12 days of Classic Christmas #11


Flash #1 (1987)
Mike Baron/ Jackson Juice/Larry Mahlstedt


I have always liked the concept of the Flash, but always thought the Barry Allen version to really be bland and boring. When they started a new Flash series using Wally West I thought it might be a little better. Boy was I wrong, It was a Lot better. Flash #1-18 is my favorite run of the any series involving a Flash Character. A real transition from his Kid Flash status is made in the very first pages when he is celebrating his 20th birthday with the Teen Titans and the book takes off from there. During the run, Wally has real world situations and an active sex life , which made it all a nice read. He was a young guy with hermones raging and it showed in his behavior. Great dialogue from Baron really makes this comic stand out for me. I know many are fond of the Later Mark Waid and Geoff Johns runs but for me, this will always stand out as THE Flash.
He is handed the mantle of the Flash because of the COIE events. This is one of the good side effects of that series , among the bad.


Other reasons This issue stands out for me :

He is only able to run at 700 Mph, tops.

He has to eat incredible amounts of calories in order to maintain his strength.

He shows real world sensibilities by negotiating with a hospital for free health insurance in exchange for transporting a heart.

And , Oh yeah, he hits the Lotto.


That uncomfortable feeling when Wally asks for Health insurance for helping them out

11. Ravage 2099 #1 Dec. 1992
Written by: Stan Lee
Penciller: Paul Ryan




Plot: Paul-Phillip Ravage, CEO of ECO, is framed for murder, and forced to go on the run from the corporate cops of Alchemax. We get introduced to Dack, who seems like he could be a sidekick, but never appears agao, and Tiana, who would be Ravage's actual sidekick/love interest for the rest of the series. 

Why I picked it:  Y'all know I'm a 2099 fan (hence the profile pic).   2099 started in comics just as I did, I was pretty excited when not only was there a new universe starting up for me to get in on, but Stan Lee was creating it!   I was super excited.  Of course, the comic itself isn't all that great, it's starts out as an enviornmental parable, but quickly becomes a Wolverine clone.  I really like the early art though (Paul Ryan)

What I really liked was the idea of a spin-off future Marvel Universe.   At first, they did a great job creating new character for it.. Ravage was all original, Miguel O'Hara was pretty different as Spidey, and the X-Men, while still mutants, had no relation to the current ones other than the name.   Then there's Doom, who was just awesome.   ON top of that, they had GREAT creators... I quickly realized I liked PAD and Warren Ellis (though the latter has since gone of the rails, IMO)... it was really the first time I paid attention to creators, to be honest.

I think it all went off the rails when they tried to tie it to the present with the Fantastic Four, and started killing people off (just like the Ultimate universe, incidently... no lesson learned).  Of course, Hulk and Ghost RIder were pretty medicore, too, but that's another story.

Historic Significance:  Ravage was the last Stan Lee creation at Marvel, as many know.  Funny, I know I'm not the only fan out there, (since there's now a new Spidey 2099 book) but 2099 really only lasted 4 years... maybe 5 if you count the horrendous 'World of Tomorrow' series.

11. Batman #428 (DC 1988)




While Starlin's "A Death in the Family" storyline was clumsy, in poor taste, and generally a mess that never should have happened, I feel quite differently about this climactic chapter, in which Starlin, having fulfilled his agenda of gleefully and unapologetically killing off the kid sidekick concept, stands back, hangs his head, and pays respect to what he's just destroyed.

I was eight when this was published. I knew little about comics and cared even less when my mother, hearing the media buzz about the death of Robin, immediately drove my best friend and I out to the neighborhood stationary store, handed us $2, and demanded we both buy a copy of the book. I clearly remember the impression that book left on me; not just that brilliant Mignola cover where you can almost literally see the life leaving Jason Todd's body in a moment of white shock, but the gorgeous pacing of the book as Starlin allows Aparo's visuals to grieve for the boy wonder at the pace of an awkward funeral, Starlin's dialogue seeming to understand when to come in and when to let the gravity of the situation weigh on the reader in silence.

In fact, for me, the big moment of shock wasn't finding Jason dead. We already knew that was coming. Really, it's the before and after. The before being when Batman finds his mother -- the grim reality of Aparo's pencils as she uses her last breaths to finally give the kid no one wanted (especially not the fans, and especially not her) the epitaph he deserved ("He turned out to be such a good kid...he's much better than I deserve"), and the after being that final hug Bruce gives to Jason's dead body.





Hyped event or not, this installment is still tremendously touching, and it's probably the single comic I've gone back and re-read the most often in my life.

And, at the age of eight, I got it. I didn't understand a lot of what had occurred, why Jason and his mother had been blown to bits, and I'm not even sure I understood that this wasn't the original Robin or where this replacement kid had come from, but I got the emotion; I was moved.

My friend didn't want his copy, so I got two, and though this was not the impetus that drove me to collecting comics (the writing still felt far too dense/mature/inaccessible for me), I respected these books. Yes, I knew they were supposed to be collectors' items, which was why my mother made me buy them, but they were special to me now too; they'd elicited a feeling from me that nothing else in my eight year old world had offered. I clearly remember having these plastic drawer cabinets my parents had bought me and having nothing of importance to put in them. Each drawer was devoted to anything I could find to put in it. There was literally one reserved for a sheet of Babe Ruth stamps my mother had bought me, but I clearly remember my two copies of Batman #428 had the third drawer from the top, and that was the drawer that got opened most often in the year before I actually started collecting comics and, soon after, had bags, boards, and a box for those two cherished copies.

Let's flash forward from 1982 to 1985 for the Second Day of CCF Chrtistmas 2014:

Number 11
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #262



Year of Release: March 1985
Written & Drawn by: Bob Layton Jr.

Synopsis:  Peter Parker is caught with his mask off, literally by a sleazy photographer, Jake "Dirty Jake" Jones.  Spider-Man goes off and tries to chase down Jones to get his roll of film back.  Along the way, Jones ticks off some local mafioso goons and Spider-Man has to now defend Jones and get the film back.  A decent script by Layton, and solid pencils by Mr. Iron Man himself.



Why This Is A Classic:
As a 9 year old (almost 10) DubipR, I was engulfed in Saturday morning cartoons, tons of G.I. Joe toys and cartoons and cap guns.  As I was slowly buying comics off the local 7-11 spinner rack, my brother was selling subscriptions of magazines for his class.  I asked my mom if she would order me some comics and she said pick two..and I did.  G.I. Joe, as I mentioned above and Spider-Man; loved the 60s theme song, and loved Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends.  So mom and dad place an order for those 2 titles to come in the mail. Of the two books, this was the first to come via mail subscription.  And a great book to start off with.  First off.. it's a photo cover!  Hokey Smokes Bullwinkle!  It blew my 9 year old mind that they took an actual photo of Peter Parker!  I remember seeing the comic on the kitchen table when I came home from school with the rest of the mail.  The comic, packaged in a thin brown paper slip cover, that now a days, would've freaked the crap out of a collector... dings everywhere, etc.  But I didn't care!  It was Spider-Man..coming to me via the postal service 12 times a year..  I ran upstairs and read that book, over and over and over.  Yes, I had other Spider-Man books from what I bought at the 7-11, but this was from the subscription service that was mailed from the Marvel offices.  I had a Spider-Man subscription from 1985 to 1990.. while I got some infamous issues, getting that first one makes it a classic.

This next entry is as classic a send off for a character as I can think of, and is the epitome of 70's Marvel, and one of my favorite characters.

Jim Starlin was one of those great 70's creators whose work had a high power energy and freshness that was kind of Kirby-esque and boldly threatened everything you knew about the Marvel Universe.

I had read Warlock but was kind of confused by it but impressed with Starlin.  When I found my first comic shop, Dragon's Lair in Omaha, my first mission was completing my Miller Daredevil run and then getting Starlin's Captain Marvel.

I loved everything about Mar-Vell.  Even Rick Jones worked ok here.

and then the year was 1982 and Big Jim Shooter releases the platimun new format inspired by those high-brow Europeans and it rocked my world :



Mar-Vell is at the end and it's cancer.

Who doesn't know someone who has died from cancer ?

It was so moving too.  My brother and I both teared up reading this and read it repeatedly despite our little fingerprints showing on the glossy pages we weren't used to at the time.

Beautiful, oversized, but expensive ($5.95 !  That was the equivalent of 10 comics), and a poignant and fitting sending off to one of my favorite characters.

This has been one of Marvel's perennials and with good reason.

11. Marvel Two-In-One #51



Synopsis: A superheroic poker game is interrupted by an assault on the SHIELD helicarrier.

Why I picked it: Oddly, this was one of the first comics I thought of on learning the topic for this year's 12 Days. But I cannot give you any deep reason for my choice. It has no particular emotional attachment. It was not significant in my comic collecting history. It is certainly not a masterpiece. The reason is that I like it: as simple as that.

Something about this issue just appeals to me. It always makes me smile. The plot is not overly serious, but is not a parody either. We get some great scenes of the heroes just chilling, alongside some great action sequences (drawn by Frank Miller before he went insane). The banter sparkles (kudos to writer Peter B. Gillis).

So whenever I need reminding that my beloved superhero comics do not need to be angst-ridden doomfests, and can simply be fun, this is the book I will turn to.

11. Blankets
by Craig Thompson
July, 2003 (Top Shelf)



I originally had no intention of including OGNs here, but I realized things I actually had read in single issue format was basically limited to superhero comics. For everything else, I've favored trades.

In 2003, I had graduated college, but had still not particularly expanded my comics tastes. I read more than superheroes now, but not much. A lot of Vertigo output. And I'd followed some of my favorite superhero writers to non-superhero projects. But not too much radically different.

I owe a lot of my taste expansion to a man named James Sime. Back when I was working in a comic store in college, he worked in the store a few blocks away. His store was not very good and I think he knew this. During a time I had quit my job at the comic store (I quit the job quite frequently, but always ended up back there and was working it the day it closed) he took my place. He and my boss were a poor fit together; I was better at not proposing new ideas and my boss was a creature of habit. James introduced me to the First Comics in our quarter bins, Grimjack and Jon Sable, for example. He did not work in the store long. His old boss down the road was closing up shop and he decided to buy the place and run things his way. He made a new store out of it, which eventually changed its name and moved to a better location. It is now Isotope Comics and has become quite famous, as comic stores go. He did what my boss had never been interested in: events. Bringing in creators to promote their work, complete with generous helpings of alcohol. At one of these, my brother had picked up True Story, Swear to God and gotten it signed by creator Tom Beland. Not my brother's usual fare. Or mine. I read his copy and loved it.

I should explain that I'm a big fan of stories. I definitely approach comics as a storytelling medium and stories are what I love. Realism in stories never mattered too much and it sometimes made me skeptical, afraid that story would necessarily get sacrificed in the name of realism. What I liked about True Story was that it was basically a fairy tale. The fact that the events depicted actually happened did not manage to harm the magical nature of the story one iota. And it began to help me appreciate that good stories could be found in lots of places.

Tom Beland returned to the store for an event in 2003 or so, and there I met him, being able to tell him I loved his book. I had a couple questions for him. The first was about Batman. He mentioned in the comic his favorite book being Dark Knight Returns, which had reinforced my impression that I was only person on earth who thought Year One was the superior Miller Batman work. I asked him about this, and he said that as he'd grown older, he'd come to prefer Year One as well. This pleased me. I also asked him what his favorite romance comic was. And he told me Blankets. So I picked it up.

And to these comics I think I owe eventually reading comics like Persepolis and Fun Home and other masterpieces.

Blankets is a comic I have now read a few times, simply beautiful in its illustration. It tells the story of the author reconciling his feelings toward his first girlfriend with his strict Chrisitan upbringing. While Catholic, my upbringing was hardly strict about religion. But the sexual repression inherent in Christianity and really in all of America still invaded my psyche, so I like many can relate to the emotions of the book. A confusing time in a person's life made more confusing by screwed-up sex-demonizing values lurking beneath the surface of our culture. It's open, honest, beautiful in both words and illustrations, and finds within its author's own life, a compelling story which wrestles with important complex issues.

Craig Thompson would later create Habibi, about the bond between two escaped child-slaves in the Arabic world of yesteryear, a work where every page has such poetic beauty, that no description of mine would do it justice.