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Justice Society of America #1

Script: Geoff Johns
Art: Dale Eaglesham & Art Thibert

What, no zero issue?

It’s nearly impossible to read this restart without making comparisons to the revamped JLA title Brad Meltzer is penning. These sister titles may have roots separating them by a generation and a slightly different sensibility about them, but there is still great commonality between the them.

So let’s get the comparison out of the way early: this is a much better start than JLA.  Geoff Johns accomplishes more in one issue than Meltzer has in four -- although if Meltzer would drop all those annoying verbal ticks he’s introduced to the script we’d only be on issue two -- he has a better sense of character development and, unsurprisingly, a better feel for how to tell a story in this medium. Johns’ writes like the seasoned pro you’d expect, Meltzer more like the novelist he is, who gets to play with some new toys he’s always wanted but not quite sure how to use.

This isn’t to say the book is flawless. After 70 some-odd issue of the previous JSA run it seems almost imponderable he would get Wildcat this wrong, although I do like the plot development dropped at the end. And is there something in Johns’ contract requiring a certain number of gruesome acts of violence per book? Maybe I’m just old school, but that business with Mr. America’s family should have happened off-panel.

The JSA was lost a bit in the INFINITE CRISIS shuffle and what little has been addressed in the pages of 52 has shed no real light on their planned direction. So it's nice to see Johns do a reset here in regards to the group itself and its direction. He also takes the opportunity to introduce a few new characters and revamp some old ones. I like the new Red (Green?) Tornado character although her backstory is a bit contrived and I’m not sure how long it will be before the goofy, awkward teenager shtick wears thin. I really like the new Starman, he strikes me as quirkier, more interesting Sentry. I guess every super team needs a character with a personality disorder these days.

The art in this issue is solid I only wish Eaglesham had taken as much care in distinguishing the younger male heroes as he does with the big three (Flash, Green Lantern, and Wildcat, that is.) All the male characters are overly muscled stereotypes while the women are typically brick shit-houses. I could have done without the scene where Liberty Belle and Hourman appear to be in a pose-off for the semi-finals of the superhero body-building championships. Beyond these things, the storytelling is solid and Starman’s costume rocks. Here's hoping for another solid 70-80 issue run for Johns.

Open Source Heroes – Part III

Part I briefly lays out the premise that the world of comic books could use another superhero comic book universe. In Part II I explain to Bob and Jerry Comicreator why the two most likely paths to creating a universe from whole clothe wouldn’t likely work for them, setting the stage for Part III…

Bob, Jerry, I know you’re asking what this mysterious Third Way is. Or maybe after reading the title of this little series you’ve sort of figured it out. The idea is simply to create a new superhero universe using well-established Open Source methodology.

The Open Source culture finds its roots in the software industry, not unlike myself. A lot of people get credit for helping the movement reach its current lofty status, but for my money the guy you have to give the lifetime achievement award to is Linus Torvalds, the driving force behind the Linux operating system, arguably the most prominent and successful Open Source project to date. 

Don’t nod off here boys, I promise not to lapse into a droning discourse on the relative merits of various operating systems. Just know that in the mid ‘90’s as Linux was picking up steam very few people on the corporate side of the OS aisle gave it much heed and certainly no chance for ever finding foothold with paying customers. The damn thing was written by a bunch of hobbyists, who in their right mind was going to trust mission critical applications to that? Lo and behold, by 1999 Linux had scooted past Novell to become number two in server OS share behind this little mom and pop operation out of Redmond, Washington. While it hasn’t necessarily gone on to world domination (don't tell them that), it’s still in wide use across companies of all shapes and sizes. And it’s still largely free. Unless you need competent help maintaining it, but that’s another story.

How might this translate to the world of comic books? First, let’s define the goal: You want to create a whole new universe of superheroes; superheroes that interact, form teams, share a common world history and most importantly, tell fun and interesting stories. You want this universe to take on a life of its own where other creators can easily step in and add to the lore. You want to be able to take advantage of all the familiar archetypes but check the baggage on a one-way flight to Latveria. And you’d preferably like to do all this without putting your lawyer’s kids through college. You don’t even want to know if your lawyer has kids. Truly, you don’t really want to know a lawyer period.

Now the two of you could probably create this universe all by yourselves between shifts at Costco, but then it would be the Bob and Jerry Show, with your limited influences and biases smelling up the joint. And that’s probably okay to start but if you want this thing to take off you’ll need more people involved and quickly. Now here comes the tricky part, this new universe needs to be foundationally strong, yet flexible, it needs to be tightly coupled, but loosely bound. It needs to be attractive to creators of all influence yet structured in a way that stories emanating from it are recognizable as such. A tall order, to be sure, too tall to adequately elaborate on here.

Okay, that’s the 10,000 foot view. That’s the pie-in-the-sky discussion you have after plowing another $40 into Marvel and DC’s respective continuity bandwagons. Sure that stuff is okay, but wouldn’t it be cool if… For a moment, let’s come back down to Earth, let’s sort out some particulars. I’m not much of a details guy, but let’s see what we can do with this. First, you need to decide how you’re going to “publish”. Remember, we’re talking about a universe of titles here not a four issue Gadgetguy miniseries so let’s be honest, floppies are pretty much out of the question at this stage. I shouldn’t have to explain the slippery slope of direct market distribution and marketing but if you need a primer head over to this archive of Brian Hibbs’ Tilting at Windmills columns. The short story is that if you were actually able to produce say six or seven monthly comics there is little chance you’d be able to get them in front of the your best initial demographic. You might have better luck with the graphic novel format but those take time to produce. It could take years to cobble together the few books which will big bang your universe. May I suggest the web?

There are certainly sites which could host your webcomics for free or at least on the very cheap, but it might be to your advantage to carve out your own domain and host everything related to your universe in one, focused location. You can simultaneously build universe specific secondary services (advertising, forums, licensed underwear sales) and content (backstories, forums, a universe bible) around the comics themselves while creating a little separation from the plethora of existing webcomics. If you were going to create a single ongoing title I wouldn’t recommend this, but we’re talking a universe here, right? Of course you also divorce yourself from built-in traffic an existing webcomics hosts might provide, but that’s okay because you are going to overcome that with aggressive, tireless self-promotion. (Hey, did I mention I own a software and application hosting company? Under the right circumstances I might even be persuaded to provide some free bandwidth and tools to facilitate this effort.) This will also give you the opportunity to get your print act together as you build your audience.   

Next up you are going to need some talent beyond the two of you. Your best shot at pulling this off is to engender support from a group of like-minded creators. Likely you’re all going to be starting out -- don’t count on Kurt Busiek or Bryan Hitch showing up at the first meeting -- and that’s okay. If you set your web platform up correctly you can draw from widely dispersed talent, maybe even use the site to connect artists and writers. It might take a bit of time, but since nearly everyone who reads comics thinks they’re a writer or an artist, maybe not. If the initial infrastructure is solid, from both a technical and creative standpoint, you’ll probably be surprised at the response. But dig your well first and line up four or five creative teams to get things going. And let’s hope there’s an editor somewhere in the bunch.

One final note on trademarks, copyrights and the like. Open Source doesn’t necessarily mean free. Sure you’d love for other creators to expand on the Gadgetguy mythology, maybe add a clever sidekick, Wrench, or his secret lair, the GadgetGarage, but the fact that you open up Gadgetguy to other creators doesn’t necessarily mean some schmuck can run off and publish Gadgetguy, The Dark Tool, without your permission. To this end I encourage you to become familiar with Creative Commons, particularly the licenses page. Done right, you can have your cake and share it too.   

Now, let me be clear, this is only one possible alternative mechanism for producing an alternative universe, and I haven’t the time or inclination to think about explain all the nitty, gritty details. The basic concept is fairly simple, the execution, not so much. As with any creative effort much depends on your own passion and determination - remember, I’m just the ideas man.   

Open Source Heroes – Part II

All publishers are Columbuses. The successful author is their America. The reflection that they – like Columbus – didn’t discover what they expected to discover, didn’t discover what they started out to discover, doesn’t trouble them. ~~ Mark Twain

~~~

I provided in Part I flawless, exhaustive proof that the comic book world can support another publisher of superhero books, I would go so far as to say it even needs another. (Admittedly, my idea of “flawless, exhaustive proof” may be skewed by my years in the software industry. I have fond memories of eight figure deals brokered solely on three word pitches like “on-line breakfast cereal.”) This business about Marvel and DC owning the superhero market? Pish. Posh. Too many superhero titles on the racks already? Not when you remove all the crep. I think the comic buying marketplace -- the whole of it, not just the direct market -- is screaming for another line of superhero product. They’re looking for an excuse not to buy Marvel and DC, they want a complete and wonderful tapestry of Gadgetman and Infinityguy stories and they want them told their way.

And I have no idea what that way is. Look, I’m the big ideas guy here, someone else can fill in the details.    

There are basically three ways to go about creating this rich, universal canvas on which to base this new comic book company (we haven’t picked a name yet, we’re waiting for input from the VC’s, you know, to get buy-in). The first is purely organic. Start from scratch, maybe telling pulp stories and then moving to what we now consider traditional superhero comics, introduce characters slowly all the while allowing various creators to lend their voice and spirit to the universe and individual character lore. The characters will eventually grow into icons, some becoming brands unto themselves. Wonderful stories will be told, television shows and movies made, words and ideas lifted right from the stories and into our everyday lexicon. Eventually, 30, 40, 50 years down the road we’ll have a wholly formed comic book universe from which hundreds, nee, thousands of characters will have sprung and a 38% market share achieved.

The only thing one would need to pull this strategy off was best verbalized by my brother every time we got ourselves ass deep in some stupid scheme typically involving lighter fluid, duct tape and beer. Picture the shit roughly six inches from the fan, at which point Tom would calmly say, “All we need now is a time machine.” That’s what you’d need to pull off the “organic method”.

You see, Bob, Jerry, we’re in the 21st century now, we need results yesterday or sooner. We’ve got investors to satisfy and a hungry fan base that’s none to happy they can’t buy action figures and HeroClix for each and every one of Gadgetguy’s 38 villains for Christmas this year. If you want to grow your superhero universe organically you’re going to have to go back in time to maybe 1960 or so to do it. Maybe you have already. Bob does look like a young Stan Lee. Regardless, we don’t have time to sit around waiting for things to mature, life moves too fast. Hell, I cut two movie deals and an Underoos licensing contract while I typed that last sentence.

So “organic” is out. The next option is holistic.

With the holistic approach we sit down and map out the entire universe before hand, the characters, relationships, alliances, mysterious-forces-at-work, maybe even the unique physics, chemistry and psychology. (Careful with that last one.) This has to be done in a way that provides not only a clarifying framework but flexibility for the creators. Maybe you get together a group of experienced creators and an editor or two and start bouncing ideas around. Maybe you generate a bible of sorts that can serve as the guidebook for all scripting to come. Maybe you play a drinking game where everyone has to take a shot of Stoli whenever someone “creates” a character that’s a direct rip-off from the big two. Again you see why I’m not a details guy.

This approach may be more structured but it certainly has its risks. Much of Superman and Batman’s mythology was developed over time – an overly thought out approach would undoubtedly have robbed some of the charm from these characters. (Not that there was much charm left after the 90’s got through with them.) Interestingly, despite decades of storytelling, the mythology around many of Marvel’s prominent characters remains largely unchanged, perhaps because they were products of a more modern approach to comic book superheroes. The other risk is the outward appearance that these are “corporate” creations, perhaps limiting their appeal to certain readers and quite naturally inviting comparisons to the big two. This results in ongoing creators having a larger credibility hurdle to clear than they might with a more organic approach and possibly limiting the breadth and style of storytelling. That should be your matra guys, don't limit breadth and style. 

Who would want to do things this way? Who could possibly have the time, energy and wherewithal to generate this sort of hitchhiker’s guide? I’m so glad you asked, because as it turns out my buddies over at Platinum Studios have done exactly that. Along this exact formula, Platinum Studios has created the Macroverse, a full-blown comic universe complete with superheroes, non-super heroes, parallel universes and its very own 1,000 page (plus) bible. The Macroverse bible was originally created with input from the likes of Greg Weisman (creator of Gargoyles ), Marv Wolfman, Cary Bates, and Danny Fingeroth among others. Platinum’s recently released COWBOYS & ALIENS graphic novel falls under the Macroverse umbrella and there are apparently more titles to come. I’m not sure how quickly the Macroverse will impose itself on the varying Platinum titles but a conversation I had with Platinum CEO Scott Mitchell Rosenberg some time back leads me to think it won’t be long. Despite his current focus on the film side of the industry, Rosenberg is an old comic book guy who seems to have a pretty good feel for this sort of thing. One of the charms of his Malibu Comics titles were that they were released as parts of the greater Malibu “Ultraverse” rather than one-offs cobbled together as an afterthought.

Here’s the real kicker to the holistic approach done right: intellectual property control. You wanna do movie deals? Sell Gadgetguy underpants, computer games and fruit rollups? In today’s comic book world, where even 12-year-old fan-fic writers can be heard uttering the phrase “creator owned property”, you better own the IP free and clear. (This is one of the reasons Platinum, while they’ll accept comic book pitches on any other genre, will not listen to anything relating capes and tights. In this way they minimize potential legal entanglements.) The real truth about this approach is that it’s not necessarily about doing comics really, really well, it’s at least as much about creating jet fuel for far more lucrative licensing and movie deals. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with that -- I’m a businessman, not an artiste -- but everyone won’t agree with that approach, many will hate it. So the important thing when implementing this strategy is to remember that while doing comics really, really well may not be part of your mission statement, that doesn’t automatically mean they have to be done poorly.

Anyway, Bob, Jerry, I know for a fact your day jobs at Costco don’t pay enough to take the Platinum Studios route and the VC guys said they were tied up funding a Chinese version of You Tube - besides neither of you know enough other industry types to pull together a whole universe from scratch anyway. Maybe what you need is a third way, a way I like to call Open Source Heroes. In Part III I'll primer that for you.   

Open Source Heroes – Part I

I didn’t comment on it at the time -- I rarely comment on anything in a timely fashion these days -- but a little exchange that took place over at The Engine struck a chord with me and after some ruminating here’s where I got to.

The post in question is this one wherein an **ahem** enterprising young soul attempted to pimp his superheroes forum for all those of mind to discuss this genre of writing. Capes and tights are a verboten topic on The Engine but before the lead bouncer could pull the plug Larry Young had this response:

“Don't take this the wrong way, but if you're starting out in comics, why would you do a superhero story? The superhero audience is already being well-served by Marvel and DC, so that audience really isn't going to care about your characters or situations, so that's a non-starter, and Marvel and DC aren't going to hire you because even if your comic is The Best Superhero Comic Ever, well, they've already got their comics scheduled out for a while and best of luck, etc.”   

The idea that Marvel and DC “own” the superhero market, lock, stockings and cowl seems unassailable from a 10,000 foot view, but obviously there is some room around the margins. The success, however relative, of titles like SPAWN, ASTRO CITY, THE AUTHORITY, PLANETARY and INVINCIBLE show that superheroes can find an ongoing audience while existing outside the mainstream universe of the big two. And yes, I realize several of these are published under the Wildstorm imprint, and are technically DC publications, but if the logic is that people won’t buy a non-DC/Marvel book because they don’t care about characters or situations outside of same, how are these different? How do they have any kind of audience? The answer is that these books have succeeded due to their creative teams and that people will buy non-big two superhero comics so long as they are done really, really well.   

What does this mean for Bob and Jerry Comicreator and their fresh new take on the genre? Will GadgetMan and InfinityGuy find an audience on the order of SPAWN, ASTRO CITY or INVINCIBLE? Not likely unless Bob and Jerry happen to be industry pros who’ve already spent years cutting their teeth on other projects, and establishing their superhero cred at Marvel or DC, or more likely both. Or I suppose they could be like Robert Kirkman who seems to have simultaneously put the lie to Young’s premises that readers aren’t interested in superhero books outside the mainstream universes and that writing these books won’t lead to work at the big two. But I’m willing to set Kirkman’s success aside in an exception-that-proves-the-rule sort of way. On the whole, I agree with Larry that for young comic book creators there are less bullet-ridden and probably more gratifying paths to sequential success than capes and tights. But the fact is, there is a path, it might be a difficult one, but it’s there nonetheless.

Let’s assume for a moment, just for fun, that the comic book industry is a growing one. That it’s not just all these wonderful independent graphic novelists and manga creators who are attracting a crowd but all aspects of sequential storytelling are on the uptick; that it’s not just a bubble, it’s a trend. And then you go to the movies and you see it’s not just 18-to-34-year-old male geeks exiting Fantastic Four and Superman Returns and Batman Begins and you go home read the reactions to this and then read that something with as much charm and potential as this got no traction at DC and then you reread your own comments about Marvel, and you finally start to think that maybe there is a market for superheroes outside the big two, providing they were done really, really well (and different), of course. 

Of course, now I’m talking more about me than you. You probably don’t think like this because you’re smart enough not to hit your head against that wall, even hypothetically. But I’m not as smart as you and I’m sure you’ll be shocked to find out that I have a hair-brained scheme or two just waiting to hatch. In Part II I’ll lay these out, or maybe Part II and Part III. We’ll see how long-winded I get.   

Go to Part II

Thursday is Random Comic Book Blogging Day

I didn't make it to the comic shop until today, so don’t spoil anything for me. Now, allow me to scatter a few thoughts around here. 

Remember when I wrote that the Justice League HAD to have a Flash? No? Okay, well, you’re forgiven, you’ve been busy and that was all the way back in February. A lot of water under the comic bridge since then. But I did write it and low and behold, nothing.

I'm sure this has much to do with DC’s uncertainty as to who exactly the Flash is going to be long-term, but in the interim we got no Scarlet Speedster. That’s just no going to fly. The League has to have somebody -- besides Superman -- who can move at the speed of light. I can’t tell you how critical this is. What to do, what to do…

What if instead of someone moving at the speed of light it was the speed of…well, I’ll let Meltzer tell it:

Lightning. Or Black Lightning in this case. Hmmm…wouldn’t he look great in red? If this really came to pass it would make for some sweet irony considering the bashing I took on several message boards for suggesting in this post that the new Flash might be black. (I don’t really think this will happen, I’m just having some fun. So leaveme alone message boarderers.)

~

Speaking of the Justice League, anyone else read GREEN LANTERN #15 yet? I don’t want to spoil anything, but the last page of that book completely displaces it within the current DC continuity as I comprehend it. My assumption was that what’s taking place in the first issues JLA was the one year later kickoff point. The big three are back and their getting the old band together. But GL, and one little passage from the new JUSTICE SOCIETY book, lead me to think that the current JLA story arc, issues 0 through at least 4, predates the rest of the DCU, meaning current stories are actually one year+. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it. I don’t need my books to maintain perfect geosynchronous orbit around their respective universe, but this just seemed silly and a little impatient. I’m sure it will all wash out in a few months, but what if the JLA is perpetually six months to a year behind the rest of the world? Kind of like Ford Motors?

~

For what it’s worth, I think DAREDEVIL is the best, most tightly written title Marvel’s publishing right now. I dread the moment Brubaker is forced to drag the book into the Civil War fray because it’s taken a toll on CAPTAIN AMERICA.

And did you notice there were no Civil War covers this week from Marvel? We interrupt this event from the Marvel Broadcasting Network to bring you your regularly scheduled comic books.

~

For the comic collector who wants everything I bring you two must have auctions:

148, 963 Comic Books

And

198,660 Comic Books

Auctions close today at roughly 5pm Pacific. No bidders as yet. I was going to snag ‘em but Christmas is coming and this is just the kind of thing the wife would surprise me with.   

Ex Machina: March to War

Wildstorm
Script: Brian K. Vaughan
Art: Tony Harris/Tom Fiester; Chris Sprouse/Karl Story; JD Mettler

(MARCH TO WAR covers EX MACHINA #17-20 and EX MACHINA SPECIAL #1-2)

I buy most of Brian K. Vaughan’s work in trade paperback. His tendency to spend months stringing along multiple plot threads, with frequent sidetracks, make the trades a more satisfying read for me. Unfortunately, this will probably be the last EX MACHINA trade I buy as lately Vaughan seems to have gone completely astray of the direction he set in the first year or so of the series. At this point he’d need an ATV with a hoist and ninety feet of manila climbing rope to get back on path.

I may be guilty of imposing my own interpretation of what EX MACHINA’s direction was to be and this is what Vaughan had planned all along. You see, I thought the title was about a guy who gets a strange power, uses it to fight evil, gets a crazy idea to run for Mayor of New York and wins. Then the really weird stuff happens. I didn’t realize the whole talks-to-machines ploy was really Deus ex machina (sorry, couldn’t resist) for wedging a character into a position where Vaughan could roll out all his pet civics theories. I suppose it could be he’s slowly working his way back around to the elements that made this book so enjoyable in the early going, but since it’s now being promoted as a “political thriller”, I doubt it. And while I like a political thriller as much as the next guy -- I’ve seen Enemy of the State five times! -- for Vaughan that seems to mean character’s spouting off like freshman poli-sci students and creating a chain of straw man plot hammers so he can throw out buckets of what I’m sure seemed like clever rejoinders to all the base CNN/FOX/CNCBC reactions and responses to the Iraq War. It’s his book and he’s certainly free to use it as a bully pulpit for any topic he fancies but by the end of this arc I couldn’t tell where most of his characters, or Vaughan himself, stood on any issue. I think he bent over a bit too far trying to cover the angles or at least to appear that he had. On the whole it could have used a lot more intrigue and less monologuing.

The art as usual, is wonderful. I don’t know if Tony Harris is underrated -- because I don’t really know how he’s rated -- but he handles facial expressions and distinct characters better than anyone I can think of. And his storytelling is excellent. I credit him with making a number of Vaughan’s slower scenes at least visually interesting. One thing I found odd was the way some of the scenes were shaded. If I recall, in previous issues a sort of sepia tone was used to help indicate a flashback sequence but it was used here in a couple of places that were part of the normal plot sequence and my conditioned little brain got confused. A small quibble at best.

At the back of this trade is the two issue special, LIFE AND DEATH which is a far more interesting read and much closer in spirit to the EX MACHINA I enjoyed early in the run. In one of those odd twists, I had planned to stop buying this title after the last trade but picked up the special in floppy, because it was only a two-issue commitment (I’m easy and have a short attention span) and I really had to see what kind of story Vaughan could tell in two issues. I liked it so much I decided to give the book one more go. Sadly, because Vaughan is an extremely talented writer and capable of better, the rest of the book is a waste.

Ultimate Vision #0

Marvel Comics
Script: Mark Millar
Art: John Romita Jr. & Jimmy Palmiotti

This is one of those rare cases where numbering a book issue “0” is appropriate since this kickoff is really just a prologue to whatever will take place in the rest of the series. Here we’re given a little Vision/Gah Lak Tus backstory to frame up the soon to come five issue mini series, through a narrative “vision” presented to Sam Wilson by the freshly re-animated robot hottie. Vision was built by some long-extinct race to warn others of the coming danger, with the ability to “assume the shape and language of whatever world” she visited. I guess our world’s shape is brick shithouse.

This book takes place somewhere before the final issue of ULTIMATE EXTINCTION, making for a bit of awkwardness early on as we wonder why Sam Wilson and Reed Richards are sweating a Gah Lak Tus threat already resolved in our up-to-speed Ultimate universe minds. That passes as the book quickly moves to what I guess you would call Vision’s origin story. What doesn’t pass is the awkward transition from the work of Warren Ellis and Brandon Peterson in ULTIMATE EXTINCTION to Millar and Romita’s effort here. I like a lot of Romita’s work – I’m particularly enjoying ETERNALS – but he doesn’t have the attention to detail Peterson (or Steve McNiven) have shown for the technical backdrops this Ultimate run calls for. Peterson will draw the main series, making the point moot.

“His name could best be described as the shape of a DNA strand multiplied by something that smelled like meat burning.” Ellis has shown a flair for pulling off lines like this, but from Millar it seems somehow silly and flat. Maybe it’s just me, but this type of script calls for a bit of eloquence combined with a knack for turning quasi-scientific factoids into oddly believable dialog – it’s just not in Millar’s wheel house. In the end we get a serviceable, if somewhat forced, story that does its job of setting the table for the mini series without giving much away.

Okay, I know I’ve sort of buried the lede on this one. Yes, the Vision is female, and, well, hubba, hubba. Like most of you I did scratch my head for a brief second wondering why it had to take the form of an intergalactic hooker. Truth is, I’ve given up worrying on this kind of nonsense (although they did take the robot mammary thing to heretofore unreached levels of goofiness in this book), it is what it is. I’m not sure how this one will play out in the Ultimate universe but I’m laying even money on a Tony Stark/Vision hookup before it’s all over. Either way, I look forward to a wealth of metal and robotic related sexual puns from blogosphere.

DC, Marvel and the Female Reader

I’ve been following the reactions to DC’s announcement of the MINX line with passing interest, despite the somewhat predictable tenor of the responses. (The inestimable Johanna Draper Carlson has the best round up of reactions I’ve come across.) For my own part, I’m not that curious about the imprint or the announced titles, but I’m not the target market. For that matter, if DC had announced that readers such as myself were part of the target demo, failure to reach the young female age group would be a foregone conclusion. My real interest in it is as a business/marketing exercise, additionally, by combining the details of the MINX deal with Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley's interview over at ICV2, I think you get real insight into the differences between the two companies.

I’ve written before that Marvel and DC were fully capable of attracting young, female readers and I still believe that. I think there are four basic keys to accomplishing this:

• Utilize established, well-regarded talent that understands the audience and has proven ability to reach it;
• Make a long-term commitment – years, not months;
• Create stand-alone stories; i.e. outside of and completely divorced from the mainstream superhero universe;
• Focus distribution through non-direct market channels.

DC seems to be marking all four of these, although the jury is certainly still out on one and two. The financial commitment would indicate an intention to stay with this effort for a while, but we’ve all seen companies throw wads of cash around on new products, divisions, etc., only to abandon them without explanation, so we really have to wake a wait and see approach. DC does have a proven track record of establishing an imprint and keeping it (relatively) clean of the DC universe and even the DC brand. And while MINX books will surely find their way to the comic shops, I doubt anyone believes that’s where they’ll do the most damage. All-in-all, if the stories are good and DC stays committed, I give this initiative pretty good odds for success, however you might define it.

Let’s contrast that with Marvel. You can read the Buckley interview in its four parts here, here, here and here. The second part is where he discusses Marvel’s approach to reaching this audience. (The cryptic nature of some of Buckley’s responses shows he’s got a bright future as a White House Press Secretary.) Marvel’s approach boils down to, “You want girly books? They’re in the back. You gotta go down that aisle of superhero books to get there. See the superhero books? Those right there, the Marvel ones, with the pretty colors and Spider-man stories. You ever read any of those? Why don’t you try one of those?” I’m making it sound worse than it is (I’m sure some would say I’m sugar-coating it) but the foundational difference is that while DC is actually a publishing company subsidiary to a much larger company, meaning by and large they have to act as such, Marvel's publishing division is really an intellectual property holding company with some branding and marketing responsibilities. Their biggest purpose is to make sure the IP is properly maintained for the big boys in the film and licensing divisions. Secondarily, there’s a focus on maintaining the “Marvel” brand. Nearly everything gets the Marvel imprint, and those that don’t, like the Max line, still utilize highly protected Marvel-owned characters like Punisher, Howard the Duck, Son of Satan and Squadron Supreme.

Judging by the nature of the deals done in the last few years it seems pretty clear Marvel publishing has little interest in anything that doesn’t explicitly promote the Marvel brand or intellectual property. (At one point in part three Buckley touches on the differences between the Max and Essential lines in terms of “branding issues” - the idea that either is an actual brand is either telling or funny, depending upon how you feel about Buckley.) That isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it does make reaching that much-desired young female audience – in truckloads, I mean - a bit of a reach as that group is likely to sidestep anything blatantly Marvel or sniffing of capes and tights. Further, the type of talent Marvel would need isn’t likely interested in working with the dusty old house IP, they’ll need creator-owned freedom which doesn’t exactly lend itself to a smooth, lawyer-free licensing trail. All of which helps makes sense of the latest goofball character Marvel rolls out in his own six-issue miniseries – it’s so hard core comic types like myself can wander into the comic lounge and say, “Hey baby, let me refresh that trademark for you.” After all, you never know when Nicholas Cage might want to make another movie.

Meanwhile, DC doesn’t even warrant a line-item in the Time Warner Annual Report. They’ve got to act more like a real publishing company and like all publishing companies these days they want a bigger piece of the graphic novel pie. They’re perhaps a little better situated than most to accomplish that.

It’s kind of cool and trendy to stand outside of all this and declare how Marvel just doesn’t get it. I think they get it just fine. They are simply not structured institutionally or philosophically to attract a mass of young female readers, not that these readers aren’t welcome, just don’t expect any special treatment. For DC, MINX is what they hope is a sound business decision. Time will tell even if Time Warner won't.

Justice League of America #0-3

DC Comics
Justice League of America
Script: Brad Meltzer
Art: Ed Benes & Sandra Hope

The first three issues of this revamp outsold every other book on the market except CIVIL WAR. That’s not completely unexpected given the title’s relatively high profile, Meltzer’s current star status and, I think, the hopeful promise of something that will embody a sunnier, more upbeat DC Universe. I don’t think the irony is lost on anyone that Meltzer’s IDENTITY CRISIS may be the gold standard for the darker, uglier aspect of DC story telling in the last few years. Redemption is working on a lot of levels here.

Way back in February I wrote one of the most popular (as judged by continuing Google traffic, anyway) posts in the illustrious history of this blog, surrounding the notion of who Brad Meltzer would include in the latest JLA incarnation. (If you’ve got nothing better to do you can go back and see who I predicted. I had about a 60% hit rate, although I don’t think the line-up is entirely set.) My general sense of the pre-release hype was the Meltzer was going to channel the 70’s JLA nostalgia with just enough variation to avoid the type of complaints constantly levied on Alex Ross for his never-ending homage to all things Silver Age. So how does the zero issue kick things off? With an homage to the silver age – or at least a montage. More importantly, the first few issues anchor the JLA firmly to the shoulders of DC’s holy trinity.

From the formal invitations to join the League, to splitting up into teams (if even before the actual team is finalized) with the various heroes logos kicking off each section, to the masthead of the book, these first four issues are heavily influenced by the JLA of the Me Decade. And I like the use of Red Tornado as the foundation for the story – he was crux of so many noteworthy League moments in those days. Meltzer's characterizations are solid, but they should be as most of these characters have been well-defined elsewhere.  The dialog is the solid stuff you would expect from a best-selling author.

The art and storytelling has been solid so far. I’m especially thankful no one felt compelled to riff on the now iconic first issue cover of the original JLA. But many of the background sets are indistinguishable. The panels involving Vixen and Black Lightning look like they all took place in the same backwater bar, even after BL changed locales. A small quibble, but when you’re jumping around a lot it does impact the storytelling. 

I’m enjoying much of this, which probably isn’t too surprising considering the era Meltzer most heavily references dovetails with when I first started reading comic books. In fact, the JLA was by far my favorite and I still have many of the early issues including a complete run from about issue 70 to 200. I’m curious if this influence resonates with everyone the way it does with me, but that will be Meltzer’s tightrope to walk. And I find it interesting this book has posted the early returns we’re seeing, sales-wise. Yes, it’s been heavily hyped; yes, Meltzer’s on the New York Times bestseller list; yes, there’s some direct carryover from the very successful Infinite Crisis miniseries. But the previous JLA run was lucky to crack 80,000 units in any given month and was rarely a top 10 book. And the lineup during the last year or so of that title more closely mimicked the 70’s era than any in recent memory. (Although I’ll admit the thing was completely addled during the pre-IC run-up.) Will this title fall back to those levels once the dust settles? Well, NEW AVENGERS has managed to maintain some semblance of momentum two years in, so I guess there’s hope. But only if DC continues to treat this title like the flagship it should be.

42

The scene: All hands meeting in Publisher Dan Buckley’s office at Marvel, some time back. (Author’s note: I realize you could never get all these people in the same room at the same time, but if you could…And while I wouldn’t know Dan Buckley from the man on the moon, in my mind he’s a Perry White sort of figure with suspenders and an ever-present cigar. And not a patriarchal, Frank Langella sort of Perry White. More of a gruff, Jackie Cooper Perry White.)

As everyone sits down Buckley (enraged) hurls copies of the latest Diamond sales report around the room. 

Buckley: Civil War is an editorial mess and 52 is Kicking. Our. Ass. What are we going to do about it? Glares at Quesada. 

Joe Q.: What do you mean? Civil War’s been the number one book every month we’ve published.

Buckley: Yeah? How many did we sell in August? Or October? You know how many issues of 52 were sold in those months? 

(Blank stares around the room.)

Does the number “one million” have a nice ring to it? In August those clowns actually had more books in the top 20 than we did. That hasn’t happened since Christ left Chicago. 

Look, we promised our readers they wouldn’t have to buy every title to follow what’s going on and now every book in the line has a critical plot point. Our readers need an apple and a road map to follow this thing. And in the meantime Spider-Man and FF – our two most iconic titles – have had 8 minutes of plot progression in the last six months. And we’ve got 132 crossover books and every one of them has the same goddamn cover. I don’t know how anyone tells them apart. 

Joe Q.: It’s simple rea…

Buckley: Quesada, if you tell me they’re color-coded one more time…dammit, we’ve got to get our act together on this. Now we’ve got this Black Panther mess. Did anyone actually read the ending of issue 21 before it went to print? Put your hand down Joe.

It’s taken 18 pages and four books to show Sue and Johnny leaving the Baxter building. And Jesus, Negative Zone prisons, cloning Thor and super-villains turned into rent-a-cops? “Whose side are you on?” Which side would anybody be on? We’ve turned this thing from debatable government policy to secret, evil government plot. What’s next, the serpent crown? And does anyone want to tell me how the hell you clone a god anyway? That was rhetorical Warren.

What I really want is for someone to tell me where this is going. I can't believe we're going to wrap this thing up in January. Millar? 

Mark Millar: Well, Civil War is going to change the entire Marvel Universe for the next five or ten... 

Buckley: Jeez, save it for Newsarama. What I mean how are we going to bring all our books into alignment? Guys, look, Civil War is selling great, but we’re losing the focus. You all know I think big event comics are where it’s at. Pump up the mini-series volume! But we can't just let monthlies fall where they may. What are we going to do to bring this thing under control?

Ed Brubaker: Well, Stark’s talking about 50 super teams across the US, right? How about we have a book for each locale? Some of them could be gritty crime dramas – SHIELD: New York could have a bunch of wise-guy heroes, SHIELD: DC could be a geo-political thriller and SHIELD: LA could be anti-terrorist heroes and… 

Buckley: Ed. 

Brubaker: ...you could have one where the government is searching for abducted heroes and some shadowy bad guy is… 

Buckley: (louder) Ed. 

Brubaker: Sorry. 

Dan Slott: Hey, can I have SHIELD: Las Vegas – Dancing with the Heroes? 

Buckley: No. Maybe. You know what I want? An answer to 52. Can any of you losers tell me why those schmucks at DC are getting so much mileage out of series with a bunch of C-list characters chasing 18 impenetrable plot threads? 

Joe Q.: Grant Morrison? 

Buckley: (yelling) I don’t want to hear any of those DC guys mentioned in this meeting again. And, no, it’s not because of Grant. Effing. Morrison. It’s because rain or shine that book is on the shelf every Wednesday (glares at Steve McNiven, who's looking away, whistling) and somehow, DC got 100,000 comic book readers to believe a book that’s 52 issues long is a fucking mini-series! We need a counter punch, so what’s the answer? 

Millar: 42. 

Buckley: (Stares at Millar blankly.) Hardy-har-har. I’ve read Douglas Addams too. Any of you other jokers want to contribute? 

Millar: I’m serious. We’re already setting the table for it. The raft had 42 villains escape from it… 

Brian Bendis: Well…we kind of revised it to 46. 

Millar: So what? Just an error in accounting. We can edit it before it hits the trades. 

Joe Q.: Too late. 

Buckley: [groans] 

Millar: And then there’s the Negative Zone prison, Reed Richard’s project. It’s called 42 as well. 

Buckley: Wonderful. I can hear Levitz now, “Well, those boys over at Marvel just can’t count as high as us." 

Warren Ellis: Actually, the number 42 has a great deal of promise. It’s a meandric number, a Catalan number, it’s bracketed by twin primes, it’s the number of lines on each page of the Gutenberg Bible, the Parthenon originally had 42 columns and 42 figures, the ancient Egyptian’s Book of the Dead had a kind of moral code – the ma’at – which contained 42 Declarations of Purity - some consider these a precursor to the 10 Commandments - and in the Book of Revelation, 42 is the number of months the Beast reigned over the Earth. 

Buckley: (Sits down, puffs on his cigar and stares into space.) You know, Wikipedia Ellis here may be on to something. Mark of the Beast, huh? I like it - it’s got a spiritual, supernatural quality. That's big these days. Let’s run with that. 

Slott: Hey, this is just like my Defenders book! I knew that would work its way into continuity. Busiek owes me five bucks. 

Buckley: (growls at Slott) Here's the plan, for the six months immediately following Civil War I want six books a month - in addition to all our regulars - starring six big-time heroes battling six super villains. This will cover 42 months in Marvel universe time. I want outlines on Joe’s desk by Monday. And everyone start thinking about what comes after that.

Joe Q.: But what about the monthly titles? I thought...

Buckley: Ahhh, call Busiek. Let him figure that mess out.  But after 42. Oh, and Bendis, we are NOT going to have a New, New Avengers where Thor, Iron Man and Cap spend the first twelve issues picking the team from a bunch of pictures. So stop asking.       

Heroes 11.13.06

I’m not a big network television guy, particularly in the fall. Work, coach soccer, watch football. That’s pretty much the extent of my schedule. Of course watching football means gritting through boatloads of commercials, especially commercials for shows that all the critics agree on. It seems NBC’s Heroes is one of those. But I hadn’t seen the show until last night as Monday is a soccer night during which I generally record MNF for post-practice viewing. I can only record one show at a time and MNF semi-regularly runs past 9pm (although less so with this season’s 5:30 Pacific Time start) so I don’t really bother with anything but football on Monday’s.

But practice was rained out last night, Carolina lowered the hammer on the Bucs around 8:30 and miraculously all the kids were in bed about that same time, leaving me with the TV to myself and no football to watch. Somehow I remembered Heroes was on – maybe it was the 47 commercials during the Sunday Night football telecast.

Now for my preconceptions: If you’ve got a decent one hour show and you schedule it for prime time on a Monday you know a good chunk of the country is going to have to make a choice between it and football. To me that means counter-programming. Chick shows. That’s not a bad thing, it just has no appeal for me. Conversely, everyone know chicks aren’t really into comic books, even people who don’t read comic books, but this show is right out there with the premise - and the title for that matter. After seeing one of the early teasers I figured it was a show about cops, firefighters, etc.; no way this could be about actual “super” heroes. I guess the success of superhero movies have changed the thinking in this regard. So right off the bat there’s a mixed message, again, not necessarily a bad thing.

And I promise not to use the word "chick" any more.

Okay, okay, the show. It was alright, good even. When I saw Jeph Loeb’s name on the credits I figured it would be decent and somewhat formulaic from the comic fan’s perspective. You know, like a Jeph Loeb comic. And that pretty well describes it. It’s got a big time X-Files vibe to it, which I like, providing it doesn’t get too bogged down with aliens and conspiracy theories. The acting is solid, no one in this episode jumps out as glaringly bad or breakout good. The scene transitions were pretty smooth and the script was solid, although lacking in humor. One of the things that I always appreciated about X-Files was Duchovney’s/Mulder’s dry sense of humor. Heroes could use a bit of that. 

I was able to easily jump into this episode and pick up the thread, largely because there’s very little new ground broken from a thematic or plot standpoint. I suppose there’s a certain comfort in that and it certainly makes the show accessible, but it also puts a big load on the cast and script to make the show appealing over the long haul; one episode isn’t enough for me to judge those things.  And  you almost need a tote board to keep track of all the comic book and sci fi tropes in play, which was kind of fun actually.

Must see TV? Nah, but it’s fun and intriguing. Comic book fans will likely enjoy watching just to spot all the retread ideas and characters. And since next Monday’s Giants v. Jags game isn’t very glamorous I may tune in and see if someone actually does save the cheerleader.

Return to Returning…

…Or something like that.

I’ve been trying to avoid the seemingly inevitable blogger fate of taking months off then weakly reappearing for three or four posts before disappearing forever into the void. I’ve false started on posts a number of times but resisted publishing because I could just tell I wasn’t going to get much past that one post.

It’s not like I haven’t been trying, but between work and family obligations my time has not really been my time. I’m sure none of you can relate to that. I’m even surer that many of you are wondering what the heck I’m talking about, didn’t I just read a post from this guy last week? What’s that old saying? Something like…In your 20’s you spend a great deal of time worrying about what other people think about you. In your 40’s you stop worrying about what other people think. In your 60’s you realize they aren’t thinking about you at all.

Four Months Worth of Reviews

Not really.

I had the best of intentions but when I counted up how many comics I bought in that period…Holy Discretionary Income, Batman! I don’t want to give out the real number – on rare occasions my wife reads this blog – suffice it to say I got a personal thank you note from Bryan Singer and the Time Warner brass for allowing production on the next Superman movie to proceed.

Let’s see if I can narrow it down to some general catch-up impressions:

52 is doing just enough to keep me buying and now that we’re past the halfway mark it’s pretty much a lock I’ll complete the string. Maybe the thing I’m most happy about is Douglas Wolk’s continued analysis. The series would not be nearly as enjoyable without it.

Civil War’s a mess. But you knew that.

At it’s midpoint (issues 6-8) JUSTICE has hit that point where we all get up and get popcorn or hit the john. At 12 issues this series is overlong although I suspect it will work fin in trade. JUSTICE LEAGUE, on the other hand, is working for me on several levels. Which is a bit surprising because I thought IDENTITY CRISIS stunk up the joint.

Boy that SEVEN SOLDIERS finale felt rushed. Guess I have to reread the whole of it to have it make sense?

I like nearly anything Matt Wagner does but BATMAN AND THE MAD MONK isn’t quite grabbing me like the earlier series did.

Best books you probably aren’t reading? How about THE LONE RANGER from Dynamite Entertainment, DEADMAN via the Vertigo imprint and Ed Brubaker’s CRIMINAL. Okay, you’re probably reading that last one.   

Speaking of Brubaker, Michael Avon Oeming squeezed a cover blurb sorts out of him for the third issue of THE CROSS BRONX. (“Crime comics are back in Full Force.”) Sadly, while pretty, THE CROSS BRONX is narratively challenged.

Speaking of Brubaker again, his work on DAREDEVIL and CAPTAIN AMERICA have made those two titles about the only MARVEL monthlies this side of ASTONISHING X-MEN I look forward to.

Finally, here’s a swell link if you’d like to read Brubaker’s bibliography through late 2004.

More indepth commentary   to come. (Although I make no promises about insight.) I promise.
 

June 30, 2006 - Superman Returns; Fraction's Fiction

Like Guy, I have no burning desire to rush out and see Superman Returns, but I probably will see it as we’re out of town for an all star baseball tournament this weekend and we’ve got a huge gap between games on Saturday. When the idea arose my oldest says to me, “Hey Dad, since we’re going to see Superman and it’s an all star tournament we can call it ‘All Star Superman’ – like the comic.” [sniff] The apple doesn’t fall too far from the longbox.

In truth, I don’t see many movies at the theater anymore. I haven’t seen X3 and will probably wait for the DVD. I can’t actually remember the last movie I saw in a theater although I think it was Fantastic Four, and that was because my son really wanted to see it. I could have easily waited for that one to hit the stores. (Although I did enjoy it.) In fact the last three or four movies I’ve seen we’re with my kids.   

The thing about Superman is that there’s nothing terrifically compelling about the actual execution of the film. I wasn’t a whole lot older than my oldest when the first Superman movie came out. As a comic fan my biggest fear was that it would be dopey and poorly done. There didn’t seem any way they could make a movie believably depicting the last son of Krypton flying or throwing buses around. But they did. And Reeves actually looked like Superman, although played with a little too much wide-eyed farmboy innocence and purity for my taste. But the effects rocked! You know, for 1978.

I lost a lot of interest after that first movie. They showed they could make Superman look real and that was enough for me. It’s another task entirely to tell fascinating Superman stories, as decades of comic writers have proven. And the fact that this one seems once again to focus  on the origin, rather than telling some new story. Hopefully it's more than that.

Casting-wise, Brandon Routh seems to look the part, maybe a bit young. Honestly, I don’t get Kate Bosworth as Lois at all - but Margot Kidder didn’t seem right at first either. It won’t matter too much unless they totally muck up the scenes – which I don’t expect with Singer calling the shots. I’m sure there will be plenty of gee whiz moments and solid, if unremarkable conflict, although I’m skeptical this will translate into $300 million US dollars. But I’ve been wrong before. (Once, I think.)

Now if you were to tell me this movie captured the feel of what Morrison has been doing in ALL STAR SUPERMAN, well, even I might get excited about that.   

~

I think it’s important to talk about CASANOVA and THE FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE at the same time. Mainly because I’m about to take some shots at CASANOVA so I’ll feel better about myself if I have something nice to say as well.

I was sold on this title months ago when I first saw the advert showing a Bond-like character firing handguns as he fell backwards out of a UFO. I am very much buying this, I thought. Sadly, I found the first issue of CASANOVA just plain painful. (And it’s not even a real UFO – dangit.) I think my problem with the book is my incessant need to understand everything I read. I can get by without knowing the mysteries of the universe or understanding women (like I have choice) but when I read something I damn well want to know what’s going on. And with CASANOVA you never really do.

Fraction seems to have taken every wild idea he’s ever had and compressed them into CASANOVA’s 32 neat little pages. Genome bioreaders, recreational supermechanix helicasino’s, n-state probability caps, aural anomalies, timeline insertions and there’s even a plot of sorts in there somewhere. It all sounds pretty cool but it felt like he was trying a bit too hard to bring across this whole Phil Specter does comics thing. There’s a boatload going on here – too much for my tastes. It needed a bit more harmony and less cacophony. Maybe I’m just getting old. All this is tempered, by-the-by, with some marvelous Gabriel Ba artwork.

Disclaimer: judging from the various reviews I’m about the only one who didn’t love this book, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

THE FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE is another matter entirely. I’d swear this thing was written specifically for me. Mark Twain, Nikola Tesla and an evil JP Morgan and Thomas Edison? Are you kidding me? Years and years ago there was an entertainer named Jaye P. Morgan who used to make regular appearances on The Gong Show and Match Game. As a kid I found her totally annoying -- not Brett Somers level annoying, but real close -- and from that point on I’ve had an irrational dislike of the original JP Morgan, who is, to the best of my knowledge, no relation. Equally, when I was twelve and going through my I’ve-decided-to-be-an-inventor phase I read a book that detailed the whole Tesla-Marconi ordeal and have been sympathetic towards the reclusive Mr. Tesla ever since. And yes, I’ve read and loved plenty of Twain. So, to say this book pegged the needle for me would be putting it mildly.

The whole concept is fabulous. Smart, funny, well-conceptualized. Fraction manages to take some of the most quoted, documented and written about personas in history, instill his own unique breath in them and then send them careening out in one of the more original turn-of-the-century era stories I’ve ever read. And he's funny.

The personalities, at least of the protagonists, are more accurate than Fraction disclaims. Tesla was absolutely eccentric and a major germophob. And of course a genius on an order rarely seen. And Twain, particularly when he was younger, loved inventions and inventors and was a bit of one himself. The plots of "Life on the Mississippi" and "Pudd’nhead Wilson" hinge on the use of fingerprinting, a fairly revolutionary idea at the time. Twain also lost a great deal of money investing in the inventions of others, leading to a certain amount of bitterness about the whole business. Upon receiving a letter from a writer who had written a book to assist inventors and patent-seekers, the then aged Twain replied:

Dear Sir: I have, as you say, been interested in patents and patentees. If your book tells how to exterminate inventors, send me nine editions. Send them by express.

S.L. Clemens 

It’s not hard to imagine the events in THE FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE playing a part in Twain’s later acrimony.

Steve Sanders' art is excellent here as well. The panel layouts are standard stuff, which really work towards setting off the very rare full-page spread and the visual  storytelling never distracts from the script. My one quibble is that in a number of places the black background of the panels washes out against the darkness of the panels themselves, but in other places this works fine. I’m not sure there’s a ready solution to this problem and not a major distraction.

A fun book all-in-all, well worth the $13 price of admission.

June 22, 2006 – A Return to Return to Comics

So, it’s been a while. Anything interesting happen while I was gone?

Week 7 already with 52. That sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense outside its comic book context.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Montoya & The Question (sounds like a bad 80’s cover band) are carrying 52 right now, although the TO Morrow and the lost scientists thread is running a close second. The Steel storyline is going somewhere, but it’s moving soooo slow (is Brian Bendis plotting that one?), Booster Gold hasn’t worn me out yet, but I can see it from here and the whole Cassie/Conner Cult thing is so damned goofy and from far left field that it’s almost got me interested. Almost.

This latest issue doesn’t drop all the little plot hints that week 6 did -- the two page spread of Rip Hunter’s time lab is my favorite of the series so far -- but it does manage to move the story(ies) along. I can say now that The History of the DCU is an unquestionable failure. What exactly is the point of this? It's incomprehensable to anyone not vested in the DCU and a waste time to those who are. Despite this, the book has me interested enough to follow for another month or two at least. 

One odd thing that occurs to me with this book: there’s a great deal of hint dropping that time and/or reality is slipping or at least not what it’s supposed to be; the scenes with Booster and Skeets in particular hint at a the wobbliness of the current time-line. And yet this book may be the single most clock and calendar driven title in the history of comics. There will be a certain irony if we reach the end of this series and discover that a full year has not really passed in the DCU after all. 

~

Speaking of being away for while, JUSTICE #6 was surprisingly slow for a bi-monthly book. Although it had some nice, silver-agey moments.

~

I really like what Mark Millar has been doing in THE ULTIMATES 2. Dollar-for-dollar there have been more [email protected]*% Yeah! moments in the last two issues of this book than any five others combined.

~

Joe Quesada has a blog now? I give it three months at the outside. Six if it’s not actually him writing it.

And what’s the deal with Marvel’s “Hot Blogs”? (Check the lower left hand corner.) At Marvel a blog seems to be defined as “Press Releases with comments.” 

~

Here’s an interesting article in the Detroit Free Press about the increasing attention the big dogs of advertising are paying to comic books. Or rather they’re paying comics to get people to pay attention to them. Product placement, baby. Learn to love it.

DC’s newest crime stopper, RUSH will apparently spin around town in a Pontiac Solstice when he’s not hosting a conservative, daily radio program. I may not have that last part right.

Check out the article if for no other reason than to see the single worst on-line reproduction of a comic book page in the history of the Internet. 

May 30, 2006

No, I haven’t died and neither has this blog. I’ve just been unbelievably swamped between completing a project for a client (business would be so much easier if I didn’t have to deal with clients – it would also much more closely resemble unemployment), dealing with sick family members and youth baseball. Every time I sit down to write something about comics I wake up 30 minutes later to find drool on the keyboard and an entry that looks like this:

nlhjnknhjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjlkkkkkkkkkkkkkkklllllllllllllllllllllllll    

And I’m completely behind on whatever is the hot comic blog topic de jure. Oh well. Maybe I’ll just recycle an old IDENTITY CRISIS post.

~

Even with my cramped schedule I thought about creating my list of 50 Best DC characters. I love stuff like this even though I’m constitutionally incapable of completing a list that long. My ADD kicks in around number 25 at which point I start rattling off any characters I can think of just to finish the thing. Hmm…Ace, the Bat Hound, uh, Triplicate Girl, Kid Eternity, and, er, Brother Power The Geek…

I will say that I would probably have The Creeper farther up the list than most of you, Composite Superman is on there somewhere and Darkseid doesn’t get a sniff. After that it’s pretty much the usual suspects. I can’t even tell you who my number one is because that changes from moment-to-moment, book-to-book too.

Anyway, what were we talking about?

~

All Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder #4

This title has the weirdest distribution of time I’ve ever seen. Each issue covers what, about an hour? It’s like 24 - without all the action. And I could easily see Kiefer Sutherland as Miller’s Batman – after a few “training” sessions Barry Bond’s chemist anyway.

The six page Batcave pullout was cool in the way these often are. Six pages seems like one-upmanship though. Did the last guy do a five page pullout? The multi-page Batcave spread has become one of those stock Batman images that every artist has to have in his repertoire. Everyone does it pretty well because the concept is so cool, but the basic problem is that everyone does it. (And I can’t imagine this the first one Lee has done - I’m just too lazy to go back and find another.) So to differentiate they add pages. Eventually someone will publish an entire comic that’s just one big foldout of the Batcave. Or has that been done too?

So not much really happens, but Miller does manage to work in a little de-creepifying of the whole Batman as Dick Grayson’s stalker theme. And Bruce Wayne does not eat rats. That’s just wrong. I think to further prove the whole tough guy talk was largely that, my panels would look something like this (click for larger):

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SQUADRON SUPREME kind of fell off the truck in issue #3. This group has always been Marvel’s little bastion of superhero meta-commentary but Straczynski turned the thing into an anti-US screed and kind brought the train to a grinding halt. The writing has been on the wall since the early issues of SUPREME POWER, but honestly, I didn’t expect the whole of the first plot line to be resolved like this. Eh. It seemed like even the Squadroner's themselves were looking around at each other thinking, "What just happened?"  If I want real-world influenced plot lines I’ll read CIVIL WAR. At least there I’ll get Cap surfing a fighter plane.

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FANTASTIC FOUR: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY would make a perfect FCBD comic. I offer this advice free of charge to the Marvel powers that be.

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Speaking of meta-commentary…

If you’ve read this blog for a while you’ve noted that I’ve a weakness for the super hero genre, particularly ensemble (i.e. super teams, but not always) efforts by smaller publishers. I’ve followed titles like GROUNDED, BATTLEHYMN, INTIMIDATORS, PLANETARY BRIGADE and LIVING IN INFAMY all to varying degrees of satisfaction. Of all the derivations I’ve read so far, John Ridley’s THE AMERICAN WAY has been the best.

There’s a lot going on here, and I’m not completely sure Ridley will pull it all off, but so far he’s hit most of the notes pitch-perfect. I love his choice of eras and he’s very deftly established a large cast of characters by spinning off slight variations on the standard archetypes. This kind of thing can easily fall in to the “me too” category, but Ridley avoids that. The last few pages were a bit grizzly. For a minute I thought I was reading a Geoff Johns’ book and then I realized the violence wasn't gratuitous.