Silver Surfers, Creators, and Documentaries

I hadn't seen anyone mention this until I caught up on Mark Evanier's blog, but apparently the deluxe edition of the DVD of the first Fantastic Four movie has a second disc of documentaries, including what Gary "Innocent Bystander" Sassaman says is a great hour-long piece completely about Jack Kirby.

In the comments to Sassaman's review, someone points out that Lee is still freely acknowledging that Jack put the Surfer into the story without any suggestion from Stan, and that this is "full credit for the creation of the Surfer".

While I don't disagree that Jack Kirby conceived of the Silver Surfer, I don't think that tells the whole story, either.

I'm going to quote myself from a much earlier discussion, because everything old is new again.

No one, not even Lee, disputes the fact that Kirby created the character. Lee has many times related his surprise upon seeing the pages of FF #48 and finding this shining guy on a surfboard, and asking Kirby who this character was. It is clear that Kirby both developed the idea of Galactus having a herald and created the character, visually, from scratch.

However, it is also clear (though perhaps less universally so) that Kirby intended the character as a minor part of the story, no more significant than "The Punisher", the android guardian whom Galactus sets on the FF while he busys himself with the recreation of the energy-draining machines. Lee was the one who was caught up with the Surfer, and who decided that he should be central to the story in #49-50, and Lee who gave the Surfer his angst and torment.

In the months following FF #50, both Lee and Kirby developed their own ideas of what to do with the Surfer. Lee's vision won out because he could go around Kirby's back and get another artist to draw his (Lee's) stories of the Surfer, while Kirby could not get another writer or publisher to work on his vision of the Surfer. I'm not saying this was a good thing for Lee to have done, but it is clear that it is Lee's vision of the Surfer which has been allowed to survive, not Kirby's.

As I was once quoted on NPR, "Kirby created the Surfer, except for his character, motivation, history, and emotional power- in short, everything which makes the Surfer what he is today." Kirby might have had a vision of the Surfer which was as powerful and as memorable, but it is Lee's that survives.

I made a similar comment after seeing the first X-Men movie: "Stan and Jack may have invented Magneto, but the character in this film was created by Chris Claremont." Character creation in a shared universe is a tricky matter. Ideas mutate quickly, collaborators springboard off each other's contributions, and before even a single issue is done, it's hard to say who did what. [Sorry about the formatting; it's been a while since I've done a jump-cut here.]

Maybe Peter Can Date Samantha Carter

Hey, is anyone else reading the "Heroes" graphic novels? I liked the comics up until the end of the season, and the Wireless story was good. They not only added to the story, but parts of the story were only comprehensible if you read the comics. For example, why didn't Sylar escape after killing Eden? However, now the show ended and...

The comics have dramatically flatered. The origin o the Haitian was very cliched and poorly executed, and now it looks like they're starting a traditional teen angst storyline. Of course, teen angst has been part of the show since the beginning, with Claire and the cheerleading thing, but it still gives me hives.

Btw, in other news, Sylar is dating Veronica Mars! With her help, they'll never find him!

Perhaps They Used Charades...

On the advice of the Curmudgeons readers, I read World War Hulk X-Men. And as promised it had the big fight scene, however...

What's with the sound effects? "KRASSHH" "SHRAMMM" "SKRAMMMM" "THWAMMM" amongst others. Those seem like odd choices.

Additionally, there's a scene wherein the Hulk tears off Rockslide's arms, saying, essentially, "You can control the pieces of your body? Can you control them from Connecticutt?" Rockslide's response after what the Hulk throw away his arms? "Dude, that's harsh." Yeah. I guess so, since his just tore your arms off...

But my favorite line "I know, but according to what I beat out of Black Bolt, you were supposed to be."

Hulk has ways of making you talk.

I don't know about anyone else, but Black Bolt's not my first choice to beat a confession out of. He whispered and knocked Hulk back half a mile. The image of Hulk beating Black Bolt with a phone book and a rubber hose shouting "Talk, talk dammit" kind of reminded of me the Heroes comic book with Linderman healing the VC prisoner so he could be interrogated more.

But making Black Bolt talk? Possibly counter productive for information gathering purposes. Now I really want to see the Black Bolt Hulk fight. Marvel just doesn't want to write it.

It's the New New New New Math

Apparently, they do math a little differently in the 31st century. Spoilers for Legion of Superheroes #31.

In this issue, we get election results. Legion elections are, in the words of Mekt Ranzz, "a popularity contest voted on by a quarter-million underagers." I think that quarter-million number may have been established by Mark Waid back in the first few issues, but boy -- it sure does seem low. Here's a youth movement that exists on multiple populated planets, that's associated with a group of heroes who have saved those planets multiple times, and that is open to any "underager" who wants to join. You could put together a movement of a quarter-million underagers in the U.S. today, let alone worldwide, and let alone across an entire federation of planets.

But that's not the real math problem. The real math problem is in the results:

Brainiac 5: 7%
Cosmic Boy: 23%
Lightning Lad: 26%
Supergirl: 54%

Total: 110%

Oops! And that's not even counting all the 31st-century Ron Pauls who probably push the vote total to 115% or more.

And by the way, a real writer would let the readers vote in the election.

Hulk Smash! But We Don't Get to See It

It used to be the rule: Show, don't tell. Now, if that it still the rule, the comics are about Ben Urich...

I blame Kurt Busiek. After Marvels and Astro City, the Busiek style could fairly be described as "Tell about what happens on the fringes of the story." Yesterday, when I picked up World War Hulk, I wanted to see a bunch of fight scenes with the Hulk stomping people. And if I pick up a comic book with "Hulk" written on it, by gum I should want to see Hulk punching people. What do I get...

Well, I got an okay fight with Iron Man but the fight with Black Bolt was Black Bolt whispering, and sending Hulk flying. And then Hulk jumps back saying he wants to hear Black Bolt scream. That should be pretty impressive. Black Bolt shouting should really provide some dramatic effects. Cut away to later...

We see Hulk holding up Black Bolt...

Where's the fight?

Hulk came back to go after Black Bolt, Reed, Iron Man and Dr. Strange. We don't get to see 25% percent of the revenge scheme? I feel cheated, to be honest.

I view this as a Jerry Bruckheimer film. I wasn't expecting Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns or Maus. I was expecting World War Hulk with Hulk smashing! Instead, I got to see Black Bolt whisper...and then nothing. If I buy a comic book which advertises Hulk exacting his revenge from four characters, I don't expect the subtle machinations of The Mad Thinker. I expect forty pages of guys in costumes slugging it out.

I realize there's a mindset "Oh, you're so childish..." Fine, you can go read Copybook Tales or something, but I want to see Hulk Smash!!!!!

Will we be able to see Heath Ledger's mustache under the greasepaint?

It's summer in Chicago, and that can mean only one thing: the city has been taken over by Christopher Nolan!

Actually, I haven't seen that much talk about the fact that they're filming Batman: The Dark Knight here. It's as if we're all as jaded as your average Angelino. Shouldn't we be making a fuss over the fact that Batman! Is! Filming! In! Chicago!? But for whatever reason, we're not. Indeed, they've been filming about two blocks from my office for the last week and a half, and even though I see signs of the production every day, I haven't really thought it was worth mentioning. Then again, the only thing I've seen is a bunch of trailers and a craft services table, so not much to report.

Anyway, today I got caught up in the filming (sort of), so I thought I'd share. No major spoilers -- what I saw was almost certainly second-unit stuff -- but I'm going to put it after the break just in case.

First, a map and quick Chicago geography lesson:

Chicago is bounded on the east by Lake Michigan; the Chicago River comes off Lake Michigan and heads west; about a mile from Lake Michigan, it splits into a North Branch and a South Branch at a T-shaped fork. Wacker Drive runs along the east-west portion of the Chicago River. The scene I saw was being filmed along Wacker Drive, starting just west of Michigan Avenue and continuing until State Street (a distance of about two blocks -- the red portion of the map).

The film crew had Wacker Drive westbound down to one lane for through traffic. The other lane was filled with cars that had Gotham license plates. On the sidewalk, they had a bunch of people with lugage. Parked on the Wabash Street bridge was some sort of military vehicle with a huge gun and a Gotham City Police Car. Soldiers and Gotham City Police Officers were herding people to the west.

Basically, it looked to be your standard "the army and the police evacuate the city" scene. But seeing the cars with their "Gotham" license plates and the Gotham City Police cruiser were pretty cool.

So if you're in downtown Chicago any time soon, keep your eyes open for signs of filming. Base camp seems to be the corner of Franklin and Washington -- there's a vacant lot there, which has been filled with trailers for the past few weeks -- but they're obviously roaming around picking out bits and pieces of the Loop to stand in for Gotham.

I'm one of the only people I know who didn't think Batman Begins was all that great, but I can't help get excited about this one. Hopefully, I'll like it as much as everyone else like the first one.

I Wonder if He'll Say "Fuck" to Jarvis

So, Paris Hilton is set to play Nick Fury...

Just kidding, it's really Sam Jackson.

Paris Hilton should play one of Tony's love interests, though, just to piss people off.

(Yes, to punish everyone I am going to work Paris Hilton into my posts whenever possible. I hate you all.)

Anyway, I have to think that Sam Jackson is an interesting casting choice. Does he indicate an affirmative choice toward the the Ultimate side of things in movies. Spidey's organic webs also
seem influenced by the Ultimate universe.

The first few minutes of Live Free or Die Hard. Appropos of nothing at all...

Sunday Song Lyric

The Bill Mantlo tribute book I mention here begins with an essay by Mike Mantlo, Bill's younger brother. That essay containes says that in te early 1970s, before he went to Marvel, Bill lived in New York's East Village where "[o]ne of his roommates was in a local rock and roll band called the New York Dolls."

Now, describing the Dolls as a "local band" is a bit like describing Nathaniel Hawthorne as a local Boston author. Though the Dolls only released two albums, they were extremely influential. It's probably safe to say that there hasn't been a rock band in the last 30 years that wasn't influenced (directly or indirectly) by the Dolls. Every punk band, every new wave band, every alternative band, every hair metal band, every grunge band -- they can all trace their lineage back to the Dolls. Brian Eno famously said of another band that "the first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but of those ten thousand people, every last one of them went out and formed a band." The same might well be said of the New York Dolls.

The New York Dolls were Johnny Thunders, David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain, Arthur Kane, Billy Murcia, and (after Murcia's untimely death) Jerry Nolan. Here are the lyrics to one of my favorie Dolls songs.

Personality Crisis
New York Dolls

Well we can't take it this week
And her friends don't want another speach
Hoping for a better day to hear what she's got to say

All about that
Personality Crisis you got it while it was hot
But now frustration and heartache is what you got
(That's why they talk about Personality)

But now your tryin' to be some now you got to do some
Wanna be someone who cow-ow-ows
But you think about the times you did they took every ounce
When it sure got to be a shame when you start to scream and shout
You got to contradict all those times you were butterflyin' about
(You were butterflyin')
All about that Personality Crisis you got it while it was hot
But now frustration and heartache is what you got

And you're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon
Change on into the wolfman howlin' at the moon hooowww

All about that Personality Crisis you got it while it was hot
But now frustration and heartache is what you got

Now with all the crossin fingers that mother nature says
Your mirrors get jammed up with all your friends

That personality everything starts to blend
Personality when your mind starts to blend
Personality impression of a friend,
Of a friend, of a friend, of a friend, of a friend
Personality wonderin' how celebrities ever met
(Look and find out on television)

Personality Crisis you got it while it was hot (it's always hot!)
Frustration and heartache is all you got, don't you worry
Personality Crisis please don't cry
It's just a Personality Crisis, please don't stop

Because you walk a Personality
Talk a Personality

Bill Mantlo

Let's talk about Bill Mantlo.

On the off chance some of you don't know who Bill Mantlo is, he was a mainstay writer for Marvel throughout most of the 70s and the first haf of the 80s. He never achieved superstar status, but he remained a solid utility player throughout his tenure at Marvel. During his decade-and-a-half career, he produced memorable runs on Spectacular Spider-Man and the Hulk, and created characters like Cloak & Dagger, Jack of Hearts and White Tiger. He was also responsible for developing comics ased on the Micronauts toy line and the Rom: Spaceknight toy -- in both cases, crafting settings, backstories, and supporting characters for what had otherwise been pretty generic toys; for my money, Mantlo's Micronauts and Rom are two of the great achievements at post-Bronze Age Marvel.

In the late 80s, Mantlo's assignments from Marvel began to dry up, and he drifted away from comics. He went to law school and started doing criminal defense work for the New York Legal Defense Society. Then, in 1992, he was hit by a car and left with permanent brain damage. Bill Mantlo has spent the last 15 years in an assisted living home, and is not expected to recover.

There's a great new magazine out about Mantlo, with the proceeds to pay for his care. Bill Mantlo: A Life in Comics is written by indie creator David Yurkovich, and does a fantastic job of providing a biography of Mantlo's career as a comics writer. More information can be found here, and I heartily recommend it.

I haven't read as much Bill Mantlo as I would like to. Unfortunately, not much of it is in print. His Micronauts (particularly the first 12 issues) and his Rom top the list of "things I wish would be reprinted," although licensing issues are holding things up in both cases. The stuff he did on Cloak and Dagger was fun, particularly when it was paired with Peter Gillis's Dr. Strange. And I still think Carrion was one of the great Spider-Man villains, worthy of inclusion in the rogue's gallery Lee and Ditko and Romita gave us.

So what are your favorite Bill Mantlo stories?

Brad Meltzer, I'm calling you out!

I just read Justice League of America #10, which came out this past Wednesday. This is the final chapter of the "Lightning Saga," a six-part story that crossed between the JLA and JSA books, and featured seven members of the classic post-Adventure Legion roster. After reading it, I was left with a lot of questions -- and not the good kind of questions. The kind of questions that make me wonder if this thing actually had an editor -- because if Brad Meltzer had a coherent story in his head, it certainly didn't make it onto the page.

Spoilers inside, so if you plan to read this story (my advice: don't bother) and wish to be unspoiled, stay away.

Here are some of my issues:

First, a continuity nerd issue: The story indicates that the seven Legionnaires who travelled back in time all started from the same point and travelled back to accomplish their mission. Except that the team included Karate Kid and Sensor Girl. Any true Legion fan knows that Projectra didn't adopt the Sensor Girl identity until after Karate Kid died.

Speaking of nerdy issues, whoever did the Interlac on the last page needs to learn that there's a difference between an Interlac H and an Interlac L, because the comic as written says "TLE VILLAIN IS TLE HERO IN LIS OWN STORY."

On to the substance. OK, so the deal is that the seven Legionnaires are going to use the lightning rods to resurrect ... someone; they haven't said who until now. But they have said that it's going to be the same technology that was used to bring back Lightning Lad waaaaaay back in the early days of Adventure Comics. That's cool, except ... when the time comes, everyone puts up their forcefields, Karate Kid dodges the lightning bolt, nobody sacrificies their life, and still, they manage to resurrect Wally West, Linda West, and their two kids. Huh? Nobody needed to sacrifice their life? That's completely inconsistent with the way the lightning rods are described in this very issue. It makes no sense.

Another question: why did the Legionnaires care? Why would they want to bring Wally back? It's like seven members of the Justice League travelling back in time to bring Marcus Junius Brutus back to life after the second battle of Philippi. Why do the Legionnaires care about a second-generation, second-tier hero who died -- one way or the other -- a thousand years before they were born. This is never explained.

Also, there's a lot of misdirection to make us think Barry Allen will be coming back. For example, Timber Wolf goes to the Van Stratten Mansion (or whatever it was called) in Gotham City -- the mansion where Barry appeared to Batman as the former was travelling through time after destroying the Anti-Monitor's cannon in Crisis. This is a nice callback, except ... why would Timber Wolf be there if they are trying to resurrect Wally? Did he just coincidentally go there? Were the Legionnaires actually trying to resurrect Barry? It seemed like the only reason to set Timber Wolf there is so the reader (and Batman) can say "Barry's coming back," and five pages later, Meltzer can say "Hah hah! Silly reader (and Batman)! I fooled you! I am so great!"

On the other hand, there is some text that suggests the Legionnaires were aiming for Barry. At one point, Timber Wolf tells Hal Jordan "Now you are not alone," which could mean "You know how you recently came back from the dead? Now there's a second hero who did too" -- let's leave aside that half the Justice League has come back from the dead at one point or another -- but it could also mean "Your bestest friend in the whole wide world (not counting Oliver Queen) is back!" But if the Legionnaires were, in fact, aiming for Barry instead of Wally, that is never explained. Nor do the Legionnaires reflect any disappointment at getting Wally instead of Barry. So I don't know what Meltzer was aiming for.

So, to summarize: The plot disobeys its own internal description of the sacrifice that will be needed, and the motivation of the characters who are willing to sacrifice their very lives is completely unexplained. Stay away!

Think of me, if you think of me at all, as that guy who would have written 10,000 words about Micronauts

I regret things. If pressed, I could admit to a great many regrets in my life. Not writing more about Bill Mantlo is definitely one of those regrets, as is the fact that I never sat down and wrote the post explaining that it was probably Roy Thomas, and not L. Sprague de Camp, Robert Jordan or Lin Carter who wrote the most important pastiche of Robert E. Howard's characters, and that the character we find in Thomas' run on Conan hews fairly closely to Howard's canny, feral but intelligent throne-treader. There are always more ideas than there are hands to write them with. I wanted to cover the first and second Micronauts series, and I never sat down and discussed the roots of that seemingly ubiquitous stock character, the street-level vigilante. And I could never figure out how to write the piece about Batman and his tendency to adopt people, which has reached ridiculous levels in the modern comic books, to the point where Batman is the Mike Brady of a family of angry costumed men, women and children.

I did not write these posts, and now the opportunity is gone, because I won't be posting here any longer. I'm leaving the Curmudgeons, but while I regret many things (including leaving) I do not regret having been involved with the site, or having written thousands of words about comic books. I mostly regret not having written more about them. No article comparing All-Star Squadron to The Invaders ever materialized out of the ether. My paean to Victor Von Doom, at times one of my favorite characters in comics, was never completed beyond a few paragraphs. My discussion of how E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensmen series inspired comic books from Green Lantern and Legion of Super Heroes to Nexus and Dreadstar sits, mouldering, in a file on a computer that doesn't work anymore. I never got beyond a few notes for an in-depth critique of Ostrander's Grimjack or his later, superlative work on The Spectre, and I didn't even compile the notes for the piece I could never decide how to write about Rick Veitch. (I'm sort of ambivalent about Army@Love but I still remember the incandescent power and perversity of his The One).

My posting here trickled down to a brook across dry sand, and that I regret. While I enjoyed All-Star Superman and found Seaguy wonderful and amazing, I didn't really feel moved to comment on them, or on much of anything else I read. Civil War frankly bored me. 52 was good, but it got plenty of coverage and I couldn't bear to read Infinite Crisis again to critique it. To a great extent, the fire has gone out for me as far as modern comics are concerned, and sticking around here to post reviews of Age of Bronze volumes just doesn't strike me as fun for either the readers or myself. Combine that with recent events involving sock puppetry and hypocrisy and I find myself without the will to continue, even though I know that by leaving I'm diminishing myself by removing contact with sharp, insightful people who know the art form and love it.

So here we end my tenure here. I've never been concise, so brevity now is beyond me, and I hope you can forgive multiple paragraphs when I could simply have said good-bye and have been done with it. I can but stay true to my roots, though, as a young man whose grandmother used to buy him the digest paperbacks of old Marvel comics published before his birth and who soaked up the florid, overwrought prose and hyperkinetic art of old Fantastic Four issues reprinted in those cramped little books as if it were pure injections of limitless light for the imagination.

Excelsior, true believers. Face front, as there's more coming, even if it's not going to be from me anymore. As a parting shot, I leave you with trips down memory lane, links to the entries I most enjoyed writing. Take care, and I'll hopefully see you again in the world concocted of colorful dots.

Hey look! It's one of those quizzes you always see on blogs!

Which superhero are you? Here are my results:
You are Superman

Superman 85% Spider-Man 70% Robin 67% Supergirl 47% Hulk 45% Iron Man 40% Wonder Woman 32% The Flash 30% Batman 25% Green Lantern 25% Catwoman 25%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Civil War and Civil Rights

So, why is Civil War a bad story? This came up at the last Curmudgeons Con at Manny's when I suggested that the premise of Civil War was actually a good one, but the execution was bad. Everyone disagreed with me, but I got to thinking...

The basic idea in Civil War is that a bunch of superheroes get some innocent civilians killed. The reaction and moral outrage of the public cause them to try to implement a registration act.

Some people have suggested the act is unconstitutional. Even assuming arguendo that the marvel Universe uses the same constitution as the US does, that doesn't follow. Korematsu is still good law in our reality, which means you can round people up if you want to and they are a security risk and the stakes are high enough. The Selective Service Cases are still good law, which means that here, in our reality, you can be forced to serve in military against your will. So where's due process and the 13th Amendment? Well, the fact is that the people are willing to ignore those if they want to, and not just for extreme cases like the Gitmo camps, which at least people are complaining about, which is actually a good thing. It shows that if things get extreme enough, humans will react. The same thing happened in 19th century France with the Dreyfus Affair.

But in general, people, and this includes most of you, just don't care about what happens to people they don't like such as Muslims in the US today ("They should cooperate without lawyers because of the war on terror") or Jews in 19th century France ("They killed our Lord.")

If you think this doesn't apply to you, I'll prove it right now.

Think about this: last week Jonathan Tuttle made a post about Paris Hilton.

There was a flimsy comics-related rationale, but -- and this is important -- no more flimsy than many, many posts made to this blog and many other comics blogs. Doug Tonks and Tuttle used it to point out that Ms. Hilton was being treated unfairly, because she is being treated differently than other people in the same situation. Most of the rest of you did not care and complained that it didn't belong on a comics blog. Why? You don't like Paris Hilton, and you want to see her punished and you aren't picky about why.

Well, the Marvel Universe has spent fifty years or so telling us that many people hate superheroes. So I don't imagine their attitude toward Speedball is more tolerant than your attitude toward young Paris. They actually, in fact, had fatalities involved in their contretemps. Young Ms. Hilton never killed anyone. Ms. Hilton is rich, has connections, has legal counsel, and was treated the same exact way eveyrone else is usually treated, and yet because people hate her, due process is out the window. (Think about what that means, by the way, for people without those resources...)

So what would happen in the Marvel Universe? Well, the same thing we see happening, people trying to propose a registration act, and then some people fighting against it. The reasons Tony Stark gives might sound reasonable, but they are actually question-begging because they assume the conclusion in their premises. So we now have people like Tony Stark and Reed Richards, the establishment superheroes, tryiing to impose some sense of order on the superhero community, which won't work because the anti-establishment superheroes fight against it. Capain America is on the anti-reg side, but then again, Colin Powell is out of the administration now.

The people who argue or try to that our core constitutional values don't mesh well with the Civil War registration are misguided to that extent. They mesh perfectly with how people actually behave in our world.

More Linkage

Jim Roeg has an excellent, albeit spoiler-containing, review of FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer. If you're like me, this is the kind of review you've been looking for.

Lolblogging

For those who like such things, there's a lolcomics page.

Sunday Song Lyric

Sometimes I wonder why some things are successes and some things aren't. There are times when all the pieces are in place and -- on paper, anyway -- a comic looks like it will catch on. Take Walt Simonson's Orion. It had a superstar creator at the peak of his game, critical acclaim, a solid character. The same recipe had given us Simonson's very successful run on Thor a decade or so previously, and yet, for some reason, Orion never caught on with the readership.

Soul Asylum seems to me to be a band like that. They were a very good band who had a huge hit in the late 80s with "Runaway Train." I'm sure you remember the video, which featured clips of missing children. In any sensible world, that would have led to another hit and another, and before long, they would have been immensely popular. Instead, they had a few mnor hits ("Black Gold," "Misery") and faded away into obscurity. Why? Beats the heck out of me. I guess it goes to show -- whether you're talking Soul Asylum or Orion, sometimes you just can't predict what will take hold in the Zeitgeist.

Anyway, here are the lyrics to one of my favorite Soul Asylum songs.

Summer of Drugs
Soul Asylum

My sister got bit by a copperhead snake
In the woods behind the house
Nobody was home so I grabbed her foot
And I sucked that poison out

My sister got better in a month or two
When the swelling it went down
But I'd started off my teenage years with a poison in my mouth

And we were too young to be hippies
Missed out on the love
Turned to a teen in the late 70s
In the summer of the drugs

Mama and Daddy could never understand, their life was never dull
Their idea of a rollicking time was a kitchen tap appall
Acid grass downs and speed, junk those days were made of
How could they suspect those kids where the monsters meet their makers

Mommies and daddies were too shy to talk about those birds and bees
Integrated schools had stopped the facts of life were these
Girls and boys went away and came back, empty after the weekend
The talk on the phone consisted of hushed voices speaking

Boys and girls in every town
Sand man spread his sand around
Now we are just waking up
From a summer of drugs

'Bout Time

Your writer notes with some satisfaction this announcement from Heroes Con:

Berganza than announced to the Philadelphia crowd the news that already broke in Charlotte - that Dwayne McDuffie, noted for his work on "Justice League Unlimited," is taking over the writing of Justice League of America as of issue #13 after the departure of Brad Meltzer.

Replacing a shitty writer with an awesome one? Amen.

Also, apparently, Waid is bringing back Barry Allen for a new Flash series, and this is what the JLA/JSA crossover has been about.

Barry is the third longest run in my collection, and you're still going to get not much excitement from me. He actually got a good ending, or at least most of one. I'm happy to leave well enough alone. And I'm not the world's largest Waid fan.

At least it's replacing the completely unreadable Bart Flash series.

But, damn. McDuffie on JLA. 'Bout time.

Zweig's Laws

I will recall to you Zweig's First Law (restated):

Being possessed by Evil does terrible things to the fashion sense!

Cf. this reference to Countdown's corruption of Mary Marvel.

Dani Zweig's laws are:

Zweig's First Law: The triumph of Evil is always accompanied by ugly, skimpy and non-functional clothing, an exponential increase in power, and a total failure of intellect.

Zweig's Second Law: The way time travel works: Barring divine intervention, a time jump has a 90% chance of taking you to the twentieth century, and a 9% chance of taking you to the time of the dinosaurs.

Zweig's Third Law: Characters with super-strength don't do inertia! Or leverage.

The next big Marvel story

Avengers #31 ended with a big reveal (spoiled inside), and Bendis has been giving some interviews where he hints at things to come (also spoiled inside). Let's discuss!

While I didn't read Avengers #31, word around the internet is that it ended with the death of Elektra -- who is then revealed to be a Skrull. Bendis has since done an interview with Newsarama in which he reveals that this is the start of a longer storyline that will play out over the next year or so. The skrulls have been infiltrating Earth, and now nobody will know who they can trust and who they can't. Bendis explains:

There's no one you can trust. No one.

Is it Jessica? Is it Luke?

...

[I]s the fact that Luke Cage went from a tiara on head, silk shirt wearing hero for hire to the leader of the Avengers important in all of this? Or Jessica going from hard-drinking private eye to stay at home mommy?

Bendis also refers to his Illuminati miniseries, which I personally find to be the worst mistake to hit superhero comics since DC decided that every JLA adventure had to involve the Martian Manhunter mindlinking the whole team so that super-strategist Batman could telepathically order his teammates around. But I digress.

Anyway, the first issue of the Illuminati mini features the Illuminati (Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Namor, Dr. Strange, Professor X, and Black Bolt) travelling to the Skrull homeworld shortly after the Kree-Skrull War to tell the Skrulls to back off. In the comic, the Illuminati are captured by the Skrulls; they eventually break free and go back to Earth. Bendis is now saying that maybe one or more of the Illuminati were replaced by Skrulls at that time.

This is probably just tweaking the fans, throwing out ludicrous plots just to get people like me riled up. And if so, well done, Bendis -- you got me.

On the other hand, Marvel is the company that decided to do a storyline that revealed that Spider-Man had been a clone for 25 years and that Tony Stark had been an agent of Kang for 30 years, so maybe now they want to do a story revealing that Black Bolt or Namor has been a Skrull for 35 years. So you never know.

In any event, "everything you know is wrong" plots are risky. You're basically taking something away from the "story" of the Marvel Universe as we've come to know it. Such subtraction is really only justified when you're adding more than you're taking away. This is, of course, a subjective determination. Alan Moore took away something relatively small -- the idea that Alec Holland turned into the Swamp Thing -- and replaced it with something bigger -- the idea that the Swamp Thing was an elemental patterned after Alec Holland but separate from him. That worked out well, but in the hands of a lesser writer, it might not have. Likewise, had Moore subtracted something bigger -- for example, revealing that Superman had never been vulnerable to Kryptonite after all, and it was all just a ruse -- it would have been harder for the fans to swallow. Because, after all, we've seen Supreman sucumb to Kryptonite many times -- are we really supposed to buy the idea that he was just pretending, no matter how good a reason our hypothetical Alan Moore might give him for doing so?

So if Bendis is giving us "shortly after Civil War, Skrulls began infiltrating the Earth, replacing the heroes we've come to know and love," that's one thing. On the other hand, if Bendis is giving us "Dr. Strange (for instance) has been a Skrull sleeper agent ever since the early days of the Defenders," that's something quite different, because it calls into question every Dr. Strange story since then -- and the stories can't withstand reassessment under the assumption that Dr. Strange (or whoever) is a Skrull. There have been too many stories by too many authors who assumed they were writing the adventures of Stephen Strange, skilled but egotistical surgeon who suffered an accident and learned magic and humility and became Sorceror Supreme and sworn defender of Earth -- not the adventures of K'rp, Skrull sleeper agent who has infiltrated Earth's heroes for nefarious purposes.

So those are my thoughts on what we know of Bendis's plans for the Skrulls. What do you guys and gals think?

Jeremy and beyond - an interview with Jonathan Morris

Nominated for an Ignatz Award in 2001 and one of the funniest, most richly illustrated, touching comics available on or offline, the strip Jeremy is now available for purchase. If you managed to miss the strip, it was the creation of Jonathan Morris, also known by comics fans as the creator of the surreally brilliant Gone and Forgotten, often described as a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 for comic books by people who are very unimaginative bloggers.

Much like webcomics such as Cigarro & Cerveza, Jeremy is a strip that gained a great deal of critical acclaim, and its collection deserves a serious review. Jon was kind enough to talk to me about Jeremy, comics in general, Mel Gibson's perceptions of non-linear time, and Doctor Doom crying.

Matt: So, you know I think Jeremy is one of the most consistently funny and at times touching strips out there. Why did you originally decide on the concept of a kid Frankenstein's monster?

Jon: The original Jeremy story - which never ended up in the strips, although I did it as a short for the "Thing With Four Heads" minicomic - was actually about a kid who was stealing chocolate milk from a supermarket, AND making a big production out of it (because, implicitly, his acting out was about more than wanting chocolate milk, I suppose). It occurred to me that, to get across the idea that there was a lot more at stake in his theft than just getting something to drink, I should give him something visual to indicate that he had good reasons for putting so much emphasis on the milk ... I don't know, I may actually have gone the other way, wondering what a Frankenstein's Monster boy might do by way of acting out, being a big fan of the original novel and all that. Either way, making him a wretched, monstrous zombie type added visual layers to the psychology of the scene. (PS - I literally thought almost none of this at the time)

M: I don't want to ask the typical 'what are your influences' question, so let me ask you, is there anything you ever did in the strip, either visually or in the writing, that you ever looked at later and thought was particularly notable or well-done? Favorite strips or moments that come to mind?

J: Having a chance to read all the strips in a single sitting, by way of the book, there are bits that really stick out. Just so I'm not naming a thousand of them, the four-parter where the kids perform Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein is my favorite bit.

M:Yes, that's one of my favorites, especially Sara in it.

J: It's her shining moment.

M:I have to fight the urge to just gush about the strip and come up with reasonable questions about it... is it hard keeping the characters balanced the way you have? Even Sara is likable, Jeremy himself is an excellent example of a really good at heart kid who kind of goes off his rocker from time to time, Everett comes off as being more into the mayhem then he lets on, even Dr. Frankenstein seems to genuinely care about his kid... how much do you think about balancing the characters off of each other?

J: I don't think I think about it all that conciously - I like the characters to be likeable, and to effectively like each other (they probably would just avoid one another if it weren't the case), but obviously you can't have much of a story without the conflict, so I have to pit them against each other a little. What's nice is that, for all the rampaging, Jeremy is a very quiet, utterly non-bombastic comic strip, and I have the luxury of giving the characters very mild personality conflicts, the kind of .. things you might actually experience with friends. I'm thinking particularly of one episode where Jeremy and Rebecca are playing a board game at Jeremy's house, and he sort of off-handedly mentions that the horrifying ghosts who haunt his house probably won't kill him, not really considering how that'd make Rebecca feel. Which is a small conflict, but it's tense enough for a joke. I don't think there's a villain anywhere to be had in the strip; I hadn't thought about it in those terms before, but even Ms. Solomon is more put-upon than evil or cruel ...

M: Which reminds me of the evil toys storyline near the beginning of the strip and how the evil toys were less a menace but a nuisance to Jeremy, and it was through the other kids that we got a sense of the menace Or how Jeremy casually remembers seeing Ms. Solomon in one of the mobs that chased him

J: Ha, sure, Jeremy's used to this sort of stuff. He lives in a house full of it.

M: I remember discovering the strip in 1999 - 2000, and watching you really expand the art and layout of the strip from a three or four panel rectangle to, eventually, whole pages - were you thinking of moving the strip to a paper publication or just experimenting with it, and have you ever settled on a format you feel is the best showcase for it? Or are you just enjoying playing with design? The layouts have become some of my favorite aspects of the strip, so I'm wondering how important they are to you as you work on it.

J: The first few Jeremy strips - and these are the first twelve I did in 1997, and which were frankly so godawful that I'm never showing them again - were done as a submission to local newspapers, student papers, free weeklies, etc. So when I started doing the strip weekly online, I stuck with the horizontal format either out of habit or because I STILL thought I could get it into papers, i can't recall. Going full page was simply because I was getting tired of cramming all that dialogue and art into such small frames. You might notice the old strips would have five or six panels in a single line, but the full pagers usually had only three ... I should mention, though, that I'm angling to do larger and larger stories now with Jeremy, and I probably won't be going back to the single page strip format (except in one case, where I was specifically asked)

M: Wow, I haven't asked you about yourself at all.

J: So who would want to?

M: Thus proving I'm not good at conversation or interviewing... pretend I insightfully asked you for some notable details of your life, and feel free to throw some out there.

J:You know this is just going to turn into "fat drunk" jokes.

M: At least they'll be funny fat drunk jokes.

J: Here, I'll give you an utter tangent which I think you ought to appreciate. Once I was done cooking all this up in my noggin, I actually thought you'd find it particularly interesting. Also, Forgive me as I get off on a tangent. But I have a trigonometry fetish. ANYWAY...

M: No problem, go for it.

J: Okay, so, I woke up a few mornings ago thinking about how time itself is not a linear progression of ordered events but rather a cogent, coherent simultaneous space in which every moment is essentially identical; i.e. your thirtieth birthday is the same moment as your tenth birthday, and every moment therein is an identical yet distinct, inseparable moment. You know, basic Brief History of Time stuff. tAnd I was furthermore thinking about how interesting it is that we can imagine a state of perception wherein we do not experience time linear..ally...ish, AND YET we cannot actually perceive an imaginative state. And what got me thinking about this was remember when Mel Gibson got pulled over for a DUI and he called that lady cop "Sugartits?"

M: I didn't know he called her Sugartits, actually, I just knew he went off on a tirade. It's a notion I've long entertained, that time consists of an endless moment that simply alters its parameters.

J: Anyway, yeah, he called her "Sugartits" which, yes, I understand it is an insult and I understand why - he's saying that despite the fact the she is an individual human being and a figure of authority that she is actually, in his perception, only there for aesthetic and potentially sexual purposes, and is a lesser human being more similar to an object than a person - but I still think it sounds like something a grateful Leprechaun might call a helpful princess. "As ye've so bravely defended the kingdom of the fair folk from the terrible mountain ogre, I, King of the Leprechauns, hereby dub thee Princess Sugartits!"

M: See, if Mel Gibson had a comical Irish accent, that sound clip would have gotten on TV a lot more

J: And then she's standing on the parapet of her kingdom, the sun shining through the sugar crystals on her bosom, the crowd of serfs and peasants shouting her name in celebration. It would've been in my head earlier, probably, yeah! (I say all this because Sugartits sounds like a brand of Sugar Cookies to me, and I like Sugar Cookies, because they are soft and warm, like tits. BUT I DIGRESS) PS JEREMY IS AN ALL AGES COMIC, HERE I TALK MORE ABOUT TITS SO

M: Yeah, but now I'm going to be able to have "I like sugar cookies because they are soft and warm, like tits" as the pull quote on the article.

J: Please, be my guest!

M: People will think it's an interview with Stan Lee 'Striperella is soft and warm, like tits!"

J: God, can you just imagine him saying that? I'm getting chills.

M: Thanks to Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, I can imagine Stan Lee saying almost anything

J: I wanna hear Stan belt out Nessun Dorma in that voice of his. I'm pretty sure I'm losing my train of thought.

M: "Face Front, True Believers! Il Nome suo nessum sapra, excelsior!"

J: OH YEAH. Latin! Good segue! What connects these two thoughts for me is that Mel Gibson is a lifelong Catholic, and he's been in a social construction from an early age where much of his spiritual life - the unseen, incalcuable portion of his life - is overseen and guided by a strictly ordained cast of authority figures. I'm gonna finish this, I promise! Then I'll do character design, I promise also And despite the position of metaphysical authority these folks have placed in them, THEY DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING. Like, if anyone on Earth is going to be able to perceive time as an absolute, static construction, you'd think it'd be a priest or a pastor or a reverend. I myself was baptized and christened in the Lutheran church, and I'm sort of surprised my pastor didn't see this coming. "In the name of the Father and the Son, I christen thee Jonathan Randall Morris, and it's a damn good thing this is holy water and not Twinkies and whiskey, or this kid would finish the whole thing." "Haha, no, I kid, don't worry - at least he'll be able to make fun of comic books."

M: Even if they saw it coming, they wouldn't care

J: So we can imagine a state or perception, but cannot perceive that imagined state, which led me to consider the difference between practical and impractical imagination - saying, for instance, one of our primitive ancestors trying to get some apples from high up in a tree might employ practical imagination in order to build a ladder, maybe, while his impractical imagination was thinking "If only I could jump super high like forty feet awesome" But then again, impractical imagination (say "There is an invisible magic man in space who will let me live in his gold-plated ice cream parlor when I die if I am good") quickly becomes practical imagination (say having the above sentiment pretty much universally grokked at face value) pretty damn quick, so I don't see why we can't perceive time as cogent. And also I picture Mel's confirmation pastor chuckling "Sugartits, good one Mel." "What, sir?" "Save it for a couple decades, kid." Now I am done.

M: Okay, character design, hit me.

J: Gotcha, well, like I say, I'm a big fan of the original book. I'm also a fan of ... most ... of the Frankenstein movies, but I knew flat out that I wasn't interested in designing a green skinned, flat-headed Frankenstein boy; too much baggage carried by a new reader coming into the strip (Although it is worth mentioning that, at the same time Jeremy debuted, there was another webcomic strip called Frankenstudent, created by a Tony Morris, who did indeed resemble the movie monster) So i wanted him to be a piecemeal construct of mismatched body parts. The one big eye was probably the most dominant design element on the entire character, and it was an excellent expressive tool. I remember too that it took me something like a year before I realized I could have his lips stitched AND he could open his mouth. I went through a lot of hassles to give him decent expressions with his mouth sewn shut before I stumbled across that better idea.

M: Okay, but what about the other characters? Sara and Rebecca are just human, but you did an excellent job in making them incredibly different looking in a field where most artists draw the same face on everyone they do.

J: I hate to diminish my accomplishments, but it helps that Chad's got glasses and is white, and that Rebecca and Sara are different ages and have distinctly different hairdos. That's an old Mad Peck (underground cartoonist) tip; Give all your characters distinctive hats! The one thing I liked about the human characters - and I didn't notice it until someone else pointed it out - was that while they were drawn very cartoony, they were pretty human-looking, particularly compared to Jeremy. Other strips with freaky lead characters usually have freaky looking supporting casts, too...

M: Okay, for a second I'm going to ask you to get mean, because it just occurred to me how to ask about influences - who are the greatest negative influences on you? What artists have caused you to sit back and try deliberately NOT to draw like that?

J: Jhonen Vasquez and Roman Dirge.

M: Forgive me, but I honestly can't tell the difference between their art styles enough - what in particular don't you want to do that they do?

J: Because I am SURE they are very nice men - I've read Dirge's blog, and he's very smart and charming - but readers have been comparing Jeremy to JTHM and Lenore since day one, and it's always frustrated me. In both cases - though Vasquez more than Dirge - what they create is a consistent palette across their characters' worlds. And that works for what they do, which are very often twisted takes on everyday common constructs, but not what I would want to do with Jeremy. For Vasquez, as a for instance ... Every building, every street, tree, article of clothing, etc, is drawn with the same shocking, sharp, thick understructure and rendering as his character "Nny," including hapless babies and cuddly dolls. To me, that means we're not really reading a story about a character as much as we're reading a story about a really messed up world.

M: I'm ashamed to admit I haven't read any of Vasquez' work in years So I have little familiarity with it

J: Which again is fine for the stories they're telling, but Jeremy is a story about a kid in particular, and the world he's in needs to not conform to his particular look and feel.

M: You mentioned working on larger stories with Jeremy - anything in particular you'd like to do with him, or have thought about doing with him?

J: I have to admit I haven't either, so I might be eight or ten years passed his current style. Dirge I've seen recently (by way of Haunted Mansion), so I think I'm close to describing his modern stuff. Well, I never did get to do one story I was also pondering, where Jeremy's older 'brother' comes home to visit. I've never made bones about Dr.Frankenstein being the same doc who built the monster of the book, even if it's only obliquely referenced (you can see him in some pictures hanging on assorted walls in Jeremy's home), but I think I balked at introducing a character who was not expressly one created for the strip. There were a couple different directions to take that story, and they all seemed too uncomfortable to tackle. (I would probably have gone with the elder Frankenstein monster coming back for Thanksgiving, and he and Dr.Frankenstein essentially have their confrontation on the ice as a form of typical family fireworks. Which, as you can imagine, gets kind of heavy)

M: Let's talk about the comics form in general - be it comic books, newspaper or internet strips, what have you - anything out there now that you'd unabashedly recommend?

J: Well, Hellboy, I never stop recommending that. although I think if you're going to read it and haven't yet, you probably never will. Duncan Fegredo on the art is particularly great. Lemme think, I actually read very little these days. Every now and again a collection comes out which tickles my fancy, and I find out the book it's collecting stopped running two years ago... Jim Rugg did this epic and funny book called Street Angel, which I loan out constantly. I love the character design and general design sense in Jack Staff, and I love the artwork in Rocketo...

M: Feel free to pimp friends or whatever. I've always felt bad that guys like you, Manning or the artist from Cigarro & Cerveza aren't bigger names.

J: I wish Manning were doing comics any more, I think he might be out of the game. I'm actually pretty bad at reading online comics, too, I read Achewood religiously and then I sneak around to Dinosaur Comics once every two weeks, or what have you. Tony Esteves' Cigarro Y Cerveja is terrific, though, I meant everything I ever said about the book (I wrote the many many forewords for the second volume). Tony and I are supposed to work on a book together sometime too, but I'm awful with keeping up with these committments.

M: I wanted to ask you about Popeye because you've mentioned before your fondness for the strip. Not that Jeremy looks anything like it, but I'd have to wonder if you drew inspiration from it. Just in terms of the design of characters like Bag

J: I love the ensemble elements of Popeye, and the line economy style of illustration. Segar did not often waste his black and white spaces. Schulz was more directly what I was thinking of in a lot of the Jeremy designs, tho

M: Speaking of Peanuts, since you're something of a published expert there, how many people do you think respond more to the cartoons and the marketing than to the actual strip? Do you see people missing the point a lot?

J: You almost see nothing but. And it's difficult to address an all-encompassing stand on the issue, because you find yourself walking very close to the same condescending, presumptive path as the folks you're trying to enlighten. You have your folks who instinctively find anything that has acquired some sort of world-wide, status quo acceptance as being necessarily shitty and trite, and you run the risk of being the guy who rails against people who find anything which has garnered general acceptance to be shitty and trite.

M: Not that I'm trying to imply that Jeremy is as well known, but did you worry about that in your own work, be it Jeremy or something else? People just seeing the weird bits and missing a lot of the really touching or profoundly funny material? J: You nailed it with the marketing comment, people are responding to coffee mugs and greeting cards when they dismiss the quality of Schulz's work... Undoubtedly, that's a LOT of what I was seeing in the email (particularly in the early days) where folks were comparing it left and right to Jhonen Vasquez and Roman Dirge. I see where they're seeing the similarities, but excepting black and white illustrations and gallows humor, there's really not a lot in common among our individual outputs...

M: Jeremy's really a much more gentle strip than anything by Vasquez, I'd argue.

J: Yeah, hands down. That was the comparison I disliked the most (no insult intended to Vasquez, of course)

M: Well, it's not even apples and oranges, it's apples and polar bears with switchblades.

J: Har! I see Lenore a little more, I suppose, as Lenore was never a guts-n-gore strip but rather a sort of twisted fairy tale type series of stories ...

M: See, I wish I was a better student of visual art, because the art in Jeremy started good and evolved by your later strips to be almost entirely different while still containing the elements of the characters. Sara comes to mind, her hair became ever more wild and insane but she herself didn't become a caricature... was it just because you were free to experiment with a bigger page, or were you consciously changing the characters? J: I was never very happy with the art in the early strips - refer back to me mentioning that the original twelve strips will never again see the light of day - so I was constantly trying to create something more accomplished with all the characters.

M: Which one were you happiest with? J: And with some of them, particularly Sara as she became a greater foil for Jeremy, I wanted them to have a more iconic look - there's that old character design trick where you determine if you've created an iconic kind of look based on the silhouette. This little tiny body with that crazy hair and eggshaped head rivals Jeremy for a distinct and relatable silhouette... Sara and Bag primarily, they're the ones I kept thinking would work best on tee shirts, after Jeremy. Cat was pretty much screwed, it was all but impossible to make a wet shoebox into something iconic.

M: That's a shame, I loved the strips where you did Cat from Jeremy's perspective.

J: I actually like how Everett started coming out, in the long run. His expressions got better and better, stylistically speaking ... Jeremy all hugging a wet shoebox ... M: So much love in that misshapen body for that wet shoebox.

J: I just wrotre myself into a corner where i could never show Cat, or any part of him, which means I had to share the visual identity of that character with the visual cue for "There are shoes in here"

M: Yeah, the Lovecraft paradox - we're never going to get to see what it looks like, so we imagine it, which then means that no artist can possibly anticipate all the ways it's being imagined.

J: I'm sure I would have disappointed if I'd ever shown what I picture Cat to look like. As a partial hint, if you've ever seen that Three Stooges where Curly tries to eat clam soup, it looks a little like that.

M: Okay, let's talk about one of my favorite strips, the one with Jeremy's 'mom'. In part to get that image out of my head. How'd you get started on that one?

J: Ah, let's see. That would have been around Autumn of 2001 (I can remember this because the final chapter of that storyline came out on sunday following September 11th, which was, you know, a great time to depress everyone)

M: You're ahead of the zeitgeist again.

J: (At least I wasn't one of those horrible webcomics which felt it had to post a memorial strip where all their characters are looking at burning WTCs and crying or something)

M: You could have made millions on T-shirts, though.

J: Jeremy crying in front of the WTC In a Captain America tee shirt.

M: Hey, man, Doctor Doom even cried!

J: Doom should have been throwing a party! What the hell?

M: And that dude's killed how many people?

J: "A plane? Oh, fuck Reed Richards, I've got him NOW!"

M: Man, I'm sidetracking my own interview, but that was so awful. Didn't they even trot out the Kingpin? Why not have Galactus show up and start bawling hytsterically?

J: I love those things, the fan art memorials to the victims of the Trade Center attacks. Captain America crying, Spock and Kirk crying, NEIL GAIMAN'S SANDMAN CRYING Right, we were THIS close to Klaw and the Lizard helping to clean the debris. The Sphinx maybe, "These people are madmen, they do not represent all peoples of Middle Eastern origin!" A full page ad, "The hearts of the Sinister Syndicate go out to everyone affected by these attacks." M: I'd kind of like to see The Enforcers take on this From Ox, Fancy Dan and Mr. Big to you, our hearts are broken by this tragedy

J: What's the name of the villain hangout bar in the Marvel Universe? They probably have a memorial wall up, a corkboard with photos and poems and bits of the Shocker's pants. "In memory of Slyder, who was robbing the WTC mall at 7:30 on the morning of 9/11"

M: Of course, now they're all government employees.

J: So they've got all this up in a break room.

M: It's sad when I find myself thinking that Nova is the sanest guy in that whole mess.

J: Well, we could stand around debating all day which of the steroid freaks in spandex and who can turn steel to butter with a glance is the most reasonable of the lot ...

M: I'd have to go with Stilt-Man I mean, what else WOULD you do with a robotic stilt costume?

J: He's the one who keeps retiring, and then one time tried to steal grease, right? (I have that in a Daredevil issue, so I can remind myself that D G Chichester existed)

M: That is weird, actually, how fast some of these guys come and go. I keep wondering whatever happened to Kieron Dwyer

J: Every now and again he pops up, and I'm always delighted to see him, and then he's suddenly gone again, and Jim Baike is drawing it instead... Anyway, what the heck were we talking about?

M: To try and get back to your comic, and the Mom storyline -

J: Right, right. Well, the Momma storyline is probably full of no surprises whatsoever. My mom had just a month or so earlier been finally properly diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimers. We'd had a couple of years where her doctor was insisting that she had suffered a series of micro-strokes, and we'd just gotten the news that she was in fact undergoing what was essentially senility in her fifties. And, unfortunately, she had gone misdiagnosed for so long that by the time we had the proper diagnosis, we were already in the process of losing her,. I was married in October of the previous year, and I remember my mother being so confused by the strangers and the noise and the activity at the wedding. My godmother and mother-in-law were wise enough to pull her away to a corner and keep her occupied with them, so that she didn't become scared by the strangers and the activity... So. I was missing my mother, basically, and trying to come to grips with the idea of losing her completely, which led to Jeremy building and losing a momma in the space of a few weeks.

M: I'm not into psychoanalyzing folks, so I'll just ask if you think part of the reason you started expanding the strip's format related to trying to tell that story in that space of time?

J: No, that decision came a lot earlier, from my frustration with trying to do so much in such small spaces. The first full page strip was a Halloween one, and there must be a half-dozen gags in there alone (Jeremy eating the pupkin and insisting that all things are candy, for intance, I would've normally had to make the only punchline in a single strip format)

M: Man, i wish he was right. I have to eat a lot of things that are not candy.

J: it's all how you look at things.

M: Okay, anything else we want to cover? I do have to actually write this thing at some point.

J: Ha, no, I think we covered a lot. If there's anything else you wanna tackle, lemme know, even if it's through email.

M: Lots of stuff I would probably ask, especially once I have the book itself, but for now I think we're good.

J: Okay man, thanks, this was fun!

M: I'd love to talk to you about Peanuts for like a week, for example

J: Ha, well, anytime. I think I shot my Peanuts wad with the High Hat though.

M: Wait, I'm going to go for the cheesy - I didn't ask about influences, but I will ask you this much. What cartoonists work do you just plain enjoy? Who will you go out of your way to read or reread, who do you still find yourself going back to over the years?

J: Oooh, well, Schulz and Segar of course, also McCay. Billy DeBeck, quite a bit, and I wish someone would get around to reprinting Barney Google. Swan, Eisner, and for all his limitations, Joe Shuster. Beck, Morton, Elias ... those're my old guys. Kirby, of course. Then from the new batch, I like the fellow doing Mutts, and Get Fuzzy. Paul Grist, Mignola, this French artist named Claire Wendling... Rude, still continues to amaze ...

M: Is he still doing comics? Last I saw of him was a Hulk/Superman book he drew. I was a big Baron fan back in the day so I mainly know Rude though Nexus, of course.

J: Yeah, he's back to doing the Moth. Even if he just did sketchbooks for the rest of his life, I could live with that, it's always beautiful stuff. Oh, I should mention Ben Caldwell and Bret Blevins, two other guys whose sketchbooks I always pick up

I'd like to thank Jon for agreeing to talk to me about his work on Jeremy and other subjects.

Quick Review Cancelled Again

I am deeply sorry, but we're still experiencing intermittent showers and personal issues at Quick Review HQ and won't be able to get the Quick Review together (but as long as you know how to love, the Quick Review knows you'll be all right). We really, really hope to get back on track next week. Wish us luck!

Damn it, stop being reasonable for even one second, Fascist Iron Man!

In the most recent issue of Nova, which I only picked up at the store because Chris Maka has a gun (I'm kidding, I'm kidding, Chris only has one eye, they won't let him have a gun, that's what the rhino-DNA henchmen are for) I found myself noticing that Tony Stark was being reasonable. He was using reason and argument to try and make his points. I'm not saying that Tony's most recent actions as portrayed in comics haven't been evil and Machiavellian - the whole 'depowering She-Hulk' thing comes to mind - but it struck me as odd that he was doing things like granting, and ensuring, that Rich got a 24 hour grace period before bringing the Initiative down on him.

Of course, the fact is, in his current state Rich could probably take on half of the Initiative by himself. And whatever else he may be now, Tony's usually not stupid. Egocentrically blind to his own faults, sure, but not stupid.

I was distracted by bondage Speedball, though. Oh, sorry, I mean Penance. Who made the mistake of being figurative with a guy not know for his tolerance of such things: "Robbie Baldwin is dead. Speedball is dead."

"Robbie Baldwin is RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! Oh, wait, was that a metaphor? Shit, you know I didn't do well on my SAT's, Robby."

In the end, Nova does the only sane thing possible and gets the hell out of dodge. I think it was being called a sociopathy by Moonstone, of all people, that did it - I mean, she's a licensed psychiatrist. Granted, an evil licensed psychiatrist, but still.

It's funny to me sometimes that there's no surer way to become evil in the MU than either desiring or pursuing an advanced degree, except perhaps to inherit a barony. In fact, it often seems that the only way to be a non-evil superheroic doctor in the MU is to have a baron as your enemy - Dr. Strange would probably be evil, just like that other Doctor Strange, if not for the fact that he was fighting Baron Mordo all the time. Then again, I could be exaggerating the evil of Barons merely as a means to counteract the evil of Doctors. I can only think of Baron Blood, Baron Zemo, and Baron Mordo off the top of my head. A few minutes searching turned up The Baron, an old Power Man foe I've never heard of, Baron Brimstone, of course Baron Karza (I don't know if we count Micronauts, but Karza was pretty badass), our old pal Wolfgang von Strucker (I forgot he was a Baron, actually), and a fake, Baron Samedi, who was just an agent of AIM. Hmm. Now that I look at it, that's a decent amount of evil Barons.

Maybe someone found out that Tony Stark is in fact the Baron Stark? That would explain a lot. Does Tony even have an advanced degree? It's the MU version of nature vs. nurture.

Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa.

Okay, the Paris Hilton post was a monumental mistake. In my defense, I am still recovering from my Gephardization. Come on, you have to love 20 year old Bloom County references, right? To attempt to redeem myself from that last bit of Shark Jumping, we could talk about comic books if people wanted to. I guess. I mean, that's supposedly what we do here. I'm not sure, myself, I'm not very literate. I mean, I can read, I just generally choose not to. It's surprisingly hard, have you ever noticed that? I mean, the tiny squiggles just keep on coming.

That's basically why I chose to comment on comic books, because there's a lot of pictures and I thought it would be easier. But no! There's tons of words in there too. And some of those words are latin, even. Or have the prefix 'hyper' on them, and I have no idea what that means. Prefix, I mean. I know what hyper is, I eat a lot of sugar. I eat it out of the bag. While reading Spidey Super Stories collections.

Anyway, comic books. What should we talk about? Well, we could talk about one of the most persistent tropes of the genre, but I have a hard time remembering which color trope is. I think it's kind of purpley.

Anyway, yeah, I was thinking about talking about secret identities over the years. Superman had one, so it became an entrenched part of the genre or sub-genre or whatever you want to call it. Captain Marvel clearly has one of the best ones, since he magically transforms into a full grown adult with a serious squinting problem. Batman has one even though he's so wealthy he could probably openly beat vagrants to mush in public in front of the cops and they'd help him find his car keys in the puddle of blood. Spider-Man had one before he told everyone what it was, leading an entire stunned world to exclaim "Who?" before going about their lives and a bunch of pissed off murderers and sociopaths to start finding phone books and looking up "May Parker" on MySpace. (MySpace being so important to the American people in the MU, it actually defeated Captain America.) Come to think of it, the whole Civil War deal more or less bones the idea of the secret ID in any comics put out by that publisher, huh? I think it's called Marvel Comics, but again, the near-illiteracy makes it hard for me to tell. It could be Marvelous Grapes for all I know.

Now, there are a lot of silly ideas in comic books. Hard radiation generally doesn't kill you when it can make you nine feet tall and green, spiders can apparently sense danger, immensely wealthy people spend a lot of time designing spandex bodysuits to go punch people instead of hiring someone to do that, 'Sweet Christmas' is an effective swear phrase, flying faster than the eye can follow doesn't cause sonic booms, bras are apparently made of an invisible anti-gravity material and no one's fat unless they're really, really fat, there are people who dress like Walruses and attack people dressed in red and blue costumes that supposedly are spider-related, there's a lot there to look at and dispassionately deride as foolish. I personally don't mind foolishness, because if not for it I wouldn't be here. Is the secret identity really that bad an idea, though? Does it need dismantling?

I'm reminded of the Silver Age Flash being unmasked by one of his enemies (Captain Cold? I forget which one, I wasn't even alive yet) who then knew what he looked like under his mask, but since he wasn't famous in real life, that information didn't really help him much. Does this prove that secret identities are inherently silly and should be done away with, or that by having one, the Flash made sure that Barry Allen wasn't famous in the first place? Well, smarter people who haven't been hit in the head with such frequency will have to debate that one.

The Shawskank Redemption

Hey, Jon Stewart said it was okay.)

Back in the day superheroes would occasionally face John Dillinger or Al Capone, but these fiends pale in comparison to the greatest villain of all time!

The nominees are: Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom, The Joker, Magneto, but the winner is...

Paris Hilton.

Come on people, This is what happens to everyone. Los Angeles doesn't have the jail space for this type of thing. They release bunches of people. Her conviction was for reckless driving. Her probation violation, however was for driving while suspended. If she'd had a lawyer worthy of the name, she wouldn't even be in this mess, because he would have told her "You're suspended. Use a damn driver."

The fact that Paris Hilton is famous doesn't mean she should get more jail time. The fact that you hate her does not mean that the Los Angeles County Jail has to change the way they handle their internal matters to please you. The fact that she is rich and young and attractive does not mean that she is not allowed to have medication. (Julie Chen actually suggested that they should bend the rules to allow the jail to medicate her, thereby saying the third stupidest thing I have ever seen someone not on Fox News Channel say.)

That said, she was sentenced by a judge who apparently precluded electronic monitoring, but once she gets to jail, they actually have to deal with her. Her accomodations there should comply with court order but also with the administrative requirements of the jail. Perhaps a sentence modification to a 90 day sentence on home dentention would be appropriate. I don't know. I do know that she shouldn't get special treatment due to her fame for the good or the bad.

Apparently, she has decided not to appeal. That's possibly the right move for her career, such as it is, but irrelevant to the issue of civil rights and justice. Convicts do not get to decide how long they stay in jail. Judges and jailers do. Good time credit, educational modifications, medical issues. These issues and others all go toward determining how long someone spends inside the jail. And nobody. Not Paris Hilton, Not Charles Manson. Not Ted Bundy. Nobody should spend even one second long in custody than they have coming to them under the laws and regulations.

Additionally, I have to say that the based on the public interest in this story Superman should be fighting rich socialites rather than alien monsters. (In fact, the Legion of Super-Heroes tv show did this story.)

The Immanuel Kant-man

My buddy Jason, of the MJ bukkit picture, asks if there have been any appearances of Immanuel Kant in comics, especially as a superhero or supervillain.

Because, look at his bulgy forehead, he must have some wild mental powers.

"Mwhahahah! Your puny utilitarian muscles are no match fur mein Deontological Ray! See how zey vither in ze pure light uff ze categorical imperative!"

Damn! Lookit Harry in Spidey 97

This site purports to show alternate versions of published comics covers.

Sunday Song Lyric

After tonight, Steven Van Zandt is out of a job.

Steven is the actor who plays Silvio Dante on the Sopranos, which airs its final episode tonight. Weep not for Steven, though, for he is not only an actor -- he is also the host of a radio show ("Little Steven's Underground Garage"), a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, and an accomplished solo artist in his own right.

So today, in honor of the last episode of the Sopranos, I give you the lyrics of a particularly appropriate Little Steven song.

Under The Gun
Steven Van Zandt

In the eleventh hour
Whose name do you call
Ain't it funny how all the rest
Don't mean a thing at all
And baby where you been to
It's down to you and me
No more foolin' around the pressure's on now
What's it gonna be
You're under the gun

Can you still deliver
After all these years
Don't you feel abandoned, let's see who's standing
After the smoke clears
And how does it feel baby
To taste your own sweat
Your skin is crawlin', your mama's callin'
But you ain't safe yet
You're under the gun

In the eleventh hour
You find out what you're made of
Gather your strength if you've got what it takes
To protect the things you love
We're runnin' out of heroes
So what you gonna do
Can't wait forever I got bad news
They're all waiting for you
You're under the gun

FNSM

What's the origin of the phrase "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man"?

Is it from the early Lee Amazing, the 60s cartoon, or somewhere else? Citations, please.

I ask because of the extent to which Superman mythology was shaped by early other-media stuff--the Lowther novel, the radio series both contributed significant facts and setting, and in particular relevance to this question, the TV series finalized the Superman description as "strange visitor" etc. Wouldn't it be interesting if the Spidey cartoon's catchy jingle had as much influence on the evolution and perception of the character as the TV show's introduction has had on Superman?

Why didn't anybody tell me!?

Apparently, there is a collected volume of Rob Walton's Ragmop. Even better, Walton has gone back and finished the story, giving the series the conclusion it lacked when it was first published back in the mid-90s. Ragmop is the story of a woman and her three dinosaur friends and their quest to recover the all-powerful O-Ring. Along the way, they go up against aliens, the shadowy figures who secretly run the U.S. government, the Pope and his college of assassin Cardinals, an insane psychologist, and a host of other zany characters. Ragmop is equal parts Looney Tunes, Noam Chomsky, Illuminati, Jack Kirby, X-Files, and so much more -- but most of all it's fun.

This collection has been out for a while now, so if you knew about it and didn't tell me, shame on you. If you didn't know about it and you're an existing Ragmop fan, join me in rejoicing. And if you've never heard of Ragmop, you are in for a real treat!

Search Those Blogs

Via Johanna, BeaucoupKevin has set up a comics blog search engine. Nifty!

On Buckets and the Having Thereof

And the Impact of the Having of the Bucket upon Certain Iconography

With Copious Illustration for the Most Effective Edification*

I pretty much expect this has been done before, but this is the one I know about, and it's by a buddy of mine: I haz a bukkit.

*For some reason, I felt the triviality of this post needed a grandiose 19th century-style, multiply-layered title. Also, I like the oddness of applying copious to a singular noun.

All in Black and White for 170 dimes

I'm a big fan of the Essential and Showcase serieses, but I'm particularly looking forward to two Showcase volumes that have just been announced for release in November -- Suicide Squad and Secret Society of Supervillains. Details inside the jump.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: THE SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS VOL. 1 TP
Writers: Gerry Conway, David Kraft, Bob Rozakis and Paul Levitz
Artists: Pablo Marcos, Rich Buckler, Arvell Jones, Dick Ayers, Mike Vosburg, Ric Estrada, Bob Smith, Vince Colletta, Bob Layton, Joe Rubinstein, Bob McLeod, Jack Abel, Romeo Tanghal, Joe Orlando, Frank McLaughlin, Ernie Chua and others
Collects: THE SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS #1-15, DC SPECIAL #27, DC SPECIAL SERIES #6, SUPER-TEAM FAMILYI #13 and 14, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #166-168 and a story from CANCELLED COMICS CAVALCADE #2
$16.99 U.S., 520 pages

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUICIDE SQUAD VOL. 1 TP
Writers: John Ostrander, Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Paul Kupperberg
Artists: Luke McDonnell, Keith Giffen, Erik Larsen, Dave Hunt, Karl Kesel, Bob Lewis, Al Gordon and Malcolm Jones III
Collects: SUICIDE SQUAD #1-18, the DOOM PATROL AND SUICIDE SQUAD SPECIAL, and a story from JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #13
$16.99 U.S., 528 pages

Utterly No Comics Content

Normally, I would provide this link of an old PSA with a mother catching her son...in the act, so to speak, with some questionable justification of comics related content like "I wonder what PSA's are like in the Marvel Universe. Do parents get warnings about their kids being mutants?" or "I wonder if Kid Flash's mom ever walked in on him in costume." But I got nothing. Suggestions?

Quick Review CancelledThis Week

Sorry, guys -- personal issues will prevent me from doing the Quick Review this week (there's a small chance I can do a really quick Quick Review before the weekend, but don't bet the rent). Hopefully the Quick Review will be back next week.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled curmudgeony.

Superhero Novels

Soon I Will Be Invincible, a debut novel by Austin Grossman, is out in stores. It's getting some buzz, and I've started reading it. The two leads are a megalomaniacal supervillain with "Malign Hypercognition Disorder", and a cyborg superhero novice who joins the premier superhero team.

It seems to be a genuine superhero novel. Compare to, say, Count Geiger's Blues, which is really straight SF with some superhero trappings, or It's Superman! A Novel, which deliberately strips out much of the recognizable Superman iconography.*

*Tom De Haven is something of a period specialist, and his purpose, I think, was to produce a work which would reflect what Superman might have been had the superhero genre not existed. This is, of course, quite a trick, considering how much of the superhero genre was invented by Superman's very first appearance. Unsurprisingly, the result looks a lot more like Gladiator than it does, say, Superman #5, Summer, 1940. But I digress.

Grossman seems to be having some fun with the concept; since I read mostly for enjoyment, I'm looking forward to continuing. Fans of Last Son of Krypton's Luthor will enjoy the characterization of Dr. Impossible, the megalomaniac; you'll also recognize some of the Junkman from Astro City in him as well.

I'll also mention Karma Girl, another debut novel, by Jennifer Estep. This one is without possibility of contradiction a romance novel with superheros, not a superhero novel. I am not the target audience, but there's still some interesting stuff in there concerning the genre. The lead character here is romantically betrayed by her fiance and best friend, who are unknown to her, superhero and supervillain; she is inspired by the betrayal to build herself a career exposing the secret identities of superheroes and supervillains.

In order to do this, she can discover some things about superheroes, like the thematic/personal duality of relationships in super identity and secret identity, but she simply cannot notice other things, like how every super character's secret identity has repeating initials that reflect their super identity. (If you are paying attention in the slightest, no revealed secret identity in the book is a surprise; but they are probably not meant to be surprises, because this is not a book about surprises, because it is in a genre that is not about surprises.)

I have never been much of a fan of tie-in novels, which because of their need to service someone else's status quo are rarely more than ordinary; to borrow a phrase, extruded fiction product. But that's another topic altogether; I mention it merely to say that I don't think I have read any DC or Marvel superhero novels set in mainstream continuity, other than the Maggin Superman pair. (EDIT: I have remembered Simon Hawke and Joe Lansdale Batman novels, and the Greenberg Further Adventures of anthologies. The anthos suck.) So that's why the only superhero novels you hear me talk about are works like the above, or John Ridley's Those Who Walk in Darkness, set in their own superhero universes.

Hey, At Least It Was Classic Comics Geekery

I appear to have made the 1000th entry to this blog, and it was a Ho'od Win. That's either really appropriate, or really inane, or probably both.

But here's entry 1002:

So, I was watching Dr. Who yesterday. No, I don't illegally download it. That would be wrong. Every week I fly to Enlgand, watch the show, and fly back.

Anyway, they did something that reminds me of one of my least favorite comics scenes. Spoilers after the jump.

So the Doctor has taken human form and fallen in love with a woman. When he changes back, she wants nothing to do with him. He was hiding from aliens who had killed a bunch of people, and when he asks her o travel with him, she says "Would those people have died if you hadn't shown up." Implying, of course, that he somehow caused the deaths.

The actual answer is "Yes, you see, because they would have taken over the universe and killed everyone. And ten minutes ago in this very episode you, yourself, made that exact point."

This is the second time in six months a character has said something similar. Catherine Tate madea similar comment in the X-mas special.

It reminds me of the classic Green Lantern?Green Arrow wherein the elderly black guy tells Hal that he doesn't do anything for black people, and Hal takes it instead of pointing out that every time he stops something from eating the planet, that saves everyone on it.

Oddly, one show got this right a while back. "Monk." One episode had Natalie, Monk's new assistant, call him a jinx because people kept getting killed around Monk. She later realizes that it's a good thing Monk is around, because these murders would happen anyway, but without Monk, they'd get away with it.

Sunday Song Lyric

Checking my calendar, I see that yesterday was the first Saturday of the month. That means that next Saturday is the second Saturday of the month, and that means that your Chicagoland Curmudgeons and friends will be gathering at Manny's.

After lunch, we usually like to go somewhere else to hang out. Sometimes it's a bar that has NTN Trivia, and sometimes it's a nearby Irish pub called Grace O'Malley's.

So I could give you a lyric from The Pirate Queen, the Broadway play that's loosely based on the life of O'Malley, but to be honest -- I haven't seen the play or heard any of the songs, so I don't want to do that. Those of you who have seen the play, let us know how it was in the comments.

Instead, I'm going to give you a song by a great Irish band. And while I could go with a band from Dublin like U2 or Thin Lizzy, I'm giving you some Dropkick Murphys. Because everyone knows Boston is just as Irish as any place on the Emerald Isle you could name.

Here's a clip of them performing "The Dirty Glass" on Jimmy Kimmel's show 4 or 5 St. Patrick's Days ago. "The Dirty Glass" is a great song about Murphy and Darcy, an erstwhile young couple who used to love each other, but don't anymoe. Murphy's best friend chimes in once or twice as well. Lyrics are after the cut:

Murphy, Murphy darling dear
I long for you now night and day
Your pain was my pleasure, your sorrow my joy
I feel now I've lost you to health and good cheer
Darcy, when I met you I was five years too young
A boy beyond his age, or so I'd tell someone.
Anyone who'd listen and a few who couldn't care
Still I welcomed you with open arms, my love I did share

Chorus
Darcy, Darcy darling dear,
You left me dying, crying there
In whiskey, gin, and pints of beer
I fell for you my darling dear

You shut me off then you showed me the door
But you always came crawling back beggin' me for more
I showed you kindness, a stool, and a tab
Then you poured me my pain in a dirty glass
(Yeah, you left him bloody battered penniless and poor)
You know, I often stopped and wondered how you made it through my door
With my brother's new non-duplicate registry ID
Well you bit off more than you could chew the first day you met me.

Chorus
Darcy, Darcy darling dear,
You left me dying, crying there
In whiskey, gin, and pints of beer
I fell for you my darling dear

You weren't the first to court me mister you won't be the last
Oh, I'm sure I wasn't honey, I know all about your past
Listen to the big shot with his pager on call
You spent most of those nights in my bathroom stall
(Yeah, you got him high, but you left him low)
Mind your own business, boy, how was I to know
That he was just a fiend and a no-good cheat
Well it's all in the past bitch 'cause now I've got it beat

Chorus
Darcy, Darcy darling dear,
You left me dying, crying there
In whiskey, gin, and pints of beer
I fell for you my darling dear

Ho'od Win?

What is the classic, definitive Ho'od Win argument?

Superman versus Might Mouse got some play in the movies, but here are my candidates....

Superman versus Captain Marvel (Fawcett)

Batman versus Spider-Man

Green Lantern versus Iron Man

Batman versus Captain America

Nexus versus Captain Marvel

Bugs Bunny versus Cthulhu

Now, those can be argued endlessly, but there have been some actual confrontations. The only classic superhero fights which I have really felt satisfied by were:

Namor versus Hulk

Dr. Strange versus Dormammu

Miracle Man versus Bates

Superman versus Mongul

Ozymandias versus Rorschach and Nite Owl

Batman versus Guy Gardner.

I mean, Nemesis Kid vs. Karate Kid was a total bust. Reed Richards and Dr. Doom with the time machines were interesting but who cares. Spider-man versus Firelord? Eh.

Hey kids, COMICS

Upon recommendation of various comics bloggers and such, I picked up a handful of the Marvel Adventures digests "for my son." You see, he loves super-heroes. He can identify a lot of 'em by name. But he certainly wouldn't be allowed to read most of the comics coming out these days. ("Daddy, why did Iron Man turn into a naked woman?") But not only do I feel safe letting him read these (note - he not up to their level yet - but he's getting there), but I enjoyed them too. Very straightforward super-hero stories about super-heroes doing good deeds. It was especially refreshing to read the MA Avengers, where Iron Man was a honest to goodness hero and Cap's not dead.

New Comics Business Column

Curmudgeons Con regular Todd Allen has a new column at Comic Book Resources covering the business side of the idustry. Todd has actual training in business from places like Northwestern and NYU. I predict an effect similar to humans gazing upon R'lyeh.

Los Vengadores Poderosos

I got The Mighty Avengers 1 and 2 on the theory that the product of wordy Bendis and action Cho might well be a comic book singularity, like a particle and anti-particle annihilating each other. Plus it's long been evident that Frank Cho should leave the writing to other people; he can draw an ape-dinosaur fight like few others, but that's as far as his talent stretches.

The Mighty Avengers isn't bad. It's fairly old-school, actually; the pages feel like they have a lot on them. There's lots and lots of wordy balloons, and plenty of hitting monsters in the head.

And, my sweet reason, there are thought balloons. No kidding! Admittedly, the internal life of all of Bendis's characters seems to be the extruded comedy product of a sitcom writer's room, but hey, the ground is broken, and actually good writers can once again use one of the unique tools of comic books.

The plot of the first two issues is the formation of the new flagship team of Tony Stark's private army, led by Ms. Marvel (who really seems like she should know better than to be Tony's right hand), their fight with the Mole Man's monsters, and the emergence of a new Ultron. The notion of Ultron turning Tony Stark into a clone of Janet Van Dyne is, of course, both the kind of ridiculous weird-ass shit that makes superhero comics a niche fandom and a transparent excuse for Cho to draw a nekkid woman.

Bendis doesn't seem to have a very good sense of how to balance a superhero team; like his New Avengers, this one seems to have loaded up with a deep bench on a couple of positions and ignored the others. This is after half a book of looking at superhero portfolios. (This way of assembling a team didn't start with Meltzer's Justice League of America; it's a much older, and much more worthless, cliché than that.)

They can punch the whale out of just about anything, but four out of the six of them are going to be completely out of ideas if they come up against something they can't hit. Like Ultron. Really, it doesn't make the best comics to have page after page of superheroes saying "Let's hit it. No, hitting it doesn't work. What else can we try? Let's try hitting it! Stop trying to hit it!" The Black Widow's always good for sneaking around, and at least the Wasp is capable of thinking about something other than hitting. But Ms. Marvel is no Captain America, and Wonder Man, Ares, and the Sentry will not be offering any productive tactical suggestions.

This is, by the way, an unexpected version of Ares, the god, with only the barest trace of Spartan or deific arrogance; a sonovabitch written by a sensitive man to be sympathetic. I think it probably isn't any good, since it strips the god of his identity without replacing it with anything comparable or unique.

All things considered, though, it's got pretty decent art and a fair amount of superhero puncheminnaface, so if that's your kind of thing, it might be your kind of thing.