Steve Gerber (1947–2008)

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Bloodstone & the Legion of Monsters collects all of the original 1970s appearances of the monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone, plus a few one-shots featuring his daughter Elsa, and a four-part miniseries, Legion of Monsters. It does not collect, despite what the solicitation indicated, the 2001-02 miniseries that introduced Elsa and indeed, remains inexplicably uncollected. The stories are put in a somewhat weird order here (though I can see the logic), but I will go through them in publication order.

The earliest issues are nine featuring Ulysses Bloodstone. Ulysses made his debut in Marvel Presents #1, appeared again in the second issue of that title, and then transferred over to the black-and-white series Rampaging Hulk, appearing in seven of its first eight issues. Ulysses an immortal; ten thousand years ago, he was present when the magical bloodstone was shattered, and a bit of it was embedded in his chest, granting him immortal life. He's spent his time tracking down other fragments, stopping those who misuse them—especially rampaging kaijuesque giant monsters. There's a core of a good idea here, but I didn't find it to be terribly well executed. The first two issues, in particular, a very choppy; writer John Warner clearly thought he was setting up a long epic when he wrote Marvel Presents #1, and then issue #2 has to hastily wrap up and explain everything, and completely ignores some key aspects of issue #1 in the process!

His six issues of Rampaging Hulk are fine; mostly the high point is the beautiful black-and-white artwork. I did like Bloodstone's supporting cast, a lackadaisical actor turned assistant monster hunter and a crusading journalist, but the actual stories focused too much on the tedious machinations of a globe-spanning conspiracy, and never seemed to really go anywhere. Bloodstone was always on the backfoot, bizarre twists were being piled on top of bizarre twists, new complications being introduced at random. And again, it all gets abruptly cut short, this time in a one-issue conclusion by writer Stever Gerber that somewhat tastelessly discards the characters you've spent six issues getting to know. So what was the point?

That was (spoiler) the end of Ulysses Bloodstone, and as far as I know, he's stayed dead. I did pause reading the collection at this point to read the 2001-02 miniseries, but that's outside the scope of this review. The short version, though, is that Ulysses's somewhat overcomplicated backstory was played down; no more mention of the bloodstone fragments or the conspiracy, he just became a flamboyant hunter of monsters of all sorts and his mantle passed on to his daughter, Elsa. The omission of this miniseries from this collection is, frankly, obnoxious and inexplicable. Elsa was then reinvented with a somewhat different backstory in the miniseries Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., which I haven't read yet but will next. I can see why this isn't here (it's twelve issues long and not all about Elsa) but the retooling of a retooling is a jarring thing to happen between stories.

It's this retooled Elsa who is the focal character of three short comics from 2009-10, reprinted from Marvel Assistant-Sized Spectacular #2, Astonishing Tales: Boom-Boom and Elsa #1, and Girl Comics #2. The first is kind of meh, but the other two are fun stories about her overdramatic, overviolent life and her friendship with Tabitha "Boom-Boom" Sparks. You can never go wrong with some Faith Erin Hicks.

Lastly, there's Legion of Monsters (2011-12), a miniseries where Elsa has to work with some monsters, helping defend an enclave of ostensibly peaceful monsters from an attack via plague. The art is nice to look at, dark and moody, and I certainly appreciate any superhero comic that attempts to do something different, but I found both art and writing difficult to follow and ultimately got a bit lost in the contortions of it all; I think the story assumes a deeper familiarity with Marvel's bench of monster characters than I actually possess.

So overall, it's not the best Bloodstone collection that could have been published. If I hadn't read the 2001-02 miniseries in the middle, I don't think it would have been coherent at all; as it is, it seems to be about two characters related in nothing other than their name and the vague concept of monster hunting.

Elsa Bloodstone: Next in sequence »… (more)

I have an ongoing frustration with the Guardians of the Galaxy. I love the idea of them, but for the most part, I have not truly enjoyed the actual stories that have been written for them.

I should also say that, while the world knows the GotG as Star Lord, Drax, Gamora, Groot, and Rocket, that's never been my GotG line up. Mine was always Major Vance Astro, Martinex, Charlie-27, Yondu, Nikki, and Starhawk.

Which brings me to this collection. Unfortunately, while there was some brilliant stuff coming out of Marvel in the mid-to-late 70s, there was also an awful lot of crap. And unfortunately Steve Gerber produced more than his fair share of it. The storyline presented here is...well, it's a hot mess. Gerber does a trial run of his Omega the Unknown character with Starhawk who constantly says something along the lines of "Take the word...of One Who Knows!" but never explains how one happens to know. And when it came to providing the origin of the One Who Knows, he started it, then handed the entire mess over to Roger Stern with the admission that he really didn't know where he was going with it.

Which is the central problem, right? Someone who doesn't know what he's doing is writing a character who's defining characteristic is to be the One Who Knows.

Gerber's other problem is, despite having an entire universe as his sandbox, he rarely plays with anything that doesn't seem to tie back tightly to NYC. The imagination just wasn't there.

Roger Stern fairs a little better, steering the storyline away from hamfisted social commentary and Really! Deep! Stories! about very little toward more of a space opera.

I do think, had Stern had more time, he probably could have turned this iteration of the GotG into something fantastic. Unfortunately, he'd taken over a ship that Gerber had purposefully and wantonly kicked holes in.

I'll never understand why Marvel thought their Steves...Gerber or Englehart...were good at cosmic, galaxy spanning stories. They weren't.… (more)