The Quality of Mercy (an opinion)

Today this blog will not be a podium for the epistemology of comic books and films; regular diversions will resume tomorrow

This last week has been a difficult time for Muslims, first with the USA barring many Muslims from its shores, particularly to target refugees but even restricting those who held green cards in that nation (although after a few days that was changed and the process remains marred in a flux of uncertainty). Then on Sunday a madman entered a mosque in Quebec City and murdered six Muslims. Amidst all the Muslim-on-Muslim violence in the Middle East we in North America are not helping when we discriminate against them, whether that bigotry emerges from the pen of a fascist or the gun barrel of a maniac. As a Christian, I am hurt by the unnecessary cruelties being inflicted and feel compassion for those who are being affected.

Yet many of my fellow Christians are in disagreement with me. They feel some compassion for the plight of refugees and the red tape of the government but they seem to be in favour of what is going on in the USA, even if they, like me, are not Americans. I am not referring to internet trolls but to online friends, friends-of-friends and leaders in the church who are against the admission of refugees from Muslim nations. What became of the Golden Rule, Jesus' teaching to "do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12)? If faith-based discrimination is what we would do to others, are we therefore encouraging it to be inflicted back upon ourselves? They have responses prepared.

Frequently, Christians who are anti-Muslim will draw upon the Old Testament to support their belief. These Christians who note the Mulism-on-Christian violence in the Middle East or the 9/11 terrorist attack make much from: "But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." (Exodus 21:23-25) This is in willful disobedience of Jesus' teaching: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5:38-42)

Amongst the many Christian denominations we all admire the Lord's Prayer as the prayer which Jesus passed on to us (Matthew 6:9-13) - to all who pray. But are we being hypocrites in that prayer when we say "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us?" If we do not demonstrate grace and forgiveness to our fellow humans, why do we believe God is graceful and merciful to us? "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6:37)

Wiser retorts from my Christian brothers and sisters come from the New Testament; a popular excuse I hear from Christians who do not want to help or to trust someone is: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." (Matthew 10:16) But how did "shrewd" become interpreted as "hard of heart?" Paul was shrewd when he was taken prisoner in Jerusalem and first drew upon his status as a Pharisee, then as a Roman citizen to avoid summary judgment against himself. But he still went to Jerusalem and allowed himself to be placed in jeopardy. Paul was exposed to danger but, as my missionary relatives believe, "the safest place in the world is at the center of God's will."

Some say our focus should not be on the Muslims in jeopardy in the Middle East but solely on the Christians there. To which, Jesus had this to say: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" (Matthew 5:43-47)

The lesson of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) was not that the Jewish men who ignored the suffering of the man alongside the road should have helped him because he was a fellow Jew (but they certainly should have) but rather that the Samaritan, in helping the Jew, was being a good neighbour and we ought to "go and do likewise." Terrible things have been done in the name of Islam; terrible things have been done in the name of the church. The Jews were seemingly forever disobedient to God, yet he continued restlessly to win them back; Jesus went to the homes of Romans to heal their sick despite them being enemies of his people; Paul was warned repeatedly that he would be arrested in Jerusalem, yet he still obeyed God's will. Are we so afraid of Muslims that we would refuse God's prompting to help them? What blessing can we expect if we are disobedient to our God?

Yesterday I joined with believers of many faiths in a brief gathering in memoriam of those killed in Quebec City. The imam who led the prayers thanked us for "showing solidarity - not with Muslims, but with Canadians." He prayed with us not only from his Muslim tradition but also drew from St. Augustine: "You have enemies. For who can live on this earth without them? Take heed to yourselves: love them. In no way can your enemy so hurt you by his violence, as you hurt yourself if you love him not." Afterward there were Christian prayers and Jewish prayers and one student who offered a secular prayer via William Shakespeare:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;

All too often we Christians respond to God's calling in the manner of Jonah, answering with a "yeah, but..." when we should offer a "yeah, and..." We are called to go the extra mile, to do more than what other expect from us. God has granted us a great opportunity to demonstrate his love for us by loving our Muslim cousins. Agree or disagree with me, but please pray into these situations. Thank you, and may God's peace go with you.

"So... the answer to gun violence... is more guns?" Deathstroke #11 review

In an essay titled "Paycheck Comics," Christopher Priest wrote extensively about the malaise he's often fallen under due to the underwhelming assignments which have plagued his career. He has very frequently been placed on assignments with less-than-prestigious artists, less-than-prestigious characters, or both. Priest's current assignment is DC Comics' Deathstroke, which is certainly not a top-drawer character; Deathstroke is widely-considered a great Teen Titans villain (he and Trigon being the only ones considered better than decent), but as a lead character his reputation ranks somewhere below Metamorpho and the Creeper. Deathstroke is certainly not a property I'd pay good money to read - not unless someone like Priest were penning his tales. Well, for some reason, DC seems to want this comic to succeed (how novel!) and have been throwing good artists at it. The two rotating regular talents are Joe Bennett and Carlo Pagulayan and they're doing a fine job; now the first fill-in artists have dropped in and it's gone from a two-parter by Cary Nord to a done-in-one by Denys Cowan & Bill Sienkiewicz!

That story was told in last week's Deathstroke #11: "Chicago." It's an old-school fill-in story which doesn't tie into any of the ongoing plots and stands on its own. The many spinning subplots in Deathstroke about Slade Wilson, his ex-wife, his daughter, his son and so forth are nowhere to be found. Instead Priest has taken this opportunity to consider the problem of gun violence in the USA. Artist Denys Cowan is an old Priest collaborator and inker Bill Sienkiewicz, a formidable and legendary penciler in his own right, enhances Cowan's art with his own style. Right here, this is top-drawer comics.

The plot of "Chicago" concerns the mothers of gun violence victims hiring Deathstroke to kill the gang members who killed their children. This draws in reporter Jack Ryder (aka the Creeper) who finds various aspects of the situation unusual - most notably that Deathstroke isn't using his guns to kill the gang members.

Priest isn't the only person to use Deathstroke as a means to comment upon gun violence as the recent Orlando nightclub shooting led to a DC benefit comic in which Deathstroke appeared to declare he wouldn't use guns any more, the kind of toothless cringeworthy but earnest reaction you expect from comics. (see the page here) Priest has no interest in having his Deathstroke adopt the moral high ground on the issue of gun violence - he is a mercenary who has always used guns and always will. When he is pressed in "Chicago" to suggest a solution to the USA's problem he offers: "Better aim."

This is also a comic book in which the Creeper appears, as the cover suggests. I'm certainly not up on what's been done with the character lately as Priest's Deathstroke is the first DC super hero book I've followed in many years, but Priest pays lip service to the evident changes others inflicted on the character: "I've been... going through some changes... don't understand them all... but I feel more like myself than I have in years!" Visually he's in his original Ditko visuals which, considering the tone of this book and the artists chosen, fits better than you'd expect. A bright yellow man with green hair and a red shawl can look a wee bit ridiculous, but Cowan & Sienkiewicz were game and made it work here. It also helps that the Creeper is held back until the climax. DC's recent "Rebirth" branding which brought Priest to his comic has seen many of the changes from "the New 52" walked back as many characters have been reverted back to their previous interpretations and that seems to be the idea behind Priest's take on the Creeper - whatever it was they tried to do to redevelop the character clearly didn't work, so here's the old version of the Creeper which still runs quite well.

Part of why Priest has had trouble with his artistic collaborators in the past is that he tells very complex stories with a great deal of text - which needs to be read - and visuals which need to be interpreted correctly. Sometimes he's instructed artists to plant clues to guide the reader towards the solution of a mystery he's creating, only for the artist to skip the clues just to get the page done. Priest needs collaborators who show up to work. And here we have Cowan & Sienkiewicz who most certainly have! The 1st page has 12 panels! I can't recall the last time I read a super hero comic with so many panels on one page! Their harsh, wild lines emphasize danger during the action scenes and while there aren't many characters in this story wearing colorful costumes, they run through a cast with dozens of different civilian characters who are each distinct from each other. I'd enjoy it if these two were the regular art team on Deathstroke, I'd love for Priest to craft more scripts tailored to their strengths.

Priest is, in real life, a priest, but he's never seemed too interested in using comics as a platform for sermons. "Chicago" offers no solutions to the matter of gun violence (Deathstroke does not throw his guns in a dumpster here). There is a killer who needs to be dealt with, but the big issues receive no closure, no "go and do likewise" no "visit this website and get involved." Priest has written about gang violence and tragic shootings a few times during his career and it's safe to say that even if he lives to write until the age of 100, he'll still have material to pull from our headlines.

Consider His Ways: The Many Moods of Tigerman

If you follow this blog, you know I just finished looking at the complete run of the Atlas Comics series Tigerman through my occasional series Unearthed. In the course of reviewing Tigerman #1, Tigerman #2 and Tigerman #3 I found myself looking at a series which had potential but was crippled by a very poor first issue. At its best, Tigerman was an average 1970s super hero comic.

But before I carry on to a different Atlas comic, shall we consider Tigerman one last time? Rhetorical question, I suppose. Better close this browsing window now if you can't bear thinking about Tigerman again!

In Understanding Comics Scott McCloud wrote about how we perceive cartoon characters in terms of how close they approach realism, from characters who are photorealistic to the more cartoony or abstract. Quoth McCloud: "Through traditional realism, the comics artist can portray the world without -- and through the cartoon, the world within." It occurred to me that with Tigerman we have a character who wavers well between realism and cartoon. As a man wearing a mask his face is not a human face (many masked comic book characters likewise have this condition). However, his mask is supposed to be made from that of a tiger and the tiger's face is, at times, drawn to appear realistic. Let us consider the moods which are expressed through Tigerman's seemingly static features..

Mood the first: Distraught

We are about to look at the cover of Tigerman #1 again. I'm sorry too.

Art by Ernie Colon

As Colon drew it, the tiger head had no ability to contort itself according to mood. In his attempt to make Tigerman appear distraught at his sister's death he depicted him with his heading nodding forward, mouth open. Unfortunately, while these would work well on a human face, on Tigerman his blank eyes and triangular mouth cause him to appear freakish, his emotions inscrutable.

Mood the second: Angry

Art by Ernie Colon

The most common feature on Tigerman's face throughout the series is an angry look. The animal face, the sharp fangs and blank eyes give him a limited range of expressions, but as a murderous super hero the ferocious face suits him well.

Mood the third: Pensive

Art by Ernie Colon

Here's an example of Colon's strengths as an artist (when much of Tigerman displays his weaknesses). In order to show Tigerman trying to play detective and find his sister's killers, Colon grants him a pensive expression by simply draping a hand before his mouth. Tigerman's mouth is the single least-human part of his mask so this also renders him more human in appearance.

Mood the fourth: Contemplative?

Art by Ernie Colon

Then we have Tigerman standing before one of the men who killed his sister. Here, we see the mask has become truly expressionless as the mouth has been diminished down to a single line. Is he tensing up for a fight? Is he boiling over in anger? Is he staring at that cowboy's crotch? The face tells us nothing.

Mood the fifth: Determined

Art by Frank Thorne

Frank Thorne's one-and-only visual of Tigerman is somewhat different from the other artists, most notably in the fuzzy, white muzzle on the tiger face. Under Colon, Tigerman looked like a man wearing a tiger's face over his own; Thorne makes him appear as a humanoid tiger.

Mood the sixth: Fearsome

Art by Steve Ditko & Frank Giacoia

I'm very fond of this image by Ditko where Tigerman's eyes are solid colored as Colon frequently depicted them and yet under Ditko's pen he appears more animal-like rather than the "dull surprise" of Colon. What Ditko seemed to realize better than Colon was how to manipulate the expressions of the tiger face, here curling Tigerman's brown to emphasize his ferocity. Colon eschewed these sorts of expressions in favour of letting the mask appear realistic, but Ditko's is the more worthy choice in terms of suggesting to the audience what the character is feeling.

Mood the seventh: Concerned?

Art by Larry Lieber

Larry Lieber's Tigerman is a fairly stock super hero character but he makes the most of the figure's facial features, putting some detail into Tigerman's brow and his eyes to convey his mood as he leaps to the rescue of a falling man.

Mood the eighth: Impish?

Art by Steve Ditko & Al Milgrom

The downside of Al Milgrom's inking is that he bringsin distracting details which subtract from Ditko's more malleable faces. Here, the curvy lines Milgrom used to fashion Tigerman's muzzle render him a bit too cartoony to fit the role of angsty super hero who just brought a burn victim to a hospital.

Mood the ninth: Enraged

Art by Steve Ditko & Al Milgrom

When Ditko revisited the scenes from #1 where Tigerman killed his sister's murderers, Ditko came up with this very fine grimace with Tigerman sporting a very upset brow. Here too, the animal-like muzzle on Tigerman's face is used to good effect- with his mouth open the curvy line of his expression makes him seem to be smiling, in contrast to his furrowed brow. Taken together, Tigerman seems to be emotionally out-of-control with bloodlust, which fits the direction the series was going as the character explored his compulsion to kill.

Mood the tenth: Triumphant

Art by Steve Ditko & Al Milgrom

The series ends with Tigerman exhibiting relief; the villain is over and now he can have a good rest in comic book limbo until some jerk drags his back issues out and talks smack about him on the internet. With Tigerman seen from below looking up at his open mouth and eyes so thin they almost seem to be squinting, Tigerman's expression is difficult to read but helpfully his left hand is clenched into a raised fist, which we understand as a gesture of triumph or defiance.

RIP: John Hurt

"I'm dying, Agent Myers. Like any father, I worry about him. ... What I'm asking of you is to have the courage to stand by him when I am gone. He was born a demon; we can't change that. But you will help him, in essence, to become a man.

"If evil finds purchase in such creatures as Erzsebet, then we must have faith that good will choose an agent of its own. Until then, we fight in his stead for "that which causes us trials shall lead us to triumph. We must pass through darkness to reach the light."

"You can't possibly outrun me in those heels!" Miss Fury #1-5 review

I first became interested in Miss Fury because she was published by Marvel Comics in the 1940s. I wondered why an early heroine such as she could have headlined her own comic book series and yet been left alone by Marvel even as every other costumed female of the 40s was dredged up from the depths. It took some time for me to realize Miss Fury was actually from the Sunday newspaper comics of the 1940s, her Marvel series merely a set of reprints. Through a splendid hardcover curated by IDW I read a great sampling of the comic strip and learned of the series' creator Tarpe Mills. It is notable that Miss Fury was not only a 1940s female super hero who headlined her own comic strip (at a time when most super heroes were restricted to the less-glamorous world of comic books) but that she was written and drawn by a woman who poured a lot of herself into those pages. I was interested in seeing new comics featuring Miss Fury.

Unfortunately, the publisher who snapped up that idea was Dynamite Entertainment. Dynamite has basically run their business on the philosophy of a good cover will sell anything. The interiors of their comics are frequently dull or amateurish but boy, they spend the big bucks to get a great cover artist! They also have an aversion to original ideas, instead preferring to snap up defunct comic book properties (especially those in the public domain). Despite this being the 21st century, Dynamite figured a female-made female heroine should be written by a dude; said dude observed, "hey, she's kinda like Catwoman," and proceeded to remove Mills' ideas and instead renovated Miss Fury from a hero to a thief, gave her supernatural powers and time traveled her to the present. Then, of course, came the variant covers which, like so many Dynamite properties featuring women, went for a lot of puerile scantily-clad imagery. It all smacked of crass exploitation of an intellectual property rather than a spark of creativity.

However, 2016 saw a new Miss Fury series which lasted a mere five issues. When it went on sale at Comixology I began to cautiously sample issues until I finally came to the conclusion... it was okay. Fine, a bit better than okay. For this new series the writing chores had been handed over to a woman, Corinna Bechko, joined by artist Jonathan Lau. The sexy covers were mostly gone (some endured; the continued use of covers where Miss Fury has a 'boob window' are particularly odd, like they thought she wasn't sexy enough fully-clothed and invented a second costume just for the variants). Bechko brought the book more-or-less back to its roots with Miss Fury's Brazilian origin being slowly retold via a series of brief flashbacks in each issue (once again adding supernatural elements to her story). But the main plot of the series finds Miss Fury back in the 1940s working on the homefront during World War II.

Instead of the all-too-obvious effort the variant cover artists have made at being sexy, Jonathan Lau's art treats Miss Fury as someone formidable, agile and, yeah, often kinda sexy while she's at work. But he didn't give her an hourglass figure or brokeback poses. She's a woman who looks beautiful but that's incidental to her ability as a relentless crimefighter.

Bechko's use of World War II to develop Miss Fury's identity is also very well chosen, establishing her as a woman who couldn't join the fighting overseas and so instead cleaned up the problems on the homefront. Many super heroes of the 1940s have been given that status but as a woman it feels all the more striking. There's a wonderful sequence where she visits a library in her civilian guise as Marla Drake. The librarian who assists Marla is a man who feels - much like her - left behind by the war, in his case because of his crippling case of polio. "We may not be fighting but we're still serving... I think you're doing very important work, personally." Marla concludes.

Perhaps most relevant to our present day, the villains of this story are not the Nazis across the ocean, but instead the idle rich found stateside as the plot concerns a cult of the wealthy and powerful who worship Lovecraftian horrors and seek to become masters of the world by summoning down demons which will destroy everyone else. That would have been a little more on-point were the story set at the dawn of the Great Depression, but it certainly speaks to how the mad caprices of the wealthy have torn apart our contemporary society. In all, Corinna Bechko & Jonathan Lau's Miss Fury has my approval. It's a little more clever than most.

Big Hero Six creator credits

I've just seen the 2014 animated film Big Hero Six which was very - extremely rather quite very - loosely based on the obscure Marvel Comics characters who had previously starred in two of their own comic book mini-series along with a number of minor appearances here and there. The film kept most of the names (Baymax & Honey Lemon were the only two whose names remained intact) but moved them from Japan to the USA, making the team's very name a weird artifact of the comics. Further, they altered a team of 5 Japanese heroes (+1 robot) to a team of 1 Japanese-American & 4 Americans of various ethnicities (+1 robot). For those of us who know the comics it's really distracting to see how off-model the film is. After all, I was one of the 5,000 people who bought that Claremont/Nakayama mini-series in 2008!

Anyway, here are the creators whose efforts were represented on screen. Check out my list of creator credits for links to the other Marvel films & TV shows I've covered.

Steven T. Seagle: co-creator of Hiro, a 13 year old Japanese boy who is a super-genius and serves in the super hero team Big Hero 6; Baymax, an artificial lifeform used by Hiro to help him cope with a loss in the family, becomes part of Big Hero 6; Gogo, an Asian woman in a combat uniform which travels at high speed; Honey Lemon, a blonde-haired woman who carries a purse which is filled with a seemingly-unlimited supply of gadgets (Sunfire & Big Hero Six #1, 1998)

Duncan Rouleau: co-creator of Hiro, a 13 year old Japanese boy who is a super-genius and serves in the super hero team Big Hero 6; Baymax, an artificial lifeform used by Hiro to help him cope with a loss in the family, becomes part of Big Hero 6; Gogo, an Asian woman in a combat uniform which travels at high speed; Honey Lemon, a blonde-haired woman who carries a purse which is filled with a seemingly-unlimited supply of gadgets (Sunfire & Big Hero Six #1, 1998)

Chris Claremont: co-creator of Baymax in a warrior robot form; Wasabi, a member of Big Hero Six who generates energy blades from his hands; Fred, a member of Big Hero Six who goes into battle in the form of a giant monster (Big Hero Six #1, 2008); Hiro wearing a suit of protective armor (Big Hero Six #3, 2009)

David Nakayama: co-creator of Baymax in a warrior robot form; Wasabi, a member of Big Hero Six who generates energy blades from his hands; Fred, a member of Big Hero Six who goes into battle in the form of a giant monster (Big Hero Six #1, 2008); Hiro wearing a suit of protective armor (Big Hero Six #3, 2009)

Marv Wolfman: co-creator of Torpedo, a super hero garbed in blue and equipped with miniature turbines on his wrists (Daredevil #126, 1975)

Bob Brown: co-creator of Torpedo, a super hero garbed in blue and equipped with miniature turbines on his wrists (Daredevil #126, 1975)

Gene Colan: co-creator of Black Talon, a super-criminal and voodoo practitioner garbed as a rooster (Strange Tales #172, 1974)

Len Wein: co-creator of Black Talon, a super-criminal and voodoo practitioner garbed as a rooster (Strange Tales #172, 1974)

Bob Budiansky: co-creator of Sleepwalker, a green-skinned super hero clad in blue & purple (Sleepwalker #1, 1991)

Bret Blevins: co-creator of Sleepwalker, a green-skinned super hero clad in blue & purple (Sleepwalker #1, 1991)

Marie Severin: co-creator of Orka, an Atlantean super-villain garbed in white & blue (Sub-Mariner #23, 1970)

Roy Thomas: co-creator of Orka, an Atlantean super-villain garbed in white & blue (Sub-Mariner #23, 1970)

Unearthed: Tigerman #3

Howdy, tiger. What say we bring Unearthed's Tigerman retrospective to a close? Catch up by reading my looks at Tigerman #1 & Tigerman #2. Remember, Tiger-Man's not just good, he's gr-r-r-r-eatly average.

The cover to Tigerman #3 gives us a fairly stock super hero image by line editor Larry Lieber himself. Elements feature a civilian in peril, a villain uttering a threat, will the hero be too late, etc. It's not as interesting as issue #2's collage by Frank Thorne, but it's still way more enticing to a 1970s super hero reading audience than Ernie Colon's "this hero is a loser" cover on #1. It is worth noting how different the "snout" on Tiger-Man's mask looks depending on the artist. Here, he looks like a wild tiger wearing a mane. In the 1960s & 70s, Larry Lieber seemed to base his art style on Jack Kirby and consequently, it gives his covers a very Marvel-esque feel no matter who the publisher is; of course, Atlas Comics were all too eager to invite comparisons to Marvel what with the cover's blurb "The most savage super hero of the Atlas Age!"

Although the cover warns "Death Is a Man Called Hypnos," our tale inside is titled "Hell Is Spelled... Hypnos." Hypnos means many things; it was the Burma Shave of 1975. The previous issue's creative team of writer Gerry Conway & penciler Steve Ditko has been kept intact, but Ditko is no longer being inked by Frank Giacoia as Al Milgrom has joined the team (Milgrom also inked Conway & Ditko's Destructor #4). What difference will Milgrom's inks make to this series, you might well wonder. Well, see above; Milgrom emphasizes the animal features in Tiger-Man's face, rather than the more abstract look from Giacoia's inks last issue. In general, the obvious thing Milgrom brings to this story are in the characters' faces, which have fewer traces of Ditko than the previous issue. Personally, I preferred Giacoia's work on Tiger-Man's mask. But let's get to the story...

Tiger-Man bursts into Harlem Hospital carrying a smouldering body and demanding medical help. While the professionals treat this man, Tiger-Man avoids answering questions and leaves the hospital, roughing up a security guard who tries to force Tiger-Man to explain what happened. It turns out the guard need not have forced him, he just had to read the next page as a flashback begins. In Harlem River Park (it's worth observing how feel black people we see in Tigerman comics considering the locale), a man who lost his job and his wife and was told by his shrink that he's "a hopeless paranoid" suddenly dumps a container of gasoline over his head then lights a match. Tiger-Man arrives and grabs a blanket to smother the flames. So, that's where the smouldering body came from. This page is pretty effective at introducing the mystery and making the events frightening. The only time the man's face is seen is in the image above, as he pours the gasoline over his head.

Back to the present; Tiger-Man enters a storage room in the hospital and assumes his guise as Dr. Lannie Hill, concealing his costume within his medical bag. He wonders why the man lit himself on fire and muses "Unless -- perhaps he was protesting something?" To audiences in 1975, that would have obviously brought to mind the many self-immolations which went on in the 60s & 70s to protest the Vietnam War. Dr. Hill now changes clothes again as he dons a surgical outfit (yes, it appears he's a surgeon) to join a Dr. Morgan in treating the burn victim. The man mumbles "Hypnos" before dying. Dr. Hill is tormented by the man's death, stating "It's all so useless... so pointless." Dr. Morgan, however, casually smokes a cigarette in the hospital (because its the 1970s).

This death causes Hill to enter another flashback, this time revisiting the events of issue #1. The difference being, this time it's being drawn by Sturdy Steve Ditko, not Ergonomic Ernie Colon. This time we see Hill's sister the moment before her death and we see Tiger-Man actually kill his sister's murderers, something Colon proved incapable of rendering in a comprehensible fashion. I am frequently frustrated by the storytelling choices Steve Ditko makes when he publishes his own stories, but when it comes to adapting another writer's story, Ditko has always been a pro - you are never left in doubt about the basic things a story needs in terms of location, action and expression. Anyway, thinking back over these events, Hill wonders "Maybe I'm not a hero. Maybe what I am is a psychopath." Considering Hill is a physician who took an oath to do no harm, it's great that Conway has granted him this inner turmoil which issue #1 gave little attention to.

Tiger-Man goes on another patrol and sees a woman on a set of train tracks, waiting patiently to be run over by the train. Tiger-Man tries to save her, but he's not faster than a locomotive; the woman is killed. The next day, Dr. Hill reads about the suicide in the newspaper and learns the victim was Hannah Markham, a student of Dr. Otto Kaufmann, a psychiatric who runs a clinic in Midtown. Thinking there might be a clue to Hannah's suicide in the file, Hill visits Kaufmann and asks for his help, but Kaufmann flips the matter around, refusing to lend the file and saying "You appear deeply perturbed, doctor -- perhaps you should be in therapy." Hill rejects this but Kaufmann insists Hill needs treatment: "Everyone does." Before Hill leaves he sees another of Kaufmann's patients Miss Day waiting for her appointment.

Not long afterward, Tiger-Man sees a car being driven erratically. He leaps upon the vehicle's roof to try and get to the dirver, but the car is deliberately driven over a bridge. Tiger-Man rescues the driver who is Miss Day and she mutters "Hypnos." This convinces Tiger-Man that Kaufmann is connected to the suicides so he breaks into Kaufmann's office to read his files. Kaufmann discovers him and tries to fight him, but of course Tiger-Man is superhumanly strong so Kaufmann has no chance. "But brawn isn't the only power that exists!" Adjusting his monocle, Kaufmann unleashes a beam of light from the lens which bathes over Tiger-Man. Calling himself Dr. Hypnos, Kaufmann plants a hypnotic suggestion in Tiger-Man's mind to set himself on fire, being aware of Tiger-Man's intervention in the earlier suicide case. Hypnos declares his means will "Pave the way for a new race of supermen. A world of beings untouched by neurosis. A world that can only exist once everyone on Earth has been destroyed!" Tough medicine!

Tiger-Man goes to a gas station and begins pouring gasoline over himself, but luckily the station is in the midst of being robbed. The two thieves knock Tiger-Man out and frisk him for money, then depart. The next morning, Hypnos is using his power on another patient, ordering him to kill himself, but Tiger-Man leaps in through a window. Knowing Hypnos' power now, Tiger-Man evades the monocle's beam. Hypnos runs from his office to the roof for a showdown. Hypnos finally succeeds in striking him, but only because Tiger-Man deliberately comes in close to grab the monocle; reversing it on Hypnos, Hypnos declares "Death... it's the only answer... after all... I'm insane!" Hypnos leaps off the roof and Tiger-Man crushes the monocle. As Tiger-Man heads back to the stairs he notes "He wanted everyone to be perfect... the fact that nobody can be drove him insane!" To that end, Tiger-Man thinks there's a lesson for himself: "Starting right now, I'm going to accept myself -- just the way I am!"

Comments: Tigerman #3 contains the series' first letters column. The letters are all reviews of issue #1 and are fairly positive, although one complains about the lettering and another didn't like the cover and complained about the Ernie Colon art being "cartoony."

There's something in this story which, had it been developed, would have been brilliant. Tiger-Man notes at the end how Hypnos' inability to make people perfect through psychiatry had driven him insane. I would have found this story more intriguing if Hypnos weren't trying to kill people, but instead was trying to hypnotize them into perfection, but this caused a weird neuroses in his patients so that they, realizing they could never be perfect, went around killing themselves. In any event this is a pretty good story, with the man immolating himself being the most *ahem* hypnotic passage. Pity that the Blue Leopard plot from the previous issue wasn't followed-up on, but such are the perils with hastily-cancelled series.

Both the Destructor and Tiger-Man had a bit of creative shuffling going on in their limited runs (Tigerman moreso) but unlike the Destructor, Tiger-Man never changed into a new costume or developed new super powers. There was a similar lack of care about long-term plotting and supporting casts in both books and Tiger-Man didn't have the glorious scripting of Archie Goodwin to enhance its tales, but Tigerman is not awful - once Ditko arrives. If the creative team had remained the same... well, I wouldn't have bothered reading it to begin with, I only bought #1 so I could know what exactly Ditko inherited. Conway did well with his scripting, giving Tiger-Man a decent Spider-Man feel to his monologues.

This is the end of Tigerman, albeit not the end of Unearthed and my look at Atlas Comics. Stay tuned for another Atlas feature in my next Unearthed!