Spurred on by larger than life movie action heroes, gun toting vigilantes became all the rage in late 80's comic books. Peter Gillis mused one day what new twist he could possibly put on the clichéd futuristic vengeful cyborg, that the likes of Deathlok and RoboCop hadn't already covered? Well, imagine if the aforementioned was carrying his daughter's disembodied brain on his back, as his literal tailgunner? And to keep her still conscious brain from going insane, Cyborg daddy constructs an elaborate fantasy world for her consciousness to inhabit? Yep, that's a very PBG spin alright.
Gillis originally mooted Tailgunner Jo (named after Joe McCarthy's war nickname) for the short lived Hot Comics. However, Mike Gold had been leading an exodus from the cash strapped First Comics to DC, and Peter Gillis was on his recruitment radar. Gillis offered Gold this sci-fi maxi-series, which ended up assigned to veteran DC editor Barbara Randall/Kesel, who was keen, despite expressing doubts about how the controversial concept could be construed. Jo might be the only DC title to have a "Suggested For Mature Readers" label slapped on it primarily for the concept rather than the content. There's a couple of S and B swears and some cartoon blood, but it's not exactly Tarantino.
Gillis already had an artist in mind for the strip that he had very much admired for some time, Tom Artis. As Jo took a while to come to fruition, their first work for DC ended up being the Teen Titans Spotlight issue. Out of the pair's handful of strips together over the years, Tailgunner Jo is undoubtedly their finest collaboration.
Tailgunner Jo #1-6 (1988-1989)
Pencils: Tom Artis
Inks: Ty Templeton, Pam Eklund, John Nyberg, Joe Rubinstein, Dick Giordano, Kim Demulder, Al Vey
Yes, there really were seven inkers over half a dozen issues. Following the opening two being sympathetically inked by Templeton in his smooth, cartoony line, the remaining four passed through the hands of seemingly whoever was free at the time, which may indicate that this series was seen as something of a dead duck for DC before it even started.
The first issue introduces the bizarre concept primarily through flashback. Two typically shady future corporations are competing to develop their own fused cyborgs, for presumably nefarious purposes. Married scientists Lars and Maire defect from S'Atrap to the even more evil Telemachus, after their daughter Jo is born with serious defects and missing limbs due to substances they were exposed to at S'Atrap. Slimy Telemachus boss Allardyce causes Lars and his now 10 year old daughter Jo to suffer a serious car crash, then tricks Maire into operating on the two, turning Lars into a killer cyborg, with Jo's brain on his back neurally connected to him. It's a stretch of a set up, and the revenge plot that ensues is a bit generic, with Lars mainly facing off against attacking drones in a strangely empty faceless future metropolis. What separates this from the likes of the similar Chrome is the innocence of Jo, and the touching bond between her and her father.
Jo's virtual world that she retreats into when her father doesn't need her to kill things, is a magic fantasy full of princesses, castles, dashing knights and talking teddy bears. Artis' cartoony style seems far more at ease depicting these scenes then the grittier future action. His panels are thin line and detailed, but often overwhelmingly so, occasionally making it hard to tell what's going on. Todd Klein (letterer on #2-6), uses a pre-Sandman style font to help differentiate the fantasy scenes at a glance.
The relationship between Lars and Jo and the stark contrast between their worlds is really what makes the story sparkle. Jo loves her dad deeply, but fears his obsession with revenge is driving him crazy. Lars feels anger about what they've done to his daughter, and perhaps some measure of guilt that she was deprived much of a life to begin with, from her condition and parents lost in their work. As Lars leaves an increasing trail of bodies behind, Jo begins to question what's happening to the daddy she loves. I always found these scenes touching and so sad they're hard to read, and now as a father they have additional power and resonance.
Eventually, the darkness from their real lives begins to leak into Jo's fantasy world, and the boogeymen invade, gruesomely killing Jo's teddy bear friend. Lars begins to shut down mentally, leaving Jo caught in a nightmarish halfway house between the real world and fantasy. The final issue becomes majorly confusing, as with the duo caught in this in-between world, it's unclear what's real and what's imagined.
Tailgunner Jo was designed as a twelve issue series, but DC must've got cold feet, only releasing the first half as six issues, with the promise of a Book 2 that never came. The rushed feeling final pages may have been rewritten to provide some closure, as Jo and Lars are reunited with Maire, who promises she can restore Jo to a body somehow. It's a deliberately hopeful ending, to a series rather short on it. Gillis also penned features in the text pages, including a couple of fake letter pages from his alternate timeline, possibly for his own amusement. The final text article on #6 consists of an imagined review of the series from this timeline some 40 years in the future (i.e., around now), with the ironic self commentary:
"Tailgunner Jo, it seems, sold almost no copies, and the times back then being what they were, it's not at all impossible that something as wild as this went by completely unnoticed."
It ends with a more wishful footnote, on "...the possibility that a second series of Tailgunner exists. If it does, you'll certainly be hearing from me. And Jo."
Needless to say, Book 2 never happened, and the story remains maddeningly incomplete. What exists though, is very good indeed.
I only ever read the first issue. The only thing I have vague memories of is the art. Loved Templeton's inks but I was always on the fence about Artis' art. DC was so experimental at the time, a sadly bygone age now...Scott S
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