Customer Reviews

Action Heroes Archives, Vol. 2 (DC Archives Edition)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Those of you who read my review of the first volume of ACTION HEROES ARCHIVES know I was enthusiastic about DC reprinting the Charlton "Action Heroes" in these quality hardcover editions. Volume 2 is no exception, and I'm giving it a qualified 5 stars rating (as explained below).

As I somewhat surmised when Volume 1 was published, in addition to continuing the Captain Atom reprint stories, this volume includes Steve Ditko's Blue Beetle tales -- plus The Question to boot! It also makes sense that Volume 2 picks up the good Captain's adventures with issue #83, considering that issue was the start of big changes for Captain Atom, and also began the back-up adventures of the "new" Blue Beetle, scripted by Gary Friedrich with art by the awesome Ditko. It was during this period that Charlton Comics was attempting to emulate Marvel Comics, and was strengthening the characterization in its stories. (Indeed, shortly thereafter Gary Friedrich would leave Charlton to work for Marvel Comics, and no doubt for a larger paycheck.)

Fan-turned-pro Dave Kaler penned some enjoyable scripts for Captain Atom, beginning his run with CAPTAIN ATOM #82, the last story in Volume 1, and continuing through the "Captain Atom Meets Thirteen" tale (from CAPTAIN ATOM #89) reprinted in this volume. CAPTAIN ATOM #89 was the last Charlton issue published, and as a kid I was bummed out because of that and because the storyline involving Cap's nemisis, The Ghost, had been unresolved. But this volume also reprints the "final" Captain Atom tales with The Ghost ("Showdown in Sunuria" and "Two Against Sunuria") which were only heretore published in Charlton's "fanzine," CHRLTON BULLSEYE. Like the printing in CHARLTON BULLSEYE, these tales are published in black-and-white in this volume.

The Blue Beetle reprints are fantastic, especially the back-up stories originally published in CAPTAIN ATOM, and the first two issues of the Beetle's own comic mag. Reading them is like immersing yourself in the Marvel Comics of 1966-67, and is a delightful treat. Like the Captain Atom bonuses that originally saw print in CHARLTON BULLSEYE, this volume reprints the unpublished BLUE BEETLE #6 cover and story, which only previously saw print in CHARLTON BULLSEYE (in black-and-white both therein and herein).

A perhaps unexpected bonus here are The Question stories, back-up tales contained in the BLUE BEETLE comic plus the full-length MYSTERIOUS SUSPENSE #1 comic from 1968. The "bonus" for The Question fans is the black-and-white story drawn by comics legend Alex Toth, reprinted from CHARLTON BULLSEYE #5 (and also including Toth's cover for that issue reproduced in full color). The Question, of course, was based on Steve Ditko's Mr. A character (first published in Wally Wood's WITZEND), and much later metamorphasized into the Rorshach character in Alan Moore's WATCHMEN.

The only problems with this volume are some of the tales penned by Steve Ditko. Ditko was used to working "Marvel style," both plotting out and drawing the tales, which would later be dialogued and captioned by the writer. How much of this was done on the Captain Atom stories is hard to say, but they seem pretty tight, and my guess is that Ditko at least was working in the "traditional" mode, from Dave Kaler's scripts, on those efforts. But the early Blue Beetle tales have a lot going on, and it appears Ditko was perhaps using the Marvel method with writer Gary Friedrich.

With the departure of Friedrich on the Blue Beetle, Ditko inherited the scripting duties as well (using the assumed name "D.C. Glanzman"). But while Ditko has ability as a writer, he's also had the problem of his Ayn Rand philosophies exerting a heavy influence on his his stories. Mr. A was a perfect example of this (where everything was "black and white," and there was no "gray" in moral values), as is the story "Blue Beetle Faces the Destroyer of Heroes" (reprinted from BLUE BEETLE #5), where the extremes of values are unbelievably comical. The "A Specter is Haunting Hub City" story, originally intended for the unpublished BLUE BEETLE #6, is likewise ridiculous. In that tale we have the public up in arms -- against SCIENTISTS ("It's a plot! The scientists want to rule the world!")! Now, certainly, continuing advances in technology can be used for "bad" efforts as well as "good" -- but some of the Ditko dialogue in this story would make more sense in Mad Magazine. My criticisms of Ditko's writing aside, however, Ditko was still at his artistic peak in 1966-68, and it is an absolute joy to behold his story-telling techniques along with his basic art talent. This volume is worth the price for Steve Ditko's art alone!

A negative regarding the Ditko art is the finale Captain Atom "Sunuria" 2-parter reprinted from CHARLTON BULLSEYE. Apparently Ditko had only penciled those stories, and they had remained uninked for some time -- which would have made sense with no plans to publish them. When they finally saw print, a young John Byrne was called upon to ink them (and it would be interesting to know whether he inked Ditko's actual penciled pages or only phostats). I've never been a big John Byrne fan, having felt that he's never truly taken his artistic ability to its maximum level. Early John Byrne art is pretty rough, as is his inking on Ditko's Captain Atom (which Byrne also lettered, and didn't do a great job there as well). In my opinion, Byrne didn't really make an effort to remain faithful to Ditko's pencils, and the art winds up being downright sloppy in spots.

But that substandard inking involves only 21 pages in this volume, and the remainder of of the Ditko art is inked by Sturdy Steve himself, or by Rocke Mastroserio and Frank McLaughlin. And that work is great!

As noted by Dick Giordano (Charlton's editor back in 1966-68) in his forword, it's unlikely that the other Charlton "Action Heroes" of that Silver age era (among them The Peacemaker, Judo-Master, and Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt) will ever see the reprinting light of day. But the Ditko-driven characters certainly deserved hardcover editions for posterity. Don't cheat yourself -- make sure to purchase both volumes 1 and two of ACTION HEROES ARCHIVES!

Action Heroes Archives vol 2 is definately worth the price that its being offered. This edition has nearly 100 pages more than the average DC Archive edition for starters. This book is filled to the brim with some of steve ditkos best work with the exception of his work on Spiderman, Dr. Strange and his charlton monsters series Konga and Gorgo. This volume has the revamped Captain Atom, Blue Beetle and the Question stories in their full glory. Another nice feature is the addition of the Charlton Bullseye, the black and white fanzine that featured the wrap up of the captain atom storyline featuring his final battle with the ghost. My only complaint is that they didnt include some of the relevant back up stories, I.e the Jim Aparo Nightshade stories which would have fit nicely with this volume. But thats really nitpicking. If you love Ditko, this is a must have. Nobody draws action and human movement with as much excitment and fluidity as Steve Ditko. He's one of the few artists that can tell a story soley with his art. Todays art is simply poses, and much too much reliance on photo references with all due respect to alex ross and others of his style. Reading a steve ditko drawn story is like watching a movie. I sincerely hope they reprint more under rated Charlton stories. Id love to see reprints of Ditko's Konga and Gorgo work. Buy this book.

This volume contains Steve Ditko's fascinatingly mental Question material, which is why I actually felt compelled to pay the outrageous price DC asks for their Archive editions rather than attempting to track down the original Charlton Comics. Charlton being considered the Poverty Row of the comics world, renowned for shoddy business practices and cut-rate printing, I assumed that DC would be able to offer improved reproduction on quality paper stock. Well, the paper is heavy enough (though the finish should probably be matte, and perhaps not so blindingly white), but the artwork has been DESTROYED. Whatever you feel about Ditko's work on its own merits, you aren't getting a fair impression with this book, as the art appears to have been scanned from the original comics, traced over with a blunted black marker, and the original dot colouring replaced with garishly ugly puddles of solid colour.

I'm not exaggerating. I was so appalled by the art in this book that I tracked down a copy of Mysterious Suspense #1(the only full-length Ditko Question comic Charlton produced) and compared them side by side. Poor as the original printing was, it was infinitely superior to what DC has fobbed off on us, with lovely fine line work and only minor color bleed problems that any teenager with a copy of Photoshop on their computer could have remedied. DC's masterly, museum-grade Archive presentation looks like it was 'restored' by your kid sister while bored in math class.

I'm not just bitching here: what DC have done here is simply unbelievable -- utterly disrespectful of Ditko and criminal at any price. And the price is obscenely HIGH.

This awesome TICK volume collects pratically almost every issue - of Captain Atom, the Blue Beetle and the Question - Steve Ditko did in his second and most famous run working for Charlton after his departure of Marvel Comics. In my opinion, this wonderfull material is FAR BETTER than most of the stuff DC published at that time. One of the "lost" treasuries of the 60's!!If you dig Ditko's Spidey and Doc Strange, BUY IT NOW!!And, by the way:It includes an adventure of the Question by Alex Toth!!

This collection reprints a plethora of Charlton Comics material from the late 60s and into the 70s. It focuses solely on comics and characters created by Steve Ditko: Captain Atom, The Question and the second Blue Beetle (Ted Kord); it omits stories featuring other Charlton characters such as Peter Cannon Thunderbolt, The Peacemaker, Son of Vulcan and Judomaster. I suppose DC made this decision due to the fact that Steve Ditko is more of a marketable name (not to take away anything from other Charlton creators).
So how are the stories? About what you would expect from 60s super hero comics. In his introduction, former Charlton editor Dick Giordiano states that the company decided to eschew the cosmic approach taken by Marvel at the time and focus more on down to earth action and heroics. Its an interesting approach, and whether or not it works I'll leave up to you. I bought this collection largely because of The Question, one of my favorite characters. I'm more familiar with the Denny O'Neill/Denys Cowan series from the 80s, so seeing him here in all his Ayn Rand loving glory was a bit jarring. While I don't agree with Ditko or his politics, I nevertheless admire him for sticking to his guns and bringing those ideas into the four color medium.

This collection contains a pretty clear moment at which comic-book great Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-man and Dr. Strange for Marvel, crossed the line into Ayn Randian propagandist. It occurs towards the end of the Charlton Comics 'Action Heroes' line from which these archives take their name.

It's a mind-boggling moment because it marks one of the few times that mainstream Ditko and self-published Ditko would merge into one angry, Objectivist loudspeaker. Ditko's two streams of output -- one for himself and one to pay the bills -- would pretty much permanently diverge after the demise of the Charlton superhero line, and others would pretty much handle all the scripting on his mainstream superhero titles.

Ditko helped revamp or create most of the always lame-duck Charlton Comics' superheroes, co-creating Captain Atom, Nightshade, and The Question and revamping Golden-Age crimefighter Blue Beetle into a nifty mix of Spider-man and Iron Man. This archive collects his later work on those Charlton superheroes. Captain Atom is a lot of fun, especially once inker Frank McLaughlin comes on board, and it's mostly free of cant. Blue Beetle is also jolly, zippy fun until the aforementioned Rand Moment, at which point the Blue Beetle becomes a Ditko mouthpiece. Not for long, mind you -- cancellation of the entire superhero line loomed.

And then there's the Question, a visually inspired Ditko creation whose main costuming as a superhero was a face made perfectly blank by a special mask. Alan Moore would base Rorchach in Watchmen on this guy, and you can see why. While the Question begins life as a fairly normal urban vigilante (albeit one wearing a suit, tie, and hat), he rapidly turns into Ditko's spokesperson for his Ayn Rand-derived ethics.

And boy, does he speak. A lot.

The Question's only book-length adventure from the 1960's, from the pages of Charlton's Mysterious Suspense, is one of the wordiest slogs you'll ever encounter in comic books of this or any other time. The sheer volume of verbiage crowds out much of Ditko's visual dynamism, leaving us with talking heads and the Question demonstrating that, for a brief time, he was the stuffiest of all stuffed shirts on the superhero scene. And his hatred of hippies was positively Cartmanesque.

The Blue Beetle also develops advanced Randitis and, in a memorable two-story team-up, he and the Question battle both evil, non-heroic Art and an evil, non-heroic Art critic. I kid you not. It's like Philosophers at Work played straight. Fascinating stuff. Come for Ditko's visual excellence, stay for the interminable lectures.

Let me say this right off the bat: I bought this book for the Question. After becoming aware of the character through the Justice League Unlimited TV series and Frank Miller's Dark Knight Strikes Again, and after reading Alan Moore's homicidal "tribute" to the character in Watchmen, I decided I had to read more of the Question. I figured the best place to start was the beginning, so I bought this book.

Now for the review: In three words, pretty damn good. This hardcover graphic novel contains stories about Captain Atom, the second Blue Beetle, and the Question. Pretty much everything in there is drawn by Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-man, and a lot of it is written by him as well (including I think all but one of the Question stories).

The Captain Atom stories are mostly your standard "guy with superpowers fights his supervillain arch-rival and occasionally some space monsters" fare, although a few of the later stories contain a bit of social commentary which clearly came from Ditko's mind. The Blue Beetle stories take a similar route, except as a superpower-less hero his tales seem a bit more like a less-dark-and-brooding Batman rip-off than the Captain's nuclear-powered exploits. Again, some of the later Blue Beetle stories do contain some of Ditko's political commentary, most notably in "The Destroyer of Heroes", in which the Beetle must face a foe who worships the inadequacy of man and seeks to destroy anything more competent than himself. Personally, I loved it (also there was a great fistfight that went on for several pages).

The Question, however, is a different breed of hero. Right from the start, the scripts are shot through with Ditko's Objectivist-inspired political and moral beliefs. While this sometimes means huge walls of text, there is enough hard-boiled coolness and two-fisted action to keep things interesting. I could write an essay on how the Question is unique in the world of superheroes because of his non-altruistic morality and his unwillngness to save the lives of the guilty (not to mention his complete lack of spandex), but in the interest of brevity, I won't. One last thing I'd like to say regarding the Question is that the very last story in this book has some truly amazing artwork. It's done all in black-and-white, and has a sort of old-timey Dick Tracy look to it.

Anyway, if you're a new Question (or Blue Beetle, or Captain Atom) fan and you want to read about some of those character's earlier adventures, or you've just read/saw Watchmen and want to see the heroes which inspired Rorschach, Nite Owl, and Dr. Manhattan, or if you're just looking for a slice of the Silver Age with a bit of philosophical meat to it, then I highly recommend this book. It is a bit on the expensive side, but you get a lot of pages in a durable hardcover, and in my opinion it was worth the price.

As a big Ditko fan I can tell you I was not disappointed in this collection.

First let's talk about the picture quality: One reviewer of this product mourns that the touch ups that were done with the art were ugly and that is true...for some of the issues. I found many of them to be fairly good quality and those few that weren't were still fun stories (and it's not like you couldn't tell what was going on). Sure, in a perfect world every issue could be just as it was in the 60s but you'd spend a lot more than the price of this collection to track down every single issue individually to get "the original feel" (in fact, last I checked, an original copy of issue one of the Blue Beetle was going for about the price of this collection if not more).

Now for the stories themselves: Captain Atom provides for some interesting moments though mostly it's just bad-guy-with-the-quirky-shtick-fights-super-powered-hero. The best issues of the ol' Capt. are actually the first two in which Adams gets his new outfit. The story arch with Adams' friend/secret arch nemesis "The Ghost" is interesting but since the series didn't run that long it didn't get the time it needed to fully develop the rivalry. Oh and weird ocean-dwelling chicks add some very confusing spice to the Ghost lore.

Blue Beetle was much better than I imagined. For a guy with Batman's gadgetry and Spider-man's personality his stories don't seem like copy-cats of the big name heroes. The atmosphere of his home, Hub City, is refreshingly dark for such an upbeat, wise-cracking hero and his origin story adds a good touch of drama. Some scenes with his gal-pal are staged like corny romance comics (something Ditko drew in his early days) but it fits nicely in with the melodramatic feel of the character.

I will be frank with you, I bought this collection for The Question. With stories that got more and more philosophical as they went, The Question started as a back up comic for Blue Beetle. His short stories at the end of BB books were clearly too small a format for Ditko's objectivist mouthpiece which is evident by the stories being jammed with dialogue and a little rushed. Then when The Question got his own one-shot comic the story was even MORE jammed with philosophical dialouge. Sometimes it feels like half of the comic-space is speech bubbles BUT most of the time Ditko proves that his characters talk so much because their creator has quite a few interesting perspectives to share with the reader. Unyielding personal integrity and uncompromising views of crime and punishment are the staples of Ditko's faceless man (which at one point lead him to let some criminals drown...something heroes didn't do back in the 60s).

Overall quite fun and despite some quality issues the action comes through. I didn't quite pay $75 though and I'm not sure I would have. $50 is a little better (but that goes without saying, doesn't it?).

I believe the best comics Steve Ditko ever worked on (outside of his Marvel Comics collaboration with Stan Lee) are reprinted in this collection. A perfect combination of superheroes and Ditko's personal objectivism message. The highlight for me was the Blue Beetle stories. A very well-developed and interesting heroic character. Also, continuing from the first volume you can see even MORE of the obvious influence Ditko's characters had on Alan Moore's WATCHMEN.

This is a wonderful book. I very much enjoyed Charlton's history during this time by Dick Giordano. I would definitely recommend this book.