Kamandi
As part of The New 52, DC has relaunched O.M.A.C., One Man Army Corps, a Jack Kirby created character who’s seen varying degrees of popularity depending on which incarnation it is--the original “regular Joe turned militaristic super monster,” or the more recent futuristic symbiotic cyborg agents used by Checkmate. The new series, helmed by Dan Didio and Keith Giffen, is choosing to follow the route of the former. Marketed almost exclusively as a Jack Kirby love letter, the new O.M.A.C.’s first issue featured dozens of shocked, screaming faces and its fair share of wide action panels of the O.M.A.C. monster displaying hilarious strength. Despite being very fun and kinetic, O.M.A.C. does fall a bit short in the plot department, especially in the context of the thicker feeling of a lot of the new line from DC.
I was introduced to Kamandi first in Final Crisis (not much of an introduction) and then Wednesday Comics. I had heard the comparisons to Prince Valiant, I fell in love with its old-timey futuristic sensibility at first sight. Silver age comics are lost on the younger crowd; we didn’t grow up with these comics, and they aren’t celebrated as much anymore compared to more seminal works from The Dark Knight Returns and The Watchmen up through Arkham Asylum and The Authority. The Kirby stuff is always referenced at the cons but fun, light hearted, straight forward stories of humanity through more optimistic, wish-dreaming eyes are either held up as the best the medium has to offer or childish play things we’ve grown out of, the types of toys not to be seen playing with once your old enough to drive.
I have noticed what I believe to be a concerted effort at DC to put more content and more plot in the monthly books. Though there are exceptions, the amount of splash pages and needless retelling of the plot have decreased. The grand story telling expressed in Kamandi would be a good companion to this new content model. Kamandi has the ability to reach out to outsider fans, offering more classical, romantic stories filled with medieval imagery and breathtaking action scenes and lost love. A writer on caliber with Paul Cornell could work wonders with this story telling platform.
It’s obvious Dan Didio and company want to bring back some Jack Kirby concepts, and for the moment they’ve chosen the massive O.M.A.C. along with the New Gods appearing to be involved with the new Justice League. As the replacement series start to roll out (and let’s be honest, O.M.A.C. can’t be long for this world) I would hope DC could see in their library another breath of fresh air, on par with I, Vampire, All Star Western, and Resurrection Man. One of the successes, for me, of The New 52 has been the chance for off-beat titles to find a new audience, with the new media spotlight Kamandi could be just the ticket for those longing for their comics to be fun again.
Brave and the Bold
Scott Snyder’s question asked us what underrated characters we’d love to see in their own series. I think we can all agree that most characters that deserve a series have a series. Batman will always appear in a quarter of the books, the Super family will always get preferential treatment, and Wonder Woman will always have a book, no matter how abysmal sales are. It’s when you talk about characters like Green Arrow and Animal Man that you have to start asking whether these characters really deserve their own series.
Animal Man right now is easily in my top three titles of the New 52, it’s bizarre and fresh without going off the deep end into mindlessness, but that will end eventually. Animal Man has had various spotlights including a long running series, started by a long run that put Grant Morrison on the map along with Bussy Baker, in the 90‘s and a spot on the Justice League Europe, but his last solo mini, The Death of Animal Man, went under everyones radar and his appearances have been sparce since. Green Arrow, despite having a regular series for years and being a popular character in larger event comics such as Identity Crisis and Final Crisis, has hardly ever seen his solo numbers crack the top 100 in the past 5+ years.
DC has a lot of characters in their library, the Pope is also Catholic. Do all of these characters deserve their own series? By and large, no. DC published Brave and the Bold in some way for more than 60 years, sometimes as a Batman team up book, sometimes as a general team up book, most recently it was resurrected for a decent run by J. Michael Straczynski, focusing on joining older unknown characters such as Dial H for Hero with more well known characters such as Batman (JMS would leave the series in limbo after just 8 issues). Brave and the Bold is a fantastic arena where The Guardian can team up with Barbara Gordon to take down The Riddler, Supergirl and Deadman race dragsters, and Superman teaches Damien Wayne a valuable lesson. It is the perfect model for building this new universe early on, solidifying relationships, and introducing their vast wealth of properties to a brand new audience. I could have a blast listing all of the teamups I'd pay $2.99 for.
Superman goes back in time and meets Jonah Hex, The Question is enlisted by the Metal Men to track down a missing Dr. Magnus, John Stewart leads a few key Teen Titans on a training mission that goes bad, you get the point.
Come back for Part 3...
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