My Favorite Explosion: An Akira Memoir

Tags

akira, anime, atomic power, Epic Comics, Katsuhiro Otomo, steve oliff

Akira kicks so much ass that everyone who reviews comic books and animated movies has already been there. But let me add a personal postscript, because Akira and I have a history.

The film version of this monstrous manga wasn’t released in every major theater at once. It opened in a few U.S. cities, then a few more, then a few more. In the pages of the original Epic printings of this translated and colorized version, the film showings were announced in each issue. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, without Internet or social media, this film became legend.

My friend Dave took me to see it at a theater in downtown St. Louis, Missouri in what must have been its first run in U.S. theaters. The venue was known for showing independent and avant garde films we didn’t see in the suburbs back then. I was 17 or 18 at the time, and 17 with an ID got you into the theater. I’m fairly certain this was the Tivoli Theater, which has since closed and re-opened. The old Tivoli showed some non-rated and NC-17 films such as The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, but I never saw them. I was only there for Akira, and Akira fried my brain.

I didn’t even know what the hell to think when the credits rolled. I thought I kind of maybe understood… something? But I loved the experience.

Later, I watched Akira a second time on video and realized what was happening, and I’ve watched it about a half dozen times since. The crazy thing is that the original manga is way more complicated and drawn out than the film, and even more epic in scope.

In print, the series takes a while to pick up steam, but my favorite issue rolls around when all the tension is set to explode. It explodes in the form of a bullet that kills one of Akira’s freaky little friends. Until then, for hundreds of pages, Akira was hardly more than a MacGuffin in child form. He never had any agency since being introduced. Characters told us we should fear him, but we as readers had never been shown a reason to.

But when Akira’s buddy is shot in the head, the mysterious title character freaks the fuck out and sets off a massive explosion on the scale of a nuclear bomb.

And creator Katsuhiro Otomo gives Akira an entire issue to blow it up!

BOOM.

Collector’s Guide: From Akira #16, Epic Comics, 1990. Story and Art by Katsuhiro Otomo; Coloring by Steve Oliff.

You’ll never find the entire series in stock on MyComicShop, though you might get lucky and see it on eBay as a full run for about $150.

For $180, you could own the 35^th anniversary boxed set edition on Amazon. It isn’t fully colored like the Epic edition, but it restores the original back-to-front layout of the original Japanese editions.

If you prefer a digital and low-cost edition in English that reads front-to-back, Kindle in 2020 released the Akira series in a four-volume, black-and-white, “deluxe set” for about $16 ($4 per volume). Considering that the single issue featured in this post will cost you more than that in print, the digital edition is one hell of a buy and fun to read!

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more free comics

Tags

big box of comics, comic books, Dreadstar, Eclipse Comics, Epic Comics, Jim Starlin, MiracleMan, Neil Gaiman, review

Just when I’d wrapped up a series of posts about the big box of free comics I got thanks to readers who used my affiliate links to find books at MyComicShop.com, another note from the retailer arrived to say I’d earned an additional $80 in store credit. That same week, I’d found a good deal on eBay to replace one of my favorite (and previously sold) action/crime series, DC/Vertigo’s The Losers, so I was left with very few holes in my collection. The Dark Horse Conan stories I’d like to read again were either too pricey or currently out of stock, so I dug around in my short boxes until it hit me: I still don’t have the complete original Miracleman series!

Over the years, I’d tracked down affordable copies in respectable condition of issues #1–20, and this quest was aided near the end by Marvel’s reprints of the original series. As Marvel made new, high-quality reprints available, the ridiculous prices for the original books decreased. Issue #15, one of the last gems to enter my collection, used to run from $150 up to several hundred bucks, for example. Now I have a copy in wonderful, though not perfect, condition, and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg.

I didn’t worry too much about collecting issues #21–24 because Marvel reprinted #21 and 22 in their repackaging of Neil Gaiman’s Golden Age storyline, and it seemed that Gaiman was slated to finish the Silver Age story that ended with a cliffhanger and was never completed due to Eclipse Comics’ demise. But here we are, years later, and we still haven’t seen the end of that story. I’m glad for Gaiman’s recent success with American Gods, but it isn’t a project that interests me. The gods I want to read about have “Miracle” in their names!

So, armed with some store credit, I picked up issues #21-23 of the original series, leaving me with only the rare (and still a bit pricey) #24 on my wish list. I’ve read them all before, thanks to scans posted online, but it’s just a different and more satisfying experience to read the physical copies. (You can find scans of the original series at https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Miracleman-1985)

Those three books ate up most of my store credit, but I had just enough left over to pick up another story I’ve read before but was partially incomplete in my collection: The Price by Jim Starlin. Sure, I have the color “remastered” version that was the Dreadstar Annual, but I have never seen nor owned the original magazine-sized black-and-white edition, and I just love the black-and-white painted art of the original Metamorphosis Odyssey that appeared in Epic Illustrated and started the whole Dreadstar saga.

The original art reveals just how much the coloring/painting process enhanced the artwork’s mood and the story’s vibrancy. The original feels cold compared to the color version. It lacks the brilliant reds of the robes worn by members of the Church of the Instrumentality, the eye-popping colors that bring various cosmic and mystical energies to life on the page, and the powerful emotions suggested by the reprint’s color artwork.

However, the front and back-cover paintings are rendered in their original full-color and full-size glory, unlike in the reprint where they are shrunk and surrounded by additional cover elements that distract from their beauty—a complaint that at least one reader expressed in the original letters column of Dreadstar when the Annual was discussed.

I’m pleased to now have both versions of The Price in my Dreadstar collection, and the original was the one piece I’ve felt was missing over the years. How I assembled, lost, and re-assembled the entire original series four times is a saga of collector triumph and tragedy, but I’m happy to now have every issue I ever wanted from one of my all-time favorite stories in any medium.

Now if we could just see the end of Miracleman, all would be right with the universe.

Thank you, readers and fans of sequential art for visiting this site and using it to find the books you want!

Collectors’ Guide:

Miracleman #1-24 (original 1985 series, Eclipse Comics)

Miracleman (reprint series by Marvel Comics, includes original issues #1-16)

Miracleman Golden Age (reprint series by Marvel, includes original issues #17-22 )

The Price (original magazine-sized b&w edition, Eclipse Comics)

Dreadstar Annual #1 (full-color reprint of the original, Epic/Marvel comics)

 

Jim Starlin’s Psychic Battle Motif: Dreadstar 2

Tags

Dreadstar, Epic Comics, Indie Comics, Jim Starlin, Willow

We include this scene from Dreadstar #2 in our Psychic Battle series even though it is not formally a battle. What we see here is different side of Starlin’s theme of psychic union or merger. Here, our protagonists are not vying for supremacy but seeking to cooperatively merge. Jim Starlin depicts their faces merging, so that they become one being together on the psychic plane.

While there is a scene within this scene in which Syzygy asserts his dominance over Willow to get at what is obstructing her powers, his goals are far different than what we saw yesterday in the battle between Willow and Monalo. Syzygy seeks to empower her. To this end, he brings her to a white light. It embodies the pure, unsullied essence of the human spirit – an image to which Willow would return for strength and comfort many, many times.

Collector’s Guide:
– From Dreadstar #2; Epic, 1983.
– Reprinted in Dreadstar and Company #2.

The Light of the Suns I See Through Its Eyes!

Tags

Alien Legion, Chuck Dixon, Deep Blue, Epic Comics, Larry Stroman, Meico

Alien Legion Vol.2 #13: “Deep Blue” – another one of our absolute Top Ten favorite comic books of all time. Here, Meico, the medical officer of Nomad Force, takes a squad to investigate the destruction of a science probe. A giant alien whale swallows their spacecraft. To escape certain destruction, Meico attains a psychic bond with the creature. He plants images of food in the creature’s mind to drive it to the surface. This will kill the creature, but save Meico’s squad.

While bonded to the great beast, Meico shares its pains, its age, its life, its fear -its primitive and ancient thoughts. This transcendent merging with the alien whale gives Meico a new perspective on the universe: “Smaller the stars are now. Smaller the universe is to me.”

Aside from the brilliant transcendent theme and poetic script, we love every rapturous line of Larry Stroman‘s artwork here, the gorgeous color palette for this issue, and the attention given to richly individual characterizations. Plus, we get some fun phrases like “We trapped like Vershnerdels in an oobie box!”

Collector’s Guide:
– From Alien Legion Vol.2 #13; 1989, Epic/Marvel.
– Reprinted in the 2nd Alien Legion TPB.

Nuke Me Slowly! It’s the First Issue of Marshal Law!

Tags

Epic Comics, first issue, Kevin O'Neill, Marshal Law, Marshal Law Limited Series, Nuke Me Slowly, Pat Mills

1987 was an awesome year to be alive. The world wasn’t full of sensitive assholes talking about their “issues” and “managing their anger.” No! When we wanted to work out some aggression, we dressed up in barbed wire and leather and went out to kill superheroes! That’s right!

Why? Why? Because superheroes are scum! The lowest form of life! Superheroes are bacteria!

And to prove it, here’s the first issue of Marshal Law for you. Raging from the twisted minds of Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill, Marshal Law will nuke you slowly, shatter your dreams, and disturb you for a long, long time. You’ll love it!

Collector’s Guide:
– From Marshall Law #1; 1987, Epic.
– Reprinted in Marshal Law Fear and Loathing TPB.
– Reprinted in Marshal Law Omnibus.

Also recommended to deviants like you:
– Marshal Law Kingdom of the Blind
– Marshal Law Takes Manhattan
– Marshal Law Super Babylon
– Marshal Law Secret Tribunal
– Marshal Law The Hateful Dead

Now read the whole issue, or frag off, Starpo Pig!

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Planets Disappeared in Atomic Infernos!

Tags

Dreadstar, Epic Comics, Epic Illustrated, Indie Comics, Jim Starlin, Metamorphosis Odyssey

It’s no secret Dreadstar is our favorite story of all time. We got hooked by the six-issue reprint Dreadstar and Company, right off the newstand at the drugstore. Then we graduated to the direct market series Dreadstar on high quality paper and chronicling our heroes’ further efforts to stop a centuries-old galactic war. Later, the series moved to First Comics. Our heroes finally saved the galaxy – only to have the rug pulled out from under them again! Brutal!

In this excerpt, Vanth tells his comrades about his previous experience with galactic war. It did not have a happy ending! SAY GOOD BYE TO THE MILKY WAY GALAXY! Jim Starlin summarizes the chapters of Metamorphosis Odyssey serialized in Epic Illustrated #1-9 in Vanth’s flashback here.

If you’d like to read the first few awe-inspiring installments of the original black and white series, click Metamorphosis Odyssey.