Freshly recalled embarrasments: Haywire

Pinterest-prompted flashback du jour — a poster for Haywire, a DC comic for “mature readers” circa 1988.

Kyle Baker, whose work I adore, inked the first three issues before splitting the scene to team up again with Andrew Helfer for Justice Inc. — a miniseries that better engaged his mischievous sensibilities.

Haywire was not about subtle mischief — not by a long-shot. Right out of the gate it was all about the unsubtle body count.

And the onomatopeoia.

DC’s abrupt shift in publishing standards was prompted by the launch of Wolverine’s new monthly series at Marvel, the premier issue of which boasted the largest body count in comic book history to that point. Needless to say, Wolverine was a huge hit.

How this garnered the CCA seal remains a mystery.

DC’s answer was a hastily-scripted and just-as-hastily-rendered affair that began with carnage and quickly progressed to pulpy S&M tropes.

This oughtta bring in the "mature readers"!

DC wasn’t just competing with the regular Marvel line but with Epic Comics — the Marvel imprint producing decidedly non-CCA material like Elektra: Assassin. Haywire was launched as primo “mature reader” content, but one year later there was no longer any denying the bald facts — the only readers still buying the title were burgeoning fetishists, or misguided OCD completists (I am sure there’s little doubt which category I fall into).

In fairness to myself, I was goaded on by a friend who claimed to love the books. At the time I was a salaried writer with income at my disposal, he a university student with considerably less. He borrowed the new issues as soon as I bought them. I should have known something was amiss when he returned them just as promptly.

Also, this was an era when comics were accruing value at an unheard of rate. That initial issue of Wolverine, for instance — just one year later I traded it for the entire first run of Frank Miller’s Daredevil. Who knew what outrageous values these books would command in a few years' time? (Answer: once inflation is accounted for, fractions-of-pennies-on-the-dollar.)

Anyway, no need to go any further with this — the series is lamentable, full stop.

I’m not even sure why I mention it at all. Confession is good for the soul, I suppose.