Tuesday, October 17, 2006

WARRIOR #34 DC Comics, 1995


Warrior #24 is macho as hell.

It’s a pro-wrestling match mixed with a Sam Peckinpah movie. Much like an Arnold or Stallone movie from the Eighties, this comic is so self-consciously macho that it’s almost campy – kind of like the biker guy in The Village People.

A little background: Guy Gardner was originally a two-fisted loudmouth Green Lantern whose personality was famously defined during the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League run as a psychotic, self-absorbed right wing asshole with a Three Stooges haircut. He was popular enough to star in his own book, Guy Gardner.

Guy was always more entertaining in a team dynamic where he could interact with a bunch of “normal” heroes who reacted in horror, contempt and frustration at his asshole-ish ways. At some point in the title DC did a mid-series relaunch, and Guy Gardner became Guy Gardner: Warrior, a wily ex-Green Lantern with an excess of testosterone and an urge to layeth the smacketh down. As envisioned by writer Beau Smith, the Toughest Sumbitch in Comics, Guy morphed from a satire of redneck heroes to a straight-up two-fisted redneck hero sandwich, hold the irony.

Bah, that Green Lantern stuff was for sissies anyway. The updated version of Guy traded in his power ring and smirk for a steely glare and some crazy alien powers that enabled him to turn his body into various handy bits of weaponry. You know – arms turn into Gatling guns, missiles sprout out of his shoulders, penis turns into a giant high-speed drill… Sorry, that last bit wasn’t true, I was just checking to see if you were paying attention and get some extra Google traffic.

I can’t really diss Beau Smith’s run on the book. Beau hit what he was aiming at, that’s for sure. I think the book could have used a wry, self-aware sense of humor to help wash down all the manliness, but Warrior serves up its macho fisticuffs straight. This is not to say that there isn’t any humor in Warrior, it’s just that Beau had a certain reverence for Guy that was a little jarring considering the history of the character.

For instance, in Warrior, nearly all of the other heroes in the DC Universe respect Guy Gardner for the manly bad-ass that he is. They all attend the grand opening of Guy’s bar, which is a sort of superhero watering hole. None of the characters seem to remember what a total cock Guy was during his tenure in the League. You get the impression that Beau Smith couldn’t stand the idea of those pansies Giffen and DeMatteis crapping all over his character – goddamn liberals! – and he just pretended that those JLA stories never happened.

Take Warrior #34. This is the finale of a 7-part crossover space epic where Gardner leads the heroes of the Justice League (the butch ones, anyway) in battle against the Tormock space empire. It’s The Wild Bunch in space, only all the heroes come out of this Last Stand alive. Hope I’m not spoiling anything. In the last showdown, Guy teams up with Hawkman, Lobo, Wonder Woman, and a guy called The Bad One. I’m serious – that’s his name: The Bad One. Hawkman and Wonder Woman have apparently forgotten what a jerk Guy is and let him lead them into battle.

And what a battle it is. The handful of heroes are outnumbered by legions of bad guys and are attacked by a cadre of elite alien killers with names like Slabb and Treach. Fortunately for Guy, all the Justice League heroes who have issues with killing and destroying on a vast scale sit this one out.

Actually, I’m not sure if Wonder Woman (in her bike shorts phase) kills anybody, but she talks a good line of smack and brings the pain big time.

Hawkman, on the other hand, has no qualms about crushing heads with that big ass mace of his. I’m actually quite fond of the mid-Nineties Hawkman (Hawkman 6.2, I believe) and his costume – probably because I have an action figure of this version of the character.

Although this is Guy Gardner's book, all the guest stars get a chance to kick some ass and utter some macho dialogue. Lobo seems in his element here - meaning that he gets to kill people while talking about how cool he is.

I like artist Marc Campos's version of Lobo, particularly the way he draws The Main Man's absolutely massive, hairy arms. Look at those things! Is there a veterinarian in the house? Because those pythons are SICK!

Although his Lobo looks cool, I'm not so crazy about Campos's art in the rest of the book. The pages are crammed with so many stylized alien bad guys that sometimes it's hard to tell where one alien ends and the next begins. After a while it becomes a wash of overly-rendered lines that all meld together. Plus - and this is not a bad thing necessarily - Campos's characters all suffer from Saliva Strand Syndrome, that comic book malady that fills your mouth with gooey strands of saliva.

Here's Slabb, one of the super-aliens, after absorbing The Bad One. Check out the saliva on that guy!

Now there's a pleasant visual. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm in the mood for some extra lumpy tapiocha right about now.

I'm not even going to make fun of a character who calls himself The Bad One. It's a more appropriate nickname for a cheap 7-11 burrito than for a superhero. And can you really call yourself The Bad One if you have a top-knot pony tail? I guess in 1995 you could.

I have to admit that I kind of like Beau Smith's Warrior, in a guilty pleasure kind of way. It is unapologetically macho and violent, but is that a bad thing? I've always liked butch, bloody movies with gun-toting he-men and exploding helicopters, so I can't pretend that there isn't some value to the same kind of stories in comic books. There's room enough in the medium for guys like Beau Smith and Chuck Dixon to do their thing, and enjoyment of their work doesn't preclude enjoyment of say, Art Spiegelman or Chris Ware.

Sometimes you just want a little head-busting.

56 comments:

Matt Chaput said...

Dave, I agree with your assessments most of the time, but I think at the end of this article you egregiously confuse "I like this" with "this has value." Given the evidence here, one clearly does not imply the other ;)

What a Mary-Sue dick move to invent a mega-butch character that reveals the author's every insecurity, and then have every other hero the author likes hang out with and defer to the Mary-Sue. Even aside from all the hyperviolent grim-n-gritty idiocy, that alone makes me gag.

This has got to be, like, Ted Nugent's favorite comic book.

David Campbell said...

Well put, Matt. I do think Warrior has some value - I read this issue on the toilet the other day and it helped me pass the time, so that's value right there.

But yeah, it does seem like a Mary-Sue scenario, doesn't it? It reminds me of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt books - Pitt is so clearly a stand-in for the author that the books seems masturbatory at best.

Anonymous said...

Guy Gardner works best in very small doses. He's pretty one-note, as a GL or as "Warrior" (ugh!), and I was surprised not only that he got his own book, but that it ran for as long as it did.

He should have been retired after Batman laid him out in the '80s-era Justice League. That was his pinnacle. "One punch!"

Anonymous said...

Guy Gardner: Warrior and the wrestler The Ultimate Warrior. Have they ever been seen in the same place? Think about it...

Anonymous said...

(1) I always liked how Guy Gardner dispensed with the giant green boxing gloves and anvils that Hal Jordan used, and instead just blasted the bad-guys with straight blasts from his power ring. That was bad-ass.

(2) If memory serves me correctly, didn't Guy once duke it out with Hal Jordan mano a mano with no power rings? And didn't Jordan end up beating him up by using elbow smashes after he broke both his knuckles? I remember this as being my favorite moment of GL on GL action.

(3) While googling to try and confirm my memories of this fist-fight, I was surprised to find so much Green Lantern Fan-fiction. I was afraid to read any of it for fear of finding some weird Kirk-Spock moments between Hal and Guy...

(4) Warrior does not wear tassles around his biceps. All the Ultimate Warrior has is clothelines, a press slam, and the big splash--he wouldn't stand a chance against a dude who can turn his hands into steel folding chairs.

Warrior > Ultimate Warrior. Big time.

Mikey said...

Now might be the moment for me to share this - only tangentially related - marvel

Phil Looney said...

>>I’m actually quite fond of the mid-Nineties Hawkman (Hawkman 6.2, I believe) and his costume – probably because I have an action figure of this version of the character.

Ditto - that Hawkman Cosmic Justice figure is pretty awesome too.

David Campbell said...

Mikey, that is so beautiful.

Anonymous said...

Was that a Tetsuo: The Iron Man reference, Dave?

Because if so, awesome.

Anonymous said...

TETSUO all the way!!!!! (I wonder if Shinya Tsukomoto would dig Warrior)
OOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

If memory serves me correctly, didn't Guy once duke it out with Hal Jordan mano a mano with no power rings? And didn't Jordan end up beating him up by using elbow smashes after he broke both his knuckles? I remember this as being my favorite moment of GL on GL action.

It might have happened more than once, but there is one such fight in issue 3 or 4 of JG Jones' run on GL. Hal wins (at least he had the upper hand when the cop shows up), but I don't remember broken knuckles and elbow smashes.

David said...

"GL on GL action" is not a phrase I was particularly looking for today...

(I'm amazed the corporate firewall filter let that through...)

David Campbell said...

Ah, I see there are other Tetsuo fans out there. What a fine film. For some reason, I couldn't get into Body Hammer, tho.

Anonymous said...

Matt Chaput - oh please. You've obviously never read the series. Warrior is one of the underrated series of the 90s that people overlooked because of the art. It was far better than the extremely overrated JLI or JLE.

I could continue but I wont bother...

Chris Arndt said...

Matt Chaput doesn't know what he's talking about.

That Hawkman was Hawkman #5 (or Hawkman 5.5 perhaps). Geoff Johns' Hawkman is Hawkman number 6.

Clive Cussler was projecting, not masturbating. Masturbating is what you do merely by yourself. Masturbation is blogging. Selling books and earning a living sufficient to purchase a Jag... just by writing and selling novels?

That's not masturbation. That's mass media entertainment.

Beau Smith's Warrior series did no more ignoring or smudging over of Guy Gardner's history than Geoff Johns did in his Green Lantern series.

What most people forget is that when Guy Gardner was a "cock" or a "dick" in many stories it was also after a few stories where his brain suffered major trauma. Then they stick with the "Guy Gardner is a major asshole" meme because it's 'funny'. Let's not forget that as the character was created he was whitebread and the only reason that Hal became GL at first was geographic proximity.

Kaneko speaks of Green Lantern vol.3 #25 where Hal returns and confronts Guy about becoming the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 again. Guy ups the ante by turning it into a battle, first with power rings, with the stakes (as it is a bet mutually agreed upon) that loser gives up his ring. It quickly turns into a fistfight where Guy reveales that although the two are the same age Guy has been using his power over the course of the last few years to keep his body young. Guy is about to overpower and outlast Hal when Jordan plays rope-a-dope and Guy uses himself up.

bow to my might.

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

Oh man, I just looked up Dirk Pitt, if that ain't a Mary-Sue then my name isn't Jon. Just look at that description of him. It's almost laughable.

David Campbell said...

Chris Arndt, never stop being Chris Arndt.

Anonymous said...

No pleasure at all for me, guilty or otherwise. I never bought Warrior, but my brother did, so I read more than a few. Hated it.

If you write a super cool comic when you are 14 years old, and then later you get hired to write an established DC character, don't meld your fanboy creation onto a real Superhero.

I have no idea if that is the real story of Warrior, but even back then when I read it, that's what I suspected.

Plus, Guy always looked goopy and oozy, and that's just gross.

Anonymous said...

"Sometimes you just want a little head-busting."

Sometimes you just want a little Velvet Marauder, who, by the way, excels at head-busting. Bring back Connor Mackenzie!

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed Beau Smith's take on Guy Gardner--it was just pure testosterone-powered rock 'em sock 'em action, and didn't pretend to be anything else. It certainly wasn't highbrow intellectualism a la Grant Morrison (which I also enjoy), but then you don't necessarily always want to watch 'Masterpiece Theater'--sometimes you might want to watch pro wrestling or the Three Stooges. This book filled that niche perfectly.

You've also got to keep in mind that the entire "Warrior" revamp happened because the book was on the verge of cancellation when Beau Smith took over. At times like that, creative teams have pretty free rein and not much to lose. And people forget that what Giffen and Dematteis did with the JLI Guy Gardner was also a drastic change from previous characterizations. There were Guy fans at the time who were pissed about what they saw as disrespect of the character, and they had some justification for that opinion--I mean sure, the JLI was funny, and it worked at the time, but Giffen/DeMatteis essentially turned Guy into a 2-dimensional caricature just for laughs. Beau Smith just made him a little more self aware and a bit less of a jerk, but kept him a two-fisted (or two-gunned, whatever) man's man. And Guy's bar Warriors wasn't opened up just so people could idolize him--it was mostly to make money, and was intended to be like Planet Hollywood only for superheroes, with all the memorabilia and crap.

FYI, the Bad One (full name: Probert the Bad One) was a tip of the hat to hockey legend Bob "The Bad One" Probert, the fightingest hockey player ever. You may still think the name is lame, and I wouldn't say you're wrong, but that's where it came from.

Anonymous said...

Things I learned just now:
1. The Ultimate Warrior had a comic book.
2. He wasn't Kerry von Erich.
3. And the guy with all those horrible interviews is a motivational/political speaker?
Thank you wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Warrior

Ragnell said...

Dave, never feel guilty for liking Beau Smith's Warrior run. Ever.

Jason Flahardy said...

Who the hell is Paleowolf?

I must know...

Jeff Rients said...

Wasn't Kerry Von Erich the Modern Day Warrior?

SallyP said...

You guys don't like this? What kind of red-blooded HE-men are you? I have this and I loved it, although I will readily admit that the art makes my eyes bleed. But Beau Smith is a God.

By the way, "the Bad One" is actually Probert, a former Green Lantern. His enemies were the ones who called him the bad one. Granted, I can't stand Lobo, but at least he's having some fun along with Hawkman who actually gets to bust some heads for a change. And please, Guy and Diana were flirting through the entire cross-over.

I wish they would put Smith on GLC. That would liven things up.

Anonymous said...

Ghostman wrote:

Giffen/DeMatteis essentially turned Guy into a 2-dimensional caricature just for laughs.

You're absolutely right - but you say that as it's a bad thing! :)

I loved the JLI comic relief Guy Gardner. My favorite comics fight EVER has to be the one where GG takes off his ring to go mano-a-mano with Batman.

Regarding the Ultimate Warrior comic: the definitive treatise on that masterpiece has to be this one here: http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2005/10/its-gonna-be-exciting-and-it-might.html

Anonymous said...

Ooops. The link I really wanted to put here was:

http://yeoldecomicblogge.blogspot.com/2006/06/wisdom-of-ultimate-warrior.html

Now that's the ULTIMATE blog post on the Ultimate Warrior comic. The one from the ISB is pretty good too, but I guess it's just the, hum, PENULTIMATE blog post on the matter.

Kitty said...

Godalmighty, Jon, you're not kidding about Dirk Pitt! Ha ha ha ha ha! Reading that description made my day:

"His most striking features are his opaline green eyes, which can be both alluring or intimidating, as need be."

That's gold!

Anonymous said...

I always thought "Dirk Pitt" sounds like a safety hazard, as in "Careful you don't fall into that Dirk Pitt!"

Guy Gardner: Warrior kicked some ass in an action-movie kinda way, though. Yes, there is a place in comics for manliness and guns and duct tape. But it's just a comic book, so nobody needs to feel threatened by a little testosterone. Just don't read it if you don't want to.

Anonymous said...

Man, I never thought I'd see so much hand-wringing about Beau Smith's work on a blog that once paid tribute to Chuck Norris's Lone Wolf McQuaid (or was that another blog...?).

The thing I dig about Smith's work is that unlike Chuck Dixon, who kind of does give me the creeps (while writing some pretty dull comics), he's basically a warm-hearted guy who happens to dig guns and manly action stuff and is completely unpretentious about it. I'm not necessarily big on his Warrior run, but for the most part I've got a lot of time for Beau Smith comics.

Anonymous said...

Good call on the Lone Wolf McQuade post, Andy. That movie even earned the coveted Willem Dafoe "Fuck Yeah!" Award.

Anonymous said...

Wonder Woman had a "Bike Shorts" phase?

:::Feels faint:::

Chris Arndt said...

"Oh man, I just looked up Dirk Pitt, if that ain't a Mary-Sue then my name isn't Jon. Just look at that description of him. It's almost laughable."

I've actually read books. I think books actually make my POV more authoritative than a Wikipedian-suckler.

"His most striking features are his opaline green eyes, which can be both alluring or intimidating, as need be." What the hell is this!? His most striking feature is that no matter how often the descriptions in the book describe him as not super-human by the end of the book he'd be doing things that would stretch Doc Savage's muscles... strange books.

Actually, given that I actually have read those books I'd insist that Dirk Pitt wasn't any more of a Mary Sue character for Clive Cussler than Superman was for two Jewish kids living in Cleveland.

Jeff Rients said...

I'm definitely putting a Dirk Pit into the next dungeon I build.

Chris Arndt said...

I thought dirks were for throwing?

Isn't a dirk pit where you store your dirks when you are not throwing them?

Perhaps a dirk pit is where you lay practice dummies to throw dirks at.

Chris Arndt said...

oh and as a final word on hating Warrior.

Hating Guy Gardner: Warrior is a dumbass action.

There are comics worth hating. Warrior, however, is not one of them. You should either love it, like it, be okay with it and have no strong emotion, enjoy it and have no strong sentinment, or ignore it. My brother uses Warrior comics as wrapping paper on holidays. It's only a quarter; a good deal on wrapping paper.

Dave has the right idea. Warrior-haters... have the wrong idea. The comic is not for hating.

I enjoy it. I actually think there is some worth to an ATTEMPT to have a comic book character that isn't dependent on sucking on Hal Jordan.

Honestly, in GL mode Guy Gardner stood as someone to be compared to other Green Lanterns. As Warrior, Guy Gardner is someone else. Oh no, I guess it offends people that... I don't care why they feel that Guy Gardner must be a GL, but it's sad that they hold a grudge against two-fisted machoness.

They probably like pissy weakling liberal Superman. Probably cheered to their asses at the moment in Aaron Sorkin's "The American President" movie when Michael Douglas vowed to take away all guns.

We're going to beat this dead horse until candy comes out or until David posts something else.

Personally I'm hoping for candy. Unless someone else wants to look up something on wikipedia and pretend to be informed?

Anonymous said...

Here you go, Chris!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy

Anonymous said...

That was a twofer!

Anonymous said...

Somebody activate the Halon system, because Chris Arndt is on FIRE! :D

Anonymous said...

So Chris Arndt is our authority on which comics it's OK to hate and which are off-limits.

It's really nice to know we have somebody like that here. Because otherwise we might find out one of those geniuses like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly is a comic book fan and he might come here and be the authority on what we are supposed to think.

Thanks, Chris!

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

I insist that Wikipedia is 100% reliable and no other sources are needed to further study a subject. See.

Anonymous said...

So what your saying is "Warrior" was "The Ultimates" of its day?

Anonymous said...

Man, I never thought I'd see so much hand-wringing about Beau Smith's work on a blog that once paid tribute to Chuck Norris's Lone Wolf McQuaid (or was that another blog...?).

The thing I dig about Smith's work is that unlike Chuck Dixon, who kind of does give me the creeps (while writing some pretty dull comics), he's basically a warm-hearted guy who happens to dig guns and manly action stuff and is completely unpretentious about it. I'm not necessarily big on his Warrior run, but for the most part I've got a lot of time for Beau Smith comics.


I agree about their personalities, but I find Dixon, whatever his disturbing flaws as a person, has produced some very entertaining comics, but I can't say the same about Smith's work. Granted, I've only sampled a few Warrior issues, but there was nothing there to motivate me to seek out more of his stuff.

Chris Arndt said...

hoosier x, you write as if I am judging comics. "which is okay to hate or not". Nonsense! I am judging people! for having extreme reactions to mediocre popcorn entertainment comics.

Chris Arndt said...

oh and Sterg rules

today.

SallyP said...

Dear Berwynirish,

If you need to see what other delights Beau Smith has for you, in Warriors, there are Nazis riding dinosaurs, tigermen, a fight at a toy convention, blowing up Major Force, said Major Force putting Guy's mother's cat in a freezer,Guy having mind-controlled sex, Guy having non-mind-controlled sex with Fire of all people, and Guy turned into a woman and wearing a French Maid's costume. What's not to like?

Anonymous said...

If you need to see what other delights Beau Smith has for you, in Warriors, there are Nazis riding dinosaurs, tigermen, a fight at a toy convention, blowing up Major Force, said Major Force putting Guy's mother's cat in a freezer,Guy having mind-controlled sex, Guy having non-mind-controlled sex with Fire of all people, and Guy turned into a woman and wearing a French Maid's costume. What's not to like?
Execution. All fine ideas up there, but the issues I read just kinda fizzled in the execution. I *want* to like Smith comics, because his writing about comics reveals a passion and sensibility that I appreciate, but the end product doesn't do it for me. To a lesser extent, I'm similarly disappointed by Steven Grant comics.

zailo said...

Wow! Upon reading the Dirk Pitt wikipedia entry I thought, "what if Doc Savage was a big piece of shit?".

James said...

Oh man, don't forget the letter to Wizard Beau Smith wrote to protest their list of the top ten bad ass characters in comic books. Beau Smith's list? 8 characters from the comic books he was writing and 2 other guys. Because if Beau Smith writes 'em they're the baddest asses around.

Anonymous said...

"Sometimes you just want a little head-busting."
Reminds me of the day Dennis Miller (finally)died for me - an interview on Conan O'Brien, just days before the invasion of Iraq, where he pretty much put the above sentiment as a justification for the war.
Which brings me back to Guy Gardner, Warrior: isn't there a danger that people who grow up on such muck ultimately adopt it's world view and apply it to the real world? Dear 'ol Dubya - that heroic wartime fighter pilot [occasionaly, when he could be bothered to show up for Texas National Guard home duty] must have been big on macho comics; an obssesion with GGW would go a long way towards explaining the last 6 years...

Oh, and btw - MIKEY, you rule!!!

Chris Arndt said...

I can't help thinking that the person writing the wiki entry has mental disorders.

Coming from me that says something.

Also: Wizard's top ten bad ass characters were gods, demi-gods, monsters, supermen, and monstermen who couldn't deal with anything if they were normal humans. Like or not the list was crap.

James said...

Yeah, I'll admit the list was crap, it's a Wizard top ten list. That's like a default. That doesn't mean Beau's list wasn't a biased. He cited Wynonna Earp, which at that point had like 3-5 issues out.

Chris Arndt said...

Beau Smith's primary job when he wrote that letter was a marketer, not a comic book writer.

I will posit that he was merely following his first instinct "how can I use this to sell some swag?"

I defend this... because my first instinct right now is how can I use Dave Campbell to increase my power?

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James said...

Pretty effective data, thanks so much for your article.
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