Comics Should Be Good

Test Your Comic Knowledge for 2/4

2007-02-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a twenty-question comic book trivia quiz!

Have fun!

Tonight's the Night
The following 20 sentences describe either characters or comic books that begin with the word Night. Name them all.

1. Superman took this identity to fight crime in Kandor.
2. Had long relationship with his stewardess stepsister…which no one seemed to have a problem with, oddly enough.
3. This former Charlton heroine was a member of the Suicide Squad.
4. A group of people invented by Jack Kirby during his Captain America run who D-Man eventually ended up hanging out with.
5. A Gotham police sergeant who hated vigilantes, but was brainwashed into becoming one himself!
6. A mid-90s Marvel slight parody of Spawn who ended up being popular enough to get his own maxi-series in the 90s.
7. A wild west hero who travelled from town to town in his "Fix-It" wagon.
8. An Ultraverse hero, he even had his own TV show!
9. This Doctor Strange villain even got his own miniseries from Marvel in the 90s!
10. In Elfquest, she was a huntress, and lifemate to Redlance.
11. A team led by Baron Winters.
12. A team consisting of Frank Drake, Hannibal King and Blade.
13. She was married to Rokk Krinn.
14. Member of the Cadre.
15. One of the original comics from Marvel’s New Universe line; written by Archie Goodwin.
16. A Marvel UK character, very similar to the Phantom, who fought criminals in the 30s and 40s.
17. This comic showed us the adventures of Linda Carter, R.N.
18. Former leader of the New Warriors.
19. A member of the Imperial Guard, she was the Shadow Lass equivalent.
20. An original member of the Team Titans who made his debut in the Armageddon 2001 New Titans Annual.

Good luck!

And have fun!

Cross Posted Super Bowl Predictions from the Original Line-Up of the Mighty Avengers

2007-02-04T19:43:00.000-05:00

Because I feel like it

the Incredible Hulk: I put my money on the Colts, so that’s who I’m rootin’ for, ’cause all I care about is gettin’ mine. I swear, if that brat Rick Jones interupts this game I’ll snap him in half. Oh, crap, it’s four o’clock, time for my personality to change! Stupid Stan and Jack!

Savage Hulk: Hulk like Bears! Puny Banner probably likes the Colts because they are a finesse team! Hulk Smash Banner like Bears Smash Colts! Oh no, Hulk to excited from smack talk, or perhaps Hulk came in to contact with sunlight, Hulk not sure, turning back to Banner…

Dr. Bruce Banner: Oh God, what have I done? My clothes are torn, my apartment is a mess, and I’m wearing a giant foam finger and a beer helmet; did Hulk invite a bunch of guys over to watch the Super Bowl? Because I don’t care for football! It makes me angry. And… hell, you already know the rest. I wanted to watch the Discovery Channel all day!

Iron Man: I pick whichever team has an absurdly elaborate plan for victory. Like me. I do that kind of thing. You might even call me the kind of guy who could start a civil war; if you were really unsubtle. Jeph Loeb does that every time I see him. So, anyway, since Tony Dungy seems like the kind of guy who would take samples of Peyton Manning’s DNA and unleash a psychotic clone of him if the chips were down, I’ll go with the Colts.

Thor: Verily, it shall be a tremendous contest of athletic achievement on yon field of battle, not unlike the sort of contests the Odin Son engaged in with the Frost Giants in days of yore. Lovie Smith doth remind me somewhat of most exalted Odin himself, and Brian Urlacher is a spitting image of the God of Thunder in his younger days, so I shalt choose the Bears! Because the Colts are pussies, just like those Frost Giants.

Captain America: Football sure has changed since the ’40s. What happened to the leather helmets? What is this forward pass I’ve heard so much about? Also, I wonder if Rick Jones could get me a beer? I could sure go for a beer. Mm, beer! Bucky used to get me a beer. God do I miss Bucky. I long to see him again. I wonder if that could in any way be construed as strange?*

Rick Jones: Jeepers, why is Cap looking at me like that? It sure is strange!

Ant Man: I predict that I will hit the Wasp at least five times if I lose money on the Colts!

Wasp: God I hope the Colts win. Stupid Jim Shooter!

*Greg Burgas chimed in at the new, better blog with this in response to Captain America's prediction: Captain America would surely be familiar with Sammy Baugh, one of the great quarterbacks and proponents of the forward pass, as well as Sid Luckman, another great thrower, whose Chicago Bears used the T-formation and threw a lot in the 1940 Championship Game, in which they defeated Baugh’s Washington team 73-0. Perhaps Steve Rogers attended the game!

See kids, history scholars can make even silly Avengers parodies boring and pedantic! Thanks, Greg. Anyway, I blame the Scarlet Witch for that continuity error because, hell, everything else is her fault, isn't it?

Last Ten Entries on the New Comics Should Be Good site!

2006-07-28T18:43:00.000-04:00

# What did everyone think of Joey Q’s appearance on The Colbert Report last night?
# Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #61
# What I bought - 26 July 2006
# Reviews for the 7/26 Comic Book Week
# The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck - The Rosa Exception
# Comic Blogs Should Be Good - Jog the Blog
# Top Five Jimmy Olsen Transformations
# Cons Should Be Good - Our Man Dan’s SDCC Report
# Snark Free Corner for 7/24
# 7/24 - Curious Cat Asks…

Moving Day!

2006-05-25T18:43:00.000-04:00

Well, as I mentioned to you last week, the end was nigh then, and it is upon us now.

This web site is done, leading to our NEW website...Comics Should Be Good!

Huh?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

Basically, this whole site is moving to Comic Book Resources for Comic Book Resources Presents...Comics Should Be Good!

Same bloggy goodness, new, prettier looking site (and since it is Wordpress, it is also easier for you folks to navigate and for us to use!).

So change those bookmarks! Goodcomics.blogspot.com becomes goodcomics.comicbookresources.com

Check it out!

What I bought - 24 May 2006

2006-05-25T16:19:00.000-04:00

This was a strange week. Pretty good stuff, yet enough to make me angry. So you know our tour will be fun! This week's mini-theme is: Greg goes all patriotic and makes George Bush proud while condemning comics for their ham-fisted social commentary!

Batman #653 by James Robinson, Don Kramer, and Wayne Faucher
$2.99, DC

This is the first issue of "Face the Face" that disappointed me. It's not that it was bad, necessarily, it's that for the first time in this mini-series-within-a-series, the plot ground to a halt so that Robinson could indulge in some "writing for the trade," or to put it less charitably, "padding." The entire issue is Harvey talking to his reflection, which is Two-Face. We learn how he came to be Gotham City's protector and why Batman chose him and how bad Harvey feels now that Batman is back and how angry Harvey is that he's being accused of murder and how Two-Face wants back in. Oh, the revelations! But you know what? It's dull. That's why I don't like it. Oh, and it's nothing we haven't seen before.

I have no problem with an issue of someone struggling with their inner demons and containing no action (there are one or two action scenes, but they're flashbacks and are pretty static). But it's freakin' Harvey Dent. We've seen him struggle with these inner demons all too often, and we know he's always - always - going to lose. Two-Face will always win. And although the struggle could be interesting, it's the same thing all the time. Blah blah blah Harvey can't control himself blah blah blah he still has the freakin' coin blah blah blah. If this were a few scenes in the context of an issue where other stuff happens, that's fine. The fact that it takes up the entire issue is bad.

And this points out a problem with some comics (and other forms of entertainment, too - I don't want to single out comics): we can figure out everything we learn about what happened to Harvey by what has already happened in the first five issues of this story. We don't need a literal story telling us all this stuff. We are smart enough to deduce all this crap.

And (yes, I know) I'm sick of Batman and his attitude. "His city." Who the hell needs his approval to take care of Gotham while he goes on his little vacation with Clark and Diana? It's probably because I have always liked the Huntress and I'm sick of Batman (and, by proxy, DC) treating her so horribly. Just let her retire quietly if you don't like her so much - stop writing stories with her in them!

All right, I'm done. I'm still on board with Robinson, because this is an interesting story, but this was a disappointing chapter in it.

Catwoman #55 by Will Pfeifer, David Lopez, and Alvaro Lopez
$2.99, DC

The Film Freak is about to get film footage of two Catwomans. Yes, I said Catwomans. Anyway, that's pretty much all that happens. And who cares? Is there a law that says there must be one Catwoman?

That's kind of a mean assessment of the issue, since as usual, it's not a horrible issue, but it is definitely a treading-water issue. Holly watches Ted Grant beat the crap out of some thieves, Selina has a conversation with Slam Bradley, Selina decides to go out in her Catwoman outfit (which leads to the very funny panel where she can't zip up her suit - kudos to Pfeifer and Lopez for remembering that women who have just had babies don't always get their washboard stomachs back right away), and a guy with a camera gets footage of Selina and Holly chatting. Again, so what? I'm curious where Pfeifer is going with the story of the Film Freak, because he could make some interesting points about our society and how everything is filmed, but the fact that there are two Catwomans isn't really a bombshell. Is it? I suppose if you want to kill Selina and you're trying to kill Holly it is, but other than that, who cares?

Every month this book teeters on the edge. I'm still with it for now. Pfeifer, I think, is better than this.

Checkmate #2 by Greg Rucka and Jesus Saiz
$2.99, DC

I fear for Checkmate. It's certainly not the best book around, and its large cast is tough to follow occasionally, but it's a very interesting book that will suffer from Rucka's penchant for finding geopolitical maneuverings fascinating. This is another issue this week with no action, but unlike Batman and Daredevil, things happen that advance the plot and give us a good sense of the characters. We need that, because of the big cast and the fact that a lot of these people have never been A-listers, so their personalities aren't as clearly defined as the big guns of DC. There is, of course, the requisite stuff that could have been cut to make the book a bit tighter, but it's still pretty gripping, and the fact that it's a U.N. chartered group makes it much more interesting than if Checkmate was operating under the auspices of the United States. I'll get to Squadron Supreme and my objections to it, believe me! In this book, not everyone is American, and we do get a bit of a different perspective on things. The dynamic within each group and between the two sides of Checkmate - the white and black side - is where this book will thrive or die - anyone can write a big, bad action book, and let's face it - Kobra is a joke. But the tension within the group and how the public face of Checkmate, represented by goody-goody Alan Scott, will interact with the covert operation side, represented by Sasha Bordeaux, who has become a lot more bloodthirsty since Bruce Wayne let her rot in prison, is what will make the book better than your usual cloak-and-dagger stuff. This is a very interesting book, and I'm on board for now.

Bermejo's drawing of Fire on the cover freaks me out. Look at her midsection!!!!

Daredevil #85 by Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, and Stefano Gaudiano
$2.99, Marvel

I want to make this perfectly clear: I enjoy this book. I think it is an interesting story, and I am looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

But that doesn't mean I love it. That doesn't mean I think it's the best work on DD since (let's all shout it) Saint Francis. It has a lot of room for improvement. Okay?

I think why certain comics bug me is because of what others on our fantabulous blog have called "event" comics. These writers know how to write, and they know the characters well. Therefore Brubaker can put nice little touches in his stories (I'm using Brubaker as an example because we're talking about Daredevil here, but he's not the only one) that make us all appreciate the story and make us think "That's cool," without really telling us anything. I ranted about this with Robinson in Batman, and it's evident here, too. There is a ton that is cool in this book, and Brubaker obviously has a good grasp on Matt and Fisk's characters, as well as ancillary people like Urich and Jameson (their exchange is the best in the book), but that doesn't change the fact that this story (written, of course, for the trade) drags like molasses. I mean, it's basically Matt finding out that Fisk had nothing to do with killing Foggy. And Frank Castle wants to be in prison with them because he knows a riot is coming. And Dakota North hasn't found anything out but has drawn the attention of some unsavory types. That's it. That's three, four pages tops of story. Sigh.

I've said this for all of Brubaker's issues so far - I'm on board for the first arc, and we'll see how it all shakes down. I wonder if people who thought Bendis could draw things out interminably are surprised that Brubaker can draw things out even more! Yes, the book has gotten slower. I didn't think that was possible.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #5 by Warren Ellis, Stuart Immonen, and Wade von Grawbadger
$2.99, Marvel

See, here's another example of a writer knowing how to make us think something is cool when it might not be. This is still a fun comic, but I'm thinking more and more that it's just empty calories, and frankly, I need to cut those out of my diet and my comic book buying. Lots of this made me laugh, like the Celestial telling Machine Man he's a loser (and doing the sign on his forehead), and the koalas of death (including the agent who says, "Throwing little koala bears out of an airplane just doesn't seem right," and Monica's flashback to her days with the Avengers (although when did Captain America become such a sexist pig?), and Tabitha's flashback to her days with X-Force, but in the end, it was a largely unsatisfying meal. It just bugged me. Ellis' wacky mind is working overtime here, and it's all well and good, but this remains a Twinkie. Or a Devil Dog. And we don't need a steady diet of those, do we?

Oh, and Warren? A War Garden? It was clever in StormWatch, vaguely annoying when you used the same idea in Strange Killings: The Body Orchard, and by now it's just weird seeing you plagiarize yourself. Get a new schtick, please!

She-Hulk #8 by Dan Slott and Paul Smith
$2.99, Marvel

Boy, these Civil War covers are awful. Just awful.

Okay, Jen Walters and She-Hulk. I know Jen enjoys being She-Hulk more, but I don't think it's been established since she stopped being "savage" that they are two completely different personalities. So why does Jennifer feel differently about registering superheroes than She-Hulk does? That's just dumb, and even though John points out the staggering stupidity of it, we don't get an explanation. Grrr. Another stupid thing that crossovers do - shoehorn crap into regular books and characters that make no sense.

So anyway, Jen tries to defend Rage and Justice from a web site that is publishing the names of the New Warriors online. She yells at Iron Man, she finds out it's a fellow New Warrior doing the outing, and John asks her to marry him. It's okay, I guess, but since I'm not reading the crossover, it's pretty dull. And, as usual with a lot of books during a crossover, nothing much happens. Marvel and DC save that for the big books. Smith's art is always nice to see, but it's bizarre that once Bobillo left the book, Slott's stories got a lot less fun. I know this is tying into a deadly serious crossover, but the Starfox-as-rapist story was no fun either. The quirkiness of Bobillo's art was part of this book's charm, but the fact that there's a different artist doesn't mean Slott should get all serious on us! Let us hope that the whole "I married a werewolf" story puts a bit of the zip back in the title. We don't need hand-wringing about heroes' secret identities in this book, we need defendants who travel back in time and shoot themselves. Now that's good stuff.

Squadron Supreme #3 by J. Michael Straczynski, Gary Frank, and Jon Sibal
$2.99, Marvel

Oh, JMS, what have you done? First, five pages into this issue, we get this:

Rape as character development. Well, we've certainly never seen that before. Good job!

But that's a relatively minor complaint, even though it's still lazy storytelling. No, what bothers me most about this issue is the political aspect. Oh boy, strap yourself in!

I have never made it a secret that I am not only liberal, but I have a ton of issues with the United States. However, as I've mentioned before, it bugs me when comic book writers so blatantly criticize the U.S., simply because comic books aren't really the place for geopolitical discussions. Yes, Rucka does it in Checkmate, but he keeps it relatively simple, and it works. However, JMS wants to criticize the U.S. for its African policies, but it's not as simple as he makes it out to be. The African woman says, "This ... is your fault to begin with." See, "fault" is a funny word. Is the United States at fault for carving up Africa to begin with back in the 19th century, when the Europeans created territories based not on tribal boundaries but on where the rivers were? Is the U.S. at fault for apartheid, which was set up by the descendants of British and Dutch settlers? Is the U.S. at fault for the racist policies against white farmers that the Zimbabwean government is practicing? To simply label the United States the villain for the tragedy that Africa has become ignores centuries of warfare that the U.S. had absolutely nothing to do with, and it's silly for JMS to criticize something that is so ridiculously complex. Anyone remember the Arab slave traders of the Zanzibar coast? No? They weren't very nice to the natives. In this issue, Uganda is specifically mentioned. M'Butu is probably analogous to Idi Amin, but after he fled the country, the U.S. didn't take him in - Saudi Arabia did (he died there in 2003). It's very nice to blame the U.S. for all of Africa's problems, and successive governments here certainly deserve some of the blame, but to say it's all our fault bugs the hell out of me, because it denies the responsibility of several other parties - including the Africans themselves - for the craphole the continent has become. It's nice that these superpowered Africans go and rip M'Butu apart on their own, but the idiocy is already out in the open. The U.S., of course, does not understand anything beyond our borders and thinks they can throw money at a problem and fix it (well, we don't think that within our borders, but we think it helps outside our borders). We have given millions of dollars of aid to Africa, and although it certainly doesn't fix the problems, to say we're simply going around propping up dictators bugs me. Shut up, JMS. This book is far too simplistic for your political agenda. If you want to write a dense book criticizing American meddling in Africa, be my guest - I may be the first to buy it, because African history is fascinating. But in this book? Shut up. Please.

Emil Burbank is pretty stinkin' cool, though. I'm just saying.

X-Factor #7 by Peter David and Ariel Olivetti
$2.99, Marvel

The first of two books this week that point out the idiocy of comic book characters dying is X-Factor, and it's the better one, simply because the plot does not hang on that. This is rapidly moving into the category that all the books I really like eventually move into, and that's the place where I simply can't discuss them, because it gets boring praising them all the time. There are two stories at work here - Jamie goes to Singularity Investigations and learns disturbing things about Damian Tryp, the big boss. Those two things - the fact that the company is named "Singularity" and the boss is named "Damian" - make me very wary about this company and its future dealing with X-Factor. But that could just be me. Damian Tryp is evil and Madrox knows it, and we're set up for a throwdown! Meanwhile, Scott Summers shows up to tell Theresa that Banshee is dead. When did that happen? I don't really care all that much, because my reaction to it is much like Theresa's - she's convinced that her father is either not dead or will return from the dead soon enough. It's a bizarre bit of metatextual commentary by David, and although we've seen it before from Marvel characters - especially the mutants - it's still refreshing to see it exposed so clearly. It bothers me because we, as readers, know that Banshee may be dead now, but he'll be back. So therefore we read this issue somewhat bemused, because we're not quite sure how we're supposed to react to the news. Just like Theresa. So it's a weird little issue. But still a good one in a very good series. Next up: Civil War! Sigh. Stupid, stupid Civil War. Gaaaaahhhh!!!!!

Olivetti's art is pretty, by the way. He's a good artist. Perhaps he'll be the new regular guy.

X-Statix Presents: Deadgirl #5 (of 5) by Peter Milligan, Nick Dragotta, and Mike Allred
$2.99, Marvel

Milligan is really having problems with endings, these days, isn't he? I sat down and read the whole thing, and it's kind of a mess of neat little ideas, plots that kind of go nowhere, and wildly ineffectual villains. This is basically a five-issue mini-series that tells us that characters come back from the dead when they're popular. Really, Peter? Thanks for the heads up. We could never have figured that out.

It's a shame, because the art is very nice, and the characters are very nicely done and Milligan gives us a good sense of heaven and hell in a very non-traditional way. So we get weird areas of hell, and the Hotel of Self-Loathing, and we get nice conversations between Guy and Edie, and between Dr. Strange and Deadgirl. But it's a strange-feeling mini-series - it feels hollow and empty. Sound and fury, you know, signifying nothing. I want it to be better, but it's not. It's certainly not worthless, and the art and the characters almost make it worth it, but in the end, I'm stuck with just a bunch of weird images in my mind and not a lot else. It's a shame.

MINI-SERIES I BOUGHT BUT DID NOT READ.¹
The American Way #4 (of 8) by John Ridley, Georges Jeanty, Karl Story with Ray Snyder
$2.99, DC/Wildstorm

You know, I read the first page of this book, and I have something to say. In 1962 it had been fifteen years since Jackie Robinson famously broke the color barrier in major league baseball. Pro football had integrated even earlier, but it didn't have the iconic stature of baseball. In 1954 Willie Mays made the most famous catch in World Series history. I know there was plenty of racism in the country in the 1960s (as there is today), but would all these people on the first page who are angry about the existence of a black superhero really care? There had been black cultural icons for a long time, and although Robinson certainly wasn't embraced by everyone (and, of course, a decade after 1962 Henry Aaron received death threats because he was black), I can't believe the opinion of the country would be so lop-sided against a black superhero. It just seems like Ridley is going for the easy idea here, and that's disappointing. Of course, I didn't read the issue, so I could be way off base here. I liked the first two issues of this book and look forward to sitting down and reading the whole thing, but I hope it's a little more subtle than the first page of this issue. That's all.

The Black Coat: A Call To Arms #2 (of 4) by Adam Cogan and Francesco Francavilla
$2.99, Ape Entertainment

The always-interesting Mark Fossen pointed out The Black Coat #1, although my boss claims credit as well, so I apologize, Guy. I still haven't gotten the first issue, but this is a cool-looking book. It's set in 1775 and features a freakin' Revolutionary War pirate. Come on, people! The first issue should be easy to find, especially if you go to the web site. Support Revolutionary War pirates!

¹ Since this is my first post at the new digs, I'll 'splain. I read the first issue of a mini-series and if it piques my interest, I'll buy it but not read it until it's done. My feeble brain can't keep up with what's going on month after month, so I read it all at once! This has been a public service announcement.

Comic Book Urban Legends Minutiae

2006-05-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

Two fairly quick points...

1. Recently, I've been hearing some doubt on the veracity of the Steve Ditko cutting board story (Urban Legends Revealed #17). Now, I am all for getting to the truth of the matter, so if someone can verify that Greg Theakston just flat-out lied for whatever reason, then I will gladly change the status from true to false. Heck, I'd enjoy doing it, as it'd give me an easy entry for a future Urban Legends Revealed...hehe. So, please, if someone can give me something that trumps an "on the record" first hand account (and that includes someone showing me that Theakston was lying), I will gladly use it.

2. Someone asked me about this the other day, and I figured it was interesting enough to pose it to y'all. Would you like me to feature "Undetermined" Urban Legends as well? I think literally about half of Snopes' Urban Legend features end up as "Undetermined." So would you like me to do more of those types of Urban Legends? I have plenty of "undetermined" ones lying around that I do not think I have enough to make a good faith claim of true or false, so if people would like me to use them, I don't have any real problem with using them. Personally, I think it sorta defeats the purpose of the feature, but I guess I can see how it might be useful if someone responds to the "undetermined" ones with proof one way or the other. So, since I don't have a strong feeling either way, I'm opening it up to you folks.

Reviews for the 5/24 Comic Book Week

2006-05-24T03:49:00.000-04:00

Testament #6 (Vertigo)

Fantastic Four: A Death in the Family One-Shot (Marvel)

The Last Christmas #1 (Image)

New Excalibur #7 (Marvel)

Negative Burn #1 (Desperado/Image)

X-Factor #7 (Marvel)

Loaded Bible: Jesus vs. Vampires One-Shot (Image)

Daredevil #85 (Marvel)

"Name That JJJ Artist!" ANSWERS are up!!

2006-05-23T23:46:00.000-04:00

The answers to the "Name That JJJ Artist!" game are up, including who made the most correct guesses - including the top person, with an astounding EIGHTEEN out of twenty-nine correct! Check the answers out here.

The best Batman artist ever?????

2006-05-23T20:27:00.000-04:00

My latest Comics You Should Own column features Detective Comics #583-594 and #601-614, Alan Grant and John Wagner writing (and Grant alone from #601 onward) with Norm Breyfogle on pencils. Breyfogle, as I've mentioned before, doesn't get the credit he deserves, but he just might be the best Batman artist ever. He's definitely in the top 5. Go read and dare to challenge that statement!

Answers to the Free Swag Contest!

2006-05-23T13:18:00.000-04:00

It's the moment you've all been waiting for - the identification of the 25 panels/pages that I asked you to, well, identify. The winner will be revealed at the end of the post. Of course, I should have disqualified everyone because nobody wished me a Happy Birthday in their e-mails! I had a good cry about it, though, and I'm fine now! If you'll forgive me, I'll talk a bit about each panel. Just because, you know, I can.

Number One: Detective Comics #804 by David Lapham (w) and Ramon Bachs (a). This is the final page of this issue, and I love it because Batman thinks that he has finally found men he can feel good about hitting. Go, Bats! "City of Crime," Lapham's 12-issue run on Detective (#801-808, 811-814) is brilliant, if a bit grim and gritty. But it's still flingin'-flangin' excellent.

Number Two: Goddess #8 by Garth Ennis (w) and Phil Winslade (a). I just bought this a few weeks ago and haven't actually read it yet. But I knew if Ennis was writing it, there would be some cool-ass scenes. And I was right!

Number Three: Spider-Man/Human Torch #3 by Dan Slott (w) and Ty Templeton (a). Everyone kept saying how fun this book is, so I bought it. And it is fun! This is, of course, the Spider-Mobile issue. Remember when Slott wrote Spider-Mobile stories and not Avenger-rapist stories? Good times.

Number Four: Dr. Fate #24 by J.M. DeMatteis (w) and Shawn McManus (a). I just mentioned this a few weeks ago when I talked about DeMatteis' masterpiece. It's the first panel of the last issue of the book, and Raina is going to hear all about the fate of Eric and Linda Strauss and Kent and Inza Nelson. I thought most of you would easily recognize McManus' art!

Number Five: Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters #1 by Mike Grell (w & a). Yes, this mini-series gave us the torture of Black Canary, which is very sucky, but for the most part, it's a very interesting take on Oliver. And I thought it was cool that he moved from a fake town to Seattle. Apparently Kevin Smith didn't think it was.

Number Six: JLI Annual #2 by J.M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen (w) and Bill Willingham (a). Willingham hardly does art anymore (we'll see how long he lasts on Shadowpact), so I thought I'd throw in a panel where he does draw something. This is the issue where Rumaan Harjarvti (or however the hell you spell it) hires the Joker to kill the Justice League, and he fails miserably. Right after this Batman shows up, sees that the Joker is sitting in a tank while the rest of the League stands around in their bathing suits (it's a picnic at Scott Free's house!) and just keeps driving. Comedy gold. I miss the old Justice League.

Number Seven: Deep Sleeper #4 by Phil Hester (w) and Mike Huddleston (a). I wrote about this last year, because it's awesome. Truly awesome. Go buy it now. NOW!

Number Eight: Lazarus Churchyard by Warren Ellis (w) and D'Israeli (a). I have mentioned this scene before in conjunction with some of the crap Ellis writes today. It doesn't have an issue number because it was serialized in a magazine and then collected in a trade, but this is the final page in the book, as Lazarus talks about all the people who have died on him. Very touching work from Ellis.

Number Nine: Miracleman #14 by Alan Moore (w) and Jon Totleben (a). Somebody said this was Swamp Thing, which was not a bad guess, because it's the same talent. This is right after Kid Miracleman "gets out" and goes on his rampage, and even more than the scenes in London in the next issue, this is a portrait of pure evil. When Johnny says, "They'd say I was going soft, wouldn't they?" you should get chills. I know I do.

Number Ten: Fantastic Four #349 by Walt Simonson (w) and Art Adams (a). Wolverine! Hulk! Spider-Man! Ghost Rider! Issues #347-349 of the venerable comics magazine (the world's most commercial, as issue #348 proclaimed) brought together these four as the new team when the Skrulls captured the real group. Lots of goofy fun, and Frank Castle makes a hilarious cameo. Yes, the Punisher is funny. These are wildly excellent issues.

Number Eleven: Animal Man #19 by Grant Morrison (w) and Chas Truog (a). Do I really need to say anymore? This still blows my mind every time I read the damned thing, even though I know it's coming.

Number Twelve: Amazing Spider-Man #299 by David Michelinie (w) and Todd McFarlane (a). Some people said this was issue #300. But it ain't. This is the end of issue #299, when we see Venom for the first time. I'm sorry, but this is just a cool scene. This was only McFarlane's second issue, and it was before his art started getting really contorted and weird.

Number Thirteen: Uncanny X-Men #205 by Chris Claremont (w) and Barry Windsor-Smith (a). More than a few people said this was Windsor-Smith's run on Marvel Comics Presents, but it's X-Men, sorry! This is that excellent issue with Wolverine and Katie Power (?!) in Central Park and Logan rips apart the same guys he ripped apart way back during the Dark Phoenix saga (and would rip apart again in the Outback). He likes ripping those dudes apart, doesn't he? And then, of course, he refuses to kill Lady Deathstrike. Awesome.

Number Fourteen: Dreadstar #60 by Peter David (w) and Angel Medina (a). Angel Medina's work on Incredible Hulk was, well, awful, but his art on Dreadstar was excellent. Weird. And check it out - even in the future women wear 1980s-style shoulder pads!

Number Fifteen: Hellblazer #27 by Neil Gaiman (w) and Dave McKean (a). "Hold Me" is a wonderful story of homelessness and loss and it shows John in a nice light for a change. He doesn't do anything bastard-y in this issue. I know, how can we deal with it?

Number Sixteen: Grendel #12 by Matt Wagner (w) and Arnold and Jacob Pander (a). Christine Spar's final showdown with Argent. It's a wonderfully rendered fight, and in this panel they both die. These first 12 issues of the regular series are simply brilliant and stunning to look at, with the Pander Bros. doing a very nice job.

Number Seventeen: Suicide Squad #37 by John Ostrander and Kim Yale (w) and John K. Snyder II and Geof Isherwood (a). Both Snyder and Isherwood are credited with "breakdowns," so if you answered either you got credit. Just so you know. As for the page, for a long time, Ostrander had a running gag in SS about a member of the team who was throwing pies at various people. Everyone thought it was Captain Boomerang until he got pied. That turned out to be a clever feint, because it really was Boomerang. Amanda Waller was not in a good mood when she found out, and she dropped Digger off on a desert island. Classic. What a great series.

Number Eighteen: Noble Causes (first series) #1 by Jay Faerber (w) and Patrick Gleason (a). Race Noble marries Liz and goes on a honeymoon. On the last page, a laser comes from the sky and obliterates him. What a great cliff-hanger! Unfortunately, in later issues Faerber decided that exploring Race and Liz's married life would be pretty interesting, so he created an alternate universe Race and now we're never supposed to mention that the "real" Race is dead. But we have proof, Mr. Faerber! It's still a great series. Why aren't you buying it????

Number Nineteen: Scars #6 by Warren Ellis (w) and Jacen Burrows (a). Scars is one of those Ellis books for Avatar, and it's a horribly disturbing experience. John Cain, the cop, has confronted a child-killer, but he has no evidence. That's not about to stop him from getting justice. A sad and gripping read.

Number Twenty: Namor #31 by John Byrne (w) and Jae Lee (a). Was this Lee's first mainstream comic work? Byrne drew the first two years and then just wrote, and Lee did some wild work on this book. Namor loses his memory and battles all sorts of bad guys, including Victor there.

Number Twenty-One: Atomika #2 by Andrew Dabb (w) and Sal Abbinanti (a). I've been telling you how good this book is! Freaky stuff from Abbinanti. Interesting story from Dabb. What's not to like?

Number Twenty-Two: Elektra: Assassin #8 by Frank Miller (w) and Bill Sienkiewicz (a). I'm shocked that everyone didn't recognize Sienkiewicz! For shame! This is Miller doing his completely over-the-top wackiness long before All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, and this is better. But that's just my opinion.

Number Twenty-Three: Gødland #6 by Joe Casey (w) and Tom Scioli (a). Another book you should be buying! Discordia hears the verdict at her trial, and her head explodes! Wha-huh? And, of course, Friedrich Nickelhead then puts Basil Cronus' head on her body. And yes, that is a very strange sentence. But that's just the goodness that is Gødland!

Number Twenty-Four: New Mutants #60 by Louise Simonson (w) and Bret Blevins (a). The death of Doug Ramsey, a huge waste of a great character (and no, his melding with Warlock doesn't count as a resurrection). He saves Rahne by throwing himself in front of a bullet! It's a good scene and a decent comic, but it's still a waste of a great character. And yet Gambit is still alive. There's no justice.

Number Twenty-Five: Doom Patrol #63 by Grant Morrison (w) and Richard Case (a). I have claimed this is the best run by anyone in comic book history, and issue #63 just might be one of the top ten issues in comic book history. Jane leaves the "real world" behind and rejoins Cliff and Rebis on Danny the World. Beautiful, simply beautiful. I get choked up just thinking about it.

A few interesting points: only one person got the panel from Goddess, which was the most poorly identified exactly. A few people did guess that it was Garth Ennis, though - I guess a pole of stone in the groin easily identifies him! Absolutely no one got the Suicide Squad one completely correct - no one got the issue number, and a few people said Luke McDonnell did the art. That surprised me. The other one no one got exactly right was the panel from Dreadstar - only one person knew it was Dreadstar and who wrote and drew it, but he got the wrong issue number. Of all the artists, I figured McManus, McFarlane, Windsor-Smith, and Sienkiewicz would be the most recognizable, and I was right - for the most part. I thought Scars would be the most obscure, but more than a few people got it. Good job keeping up on your Avatar books! I got ten entries, and on 9 of them, Grell's Green Arrow was correctly identified completely (name of the book, issue number, writer, and artist), followed by the Spider-Man/Human Torch panel, the Fantastic Four panel, and the Animal Man panel, each with 8 correct exact answers. I was a bit surprised that Green Arrow was so easily identified, but not that the others were - the Slott/Templeton book is recent, the FF is pretty famous, I think, and Buddy talking to the audience might be in the top ten of most famous in history.

Your winner, with 53 points out of 75, is Mike Loughlin. Mike shows up here often and makes interesting comments, and he is apparently a big nerd. Good job, Mike! He was the only one who knew the Goddess panel, one of the few who recognized Lazarus Churchyard and Scars, and he was one of only two people who correctly identified the Namor panel. He's eclectic! Thanks for all your entries, people, and I'm sure I'll have another one in the near future.

More Reviews for the 5/17 Comic Book Week

2006-05-23T06:31:00.000-04:00

Green Arrow #62 (DC)

Talent #1 (Boom!)

Sorry for a slightly sparse reviewing week. DC and Marvel cover snarking took a lot of time...hehe.

Just a reminder

2006-05-22T17:12:00.000-04:00

You have until the end of today to enter my contest! All the details are here. I have gotten a bunch of entries, but there's always room for more! I will reveal the winner and the answers tomorrow.

Just in case you forgot to enter. Please go about your business.

Comic Book Dictionary - Formatitis

2006-05-21T23:59:00.000-04:00

Formatitis is when a comic book story suffers from being forced to commit to a specific format.

Notable examples of Formatitis include:

A. Stories written for serialized anthologies (the short length and constant need to recap can rob the story of some impact)

B. Stories written for "the trade" (when a 3-part story has to be stretched to 6 issues. A notable example is the Geoff Johns issue of Avengers that was rejected, as Johns was told to split the story into two issues - both issues seemed a bit sparse).

C. Stories written for longer story pages without deserving the longer story pages (leads to a lot of padding)

D. Stories written for short story length that deserve more (story ends up feeling as though an opportunity was missed).

Any other examples of formatitis that you folks can think of?

Parties Should Be Good

2006-05-20T03:11:00.000-04:00

So I figured I would give all you New York comic book fans a chance to meet me, and other online comic fans, at a couple of different gettogethers!

First off, a number of online pals and I are having a meetup on May 26 to watch the 10:30 pm showing of X3: The Last Stand at the Regal Union Square Stadium 14 theater. Afterwards, there will be libations. If you'd like to see the film with us, or just hang out afterwards, please let me know (cronb01@aol.com).

Secondly, the girlfriend and I are having a party on Saturday, June 3, 8:30pm at an establishment named Yello, which is at 32 Mulberry St in Manhattan. Besides a nice menu and a full bar, there will be free karaoke there, so come on - comic geeks SINGING! How can you pass that up? Again, if you're interested, e-mail me (cronb01@aol.com) so I can add you to the evite guest list.

Finally, I think I'll be setting SOMEthing up later for post-MOCCA. We shall see.

Big Crossover Event Friday

2006-05-19T22:33:00.000-04:00

Last week's crabby column may have left some with the idea that I am averse to big ol' superhero crossover Events. Actually, I'm not. I just want them to be fun.

What I especially object to is the idea that for the story to "matter," A Major Character has to die. It's become a stunt, any more. You know, you do it once in a while -- like, say, once a DECADE -- and you get the original Dark Phoenix story, or the original Death of Gwen Stacy. Those were deservedly regarded as big deals. But never forget that the REASON those stories were so huge were because they were unique, nobody was doing it.

If, on the other hand, you do it every six months as a stunt for comics' equivalent of sweeps week, it's just Snuff Lotto. It says something kind of embarrassing about the current state of comics that one of the first questions asked whenever DC or Marvel announces a big crossover mini-series is always, "Who's gonna die?" And it's asked with about the same level of emotional involvement as a bookie handicapping a horse race.

So, you know, that part annoys me. Nevertheless, a crossover story can be lots of fun. I mean, come on, there's not a thing wrong with the basic idea; this is the engine that drove The Brave and the Bold and Marvel Team-Up for years and years, putting characters you don't normally see together in one story and see how they react to each other. For that matter, it's that same idea that gave us the Justice League and the Avengers in the first place. Here are a few of the ones that I liked a lot that I wish some smart editor would collect.

These aren't Big Event stories, and actually, that's why I like them. They're just fun. Which is, after all, supposed to be what superheroic adventure is about in the first place.

The first one that came to mind when I thought of crossover stories that were more about old-school superheroic fun than angsty body counts was this one.

This was the kind of joyous, goofball idea that you could still get away with publishing in the 80's, before we all got so worried about the rest of the world looking at us funny for liking the stuff. It was an idea that had actually been around in SF and mystery fiction for decades: the round-robin challenge story. The premise behind the 12-issue DC Challenge was that each issue would be by a different writer and artist team, and each team had to try and stump the next one with a cliffhanger. Everyone knew it was just for fun going in, which was how you got guys like B'Wana Beast side-by-side with Jonah Hex, and the whole enterprise had a sort of gleeful energy.

AS a story, it really doesn't make that much sense, and virtually everyone involved, from Mark Evanier to Elliott Maggin to Roy Thomas to Len Wein, has done far better work alone -- but damn, it's a good time. You have to treat it like a game you are playing along with the writers that worked on it, and indeed, that was how DC presented it -- "Can you solve it before we do?" was the tagline. (I still remember how Evanier drove us all goddamn crazy for the better part of a year trying to figure out the meaning of the mysterious number sequence he put in the first issue.)

But a crossover doesn't have to be goofy to be fun. Consider this crossover trilogy of very tough, very cool stories.

It was actually one story, "Fables." Basically an episodic quest thing with an overarcing theme. There were a bunch of nice things about this story. First of all, it was in the annuals, rather than screwing up the regular books. Secondly, it put Denny O'Neil back on Batman and Green Arrow again, both characters he made his rep on, and had them together with his then-current Question, a wonderful run that Ditko purists hated and most everyone else adored. (Certainly I was one of those in the 'adored' camp; I didn't even care about Vic Sage's mullet.) Thirdly, and most importantly for someone plotting a crossover, it kept its participants in the same weight class. All three heroes were non-powered vigilantes who dealt primarily with urban crime. Which means you don't have to waste time on some ludicrous reason for them to meet up, it's a logical consequence of who they are.

The story itself is great fun, old-school O'Neil philosphical thoughts with martial-arts mayhem interspersed, and nice turns from the Penguin, Lady Shiva, and Ra's Al Ghul, among others. With fine art jobs on each end from Klaus Janson and Denys Cowan, and a fair-to-middlin' job from Tom Artis in between. It won't be collected now, of course, because God forbid DC publish anything that "contradicts" the current depiction of the Question or Green Arrow. Shame. But you could probably bowl it out on eBay or somewhere without breaking the bank.

Here's another martial-arts crossover with Green Arrow and the Batfolks.

This was when Chuck Dixon was writing Nightwing, Robin, Detective, and the Connor Hawke Green Arrow, which this sprawled all over for a month and a half or so. Another nice little twelve-dollar trade paperback that will never happen because DC is determined to ignore the whole Connor Hawke thing. But "Brotherhood of the Fist" is an interesting counterpoint to "Fables," actually, because Chuck Dixon has the same strong sense of story and grasp of the Bat-world that Denny O'Neil does, but his riff on martial arts and philosophy is 180 degrees from O'Neil's in the execution. Definitely worth checking out, this started in Green Arrow #134, then circled through Detective #723, Robin #55, Nightwing #23, and ended up back in Green Arrow #135. Note again that everyone's basically got, I dunno, call it 'power parity.' The Birds of Prey were in there too, but their book wasn't included. I can't remember if Babs and Dinah even HAD their book yet or if Dixon was still just doing the sporadic specials and mini-series.

Probably one of the cleverest company-wide crossovers ever, though, has to be the late lamented First Comics' CrossRoads, a five-issue Prestige mini-series that brought together all First Comics' stars of the 80's -- Nexus, Reuben Flagg (well, Luther, anyway), Sable, Whisper, GrimJack, Dreadstar, and... sigh... the Badger.

The thing that was so brilliant about it, though, is that there was no attempt to team up heroes that had no business together. The galaxy-spanning Nexus never got anywhere near the urban, non-powered Whisper. Instead, each issue was a stand-alone pairing of, say, Whisper and Sable, or Grimjack and Nexus and Dreadstar. It went five issue in all and they are a terrific sampler of the whole First Comics line. The stories themselves are pretty good too; all of them are fun, especially Mike Baron's entries.

In the interest of fairness, I tried and tried to come up with a company-wide Marvel event that I enjoyed as much as the ones listed above, and, well, I just couldn't think of one. A pity that the company that really pioneered the idea of the Big Crossover Event doesn't have any really good ones. Avengers-Defenders War, maybe. But that's a little bit of a reach. So I will leave the identifying of a great Marvel crossover as an exercise for the interested scholar below in comments... though if anyone nominates "Rise of the Midnight Sons," don't expect us to take you seriously.

See you next week.

Free Swag on Ho Chi Minh's Birthday!

2006-05-19T01:03:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's Ho Chi Minh's birthday today - he would have been 106 today! It's also Joey Ramone's birthday, Pete Townshend's birthday, Malcolm X's birthday, and Pol Pot's birthday (boo!). It's also my birthday. Yippee! I turn 35 today, which means I'm old. Okay, not old, but I feel old. It also means that I remember buying comics when you could give the clerk a single piece of green paper with George Washington's picture on it and receive a comic book in exchange and get change. I know - sit down and catch your breath for a second! Phew, that's quite the head rush!

In celebration of my natal-versary, I'm giving stuff away! I have in my possession a copy of The Nightmarist, which the fine folk at Active Images (I assume Richard Starkings had something to do with it) sent me not long ago. It is written and drawn by Duncan Rouleau, and is a fine graphic novel. I reviewed it in this post (trust me, it's there), and Rouleau himself stopped by to say hello. Our Lord High Cronin dug it too, in case you don't trust my impeccable taste. Broken Frontier really liked it, too, if that's your thing. Anyway, I'm giving it away, so it could be crap and you'd want it! Free = Desirable! It's the American Way!

So I'm having a contest. Now, unlike my last contest, this will not depend upon my opinion of your mad skillz. This will be cold hard scoring! Here's the game:

Below I have posted twenty-five (25) panels/pages from certain comic books. Some are wildly famous, and some are pretty darned obscure. I want you to identify them. That's not so hard, is it? I would like you to tell me:

1. The name and issue number of the comic book in which the panel appears. Yes, I want the issue number!
2. The name of the writer.
3. The name of the penciller. Don't worry about the inker - they're just tracers, after all!

Each answer is separate, therefore the total number of points is 75. Each correct answer will give you one point. The person with the most points wins. Simple, right? I want the issue number because if you happen to see a certain Caped Crusader, I don't want you to just say, "It's Batman!" I want you to say, "That's Batman #612 with that totally awesome fight between Batman and Superman!" Flex those comic book geek muscles, geeks!

There is one exception. I don't need an issue number for #8. The reasons are my own!!!!

If you want a free copy of The Nightmarist, e-mail me with your answers. It's Friday, so let's set the deadline on Monday. By the end of the day on Monday, have your answers. That should give you enough time to hang out in your garage flipping through your long boxes! Have fun!

Number One.

Number Two.

Number Three.

Number Four.

Number Five.

Number Six.

Number Seven.

Number Eight.

Number Nine.

Number Ten.

Number Eleven.

Number Twelve.

Number Thirteen.

Number Fourteen.

Number Fifteen.

Number Sixteen.

Number Seventeen.

Number Eighteen.

Number Nineteen.

Number Twenty.

Number Twenty-One.

Number Twenty-Two.

Number Twenty-Three.

Number Twenty-Four.

Number Twenty-Five.

Remember: issue number, writer, penciller. 75 points are there to be had! If you don't know the issue number but recognize the artist, that's one point! If you don't know the artist but think you know the writer, send it along! If you don't know the creative team but are sure you know the issue number, that's another point! You don't need to get every part of the answer correct! How cool is that?

So, again, e-mail me by close of business on Monday. Good luck!

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #51!

2006-05-18T23:13:00.000-04:00

This is the fifty-first in a series of examinations of comic book urban legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous fifty.

Let's begin!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: John Byrne had a much longer storyline in store for Scarlet Witch before being taken off Avengers West Coast.

STATUS: True

Years ago, on the awesome "Wonder Man: Cooler Than Superman" website, I read an interview by John Byrne. I had totally forgotten about it until someone brought it up recently on Comic Book Resources here. It reminded me of something that John Byrne had planned for Avengers West Coast had he not been unceremoniously pulled from the book in the midst of his "Dark Scarlet Witch" storyline, a story that would be revisited years later during Avengers Disassembled, and this neat interview had the visuals to go along with Byrne's telling of what he would have done, so here is Byrne, from his forum, discussing his plans, along with unpublished covers courtesy of the Wonder Man site:

I'm going to break my own Number One Rule and tell a story that did not see print.

All this came out of the Immortus/Scarlet Witch debacle, of course. With the "realism" in Marvel at the time -- you know, like talking dragons being "telepathic", because that was more "realistic" -- it had become impossible to accept that Wanda's hex power could be something as prosaic as merely causing people to have "bad luck". So it had been decided that what she actually did was alter probabilities . Thus, if the probability of a badguy's gun jamming was 1000 to 1, she could make it 1 to 1, and the gun would jam. Bad luck for him!

When I came to do AVENGERS WEST COAST this was the accepted way of portraying Wanda's power -- but the more I thought about it, the more I realized this was really an incredible complication of something that had once been so simple. I mean, think about it! For Wanda to alter probabilities she would have to be reaching back thru the whole temporal chain of events that led to a single moment. She would have to be altering time -- retroactively!

Well, that sure seemed like something that could catch the eye of Immortus, eventually, and as I wrote the story, it did. Immortus, who had been seen pinching off alternate realities as part of a set up to this story, was engaged in a program of whittling the multiverse down to a single time-line. One which he would control.

Discovering Wanda's power, he was going to kidnap her and use her to further his plans. And the first thing he was going to do was alter probabilities so that when the Avengers battled Kang the first time, Kang won!

My story would reveal this in flashback, however, as we would open in the world long after this had happened. Pretty grim place, where most of the familiar heroes had been killed off or never become super powered in the first place. No FF, since they never took that rocket ride. No Hulk, since Rick Jone has never driven his car onto the Gamma Bomb test site. (One of the main characters was going to be Peter Parker, who had not become Spider-Man because of Immortus' manipulations.)

As the story progressed, we would learn slowly what had happened -- and also learn that we were not seeing "present day" Marvel, but rather a time a "few months" (Marvel Time) ago. The date would be just prior to when Thor, in order to save a wounded Black Knight, had used his hammer to open a portal in time and space and stuck the Knight into it. We would learn this when the Black Knight basically fell out of the air into the post-Kang's victory world. In that timeline, Thor had not placed him in the "time stasis", so when the changed world "caught up" to that moment, out popped the Black Knight. The multiverses intersected at that point, you see. Well, the Black Knight pretty quickly figures out what's going on, learns there is an underground (of course!) and helps the folk of the twisted version hunt down and stop Immortus, freeing Wanda (herself another link to the multiverse, by virtue of how Immortus has been manipulating her power) and setting everything right.

When all is restored, the Black Knight of course is back in that "hole in time", and Wanda is the only one who remembers how things were. A memory that fades, like a dream, very quickly. . . .

LOOK FOR THIS TITANIC TALE IN A NuMARVEL BOOK APPEARING SOON !!

Pretty neat, eh?

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Terror, Inc. was a continuation of a previous comic from another publisher.

STATUS: True

In the late 1980s, Marvel's Epic line was not exactly in great shape.

In an attempt to pump some life into it, writer D.G. Chichester was assigned to create a bunch of new characters and titles and work them into the "Shadowline" universe.

Later, the series had a big crossover called Critical Mass.

Does the character on the cover look familiar?

Well, his name was Shreck.

He had the ability to replace parts of his body (hands, feet, arms, legs, eyes, ears, nose, etc.) with those of other people.

Sound familiar?

Well, when Epic went under, editor Marc McLaurin asked Chichester to bring Shreck to the Marvel Universe, where he became (you guessed it)...

Terror, Inc.!

Only, of course, Marc McLaurin said that Terror was NOT Shreck.

The move is discussed in detail here, and Chichester shows up to give his feelings on the matter,

No matter what Marcus may or may not have said as a "good soldier" in the Marvel Universe army, Shreck was Terror and Terror was Shreck ...but for the fact that Terror got to develop more of a a back story as time went on. We never did address the transition from Shadowline to MU, however, and probably never would have (as at that point the Shadowline was long since relegated to "Who cares?" among the larger editorial staff at the office (although those of us who invested a lot of time and effort in it kept a warm spot in our hearts).

Odd history, eh?

I liked Terror!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Colossus was originally intended to be Ferro Lad's brother.

STATUS: False

A rumor that has made the rounds over the years is that Colossue was originally intended to be a part of Dave Cockrum's previous work, the Legion of Superheroes.

In fact, here's a post by "Captain Kal" at the Superman Through The Ages forum, on the topic,

I remember reading somewhere that the similarities between Ferro Lad and Colossus were not accidental. I heard one of the creators involved in Colossus wanted to do something with Ferro Lad at DC, but DC resolutely refused his proposal, so he created the analogue of Colossus at Marvel.

Can anyone confirm this?

While I cannot confirm it, I CAN deny it.

In The Legion Companion (TwoMorrows 2003, Page 73), Cockrum gave an interview, and the question was raised,

Q. True or False: your design of Colossus was originally intended to be used as Ferro lad's brother.

Dave Cockrum: False.

Well, that about settles that, eh?

Thanks to H from the great blog The Comic Treadmill for sending me this bit of info about Cockrum.

Well, that's it for this week, thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to drop off any urban legends you'd like to see featured!!

The End

2006-05-18T21:05:00.000-04:00

It is nigh upon us.

Just thought you folks would like to know.

Reviews for the 5/17 Comic Book Week

2006-05-18T15:01:00.000-04:00

All Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder #4 (DC)

Simpsons Comics #118 (Bongo)

Robin #150 (DC)

Scooby Doo #108 (DC)

Infinite Crisis Question

2006-05-18T06:42:00.000-04:00

So, I'm reading this week's Aquaman, and it mentions that Aquaman's son AND "foster son" died during Infinite Crisis.

"Foster son" has got to mean Tempest, right?

So is Tempest dead?

What I bought - 17 May 2006

2006-05-18T00:13:00.000-04:00

Wow - I actually read everything I bought this week. Only one book was a mini-series, and it was the last issue. But that's the weird world of comic book distribution! Let's delve in, shall we?

This week's mini-theme: THE ART! IT BURNS MY EYES! All will be clear soon enough.

Bomb Queen #4 (of 4) by Jimmie Robinson
$3.50, Image

Well, Bomb Queen isn't awful, but it's certainly not as great as its creator thinks it is. I haven't quite gotten over the text piece in the back of the first issue, in which Robinson tells us how wonderful he is and how subversive Bomb Queen is. Well, he may be, but it's not.

It's a perfectly fine four-issue mini-series. There's loads of gratuitous violence and nudity, and nothing changes, as Ms. Queen is still in charge of New Port City at the end just as she was in the beginning. She does awful things - she is the villain, after all - and exposes the mayoral candidate Robert Woods as - shocking! - a hypocrite, but it all feels hollow. Allow me to explain.

It's obvious from page 1 of this book that Robinson wants it to be a satire. So, in order to be clear, I looked up "satire" in my handy-dandy dictionary. "Satire" is: A literary work in which irony, derision, or wit in any form is used to expose folly or wickedness. I have to think this qualifies. Except it's completely lacking in wit, which is where we separate good satire from poor satire. This is certainly ironic and derisive, and I know the definition says "OR," but good satire is able to be witty as well, even though it doesn't have to be. Anyone can be derisive, and most people can be ironic, but witty - that's a different story. In this series, Robinson simply wants to show that we as a society view sex and violence just as forms of entertainment, and we set people up as "heroes" and "villains" not based on any rigid morality, but whoever happens to cater to us. Therefore, Bomb Queen, who constantly reminds us she's a villain, loses the support of her city when it looks as if she's not playing fairly, but when Robert Woods attacks her in the last issue, she regains the adoration of the people because he is seen as acting unfairly. She has, ever so briefly, become the victim, and so is able to triumph in the court of public opinion, and the status quo is retained.

My question: so what? Robinson's book, as puerile and violent as it is, tells us nothing new. It's sad, sure, that this kind of book doesn't shock us and is nothing worse than you can see on network television (maybe not quite as graphically depicted, but close enough) any night of the week. Robinson isn't being as "cutting-edge" as he'd like to think, and he's certainly not doing anything particularly witty. Society sucks? Really? If Robinson really wants to do satire, he should pick something a little less obvious. Whenever I read satire, I'm invariably reminded of Swift's "A Modest Proposal." I can't help it. I don't want to compare anything to that because it's a classic, but Swift's proposal works because it is so off-the-wall, to the point, and although it's tongue in cheek, Swift never lets on that it's a joke. Robinson wants to poke fun at society as well as celebrate it, and therefore, Bomb Queen doesn't work. It's certainly entertaining, but it falls far short of its pretensions.

Fallen Angel #5 by Peter David and J. K. Woodward
$3.99, IDW

Meanwhile, we have the ending of what was supposed to be a mini-series, but is now an ongoing. So issue #5 wraps up a story arc and, surprisingly for this series, doesn't really set up that much for the next issue. Sure, Lee is staying in the city and helping out her son, who is now the Magistrate, but other than that, it feels like an ending. Next issue should be a fine place to start reading, if you're still not on board (for shame!).

This is an interesting issue, as the first four of the IDW series has been, because David eschews his usual coyness and actually gives us some closure, probably because he wrote this thinking it would be a mini-series. Therefore, Juris turns the administration of Bete Noire over to Jude, who gets more than he bargained for. Juris gleefully leaves town, with unexpected results. The core of the book is when Lee tells Jude that God wants to quit but humanity won't let him, because they keep worshipping him. Then idea that God is a concept we need to outgrow isn't necessarily original, but David sells it well. In the context of this book, we can believe it, because Lee does have first-hand knowledge of God, so she could be telling the truth. And the correlation between humanity not being able to let go of God and Xia not being able to let go of Juris is interesting, especially as Lee specifically links humanity to a battered wife.

As usual, David gives us plenty to chew on in this issue, and even though unexpected things happen, they are not events that come out of the blue but, once they occur, we understand why they did happen and how it got to that point. David is very good at this sort of thing, and when he doesn't allow his cleverness to overrun that trait in his writing, he's capable of brilliant stuff. This is one of those titles. So you should buy it.

Fell #5 by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith
$1.99, Image

I certainly don't want to keep harping on Desolation Jones, but because it is the most high-profile of Ellis' work these days (isn't it?), it colors how I am reading Ellis right now and how I criticize him. This latest issue of Fell fits in perfectly with that idea, because it's so similar to certain parts of Desolation Jones, specifically issues #2 and 3, in that it's basically a conversation between two people. How Ellis structures these conversations is why he's a fascinating and occasionally infuriating writer.

Richard's interrogation of Michael Connah is simply, as Ellis puts it, "a two-men-in-a-box" story. He discusses how he needed to lay out the story so that Templesmith could draw it and not make it a comic with one mounted "camera" showing the action. But although the art does keep us interested, it's the dialogue I want to consider. In DJ #2, we get the conversation between Michael and Emily, and I've mentioned that it is one of the more beautiful dialogues you're going to see in comics in a long time. In the third issue, we get the porn deconstruction, and it's annoying because it takes us out of the narrative and comes across as Ellis rambling on about whatever happens to interest him. During Fell's brief life, we have seen that Ellis also injects stuff that he finds fascinating into Snowtown, and although it hasn't taken over yet, it threatens to occasionally. In this issue he goes all psychological on us, as Richard breaks down Michael, who doesn't want to talk. But Richard is able to get him to crack, and Michael freaks out and pulls a gun. This is when Richard kicks it into high gear, and Michael eventually realizes what a mess his life has become. Richard talks him down, and this is where Ellis shines. Unlike the porn issue of Desolation Jones, but like the conversation in issue #2, Ellis is able to blend his pet ideas with dialogue that rings true, and so when Michael shouts "No-one can help me!" and then switches abruptly to "Help me," it affects us more than a porn actress simply spouting off horrible stories, even though we recognize how horrible it really is. Because Richard and even Michael are part of the narrative and are characters instead of mouthpieces, the interrogation scene has a drama and a resolution that is much more powerful than in Desolation Jones. And when Michael tells Richard not to waste time with Mayko, it also affects us, because it comes from their conversation and not from out of the blue. Therefore, Richard's exchange with Mayko at the end of the issue works well and is nicely done.

One of the reasons why I am so disappointed in DJ is because of issues like this. Ellis is so capable of this kind of thing that anything less is a big disappointment. Fell #5 delivers. And, as usual, it's one and done. Whoo-hoo!

Moon Knight #2 by Charlie Huston, David Finch, and Danny Miki
$2.99, Marvel

The awesomeness that is Moon Knight returns for a second issue, and it's interesting on several levels. First, let's look at the story. It's split into two sections, not unlike the first issue. In the first part of the issue, we see how Marc Spector got the way he is, as he battles Bushman, presumably to the death. Bushman throws him off a roof and breaks him into teeny, tiny pieces, but Marc still has enough in him to take out his arch-enemy. It's a nice brutal battle, with neither man speaking. The fact that Bushman says nothing in the issue is very cool, and all we get from MK is internal narration after the fact, as he reflects on this final battle. It's horrifically effective.

The scene then shifts to the present, as Crawley picks up Marc's drugs and brings them to him. Marc is still attended by Samuels and Nedda, which is strange, and he's not in the mood to talk to Crawley, who is trying to get him off his butt and back into action. Strange things are afoot, as we clearly see Khonshu's eyes glow in one panel. Marc wants nothing to do with him, but then Crawley tells him that Frenchie is in trouble. This spurs him into action. Finally, the last page shows us that Marc is being tracked (well, presumably it's Marc, although the guy calls him "asset prime") by people we assume are up to no good. So that sets up the rest of the story.

That's just the bare bones of it all. Let's look deeper. First, THE ART! IT BURNS MY EYES! Okay, not all the time. Finch has never been accused of being sloppy, and the details he is putting into this book is appreciated. The fight between Bushman and Moon Knight is beautifully rendered, except for a few crucial things. First, what the hell is up with Bushman? Others have been making fun of the cover for issues to come in which Bushman appears (#4, I think), and it's true - he's gigantic, which makes him very bizarre-looking. It's just ... off. As someone who owns every issue of the third (and most recent) Moon Knight series, I don't really recall the last time we saw Bushman, but I am certainly going to go check, because this Bushman is grotesque and barely human. At one point he licks the blade with which he cut Moon Knight, and the tongue sure ain't human. Yet we see his tongue later, and it looks normal. WTF? After Marc plunges from the roof and Bushman is about to gut him, it appears that Marc throws one of those nifty moon discs he has and it circles back around and catches Bushman in the neck. The layout of panels here is confusing, and it bugs me. Then, MK pulls Bushman's face off. Yes, it's icky, but it appears that Bushman was wearing the skin as a mask. When did that happen? Again, I have to go back and check my collection. Darn. Other than those things, Finch's art is very nice, and his details are fantastic. Again, I'm sort of on the good side of the fence when it comes to Finch's art, and despite those objections, I like the entire look of the book.

The final question I have when it comes to Moon Knight the series is whether it will appeal to enough new readers to make it viable. So far it's a wonderfully gripping story, but is Huston being too insular and appealing too much to the hard core fans of the character. Bushman is brought in with no fanfare and no update on who he is, other than Marc doesn't like him. The rest of the cast - Crawley and Samuels - simply show up, and why the heck (one might ask) is Crawley calling Marc "Jake"? These are small complaints from me, because it's nice to see how Huston is structuring this story so that it moves the character forward while still retaining some of the past, but are new fans going to pick this up because, maybe, of the appeal of David Finch but not stay with it because they don't know what the hell is going on? And if so, will the series survive?

I don't know. I'm just wondering. For now, this is a very good book. And it doesn't tie into Civil War!!!!!

Rex Mundi #18 by Arvid Nelson and Juan Ferreyra
$2.99, Image

Speaking of THE ART! IT BURNS MY EYES! I don't like Humberto Ramos. Therefore, I don't like this cover. Boy, it's ugly. Ugly ugly ugly. Boo, Humberto Ramos!

This is the last Image issue of this title, as it moves on to Dark Horse, and it's also an ending of sorts, as we reach the halfway point of the epic with Julien in the prison of the Inquisition, the king reasserting his control of France by arresting the Parliament, the Duke of Lorraine on the run but assembling an army, and Prussians on the border. Oh, the drama! The reason this book is better than, say, a certain new movie coming out starring a certain ex-cross dressing actor, is because we accept the hint of the supernatural that runs through this book, and when the Duke of Lorraine's daughter does some strange things, we accept that it adds a nice layer of meaning to the narrative. Isabelle is a wild card in the mix, and it's interesting how Nelson keeps introducing characters to his ever-expanding cast but we're still able to recognize them and understand their motivations. It's a mark of a good writer that he's able to do this.

I guess that there is a movie in the works, which is strange because of the aforementioned movie that opens this weekend, but its move to Dark Horse means that it might get more publicity and might actually sell some more copies. I'll keep saying it - this is a great book, people. Seek. Purchase.

Ultimate X-Men #70 by Robert Kirkman, Ben Oliver, and Jonathan Glapion
$2.99, Marvel

The last entrant in this week's THE ART! IT BURNS MY EYES! theme is this month's issue of UXM, drawn by Mr. Ben Oliver. It's not horrible art by any means, but let's look at a few egregious examples.

First, the Blob on the cover. He has just dropped a hoagie as Cyclops grabs him around the neck. I'm not sure if that's one of the dumbest things possible, or if it's clever. I vote STUPID! The interior art is fine, except for the fight scene between the X-Men and the Brotherhood. It's far too cluttered. It's difficult to tell what's going on just by glancing at it. We need to really try to sort through all the various characters, and it's really not worth effort. A poor layout by Oliver. And the characters look too old. They're teenagers!

Other than that, it's a decent enough issue, plagued by the normal middle issue syndrome in that everything has already been set up but nothing can be resolved. So we get fights and lots of hemming and hawing on the Lilandra/Jean Grey front, until the Phoenix shows up at the end. I've said it before that the presence of the Phoenix in the Ultimate Universe is okay with me for now, but I truly hope Kirkman wraps it up satisfactorily next issue and it's never heard from again. I won't hold my breath.

Oh, and Kurt's an asshole. On the one hand, it's a shame, but on the other hand, it's kind of cool. We need more assholes who happen to be heroes in comics. Batman doesn't count. He's always been an asshole.

X-Men #186 by Peter Milligan and Salvador Larroca
$2.99, Marvel

And so the Peter Milligan era on X-Men comes to an end (doesn't it? this is his last issue, right?) on a strange and disappointing note, much like the rest of his run. It was marked by absolutely gorgeous art, which continues in this issue and odd ideas that could have taken this title somewhere special but never really got developed, and I'm not sure if that's Milligan's fault or the editors'. In this issue Apocalypse finally realizes that the mutants who might be best suited to survive are those that fight against him so vehemently. It's something that has been obvious for years, but Milligan points it out, which is nice. The fight between Apocalypse and the X-Men is interesting, and it's nice to see that Milligan remembered the Avengers are in New York, since the last time a mutant bad guy came to Manhattan (Magneto), there seemed to be a distinct lack of superheroes around. The presence of the Sentinels continues to be annoying, but let's hope they're going away soon. And Milligan leaves plenty of things unresolved for the next writer, including some tantalizing things about Apocalypse himself. I'm sick of Apocalypse, but at the same time, he does have potential (as long as he loses that stupid outfit!), and it would be nice to see someone realize it. Milligan wrote the best Apocalypse I can remember, but as usual with this bunch of issues, it was strangely neutered.

I can't say this was a very good run of X-Men, but it wasn't awful, either. At least Milligan tried some things, even if they didn't come to fruition. But this is what it means to write Marvel's Merry Mutants - everything must always stay the same!!!!!

So, a pretty good week. And, surprisingly, not a DC comic in the bunch! That's weird.

Judging (Marvel's August) Books By Their Covers

2006-05-17T06:17:00.000-04:00

Marvel's August Solicitations are up, so let's make some prejudgements based just on the covers (as we all love to make prejudgements, don't we?).

Let's begin!
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Good lord, man, that's some misshapen anatomy!

Sadly enough, it's not even the worst depiction of character builds on a cover this month.
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Stuart Immonen AND Frazer Irving?

Where do I sign up?

The Immonen cover, however, was just slightly too bland.
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Also, the bloom sure seems to have come off Pasqual Ferry's rose, eh?

For a time, I was all, "How could DC let him go?!?"

His projects for Marvel, though, have made it a good deal less shocking.

I still dig his work, though! Just like I did pre-Adam Strange. There just isn't the same "WOAH" effect anymore.
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Well...

that's SOMEthing.

Can't say it isn't that.
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Am I the only one who gets a kick out of Mark Brooks' current job assignment?

Essentially, he is just the "Ultimate Spider-Man Annual" artist.

Or at least that has been what "special projects" have turned out for Brooks - two Ultimate Spider-Man Annuals.

I'd like to see him try something else.
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Very nice Salvador Larocca cover for the Ultimate X-Men Annual.

It's to the point and packs a lot of zest.
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Compare that to Tom Raney's bland, lifeless cover for the regular Ultimate X-Men.

Did he really think he was achieving "movement" with this cover?!?

Seems more like Wolverine and Cyclops "Vogue"ing.
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CIVIL WAR COVERS!
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This is just toooo unfair.

The pro-registration side has Wonder Man, Tigra AND Hank Pym on it!

Who could ever side against such a collection of superhero titans?!?!

Sorta belies the whole "fair and balanced" thing when one side is basically represented by the freakin' West Coast Avengers!

Very nice drawing by McNiven, though.
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This reminds me of when Denny Crane led everyone in reciting the National Anthem.

It was creepy there, too (at least Boston Legal was intentionally so).
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WAIT...Spider-Man ends up siding AGAINST Iron Man!?!?

Why is this cover the first I've heard of this?!!?

Oh.

Right.

Never mind.
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Pretty nifty Amanda Conner cover for Cable & Deadpool.

At least the drawings of the heroes.

Deadpool looks a bit like a colorform.
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Wow.

That MAY be the worst thing I've ever seen David Mack draw (I reserve the right to remember some awful project I'm sure he did during the 90s, where everyone was required to do at least ONE dreadful project).
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I can honestly tell you that I have no idea WHAT the hell is going on on this X-Men: Civil War cover.

And I think Juan Doe is awesome normally.
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So, do you think this cover will be the truth, and it'll be Sue and Reed along with Ororo and T'Challa?

And why does Ben look so...odd on this cover? Almost like a crocodile.
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Sadly, I think you could photostat this Thunderbolts cover from a page from Avengers/Thunderbolts, that's how similar it looks to the work Grummett did there.

Live a little!!
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You have to give Tucci credit...

he knows how to use shading and light to make things seem more prominent. He presents his work well.
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What is Wolverine trying to achieve on this cover, exactly?

Is he trying to STAB Namor?

That seems odd.

What would happen if he DID?

I bet he would feel sad.
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Coipel does a GREAT job with Jessica Drew's indecisiveness regarding Civil War on this New Avengers cover.

I can't iamgine how hard it must be to draw a FEELING and make it the centerpiece of a cover like that.

Good, good work.
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Fairly generic Jim Cheung cover for Runaways/Young Avengers.

Not bad, though.
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This is the first Ladronn Hulk cover that I've been less than thrilled with.

Seems a bit too muddy.
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ANNIHILATION COVERS!
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Man, Dell'Otto is a lot cooler looking when he has to mix things up a bit, as he does with the first issue cover for the Annhilation mini-series.

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However, Andrea DiVito draws the tie-in "Guide to Annihilation" cover like it's a boring dinner party.

Way too bland.
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Okay, now Angel Medina has ALSO showed...

no one can make the new costume look good.
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I love how FUN the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man covers are!!

I keep expecting to see the Fonz show up!
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I don't think this is a great Venom cover for Beyond #2.

However, maybe Scott Kolins is on to something, as I keep coming back to it, in a sort of a "gawking at a trainwreck" type of thing.
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I like that Linsner made Wolverine shorter than Black Cat.

Nice touch.

That is all.
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Man, only Chris Weston can make a guy walking around on fire seem mundane.

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Mark Texeira's Ghost Rider cover at least delivers what most people expect from a Ghost Rider comic book.

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Man, Hester really falls apart with this Marvel Team-Up cover.

It looks almost kinda painful.

And we've SEEN him draw Wolverine well before, so I don't know what the deal is.
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Speaking of painful, THIS is the winner for weirdest builds of characters - Moon Knight #5.

Unless, of course, that's the Incredible Hulk under Taskmaster's costume.

Maybe that's Doc Samson under Moon Knight's costume.

It might be some sort of new-age therapy.
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Very nice Paolo Rivera cover for Mythos Hulk.

I look forward to seeing Jenkins' take on a character he's so familiar with.
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Bah!

I miss Marcos Martin on Runaways covers!!

Jo Chen is okay, too.
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Gotta give it up to Greg Horn!

Still not thrilled with the drawing, but it sure is a clever idea!!
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Did Gary Frank do the covers for the Nighthawk mini-series, or did Steve Dillon do them?

If so, Frank is looking like Steve Dillon these days.

It's odd.
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Gotta give Mike Mayhew credit.

Cheesecake art has its place in the world, and poster books are one of those places.

He is quite good at it.
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That is one weird group.

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I love Marvel Westerns!

I think this would be cooler if it was Eric Powell PENCILLING the cover, though, rather than inking Marshall Rogers.

Still, Englehart and Rogers!!!
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UH OH!

A Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man cover by...CAMERON STEWART!!

The collection is almost complete!!

DC, clutch Doug Mahnke and JH Williams to your heart and never let them go!!!
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Decent David Williams action shot for this Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four cover.

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Nice, dramatic pose by Aaron Lopresti for this Marvel Adventures: Avengers cover.

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Strong John Cassaday cover for Astonishing X-Men.

Surprising that this hasn't been used more often as a cover design.
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I love Bill Sienkiewicz, and I applaud the use of him on the cover of X-Men: Fairy Tales...

but I think he dropped the ball a bit.

A bit TOO abstract.
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Now THAT is a hilarious cover!!

Well done, Paul Pelletier (and Tony Bedard for the idea of an Exiles team made up of all Wolverines).
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Nice Paco Medina cover for New X-Men.

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I enjoy seeing less of a "Barney and friends"-style cover of New Excalibur from Michael Ryan.

Good work.
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I think John Watson is great.

And this is a nice painting.

But I don't think it is dramatic enough for a cover.
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Holy crap, Bianchi!!!

That is just WEIRD!!!
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Interesting cover layout from Sook for X-Factor.

I don't know if I love it, but I love his willingness to try new things.
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I like Tim Bradstreet's backgrounds, at least!

Clever silhouette use!
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Strong Jack Kirby cover.

I wonder if this bounty hunter book will be any good?
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HONORABLE MENTIONS!
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I'm sorry, but I can't help it...

this looks like it could be fun!
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Just SLIGHTLY too hokey for the top five.

Still, very nice cover.
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Very nice Adi Granov cover for Iron Man.

Just outside of the top five.
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TOP FIVE!!
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5. Very strong cover design by Tomm Coker for Agents of Atlas #1.

Anyone know what Coker is up to these days?

I enjoy his work.
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4. Good Trevor Hairsine cover for Black Panther.

Panther v. Doom is a nice matchup, and the cover demonstrates that.
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3. Very dynamic Captain America cover...

even if we WEREN'T all comic geeks and understood the symbolism of the cover.
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2. A large round of applause for Rick Berry's redesign of Sersi for Gaiman's Eternals.

Excellent work!
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1. Finally, an amazing job by Chris Bachalo.

Best cover I've seen from him in years.

Such striking character design.

And yes, kudos to Carey, for putting Bobby (a person people keep rumoring is gay) with a character who can become a man. Clever job, there.
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Well, that's it for this month!

Feel free to weigh in with your prejudices (and your top five covers)!

A Minor Mystery Solved

2006-05-16T13:32:00.000-04:00

The Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex volume kicked epic amounts of ass, yes, but it also ended on a curious note. Rather than continue the stories of the bounty hunter, the book concluded instead with six stories from The Outlaw, a dull, run-of-the-mill western.

But why? Why cut off the fine flow of Hex stories in the volume, especially as the book was just heading into the legendary Michael Fleisher run?

At last: an answer.

C. Elam of the blog Earth-B gives us the skinny. According to a discussion site thread, former DC Collections Editor Bob Greenberg wrote:

DC pays a royalty based on a percentage of the cover price to writers, pencillers,and inkers to all material published prior to 1976 and after 1997. For the period in between, the vouchers that were in use called for a set reprint fee to be paid. In some cases, the amount of contractually obligated reprint fees makes the budget for a proposed collection unprofitable. In those cases, DC will either scrap the project or ask the talent involved to waive the reprint fee in lieu of the standard royalty arrangement. If the parties agree, then everyone benefits.

Reprint royalties for books published between '76 and '97 are sticky? Hm...What's the last issue of Weird Western Tales included in the Hex book? Issue #33, cover-dated March 1976.

Figuring on the traditional three-to-four month gap in cover dates versus printing dates and the bi-monthly schedule of the series, that marks Weird Western Tales #33 as the last Jonah Hex story published in 1975. Thus, it was the last issue they could reprint in the Showcase Presents volume without coughing up a lot more dough or entering into contract negotiations.

Throwing in the brief story of The Outlaw was a way to get the book to sufficient size. Why pick such an underwhelming story? The Outlaw had a couple of elements in its favor. It was a western too. The story arc began and ended in six issues. It had excellent art in a few of the stories, courtesy of Comic Art God Gil Kane. And it ran in All-Star Western, the very comic that Jonah Hex came from. The Outlaw ran in All-Star Western #2-7; Hex first appeared in #10. When searching the archives for more western material to fill out the book, The Outlaw must have seemed the obvious choice. It was already in front of them.

That reprint royalties issue also explains why DC hasn't put out collections of Warlord, either. The series was a huge seller in its day and was just revived; ideal reprint material. But the series began in late '75. Oops.

"Name That JJJ Artist!" Game!!

2006-05-16T05:45:00.000-04:00

Once again, you folks make out like bandits due to me screwing the pooch, and not updating Snark Free Waters enough. This time, it's a GIANT game, asking you to identify the artist who drew each of TWENTY-NINE drawings of J. Jonah Jameson, taken from various issues of the first volume of Amazing Spider-Man. Forty pencillers (not counting Don Heck pencilling over Romita's breakdowns, as that seemed cheesy) pencilled Amazing Spider-Man during the first volume, and twenty-nine of them drew J. Jonah Jameson. Here is a list of the eleven who never got a chance to draw JJJ. Click "Read More" to find links to the twenty-nine chances to...NAME THAT JJJ ARTIST!!!

Day One!

Day Two!

Day Three!

Day Four!

Day Five!

Day Six!

Day Seven!

Day Eight!

Day Nine!

Day Ten!

Day Eleven!

Day Twelve!

Day Thirteen!

Day Fourteen!

Day Fifteen!

Day Sixteen!

Day Seventeen!

Day Eighteen!

Day Ninteen!

Day Twenty!

Day Twenty-One!

Day Twenty-Two!

Day Twenty-Three!

Day Twenty-Four!

Day Twenty-Five!

Day Twenty-Six!

Day Twenty-Seven!

Day Twenty-Eight!

FINAL DAY!

Take a look, and make some guesses!!

Judging (DC's August) Books By Their Covers

2006-05-16T05:33:00.000-04:00

DC's August Solicitations are up, so now is as good a time as any for us to make prejudgements based just on the covers (as we all love to make prejudgements, don't we? And DC's covers are at least detailed enough that we CAN make prejudgements based on them!).

Let's begin!
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Jock is incapable of drawing a bad cover.

This comes pretty close, though.
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I LIKE the idea of giving Son of the Demon a new printing.

I DON'T like the idea of having Andy Kubert draw a bland cover for the new printing.

What, Jerry Bingham doesn't have a website where you could easily reach him?

Wait?

What's that?

Jerry Bingham HAS a website where you could easily reach him?

Said website is even CALLED jerrybingham.com?!!?

Funny that.

(Don't mind me, as I'm totally full of crap, as my big problem with the cover is not not asking Jerry Bingham, so much as not asking Jerry Bingham in favor of using such a bland cover - this was Quitely? You wouldn't hear a peep from me)
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Dammit...Andy Kubert even managed to foul up an image as awesome as a whole pile of ninga bats fighting Batman.

Imagine if Kubert drew We3.

No, don't imagine that!!

Too horrific.
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I love me some Simone Bianchi.

However...

A. At some point, too much detail is kinda creepy

and

B. Batman looks waaaaaay too smooth there.

What is he, made out of porcelin?!
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Wait, HUSH is in Man-Bat, TOO?!?!

Where do I sign up?!!?

Cool Huddleston cover, though.
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Adam Hughes seems like he rushed this cover a bit.

Not on Zatanna, though, just the faces on the wheel.
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Neat Pachecho cover for Superman.

I didn't know the underwear-on-the-outside had the belt loops on it - looks kinda funny, no?
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That is officially the creepiest cape drawing ever.

We see her asscrack THROUGH THE CAPE!!

No WONDER she's crying.
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Good lord, I spoke too soon!

NEW WINNER for creepiest cape drawing!

That's how you draw, like, Man-Bat's wings or something.
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I don't get this drawing.

Unless the All-New Atom has a power staff.
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I love Jerry Ordway.

I'm pleased as punch to hear that he has an exclusive contract (RENEWED!) with DC.

But damned if that isn't a bland cover. Nice drawing, but while I get the Silver Age-y feel he's going for there, it just isn't bold enough.
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Another dynamic Duncan Rouleau cover!

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That is a WEIRD Checkmate collage.

And, shouldn't Lee Bermejo, on a Lee Bermejo cover, be responsible for more than, like, 10% of the cover?

Way too much of that cover looked like stock footage, as it were.
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That's not actually the cover, right?

So I don't know why that was given to us.
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Not a bad Flash cover.

Is that supposed to be the Piper?
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Very nice abstract-y cover for Green Arrow by McDaniel.

Impressive work.
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52 COVERS!
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1 cool point for each cover that also references this famous Hamlet scene!!

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Decent cover, but a bit too generic.

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Man...that is a weird Lobo revamp.

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PATRICK GLEASON COVERS!!

First, an example of how to do an action-packed cover...

Next, an example of how to draw a sputtering action cover without much coherence.

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Well then.

At least Chaykin is equal opportunity with the whole "creepy drawings of people's naughty bits" thing.
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KID AMAZO!

YAY!

I thought we had lost you forever!!

Not a bad job by Porter on the cover, at all!

Did he originally work on Kid Amazo, or is this the first we're seeing from him on the project?
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Not a bad Phil Noto cover.

However, you shouldn't have to be TOLD it's a Jonah Hex cover to know that it is a Jonah Hex cover.
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Decent Ed Benes cover.

Splitting the covers up to an A and a B version is smart marketing by DC.

Although, if the split is done down the middle, I think two black heroes will get cut in half.

Such racism from DC.
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Wow.

That's a pretty sloppy Ion cover from Kalman Andrasofszky.
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NOW I see the Ordway in the cover!

Neat-o JSA Classified covers.
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Isn't it funny how, originally on Manhunter, Jae Lee was the famous artist doing the covers while the less-famous Jesus Saiz did interiors, and now Saiz is the famous artist doing the covers.

Nice touch.

Too bad to see this go. I wonder if the end of her SOLO career means a relaunch, or just her joining a team, like the JLA or Outsiders.
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Pretty cool Justice cover by Alex Ross.

Hawkman kicks ass.
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When your costume redesign is as bad as Al Barrionuevo's Martian Manhunter one, choosing a cover like this is smart.

Good move by Barrionuevo.
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That is one wacky-ass The Next cover.

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They have to stop doing covers where sucky Outsider members are threatened!

Because I invariably end up hoping the cover comes true!!
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Karl Kerschl rules, but I'm not thrilled by this Secret Six cover.

Not his best work.
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Pretty nifty idea for the Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes cover by Barry Kitson.

He's been having quite a few nifty cover ideas lately.
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Ooooh...while he did well on the JLA Classified cover, I think Howard Porter screwed the pooch here.

That's a pretty nasty Trials of Shazam cover.
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Nice Teen Titans cover IDEA by Tony Daniel.

Execution is a bit off, though.
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If the car symbolizes my interest in OMAC the series...

then this cover works.
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Not the most unbland Shadowpact cover by Steve Scott.

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Pretty interesting Warlord cover from Bart Sears.

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Phew!

When an old man opens his long trenchcoat like that, I have post traumatic stress to that time when...no...never mind that.
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I don't get it.

All-New Wonder Woman?

But, uhmm...how is that NOT the old Wonder Woman?

Am I missing something?

Or are the Dodsons just drawing the new Wonder Woman the same way as the old Wonder Woman?
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VERY interesting Batman Strikes cover from Dave McCaig.

The "reflection in the goggles" thing is an old trick, but reflecting DIFFERENT things, depending on where the goggles are situated?

VERY clever!
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Ty Templeton knows what makes for good covers.

This Justice League Unlimited cover shows.
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Sean Galloway, on the other hand, screws the pooch a bit.

Too bland of a Teen Titans Go cover for such a neat concept.
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TIME TO RACK UP SOME COOL POINTS!

One cool point for every cover (one cool point PER cover, first come, first serve) of a #1 issue that has files of people on the cover like this The Boys #2 issue.
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#1 of The Boys isn't much more original.

Darick Robertson's a great artist, though.

Oh, Garth Ennis? "Out-Preacher Preacher?"

What does that even MEAN?!?
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Nice Georges Jeanty drawing for The American Way.

Put fairly bland for a cover.
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NEWSPAPER COVERS!

First, a GREAT one (Honorable Mention for Top 5) from Dave Gibbons for Action Comics.

High-larious cover.
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Next, a fairly bland one from Tony Harris for Ex Machina.

Just HAVING a newspaper cover isn't enough of an idea!
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That's a pretty neat Gen13 cover from J. Scott Campbell.

That book was fun once, wasn't it?
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Glenn Fabry sure can draw animals!

Nice Kev cover.
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This Nick Bradshaw cover for Rokkin is a bit too busy for my tastes.

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Dustin Nguyen does a nice job of making this Manifest Eternity cover look appealing.

I hope Scott Lobdell gives him a nice story to draw.
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I love John Paul-Leon's work.

I might be being too hard on this cover because Winter Men is just frustrating me, but anyway, this cover seemed boring.
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JAMES JEAN COVERS!
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Two good covers, with excellent drawings. Neither seem grand enough to be GREAT covers, though. Still, good work.

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Garry Leach can draw the hell out of fighter planes!

As you can see on this Battler Britton cover.
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I like John Watkiss.

This Deadman cover is pretty intriguing. Good layout.
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Haha!

Nice Joshua Middleton cover for American Virgin.

Very clever.
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This Chaykin cover for Bite Club reminds me of how experienced Chaykin is.

HE knows what will and will not work as a cover. Impressive.
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Very nice Brian Wood cover for DMZ.

I like the tagline idea - nice touch.
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I'm not feeling this Liam Sharp cover for Testament.

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Great Massimo Carnevale cover for Y The Last Man.

VERY dynamic.
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Man.

Claw?

Seriously?

WHY CLAW?!?!
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HONORABLE MENTIONS!!
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GREAT Creeper drawing by Justiano.

Just well done.

Not exactly a great cover, though.
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Jock covers rule!

Rush City sounds cool!
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Very nice Niko Henrichon cover for Pride of Baghdad.

VERY inviting cover.
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There is a reason Dave Johnson is a cover king.

It's because he has too much work outside of comics, so he can only do covers.

The OTHER reason, though, is that he has an amazing design sense (hence the loads of work outside of comics).
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Marcelo Frusin's covers have been a continual high point of Loveless.

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Excellent Lee Bermejo drawing for Hellblazer.

If it weren't for the fact that this cover could fit on almost ANY issue of Hellblazer, I'd have it in the top five.
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TOP FIVE COVERS!!
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5. Just a striking Legends of the Dark Knight cover by Ariel Olivetti.

It's like the poster for a kickass Batman movie.

Awesome job.
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4. I know the idea of a bunch of "back from the dead" heroes trying to ressurect Sue Dibney is both creepy AND dorky.

But damned if JG Jones doesn't make it look pretty damn cool on this 52 cover.
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3. Matt Wagner takes his turn at drawing an awesome poster for a Batman movie.

He does an even better job than Olivetti on this Batman and the Mad Monk cover.
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2. I MAY have this cover so high because it's the last issue of Solo.

Or Brendan McCarthy might be THAT awesome.

You decide!
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1. What a GREAT visual for 52 by JG Jones!

He HAS to be homaging this image! 5 cool points to the person who can find a drawing/photo that inspired this cover.

If there ISN'T...then, well, damned fine work by JG Jones.

Especially the way he work so many ensemble members into the cover of an ensemble work.
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Okay, that's it for me, folks!

Feel free to share YOUR prejudices (and YOUR top five)!!

The Comic The Government Doesn't Want You to See!

2006-05-16T01:10:00.000-04:00

Or rather, the comic that James Sime DOES want you to see, which is why he has a preview up at the Isotope Comics site.

Shatter, by Peter B. Gillis and Mike Saenz, the FIRST comic book completely created on a computer, is now being re-released (over TWENTY years since its original release) by AiT/Planet Lar. Here is a 30-page preview.

More Reviews for the 5/10 Comic Week

2006-05-15T03:35:00.000-04:00

X-Men: Deadly Genesis #6 (Marvel)

52 #1 (DC)

Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four #12 (Marvel)

Veronica #170 (Archie)

Exactly what happens when you experience a time-mind sync-warp?

2006-05-14T23:46:00.000-04:00

I teased you with the worst experience you can ever ... uh ... experience, and you demanded to know what happens next (by "you" I mean commenter Doug M.). So, enter the world of the time-mind sync-warp ... if you dare!!!!!

As "Anonymous" pointed out, first, Drax will "be assaulted by fists of shattered illusions and broken promises!"

Man, that's gotta suck.

But that's just the beginning! Sinister ghosts of past deeds and grim threatening spectres of future evils will then menace you! And you'll be forced to relive over and over that time you dressed up as Carmen Miranda and pranced around the bedroom singing "I'm A Little Teapot" just to see what it would feel like!

If you think the tough part is over, you're a fool! Not only will Thanos swallow you, but then he will create your prison, "and your prison is MADNESS!"

Luckily, it can't get much worse, can it? Well, only if you think this is better!

Remember: this story came out when Grant Morrison still thought "Sesame Street" was cutting-edge! Is this the weirdest page Marvel has ever published?

All this almost wipes out the psyche of Drax the Destroyer. Think of what it would do to your puny minds!

What have we learned? Don't piss off Thanos, obviously. And was Stan Lee just walking around the Bullpen handing out tabs of LSD? Now that's a workplace!

Critiquing the "Fanfiction" Critique

2006-05-14T22:53:00.000-04:00

I mentioned this in one of my 20 Questions earlier today, and I figured it was worth a further look. I think "It was like fan fiction" is not a good critique of a comic book writer's performance.

My main (heck, I think it may actually be my ONLY) reason is that it is just too nebulous of a definition. Can anyone pin-point what it means to be writing comics like fan-fiction, with the inference being that it is a BAD thing? The way I have often seen it read has been more like "I just don't like this writer's writing, so I am calling it fan-fiction, because it sounds really dismissive."

I don't deny the impact of fan-fiction upon criticism. In fact, one of the most popular terms that I like to use COMES from fan-fiction criticism, namely, Mary Sue, which has evolved from its original fan-fiction definition, which was when a writer literally wrote themselves (or a avatar of themself) into a fan-fiction, to a broader definition in writing when a writer uses a "pet" character in much the same way that fan-fiction writers used characters based on themselves (and, of course, this doesn't preclude the inclusion of a character based on the writer/writer's significant other in the comic, either).

However, as a descriptive term, "fan-fiction" seems about as descriptive to me as "super-hero." In other words, it is not very descriptive at all.

Especially in the post Roy Thomas era, where basically every comic book writer working was first a comic book FAN, so how could they NOT be influenced by their own fan experiences?

How is that a bad thing, per se?

I mean, to say New Excalibur is "fan-fiction" seems odd to me, as writing about the characters that he wants to write about was basically how Chris Claremont wrote the Uncanny X-Men for seventeen years. So how is it "fan-fiction" now?

Unless, of course, fan-fiction is just supposed to be universally reviled, so that just by using the term, a critic can express his/her displeasure with a writer's work.

I guess I can see that.

But that's not all that good of a critique, is it?

The Nightmarist - What Is The Question?

2006-05-14T09:36:00.000-04:00

The question is not, "Can Duncan Rouleau draw?"

We know the answer to that - he can.

The question, though, that is raised by The Nightmarist, the graphic novel from Active Images (which they were so kind as to send to me), is "Can Duncan Rouleau write?"

And the answer to that?

We shall see.

Greg wrote about this book awhile back, and I concur with his endorsement.

The Nightmarist is about a young woman who seems to have some great power in regards to the future of humanity (think Rick Jones in the Skrull/Kree War), but the power is in jeaopardy, as competing forces in the dreamscape are battling each other, with her dreams (and heck, her SANITY) as the battlefield.

Rouleau incorporates a very Chris Bachalo style in the comic, and it looks excellent, especially in the book's black and white. You name the art trick, and Rouleau busts it out in this book, as he goes full force with things like warped angles, photograph/drawing hybrids...you name the different style of drawing something, Rouleau most likely worked it into this graphic novel. I think this has to do with the fact that, before he sat down to produce the graphic novel, he sold an option on the Nightmarist as a film, giving him enough money to actually devote his time to coming out with the graphic novel, as compared to sneaking an hour or two every other day, working around other projects.

It is no surprise that the Nightmarist was optioned for a film, as the book is quite cinematic in feel. In fact, that is probably where Rouleau's greatest weakness (if you can call it that) lies - he is an extremely accessible writer, but at times, accessibility sometimes shows its face in the form of unsubtlety. Occasionally, Rouleau attempts to do some Morrison-esque thinking in the book, but even as he tries it, he seems to want to make it accessible at the same time. For instance, the whole idea of people doing bad things because they have bad dreams speaking to them - it's both high brow and low brow at the same time. It's a weird effect - and not one that I think works that well all the time.

Still, the book is effectively spooky (Rouleau and the black and white are a pefect match in this sense), and tells a complete story with a lead character (Beth) that you can become invested in. Also, there are plenty of cool moments mixed in. Of particular note is a scene late in the comic - as you all may know by now, when you have battles and such that take place mainly in one's mind, there's always that temptation to say, "Guess what? It WAS all in her mind!" It's a decent enough "Woah!" moment to try that, but it doesn't work for all stories. Rouleau, in this book, decides to have his cake and eat it, too, as he has that moment - but then quickly says, "No, this is for real." But I really admire him for managing to fit the "It was all in her mind!" angle into the story even when he wasn't going that story route.

So, while the key to this project is definitely Rouleau's artwork (as this story wouldn't work nearly as well if it were not for Rouleau's trippy depiction of horror scenes), I think we can answer the question.

Can Duncan Rouleau write?

The answer is yes.

Friday Anger Management

2006-05-13T19:08:00.000-04:00

Okay. Picture this scenario.

You have been at your job, oh, four or five years. You do pretty good work; not really setting the world on fire or anything, but you bring a sense of craft and care to it, your boss is happy. So you get a promotion. A customer at your company decides he's not crazy about the service you gave him in a particular instance and starts yelling about it. You didn't actually do anything WRONG, mind you. He just was expecting something other than what he got, although you did your usual workmanlike job. He tells other people. He writes letters to your bosses and to your bosses' competitors decrying the service you gave him. He goes to company functions and industry events and spreads horrible rumors about you. Pretty soon these rumors gain enough traction, simply through the constant repetition, that you start to become seriously inconvenienced. It starts to feel like you are being stalked.

That's kind of a creepy scenario, right?

Now let's add one thing -- your profession is writing superhero comics. Add that and suddenly, well, hell, it's just another day at the office. Because this craziness is standard behavior from the audience in comics.

What the hell's that all about? Why is it not creepy when comics fans act like this?

It always gets worse at event time, and with Infinite Crisis and Civil War and 52 fresh on everyone's mind, and new X-Men and Superman movies on deck, I guess an upswing in Seething Fan Rage is only to be expected. Still, it really is reaching the point where I'm getting embarrassed for people.

I blame the internet for a lot of this. Yes, I know this is very hypocritical. I like having the internet, I spend a lot of time looking at message-board sites and news sites, I get a treemndous kick out of writing the column here... but honestly, I think I would cheerfully give up the lot of it and never look back, if I thought it would make a difference in how companies currently treat the readership. Because right now, the sense I get from reading the editorial output of the major publishers is a vague mixture of fear and contempt... as though they think of us collectively as a big stupid animal that might bite them if not kept safely placated.

Worse, I think that attitude's probably deserved in most cases. I think it was Mark Waid that said writing for comics was the only profession where every one of your customers thinks they can do a better job than you. The criticism I see on the net, over and over, is that companies don't think of the fans, they don't listen to the fans, they are mean to the fans, they are screwing the fans, they are always doing something awful to the poor fans.

Honestly? I think the fans probably had it coming.

This is the part where, reading this, I imagine you sit up a little straighter and say, "Hey, hold on there, fella, I'M a fan and I never STALKED anybody. Those people are crazy. There's nothing wrong with liking comics and wanting them to be better. I'm passionate about my likes and dislikes, is that a crime?"

Okay. Fair enough. You've never stalked anyone. Have you ever...

...suggested that a plot point in a superhero comic was 'raping your childhood'?
...bought a comic you hated, vibrated with rage the whole time you were reading it, and kept buying it even though you knew perfectly well you were going to hate it?
...badgered a creator at a convention or on an internet message board? Suggested on the internet that so-and-so should suffer bodily harm for writing a story you didn't like?

...and so on. Look, I daresay lots of us have gotten carried away about this sort of thing more than once. Lord knows I really, really hated Jim Starlin's work on Batman, and I've been pretty vociferous about it in person and in print. I'd like to think, though, that I can tell the difference between Jim Starlin the person and what Jim Starlin puts on paper. I am certain that I would never follow Jim Starlin around, trying to cut him out of jobs and badmouthing him all over the place to anyone that might employ him, suggesting that he was utterly lacking in ethics. But I know other creators who've had EXACTLY that scenario take place with zealous fans. Hell, Ron Marz probably has a whole bookful of war stories, just because he took a last-minute assignment from an editor to revamp Green Lantern in the early 90's and tried to do the best he could with it.

Understand, I am not talking about the WORK. The relative merit of "Emerald Twilight," to take the most widely-known example, has no bearing on the fact that Ron Marz didn't deserve to have a herd of lunatics yelling at him and writing crazed hate letters to him and basically stalking him for the next decade. But that's always the defense that gets offered, a sort of half-hearted, "Well, no, some of that stuff was probably out of line, but people were really REALLY UPSET ABOUT HAL JORDAN!" In other words, he was asking for it.

Horseshit. Sorry, but nobody deserves that kind of craziness. Not Ron Marz or Geoff Johns or Brad Meltzer or Dan Didio or Joe Quesada or whoever. I don't give a damn WHAT new suit they put on Spider-Man or HOW many superhero wives go homicidal. They're just comics, for God's sake. Get a grip.

Consider this. What if a lot of these controversial stories are actually the PRODUCT of fan craziness? What if DC and Marvel's constant stunting is the result of watching the sales spike every time there is a fan outcry? What if these editorial efforts to mess with your favorite characters are not coming because companies "never listen" to fans but because they are CONSTANTLY listening to you and your continual foaming-at-the-mouth complaints and they know that the more they wind you up, the better the books do, sales-wise? Jemas and Quesada were masters at this, and Dan Didio looks to be playing pretty good catch-up ball there too.

I never have cared for stunt-driven comics. And I think lately for mainstream publishers they're ALL stunt-driven comics. Those are apparently what sell. I hate the idea that they sell just because people buy them so they "know what's going on," and not because they actually like them. I can't think of anything more pathetic than grown men who spend money on books they hate simply so they can scream about them on the internet to other grown men who are just as livid. But we all know that it happens. Despite the fact that no one really seems to LIKE Civil War or Infinite Crisis or any of the other ones we've had inflicted on us in all the years since Secret Wars (which was, itself, pretty awful) nevertheless there are a lot more of them than there used to be, because they always sell. We buy them because, being crazed fans, we can't stand not knowing what's in them even if we hate them.

What worries me is that over the last decade, publishers have figured that out too, and are counting on it to prop up sales in an otherwise dying industry.

Imagine what a transformative effect it has on comics when they are designed not to placate a continuity-conscious fan base, but simply to please a reader wanting a story. Hell, we don't HAVE to imagine it, we've seen comics like that, and from mainstream publishers, even. New Frontier. Solo. Ex Machina. But they don't light up the internet, because they're just good comics. There's really nothing to do except read them and enjoy them. There's no overarcing need to make them fit into some gigantic fictional tapestry.

Try this idea on for size. Maybe it doesn't MATTER what happens with Superman or Spider-Man because they're, you know, not REAL. Maybe if we remembered that the stories would be less about the stunt and more about the story. Maybe that's a better tactic for getting the comics you want than the current one of buying a lot of crap and then freaking out all over the internet about it.

We've had a couple of decades' worth of vocal fan involvment with the industry. Maybe it's time to go back to the older model, the one most other forms of entertainment media use -- the one of being a passive audience, voting only with our pocketbook and nothing else. Because, as much as I enjoy being a comics fan in touch with my fellow fans all over the world, I can't help noticing that the books seem to suffer for it.

See you next week.

Why does DC want me to gouge my own eyes out?

2006-05-13T14:23:00.000-04:00

Hey, what's this?

Why, it's Joe Chill, the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne, getting his head blown off just as Bruce is about to kill him! Joe, obviously, has had better days.

Why, oh why would Greg post this gruesome picture? Well, I think you comic book geeks out there know why. Apparently (I write "apparently" because I haven't read it yet) we learn in Infinite Crisis #7 that Joe Chill, the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne, has been captured, tried, and convicted of those very killings! Huzzah!

Now, I'm not the biggest stickler for continuity, as you know. It's nice and all, but I don't pore over back issues of Detective Comics when it had Green Arrow back-up stories to find out that Ollie has a third nipple and how dare the artists don't draw that today! But let's consider the fate of the lone gunman who took out Thomas and Martha Wayne lo those many years ago. Pre-Crisis stuff was wiped away; I get it. So the mugger becomes some faceless anonymous baddie who is just a symbol of the modern world's horrors, and poor little Brucie can't ever make up for the loss of his parents. Then came Mike W. Barr, ably abetted by the not-yet-insane Todd McFarlane, and in "Year Two," Batman meets the man who killed his parents, Joe Chill, and is about to blast his head off when the Reaper shoots Joe in the head with a gun that apparently causes your entire head to 'splode! That's one powerful gun, I tells ya! But, okay. A new status quo is established. It's 1987.

The Crisis wasn't enough for DC, though. God forbid we leave it alone! So along came Zero Hour! In the zero issue of Batman, we learn that the identity of the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne remains unknown and that the crime went unresolved. Excellent! Now Batman's war on crime can be seen as a relentless pursuit of his parents' killer, one he can never, ever, ever win! How cool is that? It's 1994.

Well, apparently that wasn't cool enough. So now Joe Chill is incarcerated, although, not having read the issue, I don't know the particulars. I'm sure somebody does!

I'm not going to get into the whole "Why don't real people think comics are cool like we nerds?" thing, but one reason might be because comics fans can have conversations that sound exactly like this:

Neophyte Nerd: Say, whatever happened to the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne?
Older Nerd: Well, Batman found out it was a guy named Joe Chill who was working for Lew Moxon and when he confronted Chill about it, Chill ran into another room with a bunch of hoods and told them he killed Batman's parents, and the stupid hoods shot him in anger before they could get Batman's name out of him! Oh, those stupid hoods!
Younger Nerd: Man, you're such a tool! Everyone knows that Crisis on Infinite Earths wiped that history out! In "Year Two" (which ran in Detective Comics #575-578), Batman has to make an unholy alliance with Joe Chill and the Gotham gangsters to stop the Reaper, who is carving up people he sees as bad, including gangsters. When Bruce confronts Chill, the Reaper shoots the bad guy in the head and laughs, because he knows that he is the father of Bruce Wayne's fiancèe!
Even Younger Nerd: Oh sure, Older Nerd is a tool! What about you? You're stuck in the Eighties, man! Come on, Zero Hour changed all that, and now Batman's killer is just some random mugger. Get your facts straight, loser!
Grant Morrison: Actually, you're all wrong. As DC's Continuity Caliph, I have decreed that Joe Chill was arrested, tried, and convicted for his heinous crime, and he is now Killer Croc's bitch in Blackgate Prison. So there.
Even Younger Nerd: But isn't Croc on the loose in the latest issues of Batman and Detective?
Grant Morrison (turning into Darkseid): Are you daring to question my mandates! You know I control those weird beams that come out of my eyes and can turn right angles and utterly destroy you!!!!!!
All Nerds: Sorry, sir! You're absolutely correct!!!!
Movie Nerd: I thought the Joker killed Thomas and Martha Wayne?

At which all the nerds and Grant Morrison beat Movie Nerd to death with their authentic replica Batarangs that they bought on eBay.

Normal people walking by would be shaking their heads and saying "No wonder those people never get laid."

I don't care about the status of Joe Chill, you understand. I just wish DC would pick a damned status quo and keep it the damned status quo! The next time someone wants to write a damned Joe Chill story, somebody at DC should have the cajones to say, "No. We're done writing Joe Chill stories. He's in Blackgate prison, sharing a cell with Killer Croc, and that's that. Use your damned imagination and come up with a different story."

I mean, let's review: that's four changes in the story in the past 20 years. Get with it, DC. Pick a foundation and build from that. There are plenty of good Batman stories to tell that DON'T involve who killed his parents.

Sorry. I just have to rant occasionally. You know.

See What It Is!

Do Clothes Make the Character?

2006-05-13T07:53:00.000-04:00

As some of you may know, David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane had a dispute about 12 years ago or so, over whether McFarlane was the "co-creator" of the character Venom. Michelinie came up with the idea of a bad guy who used the alien symbiote to try to kill Spider-Man. McFarlane took the design idea of "a big guy in the alien costume" and turned out Venom - basically a monster with the alien costume look, rather than a person wearing the alien costume, complete with a grotesque tongue and giant teeth.

The question remains, then, IS McFarlane the co-creator of Venom?

I think it goes back to the basic question - does the character design of a character define a character? DO clothes make the character?

For a time in the 1970s, John Romita would design pretty much any new character (if an artist didn't already have a design in place, like Dave Cockrum with the All-New, All-Different X-Men) that a Marvel writer came up with. For example, Romita designed the costume for the Punisher.

Is Romita, therefore, the co-creator of the Punisher?

Is Romita the co-creator of Wolverine?

Is designing the character the same thing as "creating" them?

Peter David famously came up with the WACKO theory, which stands for "Writer As Creative King/Overlord," which posits that, unless we are given specific reasons otherwise (like someone saying, "We created it together" or the Silver Surfer, which Jack Kirby came up with out of whole cloth), the writer should be considered the creator of the character, not the artist.

Comics are clearly a visual medium first and foremost, so the LOOK of a character is extremely important.

Enough, though, so as to consider the DESIGN of a character to be co-creation? Even if the background/history/motivation of the character has already been planned out by the writer?

In other words, is character design a necessary component of comic character creation?

I'm thinking yes.

Anyone think otherwise?

Does this Quesada point make sense?

2006-05-12T23:55:00.000-04:00

In the continuing drama of the Spider-Man marriage, Joe Quesada (in his always interesting, at the very least, weekly column, Joe Fridays) wondered why people weren't discussing a point of his, which he seems to think is a big winner. Says Joe,

What I found interesting is that no one seemed to address a very important point I made last week. Knowing that having a child or getting divorce, annulled, separated, or widowed and all those sorts of things aren’t an option, there is not a single story of a married Peter Parker that can’t be told with a single Peter Parker. On the other hand, the exact opposite isn’t true.

I don't get it.

Does that make sense? Does he have some big winner here? It doesn't seem to make sense to me, as I don't see how that is that strong of a point. I mean, PICK a Spider-Man change. Like the organic webspinners. Is there a story out there with organic webspinner Peter Parker that can't be told with webshooters Peter Parker?

In the alternative, does the fact that you can tell stories with Spider-Man living in Avengers Tower that you can't tell if Spider-Man lives in a shitty apartment make the Avengers Tower thing a better plot device? I don't see how it does.

If it's just "The marriage is constraining," then fine, I think people get that - they acknowledge it.

But otherwise, what am I missing here that makes this an awesome point?

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #50!

2006-05-11T23:15:00.000-04:00

This is the fiftieth in a series of examinations of comic book urban legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous forty-nine.

Let's begin!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: John Romita broke into comics pretending to ink for penciller, while the penciller was actually inking Romita's pencils!

STATUS: True

Some of the most interesting comic book stories, I have noticed, are about how people broke into the business, and the story of how John Romita broke in was so good that I saved it for this here installment of Urban Legends Revealed.

In Alter Ego Vol. 3 #9, Roy Thomas asked John Romita about his start in comics...

Thomas: You mentioned at the 1995 Stan Lee Roast in Chicago [NOTE: See Alter Ego Vol.3 #1] how in '49 you started out penciling for a guy who was really an inker, but who pretended to Stan that he was penciling material which you ghosted for him. Don't you think it's time you finally told us who that artist was?

Romita: The reason I never gave his name was, I didn't want to embarrass him. His name was Lester Zakarin. I met him for the first time in forty years in 1999, at a convention in New York, and he told me he wasn't offended by any of the interviews I'd given. I'd always say that this artist I was ghosting for would tell Stan he could pencil, but actually I'd do the penciling for him, and he just inked my pencils.

[Here's one of the issues in question, Strange Tales #3]

But Stan was one of the few editors who'd ask guys to make changes. And when he asked Lester Zakarin to change something, he would panic. So I would go into the city with him and I'd wait at the New York Public Library, which was very close to where Timely was, at the Empire State Building. Zakarin would get the corrections from Stan and tell him, "I can't draw in front of people. It has to be absolutely quiet. I'm going to a friend's office. I'll do these corrections and bring them back in the afternoon." Then he'd meet me at the library, and I'd do the corrections, and then he'd go back to Stan. [laughs]

Later on, in an interview with Tom DeFalco for his excellent book of interviews, "Comic Creators on Spider-Man," Romita told the aftermath of the story...

I ghosted for Lester for about a year and a half, until I got drafted in 1951 and we drifted apart. I worked for Stan all that time and he didn't even know who I was. I was stationed at Governors Island after I finished basic training in 1951. My wife, Virginia, was working on Wall Street at the tiem, so I would take the ferry and meet her for lunch. I had a free afternoon one day and went uptown to see if Stan Lee had any work for me. I told his secretary that Stan didn't know me, but I had been ghosting for Lester for over a year. She went to speak with Stan and came out a few minutes later with a four-page horror story.

That began a seven-year stint at Marvel, then romance comics at DC for a time before returning to Marvel in the 1960s and becoming a sensation on Spider-Man.

Isn't that a nifty story?

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: The Super-books were not going to marry Clark and Lois until the TV show got involved.

STATUS: False

It's interesting how things come about, isn't it?

The Super-books at one point did a storyline where Lois and Clark break up.

However, it was then announced that Clark and Lois would be getting married on the TV show, Lois and Clark: The Adventures of Superman, so the comics quickly had to catch up, so eight months after the broke up, they both got BACK together and were quickly married.

So it certainly looked like the TV show forced the comic into marrying the couple. In truth, though, it was actually almost the exact OPPOSITE.

The following piece is from Michael Bailey's article on the 10th anniversary of Superman's death from the Superman Homepage. It's a good deal more efficient than me just splicing together different interviews on the subject.

With four teams of creators and four titles that had such a tight continuity it was necessary for the creative forces and the editor to meet and discuss upcoming story ideas and map the future of Superman. At these "Super Summits" Carlin and crew produced the "Superman Charts," which were a general plan for the next year that would be revised and updated as the stories were actually produced. In an e-mail interview conducted for this article Dan Jurgens described how the story meetings would work. "There were anywhere from seven to twenty people gathered all in those meetings, each with their own ideas, who somehow had to conjure a coherent story from a boiling cauldron of conflicting ideas," he wrote. "It was very difficult, at times, for the writers to let go of some of their ideas and notions in order to make everything fit together for the overall good of the united stories. In retrospect, it's a wonder it worked as well as it did."

Dan was quick to point out the person responsible for the success of the format. "Mike Carlin, one of the best editors this field has ever seen, deserves a tremendous round of applause for focusing us. The creative teams were like a band, a collection of diverse experiences and notions, and he was the producer who put it all together for 'the sound.'"

One of these summits was held to discuss not the death of Superman but the wedding of Lois and Clark. Clark had proposed at the beginning of Superman #50 and by the time the issue ended Lois had accepted. A few months later in the pages of Action Comics #662 Clark even told Lois the truth about his double life. It was an event in real life as well when the press picked up on the story and Superman got some ink in newspapers and mentions of telecasts across the country. Even the most skeptical reader was beginning to wonder if DC was actually going to go through with it and indeed they would have if it wasn't for a medium seemingly more powerful than comics; television.

DC president Jenette Kahn had been working for several years to sell the concept of a Superman television series. The series would be different, though, and at one point had the title Lois Lane's Daily Planet. In 1991 Les Moonves, head of Lorimar Television and writer/producer Deborah Joy Levine helped sell the series to ABC television with a new title, Lois and Clark: The Adventures of Superman. Despite the fact that the show would not air until the fall of 1993 the mere fact that the show was being developed had an effect on the comics.

Mike Carlin discussed the Super Summits that would deal with the wedding with comic historian Les Daniels in his book Superman: The Complete History. "There was one [Summit] where we literally came into hoping to talk about the wedding with the TV people, but the show got put on hold for a while and they weren't there. We were stuck. And I do think that there was some resentment from the talent that they weren't able to do what they had planned." The reason for this was simple. As Carlin put it, "DC's decision was that it would be a good idea to hold off the wedding and do it at the same time as the TV show, if it got that far."

So the creative team was left with a story vacuum. Despite the fact that the wedding was on hold the teams still needed to produce stories to fill the comics to put on out to the stands. The solution came from something that had become a running gag at the Super Summits. Mike Carlin told Comics Scene Magazine in 1993, "This isn't the first Superman meeting where somebody said, 'Let's kill him off'; this is not the first meeting or plotting session I've gone to on any character where they said, 'Let's kill him.' I mean that happens in life and that happens in comics. At the meeting we had planned to do another story, but due to extenuating circumstances we had to push that back a little bit and then we had to fill the gap. So somebody said, "Let's kill Superman.'"

So yes, years later, it was a push by the TV show that got Clark and Lois married, but not before the TV show KEPT them from being married!

It's interesting how things come about, isn't it?

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Venom was originally going to be a woman.

STATUS: True

In the same book of Spider-Man interviews, David Michelinie talks about the origin of Venom...

Interestingly enough, he was a character I started to introduce in Web of Spider-Man, and he was actually supposed to be a she. I began with the alien costume that had come back with Spider-Man from Secret Wars, and had been used throughout your [DeFalco's] run. It was basically in limbo at the time, having already been rejected by Spider-Man. I was intrigued with the idea that there was this thing that did not trigger Spidey's spider-sense. Most people forget that the spider-sense is a very unique power, and that Spider-Man really depends upon it. I actually started Venom's story in two issues of Web.

In Web #18, Peter Parker is waiting for a subeway train. A hand comes from the crowed and pushed him in front of the train. He leaps to safety, but he's spooked because someone was able to sneak up on him and his spider-sense didn't react.

I set up another scene in Web #24 where he's stuck to the side of a building. Someone suddenly reaches out of a window, yanks him by the ankle and sends him falling. Peter starts to really freak out because someone is getting past his defenses.

I originally wanted the character to be a woman. She was pregnant and about to give birth. Her husband is rushing to get to a hospital. He runs into road to flag down a cab, but the cabbie is looking up at Spider-Man who is fighting someone - I think it might even have been the Living Monolith from my graphic novel. The cabbie doesn't see the husband and accidentally hits and kills the guy. The woman sees her husband splattered in front of her just as she goes into labor. She loses the child and her mind at the same time, and is institutionalized. Though she eventually gets her mind back, she blames Spider-Man for the death of her husband and her child. The alien costume, which has also been hurt by Peter Parker, is drawn to the woman because of her intense hatred of Spider-Man. The costume then bonds with her to try to kill Peter.

When I was switched to Amazing, Jim Salicrup told me he wanted to do something special in #300, and he suggested I introduce a new character. I hit him with my idea of using the alien costume. Though he liked it, he wasn't sure the readers would see a woman as a physical threat to Spider-Man, even a woman enhanced by the alien costume. At that point I came up with the Eddie Brock angle.

Pretty odd point by Salicrup, no?

Oh well, it would have been interesting, no?

plus equals

Well, that's it for this week, thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to drop off any urban legends you'd like to see featured!!

No, sweet Jeebus, no! Anything but that!

2006-05-11T22:45:00.000-04:00

Comics: They don't make 'em like they used to.

What I bought - 10 May 2006

2006-05-11T13:49:00.000-04:00

It was a slow week (for me, at least), as only five floppies made it home with me. The rest lay crying on the table, because they knew that only the cool comics get to go home with me! Interestingly enough, three books ended story arcs. Okay, maybe that wasn't that interesting, but in this world of six-issue arcs, it's something.

This week's theme: Comics that disappointed Greg! The only one that didn't was the one I didn't read!

Ex Machina #20 by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, and Tom Feister
$2.99, DC/Wildstorm

I'm going to spoil the ending, because I think it's important, so if you haven't read this yet and are planning to in the near future, you might want to skip down. Just so you know.

I read this very carefully, after my experience with issue #19, and it was still flimsy. WTF, Wildstorm? Staple your damned books better! Anyway, the war protest story comes to an end, a little strangely. I don't have much of a problem with Vaughan leaving things murky because that's how real life is, but the bad guy seems just a little too vague. Mitchell uses his powers to track him down, and the debate he has with Bradbury about it is interesting reading, but when he finds the guy, it's unsatisfying. The bad guy doesn't tell us anything about why he released the poison gas, and we don't find out, except that it's not about religion. The fact that he's a self-proclaimed atheist bothers me a bit, simply because I wonder if Vaughan did it so he wouldn't be seen as picking on Muslims. I mean, let's face it, as much as I dig Muslims from a historical perspective, the guys who destroyed the World Trade Center called themselves Muslims. The bad guy, Sammir Hallouda, says he's a scientist, and that if Americans keep thinking "this" is about religion, they're going to lose the war on terror. It's just a weird few pages, and like I said, it's not very satisfying.

The ending is what matters in the book, anyway. The terrorist strike was the catalyst, but the reaction of New Yorkers (the murder of Sikhs and other non-Muslim but vaguely swarthy people) and the fate of Journal is what's important in the story. At the end of this issue, Journal dies. It's a shame, because she and Wylie are interesting characters, but why I'm not pissed off about it like I was when certain other female characters died (Robina in Desolation Jones #6) is because of the difference in tone. Journal's death doesn't feel mean-spirited; it's a logical consequence of a terror attack, and it wasn't an attack on Mitchell to make him feel pain. When people go to a protest and poison gas is launched into their midst, people are going to die. That's just the way it is. Journal is a much better character than Robina was, and her death affected me more, but it didn't make me angry, it just made me a bit sad and made me wonder how Mitchell and his staff will deal with it. I'm curious as to how this will play out, unlike in Desolation Jones, where the circumstances of Robina's death just make me want to stop reading. It is, as I wrote, a difference in tone - it feels like Vaughan did agonize a bit over killing off Journal, whereas it felt like Ellis got rid of Robina with just a tiny bit of glee. But that's just my opinion.

As usual, this continues to be a wonderful book, and the events of this issue add a bit more depth to it and open up new stories. I'll be interested to see where Vaughan goes now.

As a bit of an aside, the priest at the end tells Mitchell that he's giving Journal her last rites. "Last rites" is an archaic term that is no longer used in the Catholic church. It's called "anointing of the sick" and has been called such for a long time (since the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, maybe). Lay people and people ignorant of Catholicism still call it "last rites," but would a priest really call it that? I know she was dying, but wouldn't he still call it the correct term? Maybe he's just old school. Anyway, a minor nit to pick, but it still bugged me.

Fables #49 by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha
$2.75, DC/Vertigo

This is another vaguely disappointing issue, because the main storyline doesn't really go anywhere. Mowgli finds Bigby and convinces him to come back to Fabletown, but it's not terribly dramatic. Bigby just makes up his mind, leaves his cabin in the woods and the girl he hooked up with, and they're off. It's surprisingly boring.

The best parts of the issue are the ones setting up the next big story. "The winds are changing" is the big theme, as the North Wind leaves the Farm unexpectedly, strong winds come to the farm, Bigby's girlfriend - Sarah - returns to civilization (and I expect we'll see her again, because if not, what's the point of showing her returning to civilization), Gepetto feels something strange happening ("probably just a change in the winds," he says), and the bodiless pig Colin shows up and tells Snow he's moving on because things are going to get better for her. Well, I don't buy that last bit, because it's drama, after all, but these various portents make the issue interesting even though Mowgli's confrontation with Bigby threatens to bog it down. The idea of Mowgli going after Bigby was certainly an intriguing one and probably needed to be told, but it's weird how dull it actually was.

Anyway, issue #50 is next, so I'm sure feces will hit the fan. This is still a good book, but Willingham has been treading water for a while. I hope he gets it in gear next issue.

She-Hulk #7 by Dan Slott and Will Conrad
$2.99, Marvel

Another hideous cover. And not to be too nit-picky (shut up), but I was under the impression that Jen was NOT a personal injury lawyer. Therefore, if you slip and fall, she's NOT the one to call. I could be wrong, though.

I'm missing Juan Bobillo already. Sigh. It's not that Conrad's art is all that bad, it's just kind of bland. Bobillo brought such weird energy to the book, and I have a feeling that part of its charm is now gone. We'll see what Paul Smith brings to our favorite chick Hulk, and maybe they'll get a regular artist who can make this the kind of nifty book everyone should be reading again.

It's not a bad issue, but as we continue our theme for this week, it's vaguely disappointing. Jennifer inexplicably has not yet realized that Starfox may have used his powers on her when they made the beast with two backs in her Avengers days. How can you not even think it? Slott screws up for us Marvel idiots when he doesn't even give us any hint as to whether Eros can control his powers or not. There's a lot of hinting around about it, but we never get a definitive answer. I'm sure somebody out there with a lot more knowledge than I possess can let me know, but it's that fine line in comics between assuming your readership knows everything because they're hard core fans and telling them way too much and boring them to tears. In this case, I think Slott errs on the side of the former, and I just wish he had let us know if Starfox can or cannot turn his power on and off. Especially as it's a legal case, that's probably a key point.

I'm not really sure what the point of this two-issue story was. I assume Slott wanted to examine sexual harassment and assault in the Marvel U., but this is certainly not the place to do it. There are several interesting scenes in these issues, including when the some Avengers don't want to testify on Starfox's behalf because they're not sure if he's manipulating them or not. This book, with its emphasis on superhero law, could be a place where these issues are thrashed out, but the light tone Slott has in place, plus the quick treatment of the case, makes this an inappropriate story. It just felt too serious to be treated so cavalierly and quickly.

Wolfskin #1 by Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp
$3.99, Avatar

Ellis dips his foot into the Avatar pool occasionally, and the results can be gut-wrenching (Scars), entertainingly horrific (the Strange Killings mini-series), or of no interest to me whatsoever (Black Gas - I'm just not into zombies). I didn't have particularly high hopes for Wolfskin, thinking it would be just a nice Conan-esque tale of a barbarian butchering people he doesn't like.

On that front, I'm not disappointed. Our hero (not given a name, and Wolfskin, which I'll call him, is a title) is accosted in the forest by a bunch of guys who attack him, which is of course a bad idea. He slaughters them in particularly gruesome fashion, but is brought up short when their leader, a vaguely Asian-looking fellow, pulls an old-fashioned rifle on him. Wolfskin is appropriately contemptuous of this cowardly weapon, but it allows the Asian dude to chat with him and let him know the situation, which is that he and his brother rule a divided village, and the fact that the one half of the village just lost five good fighters means that the other half will now attack. Wolfskin is honor-bound to defend them, or so the Asian dude says. At the end of the issue, he considers it. Of course he'll fight - what's the point otherwise?

Ryp's art is spectacular and bloody, and is the highlight of the issue. Ellis' story, however, is just simplistic. It's not terribly entertaining, and it drags when the Asian guy explicates the situation. I know it's just a set-up issue, and for a set-up, Ellis follows the Golden Rule of fiction: hook your audiences with excitement (the bloody battle in the woods) and then explain the situation once they're hooked. Okay, it's a perfectly serviceable comic book. But there's no reason to buy it in its single-issue format, because the trade paperback should read much better. I have to pre-order it because my store wouldn't carry it otherwise, so I'm on the hook for the series (or at least the first few issues, which means I'll get the whole thing), but I wouldn't bother if I were you. Unless you come back in a few months and I tell you the collected edition will be worth it. We'll see. At least sympathetic women don't get shot in the head (and yes, I'm not letting that go).

MINI-SERIES I BOUGHT BUT DID NOT READ.
Batman: Secrets #3 (of 5) by Sam Kieth
$2.99, DC

For now, I'm just drooling over the art.

There you have it. No, I did not buy 52, even with The God Of All Comics attached to it. I will continue to resist!

Full Details on the Devil's Due Promotion

2006-05-11T06:14:00.000-04:00

Check it out here on their website.

Be forewarned, though, the website has this weird trailer for an upcoming GI Joe storyline - it is loud and annoying!

Reviews for the 5/10 Comic Week

2006-05-10T06:28:00.000-04:00

Wildcats: Nemesis #9 (Wildstorm)

Thunderbolts #102 (Marvel)

Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #25 (DC)

She-Hulk #7 (Marvel)

American Virgin #3 (Vertigo)

The Xeric Grant Is Good!

2006-05-09T21:47:00.000-04:00

As I've spoken about it in the past, the Xeric Grant is one of the coolest things that has happened to comics in the past two decades. A great example of a creator (Peter Laird) giving back to the comic book community, giving creators some money to further their comic book endeavors with.

Anyhow, the latest grant winners were announced just recently, so I figured I'd share them with you folks here, in case you didn't see them.

Emily Blair – Living Statues
Alexis Frederick-Frost – La Primavera
Joshua Kemble – NUMB
Jason McNamara and Tony Talbert – First Moon
Nate Neal – (Bison image)
Pat Palermo – Cut Flowers
Mark Price – Consider Everything in Bad Shape

I am not familiar with this group, outside of McNamara and Talbert, who I know from the preview of their upcoming project from AiT/Planet Lar, "Continuity."

Would anyone mind sharing what they know about these comic creators? I'd love to know more about Xeric Grant winners.

See the recipients!

Casanova Will Be Good

2006-05-09T02:34:00.000-04:00

Why wasn't I informed that there was a seven-page preview up of Casanova #1 at Newsarama?

Heads will roll! Heads will roll!!

Here is the preview, all you folks who are curious about this book from Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba, that is only $1.99 and will most likely rock most heavily.

I don't even think Fraction mentioned it on his OWN site. It's a goddamned conspiracy, is what it is.

And one last review for the 5/3 Comic Week

2006-05-08T22:17:00.000-04:00

Infinite Crisis #7 (DC)

Barr. Davis. Neary. Batman.

2006-05-08T13:55:00.000-04:00

I shouldn't have to say anymore than that, but I will! A new Comics You Should Own column is up, featuring Detective Comics #569-574, written by Mike W. Barr, drawn by Alan Davis, and inked by Paul Neary. Such good comics! Such a shame it was so brief!

Sunday Field Trip

2006-05-07T21:11:00.000-04:00

Yes, I am very late. My commitment was to have some kind of a column up every Friday and here it is late Sunday. But that's because this week I wanted to write about another class trip, and post a couple of pictures, and, well, the trip didn't take place until today. So here we are.

Usually when I write about my students, I'm speaking of my middle-school kids, the seventh and eighth grade kids. But I also have another group... my elementary-school bunch at the art studio. In fact, that's where the cartooning class was born. The Alki Bath House Art Studio is an outgrowth of the community center youth programs, except that the art programs have the good fortune to be segregated in a separate building, a nice little garage-type studio down on the beach.

They call it the Bath House because back in the early part of the last century, some loon thought he could actually make a Coney-island style amusement park here in Seattle where people could swim and sunbathe... on a beach where it rains 300 days a year and the temperature of the water hovers right around a bone-chilling forty degrees Fahrenheit. Needless to say, the venture was a disaster. Eventually the Seattle Parks Department bought the buildings and put them to use for storage and so on, and about thirty years ago someone had the bright idea that Parks and Rec should turn that old shack on the beach into an art studio for the youth program, and that's what it's been ever since. But because it originally really was a bath house for swimmers to shower and change, they have continued to call it the Bath House Studio. There's painting classes and pottery classes and a week-long 'art camp' during the summer... and in the northeast corner, there's me and whatever gang of would-be young cartoonists I have at the moment.

I had felt guilty about not opening up the Emerald City booth experience to the younger kids (I knew better than to try; it was enough of a logistical nightmare coordinating two groups of 6th and 7th-grade kids, and adding a third group of even younger and more rambunctious students would have had me in a rubber room by the end of the weekend.) So when I saw that Steve Miner was having one of his little one-day shows I made up a flyer letting the kids and parents know about it, explaining that the headliner this time out was Paul Gulacy, "the man who drew the page with the nunchakus."

The kids don't know Shang-Chi, of course, they're too young; but they know the page. I've used it as an example in my class for the last ten years of how to design a page utilizing sound effects and lettering as a visual element that helps lead the eye. (It's from MOKF #39, the battle between Shang-Chi and Shen Kuei.) Here it is:

Since we had just done sound effects and lettering on Tuesday, Mr. Gulacy was relatively fresh on their minds, and I thought it would be fun to shake his hand and let him know that we got a lot of classroom mileage out of his nunchucks.

The deal I always make with the kids when there's a show is, "The center won't pay for it, but if you want to go, Julie and I will be there at one, and we'll give you the guided tour through Artist's Alley." We didn't have as many takers as I'd thought we might, given the response in class on Tuesday, but Troy and Alison made it.

A teacher isn't supposed to have favorites. But we all do. I am very fond of Troy and Ali because they are just SO INTO COMICS. All comics. Any comics. If it's drawings and word balloons, they are THERE. Their sense of wonder at all of it is really catching, and their mother, who is somewhat befuddled by all of it but loves seeing the two of them having fun, is very supportive.

As always, the small-press folks were wonderful. Quenton and the gang at QEW Publishing have always been great friends to my kids in the various classes; Quenton's been a supporter of the program ever since I ended up sitting next to him on a plane back from San Diego one year and gave him one of our books to look at. I am a bad, bad man for neglecting to get the name of the young woman artist who talked to Ali and her mom for twenty minutes ("I love that you have GIRL students!" she almost sang) and let Ali flip through all her pages-in-progress for the new book she was working on, explaining about bluelines and inking and all the technical steps a page goes through. Many, many thanks to her, and I can't apologize enough for forgetting her name. All I can think is that it was Camilla or Cammy or something like that. I suck. But she was a delight and I hope her book is a smash. Certainly the pages were gorgeous. We didn't get a good shot of her or of the pages, sadly, but here's Ali looking through the portfolio pile.

And Jason Metcalf, another local boy, who's always been good with the kids. He looked a little startled to realize we've been running into each other at Steve Miner's shows for four or five years now. Jason does really nice superhero art, beautifully detailed and finely-rendered in a style that's a little reminiscent of Jim Lee but has a sort of baroque line all its own, that sort of ornate feel you get from Tony Harris. It's really a nice combination and I don't know why he doesn't get more mainstream superhero work. If I was going to revive John Carter of Mars or some property like that, something with a lot of art deco spaceships, and brawny guys with swords and maces, and half-clad princesses draped over gold-inlaid railings, it's Jason I'd be trying to get on the phone. You heard it here first. Anyway, he's very talented and always great with my kids... Jason has probably forgotten this, but he earned a place on my short-list of Really Great Comics People years ago when he made some forty-year-old geek wait for his sketch while he dropped whatever commission he was working on to show a student of mine how to draw a belt buckle and make it look real. It was both heartwarming and hilarious. And here he is talking to Ali.

As it turned out, Paul Gulacy was mobbed. But he did a nice sketch for us in our class scrapbook of Helpful Hints from Pros, a smiling Batman saying, Hey kids! Here is what I always did -- after your homework, try to do a little drawing every day before bed, even if it is a little goofy thing. If you don't want to draw, get some clay and make stuff!

"True story," Gulacy said, handing the scrapbook back to me. "I used to make these little clay guys, monsters and stuff, put 'em on sticks, crazy stuff. But anything to help you visualize!"

This endeared him utterly to my wife Julie, since she is a potter; we met in the Bathhouse pottery studio, as a matter of fact. So anyone who works with clay, even making monsters and crazy stuff, is tops in her book.

Here's Troy and Ali and... well, the top of Paul Gulacy's head, behind Troy's shoulder. But I think that was when Steve came up to talk business with him and our one inviolate rule at shows is that we never, NEVER bother artists who are doing business. Otherwise I'm sure we could have gotten him to pose with the kids, but I thought we'd imposed enough by that point.

Anyway, that was the field trip. Low-impact and fun, the best kind to have.

Did we get loot? Are you kidding? There were quarter bins and that's all my bride EVER needs to see. She spent a great deal of time at the Randy's Readers Comics booth, my first shopping stop any time I see him at a show. Julie took my shopping list and elbowed her way past the other geezer nerds with the kind of laser-like focus that only a determined woman can bring to the shopping experience. She cleaned him out of his Shang-Chi and also bowled out some early 70's Detectives I had wanted, including a couple of the ones with the Goodwin-Simonson Manhunter run that I'd been after for years. I think she dropped about thirty-some dollars there.

The real find for the day, though, were the 70's books we saw in the quarter bins at Comics Dungeon's table. Man, I dunno who they've got pricing that stuff. But somebody lost a bundle they could have made on eBay, because we walked away with NM copies of the O'Neil-Kaluta Shadow #1, New Teen Titans Annual #1 by Wolfman and Perez, and -- the big score -- Marvel Spotlight #30, featuring the Warriors Three. Quite possibly one of the funniest comics I've ever read, this was a little one-shot story featuring Thor's three pals trying to get a young lady and her nerdy fiancee back together, with Groo-like blundering good intentions that go further and further awry. Len Wein wrote it and John Buscema drew it and it's one of my favorite things either guy ever worked on. It's been sniped out from under me half-a-dozen times in online auctions over the last year, but today my wonderful determined wife found it for a measly twenty-five cents.

So that was our Sunday field trip.

See you next week, hopefully back on the regular Friday schedule.

Comics' magna opera: Part 3 - What have we learned and what happens next?

2006-05-07T17:07:00.000-04:00

Part 1: quasi-masterpieces on books with company-owned characters.

Part 2: masterpieces by creators who own the characters or who worked on books that the companies didn't care about.

I said it last time, and I'll say it again: I really appreciate all the comments either suggesting other masterpieces or debating the ones I mentioned. Very interesting stuff, and definitely books I need to read.

So what have we learned about comics' masterpieces? Well, we've learned that I need to read more comics! Other than that, I think this is a fascinating topic to ponder because of the way comics have changed in recent years and how we have come to appreciate what can be done with them. Early on, comics were completely disposable (which is why Action Comics #1 costs so much) and geared toward children. We can argue all we want about EC publishing horror comics for adults, and they were, but the large percentage of comics were geared toward children (and even those horror comics were probably purchased by children to a large degree). I would also argue that they were an immature art form. The superhero is the ultimate expression of this immaturity - every superhero is the heroic father figure (yes, even Wonder Woman) to some degree, and the fact that the stories were hopelessly devoid of nuance makes them even more immature. I don't want to bash early comics - if we read them today, we can certainly appreciate why they were so popular - but I think it's not a stretch to call them immature. Even the war comics were immature - Captain America punching Hitler in the face is certainly an attractive option, but ignores the realities of the world in the 1940s. Winning the Second World War was not as easy as a man dressed in an American flag punching a German dictator, although it would have been nice. More wish-fulfillment, more father figure. Don't worry - Captain America will save us!

In the Dark Ages of the 1950s, comics actually branched out a bit when superheroes fell out of favor, but by the time the Marvel Age started, superheroes were back with all their inherent foibles. Stan Lee and Co. tried to move forward, but I would argue that they weren't quite as revolutionary as we want to make them. Sure, Peter Parker had problems, but at the end of the day, he was a superhero, and was trapped by the problems of superheroes. Lee, Kirby, Ditko, and the rest of the Marvel Bullpen of the 1960s were also still working as wage slaves, and although the first 122 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, say, form a coherent whole that is wonderful to read in a short time, it still feels disjointed, not only because of the different creators who worked on the title, but because comics were still, by and large, a disposable form of entertainment, and therefore Marvel had to keep bludgeoning us over the head with Peter's personal problems, for instance, because we might forget them after a few months. It's the same problem you get when you read any of those early Marvel comics - how the hell many times can the Fantastic Four fight Dr. Doom or Namor or Dr. Doom teamed up with Namor? It gets frustrating reading them all at once, but due to the serial and disposable nature of comics, kids reading them probably wouldn't have minded, because they had thrown away the comic they bought three months ago and therefore couldn't go back and remind themselves that Namor had just shown up.

I mentioned in my first post that the first true comic book masterpieces can be found in the 1970s. Some people challenged me on this by referencing Little Nemo, but I stick by it. So there. Why the 1970s? I think it was because the comics professionals from the 1960s were growing up, and for the first time, their characters were growing up too. Unlike DC, Marvel didn't keep their characters in a strange time warp - they were allowed, however slowly, to age, and this added a dimension to comics that had never been seen - the possibility, however slight, of mortality. Mortality is a wonderful thing for art - it adds that tinge of sadness to any story, and adds substance to what we see because we know it's going to end. We will never see a new Rembrandt (well, we might, because they keep digging them out of Dutch attics), because he's dead. We will never learn what happens after Great Expectations ends (not that we want to, because spending that much time with those people is enough, but you get my drift). We will, however, continue to open up a comic book every month and see Bruce Wayne, young and vibrant as ever, even as we grow old. On the one hand, this adds stability and comfort to comics - I'm only 34, but I feel a sense of nostalgia and continuity with the past whenever I read a Batman book. On the other hand, it limits what you can do with the character, not because you're not allowed to kill him (good drama isn't just about that), but because he can't even move forward as a character. Brian's post about Joey Q ripping the Peter Parker-Mary Jane Watson marriage is a syndrome of this. Peter Parker is one of the few mainstream superheroes who has actually moved forward in his life. He graduated from high school, he went to college, he got a job, he entered grad school, he dropped out of grad school, he got married - all of this while maintaining a superhero life. This is what people do, but now Marvel is wondering how to wreck his marriage just because writers can't be bothered to figure out how to write it. They want Peter to be "on the market," because then he can hook up Felicia Hardy again! Or date a woman who's also a supervillain, but he doesn't know it! Or have to choose between two women and agonize about it for pages and pages and issues and issues! Or have to hide his secret identity from his girlfriend! OOOOOOHHHHHH!

With this kind of thinking, it's no wonder that very few masterpieces can be found in the more traditional superhero comic books. Good stories, sure, but few masterpieces. In my first post on the subject, many people suggested books that I was already thinking about for my second post, which is to say books that were created by one person and allowed to run their course. There are many examples of masterpieces on corporate-owned superheroes, but most of the time, they are superheroes no one cares about and therefore the creator is allowed to do whatever he wants. Claremont's X-Men were not top sellers when he began telling the Phoenix Saga. Nobody cared about Dr. Fate or Starman. Most of the examples people gave were of series that only became top sellers because the talent working on them made them great. And what happens when a title becomes a top seller? The company publishing it wants to keep it there and does not want to mess with the formula at all. And we get a lot of recycling of the Phoenix, instead of realizing that it's not the Phoenix story necessarily that people reacted so favorably to, but the fact that Claremont was doing something bold. Most corporate characters are not allowed to grow as characters, especially the top sellers or icons (Superman is not really a top seller, but he's still an icon), because DC and Marvel think they can hook new readers by recycling stuff and they can keep old readers with nostalgia. Therefore it is very difficult for writers to come onto a top selling title and change things. Morrison had the power to make some changes on X-Men, but at the end of the day, exactly what did he change? He killed Jean - boy, that's pretty bold, considering how no one had ever done that before. He killed Magneto - whoops, no he didn't. Morrison wrote very good stories, but he really did very little to change the status quo except for his idea that mutants were the next stage of evolution, and even that he didn't really run with too much. Mutants are just too entrenched for Marvel to allow really bold storytelling on the titles. It's a shame, because a lot of talented writers want to work on the books, which would probably bring in readers because they are good writers, but they are hamstrung once they get on the books - just read Milligan's shadow of a good book on X-Men, where we can see hints of goodness before it lapses back into mutant melodrama.

As we moved into the 1970s and early 1980s, creators began to realize that comics were a medium for telling stories beyond simple superhero stories. Again, EC and other publishers had paved the way for this, but as creators got more savvy about business practices, as creators got older (remember, a lot of creators in the early days were very young), and as companies began to realize that people were keeping their collections instead of throwing them away, the market was able to deal with long-running narratives instead of one-and-done issues. Comics fans were growing up, too, and they weren't necessarily growing out of comics, as they had always done before. Creators pushed for more rights and recognition, too, so comic book fans could demand a book written by Steve Englehart, say, or drawn by Barry Smith. The cult of the creators began here, to the point that today, it's often not the characters that draw fans, but the creators. How many people bought X-Men simply because Morrison was writing it? Forty years ago, it didn't really matter who was working on the books - the characters were the draw. Once that began to shift in the 1970s, it became easier for a creator to seize control of a book and make it his own, or demand that the companies allow them to write or draw their own books. As the corporate comic company structure began to fracture, independent companies allowed creators more freedom, and therefore they were able to sit down and write more personal stuff, which is not necessarily a prerequisite of a masterpiece (as I've mentioned before), but it doesn't hurt. This has led to a Golden Age of Comics, as I've written about before, and I think that if comics are not yet a mature art form, they are getting close. We have nuances in comics writing that we did not have fifty years ago, we have themes that were not written about when the Comics Code was in full effect, we have all the sorts of things that make art great. Certain people (you know who you are!) can bemoan the fact that Superman isn't heroic anymore, and that's certainly a concern, but it's more interesting to look at what makes someone a hero even though they might not be perfect or can someone be a hero in a world where things are not black and white, or why some people are heroic and others are not and why some heroes lose their way. This is the stuff of real drama, and of real masterpieces. Comics may have swung too far to that side, as I mentioned when I wrote about Watchmen, but that's not the fault of Alan Moore, it's the fault of bad writers who want to be Alan Moore. The reason why comics may be a mature art form now is because they are able to encompass both the heroic ideal and a critique of the heroic ideal. Fifty years ago they did not have that subtlety. Masterpieces are not simplistic. They challenge our perceptions and they make us wonder about our ideas about the world. Simple morality tales about Captain America punching Hitler or Batman beating up Osama bin Laden, as much as they might make us feel gung-ho, are not masterpieces. The Green Berets is not a masterpiece; Apocalypse Now is. There's certainly a market for heroes, but that's not all that comics can do anymore, and that's good thing.

So what happens after someone writes a masterpiece? I would argue that nobody sits down to write a masterpiece, they are simply organic creations that come about because a writer is particularly devoted to that piece of work, and it becomes about more than just telling a good story. Good stories are fine, but a masterpiece informs us about the medium and lingers in our imagination and connects to us emotionally. That's why, even if you don't like some of the choices I made, very few people thought I was completely off-base. We can argue that Moonshadow and not Dr. Fate is DeMatteis' masterpiece, and if you say Moonshadow, I don't have a problem with it. But the fact remains that both those works were deeply personal to DeMatteis, and both affect us emotionally, and both have lingered in the popular imagination. Nit-picking over which is less didactic and therefore "better" doesn't negate either one. Masterpieces evolve slowly, especially in comics, and I would argue that very rarely (if ever) does someone sit down and think, "I'm going to write a masterpiece." If they did, it would probably automatically disqualify the work, because it would be far too self-conscious.

But what about after the masterpiece is done? In other forms of entertainment, it might actually be easier to "recover" from writing a masterpiece. Dark Side Of The Moon, after all, is still on the freakin' charts, and Pink Floyd is probably still making good money off of it, so they could take their time coming up with another album. Some artists can never recapture that certain glory they found in their masterpiece. Catch-22 is the only book anyone ever thinks of when someone mentions Joseph Heller, even though Picture This is a more mature work of fiction. Heller could never escape it, going back for a sequel years later. The same thing has happened with Slaughterhouse-5, which remains Vonnegut's masterpiece despite dozens of other books. Michael Jackson never recovered from the fame that accrued to him with Thriller (a great album, by the way). Some artists move on and continue to reach further, occasionally matching their earlier masterpieces or even surpassing them. After the first two Godfather pictures, Coppola made Apocalypse Now. After Taxi Driver, Scorsese made Raging Bull. Then he made Goodfellas. Don DeLillo wrote White Noise and then expanded his vista with Underworld. It can be done.

I wanted to keep my focus on one masterpiece per creator, even though a lot of you suggested works that might also be considered magna opera. I did that simply because of space and time constraints, but also because I tried to look at these things objectively (as best I could) and not just look at great stories or even creators I liked. Therefore I tried to limit myself. However, some creators do seem to move on easily and write another masterpiece. One of the reasons why I can't understand why John Ostrander isn't a bigger name in comics is because of his track record. I have only read the first twenty or so issue of GrimJack, but I know that it's a brilliant comic. I have praised Suicide Squad before without giving particulars, but trust me: it's another brilliant comic book. Either one of those could be considered his masterpiece, and both were written before The Spectre, which is also brilliant. After that he began working on a J'onn J'onzz series, which didn't last, but it was certainly an intriguing read. Comic book creators do move on - more than other artists, who can live off residuals and the accolades of the greater population, comic book writers and artists need to keep producing to keep money coming in (just ask William Messner-Loebs and Dave Cockrum, to name two prominent examples of people damaged by lack of funds).

It's easier for those people working on what I would call "quasi-masterpieces" to move on, obviously. Chris Claremont and John Byrne had to produce Uncanny X-Men #139 a month after their magnum opus ended, because of the nature of the publishing business. Sure, they could have quit the book, but Marvel would have still published a next issue. The nature of serial publishing among the corporate comics culture means not only is it difficult to produce true masterpieces in that arena, but that's it also easier to move on from those stories and to undermine them later. It certainly helps to read the Phoenix Saga if you have no knowledge of what comes afterward, because I don't think I'm alone when I say that when I read it now, I keep thinking of how Marvel has continually shat upon a beautiful story (and yes, that includes Morrison's attempts to re-write the Phoenix Saga). Jesse, Cassidy, and Tulip will always be as they are at the end of Preacher. Tommy and Nat will always be dead. Linda and Eric Strauss will always be inhabiting new bodies, loving each other in San Francisco somewhere. And Christine Spar will always be dead on a rooftop with Argent slain next to her. We can trust these masterpieces, because they are complete works.

But because they're so personal to the creators, it's interesting to track what they do next. Some people quit the job altogether - Gaiman stepped away for five-six years to write novels, and who the hell knows what happened to James Robinson (seriously - where the hell did he go?). Alan Moore got rich and flaky, and is one of the few people who has consistently been able to produce exactly what he wants, despite slumming on WildC.A.T.S for a few years. Interestingly enough, it seems like a lot of creators find their way back to the very thing they rebelled against in the first place - corporate-controlled characters. Morrison went off and did Invisibles, which is his personal work (but, again, not his masterpiece, because it's not very good), but he came back and did JLA and X-Men. Ennis is writing The Punisher, which everyone says is very good, but it's still a Marvel character who can be completely retconned if Marvel wants. During his time on Transmetropolitan, Ellis wrote Come In Alone (maybe that's his masterpiece?), decrying the corporate culture of superheroes, but when Marvel threw some money at him to write Ultimate Galactus, he didn't tell them to go jump in a lake. I'm not saying these books aren't any good, but it's interesting that a lot of writers (in this instance, artists don't really count) seem to want to back off from the challenge for a while. Maybe they need to be re-energized after completing a massive work. I'm not sure. There's nothing wrong with creators going for the easy cash - this is a job, after all, and everyone needs to pay bills - but it's an interesting idea to consider. Does writing something like a masterpiece take it all out of these people and they need to recharge? You'll notice that Morrison's next project after Seven Soldiers is ... Batman. No matter how much of a "hairy-chested love god" Morrison makes him, he's not going to change Batman, and this run will not be his masterpiece, I can predict. Even All-Star Superman isn't changing the character of Superman in any fundamental way. It's Morrison goofing around.

These days, of course, writers move back and forth easily from corporate superheroes to their own, more personal work. It's not that writers have become more flexible, it's that the opportunities to create their own personal work are present more often. J. Michael Straczynski probably doesn't necessarily need to write comic books (maybe he blew all the money he made on Babylon 5 on hookers and blow, but I doubt it), but he does. This allows him a bit more freedom, and I'm still convinced that Marvel only publishes The Book of Lost Souls because JMS has done so well on Amazing Spider-Man. The same principle probably works for Powers. These writers have become popular on the mainstream stuff, so they can push for their own vanity projects (which, deep down in their souls, they probably want to be remembered for rather than their work on a regular superhero book). I'm generalizing here, but I don't think I'm too far off.

This easy switch between the two forms of books means, unfortunately, that it appears more difficult to focus on the more personal work. Since mainstream superhero books need to be on time, it's easier to allow the personal work to fall behind. Since Marvel and DC can pay more, it's easier to sell out and go waste your time on X-Men instead of working on that masterpiece. I'm not saying that masterpieces aren't being written right now. 100 Bullets is a magnum opus. Ex Machina may be. Fables may be. Sleeper might count, and The Losers might work. These creators (with the exception of Willingham and Harris) are still early in their careers, so let's just see. Rising Stars should have been Straczynski's, but it fell apart. Independent companies give creators a lot more freedom to write their own sorts of books, but their precarious nature and scheduling weirdness makes it difficult to capture the imagination of the reading public as well as the Big Two can. I keep pimping Rex Mundi, and I think it three or four years, when it's completed, it will stand as a masterpiece, but it's been dogged by ragged scheduling and therefore might have to wait until it is all collected in trades to have a better impact.

The rise of specialty comic stores and the Internet mean that it's both easier and harder for someone to write a masterpiece. Obviously, comic book shops can carry a wider selection than newsstands did, and proprietors can advocate for various books that might not find an audience right away. The Internet is another good way to spread word of mouth, but it also means we're judging things instantly, before the entire work is seen, and therefore might kill a book before it really gets good. I wonder how many people would have screamed bloody murder on the Internet when they got their hands on Swamp Thing #21 - it would have been akin to Brian's "outrage" at the retcon of Spider-Man's origin. DC might have caved and told Moore to bring back the classic Swamp Thing, or they may have simply waited until he was done and then brought on Larry Hama to rewrite the origin back to the way it was. And nobody wants that! So we can give more attention to these strange, glorious works of literature descending upon us, but we can also tear them to shreds. I'm not sure how much creators are influenced by the white noise of the Internet (not a lot, I'll bet), but its power has to be acknowledged. It would be nice to think of people creating "art" in a vacuum and screw the popular sentiment, but I wonder if it exists.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we're in a Golden Age of Comics. It will be interesting to see comics continue to grow as an art form, and to read these wild magna opera that spring from the minds of these writers and artists. These are the kind of books that you can sit down and read in ten or twenty years and still get blown away. And that's a good thing for comics.

More Reviews for the 5/3 Comic Week

2006-05-07T14:34:00.000-04:00

Marvel Team-Up (Marvel)

Free Scott Pilgrim (Oni)

Was Your Free Comic Book Day Good?

2006-05-07T05:45:00.000-04:00

I got a big kick out of Joe Rice's story here about his outing with his class of students to Rocketship for Free Comic Book Day.

How about the rest of you? Anyone else have a good Free Comic Book Day story?

Dealing From the Bottom of the Deck: What Films Would Make Good Comic Books?

2006-05-06T06:31:00.000-04:00

Someone mentioned this the other day, and it reminded me of an old entry I did on the blog about it, so I figured I'd bring it up again.

What film would you think would make a good comic book?

And remember, we're talking ORIGINAL screenplays here, not "Hey, I think it would be cool to adapt the Three Musketeers."

Here are some that I think would adapt well.

"The Third Man" - You could either have it as following Harry Lime around, doing his misdeeds, or you could have it star Holly (Rollo) Martins, following Harry around trying to stop him.

"Lone Star" - John Sayles created such a ripe background for many an interesting tale about Rip County, Texas.

"Notorius" - Couldn't you just see Alicia Huberman and T.R. Devlin continue to try to outwit the Nazi war criminals?

That's just a few off the top of my head...can anyone else come up with some better ideas?

(Here's the original post and comments)

An Interesting Solution for Bad Comics

2006-05-05T20:26:00.000-04:00

Did y'all see this new promotion Devil's Due is doing? Tear off the cover of any DC or Marvel book that you disliked, send it in to Devil's Due along with a list of three Devil's Due comics that you'd like, and they'll send you one of their books.

Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that I'm saying Devil's Due's books are any better (I think their Hunt for Cobra Commander 25 cent comic was probably the worst promotional comic I recall ever reading), but I do applaud their clever sales approach.

And hey, Joe Casey IS writing G.I. Joe: America's Elite!! We all like Joe Casey, don't we?

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #49!

2006-05-04T23:53:00.000-04:00

This is the forty-ninth in a series of examinations of comic book urban legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous forty-eight. Only the SECOND Theme Week! This week's Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed is "Golden Age Week!"

Let's begin!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: In the comic books, Superman was declared 4-F because he accidentally read the eye chart in another room with his X-Ray vision.

STATUS: False

Awhile back, reader TV's Grady asked,

I once read a piece in one edition of Irving Wallace's "Book of Lists" that addressed the lingering issue of whythe Golden Age Superman didn't just singlehandedly end WWII. According to Wallace and his collaborators, there was a comic story in which Clark Kent was called up by the draft board, but during the eye exam portion of his physical he "accidentally" (huh?) used his X-ray vision to read a different eye chart in the next room over, and was declared 4-F as a consequence. I have my doubts about that, too, considering that the Books of Lists have been known to slip up and present urban legend-y stuff as facts before.

The reference for this occurance has always been Superman #25, from late 1943.

Here's the interesting thing, though.

The scene NEVER APPEARED in the comic books!

Instead, all #25 gives us is a citation referencing that it happened in the PAST.

I checked with Barry Freiman, from the great resource, The Superman Homepage (check it out here), as if anyone will know it, he will, and he replied,

According to my research, that happened in the February 15-19, 1942 installments of the “Superman” newspaper strip. Clark decides to enlist. The guy in front of him is turned down and Clark pities the guy. The doctor then turns Clark down because he erroneously reads the eye chart in the next room -- he is engrossed in thought and not focused on what he's doing which is how he pulls that boner.

Isn't that amazing? The comic books were working on the same continuity plane as the comic strips!

However, the X-Ray scene NEVER appeared in the comics themselves, even though it occasionally gets referenced as occuring in Superman #25.

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: The Spectre had a comic relief sidekick.

STATUS: True

Spectre was introduced in More Fun Comics #52, written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Bernard Bailey.

The Spectre was about Jim Corrigan, a murdered cop who was sent back to Earth to gain vengeance upon criminals as the Spectre.

After a few years of wreaking vengeance, the strip was losing a bit of steam. By issue #68, fellow supernatural hero, Dr. Fate, had taken over the cover spot on More Fun, leaving Siegel to figure out a new angle for the title. In More Fun #74, the comic relief character Percival Popp was introduced. Popp was a dorky wannabe cop who kept trying to get involved in Corrigan's cases.

However, it was not until More Fun #90 that the WEIRDEST stage in the Spectre's career occured (yes, weirder even than having a goatee). It was in the midst of World War II, and while Corrigan had been turned down for war duty, he finally was able to go due to some mystic finagling.

While Corrigan was at war, though, he was actually withOUT the Spectre!!!!!

Yes, as strange as it may sound, while Corrigan was at war, the Spectre him/itself stayed behind, and eventually became a sort of ghostly bodyguard for Percival, who continue to have misadventures.

This was how the series continued until More Fun #101, where the Spectre series ended, and the Spectre was not seen again for over TWO decades!!

Ostrander even managed to bring Popp back for a bit in his Spectre run.

Thanks to Bob Hughes' amazing "Who's whose in the DC Universe" site for the page from More Fun #78.

Thanks to the awesome Annotated Justice Society of America site for the other pics of Popp and Spectre together.

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Wildcat was inspired to become a superhero by the comic book character Green Lantern.

STATUS: True

We are all familiar with how Barry Allen named himself the Flash based upon the Flash comics he read as a kid, starring Jay Garrick. But did you know that Barry was not the first hero to be inspired by the comic book exploits of a fellow DC hero?

In Sensation Comics #1, in 1942, a certain wonderful woman got her own series. However, in the same issue, ANOTHER long-running superhero also made his FIRST appearance - Ted Grant, the Wildcat!

What's interesting, though, is exactly HOW Ted got his start!

Created by writer Bill Finger and artist Irwin Hasen, Ted was a prizefighter framed for the murder of another fighter.

Looking for a way to clear his name, Grant was inspired by a local child, who was a fan of the comic book hero, Green Lantern. Grant figured that, just like how Green Lantern wore a disguise to fight crime, so would Ted! And so Wildcat was born!

Just to make things things even FREAKIER, later in the SAME issue, Little Boy Blue is inspired to become a hero by reading the comic adventures of....WILDCAT (Finger wrote both Wildcat, Little Boy Blue AND Green Lantern at the time)!!!

Thanks to Bob Hughes' amazing "Who's whose in the DC Universe" site for the page from Sensation #1.

Well, that's it for this week, thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to drop off any urban legends you'd like to see featured!!

Reviews for the 5/3 Comic Week

2006-05-04T14:08:00.000-04:00

I was busy Tuesday, so comic reviews had to wait until today. Sorry for the delay.

Season of the Witch #4 (Image)

Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man #15 (Marvel)

Archie and Friends #100 (Archie)

Civil War #1 (Marvel)

Mouse Guard #2 (Archaia Studios Press)

Comic Dictionary - Easy Writing

2006-05-04T13:05:00.000-04:00

Today's term is "Easy Writing," (for the pun value, I wanted to go with Easy Writer, but it just didn't make as much sense as Easy Writing) which is defined as "When a writer has certain events occur in a comic, not because they make sense, but because the writer needs certain things to happen a certain way, and it is just easier to have characters act out of character/illogically than to put in the time to make the scene work logically.

Very often, this occurs during outside writing, but it does not always have to be outside writing. It can sometimes just be when a writer personally wants a story to go a certain way, but usually, it happens in outside writing, when an editor tells a writer that "X" HAS to occur, so the writer will just have X happen, and not spend the time to see if it makes sense or not.

What I bought - 3 May 2006

2006-05-04T10:59:00.000-04:00

I tried to regain my street cred this week, as I bought a bunch o' independent comic books and resisted the siren call of the two "event" books that came out (I'm sure you all did to, right, since I begged you to). Unfortunately, a lot of what I bought were mini-series that I didn't read, but I will still tell you why you should have bought each of these issues instead of Infinite Crisis #7 OR Civil War #1. Because I gotta take care of my peeps, yo!

Detective Comics #819 by James Robinson, Leonard Kirk, Andy Clarke, and Wayne Faucher
$2.99, DC

This series-within-two-series is just blazing along, which is nice to see, and Robinson keeps throwing nice touches at us. Gordon is still not terribly happy with Batman leaving Harvey Dent "in charge" of Gotham, especially now that it appears Harvey has gone 'round the bend. The body count continues to rise, as Orca gets hers (and yes, this is one bat-villain who deserves two bullets in the head). There's a fight with Killer Croc that I really hope is not gratuitous, because it smacked a little of Loeb and Lee's "Hush," in which every bat-villain in existence just happened to be wandering around. If Croc doesn't figure into the big story somehow, I'll be disappointed. Because if he doesn't, he just a page-waster.

(Why is it, whenever I see Croc, I think of the classic Moench story where he went to Louisiana and disappeared into the swamp and Swamp Thing was going to look after him? Other characters more meaningful than Croc have been brought back from fates that were perfect for them, but for some reason, it really offends me that Croc is back from that perfect ending. Strange. I don't know why it bugs me so much.)

Anyway, the issue is strange because it flies along so quickly, with really only two main things happening - Batman and Robin find Orca's body and Harvey Dent looks in a mirror and sees Two-Face. The real meat of the issue, interestingly enough, is in the Jason Bard back-up story, as he interviews Orca's husband (yes, Orca has a husband), who is quickly dispatched by an assassin just as he's about to name the person who just might be behind everything. The assassin, who calls himself "the Tally Man" (and he will tally me no bananas, I can tell you that much) appears to shoot Bard, but we'll see. Wouldn't it be cool if a comic book assassin, when asked his name, said, "Chuck. Call me Chuck."? Or am I the only one who thinks that?

This is shaping up nicely, despite some reservations. I really hope it's a mystery and our boys solve it. It seems like it's going to be, but you never can tell. It might just turn into a slugfest. That would stink.

Why you should buy this instead of Infinite Crisis: Didn't you read the rest of this? Orca dies! Oh, and Alfred whistles while he works. Is anyone in IC #7 whistling? I doubt it.

Hard Time #6 by Steve Gerber, Mary Skrenes, and Brian Hurtt
$2.99, DC

Not really much to say about this, is there? Next issue is the last one, so what's the point? It's a weird issue, certainly, and it bugs me because it's obvious Gerber and Skrenes are trying to wrap everything up. Cancelled titles like this bother me because I'm sure DC could afford to publish it for a few more months to let the authors wrap things up at a normal pace. Sure, go ahead a cancel it, but don't just cut them off like that. Gerber is writing something else for DC, so he's not bitter, but it just bugs me that DC is making money hand over fist with schlock like Infinite Crisis and they can't give this just two or three more months. Shit.

Why you should buy this instead of Infinite Crisis: Duh. It's better.

Team Zero #6 (of 6) by Chuck Dixon, Doug Mahnke, Sandra Hope, and Drew Geraci
$2.99, DC/Wildstorm

You know, you can keep your universe-spanning, Superboy-punching, Anti-Monitor-resurrecting (don't you love the ad for "Brave New World" with "the shock ending featuring the return of the most unexpected character of all!" and the silhouette looks suspiciously like the Monitor?), minor character-slaughtering mini-series. This mini-series is truly excellent. First, it has beautiful art, and except for some sloppy inks in this final issue, it's consistently beautiful. Second, it's a Chuck Dixon war comic. A Chuck Dixon war comic! You have your hardass Americans trying to get scientists and documents out of Peenemunde before the Russians get there. So of course their glider that they were going to use to get out is destroyed, and the roads are watched, and the Red Army arrives, and the shit hits the fan. Team Zero is a bunch of manly men who do their country's work and make sure the womenfolk are treated well, and of course there's a traitor, but he gets his! The Russians are all scumbags, just like we know Commies are, and it's all very Spartans at Thermopylae - we know things will end badly, and many of our heroes will die, but just who dies and how and how they get the German scientists out is why we read. And you should read it, you know. Buy the trade!

And even though it's a Chuck Dixon war comic and is therefore about as subtle as Al Gore when he's talking about global warming, it still shows us the horror of war without getting all mushy about it. Nicely done.

And people die! In a 22-page comic, I count at least 23 people getting killed, and that's only the confirmed ones (when the tank blows up in the beginning, I don't count those soldiers, because they don't appear to be blown to bits). That's good killing value for your dollar!

Why you should buy this instead of Infinite Crisis: Infinite Crisis = Clash of the Titans; Team Zero = Where Eagles Dare.

MINI-SERIES I BOUGHT BUT DID NOT READ.

Atomika #7 (of 12) by Andrew Dabb and Sal Abbinanti
$2.99, Mercury Comics

I had been reading this, but once I learned it was a twelve-issue "maxi-series" I decided to wait it out. But it looks as cool as ever!

Why you should buy this instead of Civil War: Atomika could kick Iron Man's ass!

Elsinore #5 (of 9) by Kenneth Lillie-Paetz and Mark Sparacio
$3.25, Devil's Due

Lillie-Paetz may be more famous these days for other reasons than his writing, but you should still check this out. Apparently they're collecting the first four issues in a small trade. Perhaps you could buy that.

Why you should buy this instead of Civil War: Are you kidding me? Did you not see the killer monkey bellhop on the cover? A killer monkey bellhop!

The Middleman Vol. 2 #3 by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Les McClaine
$2.95, Viper Comics

Once again, I can't stress enough how much fun this comic book is. Please buy it!

Why you should buy it instead of Civil War: I shouldn't have to do this, because the name of the issue is "The Sino-Mexican Revelation," which should sell it already, but here goes:
a. Wendy is carrying what appears to be a seven-barreled shotgun on the cover;
b. Mexican wrestlers, people!;
c. Wendy's roommate is wearing an iguana suit. Whoo-hoo!

Mouse Guard #2 (of 6) by David Petersen
$3.50, Archaia Studios Press

You missed the boat the first time, and the issue sold out. So they printed more! Don't miss the boat this time! Mice fighting evil!

Why you should buy this instead of Infinite Crisis: Does Alexander Luthor have to fight for his life against crabs? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Rex Libris #4 (of 5) by James Turner
$2.95, SLG

It says at the end of the issue that it's "to be concluded" next issue, so I assume it's a mini-series. Look for the trade, good people! Gun-wielding chick librarians!

Why you should buy this instead of Civl War: Gun-wielding chick librarians not doing it for you? Check out the back of the issue:

It's a map. I don't know what it's a map of, but it's pretty cool, ain't it?

Robotika #3 (of 4) by Alex Sheikman
$3.95, Archaia Press Studios

This blog's domination of the Internet is not yet complete, because my and Cronin's glowing reviews of this book are not reproduced on the back cover. For shame, ASP, for shame! Oh well. This is still a gorgeous book. And it has a pretty J.H. Williams III pinup in the back.

Why you should buy this instead of Infinite Crisis: It is a futuristic Japanese western. What more do you desire?

Sorry for the paucity of reviews because I didn't read anything, but blame the evil publishers who sell us mini-series and then make us wait months between each issue! Damn you, independent publishers! Luckily you give us alternate-universe Russkies, weird hellish asylums, Mexican wrestlers, mice warriors, ass-kicking librarians, and ninja! How can I resist????

Infinite Crisis #7 or a Kick to the Balls: U-Decide!

2006-05-04T05:13:00.000-04:00

I know as reviewers we're supposed to offer a thoughtful, objective critique. I know it's important to not be terribly emotive, and provide rational, considered, thoughtful and well-rounded overview of our subject.

But you know, I don't know that a review like that would fully encompass how truly, gutwrenchingly godawful this misbegotten stillbirth of a comic series has been.

In the past, I have defended Geoff Johns. While his writing has never been exactly scintillating, it's been solid, workmanlike, I've said.

Of course, I also wrote a rather scathing review of 'Green Lantern: Rebirth' which included frequent colourful uses of the 'F' word (fuck, just in case). Well, I'm gonna try and keep a cool head and see how long it lasts me before the invective burbles up and I turn into Uncle Kranky, the world's greatest Tourette's suffering comix reviewer.

First of all, I feel a very personal hatred for this comic series. No, it didn't shoot my cat. It didn't kill my wife, or run over my kids. But I work in a comic book store, and there are a lot of people out there who trust me to recommend stuff. I have a policy of not sugar-coating shit. If someone who I know is a fan of Grant Morrisson and Alan Moore's stuff asks me whether I'd recommend X-Treme X-Men trades, for example, I'll say no. Because if I deliberately steer them towards shit to make a quick buck, they'll know better next time and won't listen to the freak behind the counter. Now a lot of folks had reservations about IC. Coming on the heels of Identity Crisis, and heralded by Four Big Comic Book 'Special Events', they were asking me questions like 'Is DC just greedy for ALL my cash?'

But I could see, or thought I could (with apologies to Larry Marder), the Big*Big*Picture.

Government-run agencies in crisis. Outer space exploding. A new secret society of supervillains. The Spectre going crazy. And maybe, just maybe, a connection between all these things all happening to be striking at the same time... hrm...
This is the stuff of BIG, DUMB, FUN SUPERHERO FITES (tm). And when I saw the climactic image of IC#1, I was sold. Ah yeah, I thought, when the world's in THIS much trouble, it looks like a job for Superman.

So yeah, I recommended this sack of crap. To people who trusted me not to steer 'em wrong.

Geoff Johns is a fucking hack. That the man can turn in 22 pages of comic script per title per month is not in doubt. However, he has no sense of drama, of pacing, of style. His characterization is minimal, his ability to maintain a storyline is nonexistant.

Even when given such rich, fantastic tools to deal with, he persists in attempting to force everything with a sledgehammer.

In this way, IC is very much like Green Lantern: Rebirth. He is given a brief (do this, this and this) and he does it. However, there is no art and no craft. He merely hops in his narrative steamroller and heads from point (a) to point (b) and on to point (c), travelling in a series of straight lines and crushing any sort of style, flair and energy out of the narrative as he chugs blissfully onto the final page where he can hit that final '.', hand it over and get paid.

Okay, so let's take a look, shall we?

We have four miniseries which set up four crises in four different areas of the DCU. Omac Project, which affects the Government and our big 3 superheroes. We have Day of Vengeance, which affects the mystical shit community. Rann-Thanagar War which affects the space kiddies. And Villains United, which affects all the baddies. Goodgood. This has all the earmarks of a good big story there.

What does Johns focus on?

The world's first and most archetypical hero standing on his porch waving his cane and yelling at the young whippersnappers to turn down that goddamn ya-ya music!

The world's most powerful spoiled brat punching the heads off teenagers so that people will like him.

The only hero in a world of evildoers poncing about with a giant tuning fork and making Monty Burns speeches.

So yeah, basically, issues 2, 3, 4 and 5 are a nauseating series of talking heads where we get the following lines of dialogue over and over and over again.

Superman: "In MY day, superheroes knew their place! We didn't have all this proton and quoton rubbish. At least you knew where you stood!"

Superboy: "You all suck. I'm the best superhero there is. And to prove it, I'll kill all the other superheroes! Yay for me!"

Alex Luthor: "Moo-hahaha! Soon, my evil plan will be complete and everything will be nice again!"

Repeat until you want to gouge your eyes out with a #2 pencil.

In between, Johns, flailing around desperately in search of a plot, leads us down a number of dead-end streets. The multiverse comes back for two issues, but it's gone again, so that's alright. It looks like one or another of the things that actually lead us to this point (Checkmate, The Omacs, Polaris, The SSoSV...) might get resolved, but you don't care about any of THAT do you? No, you want more of crotchety old Superman, whiny young Superman and evil-in-the-cause-of-good Alex. So grab your partners and we'll recite their signature lines over again in lieu of ACTUAL dialogue or characterization.

So yeah, flailing, repetition and exposition. It's like Johns has some sort of narrative ADD.

"Superman's Back! What'll I do? Let's make him a grumpy old man! Okay, milked THAT idea, what's next?"

"An army of killer robots attack Paradise Island. I know. Wonder Woman fights them! Next!"

"The multiverse returns! Hmm... good for a couple of pages of fight scenes... Next!"

"The death of Lois Lane! Hmm. Superman cries a bit. Next!"

The sorts of ideas that a competant writer could turn into gold, and Johns and his narrative steamroller just roll straight over them. No time, no time, gotta get to the end. No time for story. No time for character. Gotta page count to fill. Gotta cash my cheque.

By the end of the series, there isn't even a story. It's just a series of unconnected images.

Judomaster's crippled.

Peacemaker's dead.

Bart's the Flash.

Now he's not.

Dick Grayson's dead.

maybe he isn't.

It's not coming from anywhere, it's not going anywhere.

It's just a series of still images flashes across your eyes at high speed, with a couple of crowd pleasing group shots amateurishly scrawled by a series of fill-in artists to keep people from realizing that there's no story.

Because there isn't. I looked for it, and it's not there.

I'm fucking disgusted.

Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Stories have characters and a plot. Stories have a series of events which build to a climax and then resolve themselves.

This isn't a story.

It's a tale.

Told by an idiot.

Full of sound and fury. Signifying

nothing.

New Comic Foundry Magazine Up

2006-05-03T00:04:00.000-04:00

It's the beginning of the month, which means a new issue of the Comic Foundry online magazine. Check it out here.

This month even has the added bonus of a piece by yours truly, "The 25 Most Important Events in Comics in the Past 25 Years." Check it out here.

A Costume Preference

2006-05-02T00:10:00.000-04:00

You know what I don't think we see enough of? Costumes inspired by the flag of the country the character is from. It's such a great look...

United States of America...

Britain...

Canada...

China...

Russia...

Germany...

Turkey...

Japan...

Israel...

Syria...

Am I missing anyone (thanks to everyone who has suggested a character I've missed...it's really interesting seeing them all next to each other like this)? No duplicates of flags already represented, please!

Let's see some more flag-inspired costumes, comic book creators!!

Click for some examples

For the record...

2006-05-01T22:54:00.000-04:00

... I liked Desolation Jones #6.

Sorry, Greg.

Comics' magna opera: Part Two - the auteurs

2006-04-30T17:23:00.000-04:00

Buckle in - it's a long one!

Before we begin, I want to direct you to this post, at which Peter clarifies a bit of the difference between magnum opus (which I use just because I'm a snotty Latin scholar) and a masterpiece. He does a very nice job. I'm still going to use them interchangeably, because it's less boring than using magnum opus all the time, but that post is a nice way to separate the two.

Anyway, in my last post I spoke of what I called "quasi-masterpieces" because I'm not sure if we can call stories written for corporate comic book characters, which by definition will continue to exist as long as they're profitable for the company, as actual masterpieces. The arc of their lives cannot be fulfilled, because they must always have an "out" so that the company can continue to publish them. Gorjus made an excellent point that many creator-owned comics were not the creators' masterpieces, even though I defined "masterpiece" as something that is personal. That part of my definition seems to argue even further against corporate comics as being capable of achieving greatness, but that's not necessarily so. Many people who have worked on established characters do feel a connection to those characters, and do put their personality into them. The characters that already exist are often archetypes, so anyone can relate to them. Why do you think every single freaking writer of Batman has to do a Joker story or a Penguin story or a Two-Face story? Those could be masterpieces, even if they are using slightly hackneyed characters. Of course, if you create the characters, you might feel more of a connection, but that's not the only prerequisite for writing a magnum opus.

Now that we got that out of the way, I do want to look at what I would call auteurs, simply because I'm snooty. These are masterpieces that are largely the work of one creative force who either created the characters he worked on (sad that I can't think of a single woman to put on this list, although I welcome nominations!) or was given complete carte blanche to use existing characters no one cared about. Some of these were mentioned in the comments of the last post, and some I decided on my own. As always, discussion is encouraged.

Jim Starlin's magnum opus: Dreadstar issues #1-40, November 1982-January 1989. You thought I'd forget about Starlin, didn't you? Ha! Nobody does space opera like Starlin, and with Dreadstar, he got his chance to go nuts. This is somewhat of a forgotten classic, as it bounced from Marvel (Epic) to First, and then when First went under it did for a long time. Delays in publishing (40 issues in six years?) also hurt it. The issues after #40 are pretty damned good, too, but Peter David was writing it, so these issues form Starlin's masterpiece. Dreadstar is, well, it's not exactly a fun book, but it's certainly less "deep" than most of the works on this list. Vanth and his crew are simply rebels fighting against a tyrannical galactic empire, and that's what they do. You know, blow shit up, beat people up, run away, that sort of thing. What makes this a masterpiece is that Starlin is concerned with politics and he tries to show how nobody can ever stay clean, even when they're doing something as noble as fighting a tyrant. Dreadstar and company have to cut deals, they have to watch out for traitors, they have to make hard choices that sometimes lead to the deaths of those they care about, and they can't let their emotions get in the way of saving the galaxy. It's a fascinating look at a rebellion, and more impressively, Vanth and his gang actually win.

This leads to a more interesting coda to the main part of the series, in which Starlin looks at what happens when something you're fighting for your entire lives goes away. Dreadstar is in a coma for a long time (a year, maybe? two?) and when he wakes up, all his friends have jobs with the new regime, but they're not necessarily happy, because their swashbuckling days are over. Dreadstar and Company are not unlike the Starjammers, but whereas Marvel couldn't allow doubt to enter the minds of Corsair and his buddies after Lilandra recaptured her throne, Dreadstar sees that the new boss is not really that different from the old boss. He probably should have listened to The Who more often! Starlin is making an interesting comment about heroes in general - what do you do when you have nothing left to fight? These people are not built to shuffle off into retirement, and Dreadstar cannot deal with being part of a bureaucracy, and he quickly butts heads with the new government just as he did with the old. Is a hero still a hero when he appears to be making trouble just for the sake of it? When does a hero of the old revolution become a terrorist in the new state? Starlin struggles to address these concerns, and although he doesn't satisfy us with easy answers (or really, any answers), it's an interesting question to pose.

Unfortunately, Dreadstar had the misfortune of landing with a financially strapped publisher, and it died in March 1991 despite David writing some excellent stories. Starlin still owns the rights, presumably, because David wrote a mini-series some years later for Bravura and Starlin's name was above the title. Its fate remains unknown. Perhaps Cronin, with his disturbing encyclopedic knowledge of all things comic-related, can discover what, if anything, is going on with it. But don't look to me!

Alan Moore's magnum opus: Watchmen issues #1-12, September 1986-October 1987. This may be a bit controversial, as Moore is the best comic book writer ever and a lot of what he's written has changed the way we look at comics, which is one of my criteria, and this is not his most personal work, another of my criteria. It's not even my favorite Alan Moore work. So why do I say it's his masterpiece?

First, it's the most famous, which doesn't necessarily make it a masterpiece, but it doesn't hurt. The discussion of how good Moore is begins with Watchmen and then moves to his other work. Secondly, it did quite a bit to change our perception of superheroes and it remains remarkably influential today, more so than his other work. Again, that doesn't necessarily speak to the quality of the work, but again, it doesn't hurt, and there will be people who argue that Watchmen isn't that good anyway (blasphemers!).

What pushes Watchmen to the fore is the way Moore took the ideas he toyed with on Marvelman, V for Vendetta, and Swamp Thing (all pre-Watchmen works, although the first two weren't completed until afterward) and crystallized them into a 12-issue story that remains about as well plotted a book as we're going to see in comics. In Marvelman, he showed us a superhero who does the logical thing: takes over the world. That isn't it masterpiece because it was plagued by sloppy art and spotty plotting through the early issues. In V for Vendetta (which I like better than Watchmen), he wants to show us a lone individual fighting against the system in a less than legal way, which is what Adrian Veidt is doing, in his own way. In Swamp Thing, he showed an all-powerful being abandoning his "responsibilities" to the planet because it's just all too much for him, and he used this motif again with Dr. Manhattan. Watchmen was a true murder mystery, something we rarely see in comics, and it was the ultimate deconstruction of superheroes and why they do what they do. Moore also took some of the things he experimented with in his prior works - lack of sound effects, for one - and made us all not miss them in the least. He told two parallel stories - the "real" story of the Comedian's murder and the pirate story - each equally gripping and each reflecting themes in the other. Gibbons' art, while not as flashy as some, is perfectly suited for the way the story is structured. Watchmen is Moore's masterpiece not because, as I mentioned, it's his absolute best work, but because it is an almost perfect comic book. It does what comics are best at - pictures juxtaposed with words that don't necessarily describe what we're seeing, for one example - and does it better than almost anything ever published. After Watchmen, we could never look at superheroes the same way again, and we can't blame Moore if people are grumpy that our heroes aren't so heroic anymore. Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, and Rorschach are heroic in their own way. Just because Dan and Laurie don't expose Adrian doesn't make them less heroic. Moore's heroes work in the world he created, and they don't necessarily work in the regular DC and Marvel worlds. Don't blame Moore for that.

As I mentioned, Moore's work is made up of works of staggering genius, to coin a phrase. One reason is that he became a star so early in his career and unlike, say, Grant Morrison, he had no interest in writing Justice League. He rejected the comics corporate culture, which allowed him to concentrate on writing whatever the hell he wanted. All the green Hollywood kept throwing at him didn't hurt, either. I want to call From Hell his magnum opus, because I like it more than Watchmen, but I think it becomes too much of a historical essay at times, which bogs it down. Personally, I think the 20-page (or however the hell long it is) conversation about the occult history of London is fascinating, but the story grinds to a complete halt during it, something that happens far too often. Many people might say Promethea is his masterpiece, but while I like the title, it smacks far too much of Moore rambling about things he finds interesting. Sure, they're interesting, but it often comes at the detriment of the story (I haven't finished it, because I buy it in trades, so it could come around). Yes, it's probably his most personal work, but just because something is personal doesn't make it a masterpiece, as I and others have mentioned. I have a feeling that if it had been completed, Big Numbers would have been his masterpiece. Sigh.

Matt Wagner's magnum opus: Grendel, Devil by the Deed and issues #1-40, March 1983-February 1984; October 1986-February 1990. After a career of, what, 25 years, Wagner is still ridiculously underrated, especially as a writer, which is weird, because he writes a lot more than he draws, it seems. His art is gorgeous, but his writing is really interesting, probably more interesting than his pictures. He can write a magnificent Batman, for instance, as we have seen from the recent Batman & the Monster Men and his old arc with Two-Face in Legends of the Dark Knight. Again, on both those stories people focus on the art, but the stories - especially the Two-Face one (just go look for it in the trade, people!) - show a marked fascination with the wayward and the weird in society. He's also interested in the power of myth, which is where Grendel comes in.

I'm sure that some people will mention Mage, which is Wagner's other creator-owned title and the one that is probably more closely associated with him (Kevin Matchstick is supposed to age with Wagner, but I'm not sure if that's gone by the boards). However, Mage never really coalesced as a complete opus, although it's a decent enough book. Grendel is a much more complete work, and although it's not as personal as Mage, it's a personal work in that it expresses Wagner's interest in myth and how myth impacts on life. Grendel began as a story of Hunter Rose, a top assassin who adopts a young girl, Stacy Palumbo, and eventually becomes the ruler of New York's underworld. He's also a critically acclaimed and terribly successful novelist, the darling of the New York literary set. Grendel comes to the attention of Argent, a centuries-old intelligent wolf-like creature who works with the New York police department, and the two fight it out, with Stacy's love in the balance (Argent also takes a paternal interest in her). In Devil by the Deed, the first three issues of the series from 1983-84, Hunter Rose dies, and interestingly enough, Wagner is not that concerned with his "hero" dying. That's because he is much more concerned with what made Hunter Rose, an intelligent, talented, good-looking, and rich person, turn into an assassin and criminal. When Comico decided to publish an ongoing series a few years later, Wagner didn't bring Rose back from the dead, deciding instead to go in a radical direction that took the story from an interesting concept and made it a masterpiece.

Wagner moved the story forward into the future a bit and gave us Christine Spar, who is Stacy Palumbo's daughter. She is researching a book on Hunter Rose, because once his dual life became known, his legend really took off. Christine leaves her son at home one night, and he is kidnapped by ... a Japanese vampire! Bear with me. The vampire is a Kabuki artist named Tujiro XIV who tours the world kidnapping small children - it's the perfect cover! Wagner said he wanted to do vampires but not the Western kind, and his vampire is truly terrifying. In order to get her kid back, Christine steals Hunter Rose's mask (the iconic Grendel mask, one of the best masks in comic book history) and his main weapon, a "fork," which is a two-pronged blade on the end of a long stick. She goes after her son, but draws the attention of Argent, who is still around and still raging with hatred. We're not sure why, since he killed his adversary, but as we follow Christine's saga (wonderfully drawn by the Pander Bros.), we come to realize that Grendel is a force that inhabits certain people, and is particularly malevolent. Christine slips further and further into the Grendel persona, especially after she finds out that her son is dead. Her lover, Brian Li Sung, cannot bring her back from the edge, and she eventually fights Argent, a fight in which they kill each other.

Following this, Brian Li Sung becomes Grendel, in an attempt to kill Captain Wiggins, who was tracking Christine. Brian is a particularly bad assassin, and Wiggins kills him. Apparently, the artist on these issues, Bernie Mireault, asked Wagner if Grendel could "possess" a crowd. This led Wagner to take his creepy possession story and re-imagine it as a world-changing event. Later issues showed the Grendel force wreaking havoc in politics and culture, as people began to worship it, which led to societal breakdown and a nuclear war. The story resumes in the 26th century, a world in which religion has once again become the dominant force. The Pope, Innocent XLII (who was really the vampire Tujiro) was planning to block out the sun so that vampires could take over the world, but he was stopped by wealthy aristocrat Orion Assante and a crazed vigilante dressed as Grendel. Once Assante stopped the Pope, he created an army of "Grendels" and became the ruler of the world, calling himself the Grendel-Khan. Wagner's malevolent entity had taken over the world.

This is a remarkable piece of comics literature. Wagner wanted to examine what makes people commit evil acts even though they themselves might not be evil, and as he did that, he came to realize (with Mireault's push) that he could look at why the world has become an evil place if people themselves are basically good. I'm always wary of ascribing supernatural motives to a person's evil deeds, but the point is that this evil is a part of these people, and they struggle to overcome it, but the Grendel entity simply brings it out. Orion Assante uses it to bring a world back together and create peace and stability. He might be succumbing to the evil inside him, but he uses it creatively. Similarly, Christine Spar succumbs, but both Tujiro XIV (who escapes her) and Argent (who doesn't) are evil forces, despite Argent's work with the police force. They have become twisted by other forces beside the Grendel-force. Who is to say that Grendel is worse than they are?

Wagner also links Grendel to a fear of abandonment. In Beowulf, after all, Grendel's mother is abandoned and becomes crazed with rage, and Wagner looks at how these people are left behind and how it affects them. In the original story, Stacy Palumbo is abandoned by Hunter Rose too often, and she turns to Argent. Years later, Diana Schutz wrote a two-part story about Stacy after Hunter Rose's death, and how his abandonment of her basically ruined her life. The police abandon Christine Spar and force her into the role of Grendel, and as she loses herself in the persona, she leaves behind Brian Li Sung, who is driven mad after her death. Over and over, we see the person who has become Grendel reacting to abandonment or abandoning someone else, usually with disastrous results. Even Orion cannot escape - his sisters, with whom he has an incestuous relationship, are killed while he is fighting against Pope Innocent, and later, his lover dies of cancer while he is welding together his worldwide empire. Wagner wants to look at human relationships throughout the series, and how they are changed when we give in to the nastier aspects of our personalities.

This is truly a wonderful and powerful read, and takes us to places we could not have anticipated. Wagner came back to write a 10-issue coda to the series, Grendel: War Child, which is part of the canon but less impressive and not as emotionally powerful, although it's worthwhile. After that, Wagner turned his creation over to other writers with Grendel Tales, some of which are excellent and some of which are just adequate. He later wrote two Batman/Grendel crossovers and two four-issue mini-series, Grendel: Black, White, and Red and Grendel: Red, White, and Black, which told stories of Hunter Rose and featured some of the best artists in the industry. Wagner has continued to do excellent work in the field (including Sandman Mystery Theatre, a wonderful series), but this remains his magnum opus.

J. M. DeMatteis' magnum opus: Dr. Fate mini-series issues #1-4 and #1-24 of the ongoing series, July-October 1987; November 1988-January 1991. A few people in the comments to the last post mentioned the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League, and I certainly considered it, but I am trying to keep this at one book per creator (a problem with Alan Moore and some others that I'll discuss below), and I knew I was going to look at Dr. Fate when DeMatteis wrote it. It's interesting that for a guy who has written serious stuff for most of his career, and written it well, DeMatteis may be best remembered for the "Bwah-ha-ha" days of the JLI. However, that series, as good as it is, paid the bills and allowed him to do other, more thought-provoking work. He wrote Moonshadow for Epic in the mid-1980s, and that was obviously a very personal work, plus it was creator-owned, so why isn't that his masterpiece? Despite its quality, it's somewhat juvenile in places (and not in the places he wants it to be - it's a "fairy tale for adults," after all), and doesn't hold together as well as this book. The fact that this is a DC property and therefore I should disqualify it doesn't deter me, either, as nobody cared about Doctor Fate before DeMatteis got his hands on him and nobody cared about him after DeMatteis was finished. He's a guest star in the DCU, and therefore DeMatteis was given free rein to do whatever he wanted.

And what he wanted was no less a meditation on love and spirituality. DeMatteis has always been interested in God and religion, and with Dr. Fate, he found a perfect vehicle for his thoughts. Unlike some of his other work (Moonshadow, Blood: A Tale, and Seekers into the Mystery, for example, although there are others, too), in which he relied a bit too heavily on authorial omniscience, in Dr. Fate he allowed the characters to expound about their issues, and allowed them to discover things on their own, and the result is a masterpiece. In the mini-series, he destroys the Kent Nelson Dr. Fate and creates a new one, formed by Linda Strauss and her stepson Eric, who merge to form a new Fate. In the ongoing, we learn that Linda and Eric are soulmates, and have been linked throughout history, so that even when Eric dies and Linda must struggle on without him, she is never truly alone. Eric's soul, meanwhile, has to find a new body and link back up with Linda. It's a spiritual journey that illuminates the power of love and how we are all, ultimately, connected. DeMatteis also explores the nature of religion and how we can find meaning in our lives through a spiritual connection to God - whatever form that God takes. It's an unbelievably beautiful experience reading this book, and although it's a thought-provoking comic book, it's also very funny and has plenty of action. At the end, DeMatteis brings back Inza Nelson from the dead, but it doesn't feel like a cheap ploy, because he has set up his whole story based on the idea of souls returning and reincarnating. This is a story of the power of love and faith, and DeMatteis tells it wonderfully. He's aided by Shawn McManus, whose work has never looked better. McManus has always been a bit cartoony, but in this book it works, because he is called upon to draw a lot of people smiling, something he's very good at. Even Darkseid smiles, which isn't as terrifying as you might think. This is DeMatteis' masterpiece because he takes a Z-list character and makes it his own, while telling a story that is intensely personal. He tried it with stuff that he owned, but didn't achieve what he did here. It's really an exceptional book.

Neil Gaiman's magnum opus: Sandman issues #1-75, January 1989-March 1996. I'm not sure if there is much I can say about this. It's really his only long-term comic book work, so if he has a masterpiece, this is it. What Sandman did was give us all a look at the expanded possibilities of the medium - others had toyed with it, of course, but Gaiman starts out with horror (can anyone really ever be comfortable with Rachel naked on the bed desiccated from his magic sand, or the "24 Hours" story?) and moves quickly beyond it, giving us historical fiction, religious allegory, gender crises, road trips, mythology (Greek and otherwise), intensely personal stories and grand epic stories, and family drama. Many people wiser than I am have both lauded this series and mercilessly criticized it, but I don't think we can argue that it's a masterpiece. Gaiman wanted to examine the power dreams have in our lives, and he used all kinds of dreams to examine the human condition - the good and the bad. You can argue with the quality of the stories, and the interminable final story arc (well, "The Wake" was the real final story arc, but you know what I mean!), but you can't argue that this changed the way a lot of people viewed comics. If Alan Moore deconstructed superheroes, Gaiman deconstructed comics themselves, making us aware that you can just as easily tell stories about cat-myths as you can about a guy who runs really fast. He wasn't the first to do this, of course, but he did it more boldly and more eclectically than had been done before. Once Gaiman wrote "The Sound of Her Wings," which was the first story that was not really horror and also not concerned with superheroes (I still love Morpheus' appearance to the Justice League, but it was incongruous with what Gaiman later did), the possibilities for comics opened up even further than before. The road was always there, but Gaiman had to point it out. For that, he deserves praise, whether or not you like the series or even if you think that after Dr. Dee killed everyone the series turned wussy and you lost interest.

Peter Milligan's (and, to a lesser extent, Chris Bachalo's) magnum opus: Shade, the Changing Man issues #1-70, July 1990-April 1996. Again, I doubt if anyone will argue with this, even though Milligan has done some very strong work since this book (Enigma, Human Target, and X-Force/X-Statix to name the three best). Shade is Milligan's masterpiece because he is able to take the ideas he explored in those other books (and in other things he's written) and distill a brilliant narrative from them and sublimate them to that narrative. As much as I enjoyed X-Force, subtlety was not its strong suit. As much as I enjoyed Human Target (which had a chance to surpass Shade if, you know, anyone had bought it), its identity crises became a bit much. In Shade, strangely enough, both the elements that made X-Force and Human Target good but flawed are present but muted. In the first year and a half of the title, he tackled Americana and what it means to be a celebrity in this country, among other things. As the series evolved and Lenny became a more integral part of the cast, he began to deal with sexual politics much more. Milligan has always enjoyed the weirdness of sex a lot (go read The Extremist if you don't believe me), and the Shade/Kathy/Lenny love triangle is fascinating to read and always confounds our expectations. Milligan throws our three principals into various situations for which they are not ready, and although the series seems to meander at times (especially right before and right after Kathy's death), it remains fascinating because none of the three leads is particularly likeable all the time - very often they act reprehensibly toward each other, whether through intent or because they fear the rawness of their emotions. These are fully realized characters, and as we watch them evolve, it's not always pretty, but it's very compelling.

Milligan made a huge mistake when he killed Kathy, simply because the dynamic among the three was what drove the book. I agree that their relationship was growing stale, but killing Kathy was a perfect example of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Over the last twenty issues of the book, Milligan struggled to find the verve of the first 30 issues, but although he never quite recaptured what made the book great in the first place, he did write some great stories about the people that Shade and Lenny and the rest of the cast (forgive me, I'm forgetting their names) and how they struggle to exist with each other. Shade's son (Fred?) ages at a rapid rate, so he has very little time to get to know his father, and he doesn't really want to anyway. Lenny's daughter (Lily?) is a typical rebellious teen, not unlike Lenny was at that age, and Lenny must reconcile her past with her desire to be a normal mom. These were stories that weren't as flashy as the ones prior to Kathy's death, but were important for the evolution of the character nevertheless. The end of the series, when Shade travels back in time to re-unite with Kathy and basically wipe the slate clean, might seem like a cop-out to some, but it's a beautiful moment at the end when we understand that Shade has learned from his experiences and is ready to grow up. Maybe he gets to have his cake and eat it too in a particularly "comic-booky" way, but we have taken a long journey with Milligan and we're willing to follow it through.

Milligan does a lot with sexual politics, but like his work in Human Target, he does a lot with identity, too. Shade initially possesses the body of the killer of Kathy's parents, so when he comes to life, she is understandably horrified to see him. He spends a good part of the book searching for his identity, especially once he learns that he can never return to Meta. Kathy and Lenny are also searching for their identities, and Milligan never lets them off the hook. The early hook of the book, that madness is infecting America, ties in with this search for identity - if we are mad, can we ever really know who we are? Is it better to be insane because then you are allowed to lose your identity and all the pain that goes along with it? It is only at the end of the book that Shade finds an identity, which is another reason why the hokey ending shouldn't bug us.

In many ways, this is Chris Bachalo's masterpiece as well. Bachalo's art evolved so nicely throughout his run on the book, and when he left, he had not yet turned into the painfully cramped and weirdly disjointed artist he can be too often today. I think his early work on Generation X, coming soon after this, might be his finest work, but on Shade he was challenged much more and was up to it. His version of the American Scream is terrifying, and as Milligan became more experimental with his storytelling, Bachalo kept up and became more experimental with his, but never to the detriment of actually telling the story (which has hindered him recently). The quieter tales in the Hotel Shade are where Bachalo really flexes his muscles, and those stories, despite a softening of the madness that Milligan threw at us in the first few years of the book, are gorgeous to look at (the presence of good guest artists like Philip Bond didn't hurt, either).

Milligan hasn't done anything that has come close to Shade, despite fine work in the fifteen years since he began it. Does anyone want to argue?

John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake's magnum opus: The Spectre, issues #1-62 (including the zero issue), December 1992-February 1998. Ostrander is a writer who doesn't get enough credit, even though he has written three of the best comics of the past 25 years - GrimJack, Suicide Squad, and The Spectre. Plus, he revamped Firestorm and made him an interesting force of nature, something DC has conveniently forgotten. A few people mentioned GrimJack as Ostrander's masterpiece, and I'm inclined to agree, but I haven't read the whole epic and I think The Spectre might trump his work there, even though John Gaunt is his own creation and Jim Corrigan is not. Others might point to Suicide Squad, but as much as I love that series, The Spectre is simply better. So there!

Ostrander, like DeMatteis, took a character nobody had had much success with (despite some fondness for the earlier series and back-up stories, they weren't successful) and made it his own. This was a Vertigo book that took place in the DC Universe, which was interesting because it was definitely for adults but could use superheroes. Ostrander, like DeMatteis, used his book to examine religion. Why the hell not? The Spectre is the freakin' Wrath of God, after all! In a different way than DeMatteis, whose spirituality is much more touchy-feely, Ostrander wants to figure out why the Spectre is such a meanie and why Jim Corrigan is such a jerk. Bringing in Father Richard Craemer from his work on Suicide Squad is a stroke of genius, too, as Craemer is able to ground Corrigan as his spiritual advisor and also guide him through his afterlife and his search for meaning. Why is Corrigan tied to the Spectre? What exactly is the Spectre, anyway? Ostrander tries to reconcile the crazed vengeance-wreaking Spectre with the way Moore portrayed him in Swamp Thing, and he also ties him more into Christian and Old Testament mythology than writers before him did. His portrayal of Jim Corrigan as a 1930s cop with all the prejudices that entails is at the heart of the book. Corrigan has a great deal to learn about life, and throughout the series he confronts his prejudices and tries to overcome them. Sure, it's liberal crap (gays are people too!) but Ostrander also tackles how to make America great again and why Christianity is a good thing. It's a complex series that doesn't pull any punches - it's one man's search for his soul, but one who possesses almost the power of God.

As usual with an Ostrander title, the characters anchor this book. Amy Bieterman, the focus of the first year of the title, is a perfect example. She contracts AIDS, and Corrigan must overcome his revulsion at touching her. A maniac is stalking women who have AIDS, and Corrigan, despite his fear of her disease, promises to protect her. Craemer scolds him for his prejudices, but Corrigan can't overcome them. Amy is killed, and as she is dying, she pleads with Corrigan to stay with her and ease the pain of her death. All Corrigan knows is vengeance, however, and he changes into the Spectre and goes after the killer instead of comforting Amy. This story sets the tone for the entire series - Corrigan needs to learn how to let go of his prejudices, his hatred, and his anger. Amy acts as a beacon for him, a shining example of how to transcend his base emotions and become something better.

Mandrake's art perfectly complements Ostrander's stories. He didn't draw every issue of the series, and the guest artists do a marvelous job, but Mandrake's vision makes Ostrander's powerful scripts come to life. He brings a majesty to the epic scenes, the ones with the Spectre in Heaven or fighting monsters, but he is very good at drawing the nasty, creepy stuff that tugs at the corners of Ostrander's work. There is a great deal that is scary about this book, and Mandrake brings the horror to life. Mandrake is a good artist in any case, but on this book, he combines his usual flair with more subtle scenes and makes this a truly beautiful book.

DC has resurrected the Spectre not once, but twice, since Ostrander's series ended, but as it is the Wrath of God, that's not the worst thing in the world. Ostrander's series is really about Jim Corrigan, and his story has been told. I assume we found out what the hell was going on with the guy with the same name in Gotham Central, but it's not the Spectre, I'll tell you that much. Ostrander's touching ending to the series, with Corrigan finally letting go and joining Amy in Heaven, is the way he should have gone out. Screw Gotham Central!

James Robinson's magnum opus: Starman issues #0-80 (including a One Million issue), October 1994-August 2001. Another DC property that no one cared about until James Robinson, with his love of the Golden Age and his ability to craft a multi-leveled family drama, came along. Starman is a love letter to nostalgia, which should make it old and creaky, but what Robinson manages to do is show us that nostalgia necessarily informs the present but it doesn't have to define the present. For all his obsession with old oddities, Jack Knight is not someone who can't move forward, it's just that he wants to bring everything with him. The series balances on this razor edge for its entire run - is Robinson simply celebrating the past or is he using DC's rich history to tell stories that move the characters forward? For the most part, the latter, and that's why this is a masterpiece. Very few writers have integrated the history of the DCU so much into their books, but Robinson is able to do that and bring it back to a very personal drama of a father who has lost one son and thinks he has lost another, only to discover that he really hasn't lost either.

Many people have objected to a couple of things in this series: Rag Doll's change into a maniac, and the murder of the JLE. Well, the first I understand, although anyone who dresses like Raggedy Andy can't be too sane in the first place. The death of the Justice League is a brilliant move, because Robinson shows us what very few writers ever do - a threat to the heroes of the DCU. Too often, the villains of both DC and Marvel are perfectly able to kill off hoards of "normal" folk but are woefully inadequate at killing the heroes. The Mist is different - sure, Blue Devil and the Crimson Fox aren't anyone's idea of A-list heroes, but taking them down still requires skill, stones, and sneakiness. The only reason you can object to the issue is if you're so in love with the characters you can't imagine your world without them, and if the sales of Blue Devil's solo series were any indication, not a lot of people felt that way.

Other than that, once Tony Harris left the book and Jack went into outer space, a lot of people (me included) felt the book began to drag. However, I re-read the issues once they were done (this series demands trade paperbacks or reading big chunks of it in one sitting), they coalesce into a fascinating journey through the grand space opera of the DCU, and Jack is constantly learning what it means to be a hero and what it means to be a son. Without his journey into space, he could not reconcile with his father at the end of the series and could not accept that Ted needs to sacrifice himself to save Opal City. Yes, the space journey drags, but like all good fiction, it does something the series needs, and therefore is integral to it. While still retaining the link to the past, it points the way to the future - not because it's science fiction, but because Jack cannot forge a life with Sadie unless he makes this odyssey to find out what happened to her brother. Once he returns from space, he must first save Opal and then come full circle, giving up the Starman mantle to become a father himself.

Robinson certainly wanted to bring this series back around to the responsibilities of adulthood and the transition from adolescence to adulthood, something David never achieved because he died and something Jack resists for a long time. Although Robinson is obsessed with the past, he's really more obsessed with the continuity that family gives us and how we can live up to that family name while still making a mark ourselves. Jack, ironically, wants to reject his own family's past while wallowing in the kitsch of an earlier era, but he comes to realize that growing up means accepting your family's history and moving beyond it. Superheroes, after all, are the ultimate Peter Pan fantasy, and by accepting his role but then giving it up, Jack shows that he is ready to become an adult. In this way, he's more mature than, say, Bruce Wayne, who is stuck in an arrested adolescence.

This is a beautiful series to read and digest, as I mentioned, in a short time. The series takes on a feeling of a tapestry of DC history and DC present and even the future. Robinson is in command of his characters and allows them to outgrow even the confines of the book. It is unquestionably his masterpiece.

Kurt Busiek's magnum opus: Astro City mini-series issues #1-6, August 1995-January 1996; ongoing series issues #1-22 (with a #1/2 issue), September 1996-August 2000; "Local Heroes" mini-series issues #1-5, April 2003-February 2004; "The Dark Age Book One" mini-series #1-4, August-December 2005. A few people mentioned that Busiek and Perez on Avengers is a magnum opus, and I might agree if I had read more than just the Ultron story, which is really good. But I would consider Busiek's Astro City his masterpiece, not just because he wants it to be, but because he takes an idea he used for Marvels and turns it into a rich superhero universe all by himself, and gives us stories that now, when others do it, seem clichéd, but when Busiek does it, they have a freshness and glee that lifts them up over the norm. Yes, I said glee - even when things are at their darkest in Astro City, the good citizens know that their heroes will come and save them. Even when a vampire becomes a superhero and the townspeople turn against him, they come to understand their faults and repent. Astro City is a masterpiece because Busiek understands the heroic ideal and never allows his characters to forget it, despite acts that are un-heroic. Therefore, Charles and Royal in the Dark Age do things that might seem un-heroic, but they are trying their best to make the lives of the people they care about better. Crackerjack is a huge ham and publicity hound, but he is trying to make the city better, despite his arrogance and obliviousness. Busiek wants to explore why we worship these heroes, why we turn against them, and why we take them back, and he does this by not only viewing the heroes through the lens of "normal" people, but by allowing the heroes to view each other without filters. In the Marvel and DC worlds, too often the writers take shortcuts to "character development" by simply having the heroes argue with each other. Busiek knows that heroes will argue, but he also knows that they will also attempt to work together, act like heroes, become friends, hook up and then break up, and all the other things people do. They are heroes not only because of their powers, but because they have real emotions but they don't allow those emotions to stop them from doing the right thing.

Astro City, obviously, is not over yet, so it may be premature to call it Busiek's magnum opus. I can't think of anything he could ever write, however, that would be more real, more powerful, and more personal than this. So I don't think I'm off base. But, you know, I could be.

Garth Ennis' and Steve Dillon's magnum opus: Preacher issues #1-66, April 1995-October 2000. Boy, I had a hard time with this. Of all the writers I can think of, I doubt if there's one like Garth Ennis, who was writing two magnificent long-running titles at almost exactly the same time, both of which could be considered a masterpiece. Others have done good work at the same time, but to have two books of this quality and resonance concurrently is tough. I finally decided on Preacher as Ennis' magnum opus, but I should say a few things about the other title.

I like Hitman better than Preacher. There, I said it. Why? Well, without getting into things too much, it's more fun, it's more gut-wrenching, it features the single greatest depiction of Superman ever (I really don't think that's up for argument), it doesn't preach (like, say, Preacher) and it ends logically. Yes, Preacher does not end the way it should. I'll get back to that.

So why Preacher? Well, I still like the book (although I did stop buying it for a while, after All-Father fell out of the helicopter onto the Messiah in issue #25), but more than that, I think this is Ennis trying to explain the world to us. I have said that just because it's personal to the writer doesn't make it a masterpiece, but it helps, and in this, I just think Ennis is more invested in Preacher, and it wants to make more of a statement than Hitman. He has a great deal he wants to get off his chest, so we find out his views on religion (obviously), America, parenting, relationships, loyalty, and history. In Preacher, Jesse and Cassidy are just as likely to spend the whole issue talking as they are stomping Herr Starr's face in. In Hitman, a zombie penguin is likely to show up and add some levity.

Ennis obviously has a lot on his mind, and he uses Preacher to try to understand this wacky world we live in. He might not like the world, but he likes the people in it (for the most part) and he believes in sticking by your friends and standing up for what you believe is right. That's why Cassidy is such a villain in the latter half of the book. He and Tulip become the moral fulcrum of the book - Jesse is off having adventures, and while nothing makes me more interested than a sick old man having sex with a large sculpture made out of meat, Cassidy and Tulip trying to adjust to Jesse's "death" is what spurs the book on. When Tulip finally understands what she has become, Cassidy can't accept it and lashes out at her, betraying not only her but the memory of one of the few people who was decent to him. He repents, of course, and this is where Ennis' views on religion are interesting. Ennis loathes organized religion, obviously, but he wants to reconcile the good things about religion - forgiveness for sins, most notably - with the corruption he sees throughout organized religion. One way he does this is with Jesse, who is a "bad" preacher in that he doesn't toe the company line. He's a "good" preacher in Ennis' view because he's an iconoclast who cares more about the virtues of Christianity than the façade of the Church. Therefore, he is able to accept people for what they are instead of what he wants them to be, but he holds them to a high moral standard - his own. Cassidy fails in that regard, but, in true Christian fashion, he is given a second chance because he repents. The repentance is necessary, of course. It's no surprise that Cassidy is Irish and therefore probably Catholic. Even lapsed Catholics (and Cassidy is probably the ultimate example of one) can't wash the dogma completely out of them, and Cassidy understands that he has become Judas to Jesse's Jesus and must repent. Ennis wants us to consider that morality is real, but not necessarily what we are taught. And loyalty is valued most of all.

What hurts Preacher is also what makes it a masterpiece - Ennis' convictions bleeding through onto the page. The idea of loyalty is present throughout Hitman, too, but it isn't imbued with the same quasi-mystical gravitas that it is in Preacher. Ennis has other ideas he wants to expound upon in the pages of Preacher, and too often the narrative comes to a screeching halt while he puts his words into Jesse's mouth and, well, preaches to us. This doesn't ruin the work, but it does make us react, sometimes negatively, to what Ennis is doing. It's not that we disagree with what Jesse is saying (we certainly can disagree, but that's not why we react negatively), it's that we don't like such blatant moralizing. That's why Cassidy and Tulip's arc is so much more emotionally powerful - we're watching Cassidy degenerate before our eyes into someone that Jesse - who doesn't betray a friend - would not respect, and it's devastating, because we always wanted Cassidy to be better. It's a mark of Ennis' talent that we are so wrecked by Cassidy's betrayal.

And then there's the ending. Nobody dies. That's where Hitman packs more emotional punch - the last page of Hitman is unbelievably powerful, even though we know it's coming. I don't mean to be bloodthirsty, but Cassidy or Jesse has to die at the end of Preacher (not Tulip, though). I understand that the power of repentance is at work here, and therefore everyone gets a second chance, but it feels a little too much like Ennis loved his three characters so much that he just couldn't let any one of them go. Intellectually, I understand the decision, but emotionally, it feels fake. It could be just me.

Ennis cut his teeth on a gut-wrenching run on Hellblazer, and these two titles are the culmination of a lot of what he tried out there. He's now writing the further adventures of Frank Castle for Marvel, something I'll consider in my next post (yes, I have another one on this topic!). You could actually flip a coin to determine which one of these two titles is his masterpiece. I wouldn't argue with either one.

Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's magnum opus: Transmetropolitan issues #1-60, September 1997-November 2002. This was a tough call, because I like Planetary better, but it's not finished, and I think when all is said and done, it will not rise above its pulp roots and become a true timeless masterpiece. I'll probably go to my grave telling everyone how brilliant it is, but I think it just doesn't pass muster.

Transmetropolitan, on the other hand, does. It's a fine book on its own merits (which a masterpiece should be, after all), but it also becomes Ellis' vehicle for his own kind of propaganda, one in which he becomes Spider Jerusalem and, more importantly, lives the arc of Spider's life. I don't know Warren Ellis at all, but unless his on-line persona is miles away from his off-line persona, Spider Jerusalem is obviously what he wants to be. He craves the fame of Spider, but he also craves the influence that Spider wields. Again, I could be reading this all wrong, but I doubt it. There's nothing wrong with it, either - I wouldn't mind having Spider's fame and influence.

Ellis loves this kind of character, and with Spider, he achieves its apotheosis. Unfortunately for his reading public, he keeps trying to recreate this character, with varying degrees of success. One of the reasons why Planetary works is because Ellis does not have this kind of character - some traits are there, of course, but not in such measure nor even in the same character. Spider Jerusalem is a magnificent creation because he's an utter bastard, and his shell never really cracks in public, but we get to see the human being underneath. His scenes with Channon when he tells her that her boyfriend doesn't love her are devastating, not only because Spider is being a bastard but because he's trying not to be one. The issue where he visits the alien cultures is fascinating, and Mary's story is simply beautiful. Throughout this all, Ellis never allows Spider to become sappy, and his soft core is only visible briefly and the series never becomes a series of transformations from Spider the Bastard to Spider the Sap. He cares about "his" people, but he prefers to treat them like shit. Even at the end.

The journalistic angle is brilliant, because it allows Ellis to delve into politics and culture, two things that obviously obsess him. His political ideas become a bit of a screed by the end of the book, but they're always consistent with the character and always moving toward something. He doesn't change his tone just for the hell of it - this is the vision of one mind, and it always keeps that vision in mind, even when Ellis goes off on tangents. His thoughts on culture are always interesting to read, and the fact that this takes place in the future allows him to indulge his other obsession - new technology and how it will have an impact on humanity. Ellis is a science fiction writer first and foremost, and Transmetropolitan fits his style perfectly. It's his magnum opus for that reason - it's his most intensely personal work, but it also remains a scathing critique of our society without sacrificing the overall narrative. Yes, it bogs down occasionally, much like Preacher does. It's not perfect. Unlike books that are simply work-for-hire assembly-line products, however, we're more willing to go along, because we understand that this is a work that comes directly from Ellis' gut, and if we stick with it, we will be rewarded. Much like most masterpieces, this reads much better all at once. When we sit and read all sixty issues in a relatively short time, the minor setbacks become simply inconveniences, and we are allowed to watch the City sprawl before us and really take it all in, which almost overwhelms us. That's the point - the City should overwhelm us, because it overwhelms everyone, Spider included. He is there to guide us home, just like Ellis wants to guide us home. The metaphor is never forced, but the City is our world, and the implication is that we need a guide who will show us the path and then kick us in the ass. The fact that we keep returning to that guide - whether it's our parents, government, or God - is what Ellis is trying to wean us from. But he's as culpable as we are, because whenever Spider wants to quit, he is drawn back in - through his own sense of righteousness. He continually needs to save the citizens of the City from themselves. It's a complicated idea to put forward, and Ellis might reject it, but Spider can only gain freedom when he realizes that he can't force others to follow him. He claims he wants the citizens to think for themselves, but whenever they do, he gets angry because they're not making the "right" decisions. Do we sense Ellis behind all of this, telling us to make our own decisions but then ranting when we don't do what he thinks is right?

Transmetropolitan challenges us, like a good masterpiece should. It's not an easy book to digest, but that's okay, because it's more rewarding than something that goes down smoothly. Ellis has continued to explore the dark side of human nature, but the reason none of his recent or current work is as resonant as Transmetropolitan is because that's the only thing he's exploring. Fell has potential, but mean 'n' nasty 24-7 just doesn't work, Warren. The reason we love Spider is not only because he was mean 'n' nasty, but because he was the kind of guy who would appreciate it when Yelena writes his column for him, and expresses his appreciation. That's the Ellis we like. It would be nice to read him again.

I realize this has been a monster post, but there are a few elephants in the room I haven't discussed. One is Frank Miller. The other is The God Of All Comics. What's Frank Miller's magnum opus? In the comments of the previous post, someone mentioned his work on Daredevil. I thought about that, but I haven't read all of the issues and I also wonder if it's true. I have read plenty of stuff by Frank Miller that is better and deeper than Daredevil, even though I enjoy that work too. One thing I have never read is Sin City, and I'm inclined to name that as his masterpiece. Creator-controlled, personal, all the themes he has toyed with in various other things - sounds good! But I haven't read it. Thoughts?

And then there's Morrison. If you pinned me down, I would say Doom Patrol #19-63 immediately. I have said it before, but I'll say it again - to me, it is the finest run on a comic book EVER. A few months before that, though, he began writing Animal Man, which remains a classic. These two books were so early in his career, however, that I'm wary of them (the same reason I'm hesitant about Daredevil). Does that mean that everything Morrison has written since 1993 has been a step down? His work on JLA was excellent, he reinvented (for a time) the X-Men, and he has done too much other stuff to mention. I would suspect that when he started writing Invisibles he thought it would be his masterpiece, but it's just not that good (and to be fair, I've only read it once, so maybe I just don't appreciate the subtlety, but it was, frankly, boring). Doom Patrol remains Morrison's most human work - yes, it's full of craziness, but the characters drive the story, and it seems sometimes Morrison forgets that. It's a beautiful examination of what makes us different and what, ultimately, brings us together. And I challenge anyone to read the whole thing and not get choked up when they read the last issue. A CHALLENGE! So I would still say Doom Patrol, but I'm open to suggestions. Morrison is a very versatile writer and he flits around a bit, so he has more of a bibliography than some of these other writers. Robinson, for instance, has The Golden Age (too short) and Leave It To Chance (ditto).

I'm not sure if Bendis has one yet. Some people mentioned Daredevil, which is where I would go, but Powers might yet supplant it. I happen to think Jinx is a classic, but I could be in the minority.

Finally, there's Dave Sim. I have never read a word of Cerebus, but I doubt if anyone would argue that it's his magnum opus.

A few interesting suggestions in the previous post's comments that I either forgot or haven't read and, I think, count as these kinds of masterpieces and not the corporate-comics kind I went over last time:

Michael pointed out Mike Grell's Warlord series. I haven't read it.

"Anonymous" mentioned Kingdom Come by Waid and Ross. I'm not sure - it doesn't fit my definition, but that doesn't matter, and I'm willing to give some love to Waid and Ross, because despite some critical bashing, I liked the series. Is it Waid's masterpiece? Tough call.

"Anonymous" (a different one?) name checks Groo the Wanderer by Evanier and Aragones. I would probably agree, if I had read it.

Gorjus, who had some interesting thoughts about my definition of "masterpiece," brings up Palomar and/or Locas by the Hernandez Bros. More than likely. I haven't read them. Yes, I suck.

Mike Loughlin mentions The Maxx by Sam Kieth. I just started getting the trade paperbacks. I may agree by the time I'm done.
Rob Spalding brings up Judge Dredd by John Wagner. Again, I haven't read them. He also points out Jeff Smith's Bone, which I've heard nothing but good things about. I should get that monster edition collecting the whole thing.

"Anonymous" (they're all over!) mentions Concrete by Paul Chadwick. Another good choice that I haven't read.

I apologize for the length of this post. I'm sure I lost many of you a long time ago. But I think it's an interesting idea to look at what makes a comic book a masterpiece and how we can define them and why one book is a creator's masterpiece and not another. Any comments on my obvious lack of knowledge, questions about why these particular books are masterpieces, and of course, your own contributions are welcome. Next time (yes, I have one more post in me, but it will be shorter) I want to consider what happens after someone writes his masterpiece, based on what their output has been since.

Guest Review - Guts and Ralph

2006-04-30T16:00:00.000-04:00

Awhile back, I told you folks about a neat site, Greta's Book Reviews, where a 12-year-old girl reviews comics. Here is a guest review, courtesy of Greta.

Guts and Ralph by Emmet Padgett (Click here to see the cover).

This is a comic about a guy, Ralph and his dog, Guts. It's drawn and written by a ten year old kid who was at the Rocketship party yesterday and signed some of these comics for people. It's a pretty interesting comic actually, it's just a bunch of funny stuff about pigeons, hurting cute animals, robots, etc. and it's weird that comics this good are coming from a 10 year old. Anyway, you can buy this comic at Rocketship and you should definately read it!

Check out Greta's other reviews at her site here.

Outrageous Retcon of a Beloved Comic Character's Origin!

2006-04-30T06:36:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Brad Curran for letting me know about this outrage. Now, I'd like to think that I am a reasonable enough of a fellow, and I won't fly off the handle at an innocuous change to a character's origin. But this is just too much. TOO MUCH, I say. The creators involved clearly have NO respect for the character's origin. NONE, I say! Now, before you click on the "Read More," please prepare yourself for a real shock to your system.

The year was 1971.

We should all have been prepared for it, but we weren't.

The cover of Amazing Spider-Man #94 mentions the re-telling of the origin, but it cannot even BEGIN to prepare us for the disrespect about to be heaped upon the Amazing Spider-Man, one of the most beloved superhero characters ever!

Right off the bat, there is a problem. The spider bite occurs the same, but LOOK at Peter Parker!

THIS is how Peter Parker is supposed to look - a normal, geeky looking guy.

Look at how they retconned Peter into looking like!

He's practically a jock!!

Next, Amazing Spider-Man #94 introduces a fight that NEVER happened in the original version!

And the fight makes no sense! Think of Spider-Man's secret identity!!

Luckily, the new version follows the original with the jumping in the air part.

Original...

New version...

However, right after that, the original version says...

The new version?

THEY RET-CONNED CRUSER HOGAN OUT OF THE COMIC!

Can you believe it?

One of the most important figures in Spider-Man history, and he doesn't even appear in Spider-Man's origin?!?!

Next problem is Spider-Man's costume.

The original version made sense. First Spider-Man created the costume, THEN he invented the webspinners.

In the new version?

LUNACY!

Webspinners THEN costume!

WHY ARE THEY DOING SO MANY RIDICULOUS RETCONS?!?!

The next disaster is the encounter between Spider-Man and the robber.

In the original, it makes perfect sense - Spider-Man meets the robber as he's leaving after a TV special (which has been perfectly set up by his wrestling victory).

The new, disrespectful version?

It makes NO sense!

Spider-Man meets the robber as he's ENTERING the TV station! ENTERING?!?! Do they think we're morons or something!?!? And without the wrestling scenes, we have no idea HOW Spider-Man even GOT a TV special!!! OUTRAGE!!

The final outrage is Spider-Man's confrontation with the robber.

Here's the logical, original version.

Now, here's the over-the-top retconned version...

I feel like plucking my eyes out and setting them on fire, with the outrage I have at the changes these HACKS made!!

TOTAL disrespect for the characters.

Who WERE these hacks?

#94...let's see the credits....

Stan Lee and John Romita?

It FIGURES.

Marvel Editors in Chief always have a way of screwing Spider-Man over.

I smell an online petition a-brewing!!

Spider-Man Marriage Puzzler

2006-04-29T06:02:00.000-04:00

Right off the bat, let me say, I really don't have much of a problem with Spider-Man being married. It's fine by me. I really don't think writers are all that constrained by his marriage. Him living in Avengers Tower? Okay, that's a bit of a constraint, but him being married? I don't see it as much of a constraint. But if he wasn't married, that'd be fine by me, too.

So, here's my puzzler. In his most recent Joe Fridays column, Joe Quesada goes on for a bit about the marriage, and how lame it is, and how much it hurts the character of Spider-Man. Anyhow, he ends by pointing out how the hard part, and the reason why nothing has been done with the marriage is because, "How do you fix it, how do you fix it without saying that years of Spider-Man books didn’t count?"

That's my puzzler.

How is THAT a reason for not fixing the problem?

Who really cares that years of Spider-Man book didn't count?

And I am saying that not as a "continuity is lame" thing. Honest! I am saying, in the grand scheme of things, erasing his marriage will just get a lot of bitching when the story happens, and then life will go on. I do not see Quesada's biggest problem with the idea being much of a problem at ALL.

Look at the whole "crazy Wanda" storyline in Avengers.

Story made basically no sense. Ignored a bunch of continuity. People bitched about it. People pointed out that it made no sense.

And guess what?

Life went on.

Do people even still complain about Wanda going nuts during Avengers Disassembled?

It's just, like, a given now. Just like how it would be a given if some random villain, like, freaking Hyperstorm or some shit like that, shows up and alters reality so that Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are no longer married.

Major uproar. Tons of people will bitch. People will point out the story is lame (as the story most likely WOULD be lame). People will say it makes no sense.

But life would go on.

And, in ten years or so, you'll have a generation of readers who grew up with THAT being the status quo, and they'll accept nothing more than Spider-Man not being married.

If it is REALLY "like a burr on my saddle grating on the biggest hemorrhoid you’ve ever imagined, coupled by the fact that I’m riding a smelly horse," then "making years of stories not count" is a pretty sorry reason for not making the change.

So, all said and done, I really don't get how Quesada's biggest concern is much of a concern at all.

Friday Undercover

2006-04-28T21:45:00.000-04:00

Thinking about comics-to-prose last week, it occurred to me I left off one of the best examples of all. What it is and why I think so will take a little backstory, so bear with me.

Spy comics never have done particularly well, not even during the 60's heyday of Bond, Flint, and U.N.C.L.E. In fact, several folks tried to adapt some of those properties to comics back then with what might be called, charitably, indifferent results. Of those, the longest-running of the bunch was Gold Key's "Man From U.N.C.L.E." which ran some twenty or thirty issues. These were... well, they were okay. Not great. Basically you had to love the show SO MUCH that you would take MORE in any form, as long as it was MORE. For hardcore UNCLE fans only, in other words.

Spies and secret agents that are original to comic books are a lot harder to find. Probably the most successful is Marvel's Nick Fury, but even Nick's success has been limited at best. I looked it up, thinking that the numbers would be a lot bigger, but if you discount Strange Tales (where Nick had to share top billing with Dr. Strange) then what you are left with is the solo title that Steranko spun out of that book that ran 18 issues, a couple of mini-series and one-shots, and -- this surprised me -- the 90's run that went a whopping 47 issues. For a secret agent book that's huge.

Are they worth getting? Well, the Steranko stuff from Strange Tales and the first few issues of the solo book ("Who Is Scorpio?", that stuff) is available in trade, and I'd certainly recommend that. The 90's book... well, I haven't actually seen it. Some talented folks worked on it -- D.G. Chichester, Doug Murray, Jackson Guice -- all of whom have shown a knack for macho adventure comics. So maybe if you found a bunch in the dollar boxes somewhere or something it might be worth taking a chance. But really Fury seems to work best as a supporting character these days.

Who else? Well, a sentimental favorite of mine was the original Secret Six, probably as close as you'll get to seeing Mission: Impossible done for comics. (Yes, closer than the actual IMF comic Marvel put out in the 90's, smart-ass.) Six outcasts brought together by the mysterious Mockingbird, blackmailed into performing outlandish feats of undercover derring-do.

This only ran seven issues and I adored every one unreservedly. Years later, Martin Pasko and Dan Spiegle undertook to finish the original story in a serial that ran in Action Comics Weekly, with mixed results. It was pretty good, but it didn't quite have the zest the original one did. And of course now, with Villains United doing a superhero riff on the name that's pretty much all she wrote for any chance of a revival... not that anyone besides me was hoping for one. Still, it would sure be nice to see a DC Showcase gathering up the seven issues and the weekly serial.

Who else? Well, on the other side of the Atlantic, Modesty Blaise was a huge success... in NEWSPAPER comics. But her strip really never caught on over here, and even though Peter O'Donnell did an original graphic novel for DC (beautifully illustrated by Dick Giordano, who, as it happens, was the editor of -- ta da!-- The Secret Six) she's mostly a trivia question on this side of the pond. Although I believe Titan Books is reprinting the strip, packaged as a nice series of paperback graphic novels, that you could probably order online without too much trouble.

There are others. You could make a case for Master of Kung Fu being a spy strip, though that's a bit like saying the movie Enter The Dragon with Bruce Lee is a Bond knockoff... you can make the case but it's not a very GOOD case.

Anyway. All this is preamble. What got me thinking about spies in comics was our other Greg talking about the new Checkmate and Greg Rucka, and how he should check out Queen & Country one of these days. Which reminded ME that, in talking about prose novels starring comics characters last week, I neglected to mention the two best ones I've ever read, period.

They are A Gentleman's Game and Private Wars by Greg Rucka, starring Tara Chace and the gang from Queen & Country.

I already loved Queen & Country the comic, so admittedly the book versions were a pretty easy sell to me. But these two books are unique among comics novels, I think, in that they fit right into the regular comics continuity. I read Queen & Country in trade, and A Gentleman's Game picks up, essentially, right where volume seven of the trades ("Operation: Saddlebags") leaves off. And Private Wars is right after that, and so you have to figure that #29 of the monthly comic, as yet uncollected, takes place after that.

It sounds like a stunt but it's not. I think Rucka took the two-novel pause becvause he had reached the point in the story of the life of agent Tara Chace where he needed to use the prose form, comics would have taken too long. Because these are huge, complex stories.

But then, that's one of the things I love about Queen & Country, the complexity of it. If Nick Fury is James Bond and Modesty Blaise is Emma Peel, then Tara Chace is the comics' version of spies like George Smiley or Peter Quiller, the street-level, unglamorous agents doing dirty, unpleasant jobs for an uncaring and stupid government. It's an incredibly dark and cynical book. Tara Chace is not terribly noble. She is vengeful and crude and mean, she drinks too much and smokes like a chimney and she's not in the least bit sexy (though she is SEXUAL, almost to the point of seeming slutty) and certainly not idealistic. No Emma Peel here.

Yet somehow, she seems vulnerable, even likable, and you want her to win, even while you are cursing the screwed-up world and the corrupt politics and all the rest of it that she --and we-- live in. The structure of Queen & Country is always dual-layered: Tara and the other Minders of the Special Section are out in the field, shooting people and getting shot up in return, while on the home front Paul Crocker, their boss, fights internal political battles just as dirty with other factions of Her Majesty's Government. It's all very compelling, especially when the parallel stories converge, as they always do (usually with harrowing results for Tara.) Everything that I don't care for when Greg Rucka writes DC superhero stories: the dark, adult tone, the relentlessly bleak grimness, the lack of a firm resolution... in Queen & Country, these things are all strengths. This is the kind of story where he really shines as a writer.

The book is black and white, which helps the whole dark, film noir, gritty atmosphere of the thing, and the often-cartoony style of the artists on the book doesn't take away from the adult feel. Weirdly, it adds to it, because the net effect of having a stylist like Steve Rolston doing the art is that it amps up the emotional content. So Rucka doesn't have to write a lot of palpitating Claremontesque dialogue or Miller-style internal-narrative captions. The dialogue is terse and to the point; the captions are almost nonexistent. "Afghanistan. 0500 hours." That's about as much as you get. The emotions are all conveyed with the art, which is why the prose novels were such a revelation. Somehow Rucka managed to keep the characters true, still sounding as grim and pragmatic as they do in the comics, and yet still seething with all the suppressed emotions his artists usually have to put across. It's an amazing job of writing.

It occurred to me writing this that with two successful mainstream novels now in print and a movie deal in the offing, Queen & Country may be the most successful spy comic anyone's ever done (well, stateside -- hard to beat Modesty Blaise's UK record.) Be that as it may, certainly, it's the BEST spy comic I've ever read, and now it's two of the best spy NOVELS I've ever read, too. You should check them out, and the regular book too, if you're not already.

See you next week.