From Iron Man to the Justice League: The Best Of The Best Of The Best: A Positive-Minded Wednesday List For A Thursday Afternoon

In which the blogger offers up two baker's dozen's worth of franchise-defining comic books. Last week's list - here - suggested a number of poorly judged attempts to revitalise superhero strips. This week, there's another totally subjective, entirely questionable list of the books which the blooger would argue best represent the virtues of the same properties. Much of what follows falls into the category of the exceptionally obvious, while much if not all of it may well seem ridiculously ill-informed. Mea culpa.

From The Mighty Thor #154, 1968, by Jack Kirby, Vince Colletta & Stan Lee.

        
Reader, please be assured that there's no suggestion being made that today's comics should attempt to replicate the form and content of the books mentioned below. Nor am I trying to suggest that only that which follows is worth reading. But I did feel that a week of negativity ought to be followed by the opposite. As such, the absurd exercise of nailing down just two examples from the careers of characters who've been published for decades promised to be  as much fun as such list-making ever can be.

As always, your generous suggestions and civil disagreements would be extremely welcome;

1. Hank Pym

The adventures and misadventures of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are something we've been discussing recently here at TooBusyThinking. As I've been babbling away about, Tales To Astonish #44 remains one of the most intriguing superhero books there's ever been. Charged up by the presence of what seems to be clearly out-there Pym and a deeply vulnerable and vengeance-driven Van Pym, each of them harrowed by grief and, as a result, falling in love with each other, it's saturated with promise that was never fulfilled. Even now, a reboot which started which the events of TTA#44 and used them to explore these two fractured, fascinating characters would be at the top of my pull list.

Pym's brief time fighting alongside the Defendersin the mid-70s presented him as an experienced science-hero who struggled to make sense of the chaotic, bohemian and often-disturbed Defenders. Highly competent, characteristically baffled, there was a real chance here for a fresh start for Pym under Steve Gerber's care. Sadly, the character was swiftly claimed for the pages of The Avengers, and another considerably less promising destiny for Pym and Van Dyne beckoned.

2. Superman

Nothing has so obscured the brilliance of the best of the Superman tales from the early Sixties as the popular belief that only Marvel's superhero books of the age were worth cherishing. Yet in the hands of writers such as Siegel and Hamilton, and with the work of artist Curt Swan at his height, one fantastically intense and imaginative epic after another was crafted for the marketplace. Editor Mort Weisinger's long years in charge of the character appear by all accounts to have been a trying time - at the very least - for nearly everyone that had to work for him. But this period of his reign in particular saw a string of wonderful Superman epics, all grounded in the often-ignored understanding that optimism and unhappiness aren't necessarily mutually exclusive emotions. Where far too many editors and writers have believed that Superman needs grim'n'gritting-down, the character's positivity actually works exceptionally well when matched to terribly trying situations. To add melodramatic angst to ever-more impossible trials quite misses the point of Superman, for it's that contrast between hopeless circumstances and old-school perseverance and decency which serves him best.

I've blogged about Mr Maggin's Last Son Of Krypton before. So perhaps I might quote from a recent Tweet by Mark Waid whose own work will be referenced below, on Maggin's two Superman novels; "They're the pinnacle, the definition of Superman to me."

3. Daredevil

No-one will be surprised if I argue that Frank Miller's time on the character stands out as the definitive take on the Man Without Fear, and few people would argue with the proposition either. Working with colleagues such as Klaus Janson and David Mazzucchelli, Miller transformed a perennially underachieving superhero into one of the most compelling characters ever seen in the sub-genre. Indeed, it's hard to believe that there was ever a series as brilliant as Born Again, and that it could be bought in monthly instalments at the corner newsagents. Now it's so much part of history, and so much part of the canon, that it seems incredible that it ever arrived in the UK as an import in the company of the likes of Elvira's House Of Mystery and Sectaurs.

Mark Waid's recent stewardship of Daredevil has been a wonderfully well-crafted example of how a character can be reinvented without anything of the past being recast as uncanonical. I'd suggest that it's been the best run on the comic short of Miller's two runs. None of that's meant to disparage the likes of Gene Colan's work , or of Bendis and Lark's long-lasting ultra-noir version, or Wally Wood's brief but often superb mid-Sixties tenure on the book. But Waid's time in charge of the character has provided a quite different take on Matt Murdock to that of Miller and those who've drawn from his stories, while also avoiding the problems which bedevilled the character's earliest years.  Reframing Murdock as an existential superhero, capable of deciding not to succumb to his mental demons, has resulted in a Daredevil who reflects much of what's been shown before while displaying a distinctively hopeful and inspiring character all of his own

        
4 The Phantom Stranger

The single most outstanding comic starring the Phantom Stranger was Secret Origins #10, 1987, which rather wonderfully offered four contradictory explanations of who the character actually was. Tellingly, none of them was Judas, though Barr and Aparo did present us with what could only be the Wandering Jew. (Also, the presence of an Alan Moore tale in its pages helps me sidestep offering the Stranger's appearance in the second Swamp Thing Annual as my second choice. No point, after all, in repeating praise for a particular approach when the less commonly lauded JLA#103 can be mentioned instead ...)

The very idea of the Phantom Stranger has nearly always proven more alluring than the character himself. Even when his adventures have been drawn by creators such as Neal Adams and Jim Aparo, the Stranger himself has always suffered from the same ill-defined power-set and purpose which ironically lends him his air of appalling mystery. Fans of, for example, the Len Wein stories in his solo book of the late Sixties and early Seventies might think me unfair, but the Stranger's most satisfying adventures have nearly always been his guest appearances as an magician/enabler in other character's adventures. Wein used him to good advantage in several Justice League stories, including one also guest-starring Jon Stewart in JLA#110, but in a sense the beguiling, all-ages horror Nick Cardy cover to JLA#104 says everything that needs be said about the pre-Judas Stranger. (In fact, Christmas stories have turned out to be particularly fertile ground for guest appearances by the Stranger, with his role in the Barr/Aparo tale in Batman & The Outsiders #8 also serving as sentimental good fun. I wonder if that particular tradition will be maintained in the book starring the New 52 version of the character.)

5. Speedball

My problems with Penance were never grounded in any kind of reverence for the character of Speedball, whose original adventures were guided by a Steve Ditko who didn't seem to care that the world he was drawing bore no relationship to the late 1980s at all. An underpowered anachronism of a comic, it's distinctly underwhelming pleasures failed to gather an audience and it was unsurprisingly quickly cancelled. (Where it was worth paying attention to, it was because even late-period Ditko carries with it an undeniable measure of charm.) As such, I'd be pushed to even mention a definitive Speedball tale, since I've never read one that was anything other than forgettable. Devotees of The New Warriors, which arrived in a time when I'd largely given up on the Big Two's product, would undoubtedly manage to put me right on the matter.

          
6. Wonder Woman

As all but the most Rumpish know, the only version of Wonder Woman which can be regarded as definitive is that by Diana's creators, William Moulton Marston and Harry G Peter. Radically if idiosyncratically feminist, sexually transgressive and constantly endearing, if eventually somewhat repetitive, the original Wonder Woman's appeal is one which today's blokeish market would never recognise. What a shame that DC seem content to market so much of its product solely to such a reactionary, hardcore niche of readers. There's more than one audience, you might think, for the likes of Wonder Woman, and surely there could be more than one take on the character. (Fingers crossed for the coming Grant Morrison version.)

Of all the takes on Wonder Woman since, I think Gail Simone and Aaron Lopresti's was the most enjoyable and auspicious. A contentious point, no doubt, but then, it's something I've written about before - here.  I will just add here that issues #40 & 41 in particular were tremendously promising, and it's a shame that the company decided to back other, rather dregretable versions of Diana and the Amazons instead

7. Green Lantern

There's an understandable tendency to feel a touch embarrassed about Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil's High Sixties Green Lantern/Green Arrow tales now. They were improbably naive in their politics, they did lack subtlety, and the mixture of angst and sentimentality in them seems to be positively late-period Claremontian in its excess of melodrama. Yet in addition to wonderfully vivid comics-realist art, these were passionate stories, full of curiosity and anger about the world of the time, and that conviction and power means that even the least successful story in the series is still packed with memorable incidents. Given how craven most of today's super-books are when it comes to politics, GL/GA often seems not to come from a more innocent and strident past, but from a political adolescence yet to come. Or to put it another way, the sub-genre's fallen far behind the achievments of decades ago in certain key areas, and the same work that's often labelled old-fashioned and even silly can actually be far more radical than it at first appears.

Alan Moore only produced three tales of the Green Lantern Corps, yet his influence is still incredibly obvious in today's books. Working with Kevin O'Neil and Bill Willingham in the middle years of the 80s, he effectively revitalised the Corps, fusing its Silver Age SF roots with an occult sense of dread and a post-New Worlds air of wonder.

    
8. Thor

Of all the Kirby/Lee Thor tales, it's the story of the Odinson's epic battle to save the bone-headed Hercules' soul from Pluto which remains my favourite. Both creators had previously set-up Thor's disdain for his opposite number from Olympus with such care that his willingness to sacrifice everything to save Hercules appeared all the more admirable. Of course, Hercules was an endearingly egotistic oaf, and in most comics, that brutish charm would make him the most compelling character on display. Few writers and artists can make the straight-faced heroic qualities of a Thor more compelling than the arrogance and self-indulgence of a Hercules, but Kirby and Lee did exactly that here.

There's not an issue in Walt Simonson's run on Thor that doesn't carry with it at the very least a handful of memorable moments, and any attempt to write down the highpoints of Simonson's stretch on the book soon runs the risk of taking up a great deal of paper. The creation of Beta-Ray Bill. Fat Balder. Brittle-boned Thor in his body-splint armour. The Casket Of Ancient Winters. The last stand of the Executioner. Frog-Thor! The list really does go on and on. For the fact is that Simonson's Thor was so consistent that it could at times seem almost predictable in its quality if not its contents. With other books, it's far easier to recall the thrill of finding a particularly great issue. With Simonson's Thor, there's far more of a sense of years and years of inspiring, dependently-fine work.  It's hard to think of any other comparable body of work in the sub-genre which was as fine and consistent for so many issues.

    
9. The Legion Of Super-Heroes

The earliest days of the Legion, and in particular the marvellously individual approach of artist John Forte, have been discussed here before. Suffice to say, latter attempts to remove every last trace of oddness and daftness from the Legion have stripmined out a huge part of what once made the strip so entertaining and popular. Like the original Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, the Legion's appeal was enhanced by its often straight-faced absurdity, the removal of which has left what remains often looking both over-serious and yet - still - ridiculous.

Dave Cockrum's time as the LSH's artist in the early 70s wonderfully reinvigarated an underachieving strip, and yet the stories he worked on were more often adequate than ground-breaking. Legion fans had to wait until the early 80s and the collaboration of Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen to encounter an extended run which wasn't just worthwhile, but brilliant. In particular, the Great Darkness Saga - in which Darkseid is reborn to menace the 30th century - is as good a super-book epic as any.

       
10. The Pulp Heroes Featured In First Wave

It should be said that Darwyn Cooke made a good fist of his post-millenium reinvention of The Spirit for DC, but it really was a futile and thankless business. With the exception of the delightful Spirit/Batman team-up with Jeph Loeb, which was a hoot, there was nothing Cooke could do to match what Eisner and his studio had achieved in the dozen years from 1940. Yet at least Cooke's work was always admirable and consistently worth reading. The same couldn't be said for the First Wave version of the character..

To later generations who weren't around to enjoy the Helfer/Baker take on The Shadow in the late 80s; yes, that IS the Shadow's head, and, yes, that IS his body, and, yes, the one has very much been removed from the other. This particular take on the Shadow was, it's said, incredibly unloved where the right's holders were concerned, and it's true that it wasn't what might be thought of as a slavishly respectful run. Yet it was as innovative and ambitious as it was often hilarious, and it avoided being an emasculated heritage product through its creators persistently  irreverant approach. It was, quite frankly, brilliant, and the fact that it was cancelled just as the Shadow's head had been attached to a robot body is a matter of no little regret. The crime-fighting stars of the Pulps have mostly failed to inspire either great modern-era comics or profitable runs. Of the very few examples of wonderful comics being created using those pre-comics characters, The Helfer/Baker Shadow  was the most inventive and, perhaps, the single most worthwhile.

   
11. Spider-Man

I said it here, after hundreds and thousands of folks had said it elsewhere, and said it better too. There is no other take on Spider-Man that can stand head-to-toe with the Ditko/Lee version. But then, we all know that ...

And I expressed my adoration of Dan Slott and Ty Templeton's wonderful Spider-Man/Human Torch series over here too. Those who claim that Slott can't write a fine Spider-Man tale are not only avoiding the evidence of his more recent work on the character, but also the entirely adorable Spider Man/Human Torch.

      
12. Watchmen

After careful consideration, I came to the conclusion that the best example of Watchmen was indeed Watchmen.

 
13. Iron Man

Of all Marvel's first-wave superheroes, it's quite probably Iron Man who's had the least number of classic stories told about him. Yet even if there'd been far, far more, I suspect that David Micheline, John Romita Jr and Bob Layton's first run on the character would still come top of any best-of list. So much of these 35 years-and-more-old stories now serve as the backbone of the Iron Man movie that it could be safely argued there's been no more influential comics in the character's history.  There was certainly no more shocking scene back in the day than that of Iron Man's armour being taken over while Stark was in it and used to blow apart a foreign dignitory, although the depiction of Stark as an alcoholic was ultimately the most significant and moving aspect of the run.

Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca's The Five Nightmares stands as the finest Iron Man tale of the modern-era that I know. It may well be the very best of his solo adventures since Demon In A Bottle back in 1979. It's exactly the kind of tale of a modern-tech world which the character would seem to lend itself too, and it's told in a way which avoids the worst excesses of deconstructed storytelling too. Where Fraction and Larroca's later achievements on the book were often undermined by a glacial pace of storytelling combined with the lack of a complelling focus to their work, The Five Nightmares was concise, fast-moving, smart-minded and, ultimately, great fun. It's certainly the first book I'd put in the hands of a fan of the films who wanted to know whether they should buy the comics or not.

     
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