EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW

It’s a quiet tea between friends. The Shade, the erstwhile Richard Swift, and erstwhile Starman Mikaal Thomas take the October air on the Shade’s upper-floor balcony. Below them, the Shade’s garden spreads out, behind them the city towers, threatening to swallow the idyll of gentlemanly sedateness. The measured repose, as well the physical balcony,  put the Shade above his past, but the towering spires of Opal City certainly seems to suggest the lurking doubt that he may not yet be beyond the consequences of his earlier deeds.

The “Suckers” crime webcomic at Trip City is served in spurts. In late 2012, Brooklyn, NY-based writer Eric Skillman began to tell the story of an inner city teen named Corey White who happens to get nabbed by the cops for a stick-up just after he turns 18. Subtitled “Lies My Mama Told Me”, “Suckers” has White already in prison at the onset of the comic’s second chapter, where he runs into the father he was pretty sure had been dead for years. The story sounds like it moves fast because it does—Skillman’s narrative packs three panels in per page at most, with only a handful of pages going live online for each installment. That’s a lot to sort out in such quick chapters, but it’s done well.

“A grin in the wrong place is more frightening than a snarl.”
—Walter Simonson in 1989 on drawing Batman

Recently in “To Be Continued…” you all read the story of the Heckler. How he lived, how he “died”. Gave you a kick, huh? You’re kicking for more? So here’s the story about the Smile on the Dark Knight.

When Batman debuted in Detective Comics #27 (May, 1939) as “The ‘Bat-Man’” (quotes included), he was an undeniably grim figure, different from both the kitschy character of the 1960s era and even the veteran crime fighter of today. Today, Batman controls himself with a strict set of rules, but that initial story by Bill Finger (writer) and Bob Kane (artist) was also the first Batman story in which an enemy died at the hands of the Caped Crusader. At the time, Batman had no compunction about killing and his enemies rarely survived past the final frame. Batman even occasionally used a gun to take out the bad guys, starting in Detective Comics #32 (1939) and held a pistol in advertisements.

If you haven’t read the first two installments of “To Be Continued…” in which we chronicled the strange world of DC’s short lived superhero The Heckler, consult your physician and read them forthwith and with forethought. We were just discussing the approach that writers/ co-creators Tom & Mary Bierbaum and Keith Giffen (who also pencilled) took in their introduction of their would-be classic comedic character.
 
Now let’s talk about what killed him.
 
One tried and true method for introducing a new character to an existing universe is to have said newbie fight one of the universe’s more popular mainstays. Win or lose, established fans will be interested in the new foe turned (faux?) friend. Wolverine first appeared not in X-Men, but The Incredible Hulk and fought that title monster for a memorable intro. Azrael was introduced as a Batman enemy before becoming one of his most trusted allies (though that didn’t exactly turn out great).

Instant trauma often forces us into recognizing the prolonged trauma we’ve been heir too, all this time. There’s almost no way to read Phantom Girl’s throwaway line of “You know me…nothing hurts a phantom…”, a throwaway line that comes on the heels of ten panels of gut-wrenching panic and dread, ten panels of fear for the well-being of her compatriots in the wake of their star-cruiser crash, and not feel in some way as if we’ve already been implicated in the deeper dread of that glibness.

This isn’t the gnawing paralysis of survivor’s guilt that Phantom Girl is experiencing. Because simply put, she hasn’t survived. She’s been in trauma her entire life, a trauma uniquely entwined with the very nature of her superpowers—she’s been intangible to the world around her.

If anything, issue #17 opens with a kind of “instant trauma” not just for Phantom Girl, but for readers as well. We’ve never seen the powerhouse storytellers of Keith Giffen and Paul Levitz together on the Legion of Super Heroes. At least, we’ve never seen that before now…