Okay, I just read this weirdness and I had to talk about it. And I've got a lot to say about it, but bear with me.
First off, some history on the Silver Age of comics; specifically, what is the Silver Age of comics? Dating roughly from the late 40's to the late 60's, the Silver Age was partly defined by the activities of Dr. Frederic Wertham (the great asshole). A psychologist interested searching for the root cause of juvenile delinquency, Dr. Wertham (the great asshole) found that most, if not all, inmates at juvenile halls stated they had read comics at some point - which was kind of obvious, since comics were big during that time. It would be like asking today's kids if they had a Facebook account or watched YouTube. Nevertheless, a link was found, and Dr. Wertham (the great asshole) began crusading against comics, including those published by DC. The response was the creation of the Comics Code Authority, a set of rules created by comic publishers that would ensure censorship in their books. The removal of sexuality, drug use, and frightening images made the medium aggressively kid-oriented; i.e., more focused on the weird ideas than characters. This would change with Stan Lee and the Marvel revolution in 1962, but the early Silver Age would remain one of the strangest eras of storytelling in American comic books.
What does this have to do with anything? Well, some of those kids who read and loved the weirdness of the Silver Age that was largely swept under the rug as time went on grew up to become comic writers themselves. One such was Grant Morrison, who doesn't have a nickname so I'll just call him the Great Scottish Wonder. Morrison regularly incorporates Silver Age nostalgia into his stories, but reinvents them, infusing his own brand of strangeness and contextualizing them into the modern era. One such was 2005's meta-series, Seven Soldiers, which I just read and am pretty sure I liked it.
A reinvention of the Golden Age team the Seven Soldiers of Victory, Morrison's meta-series was made up of seven different miniseries, each one focusing on a member of the team, book-ended by single issues that opened and closed the story. The through-line of the stories was relatively simple for Morrison: aliens from the future called the Sheeda are preparing to attack Earth in the present, and each of our seven heroes has some encounter with them that puts them on the path to fighting back when the climactic invasion happens. Sort of. It's complicated, but in a clever way. The weirdness of it comes from the specific characters stories, which I will explain to you, because hey, that's what I'm here for:
Shining Knight (art by Simone Bianchi): The Silver Age Shining Knight was Sir Justin, a knight from King Arthur's court, displaced from time into the future who went on to be a superhero. The new version is a bit more interesting. He's still a Sir Justin of Camelot, but a more Celtic Camelot than the Medieval version we're familiar. See, according to Morrison, Camelot exists in cycles; if one is destroyed, it's only a matter of time (in this case, some 8000-odd years) before another comes up. And yes, Celtic Camelot does get destroyed by, who else, the Sheeda. Sir Justin (or Sir Ystin, as it were), escapes by invading the Sheeda's floating fortress, Castle Revolving, and winds up thrown through time into the future, where he deals with the loss of everyone he knew and loved, but resolves to continue fighting the Sheeda nonetheless.
It's not the most original story, but it's still well done and has an interesting subplot (involving a magical, life-renewing cauldron falling into the hands of a Los Angeles crime boss) that winds up tying into the rest of the series. Plus there's a hell of a character revelation about Ystin in issue 3. Really a great way to kick off the event.
Manhattan Guardian (art by Cameron Stewart): This was probably my favorite of the minis, as it balanced the strangeness with a good character focus. Our protagonist is Jake Jordan, a former Cinderella City cop (don't worry, it's just New York). Jake, despondent over the circumstances of losing his job, accepts a new position as a reporter and superhero, employed by a major metropolitan newspaper (think of it like if the Daily Planet paid Superman for saving the city, as well as Clark Kent for writing about it). From there, Jake fights the Subway Pirates of Manhattan (you have to read it to believe it), as well as learns about his boss's history with the kid supergroup, the Newsboy Army of Nowhere Street. It's strange, but doesn't distract from Jake's personal heroes journey and introduces characters who pop up later in the series. Plus, Subway Pirates of Manhattan. You gotta love those freaks.
Zatanna (art by Ryan Sook): This was probably my least favorite of the minis, as I just wasn't interested in the story, which is a shame because I like the hero. Zatanna Zatara is easily the most famous character here, a stage magician who moonlights as a genuine sorceress, who has been a member of the Justice League for some time. Here, her story involves Zatanna going through a "magic addiction", in which she begins relying on using magic to solve everyday problems, which leads to her misusing her powers and endangering herself and others (really it's a confidence issue, as it relates to the circumstances of the previous story Identity Crisis, but whatever). She takes a break from using magic, but decides to take on an apprentice, teenage sorceress Misty Kilgore. From there, things...happen, I think. I dunno, I feel like I might've missed a lot of the story on the first readthrough (including Misty's entire backstory, which figures in heavily with the Sheeda and has something of an impact at the end of the story). Still, the art was trippy and cool and the story eventually crosses over into others in a neat way.
Klarion the Witch Boy (art by Frazier Irving): Klarion's...an interesting one; a complete, top-to-bottom reinvention of an old character. The original Witch Boy was a Jack Kirby-created villain, an adolescent sorcerer whose unchecked id caused problems for Etrigan the Demon and occasionally other DC heroes. The new Klarion is more heroic (at least at first); a citizen of Limbo Town, a lost tribe of Puritans living underneath New York who maintain 17th-century styles and traditions, save for their worship of the witch-god Croatoan. Klarion, like little mermaids before him, is fascinated from afar by the wonders above ground and seeks to explore the outside world. However, the strict laws of his home prevent him from going to the surface. He gets his opportunity when the Sheeda begin to invade Limbo Town, and the chaos allows Klarion to escape and begin his exploration.
This series is mixed for me; Morrison's problems in storytelling rears its head when off-screen events don't get a proper explanation, but the high points of the series are very high points; I especially like the poignancy of Klarion's wide-eyed amazement at seeing something as common and pedestrian as a candy bar wrapper. Frazier Irving's moody, expressive style adds an element of creepiness to the book, which actually works really well and makes Limbo Town seem safe and familiar when compared to the outside world.
Mister Miracle (art by Pascal Ferry): The original Mister Miracle was escape artist and superhero Thaddeus Brown, who eventually died and passed the mantle onto someone else: alien who looks like a white guy Scott Free (yes, that's his name, and there's a reason for it). Scott's part of the Fourth World, a pair of planets constantly at war with each other: New Genesis and Apokolips (guess which one's the bad guys). Our third Miracle and the star of the series is Shilo Norman, Thaddeus Brown's assistant who uses Scott Free's technology in his escape artist act. During his latest stunt - escaping from the event horizon of a black hole - Shilo meets Metron of New Genesis, a character whose entire purpose is to pop in, say "Crap's about to go down", then leave. From there, Shilo learns that the war of the Fourth World ended, and evil won. Darkseid, the tyrannical ruler of Apokolips, found the Anti-Life Equation and turned all the Fourth Worlders into humans, with the heroes of New Genesis as a group of homeless people and the warriors of Apokolips as a crime syndicate. Shilo is instructed to become the spirit of freedom his predecessor was, but soon finds himself caught up in the machinations of Boss Dark Side and his forces.
As a series Miracle, is only tangentially related to the overall Sheeda-invasion. Really, it's about Shilo coming to term with the idea of being involved in an ages-old intergalactic war that's come to Earth, but this feels incongruous, since superheroes are well established by now in the Earth of DC and their weirdness is sort of mundane by now, but beyond that arbitrary skepticism, the story comes off as kind of uninteresting. The idea of the Fourth World on Earth turns out to be pretty cool, but Shilo Norman himself is a bit bland. Still, it's very atmospheric and creepy, and has some cool ideas to it.
Bulleteer (art by Yanick Paquette): The original Bulletman and Bulletgirl were a husband-and-wife superhero team from WW2, first published by Fawcett Comics in the Golden Age. The new Bulleteer is a soap box for Grant Morrison to cry foul at the objectification of female superheroes...while simultaneously drawing its protagonist as sexy in every panel she's in. It's weird.
Lance Harrower is a scientist working on creating "smart skin", a chemical process which would make the user invulnerable and super-strong. His wife Alix, being a rational human being, thinks it would have good military applications, but Lance wants to become a superhero, as, in his mind, superheroes stay young and beautiful forever (he's not completely wrong, but still). Lance tests smart skin on himself (as you do), and passes the power to Alix. Lance dies, but Alix survives, with a batch of superpowers and a fresh coat of metallic skin to boot. Since she can't go back to her old job looking like a robot, Alix decides to go into superheroing for profit, adopting her late husband's costume design and becoming Bulleteer, superpowered bodyguard. Also, eventually there's superhero porn involved.
Bulleteer ends up being one of the better stories. Alix is a compelling character and her story is tragic and human. The artwork is really strong, and a lot of the side characters are interesting, especially once we get to the superhero convention. Despite the confusion of its message, Bulleteer is a strong character piece and a lot of fun to read.
Frankenstein (art by Doug Mahnke): Our hero Frankenstein (it's the creature but he named himself after his creator) has devoted his non-life to the destruction of the Sheeda, and will travel to the ends of the Earth and beyond to accomplish this goal, all the while waxing poetically and chopping people up with his big-ass sword. He also gets help from his former Bride and the Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive (or S.H.A.D.E., DC's answer to S.H.I.E.L.D.). And...that's about it. Frank finds some Sheeda activity on Earth, goes to it, kicks some ass while monologuing, leaves, then does the same thing for three more issues. And it works.
A big help here is Mahnke's artwork. His ultra-detailed style brings the gruesome horror up a notch, which works when your main character's a corpse. The writing, however, can get wearying; a lot of the Sheeda's weirder ideas like Nebula Man, the Red Place, or the maggots get very wordy explanations for what they are and what they do, and Frank's monologues sometimes feel redundant. Still, the unstoppable badass of Frankenstein shines through, and makes this series worth remembering.
So that was Seven Soldiers, a strange journey to the heart of things Grant Morrison thinks are cool. There's some hits and some misses, but overall its a fun batch of characters with unique stories and a lot of great artwork to boot. Check it out if you get the chance, but maybe bring a cheat-sheet. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time!
