The Children’s Crusade - a review

We here at DC in the 80s are BIG fans of DC's Vertigo imprint. While it was officially instated in 1993, in our hearts & minds it already existed by the end of of the 80s when it was pretty obvious that Morpheus, John Constantine, Alec Holland, Cliff Steele and Buddy Baker were occupying a world of their own (detached from the rest of the DCU). Nearly five years in the making, The Children's Crusade was the first MAJOR cross-over of these Vertigo characters. Erik Tramontana decided to give us the run-down on this cross-over event...  


1993. The year after The Year Punk Broke. Jurassic Park made us all hold on to our butts, while Tag Team's "Whoomp! (There It Is)" caused us to fall in love on the dance-floor, and a young Joe Piscopo taught us all about the magic of Cybergenics Phase 1. Meanwhile in the world of comics, seemingly every publisher hopped onto the Image bandwagon, with Topps Comics, Bongo Comics, and Malibu all debuting new universes, while Marvel and DC gave us Maximum Carnage and Knightfall, respectively. In hindsight it was obvious the bubble would burst, but at the time comics were big business, and new superhero lines were cropping up everywhere.

In 1993 DC also created the Vertigo imprint, partially as a home for creator-owned works like Moonshadow, and partially as a way to tie together the DC mature readers Berger-verse titles like Animal Man, Swamp Thing, and Doom Patrol. Considering that The Sandman was one of DC's biggest financial and critical successes, it only made sense to make their first crossover Annual event a direct sequel to a Sandman storyline, written by Neil Himself.

The Children’s Crusade picks up the story of the Dead Boy Detectives from Season of Mists. An eleven-year-old girl hires the boys to solve their first-ever case: all of the children from a small rural village have disappeared without a trace. We see flashbacks to the Children's Crusade (where an evil man disguised as a monk led children to slavery under the guise of religion) and of the Pied Piper of Hamlin (who stole away the town’s children as payment for services rendered).

One of the boy detectives has a prophetic vision of children of great power in "The Free Country". During the course of their "investigation", the boys use nursery rhymes to summon spectral children from the Free Country -- a magical place where children go to escape the cruelty of the adult world. This is where the missing children have gone, our detectives are informed, and soon all of the world’s children will be "safe" in the Free Country. The Free Country children plan to use the talents of some special kids, all of whom happen to be featured in the Vertigo launch titles: Black Orchid, Swamp Thing, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and the brand-new Books of Magic ongoing series.

The main problem with the idea of a Vertigo crossover is that while most of the titles were technically in DCU continuity, most hadn't crossed over with another superhero book in years. Animal Man, for example, had left the Justice League Europe before his psychedelic meeting with Grant Morrison, well before any of the Peter Milligan wackiness. If I remember correctly, by this point he was mainly going by "Buddy" and not even wearing a costume most issues! The tone differs wildly from issue to issue; some titles like Books of Magic advanced huge chunks of plot, while others (looking at you, Doom Patrol) barely even mentioned the Deadboy Detectives and the missing kids. In Swamp Thing, Tefé Holland and Maxine Baker (Animal Man's daughter) go on an adventure reminiscent of Wizard of Oz or Narnia, while in Doom Patrol there's a serial killer stalking kids, and Animal Man features federal agents in a Ruby Ridge/Branch Davidian standoff with the Baker family. Tonally, it's just all over the map. There's a hilarious "On The Ledge" for that month about how bad and dumb crossovers are that pretty much sums the whole mess up:

As I said on my blog's writeup of each issue of the crossover, I am a Neil Gaiman superfan. I will buy any comic his name is on, even crap like the Marvel's Angela mini-series or Tekno Comix' Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man. As an English major obsessed with comics, The Sandman trade paperbacks were everything to me. The Children’s Crusade doesn’t match the lofty heights of The Sandman (or even Marvel's 1602), but Gaiman's bookend chapters are as readable as anything else Vertigo was putting out at the time. If they had just jettisoned the whole crossover idea and had Gaiman pick and choose characters he liked (like in the original Books of Magic or Black Orchid) the whole thing would read much more smoothly, rather than trying to bash all these square pegs into round holes.

If the point of this stunt was to convert the reader into a line-wide Vertigo subscriber, then it failed miserably. As a snapshot of where "mature readers" DC Comics were at in 1993, it’s interesting. If you're a true Sandman or Books of Magic fan, Children's Crusade is essential; DC finally put out a trade paperback last year, with the annuals replaced with an all-new middle chapter that presumably reads a lot smoother. So read the trade, unless you can get the whole series on the cheap someplace like ebay or comixology.

Cover gallery:

How about some house ads?

-Erik Tramontana

Erik Tramontana is a teacher, a dad, and a lifelong Batman fan. He blogs about 1990s DC comics at jlaclassified.tumblr.com

A gallery of house ads from the Reign of the Supermen!

1992's The Death of Superman was a HUGE event for me. Not due to all of the media hype (and yes, it *was* being hyped by the media), but because I thought this was really it: DC comics was really killing off Clark Kent/Superman as we knew it. I was one of those kids that didn't really like Superman. I found him too powerful and on the verge of being God-like - hence, not very interesting to read about. (It doesn't help that, up to that point, I wasn't reading Superman in chronological order and couldn't distinguish between his 'Schwartz era', his 'Byrne era', his Salkind films or his cartoon versions. To me, it was all the same Superman: just a powerful guy who can conquer ANY foe.) Either way, for this avid comic book collector/reader of the mid-to-late 80s, the Death of Superman was an epic moment that demonstrated that DC was willing to do bold things and was nothing like the company we had known from the previous decade.

The Death of Superman house ads happened so quickly that if you weren't collecting/reading DC comics during the months of November '92 to February '93, then you probably missed them. The entire 'Death of' event only occurred in the span of seven issues: Superman: The Man of Steel #18, Justice League of America #69, Superman #74, Adventures of Superman #497, Action Comics #684, Superman: Man of Steel #19 and, finally, Superman #75. [The event started and concluded within a span of 2 months.] Not much of a build-up or forewarning to get excited about it. I really paid no attention to this 'publicity stunt' until it was announced on TV and radio that Superman had been killed, and speculators were lining up around the block to purchase Superman #75 from their local comic book shop. After Superman was killed, however, DC really wanted you to know he was gone. The DC marketing campaign didn't miss a beat, and made sure to advertise the SkyBox Death of Superman trading card set by offering a promo card in Superman #75.

Next came Funeral For A Friend. I didn't really have a problem with a few of Metropolis' heroes picking up the slack. In my mind, that just cemented the idea that Superman was dead and wouldn't be coming back. [I mean, they did kill off Supergirl back in Crisis on Infinite Earths, and she stayed dead.] I still wasn't buying or reading any of the issues, but it was nice to know that DC was giving it's readers a sense of closure, and we can all now move on in a DCU without a Superman. Pictured in the house ad above are Waverider, the Guardian, Thorn, Gangbuster and... Iron Munroe? I really have no clue who that flying teen in the leather jacket is. As mentioned, my interest in Superman at this time was at an all-time low.

The big shake-up occurred with Adventures of Superman #500. In my mind's eye, I guess I wondered why these four Superman titles [i.e., Adventures of Superman, Superman: Man of Steel, Action Comics, and Superman v2] hadn't ceased publication yet (or at least been re-titled to something else). The last 2 months of these issues had simply been Funeral For A Friend stories and I was a little eager to see this all resolved. This had been started to feel like the longest denouement ever, but Adventures of... #500 resolved with a cliff-hanger. By the end of the issue, four brand-new characters had appeared claiming to be [the reincarnated spirit of] Superman - and this had me hooked.

Much like DC's Knightfall house ad campaign, the Reign of the Supermen! house ads told a story:

[click to enlarge]

As a lover of DC comics and mysteries, The Reign of the Superman! had a lot of story-telling elements that kept me coming back for more. I was absolutely convinced that the Last Son of Krypton/Eradicator was the true Superman. The Man of Tomorrow/Cyborg Superman was a close second [Terminator 2: Judgement Day was still on everyone's collective minds, and we all imagined how cool it would be if Superman's new 'look' included half of a T-800 exoskeleton]. I had reasoned that there was NO POSSIBLE WAY that neither The Metropolis Kid/Superboy nor The Man of Steel/Steel were the real deal (for obvious reasons). I was so sure about the Eradicator that I would've bet money. As the narrative of the house ads unfolded, it was revealed that each of the four prospective Supermen would encounter each other and square off with other Superman-related characters in the DCU. Guy Gardner versus the Eradicator was just a bonus.

To the uninformed reader, Bloodlines seemed important to the Reign of the Supermen! story line and DC was marketing it as such (although we weren't sure exactly why it was important). Bloodlines turned out to be a fairly unsuccessful attempt to introduce some new DC characters into the DCU, and really had nothing to do with moving the Reign of the Supermen! story forward. [As evidence, Chris Sheehan gives a pretty in-depth review of Superman v2 Annual #5 (1993).]

The home stretch of the Reign of the Supermen! story line (also known as The Return of Superman) crushed my hopes and dreams as it revealed that the original Clark Kent/Superman had returned, and that all four of these candidates were simply usurpers to the 'Superman' name. I once had a chance to chat with Tom Grummett, who pencilled quite a few issues during the Reign of the Supermen! story line and was part of the Death and Return of Superman planning team, and he laughed at my once-youthful naivety and assured me that there was never any doubt in anyone's mind that Clark Kent/Superman would be returning to his own title.


So what came of all of this? Well... spin-offs:

Clark Kent/Superman retained his original four titles. Superboy received an ongoing series that would last well into 2002, Steel also received an ongoing series that lasted an impressive fifty-two issues, and Supergirl received a four issue mini-series (she stayed pretty active in the DCU after that and later joined the Teen Titans in 1995). The Eradicator, for some unprecedented reason, ends up joining the Outsiders in 1994, and Cyborg Superman would remain a villain and pester Superman for years to come.

All of the above images are property of DC comics, and were found/collected/curated from the internet over a span of several years. I know I'm missing a few house ads, and my never-ending search is never complete. Needless to say, I don't remember which sites the images came from, or if said sites are still active. So on that note, I'm going to assume that a lot of these images came from Michael Bailey's Fortress of Baileytude. (Even if I'm wrong, Bailey hosts a great Superman site and you will NOT be disappointed.)

You also might be interested in reading Chris Sheehan's review of the Death of Superman storyline. Chris gives a play-by-play analysis of the issues leading up to Superman's death on his Chris is on Infinite Earths blog.

-Justin

P.S. If you have any scans/images of the house ads that I'm missing, please send a link my way. Much appreciated. ;)

A collection of Knightfall house ads - 1993

If you remember reading and/or collecting Knightfall, congratulations. For anyone else who was too young or was taking a hiatus from comics at the time, Knightfall was a twenty-issue story arc from 1993 that ran through 4 different titles (Batman, Detective Comics, Shadow of the Bat and Showcase '93) that told the epic tale of the downfall [and presumed death] of Batman and the introduction of his new successor. I honestly thought that this was going to be my generation's 'moon landing', and by that I mean I really thought this was 'it' — this was going to be the end of Bruce Wayne as we knew it. What can I say? I was a pretty naive 11-year old. DC had just killed off Superman a year ago, [and I honestly thought he was staying dead] and we were living in 'extreme' times where anything could happen.

I wasn't able to collect/read these as they were being published — my limited financial assets were being diversified among numerous short-term investments (i.e. I was buying a lot of Marvel comics and non-sports trading cards). I did go to summer camp in the summer of '93 and another kid at camp (who was a massive DC fan) had brought his comic book collection with him. He didn't have any issues of Knightfall, but the Knightfall house ads were plastered in every second DC issue I thumbed through. They say a picture tells a thousand words, and these full-page house ads told me that something BIG was going down. I liked the way the ads created a narrative informing the reader just how grim things were getting for Gotham's dark knight. The red eclipse that was slowly starting to swallow the bat logo was also a nice touch of foreshadowing.

(click to enlarge)

This event did two major things: it introduced me to a whole slew of new Bat villains (I have never heard of Amygdala, Film Freak, or Mr. Zsasz prior to these ads), and introduced a lot of non-Batman DC comics readers to the Kelley Jones Batman — the one with the foot-long bat ears on his cowl who always seemed to be stooped or crouching. That was the Batman that would leave the longest lasting-impression on me and would be found doodled in almost every high school notebook I've ever owned (and then some). For a 19-part story arc, I realize we are missing quite a few house ads here [at least 8, by my count]. Rest assured, however, that the house ad was not original art. It was just the cover of the issue being described in the house ad, combined with a bit of enticing ad copy meant to summarize just how dire Bruce Wayne's situation was getting. These covers are real eye-catchers, but I'd like to gently point out that the cover of the issue was not always representative of the interior art.

It was interesting the way that Knightfall chapters 1 through 10 kept escalating and then... bam! denouement! Batman gets crippled by Bane! But wait, there's more! The house ads for Knightfall chapters 12 to 18 build up to the final showdown between the *new* Batman and Bane. [The house ad for chapter 18 looks downright pornographic. Please tell me Bane is wearing pants....] The Knightfall saga would become 1994's Knightquest, and then Knightsend, and would ultimately resolve sometime in early 1995. I think by this point fans had had enough, realizing that this storyline had already dragged on too long. Even the Knightquest and Knightsend house ads lacked the zeal the in-house DC marketing team had put into the Knightfall promotional campaign.

While I wasn't able to collect the issues, I was able to purchase the softcover Batman: Knightfall and Beyond novelization written by Alan Grant (I was avid book reader back then — I think I read the entire thing in one afternoon). While it filled in a lot of missing gaps, I still felt it was 'lacking' — probably because it was packaged for the young adult crowd. Sometime shortly after, a friend lent me the much thicker, much more mature-looking (and hard-cover) Batman Knightfall: A Novel by Dennis O'Neil. I seem to recall the latter being on the New York Times Bestsellers list during it's heyday, so it was a 'big deal' to finally get my hands on it. I remember it being leaps and bounds better than the Alan Grant novelization.

The final resolution of Bruce Wayne healing up, training himself to become better than before, and becoming Batman again really shouldn't have come as a surprise to me. In hindsight, one year prior to Knightfall being launched, Batman Returns hit the box office and grossed $162 million in North American sales. That very same year, Batman: The Animated Series debuted on Fox to a North American audience and is still being referenced as one of the BEST animated shows ever made. Ads for the new Batman animated film, Mask of the Phantasm, were also being heavily promoted in every DC comic available while Knightfall was in full effect. It wouldn't make sense to permanently retire a creative property that was generating so much revenue for the company. In my defense, I was a product of the 80s comic book culture and fake 'deaths' were still a relatively new gimmick in the early 90s. At least, that's how I'd like to remember it.

What Knightfall ultimately did for DC comics was to keep DC (and Batman) relevant during the deluge of X-books and Image/Malibu/Valiant comics that were flooding the market in the early 90s. Interestingly, some comic book analysts have theorized that the Knightfall/Knightquest/Knightsend story arc may have contributed to the comic book crash of the mid 90s — readers were experiencing 'burn out' from having to buy too many titles to complete a story arc that lasted way longer than it should have. Would it have been the sole cause for the comic book crash? Absolutely not. But I'm positive it wouldn't have helped anything.

Looking back on this now, I don't feel tricked or cheated. I feel like it was a good memory and a good time to be a comic book reader. Feel free to share any memories or stories you have from the whole Knightfall saga in the comments section below.