Comics' magna opera: Part Two - the auteurs

Buckle in - it's a long one!

Before we begin, I want to direct you to this post, at which Peter clarifies a bit of the difference between magnum opus (which I use just because I'm a snotty Latin scholar) and a masterpiece. He does a very nice job. I'm still going to use them interchangeably, because it's less boring than using magnum opus all the time, but that post is a nice way to separate the two.

Anyway, in my last post I spoke of what I called "quasi-masterpieces" because I'm not sure if we can call stories written for corporate comic book characters, which by definition will continue to exist as long as they're profitable for the company, as actual masterpieces. The arc of their lives cannot be fulfilled, because they must always have an "out" so that the company can continue to publish them. Gorjus made an excellent point that many creator-owned comics were not the creators' masterpieces, even though I defined "masterpiece" as something that is personal. That part of my definition seems to argue even further against corporate comics as being capable of achieving greatness, but that's not necessarily so. Many people who have worked on established characters do feel a connection to those characters, and do put their personality into them. The characters that already exist are often archetypes, so anyone can relate to them. Why do you think every single freaking writer of Batman has to do a Joker story or a Penguin story or a Two-Face story? Those could be masterpieces, even if they are using slightly hackneyed characters. Of course, if you create the characters, you might feel more of a connection, but that's not the only prerequisite for writing a magnum opus.

Now that we got that out of the way, I do want to look at what I would call auteurs, simply because I'm snooty. These are masterpieces that are largely the work of one creative force who either created the characters he worked on (sad that I can't think of a single woman to put on this list, although I welcome nominations!) or was given complete carte blanche to use existing characters no one cared about. Some of these were mentioned in the comments of the last post, and some I decided on my own. As always, discussion is encouraged.

Jim Starlin's magnum opus: Dreadstar issues #1-40, November 1982-January 1989. You thought I'd forget about Starlin, didn't you? Ha! Nobody does space opera like Starlin, and with Dreadstar, he got his chance to go nuts. This is somewhat of a forgotten classic, as it bounced from Marvel (Epic) to First, and then when First went under it did for a long time. Delays in publishing (40 issues in six years?) also hurt it. The issues after #40 are pretty damned good, too, but Peter David was writing it, so these issues form Starlin's masterpiece. Dreadstar is, well, it's not exactly a fun book, but it's certainly less "deep" than most of the works on this list. Vanth and his crew are simply rebels fighting against a tyrannical galactic empire, and that's what they do. You know, blow shit up, beat people up, run away, that sort of thing. What makes this a masterpiece is that Starlin is concerned with politics and he tries to show how nobody can ever stay clean, even when they're doing something as noble as fighting a tyrant. Dreadstar and company have to cut deals, they have to watch out for traitors, they have to make hard choices that sometimes lead to the deaths of those they care about, and they can't let their emotions get in the way of saving the galaxy. It's a fascinating look at a rebellion, and more impressively, Vanth and his gang actually win.

This leads to a more interesting coda to the main part of the series, in which Starlin looks at what happens when something you're fighting for your entire lives goes away. Dreadstar is in a coma for a long time (a year, maybe? two?) and when he wakes up, all his friends have jobs with the new regime, but they're not necessarily happy, because their swashbuckling days are over. Dreadstar and Company are not unlike the Starjammers, but whereas Marvel couldn't allow doubt to enter the minds of Corsair and his buddies after Lilandra recaptured her throne, Dreadstar sees that the new boss is not really that different from the old boss. He probably should have listened to The Who more often! Starlin is making an interesting comment about heroes in general - what do you do when you have nothing left to fight? These people are not built to shuffle off into retirement, and Dreadstar cannot deal with being part of a bureaucracy, and he quickly butts heads with the new government just as he did with the old. Is a hero still a hero when he appears to be making trouble just for the sake of it? When does a hero of the old revolution become a terrorist in the new state? Starlin struggles to address these concerns, and although he doesn't satisfy us with easy answers (or really, any answers), it's an interesting question to pose.

Unfortunately, Dreadstar had the misfortune of landing with a financially strapped publisher, and it died in March 1991 despite David writing some excellent stories. Starlin still owns the rights, presumably, because David wrote a mini-series some years later for Bravura and Starlin's name was above the title. Its fate remains unknown. Perhaps Cronin, with his disturbing encyclopedic knowledge of all things comic-related, can discover what, if anything, is going on with it. But don't look to me!

Alan Moore's magnum opus: Watchmen issues #1-12, September 1986-October 1987. This may be a bit controversial, as Moore is the best comic book writer ever and a lot of what he's written has changed the way we look at comics, which is one of my criteria, and this is not his most personal work, another of my criteria. It's not even my favorite Alan Moore work. So why do I say it's his masterpiece?

First, it's the most famous, which doesn't necessarily make it a masterpiece, but it doesn't hurt. The discussion of how good Moore is begins with Watchmen and then moves to his other work. Secondly, it did quite a bit to change our perception of superheroes and it remains remarkably influential today, more so than his other work. Again, that doesn't necessarily speak to the quality of the work, but again, it doesn't hurt, and there will be people who argue that Watchmen isn't that good anyway (blasphemers!).

What pushes Watchmen to the fore is the way Moore took the ideas he toyed with on Marvelman, V for Vendetta, and Swamp Thing (all pre-Watchmen works, although the first two weren't completed until afterward) and crystallized them into a 12-issue story that remains about as well plotted a book as we're going to see in comics. In Marvelman, he showed us a superhero who does the logical thing: takes over the world. That isn't it masterpiece because it was plagued by sloppy art and spotty plotting through the early issues. In V for Vendetta (which I like better than Watchmen), he wants to show us a lone individual fighting against the system in a less than legal way, which is what Adrian Veidt is doing, in his own way. In Swamp Thing, he showed an all-powerful being abandoning his "responsibilities" to the planet because it's just all too much for him, and he used this motif again with Dr. Manhattan. Watchmen was a true murder mystery, something we rarely see in comics, and it was the ultimate deconstruction of superheroes and why they do what they do. Moore also took some of the things he experimented with in his prior works - lack of sound effects, for one - and made us all not miss them in the least. He told two parallel stories - the "real" story of the Comedian's murder and the pirate story - each equally gripping and each reflecting themes in the other. Gibbons' art, while not as flashy as some, is perfectly suited for the way the story is structured. Watchmen is Moore's masterpiece not because, as I mentioned, it's his absolute best work, but because it is an almost perfect comic book. It does what comics are best at - pictures juxtaposed with words that don't necessarily describe what we're seeing, for one example - and does it better than almost anything ever published. After Watchmen, we could never look at superheroes the same way again, and we can't blame Moore if people are grumpy that our heroes aren't so heroic anymore. Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, and Rorschach are heroic in their own way. Just because Dan and Laurie don't expose Adrian doesn't make them less heroic. Moore's heroes work in the world he created, and they don't necessarily work in the regular DC and Marvel worlds. Don't blame Moore for that.

As I mentioned, Moore's work is made up of works of staggering genius, to coin a phrase. One reason is that he became a star so early in his career and unlike, say, Grant Morrison, he had no interest in writing Justice League. He rejected the comics corporate culture, which allowed him to concentrate on writing whatever the hell he wanted. All the green Hollywood kept throwing at him didn't hurt, either. I want to call From Hell his magnum opus, because I like it more than Watchmen, but I think it becomes too much of a historical essay at times, which bogs it down. Personally, I think the 20-page (or however the hell long it is) conversation about the occult history of London is fascinating, but the story grinds to a complete halt during it, something that happens far too often. Many people might say Promethea is his masterpiece, but while I like the title, it smacks far too much of Moore rambling about things he finds interesting. Sure, they're interesting, but it often comes at the detriment of the story (I haven't finished it, because I buy it in trades, so it could come around). Yes, it's probably his most personal work, but just because something is personal doesn't make it a masterpiece, as I and others have mentioned. I have a feeling that if it had been completed, Big Numbers would have been his masterpiece. Sigh.

Matt Wagner's magnum opus: Grendel, Devil by the Deed and issues #1-40, March 1983-February 1984; October 1986-February 1990. After a career of, what, 25 years, Wagner is still ridiculously underrated, especially as a writer, which is weird, because he writes a lot more than he draws, it seems. His art is gorgeous, but his writing is really interesting, probably more interesting than his pictures. He can write a magnificent Batman, for instance, as we have seen from the recent Batman & the Monster Men and his old arc with Two-Face in Legends of the Dark Knight. Again, on both those stories people focus on the art, but the stories - especially the Two-Face one (just go look for it in the trade, people!) - show a marked fascination with the wayward and the weird in society. He's also interested in the power of myth, which is where Grendel comes in.

I'm sure that some people will mention Mage, which is Wagner's other creator-owned title and the one that is probably more closely associated with him (Kevin Matchstick is supposed to age with Wagner, but I'm not sure if that's gone by the boards). However, Mage never really coalesced as a complete opus, although it's a decent enough book. Grendel is a much more complete work, and although it's not as personal as Mage, it's a personal work in that it expresses Wagner's interest in myth and how myth impacts on life. Grendel began as a story of Hunter Rose, a top assassin who adopts a young girl, Stacy Palumbo, and eventually becomes the ruler of New York's underworld. He's also a critically acclaimed and terribly successful novelist, the darling of the New York literary set. Grendel comes to the attention of Argent, a centuries-old intelligent wolf-like creature who works with the New York police department, and the two fight it out, with Stacy's love in the balance (Argent also takes a paternal interest in her). In Devil by the Deed, the first three issues of the series from 1983-84, Hunter Rose dies, and interestingly enough, Wagner is not that concerned with his "hero" dying. That's because he is much more concerned with what made Hunter Rose, an intelligent, talented, good-looking, and rich person, turn into an assassin and criminal. When Comico decided to publish an ongoing series a few years later, Wagner didn't bring Rose back from the dead, deciding instead to go in a radical direction that took the story from an interesting concept and made it a masterpiece.

Wagner moved the story forward into the future a bit and gave us Christine Spar, who is Stacy Palumbo's daughter. She is researching a book on Hunter Rose, because once his dual life became known, his legend really took off. Christine leaves her son at home one night, and he is kidnapped by ... a Japanese vampire! Bear with me. The vampire is a Kabuki artist named Tujiro XIV who tours the world kidnapping small children - it's the perfect cover! Wagner said he wanted to do vampires but not the Western kind, and his vampire is truly terrifying. In order to get her kid back, Christine steals Hunter Rose's mask (the iconic Grendel mask, one of the best masks in comic book history) and his main weapon, a "fork," which is a two-pronged blade on the end of a long stick. She goes after her son, but draws the attention of Argent, who is still around and still raging with hatred. We're not sure why, since he killed his adversary, but as we follow Christine's saga (wonderfully drawn by the Pander Bros.), we come to realize that Grendel is a force that inhabits certain people, and is particularly malevolent. Christine slips further and further into the Grendel persona, especially after she finds out that her son is dead. Her lover, Brian Li Sung, cannot bring her back from the edge, and she eventually fights Argent, a fight in which they kill each other.

Following this, Brian Li Sung becomes Grendel, in an attempt to kill Captain Wiggins, who was tracking Christine. Brian is a particularly bad assassin, and Wiggins kills him. Apparently, the artist on these issues, Bernie Mireault, asked Wagner if Grendel could "possess" a crowd. This led Wagner to take his creepy possession story and re-imagine it as a world-changing event. Later issues showed the Grendel force wreaking havoc in politics and culture, as people began to worship it, which led to societal breakdown and a nuclear war. The story resumes in the 26th century, a world in which religion has once again become the dominant force. The Pope, Innocent XLII (who was really the vampire Tujiro) was planning to block out the sun so that vampires could take over the world, but he was stopped by wealthy aristocrat Orion Assante and a crazed vigilante dressed as Grendel. Once Assante stopped the Pope, he created an army of "Grendels" and became the ruler of the world, calling himself the Grendel-Khan. Wagner's malevolent entity had taken over the world.

This is a remarkable piece of comics literature. Wagner wanted to examine what makes people commit evil acts even though they themselves might not be evil, and as he did that, he came to realize (with Mireault's push) that he could look at why the world has become an evil place if people themselves are basically good. I'm always wary of ascribing supernatural motives to a person's evil deeds, but the point is that this evil is a part of these people, and they struggle to overcome it, but the Grendel entity simply brings it out. Orion Assante uses it to bring a world back together and create peace and stability. He might be succumbing to the evil inside him, but he uses it creatively. Similarly, Christine Spar succumbs, but both Tujiro XIV (who escapes her) and Argent (who doesn't) are evil forces, despite Argent's work with the police force. They have become twisted by other forces beside the Grendel-force. Who is to say that Grendel is worse than they are?

Wagner also links Grendel to a fear of abandonment. In Beowulf, after all, Grendel's mother is abandoned and becomes crazed with rage, and Wagner looks at how these people are left behind and how it affects them. In the original story, Stacy Palumbo is abandoned by Hunter Rose too often, and she turns to Argent. Years later, Diana Schutz wrote a two-part story about Stacy after Hunter Rose's death, and how his abandonment of her basically ruined her life. The police abandon Christine Spar and force her into the role of Grendel, and as she loses herself in the persona, she leaves behind Brian Li Sung, who is driven mad after her death. Over and over, we see the person who has become Grendel reacting to abandonment or abandoning someone else, usually with disastrous results. Even Orion cannot escape - his sisters, with whom he has an incestuous relationship, are killed while he is fighting against Pope Innocent, and later, his lover dies of cancer while he is welding together his worldwide empire. Wagner wants to look at human relationships throughout the series, and how they are changed when we give in to the nastier aspects of our personalities.

This is truly a wonderful and powerful read, and takes us to places we could not have anticipated. Wagner came back to write a 10-issue coda to the series, Grendel: War Child, which is part of the canon but less impressive and not as emotionally powerful, although it's worthwhile. After that, Wagner turned his creation over to other writers with Grendel Tales, some of which are excellent and some of which are just adequate. He later wrote two Batman/Grendel crossovers and two four-issue mini-series, Grendel: Black, White, and Red and Grendel: Red, White, and Black, which told stories of Hunter Rose and featured some of the best artists in the industry. Wagner has continued to do excellent work in the field (including Sandman Mystery Theatre, a wonderful series), but this remains his magnum opus.

J. M. DeMatteis' magnum opus: Dr. Fate mini-series issues #1-4 and #1-24 of the ongoing series, July-October 1987; November 1988-January 1991. A few people in the comments to the last post mentioned the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League, and I certainly considered it, but I am trying to keep this at one book per creator (a problem with Alan Moore and some others that I'll discuss below), and I knew I was going to look at Dr. Fate when DeMatteis wrote it. It's interesting that for a guy who has written serious stuff for most of his career, and written it well, DeMatteis may be best remembered for the "Bwah-ha-ha" days of the JLI. However, that series, as good as it is, paid the bills and allowed him to do other, more thought-provoking work. He wrote Moonshadow for Epic in the mid-1980s, and that was obviously a very personal work, plus it was creator-owned, so why isn't that his masterpiece? Despite its quality, it's somewhat juvenile in places (and not in the places he wants it to be - it's a "fairy tale for adults," after all), and doesn't hold together as well as this book. The fact that this is a DC property and therefore I should disqualify it doesn't deter me, either, as nobody cared about Doctor Fate before DeMatteis got his hands on him and nobody cared about him after DeMatteis was finished. He's a guest star in the DCU, and therefore DeMatteis was given free rein to do whatever he wanted.

And what he wanted was no less a meditation on love and spirituality. DeMatteis has always been interested in God and religion, and with Dr. Fate, he found a perfect vehicle for his thoughts. Unlike some of his other work (Moonshadow, Blood: A Tale, and Seekers into the Mystery, for example, although there are others, too), in which he relied a bit too heavily on authorial omniscience, in Dr. Fate he allowed the characters to expound about their issues, and allowed them to discover things on their own, and the result is a masterpiece. In the mini-series, he destroys the Kent Nelson Dr. Fate and creates a new one, formed by Linda Strauss and her stepson Eric, who merge to form a new Fate. In the ongoing, we learn that Linda and Eric are soulmates, and have been linked throughout history, so that even when Eric dies and Linda must struggle on without him, she is never truly alone. Eric's soul, meanwhile, has to find a new body and link back up with Linda. It's a spiritual journey that illuminates the power of love and how we are all, ultimately, connected. DeMatteis also explores the nature of religion and how we can find meaning in our lives through a spiritual connection to God - whatever form that God takes. It's an unbelievably beautiful experience reading this book, and although it's a thought-provoking comic book, it's also very funny and has plenty of action. At the end, DeMatteis brings back Inza Nelson from the dead, but it doesn't feel like a cheap ploy, because he has set up his whole story based on the idea of souls returning and reincarnating. This is a story of the power of love and faith, and DeMatteis tells it wonderfully. He's aided by Shawn McManus, whose work has never looked better. McManus has always been a bit cartoony, but in this book it works, because he is called upon to draw a lot of people smiling, something he's very good at. Even Darkseid smiles, which isn't as terrifying as you might think. This is DeMatteis' masterpiece because he takes a Z-list character and makes it his own, while telling a story that is intensely personal. He tried it with stuff that he owned, but didn't achieve what he did here. It's really an exceptional book.

Neil Gaiman's magnum opus: Sandman issues #1-75, January 1989-March 1996. I'm not sure if there is much I can say about this. It's really his only long-term comic book work, so if he has a masterpiece, this is it. What Sandman did was give us all a look at the expanded possibilities of the medium - others had toyed with it, of course, but Gaiman starts out with horror (can anyone really ever be comfortable with Rachel naked on the bed desiccated from his magic sand, or the "24 Hours" story?) and moves quickly beyond it, giving us historical fiction, religious allegory, gender crises, road trips, mythology (Greek and otherwise), intensely personal stories and grand epic stories, and family drama. Many people wiser than I am have both lauded this series and mercilessly criticized it, but I don't think we can argue that it's a masterpiece. Gaiman wanted to examine the power dreams have in our lives, and he used all kinds of dreams to examine the human condition - the good and the bad. You can argue with the quality of the stories, and the interminable final story arc (well, "The Wake" was the real final story arc, but you know what I mean!), but you can't argue that this changed the way a lot of people viewed comics. If Alan Moore deconstructed superheroes, Gaiman deconstructed comics themselves, making us aware that you can just as easily tell stories about cat-myths as you can about a guy who runs really fast. He wasn't the first to do this, of course, but he did it more boldly and more eclectically than had been done before. Once Gaiman wrote "The Sound of Her Wings," which was the first story that was not really horror and also not concerned with superheroes (I still love Morpheus' appearance to the Justice League, but it was incongruous with what Gaiman later did), the possibilities for comics opened up even further than before. The road was always there, but Gaiman had to point it out. For that, he deserves praise, whether or not you like the series or even if you think that after Dr. Dee killed everyone the series turned wussy and you lost interest.

Peter Milligan's (and, to a lesser extent, Chris Bachalo's) magnum opus: Shade, the Changing Man issues #1-70, July 1990-April 1996. Again, I doubt if anyone will argue with this, even though Milligan has done some very strong work since this book (Enigma, Human Target, and X-Force/X-Statix to name the three best). Shade is Milligan's masterpiece because he is able to take the ideas he explored in those other books (and in other things he's written) and distill a brilliant narrative from them and sublimate them to that narrative. As much as I enjoyed X-Force, subtlety was not its strong suit. As much as I enjoyed Human Target (which had a chance to surpass Shade if, you know, anyone had bought it), its identity crises became a bit much. In Shade, strangely enough, both the elements that made X-Force and Human Target good but flawed are present but muted. In the first year and a half of the title, he tackled Americana and what it means to be a celebrity in this country, among other things. As the series evolved and Lenny became a more integral part of the cast, he began to deal with sexual politics much more. Milligan has always enjoyed the weirdness of sex a lot (go read The Extremist if you don't believe me), and the Shade/Kathy/Lenny love triangle is fascinating to read and always confounds our expectations. Milligan throws our three principals into various situations for which they are not ready, and although the series seems to meander at times (especially right before and right after Kathy's death), it remains fascinating because none of the three leads is particularly likeable all the time - very often they act reprehensibly toward each other, whether through intent or because they fear the rawness of their emotions. These are fully realized characters, and as we watch them evolve, it's not always pretty, but it's very compelling.

Milligan made a huge mistake when he killed Kathy, simply because the dynamic among the three was what drove the book. I agree that their relationship was growing stale, but killing Kathy was a perfect example of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Over the last twenty issues of the book, Milligan struggled to find the verve of the first 30 issues, but although he never quite recaptured what made the book great in the first place, he did write some great stories about the people that Shade and Lenny and the rest of the cast (forgive me, I'm forgetting their names) and how they struggle to exist with each other. Shade's son (Fred?) ages at a rapid rate, so he has very little time to get to know his father, and he doesn't really want to anyway. Lenny's daughter (Lily?) is a typical rebellious teen, not unlike Lenny was at that age, and Lenny must reconcile her past with her desire to be a normal mom. These were stories that weren't as flashy as the ones prior to Kathy's death, but were important for the evolution of the character nevertheless. The end of the series, when Shade travels back in time to re-unite with Kathy and basically wipe the slate clean, might seem like a cop-out to some, but it's a beautiful moment at the end when we understand that Shade has learned from his experiences and is ready to grow up. Maybe he gets to have his cake and eat it too in a particularly "comic-booky" way, but we have taken a long journey with Milligan and we're willing to follow it through.

Milligan does a lot with sexual politics, but like his work in Human Target, he does a lot with identity, too. Shade initially possesses the body of the killer of Kathy's parents, so when he comes to life, she is understandably horrified to see him. He spends a good part of the book searching for his identity, especially once he learns that he can never return to Meta. Kathy and Lenny are also searching for their identities, and Milligan never lets them off the hook. The early hook of the book, that madness is infecting America, ties in with this search for identity - if we are mad, can we ever really know who we are? Is it better to be insane because then you are allowed to lose your identity and all the pain that goes along with it? It is only at the end of the book that Shade finds an identity, which is another reason why the hokey ending shouldn't bug us.

In many ways, this is Chris Bachalo's masterpiece as well. Bachalo's art evolved so nicely throughout his run on the book, and when he left, he had not yet turned into the painfully cramped and weirdly disjointed artist he can be too often today. I think his early work on Generation X, coming soon after this, might be his finest work, but on Shade he was challenged much more and was up to it. His version of the American Scream is terrifying, and as Milligan became more experimental with his storytelling, Bachalo kept up and became more experimental with his, but never to the detriment of actually telling the story (which has hindered him recently). The quieter tales in the Hotel Shade are where Bachalo really flexes his muscles, and those stories, despite a softening of the madness that Milligan threw at us in the first few years of the book, are gorgeous to look at (the presence of good guest artists like Philip Bond didn't hurt, either).

Milligan hasn't done anything that has come close to Shade, despite fine work in the fifteen years since he began it. Does anyone want to argue?

John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake's magnum opus: The Spectre, issues #1-62 (including the zero issue), December 1992-February 1998. Ostrander is a writer who doesn't get enough credit, even though he has written three of the best comics of the past 25 years - GrimJack, Suicide Squad, and The Spectre. Plus, he revamped Firestorm and made him an interesting force of nature, something DC has conveniently forgotten. A few people mentioned GrimJack as Ostrander's masterpiece, and I'm inclined to agree, but I haven't read the whole epic and I think The Spectre might trump his work there, even though John Gaunt is his own creation and Jim Corrigan is not. Others might point to Suicide Squad, but as much as I love that series, The Spectre is simply better. So there!

Ostrander, like DeMatteis, took a character nobody had had much success with (despite some fondness for the earlier series and back-up stories, they weren't successful) and made it his own. This was a Vertigo book that took place in the DC Universe, which was interesting because it was definitely for adults but could use superheroes. Ostrander, like DeMatteis, used his book to examine religion. Why the hell not? The Spectre is the freakin' Wrath of God, after all! In a different way than DeMatteis, whose spirituality is much more touchy-feely, Ostrander wants to figure out why the Spectre is such a meanie and why Jim Corrigan is such a jerk. Bringing in Father Richard Craemer from his work on Suicide Squad is a stroke of genius, too, as Craemer is able to ground Corrigan as his spiritual advisor and also guide him through his afterlife and his search for meaning. Why is Corrigan tied to the Spectre? What exactly is the Spectre, anyway? Ostrander tries to reconcile the crazed vengeance-wreaking Spectre with the way Moore portrayed him in Swamp Thing, and he also ties him more into Christian and Old Testament mythology than writers before him did. His portrayal of Jim Corrigan as a 1930s cop with all the prejudices that entails is at the heart of the book. Corrigan has a great deal to learn about life, and throughout the series he confronts his prejudices and tries to overcome them. Sure, it's liberal crap (gays are people too!) but Ostrander also tackles how to make America great again and why Christianity is a good thing. It's a complex series that doesn't pull any punches - it's one man's search for his soul, but one who possesses almost the power of God.

As usual with an Ostrander title, the characters anchor this book. Amy Bieterman, the focus of the first year of the title, is a perfect example. She contracts AIDS, and Corrigan must overcome his revulsion at touching her. A maniac is stalking women who have AIDS, and Corrigan, despite his fear of her disease, promises to protect her. Craemer scolds him for his prejudices, but Corrigan can't overcome them. Amy is killed, and as she is dying, she pleads with Corrigan to stay with her and ease the pain of her death. All Corrigan knows is vengeance, however, and he changes into the Spectre and goes after the killer instead of comforting Amy. This story sets the tone for the entire series - Corrigan needs to learn how to let go of his prejudices, his hatred, and his anger. Amy acts as a beacon for him, a shining example of how to transcend his base emotions and become something better.

Mandrake's art perfectly complements Ostrander's stories. He didn't draw every issue of the series, and the guest artists do a marvelous job, but Mandrake's vision makes Ostrander's powerful scripts come to life. He brings a majesty to the epic scenes, the ones with the Spectre in Heaven or fighting monsters, but he is very good at drawing the nasty, creepy stuff that tugs at the corners of Ostrander's work. There is a great deal that is scary about this book, and Mandrake brings the horror to life. Mandrake is a good artist in any case, but on this book, he combines his usual flair with more subtle scenes and makes this a truly beautiful book.

DC has resurrected the Spectre not once, but twice, since Ostrander's series ended, but as it is the Wrath of God, that's not the worst thing in the world. Ostrander's series is really about Jim Corrigan, and his story has been told. I assume we found out what the hell was going on with the guy with the same name in Gotham Central, but it's not the Spectre, I'll tell you that much. Ostrander's touching ending to the series, with Corrigan finally letting go and joining Amy in Heaven, is the way he should have gone out. Screw Gotham Central!

James Robinson's magnum opus: Starman issues #0-80 (including a One Million issue), October 1994-August 2001. Another DC property that no one cared about until James Robinson, with his love of the Golden Age and his ability to craft a multi-leveled family drama, came along. Starman is a love letter to nostalgia, which should make it old and creaky, but what Robinson manages to do is show us that nostalgia necessarily informs the present but it doesn't have to define the present. For all his obsession with old oddities, Jack Knight is not someone who can't move forward, it's just that he wants to bring everything with him. The series balances on this razor edge for its entire run - is Robinson simply celebrating the past or is he using DC's rich history to tell stories that move the characters forward? For the most part, the latter, and that's why this is a masterpiece. Very few writers have integrated the history of the DCU so much into their books, but Robinson is able to do that and bring it back to a very personal drama of a father who has lost one son and thinks he has lost another, only to discover that he really hasn't lost either.

Many people have objected to a couple of things in this series: Rag Doll's change into a maniac, and the murder of the JLE. Well, the first I understand, although anyone who dresses like Raggedy Andy can't be too sane in the first place. The death of the Justice League is a brilliant move, because Robinson shows us what very few writers ever do - a threat to the heroes of the DCU. Too often, the villains of both DC and Marvel are perfectly able to kill off hoards of "normal" folk but are woefully inadequate at killing the heroes. The Mist is different - sure, Blue Devil and the Crimson Fox aren't anyone's idea of A-list heroes, but taking them down still requires skill, stones, and sneakiness. The only reason you can object to the issue is if you're so in love with the characters you can't imagine your world without them, and if the sales of Blue Devil's solo series were any indication, not a lot of people felt that way.

Other than that, once Tony Harris left the book and Jack went into outer space, a lot of people (me included) felt the book began to drag. However, I re-read the issues once they were done (this series demands trade paperbacks or reading big chunks of it in one sitting), they coalesce into a fascinating journey through the grand space opera of the DCU, and Jack is constantly learning what it means to be a hero and what it means to be a son. Without his journey into space, he could not reconcile with his father at the end of the series and could not accept that Ted needs to sacrifice himself to save Opal City. Yes, the space journey drags, but like all good fiction, it does something the series needs, and therefore is integral to it. While still retaining the link to the past, it points the way to the future - not because it's science fiction, but because Jack cannot forge a life with Sadie unless he makes this odyssey to find out what happened to her brother. Once he returns from space, he must first save Opal and then come full circle, giving up the Starman mantle to become a father himself.

Robinson certainly wanted to bring this series back around to the responsibilities of adulthood and the transition from adolescence to adulthood, something David never achieved because he died and something Jack resists for a long time. Although Robinson is obsessed with the past, he's really more obsessed with the continuity that family gives us and how we can live up to that family name while still making a mark ourselves. Jack, ironically, wants to reject his own family's past while wallowing in the kitsch of an earlier era, but he comes to realize that growing up means accepting your family's history and moving beyond it. Superheroes, after all, are the ultimate Peter Pan fantasy, and by accepting his role but then giving it up, Jack shows that he is ready to become an adult. In this way, he's more mature than, say, Bruce Wayne, who is stuck in an arrested adolescence.

This is a beautiful series to read and digest, as I mentioned, in a short time. The series takes on a feeling of a tapestry of DC history and DC present and even the future. Robinson is in command of his characters and allows them to outgrow even the confines of the book. It is unquestionably his masterpiece.

Kurt Busiek's magnum opus: Astro City mini-series issues #1-6, August 1995-January 1996; ongoing series issues #1-22 (with a #1/2 issue), September 1996-August 2000; "Local Heroes" mini-series issues #1-5, April 2003-February 2004; "The Dark Age Book One" mini-series #1-4, August-December 2005. A few people mentioned that Busiek and Perez on Avengers is a magnum opus, and I might agree if I had read more than just the Ultron story, which is really good. But I would consider Busiek's Astro City his masterpiece, not just because he wants it to be, but because he takes an idea he used for Marvels and turns it into a rich superhero universe all by himself, and gives us stories that now, when others do it, seem clichéd, but when Busiek does it, they have a freshness and glee that lifts them up over the norm. Yes, I said glee - even when things are at their darkest in Astro City, the good citizens know that their heroes will come and save them. Even when a vampire becomes a superhero and the townspeople turn against him, they come to understand their faults and repent. Astro City is a masterpiece because Busiek understands the heroic ideal and never allows his characters to forget it, despite acts that are un-heroic. Therefore, Charles and Royal in the Dark Age do things that might seem un-heroic, but they are trying their best to make the lives of the people they care about better. Crackerjack is a huge ham and publicity hound, but he is trying to make the city better, despite his arrogance and obliviousness. Busiek wants to explore why we worship these heroes, why we turn against them, and why we take them back, and he does this by not only viewing the heroes through the lens of "normal" people, but by allowing the heroes to view each other without filters. In the Marvel and DC worlds, too often the writers take shortcuts to "character development" by simply having the heroes argue with each other. Busiek knows that heroes will argue, but he also knows that they will also attempt to work together, act like heroes, become friends, hook up and then break up, and all the other things people do. They are heroes not only because of their powers, but because they have real emotions but they don't allow those emotions to stop them from doing the right thing.

Astro City, obviously, is not over yet, so it may be premature to call it Busiek's magnum opus. I can't think of anything he could ever write, however, that would be more real, more powerful, and more personal than this. So I don't think I'm off base. But, you know, I could be.

Garth Ennis' and Steve Dillon's magnum opus: Preacher issues #1-66, April 1995-October 2000. Boy, I had a hard time with this. Of all the writers I can think of, I doubt if there's one like Garth Ennis, who was writing two magnificent long-running titles at almost exactly the same time, both of which could be considered a masterpiece. Others have done good work at the same time, but to have two books of this quality and resonance concurrently is tough. I finally decided on Preacher as Ennis' magnum opus, but I should say a few things about the other title.

I like Hitman better than Preacher. There, I said it. Why? Well, without getting into things too much, it's more fun, it's more gut-wrenching, it features the single greatest depiction of Superman ever (I really don't think that's up for argument), it doesn't preach (like, say, Preacher) and it ends logically. Yes, Preacher does not end the way it should. I'll get back to that.

So why Preacher? Well, I still like the book (although I did stop buying it for a while, after All-Father fell out of the helicopter onto the Messiah in issue #25), but more than that, I think this is Ennis trying to explain the world to us. I have said that just because it's personal to the writer doesn't make it a masterpiece, but it helps, and in this, I just think Ennis is more invested in Preacher, and it wants to make more of a statement than Hitman. He has a great deal he wants to get off his chest, so we find out his views on religion (obviously), America, parenting, relationships, loyalty, and history. In Preacher, Jesse and Cassidy are just as likely to spend the whole issue talking as they are stomping Herr Starr's face in. In Hitman, a zombie penguin is likely to show up and add some levity.

Ennis obviously has a lot on his mind, and he uses Preacher to try to understand this wacky world we live in. He might not like the world, but he likes the people in it (for the most part) and he believes in sticking by your friends and standing up for what you believe is right. That's why Cassidy is such a villain in the latter half of the book. He and Tulip become the moral fulcrum of the book - Jesse is off having adventures, and while nothing makes me more interested than a sick old man having sex with a large sculpture made out of meat, Cassidy and Tulip trying to adjust to Jesse's "death" is what spurs the book on. When Tulip finally understands what she has become, Cassidy can't accept it and lashes out at her, betraying not only her but the memory of one of the few people who was decent to him. He repents, of course, and this is where Ennis' views on religion are interesting. Ennis loathes organized religion, obviously, but he wants to reconcile the good things about religion - forgiveness for sins, most notably - with the corruption he sees throughout organized religion. One way he does this is with Jesse, who is a "bad" preacher in that he doesn't toe the company line. He's a "good" preacher in Ennis' view because he's an iconoclast who cares more about the virtues of Christianity than the façade of the Church. Therefore, he is able to accept people for what they are instead of what he wants them to be, but he holds them to a high moral standard - his own. Cassidy fails in that regard, but, in true Christian fashion, he is given a second chance because he repents. The repentance is necessary, of course. It's no surprise that Cassidy is Irish and therefore probably Catholic. Even lapsed Catholics (and Cassidy is probably the ultimate example of one) can't wash the dogma completely out of them, and Cassidy understands that he has become Judas to Jesse's Jesus and must repent. Ennis wants us to consider that morality is real, but not necessarily what we are taught. And loyalty is valued most of all.

What hurts Preacher is also what makes it a masterpiece - Ennis' convictions bleeding through onto the page. The idea of loyalty is present throughout Hitman, too, but it isn't imbued with the same quasi-mystical gravitas that it is in Preacher. Ennis has other ideas he wants to expound upon in the pages of Preacher, and too often the narrative comes to a screeching halt while he puts his words into Jesse's mouth and, well, preaches to us. This doesn't ruin the work, but it does make us react, sometimes negatively, to what Ennis is doing. It's not that we disagree with what Jesse is saying (we certainly can disagree, but that's not why we react negatively), it's that we don't like such blatant moralizing. That's why Cassidy and Tulip's arc is so much more emotionally powerful - we're watching Cassidy degenerate before our eyes into someone that Jesse - who doesn't betray a friend - would not respect, and it's devastating, because we always wanted Cassidy to be better. It's a mark of Ennis' talent that we are so wrecked by Cassidy's betrayal.

And then there's the ending. Nobody dies. That's where Hitman packs more emotional punch - the last page of Hitman is unbelievably powerful, even though we know it's coming. I don't mean to be bloodthirsty, but Cassidy or Jesse has to die at the end of Preacher (not Tulip, though). I understand that the power of repentance is at work here, and therefore everyone gets a second chance, but it feels a little too much like Ennis loved his three characters so much that he just couldn't let any one of them go. Intellectually, I understand the decision, but emotionally, it feels fake. It could be just me.

Ennis cut his teeth on a gut-wrenching run on Hellblazer, and these two titles are the culmination of a lot of what he tried out there. He's now writing the further adventures of Frank Castle for Marvel, something I'll consider in my next post (yes, I have another one on this topic!). You could actually flip a coin to determine which one of these two titles is his masterpiece. I wouldn't argue with either one.

Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's magnum opus: Transmetropolitan issues #1-60, September 1997-November 2002. This was a tough call, because I like Planetary better, but it's not finished, and I think when all is said and done, it will not rise above its pulp roots and become a true timeless masterpiece. I'll probably go to my grave telling everyone how brilliant it is, but I think it just doesn't pass muster.

Transmetropolitan, on the other hand, does. It's a fine book on its own merits (which a masterpiece should be, after all), but it also becomes Ellis' vehicle for his own kind of propaganda, one in which he becomes Spider Jerusalem and, more importantly, lives the arc of Spider's life. I don't know Warren Ellis at all, but unless his on-line persona is miles away from his off-line persona, Spider Jerusalem is obviously what he wants to be. He craves the fame of Spider, but he also craves the influence that Spider wields. Again, I could be reading this all wrong, but I doubt it. There's nothing wrong with it, either - I wouldn't mind having Spider's fame and influence.

Ellis loves this kind of character, and with Spider, he achieves its apotheosis. Unfortunately for his reading public, he keeps trying to recreate this character, with varying degrees of success. One of the reasons why Planetary works is because Ellis does not have this kind of character - some traits are there, of course, but not in such measure nor even in the same character. Spider Jerusalem is a magnificent creation because he's an utter bastard, and his shell never really cracks in public, but we get to see the human being underneath. His scenes with Channon when he tells her that her boyfriend doesn't love her are devastating, not only because Spider is being a bastard but because he's trying not to be one. The issue where he visits the alien cultures is fascinating, and Mary's story is simply beautiful. Throughout this all, Ellis never allows Spider to become sappy, and his soft core is only visible briefly and the series never becomes a series of transformations from Spider the Bastard to Spider the Sap. He cares about "his" people, but he prefers to treat them like shit. Even at the end.

The journalistic angle is brilliant, because it allows Ellis to delve into politics and culture, two things that obviously obsess him. His political ideas become a bit of a screed by the end of the book, but they're always consistent with the character and always moving toward something. He doesn't change his tone just for the hell of it - this is the vision of one mind, and it always keeps that vision in mind, even when Ellis goes off on tangents. His thoughts on culture are always interesting to read, and the fact that this takes place in the future allows him to indulge his other obsession - new technology and how it will have an impact on humanity. Ellis is a science fiction writer first and foremost, and Transmetropolitan fits his style perfectly. It's his magnum opus for that reason - it's his most intensely personal work, but it also remains a scathing critique of our society without sacrificing the overall narrative. Yes, it bogs down occasionally, much like Preacher does. It's not perfect. Unlike books that are simply work-for-hire assembly-line products, however, we're more willing to go along, because we understand that this is a work that comes directly from Ellis' gut, and if we stick with it, we will be rewarded. Much like most masterpieces, this reads much better all at once. When we sit and read all sixty issues in a relatively short time, the minor setbacks become simply inconveniences, and we are allowed to watch the City sprawl before us and really take it all in, which almost overwhelms us. That's the point - the City should overwhelm us, because it overwhelms everyone, Spider included. He is there to guide us home, just like Ellis wants to guide us home. The metaphor is never forced, but the City is our world, and the implication is that we need a guide who will show us the path and then kick us in the ass. The fact that we keep returning to that guide - whether it's our parents, government, or God - is what Ellis is trying to wean us from. But he's as culpable as we are, because whenever Spider wants to quit, he is drawn back in - through his own sense of righteousness. He continually needs to save the citizens of the City from themselves. It's a complicated idea to put forward, and Ellis might reject it, but Spider can only gain freedom when he realizes that he can't force others to follow him. He claims he wants the citizens to think for themselves, but whenever they do, he gets angry because they're not making the "right" decisions. Do we sense Ellis behind all of this, telling us to make our own decisions but then ranting when we don't do what he thinks is right?

Transmetropolitan challenges us, like a good masterpiece should. It's not an easy book to digest, but that's okay, because it's more rewarding than something that goes down smoothly. Ellis has continued to explore the dark side of human nature, but the reason none of his recent or current work is as resonant as Transmetropolitan is because that's the only thing he's exploring. Fell has potential, but mean 'n' nasty 24-7 just doesn't work, Warren. The reason we love Spider is not only because he was mean 'n' nasty, but because he was the kind of guy who would appreciate it when Yelena writes his column for him, and expresses his appreciation. That's the Ellis we like. It would be nice to read him again.

I realize this has been a monster post, but there are a few elephants in the room I haven't discussed. One is Frank Miller. The other is The God Of All Comics. What's Frank Miller's magnum opus? In the comments of the previous post, someone mentioned his work on Daredevil. I thought about that, but I haven't read all of the issues and I also wonder if it's true. I have read plenty of stuff by Frank Miller that is better and deeper than Daredevil, even though I enjoy that work too. One thing I have never read is Sin City, and I'm inclined to name that as his masterpiece. Creator-controlled, personal, all the themes he has toyed with in various other things - sounds good! But I haven't read it. Thoughts?

And then there's Morrison. If you pinned me down, I would say Doom Patrol #19-63 immediately. I have said it before, but I'll say it again - to me, it is the finest run on a comic book EVER. A few months before that, though, he began writing Animal Man, which remains a classic. These two books were so early in his career, however, that I'm wary of them (the same reason I'm hesitant about Daredevil). Does that mean that everything Morrison has written since 1993 has been a step down? His work on JLA was excellent, he reinvented (for a time) the X-Men, and he has done too much other stuff to mention. I would suspect that when he started writing Invisibles he thought it would be his masterpiece, but it's just not that good (and to be fair, I've only read it once, so maybe I just don't appreciate the subtlety, but it was, frankly, boring). Doom Patrol remains Morrison's most human work - yes, it's full of craziness, but the characters drive the story, and it seems sometimes Morrison forgets that. It's a beautiful examination of what makes us different and what, ultimately, brings us together. And I challenge anyone to read the whole thing and not get choked up when they read the last issue. A CHALLENGE! So I would still say Doom Patrol, but I'm open to suggestions. Morrison is a very versatile writer and he flits around a bit, so he has more of a bibliography than some of these other writers. Robinson, for instance, has The Golden Age (too short) and Leave It To Chance (ditto).

I'm not sure if Bendis has one yet. Some people mentioned Daredevil, which is where I would go, but Powers might yet supplant it. I happen to think Jinx is a classic, but I could be in the minority.

Finally, there's Dave Sim. I have never read a word of Cerebus, but I doubt if anyone would argue that it's his magnum opus.

A few interesting suggestions in the previous post's comments that I either forgot or haven't read and, I think, count as these kinds of masterpieces and not the corporate-comics kind I went over last time:

Michael pointed out Mike Grell's Warlord series. I haven't read it.

"Anonymous" mentioned Kingdom Come by Waid and Ross. I'm not sure - it doesn't fit my definition, but that doesn't matter, and I'm willing to give some love to Waid and Ross, because despite some critical bashing, I liked the series. Is it Waid's masterpiece? Tough call.

"Anonymous" (a different one?) name checks Groo the Wanderer by Evanier and Aragones. I would probably agree, if I had read it.

Gorjus, who had some interesting thoughts about my definition of "masterpiece," brings up Palomar and/or Locas by the Hernandez Bros. More than likely. I haven't read them. Yes, I suck.

Mike Loughlin mentions The Maxx by Sam Kieth. I just started getting the trade paperbacks. I may agree by the time I'm done.
Rob Spalding brings up Judge Dredd by John Wagner. Again, I haven't read them. He also points out Jeff Smith's Bone, which I've heard nothing but good things about. I should get that monster edition collecting the whole thing.

"Anonymous" (they're all over!) mentions Concrete by Paul Chadwick. Another good choice that I haven't read.

I apologize for the length of this post. I'm sure I lost many of you a long time ago. But I think it's an interesting idea to look at what makes a comic book a masterpiece and how we can define them and why one book is a creator's masterpiece and not another. Any comments on my obvious lack of knowledge, questions about why these particular books are masterpieces, and of course, your own contributions are welcome. Next time (yes, I have one more post in me, but it will be shorter) I want to consider what happens after someone writes his masterpiece, based on what their output has been since.

Read More