Notice to Mark Millar

I think I finally get it.

You see, I kind of wondered what the whole point of Civil War was for you, and how the Registration Act was supposed to work. I know in some interviews you compared the idea of Registration to when the gunfighters of the Old West became the sheriffs and that the other gunfighters who wouldn't go along became outlaws and ultimately relics of the past. Which is fine, really. Except for the fact that after that happens, there are no real westerns. That's kind of the end of the genre. So it hardly makes sense to write a story that you figure effectively ends the superhero genre. Not great if you are into job security.



Ok, the next is the "realism" canard. And yes, I will concede, the Registration act would be a realistic response to a world where people shoot lasers out their eyes and fly around. However, I would like to take a moment to introduce you to something: The body of work of Western Literature and drama. From Odysseus to Sherlock Holmes to James T. Kirk to Jack Bauer and Dr. Gregory House, to name but a very, very few, their stories can all be broken down to this very simple cliche:

They were outsiders. They went against the system and fought the stodgy authorities. THEY ARE USUALLY RIGHT.

See that? That formula works 99% of the time because at the end of the day, everyone roots for the underdog fighting the system, no matter how unrealistic it would be or how much, in real life, you really wouldn't want these guys to run amok all the time.

I mean, who roots for the system? Who roots for the guys in the suits with the authority?

Do you root Jack Bauer to be wrong and for LA to blow up in a nuclear explosion?
Would you like to see the criminal outwit Holmes?
Do you cheer on Superman when he went up against Batman at the end of the Dark Knight Returns?

Oh...that's it isn't it?



You are pissed off with Frank Miller. Because when he wrote that, when he dragged down and degraded Superman in order to elevate his vision of Batman, you took it personally. You were furious that they made Superman into a patsy that could be taken down by Batman. And you waited until you could get a chance to rewrite that story, but you couldn't do it with the DC characters. So, you had a powerful, benevolent superbeing that was smarter and "better" than humans (Iron Man) face off against a principled man who was the pinnacle of human achievement (Captain America), and not only did you have the Superman win, but you had the Human renounce his principles in order to hammer home your point. You finally got your revenge.

Well, enjoy it. Enjoy the games where those in power are "the heroes" and everyone else is a misguided simpleton.

Me?

I'm rooting for the underdog.



AND I FUCKING LOVE IT!

PS238 - The best comic you've never read

As you may or may not know by now, I'm a huge fan of PS238, the series that deals with a secret school for the superhuman children. This series could easily have been very "kiddy" or at worst, derivative and weak. But, it is a testament to Aaron Williams' talent that he can make the children complex and fully developed as characters while still allowing them to be, well, children.

That's not to say that it's all about the kids. In what can truly be called an ensemble cast, the story (and many, many) mysteries of PS238 revolve around the staff. Again, Williams is clearly creating an epic in his own right; there are layers and layers of mysteries in the first 12 issues alone than in the entire annual output of Marvel or DC. All of this is to draw in the readers, and the appeal is to humor that is aimed as much at the kids as at the adults. As a side note, I've spent most of my life in and around people who work in education, so let me say that they would appreciate the attempts at "teacher humor" that are on display in this series;

And really, it's all about a lot of great storytelling, with suspense, humor and intelligent plotting. Great characters who at once embody the archtypes they portray while casting them in new directions. Do yourself a favor: jump over to the website and buy some, right now. Or at the very least, check out the early issues of the series, put up as a webcomic.

Your Moment of Funny

Well, there's a downer...

..at least, if you are happy with "Brand New Day"

ICv2 reports that Brand New Day's Debut was the number 2 title, not the number one.


The new top ten reads as follows

134,002 Hulk #1
127,958 Amazing Spider-Man #546
127,626 Captain America #34
113,191 Project Superpowers #0
107,631 Astonishing X-Men #24
105,520 Uncanny X-Men #494
105,070 Ultimates 3 #2
104,793 X-Men 207
101,213 Amazing Spider-Man #547
97,959 Amazing Spider-Man #548

Now, looking at that, you'd still have to say that Spider-Man is doing ok. Well, that is if you choose to accept the following:

1. That the book lost over 30,000 readers in a single month
2. That the book lost readers even with there best, most promoted and biggest names on the book
3. That while the combined total sales are still higher than the Pre-"Brand New Day" sales on the Spider books (Because Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man and Sensational Spider-Man were selling 40,000-60,000), that the sales on the last two issues of this months Amazing Spider-Man are now BELOW that of Amazing Spider-Man Pre-"Brand New Day"

Personally, I'm just a little sad at all this. The move to "three times a month" for Amazing Spider-Man always struck me as a cynical and exploitive move designed to circle the wagons. And even at that, it doesn't seem to be working thus far.

Another observation: Marvel seems to do very well on the month to month sales, doesn't it? But on the other hand, as someone whom at this point is a dedicated TPB buyer, well, there doesn't seem to ever be any hard data for that. Pity. Because I find I buy a larger number of DC trades. I have no idea why this is. DC just tends to trade more products I want. Oh well.

What if we lived in a comic book Universe Part 3

Things about comics which are pure AWESOME

Just a few things I truly, deeply love about comics, all in poster form

ROBOTS!!


GIANTS!!!


Heroics!



Kung-Fu!!!


Radioactive Children!

In which I weigh in on old stories and dead memes

OK, As was brought up in the comments to my last post, my advice on "Brand New Day" may, MAY be too little too late. Personally, we've just seen that no comic story is irreversible (Hello there Bucky, hi Jason!), so keep it in mind.



However, in an attempt to try and stay current, I'm going to dislodge a few other old topics and ancient memes in rapid fire mode here. Doesn't mean I won't come back to some of these, but I do want to try and move onwards and upwards.


So, let us begin.










Really, all his designs tend to be a bit "meh" to me.











The passing of Steve Gerber only makes this sentiment MORE valid, not less so, in my opinion.

















Just a note on the second one here: I was very annoyed because in the previous month they had a cover in which the Falcon ON FIRE. Marvel as a very disturbing idea of image marketing here.



My two-years too-late contribution to Dorian's old Meme. And of course, understanding means you've either read the issue or at least my review of it.


Last but not least...



Do you REALLY need me to comment on this one?

Strategy session for those who hate "Brand New Day"

A few people I talked to wished that they could do more to protest what they see as a pretty retarded decision by Marvel Editorial and wiping out Spider-Man's marriage thanks to a deal with the DEVIL. And a few people have said "Nothing we do will matter"





First, to the "It doesn't matter". Well, I half-agree with that sentiment. If there's one thing that we all should realize that by now is that "the power of the internets" is only as effective if the targets in question choose to pay attention to them. I doubt the online blograge will change Joey Q's mind or even Dan Buckley's. 2000 letters, some with returned issues, delivered to their doorstep? Might be a tad more effective. Remember that Jemas lost his job in large part over the letter writing done after the Mark Waid FF debacle. So, something to keep in mind. I'm not saying it's hopeless, but it would be a longshot. Now, that said, to the "these people are only spider-man/Marvel Fans" thing. Look, we need to save who we can here, and win over those we can, so you have to target your arguments and pitches where it will be moderately effective. With that in mind, here are just my thoughts on how you can use other books to lure Spider-Man fans away from the relaunch named after a particularly bad decade old Sting Song. The key element for those of you whom post on other threads (I really don't; my online presence is pretty much here and nowhere else) is to use good marketing tools. I recommend Scans Daily, as it pretty much has scans from bloody everything, and then putting up small chunks and teasers of the best of the last few issues to hook people in. Similarly, Motivational posters like the ones I make and post at the Parodyverse wouldn't be a bad promotional tool.





Now, here are what I think are some good titles to promote, and for whom;





For the Die-Hard Spider-Man Marvel Zombie





The Book: Spider Girl

The Line: This is now the REAL Spider-Man book. Nevermind ASM.





The Sinker:To the line "Well, it's not in continuity! It's not the REAL Peter parker!", the response is simple "Sure it is: it's the continuity JQ just washed away. Peter and MJ are together, there's even the daughter that's the best of both of them that Mephisto mentioned in OMD. Joey Q is saying that if you really cared about MJ and Pete you would be buying this book. Wouldn't you like to ram those words down his throat by dropping ASM and increasing this book's sales?"Rich Johnston and a few other Bloggers have already commented on Joey Q's comment and making him shut his yap. After all, what would he say if Spider-Girl's numbers took a spike as The-storyline-named-for-a-bad-Sting-song took a dive? Wouldn't that be a nice little egg on his face? And anyway, Spider-Girl features all the classics of the Spider-Man mythos and enough extras to be enticing. Go! now!





For the Spider-Man fan who is thinking about quitting Marvel (and maybe trying out a DC book):





The Book: Blue Beetle

The Line: This is the book Spider-Man WISHES it could be.





The Sinker: It's got the strongest supporting cast created in YEARS. It's a DC book that doesn't require you to have half the DCU entries on Wikipedia bookmarked so you can look it up and figure out what the hell is going on. The Protagonist is likable, trying to be heroic, and suffering from a lot of everyday problems (best Friend having lost her family, trying to create a future for himself, family issues) while dealing with super-issues (Alien invasion, Super-Villains, not-crapping-yourself when faced with Batman) and sometimes a problem that combines both (like his sorta long-distance girlfriend Traci Thirteen). He makes mistakes, he saves lives, he's getting mentored by someone with a mysterious and dangerous past; he's got half the super-people on earth looking at him funny because he's got the name of a dead friend of theirs. He has to be honest with his parents, and his parents have to do the hardest thing a parent can do; make ends meet while providing an upright example for their child and stay stoic in the knowledge that their son fights supervillains and monsters. And just to top it off, they have to help their son struggle with the emotional and moral challenges of something that is almost beyond comprehension. And they do it with humor, honor and integrity. Aunt May has it easy by comparison.(And a side note: the writer John Rogers has a great blog. Perhaps we can make a deal with him; if we can add a certain number of readers, he'll write a story in which Traci Thirteen and Black Alice have a catfight that Jamie has to try and break up, only to result in hijinks?





For the fan looking to get away from Marvel and DC





The Book: PS238








The Line: It's the comic you wish you read as a kid





The Sinker: It has a MODOK Analog and a a Dr. Doom Analogue (as children) fighting to see who can become evil overlord of a school full or superkids, staffed by a bunch of former superheroes with a dark secret, and the one kid who has a clue as to some of the larger mysteries of the series is the one kid without powers at the school whom is currently training with a psuedo-Batman (but with a sense of humor) and is targeted by a rival school of super-fascists. What more would you like with that? Oh, and early issues are on the book's website. So there's that accessibility thing covered.











Now, if the fan in questions wants to drop superhero comics altogether, it becomes a different story; you'll have to target specific genres (say, horror, or crime, or sci-fi, or what not) and that becomes a much broader topic.Just my thoughts.

Your Moment of Funny

Wildstorm comics: 1992-2008

(Note: I'm giving out a spoiler for an upcoming book, and I'm not even going to try and hide it, so if you actually care, you better avert your eyes NOW).

Ok, there you go. Moving on.

WILDSTORM: A LIVING OBITUARY.

First, I'd like you to go to Newsrama or CBR or wherever it is you go for the latest comic soliticiations. Look up the latest batch for DC, then scroll on down to the WildStorm section and check out the cover for "The Number of the Beast". Or just look below. Take a look at the figure at the bottom of the cover.




See anyone familiar on the cover?
Yes. Yes it is.


John Cumberland. The High. The guy who became a two-mile wide stain on Skywatch's forcefield at the very height of Warren Ellis' Stormwatch run.
And so it is now that the last of Ellis' noteworthy and poignant contributions to Wildstorm has been removed. This to me is the final sign: Wildstorm is effectively dead as any kind of coherent universe; it has become a marginalized ghetto of the DC universe: Earth-50 or whatever; a tiny little place that other creators will occasionally go to do some beta-testing on their ideas before bringing them to a "real" comics imprint. Like Malibu became to Marvel. Like Impact comics and Milestone before them at DC.
Now you may ask, how did this happen? Well, honestly, the handwriting was on the wall when Wildstorm went to DC in the first place. Yes, yes, going to DC did free up Jim Lee...to draw Batman every few months. Oh, and it gave them access to some DC's name talent that they might not have had otherwise. Maybe. On the other hand, it ultimately cost them Alan Moore and the entire ABC line.
However, the final nails in the coffin can be contributed to the following:

1) the Loss of Scott Dunbier: Clearly, the heart and soul of the franchise: A guy who rigidly kept track of the universe's coherence and kept it's creators striving to do their creative best. And generally, they did. But since he left, it's not hard to see the quality drop-off in titles. What little remains. Looking at the sections of Wildstorm comics in previews, you can see two patterns emerging; lots of wild grasps at using D-list characters to try and make something cohesive (which is failing) and successive apocalyptic scenarios (Let's see: we have "Wildstorm: Revelations", "Apocalypse", "Armageddon", "Number of the Beast". Lots and lots of new and old characters and rehashes of what has come before, but not a lot of it that was true to what made the Wildstorm universe UNIQUE: that the superhumans who existed in the WSU were generally not NATURAL phenomena: They were the products of conspiracies and covert government ops and secret cabals and rare things. All of this is now gone, expunged from Wildstorm cannon. It's just another super-verse where these things just sort of happen. Which brings me to my second point:
2) Everything that made the WSU "sexy" and "Daring" has since moved on to the bigger names of Marvel and DC proper. Let's go down the list, shall we?

-Graphic Violence? CHECK
-"Widescreen Action"? CHECK
-Warren Ellis (who remember, was in the Wildstorm ghetto for a long time)? CHECK.
-Jim Lee? CHECK.
-Provocative, Sexy Superheroine costumes? CHECK.
-Grim, gritty, realpolitik superheroics? CHECK.
-Superhumans that are under the control of government operations or large corporate interests? CHECK.

I could go on, but I think my point is made: There's nothing left that's truly singular to Wildstorm anymore. Except massive delays on flagship titles (The Authority, Wildcats).
And so it is, that I do make this declartion. To be fair, some of Wildstorm's satelite titles that aren't tied to the "Wildstorm Universe" will probably still be published for a long time to come. Ex Machina, Kurt Busiek's Astro City, the World of Warcraft comics, to name a few. But I feel very confident in saying that come 2010, you shouldn't be expecting to see any new issues of "Stormwatch" on the stands.

Unless a miracle happens.

I'm not holding my breath for one.

What if we lived in a Comic Book Universe, Part 2

Great moments in Comics: Cap lays down the beats

Confession right up: I’m Canadian, and a proud and I like to think patriotic citizen. I would not want to live anywhere else on earth.

That said, I have a deep affection for Captain America that transcends all rational thought. I just love the character, the idealism, the “man out of time aspect” and the fact that he combines this with his unending quest to beat the holy hell out of Nazis, mad gods, and other evil crooks in costumes. Now, if only there were a single comic that encapsulated all of this…

Oh wait, there is!

Captain America, Vol. 1, issue 350. Written by the late, great Mark Gruenwald, with art by Kieron Dwyer.

First, a bit of background: The Commission on Superhuman Activities had told Steve Rogers that since the government created Captain America, he should work for them. Steve thinks that might not be such a good idea, as he thinks the government might try to force him do something that goes against his conscience, like conscript fellow super humans into government service. But that’s crazy, right?

Anyway, he decides to give up the Captain America identity altogether, and instead rebuilds himself and takes on a new identity as “The Captain”, wearing the stylish black uniform on the cover here. In the meantime, the Commission bring on John Walker, a guy whose physical power far exceeds that of Rogers to be the new Captain America. However, he’s well, I believe the technical term is TOTALLY FUCKING PSYCHO. For about a year and a half previous they’ve had parallel storylines, but it all comes to a head here. Now, this issue begins with a man who looks like Steve Rogers, and what’s he up to?

As we learn in the issue's back up feature (1988 SPOILER ALERT) this in fact the Red Skull, wearing a clone body of Steve's, clone bodies being the height of fashion in the late 80s and early 90s (see also: Luthor, Lex). So, what does he do with a physically perfect body?

He hires mercenaries to dress up as Cap and kills five of them every morning. BEFORE BREAKFAST.

Folks, that's super-villainy work-ethic right there. I mean, when you go out of your way to hire people to cosplay as the guy you hate and you kill a nearly a half dozen of them before your morning cup o'joe, that shows dedication to the whole "Arch-Nemesis" thing. I mean, come on, the Joker might knock off an IHOP occasionally, but he probably orders first and even then, he doesn't do it EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The scene changes, and we look in on our hero in his new(ish) identity. As the distinguished Professor Sims has noted (here and here), no true Marvel Anniversary is complete without a scene of baby endangerment. In this case, the peril is the form of an out of control newspaper delivery truck. Now, not one to be one-upped by that rich frat boy Tony Stark, our hero surpasses him.

He saves the pie

HE SAVES THE PIE!

Truly, they were the Greatest Generation.

This gives Cap the confidence to finally go and talk to the Commission about the raw deal they gave him. He starts with the head of the commission, who we learn is a corrupt flunky of the Red Skull's, and well...

...apparently Washington has some really shitty telephone companies. And you think AT&T sucks NOW.

Meanwhile, what of Johnny Walker, the replacement psycho Cap? Well, he's busy.

Murdering a bunch of flunkies organized by the Skull to give him a warm up while the Skull sets up the fight we've all been waiting for...

And it's on!

Sweep the leg!

As Cap says, he's in it to win it!

and a vicious elbow strike to win Round one! But wait! What's going on here?

Apparently Cap frowns on setting helpless prisoners on fire. Go figure.

Now, Cap says he had to "harden himself to regain his fighting edge" Now, you may be wondering what his training method was. Well, in this exact order, it went

-Fought a Bear
-Defeated Viper and the deadly Serpent Society
-Slugging U.S. President Ronald Reagan

which I think says something about the Gipper that Cap had to warm up for that by fighting a bear and then taking on the deadliest snake based terrorist organization this side of COBRA.

I have no commentary that can truly capture the glory of what comes next, so I'll just give you the highlights.

I just want to say what a louse Walker is here: he whines that Cap has a unfair advantage because he's using the shield, but then he goes and tries to garrote Cap the first chance he gets. However, cheaters never prosper.

And it's over folks! Well, the Skull comes out to gloat about how clever he is, but really, how clever could he be if he left some of that skullifying dust of his in cigarette holder? I mean really, if you do something that stupid...

...you deserve what happens to you.

And so, The Skull gets a permanent makeover, The Commission decides that Steve is simply too badass, and give him back the title, and all is well.

This was one of my favorite comics as a kid, and it holds up pretty well, Gruenwald established Cap as a principled fighter who never lost his cool and never betrayed his ideals; basically, a hero's hero who you could look up to. And seriously, we need more of that.

As a final note, I'm adding this poster; The original picture is here (and thanks to this guy). Special thanks also goes out to Chris Sims for being an inspiration and not beating me to this. I hope you've enjoyed.