Doomsday +1 #5
On this edition of “before they were
famous…”
"Rule
of Fear”
Writer
– Joe Gill
Art
– Byrne Robotics with technical assistance from Patterson-75
Editor
– George Wildman
April
1999
Jumping back into the post-apocalyptic
future has been a lonely task. So for today’s little jaunt in the Crapbox’s time
machine, I thought I’d ask a couple of friends to join me. And since the Crapbox
was nice enough to spit out a reprint that is some of the first work of John Byrne,
I thought I’d ask my pals over at 3rd Degree Byrne, a podcast about
all things Byrne, to pile into the flux-capacitor bearing DeLorean for a little
jaunt into the future as I take a look at Doomsday+1, issue number 5 from ACG.
Brian Hughes had this to say about the
series:
I
have always had a soft spot in my heart for Doomsday +1. Now, when I first discovered it, I found it
as a reprint titled “The Doomsday Squad”.
But because of it, I was able to track down a lot of the early Byrne
work at Charlton, which opened new vistas for me as a collector back in the day
when there was no comprehensive list of John Byrne’s work. The original books, having been printed by a
machine that was used to print cereal boxes, had a very different feel to them
than your books that came from the big two.
So this era of Byrne’s career had an almost “guerilla-independent” feel
to it.
The
issue in question, Doomsday +1, Issue #5 is unmistakably early Byrne, who had
not quite refined his anatomy, but did great line work on his machines. The story gives us a simple post-apocalyptic
encounter with an explosive ending that demonstrated a lot of what we would see
from other Sci-fi series coving this type of story. The writing is simple, and the characters
that Byrne drew were more caricature-like than his later work. Many of the enemies in this book looked like
anime characters from the same time period (think Speed Racer bad guys).
The
back issues are not hard to find yet, but are starting to rise in price. The reprints from Fantagraphics do Byrne’s
art better justice though and the better coloring corrects a multitude of sins
from the originals. Also, they are only
going for about 3 bucks a piece.
One
last note: I never could understand how
the caveman, Kuno, could never pronounce “Jill”, but had no trouble pronouncing
“Kill”.
Brian makes a lot of fair points in
all of that. But I should probably give a little background into what we are
looking at with this title.
The issue I hold in my hand was
originally printed in March 1976 by Charlton comics. The Doomsday +1 series had
an extremely short life, lasting only six issues. Charlton was some of Byrne’s
first freelance work and soon after starting with them, he was sought out by
Marvel. By 1977 Byrne’s star had begun to rise at the House of Ideas and he
joined Chris Claremont on the X-Men at the end of that year. Charlton, seeing him become a hot artist much beloved by comic book fans, took the Doomsday +1 books and
reprinted issues 1-6 as issues 7-12, some with new covers that were blow-ups of
interior art panels. Anything for a buck at that point in Charlton’s history, I
suppose.
But that’s not all. As Brian mentions, it was reprinted
AGAIN by Fantagraphics as The Doomsday Squad in 1987. Oddly enough, one of the
backups in that run was a Strnad and Fujikae’s “Dalgoda” story. And that third
reprint brings us around to where we find this issue appearing. After acquiring
copies of massive amounts of artwork from defunct publishers American Comics
Group and Charlton Comics, Avalon Communications published reprints under a number
of company names from 1990 through 2003. Despite announcing plans to restart a
line of new material under a revamped Charlton brand, the publisher suddenly
ceased operations in 2003. So, this issue is a reprint of issue number 5
published sometime in 1999, which had already seen reprintings in 1979 and 1987.
That makes an astonishing fourth time this
book has seen print. Sounds like they must be dynamite in a bottle.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
The book opens with a full page prologue
that introduces the setting and characters, a handy if a bit expository way to open.
A madman caused the total annihilation of all the nations on the Earth by attacking
both New York and Moscow setting off nuclear armageddon. Mere weeks later,
three scientists return from a space mission that took off before the
destruction and hook up with a 3rd Century Goth warrior (not the
black wearing kind) unfrozen from an icy sleep. They join forces against an
insane cyborg and his robot legions in the prior issues which…I’m just saying
it was weeks that they were gone – not years. Suddenly cyborgs and robots and
prehistoric frozen people and other wackiness.
I’m going to put forth that the Joe
Gill story featured here is very on the half-baked side. Gill was known for his speed, often
finishing a full-length comic script in a day while writing an estimated 100 to
125 comic pages a week across every kind of genre imaginable. He is known as
the most prolific comic book writer ever, with good cause.
However, I don’t necessarily think
that volume leads to quality. There is something to be said about spending more
time with a story to craft it. Doomday+1 #5 feels very “manufactured.” I’d
rather it be odd, strange, and disappointing rather than a by-the-numbers book
that is so on a rail that it becomes stale.
But the art is something else. I mean
look at this opening shot from Byrne. He’s doing his own word balloons here and
lettering too and I LOVE the way that big panel with the plane has all the spikey,
jabby things poking out all over showing “danger.” Even the word balloons echo it
with their sharp spikes.
The inset panel alludes to Kuno and Ikei
being up to some kind of hanky-panky, perhaps of the romantic kind, however as
we rejoin the group on the next page it is like that didn’t happen. There is no
warning text box saying time has passed, we just pick right up with Kuno still
in the cockpit talking with Boyd. That’s…odd.
As the plane passes over a military
bunker they are picked up by a radar station, which is something that causes Dr.
Ikei “not in the navigator’s compartment with Kuno” Yashida some concern.
Boyd, however, jumps at the chance to stretch
his legs and look for survivors, so he turns the plane about.
Meanwhile in the bunker, an insane
military commander..yadda, yadda, yadda…sends men to bring back the plane OR
ELSE! Just once I’d like a military installation to be filled with normal human
beings and not cogs following a gear with most of its teeth missing. You know, one staffed with people not
driven crazy with power.
Our flunky for the big, bad bald guy hops
his little butt in a jet and fires one under the bow of our heroes, forcing
them to land their plane on his airstrip. He does so in a very disrespectful
way though, so don’t get attached to him.
Kuno catches the right vibe, that
these guys are assholes. Jill tries to put lipstick on a pig, but Kuno just isn’t
having it. There’s something about these early Byrne panels that reminds me a
bit of Walt Simonson. I think it is the unfinished, unpolished quality the
Bryne uses on them and the various angles he uses to tell the story. It’s a
departure from his later professional work and I have to say that I’m liking in
more and more the further into this we go.
Back to the story at hand: the baldy sergeant
arrives at our hero’s plane in a four-star general’s car, clearly showing
somethings amiss. Boyd catches on quick, asking for the sergeant’s commander.
But the commander isn’t having any of
that, and gives Boyd a rifle-butt to the face. Of course this doesn’t sit so
well with Kuno. Love this five panel progression going on here.
Anyway, the gang ends up captured, but
surprisingly someone unexpected hands the sergeant his own head on a platter.
Nice one, Jill.
Unfortunately, Baldy gets the upper
hand and Boyd has to intercede. He tries to reason with the sergeant, but all
that gets them is captured. Jill states the obvious, this guy shouldn’t be in
charge. There are other officers present. She’s more right than she knows, as Baldy
here has executed several commanding officers after the nukes hit and assumed
command of the facility by force.
Sergeant grouchy finishes his story of
taking over the base and then listens as the group tells of what they’ve
experienced since returning to Earth, not offering much in the way of details.
When Boyd again tries to reason with him, Baldy tells him that he’s as good as
dead. Kuno, too.
Appears that our Sergeant doesn’t want
more troublemakers and decides to tie them up. At first I’m not sure if that is
to keep Jill and Ikei in line or if they plan on torturing more intel out of
them later. I do like the Goth warrior guy a bit more, even if his background
is contrived as all get out.
While the guys get stuffed into a back
office, the girls hatch a plan to appear complicit to the Sergeant’s wants and
catch the men off guard.
And drawn the way Byrne draws them
that won’t be very difficult to do.
The ploy works, the girls get away
with a few weapons including one hand grenade. Unfortunately, with the ruse
uncovered, Sergeant Baldy decides the kid gloves are off. He prepares to
execute Kuno and Boyd.
The girls toss their grenade into the
room and things get crazy. Kuno and Boyd are somehow mysteriously freed and Baldy
is about to find out how Kuno’s fists feel as they smash his face several
times.
In fact, after Kuno’s thrashing, the
Sergeant’s true colors start to show and he’s made out to be a coward with a
glass-jaw ego who, when the going gets tough, crumples like a tissue.
And while the ladies warm up their aircraft
for a quick escape, Boyd tosses back the grenade, sans pin this time, to cover
their escape until they can get airborne.
But getting away isn’t all that easy.
While Boyd puts the thrusters on maximum…
…Sergeant No-Hair is gathering his
crew to take a nuclear pot-shot at them.
Which includes this hippy guy who in
no way could have grow that giant Sam Elliot mustache and long locks in the month
or two it is supposed to have been since the nuclear attack. But whatever.
Sergeant fires the missile…
…and promptly blows himself and
everyone on the base to kingdom come. I’m not going to say the book states
this, but I’m willing to bet it was because he forgot to open the doors to the
missile silo before launching it.
Whatever the cause, our villains are
all dead and our heroes escape…
…for one more issue, it seems.
I’m not really impressed by this, on
the whole. The early Byrne art and inking is grand and the only parts of the
book I find that I like. It’s neat to see how polished he was even just
starting out. And even so, there is a much cruder feel to the panels The guy
has an amazing talent.
What doesn’t impress me is the story. To
me, this is uninteresting and overly simplistic. The heroes get captured, the
heroes get free, the villains destroy themselves…the end. There isn’t any
character growth, especially on team bad guy. There is little motivation shown
for any of the followers of the Sergeant to act as they do. If we had some
conflicted soldiers it would have elevated the tale quite a bit. Then the heroes
might have had some internal conflict over staying to fight the bald bad guy or
leaving them to sort things out on their own.
I might recommend issues of Doomsday
+1 on art alone, but if the story was like this one, I’d say don’t pay a
premium for them. Pretty pictures is about all you’ll be getting.
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