"Who keeps calling?" she asked.
It was two people who never called me: my best friend Aharon "AJ" Klum's soon-to-be-ex-wife, and another of our mutual friends. After each call came the texts: PLEASE CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU CAN.
"Aren't you going to answer?"
Neither the ex or Chris ever really called me all that often, or ever. "If they're calling this much, something bad happened," I said. "Whatever it is will still be bad when the movie's over, and I can't do anything about it from Chicago. Let's just finish the movie."
At this time, our firstborn was about a year-and-a-half, and our second was two months old. No one was sleeping much, but that Sunday, both of them were asleep, allowing Dawn and I the chance to watch the Witchboard DVD we'd had from Netflix for forever. These moments were few and far between and I was absolutely adamant: we were gonna do this. Had nothing to do with the movie or anything (Witchboard is hardly a do-not-disturb-upon-pain-of-death affair), just the window of opportunity was damn well not going to be compromised.
At this time, our firstborn was about a year-and-a-half, and our second was two months old. No one was sleeping much, but that Sunday, both of them were asleep, allowing Dawn and I the chance to watch the Witchboard DVD we'd had from Netflix for forever. These moments were few and far between and I was absolutely adamant: we were gonna do this. Had nothing to do with the movie or anything (Witchboard is hardly a do-not-disturb-upon-pain-of-death affair), just the window of opportunity was damn well not going to be compromised.
So I turned my phone off and staved off learning the inevitable for another hour or so. On October 19, 2014, the mysterious Mr. Klum breathed his last in this world. Caught the last train out, bought the farm, went to the clearing at the end of the path, swept out with the tide however you want to put it. He who was my companion through adventure and hardship was gone forever.
Obviously one never gets completely over these things, and much more could be said. But let me skip over everything from that moment until just yesterday when a package arrived for me from AJ's mom. "Saw this, thought of you" was the note. The book:
Now I'm never unhappy to receive anything like this in the mail. (Would that every day had the unsolicited but warmly appreciated arrival of an Archive Edition of fantastic Kubert art.) But I was slightly perplexed. And then it all came back to me: I got AJ this! For some Christmas or birthday of yesteryear. He was over at my place sometime around 2000 or 2001, whenever it was, and I had a copy of Enemy Ace: War in Heaven (the one set in WW2) and he read it and liked it. So, always eager to expand my buddy's comic-book horizons or at least spruce up his bookshelves a little bit with some McMolo-approved reading material, I got him this edition. And here it was, showing up at my place, all these years later.
Did he ever read it? I don't know. I doubt it, actually, but who knows? I know for sure he read the War in Heaven one, as I watched him do it and he referenced it a few times over the years as a movie he wanted to make. To the day he died Klum was talking about the movies he was going to make. No one chooses when, as Martin Blank once said, and things are left unfinished. That's life and death for you.
So all of the above was going through my head and heart when I cracked this one open. Enemy Ace was never a comic I actively read, but I think Joe Kubert is one of the all time greats, and I like pretty much any WW1 dogfight story anyone is going to put in front of me.
I knew the broad strokes already but had never read the actual stories (outside of the aforementioned War in Heaven by Garth Ennis and Chris Weston.) Here's how the wiki puts it:
More details: Von Hammer does not fraternize with his fellow pilots. He never speaks to his orderly, who is forever adding medals and dogfight cups to his mantelpiece and commenting on how easily Von Hammer falls asleep after a day of killing in the skies. His only friend is a wolf in the Black Forest, a fellow loner and killing machine. (Later he gets a dog.) Almost every pilot he shoots down salutes him from his doomed aircraft before plummeting to earth. (You can expect at least one of these - usually all of them - to happen in a single issue.)
Good stuff, right? It would make a great movie or series or something, especially if it ended with him in WW2 telling der fuhrer to go fornicate with himself like in War In Heaven. (Although ideally, he'd be killed by his long-time nemesis, The Hangman, a French fighter pilot in WW1, and not in WW2.) The whole thing is about grace in defeat, honor in death. No one chooses when. Kudos to Joe Kubert and Robert Kanigher for coming up with the character way back when.
Long before I knew who Kanigher, Klum or Joe Kubert was, (although I guess I had some inkling of Kubert, though no direct familiarity with his work) I came across the Hammer of Hell in:
as collected in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. As mentioned elsewhere in these pages, that and its companion volume (The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told) altered my bat-trajectory altogether. I shan't retread that ground, though, but I broke the story out again and man is it wonderful. I just felt like putting up a few panels and talking about it a bit.
Bruce Wayne is producing a movie in Spain about the life of, you guessed it, Hans Von Hammer. Not only is he fascinated by the tales of the Baron, but he believes in the project and "the things it can say to audiences about the nature - and the folly - of war."
Someone is sabotaging the production, and people keep dying. As Bruce talks the situation over with the director, the film's technical expert, Heinrich Franz, enters.
If you're thinking we just met the saboteur, you're absolutely correct. And after a few more deaths and misdirections, Batman comes face to face with the self-styled "Ghost of Von Hammer." Why is he doing this?
So this is about control of the legacy/ competing narrative frames. Naturally, it all ends with a duel in the sky.
God that last page is so great. And - I realize now but didn't then - a wonderfully Kubert-ian composition. All the kudoses and all the chapeaus to Messrs O'Neil and Adams. I was going to say it would all make a terrific movie. And it would, I'm sure, but it'd make an even better two-hour Special TV Event if they ever end up doing another Batman TV show. (And they should.) This'd be the episode they'd talk about all summer long and for all summers after.
Two last things: I never tire of stuff like this:
And (2) may all the ghosts of our own killer skies, circling above, one day glide to a peaceful landing. Failing that, may they all guide our hands in aviating death-duels with the enemy. Amen and amen.
Did he ever read it? I don't know. I doubt it, actually, but who knows? I know for sure he read the War in Heaven one, as I watched him do it and he referenced it a few times over the years as a movie he wanted to make. To the day he died Klum was talking about the movies he was going to make. No one chooses when, as Martin Blank once said, and things are left unfinished. That's life and death for you.
So all of the above was going through my head and heart when I cracked this one open. Enemy Ace was never a comic I actively read, but I think Joe Kubert is one of the all time greats, and I like pretty much any WW1 dogfight story anyone is going to put in front of me.
I knew the broad strokes already but had never read the actual stories (outside of the aforementioned War in Heaven by Garth Ennis and Chris Weston.) Here's how the wiki puts it:
"Enemy Ace centered around the adventures of a skilled but troubled German anti-hero and flying ace in World War I and World War II, Hans von Hammer, known to the world as "The Hammer of Hell". It featured detailed and accurate depictions of WWI air combat, as told from the German POV. Hans von Hammer was a man of honor and chivalry, a flying knight in his Fokker Dr.I, but he was haunted by his duties and the constant death surrounding him."
Good stuff, right? It would make a great movie or series or something, especially if it ended with him in WW2 telling der fuhrer to go fornicate with himself like in War In Heaven. (Although ideally, he'd be killed by his long-time nemesis, The Hangman, a French fighter pilot in WW1, and not in WW2.) The whole thing is about grace in defeat, honor in death. No one chooses when. Kudos to Joe Kubert and Robert Kanigher for coming up with the character way back when.
Long before I knew who Kanigher, Klum or Joe Kubert was, (although I guess I had some inkling of Kubert, though no direct familiarity with his work) I came across the Hammer of Hell in:
as collected in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. As mentioned elsewhere in these pages, that and its companion volume (The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told) altered my bat-trajectory altogether. I shan't retread that ground, though, but I broke the story out again and man is it wonderful. I just felt like putting up a few panels and talking about it a bit.
Bruce Wayne is producing a movie in Spain about the life of, you guessed it, Hans Von Hammer. Not only is he fascinated by the tales of the Baron, but he believes in the project and "the things it can say to audiences about the nature - and the folly - of war."
 |
| It's unclear why he's in his Batman duds at this point. |
Someone is sabotaging the production, and people keep dying. As Bruce talks the situation over with the director, the film's technical expert, Heinrich Franz, enters.
If you're thinking we just met the saboteur, you're absolutely correct. And after a few more deaths and misdirections, Batman comes face to face with the self-styled "Ghost of Von Hammer." Why is he doing this?
So this is about control of the legacy/ competing narrative frames. Naturally, it all ends with a duel in the sky.
 |
| Just as naturally, Batman may be receiving a little help from the Great Beyond. |
God that last page is so great. And - I realize now but didn't then - a wonderfully Kubert-ian composition. All the kudoses and all the chapeaus to Messrs O'Neil and Adams. I was going to say it would all make a terrific movie. And it would, I'm sure, but it'd make an even better two-hour Special TV Event if they ever end up doing another Batman TV show. (And they should.) This'd be the episode they'd talk about all summer long and for all summers after.
Two last things: I never tire of stuff like this:
 |
| "El Hombre Murcielago!" Or, as he helpfully repeats in English below, "Man of the Bats." |
And (2) may all the ghosts of our own killer skies, circling above, one day glide to a peaceful landing. Failing that, may they all guide our hands in aviating death-duels with the enemy. Amen and amen.
