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house-of-nevs · 5 years

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LAUGH, they nearly SUED.

On the whole, we're inclined to leave the majority of new comics alone. Any clown can pluck the latest offerings from the shelf, say '$7!! For this?!' and be done with it but Joker 10 is something of an anomaly that deserves greater inspection, to say the least.

In the 70's, The Joker was granted his own title as he was extremely popular due to a number of still influential Batman stories of the time. In theory 'What does The Joker get up to in his spare time?' ought to write itself.

Problem was, The Comics Code and it's judgements still carried weight back then, and both writers and editors had to be cautious about the content of their comics, because The Code ruling against you could mean the majority of newsstands just wouldn't carry your book. Presumably newsstand vendors just kept an eye out for that little white square and that was the end of gauging whether this month's Batman Family wouldn't turn little Johnny into a foaming, homicidal pervert or whatever.

So, DC were in a bit of a fix. There's no way The Joker could ever be perceived as any kind of hero or even a sympathetic protagonist, therefore he had to be shown paying the price for his activities and securely locked up at the end of each issue. Which really just underscores how inefficient the security of Arkham Asylum had to be.

'The Joker' ran 9 issues and was..alright? Certainly readable but nothing to bother paying more than cover price for. No Neal Adams, Michael Golden or Marshall Rogers art to turn them into classics. Even Mike Gold qualified the reprinting of Joker 3 in 'The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told' as something of a necessary chronological inclusion rather than being regarded as any kind of greatest story.

Joker 9 was the final issue for decades, although confirmation existed that a tenth issue had been completed and just wasn't published due to the book's cancellation. An entirely reasonable and believable until, well, you read the thing but trust us, we'll get to that.

So, for quite a few years, we have this lost Joker comic. In retrospect it seems a bit odd that DC never find a place to publish it given how many times The Joker has been in vogue, and they're certainly not averse to putting out other lost works, such as the Legends Of The DC Universe title kicking off with a previously unseen Crisis On Infinite Earths story, The JFK/Teen Titans annual and a Neil Gaiman Green Lantern book.

So then, FINALLY, as part of the never ending wave of omnibus books that DC insist on abusing bookshelves with, they announce 'Joker:The Bronze Age. To include Joker 10.

The obvious response from the average reader who doesn't want to plonk down $100 for one new comic is 'Any chance of knocking this out as a separate comic?' Given both the DC Dollar and Facsimile Editions are doing a bit better than new comics at the moment, Joker 10 would probably have blown away any other new comic in pre-orders for any given week in 2019.

As of this writing, Joker 10 isn't being offered as a single hard copy comic any time soon, but imagine our surprise when flipping through the Joker promotional sales on Comixology to see...

Joker 10. No hype, no fanfare. Just 'Oh by the way this is in our library now.' An odd way to promote the first monetised publication of a lost comic featuring one of pop culture's most significant icons.

Again, until you READ it.

Joker issue 10 is mental.

Not in a 'well, it features a lunatic so of course there's going to be a twinge of insanity going on.' way. Look. We're old. We've seen The Joker shoot and potentially physically assault a young woman, play poker with Mr MxyStupidnamex for the right to control reality, kill Jim Gordon's wife dead in the street, continue an abusive relationship with Harley Quinn, become the U.S. Ambassador fot Not Iran, batter Jason Todd to death with a crowbar, slice his own face off because reasons and even break his own neck just to frame Batman for murder.

Still, though, this is The Joker at his most literally insane and murderous. If we have this correct, The Joker kidnaps a doctor and explains to him the story of being coerced into destroying a serum that would literally stop death. By Satan. Who looks an awfully lot like Elton John with the word 'POOF' signifying John's arrival at a time where Elton was still very much in the closet.

Joker recants his gleeful, methodical murder of each member of The Justice League, including hanging Wonder Woman by her own lasso from a Jokerised Statue Of Liberty, sending The Flash insane by shooting him up with some kind of..Super Amphetamine that burns his system out and leaving Green Arrow to die in a Hyena cage in the zoo. He also possesses superhuman powers never seen before, including the ability to be at several places at once!

At the end of the issue, we see Joker in possession of The Justice League's bodies, 99/100 ths dead but not dead. Just what in Chief O'Hara's name is going ON here? What happened to the serum? Or Elton John? Why can The Joker do all these new dastardly deeds?

Guess what?

We'll NEVER KNOW.

Joker 10 finishes on a cliffhanger. This is part 1 of 3. Are there at least scripts knocking around the DC offices that could be drawn up, because this is truly the Twin Peaks:The Return of comics. An answer to a long awaited question that only creates question upon question with it's existence.

Was this really going to be submitted to The Comics Code, because The Joker is working with Satanic Figures, enjoying the fruits of his evil deeds, happily murdering superheroes (that whole '99/100ths' thing reads less like a plot point and more like a 'covering that whole killing women Code violation' addition.) and somehow we're seeing, well, issues with this issue.

So we have to turn this over to you; there has to be more to this story. Are there scripts for 11 & 12? Latest rumours as we write this is that The Joker Bronze Age Omnibus may not even make the shelves (although the preview book is out this week at all good comic shops.) UPDATE: The book is out in good comic shops now. We looked in a bad one.

We hope to see you with more on this on The Funnyiest Of Page's!

#joker #dc #comics #1979 #batman #flash #superman

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thecomicsnexus · 5 years

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Jimmy Olsen, Superman's Pal, Brings Back the Newsboy Legion!

SUPERMAN’S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN #133 OCTOBER 1970 BY JACK KIRBY, AL PLASTINO AND VINCE COLLETTA

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC WIKIA)

Jimmy Olsen is paired with the new Newsboy Legion, the sons of the original boy heroes plus Flippa-Dippa, a newcomer, to investigate the Wild Area, a strange community outside of Metropolis.

The boys are given a super-vehicle called the Whiz Wagon for transport. When Clark Kent shows concern for Jimmy, Morgan Edge, owner of Galaxy Broadcasting and the new owner of the Daily Planet, secretly orders a criminal organization called Inter-Gang to kill him. But Kent survives the attempt, and later hooks up with Jimmy and the Newsboy Legion in the Wild Area.

The youths have met the Outsiders, a tribe of young people who live in a super-scientific commune called Habitat, and have won leadership of the Outsiders' gang of motorcyclists. Jimmy and company go off in search of a mysterious goal called the Mountain of Judgment, and warn Superman not to stop them.

THE BRONZE AGE OF COMICS

The Bronze Age retained many of the conventions of the Silver Age, with traditional superhero titles remaining the mainstay of the industry. However, a return of darker plot elements and story lines more related to relevant social issues, such as racism, drug use, alcoholism, urban poverty, and environmental pollution, began to flourish during the period, prefiguring the later Modern Age of Comic Books.

There is no one single event that can be said to herald the beginning of the Bronze Age. Instead, a number of events at the beginning of the 1970s, taken together, can be seen as a shift away from the tone of comics in the previous decade.

One such event was the April 1970 issue of Green Lantern, which added Green Arrow as a title character. The series, written by Denny O'Neil and penciled by Neal Adams, focused on "relevance" as Green Lantern was exposed to poverty and experienced self-doubt.

Later in 1970, Jack Kirby left Marvel Comics, ending arguably the most important creative partnership of the Silver Age (with Stan Lee). Kirby then turned to DC, where he created The Fourth World series of titles starting with Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133 in October 1970. Also in 1970 Mort Weisinger, the long term editor of the various Superman titles, retired to be replaced by Julius Schwartz. Schwartz set about toning down some of the more fanciful aspects of the Weisinger era, removing most Kryptonite from continuity and scaling back Superman's nigh-infinite—by then—powers, which was done by veteran Superman artist Curt Swan together with groundbreaking author Denny O'Neil.

The beginning of the Bronze Age coincided with the end of the careers of many of the veteran writers and artists of the time, or their promotion to management positions and retirement from regular writing or drawing, and their replacement with a younger generation of editors and creators, many of whom knew each other from their experiences in comic book fan conventions and publications. At the same time, publishers began the era by scaling back on their super-hero publications, canceling many of the weaker-selling titles, and experimenting with other genres such as horror and sword-and-sorcery.

The era also encompassed major changes in the distribution of and audience for comic books. Over time, the medium shifted from cheap mass market products sold at newsstands to a more expensive product sold at specialty comic book shops and aimed at a smaller, core audience of fans. The shift in distribution allowed many small-print publishers to enter the market, changing the medium from one dominated by a few large publishers to a more diverse and eclectic range of books.

JACK KIRBY

In 1968 and 1969, Joe Simon was involved in litigation with Marvel Comics over the ownership of Captain America, initiated by Marvel after Simon registered the copyright renewal for Captain America in his own name. According to Simon, Kirby agreed to support the company in the litigation and, as part of a deal Kirby made with publisher Martin Goodman, signed over to Marvel any rights he might have had to the character.

At this same time, Kirby grew increasingly dissatisfied with working at Marvel, for reasons Kirby biographer Mark Evanier has suggested include resentment over Lee's media prominence, a lack of full creative control, anger over breaches of perceived promises by publisher Martin Goodman, and frustration over Marvel's failure to credit him specifically for his story plotting and for his character creations and co-creations. He began to both write and draw some secondary features for Marvel, such as "The Inhumans" in Amazing Adventures volume two, as well as horror stories for the anthology title Chamber of Darkness, and received full credit for doing so; but in 1970, Kirby was presented with a contract that included such unfavorable terms as a prohibition against legal retaliation. When Kirby objected, the management refused to negotiate any contract changes. Kirby, although he was earning $35,000 a year freelancing for the company, subsequently left Marvel in 1970 for rival DC Comics, under editorial director Carmine Infantino.

Kirby spent nearly two years negotiating a deal to move to DC Comics, where in late 1970 he signed a three-year contract with an option for two additional years. He produced a series of interlinked titles under the blanket sobriquet "The Fourth World", which included a trilogy of new titles — New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People — as well as the extant Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen. Kirby picked the latter book because the series was without a stable creative team and he did not want to cost anyone a job. The three books Kirby originated dealt with aspects of mythology he'd previously touched upon in Thor.

The New Gods would establish this new mythos, while in The Forever People Kirby would attempt to mythologize the lives of the young people he observed around him. The third book, Mister Miracle was more of a personal myth. The title character was an escape artist, which Mark Evanier suggests Kirby channeled his feelings of constraint into. Mister Miracle's wife was based in character on Kirby's wife Roz, and he even caricatured Stan Lee within the pages of the book as Funky Flashman. The central villain of the Fourth World series, Darkseid, and some of the Fourth World concepts, appeared in Jimmy Olsen before the launch of the other Fourth World books, giving the new titles greater exposure to potential buyers. The Superman figures and Jimmy Olsen faces drawn by Kirby were redrawn by Al Plastino, and later by Murphy Anderson.

Kirby later produced other DC series such as OMAC, Kamandi, The Demon, and Kobra, and worked on such extant features as "The Losers" in Our Fighting Forces. Together with former partner Joe Simon for one last time, he worked on a new incarnation of the Sandman. Kirby produced three issues of the 1st Issue Special anthology series and created Atlas The Great, a new Manhunter, and the Dingbats of Danger Street.

Kirby's production assistant of the time, Mark Evanier, recounted that DC's policies of the era were not in sync with Kirby's creative impulses, and that he was often forced to work on characters and projects he did not like. Meanwhile, some artists at DC did not want Kirby there, as he threatened their positions in the company; they also had bad blood from previous competition with Marvel and legal problems with him. Since he was working from California, they were able to undermine his work through redesigns in the New York office.

REVIEW

If you are a ninenties creature like me, you remember all these concepts very well, because they came back in the form of Cadmus in the superman titles of the “triangle” era. This is proof that Kirby left a big legacy on more than one company. It is sometimes hard to tell where Kirby starts and where other writers come in. It is hard to tell on his Marvel work at least (and Stan Lee would often take credit for Kirby’s work). So the Fourth World is a good place to check on the real Jack Kirby. Away from Joe Simon, away from Stan Lee.

Now, about this issue. As I said, I knew most of these things from the 90′s Superman titles (that was also the last time Jimmy Olsen mattered). But I have to imagine what it was like to new readers... Jimmy Olsen readers in particular, that a few months ago were reading about Superman trying to prevent Jimmy (an adult) from being adopted. I also have to have in mind that comic-book readers were probably very aware of who Jack Kirby was. The sixties were pretty much dominated by Marvel, and a big part of that success was because of Kirby. But, as I said before, Stan Lee would take the media and take credit for everything. So I am not sure how aware casual readers were with Jack Kirby.

If they weren’t, by this issue they probably were, as DC did a lot of fanfare about the fact that Kirby was coming to DC. Some people compared Bendis coming to DC to this period of time in particular. While there are similarities, it is too early too judge Bendis legacy at this point in time.

The story in this issue is ok. There are a lot of characters and plots being introduced. It’s the first appearance of Morgan Edge, the Wild Area, the Outsiders, the Newsboy Legion (Junior) and other concepts. It is important to remark that this Newsboy Legion is not the golden age version of that group. They are the sons of the originals (and they look pretty much the same... and dress the same). Flip is a bit weird, though. I am pretty sure he doesn’t need the scuba kit on all the time. I will be reviewing the original Newsboy Legion in the golden age reviews.

The art is better than the usual Kirby style, but as it was said above, Al Plastino redrew Superman and Jimmy’s faces. This was common practice at DC, as they didn’t want their most emblematic characters changing too much from issue to issue.

I give this issue a score of 8

#jack kirby #al plastino #fourth world #vince colletta #gaspar saladino #bronze age #dc comics #1970 #jimmy olsen #superman's pal jimmy olsen #newsboy legion #comics #review

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