A day in the life of "Do I really own this?"

[thebitterguy]

Sometimes, you realize that you do, actually, own something. Maybe it's a book, or a piece of clothing, a movie or a cd. Recently, I remembered that I owned Twilight, a miniseries by Howard Chaykin & Jose Luis Garcia Lopez.

It's a strange creation, something put together by two very talented guys.

The core idea of Twilight was that it was a 're-imagining' of the various science fiction characters that DC had produced before they died off in the winnowing of the comics industry. This was in the early 90s, when people didn't reimagine a lot, since they were in the throes of the speculation boom.

I was moderately familiar with some of the characters. I'd acquired a giant sized DC book that had a Space Cabbie story and a Star Rovers story. The characters were pretty much the epitome of four colour silliness, with Space Cabbie being, well, a cabbie in space, and the Star Rovers a trio of galactic dilettantes, travelling around having adventures. It was the typically fun stuff that could be found back in the day. Tommy Tomorrow was, in the wake of Crisis, now the future of Kamandi.

Twilight, on the other hand, had other ideas. Chaykin put together a galaxy in the aftermath of war between humans and any comers: alien Methusieloids, uplifted animals and robots. He also nastified all the various characters, making Tomorrow a fascist, Space Cabbie a bad stereotype of a slobby cab driver (remember, in his incarnation he'd been a cab driver in a suit who wore a hat. One of those classy hats, too. And a bow tie. At least he didn't make him a sikh) and making the Star Rovers generally less pleasant.

Sure, all of it could be considered to be more realistic, but did we need the realism? Do we need guys who hunt outlaw aliens, wear bubble helmets, and drive interstellar space taxis to be racist (are robots a race?) misanthropes? Hell, making a guy named Tommy Tomorrow a bad guy is not very indicative of a sensawunda attitude.

The high point of the series was definitely the art. Jose Luis Garcia Lopez is one of my favourite artists of my youth. Atari Force was a great little book, and his work on Twilight was strong and clean.

The story dealt with humanity attaining immortality by an act of cannibalism (which is eventually superseded by Science!), and the aftereffects of that.

The story is somewhat weak, but manages to include three or four storylines woven through it. It's disappointing that it had to take some classic SF characters and assholise them to a degree that makes the Ultimates look like the classic Marvel Family. Then again, some people like All-Star Batman & Robin, so maybe it would do better in the modern age.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Years ago I decided that seeing Howard Chaykin's name associated with anything at all meant that the best policy was to strictly avoid it. He's waaay too much of a misanthrope for my tastes and his stories are generally fairly vile.

[thothmeister.livejournal.com]

Strangely Chaykin produced some good work years before (like American Flag, but he became much like Oliver Stone in film: he could no longer accept any concept being enjoyable, so no product in his hands could be either.

I think he began to lose it with Black Kiss.