SNAPSHOT By Andy Diggle and Jock

Brilliant premise. Likewise development. Plot twists. Surprise ending. Avoiding spoilers, the ending is a political statement that I agree with. IMO, the problem is solvable but by collective, not individual, action. But that is another political statement - and a more questionable one.

Comics should avoid too much self-reference, of course, but this one is great. Jake, comic book guy, shows his friend:

"WARRIOR MAGAZINE, 1982. RARE BRITISH IMPORT...
"FEATURING THE ORIGINAL PRE-MIRACLEMAN MARVELMAN!"

Friend (likeable, amusing guy) responds:

"NEVER-TO-BE-REPRINTED, TRAPPED-IN-ETERNAL-LEGAL-LIMBO ALAN MOORE GOODNESS?!"

Yes, that is a worthy comic book reference. For some posts about Miracleman, see here.

The Losers (and see here), Green Arrow: Year One and Snapshot make a superb trilogy by Diggle and Jock.

Blofeld's Successors

There are at least two worthy successors of Ian Fleming's Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the founder and director of SPECTRE:

Max in Andy Diggle's The Losers;
Zala in Stieg Larsson's Millennium novels.

Dig these guys. Code Name Max, "Blofeld meets Rumsfeld," exists for impossibly many decades and apparently in different places simultaneously. Zala is a GRU agent, then a defector, then a crime boss and also an abusive father.

Both Fleming and Larsson have been graphically adapted so this is all comics-related. I discuss the Larsson graphic adaptation here and here and Fleming here, here, here and here.

A Short Hellblazer Film

http://code10studios.net/film/h-e-l-l-b-l-z-e-r-john-constantine

A Few Tangential Remarks On The Lakes International Comic Art Festival

John Freeman's experience as editor and writer enabled him to ask the right questions of Andy Diggle who then spoke informatively about the relationship between editing and writing:

a writer who wants to be noticed by the industry needs to perfect his ability to write 5 page short stories, submitting them wherever possible, like to 2000 AD, or putting them a blog;

the 2000 AD tray of unsolicited manuscripts contained rubbish, a few submissions from writers who needed editorial advice about writing techniques, structure, pacing etc and Mike Carey!;

Andy likes action panels to be silent except for SFX but some 2000 AD writers included unnecessary balloons saying, e. g., "I am about to fall off a building!";

technique can be taught whereas imagination can only be encouraged;

Andy started writing with a non-Dredd short story set in Megacity One (neat);

many writers want to write their favorite characters from childhood whereas others want to create new characters;

Max, the villain in The Losers, is "Rumsfeld meets Blofeld," a neat description, certainly a Blofeld-like figure with "New American Century" politics - and a name beginning with "M." 

Lancaster Castle

Lancaster Castle has closed as a prison and re-opened as a tourist attraction with a cafe. We can now freely walk in and out of the gate. It is like visiting Hell after Christopher Rudd closed it near the end of Mike Carey's Lucifer.

However, prisons still exist elsewhere in England just as Hell continues to exist in other parts of the human imagination including John Constantine: Hellblazer, written a short while ago by Andy Diggle whose workshop is just below the Castle to the left of the attached image.

The Castle has several recent, well-attested, horrific ghost stories warranting both psychic investigation and graphic dramatization.

Lex And Max

Lex Luthor in Andy Diggle's Batman: Rules Of Engagement pulls the same stunt as Max in the same author's The Losers: quietly acquires power, then stages a coup.

One difference is that Max, introduced in Diggle's run on The Losers, can be, and is, killed in the same run whereas Lex, of course, must survive and has an elaborate exit strategy and escape route for when his coup is defeated.

Rules Of Engagement ranks alongside Diggle's Green Arrow: Year One, Miller's Batman: Year One and John Byrne's The Man Of Steel as a good early story of familiar characters showing the origins of well known aspects of their later careers.

These stories remain valid because of their quality whatever subsequent changes have been made to mainstream comics continuity.

Andy In Action

My Comic Book Guy, Mark, tells me that, although Andy Diggle wrote the current Action Comics no 19, he will merely be plotting from no 20 because of pressure of other work. This is a Bad Thing whereas a run of Andy following Grant would have been a Good Thing.

My comments will show that I have read almost no Superman for many years.When, in no 19, Lois Lane gets interested in Kent but he backs off, I cannot help remembering that they were married until recently but the continuity was changed yet again and I do not think that the outgoing continuity was properly wrapped up as Alan Moore did with the Superman of Earth 1 in "Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?"

Andy has to write a story that fits in with the other Superman titles and with the rest of the New 52 which means that the immense potential of the character is nowhere near to being realized. We need to see how the mere presence of even one Kryptonian would change the world forever. Instead, we get the pretense of business as usual despite the presence of hundreds of super-powered beings flying overhead, despite even the at least annual occurrence of a major event like an alien invasion, an evolutionary turning point or a cosmic crisis. So Andy has to show us Supes fighting war machines. John Byrne and Marv Wolfman made a start on a more realistic treatment of both Superman and Luthor but Byrne almost immediately returned to all the rubbish, Lori Lemaris, Mr Mxyzptlk etc, that initially he had seemed to discard.

The issue begins (almost) exactly as I would have wanted. Kent and Lane are covering a civil war in an unfortunately fictitious Middle Eastern country. We see four pages of people in a bar and learn about Lane's coverage of the war. Kent as Superman intervenes because the regime is smuggling in illegal weapons to crush the pro-democracy uprising. But he didn't intervene when they used legal weapons? This is the sort of question that Superman comics need to address. Why and to what extent does he intervene?

Luthor sent the "mechs" to trigger a US invasion. Here are welcome signs of the real world intruding into a Superman comic. But, at the end of this issue, Luthor has infected Superman with Kryptonite nanites... Longer term, I would prefer less Kryptonite and more about Superman and the US intervening in the Middle East. But, of course, it is too early to judge a story from its opening issue.

Superman Writers and An Editor

Passing Julius Schwartz in a hotel corridor at a World Science Fiction Convention, I shouted, "Hi. I'm a Superman fan!", to which he replied, "Good for you!", after which we continued on our separate ways. Despite being a long time Superfan, I had not got back into reading comics yet so I had nothing else to say.

I have met Alan Moore a couple of times. Although never a regular Superman writer, he did write three good Superman stories, including the "last Superman story," "Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?," edited by Julius Schwartz. By that time, I had got back into reading comics and I took the opportunity to thank Alan Moore for what he had done with both Superman and the derivative Marvelman.

Earlier today, a remark on facebook implied that local writer Andy Diggle was going to be writing Superman. A text to local Comic Book Guy Mark, then a quick google search, confirmed that Andy will follow Grant Morrison on Action Comics. I really do mean, "Far freaking out!" Superman is a myth but his story continues through the creative imaginations housed in the brains of regular guys who walk the streets of Northampton, Glasgow and Lancaster. (Well, I haven't met Grant but I assume he is a regular guy?)

As you know, Andy has been Tharg and has written a number of characters including the Moore-created John Constantine and also Green Arrow (Green Arrow: Year One - GAY1). In general, I have been turned off by what has been done to Superman in mainstream continuity, although I expect I will read Grant's run in collected editions, but, in any case, I am going to have to see what Andy Diggle does with the original superhero. The myth continues on screen and in print.

Trilogies: Final Year?

Certain DC comics are classics, including these three "trilogies" (I am calling them that but they do fit together, as I will show):

The Man Of Tomorrow by Alan Moore;
The Man Of Steel by John Byrne;
Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography by James D Hudnall.

Batman: Year One by Frank Miller;
The Killing Joke by Alan Moore;
The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller.

The Longbow Hunters by Mike Grell;
Green Arrow: Year One (GAY1) by Andy Diggle;
Batman: Rules Of Engagement by Andy Diggle.

(By The Man Of Tomorrow, I mean a collection of Alan Moore's three Superman stories, which include a two parter. Titan Books collected them under this title albeit in black and white.)

The common themes here are high quality writing and art, beginnings and endings:

Moore concludes and Byrne re-creates Superman;
Hudnall writes the origin of the new Luthor;
thus, an end for Superman followed by new beginnings for him and his main opponent.

Miller begins and ends a new Batman;
Moore rewrites the origin of the Joker;
thus, new beginnings and an end for the Batman and his main opponent.

Grell presents a mid-life crisis for the then current Green Arrow and slightly revises his origin;
Diggle presents the origins of a new Green Arrow, the Batplane and Wayne Charities;
thus, a middle age, a retold beginning and a new beginning for Green Arrow and some beginnings for the Batman.

These lists refer to three continuities:

the first began with Action Comics no 1, June 1938, and ended with Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?, 1986;

the second began with The Man Of Steel and Batman: Year One and ended with The Dark Knight Returns;

the third began with GAY1 (many other works are involved but here I highlight a few peaks of quality).

Byrne's Superman, Grell's Green Arrow and the Joker come together with Miller's Batman and Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Returns. Mindy Newell's Catwoman miniseries continued the character of Selina directly from Batman: Year One.

Since Batman: Year One begins the Batman's career and since The Dark Knight Returns describes his return from a ten year retirement, it has been suggested that Miller could also have written a Batman: The Final Year, describing the build up to retirement.

This would have disclosed events only hinted at, like what had happened (something bad) to Jason, the second Robin. In later comics set in current continuity, the Joker brutally murdered Jason but there is no hint in Miller's story that whatever had happened to Jason had been done by the Joker. Also, whatever it was had caused the Batman to cover it up, then retire, while superhero activity was governmentally banned or covered up as in Watchmen, but this did not happen in continuity, except for the temporary superhero ban in Legends, so there is still a different story to be told here. The Dark Knight Returns, no longer a possible future, becomes an alternative timeline.

Superheroes IV

Two more:

(xxxix) James Hudnall's The Unauthorised Biography of Lex Luthor credibly describes the Byrne-Wolfman era Luthor's rise to power, featuring Kent but not Supes.

(xl) Andy Diggle's Batman: Rules of Engagement pits not only the Batman against Luthor but also Waynetech against Lexcorp and accounts for the bat plane with some plausibility.

That brings us up to a round number and maybe we can leave it there.