COMICS THAT SHOULD HAVE GONE 100 ISSUES

Comic books pretty much seem to be feast or famine.  Either you get the best writer imaginable—or you get somebody that writes things dumb enough to insult a child’s intelligence.  Either the artist is so amazing you find yourself doubting that a human being could actually create such beauty with a mere pencil—or he’s somebody whose friends told him “You’re really good” but they lied.  And either you get 1,000 and counting stories of SPIDER-MAN, SUPERMAN, and BATMAN—or your favorite comics gets cancelled after six issues.  Or maybe 30.  Sometimes, they last 50 or 60.  But they could have gone a lot longer.  Nothing against the big guns, but there are literally DECADES of their stories that I could live without.  On the other hand, some gems get cancelled when they’re hardly out of the gate.

HAWKMAN, THE ATOM, SUPERGIRL—It’s funny.  These are all household names, but they’ve all been cancelled after only two or three years’ worth of issues.  Oh sure, if you add up all the various back-ups, reboots, and alternate versions, they each probably add up to about 100 issues or so, but let’s ignore all the extraneous versions.

Ignore the present Supergirl with her awkwardly designed costume (really? is her logo really in her bikini area? or is that a red chastity belt?), also ignore the last version that premiered in SUPERMAN/BATMAN who was a jerk and then was kidnapped by Darkseid and finally got her own comic that got really bad really fast, and certainly ignore the Peter David dead angel/alien shapechanger or whatever-the-heck-it-was version.  Take us back to the “I’m Superman’s cousin and he trained me” version that appeared in her own movie, the cartoons, and various SUPERMAN comics from the 50’s thru the 80’s (and also whenever Alex Ross paints her).  That version—Superman’s teenage cousin trying to make it through high school and keep her secret—that’s a great concept and deserved a lot more issues/stories.

Same thing with the others.  Over at Marvel, all the big guns from the 60’s (even less popular ones like DAREDEVIL) have hit over 500 issues!  (Or cancelled ones like DR. STRANGE have still racked up 100-200 issues.)  Half of DC’s big Silver Age guns were cancelled before their 40th issue or so.  Can you imagine HAWKMAN over at Marvel?  They would have put John Buscema on it and it surely would have given us at least 100 cool issues.  Or THE ATOM?  It might have started with 20 or 30 issues of crime-fighting drawn by Steve Ditko, then maybe Jack Kirby could have taken over and made it (micro) cosmic for three or four years!  Then bring in Jim Starlin or John Byrne to take it into the wild blue yonder.

THE CREEPER—This is the saddest of all.  I would have loved to have seen 30 or 40 (or 100!) issues of BEWARE THE CREEPER plotted and illustrated by Steve Ditko!  What a missed opportunity!  And I’m not all about bashing DC and lauding Marvel.  After Ditko left, I would have been very happy with, say, DETECTIVE artist Marshall Rogers taking over the art for two or three years!  And Steve Gerber on writing chores would have been awesome!  Then, a series is not complete unless John Byrne gets to do whatever he wants with it for at least two years!

SHAZAM! THE NEW BEGINNING!—Or whatever you want to call it!  I’ve read that (back in the days when the terms “Earth-One” and “Earth-Two” really meant something) this mini-series (of a new, Earth-One CAPTAIN MARVEL) by Roy Thomas and Tom Mandrake sold well, well enough to warrant an ongoing series…but DC dropped the ball and it never happened.  John Byrne and (separately) Alex Ross also pitched new series proposals, but they were rejected.  (WHO rejects John Byrne or Alex Ross?!?)  The great artist Jerry Ordway got to do a new series—which he WROTE, not drew.  (?)  I also liked the more innocent Earth-S version that was supposedly a true continuation of the 40’s stories (Cap and ALL his friends were trapped in suspended animation and revived in the then-present 70’s!), especially the E. Nelson Bridwell stories illustrated by Alan Weiss and (later) Don Newton, but the Alan Weiss version was cancelled before it could have had any effect on sales and the Don Newton version was always only a back-up feature.  I guess my point here is—with all this amazing talent all of whom had great passion for the feature—you’re telling me we couldn’t have gotten one solid series to 100 issues or more?!?  (It’d be awesome to see Jim Starlin’s version of THIS Captain Marvel!)

Sure, some comics shouldn’t last more than six issues (if that!) and a number of good concepts HAVE hit 100 or so issues—THE DEFENDERS, POWERMAN/IRON FIST, GHOST RIDER, and MASTER OF KUNG FU all come to mind.  They all had their chance, and we got some pretty good stories out of their 100 or so issues.  ROM was actually a pretty good comic, and that made it to issue #75, and that was probably enough.  Some of these can be considered long-term mini-series and 75-100 issues is all it really takes to tell the story.  Others die way too early.

HOWARD THE DUCK—One of the finest comics ever.  With the wry, satirical, introspective, political and social commentary writing by the great Steve Gerber, coupled with the realistic, lyrical, beautiful, dynamic art of Gene Colan inked by the very best in the business like Tom Palmer and Klaus Janson, this comic turned the comics world (and to some extent the real world) on its ear for about three years.  Maybe that’s as long as such a bright star could be expected to burn, but I’m pretty sure that pros Gerber and Colan were so invested in the feature that they would have been happy to continue it for at least 100 issues.  I mourn those 70 or so stories that will never be.

OMEGA THE UNKNOWN—Likewise, Steve Gerber’s OMEGA concept of a strange boy connected in some way to a mysterious Superman-type from the stars is something that should still be continuing!  Here’s one that should be on issue #500 and counting, not cancelled after a mere ten.  This time, Marvel dropped the ball.  And never picked it up.

I mourn the loss of personal favorites like DEATHLOK and KILLRAVEN, but maybe they ran their course.  Maybe some sci fi concepts need to be limited and self-contained, as well as spooky things like MAN-THING, TOMB OF DRACULA, SWAMP THING, and DEADMAN, or period books like INVADERS or ALL-STAR SQUADRON.  Other favorites like MOON-KNIGHT and SPIDER-WOMAN keep getting revived—both recently in great runs by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev—and maybe returning every few years is a good way to go for some concepts.

KAMANDI—This is a sci fi concept that seems open-ended and could still be going on; there should be KAMANDI children’s books, novels, movies and/or a TV show, etc.  The WEDNESDAY COMICS version drawn by Ryan Sook really showed the modern-day viability of the “Last boy on Earth” concept when done right.

THE SPECTRE—The Spectre is one of those characters who seems better than any actual handling of the concept has shown.  The closest to the ideal is the spooky (and even disturbing) Michael Fleisher and Jim Aparo vengeful version from ADVENTURE COMICS in the 1970’s.

And I think POWER GIRL and BLACK PANTHER deserve some sort of honorable mention.  And how about the original (cowboy on a motorcycle) VIGILANTE?  Of course, if we’re getting into pure revivals of various Golden Age characters (unrelated to whatever CRISIS/FLASHPOINT/etc.-related, continuity-shattering reboot is happening at the moment), we could bring back WILDCAT, HOURMAN, STARMAN, DR. FATE, THE SANDMAN, DR, MID-NITE, (good versions of) PHANTOM LADY, DOLL MAN, and probably quite a few others.  PLASTIC MAN!!!

Let’s not forget the independents.  Hopefully, the incredible and moody FATALE by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips will last for at least 100 issues, and Busiek and Anderson’s ASTRO CITY too (it’s just about there, isn’t it?).  HELLBOY is a great creation, but I sure wouldn’t mind Mignola still doing the art as well as writing.  On the other hand, the Image boys SPAWN and SAVAGE DRAGON are around 200 issues now…but I’m not sure anybody cares.

I think Neal Adams’ Continuity Comics MS. MYSTIC and MEGALITH (or MEGALITH AND THE REVENGERS) could have really had legs, but that company lacked writers and artists who weren’t pale copies of Adams himself.

And it’s not just an arbitrary number of issues I’m talking about.  No, I’m talking about time passing, new artists and writers coming in and getting their chance to jump on a train that’s going somewhere.  I wish there were a lot more bi-monthly or quarterly books out there that took their time to do a quality story.  There’s a LOT of monthly books out there that are just taking up space.  I would love to see a number of features that were presented annually, in 48-64 page graphic novels (true graphic novels, with a planned out beginning, middle, and end).  One good AQUAMAN graphic novel a year might just be wonderful!  CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, METAL MEN, RIP HUNTER TIME MASTER, LOIS LANE, JIMMY OLSEN, PHANTOM STRANGER, DR. STRANGE, NICK FURY, ANT MAN too—these are all viable concepts that maybe can’t sustain a monthly MAGAZINE, but would make for really good standalone BOOKS!

So, to sum up: Some series have had way too many stories (No thank you, I don’t need 40 issues of SPIDER-MAN or WOLVERINE every single year!) and some have way too little (see everything above).  And we should be really grateful for people like Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby who really knew how to start things off right and give some of our favorite characters such strong foundations.