Comic Review #29: The New Guardians #2 (1988)

 

I'm sure everyone has a moment where they just realize that the writer of something didn't care about the product. It could be a movie with great acting and directing but the writer was like eh I'm going to come up with stuff that just barely constitutes a story. The New Guardians #2 is one such example of that and it apparently had TWO writers and neither of them cared. They aren't some nobodies who just made some comics for money. These were two really well established writers who wrote some wonderful stuff. What's even weirder is that this comic gets put on lists of "Weirdest comics ever!" and we will get to the reason why later

Of the two writers on this comic, we have already talked about one of them Cary Bates. I must promise Cary that I will talk about some of his great comics and not the stuff where you could tell his heart really wasn't in it. At this time he was also co-writing Captain Atom with Greg Wiseman and that is a terrific very entertaining comic that you should check out. The other writer on this comic was Steve Englehart. Steve's work during the 1970s was amazing. Captain America, Dr. Strange, Justice League, Avengers, Batman. All of those comics he did are stuff I'd recommend greatly 40-45 years AFTER their release. He made some of the greatest comics ever. They were wild and memorable and fuck it he was the guy that had Captain America shoot a barely disguised Richard Nixon in a story. Yes, that guy.

After Batman in I believe 1977 or 1978 he left the comics industry for a little while and wrote a novel. He came back to Marvel Comics under the Epic line with Coyote. I've never read it but I hear pretty good things about them. He then does West Coast Avengers which is pretty good. I'd recommend those comics. Hawkeye is the leader and I loves me some Hawkeye. He then started working for DC with the Green Lantern and other people are enamored with that run much more than I am. He did create Kilowog who is one of the top 5 Green Lanterns ever. He worked on Fantastic Four for Marvel in the late 80s and it was not a very good run of Fantastic Four comics. He seemed to leave comics after that. I'm not completely sure on that though. I would actually like to check out his novels.

Speaking of Green Lantern this came out of a Green Lantern focused comic event in 1988 called Millennium. I don't want to get into the plot of it here because it's possibly my least favorite DC event and I want to get into the gritty details in its only little article. It gave us several new characters and updates to old characters. They were supposed to bring in a new era of heroes by I dunno I guess fucking? Yeah there's 3 guys and 3 women but one of those guys was a plant man and one of them enjoyed kissing other men (Extrano is literally the biggest stereotype I've ever seen in anything. calling him flamboyant isn't even cutting the mustard. It's amazing to see this actually.) The other characters are Harbinger some character that's never been that great from Crisis on Infinite Earths. She was the Monitors helper or some shit. Never gave a damn about her and I'm pretty sure she disappeared and hasn't appeared in 30 years. At least I hope so. The Floronic Man was a bad guy who fought Swamp Thing in a pretty cool Alan Moore story and is probably the best character of the lot. Thomas Kalmaku, also known as Pieface an Inuit friend to the Hal Jordan Green Lantern. Yes Pieface is apparently considered a racial slur to Inuit people. It was 1960 when they came up with him. I don't think they call him that by 1988 so that's pretty good, he turns into a robot computer guy named Ram. There's also a black lady with green hair. I like her look but she's not very fun or interesting. I forgot if there actually was a third lady or not actually. That shows you how exciting and memorable this comic was.

Another problem with the whole "These characters are to bring in a whole new era of heroes or some shit" is that in issue one of this series they apparently get AIDS. Well three of them do. The black lady, Harbinger and yes the gay man all get AIDS. No it't not from having sex. It's from a weird super villain creating a monster called the Hemo-Goblin. Yes. It's very on the nose. This comic was clearly an assignment that the writers were forced to do. I cannot see it any other way. They want to go after the guy who wanted to kill them for whatever reason I don't know because I didn't read #1. I went to #2 because it was considered weird. Maybe it was explained in #2 but I forgot it because this comic was not fun in any way. They get told by some CIA guy that the heroes may support you but we normal people need more convincing. The guy they are going after apparently is a big name and is considered a good guy. 

They are told to go to Colombia to fight a drug lord. The drug lord is a guy who gets super powers by snorting cocaine. That's why it's on 8,000 lists of "Weird comics!" by like buzzfeed like sites. They don't really do much with the character besides that. The rest of the comic is simple by the numbers stuff and they don't really do anything with the stuff. They are shot by his men and a weird brown sunflower thing named Betty who lives in Extrano (yes okay this part is weird but she's a part of the entire series) and gives them up to fall down before getting shot. They pretty much wake up and INCASE the would be killers in a damn grave. I dunno if I like heroes killing people and these guys are too doofy to be ever taken seriously as anti-heroes. They go to fight Snowflame and the people who think hes God fight the heroes. They beat him. Snowflame blows up and we all go home a dollar poorer.

FINAL VERDICT: I think if the two writers cared more they would have made something more memorable and fun to read. It just feels like "Christ I got 3 other comics I care about more to get done before the end of the month so I'll just throw down some crap!" I think Snowflame could have had wings in more fun stories by people who cared. Everything except the art which is pretty darn good by Joe Staton really feels like a homework assignment instead of something they cared about. This was a disappointment because I thought after being on 4900000 lists it would be something but it isn't. I kinda wish Batman had fought Snowflame in a Alan Grant Detective Comics which were happening around the same time as this comic. I'm still amazed I could write so much on this boring comic. I think I need a rest. This was just a bad idea with the whole WE ARE GOING TO CREATE THE NEW ERA OF HEROES and oops we might have AIDS. It's really something.