The Whole Planet's Leaking, Everybody's Leaking
Read more comics, have more takes, never EVER stop, the beast must feed.
At first, I really really wanted to try and make sense of the frankly comical amount of high-profile comic book leaks that have taken place this year, with Batman #138 being this week's latest example. From the strictly material point of view, you could see it as a success story: the very professional firms that have been put in charge of comic book distribution across all good comic book shops worldwide are good enough at their jobs that comics are in the hands of retailers, ready to be put on the shelves and available on time, and inevitably some jokers are taking advantage. If you wanted to get more psychological about it, you'd probably take from the episode that people are just fucking hungry to post about comics, in spite of their relatively marginal status in the greater ecosystem of entertainment; and all a halfway decent publisher needs to do is crack how to make money from it. There is real journalistic work to be done about this, and unfortunately, that's just not what this clown show is for.
Because, then, I read the comments about Batman #138, and, against all odds, in the midst of a highly controversial crossover, people appear to be loving that shit, as the picture of what Zdarsky has been doing with the Caped Crusader appears clearer. Now, there's nothing I could say about this comic that wouldn't be said better by a looming figure behind a window in a Stan Kelly cartoon, but it did get me thinking that people just love leaks. And so, in that spirit, I'm gonna leak something of my own! Specifically, my upcoming review of Miracleman: The Silver Age #7. Enjoy it in advance, and tell your friends about it so it seems like you're cool and hip and in the know.
The big question, when we talk about this newly unearthed volume of Miracleman, goes like this: when exactly was that comic written? Was it written in 1992, when Gaiman and Buckingham were working on the series the first go-around? Was it written in 2014, when Marvel announced they picked up the rights to the character, and promised new material, finishing a work that had been thought to have been forever lost? Or was it in 2022, when at last, we got to the getting. The answer is in-between all of the above, obviously, and it forces the mind to ponder this: where would comics be, had Eclipse not fallen to bankruptcy? This is a comic that carries with it the full potency of its subtext, making a case that feels completely contemporary. Is that because it was visionary, or because we have not moved very far from the concerns of thirty years ago?
To wit: when Dickie Dauntless, once Miracleman's sidekick, finds himself horrified by a world transformed by the presence of the superheroic, and suddenly traumatized when his old chum acts on a romantic tension he had been told was there, he finds himself on a journey to the top of a mountain, where a bearded old man, who renounced the powers given to him by the ruler of the world, tells him that being fictional is all well and good, but sometimes you have to be a real person. Also, the old bearded man loves comic books and showtunes. He talks of gold Kryptonite and Gilbert and Sullivan. He talks of the future like he's already seen it, a puppet watching its strings. It's Alan Moore. I am talking about Alan Moore. I'm saying that Will Caxton is Alan Moore.
All of this was known, I'm largely talking about the middle of the series here, to avoid you the spoilers that come with the kind of big climax only a master of the skill of Buckingham can deliver. This is a comic wrestling with the implications of a post-Alan Moore, post-Miracleman, post-Watchmen world, through clever subversions of themes and imagery. This is a comic whose subtext is about subtext in comics. If you take the hypothesis that this comic was being worked on in 2015, that would put it at least four years ahead of Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard's take on similar questions. If you think that it's a 1993 comic, it ends up three years ahead of Morrison and Quitely's Flex Mentallo. It would have changed the world back then. The question is: can it change the world now?
That's that over with, now you do your part and go on twitter and post blurry pictures of it for clout! Meanwhile, let's reheat the pizza.
It was always unfair for everyone involved to think that one single issue of one single comic could, on its own, fix the creative malaise that Marvel Comics has found itself embroiled in for the past few years. No one comic could fight the inertia caused by years of nostalgia-induced stagnation, no matter how new and ambitious, and no one comic could bring back all the readers that have lost faith after years of relaunches and other dubious stunts, no matter how loud its populist appeal could be. And, despite being one of the few voices in the spotlight actually invested in creating something new, and experimenting with what the value proposal of a single issue comic could be, not even Johnathan Hickman could change things on his own. But here's the thing: G.O.D.S. #1 is not interested in saving Marvel Comics from themselves. It's just interested in being a good comic.
For ten dollars american, which is obviously too much, you're getting a complete, done-in-one, beginning, middle and end, whirlwind adventure full of romance and mystery and wonder, guest-starring all your favorites, and taking our heroes on a wild journey to every corner of the Marvel Universe and their many cosmic back-alleys full of dangerous secrets and colorful characters. The action is wild and imaginative, the dialogue is snappy and full of charm, and as usual it is loaded with Proper-Nouns-Of-Great-Importance. Which is to say: it feels like the Marvel Cinematic Universe film of itself, and I don't even mean that as an insult: it's just that none of it feels particularly new besides the specifics.
It is a blockbuster adventure comic, and at this point you've probably read a dozen of those; its ideas don't feel any bolder or more consequential than what you'd find in your average award-winning Al Ewing comic, and the team of Valerio Schiti and Marte Gracia aren't being any bolder here than they were in, say, Judgment Day. I must stress, again, that it is an excellent comic. I love its ideas, I love its characters, and I want to see more of them. But should it have been more than that? As a reader, I think it was plenty; as an observer of Marvel Comics somewhat invested in their future, I think it's a good first step, but I don't know if the next Marvel launches can meet that standard. If they are to turn this ship around, they will have to.
Let's say it one last time for the record: I wasn't a Wally West hater. Jeremy Adams made me a Wally West hater. It wasn't just the dumb retcons sapping all the meaning from a beautiful comic for the sake of people who were too dumb to read the words that went along with the pictures. It was the insistence that every panel on every page of every issue should be an affirmation that Wally West is a good guy, whose inherent goodness means he deserves to have good things happen to him, and he should never be put in danger or in doubt ever, because the comics that had come before had just been too interesting, I guess.
I'm writing all of that so I can write this: The Flash #1 is a Wally West Hater Feast, and that might have been why it delighted me as much as it did. There is the obviously good stuff about it, like Mike Deodato's absolute mastery of time and space, done through his usual extremely deliberate use of panels and gutters, separating moments into their component parts, which works really well when dealing in a character whose life happens in between seconds. There is the narration, cleverly operating in multiple modes depending on the issue's focus, and given a unique level of care by letterer Hassan Otsman-Elhaou, who went above and beyond in giving each voice character.
But, of course, there is also the fantastic bit of stone cold raw insight at the heart of it all: the idea that Wally West is just a guy trying to smile through the pain. Si Spurrier expertly throws a whole mess of trouble at him in this issue, happening at scales both cosmic and incredibly small and mostly interpersonal, and the pain is, in fact, exquisite. It is overflowing with teasers and mysteries, each one weirder than the next, and they've got me really excited. Plus Wally and Linda might break up! Everything's looking up me. Sorry, non-haters. This one's for us.
And that'll do it, gang! Who else would provide you with reviews past, present, AND future? No one! That's how much I love you! That's how much I love this! Fans of liking this can like other things I do using "social media" on places like Bluesky and Cohost and Tumblr! In the mean time, love yourself, but as ever, HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS!