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What If we lived in a Comic Book Universe? Part 58

This guy would be your new king, that's what.

Happy Earth Day!

I bring the Cute

And today, I introduce you to Armand Zefram Pogue, who's a brave little lad you can meet here. Thanks to his parents for giving me permission to put this up.

I think I'll just leave this one up for a few days, if that's alright?

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What if We Lived in a comic book universe? Part 57

Gamer Humour again

As a non-Torontonian, this is my legal right

Underused character giants!

Just some characters I like, in small, concentrated doses. None of them can probably sustain a long term series of their own, but when they show up, they are awesome? Agree? Disagree? Candidates of your own?

Comics "Journalism" Made Easy!

Hi everyone! Want to break into the exciting field of online comics journalism, but you lack the skill, the connections, or the ability to hold a conversation with anyone for more than 30 seconds at a time? Well, now it's easy! The "interview" template is easy to use! Just fill in the Blanks!

INTERVIEWER: Explain to me the appeal of (TITLE)?

WRITER: I've always loved (TITLE) ever since and his epic (WELL RECEIVED STORY FROM CHILDHOOD). The book has unlimited potential with the wide array of characters and settings available.

INTERVIEWER: Awesome. But what do you think of the characters?

WRITER: Well I've always liked how

(MAIN CHARACTER) is (MAIN CHARACTER TRAIT) and their interactions with (SECONDARY CHARACTER). That dynamic has always struck me as a strong one and it's one I want to explore. Something that I've always tried to make sense of is how (GENRE TROPE/INTERNAL CHARATER CONTRADICTION) works, so I think I'll look at that too.

INTERVIEWER: Tell us about your plans for the story

WRITER: Well in my first issue we're going to have (MAIN CHARACTER) in a new kind of situation. This is going to force to re-evaluate certain preconceptions and existing relationships, particularly with (SECONDARY CHARACTER).

INTERVIEWER: What can you tell us about (ARTIST)? What do you feel he brings to the series?

WRITER: He's a great guy and one of the best in the industry, a real diamond in the rough. He does some amazing work trying to (ARTIST STYLISTIC QUIRK) that is note perfect for where I want to take the series.

INTERVIEWER: Any final thoughts or spoilers?

WRITER: Two Words: Stay Tuned.

Give it a try today!

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What If we lived in a comic book Universe? Part 56

Your Moment of Funny

Of course I'm jacked, aren't you?

THE INITIATIVE IN REVIEW

Alright, so the end of "Dark Reign" and the beginning of "The Heroic Age" is nearly here, so I think it's entirely appropriate to take some time and go over as complete a list as possible of the Initiative's successes and failures. I'll try to be as organized about this as possible given the subject matter:

-Failure to capture Ghost Rider (or is it Ghost Riders? Are there more than one now?)
-Failure to capture the Runaways
-Failure to capture Moon Knight (an out of control murderous vigilante? Isn't that exactly what the Initiative should be cracking down on? And he has no powers? Really, it's that hard?)

-Failure to apprehend Daredevil, thus allowing him to consilidate his power and become head of a criminal cartel (the Hand) known to cause incidents of terror and assassination, along with a team of super-powered vigilantes. Failure to prevent multiple incidents of murder, death and mass insanity in Hell's Kitchen.
-Successfully dismantling the post-Civil War "New Warriors", with some lethal casualties* (Point for Stark)
-Successfully bringing down the Punisher (Point for Osborn)

*(Weird subtext - it strikes me as disconcerting that lethal methods have only been shown being used against the youngest superhumans - machineguns against Patriot in "Civil War", cops killing teenagers in "New Warriors" and my favorite - using TOW missiles against kids in "Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways. Also, what is up with calling the troops "Capekillers"? Aside from being a bad name, it's weird in the context of the Marvel Universe because the vast majority of Marvel Superheroes don't wear capes to begin with).

Now let's move on to the bigger items shall we?

-The Hulk(s) - escaped captivity, plus the additional creation of Red Hulk, A-Bomb, Red She-Hulk, and others. She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters) is reported MIA after breaking into federal property and nearly causing an international incident abroad.

-Ms. Marvel: Endangerment of a minor (Arana),Failure to prevent many female superbeings from being kidnapped for auctioning. Dismantling of Operation: Lightning Storm, defection from Initiative and subsequent rogue actions.

-Infiltration of Camp Hammond by HYDRA, the Skrulls, and finally, a criminal cabal controlled by the Hood. Subsequent defection of key Initiative leaders to form Avengers Resistance.

-Loss of Prison 42 under Stark, reclaimed under Osborn (Point for Osborn)

-Using portals to the Negative Zone for transport, even knowing it weakens the barriers between universes, possibly threatening all of existence
-Failure to prevent multiple non-registered beings from escaping to Canada
-Failure to prevent formation of supervillain criminal cartel created by The Hood. Subsequent failures to protect Initiative member secret identities from said cartel and allowing their escape from Initiative custody.
-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.
-Failure to protect nuclear launch codes and government secrets and government properties from a rogue Initiative member Penance

-Failure to stop Menace from killing a Mayoral candidate.
-Failure to apprehend the patrons of known supervillain bars
-Failure to stop a bio-terror attack and thus, creating the conditions for a gang war
-Failure of Initiative personal to prevent assault on high-profile individuals, public and private property, as well as innocent lives by super criminals. All those assaults were stopped by "unregistered combatatants".

-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. Subsequent failure to police the mutant population and keep them from creating a mutant base camp with easy access to US soil to perpetuate mutant extremist actions, including but not limited to terrorism and assassination.
-Failure to prevent Symbiote Bomb. International incident created by invasion of Latveria. Subsequent failure to maintain Dr. Doom in federal custody. Dropping of all charges.
-Failure to prevent major loss of life in California due to superhuman terror. Multiple deaths of Initiative members (The Order)
-Failure to capture rogue "Captain America", subsequent defection of Black Widow
-Failure to prevent Helicarrier fleet from being stolen by Nick Fury and enemy superhuman forces.
-Failure to prevent world-wide terrorism strikes by Ezekiel Stane. Subsequent failure to prevent Tony Stark from carrying out massive destruction of federal property.

-Number of Helicarrier fleet crashes: Three - Once the entire fleet got grounded by Ultron, a second time by Amadeus Cho, and finally, the Skrull invasion.

-Number of massive alien invasions : Two - World War Hulk and Secret Invasion, both the product of actions taken by Initiative heads Tony Stark and Reed Richards

And Finally: Massive loss of life in act of superhuman terrorism in Chicago, and massive loss of life in Asgard.

Anyone still care to say it was a good idea? Because, no, it wasn't - it was a bad idea conceived poorly because it does break the back of the superhero genre (as it would most other action genres, make no mistake). It's even more laughable because the brain trust at Marvel wanted us to by "No, really, this is the realistic response" and then go back and say "well, of course Tony Stark only kept two copies of all the SHRA's secrets, and one of them was his own magnificent brain". That's eating your cake and having it too; because in a realistic situation, there would have been back ups for that kind of data - some of them on paper, and not all of them under the control of a single human being, because no human being could be trusted to wield that level of secrecy unaccounted for.

But of course, if we're talking realism, then this whole thing would have been scrapped from the get-go.

Oh well. I for one am glad to be done with this final list of the many, many failings of the concept. RIP, SHRA.

Missing the boat

How the fucking fuck did this happen?

Someone explain it to me: we live in the age of Enron, of Haliburton, KBR and every other energy company being a suit of armor away from becoming Lex Luthor, but Marvel, the oh-so "We have our fingers on the pulse of the people" company hasn't used Roxxon as an obvious surrogate for this sort of thing in YEARS? How is it that only Ed "Englehart remixed" Brubaker is going to deal with Roxxon in his Secret Avengers?

(Of course the answer is obvious: For all their swagger about being rebels, they aren't - they are a corporate entity that does not fight it's own kind, appearances to the contrary).

I mean, ok, Haliburton does it's share of skullduggery, but they aren't responsible for empowering half the fucking Serpent Society or creating the original Omega Flight or 1/100th of the things Roxxon has done. OCP? Weyland-Yutani? Amateur hour operations by Roxxon standards.

There really, really should have been something done over the last few years about the Roxxon making serious power grabs and using the SHRA and other bits of madness as a way of creating a corporate power base that would make a truly frightening threat to any team of heroes.

Just saying.

Sometimes I just post for me.

This won't make a lick of sense to you unless you've read the current "Guardians of the Galaxy" title.

And if you have, good for you :)

What if we Lived in a Comic Book Universe? Part 55

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Found in Translation

As a first day back in the old routine, I thought I'd take a look at some comments from the Marvel Gang a few weeks back and put them through the old translator.

JOE QUESADA ON SPIDER-MAN AND THE MARRIAGE:

“We worked too hard to get Peter to this point. I can understand why some of you
want to see the characters grow old, but we have to manage these characters for
the future – a future beyond you and me."

TRANSLATION: "My entire career is riding on this. Listen, we like to think that Marvel's characters are robust and vital with incredible unexplored potentials, but they're not - they are fragile things that can only be used in a very limited number of stories to be recycled again and again."

A married Peter Parker – as cool as that may seem – from a creative standpoint, it handcuffs the character. It’s a very problematic thing for Peter because it cuts him off and makes Peter the oldest person in the book."

TRANSLATION: "We prefer that Peter Be the stupidest character in the book who remains static while everyone else moves on in their lives."

“It’s very tough to write because you want to see Peter and M.J. happy, and in a book where, really at its crust, is a soap opera about Peter’s life, the minute he gets everything he wants and life is happy, the stories get boring. So how do you create [the conflict the drama needs]? You have Mary Jane and Peter butt heads. But now you’re dealing with a marriage that isn’t a very happy marriage and they’re constantly bickering."

TRANSLATION: "Long-term relationships and marriages are either blissful static utopias or constant bickering, with nothing inbetween. This is the consensus of a group of grown human beings living in modern society."

"...when you look at every iteration of Spider-Man out now – the movies, the cartoons – he’s a single guy."

TRANSLATION: "Marvel is all about rigid conformity in brand identity. Our version of the character is now virtually identical to his appearances in other media, except you have to pay more money per story."

JOE QUESADA ON THE ORIGINS OF THE HEROIC AGE:

"The Heroic Age started with a manifesto that came from doing a lot of big company-wide crossovers…and we just needed to get off that treadmill. It felt like we were just feeding the beast: one big event, then another big one, and then it became a matter of diminishing returns."

TRANSLATION: Blackest Night kicked our ass, and even Bendis couldn't figure out how to keep tying into Bendis-run events.

JOE QUESADA ON WHETHER DISNEY WILL INTERFERE IN MARVEL'S INNER WORKINGS:

“Marvel runs as Marvel runs.”

TRANSLATION: The second there's a dip in the box office returns, we're toast.

BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS ON AVENGERS:

"The writer then brought up the fact that every story dealing with Kang has characters worrying about the space-time continuum. “Well, Kang breaks it,” Bendis said with a grin. He added that as a result of this break, readers are going to see characters like Maestro, Next Avengers from the “Avengers” cartoon, Spider-Girl, and folks from the Age of Apocalypse."

TRANSLATION: "I'm doing a remix of Avengers Forever. It's not too soon to do that, is it?"

JOE QUESADA ON THE CAPTAIN AMERICA/TEA PARTY ISSUE:

"What I said was that we made a mistake in identifying a group as an actual existing group in America…and that’s really the truth."

TRANSLATION: "We got caught."

"But the thing that upset me was that when the media ran with it, it was like ‘EIC of Marvel Apologizes” but they didn’t read the remainder of the apology.”

TRANSLATION: "The Media is suppossed to give me a fair shake! Who do they think I am? An internet commenter?"


ED BRUBAKER ON THE CAPTAIN AMERICA/TEA PARTY ISSUE:

"I grew up in the ‘70s reading ‘Captain America’ comics, where Captain America and the Falcon were always talking about race relations – I don't know if we could do that today with the way the media works. For me, I just try to write the characters the way that I perceive them. I just wanted to show that the mood in the country has shifted this way. That's all I wanted to say.”

TRANSLATION: "Everything else worthwile in my Cap run was borrowed from Englehart's run, so I figured I could do this too."


OK, and that's that for this round. I tried finding some similar DC announcements, but couldn't find any that the Translator could make any sense of whatsoever. However, if you like the idea, send me some links and I'll see if I can make this a new regular feature.