Comic Books: DC New Wave: Doc Savage...

[Lord Z]

For the first time in two years, I found myself inside a comic book store last week. I asked for three specific products, and none of the three were there (one sold out, one not out yet, and another the store owner had never heard of it). Instead, I picked up Stephen King's N (Issue 3 of 4) and the first two issues of DC's new Doc Savage. The next week, I went back for The Spirit #1. New Wave, including Doc Savage and The Spirit, is a splinter corner of the D.C. Universe created for revitalizing old pulp era heroes. The New Wave line characters can cross over into each others books, and Batman can come for a visit, but you won't likely see events in Superman touch the New Wave books. The writers go out of their way to let us know these stories are contemporary with smart phones and mentions of quantum theory.

I will save the Doc for last, but that is the review I most want to write. I just need space to explain this character first.

Justice Inc. is a series which is currently running in the back of the Doc Savage comic. Now Doc represents an optimistic personality in the New Wave line, a persona very similar to Superman or Captain America. The main character of Justice Inc. would then the Punisher – only darker.

The founder of Justice Inc. is Richard Benson. Benson was a very successful industrial chemist. His family was kidnapped during a flight and murdered by the kidnappers. Benson was so upset, he suffered a stroke of sorts. There were two permanent medical effects, he lost all pigmentation in his body and he lost control of some facial muscles. The guy couldn't smile if he wanted (and he doesn't want that). Working under the handle of The Avenger, Benson tracked down the killers and brought them all to justice. He is a master of disguise, an expert marksman with a handgun, and he designed his own knock-out gas. Benson continued his war against crime, eventually starting a detective agency called Justice Inc. He slowly recruited a team of employees that he calls his new family. All the members of Justice Inc. likewise lost their families to violent crime. They aren't the most talented team, but they are all highly motivated.

The Avenger himself is a fascinating character. He's incredibly rich, but he's too darn cheap to turn up the thermostat in his office on a cold day. He never kills the bad guys, but this policy has nothing to do with ethics. Benson feels that death is too good for criminals, so no one on his team is permitted to kill. Pulp is brutal.

The Justic Inc. story isn't good simply because it's darker than Doc Savage. It's just good. The series is written by Jason Starr, drawn by Scott Hampton, and colored impressively by Daniel Vozzo. The look is muted, stark, and often earth-toned, almost looking like a watercolor painting. I like this look a lot, and the story is pretty good also. Here, we have the first two chapters of a tale in which one of the employees at Justice Inc. is kidnapped, but the grim Avenger is unwilling to pay any ransom. I'll continue to pick up Doc Savage for a while, if for no other reason than to follow this story.

[Lord Z]

The Spirit was created by Will Eisner, a creator who is practically a legend among comic book creators. This review will be short. I admit that I know next to nothing about the character nor the original run. Based on this current interpretation by writer Mark Shultz, The Spirit is an interesting figure.

He's standard dark vigilante in the fictional metropolis of Central City (clearly patterned on Chicago). Since The Avenger and Doc Savage both work in the real city of New York, I don't see why D.C. Chose to locate The Spirit in fictional locale. Anyway, Denny Colt is a victim of violent crime, a working class citizen who is officially considered dead but continues to operate as a masked persona, like a well dressed Batman.

I can understand Mark Shultz' angle on this character. The Spirit is what Bruce Wayne would become if he learned to chillax. The Spirit isn't idealistic. He's the vigilante who is willing to compromise. He isn't driven to rid his entire city of crime. He'll settle for leaving each situation better than he found it. He'll help criminals if it serves a higher purpose. In one scene, the city's police commissioner is regretting that he can't fire corrupt officers without losing half his police force; The Spirit actually tells the commissioner to not be so hard on himself. It's a fascinating character concept to me.

Moritat's artwork is good if somewhat undetailed. Gabriel Bautista's colors are vibrant and smartly balanced. I can't complain about the look of the book.

What kills the story for me is the terrible rogues gallery. The Spirit and his allies are vibrant characters with refreshingly realist outlooks. The villains are poorly drawn cartoon characters. These bad guys make crazy-bad decisions, yet the story rewards them in badly contrived ways. It's just stupid, and not in a good-stupid way.

There is a backup short story, also starring The Spirit. Denny O'Neil's story was forgettable. Bill Sienkiewicz' black and white artwork was – well, it's Sienkiewicz. I remember this guy when he was working for Marvel way back. Even back then, he was controversial. Sienkiewicz artwork has always been a love it or hate it proposition. His highly stylized, almost abstract drawings were super-expressive but difficult to follow. Now, he's only moreso. I read this story twice, and I still couldn't make out what was happening in parts.

I will not be coming back for Issue #2 of The Spirit.

[Lord Z]

Doc Savage was created in 1933 and starred in 118 novels, comic books, and a B-movie from the sixties. He is an icon of the pulp era, but I believe he is more relevant now than he was back in the thirties.

Why? It has to do with gamer logic. Gamer logic is a type of reasoning that is found in both table top RPGs and video games but no where else in any type of literature. In Lego Batman, the dark knight inflicts more damage on Gotham than the villains do by smashing random objects and collecting studs. In tabletop games, player-characters frequently attack things for their experience points or just because they are prejudiced against NPCs. Doc Savage is GAMER LOGIC given flesh form.

GM: Okay, let's make new characters. We are using no magic nor super-powers. The game is set in Manhattan. You can have skill packages you like so long as background justifies it, and you can't ever purposefully kill anyone. I want to know your character concepts, go!

Player 1: My character is the world's greatest chemist, but he is also a bare-knuckles boxer in his off hours.

GM: Cool.

Player 2: Oh yeah, well my character is the world's greatest architect. He also boxes. This guy is huge. He has hands like buckets.

GM: Groovy.

Player 3: My concept is for world's greatest lawyer. He also is an Olympic class fencer. He was voted as the best dressed man in New York.

GM: Swank. Who's left?

Player 4: Okay, my character's name is Doc Savage. He never went to school, because his father was a scientist who experimented on own son to see if he could create a hero by employing the world's best teachers. They raised him in isolation in an archeological dig site at some Mayan ruins. Every morning from when he could walk, he spent two hours practicing martial arts with his dad. Then he studied foreign languages until noon. After lunch, he learned science and engineering. Then it was medicine. Over dinner, he learned ethics and philosophy. He grew into a big muscular dude with a deep tan, so they called him the Bronze Man, but he calls himself Doc Savage. He's a surgeon, inventor, soldier, martial artist, and philosopher.

GM: Approved!

This is exactly how a Doc Savage story reads. Let's advance this hypothetical campaign to the beginning of the second game session...

GM: Settle down. Now, in the last game, you guys saved the Mayan tribe deep in the jungle. You were given ownership of their gold mine. It's time to move the game to Manhattan. How are you investing the money?

Player 1: We discussed it. We have a list.

Player 4: Doc is building an airship. It's my own design. We need a vehicle to take us around the world.

Player 2: My architect is designing the Empire State Building. We've reserved a floor near the top for our own headquarters. We can park the airship right next to our floor.

Player 3: My lawyer is taking the rest and investing in business fronts around the city. We secretly own these places. We're buying a warehouse where we can house all of Doc's prototype vehicles.

Player 4: And don't forget the trophies!

Player 3: Yeah, we're keeping trophies from our adventures at the warehouse too. Then we're building our own hospital and our bank.

Player 1: Yeah, and we're buying safe houses too, lots of them around the city.

GM: Okay, we have a guest player tonight. Fortunately, I have a pre-generated character ready. She's the Doc's cousin. Her name is Pat Savage. She owns her own news station. She has bronze skin too, and she's really hot...

And that is how Doc Savage's life reads. The stories drifted between comic book mysticism and true pulp, but Doc remained the moral focus of all these stories. One guy wrote 118 novels full of these adventures. The Mayan tribe with the gold mine actually happened in the first Doc Savage novel. Then came comic books, and there was a Doc Savage movie in the seventies (heavily influenced by the Batman television show).

Ah, but this is pulp. Even noble Doc Savage had his dark side. The doctor would increase his legion of followers by performing BRAIN SURGERY on the criminals he captured! He wouldn't kill, but he was willing to open the skulls of his prisoners and literally carve out the anti-social and violent tendencies.

Back to this comic book – issues one and two are written by Paul Malmont. The unfolding story is about Doc and his friends being attacked by a conspiracy all across the city. The story begins with Doc's airship being attacked by mysterious lightning strike. As Doc runs from the story, it follows him and takes out the top several floors of the Empire State Building. Doc is rescuing two boys along the way, thus providing Doc with someone to whom he can tell his story and better establish his character to new readers. I liked that part, but all of Doc's other friends get targeted as well. As a new reader, I never really learn who these secondary characters are in relation to the title character, and I don't see why I should care when they soon afterward stalked by special op soldiers.

Howard Porter's artwork is troublesome. The pictures are dynamic and the action is clear. That's not the problem. The problem is that this guy has only three faces that he is able to draw: one male, one female, and one child. Thus, the two kids have the same face. Doc and all of his friends have the exact same face. I swear that Howard seems to be copying and pasting some of these figures and then changing their clothes slightly. In Issue #2, there is one panel in which I see three men with the same face and the same shadow line from their wide-brimmed hats across their cheeks – and the third guy isn't even wearing a hat, he's just got the shadow of one over his face.

Brian Miller's colors make the problem worse by giving the Bronze Man almost exactly the same skin tone as everyone else in the city. Are there no black dudes in Harlem? Are there no pale goth chics in Tribeca?

Despite the clumsy storytelling and even clumsier artwork, I think I will continue picking up the series for a while. The Justic Inc. feature is something I really like. I am enjoying the insanity of gamer logic in Savage.

On the 1,000,000 monkeys of keyboards scale, the New Wave line of regular series ranks a better-than-average 7,500,000 monkeys.