This month, Rand Bellavia takes a look at his growing longbox, and reflects on comics released in May 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015!

Rand Bellavia is back to share his fond memories of decades of comic collecting and reading in this month’s Random Access Memory.

May 1980

Cerebus 16

This issue takes place in that brief moment after it was clear that Cerebus was excellent, but before there was any real indiction of what a massive story Dave Sim was going to tell. In other words, at this point, Cerebus was “merely” a great comic book.

In this issue, Cerebus attends a costume party in an attempt to save Lord Julius from a mystery assassin.

Lord Julius is an early example of how Sim would cast Cerebus with his favorite celebrities, in this case Groucho Marx. Eventually the assassin in revealed in a manner that is humorous in and of itself, but also plays with the tropes of these sorts of stories.

The Bad Guy is dispatched quickly — avoiding the requisite fight scene — giving an early sign that Cerebus is not your standard heroic comic book protagonist.

Comics I Read From May 1980

Amazing Spider-Man 207
Avengers 198
Captain America 248
Epic Illustrated 2
Marvel Premier 55
Marvel Team-Up 96
Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 45
Untold Legends of the Batman 2
Uncanny X-Men 136

May 1985

Swamp Thing 39

As we begin the “American Gothic” storyline in earnest, the horror aspect of the book gets ratcheted up even more than usual. This is the second issue of a two-part story involving underwater vampires. We spend a lot of time with five people who are looking for their missing children.

It doesn’t end well for any of them.

Meanwhile, Swamp Thing is underwater, bearing witness to the birth (and rapid death) of the vampire’s offspring.

This creature turns his attention to Swamp Thing, and that doesn’t go so well, either.

Having recently learned that he can leave his body and regrow it elsewhere, Swamp Thing takes the opportunity to grow himself bigger so he can redirect running water, and destroy the vampires.

The aquatic vampires safely dispatched, Constantine makes his appearance, and lets Swamp Thing know that there’s a larger story unfolding, and that things are going to get worse before they get better.

Comics I Read From May 1985

Alien Legion 8
American Flagg 25
Avengers 258
Badger 7
Cerebus 74
Cloak and Dagger 2
Conan the King 30
Crisis on Infinite Earths 5
Defenders 146
Dreadstar 19
Gargoyle 4
Mage 7
Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu 3
Moonshadow 3
Nexus 12
Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 105
Secret Wars II 2
Time Beavers
Uncanny X-Men 196
Vigilante 20
Web of Spider-Man 6
Zot 9

May 1990

Why I Hate Saturn

Piranha Press was a noble experiment from DC that resulted in at least one comics masterpiece. Reading Why I Hate Saturn in 1990, I found myself thinking “Why isn’t Kyle Baker writing television comedy?” Rereading it in 2020 I find myself thinking, “Clearly, everyone writing television comedy since 1990 has read Why I Hate Saturn.”

The first two acts of the story are pretty down-to-earth — mostly just characters talking entertainingly with one another. The quality of Baker’s art guarantees that this never gets boring to look at.

One innovation on Baker’s part is to design the pages and block the panels so that the dialog can go above the art. This not only saves him the hassle of drawing lines that are eventually going to be covered by text balloons, but also allows us to enjoy the art fully while simultaneously solving the “What order do I read the balloons in?” literacy problem that many comics present to new readers. (Piranha Press was aimed at “adult” readers who weren’t necessarily into comics.) In subsequent graphic novels, Baker would eliminate balloons and dialog tails entirely, relying on the blocking to make it clear who was speaking in the dialog boxes above each panel.

Friends Anne and Rick are young writers living in New York City. Like most sitcom characters, a shocking amount of their time is spent complaining about their lives and sharing their entertaining observations about the world around them.

Also like most sitcom character, if you met these two in real life you would find them insufferable, but they are surprisingly engaging and attractive on the comics page.

Sometime after this conversation, Anne gives herself a makeover, and sitcom hilarity ensues:

Turns out that Rick isn’t nearly as smooth when the stakes are a little higher.

And, it turns out Anne isn’t much better.

Rick has been asked to make his column more Black, even though almost no Black people read the magazine he’s working for. As he says, “Black music is in, Black culture is in, but Black people will never be in.”

By the third or fourth scene like this, we’re all asking the same question. To put you out of your sitcom misery: Yes, they will.

Then, about halfway through the book, we meet Anne’s sister Laura, who is convinced that she is the “Queen of the Leather Astro-Girls of Saturn,” and dresses the part.

The third act takes a pretty drastic turn into action-adventure:

At the very end, we return to normal life, just in time for Anne and Rick to break up. (They remain friends.)

May 1995

Invisibles 10

The first four issues of the Invisibles were all about Jack Frost’s initiation. The next five issues showed Jack’s first assignmen with his Invisibles cell — a time-traveling adventure that also laid out the philosophical underpinnings of the series. This issue — the first of thee single-issue stories that show us the larger world of the Invisibles — introduces Jim Crow, an ally from another cell, who is also a member of the Root Doctaz, a Voodoo Trip Hop band.

Like most of the Invisibles, this is all Peak Grant Morrison: we get a solid critique of colonialism, then jump right into Cybergnosis, presented as if this was an idea that we were all already familiar with.

Next we learn that the bad guys have manufactured a new form of crack cocaine:

The oppressors are remote-controlling the poor, using their dead Black bodies to rape and murder. (I assure you that 25 years ago, this was all much less on the nose.) Of course, Jim Crow will have none of this.

As you might hope, things don’t work out so well for the bad guys.

“Let the punishment fit the crime…”

Comics I Read from May 1995

Amazing Spider-Man 403
Aquaman 10
Batman/Two Face: Crime and Punishment
Books of Magic 14
Cerebus 194
Dark Horse Presents 97
Druid 3
Flash 103
Goddess 2
Hellblazer 91
Impulse 4
Incredible Hulk 431
Madman Comics 7
Maxx 15
Peepshow 7
Preacher 4
Sandman 69
Shade the Changing Man 61
Starman 9
Swamp Thing 156
Tank Girl: The Odyssey 2
Underwater 3

May 2000

Punisher 3

It’s no secret that Garth Ennis is not a fan of super-heroes. For the most part he avoids them, but whenever a character he writes (Punisher and Hitman being the most obvious examples) is forced to interact with super-heroes, they aren’t treated very well. (Superman being the exception that proves the rule.) While he is certainly having fun here, this is also an excellent example of how Garth Ennis uses the obligatory cross-over issue (in this case, the Punisher running into Daredevil) to critique the concept of the super-hero.

Frank has Matt at his mercy, and instead of killing him (or just walking away) he sets up a preposterously elaborate ethical discussion.

Frank explains the experiment to Matt:

Matt’s counterargument shows that they are approaching things from entirely different perspectives with almost no common pre-conceptions.

The primary difference between a super-hero trying to do good and a soldier at war is that the soldier doesn’t get to determines the rules. Matt’s insistence that Frank has a choice — while true — is immaterial, as Matt can only respond to the choice Frank has already made, just like Frank can only respond to the choices that Dino has made (and — importantly for Frank’s argument — will continue to make unless Frank stops him).

But of course this was an object lesson, not a needlessly complicated suicide plan.

May 2005

Seven Soldiers: The Guardian 2

I mentioned this issue in passing a while back when discussing Grant Morrison’s anxiety of influence, but let’s dive in for a closer look. In this series Morrison creates a world of Subway Pirates, with two “main” pirates fighting for control of the Proud Nations Underground.

In case you’re not tracking the metaphor, this is all about comics. All-Beard is Alan Moore, reigning king of the under-pirates, and No-Beard is Grant Morrison, the slightly younger, slightly cooler new pirate on the block. And just like in real life, the guys are famous underground but almost no one in the real world has ever heard of them.

If you’re a comics fan, the feud between Moore and Morrison is pretty entertaining — even important. But in the “real world,” it’s just a slap-fight among junkies, bums, and losers. Also, False-Beard has got to be Stan Lee, right?

And tell me that doesn’t look just a little too much like Alan Moore. Sounds a bit like him, too…

One of No-Beard’s followers is mortally wounded, and uses his last breath to put No-Beard in his place:

This is as autobiographical (and satisfying) as when the aliens told Sandy Bates that they liked his “earlier, funnier movies” in Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories.

Of course, No-Beard and All-Beard must fight it out!

So: No-Beard = Grant Morrison. All-Beard = Alan Moore. The Proud Nations Underground = Comics. Six-Sided God Machine = Dice.

But who won, and what did he win?

Pretty grim assessment, Grant.

May 2010

Batman and Robin 12

In this issue Damian Wayne confronts Talia al Ghul, making it clear just how much he has changed since meeting his father.

Talia introduces Damian to his clones. He is less than enthused.

It’s clear to both that their relationship is irrevocably shattered.

Meanwhile, Batman (i.e., Dick Grayson) has a confrontation of his own, with the mysterious Oberon Sexton.

Damian thought Oberson might be Bruce, but Dick knows better.

Even fans of Morrison’s New X-Men run didn’t see this one coming.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 2

While we were following the adventures of Dick and Damian as Batman and Robin during Bruce’s absence, this series followed Bruce as he worked his way through time to get back home.

This issue Superman, Green Lantern, Booster Gold, and Rip Hunter travel to the end of time and find an engagingly creepy dude waiting for them. Strap in for some patented Grant Morrison-style Science Fiction Nonsense.

We get a lot of Morrison’s Greatest Hits, including perennial favorite “we exist inside of a comic book.”

Oh, and remember that engagingly creepy dude?

Bruce has been working his way forward in time (and has so far made it from CaveBatman to PilgrimBatman), but — thanks to time moving laterally as well backward and forward — he’s also been waiting for his friends at the end of time.

And because Batman thinks of everything, it all works out just fine.

May 2015

Material 1

Ales Kot unleashed two fascinating comics simultaneously. The Surface was a four-issue mini-series. Material was a much longer story that abruptly ended after four issues. I still suffer.

Material follows three (unconnected? we’ll never know) characters: a film director who — having found his muse — sets out to make his masterpiece, a young man recently released from Guantanamo Bay who struggles to adjust back to life as a free man, and college professor — and Marxist theorist — Julius Shore.

Shore argues that the acceleration we are experiencing come at the price of our imagination.

He points to the existential and social malaise that results from living in a world without an authority to appeal to. How can one win (or even have) an argument if the participants no longer recognize the same presuppositions or accept any judgement as final?

(The answer to Shore’s question is Now Punisher knocks Daredevil out.)

After class, Shore has an interesting online encounter.

Apparently a big step toward AHI involves developing a sense of humor.

Whether this is a hacktivist or an actual AHI, it’s got a point:

Thinking that you’re not part of the problem simply because your participation in consumer culture is more intellectual (art, ideas) than physical (cars, property) doesn’t really absolve you, does it?

It’s all stuff.

RANDom Access Memory – May 2020

May 1980