In My Not So Humble Opinion

Walter Koenig: 1936 to 2026

Actor and writer Walter Koenig passed away on October 25th. He was 90 years old.

Born in Chicago on September 14, 1936 to Russian Jewish immigrants, Koenig (pronounced kay-nig) is best known to viewers around the world for his portrayal of the young, cheery Ensign Pavel Chekov on the original Star Trek television series. He had already been working in television for several years in the 1960s, guest starring on such shows as The Lieutenant, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Ben Casey when he was cast as Chekov.

Joining Star Trek in 1967 during its second season, with his first appearance in the opening episode “Amok Time,” Koenig’s Chekov was added to appeal to the show’s younger audience. Chekov was Russian, and his addition to the regular cast of characters during the Cold War helped to solidify Star Trek as having, for its time, a diverse ethnic bridge crew on the Starship Enterprise.

Regrettably, due to the nature of television writing in the 1960s, Chekov, like the other supporting characters on Star Trek, was fairly one-dimensional. He was mostly characterized by his thick accent (which Koenig based on his own father’s) and by his ongoing comical assertion that various great inventions actually originated in Russia. Nevertheless, Chekov became beloved by fans.

After Star Trek was cancelled in 1969, Koenig, like most of the other cast of the series, unfortunately had difficulty finding work. Star Trek was revived in 1973 as a short-lived animated series, but it had a very low budget, to the point where the show couldn’t afford to bring Koenig back as Chekov. Koenig was understandably hurt and angry by this decision. He was somewhat mollified when Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry asked him to write an episode for the animated series. Koenig penned “The Infinite Vulcan” which was broadcast on October 23, 1973. It made Koenig the first Star Trek cast member to write for the franchise, although he would later reveal that it was an “unpleasant” experience, with Roddenberry requesting numerous rewrites.

(A little over a decade later Koenig would also write an issue of the Star Trek comic book series published by DC Comics.)

Another writing assignment for Koenig was for the Sid and Marty Krofft children’s science fiction series Land of the Lost in 1974. Koenig contributed the first season episode “The Stranger” which introduced the time traveling reptilian scientist Enik to the program. It’s definitely one of the strongest episodes of the series. As Koenig would later recount on the first season DVD box set extras, Enik was originally going to be called Eneg, which was Gene spelled backwards, a nod to Gene Roddenberry, but the show’s producers changed the spelling.

One of Koenig’s rare acting jobs in the 1970s was on Columbo in the 1976 episode “Fade in to Murder” which coincidentally or not guest starred William Shatner as the murderer. Koenig played Sgt. Johnson, who brings Peter Falk’s Columbo up to speed when the latter arrives at the crime scene.

Koenig reprised the role of Chekov in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, released in 1979, and would return as Chekov in the next six Star Trek movies after that. Again, the supporting cast were still pretty one-dimensional in these movies, but it was still good to have all of them back.

In 1989 Koenig starred with Bruce Campbell in the direct-to-video sci-fi action movie Moontrap directed by Robert Dyke. Moontrap is low budget, with some pretty cheap special effects and some fairly dodgy writing. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see Koenig in a starring role, and he has good chemistry with Campbell. It’s a decent enough popcorn flick to watch.

It was in 1994, though, that Koenig’s career really experienced a resurgence when he was cast by J. Michael Straczynski in his ambitious, political-minded science fiction series Babylon 5. As he recounted on his Facebook page, Straczynski met Koenig through their mutual friend Harlan Ellison. Having seen Koenig in the role of a middle-aged Tom Sawyer in a 1990 production of Bernard Sabath’s The Boys in Autumn, Straczynski was highly impressed by his performance. As Straczynski explained:

“Then a curious thing happened: as much as I was enjoying the play, I also found myself getting profoundly annoyed as I thought about the asshats lurking in the otherwise bright glow of fandom who loved nothing more than to go online to make fun of Walter’s performance as Ensign Chekov. They gleefully labeled him a lightweight, a trivial actor for a trivial role that allegedly only came about because Beatlemania and the Monkees were a thing… a description that had fuck-all to do with the talent unfolding new shades of meaning and skill right there in front of me.

“After the play was over, I confess I fanboyed at Walter, insisting that I would find a role for him that was the equal to his talent, even if I had to write it myself. He smiled in the way of all actors who hear such things from people in this business, taking the compliment and leaving the rest to the fates.

“But I never forgot that promise.”

Fast forward to 1994, and Straczynski initially planned to cast Koenig as the villain in the season one episode “And the Sky Full of Stars.” However, shortly before filming commenced, Koenig suffered a heart attack and had to bow out. Undeterred, Straczynski wrote a second role for Koenig to play. And, strange as it may sound, that heart attack Koenig had turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because THIS part was even better than the first one. Making his debut in “Mind War” (which aired before “And the Sky Full of Stars” but which was actually shot after it) Koenig portrayed the fascist telepath Bester. The character would return to the show a number of times, ultimately making 12 appearances across Babylon 5’s five seasons.

Honestly, if you had only ever seen Koenig in Star Trek, then his performance on B5 would no doubt be a revelation. Bester is one of the most three-dimensional antagonists in science fiction television. He was cunning & manipulative, and possessed of a sardonic sense of humor.

Despite being a villain, though, at times one could understand why Bester was the way he was. In B5’s future, humanity was deeply suspicious of telepaths, and forced them to either join the Psi Corps organization where they could be closely monitored or take drugs that deadened their abilities. The resentful members of Psi Corps set out to covertly take control of Earth’s government. Bester exemplified their ethos, believing telepaths to be the next, superior stage of human evolution. In a way he reminded me of Magneto from the X-Men comic books. Bester was definitely a demonstration of how a member of a persecuted group could end up becoming an oppressor.

Koenig was very happy to have been given the role of Bester. As he would later explain in a 2011 interview:

“As sacrilegious as it might be for Star Trek fans, Bester was a more exciting opportunity and a more challenging role… I feel I put a stamp on that character and that I made him my own, and I had a great time doing it. I was able to be a little bit more inventive and try things. It was just a terrific experience, a treasured memory, being on Babylon 5.”

It was planned for Koenig to reprise the role of Bester in the B5 sequel series Crusade in 1999. Unfortunately, Crusade was cancelled before the episode could be filmed. The character of Bester’s ultimate fate was instead chronicled in the canonical novel Babylon 5: Final Reckoning – The Fate of Bester written by J. Gregory Keyes based on an outline by Straczynski, published in 1999. And, yes, it really shows just how engaging a character Koenig had brought to life on screen that an entire novel was written just to tie up all his loose ends.

In the 21st Century, Koenig had the occasional guest role on television and also appeared in several independent and low-budget sci-fi movies. He returned to the Star Trek franchise one last time in 2023 when he voiced Federation President Anton Chekov (implied to be the son of Pavel Chekov) in the final episode of Picard season three.

I was fortunate enough to meet Koenig a number of years ago at one of the Big Apple Comic Con shows. As much as I am a fan of Star Trek, I chose instead to get a picture of him from Babylon 5 autographed, because as I said above, Chekov was pretty underdeveloped, whereas Bester was a marvelously written character who Koenig did a wonderful job bringing to life. I can’t say that Koenig was the warmest convention guest I’ve ever met. I don’t know, maybe he wasn’t having a good day, but he seemed somewhat distant. Nevertheless, I’m still glad that I had the opportunity to meet him.

When the news of Koenig’s passing was announced last week, I was genuinely surprised to learn that he was 90 years old. I must have thought he was younger, due to the character of Chekov seeming so youthful on the original Star Trek. I guess the character was supposed to only be in his early 20s, but Koenig was actually 30 years old when he began playing the part.

I do think it’s unfortunate that Koenig didn’t have a more successful acting career, because he was undeniably talented. Still, portraying two very different science fiction icons across the decades is certainly an accomplishment. Koenig will definitely be missed.

Comic book reviews: Witchblade Samhain Special

Today is Halloween, so let’s look at a seasonal appropriate comic book. Witchblade: Samhain Special, published by the Top Cow imprint of Image Comics, sees NYPD Detective Sara Pezzini, the current bearer of the Witchblade, visited on Halloween night by the ghosts of three of her predecessors in the role.

As helpfully informed by Google today, Halloween “traces back over 2,000 years to the ancient Gaelic harvest festival of Samhain, when people believed the boundary between the living and the dead blurred.” By the way, Samhein is actually pronounced sah-win or sow-in.

The first tale in the Witchblade: Samhain Special is “Leonor and the Magdalena” and is written by Matt Hawkins & Ryan Cady, with artwork by Pat Boutin. The year is 880 AD and Lady Leonor Di Palma is summoned to a monastery which is plagued by supernatural occurrences. Utilizing the Witchblade, Leonor is able to remove the Satanic curse on the monastery. However, a jealous, superstitious monk contacts the Church authorities, and the Magdalena of the era attacks Leonor, believing her to be an evil witch.

Hawkins & Cady’s tale is pretty good. The artwork by Boutin is an interesting mix of the sort of hyper-detailed house style of Top Cow and a more cartoony look. He also has some nice storytelling, with the action sequence flowing very well.

I did feel there was one major disconnect between the dialogue and the art. Leonor’s ghost tells Sara that she had already possessed the Witchblade for nearly 40 years when the events of this story took place, but Boutin’s art makes Leonor look like she’s only in her 20s. I’m not familiar enough with the series, but does the Witchblade confer extended youth on its users?

Next up is “Esma and Gareth” which is written by Cady flying solo, with artwork by Laura Braga. In some undetermined time period, possibly the Middle Ages, Esma meets Gareth, the bearer of The Darkness identity in this era. For a time, the two young people are friends & comrades, together fighting against evil. However, there eventually comes a catastrophic falling-out between the two.

Cady’s story is another good one. The artwork by Braga is the real stand-out here. She previously illustrated the Witchblade / Vampirella crossover book that came out a couple of months ago. She did really nice work on that team-up, and it’s good to have her on this segment, too.

One minor quibble. On the first page Sara tells Esma’s ghost that they’re driving to the Hudson River. However, in the very next panel we see Sara’s police cruiser arrive at the East River Pier. Not sure how that slipped through.

The third and final installment is “The Witch of Leningrad” written by Marc Silvestri and Cady, with Boutin back on art duties. This one is set during World War II. Tatiana, a Russian woman, is fighting the Nazi invaders, violently slaying them. Summoned by the Soviet army, she is dispatched west to Berlin itself to deal with Adolf Hitler.

I also liked this one. It makes sense that Tatiana would be incredibly brutal when fighting the Nazis, considering that a million and a half Russians died during the Siege of Leningrad, and she would be eager for bloody revenge. Again, Boutin’s art straddles the line between detailed and fantastical.

One again, though, there’s a pretty glaring mistake. Tatiana tells Sara that these events take place in 1944. However, it really has to be 1945 because, SPOILERS, Tatiana kills Hitler! Yes, in the Top Cow universe Hitler was torn to pieces by Witchblade… as opposed to Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon continuity, where der Führer’s battle armor blew up during a fight with Hellboy in 1952 and the dictator’s disembodied brain was transplanted into the body of a gorilla. (Yes, it really happened!)

Ahem! Yeah, no offense to Silvestri, Hawkins and Cody, who co-edited this special, but I feel like one of them should have caught that problem with the year.

I do also wish that this special had been a little longer. We barely get to know any of the past Witchblades. A few more pages for each segment could have enabled there to be more development of each of the three characters.

Anyway, the entire book is colored by Gibran Ferdian and lettered by Troy Peteri. Both of them do solid work on this.

The main cover for the special is by Boutin and Ferdian. It’s somewhat more cartoony than Butin’s interior work. I actually prefer the spooky, atmospheric variant cover drawn by Giuseppe Cafaro and colored by Arif Prianto. It’s a really impressive piece of work.

The upshot of the three tales in the Witchblade: Samhain Special appears to be that the trio of ghosts are attempting to teach Sara that the only one she can rely on is herself, that she should not become dependent on anyone or anything, not even the Witchblade that she wields. I do wonder if this is supposed to be setting up something in the ongoing Witchblade series. It’s been quite a while since I picked up any issues of that, but maybe I’ll check it out again in the future or pick up one of the collected editions.

In any case, thanks for reading this blog post. I hope everyone has a happy Halloween 🎃

Comic book reviews: Detective Comics #298 Facsimile Edition

So, speaking of Batman…

After a doctor appointment in Manhattan today, I stopped by Midtown Comics to pick up the latest issue of Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon. There were a couple of other things I was looking for, but they were sold out. I then spotted the latest Facsimile Edition to be published by DC Comics, a reissue of Detective Comics #298, released of course to tie in with the new Clayface movie directed by James Watkins currently in theaters. The issue was originally on sale in late October 1961, with a December cover date. On a whim I bought it.

Detective Comics #298 actually introduces the second villain to be known as Clayface, namely one Matt Hagen. However, he’s the first one who actually possessed the ability to physically transform his body into all manner of non-human shapes.

Facing off against Batman and Robin in “The Challenge of Clay-Face,” it is revealed that Hagen, while skin-diving in search of sunken treasure, discovered an underwater grotto with a mysterious multi-colored bubbling pool of an unknown liquid. Falling into the pool, Hagen’s body is temporarily transformed into a clay-like substance that can assume nearly any shape. However, the effects only last for a 48-hour period. Hagen was always looking for quick, easy ways to make money, and with his new powers he embarked upon a crime spree, immediately pitting him against the Dynamic Duo of Gotham City.

It’s interesting to read “The Challenge of Clay-Face” having just re-read my copy of the Batman: Year One trade paperback. In his illustrated afterward to that collection, artist David Mazzucchelli offered up an interesting viewpoint, namely:

“I am also of the opinion that the Adam West TV show is an extremely faithful translation of a comic book into live action. Pick up a Batman comic from the early 1960s and read it out loud. You’ll see what I mean.”

Now, Clayface is obviously not a character who could have been brought to life with any believability with the budget & special effects available to a mid-1960s television series. But, yeah, looking at Batman and Robin’s dialogue in this issue, one can easily imagine it being spoken by Adam West and Burt Ward.

I think the thing to really keep in mind here is that when you’re a kid (and possibly even when you’re an adult) reading a superhero comic, the dialogue & narration feels dramatic & serious when it is in your head. It’s only when it’s actually spoken out loud by actors that it sounds silly & campy. Likewise, as still images drawn on a page, Batman and Robin look cool, but when you try to translate those costumes to something that actual flesh & blood human beings are wearing, more often than not it ends up looking quite silly.

In any case, one of the shortcomings of the Facsimile Edition format is that for decades-old books like Detective Comics #298, there aren’t any credits, other than the contractually obligated byline for Bob Kane (who, of course, had nothing to do with the production of this story). Checking at both the Grand Comics Database and the DC Comics Database, both credit “The Challenge of Clay-Face” to Batman co-creator Bill Finger as the writer, Sheldon “Shelly” Moldoff as the penciler, and Charles Paris as the inker, with the cover by Moldoff and letterer Ira Schnapp.

I think this story is a good demonstration of just how creative Finger could be as a writer, and of the important role he played in the development of the Batman mythos during the character’s first few decades. As for Moldoff, he was one of the main ghost artists on the Batman feature for a decade and a half, from 1953 to 1967, during which time he did quality work.

Back when Detective Comics #298 was published, the series was still an anthology, and as such the Batman story only occupies the first 13 pages of the issue. The other two features in this comic book are John Jones, Manhunter from Mars and Aquaman & Aqualad.

The Martian Manhunter story “The Man Who Impersonated J’onn J’onzz” is a decidedly low-stakes affair. J’onn is friends with actor Barry Clark, who is portraying the alien crimefighter on stage at a charity bazaar. But when Clark sprains his ankle, J’onn has to fill in for him, pretending to be the actor who is pretending to be him. Things get complicated when criminals attempt to rob the bazaar, and J’onn has to figure out how to stop them without revealing to the audience that he’s the real Martian Manhunter.

The artist on this one was Joe Certa, who co-created the character, with the GCD suggesting that it was possibly written by Jack Miller.

There’s definitely much more going on in “The Secret Sentry of the Sea” starring Aquaman and Aqualad. Representatives of two unnamed foreign nations are attempting to end a war between them, and knowing that elements in both their countries want to see the conflict continue, they set their conference on a yacht at sea, to prevent it from being disrupted. Aquaman and Aqualad have volunteered to protect the floating conference, but they soon find that enemy agents have somehow located the vessel, and seek to destroy it. Aquaman, with the aid of his aquatic allies, has to prevent this from occurring.

Although the writer on this one is unknown, the artist is Nick Cardy, who would go on to have a long run illustrating Aquaman’s adventures during the 1960s. His work here is not as polished as it would later be, but it’s still pretty good.

One last item of note. This Facsimile Edition contains all of the original advertisements from Detective Comics #298. That includes the above public service announcement. Two decades before Depeche Mode, DC Comics proclaimed “People Are People!” in this piece that trumpeted racial equality. If something like this appeared nowadays, sadly too many right-wingers would be screaming about comic books being “woke” and other such ignorant nonsense. But this is a good reminder that the medium has often been a vehicle for positive social change.

Detective Comics #298 is an interesting example of an early Silver Age DC superhero comic. It’s definitely aimed at younger readers, yet at the same time the work of the creators who contributed to it is of a good quality, especially that of Finger, Moldoff & Paris on the Batman story. And I have to say, the nice thing about these Facsimile Editions is that we present-day readers in 2026 get to see just how these stories were presented decades ago. It certainly makes for a different experience than reading these tales in collected editions.

Batman: Year One at 40 years old

The four part “Batman: Year One” storyline, the retelling of Batman’s origin following the multiverse-shattering Crisis on Infinite Earths event from DC Comics, is 40 years old this year, with the first chapter, Batman #404, having been released in late October 1986. Written by Frank Miller, drawn by David Mazzucchelli, colored by Richmond Lewis, lettered by Todd Klein and edited by Denny O’Neil, “Batman: Year One” successfully set the stage for the Dark Knight’s adventures over the next few decades.

I was not reading comic books regularly when “Year One” was first serialized. However, in the Summer of 1989 during “The Year of the Bat,” when the first Batman movie directed by Tim Burton came out, I picked up the trade paperback collection. My 13 year old self read it, and enjoyed it immensely. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read “Year One” since then. I actually re-read it again yesterday, and it still holds up incredibly well.

“Year One” is one of the very few books I’ve purchased more than once. The first copy I had was the no frills Warner Books edition, and that copy did get a bit dog-eared. In 2005 DC released a “Deluxe Edition” with new supplemental material & commentary from Mazzucchelli, and I bought that one. I later got that autographed by Mazzucchelli when he was at a signing to promote the release of his intriguing graphic novel Asterios Polyp.

“Year One” features the parallel storylines of 25 year old millionaire Bruce Wayne returning to Gotham City after a number of years abroad secretly training to begin his war on crime to avenge the murders of his parents, and Lieutenant James Gordon, a police officer who finds himself basically exiled to Gotham after an unspecified scandal cost him his career in Chicago.

Gotham is depicted by Miller and Mazzucchelli as a poverty-riddled cesspool. The police and politicians are openly collaborating with organized crime. Gordon and Assistant District Attorney Harvey Dent are two of the very few honest men in law enforcement, futilely attempting to combat the plague of crime and corruption engulfing Gotham. Wayne is eager to begin fighting against that plague, but the question quickly becomes how. Even after the iconic scene of a bat crashing through the window of his study inspires him to create the costumed identity of Batman, he still stumbles repeatedly as he discovers that he cannot wage his war on crime alone. He needs the help of men like Gordon and Dent.

Honestly, reading “Year One” again in 2026, it was sort of refreshing to see this neophyte Batman, who is a far cry from the so-called “Bat-God” of recent years who seemingly knows everything and who can defeat any foe with enough “prep time.” I miss Batman as a more fallible, human figure.

Lewis’ coloring really heightens & enhances the mood & atmosphere of Mazzucchelli’s artwork. Interestingly, Lewis actually colored “Year One” twice, once for the original newsprint on which Batman #404-407 was published, and again for the different paper stock of the trade paperback. I’m glad DC gave her this opportunity. I’ve seen too many older comic books reprinted without any consideration for how the colors are going to look on the thicket, glossier paper. Or, worse, there have been collected editions with garish computer recoloring that completely buried the artwork. So, yeah, I’m glad that was not the case here.

One of the more contentious elements of “Year One” was Miller retconning Selina Kyle into a prostitute / dominatrix. I will admit, it didn’t really bother me all that much at the time, but I acknowledge that with the benefit of hindsight I’ll allow that over the decades Miller has definitely written a lot of female characters who are prostitutes. This version of Selina does very quickly break away from her pimp, taking her young friend Holly with her, and inspired by Batman becomes the costumed jewel thief Catwoman.

Due to Mazzucchelli drawing Selina with a severely-cropped haircut and Lewis’ coloring choices, I initially thought this version of Catwoman was supposed to be black. Honestly, I didn’t mind at all, especially after my father informed me that Eartha Kitt had actually played the character on the Batman television show a couple of decades earlier. It wasn’t until Detective Comics #612 came out several months later and Selina appeared in that story that I realized, nope, Catwoman was still white. Interestingly, though, in subsequent stories Selina has occasionally been depicted as mixed race, and I wonder if that was inspired by Mazzucchelli & Lewis’ depiction of her in “Year One.”

I honestly don’t want to give away too much about “Year One.” If you haven’t read it, I definitely recommend it. It’s a really good reimagining of the early days of Batman’s career, and it also revamps Jim Gordon into a formidable, three-dimensional figure. You can certainly understand how these two men came to have such a unique working relationship.

I have no idea if “Year One” is still considered to be fully canonical by DC Comics. Considering all of the reality-shattering events they’ve published over the past few decades, I’m sure the current continuity is at least somewhat different. Nevertheless, “Year One” remains an engaging work. I consider it one of the definitive Batman stories of all time.

New York Comic Con 2026 Artist Alley spotlight

I attended New York Comic Con 2026. It was, as always, a really great show.

As usual, I spent most of my time in Artist Alley, where dozens of very talented artists and writers were set up. Here are some of the creators I got to meet this year, many of them for the first time.

English artist Tula Lotay has worked on a variety of titles, among them All Star Batman, Catwoman, Miss Fury, Nancy Drew and Red Sonja. She autographed my copy of the Summer of Supergirl Special for which she drew a nice variant cover.

Mark Bagley is one of the most iconic artists associated with the character of Spider-Man, having had lengthy runs penciling both Amazing Spider-Man and Ultimate Spider-Man for Marvel Comics. He’s also the original artist on New Warriors and Thunderbolts, among numerous other credits.

Spanish artist Belén Ortega has worked on numerous series for DC Comics including Punchline, DC Pride, Batman: Urban Legends, Wonder Woman and the Summer of Supergirl Special. It was announced at NYCC that she would be drawing a Starfire series written by Alyssa Wong that will be launching in April of next year.

I really enjoyed Marc Guggenheim’s writing on the recent What If…? Captain America special from Marvel, and it was great to get that book signed by him. Guggenheim has also written Amazing Spider-Man, Star Wars and X-Men for Marvel, as well as Arrow and The Flash for DC.

Agnes Garbowska has such a cute, fun art style. Young readers have enjoyed her work on My Little Pony, Care Bears and Teen Titans Go! Garbowska is also a prolific cover artist, with her work appearing on numerous IDW and Dynamite titles.

Brett Bean is the creator of the red-hot fantasy / comedy series D’Orc published by Image Comics. He’s also worked on Zoo Patrol Squad, I Hate Fairyland, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Rocket Raccoon and Groot. And, as can be seen by the above photo, he’s quite the character in real life!

I got a Superman convention sketch from artist Anthony Marques, who counts the Man of Steel as one of his favorite characters. He certainly draws a great version of Superman. A graduate of the Kubert School, Marques has also worked on Batman for DC, as well as Green Hornet and Bettie Page: Unbound.

Top Cow President / COO Matt Hawkins is the creator of the crime drama Postal. His other writing credits include Aphrodite IX and Lady Pendragon from Image. I picked up from him a copy of the NYCC convention exclusive edition of the new Witchblade / Vampirella crossover special which he co-edited.

Having established himself penciling Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine at Marvel, Marc Silvestri was one of the seven artists to co-found Image Comics in 1992. Under his Top Cow imprint he’s worked on such series as Cyberforce, Darkness and Witchblade. Silvestri is definitely one of the most influential American superhero artists of the late 20th Century.

Richard Case is the penciler who successfully brought to life Grant Morrison’s incredibly bizarre, surreal scripts on Doom Patrol at DC from 1989 to 1992. In addition, Case has also worked at Marvel on Doctor Strange, Darkhold and Sensational Spider-Man. I’ve been a fan of his work for a number of years, and it was great to meet him. Case drew a really lovely piece in my Mantis sketchbook.

It’s always a pleasure to see Alitha Martinez at comic book shows. She’s very talented and cool to hang out with. Her work on Nubia for DC was really impressive. Most recently, Martinez drew a Green Lantern Corps back-up story that appeared in issue two of the Justice League: Dream Girls – A DC Pride Event miniseries.

Writer / comic book historian / Batman movie producer Michael Uslan was not in Artist Alley. However, I did get to meet him at NYCC this year. He was on the Oni Press panel to talk about the upcoming Dr. Syn four-issue miniseries he is co-writing with Steven S. DeKnight, with artwork by Sebastián Cabrol, which is adapted from the early 20th Century novels by Russell Thorndike and the 1963 Disney movie The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh. The first issue comes out from Oni in January of next year. I’m definitely looking forward to this one.

NYCC 2026 was definitely a lot of fun. Glad I got to go again this year.

Comic book reviews: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

My girlfriend and I both liked the recent Supergirl movie (you can click here to read my review of it). While not without its flaws, I thought it was enjoyable, and I was sorry that it underperformed in theaters.

The movie’s main source of inspiration was the eight issue miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow written by Tom King drawn by Bilquis Evely, colored by Matheus Lopes and lettered by Clayton Cowles that was published by DC Comics in 2021-22. I decided to finally read King & Evely’s story, to see how it stacked up against the movie. Here are some brief thoughts on the miniseries.

Much like the movie, Woman of Tomorrow sees Kara Zor-El traveling through space to celebrate her birthday when she runs into Ruthye Marye Knoll, a young teenage girl who seeks to avenge her father’s death. Ruthye’s father was murdered by the brutal Krem of the Yellow Hills, and Supergirl is reluctantly drawn into the quest for justice after Krem seriously injures Krypto the Superdog.

Unlike the movie, which has the ticking clock of Supergirl needing to get a cure to Krypto for Krem’s poison within 72 Earth hours, Woman of Tomorrow takes place over a period of several months, with Kara and Ruthye traveling to a number of different alien worlds and having a series of adventures while they are tracking down Krem. I can certainly understand why the movie made that change. You would really need to do a television or streaming miniseries to more faithfully adapt King’s story, with its numerous subplots & digressions.

In another difference from the movie, rather than being the leader of the Brigands, Krem is initially a solitary figure. Pursued by Kara and Ruthye, Krem hooks up with the Brigands for security, finding the brutal space pirates to be kindred souls.

I feel like King does a fair job with Supergirl’s characterization. Since her revival in 2004 in Superman / Batman #8, Kara’s personality has sort of been all over the place, with various different writers having their own individual approach to Superman’s cousin. King writes her as a realist; she’s moral and has ideals, but they are tempered by experience. She’s good & kind, but she doesn’t take crap from anyone.

I did find King’s scripting for Ruthye to be a bit much at times, as he gives her an extremely sophisticated, flowery pattern of speech and narration. It did strike me as a bit odd that a girl who came from a literal dirt-poor farming family had such an ornate way of speaking, but I had to quickly remind myself that poverty does not necessarily mean that one is uneducated. In any case, the page below really demonstrates how King has Ruthye speaking for the entirety of the miniseries.

I was also struck by the somewhat out of left field arrival of Comet the Superhorse at the eleventh hour to help save the day. That came across as almost a deus ex machina. Perhaps if King had at least alluded to Comet’s existence earlier in the story, it would not have been quite so jarring.

The artwork & coloring by Evely and Lopes is highly detailed, ornate and beautiful. I was very much impressed with both their work. They made Woman of Tomorrow into a very attractive story.

I do have a certain criticism of the ending of the miniseries, though. Unlike the movie, which had Supergirl killing Krem, in Woman of Tomorrow after convincing Ruthye not to commit murder, Kara banishes Krem in the Phantom Zone. That’s definitely preferable to Kara taking a life.

However, we then get to the final two pages of the story. We jump forward several decades to the now-elderly Ruthye. Kara, who is still young, frees Krem from the Phantom Zone, where he has been imprisoned for 300 years. After all this time, Krem is a broken man, full of guilt & regret, and he emerges from the Phantom Zone begging Ruthye for her forgiveness. At which point Ruythe brutally hits him with her cane and walks away from him.

The problem that I had with this, and which I’ve seen from other reviewers online, is that the way the last page is laid out, it left some people thinking that Ruthye had actually killed Krem. I realize that the layouts & storytelling of this final page are intended to mirror that of the very first page of the miniseries, on which Krem killed Ruthye’s father, but the long shots of the figures in silhouette just made the action on the final page very unclear and left some readers with the impression that Ruthye murdered an old, repentant man.

I don’t know if the fault can be laid at King’s feet or at Evely’s, but it results in the story ending on a disquieting note. I feel like the editors should have caught this and requested that the writing and/or the artwork be made clearer.

Well, anyway, in spite of some problems, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was pretty good and enjoyable. The artwork was, of course, gorgeous. Because it had received such mixed reviews, instead of purchasing the more expensive regular edition, I bought the digest-sized DC Compact Comics edition, which was only ten bucks. I was disappointed that it did not include all of the miniseries’ variant covers in the back. Still, if you want to read the miniseries but you’re on a budget, it’s a good way to get it.

Thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey

Last night Michele and I finally had an opportunity to go see The Odyssey at our local theater. We both enjoyed it. Here are some of my thoughts about the film. So, there will be spoilers… well, as much as you can spoil a 2,700 year old story.

Written & directed by Christopher Nolan, The Odyssey is, of course, based on the ancient epic Greek poem attributed to Homer. Nolan also incorporates elements of Virgil’s Aeneid.

Ten years after the end of the Trojan War, the great warrior & strategist Odysseus (Matt Damon), the king of Ithaca, has yet to return home. His wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) still hold out hope for his eventual return. However, they are beset by dozens of suitors, led by the scheming, duplicitous Antinous (Robert Pattinson) who for three years have harassed Penelope nightly, each in the hopes of becoming the new ruler of Ithaca.

Odysseus is in fact alive, but he is stranded on the island of Calypso (Charlize Theron) who for several years has been feeding him the lotus flower to deaden his memory in the hopes he will stay with her. Odysseus at long last begins to recall his past, how he conceived the Trojan Horse gambit to enable the Greeks to finally defeat Troy after a decade of warfare, how he and his men attempted to sail home, only to earn the wrath of the gods, how all of them save Odysseus himself eventually perished from the numerous dangers they encountered, and how he finally washed up on Calypso’s island.

Guided by the goddess Athena (Zendaya), Odysseus crafts a raft from the wreckage of his ship and sets out for home. He finally arrives back in Ithaca, and from the faithful shepherd Eumaeus (John Leguizamo) learns of the current dire state of affairs. Joining up with Telemachus, Odysseus sets out to free Ithaca from Antinous and the other suitors, and to at long last be reunited with Penelope.

The Odyssey is, without overstating it, a cinematic tour de force. Nolan does an incredible job presenting a story that is both epic in scope and intimate in its examinations of relationships and emotions. The visuals are absolutely stunning; I’m glad we had the opportunity to see this on the big screen.

The performances by all the actors are high quality. This is one of those movies where the actors so buried themselves in their roles, I really did not recognize who any of them are. It was only after the credits started to roll at the end, and when I afterwards checked Wikipedia for the cast list, that I realized just who had been in this.

I read the poem The Odyssey in high school, translated to English, of course (unfortunately I don’t recall who did the translation). That was over 30 years ago, but I remember enough of it to tell that Nolan’s script follows it pretty faithfully. The details of the Trojan Horse and the fall of Troy are taken from the Aeneid, as they actually only received a passing mention in Homer’s work.

Nolan makes the choice not to show the actual Greek gods, other than Athena, who only appears to Odysseus, leaving it debatable as to whether she is real or a figment of his imagination. However, there are numerous other magical and supernatural occurrences in the movie, so it is safe to conclude that, yes, the gods are real, as well. It makes sense not to have Nolan really feature them, since it renders them more mysterious & unknowable, which suits the atmosphere of the movie. Having a bunch of actors in togas standing around Mount Olympus debating Odysseus’s fate would have killed both the mood and the flow of the story.

I do think that Nolan makes Odysseus a much more conflicted and morally ambiguous character than he was in the original poem. As portrayed by Damon, Odysseus is a haunted individual. The deaths of all his men, his inability to save them, weighs heavily on him. The fall of Troy is also not depicted as some sort of grand military victory, but rather a horrific slaughter, and Odysseus’ crucial role in enabling it to happen preys upon him.

This is probably something that probably would not have been discussed in the 8th Century BC when The Odyssey was first composed and became disseminated in Greece, but it is clear that in Nolan’s movie Odysseus suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. Ten years of continuous fighting in the Trojan War, capped off by the destruction of the city of Troy, followed by another decade of struggling to return home, during which all of the men under his command have perished, have understandably left Odysseus struggling. Damon does an excellent job playing this nuanced depiction of the character.

In fact, you could argue that Nolan’s film is very much an anti-war picture. There was no glory or riches for any of the supposed victors. It took Odysseus ten years to get back to Ithaca. King Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) does return home a conquering hero, only to immediately be murdered by his wife. Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) regains both the throne of Sparta and his wife, the mythic Helen (Lupita Nyong’o), but a decade later their marriage is one filled with tension, seemingly without any love. So, no happy endings for anyone, really.

While I would not say that I am a huge fan of Nolan’s work, I did previously see Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Interstellar, all of which I enjoyed. If you haven’t yet gone to see The Odyssey in the theater, I recommend doing so while it’s still on the big screen. It’s definitely a movie you will want to experience in all its cinematic glory.

Having watched The Odyssey, I now feel motivated to re-read the poem. There are a number of translations of it that are available. I hope that the movie does prompt people to pick up the book. We could certainly do with more people reading, especially nowadays.

Godzilla and Mothra: the original novellas

I’ve been a fan of the Godzilla movies produced by Japanese studio Toho ever since I was a little kid in the early 1980s, watching the English dubbed versions of them on television. Over the years I’ve been able to view the original Japanese cuts subtitled in English as they’ve at last been released on home media here in the States, and to see the latest Toho entries Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One in the theaters. But until recently I was unaware of the fact that there were Japanese novels released in the mid-1950s and early 1960s featuring Godzilla and Mothra.

Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again was written by Shigeru Kayama and published in 1955. The Luminous Fairies and Mothra was written by Shin’ichiro Nakamura, Takehiko Fukunaga & Yoshie Hotta and published in 1961. All three novellas were recently translated into English by Jeffrey Angles and published by University of Minnesota Press.

To be accurate, the Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again books are novelizations, having been published in Japan after the release of the two movies bearing those same names. However, the author of these novellas, Shigeru Kayama, was also the one who was hired by Toho to develop the original story outlines for both those movies.

The prose format allows Kayama to delve more deeply into the thoughts, personalities & motivations of the characters, and to develop subplots for which there was not enough time for inclusion in the cinematic versions of the stories. Kayama also shifts around some of the character arcs. In his Godzilla novella, for example, Kayama ages up the teenage character of Shinkicki to be closer to age as Emiko, giving them romantic feelings for each other. Ogata, who was Emiko’s love interest, and basically served as the main character in the movie, is reduced to a supporting role here. Kayama also more fully explores why Professor Yamane wants to keep Godzilla alive. Yamane believes that miraculous scientific progress can be made by studying Godzilla’s unique physiology, and he wishes to make reparations of Japan’s war crimes during World War II by presenting these findings to the world.

The Luminous Fairies and Mothra was initially serialized in three parts in January 1961. It was commissioned by Toho as a basis for the Mothra movie they were planning to make shortly. Unusually, authors Shin’ichiro Nakamura, Takehiko Fukunaga & Yoshie Hotta wrote the novella round robin, with each of them contributing one of the three chapters.

While the Mothra movie released later that year was certainly political, with a very clear stand-in for the United States serving as the villain, the novella that preceded it was even more so. There are other differences, with the faeries from Infant Island numbering four rather than two, and also being somewhat larger in size. There is also a recounting of the creation myth behind the origins of Mothra herself.

Jeffrey Angles presents very detailed afterwards and footnotes in both Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again and The Luminous Fairies and Mothra to explain his various choices in translating the novellas into English, and to examine the social, historial & political backgrounds that shaped these stories in Japan in the mid-20th Century. In fact, his afterward for The Luminous Fairies and Mothra is longer than the actual novella.

I definitely found Angles’ afterwards to be informative, especially on The Luminous Fairies and Mothra. The origins of the 1954 Gojira movie have been examined comprehensively on a number of occasions in the English world. However, I was certainly unaware of the background to the Mothra story. As Angles explains, the Anpo Protests of 1960, an event I was previously familiar with, played a major role in shaping the initial Mothra narrative by the trio of authors. As someone who is very interested in history, I appreciated learning about these events via Angles’ commentary.

I found both of these books at Topos Too, an independent bookstore in Ridgewood, Queens. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, Topos Too is a great place to find interesting publications. There’s also the original Topos, which is in Ridgewood, as well, where they have a large selection of used books. If you happen to be in the area, I hope you’ll check them both out.

Fans of Godzilla and other kaiju movies will find a lot of interest in Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again and The Luminous Fairies and Mothra. I definitely recommend both books.

My favorite Tim Curry roles

I was very sad to hear that English actor Tim Curry had passed away at age 80. I know he had been in poor health for several years, so his death wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it was still unfortunate. Curry was a very talented actor with a career that spanned decades, encompassing numerous memorable roles. I am not even going to attempt to summarize his amazing career here. Instead, I’ll merely touch upon some of my favorite performances of his.

First off, I would be totally remiss if I did not mention Curry’s absolutely iconic performance as the freaky transvestite mad scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter. Having originated the role on stage in 1973, Curry reprised it two years later on the big screen in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, written by Richard O’Brien and directed by Jim Sharman. Regrettably, I’ve never actually had the opportunity to see this one on the big screen, but I’ve watched it on VHS and DVD on numerous occasions. I blogged about it a decade ago when the movie was celebrating its 40th anniversary. It’s definitely amazing.

In 1980 Curry portrayed radio DJ Johnny LaGuardia in director Allan Moyle’s cult classic Times Square. Although he’s given top billing, Curry’s here in a supporting role. Trini Alvarado and Robin Johnson play two teenage girls who run away from home and squat in abandoned warehouse in Manhattan, forming a punk rock band named The Sleez Sisters while dropping television sets off the roofs of buildings. Really, you have to see it to understand it. Michele introduced me to this one a while back, and I should probably re-watch it again soon. Curry’s role is a sort of unofficial narrator, or maybe a one-man Greek chorus, and he does a great job.

Curry had two of his most memorable movie performances in 1985. First was in Ridley Scott’s Legend, wherein Curry portrayed the satanic figure of Darkness. In those pre-CGI days, Curry had to act under very heavy make-up & prosthetics. It was definitely a physically challenging role. Nevertheless, Curry gives an astonishing performance as the physical embodiment of evil.

Also that year, Curry starred in Clue, which was directed by Jonathan Lynn. Portraying the enigmatic, quick-witted butler Wadsworth, Curry helms an all-star cast. It’s easy to forget that Clue was based on a board game, because it’s such a witty, funny comedy. It’s actually the first time I remember seeing Curry in anything. Believe it or not, I saw it one day in school, when I was in fifth grade. I have no idea why the teacher was showing it to us, but it definitely made for a pleasant break in the usual school routine. Anyway, Curry and the other actors are given a really intelligent, humorous script, and they totally go with it. I’ve seen some people over the last 24 hours saying that Clue was actually Curry’s greatest film performance. It’s difficult to argue with that.

Curry was cast as the shape-changing eldritch abomination Pennywise the Clown in the 1990 television miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s mammoth horror novel It, which was directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. I do feel that even at almost three and a half hours long, the It miniseries was still nowhere long enough to faithfully, effectively adapt King’s novel, which clocked in at a whopping 1,138 pages. Having said that, Curry was undoubtedly the highlight as Pennywise.

Another terrifying television performance by Curry came in 2010 on the series Criminal Minds, where he portrayed the filthy chain-smoking serial killer Billy Flynn in a two-episode story. Although he only ever appeared in that single two-parter, Flynn remains one of the show’s most memorable killers.

There are, of course, many, many more performances by Curry. Among his other movie roles were The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Shadow (1994), Congo (1995) and Muppet Treasure Island (1996), just to name a few. Curry also had a prolific career on stage. Regrettably, I never got to see him perform live, or get to meet him.

Tim Curry was an amazing actor who always invested his parts with a real presence. He will definitely be missed.

It Came from the 1990s: The Maximortal and Brat Pack by Rick Veitch

There has been an increased interest in comic book creator Rick Veitch’s work due to DC Comics releasing the recent Swamp Thing 1989 miniseries. (You can read my thoughts about that series here.) Over on his Facebook page Veitch has been encouraging fans to check out his creator-owned King Hell Heroica saga.

The King Hell Heroica books came about due to DC’s decision in 1989 not to publish Veitch’s story for Swamp Thing #88 in which the title character was to meet Jesus, and Veitch subsequently quitting the series in protest. As Veitch relates in his afterword to the collected edition of Brat Pack, the first release in what would become King Hell Heroica, it was initially planned to be published under DC’s Piranha Press imprint. When he quit DC, Veitch took Brat Pack to Kevin Eastman’s Tundra Publishing. Bratpack (with no space in the title) was released as a five-issue miniseries between 1990 and 1991, and it became very successful. Rather than producing a direct sequel, Veitch instead developed the King Hell Heroica storyline, of which Brat Pack was to be the fourth book of a five-book series.

The next installment of King Hell Heroica was chronologically the first, The Maximortal. It was published as a seven-issue miniseries between 1992 and 1993, with the first six coming out through Tundra, and the seventh via Kitchen Sink Press after Tundra folded its tent.

The Maximortal opens in Tungus, Siberia in July 1908. A very strange, mysterious, powerful being conceives an offspring. Encasing the foetus in a metal shielding, the being hurls it into outer space and then departs.

Ten years later in California, a middle aged couple, George and Meryl, come across the offspring when it crashes back to Earth. Emerging, he is a strange-looking little man with amazing powers. The deeply religious Meryl believes that God has sent them this child, and names him Wesley Winston. Unfortunately, Wesley has both incredible powers and a very child-like intellect & temper. Carnage soon erupts in the town of Simpleton, with Wesley brutally killing hundreds of people. Luckily, returning to the metal shell that brought him back to Earth causes Wesley to fall into suspended animation, and the US government takes custody of the creature. The child remains asleep until 1943, when he is discovered hidden in a bunker in Los Alamos, New Mexico by physicist Robert Uppenheimer.

Running parallel to the narrative is the story of writer Jerry Spiegel and artist Joe Schumacher, two 19 year olds from Slumberg, Pennsylvania. Spiegal and Schumacher create True-Man, the world’s first superhero, who adopts the secret identity of Wesley Winston. In 1937 they sell the series to publisher Sidney Wallace. For the next several years Spiegal and Schumacher churn out issue after issue of the True-Man comic book series, all the while being told by Wallace that the book is being published at a loss. Finally in 1943 the two creators are astonished to discover that not only is True-Man a bestselling comic, their character has also been licensed by Wallace for toys and cartoons. Spiegel and Schumacher confront Wallace over the profits they feel are owed to them, but the ruthless publisher tells them they’ve signed away all of their rights, and threatens to have them both drafted into the military if they try to fight him.

It’s strongly implied that Spiegal is somehow telepathically picking up knowledge about the real, slumbering Wesley Winston in the creation of the True-Man comic book stories. To make matters even stranger, when Wesley is later woken by Uppenheimer, the powerful being sees a True-Man comic book that belongs to Uppenheimer’s son, and this causes Willis to begin transforming into an actual real-life version of True-Man. It’s very strange and interesting how Veitch has Wesley and Spiegal influencing one another, back and forth.

If the names Spiegal and Schumacher sound familiar, it’s because they are VERY thinly disguised stand-ins for Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who in real life were exploited much the same way by DC Comics that Veitch’s fictional cartoonists are by Wallace, something Veitch readily owns up to in an interview with Jeremy Pinkham in The Comic Journal #175, published by Fantagraphics in 1995.

Veitch ultimately does reveal exactly how Wesley Winston / True-Man came into being. It’s a bit of a head-twister, and it bears a certain sort of resemblance to what he would later do with the long-awaited conclusion of his Swamp Thing time travel arc. I suspect that it was something that Veitch originally planned back in 1989, and when he quit the book he naturally assumed he’d never have a chance to do it, so instead he utilized something similar in The Maximortal, never expecting that he’d finally have a chance to conclude his Swamp Thing story in 2026.

There is one element of The Maximortal that I am not even going to pretend to understand. El Guano and his scatological-based powers are strange & disturbing. I really am unclear about what he is supposed to be and the role he plays in the story. It’s definitely one of the most bizarre elements of Veitch’s book.

Jumping back, or maybe I should say forward, to the satirical Brat Pack, Veitch sets the stage in Slumberg in the then-present day of 1990. True-Man, who has gone on to become the world’s most powerful hero, has mysteriously disappeared several years before. In his absence have arisen four costumed vigilantes: the Mink, Moon Mistress, King Rad and Judge Jury. This quartet of crimefighters are all decidedly twisted individuals, reveling in violence, acting as fascist bullies. And each of them has their own teenage sidekick: Chippy, Luna, Wild Boy and Kid Vicious, a quartet derisively referred to by the public as the Bratpack.

As the story opens, radio shock jock Neal Dennis is discussing the Bratpack, with numerous listeners calling in to express their view that these four teens ought to die in as violent a manner as possible. Veitch is clearly sending up the then-recent telephone poll held by DC Comics to decide if the second Robin, Jason Todd, a figure who many of the readership of the Batman series virulently hated, should live or die.

And then the Bratpack actually DO get killed, gruesomely blown to pieces by Doctor Blasphemy, a bizarre, leather-clad, fetishistic supervillain. Immediately public opinion does a complete 180, with the citizens of Slumberg mourning the Bratpack, and attempting to hang all of the blame for their deaths on Neal Dennis. Veitch does a good job as demonstrating just how fickle people can be, and how readily they are to shuck off blame for their own actions.

The Mink and his costumed colleagues immediately set out to find replacements for their teen sidekicks. As True-Man’s longtime friend Jack Critchet explains:

“Even vigilantes have to bow before a higher authority. I’m sure the names and likenesses of Kid Vicious, Wild Boy, Luna, and even Chippy are subject to licensing arrangements… Contracts are contracts. And everybody knows, the show must go on.”

Soon enough, the crimefighters find their replacements, and the four teenagers they select are subjected to a variety of mental, emotional, and physical abuse to shape them into a new Bratpack. That is especially the case with the new Kid Vicious, who is absolutely brutalized by Judge Jury, a virulent racist who flies around Slumberg on a giant flaming cross.

Veitch does some interesting storytelling in Brat Pack, cross-cutting between the four teenage protagonists in a series of double page spreads. His highly detailed black & white artwork with greytones really brings across the gritty horror of their experiences.

Brat Pack and The Maximortal are both works that are driven by anger and frustration. As Veitch explained to The Comics Journal:

“My experience at DC had soured me. After Swamp Thing #88, I wanted to tear the whole thing down. Bratpack was very much a scream of betrayal about my own personal feelings towards superheroes; how my childhood love of the form had been devoured by cynical businessmen…

“Bratpack for me was also a result of having a lot of problems digesting Reaganism. I guess a lot of people were. Vigilante archetypes were running rampant in the culture, pushed along by the needs of politicians. Fear, paranoia were the order of the day. We sent the army out to fight the war in the Gulf to lines taken from old Clint Eastwood movies.”

As a reader, I do feel that, ultimately, both Brat Pack and The Maximortal work better as creator-owned works than they would have if published by DC, even if it had been under one of their imprints like Piranha or Vertigo that allowed for more experimentation and social & political commentary. As released by Veitch initially through Tundra, and then later re-issued by his own Sun Comics imprint, Brat Pack and The Maximortal are totally unflinching. They are also free & clear the property of Veitch, something that no one can take away from him.

After the Bratpack miniseries was published, Veitch went back and redid some of the dialogue & artwork in the final chapter, changing the ending somewhat for the collected edition. That’s another benefit of it being a creator-owned property. I don’t know if it would have been possible for him to do a “director’s cut” if it had been a DC book.

I also feel that both The Maximortal and Brat Pack are even more relevant in the 21st Century than they were in the early 1990s. With Marvel Comics now owned by Disney, and DC the property of, well, whatever big conglomerate happens to own them this week, the superhero characters of the Big Two are, first and foremost, trademarks and copyrights to appear in big budget movies and to be licensed out, intended to make their corporate executives even richer, with the actual creators cut out of the majority of the action and still all too often cast aside when they’re no longer young & popular.

Veitch’s King Hell Heroica is a work in progress. As I understand it, book two, Boy Maximortal, was recently completed & collected, with Veitch currently working to complete books three and five.

I was able to order The Maximortal from Topos Too, a local independent book store near me on the Brooklyn / Queens border, and Brat Pack was in stock at Forbidden Planet in Manhattan. If there aren’t any good bookshops or comic book stores near you, though, then you can order the King Hell Heroica collections, along with a number of Veitch’s other books, from Power Pulp Comics. They’re also available on Amazon, if you want to go that route.

As I’ve said before in previous installments of It Came from the 1990s, the decade of the Nineties, despite its reputation for producing an enormous amount of crap, actually had a great deal of experimentation in it, especially with creator-owned comics becoming much more prevalent. I definitely classify Rick Veitch’s great work on King Hell Heroica as some of the best material of the decade.