COMICS SUCK! - Azrael #1 (February 1995)

20 YEARS AGO - February 1995

Cover artwork by Barry Kitson

AZRAEL #1 (DC Comics)
"Some Say in Fire ..."
By Dennis O'Neil (w, e); Barry Kitson (p); James Pascoe (i); Demetrias Bassoukos (c) & Ken Bruzenak (l)

It's the series no one demanded and was destined to failure, but somehow eked out a respectable existence. You remember how it all started, it was big news that transcended the comics world. Not two years after killing off Superman, DC Comics had literally crippled the Bruce Wayne. But a little thing like a broken back wouldn't stop the Batman. In Bruce Wayne's absence, a new character, John Paul Valley was drafted to take the mantle of the bat. Before long, JPV Batman established that he had a longer-term solution to crime, namely, killing the bad guys. This all took place in the now legendary Knightfall storyline. I was in Grade 7 at the time and was fully against the whole idea, knowing it was a crass marketing scam and that the company would bring back Bruce Wayne eventually. Even as a 12 year old, I wasn't fooled. But I've since read the entire Knightfall story and I've got to say it's excellent. This is one of the few instances where my 12 year old self was wrong.

If it does nothing else, Knightfall answers the question "why doesn't Batman simply kill his villains since they keep coming back?" I love that the editors addressed this "elephant in the room" head-on and showed that the answer to this question is not only obvious, but essential to one of the most enduring fictional characters of the 20th century.

In the aftermath of the story, John Paul Valley was despised by fans. He needed to be, he was designed that way. Ultimately, he was a patsy.

It wasn't long however, before the editors of the Batman family of books realized they had an intriguing character on their hands and gave him a title of his own. Though murderous, he had a disturbing innocent quality and was at heart, a demon-haunted "good guy" fighting the good fight, albeit in a misguided way.

Because DC tapped Dennis O'Neil, one of the greatest writers in the history of the medium, to pen the character's solo tales, the book slowly, grudgingly found a minority audience and survived for a surprising 100 issues. By this time, JPV was once again going by his original name of Azrael, after losing the mantle of the bat in combat with a recovered Bruce Wayne. Azrael was an agent of the Order of St. Dumas, a shadowy organization with ties to both Catholicism and the occult. JPV had been raised as a regular kid in America but had been the victim of psychic driving to implant in his mind the combat techniques that would make him nearly the equal of Batman. The process had also driven him mad.

The first issue re-established O'Neil's methodology of continuous 5-issue story arcs that he had introduced six years earlier on Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. The story begins with JPV as a drifter fantasizing that he is still a costumed vigilante. When he protects a newfound friend from a random attack, he mentally dons the red and gold garb of Azrael and refrains from killing the assailants. But he can no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality and when the thugs return to set fire to the homeless shelter he is staying at, he convinces himself to ignore the flames, thinking them another hallucination.

By issue 5, the final chapter in the opening "Fallen Angel" storyline, he is slowly learning to adjust, motivated by protective feelings towards another newfound ally, Sister Lilhy who he helps escape the manipulative clutches of the Order of St. Dumas. Although incredibly emotionally immature, Azrael must help look after Lilhy, who is even worse off than he is. Neither are equipped to deal with society.

With issue 47, in an attempt to boost sales and tie Azrael more closely to the larger Batman universe, the series was re-titled Azrael - Agent of the Bat. It's a testament to the strength of O'Neil's writing that this hated character even found an audience to begin with. He wrote all 100 regular issues of the title and the issue #1,000,000 special.

WHAT ELSE WERE THE KIDS UP TO BACK THEN?
After taking a chance on a new title for a hated character, the surly youth of 1995 undoubtedly marched into their local CD shop to sample the weird and riffy sounds from a new and angry band:



ELECTRIC WIZARD - Self-Titled

I wasn't around for this. I wish I had been, this album would have blown my little mind sky high-ee-igh and six feet under. Though Electric Wizard's debut can tend to sound slight and polite when compared to later albums 'Dopethrone' and 'Come My Fanatics', in February 1995 this must have been the heaviest thing those lucky few who found it had ever heard.

The trademark riff-laden sound of the band was already firmly in place, but the production is cleaner than what fans may have later come to expect. This is written in the perspective of one who found them much later, of course. But that cleanliness focuses the spotlight on Jus Oborne and co.'s Black Sabbath worship. A song like "Behemoth" makes that crystal clear. Few have managed to play in Tony Iommi's sandbox and come out as filthy.

The highlights don't end there of course. "Stone Magnet", "Mourning Prayer" and my personal favorite "Devil's Bride" (see video above) also showcase Oborne's Hammer Films, and exploitation cinema sensibilities. Later on, the use of film clips would become a staple of the band's atmosphere. They are absent here.

And while they are inarguably one of the bigger names in Doom Metal, and helped to define the style, they are a divisive band. Some of those who don't like the band today, stay loyal to the early records, including this one. But that's what happens when a true visionary artist does what he wants, those who can't keep up get left behind. It wasn't long before Electric Wizard outgrew this album, but for early '95, this is world-melting stuff.

Right. So after fixing their undercuts, inhaling an obscene amount of intoxicants, sampling the latest title from DC Comics and getting ear raped by the first coming of the next generation of heavy, the surly youth of the mid-90's headed to the theater in the local shopping mall to check out the new HBO's Tales from the Crypt movie, Demon Knight. Psh, obviously.

"Come on out everybody, time to play!"

Much like the comic book the show was inspired by, years of gory storytelling were hollowing out the soul of the series. When Demon Knight came out the show was on the verge of being cancelled and the plan moving forward was for the producers to concentrate on a (hopefully) never-ending series of full-length movies of originally stories in the EC Comics spirit, rather than the 20 minute television episodes based on the actual EC Comics stories. Demon Knight was the first of these.

The film was directed by Ernest Dickerson and starred Billy Zane, Jada Pinkett, William Sadler, Brenda Bakke, CCH Pounder, Dick Miller and Thomas Haden Church. It was successful enough to spawn a second film, Bordello of Blood but that spelled the end of things for the Tales from the Crypt crew. But Demon Knight was successful enough with 13-year old me. It was my favorite horror movie of that year and gave everything a little Grade 8 turd like me could handle: demons, possession, tits, explosions, ultraviolence, Jesus blood and some memorably gory deaths.

Those deaths in particular stand out. Some of them were tongue-in-the-heart outrageous, blood spraying like a-teamster-with-his-thumb-on-the-end-of-a-garden-hose gory. This was at the very peak of practical effects. CGI was in its infancy and no one outside of James Cameron could find the budget for it, while practical effects had reached all new levels of sophistication. Which was all too the good. I remember times in particular about sneaking cigarettes, reading Fangoria magazine, my Tales from the Crypt reprints while watching Demon Knight on VHS and just marveling at the magic of special effects wizards like Tom Savini, while thinking of my own possibilities, drawing melting men and skulls, skulls everywhere.

The script was originally written in 1987 and intended to be director Tom Holland's follow-up to Child's Play. After a marathon round through production hell it eventually landed on the desk of producer Joel Silver where it was intended to be the second of a trilogy of Tales from the Crypt spin-off films. Cooler heads decided Demon Knight was the better of the three and so it was put into production ahead of schedule and Grade 8 history was made.

And though Electric Wizard's debut had just been released I wasn't hip enough to catch on to it, but the Demon Knight soundtrack was more than adequate at the time. The standout song from the film was from a brand new band called Filter. As I recall, this was the first anybody had ever heard of the band and how they get their first single into a major motion picture was any teenager's guess at the time. It turns out Richard Patrick is the brother of Robert Patrick who you might remember from Terminator 2 and I'm sure that had more than a little to do with it. The song was "Hey Man Nice Shot" and at the time I loved it. Filter had spun off from Nine Inch Nails and had a bit of that heavy industrial sound to them but with a little more rock n roll to it. On later albums they shit the bed creatively which it turns out is just the thing to propel a band into new heights of popularity. Ahem.

The rest of the soundtrack were no slouches either. "Cemetery Gates" by Pantera, and good tracks from Sepultura, Ministry, Machine Head, Rollins Band and that weird band I'd seen on Much Music with the guy with the weird hair, The Melvins. Yeah, that soundtrack was pretty bad ass for its time, although it did thin out in places as various artists soundtracks often do.

Take my word on it, this film loses its power to thrill on subsequent viddies but 20 years ago, I couldn't get enough of it.

COMICS SUCK! The month in comics history January 2015

Comics have slowly corrupted the moral fiber of youth for generations. Let's chart the decline ...

60 YEARS AGO

TALES FROM THE CRYPT #45 (December 1954 / January 1955)
EC comics were the greatest comics ever, they combined clever stories with memorable endings (usually ripped off from literary classics) with unquestionably the finest art in comics at the time and they did it in an irreverent way by cutting down the tension of their dark Tales with humor. Tales from the Crypt #45 isn't one of the best issues from the series. This was the penultimate issue of the magazine, published at the tail end of a long period of decline, when the edge that the publisher had so carefully maintained for years had been dulled towards self-parody, when splattered brains began to trump the cereberal on the page and it was for that reason that the company drew the unwanted attention of no less an esteemed body than the U.S. Senate. But this issue does hold one of the classic stories, "The Switch", drawn by "Ghastly" Graham Ingels. In it, an elderly miser meets the girl of his dreams and attempts to woo her, but wishes to do so in a way that doesn't reveal his wealth, so that "she love me ... not my money". When he proposes and declares his love for her, she rejects him for being "so old ... so withered ... so wrinkled". He finds a well-built young man willing to trade youth for money and after a series of surgeries, each one rejected by the lady fair and each one hilarious in its turn, he's left with a young man's handsome face and well proportioned body, but no money. He's now the man of her dreams, but she rejects him one final time telling him she's getting married ... to the man who traded his youth for wealth! Genius!

50 YEARS AGO

UNCANNY X-MEN #9 (January 1965)
"Enter the Avengers"
By Stan Lee (w);  Jack Kirby (p); Chic Stone (i) & Sam Rosen (l)
Not the greatest of Marvel's silver age mutant adventures, but a memorable nonetheless. There's actually a graded copy at a local shop here in decent condition selling for $150, which is a decent price. Anyway, in this issue the earth is under attack by the nefarious (Quist)alien Lucifer. The villain bursts onto the scene when Professor X locates his underground lair attached to a harness and badass tank chair (see cover photo). In a complete affront to what would later become the established character of Charles Xavier, he's there to murder Lucifer, who reveals a device attached to his heart will detonate a world-devastating bomb if it ever stops beating. And the drama that Kirby inserts onto the page is as good as you could imagine. Meanwhile, the Avengers show up because ... why not? Crossovers were fun in those days and didn't come across as tired and cynical marketing ploys. So obviously when two teams of costumed adventurers cross paths in the Marvel universe they must fight. And they do! But unbeknownst to both teams, Xavier's in a battle of his own beneath their feet, when Lucifer pulls up lame. All the excitement ... there's something wrong with his heart! Before long the Avengers realize that they're only getting in the way and the two teams part company in an air of grudging respect. No matter that the earth is about to explode, the Avengers have photo ops to stage, apparently. Anyway, the strangest teens of all act quickly and in a very memorable scene, Cyclops must focus his eyebeam to a pinpoint in order to de-activate the bomb, at which point Lucifer recovers from his ailment. All this in just 20 pages. This story would take 20 issues for Marvel to tell today.

40 YEARS AGO

MAN-THING #13 (January 1975)
"Red Sails at 40,000 Feet"
By Steve Gerber (w); John Buscema (layouts); Tom Sutton (finishes); John Costanza (l); Petra Goldberg (c) & Roy Thomas (e)
Steve Gerber was just the greatest. It's impossible to read a Steve Gerber story and not get what he was trying to say, he was comics's greatest propagandist. Thankfully his heart and mind were usually in the right place. Man-Thing was a low priority comic for Marvel, a critical darling but not a huge hit the kiddies. And because there was less scrutiny on this book it became Gerber's greatest springboard for social ideas. The Captain Fate issues (#13-14) were among the most memorable. The first thing you'll notice is the liberal use of captions, which were Gerber's only way of expressing the unspeaking Man-Thing's internal experience. It's the kind of thing you won't find in comics being produced today. If nothing else Gerber made John Costanza earn his paychecks. What happens is, a scientific expedition aboard a freighter is attacked by a seeming pirate ghost ship under the command of Captain Fate. The pirates kidnap the leader of the expedition, and tell her that only she can free them from the curse put on them by the demonic-looking satyr Khordes. It turns out, in the next issue (featuring terrific art from the Barry Windsor-Smith inspired Alfredo Alcala) that the pirates had betrayed her 200 years ago by selling her out to Khordes in exchange for "all the treasure you desire". It gets slightly convoluted, but the theme of the story is that appearances are deceiving and sometimes someone who looks evil has the best intentions, and when Man-Thing resurrects Khordes, both monsters embody this idea. I think Gerber was talking about the hippies and outsiders that mainstream America reserved large cargoes of mistrust for. Though his peak period lasted only about five years, Gerber was a great comics writer, arguably the best of the 1970's.

30 YEARS AGO

THOR #351 (January 1985)
"Ragnarok & Roll, Too"
By Walt Simonson (w, a); John Workman (l); Christine Scheele (c); Mark Gruenwald (e)
Things were heating up during Walt Wimonson's classic Thor run and this is one of the marquee issues with an unforgettable cover. Thor fills up virtually the entire cover space and his hammer, Mjolnir crackles with energy, while the rainbow bridge, bifrost burns beneath his feet. It's a Kirby-esque image and it denotes the thunder god's senses-shattering power. This is one of the first comics I ever owned and I grabbed it because of the cover. I've gone and looked through it so many times that the cover is just barely hanging on by a thread. There are so many classic panels and images in this book. The story starts off in medias res with Thor pounding a fire demon on the chin amidst an epic battle (BWA-WHRAAMM). As we flip through the book, it turns out he is not alone. He fights alongside Sif, Beta Ray Bill, the Warriors Three, The Avengers and the Fantastic Four, repelling Sutur's invasion forces from Earth (or New York City, which Marvel seemed to think were synonyms at the time). Thor leaves the battle to pursue Surtur into Asgard. He finds the fire demon on the rainbow bridge. He smites the bridge with his sword called Doom and little shards of color fall like snow upon the battle in Manhattan. When Sif notices and realizes what's going on she slices a fire hydrant in twain ... and it is freakin' cool (see pic)! Thor attacks Surtur but he's really no match for the demon, who bats mjolnir aside like a baseball. On the very last panel, their battle is joined by none-other than the all-father of Asgard himself, the regal Odin.

One final note: I always thought the work John Workman did on Thor was the best hand lettering comics has ever seen, the style he used is distinctive, it looks great and it has a runic feel, tailor-made for that particular strip.

20 YEARS AGO

MADMAN #5 (January 1995)
"Comes the Blast!"
By Mike Allred (w, a); Laura Allred (c); Sean Konot (l) & Bob Schreck (e)
These early Madman issues are some of my favorites. Mike Allred had really carved out a style all his own, not just in terms of his art, which was very much Osamu Tezuka meets Jack Kirby, but also in the dialogue, wherein Madman and his ladyfair can leave Snap City and travel to Buzztown and it's all very nifty and snappy.Most of all these were fun comics. Madman himself was charmingly impulsive, "Lookit! A vending machine" (after having just been told he is expected for supper with Dr. Flem). All of the characters and bizarro villains had a surprising level of depth, and Mike Allred was skilled enough to break the rules of comics storytelling and have everything in the story remain clear as day to the reader. Issue 5 was no exception. We meet a terrorist named Mick as he is caught in a blast. Then in a scene reminiscent of Billy Batson's discovery of Shazam and his transformation into Captain Marvel, Mick stumbles upon a stone artifact with the inscription "Yool Doo Az Aye Sae". The artifact is a representation of a many-eyed god who speaks to Mick, obscured behind the clouds and tells him that Madman is plotting against him. The many-eyed god then gives Mick a battle suit with which he can use to cleanse his life of Madman's intolerable influence. Madman is just going about his day, minding his own business when he runs into Mike Mignola's famed character, Hellboy, whom he is frightened by until he offers Madman a lollipop, which he gives to his girlfriend, Joe. Madman then goes back to the lab and tries out his nifty new battle armor (with propellers on the back and roller skates on the boots), which I believe was designed by a fan in a contest if memory serves. Anyway, it's during this outting that Madman is confronted by Mick who tells him "knowledge comes with death's release ..." They get into a scrap, but Mick is repelled by the intervention of Madman's friend Astroman. Later, Madman gets outside the lab for a late night walk when he is confronted once again by Mick who promptly blows a massive hole through his chest and kills him. But Hellboy shows up again with the real Madman and it's revealed that Astroman took his place and therefore took a bullet for him. Look, the story's much more well organized and clear than my summary here, but this should give you an idea of the kinds of twists, turns and zaniness of Madman Comics. It was twenty years ago, today.

10 YEARS AGO

ASTONISHING X-MEN #7 (January 2005)
"Dangerous"
By Joss Whedon (w); John Cassady (a); Laura Martin (c); Chris Eliopoulos (l) & Mike Marts (e)
It's one of the most beloved X-Men creative team runs in the history of the team, Whedon & Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men. It wasn't without its problems, lateness of arrival being chief among them, but those problems didn't come up til later and the first 12 issues are untouchable in terms of quality. Issue 7 begins a new storyline "Dangerous" about the X-Men's training facility, the Danger Room, which had been enhanced with alien tech, gaining sentience and coming to life to menace the team. I'm not going to tell you this is a perfect issue, but you have to look pretty hard to find fault here. The X-Men do something we've rarely seen them do: repel a giant monster from the streets of Manhattan. It makes for a nice change of pace and maintains a kind of "Marvel realism" when the Fantastic Four show up and The Thing complains that the mutants are stealing their bit. It's all a P-R campaign, which is ultimately fruitless anyway as there's a scene near the end of the book when the assembled team is watching the nightly news broadcast, disappointed that they only got 30 seconds of coverage for their efforts and only after a three minute piece about a useless celebrity doing something useless. That whole portion of the issue is it's own complete adventure and ensures that though, this issue is part one of a six part story, it can be read and enjoyed independently of the others. That's a rare find for comics these days. The issue is bookended by what will develop into the main storyline of the "Dangerous" story arc. The newly introduced and recently de-powered character of Wing stands on a precipice. He can't come to grips with the loss of his ability to fly. He is goaded into jumping by his friend whom he trusts. After the team's adventure is wrapped up we see Wing lying at the bottom of the cliff, bloodied and broken. As the life leaves his body we see that the canyon floor gives way to a metallic surface. It was all happening in the danger room all along. High marks for this one.

NOW

COFFIN HILL #13 (January 2015)
"The Verge, The Silence"
By Caitlin Kittredge (w); Inaki Miranda (a); Eva De La Cruz (c); Travis Lanham (l); Shelly Bond (e)
Coffin Hill is one of the better comics out there today. It's the child of novelist Caitlin Kittredge and artist Inaki Miranda. I like Kittredge, creatively she lives on my street, only in a nicer house, with a bigger yard and freshly cut lawn that smells better than mine. I find so many of my own storytelling techniques and concepts and overall tone that I go for in her pages that it can be embarrassing reading this book because her vision is so much stronger, more organized and clearer than mine. It's like looking through the wrong side of the funhouse mirror. And Miranda is an excellent artist, His unique, simplistic style seems to border on the cartoonish but is deceptively detailed and representative. The thing I'm most impressed about with Miranda is that the book has stayed on schedule (monthly) for over a year without any fill-in artists taking over. That's the rarest thing of all in today's world of comics. In this issue, the second major storyline ("Dark Endeavors") comes to a close, as does the first overall larger story cycle. Coffin Hill is about a legacy witch named Emma Coffin, whose family has lived in the greater Boston area for generations. In that time they have built a reputation, which Emma is trying to distance herself from. The story is split between Emma's time as a rookie cop in Boston in 2012 and her return to her home of Coffin Hill, MA after it's over. Emma's back/origin story finally reaches a long-withheld climax here, her investigation into the Ice Fisher serial murders conclusively finishes in a multi-layered witch-on-witch battle, but her career is effectively futzed when the dust and snow settles. And we finally find out how Emma's right eye became black (see cover).

One thing I often see creators and publishers get wrong today is to create an unnecessary jumping off point by the simple mistake of throwing a "End" caption in the last panel on the final page of a story/storyline. Kittredge, Miranda and editor Shelly Bond don't do that here. They leave us with a cliffhanger, which you're allowed to do in comics, especially when you have parallel storylines running. You can end one storyline in a satisfying way, but leave the other with a cliff hanger. Potentially, this could go on forever. I hope it does. Issue 14's already on shelves but I haven't picked it up yet, based on the first 13 issues, I can hardly wait to see what happens next.

Key to abbreviations:
(a) artist [pencils & inks]
(c) colorist
(e) editor
(i) inker
(l) letterer
(p) penciler
(w) writer