John Romita, Jr. in the 2000s

Hey now! It's high time I picked up this Scenic Route decade-crawl of JRJR's work. Let's have a look at his work from the first decade of the 21st century. He was probably best-known as a Spider-Man artist during the decade itself, but we'll look at all of that in a separate Spidey-centric post. As before I won't be looking at everything he released in the years between 2000 and 2009, just the stuff on my external hard drive. Which is to say, most of it, but incomplete. 

Until about a month ago, the only bit of JRJR's 2000s work I'd seen was -

THE

ETERNALS

which I bought as it came out. It started life as a 6-issue mini-series but was expanded to 7 issues when Neil Gaiman (its author) got to issue 5 and realized he needed more room. Kirby-concepts tend to do that to people. It's an appropriately cosmic and globe-spanning tale, doing justice to and arguably even improving on the original series *, and JRJR's work (as inked by Danny Miki and Tom Palmer) rises to the occasion.

* I've never read the 1985 series, so I can't comment on that one. Or anything post-this-series. Feel free to let me know in the comments what your favorite Eternals saga is.

As always I'm here not to talk writing so much as to take the Scenic Route through JRJR's art over the decades. It's difficult not to notice, though, the storytelling even in these isolated, non-chronological screencaps below. The man knows how to lay out a page, not to call attention to itself - though it certainly does - but to the unfolding story.

Mixed in with his customary flare for denoting super-powered, demigod-like folk.

Next up, JRJR (with Klaus Janson)'s and Reginald Hudlin's take on:

BLACK

PANTHER

I've discussed elsewhere my enduring affection for Don McGregor's Black Panther stories from Jungle Action and Marvel Premiere, as well as the original Lee/Kirby (and Kirby's odd return to the title in the 70s) stories from Fantastic Four. Outside of those, though, my exposure to the Wakanda mythos is scattershot. This version - a soft reboot, I suppose - is enjoyable, but how it ranks up against the other takes on the character I can't say.

The art is either augmented or overwhelmed by Dean White's colors, depending on your taste. For me, it's a bit of both.

Here I'd say it improves considerably an already great picture.

Elsewhere, not so much.

Mostly, I think it's beautiful.

Next up, two of the most wonderfully kinetic entries in the just-lying-around-all-storyboarded-up-and-waiting-to-be-the-most-enjoyable-TV-ever-made sweepstakes:

WOLVERINE:

ENEMY OF THE STATE

and

AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

These 12 issues (Wolverine v3 20-31) are written by Mark Millar and inked by Klaus Janson Jr. In the first arc, Wolverine is seemingly brainwashed by HYDRA and the Hand and becomes Public Enemy Number One. The action is relentless: a typical sequence involves a mass melee with severed limbs flying about before, say, dropping from a S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft carrier in the South Pacific into a frenzy of sharks.

An entire three-hundred-and-twenty-five issue series could be done of just Wolverine fighting sharks, and I'd be happy. These panels are as close as I'll likely get; let's split the difference.

As mentioned here: "Romita Jr. got an opportunity to illustrate almost every A-list hero Marvel had to offer over the arc(s)."

That's Kitty and Rachel Summers in that last screencap. Not the versions I used to know, of course; to me, Kitty looks like Illyana Rasputin in that pic, and Rachel like Rogue. Part of me thinks Marvel or DC or any caretakers of long-established characters should go back to distributing (and enforcing) official visual designs for long-established characters, like Marvel did with JRJR's Dad or DC with José Luis García-López. But only part of me - mostly I like seeing traditional designs adapted into different artists' milieu. 

Unless said artist sucks, of course. Which we're in no danger of here!

Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. features a deprogrammed Logan getting his revenge on the Hand.

It's incredible fun. The art, the action, the one liners, the little beats here and there, the plot twists, the villains, the heroes, the violent blend in-between encapsulated by Wolverine - all of it.

 

Rebuilding the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier must be a lucrative business. I wonder who has the contract?

Old friends.

In both story arcs Elektra plays a central role.

Including almost an homage to a similar sequence from DD: Man Without Fear.

Her partnership in carnage and intrigue with Logan feels totally natural.

We'll finish this overview with JRJR's work on:

HULK

I asked the guy who got me into 70s Hulk what he thought of both John Romita Jr. and  - knowing he's been an active comics reader all these years, making monthly trips to the comics shop despite hating most everything published since the 70s - what he thought of this run on Hulk. His answer: "you have to understand, the Hulk is my favorite character, and Armaggedon is my favorite Hulk villain, and JRJR drew Armageddon with his brains coming out of his ears." Fair enough.

I guess it is kinda brutal.

This run on Hulk (written by Paul Jenkins, author of the notably excellent Wolverine: Origins among his achievements) is probably great. I can never tell with Hulk. Anytime I read any non-70s take on the character (excepting the bits of Peter David's run that I've read from the 80s) I just want to read the 70s issues again. That's not a comment on the non-70s stuff, just an ongoing confession. A cry for help? Maybe even a test...

I digress. It's a perfectly cool run on the book, with Bruce/ the Hulk mostly in Richard-Kimble-Fugitive mode. And as I say a lot during these posts, I'm only here for the pics, so hey, comin' atcha.

Throughout most of the arc when Bruce is on the road, he's haunted / soothed by the vision of a seductive woman while doing his metronome meditation.

It comes to the fore in a compelling way during one almost-wordless issue where Bruce meets an autistic girl on the bus and they form a brief psychic connection.

I wish I could say "And this issue was written by Stephen King" because of that description, but alas. I bet it'd be his favorite issue of this Hulk run, though. (And deservedly so - it's great.)

Some other thoughts:

(1) As per usual, JRJR's non-superheroics scenes are some of the best-drawn. Always the mark of a comics professional, for your humble tour guide.

(2) Equally as-per-usual, Doc Samson shows up to get slapped around.

And (3) there's this nice unreliable-narrator Frankenstein sequence, as well.

Reminded me of the similar sequence from Tales from the Black Freighter.

And Marvel's big event series from 2007:

WORLD WAR HULK

Written by Greg Pak and inked by Janson, it's appropriately epic-comics-event-tastic. I imagine the MCU is working towards this movie? Maybe? It makes sense if they are. Reading it for the first time in 2017, I enjoyed it, but it didn't quite set my mind on fire the way it would have had it come out in the Shooter or immediate-post-Shooter era. (See above remarks about through-no-fault-of-the-work)

Lastly:

WHO'LL STOP THE RAIN? 

I only grabbed a couple of examples, but JRJR's big on the rain.

~

NEXT: Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man!

Quarry's Climax by Max Allan Collins

A short time ago Max Allan Collins offered up a few free copies of his new book: 

I've only read the first of the Quarry books (Quarry, originally published as The Broker in 1976, republished by Hard Case Crime along with all the others in the series). I was going to pick it up anyway, * but I entered my name for the promotion just the same.  A week later to my happy surprise, a signed copy arrived at my home. 

* And of course once I realized I'd scored a free copy, I purchased one. I'm not a savage.

I finished it a couple of days ago but haven't had time to sit down to gather my thoughts on it. Luckily they aren't that complicated: I loved it. No lede-burying for me. It's great fun and pieced together with Collins' usual facility with pace, detail, and scene-setting. If you were looking for a great entrypoint into the series without necessarily starting at the beginning, this strikes me as a perfect opportunity.

I haven't, like I say, read more than this one and Quarry, so perhaps I'm not the most qualified to say. And I can't comment as to how events occurring here may reflect or refract events in other books (except one, more on that later) or moments that may have resonance unknown to the reader not in the know, etc. But at no point did that stand between me and the story or the character. 

So, short version - to paraphrase Jack Kirby - "it's great; go buy it!" Longer version, coming up.

Some of the other books in the series, with Hard Case's signature throwback covers by Robert McGinnis.

"There's Nothing More Dangerous Than a Loaded Magazine.
 
Memphis, 1975. 'Raunchy' doesn't begin to describe Max Climer's magazine, Climax, or his all-hour strip club, or his planned video empire. And evangelists, feminists, and local watchdog groups all want him out of business. But someone wants more than that and has hired a killer to end Max's career permanently. Only another hit man - the ruthless professional known as Quarry - can keep Climer from becoming a casualty in the Sexual Revolution."

So reads the back cover. The innuendo doesn't stop there, nor with the title. It would be an exaggeration to say every page has a naked woman or an erection or hardcore sex on it, but not by too terribly much. As befits the locale and subject matter, of course. Picture Boogie Nights with a hired killer wandering through the set, having his own movie. In Memphis. There's really little overlap with Boogie Nights, plotwise, just for its equally evocative recreation of the era and an industry.

Dropped into it all is Quarry, who partakes freely - as both a narrator and protagonist - and his partner Boyd, who does not. Being gay, Boyd's not tempted by the constant goings-on at the Climax Club. Their partnership - Quarry the active shooter, Boyd the passive "spotter" - has served them well on previous missions, but will it survive this one? 

Well, obviously, it will survive, as Quarry's Climax takes place before the events of Quarry. I'll avoid spoilers for Q's C, but as Quarry came out in 1976, I feel fine telling you Boyd's murder is a pivotal part of its plot. Does anything in this one foreshadow that one? Absolutely, in a particularly cinematic chapter where Boyd and Quarry work the first part of their assignment: take out the pair of assassins hired to do the job on Climer that the Broker turned down in the beginning. (The second - find who hired them.)

This chapter is in many ways the novel's most interesting, as the other team is a homosexual couple, which causes Boyd and Quarry both some existential panic. Not in a homophobic way or anything stupid, in a through-the-looking-glass way for their own assassination-team dynamic. It unhinges Boyd a bit more than it does Quarry, and the chapter ends with Quarry wondering ominously "How many more jobs does this guy have in him?"

"The idea behind Quarry was twofold. I'd already followed my other mentor Donald E. Westlake into writing about a thief. (Bait Money was an homage to his Richard Stark-bylined Parker series, homage being French for 'rip-off'). I had trained to write private eye fiction but the times were wrong for cop heroes - cops were guys with nightsticks clubbing friends of mine at the '68 Chicago Convention. So the antihero crook was a convenient retreat for a writer who was (as my first agent Knox Burger put it) 'a blacksmith in an automotive age.' But I thought Parker and Nolan were to some degree cop-outs. They were "good" bad-guy thieves - oh sure, hard-bitten as hell, but they stole mainly money and killed other bad guys. In the '60s, banks and the Establishment were worthy targets of fantasy revenge. Also "Richard Stark" and I wrote our crook books in the third person. Safe. Detached.

"I wanted to take it up a notch - my "hero" would be a hired killer. The books would be in first person (...) And Quarry himself would be somebody like me, just a normal person in his early twenties - not a child of poverty or cursed by a criminal background, but a war-damaged Vietnam veteran. I had a good friend (now deceased) who was very much like Quarry - a sweet, smart, funny guy who had learned to kill people for 'Uncle Sugar.'

That's the author from his afterword to Quarry. I was reminded of this in this passage from Quarry's Climax: "(The Broker) understood that I resented having been paid and even honored by my country for killing a bunch of yellow people for no fucking reason in particular and then getting villi-fucking-fied for murdering a single goddamn white son of a bitch who had it coming." 

Quarry's a great character to hang a series on, though. His job offers an endless possibility of locales - although Collins' intent at the onset was to set most of them in the then-neglected Midwest; "regionalism was just around the corner for mystery fiction but I didn't know that at the time" - and it puts him one step over the line of similar protagonists: the ones just mentioned as well as someone like Travis McGee. Quarry adds an agreeably American New Wave (esque) element to the mix.

And like another serialized assassin of British extraction, Quarry has very definite opinions on and observations of men's fashion ("his leisure jacket - a plaid number from the Who Shot the Couch collection"), cuisine, although Quarry is concerned mainly with the ratio of soda-to-water in fountain drinks and properly cooked cheeseburgers, and interior decor: 

"We entered a make-believe world of moire wallpaper draperies, gold crystal chandeliers, and terrazzo floors, dazzled and dazed as our barely dressed hostess casually flipped a hand here and flipped a hand there. Each room was dominated by a single color, like the formal green living room with an elaborate single color, like the formal green living room with an elaborate mint fireplace, and a sunken area with a pair of shamrock-and-white curved couches on moss carpeting facing each other over an endless laurel-tinted glass coffee table, while in the background (adorning windows that looked out onto a swimming pool that was thoughtlessly blue) emerald drapes hung like slick seaweed, the space extending into an equally leprechaun dining room."

"You can't put the genie back in the bottle, particularly if it's Barbara Eden."

Those two quotes are from different parts of the novel, and I hadn't intended to put them together like that. But I kind of like the effect of doing so. 

A few words on the recently-cancelled Cinemax TV show, which I haven't seen. Rather than adapting any of the Quarry books, it began with his interim period between Vietnam and working for the Broker. I look forward to checking it out. For one, it has the author's approval, and two:

Logan Marshall Green plays the title character.

Logan is a guy I used to work with at summer camp in Rhode Island many moons ago. We actually both got fired in tandem from said camp, but I'll save that one for the time-travel talk show circuit with Johnny Carson. We were never close buds, don't mean to suggest otherwise, but I've hell-yeah'd his career ever since. And not just because we used to work (and got fired) together, but because he's a hell of an actor. And - from my albeit limited perspective on the character - a hell of a choice to play Quarry. 

It's a shame the show got cancelled before they could really delve into the books. Collins wrote an episode ("His Deeds Were Scattered," ep6) and I look forward to seeing it.

~

When not writing books, Max Allan Collins is the president * of the burgeoning Catalan republic. 

 * I can't be the only one who sees this.