Trans Atlantis

Tag: Marvel

  • Planeta Philosophorum—Silver Surfer 4-5 (1987)

    This post is part of an ongoing series looking at the Silver Surfer series (1987) written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Marshall Rogers. Previous installments: Part one. Part two. It’s also part of a larger project, Event Horizon, about comics from 1985 to 1987.

    Mantis (issue 4)

    The Surfer, damaged and dying on a lifeless world (see previous issue), is saved by Mantis. Most of the fourth issue is dedicated to Mantis, the Celestial Madonna. Mantis is one of Steve Englehart’s favorite Marvel characters. He’s been writing her for over a decade (her first appearance was in Avengers #112 in 1973), and she’s consequently amassed quite a long history.

    Celestial Madonna

    Mantis heals the Surfer’s skin and leads the Surfer to the hidden enclave of the Elders. On the way to the Elders, she recounts her story. Where the info dumps in previous issues were somewhat perfunctory, here, Mantis’ story is lovingly retold over several pages. A full quarter of the issue recounts Mantis’s back story! It’s too long to get into, so I advise the reader to either seek out the comics or check out her Wikipedia entry.

    The most important part of her story is her cosmic wedding to the Cotati, a race of sentient plant life. Through this marriage, she entered symbiosis with plants, forming a union of flora and fauna. It’s another nod to the alchemical themes that begin to permeate the series. She became the Celestial Madonna, and a celestial child was born from this union. As we encounter her, Mantis travels the universe using her cosmic powers to transfer her consciousness from planet to planet.

    The Info Dump

    The info dump has a vital function in the Marvel Universe. As the various Marvel titles became more and more intertwined in the 80s, the “info dump” became a more frequent feature. As a young reader, I used to love them. They showed me the vast history that remained out of reach. They also function as an essential storytelling device that smooths over gaps, lacunae, and inconsistencies.

    Mantis’ story is elegantly retold, edited, smoothed over, and historicized. A telos of Mantis’ story emerges: to get her here, into this moment is Surfer’s life. It’s a mild retcon: this was always her purpose and calling. It’s as if this was always supposed to happen. All stories lead to Silver Surfer #4. It’s an effective technique when used well.

    Elder Planet

    Surfer and Mantis arrive at the Elders’ hideout. Here we finally meet the full roster: Grandmaster, Collector, Runner, Champion, Possessor, Gardener, Contemplator, Obliterator, Trader, Astronomer, and… Ego, the Living Planet… the very ground upon which the meeting is taking place!

    The face of the planet. Can you see it?

    Incidentally, as the Silver Surfer and Mantis arrive at the planet, there’s a nice visual hint of Ego’s (as yet unknown) presence. The background landscape is arranged like a gigantic face. It’s a nice touch I never noticed before.

    Lapis Philosophorum

    The Elders are self-proclaimed “oldest beings in the universe.” Their immortality is another alchemical element often associated with the Philosopher’s Stone. Each one has a unique obsession that has fueled their near-eternal lives. The obsessions are pretty obvious based on the names of the characters. These obsessions are the key to their immortality. Each obsession is a unique Philosopher’s Stone, which drives them forward. They are a living will-to-power, or will-to-life, the conatus that drives them forward. Through it, they achieve literal immortality—eternal life.

    Planeta Philosophorum

    Ego, the living planet, is another alchemical character. Typically, we think of “Earth” as “Mother Earth.” We perceive our planet as a nurturing feminine entity. Ego is the opposite. He’s a stern father commanding all his constituent elements with his iron will. A planet-sized philosopher’s stone—he can transmute his constituent elements into others.  He’s immortal and has achieved the unity of opposites, a melding of base matter and life.

    Eternal Envy

    The Elders mostly recount recent backstory, but the Grandmaster drops a tantalizing hint of what’s to come. The Elders are the oldest beings in the universe, but there’s one older than all of them: Galactus! Therefore, “Galactus must die!”

    Escape

    Before any more could be heard, Ego detects the presence of Mantis and the Surfer. A quick fight breaks out as the two escape off Ego into space… and share a brief kiss. “We two work so well together!” says Mantis.

    Meanwhile, we also get a quick update on the Kree-Skrull conflict in this issue. The Supreme Intelligence deduces that the Skrulls have lost their shape-shifting abilities! And a Celestial appears in the Skrull empire!

    Obliteration! (Issue 5)

    Look at that cover! Flat colors, color-hold, cartoon-eyed Obliterator… just great.

    The Obliterator catches up with Surfer and Mantis, and their fight consumes most of the issue. The Obliterator is like the Terminator; he keeps coming back! The Surfer and Mantis manage to ditch him several times, but he finds a way out and catches up with them again and again. He’s relentless!

    The Obliterator is an interesting character. Rogers draws him almost in a cartoony style that is more familiar to indie comics. He has simple features. A pointy jarhead haircut, overbuilt torso, short legs, and blank Little-Orphan-Annie eyes under a heavy brow. It’s a startling design that feels somewhat out of place in the Marvel Universe—more on him in the next issue.

    Celestials

    In the meantime, the Skrulls face off against Jamiah, one of the mysterious Celestials. It was the Celestial genetic experiments that eons ago created the Skrull species. Now, one of them returns. For what purpose? Usually, they are seen to stand in judgment of their creations. Jemiah is no different. Like a god, he towers over a Skrull capital. Kylor, one of the pretenders to the throne of the decaying Skrull empire, approaches the giant. The conversation is one-sided. Like a god, Jemiah is silent and inscrutable. The Skrulls attempt to nuke the colossus, but to no avail. “Events are collapsing upon us!” Kylor laments.

    Preying Mantis

    The Obliterator catches up with the Surfer and Mantis, and they have a final confrontation. Marshall Rogers’s art shines when he shows Mantis’ martial arts abilities. She goes one-on-one against the Obliterator and almost gets the best of him. Look at the fantastic spread above. Minimal dialogue, paired with an arrangement that shows off Mantis’ agility. She traverses up, over, down, and forward directly into the camera. She is in constant movement; all the while, she’s delivering deadly blows. But he obliterates her!

    Transubstantiation

    The Surfer, enraged, battles the hulking villain to a standstill and finally wins by disarming him through a power cosmic trick. He transubstantiates the Obliterator’s deadly weapons into harmless light emitters. The Surfer typically emits various rays of energy when engaged in combat. But Englehart likes to show an alchemical side of Surfer. He transmutes matter like a living Philosopher’s Stone. The Surfer is the perfect foil for the Elders—he’s just like them.

    Resurrection

    It turns out Mantis survived her obliteration. A split second before disintegration, she transferred consciousness to local plants and re-grow a new body—like a homunculus. The Surfer is overjoyed. The relationship between the two cosmic beings grows.

  • Free – Silver Surfer #1 (1987)

    Space Is The Place

    The 1987 Silver Surfer series is an under-appreciated high point in Marvel’s stable of comics during the tail end of the Event Horizon.

    Fig. 1. Silver Surfer #1 (1987) Cover

    The Silver Surfer has had a fraught career in the Marvel Universe. It’s an iconic character from the early golden Kirby/Lee age of the Fantastic Four. He became a popular guest star and a one-time member of the Defenders, but he never really came into his own as a character. (check The Silver Surfer’s convoluted back story here) Instantly recognizable, the Surfer was a compelling cosmic character. His imprisonment on Earth (by his former master, Galactus) created the impression of being a failure due to the Surfer’s “constant whining” about his predicament.

    The 1987 series writer Steve Englehart (drawn (and colored) by Marshall Rogers and inked by Josef Rubenstein) consciously addressed the character’s shortcomings. In the first issue, the Silver Surfer is finally set free!

    One thing to note is the density of the narrative. The Surfer runs into the Fantastic Four as they investigate the hole in the ozone layer in Antarctica. The team quickly solves the mystery when the Surfer admits to depleting the ozone in another futile attempt to break Galactus’ barrier. 

    Out of the blue, Champion, one of the Elders of the Universe, attacks the Surfer. The Surfer wins and demands an explanation by right of victory. Champion launches into one of the several info dumps that convey massive amounts of information: 

    • A recap of the entirety of Silver Surfers’ Marvel history 
    • The Skrulls have lost their ability to shapeshift, and as a result, a new Kree-Skrull war is brewing
    • The vague contours of the Elders’ scheme behind it all begin to take shape

    All of the above ties into a decades-long Marvel history, much of it written by Englehart. That’s all on top of the main narrative!

    Once the Surfer dispatches Champion, Ben Grimm stumbles into an ingenious solution to the Surfer’s imprisonment. And, after a few pages, the Surfer is free! Instantly, the Surfer’s true nature is on full display as he surfs the cosmic spaceways. For the Surfer, space is the place.

    Fig.2. The Surfer is free!

    Master And Servant

    But, before he can fully taste his new freedom, the Surfer must confront his jailer, his former master, Galactus. To remain free, Galactus must lift the punishment that bound the Surfer to Earth for so long. Silver Surfer proposes to free Nova (the current herald of Galactus) in exchange for a pardon. The two strike a bargain (Fig. 3).

    Fig. 3. Nova rescue sequence pt. 1

    The Skrulls hold Nova hostage on an “expandable” planet guarded by three million “expandable” fanatical Skrulls. The Skrulls, desperate to keep their secret: the loss of their species’ shapeshifting ability. They fear their eternal rivals, the Kree, would take advantage of their moment of weakness and invade. The Skrulls want to trade Nova’s life to force Galactus to consume the thousands of Kree planets! They want to turn the very forces of the cosmos against their rivals! Nova’s trap is specially designed to confound any effort by Galactus. The Surfer can succeed where Galactus would fail.

    Fig. 4. Nova rescue sequence pt. 2

    Marshall Rogers wonderfully visualizes the rescue sequence. First, the Surfer descends from space in a series of vertical panels emphasizing the distance traveled (Fig 2.). Then Rogers switches to horizontal panels as we see the changing ground below the Surfers board. The reader’s POV is like sitting on the board behind the Surfer. Then, two full-page splash pages of the Surfer penetrating massive barriers surrounding the central device that holds the captured Nova (Fig. 4).

    Fig. 5. Nova rescue sequence pt. 3

    On the next page, the Surfer locates Nova in three vertical panels (Fig 5). On the subsequent page, three more vertical panels follow the Surfer, holding Nova, and escapes into space (Fig. 6). The denouement is another splash page of the Surfer holding the weakened Nova as they speed away from the Skrull planet (Fig. 7). It’s a masterful sequence that shows off the narrative and visual power of the medium.

    Fig. 6. Nova rescue sequence pt. 4
    Fig. 7. Nova rescue sequence pt. 5

    It’s a great example of the push-pull between comics-specific realism and abstraction. Rogers reserves realism for characters and environments, while abstract visuals depict speed, energy, and superpowers. The old cartoon jokes (Fig. 8) about abstract art found their full narrative use in American superhero comics. The artist/cartoonist Keith Tilford had a few salient observations on this subject:

    [George Pereze] understood abstraction via storytelling and had an incredibly strong design sense. I also thought immediately when Stephen Platt came onto the scene that there was a connection there. I still see it, and I am always interested in how these kinds of formal translations take place in comics.

    Keith Tilford – TCJ Interview
    Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller
    Fig 8. Nancy panel by Ernie Bushmiller.

    The art Avant-Garde “discovered” abstract visual expression. Still, comic books found the proper subject for the experiments: to visualize the intangible, unrealized, speculative, and hidden “cosmic” forces unleashed or uncovered by the technological revolution.

    Moments like the above sequence and (elsewhere) show how integrated the Avant Garde experiments of the first half of the 20th century have become on the pages of American superhero comic books.

    The Surfer returns Nova to Galactus and receives a pardon. The master/servant relationship no longer binds the two.

    Fig. 9. Galactus pardons Silver Surfer.

    It’s another great moment for the character. No longer confined to Earth, his conscience clear, The Silver Surfer surfs the cosmic spaceways!

  • Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar #1-2 (1982)

    Dreadstar #1 (1982 – I read the newsstand edition of #1, re-published in 1985), Epic Comics

    By Jim Starlin. Colors by Glynis Oliver

    Intergalactic Refugee

    Dreadstar #1 opens with a long, long, long ten-page recap. Vanth Dreadstar is a refugee from the Milky Way, destroyed by war. He settles on planet Nimbus in the Empirical Galaxy, where he tries to forget his old life and live in Peace. But, inevitably, war comes to Nimbus, anyway. A Monarchy starship lays waste to the planet leaving Dreadstar, Syzygy Darklock (a powerful magician), and Oedi—a cat-human hybrid and farmer—as the only survivors. They vow to end this war and become the core of the rebellion against the war. They are joined by Willow, a blind cybernetic telepath who can see through the eyes of her pet space monkey, and later by Skeevo, a smuggler.

    Church & State

    The war is between the Monarchy and Instrumentality. The Monarchy is what it sounds like, a feudal dynastic monarchy ruling half the galaxy. The Instrumentality is a powerful religious order led by Lord High Papal. They have taken over the other half of the universe. Now the two powers struggle for supremacy over the Empirical galaxy. Starlin is playing around with classic themes of authoritarian dominance, whether monarchic or religious, doesn’t matter. He sees both as two sides of the same coin. Both are wrong, and the struggle between them kills innocents. Dreadstar & crew need to free the Empirical Galaxy, both literally and figuratively.

    High Polish

    The first issue is a heist. The crew attacks an Instrumentality space station which is full of precious metals. Vanth wants the hoard of wealth to give them the funds to escalate their struggle against both sides.

    Starlin draws the crap out of this issue. The environments are fully realized. The crew fights hundreds of robots, all rendered on the page without common visual shortcuts. I’ve always liked the way Stalin plays around with the grid. He’s unafraid to chop the grid into tiny slivers to add urgency to the action. He really wants visual density on a page. All the pages have either a lot of panels or are rendered with a lot of detail. He also doesn’t skimp on text. He really wants to pack a lot of information into the comics. The result is a pretty satisfying read. Even if the intro info dump is a little much, you come away immersed into a huge story. It made me pretty excited for issue 2.

    Star Wars

    The whole thing is really reminiscent of Star Wars. It checks all the same boxes: 

    • Science-fantasy, check.
    • Mystical swords and powers, check.
    • Empires bent on galactic domination, check. 
    • A scrappy crew caught in the middle, check. 
    • A furry companion, check. 
    • You can keep going and keep finding more similarities. 

    And it makes sense. Star Wars made space opera fantasy really popular at that time. Many comics featured high adventure in space (Atari Force, Omega Men, Star Jammers, Alien Legion, among many others). But Starlin is an idiosyncratic creator, making it all his own. He injects his favorite themes: mysticism, religion, authoritarianism, and a sense of cosmic grandeur. A lot here is reminiscent of Warlock & Captain Marvel, his 70’s psychedelic cosmic comics for Marvel. Dreadstar takes all these concepts, themes, character types and mashes them into a massive, sprawling space epic that is all his own.

    Dreadstar #2

    After loading up on cash in the first issue, Dreadstar & gang continue their rebellion against the 200-year war between The Monarchy & The Instrumentality. The 2nd issue focuses on Willow, the blind telepath. She can read and affect the minds of humans and machines. We start out with Willow being a total badass as she effortlessly takes out a squad of military police that endangers their mission. We see how valuable she is to the Dreadstar crew. She quickly retreats into her private quarters and begins to ruminate on her life, which of course, means we’re about to get Willow’s origin story.

    Willow

    The Dreadstar crew rescue Willow in another operation (these events were apparently told in Epic Illustrated). She leaves her unhappy life and stowaways in Dreadstar’s spaceship. When she’s discovered, she has a powerful psychic outburst. Vanth & Syzygy decide that having a telepath on board could be helpful, so they decide to keep her around. Syzygy trains Willow to use her mental powers, but she has some mental block that prevents her from reaching her full potential.

    Ditkoesque

    Most of this issue is an excuse for Starlin to go all Ditko on the art. Much of the training sequence with Syzygy and Willow takes place on various astral and mental planes, mystical dimensions, and other realms. Panels are full of cosmic psychedelia Steve Ditko pioneered in Doctor Strange and other books. Starlin has always been into this stuff. Warlock was full of Ditkoesque psychedelic touches. We’re treated to squiggly cosmic pathways, portals to unknown dimensions, and blinding white energy emanations that are the ‘force that dwells within all of us.’ Starlin’s psychedelia here is more abstract, with thin lines holding large overlapping color fields. This approach gives the ‘astral plane’ a less solid, etherial vibe.

    Soul Searching

    Syzygy manages to identify Willow’s block: She was sexually abused by her father (this proved to be very controversial in future letters columns). To overcome her trauma, she enters—against Syzygy’s warning—the white energy of her soul only to be permanently blinded. But she triumphs over her traumatic blocks and becomes a powerful telepath. She accepts the trade-off: blindness for power. Dreadstar gifts her a space monkey, and now, by seeing through the eyes of the animal, she’s not so blind either. The white light stays with her, and she can call upon it in times of need.

    This article is part of the Event Horizon series on comics. Click here to see others in the series.

  • Silver Surfer Black 1 | Review

    Over on Ink Logging, I’ve written a short review of the great looking new Silver Surfer Black series from Marvel. It’s drawn by Tradd Moore. Here’s a taste:

    There’s a barely restrained surrealist/trippy component to his drawings. The Silver Surfer series seems designed bring that element out in force. There are a lot of psychedelic flourishes, unusual angles, expressionistic renderings, complex layouts, etc. Moore seems to be really having fun here. There’s a surreal fluidity to everything. Everything is flows, undulates, and bubbles like… a lava lamp. There’s not much to the story… at least so far…

    Read the entire post here.

    silver surfer black by tradd moore

  • Marvelous Melodrama

    I’ve been enjoying Frank Santoro’s discussions on Marvel’s late 60’s and early 70’s romance comics. But, it seems to me that the key missing term in Frank Santoro’s discussion of Marvel romance comics is ‘melodrama.’ Only one commenter (Nate) used the term as he pointed out that Marvel’s 60’s super-hero renaissance depended largely on the drama that occurred in the heroes’ private life. Since large parts of the comics were devoted to super-heroics, the tension in the private life of say, Spider-Man, was heightened by deploying melodrama.

    But the term doesn’t appear anywhere in the two posts Frank’s done so far and is only mentioned once by the above mentioned commenter. The lack of the term makes it makes it more difficult to discuss & distinguish the romance comics from other kinds of comics about relationships. Frank names the work work of the Hernandez Brothers as the direct heirs to the Marvel Romance tradition. But some of the commenters are trying to wedge other comics in. For example a commenter says:

    “aren’t there a plethora of ‘alt’. and ‘art’ comics than focus on relationships, but don’t utilize the los bros. level of craft? or employ ‘craft’ in a different fashion?
    this might be the gap where we can celebrate ‘clumsy’ or kochalka’s ‘kissers’ for it’s romantic heft.
    i totally appreciate the notion of ‘rarity of romance’ within mainstream comics, or celebration of such expressions when they occur (or are un-earthed), but the variable revolutions that ‘alternative’ comics brought about are often under-discussed hereabouts.
    romance, on some level, was one of those forces, to be sure.
    were highwater or alternative under-celebrated publishers of ‘romance’ comics to a greater or lesser degree? i would argue, yes.”

    The difference between Kochalka or Brown’s comics that focus on relationships and romance, and the Marvel Romance comics from the late 60’s is… melodrama. The drawings of Kochalka and Brown may be more cartoony and less realistic than the Marvel equivalents, but they tend to have a more realistic take on the actual relationships they describe.

    The framing of the Marvel books recalls the classic framing devices of the melodramas of Hollywood. Douglas Sirk comes to mind, especially for Marvel’s earlier foray into the Romance comics in the 50’s. They’re full of dramatic close-ups, moonlit silhouettes, crying eyes, (kisses) etc. The 70’s romance that Frank is describing has plenty of that, but it also has a frenetic energy imported from Marvel’s super-hero line. If we were to look to a cinematic analogue, perhaps it’s the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder (?)… although most of the comics in this case predate the films.

    Frank is right that the Hernandez Brothers are the true inheritors of this tradition. Their stories are full of melodrama and they deploy similar visual techniques and effects. The title itself, Love & Rockets, could very well be the title for an 8 page romance comic during the height of the space age. Jaime’s work seems more classic, harkening back to Sirk hollywood mashed with pulp & science fiction. Gilbert’s influence is weirder, like Steve Ditko drawing a Fassbinder script. Anyway, looking forward to more romance post from Frank.

    jilted-marvel-romance
    from My Love #14. Art by Don Heck & John Romita.