Red, Dog: SECRET ORIGINS #34-35 (JLI 30)

[tcampbell1000]

Elsewhere, I’ve covered the many identities of Reagan in superhero comics. Gorbachev’s portrayals are fewer but no less fascinating. In GREEN LANTERN CORPS #209, 1986, he is intelligent and charming…far more so than Reagan in the same issue (one of the few portrayals I missed). But he is also, at the end of the day, a two-faced bad guy.



By JUSTICE LEAGUE #3 in 1987, Gorbachev’s pragmatism put him, tentatively, on the side of the heroes:



The Gorbachev of SECRET ORIGINS #34 (1988) is even more sympathetic, overall. In it, William Messner-Loebs and Irv Novick present “Did You Hear the One…?,” the chronological first appearance of Dmitri Pushkin, Rocket Red #4. He meets with Gorbachev, who torments himself about the death of Rocket Red #1:



And while Gorby admits to his kill order for the other Lanterns, Messner-Loebs casts it as an act of desperate paranoia in the face of the Lanterns’ power:



One thing helping this Gorbachev look nicer is that he’s placed next to Comrade Turgenev, a fictional incarnation of the old, hard-liner USSR. (Turgenev’s name is a nod to the history of Russian literature.)





Fictional Gorbachev’s jolting honesty is a fair representation of the real Gorbachev’s strengths, and it’s hard not to like him when he looks amused at a joke at his own expense. But he isn’t a 100% unambiguous “good guy” either. There’s his unspoken answer to Dmitri’s question about his sister. And when he reaches a grim conclusion in the last frame above, Dmitri picks up what he’s putting down.




I admit I also have visions of my critics screaming “DIE, WEAKLING” at me while machine guns spatter bullets from their hands and mouths. A+ for relatability.

Dmitri defeats the enemy robot, flies it away before it can explode, and rejoins Gorbachev in his office.



History would vindicate this view of Gorbachev’s precarious position: he’d face a coup in 1991 from Turgenev-like figures. Then the Soviet Union and Gorbachev’s own power collapsed altogether and a new government arose. I’m not sure we ever learned what role the Rocket Reds played in that.

Editor Mark Waid was taking an active role in some of the story planning for SECRET ORIGINS. Here’s his account of the decision to give Fire a new origin (as seen in the last update).



I don’t know if Waid planned to juxtapose the honest Gorbachev story with the American military-industrial complex lying its ass off about Captain Atom, but it works out.



Captain Atom’s first series was published by Charlton Comics in the 1960s. His second series, in the 1980s, took some cues from Miracleman: as in that series, the older, simpler stories are re-presented as lies fed to the public. Cary Bates, Greg Weisman, and Alan Weiss’s “Yesterdays Once More” retells them, then has General Eiling and Dr. Megala explain why those stories could’ve used an editor:



(Seriously, there was no editor listed in the original Captain Atom credits:)



The Captain Atom story’s the longest, but it probably resonated more with people who’d read the original series it’s riffing on. I think the rest of this sample of #34 is better devoted to “The Secret Origin of G’Nort,” by Giffen, DeMatteis, and Stephen DeStefano.

G’Nort grows up in the care of Gnelson and Gnancy Gneesmacher, who might be his “gnatural” parents or might just be “gnannies.” If the latter, rumor has it that they found Baby G’Nort on their doorstep with instructions and the promise of riches should they bring G’Nort to adulthood. The Gneesmachers have positive attitudes when we meet them, but parenting G’Nort soon cures them of THAT:



G’Nort hits adolescence, transforming into” H’Ornt.” Here’s the last four pages, minus one panel that might go a little too far for today's audience.






G’Nort’s interest in naked girlies didn’t persist beyond this story. Let’s hope he’s only attracted to his own species.

GREEN LANTERN v3 #9-12 (1991) revealed that the “Guardians” who gave Gnewman and G’Nort their rings were a bunch of posers in a plan to sully the Lanterns’ good name. But G’Nort showed enough courage in defeating them that Guy Gardner, of all people, recommended him to the real Guardians as a provisional recruit.



SECRET ORIGINS #35 finishes the JLI retrospective but, compared to the previous two issues, doesn’t offer up much new information. The frame story in the Booster Gold origin does show Dan Jurgens capturing the vibe of the Giffen-DeMatteis League. This was something Jurgens would struggle with later, as Giffen and DeMatteis’s direct successor, but playing up the funnier side of his own creation was probably an easier assignment.



Mark Verheiden and Ken Steacy render the Martian Manhunter’s story. His real “secret origin” tale was the Martian Manhunter miniseries; this instead deals with Frank, an old cop buddy of J’Onn’s own cop identity, “John Jones.” Frank has now remembered a case from decades earlier that revealed J’Onn’s true nature to him, but why would that memory come back after all this time?



The important emotional beat is the warmth in J’Onn’s reconnection with Frank. Decades have passed, and Frank is almost retired but not quite. In fact, he’s like three days away from retirement…

…uh-oh.

The last story is by Ketih Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, and Eduardo Barreto. Completism is nice, but this retelling of Max’s story added little that JLI readers hadn’t seen in Max’s other appearances, all still less than two years old. Except for the first panel, Fleming employs a clipped dialogue style that contrasts with J.M. DeMatteis’ talkier original.

Of minor interest is that here, Max is revealing his past to Oberon, not long after he got out of the hospital. This is a step forward for Max, making a clean breast of his past to his closest associate, by choice. It also means Oberon bookends this set of origins, telling his own story in the first and coaxing out Max’s story in the last.






Giffen did have a reason to refresh readers’ memories about the evil computer that had manipulated Max during his climb to power. We’ll get to that next time.

Next time: Back on track with Max to the max!

Comments

[cainofdreaming]

I always knew the Guardians were a bunch of clowns.

Let’s hope he’s only attracted to his own species.

His own species probably hopes the opposite.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Now I'm curious what happened in the omitted panel...

[beyondthefringe]

G’nort unsuccessfully tries to see a girl (of his species) without her clothes.

I’ve always wondered what breed of dog G’nort is supposed to resemble. Some sort of terrier, perhaps?

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Ah, yeah... makes sense.

My guess, then, would be one of the horned variety.

[scorntx]

Have we not, all of us, at some point in our lives had a meeting where the annoying hardass in the room suddenly turns into a killer robot?
No? Oh.


Mildly random aside, but at this point in DC's history there were at least two occasions where America turned against its heroes en masse due to paranoia, at least once without it being an actual supervillain plot (just the HUAC).
Seems like a thing a portrayal of Russia at that time could've brought up, depending on how they wanted to portray them, smug or sympathetic.
(No idea if they did or didn't. But it seems like a mildly missed opportunity if they didn't.)


"Looks like those clowns on Oa did it again! What a bunch of clowns."

But really, making a terrible decision that backfires in some hideous fashion? That doesn't sound like the Guardians.
*canned laughter*

[tcampbell1000]

That was kind of a lead-in to the Green Lantern story shown above--the GLs dealt with one round of bad publicity and were then stunned to see G. Gordon Godfrey (snicker) rallying a wave of anti-super hysteria and a government ban on super-activity. The GLs respond by leaving the US, and Katma Tui, like Kilowog, considers whether basing themselves in the USSR might've been a better bet.

And yeah, a little light nepotism or vulnerability to filibustering was kid stuff compared to some of the other bad calls the Guardians would make. I'm not even sure that the revision makes them look better: in both cases they're inducting G'Nort on the say-so of another Lantern, and in the first version of his history, that Lantern was supposed to be an accomplished hero, whereas after the revision, the Lantern is Guy.

[beyondthefringe]

Given some of the other absolutely wild choices for Green Lanterns inducted into the Corps over the millennia, one might wonder if either there's some sort of glitch in the system, some sort of unfathomable intelligence at work, or something else.

Much later explanations establishing that something or someone like Mogo help guide the rings to appropriate people don't work so well because for so many years, the choice process was inconsistent. The Guardians chose individual Lanterns. Other Lanterns chose replacements or successors. The rings chose replacements based on programming. Sometimes, you just found a ring and put it on. Is it magic? Science? Magiscience? Are they alive/semi-autonomous/well-programmed? No one knows.

So how did G'nort become Green Lantern? Because, I posit, by the standards of his people and culture, he was a good dog. Remember, Lanterns are allowed to, and expected to, adhere to their cultural standards where appropriate. (There was a whole Silver Age storyline where a GL came from a transactional culture, and Hal was outraged to see him accept payment...)

G'Nort may be dumb as a brick, but he is a Good Dog and clearly well-intentioned, and worthy of the ring. Sure, by many cultures, he's inept, inefficient, clueless, and impulsive, but he's still capable of making the ring work which means he has willpower and focus where it counts. And hey, I think we can accept that he's also an extremely unreliable narrator when it comes to recounting his own origins...

I really do wish there was an all-encompassing, consistent, central methodology behind GL recruitment, but this is comics after all.

Actually, if it was up to me, I'd say that every ring is unique in its own way--created by the Central Battery or formed out of ambient willpower/green light/whatever, but the rings are as much wish fulfillment as anything else. You get what you expect, whether it's just a ring that goes pew-pew green energy, or something with personality and attitude, or a complex piece of programming, or a literal genie on your finger. That would certainly fit having to adhere to thousands upon thousands of different sentient species/beings/concepts over millions of years.

[tcampbell1000]

(Just wanted to say this was pretty interesting.)

[huntleyhaverstock]

1. I remember liking the Seussian art for the G'nort story as a kid.

2. Wait wait there's a story where Steve Ditko was inked by JOHN BYRNE? Did their crankiness overlap or cancel each other out?

3. I wonder whether Steven Moffat ever read that horrifying sequence of panels with the gun barrel grotesquely protruding from the Soviet general's mouth...

[tcampbell1000]

Byrne was pretty new to comics at the time and Ditko was pretty hermitic even then, so they probably just didn't interact much!