the story of what would happen if Superman had a sidekick. Just as it mellowed Batman, so will it affect the hyper-conservative Icon. Which brings up something else McDuffie will be remembered for: The range of character he brought to the paneled page. There isn't a stereotypical black character in the Dakotaverse, because they're all different, just like flesh and blood people are.

I find it sad that despite Dakota City's characters having recently been integrated into the mainstream DC Universe, we haven't seen much of them at all. In an era where DC especially has been accused of "white-washing", with many minority heroes being killed and/or replaced by white ones, here they were also bringing a wealth of quality non-white heroes to its pages... and then, failing to use them. Dakota City might as well still be on another Earth. Maybe DC will do some kind of homage to the man and his creations, but it shouldn't be yet another mini-series or badly supported series like they had with the Archie heroes (and possibly now the THUNDER Agents), other properties brought in with Milestone Comics. I want more than that. I want Hardware on the Justice League. I want Static in the Titans again. I want Icon and Rocket to team up with Batman and Robin. I want to get to a point where I'm not thinking about them as Milestone characters, but as DC characters. As I do the Freedom Fighters, or Captain Atom and Blue Beetle, or the Marvel Family.

And I can't let you go before mentioning two other things Dwayne McDuffie was responsible for, in fact two of my very favorite comics-related things EVER:
1. Damage Control. This hilarious Marvel comic has been at the top of my list of books I wanted to see on a regular basis for, like, ever. I know I've mentioned it before in these pages. The two original mini-series back in the 80s were pure awesome, and it was great to see another one a couple years ago. Really, I don't know why Marvel didn't commission one after every cataclysmic crossover event.
2. The Justice League/Justice League Unlimited cartoons. For my money, the finest superhero cartoons ever made. McDuffie's role as a writer and script editor for the series was a huge one, bringing his particular talents - making large casts into distinctive characters - to the forefront. His work for animation was so good that it made his return to such comics as Justice League of America disappointing in comparison, which was probably not fair to him. He continued to work with the WB's animation team, his adaptation of All-Star Superman coming out on the day of his death (or today, in many markets).

Dwayne McDuffie. Now, THERE is an icon.

Nicholas Courtney (1928-2011)

My Five Round Rapid salute to the one and only Brigadier.You will be missed, sir.

Frank Frazetta - He Liked to Draw Animals

Frank Frazetta passed away yesterday, and looking at the various homages that invariably crop up at times like this, I'm struck at how lush and expressive his fantasy illustrations and paintings were. I always knew it, of course. Tarzan, Vampirella, muscled barbarians and gorgeous half-naked babes... when you think of these, Frazetta's work frequently comes to mind. But I never realized how much I liked his ANIMALS.And what a great, classic signature, too. Thanks for all the pictures, Frank.

Majel Barrett Memorial

23 Feb 1932 - 18 Dec 2008

"Endings" Continues... Pyramid No More

Eulogy Section
It's with some regret that I had to say goodbye to Pyramid Online Magazine last week. Steve Jackson Games' in-house magazine is moving on and turning itself into a third format. 10 years ago, it went from a printed publication to a weekly online format. In the past 8, I was a subscriber for maybe 3 years, usually during peak role-playing periods. What was really nice about Pyramid is that no matter when you jumped on, you had complete access to all articles, ever, even the ones from the print magazine. For some 25$ a year, that was a great bargain.

And ultimately, probably what made it less than a financial success. Pyramid is now going another way: A monthly pdf publication at 80$ a year, though current subscribers will get the first 6 issues for free. People are already promising to quit Pyramid once it gets its new sticker price. I probably will too. Not that I've never spent money on pdf ebooks. I have. But while I rarely read Pyramid articles on the week they actually came out, I was a big fan of the searchable database for finding just the articles I was looking for. I know that for others, the price of admission was only worth it because of the forums, newsgroups and playtest opportunities it came with.

So what will I miss? Since I regularly play GURPS, tons of articles statted for that system, though 4th edition material does annoy me a little bit (another reason why I preferred the database). Certainly, some of my favorite features included Chad Underkoffler's great Campaigns in a Box. He wasn't the only one to contribute to that feature, but his ideas were always the most inventive and varied, very often with some cool illustrations, and he was a nice guy to boot, eager to hear about how I (and, I hope, others) inserted them into my own games.

Editor Steven Marsh must also be commended for his weekly musings on gaming, which had the knack of at once inspiring me and yet undercutting everything I might have wanted to say on the subject. If I could come up with such interesting posts on gaming, believe me, you'd have noticed by now. Kenneth Hite's Suppressed Transmissions were also a great source of entertainment for the illuminated mind. So my thanks to every writer, editor, artist or other job who ever contributed to Pyramid Online, and goodbye dream of having something in Steven's slush pile. I'll miss it.

Phoenix Section
Ok, so the first issue of Pyramid 3 is already out. What's it like? Well, it's 45 pages (about 40 once you ditch the cover and ads) revolving around a single theme. The next will be about superheroes, and the third more futuristic, but this one's on Wizards. Not my favorite subject given that a) I don't enjoy fantasy gaming very much and b) even when things get fantastic, my players never want to play magicians. More than anything, the lack of variety within a single issue will be the deal breaker for me. On the other hand, I see how it could encourage me to buy a single issue here and there, as a kind of game designer "jam" about a topic that interests me. Maybe this is a better business model after all.

And you know those writers I was thanking above? They're still here. Marsh is still editor and continuing his Random Thought Table column (good notes on how to keep an air of mystery). Hite hasn't actually done any work for Pyramid in a long while. And Underkoffler gets a little interview (makes me want to track down his more professional work) though not an article. Other contributing SJG stars include Sean Punch, and Murphy's Rules is still part of the humor page.

So anything truly interesting despite by non-magical bias? Well, there's a cool feature on prop-making, with step-by-step pictures, which I like. It's the kind of thing than the online version didn't or couldn't do, so I'm glad to see it there. (In general, it's a handsome package with color and the typical GURPS 4e layout.) The guildhall maps are a little indulgent (and eat up a few pages). The articles on undead weapons and curses might make their way into my next game (there's a horror cosm in there that might benefit from an idea or two). There's a good "Tools of the Trade" article on integrating board and card games into RPGs too. Overall, the articles are longer than in the online version, and more complete for it. I think I like it, but we'll see how much when the time comes to actually pay for it.

Ever read Pyramid? Or some other gaming magazine that's folded?

Geek Losses 2008 - The First Half

Not to be morbid, but this year, I'd started to collect the names of people who had made a contribution to Geekery and had passed away in 2008. At the end of the year, I was expecting to write a massive homage, y'know? But halfway into 2008 and the list is already absurdly (and sadly) long. So I thought I might give it a go twice rather than once.

Note that these are the people whose achievements intersected my life in some way, and no slight should be perceived if a name isn't there. Please feel free to add to the list in the comments section. And it's all geek stuff, so sorry college basketball coaches, Free Trade negotiators and Egg McMuffin inventors, I'm sure your contribution to society was important, it's just didn't blip on my radar.

Comics
I've actually done proper obituary pieces for Jim Mooney and Steve Gerber, but they weren't alone. We also lost two very sexy artists in Dave Stevens and Will Elder, and by that I don't mean that they were sexy (it's not my place to say), but that their art was. Stevens' beautiful art had a poster-like quality that made his work on both the Rocketeer and Bettie Paige really shine. And what can I say about Elder except that his Annie Fanny strips were my first glimpse of erotica. And like all teenagers from my generation, I used to buy Mad Magazine when it was cheap. Add to this list Tintin publisher Raymond Leblanc, V for Vendetta colorist Steve Whitaker, and just recently, Image-style artist Michael Turner (he was my age, for God's sake), as well as many writers and artists from abroad that I never got to sample (Fred Baker, Vladimiro Missaglia, and others).

Star Trek
Considering my daily content, I should make a section just for people who contributed to Trek, chief among them producer Robert Justman. He helped birth the show both in its original incarnation and The Next Generation, plus helped Geekery along elsewhere, with work on The Adventures of Superman, The Outer Limits and Mission Impossible. Trek actors who passed away this year include Stanley Kamel (Maddrox) though he is best known now for his role in Monk, and Robert DoQui (Noggra) perhaps better known as Sgt. Reed in the Robocop movies. And then there's Joseph Pedney who directed a number of Original Series episodes, including most of the classics (The City on the Edge of Forever, The Trouble with Tribbles, Amok Time, etc.). I must also mention Herb Kenwith who directed The Lights of Zetar, but we won't hold it against him, ok?

Doctor Who
Can't do one without the other, and we did lose some substantial contributors to Classic Who: Johnny Byrne, writer of such stories as The Keeper of Traken (without him, we have no Nyssa), Arc of Infinity and Warriors from the Deep, was also responsible for a number of Space 1999 stories. Actor Kevin Stoney brought immense presence to a couple of early Who villains, such as Mavic Chen and Tobias Vaughn, and later, Tyrum. man could do over-the-top like nobody's business. Wonderful. Hammer Horror regular Bernard Archard also passed; he was Marcus Scarman in Pyramids of Mars, and Bragen in Power of the Daleks. This list must also include Bond Girl (Goldfinger) Jane Lumb who appeared as a Thal extra in Doctor Who and the Daleks.

Movies and TV
Outside of my two obsessions, the number of talented individuals who've left us swells, including a couple of Geekery icons. The first of these is Charlton Heston who for a while there, was THE 1970s sci-fi hero. Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, The Omega Man... Was he just too old to do Logan's Run or what? My favorite performance of his is still as the Player King in Branagh's Hamlet. Seems odd, I know, but he really sells that Priam speech.

The other icon is Roy Scheider. Jaws obviously takes care of posterity, but I'll always remember him from Blue Thunder, Naked Lunch, 2010, Punisher (yes, Punisher), and of course, SeaQuest DSV. In all of his work, there was a sense of authority. Here was a man you could trust. His heroes earnest, his villains manipulative. And yet, there was always a humanity there. The common man as hero.

In this section, I'd like to pay my respects to George Carlin, first and foremost a brilliant stand-up comedian, and one of the few of whom I have a book. His recent collaborations with Kevin Smith (especially in Dogma) were goofy and sardonic at the same time. A nice part of his legacy. As a fervent Carol Burnett Show viewer, I can definitely say I'll carry fond memories of Harvey Korman as well. Don S. Davis just left us, he was General Hammond on Stargate SG-1, Major Briggs on Twin Peaks and Scully's father on X-Files, but best known by Canadians for pulling a gun on Sam Steele in that Heritage Minute. The second of two lost Bond Girls, Julie Ege starred as one of Blofeld's Angels of Death In Her Majesty's Secret Service. Paul Scofield who, for my money, gave us the best Hamlet's Ghost in movie history (in Mel Gibson's version, of all places). Hong Kong actress Lydia Chum I enjoyed in Happy Together, but she appeared in 85 more films I've never seen. Lionel Mark Smith was a regular cast member of David Mamet films. Barry Morse played the memorable Victor Bergman in Space 1999. Heath Ledger was taken away too soon, and I can't wait to see his interpretation of the Joker this summer. Also taken too soon, Brad Renfro whose major geek credit is playing Josh in Ghost World. Maila Nurmi AKA Vampira was immortalized by Ed Wood, which has a strong geek cachet. And a fond farewell to Suzanne Pleshette, a striking actress I used to love in the Bob Newhart Show (and her appearance in the last Newhart episode is sheer brilliance).

Behind the scenes, we must bid farewell to a couple of major lights, including special effects and make-up man Stan Winston. He's responsible for the visual artistry of such films as Aliens, Predator, Galaxy Quest, A.I., Terminator 2, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns and more recently, Iron Man. Oh, and he's credited with the Wookie Family's costumes in the Star Wars Christmas Special. Truly, a giant in his field.

We've also lost actor/director Sydney Pollack, whom I recently enjoyed in Michael Clayton (I'll miss his sheer presence in general). As a director, he will always be remembered for Out of Africa and Tootsie, though he gets most of his geekcred from The Yakuza. Other film and television contributors we've lost: Lawrence Hertzog, genre writer responsible for Nowhere Man, who also worked on 24, Profiler and SeaQuest; Kay Linaker, scriptwriter of The Blob (and an actress in the 40s); Anthony Minghella, writer/director of The English Patient, The Talented Mister Ripley and Cold Mountain; David Watkin, cinematographer of such films as Catch-22, Jesus of Nazareth, Out of Africa, and Gibson's Hamlet; and John Alvin, the poster artist of E.T., The Lion King, Young Frankenstein, Blade Runner, Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings, and lots more besides.

Animation
A lot of the pioneers of animation are leaving us, among them Ollie Johnston (Snow White) and Phyllis Barnhart (Jungle Book) at Disney, and soviet animator Iosif Boyarski. Closer to my personal parcel of the zeitgeist is Jacques Morel, the voice of Obélix in the French-language Astérix cartoons. His is a voice I can immediately recall, and it's always sad when a childhood icon passes away, even in sound alone. It's like Obélix actually died.

Not animation, but children's entertainment nonetheless, Sesame Street puppeteer Kermit Love (no, not the one who inspired the frog's name) passed away. Among other things, he designed and built Big Bird.

Science Fiction and Fantasy
It hasn't been a good year for written science fiction and fantasy. Most prominently, we've lost Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Though the world mourned him for his connection to 2001, I best remember him as the author of Childhood's End. An interesting thing about his work is that it was devoid of villains, Man left alone to conquer the final frontier was always excitement enough. Sir Clarke is followed by Algis Budrys, whom I haven't read, though I have a couple of his books - Michaelmas and Who?, and Stephen Marlowe, whom I don't know at all, probably because he's more of a mystery writer.

On the fantasy side of things, Robert Asprin passed away. As a teenager, I was an immense fan of his MythAdventures series, which appealed to the same part of my brain as Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. Here, I should also mention Gary Gygax, who got a proper obit from me at the time. And I'll throw in a mention of Gwenc'hlan Le Scouëzec, a real life druid (Brittany's Grand Druide), just because it fits.

Music
A lot of musicians died in the first half of 2008, but I'll only mention the ones who touched my particular life, like slide guitarist Jeff Healey and John Rutsey, original drummer of Rush, because well, it's Rush. There are also a couple who I only really know because of commercials, if that says anything about our culture, but I'll regret the loss of Bo Diddley and Buddy Miles, voice of the California Raisins, nonetheless.

Proper Art
Alain Robbe-Grillet, father of the French Nouveau Roman, a sort of deconstructionist, yet playful style, which I loved in university. Don't know how Les Gommes (The Erasers) plays in English, but it's brilliant. And from the pop art scene (because pop art, to me, is imbued with geekery), we lost Robert Rauschenberg (if Warhol and Lichtenstein's art was explosive, his was exploded - the after effects of the pop culture experience), as well as the woman who shot Marilyn for Warhol, Dorothy Podber. Great or small, their contributions have been notable.

Pioneers, Adventurers and Inventors
And then there are the people who, in my opinion, just made our world cooler. Hugh Bradner, inventor of the wetsuit; Richard Knerr, inventor of the frisbee and the hula hoop; and Cachao Lopez who gave us the mambo. Among the explorers, we lost Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest, and astronaut George Low who drafted the mission plan for Apollo 8, my favorite of all the Apollo missions (round the moon on Christmas Eve, what's not to love?).

I wish I could give a proper send off to each of these men and women, but it's already an outrageously long post by my standards. To them all, thanks for adding a little (or a big!) something to this geek's life and other geeks' too (and to mundanes' for that matter). If I missed someone, or if you'd like to eulogize someone further, please make use of the comments section.

Now leaving 2008 Part I...