Weird Worlds #1: Garbageman by Lopresti

DC Comics’ relaunch of the anthology title Weird Worlds begins this week with an impressive array of creators and characters.

Kevin VanHook and Jerry Ordway are presenting new adventures of the bad-ass fan favorite Lobo. Kevin Maguire debuts a new character called Tanga.

But for me, the one I’m most looking forward to is Garbageman, a new variant in the “monster-as-hero” genre from Aaron Lopresti (most recently the artist on Wonder Woman).

I’ve known Aaron for a number of years, ever since he worked on the Ultraverse on a book called Sludge. Aaron pencilled and occasionally wrote issues of the UV’s monster-hero that was created by Steve Gerber, who created an earlier monster-hero called Man-Thing for Marvel Comics.

Garbageman fits perfectly into the monster comic genre that includes Man-Thing, Swamp Thing, The Heap, Sludge and others. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for someone to step up and revive the concept.

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Forgotten Comics: Iron-Wolf by Howard Chaykin

The DC comics of the early 1970s were still fairly stodgy, but newcomers like Howard Chaykin, Mike Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Walter Simonson and others were starting to shake things up. I’ve made no secret of my love of Howard Chaykin’s work. He’s a creator who continues to challenge the form, push it, break barriers and twist it around while still having interesting things to say. If for some crazy reason, he took over Bazooka Joe, I’d start buying gum by the case.

In 1972, DC published a comic called Weird Worlds that was a Tarzan tie-in title featuring John Carter of Mars and Pellucidar adaptations. By issue #8, they dropped all the Burroughs-related stuff and went with an original, non-DCU character, Iron-Wolf, created by Chaykin. He plotted it, penciled it and inked it, and Denny O’Neil did the script. The beautiful lettering - seriously, it’s awesome - was by Walter Simonson.

The story is action-packed and a good set-up for a series: Lord Iron-Wolf refuses to turn over his planet’s resources to “allies” of the Empress of Empire Galaktika out of fear it will leave his planet open to attack.

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