Pirates Of Manhattan

Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Cameron Stewart
Colourist: Moose Bauman
Letterer: Pat Brosseau

Featured Characters:

			Carla Marcus
	Captain No-Beard		Brutus
	Soapy		Ed Stargard
	Larry Marcus/El Mar		Newsboy Army
	Lauren Marcus		Captain All-Beard

Seven Soldiers Vol. 1

Noteworthy Items:

by DAVID BIRD

pp 01-05: The story starts with a pirate attack on a Manhattan subway station. Yes, Morrison grabbed on to the pirate craze ahead of the curve. But this pirate raid isn’t just about plunder. Two leaders, No-Beard and False-Beard, are at war, and No-Beard has left his own route to catch Soapy, a pirate with a map of the secret subways of New York tattooed on his back. Back in the days of False-Beard, the original map was destroyed in an effort to keep the peace.

A lot of speculation has been made about whether All-Beard is Alan Moore and No-Beard is Morrison. Predictably this goes no where. As interesting an idea as it is, there is no way to nail it down. Moore and Morrison can easily be placed in opposition to each other. Moore’s work is foundational to modern comics writing and the antithesis of the Silver Age stories that Morrison both loves and draws on. But who is the unhyphenated Falsebeard? Someone who appeared to be bearded but wasn’t? Or, turning it around altogether, someone who was believed to be something other than what they appeared, but it wasn’t. That is, they were what they appeared, and our expectations that were false. The second suggestion comes from the idea of a “beard” as it’s was used to described someone who poses as a gay’s heterosexual date, but was actually a cover. A false beard would be an actual date. Okay. I am obviously over thinking this. That’s the fun and the danger! But if the bearded Moore is All-Beard and the clean shaven Morrison No-Beard, who is Falsebeard? My guess, so I can just let go of this whole idea, is Stan Lee. Editor as writer and co-creator, he is also often cast as the villain in the King Kirby mythos (unfairly, for the record).

The story starts off on the wrong foot, subway pirates being a little too far fetched. Where to draw the line, when it comes to the suspension of disbelief and superhero comics, can be a tricky thing, but this concept just doesn’t make it for me. It would be too easy to catch them.

pp 06-17: Meet Jake and Carla Jordan, our hero and his wife. The last couple of years have not gone well. A former police officer, he shot and killed a kid – and not entirely by accident. He thought the boy had killed his partner. He quit the force and hasn’t been able to hold a job since. Larry, his father-in-law and a man with his own secret, shows him an ad in the Manhattan Guardian. The newspaper wants to turn its masthead into a bona fide superhero. Jake agrees to apply.

But how do you screen applicants for a job as a superhero? First Jake has to fight off a couple of Aryan looking terrorists at reception, then he takes out three commandos and a golem. The golem is a Jewish legend; a clay creature made to protect their community from prosecutors and brought to life by having the name of God – YHWH – written on its forehead. Fortunately, Jake collects Movie Monster trading cards. He scraps the name from its forehead and defeats it. Jake is guided through the fight by Ed Stargard, the Guardian publisher who appears on monitors throughout the building and speaks of himself as though he were both the paper and the building, suggesting he is not a real person. Once Jake makes it to Stargard, the test is over and the job is his. Five thousand a week, a car, a horse, a helicopter. Jake Jordan is a working man again!

pp 18-22: But the first day on the job is not what he’d hoped. Sure he has a lunch date with Carla, but he’s stuck in traffic because the Guardianmobile won’t work. That’s when the many points of his life converge in the worse possible way. He learns of a pirate attack at the place where he is meeting Carla. He rushes off, borrowing a bike from a member of the Newsboy Army. With a battle cry of “Press!” he rushes in on All-Beard, who has beaten Larry, captured Carla, and is about to burn the body of (the still quite alive) Soapy. Jake is too late. He makes a desperate leap to save to woman he loves and… That brings issue one to an end.

Once we got to Jake things definitely pick up. If you’re going to hire a superhero, this would be the way to go about it. Even though I never really warmed up to the character, this series does go on to be an important one, especially as we learn more about Stargard. As for the many Kirby references, they include the Newsboy Army, a take on Simon and Kirby’s Newsboy Legion. In Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen, a former Legion member would go on to helm the Project, which created the Guardian. Our Manhattan Guardian is a version of this Guardian and, without giving too much away, the links don’t end there. Kirby himself was also was of the influences in the design of the character Stargard. Stewart designs for the city itself should also be recognized. Apparently, he made extensive use of plans for buildings that were proposed for New York, but never actually done. I remember reading a great article in the New York Times about this, but they limit how long you can read articles for free and this was long before the series was launched. New York is strange city for DC. It’s the center of the known universe for Marvel, but no one of importance is based there in the DCU. Consequently, there is no reason to think that Stewart’s redesign isn’t in continuity. Williams did consider it in his scenes for the Whip in Seven Soldiers of Victory #0.

Note: Manhattan Guardian contains no apparent links to anything we’ve seen in the previous issues of this saga, but when Jake is stuck in his new car a radio broadcast mentions Mister Miracle.