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Strange Tales – I’ve been reading a lot of comics from the library recently, but it hasn’t been since I discovered Michael Allred that I had as much fun reading one as I have with this latest version of Marvel’s Strange Tales, where the Marvel editors invite a whole bunch of indie cartoonists to try their hand at re-telling some Marvel tales, with great results!! I only recognise a few of the names, such as Peter Bagge of Hate fame, here having a go at several pages of Spider-man and the Hulk tales, while Max Cannon (of Red Meat fame) turns in shorter, more surreal (if that’s possible) entries. Funnily enough, several of the artists pick MODOK as one of their subjects. Thank Crom there is a second volume, which I’m going to read next.
In the opening pages Nick Bertozzi has fun making jest of Uatu, The Watcher (and who more deserving of being made fun of), giving this sort of a “What If?” feel to it – in particular referencing Issue 32 of that series, which was the joke issue; his one-page episodes appear throughout the book, and the one where he’s sharing a cell with the Leader is pretty funny. Paul Pope takes on the Inhumans, with a spotlight on Lockjaw, who never seems to get fed because there’s always some enemy (the Molecule Man, Annihilus, Maximus…) distracting the Inhumans from opening the can of dog food for the poor mutt!!! Hilarious, and great art. Molly Crabapple tells some sort of weird Victorian wedding between John Jameson and Jennifer Walters with weird Wuthering Heights overtones. Nice, though, and very moody and surreal, with plenty of character development in just its four pages. Junko Mizuno tells a pretty funny kawaii story of Spider-man and Mary Jane moving to a town of real spiders, all of whom outclass and out-do Spidey. Funny. Dash Shaw, with impeccable style, tells an interesting and rather funny story of Dr Strange fighting Nighmare. Nice! Jim Rugg’s “Hell Is For Robots”, being a pairing of Garrett (cyborg ex-super-agent) and an under-played Machine Man taking on bikers is stylish and very cool indeed. Nick Bertozzi’s “And Call My Lover MODOK” is an act of sheer genius, showing our psychopathic creature and his ladies in 1974, 1983, 1995 and 2003. Great final panel.
Tony Millionaire’s old-time drawings of Iron Man fighting Baloney-head is pretty weird, and just gets stranger as Dwight Eisenhauer comes into the picture (there are some outlandish German puns going on here too – the writing is not as strong as the art here, and a bit trying-too-hard-to-be-weird, something which a few entries suffer from, actually). Kikuo Johnson’s drawings of Alicia Masters trying to get a job are great, and really well-written. Jim Ruge’s story of Brother Voodoo is near-conventional, and his rendering of a comic from the 1970s is really good (complete with bad colour printing even). Johnen V’s tale of “MODOK and me” is also freaky silly weird, especially with MODOK’s decaying mini-me in tow and a little bit of Galactus at the ending. Max Cannon’s Fantastic Four (now named the Unfortunate Three), and his alternate version of a doomed Spider-man, are short, sharp shocks. Great stuff. Jacob Chabot’s tale of the men of the Fantastic Four growing moustaches is pretty funny (especially seeing the Thing’s chia mustache). Matt Kindt’s tale of the Black Widow taking on an international assassin is pretty good – it’s near-conventional in its story-telling, but the art is pretty wacky. Michael Kupperman offers a strange tale of metal-clad anti-hero Marvex, a Marvel hero I’m not really aware of… Sakai does a cool Edo era samurai Hulk, who of course commits seppuku at the end (yes – very weird). Corey Lewis does a technicolor tale of Longshot and Dazzler taking on Sentinels that is very pretty, but like all Longshot stories full of “who cares about this lunatic anyway?” moments. Well, obviously Lewis does…
Jeffrey Brown speculates about what kind of practical jokes the Fantastic Four might play – a stylish and funny episode. Jay Stephens provides great art and dialogue as he depicts the Beast fighting Michael Morbius, the living vampire, who’s now convinced that he’s a real vampire. Chris Chua provides a freaky doodle that I cannot figure out for the life of me. No ideas even who’s appearing in it. Jonathan Jay Lee’s Punisher tale is very dark and beautifully drawn. Kupperman provides another tale, this time of the Avengers rumbling with each other for stupid reasons, the punch line is a Hostess ad parody (remember those that came near the end of Marvel comics? I’d always read them, even thought hey were so lame). Maybe one of the best ones in the book. Paul Hornschneider offers a very cool tale of Nightcrawler meeting Molecule Man, being held captive and forced to join a weird philosophical conversation with the angst-ridden super villain intent on exploring the stinky dimension Nightcrawler teleports through. Becky Kloonan – great, dark art, tells a story of Namor and Reed Richards fighting King Crab; Doctor Doom, Namor’s roommate, is also not far.
The last 45 pages of the book are Peter Bagge’s “The Megalomaniaal Spider-Man” and “The Incorrigible Hulk”. He does a great job telling a freaky tale of Peter Parker, an angst-ridden 60s kid, coming to grips with his Spiderman-ness, before selling out (great sequence of Peter trading witty repartees with his adversaries, but betraying self-doubt in the thought balloons); 15 years later, Parker is the head of Spider-man Inc and a total Ayn Rand-inspired monster. Everything is turned on its head in this one, and it’s a pure joy to read, especially the twist ending that is a real lift! Nice use of a Gwen Stacey who is never sacrificed to the Green Goblin. Unfortunately, the Hulk tale is not so good, with Bruce Banner and the Hulk both having to contend with randy groupies that are trying to suck the life out of our hero in both of his forms. Still a good read, though.
Not all of the stories are good – James Kochalka’s recurring Hulk black felt tip marker-drawn stories are kind of crappy (there are a few of them spaced throughout the book and none of them are any good, actually), and Johnny Ryan’s “Marvel’s Most Embarrassing Moments” could have been better (as could his two-page tale of the Punisher teaching a kid to get good grades – yawwwwn). There are some silly entries (a dark “Fed Up With Man” by M Kupperman featuring the Sub-Mariner, a silly pickle jar-meets-Hulk story by Perry Bible Fellowship, and a gross “The Blue Hair” featuring Wolverine and Beast” that looks great visually at least swith its use of baby blue and black-and-white pencils) and a weird doggy-world Spider-man tale by Jason. Oh well.
ST2
Strange Tales II – More of the same stylish and weird interpretations of Marvel myths by heroes of the underground comix scene (this time around focusing more on the Silver Surfer, and hardly at all on MODOK or the Hulk as they had in the first installment), albeit a bit less fun than the first Strange Tales. Naturally, to keep consistency (and to retain one of the best parts of Strange Tales), Chris Sanderson carries on with the weird tales of The Watcher, one-pagers interspersed throughout the book (Uatu and his little buddy go to a strip bar, they hang out in the park with dogs, Uatu gets a lobotomy…). Nice. There’s a “deep” and gory tale about Logan and his relationship with pain, and his relationship with women – no small crossover here (and we also get a similar, but less good, tale of Logan heartbreak in the hot dog tale that comes up later on in the book). Gene Luen Yang takes on the Fabulous Frog-man’s son and his goofy antics (probably Marvel’s lamest “super-villain”). Frank Santoro does a strangely childish cosmic Silver Surfer tale, another tale shows Kraven the Hunter hunting for a date to the prom (funny, playful, naive), then there’s a weird colorful tale of the Dazzler getting in touch with her inner rock goddess. Shannon Wheeler does a very cool retro Red Skull in an Amazonian village (he’s gone eco-warrior), Kevin Huizenga draws nutty simple Logan vs Silver Surfer panels, , and Jeff Lemire draws one of those “Marvel tie-in with our human history” by showing old Mounties in the forest taking on what might be a Wendigo, but which is actually… Swamp Thing? Episodes like this are good because they’re well-drawn, they’re semi-serious, but ultimately they do no more than gratuitously wallow in Marvel lore, I love it.
“Meanwhile… in the park!!” by Johnen V is really very silly – a heartbroken Wolverine gorging on hot dogs, an encounter with the Sentinels, silly… Nicholas Gurewitch does a funny two-pager about Magento offering his services to Galactus (nice art – stupid gag). This is followed by the best stories in the whole book, two Love And Rockets-style tales by Gilbert Hernandez, with his patented Archie-like take on adult themes: this time we get Iron Man teaming up with Toro, the sidekick of the original Human Torch (remember the Invaders?) taking on the Leader, followed by a weird little tale of the Space Phantom trying unsuccessfully to crash the girls’ beach party. Great girl politics, and a nice revival of one of the weirder Marvel characters form 50 years ago (he originally appeared in Avengers #2. Nice X-Men adventure by Jeffrey Brown showing the X-Men taking on the Sentinels, even as Scott and Jean have relationship problems. Weird. Mr Sheldon, whoever he is, does a very cool Ghost Rider-with-friendly-muttonchops that is pure Lemmy. “I’m the rebel son of Satan, Hell nor Heaven ain’t my friend”. Nice Spiderman adventure with Paul Maybury, “Little Lies”, where Peter demonstrates one of the lesser-told aspects of Spider-man’s life – how he explains away all of the cuts and bruises he gets fighting Vermin, Sandman, Doc Ock, etc. Beautifully-drawn, a real treat. The ever-weird Tony Millionaire takes on Thor, explaining how he lost his hammer, lost his powers, and had to resort to selling Thor Brand Pickled Herring at the crumbling Coney Island amusement park to wandering Danes. Of course, he can easily get it back by taking on Mud-O and Can Man. Nice. A weird “Wolverine and Power Pack” adventure by Maya and Sam that results in Logan going to Japan to learn to control his animal nature. Then Farel Darymple tells the “You Won’t Feel A Thing” tale which is, as he describes it, “a ridiculous retelling of the firs encounter between the stoic Silver Surfer and one very stressed-out Spidey.” Between the panel we see the message “I copied this entire page from John Buscema and ‘How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way’. I apologize if anyone finds it offensive. There is no disrespect intended. Please don’t be mad.” Beautiful drawings, boring story. Modok is back finally in “Crisis – In The Lair Of Modok” by Jon Vermilyer, that shows a crazy Ant Man flying up Modok’s nose. It’s pretty gnarly… Terry Moore tells a silly story of a young Thor and “How Mjolnir Got Its Strap.” Ho hum. James Stokoe tells a cool (and well-drawen story) about a bunch of Skrulls playing poker with the Silver Surfer as their planet gets devoured by Galactus. Cool art!! A story by Benjamin Marra that involves US Agent being hired to do a hit is sheer insanity.
Government agent: It’s a terrorist who’s been genetically spliced with the DNA of a velociraptor!! And if that weren’t enough, he has a nuclear warhead strapped to his back!! We call him the Terror-saur!!
US Agent: Sounds like a real nerd.
US Agent is some sort of Captain America mercenary who’s a heartless killer. Nice. Tim Hamilton does a cool Machine Man story, as he takes on a Michael Morbius (The Living Vampire) who’s allied himself with Baphomet. Great story, great art. Kate Beaton tells another funny, “cute” story about Rogue absorbing the powers of a kitten when she smashes Professor X’s favorite vase (why would Professor X have a favorite vase anyway?). “Oh Rogue! How can I stay mad at youuu…?” The Left Hand of Boom” is a cool story by Dean Haspiel (great art!) of Woodgod, the Sentinels, Alicia Masters and the Thing. And a game of stickball. T Cypress shows what happens when some comic book fans call Luke Cage’s Heroes-For-Hire hotline (1-555-HERO). Cool! Badass!! Michael Deforge shows young mutants getting in trouble, also quite grisly. “Fantastic… Before” is a well-drawn story about a young Reed Richards, pre-Sue Richards, chasing girls with his buddy Ben Grimm. Eduardo Medeiros tells a funny tale of Spidey, with the Juggernaut calling up to Aunt May to find out if Spiderman can come out to play. Harvey Pekar gets the last story, “Harvey Pekar Meets The Thing”, a well-drawn and textured tale of New York, showing the Thing catching up to Harvey, having a conversation on the side of the street about employment, job security, Jewish neighborhoods (who knew that The Thing’s Jewish?!?!) and other mundane matters. Very nice indeed.
I wonder what it would take to get Michael Allred onto one of these crazy adventures!
Here are some images from Strange Tales
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