"They've humbly described themselves as the wrath of God by way of loser assassins." Copra #1-3 review

The independant comic book series Copra began in 2012 and word of it began to spread around the internet on sites I frequented. Unfortunately, it had very scarce distribution and wasn't available from my local store, nor on the internet shops I utilized. At last, it is now on Comixology and I've begun to slowly read through (currently through #3).

And why should this series interest me so much? I hadn't read anything of writer/artist Michael Fiffe's work before. Quite simply, because it is an ode - an homage - or, if you like, fan fiction - of John Ostrander's 1980s series Suicide Squad.

Although DC Comics is about to launch a Suicide Squad motion picture and have been printing a Suicide Squad comic since the launch of their "New 52," these projects don't have much to do with the beloved Ostrander series. In truth, DC hasn't seemed particularly interested in the series over the years. The Suicide Squad team have appeared around DC almost non-stop since Ostrander's version debuted in 1986. However, since the series ended in 1992, Ostrander himself was only invited back to use the concept again on a handful of occasions and the efforts at reprinting the series in trade paperbacks have been either stalled or cancelled until recently.

Michael Fiffe's Copra, then, is the true inheritor of Ostrander's tales, rather than the in-name-only series currently being printed. Copra is unashamed and unapologetic of its pilfering from Ostrander's work. The mercenaries of Copra include a man with laser-wielding powers who looks a lot like Doctor Light; a fellow from another dimension wears a distortion vest and hairstyle very much like Shade the Changing Man; there's a sharpshooter in red and silver named Lloyd, not unlike Floyd Lawton, Deadshot; there's an amnesiac warrior woman ala Duchess and the squad is led by a heavyset black woman whose assistant is named Flo (deep cuts like Flo & Duchess demonstrate Fiffe has taken the time to absorb the Ostrander run; his Flo even seems to have unrequited feelings for his Bronze Tiger).

Suicide Squad is not the only comic book referenced in Copra; look-alikes of Marvel's Doctor Strange and Clea guest star in issues #2-3. How does Fiffe get away with it? Well, his copyright identifies Copra as a work of parody so I guess he's safe. But while the internet commenters brought up this series because they thought it was neat to see a Suicide Squad homage, that alone wouldn't secure interest beyond one issue. What makes Copra worth checking out regardless of one's interest in the Ostrander Suicide Squad is Fiffe's own storytelling skills. Here's a guy doing what almost no one in today's mainstream super hero comics can achieve - great fight choreography!

Check out the above page which depicts a killer wielding a flamethrower as he's shot in the first panel. The Copra members continue to act in the background, while the flamethrower explodes. It's simple action--> reaction stuff, but comics have become so unduly obsessed with appearing like motion picture storyboards that these old tricks look startling and new. It is, as Fiffe remarks in the first issue, a series which "taps into the spirit of immediacy, the raw inspired nature of entertainment. Exhuberant, direct, fun." Hear, hear! The mainstream is quickly forgetting everything Kirby, Eisner, Ditko and Wood pioneered; thank goodness the independants are still having fun!

If you liked Ostrander's Suicide Squad, then this is the follow-up project you always wished for. If you haven't, then why not approach Copra as something new, something fun, something to remind you that yeah, this is comics.

Unearthed: Secret Origins#28

I've indicated before that John Ostrander's Suicide Squad is one of my all-time favourite comic book series. Going through the early years of Ostrander's run, one character I had trouble with was Nightshade, one of the few true-blue super heroes on a team comprised mostly of villains. Nightshade's origins were a major part of her character arc in the series, but I'd only ever read one of her old Charlton adventures (and it had nothing to do with her origin).

My confusion reached its zenith around Suicide Squad #14, when the Squad began a multi-part story delving into Nightshade's home dimension and her brother; all through, I felt pretty lost. Now, I finally have the "missing" issue of Suicide Squad which explains everything; for some reason, the missing issue was published as Secret Origins #28.

I'm sure DC thought it a grand idea at the time - encourage their readers to pick up Secret Origins #28 for the full story on Nightshade's past! It's like a bonus issue of the Squad and keeps the exposition from bogging down the series proper. Of course, as a collector who came to the series years later, I didn't imagine I'd be buying up issues of Secret Origins for the sake of the series at hand (I also had to buy #14).

The tale, "A Princess Story" was written by Robert Greenberger, at the time Suicide Squad's editor. The artist is one... Rob Liefeld?! Yet, you'd hardly recognize him circa 1988. Back then he drew feet and more than three expressions, y'know. In this story, Eve Eden (Nightshade) narrates her origin story to Father Craemer, Suicide Squad's ever-popular prison chaplain (certainly one of my favourites from the series). Eve explains how her mother came to Earth from another dimension. When Eve and her brother Larry were still children, their mother brought them to her home dimension to reveal everything about her origins to them, but the creature who originally drove her to Earth - the Incubus - hadn't been driven away as the mother had been led to believe. Monsters working for the Incubus kidnapped Larry and killed Eve's mother; gaining her mother's power to becoming a "living shadow," Eve escaped back to Earth.

Eve describes how she learned to master her powers over the years and tried to explore the other dimension, but nearly died in a close encounter with the Incubus. She finally decided to become a super hero and went to work for King Faraday, battling people like the Black Spider and Punch & Jewelee. Eventually she came to Amanda Waller and made a deal - she'd join Task Force X in exchange for the Squad's help in rescuing her brother from the Incubus. She's brought all of this to Father Craemer because the mission against the Incubus is only now finally going forward. Craemer offers his best encouragement to her, reminding her to keep her faith in Jesus Christ (Nightshade was one of the few Squad characters who shared Craemer's Christian faith).

The story fills in blanks I had about Eve, her brother and the Incubus; I wish I had it in hand when I first read through Suicide Squad, but it's fine - I'm simply glad the details were to be found somewhere. Pretty good art by Liefeld too - definitely the work of a young artist with a few things to learn, but based on these pages he looks like an Art Adams-in-waiting, rather than the entity he soon became.

In our second feature we have "The Secret Origin of Midnight" as told by Roy Thomas & Gil Kane, based on the story by Jack Cole. Wow! What a great creative team! And Midnight is definitely one of the better Golden Age heroes, thanks to Cole's wild storytelling. The story sees one Dave Clark, radio announcer for an adventure radio program featuring a hero called "Midnight." After seeing a building collapse due to deliberately-slipshod construction, Clark dons a mask and calls himself Midnight so he can bring the crooks to justice.

I wish I could say more about the Midnight story, but it's all pretty rout. Kane illustrates everything prettily and with tremendous energy, but the story has no sense of fun. Cole's later Midnight adventures were, like his Plastic Man tales, absolutely off the chain, practically a satire of the super hero genre. It's because of those later tales that Midnight is remembered (if, indeed, anyone remembers him at all). This tale marks only the 2nd time Midnight appeared in comics following the 1940s - both penned by Thomas and both bereft of fun. Midnight is treated seriously as a two-fisted masked hero, and thus is utterly unremarkable. The most interesting thing Thomas comes up with here is the idea that Midnight took his identity from a radio program - otherwise, it follows the character's 1941 origin story pretty much faithfully (as expected from the Rascally One).

Still, Gil Kane throws in one last image of Midnight with his later sidekicks Doc Wackey & Gabby, presented by the editor as a bonus. This is the Midnight who I'd like to read more stories about, though Thomas probably wouldn't have been the one to write them, even in 1988 (Sergio Aragones, though - I bet he'd be a great Midnight author).

Suicide Squad#67: what's the point?

As part of their long-running (and top-selling) Blackest Night crossover, DC is issuing a "theme month" around the idea of "resurrected" comic books. Just as the crossover involves people rising from the dead as "Black Lanterns," these theme books are all once-beloved titles which were cancelled years (even decades) ago and are now "risen" for a single month of resumed publication.

This week, Suicide Squad#67 came out among the first wave of one-shots. The original Suicide Squad ended with #66 back in 1992 but they've continued to be a part of various DC titles ever since. Suicide Squad#67 is co-written by John Ostrander (who wrote all 66 issues of the previous run), but he's joined by Secret Six author Gail Simone on the writing side. Art is by Jim Calafiore.

Laying aside whether this comic is any good or not, I have a lot of misgivings about the way the story is told and marketed.

First, this is part of a crossover; Blackest Night is topping the charts currently, giving DC a chance to compete neck-and-neck with Marvel for the first time in quite a while. However, the event itself isn't explained for the benefit of people not reading Blackest Night (like me).

Second, this comic is Suicide Squad in name only. True, the Squad appear, but in a minor role as one of the groups of antagonists. The real protagonists are the Secret Six. If you bought this comic wanting to see the Squad, you might be a little miffed to see yourself suckered into stealth-buying an issue of Secret Six.

Third, this isn't a one-shot, if that's what you thought you getting into. From the solicitations, it seems like most of these "resurrected" titles are one-shots, but this is a lead-in to a Blackest Night storyarc (also by Ostrander, Simone & Calafiore) that lasts for at least the next two issues of Secret Six.

Fourth, given that the titular Suicide Squad aren't the real stars, more effort should have been devoted to introducing the Secret Six for the benefit of those not reading their comic (like me). The only people who would know who Scandal or Ragdoll are would be the people already reading Secret Six. Ongoing character developments and subplots are used without framing them for a new reader's benefit. Can't an effort be made to grow the audience base, given the potential new readers who will be coming aboard for this special? Most of the Six are familiar to me with the exception of someone called Jeannette. I don't think I've ever seen her in a comic before and the story makes no effort to explain her powers, assuming she has any. Does she even have a codename?

Fifth, this story has three dueling narrators, not counting the omniscient narrator.

I will be coming back for the concluding chapters in Secret Six. Expect more grumbling.

Great Comic Book Supporting Characters: Rev. Craemer

One of my all-time favorite comic books is Suicide Squad, which ran for 66 issues under the authorship of John Ostrander. It concerned a secret squad comprised mainly of super villains who were sent on suicide missions by the US government in exchange for clemency. The Squad was run by the pragmatic Amanda Waller and based out of Belle Reve, a prison in Louisiana. In issue #10 (1988), we met Belle Reve's new chaplain, Father Richard Craemer:

Although most of the Squad members were unrepentant villains, there were also some heroes on the team and the nature of the Squad's missions often took a toll on them; Craemer was there for everyone on the team:

Although initially the Squad had a psychiatric staff to treat the team's often-warped members, the staff eventually resigned in protest of the way Waller treated the inmates. Craemer stepped up as the team's defacto counselor and issue #31 (1989) followed a day in his life as he looked in on the Squad's members and support staff, a format called "Personal Files" which had been used in previous issues back when the psychiatrists were around:

The highlight of the issue was Craemer's confrontation with Waller, where he serves as her conscience:

This last week, Ostrander returned to Craemer in Secret Six#15, where ex-Squad member Deadshot seeks help in controlling his homicidal urges:

Boy, it was great seeing Craemer again! Ever since 1988 he's been one of the best Christian characters in comics, and as a revisit--

Wait, he's Episcopalian now?!

Huh. Well, if he can't be Anglican, I'll take that. Cool.