Thursday, 18 October 2012

From Untold Tales Of Spider-Man to The Power Of Shazam; The Great Nineties Cancelled Comicbook Cavelcade

In which the blogger offers up a baker's dozen of much-missed, cruelly cancelled superhero comic-books from the Big Two and their associated imprints in the ten years leading up to the Millennium. Other publishers and genres will appear in a later list, from both before and since the year 2000. For the sake of brevity, what follows doesn't include the likes of mini-series, tenures which came to their intended close, media tie-ins, or interrupted runs by creative teams who were bumped from continuing titles.  The list begins with the most recently-cancelled title, and ends with the most distant termination. There's no order of preference beyond that;

        
1. Chronos , by John Moore, Paul Guinan et al (cancelled 1999)

 
2. The Power Of Shazam, by Jerry Ordway et al, (1999)

      
3. Sandman Mystery Theatre, by Matt Wagner, Guy Davies, Steven T Seagle et al (1999)

      
4. The Spectre, by John Ostrander, Tom Mandrake et al (1998)

    
5. Chase, by D Curtis Johnson, J.H. Williams et al (1998)

      
6. Untold Tales Of Spider-Man, by Kurt Busiek, Pat Olliffe et al (1997)


7. Static, by Dwayne McDuffie, Robert L. Washington III, John Paul Leon et al, (1997)

       
8. Green Lantern Mosaic, by Gerard Jones, Cully Hamner et al (1992)


9. Blood Syndicate, by Dwayne McDuffie, Ivan Velez Jr, Trever Von Eeden et al, 1996 (To be honest, I could have chosen any of the Milestone titles.)

     
10. Skrull Kill Krew, by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Steve Yeowell et al, 1996

     
11. Shade The Changing Man, by Peter Milligan, Chris Bachalo et al (1996)

      
12. Justice Society Of America, by Len Strazewski, Mike Parobeck et al, (1993)

     
13. Suicide Squad, by John Ostrader, Luke McDonnell et al, (1992)

As always, your own take on what should, and what shouldn't, have been included in the above would be welcome ...

And, should you have a moment to kill, why not visit the TooBusyThinking Tumblr too, the selective appeal of which I prefer to define as a marker of elite status ....
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36 comments:

  1. Ah Colin, as Cancelled Comic Cavalcades go, this is full of win (as the kids were saying two years ago).

    I never did get through my Skrull Kill Krew trade, mind - thanks for the reminder. As for the Milestone books, I was put off by the weird colouring technique they were so proud of - Murkyvisison, or something. I read an Icon trade later, and loved it anyway.

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    1. Hello Martin:- The SKK issues are masterpieces. They read like warm-ups for a series which never had the chance to develop before being cancelled. But they are fun, and the 2000AD roots in both writer's pasts come through.

      You're right about the Milestone colouring. Perhaps the weakest aspect of the comics was the design.(The covers weren't always as compelling as they should have been, for example.) But there was always something worth reading each issue for. And in a 90s where good superbooks were tough to find - it was not a good decade for the superbook - I was always glad Milestone was - briefly - there.

      Same for SKK. The title wouldn't have got close to a list of much-missed cancelled superbooks from any other decade. But in the 90s, it was a welcome breath of something other than papdom.

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  2. Reading the Skrull Kill Krew info page on Wikipedia is a dizzying experience, to say the least. Imagine trying to bring new readers up to speed with that kind of recap every few issues. And I'm going to hazard a guess that consensus could easily be reached that any untold tales featuring the Enforcers can stay untold without any significant outcry from readers. :)

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    1. Hello Comicsfan:- Actually, SKK is a remarkably easy comic to read :) Far easier than the Wiki page. A shame that it was cut from a series to a mini-series and then binned. It had a chance to be a truly out-there look at the MU, although it was still finding its feet when cut.

      I hate to disagree with you, but the Enforcers issue of UTOSM is worth the reading. In fact, the whole run of the book is splendid, with some of the issues being stone-cold, rather touching classics. I know, it doesn't sound too likely from 2012. But if you ever get a chance to read some issues, do take the opportunity. Rational expectations re; Fancy Dan and co will be confounded :)

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  3. Nice list, Colin. Shade the Changing Man was a particular favourite of mine. Watching Bachalo's art improve so quickly through the early issues was dizzying -- I think by the time the American Scream story was ending he was doing some of his best work. And that storyline, and its epilogue, is some of my favourite of Milligan's writing. Up there with Enigma and his run of X-Force. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

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    1. Hello Jody:- It is indeed memory lane, and yet, the 90s were such a rotten decade for the superbook that I do feel a sense of gratitude there were folks out there producing comics that I could enjoy. They kept getting cancelled, mind you. (And even when they sold; JSA was cut simply because members of the company didn't approve of older heroes and a decades-deep backstory.) That sense of gratitude for work well done certainly extends to Shade. I agree with everything you say about the book.

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  4. Suicide Squad:if they only released a showcase instead of a trade.




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    1. Hello H:- I absolutely agree. We've just had an Amethyst Showcase, so why not the Squad? Of all of the books of the period, it's the one I'd most enjoy seeing in a great thick door-stopper.

      Of course, in an ideal world, it's be a full-colour Omnibus/Archive edition. I'd buy it.

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  5. I agree 100% with you about Suicide Squad. Not only should there be a real good ongoing monthly Suicide Squad book being published now (unlike that tripe from the New 52) but we need a complete collected trade of the 80's series and maybe even the mini series that came afterwards. And yes also, why an Amethyst Showcase and not SS (and their excuse can't be because it could help promote the new Amethyst series since there's an ongoing SS series as well.)

    I gotta admit, Suicide Squad (along with Jonah Hex) is my favorite DC series and can't understand why no one at Warner Brothers haven't thought of coming up with a Suicide Squad TV series. It's a natural. They could pattern it off of the original Mission Impossible series where you have a core group of actors/characters and feature guest stars that would either be killed on missions or granted amnesty after missions. It wouldn't be that expensive to make and would be MUCH better than stuff like "Arrow" or "Smallville".

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    1. Hello Richard:- I try not to think about the current Suicide Squad book. In my opinion, it's a pig's ear of a book, and no-one involved emerges with a great deal of credit from the experience. Ah well, the wheel tends to eventually turn; if I could survive what happened to the DCU in the 90s, I can hold out for better books from what's now the New 52.

      I suspect the problem with the Squad as a movie property is that the rights to so many of the characters are tied up with individual franchises. But I do think your idea has a great deal of merit. Maybe one day ....

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  6. Another intriguing collection of comics, Colin! I apologize for the alliteration.

    I loved Suicide Squad, and Justice Society, and Man oh Man did I love Mosaic. To this day, I am sorry that they cancelled it, especially since it was one of the best books out there. John Stewart just hasn't been treated with as much respect, or attention to his characterization since.

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    1. Hello Sally:- I'm sure you've mentioned Mosaic before, and of course it would've been right down the alley of a GL connoisseur such as yourself.

      I'd love to see Mosaic collected in an all-in-one issue, but I wouldn't want to see it as part of an Omnibus. You'd have that rotten business of his blowing up a planet in Cosmic Odyssey too, and I wouldn't ever want to come within arm's reach of that dumb story again. You're right, he's badly treated over the years. Thankfully, the JLU take on him was presented with more dignity and consistency. He's not the John of Adams and O'Neil, Englehart and Staton etc, but he's still a splendid take on JS.

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  7. Chase, Shade and Chronos are the three on this strong list that I miss the most. Shade, at least, was allowed a strong, moving ending. The character Chase was given good play in Manhunter and is now in Batwoman. But Chronos was obviously wrapped up in a hurry and then the character was "eliminated from history" in the pages of JSA by Per Degaton.

    That bit always struck me as ludicrous. In the final issue of Chronos (the book), Walker Gabriel wipes himself from history in order to save his mother's life. Then, in JSA, Degaton claims to kill him by having him hit by a car a decade before he got his time-traveling powers. As Degaton tells this to him, we see a protesting Chronos seemingly fade to oblivion. What we should have seen next would have been a panel of Chronos appearing somewhen else, perfectly fine, and chuckling, Bugs bunny-style, "What a maroon!" I'd love for John Francis Moore to revive the character sometime.

    -mikesensei

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    1. Hello mikesensei:- You know, I either never read that eradication of Chronos from the DCU or I blanked it out in the trauma of it all. Whyever would GJ want to do that? Not only was Chronos a fascinating and endearing character, but he added a great deal to the DCU. JFM's stories were rich in comics lore as well as real-world history, and the book was an absolute pleasure from beginning to end. I seem to recall Grant Morrison having no trouble putting Chronos to use in DC 1 000 000. I wonder what GJ's objection was.

      What a daft waste. I suppose we'll never see a reprint of the 10 or so issues of Chronos, which is a real regret. It put just about every other DC book of the period to shame.

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  8. Static got good innings, at least - but what does it say that DC can't bring Static back after a popular cartoon? That's a major fail. Companies like Dynamite would kill to have a property like that. (And good ol' Wesley Dodds, the real world's greatest detective!)

    You could also fit in a depressing number of UK comics: Crisis, Deadline, Expresso, Dredd: Lawman of the Future, the Eagle IIRC, Buster*, Bunty...


    * Which had a brilliant final page showing how all the strips ended: Ivor Lot has gone bankrupt because he'd invested in Buster, Bobby's Ghoul has dumped him because he got old and she doesn't, Chalky the graffiti artist gets arrested for vandalism, and the ultimate one is a character with x-ray specs running into his optician: "Oi, I lent you those in 1979! I didn't say you could KEEP them!".

    - Charles RB

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    1. Hello Charles:- There's no way round suggesting the latest failure to keep a Static book alive was down to incompetence. Hack off his arm? Obtuse, angsty storytelling? Hardly any specific, convincing sense of culture and time? It's just another example of folks who weren't up to the job.

      And yes, Static should've certainly been being pushed off the back of the TV series. But then, he's a perfect example of a character who's both winning and a representation of difference perfect to broaden the appeal of the DCU. Yet what happens to him as a property? Sigh and pah ...

      I didn't know about the final issue of Buster. I do hope to get the chance to read that one day. Yes, I do intend to extend the Thursday Lists to include other genres. Yet I'm not sure I know nearly enough about UK comics to do justice to any period. Still, I'm working on catching up, and as part of that, I wonder if you saw the recent post at Pat Mills' blog about Misty?

      https://patmills.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/misty-the-female-2000ad/

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    2. So that's why it was called Misty! (I'm not sure why Pat thinks there weren't enough serials - the Misty's used to all be online and about three to four strips an issue were serials.)

      Quite why there's been no proper reprints - there's clearly a market, as Pat says - I don't know. Then again, this is Egmont and I had no idea what they were doing since they went "let's replace original strips in Sonic The Comic with reprints, THAT won't harm sales" (it did, so they put in MORE reprints....).

      - Charles RB

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    3. Hello Charles:- It's a great post, isn't it? Of course, everyone's memories starts to get confused even when their cognitive processes as quite normal when that amount of time passes. I wonder what I'd be able to recall accurately about the things I did more than thirty five years ago. I think I'd be able to remember that I was an absolute idiot, at best, but beyond that, it'd be untrustworthy-memoryland :)

      Which is not to suggest that PM would be so compromised. Just that I'm personally amazed at how much that's accurate folks can recall.

      On Sonic: ah, the old cost-cutting argument - if cost-cutting doesn't work, cut more costs and it surely will. That sounds a familiar argument in 2012 ....

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  9. Sandman Mystery Theatre, possibly my favorite series of all time. How I miss it.

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    1. Hello Rob:- I entirely agree. I used a single panel from SMT for my Tumblr a few weeks ago, and seeing it in that context brought the kind of wistful nostalgia which school photographs and old 7" picture sleeves do;

      http://colsmi.tumblr.com/post/30585706780/falling-in-love-is-the-simplest-form-of-social#notes

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    2. What I always loved best about the book was the nerd-rage evoked by the relatively cookie-cutter murder stories. Usenet posters would froth at the mouth about the repetitiveness of the mysteries (as if murder is not tragically banal and all too similar from case to case) while missing the point that this was a romance series masquerading as superheroics.

      James Robinson did not make this mistake, and that is why "Sand and Stars" is one of the highlights of Starman.

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    3. Hello Rob:- I'm glad I missed out on the frothing of Usenet posters. For you're quite right, SMT was indeed a love story, and its perhaps the most convicning romance that's ever been potrayed in what I'd still want to argue is a super-book.

      However, SMT is also a covert, partial history of the DCU too, and it has a tremendous appeal as that. When I try to put together my own personal history of that now-abandoned continuity, then the likes of SMT and Robinson's The Golden Age stand as cornerstones of the DCU I choose to believe to. What a terrible shame that DC never went for The Society. (I believe that was a proposed collaboration between Wagner and Robinson, though I stand to be corrected.) A potrayal of the JSA using the SMT approach would have been fascinating.

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    4. "cornerstones of the DCU I choose to believe"

      I'm glad I'm not the only person who does that. Mine's built more on Saga of the Swamp Thing and Seven Soldiers, but there's definitely an appeal to assembling, as you say, my own personal history of somebody else's fictional universe.

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    5. Hello Jody:- It's the folks who either want to hold to EVERYTHING or those who don't regard ANYTHING as having a particular worth that worry me. Picking and choosing a personal cannon in the face of 75 years of comics seems both expedient and a playful way of refusing to accept the validity of whatever the next big daft move from the industry is. I love to see the emperor's newest clothes in terms of being ill-judged fan-fic. It takes the sting out of the stupidity of what's often a parade of pap.

      I'd go with Saga Of Swamp Thing, which did such a great job of making sense of the darker side of the DCU while making sure it coexisted with the shiny superpeople side of things. Seven Soldiers I've not read since it came out; I know, I know, I really must do so. For me, it's the original - and only - Fourth World saga which shares top billing with Swampy in my own canon.

      Beyond that, everything tends to get vague and conditional :)

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  10. Big ups for Sandman Mystery Theatre. I discovered the series this year and have been enjoying reading my way through the trades.

    You also reminded me that I need to start on that run of Justice Society, which I was lucky to find at a garage sale this summer. I was familiar with Mike Parobeck from reading Batman Adventures as a kid, so it'll be interesting to see examples of his style when he's not following someone else's character designs.

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    1. Hello Matt:- How splendid to come across another admirer of SMT. It's heartening to realise that such good work has not only avoided being forgotten, but proven capable of gathering new readers as the years pass.

      Glad to hear that you've the JSA series before you. It's a gentle book which makes some worn-through characters full of potential fascinating again. The version of The Golden Age Atom in particular is a favourite of mine. That pretty much everything achieved in the book would be deliberately wiped away in Zero Hour is yet another example of how the superbook industry has so often failed to grasp its own achievements.

      Mike Parobeck's art is at its height in JSA. His swift, idiosyncratic rise from the hard-working and yet barely-pro work in El Diablo - which I'm still fond of - to JSA still amazes me. A much missed talent.

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  11. Here's how much I loved Shade, the Changing Man: I bought Carnage and the start of Red Lanterns because Milligan wrote them, already knowing he was turning in mediocre scripts at best. I just didn't want to miss out on the possibility of him putting something amazing in there. I later found more of his 2000AD work, which can be similarly sublime...
    I loved SMT, but at the same time have to sadly admit that I contributed to its demise, ending my subscription early. Of course, now I'm trying to track down those scarce issues, kicking myself each time I see what the prices of those issues are.
    As a possible addition, might I mention the Demon from DC, written by Garth Ennis, cancelled in 1995? I'm not saying that this was the best Ennis had to offer, but to me this book stood out from the other books of the time with his unique vision, and if nothing else, it was the basis of the origin for Hitman!

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    1. Hello Brian:- I too struggle to accept that Mr Milligan can EVER turn in a mediocre script, and despite all the recent evidence on the - sigh -New 52. In addition to the pleasures of Shade The Changing Man, I'd also offer the evidence of the vast majority of Bad Company, which is wonderful, wonderful work. Better yet - and I'm sure you know this - the whole strip's collected in one Rebellion Press edition.

      The Demon was on my list of probables for the above. As you say, not brilliant, but enjoyable. It came close to the final cut, it really did.

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  12. Oh, sorry, as an addition, based on your recommendation alone, I'll be hunting down Chronos and Chase. Hadn't heard much about either, so I'll be intrigued to find out what caused your heart to stir 20 years on about them.

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    1. Hello Brian:- I'd love to know what you think of them. For my money, they're splendid books. Even their DC 1 000 000 tie-in issues were great, and Event books are normally death for new titles. Chase manages to make the superhero part of the DCU truly disturbing, while Chronos is a very smart, sweetly respectful-to-the-DCU timetravel epic.

      Chase at least has all been collected in a TPB last year. There's the prequels from Batman in there too, but it's the series proper that really shines. The Suicide Squad two-parter which kicks the series off is particularly fine.

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  13. I loved many of the books you mentioned. JSA was particulary annoying as I originally thought it just failed to find an audience, but due to the internet now learn it was editoral fiat rather than anthing to do with the quality of the work. And it would have been worth buying for Parobecks art alons.

    Hawkworld is the other comic from the period I didn't feel got a fair shake. Ostrander is superb, and it's the only time I found Katar Hol to be an interesting three dimesional character.

    I haven't read any of the later JSA stuff, probably unfairly, as I prefer the versions of the characters that these titles made me love (i realise it's two diffrent Hawkmen)

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    1. Hello There;- The cancellation of the JSA because of certain folks belief that that's not what DC should be associated with DESPITE IT MAKING A PROFIT is such a bitter business to know about. DC has long made a business of butchering its own deep history in an attempt to grab a hip young audience. Crisis, Zero Hour, the New 52; well, now they really have stripped away the past ...

      I've written about the Hawkworld prestige series at Sequart this year, and it's a brilliant comic. I've also always expressed the same high opinion of the follow-up series as you have. I'm also fond of the story Mr Ostrander produced with Mike Parobeck for a magazine DC was producing for its younger readers back in the day. Lovely stuff, with a real political edge.

      Or, in short; you're right, I agree!

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  14. Haywire, Helfer's and Baker's The Shadow, The Question and Giffen's LSH are, at the top of my head, the ones that I mourn to this very day. And of course First Comics, but they might have folded at the end of the 80's, already, my memory is a bit fuzzy.

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    1. Hello CJ:- I know exactly how you feel about the decades. Until I went back and actually checked out what got cancelled and when, my recollection was all over the place. I too enjoyed Haywire and the Helfer/Baker Shadow; they both ended in 1989, although I only know that because I'm looking up dates for the 1980s installment in this series of posts. The Question was the fourteenth title in my list for the above and I probably should've dumped one of the Milestone titles for it. I especially liked the first year of issues on that run.

      First Comics were all-too-briefly a real pleasure to read, weren't they? I assure you, when I'm doing the 80s indy list, the likes of Nexus and the Badger will be there :)

      If I may, you have excellent taste, good sir.

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  15. I LOVED Untold Tales of Spider-Man (and loved how they held the price at 99 cents!), but was upset they never put out a second (and third) trade to complete the run. . . I see now that hardcover omnibus came out earlier this year, but 1) who has that kind of $ to spend? Esp. when 2) I already have the first 8 issues in the first trade?

    I lose track of series I liked that got cancelled, but I always fear it will happen when I really do like something (for example, I wonder how long Fraction's Hawkeye can last)

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    1. Hlelo Oyola:- I fear I did invest money I didn't have in the Untold Tales Omnibus. And a splendid if incredibly expensive volume it is too. With that in place, I can't imagine they'll ever finish the TPB reprints now, which I know will be a disappointment and a frsutration to your good self.

      You're frightened about Hawkeye? I understand that. I'm frightened about Young Avengers being cancelled and it hasn't even appeared in the comic shops yet!

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