In my Perfect Comic Universe...

Alright, for those of you whom have been paying attention, you can see that I have a lot of strong opinions on comics, especially the ones getting put out these days by the so-called "Big Two" of Marvel and DC. Now, some of you may think I'm being overly cynical and just an angry crack. Well, there's a reason for that. See, I've spent a lot of time looking over the comic blogosphere, and I had an epiphany: we'd all be much better off if Marvel and DC's characters were public domain. Now, here me out, yes, we'd also have a lot of crap out there by the likes of Millar, Miller, Loeb and...wait a minute, isn't that exactly what we have NOW? So yeah, maybe it would be better if we handed off some of these properties to rabid fans who could do it right.

Here is just a sampling of the comics that would exist if the universe were in any way, shape or form just:

-Christopher Bird’s Legion of Superheroes








-Chris Sims Iron Fist and the Punisher beat the crap out of everyone




-Dave Campbell’s Totally Awesome X-Men

-Mike Sterling’s Swamp Thing

-Dwayne McDuffie's Justice League book with half decent fucking art and not perpetually tied down into crossovers no one gives a shit about!




-Bully the Little Stuffed Bull's P.G. Wodehouse tales staring The Thing!




-Dorian Wright’s Wildcat All-Leather Spectacular

-George Perez's I'm going to draw Superheroines and lots of detailed backgrounds and you are going to LOVE IT!



-Jeff Parker's Agents of Atlas



-Scott’s Hawk and Dove, featuring Dr. Mid-Nite!
-Ragnell’s Green Lantern Corps Swimsuit spectacular starring Kyle Rayner’s butt


What would you like to see in YOUR perfect comic universe? Go ahead and put it in the comments.

A Lazy Post guaranteed to get comments and hits

Ran out of time for a decent post today, so you get these instead. Enjoy

Because there's no such thing as too much love for the King

Kirby that is. Enjoy this shiny wacky meme and see if you can spread it on!


You Might be a Jack Kirby Character if....






-you part your hair on the right.
-you own a bulletproof shield.





-you've ever destroyed a city
-your eyebrows are pencil thin and upswept, or look like saw blades attached to your forehead
-you are still fighting Nazis….in 2005
-your beard stubble grows in perfect vertical lines
-you constantly refer to yourself in the third person




-you have oversized hands with big, blocky fingers
-you tend to be surrounded by orphaned street kids whom you have to constantly keep out of trouble
-you are from a secret kingdom located in a hidden valley
-VERILY! THOU DOST SPEAKETH IN A MANNER AS WENCE SHAKESPEARE DIDST ROAM THE EARTH! AND THOU MAKES ALL MANNER OF PROCLAIMATION WITH GREAT ROBUSTNESS AND VIGOR!



-your friends are asking you to take a joyride on untested military equipment
-you were experimenting with radiation during the 1960s when everyone else was experimenting with drugs
-a haze of energy and big black dots constantly surrounds you

-your name is immediately followed with a dramatic title or simile (i.e. “THE SENTINEL OF SECURITY!” or “THE HORROR THAT WALKS LIKE A MAN!”)



-you find yourself performing amazing gymnastic feats during everyday life (i.e. you do cartwheels while grocery shopping, or you do a flying somersault into your car).
-you can give dissertations on ethics and good citizenship while performing amazing gymnastic feats.
-you mock your opponent’s technique and strategy WHILE you are handing them a beating.





-you’re a cigar-chomping tough guy with a heart of gold from the Bronx.

The Not-So Mighty Avengers

In theory, I shouldn't dislike this Avengers' line up. After all, it obeys most of the standard formula for an Avengers Team:


-Has at least one of the "Big Three" (Cap, Iron Man, or Thor)


-Has at least one of the "Long-Time Avengers" (Hawkeye, Wasp, Hank Pym, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, She-Hulk, Tigra)


-Has another character with their own Solo Title (in this case, Ms. Marvel) or just finished with some recent mini-series (in this case, this would apply to Ares, Black Widow, and/or the Sentry)


-One member who has never been an Avenger before (Again, Ares)

However, a quick look at these guys and their recent behavior gives this line up the feel of a pack of morons, nitwits and just scumbags who don't deserve to win.

We'll start with the least offensive member of the current line-up:

(NOTE: Yes, I know she does somewhat redeem herself later in the issue and has been portrayed more even-handedly in Brubaker's "Captain America". Doesn't change the fact that it was an unheroic move to begin with)

OK, if any kind of logic were being applied, there is absolutely NO REASON for the Black Widow to be pro-SHRA. Consider this; nearly EVERYONE she respects or cares about (Daredevil, Hawkeye, Captain America, Hercules, Wolverine, Nick Fury) is steadfastly on the other side, and all you've got left with is the vague notion that she cares about the law above all else, which has a hard time sticking with her past as a SPY. Last I heard, there were laws against espionage in most countries.

Next up, we've got the Big Daddy of the SHRA and the 50-State Initiative



To be fair, Tony's characterization is so all over the place that he swings from "Trying to do what he thinks is best in a bad situation" to "Outright Dogmatic Fascist" that every writer currently working with him (and there's a lot of them) are getting chronic whiplash damage trying to keep up. Still, in the Mighty Avengers, he's firmly in the "asshole" mode, as he plays the passive-aggressive leader and keeps indulging in the "futurist" excuse. But I can and probably will devote a whole post to him later.

Next up, we have long time Avenger The Wasp;



Seriously, does her portrayal here give you the idea that she simply has NOTHING better to do with her time than try and play dress up with her friends? Sorry, but man, her entire shtick so far has been pretty damn annoying.

Next up, and firmly in the "Loser" category is...



Please someone tell me what Wonder Man's powers currently are? Last time I checked in was during the Busiek/Perez era Avengers, where he had to "transform into ionic energy" to have flight and superstrength and such. So is he now back to using that "rocket belt" to fly? Can he just fly on his own despite never having had that particular power to my knowledge? Sorry, just one of those things I can't follow.

Next up, in the "Loose Cannon" category:


Ares, God of War. Yes, this remarkable guy has taken the first opportunity to abuse his position of power to settle an ancient vendetta and put his teammates in a friendly fire situation. Nice guy, really. And you just know he won't get any kind of reprimand for this. AT ALL.


And what about the Current Team Leader, Ms. Marvel?



Ahem. Yes, that about says it all, doesn't it? Seriously, when the best thing that can be said about your series is that it spends too much time on the main character, when we really could have more Aaron Stack commentary, then that is saying something indeed.

Finally, we've got our top offender, the worst of the very very worst of Mary Sue Characters to have invaded Marvel....



God I hate this guy. HATE HATE HATE him. Seriously, if there was ever a case of a Mary Sue character who just jumps in and the writers DEMAND that we respect this guy and his so-called "heroism" while all he does is angst and cry, then this is him. Seriously Marvel, WTF?

That is all for now.

Soon to be Obsolete Political Posters! Come get!

Just clearing up a couple posters that are pretty much already past their sell-by date. Here you go.

(Hey, look at it this way; he's got skills to fall back on!)

I really thought Rudy would do better. Ah well, given his rather strange interpration of how democracy works, it's probably for the best. It was fun while it lasted.

Wacky Wednesday Writer's Round-Up

OK, first up: J. Michael Straczynski no longer Marvel Exclusive

Yeah, this one was easy to see coming. After the "One More Day" Fallout, you could see that JMS was really being "farmed out" to the fringes of Marvel just working on a few side projects here and there. Unlike most of the Newsrama comment crowd, I don't think this automatically translates into a DC project; Lest we forget JMS still carries a grudge with Turner Broadcasting and Warner Brothers in general over the termination of "Crusade". Honestly however, I've long since lost interest in Straczynski's writing; the parts that don't feel cribed directly from Harlan Ellison don't seem to inspire or entice me. It seems to me he's still largely living off of his "Babylon 5" appeal, even going so far as to take every given opportunity to remind people he's a "Hollywood writer". But, like with all things Hollywood, it isn't your history; it's your current portfolio, and his is rather sparse, I think.



Next up, Comicbookresources has an interview with Peter David. It's the usual X-Pablum, of which I won't bore you on, but for me the salient details were towards the end where he discusses matters of the WGA and trying to start a similar organization in the comic industry:

I was part of a group some twenty years ago that attempted to form an
organization of comic writers and artists. It wasn’t even about forming a
labor union so much as it was trying to get a sizable enough group together
that would get affordable health care. We couldn’t even manage to get enough
writers and artists together to attain that simple goal; we were greeted
with either suspicion or indifference from the creative base.

Wow. That says a lot to me. And it's sad, because everything you here from the Steve Gerbers on down makes a pretty damning case for these guys to stop living in what amounts to the 1920's labor environment. I guess some people never learn.


Saving the Best for Last, we have ALAN MOORE:

Moore on "HEROES":

Moore: I was persuaded to watch it by people who said it nods to Watchmen
but God, what a load of rubbish! It's a late-70s X-Men at best and full of
terrible ideas and characters who've all been done to death. Beyond death. And
the writing shows such contempt for the viewer. The climax, a man who is going
to explode is carried off into the air by his brother... did anybody bother to
compare the effects of a groundburst with an airburst nuclear explosion? I'll
take the former over the latter, thanks. This is supposed to be the sort of
thing that superhero stories are good at. I tell you, if we are ever threatened
with a scenario like that in real life I hope the superheroes aren't American
because we'll be sunk.

Now, I like HEROES, but I can't blame the man for being absolutely dead-on in his analysis; there is hardly a new idea in the show that a good comic reader couldn't find in 70s and 80s comics.

Moore on Frank Miller

Moore: Frank Miller, I haven't been able to read him for some time. Have
you seen his latest idea? It is - and I can hardly believe this - Batman vs Al
Qaeda. What can you say to an idea as absurd as that? This is our response to
thew Iraq war? Miller's trapped in a teenage world of macho violence. Look at
Sin City. Every woman is a bloodthirsty, semi-naked whore; every man is a
indestructible killing machine. It's nasty, misogynist, Neanderthal Teenage, but
it sells.

Now, at the risk of earning a lynching from the comic blogosphere, I have to point out that Moore's history with well rounded female protagonists is hardly exemplar, with far too many of his female characters being thoroughly cast in the "victim" mode. That said, my god if only we could get that kind of regular dismissal of crap ideas like this in the comic industry, we'd all be much better off.

What If...We Lived in a comic book universe? Part 1

This will be a regular series here (I hope and with much positive feedback).

The Last Year of Smallville in Six Posters

OK, little rushed with a post tonite, because I've some big stuff I'm planning for later to celebrate officially being back. That and a new side project means tonite will be a tad rushed. Don't worry, Things will improve very soon.

So, in the meantime, let me save you hours of pain and a few bucks of buying DVDs and quickly summarize all you need to know about the last year of Smallville:

The Good

The Bad

The WTF?

Enjoy

A Typical Week in the Life of...NAMOR THE SUBMARINER!

With of course, a few tangentially related Posters!

Monday: Invade Surface world, shouting “Imperius Rex!” at the top of my lungs

Tuesday: Change my mind about invading when convinced by a human female (most likely Susan Storm Richards). Betrayed by an unstable power-hungry warlord (Note to self; institute some quality controls in military command structure so I stop promoting these guys) and exiled to the surface world.

Wednesday: Join a superteam that isn’t pissed at me for invading the surface world. Flirt with Susan Richards. Attempt to Join the U.N.

Thursday: Get booted off team for being arrogant/flirting with Sue (No one wants a guy on their team who can get their ass handed to them by Reed Richards) and fail to join the U.N.

Friday: Return to Atlantis, find out that they are about to be enslaved/slaughtered by a warlord who betrayed me

Saturday: Defeat Warlord, reclaim throne

Sunday: Rest, Play with Dolphins, beat up sea monsters, get married to an Atlantean only to have her die for no good reason. Swear vengeance on the Surface world

Huh...ain't that funny? We're right back where we started! Go figure.

Your moment of funny

STATE OF THE INITIATIVE: MADE OF FAIL!

OK, first up on the improved MPM, we'll just do a quick gloss over of the Initiative, Mark Millar's Faboulous contribution to Marvel Comics.

Oh, let's look it over.

-Failure to prevent many female superbeings from being kidnapped for auctioning (Ms. Marvel)
-Failure to protect secret identities of members from a low-level Criminal for use in his scheme to control the superheroes (New Avengers)
-Using portals to the Negative Zone for transport, even knowing it weakens the barriers between universes, possibly threatening all of existence (The Initiative)
-Sentinel Squad O*N*E* aka the Keystone cops of the Marvel Universe Seriously, have they stopped even one threat? Or done a damn thing? (All X-Books to date)
-Failure to protect Captain America, subsequent total failure to investigate or incarcerate any and all individuals involved (Captain America)
- Total failure to prevent even a limited planetary invasion (World War Hulk)
- Total failure to prevent or be prepared for any serious alien Invasion (World War Hulk, upcoming Secret Invasion, and implied in Nova)
-Total Failure of SHIELD to prevent Ultron Attack (Mighty Avengers)
-Multiple Failures of leadership and security and safety at Camp Hammond (Avengers: The Initiative)
-Failure to prevent multiple non-registered beings from escaping to Canada (Alpha Flight)
-Failure to apprehend Daredevil, despite his ID being basically an open Secret (OK, yes, Tony might have some sympathy for Matt, but somehow I doubt that would stop say, Norman Osborne or someone from the gov't from saying "no exceptions, we can't have blind men in red devil outfits running around Hell's Kitchen beating muggers because you feel sorry for them. It's the law".
-Failure to apprehend any member of the outlaw "New Avengers"
-Failure to protect American against Atlantean terrorism, and subsequent failure of SHIELD to contain Atlantis. Failure to prevent Namor/Doom Alliance and Atlantean Sleeper cells from going global. (Sub-Mariner)
-Failure to apprehend Runaways, The New Warriors, and the Loners (who should be considered as in violation of Registration terms as I understand them, if they are even registered).
-Breakout at the Raft, AGAIN (New Avengers - SHIELD BUGGERED UP AGAIN)
-Failure to protect the identity and family of a registered Hero (Tigra, New Avengers)
-Failure to protect nuclear launch codes and government secrets and government properties from a rogue Initiative member (Penance)
-Failure to capture perpetrators of an Alaskan village from Purifiers and Marauders (X-Men: Messiah Complex), which subsequently lead to a cross-country mutant war and the deaths of Sentinel Squad O.N.E., among others. Hell, the fact that the Purifiers (High-tech anti-mutant terrorists) are able to openly recruit kind of high-lights the effectiveness of the Initiative, doesn't it?
-Total Failure at all levels of Camp Hammond, including a Skrull Infiltrator, a Hydra Infiltrator, and God only knows what else (Avengers, the Initiative)
-Failure to prevent Symbiote Bomb (Mighty Avengers)
-Corruption of Initiative and SHIELD resources and allowing Extremis technology to fall into the hands of the Mandarin (Iron man)
-Failure of SHIELD to prevent potential lethal attack on SHIELD director by a prisoner in the Helicarrier (Captain America)
-Failure to reform, capture, or prevent the re-empowerement of Tarantula (Daredevil)
-Failure to prevent Hell's Kitchen from going up in a mad blaze of insanity-causing chemical drug madness. Subsequent failure to detain the Enforcers, Razor Fist, or Mr. Fear (Daredevil).



Geez, makes you wonder how badly things would have gone if they hadn't even bothered, huh?

I HAVE RETURNED!

After a long time, and many other interesting things, I have returned to this blog (Also, took me FOREVER to find old account info).

That said, I'm going to be bringing something new in this iteration. In addition to keeping the old stuff, I'm hoping to update frequently, and provide more commentary on comics, politics, science and engineering.

Now first, words of thanks for all those who have encouraged me to return to this. Sanjay Singh, Patricia Cryan, Mario Di Giacomo, and many many others have been very helpful. My thanks to all.

Equal thanks goes out to those whom have inspired this return. Not the least of which is other great bloggers like MightygodKing, Chris Sims, Dave Campell, Dorian, Mike Sterling, Kevin Church, Johanna Draper Carlson, Dennis Perrin, Barry Crimmins, Tom Tomorrow, and way, way more (as you will see on the new sidebar once I get it up and running). I cannot hope to consider myself in such good company. However, I will try to be a diligent and intelligent member of the community. Oh, and lots of snarky posters.

Which will be the new regular feature. Over, the last few years, I've spent a lot of time on this site, constructing a lot of faux motivational posters (thanks not only to some of the material provided by the blogs above, but also Scans_Daily). You'll be seeing a lot of them over our journey together.

Let us begin

God, it's so funny because it's ironic....

I occasionally visit Rush Limbaugh's website. I do this because I find it morbidly fascinating how some Americans use "Liberal" as a swear word, and he seems to be the definition of that type. So, I'm reading, and I catch this little online quote....

"...you'd have to say this is a red county country, not a red state country..."

Why would I find this amusing? A couple reasons;

1) The idea of an Amercian proudly proclaiming his country to be a "Red Country" is funny for a kid who grew up in the waning days of the Cold War.
2) The fact that he's happy about that it's his political viewpoint that is so prevasive that he ignores the notion that a lack of diversity is a VERY BAD thing for a country to have.

Oh, well, on to less serious items....


WHAT IS....ACCESSIBLITY?

Looking at many comic reviews I keep seeing the word "Accessiblity" mentioned as a key issue for comics writing. And I keep wondering how to best quantify that, if it's even possible.

I come at this from a fairly unique viewpoint. One of my earliest comics was an issue of "Uncanny X-Men"; the second to last part of the huge "Inferno" crossover. It was full, and I mean FULL of continuity bits that I had no clue about, as it was my first real exposure to the X-Men beyond an old episode of "Spider-man and his Amazing Friends" in which they guest starred.

Was this confusing for 8 year old me? Yes
Did I buy a huge number of back issues or search the internet to find the backstory? No, because there was no internet, and because I didn't even know you could BUY Back issues.
Did I enjoy the story? HELL YES.

Thus, I wonder if the problem of Accessiblity is somewhat exaggerated. On one hand, I've tried exposing non comics readers to issues of New Invaders and Robbie Morrison's Authority (These people have promptly threatened me to never do it again). On the other hand, there is little problem doing this with Spider-Girl, or Captain America, or even Robin.

I think this is something that warrants further experimentation.
Thoughts and ideas for structure of an experiment are greatly appreciated.


Michael

FINALLY!

Application to Masters School: DONE
Scholarship Applicatons: DONE
Ebay Auctions: DONE
Second Comicbookgalaxy review: DONE

I can finally get back to the business of blogging for awhile without any further real-life distractions.

HOORAY!

Michael Paciocco