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Underground > Comic Books >

Solo

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22:25 / 26.10.05

Mike Allred's issue of this is just really great comics. I enjoyed this more than the Darwyn Cooke issue, and I quite enjoyed Cooke's.

Four really solid shorts, a few great throwaways, and gorgeous art all throughout. Hourman's tweeked out Hour of Power is just inspired, and it only gets better from there, with a grin-inducing Doom Patrol vs. Teen Titans yarn, an inspiring, poignantly silly Batman story that communicates a distaste for/debate about 'dark & edgy' superhero comics as eloquently as anything else I've read.

There's a quick New Gods bit and then a gloriously simple wordless piece where the Justice League and half the DCU take on Mad Mod and his Modbots, holed up underneath the secret clubhouse of childhood Allred and his brother.

Reading it gave me such a positive feeling that I left it on the couch of the coffee place I was reading it at for some other schmoe to enjoy if they happen upon it.

Great comic. Great to get a chance to see Allred applying his mind and hand to this world, these characters.

The absence of the Adam West cover is puzzling, but I adore the Wonder Girl image. T-shirts ahoy.

00:15 / 27.10.05

Specualtion is DC don't want to be affiliated or even raise the 'meme' of the Batman TV show ever, ever again. Overtly. Hence, no Miraclo-tusi either, I guess.

This is my most hotly anticipated Solo yet.

00:30 / 27.10.05

Black & White Mr. Miracle and Hourman Batusi images are on the inside covers. So I guess it's just the spectre of the West that they reel from in shame. *sigh*

On the upside, the Batman story inside uses Allred-ized designs of the actors from the TV show (Comissioner Gordon is sans 'stache & glasses, Riddler looks like Gorshin, the Joker has a bit of a moustache, Romero-style), and largely says that kind of conscious distancing from silliness is, well, silly..

14:10 / 27.10.05

Imagine Grant Morrison doing an issue. Isn't that a possibility since he's exclusive with DC?

15:05 / 27.10.05

Not really, it's for artists.

You mean drawing one? Be a bit odd.

This was smashing; Allred is great. What the fuck is he dressed up as in the back? Cheetah?

Also: Aunt Harriet's fate. Yes.

00:22 / 28.10.05

That Allred is working on a complete comics version of the Book of Mormon is intriguing. Bizarre religious myth will have never looked so sexy.

14:32 / 28.10.05

Midtown Comics in NYC didn't have the Mike Allred SOLO issue!! What gives? It did come out this week, right? Or have people who posted here seen an advance copy or something??

14:37 / 28.10.05

No, it is definitely out - the was a big pile in GOSH in London...

Regrettable Juvenilia

23:00 / 28.10.05

It's out, and contains the best/most 'important' Batman story in a long, long time.

What's interesting is that to me it suggests Allred and Milligan might have been collaborating very closely on X-Statix - a lot of the wit and humour is the same, wit and humour that aren't quite the same in many Milligan titles since.

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:32 / 28.10.05

Damn, that was good. Interestingly, the insane tweeness that irritates me in Madman works remarkably well in these self-contained stories using existing characters. I think, to PS's point, that Allred and Milligan helped to curb each other's excesses, which might explain why X-Statix was better either than Madman or Milligan's wildly patchy X-Men, IMHPO.

23:44 / 28.10.05

Yeah, the Batman story really struck me too. I've only got the Cooke, Allred and Pope issues but there's been a Batman in each of them.

Shying away from the narrative-explanatory framework of hypertime, it seems this is often the best way to treat the character, shearing the cruddy detritus of the last twenty years, cf: the old Black & White strips, which don't seem to be done any more?

And the crux, which you can also see Gaiman doing ten or more years ago in another Riddler story or Mazzuchelli doing in his little bonus strip for the h/c Year One (which also features Bat-Mite) is that these things are not to be taken fully fucken seriously. Especially not Batman. (I know!) I think the new age is going to be about reconciling superheroes' 'dark' and 'silver' ages in a lot of ways, which is quite an enticing prospect.

I really liked the TV show, anyway. 'S been on my mind a lot recently.

23:48 / 28.10.05

I just recently picked up the first ish of Superman/Madman, and the costume hybridisations are absolutely beautiful. Great design, particularly the one of MM in Supes' body.

Can't find a pic, unfortunately.

Not read any other stuff purely by Allred.

17:47 / 30.10.05

I loved this, especially the Batman story. I'd like to chip in with some insightful comments, but I loved it so much all I can do is gush.

Matthew Fluxington

23:01 / 30.10.05

Midtown Comics in NYC didn't have the Mike Allred SOLO issue!! What gives? It did come out this week, right? Or have people who posted here seen an advance copy or something??

That's where I bought my copy, man.

Matthew Fluxington

23:02 / 30.10.05

It's selling out everywhere. It's getting excellent word of mouth, and the lunkheads at DC figured that no one would want something like this and that everyone prefered the borecore Infinite Crisis nonsense.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

01:39 / 31.10.05

Can't find it out in Salem, MA, either.

13:40 / 31.10.05

Midtown had it and sold out!?!?

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I meant to go to Jim Hanley's in NYC this weekend to get a copy but didn't get around to it. Someone better have it soon, man!

14:07 / 31.10.05

This may be anathema to the whole idea of the series, but will DC collect the SOLO issues in trade format?

Matthew Fluxington

18:34 / 31.10.05

Seeing in that they barely wanted to publish this Allred issue to begin with, and you're correct in that it runs contrary to the basic concept of the series, I kinda doubt it.

20:24 / 31.10.05

Apparently Midtown East in NYC has it; I'm off to go get a copy.

Matthew Fluxington

01:08 / 01.11.05

That's the branch where I bought my copy, actually. I loathe the Times Square location, but the Grand Central store is fantastic.

12:32 / 01.11.05

Flux - DC didn't want to publish the Allred issue?! But it was amazing! I've passed this around to every person that I think will like it, and all my friends were blown away. DC needs to make more books like this, it was one of the purest, most innocent and perfect books I've every read. Every page had something to get a chuckle, or nostalgic pang, it was awesome.

DC need their heads checked if they think this isn't what people want.

12:41 / 01.11.05

And provided that headcheck comes sooner than later, I'd know I'd like a trade.

13:02 / 01.11.05

look here guthrie, they're as trade as trade can get already - nice prod values, grown-up price (expensive), no adds, author bios - what could be gained from squeezing them into one book, other than completely ruining the title concept? we all feel wolfy's pain at not getting one, but what the fellow needs is a second printing, not a trade paperback.

i carnt remember what the darwyn cooke bats story was, but this title appears to prove that the character does really inspire folk to give their best. plus, they're all desperate to draw just one goddam perect frame of the joker's face, which is surely what most superhero artists are trying to accomplish when they first raise pens.

13:05 / 01.11.05

I'd never been in the Grand Central store before - it is really a cool store. (FYI, the Times Square store people just told me they're changing the layout of their store to make it more like the Grand Central store)

Picked up the issue - just gushing about how terrific it is. I note that Allred lists his birthdate as being in 1820; I suppose that's something Mormon-related? i love his crazy cheetah costume he's drawing in on the back page bio.

Nice to see Proty, even if I barely remember who he/it is.

13:12 / 01.11.05

Flux, as I recall, it's Allred's Batman A-Go-Go Special (some of which was probably reworked/cannibalized for this SOLO issue) that DC nixed. Where did you hear that DC didn't want to publish Allred's SOLO issue?

Matthew Fluxington

18:16 / 02.11.05

Proty is the shape-shifting sidekick of the Legion of Super Heroes.

DC was reticent to publish this book because it goes against current editorial policy regarding the characters, especially Batman.

It's DiDio. He's a fuckhead, you see.

18:47 / 02.11.05

1. [Allred's interview} was posted in the comments section, ...

2. ...prompting this from cartoonist Jay Stephens:

This confirms the not-so-secret policy at Dan Didio's DC. Campy, funny, playful, all-ages or accessable versions of DC Universe characters are forbidden. Didio hates that stuff (I hear he literally HATES Metamorpho and Metal Men), and only wants to push grim & gritty superhero work. I also have it on good authority that clean-line, 'cartoony' art is definately OUT. No more Darwyn Cooke/ Mike Allred-ish stuff for Dan Didio, no siree. Call me when his ass is out the door, thanks.

and 3. Which is a little odd, given Cooke's stint on THE SPIRIT, but there's today's controversy.

I would assume Didio wants to make money from the lucretive Batman Begins franchise, and wants to distance the current cultural view of Batman from the camp tv show, and the camp Schumacher films. Likewise for the Singer Superman and Whedon Wonder Woman film franchises. The selling out of Allred's book has to be making him think all sorts of funny things.

I'm sure Mr. DiDio doesn't hate any comicbook character. Unless it's Magneto.

Matthew Fluxington

19:25 / 02.11.05

A smart company would sell the characters every way the public wants to see them rather than cling to insecure fanboy shame.

19:35 / 02.11.05

True.

% But how would continuity work then? %

16:40 / 03.11.05

Thanks for the info., Flux.

I remember reading about a year ago that Evan Dorkin was very upset that a Metal Men miniseries he proposed, which Mike Allred was set to draw, which had been approved by DC previously, suddenly got un-approved at the last minute. Maybe the Metal Men pin-up from this issue of SOLO was culled from Allred's preparation art for the Dorkin mini.

And Kyle Baker's brilliant Plastic Man is about to be cancelled. Ah well...

At least we've got Darwyn Cooke on Batman/Spirit and then regular Spirit....a great match, really looking forward to those comics (although I doubt Loeb's writing on Batman/Spirit will be all that great).

16:42 / 03.11.05

I see from the linked article that DC gave "licensing rights over Adam West as Batman are the source of the problem" with putting Adam West Bats on the cover doing the Batusi...maybe partly true, but it does sound like DiDio doesn't like DC making with the goofy and the funny.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

19:11 / 03.11.05

While I was out picking up Bulleteer, I stopped by the back issues and leafed through them - found the Darwyn Cooke Solo, picked it up, bought it as well. I missed it the first time around - I was put off by the couple that I saw (I find Paul Pope's stuff a little too ungainly for my tastes, but you know - subject/object) and I didn't really pick it up until the Allred issue (it was A Very Mod Wonder Girl that did it). I've got Allred, Chaykin, and Cookie.

The Cooke issue was solid. I've gotten interested in him only since picking up a bunch of Catwoman trades lately, and I liked how Cooke took advantage of his Catwoman cred to lace the Slam Bradley thread.

"World's Window" was quiet and I liked how it felt like a secret-secret origin (beyond the posturings of superheroes). The King Faraday story was decent but ultimately I got bored of the black widows/femme fatales conception presented - Selina Kyle is a reimagining of the femme fatale as an ambiguous but positive figure, and the "secret lesbian" twist ending seemed a bit too obvious. Although that one panel of Grace and Lola holding hands, each with a gun, was beautiful.

The funny pages were a riot - June Robbins, the other Challenger! Angel & Ape and & Aquaman.

"Everyday Madness" = "My beloved vacuum cleaner is trying to kill me." I love bizarre neurotic stories like that. It reminded me a lot of the Howard Chaykin/Philip Bond Angel & The Ape mini - especially how it ended, the shift of voice over to dialogue spanked of Angel O'Day.

I loved the art on the Question story, but in the end I found myself wondering what had just happened? Had he set up explosives, or recordings of fifteen screams? Were only fifteen people going to die? The eye-for-an-eye mentality goes against my personal flavour, but it was mostly executed well. In the end, I walked away with a huge clarity problem and that was the only thing that prevented me from enjoying it.

The Batman story - liked the idea of it being a cover of an Englehart story, but ultimately it didn't do anything for me. I don't need the redux of Bat-origins and the switch between present panels and memory flashes. I am so very tired of watching Thomas and Martha Wayne die over and over and over again. Which is why I don't really read Batman comics that often.

23:00 / 03.11.05

I don't recall any flashbacks in that Bats story, nor any origin change. He's watching a bank robbery and a passing man and woman are killed as their son watches. Batman terrorizes and brutally handles the criminals and then goes home feeling like hell because he didn't make any difference in that child's life.

If you enjoy Cooke at all, do yourself a favor and pick up the New Frontier trades. Nuanced, layered, bright, and interesting, I think you'll quite enjoy them.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

03:45 / 04.11.05

There was a one-panel shift to Batman's youth, I think - they're in the same position as the murdered couple, but it's definitely not the same people. It's a small thing, but it struck me as a cliche in Batstories.

I haven't read the New Frontier, but I might pick it up if I can scrape together the bucks for it.

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