The Iron Age of Comics Justin Zyduck & Jim Cannon

Milestone Media’s Icon has a pretty punchy elevator pitch: “What if Superman was a Black Republican?” But with stories by Dwayne McDuffie and pencils by M.D. “Doc” Bright (both now sadly no longer with us), this book goes to some interesting and unexpected places. For one thing, this Supermanalogue has a sidekick: a teenage girl named Rocket who is arguably the real protagonist of the book and whose struggles and issues are the most complex and heartfelt that the book explores. We discuss how McDuffie and Bright tackle teen pregnancy in an honest and conscientious way through Rocket and examine racial identity and privilege through the title character, acknowledging there are no easy answers for any of the questions being raised.

Neil Gaiman’s complete reinvention of DC’s trademark on The Sandman is inarguably one of the most influential comics of the Iron Age…so why haven’t we talked about it much yet? And why are we starting with the storyline that’s popularly considered “Volume 2” of the series? We’re focusing on the collection that introduced The Sandman to the bookshelf market (which originally included the landmark “The Sound of Her Wings” story) and marked an evolution in the comic from a horror reimagining in the vein of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing to a showcase for Gaiman’s brand of dark fantasy and his love of the world of stories. We’ll also touch on how the series introduced character types not seen in other comics of the time, whether it matters or not that a big part of the story hinges on plotlines from Roy Thomas’ Infinity Inc., and how The Sandman went on to give birth to the Vertigo imprint.

We return to our coverage of DC’s 1989 Animal Man series—Grant Morrison’s first ongoing for the U.S. comics market—with a look at issues #10 through #17 (commonly collected in trade as “Origin of the Species”). Now that we’ve met Buddy Baker and seen him join the Justice League, we’ll follow his investigation into the mysteries of his secret origin (which, as it turns out, no longer fits into post-Crisis continuity). This leads us to discuss Iron Age DC’s haphazard approach to its own canon while also wading into more serious territory, as this is the part of the run that most directly and explicitly confronts real-world animal rights and other political issues. These stories force Buddy—and the reader—to consider some difficult problems without easy solutions, but we’ll also see how the series’ letters page became a forum for lively debate among a community of correspondents searching for answers together.

While many early offerings from Image Comics were deliberately designed to appeal to their popular artists’ existing fanbases, Erik Larsen took a different approach, reviving a character he created at his kitchen table while making homemade comics with his friends as a child. And 32 years later, Larsen still stands apart from his compatriots as the only Image founder still regularly writing and drawing his original creation: The Savage Dragon. In this episode, we talk about Larsen’s influences and early career, how the series marries Bronze Age-style soap-opera subplotting to a distinctly Iron Age attitude and self-awareness, and why sometimes over-the-top violence and superhero silliness can be as true an expression of an artist’s creative freedom as anything else you’ll find in the comic book medium.

Superstar penciler Jim Lee adopted less revolutionary rhetoric than some of his fellow Image founders after leaving Marvel Comics, but he became one of the most successful of the group, growing his WildStorm Productions imprint into a publishing empire. WildC.A.T.s, Lee’s first Image offering from 1992, takes his and co-creator Brandon Choi’s love of spy fiction and channels it into something that would have looked very familiar to fans of Lee’s X-Men. We look at WildC.A.T.s’ expansive cast and ask, “How much mysterious backstory is too much mysterious backstory?” We’ll also look at Lee’s continued career at Image, his brief return to Marvel, and finally on up to today as head honcho of DC Comics.

When Daniel Clowes was writing and drawing vignettes about two cynical teenage girls in his groundbreaking comic anthology Eightball, he wasn’t sure Ghost World would add up to anything in the end, but its balance of bitter ennui and painful self-reflection connected with readers and led to a standalone graphic novel and a 2001 film adaptation. Kicking off our conversation with a discussion of the alternative comics scene, we then struggle to overcome our own inner critics to dig deep into the comic: the zeitgeist of the ‘90s, the vibrant mundanity of its setting, and how our identification with the leads has changed as we’ve aged. Get ready for a very personal look at a very personal book.