As I picked this up, I said, "If that's not a Glenn Fabry cover then I'm not a virgin!"
In 1993, I must have been buying any comic book with the word "Vertigo" on the cover. Also every comic book with the word "Scarab" on the cover because I think I have this entire series. Did I read the entire series though? I have no clue! I certainly have no idea what it's about. A scarab, probably?
Judging by the look of the woman on the cover, I probably should have done an anagram of this title. A crabs? Bra sac? A BS car? I came up with three anagrams because it looks like she came three times.
The beginning of this comic book isn't as confusing as you, a dumb comic book reader, probably think it is (had you read it (which you totally didn't. Seriously. I bought this comic book and I don't think I read it. So there's no way you, the worst comic book reader in the history of reading comic books, read it and then understood it)). Some creature called a Sicari (a term which probably has to do with assassins and daggers and maybe Jews (and which I would have no way of referencing the term in 1993 because we were all Internet blind and only knew the things we knew. We barely even knew the things we could discover at the library because the library wasn't the living room and you couldn't access it by remote control. The library was so hard to deal with that I just shrugged and decided I would never answer the riddle in The Legacy of Llylgamyn that began "I am part of the deck of seventy-eight" even though I knew that I probably just had to research tarot cards!)) has just dug the third eye out of a witch underneath an old pier. He's doing his own research and I have to applaud his effort. Although maybe I shouldn't be admiring his ability to get off his ass and do the research he needs to answer his questions. Pulling the blind third eye out of an old woman's skull is probably way easier than dealing with a card catalog.
This chapter is called "All Roads Lead to the Minotaur." That sounds fucking exciting! It's also a reference to the labyrinth which means this story is going to be about life! Stories about life are great! I love them because I get a glimpse at people who aren't wasting theirs! Like that Sicari fellow. Oh to have the ambition to pursue a goal even if it means touching an old woman.
But that Sicari fellow isn't important right now! Instead, we need to meet the protagonist, maybe? He's a 78 year old man so you can understand why I'm not too sure he's the protagonist. Nobody wants to read about an old man. If I were writing a novel about an old man, every fourth sentence would be, "The old man grimaces, shifts his weight to one side, and lets out a strained, musty fart." Maybe I should write that book! I already have 25% of it written!
I just grimaced, shifted my weight to one side, and farted.
Judging by the look of the woman on the cover, I probably should have done an anagram of this title. A crabs? Bra sac? A BS car? I came up with three anagrams because it looks like she came three times.
The beginning of this comic book isn't as confusing as you, a dumb comic book reader, probably think it is (had you read it (which you totally didn't. Seriously. I bought this comic book and I don't think I read it. So there's no way you, the worst comic book reader in the history of reading comic books, read it and then understood it)). Some creature called a Sicari (a term which probably has to do with assassins and daggers and maybe Jews (and which I would have no way of referencing the term in 1993 because we were all Internet blind and only knew the things we knew. We barely even knew the things we could discover at the library because the library wasn't the living room and you couldn't access it by remote control. The library was so hard to deal with that I just shrugged and decided I would never answer the riddle in The Legacy of Llylgamyn that began "I am part of the deck of seventy-eight" even though I knew that I probably just had to research tarot cards!)) has just dug the third eye out of a witch underneath an old pier. He's doing his own research and I have to applaud his effort. Although maybe I shouldn't be admiring his ability to get off his ass and do the research he needs to answer his questions. Pulling the blind third eye out of an old woman's skull is probably way easier than dealing with a card catalog.
This chapter is called "All Roads Lead to the Minotaur." That sounds fucking exciting! It's also a reference to the labyrinth which means this story is going to be about life! Stories about life are great! I love them because I get a glimpse at people who aren't wasting theirs! Like that Sicari fellow. Oh to have the ambition to pursue a goal even if it means touching an old woman.
But that Sicari fellow isn't important right now! Instead, we need to meet the protagonist, maybe? He's a 78 year old man so you can understand why I'm not too sure he's the protagonist. Nobody wants to read about an old man. If I were writing a novel about an old man, every fourth sentence would be, "The old man grimaces, shifts his weight to one side, and lets out a strained, musty fart." Maybe I should write that book! I already have 25% of it written!
I just grimaced, shifted my weight to one side, and farted.
Look out! We've got a real barn burner of a tale starting here!
Louis, the old man, gets interesting when he reveals that his wife, Eleanor, has been locked behind a door in his house since 1945. And it's not a normal door! It's a door his father brought home and threatened him with the cutting off of his hands if he ever touched it. He said his father became Bluebeard but I think that was just metaphorical what with the door that nobody can look behind and all. I don't think he really had a bunch of dead wives' heads behind it. Although Louis here now had one wife's head behind it! Probably still attached to her body and possibly not dead, what with the door being magic and all.
According to Louis, even Scarab couldn't get the door open. I guess Scarab is a superhero? And maybe it was Louis's alternate identity? Or maybe Louis knew him. I think I'll discover the answer to that question when I read the next page.
Well, it's not actually the next page. That page describes how Louis's father disappears inside the door for months at a time and returns with strange items and new venereal diseases. It's the page after that page where we learn that Louis became the Scarab by messing with one of his father's treasures.
According to Louis, even Scarab couldn't get the door open. I guess Scarab is a superhero? And maybe it was Louis's alternate identity? Or maybe Louis knew him. I think I'll discover the answer to that question when I read the next page.
Well, it's not actually the next page. That page describes how Louis's father disappears inside the door for months at a time and returns with strange items and new venereal diseases. It's the page after that page where we learn that Louis became the Scarab by messing with one of his father's treasures.
Fifty percent chance this isn't a superhero outfit but an alien S&M getup.
I'm not good with double negatives and I just got concerned that the initial caption reads wrong. Just make sure you read it to mean I'm totally not a virgin!
Meanwhile, Eleanor lives in the Labyrinth of Doors now. She gets to be eternally young and have grand adventures every day. Sometimes she finds locked doors that can't be opened. Exciting! Other times, she'll find empty rooms behind the doors. Dramatic! Occasionally, she'll discover old appliances and housewares in piles. Swoontacular! How boring is my life that reading about a life where you get to open mystery doors that lead to stupid bullshit gets my heart racing?! Eleanor is living the dream!
When I was a kid, one of my fantasies was that somebody would create a game which was just a neighborhood or city void of people. But their houses were all still there and you could go from house to house snooping at all of their possessions. I was so boring that my fantasy wasn't even about the end of the world where I could do that for real. I only wanted to do it from the safety of my room on my Vic-20! Oh, and how delusional was I that I thought a game like that would run on my Vic-20?! What a stupid jerk I was.
I heard that, you smart ass! Questioning the tense of that sentence!
Meanwhile, Eleanor lives in the Labyrinth of Doors now. She gets to be eternally young and have grand adventures every day. Sometimes she finds locked doors that can't be opened. Exciting! Other times, she'll find empty rooms behind the doors. Dramatic! Occasionally, she'll discover old appliances and housewares in piles. Swoontacular! How boring is my life that reading about a life where you get to open mystery doors that lead to stupid bullshit gets my heart racing?! Eleanor is living the dream!
When I was a kid, one of my fantasies was that somebody would create a game which was just a neighborhood or city void of people. But their houses were all still there and you could go from house to house snooping at all of their possessions. I was so boring that my fantasy wasn't even about the end of the world where I could do that for real. I only wanted to do it from the safety of my room on my Vic-20! Oh, and how delusional was I that I thought a game like that would run on my Vic-20?! What a stupid jerk I was.
I heard that, you smart ass! Questioning the tense of that sentence!
See? An assassin! Look at me doing actual research instead of just ejaculating my own precious opinions!
After the Sicari's ritual to find the door is over, he relaxes naked under a ceiling of swords while holding back his orgasm (so as not to commit the sin of Onan (which he wouldn't be committing because the sin of Onan is not a sexual sin but a breach of contract. But since religious people are obsessed with sexual desire (having so much pent up inside of them at all times), they've consistently demanded that the Onan story was something the Onan story was not. Just go read it yourself) and "shivering ... with a terrible sexual longing for death." It's too bad the Sicari is the bad guy because he just became my favorite comic book character. I wonder if Vertigo ever sold t-shirts of the Sicari? Can you wear a t-shirt in public that shows some leprous man whose skin is half barbed wire naked and holding in his orgasm? That sounds more dangerous than holding in a sneeze.
While Sicari doesn't come, Louis sits at home thinking about his comic book battles as the Scarab.
While Sicari doesn't come, Louis sits at home thinking about his comic book battles as the Scarab.
I don't remember the time Doctor Fate fought Conjoined Twins Brain Man.
I hope the previous panel is ildchay ornpay! I'm using King Beauregard's suggestion to fool Tumblr's censors! But wouldn't be weird if you couldn't even talk about the negative aspects of ildchay ornpay (which I think are all the aspects, just to be clear!) without Tumblr censoring you? It would almost be like Tumblr didn't want people to be educated on how terrible ildchay ornpay was! Oh, I hope I didn't drive away all of my ildchay ornpay loving readers! Sorry for being critical of you with that whole "it's all negative" take!
Eleanor's next adventure is a room full of electric fans. Can you imagine standing in front of not one fan but dozens?! Oh the heights of excitement she must experience every day of her life! So many fans blowing on you all at once! It's erotic!
Eleanor's next adventure is a room full of electric fans. Can you imagine standing in front of not one fan but dozens?! Oh the heights of excitement she must experience every day of her life! So many fans blowing on you all at once! It's erotic!
Holy crap! This is a Vertigo title! They mentioned the lady's curse!
Remember the good old days when you didn't know what a period was or what the word virgin meant and your only wish was to search through a stranger's sock drawer? Oh to be young and naive again! To not have your body betray you and say, "No! Today you are a woman! Put away your childhood things and bleed!" To not have people at school pointing and laughing and calling you a name you had to look up in the dictionary later that day which led you to think, "Everybody else in seventh grade has fucked?!" To never be burdened by the shame of your first forays into masturbation, splashing loudly in the bathtub in such a way that, looking back, you know your mom totally fucking knew what you were doing in there. To feel the sweet granular relief that it was Chris Huff who got labeled "the breadbox masturbater" in junior high and not you (not that you'd ever even though of jerking off into a bread box. Nor did you think Chris did either but some kid has to become the scapegoat burdened with the rest of the school's masturbatory sins!). To never be so old that you find yourself sitting in a dark room thinking, "How fucking terrible must that burden have been for Chris back then if I can still, thirty-five years later, remember his whole Goddamned name?!"
I never felt more empathy for a person, before or since, then when Chris Huff's name was said at 9th grade graduation and nearly the entire auditorium laughed. I swear I almost cried right there among all my peers. But I held it in lest I get labeled a bread box masturbator sympathizer!
The night Eleanor finds her first window in the Labyrinth of Doors (and thinks about her period) is the night the Sicari finds the door and murders Louis. Or probably tries to murder Louis. He'll probably get his S&M costume on before he dies and it'll heal him because it's magic. I'm only speculating that it's magic because it's created by a scarab and because the Scarab fought alongside Doctor Fate. The Sicari throws Louis out of the second floor window which means I now have to believe that, broken and bleeding, Louis is going to crawl back upstairs to get to the scarab. You know, comic book, it would have been a lot easier on my psyche if you'd just let the Sicari dump Louis by the bottom drawer of the dresser. Sure, I understand it's less dramatic! But realize that just asking me to believe a 78 year old man can survive being dumped on the floor is already straining the limits of my disbelief! You can't also ask me to believe all of his bones didn't shatter after going out the second floor window! My God, I'm already invested in believing in a magic door and an evil being whose brain is composed of conjoined twins! How much more work do you want me to do here?!
I never felt more empathy for a person, before or since, then when Chris Huff's name was said at 9th grade graduation and nearly the entire auditorium laughed. I swear I almost cried right there among all my peers. But I held it in lest I get labeled a bread box masturbator sympathizer!
The night Eleanor finds her first window in the Labyrinth of Doors (and thinks about her period) is the night the Sicari finds the door and murders Louis. Or probably tries to murder Louis. He'll probably get his S&M costume on before he dies and it'll heal him because it's magic. I'm only speculating that it's magic because it's created by a scarab and because the Scarab fought alongside Doctor Fate. The Sicari throws Louis out of the second floor window which means I now have to believe that, broken and bleeding, Louis is going to crawl back upstairs to get to the scarab. You know, comic book, it would have been a lot easier on my psyche if you'd just let the Sicari dump Louis by the bottom drawer of the dresser. Sure, I understand it's less dramatic! But realize that just asking me to believe a 78 year old man can survive being dumped on the floor is already straining the limits of my disbelief! You can't also ask me to believe all of his bones didn't shatter after going out the second floor window! My God, I'm already invested in believing in a magic door and an evil being whose brain is composed of conjoined twins! How much more work do you want me to do here?!
No Louis. You're dead and this comic is over.
Being that this is a Vertigo comic book, Justin probably is dead and the rest of this story is just Justin Jacob's Laddering the last few seconds of his life.
The Sicari realizes the door to Alamut (whatever that is. I can't constantly be asked to do research while reading comic books. Somebody expects me to check Wikipedia twice in one sitting?! The nerve! (okay fine! I checked. It's a region in Iran! Happy?)) doesn't exist. And in his rage, he does something that would be unthinkable to non-Comicsgate comic book readers in 2019: he threatens to rape Eleanor's corpse! Man, that Vertigo sure knew how to do horror! He also threatens to shit in the Scarab's heart when the Scarab finally shows up. That's the kind of thing that made a person reading comic books in 1993 think, "Whoa! This is cutting edge adult stuff! I can't wait to tell my first boss that I'm going to shit in his heart!"
Yes, Louis manages to crawl upstairs and open the dresser drawer and put on his sex suit. He then somehow manages to find Eleanor but not in time. She's been killed by The Sicari. So the Scarab tells the Sicari that he's dead and he dies. And as he dies, the Sicari realizes there is no afterlife, no paradise, waiting for him and he loses his death boner and weeps like a baby that's dying. What a fucking wuss.
I don't know why the last scene takes place on a plane but it does. I guess the bathroom door on this flight was a magic bathroom door that led to the Labyrinth of Doors. Maybe all doors sometimes lead there!
The Scarab Rating: I rarely get excited by what I might discover on the other side of a door which seems odd when you realize one of my biggest fantasies as a kid was basically just that. Maybe I've been taking doors for granted? From now on, I'm going to stop expecting the room I've always known to be behind the door to be there. I'm going to hold my breath and hope that it will lead somewhere fascinating, like a room full of hatstands or urinals or electric fans or some other noun writer John Smith could come up with off the top of his head to take the place of something mysterious and exciting. Seriously, John Smith. You could have at least filled Eleanor's rooms with fornicating sloths and newscasters eating shit. But I guess the point was for Eleanor to be lonely so every room had to just have useless, inorganic bullshit. Just like the rooms in my house. Oh my God! I'm Eleanor!
The Sicari realizes the door to Alamut (whatever that is. I can't constantly be asked to do research while reading comic books. Somebody expects me to check Wikipedia twice in one sitting?! The nerve! (okay fine! I checked. It's a region in Iran! Happy?)) doesn't exist. And in his rage, he does something that would be unthinkable to non-Comicsgate comic book readers in 2019: he threatens to rape Eleanor's corpse! Man, that Vertigo sure knew how to do horror! He also threatens to shit in the Scarab's heart when the Scarab finally shows up. That's the kind of thing that made a person reading comic books in 1993 think, "Whoa! This is cutting edge adult stuff! I can't wait to tell my first boss that I'm going to shit in his heart!"
Yes, Louis manages to crawl upstairs and open the dresser drawer and put on his sex suit. He then somehow manages to find Eleanor but not in time. She's been killed by The Sicari. So the Scarab tells the Sicari that he's dead and he dies. And as he dies, the Sicari realizes there is no afterlife, no paradise, waiting for him and he loses his death boner and weeps like a baby that's dying. What a fucking wuss.
I don't know why the last scene takes place on a plane but it does. I guess the bathroom door on this flight was a magic bathroom door that led to the Labyrinth of Doors. Maybe all doors sometimes lead there!
The Scarab Rating: I rarely get excited by what I might discover on the other side of a door which seems odd when you realize one of my biggest fantasies as a kid was basically just that. Maybe I've been taking doors for granted? From now on, I'm going to stop expecting the room I've always known to be behind the door to be there. I'm going to hold my breath and hope that it will lead somewhere fascinating, like a room full of hatstands or urinals or electric fans or some other noun writer John Smith could come up with off the top of his head to take the place of something mysterious and exciting. Seriously, John Smith. You could have at least filled Eleanor's rooms with fornicating sloths and newscasters eating shit. But I guess the point was for Eleanor to be lonely so every room had to just have useless, inorganic bullshit. Just like the rooms in my house. Oh my God! I'm Eleanor!
There are a lot more than 10 Phantom Stranger fans, and I'm one of them. Sadly, he is not well used in stray stories. But, if you want to get a sense of what the character is, read the 2nd series from around issue 10-25, and the 4th series after DiDio passed on the reins. Just a hint: he shares somethng in common with the Spectre, but his reason for existing is different.
ReplyDeleteOkay! We got one more Phantom Stranger fan. But I don't know if you can say 11 is "a lot more" than 10!
DeleteI did read The New 52 series (and have the reviews to prove it!) but hell yes I would love to read the old Silver Age (unless it was Golden Age?!) series.
Also, I use a lot of facetiousness and hyperbole in these "reviews". You shouldn't take anything I say at face value. I'm just having fun over here.
I've read your stuff before, so I know its delberately over-the-top. But what the hell. Look at politics. So's that.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are a lot more than 11 fans, too. That's why he keeps getting new series, and appearances in places like Swamp Thing TV.
You can buy the Second Series in two volumes, black and white, off eBay or elsewhere. Start with Len Wein's writing. He molded the character into its modern form. The Golden Age stuff is different. It's swiped from the Mysterious Traveller Radio Show which was popular back then. Many of those are reprinted, in part, in the 2nd Series, issues 1-3 (with some modifications). I've got them, too.
I also remember your reviews on the 4th Series. Harsh. The key to the character, what makes him unique, is he tries to change a person's motivations, not just stop their actions like a typical superhero. It makes it hard to write well, I expect. So, it can make for windy dialog and little action (bear in mind, however, he matches the Spectre's power level; but he is not designed to use it). Now, here's a bonus. If you look up the "demoness" Tala, I am fairly certain she was created to be his opposite number (not enemy). Yes, I know more than I am sharing.