Superheroes, etc.

25 Quickies

2008-02-09T04:08:00.001-05:00

I've been out of the loop for a while. Don't know what's going on. Don't know who's doing it. So, I thought I would launch the return of Superheroes, etc. with as extensive a list as I can write comprised of brief statements regarding my thoughts on the various pop culture, general geekery, politics, and miscellaneous things that have happened since I was blogging more regularly.

1. The beginning of Lost's third season was formulaic and tedious. Others have assured me that season's finale and the episodes leading up to it redeemed it, but I lost my interest. I'm out of the loop there and I like it that way.

2. If you take me seriously when I give you a gentle ribbing about the prominent place you give to a copy of Essential Werewolf By Night in your GN collection, you lose at life. You know who you are. Dick.

3. Heath Ledger's death = bad.

4. Heath Ledger's Joker = good. At least from what I've seen so far. Joker shouldn't be funny. Joker should make you sick to your stomach. Joker should make you want to remind your kids about "red light/green light" people. I dig Burton's Batman, but I think I'm going to dig this more.

5. Am I a hypocrite if I simultaneously feel sympathy for the victims of Katrina, but hate jazz?

6. Steve Rogers is dead. Captain America has a gun and a shiny suit. If this lasts, I'm Gandhi.

7. I suddenly feel very hungry.

8. Persepolis looks phenomenal and it pisses me off that I never bought the GN, because now I'll have to get a copy with the "Now a major motion picture!" announcement on the cover, and those always make me feel like a tool.

9. World of Warcraft is very addictive.

10. Writer's strike = good.

11. SiCKO changed my life. I actually wrote a letter to my representative. It's like Bizzaro Mick. I've always been a cynic. I've never been blindly patriotic. But when it's just all laid out for you like that...man.

12. I like Obama. I don't like Hillary. I will vote for Hillary if I have to. But I don't like her. I didn't vote in the primary. It's New York, Hillary was going to take it. I will vote in the general election. Think I lost my right to complain for not voting in the primary? I support your right to be wrong (for reference, see "Constitution of the United States").

13. As much as people like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney terrify me (I know Romney's out, but I have a feeling one of the two will be the Republican VP candidate because McCain will want that evangelical vote), I am thrilled Thompson dropped out so early. I had nightmares about having to watch Hunt for Red October with my grandchildren, explaining, "Yeah, that guy there who sounds like he's about to compare nuclear warfare to barn animals? He was the president."

14. While I don't like Hillary, I am thrilled at the prospect of being alive when the first woman or African American president is elected. No, I don't want to vote for either just because they're black or female, but I feel privileged just to be breathing when the two frontrunners for the Democratic ticket are a woman and a black man.

In fact, it reminds me of an idea I once had about eight years ago when I was considering studying to become a World War II historian. I may be getting the exact quote wrong, but basically Hermann Goering, head of the German Air Force, once said something along the lines of "If one allied bomb lands inside Germany, you can call me Hymie." And the fact is that as you read books about World War II, even divorced from the moral perspective, you learn pretty quickly that most historians consider Goering to have been a complete failure. So I had this idea I thought was clever. I would write a history paper titled "Thank you, Mr. Hymie," in a somewhat sardonic tone about how grateful the allies should have been to have an incompetent ass like Goering at the head of the Luftwaffe.

I'll probably never do that. But, in regards to the prospect of either a woman or a black man being president in January, 2009...thank you, George. Thank you so much.

15. Big Trouble in Little China is fucking genius.

16. A new X-files movie. Huh. Okay.

17. Speaking of which, if I suddenly find that - with nothing to go on but a few seconds of music, lighting, and not even a regular character on the series - I can immediately identify a scene as belonging to X-Files even when it isn't an episode I've seen before...who should die? Me or them?

18. Know what I watch more than anything at my night job? C-SPAN.

19. I really need a day job.

20. So far, I'm surprisingly disappointed with Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!). It's good. It's funny. They came up with a clever way to inject the whole "The Word" segment in print form. I guess I'm just surprised that this particular kind of book doesn't feel like a page-turner to me. It's something I might put on my coffee table or bathroom. It's funny to pick up and read for a few pages at a time, but I just don't feel any strong urge to keep reading. As hilarious as he is, it's usually pretty easy to guess where Colbert's going.

21. Did you know that taking a year and a half to write an undergraduate thesis about comic books sometimes can make you want to not read comics? Seriously! I would rather do many things to my genitals that include fire and electricity than scan another goddamn page of Captain America.

22. There are two comics I have fallen in love with recently which I never would've guessed I could care about - Astro Boy and Usagi Yojimbo.

23. Don't you dare tell me whether Hulk won against Sentry. Don't say a damn thing. Seriously. I'll nail you to a wall and throw full beer cans at you.

24. As part of a silly revenge scenario against my ex-girlfriend, I will spend most of Valentine's Day watching season one of House, M.D. How is that revenge? It's one of her favorite shows, I bought the DVDs with Best Buy gift cards her family gave me, and she doesn't get to watch cause, you know, we broke up. It's not actual revenge, and I don't really want actual revenge, but, you know. It's kinda funny. Kinda. And it beats the hell out of cutting up my foot when I slam it into the TV after the 50th "He went to Jared!" commercial.

25. Collector's Edition Twin Peaks DVD with everything. I wants it.

So, you think you're funny huh, Mr. God guy?

2008-02-08T04:37:00.000-05:00

So, the title of my last post was "Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over." It's a line from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, and I was trying to be all clever by using it to refer to the final acheivement of my Bachelor's degree while at the same time referencing a poem that is a wonderful example of why I desperately wanted to fire my ass out of college with a cannon.

Then, I didn't write anything afterwards in spite of my proclamation of "I am on the warpath to reclaim my life, starting with this blog." What happened there, Mick?

Well, so, yeah. Turns out my college education isn't the only thing that's over. My 5-year relationship with my girlfriend ended shortly after. I've been living with my parents for the past two weeks, officially becoming the comic book geek stereotype (and I don't even have a basement or attic to myself). And, for obvious reasons, haven't been in much of a mood to blog.

I'm not going to go into details. I'm not embarassed by what happened, and I don't care if the whole world knows. I'm not going into details for the sake of anyone who reads this blog. I can guarantee you that you would quickly file it under "TMI." That's right. Even in this dark time, I'm thinking all about you.

"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."

2008-01-03T14:07:00.000-05:00

The above quote is pulled from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. I wrote about my struggles with the epic poem in March of 2006, and wasn't very kind to either the piece or its author. I have to admit that while my opinion of the poem hasn't changed much, the line quoted in the heading of this post has won some weight in my life. It is a perfect expression of how I feel about finally graduating from college, and about how no one will ever be allowed to force me to read a waste of ink like The Waste Land again.

On December 19th, my graduation from the State University of New York at Albany was finally confirmed. I won't bore you with the details, but there was just a teeny bit of doubt that things would be postponed yet another semester. In fact, even though I have graduated, I will be doing a bit more school work. The big monster I had to tackle was the completion of my English Honors undergrad thesis titled "I Watched Krypton Die and So Did You," about the impact 9/11 had on Marvel Comics. My adviser was determined that the paper be considered for some award the school gives away every year. But since it doesn't give it away until the spring semester, she wants me to polish it some more between now and then. So, as that dude once wrote, once more unto that thing I really don't want to do all that much but kinda have to.

School has dominated my life in ugly, stupid ways. This blog's hiatus was only one of them. Because of both the nature of my thesis and the stress that it brought, I just about stopped reading comics altogether except for those I needed to review for my paper. My relationship with my girlfriend, my physical health, my finances, and my overall enjoyment of life has been in the toilet this last year of school. Now it's done, I'm glad it's over. After happily engaging in nothing but mindless bullshit for a few weeks, I am on the warpath to reclaim my life, starting with this blog.

I Was Out HOW LONG?

2007-09-23T01:56:00.000-04:00

I'll have more to say later. It's been a while. For now...

YEAH!

IN! YOUR! FACE!

Poop-head.

Busy reading books about funnybooks

2006-09-30T03:17:00.000-04:00

The lack of activity at Superheroes, etc. does not mean I've again given up blogging, but that I'm just really damn busy.

This is my senior year. Last year, I successfully applied to my school English Honors program specifically for the chance to write an undergraduate thesis while being closely advised by a professor. When I first heard of the program, I didn't consider it to be very valuable, particularly since I have no immediate ambitions for grad school. I haven't completely dismissed grad school as a possibility, but if I ever do apply, it will be at least a few years after I graduate, maybe even when I can make enough money that working towards a Master and/or Doctorate wouldn't dig me even deeper into debt.

The idea of writing a thesis itself is what eventually turned me on to the Honors program. As a writer, the idea of having a professor as a captive audience seemed too valuable to pass up, and - unless I ever go to grad school - it will be the only such opportunity I ever get.

I originally planned to write something very critical and very smart and probably very incoherent about superheroes, but when I was accepted into the program I learned that the department was offering a relatively new option: the creative thesis.

For about a year and a half, the creative thesis is what I've been waiting for. It made the "captive professor" opportunity that much more attractive. Unfortunately, the fact that the creative thesis option is relatively new made me a victim of a harsh wake-up call last week when I finally got to talk to my adviser about the project.

The problem with the creative thesis option, you see, is that no one seems to have any fucking clue what the fuck a creative thesis is. It involves creative writing, and it has a "critical component," and that's about as far as most professors go when you ask them about it. To my adviser, a creative thesis meant experimenting specifically with the form of the medium in which you're working. Me? I just wanted to write a story. I didn't want to experiment with the form. The story I wanted to write complicated things, because I wanted to write a prose novella about superheroes, which complicates questions of genre and medium. Plus, while my adviser is pretty much THE person to go to in the department about superheroes and graphic novels, but she's not a creative writer. Finally, I'm a transfer student, haven't had the chance to take many creative writing classes, so if I chose to switch advisers I wouldn't know who the hell to go to. I've had three creative writing classes since attending my current school. The instructor of the first two were adjuncts, and the adviser has to be a full professor. The instructor of the third would make a great adviser, but she's going on sabbatical in the Spring. And while I could always seek out other creative writng professors, considering the usual tastes of English academia, I don't think many would respond with "Oooo!!!! Superheroes! Pick me! Pick me!"

So, I switched to a critical thesis, about, yes, superheroes. The good news is that because of the nebulous "critical component" of the creative thesis, I'd already done a lot of research. The only thing I'm in a big rush to do right now is narrow in on my topic. Last night, I e-mailed my adviser with three brief, convoluted project ideas: The Hulk (I could expand, but I want to sleep), Superhero comics Post-9/11, and the superhero in relation to the Übermensch. Right now, I'm leaning towards Übermensch. Yesterday, I was leaning towards the Hulk. Before that, Post-9/11. Tomorrow, I'll probably be back to Hulk. After that, I may consider switching my major to Hotel Management.

I briefly considered discarding superheroes and doing something about Lone Wolf and Cub, but I've got a backlog of superhero research from other classes, as well as from the first month of this semester, so I'd rather utilize that than derail myself.

The fact that I e-mailed my adviser with those ideas is the only reason I'm giving myself this brief time to blog, because I've decided that until I hear back from her, I'm in a research holding pattern. I need to narrow my scope before I go any further. I have a 5-minute presentation due Tuesday about my progress, and I'd like to be able to say something other than "It's about superguys!" I don't want to read yet another article about "Superman as Christ" or "The Postmodern Narrative of Marvel Comics" until I have a better idea about whether or not it's relevant to my thesis.

So, yeah, that's why I haven't been blogging. It's ironic because on the face of things, I should be more relaxed than in previous semesters. I only have 3 classes. All three are one-day, three hour classes, and the two non-thesis-related courses are pretty low stress (in one, Digital Media Workshop, all we've done so far is learn things about html and photoshop that I've already learned by blogging). I just want to make things as easy for myself next semester (when I actually have to write the thesis) as I can. I've probably read more in the first month of this semester than the entirety of most semesters. I learned about the magic of Interlibrary Loan at the end of last term, and at this point I'm sure whoever is in charge of it at my school's library has a picture of me on their dartboard.

So yeah, that's why I haven't been blogging lately. Mick Busy. Until the thesis ends, blogging will be sporadic.

Though, I have been trying to keep up on my funnybook reading, and along those lines...

(SPOILER ALERT, though you probably know it already)

...MARK! Good job with Civil War #4. If there's one thing that's been bugging me lately, it's the throng of African American superheroes choking the respective cooperative universes of Marvel and DC. The fact that the guy was nothing but a distant memory from the 70's until Civil War promos were plastered all over the Net wasn't a big hint either. Thank God you did it before his updated costume and the wise choice of lopping the word "Black" off the front of his name threatened to make him yet another addition to the incalcuable horde of African American superheroes whose solo titles dominate the marketplace.

(Dude, seriously, I knew you needed to kill someone, but - and I say this as a diehard Defenders fan - couldn't you have killed Nighthawk instead? Kill a rich, white guy every once in a while. It'll make you feel good. It worked for the French.)

Cosmic Crisis (or, The Gods Must Hump Like Crazy)

2006-08-22T05:30:00.000-04:00

Anyone who has the sometimes frustrating habit of surfing through Marvel fan message boards will be familiar with the debate – that has received more attention since the beginning of Infinite Crisis – of whether or not Marvel should have its own Crisis event to clean up continuity issues. I’ve never liked the idea, mainly because I didn’t like Crisis on Infinite Earths and consequently haven’t seen one panel of its recent sequel. I don’t know enough about DC continuity to figure out why anyone ever considered either to be necessary, and that’s part of the problem. I have difficulty figuring out the logic behind trying to rejuvenate a mythology – presumably in order to, among other things, draw in new readers – by publishing a massive storyline that only those with a relatively comprehensive knowledge of the history will be able to understand. Of course, the main reason I’d never want to see something like this with Marvel is because it would necessitate the kind of big, dumb crossover we just saw from DC.

As much as I disagree with the idea of a Marvel-wide Crisis, I can’t help but wonder if a specific section of the mythology couldn’t use a little Superboy-meets-wall treatment: namely, Marvel’s cosmic characters.

And that may seem like a stupid thing to say considering that Annihilation, perhaps Marvel’s biggest cosmic event since the days of Starlin’s various Infinity series (or, to be more precise, since the days that Starlin’s Infinity series had any impact on the rest of the MU) is already in full-swing. After reading all the Annihilation books published so far, however, it seems to me that the event is further proof that the problem exists rather than a solution to it.

I was expecting both more and less from Annihilation. By "less," I mean that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I have. Annihilation: Nova is certainly the most impressive of the prequel books, and I would be either genuinely surprised or unsurprisingly disappointed if the event doesn’t lead to an ongoing monthly for the character (hopefully with the same creative team as Annihilation: Nova). As Joel Hunt says over at Sleep is for Suckers: "Yes, Nova is basically Peter Parker in the Green Lantern Corps…but damnit, that’s not a bad concept to hang a character on." Annihilation: Silver Surfer doesn’t seem that much different or more interesting than the character’s previous series, but Renato Arlem’s art more than makes up for it. Annihilation: Super-Skrull is fun though not particularly memorable, and Annihilation: Ronan is the worst of the bunch, managing – in only four issues – to be as confusing as any dense crossover from either of the Big Two. Utilizing the Seven Soldiers model served the Annihilation prequels well, giving this cosmic war the kind of grandness such a story deserves, whereas in previous eras something like this would probably have been breezed through in one or two issues of Silver Surfer or Fantastic Four.

But, by saying I was expecting more, I meant that I was expecting something appreciably different about the particular characters and Marvel’s cosmic canvas as a whole. I was expecting some kind of redefinition of the thing. On that front, Annihilation simply hasn’t delivered. The only significant difference I can see is that villains like Drax, Super-Skrull, and Ronan are being treated as protagonists; and heroes like Nova and Silver Surfer have become much darker and, specifically, much more willing to kill. We’re not exactly going where no comic book has dared to go before.

I started to tune into exactly what it was that bothered me about Marvel’s cosmic stories while reading Annihilation: Silver Surfer, as two new characters – Tenebrous and Aegis – were introduced. The two are old enemies of Galactus and are freed during the attack of the Annihilation Wave. After a bit of reflection, I realized that my issue with Marvel’s cosmic stories is the same problem the Christians had with the pagans.

TOO. MANY. FUCKING. GODS.

I’ve never followed the cosmic books as much as the kind of fans who can draw up charts to show how the Living Tribunal can bitch-slap Eternity or vice-versa. Still, ask me to name as many cosmic characters I can off the top of my head, and most of them will be the kind of Beyonder-level characters who seem to be able to do just about anything. It seems like there are more omnipotent-y characters in Marvel’s cosmos than just your average super-guys. The gods are legion in space, there’s too many to name, and no matter how indefinable and powerful they are, all of them seem to manifest their powers in the same way: as ‘splody laser beams shooting of their hands and/or eyes.

I think the relative lack of cosmic stories in recent years has made the problem worse. I imagine that when Silver Surfer was coming out every month, the writers knew they couldn’t just spit out a new uber-god each issue. Now, with the rarity of cosmic stories, it seems like the writers feel that they need to create a new I-can-eat-your-planet-and-fart-a-solar-system character in order to make the thing feel as BIG as possible. In fact, I can’t think of one post-2000 cosmic story that didn’t introduce such a character. There’s the aforementioned duo in Annihilation: Silver Surfer, Stormbreaker: The Saga of Beta Ray Bill had some uber space demon as well as some invisible god guys who resurrected Bill for no discernible reason, Infinity Abyss featured some freaky Thanos clones and one of them – if I remember correctly – was a mix between Thanos and Galactus, Entropy from the first story arc of Captain Marvel’s final volume, and then there was that Pharaoh dude from Marvel Universe: The End. Being all-powerful is as commonplace in Marvel’s cosmos as having superpowers is in Top Ten.

(SPOILER WARNING: I’m about to reveal a significant Annihilation plot point.)

And just like wearing a cape means less than nothing in Neopolis, being a god in Marvel’s cosmos doesn’t mean a damn thing, and the proof is in the stories. The first issue of Annihilation ends with what may be the death of Galactus. Probably not, but if he is in fact dead, who cares? How many times has he died at this point? Yeah, you could say the same thing about most Marvel characters, but most Marvel characters don’t eat fucking planets. The integrity of a character like Galactus depends on his NOT being killed every other time he shows up. Likewise, in spite of the rarity of cosmic stories these days, I can think of exactly two 21st century appearances of Eternity, and in both cases (Captain Marvel and the Giffen/DeMatteis Defenders mini) he was killed.

None of this is to say that Marvel’s cosmos shouldn’t have a rich pantheon of gods in sci-fi clothing. But it seems to me that the pantheon is overcrowded and, worse, the idea of a godlike character is being diminished by overuse. A while back I wrote a post about how the various Star Trek series ran into creative dead-ends and constantly fell back on time travel as a plot device. Marvel’s cosmic stories suffer from something similar. Just about every cosmic story has something to do with a new god rising and trying to kill an old god, and no matter who wins – since no one stays dead in comics – the result is too many fucking planet-eaters. Marvel’s cosmos should have its gods, but being a god should mean something.

This is why I think, while I’m loathe see it happen all across the MU, a Crisis-esque wiping of the cosmic characters might be just what the doctor ordered. Thin out the gods, re-establish some of them, and make them feel like gods in more than name. If not through some kind of reality-altering story, then just have some mean motherfucker slaughter all but a few (of course, a lot of characters are getting whacked in Annihilation, but mainly heroes and villains, not the the big guys). Using another Star Trek analogy, Q wouldn’t have been as beloved a character if he showed up in every episode, or if every other villain was just as powerful. Likewise, Marvel should use its space gods sparingly. And when the writers do bring in Galactus or Eternity or some other big god guy, it shouldn’t be just to slaughter them. If the focus came off the space gods, maybe it would give the "House of Ideas" more time to develop new heroes (or re-establish old ones) in order to give the cosmic fans an ongoing monthly or two rather than your occasional mini-series.

Smooth Criminal

2006-08-20T11:34:00.000-04:00

No doubt spurred to action by the early death of Sleeper, Alan Doane has premiered A Criminal Blog, dedicated to the upcoming Marvel/Icon series Criminal.

Criminal re-unites the Sleeper team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, and according to ADD's review of Criminal #1, it's about goddamned time.

Incredible Hulk #100

2006-08-19T01:57:00.000-04:00

(cross-posted at Green Days)

Marvel released a solicitation for Incredible Hulk #100 at yesterday's Joe Friday's column.

Be warned, below there be SPOILERS!!!

I'm not only surprised at the revelations of this solicitation, but at the fact it was released at all! It gives away two pretty major plot points: 1) that whatever comes of the conflict between Hulk and Miek that we just saw at the end of Hulk #97, apparently they emerge as comrades, and 2) Caiera Oldstrong, the character who has - so far - been pumped up as perhaps the most dangerous of Hulk's adversaries, has joined forces with him! And remember, we're still waiting to see the issue where Hulk and Caiera fight!

You know, it's funny. I'm not going to provide a link because the effort wouldn't be worth it, and I don't want to embarass the poster in question, but maybe a month ago on the CBR forums, I read a post from a guy complaining that Marvel had "lied to us." He wasn't complaining about scheduling or shoddy treatment of creators. He was complaining about Marvel's misleads in their advertising. For example, he complained about the covers to recent issues of Fantastic Four that suggested Doctor Doom might pick up Thor's hammer. At the time, I thought the guy was stupid to the degree that he should get special parking for it. First of all, it's not like misleading covers are anything new in the industry. Second of all, the guy was basically complaining that the story was NOT spoiled for him beforehand.

But now that I think about it, it's difficult to dismiss the guy's complaints. When Marvel readers get used to having the solicits give them all the info rather than the comics, what else should they expect?

I decided to make Incredible Hulk an exception to my no-floppy/GN-only rule, at least for the duration of "Planet Hulk" (and perhaps beyond), but now I'm thinking that was a dumb decision. If I hadn't been reading "Planet Hulk" issue-by-issue, this wouldn't be a problem. Even if I saw the solicit before the hardcover collection was released, in most likelihood it wouldn't have stuck with me. Sure I'd probably have to wait until, at the earliest, late next year for the hardcover, but at least I could read the story without knowing everything beforehand rather than being spoiled by the solicit.

I realize this is relatively minor compared to the big clusterfuck over the rescheduling of Civil War, but it pissed me off. I may just decide to drop Hulk, ignore the solicits, and wait until the HC comes out.

The Daily Burn is dead, long live Superheroes, etc.

2006-08-16T01:50:00.000-04:00

You know how - with ASM and FF, among others - Marvel decided to continue with the original numbering, apparently because they figured that 10 years from now even all the relaunches since the 90's wouldn't confuse new readers enough? That's how I feel right now.

As you may know, I originally blogged on a site called the Daily Burn. I abandoned that blog in late 2005 for Superheroes, etc. But, I kept the blog up and even some of the links you'll find on my sidebar linked to it.

I have just finished copying and pasting the most relevant posts from the Burn into Superheroes, etc., back-dating them so they appear in the archive rather than crowding the recent posts (they all have their original dates and times), and finally deleting The Daily Burn for good. I'm pretty sure I've updated all the links in the sidebar to reflect this, but if you notice anything out of whack, let me know. I apologize to anyone who gets ticked off by this, but I couldn't figure out a way to transfer the comments from the Burn into the posts here.

In part, I did this to get organized. Unfortunately, the idea arose because of something a bit more unnerving.

Since happily accepting ADD's invitation to make Superheroes, etc. a satellite site for Comic Book Galaxy, I've had a significant increase in hits (by the way, thanks both to ADD for the invitation and to all the readers who have been kind enough to stop by Superheroes, etc.). I was checking the hits yesterday and noticed a surprisingly large number of them were coming from the Daily Burn.

The reason, I soon realized, was a bit of a satirical piece I posted some time ago. The original concept of the Daily Burn was that it would be a comic book version of The Onion. I posted mock news articles for laughs. I quickly abandoned that idea, preferring straight commentary. But before the gears shifted, I wrote a mock article titled "STUDY CONFIRMS: NINJAS SUCK." It was poking fun at both the relegation of what have always been nigh-unbeatable warriors into mere cannon fodder in superhero comics; and the fact that so many TV shows, movies, comics, etc., portrayed ninjas as heroes when - as far as I know - in real life they were paid assassins.

Even though the Burn was completely dormant, this parody continued to draw steady attention, particularly from message boards dedicated to arguing over whether Ninjas were better than Pirates (something the second issue of Street Angel had fun with). I don't know where the whole Ninjas vs. Pirates thing came from, but it was funny and harmless, and I thought it was cool these N v. P guys were putting links to the article in their sigs.

Unfortunately, in the last few days something a bit more disturbing happened. There were hits to the Daily Burn coming from a martial arts dojo's message board, and in particular someone responded to the article saying that I would be killed in my sleep. There were a few other angry, non-threatening posts. At first, I took it as a joke. I still think it was a joke. But this is the Internet, and one of the downfalls of the net is that you can't hear the voice behind the words, and unless they say "I'm kidding," or put one of those winky-smiley things in their post, you never really know, do you? And I know there are people who are into martial arts (I certainly hope it's the minority) who get very stupid about it and might actually try to make good on their threats. At my first college I worked at the campus radio station, and we had to kick out a DJ who pulled a fucking samurai sword on another DJ because he hadn't met him and thought he was trying to break into the place. That's the kind of guy I worry about.

So basically, I wanted to distance myself from the Burn as much as possible, and this was something I had been considering anyway.

Peruse the archives if you'd like. They now go back to July 2004. I brought over all the reviews and all the relevant commentary. The only stuff I didn't bring over were posts like "I haven't posted in a while because I'm busy" and "Hey, this site over here is updated!" Oh, and obviously the Ninja article and all the other mock articles are gone.

Doctor Mid-Nite

2006-08-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

By Matt Wagner, John K. Snyder III, and Ken Bruzenak
Published by DC; $19.95 US/$31.00 CAN
Collects Doctor Mid-Nite #1-#3

It was, in part, Tim O’Neil’s review of Martian Manhunter #1 that persuaded me to review Doctor Mid-Nite. Tim’s commentary regarding the never-ending revamping of J’onn J’onzz put me in mind of all the recent and upcoming won’t-last-more-than-a-year revamps of never-selling characters at both Marvel and DC, which in turn reminded of one of the few examples – of which I’m aware – of a creative team doing the thing right.

Which isn’t to say that I’m at all familiar with the original Doctor Mid-Nite, and in fact I’m fairly ignorant concerning the more complex continuity elements of the DCU. That’s hardly a weakness in reading Doctor Mid-Nite though, as Wagner gives us a brand new character in an updated guise.

In a rare example of a superhero comic achieving the narrative goal that every writer of masked crusaders claims is his, but rarely meets, the man behind the mask is what drives Doctor Mid-Nite. The proof is in the simple fact that, while reading the first chapter of the trade, I was getting very impatient with a reveal that would never come.

Let me explain. Doctor Mid-Nite is narrated by Carmilla Marlowe, a young web designer and wanna-be novelist suffering from a rare condition that causes her skin to burn when in direct sunlight. The only help Marlowe has found for her predicament is A39, an illegal steroid. Marlowe meets Dr. Cross, who quickly sniffs out the woman’s illness, while getting a fix from her regular dealer. Cross convinces Marlowe to let him treat her condition without the drug, and eventually Carmilla learns her mysterious doctor is into more than just giving free medical advice to self-medicating web designers. She accompanies him as he donates medical supplies to homeless shelters, condoms to prostitutes, distracts himself by dabbling in robotics and molecular chemistry, and apparently wrangles in reformed gang-bangers – among others – to act as muscle and reconnaissance in his altruistic endeavors. In fact, the only reason he runs into Marlowe is because he takes it upon himself to do some undercover research on A39. When a scientist developing a chemical to fight oil spills is kidnapped, Cross gets involved. A bartender in the employ of the kidnappers poisons Cross with A39, and the effects force Cross into a car accident. While attempting to help his unintended victims, Cross is blinded when the engine of their car explodes. He eventually discovers that, like his predecessor, somehow the combination of the A39 and the accident manage to blind him only in the daytime, while he can see perfectly in darkness.

The reveal I referred to above, that I was waiting for and that never came; was of how we were going to find out, before his accident, that Cross was already donning a mask and fighting evil. The guy had a space-age house with an electronic voice as his butler. He spent all his time helping people he didn’t have to help, while at the same time investigating crime. Before he even donned a costume, he felt like equal parts Batman and the older, more theatrical pulp heroes. The fact that he wasn’t already a superhero threw me for a loop, and it felt strangely refreshing to meet a character who was a bonafide hero before he became a superhero. The accident that blinds him isn’t what inspires him to go on a crusade, it’s what enables to him to fight the crusades he’s already fighting on a more direct level. The costume and the pseudonym almost feel unimportant. They don’t represent a Batman/Wayne duality, but rather a simple necessity in order to give him a hook and inject him into the world of superheroes. Because of this, in spite of the deliciously cheesy lines he sometimes belts out and the uber-renaissance man that would be tough to swallow in a less "super" medium; Doctor Mid-Nite is one of the most believable, fallible, and altogether human superhero characters I’ve come across.

Humanizing superheroes is one of Wagner’s greatest strengths, and here it doesn’t stop with merely the concept of a hero-turned-superhero. One thing that bothers me about the majority of superhero comics – and it’s something that’s become so commonplace that it’s only when I read something like Doctor Mid-Nite, or watch a show like Batman: The Animated Series or Justice League that I’m even reminded of it – is how writers pander to the versus-debate crowd by fearing to portray their lead characters as anything but well-oiled ass-kicking machines. The possibility that the hero might actually lose is a joke not worth mentioning, and the idea of a genuinely suspenseful superhero comic is equally laughable. If there are any Marvel readers left who can ask "Oh, but could Wolverine possibly win this fight?", I both envy their ignorance and pity them for what could only be a crushing disappointment when they hear back from Mensa.

Doctor Mid-Nite, thankfully, is no well-oiled ass-kicker. Moments after his first genuine "super" battle – a relatively short tussle with a steroid-amped thug – he collapses in exhaustion. Later in the trade, when another thug shoots at him, he doesn’t duck. He doesn’t leap-frog with ease through a web of bullet motion-lines. He gets. Fucking. SHOT. Even in the end, he fails to completely stop the machinations of the bad guys.

And his crusade is no "one-man war against crime!" Before he even dons the mask, Cross develops a vast network of allies. The beefcake Nite-Lite, the weasely and homeless Lemon, the mute lawyer Mouthpiece, and eventually Carmilla back him up every step of the way. We never get the usual, this-is-something-I-have-to-do-alone-I-can’t-ask-you-to-put-yourself-in-harm’s-way-I’m-the-guy-on-the-cover-of-the-comic, ASSHOLE. In the climactic battle of the trade, Doctor Mid-Nite does the unthinkable. He calls the feds for back-up. He calls duly authorized law enforcement agents who are actually legally mandated to do this kind of shit and, get this, actually tells them what’s going on! It’s like the world’s turned upside down! Are me and Brad Pitt the same person? Am I really dead and that creepy kid’s too much of an asshole to tell me? What’s in the box? WHAT’S IN THE FUCK-ING BOX?!?!?!

What I’ve neglected to mention so far is John K. Snyder’s beautiful hand-painted illustrations. Before picking up this trade I was a little disappointed that Wagner had not, as usual, penciled his own story, but Snyder’s work makes up for it. His wild coloring and panel design make every page different from the next, and his hard edges and tendency to illustrate the more muscleman-y characters from feet-to-shoulders in a big, menacing "V" is reminiscent of Bill Sienkiewicz ( = good thing).

I don’t know if Wagner or Snyder ever had ambitions for Doctor Mid-Nite to become a regular monthly (and considering that Wagner seems to prefer working on mini-series, my guess would be they didn’t), but if so, then the welcome failure of Pieter Cross to feel like any other hero on the stands is probably to blame for its absence.

If you’ve never read Doctor Mid-Nite and somehow my review has managed to spark your interest, but you’re concerned with what seems like a fairly high price tag for the collection of a 3-issue mini, don’t be. Like another mini from Wagner, Trinity, each chapter of Doctor Mid-Nite is close to 50 pages long, and I’d wager it will read better than most of the other DC or Marvel trades you might find out there, regardless of length.

Linkage - ADD interviews Brubaker/Leong bashes Wizard

2006-08-15T00:13:00.000-04:00

Alan Doane puts Five Questions to Ed Brubaker, mainly concerning the new Brubaker/Phillips series Criminal, and also some discussion of the regrettably late series by the duo, Sleeper.

Also, via Just A Fanboy, I found a video blog clip from Comic Foundry in which Tim Leong takes pot-shots at Wizard.

A debate in the comments section of the Foundry's blog is brewing. I got into it a little bit, talking about the subject of obectification of women on Wizard's covers. In a nutshell I said, yeah, objectification is bad, but complaining about the objectification on Wizard's covers is a little bass-ackwards, considering how women are objectified in the comics the magazine writes about. It's not, as Leong seemed to think, a matter of journalistic integrity in my mind. It's a matter of a magazine accurately reflecting the disgusting treatment of female characters in top-selling comics. You want Wizard to stop putting fanboy stroke material on their covers, tell Marvel and DC to stop drawing their women like the "money shot" is just a few pages away. Otherwise, it's like complaining that a historical journal covering war focuses on violence too much.

Fantastic Four: Unthinkable

2006-08-13T13:02:00.000-04:00

By Mark Waid, Mike Wieringo, Casey Jones, Paul Mounts, Chris Eliopoulus, Rus Wooton, and Paolo Rivera
Published by Marvel; $17.99 US/$29.00 CAN
Collects Fantastic Four #67-#70, #500-#502

I had mixed feelings about picking up Unthinkable. I started my floppy-fast shortly after the Waid/Wieringo run began, the return of Doctor Doom enjoyed some nice buzz when it came out in single issues, and so initially I was looking forward to the trade. The fact that the trade quickly disappeared from the relatively comprehensive Marvel/DC graphic novel shelves at my local comic shop and – at least whenever I’ve remembered to check – has since failed to reappear, further convinced me it was worth tracking down. But then I managed to get a copy of Rising Storm – the trade collecting the final Waid/Wieringo FF issues – and was pretty under-whelmed.

Unthinkable manages to live up to its name in more ways than one, not the least of which being that it’s the only collection of issues from the FF’s home title that I now consider essential to my collection.

The first chapter is perhaps the most impressive, following Doctor Doom – sans armor or any other technological enhancements, save a simple metal mask covering his face – through a Georgia tourist trap as he hops from one fortune teller to the next in search of his wayward lover, Valeria. The story ends with a grisly and wonderfully executed surprise, made that much more effective by Waid’s ability to humanize Doom (I’d imagine his past work on Empire served him well while working on Unthinkable). Even though I’ve never been a big FF fan, I’ve always had a soft spot for Doom (it was the only thing that made me regret trading off the largely disappointing Essential Super-Villain Team-Up a few weeks ago), and Waid handles him just the way I like him: quietly menacing at times, while occasionally belting out the traditional, booming decrees and threats that should always end with “I AM DOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The second chapter opens with the same relatively light-hearted tone the Waid/Wieringo run presented its reader before Unthinkable, with Ben and Johnny locked in their constant war of practical jokes, and it almost feels like the entire pre-Unthinkable run was so light just to knock readers off-balance once Doom came back to the playground. I can’t claim to be an avid FF reader, but I’ve seen good chunks of the book, and I’ve never seen it get as dark as it does in this collection. The characters endure the kind of violent torture that’s only a few drops of blood away from your average mature readers superhero series, and while I’ve yet to test it by reading subsequent trades, by the end of the story it feels like the emotional aftershocks will keep coming.

In particular, Franklin goes to the kind of dark place you always imagine he would “really” go to, but never has. I’ve never felt it was overly important to give readers of a superhero comic book a story that shows what would “really” happen (because, duh, radiation doesn’t “really” give you super powers, it “really” makes you bleed out of every hole in your body and die), but Franklin’s always pushed the limits of my patience with the kind of it’s-just-a-comic-book mentality I’ve assumed to excuse what would be unacceptable in another fictional medium. It’s always bothered me that with all Franklin’s been through he’s never suffered anything close to the kind of trauma any child would experience from events not nearly as bizarre and devastating as he’s witnessed. Like I said before, I haven’t read tons of FF, but just off the top of my head I can think of stories like Onslaught and Heroes Reborn: The Return in which Franklin was put in a position that would drive any kid his age completely bugfuck. In Unthinkable, we finally see Franklin suffer the chilling after-effects of his parent’s lifestyle. We never know exactly what Franklin endures while under the care of the demons who lend Doom his magical might, but Waid uses a wonderful device in the penultimate chapter of the trade – involving a discussion between Reed, Sue, and Franklin’s therapist – to be non-specific enough to keep the book kid-friendly, while planting seeds in the darker adult minds. My only complaint with this aspect of the story is that, while it’s made clear that Frankin’s trauma lasts until after Unthinkable, there’s a specific symptom of his trauma that’s “cured” by a speech from Ben, and it comes off as just a little too easy.

While I hate giving away well-executed jokes in my reviews, I’m finding it difficult to not produce what is now one of my favorite lines ever in a superhero comic book. It actually made me laugh out loud, which is rare, even with books that are genuinely hilarious cover-to-cover. I won’t reveal the context, but I think the line all on its own is enough:

“This had better not involve Davy Crockett again. You’ve already given that man too much trouble.”

I don’t know why, that just killed me.

Overall, a surprisingly great read. Almost all the FF stories that have ever managed to capture my interest have been mini-series like Big in Japan and Unstable Molecules. Unthinkable is a welcome exception.

Feeling particularly PC

2006-08-12T05:24:00.000-04:00

So, as anyone who's ever read this blog with any kind of regularity knows, I work at a public radio station as a control board operator.

I'm not usually interested enough in the shows we air during my shift to pay any more attention than I need to (i.e., I need to know whether or not it's broadcasting, and whether or not anyone's swearing, and it pretty much stops there), the sole exception being This American Life. My station airs the show on Friday night, and last night's show actually managed to piss me off a little bit.

The show, which I'm fairly certain was a repeat (they've been airing a lot of them lately), was titled "Last Words" and it focused on the thoughts, words, and actions during the final moments of life. A little over halfway through the show, the host interviewed an author who had put together a book of Black Box transcripts.

The first thing that struck me was that something seemed particularly stupid about airing a story like that right after the London air-bomb scare. I kissed my girlfriend goodbye today as she left for the airport - bound for Chicago - and while I wasn't exactly shaking in my boots over the thing, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't in the back of my mind. I can't believe I'm the only person, or the only This American Life listener, with a loved one on an airplane today. Maybe from the point of view of the show's producers it would seem silly to air another show just for that, but like I said, they've been broadcasting nothing but repeats lately. How much trouble would it have been to air one that didn't include a somewhat morbid discussion (it was touching, and even funny, as well, but the morbid was still very much there) about the last words of pilots during a time when you can't bring so much as nail polish on a plane?

The other thing that pissed me off, and this is where I really felt the PC boiling, was an anecdote about a China Airlines flight that crashed. The author told the story after the host prompted him by saying that, in some of these transcripts, it was clear that the pilots died because of "sheer stupidity." If I remember correctly, the plane was coming down too fast, the pilots were blinded by fog, and the Black Box recorded the sound of the man in the control tower screaming "Pull up! Pull up!" over the pilot's headphones. The last words of the pilot were "What means 'Pull up?'"

So, presuming the pilot of the China Airlines flight was Chinese, then the fact that a Chinese man isn't fluent in English is an example of "sheer stupidity?"

I don't know. Maybe I'm making too much out of it. I should say that if the show wasn't so fucking phenomenal, I wouldn't bother to complain in the first place. And in spite of the fact that I think this was an inappropriate time for this show, it was up to their usual standard of excellence. They ended with a short story by Tobias Wolff that nearly brought me to tears. They just usually tend to be more sensitive about these things.

Likely, the China Airlines piece wouldn't even have upset me if the Black Box story as a whole hadn't already struck a nerve.

Post-Shingles Reviews

2006-07-25T06:08:00.000-04:00

And the shingles are gone! Time for some bloggin', Martin style!

So, since I haven't been blogging in a while, but I've read quite a bit in the past few weeks, I thought I'd start off with brief reviews of some of the books I've picked up recently.

Silent Dragon
By Andy Diggle and Leinil Francis Yu
Published by DC/Wildstorm; $19.99 US
Collects Silent Dragon #1 - #6

Silent Dragon is set in a futuristic Japan where mechanized samurai and ninja police the populace. The lead, Renjiro, serves a supposedly idealistic yakuza boss with dreams of "protecting" his countrymen from the government and re-instituting bushido as the nation's governing principle. Renjiro is falsely accused of betraying his master and submits to seppuku in order to protect the real traitor: his master's wife. Once resurrected in a cybernetic body by a government agency, Renjiro goes on a mission to get revenge on his former master, win back his true love, and slip free of the back-stabbing and elusive government agent who brought him back to life.

Silent Dragon is the only book reviewed here that's come out in the last couple of weeks, and I went into it completely blind. I hadn't read any of the single issues, seen past work from any of the creators involved, or any promo stuff for the series. My post-Lone-Wolf-and-Cub mad-on for samurai stuff is all that drew me to Silent Dragon, and it didn't steer me wrong. Yu's classical Japanese settings, like the yakuza boss' home in the beginning of the book, are just as stunning as his uber-mechanized samurai. I'd heard praise for Andy Diggle's work before, but never had the chance to experience it for myself, and now I know what all the fuss is about. Silent Dragon often feels like a faster-paced Sleeper, and makes me wonder if the mini might not have been somewhat less enjoyable if read issue-by-issue. Without giving too much away, the conclusion kicks you hard in the chest, and the nature of it is refreshing in the kind of tale that tends to hold the concept of the medieval Japanese warrior as a purer and more desirable alternative to modern life. While I love my seppuku and my katanna-slicin', I tend to doubt the samurai were any more or less heroic than their European counterparts, or that the ideals that put swords in their hands were necessarily any purer.

Southpaw
By Scott Morse
Published by AdHouse Books; $9.95 US

So, when I decided to broaden my horizons and start reading books that had less to do with superheroes and more to do with "etc.," I stopped by ADD’s Blog and started clicking madly on all the links he’s got to the companies that publish things like 300-page tomes of a Brazilian chick on a beach or love stories with anthropomorphic hippos . You know, silly stuff. Not the kind of serious literature you’d expect from Heroes for Hire or Blue Beetle (and I was a little surprised that some of those sites, like Ait-planetlar and Fantagraphics, are on my employer’s restricted list). At AdHouse’s site I saw a Scott Morse book called Southpaw about a tiger, apparently introduced in Project: Telstar, who fought robots. And it was by Scott Morse, whose work I’d reviewed just a little bit. And I thought hey! Robot-fightin’ tiger-man! I can get down with that! I can be all artistic and shit! Remembering that cool boxing scene in Ancient Joe, I figured I was in for a treat.

And I was, but it wasn’t what I expected. The story of Southpaw is told in single, uncolored panels on orange paper. Its protagonist is mute, and the story is a familiar one: the boxer who refuses to take a dive and flees from the criminals who would punish him for it. Except with robots. And a tiger.

I was disappointed with Southpaw at first and was pretty sure it would end up on my trade list at Sequential Swap. The story seemed short for its price tag, at first I found the orange paper a little abrasive, and there were a few pages - for example, one showing the twisted remains of a defeated robot - where I had trouble simply figuring out what was going on.

But I just couldn’t bring myself to let it go. Southpaw’s characters are few, but well-defined with minimal treatment. A scene towards the end - when the main character briefly reunites with his children - though only a handful of panels long with hardly any dialogue, was one of the most endearing and sad scenes I’ve ever read in a graphic novel. Without words, Morse created a loveable and tragic hero-on-the-run, and I honestly don’t think I’m a good enough reader yet to tell you how. I can say that rather than regretting the price tag, I’ve come to appreciate the brevity, because it means I can re-read it before any other grown-ups figure out I’m flipping through a funnybook about a robot-fightin’ tiger-man. It’s certainly my favorite of the graphic novels reviewed here, and I think I’ve found a creator whose work can act as a door to all those strange comics that have nothing to do with Hulk smashin’.

(not that there’s anything wrong with Hulk smashin’, he’s apparently the strongest one there is)

Rocketo: Journey to the Hidden Sea, Vol. 1
By Frank Espinosa and Marie Taylor
Published by Image; $19.99 US
Collects Rocketo #0 - #6

When I mentioned my “post-Lone-Wolf-and-Cub mad-on for samurai stuff” earlier, I don’t think I was completely accurate. Lone Wolf and Cub didn’t leave me hungry for samurai vengeance tales as much as epic adventure stories. Stories with the heroism and action of superhero comics; while blessed with the negligible story qualities most superhero stuff lack like forward-moving characterization, humanity, and narrative conclusions. I was hungry for Conan and ElfQuest and Age of Bronze. I was hungry for The Odyssey.

I never imagined Rocketo would be one of the books to fill that need. I remember when I saw the preview at Newsarama and thinking, “Oh, please make it to a trade, make it to a trade.” I remember breathing a sigh of relief when it was announced Image would save Rocketo from the death of Speakeasy. Still, I never thought Rocketo would be the book it is. Just judging by the art I guess, I figured its main character - with a shirt that looked like Aquaman’s and everything from the bridge of his nose to his chin looking like it was culled from Fred Flinstone - would be a finely rendered Flash Gordon parody. His willful companion Spiro had a face like Chubby Da Choona from Seaguy and the ninja-like Boaz looked like a pez dispenser from Hell. I guess I can’t blame myself for expecting the book to be a skillfull, yet silly action romp.

Rocketo Garrison is no parody, but a daydreaming hero scarred by war. Rocketo feels more like The Odyssey than any comic I’ve come across, and not just because the first chapter (from Rocketo #0) is a direct homage to part of the Greek hero’s adventures. Espinosa uses the post-apocalyptic setting to create a land of fantasy rather than the bleak wastelands, bursting with weighty social commentary, that you find in most post-apoc tales. The worldwide disaster opens the way for men like Rocketo and his ancestors to revel in the kind of adventure that fueled Odysseus’s soul. While there’s certainly humor in the book, the cartoon-y style doesn’t render its heroes any less serious nor its villains any less terrible. The style succeeds in giving the story an epic feel that I never thought possible with such a strong element of cartoon. I am far too dumb to adequately describe the book’s incredible art, I just know I’m chomping at the bit for those floppies to come out, so they can hurry up and release the second TPB.

Captain America: Winter Soldier, Vol. 1
By Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, Michael Lark, John Paul Leon, and Tom Palmer
Published by Marvel; $16.99 US
Collects Captain America, Vol. 5, #1 - #7

If I were to ever find myself in Marvel’s Bullpen, Captain America would probably be the last character I’d want to handle. While I’m still on the fence as to whether or not there just aren’t any more interesting directions to take the decades-old superheroes of the Big Two, Captain America is particularly problematic. His identity as a leader has become such a defining characteristic that the prospect of reading his solo adventures just seems silly. I’m just so used to fight scenes with someone like Justice thinking “Wow, Cap is so brave! And smart! And handsome! I can’t believe I get to punch people alongside him!” And his morality is so set-in-stone that trying to introduce anything innovative in his characterization, no matter how negligible, is bound to piss a whole lot of people off. Hardcore wing-head fans liken Mark Gruenwald’s Cap run to a sacred text these days, but I remember the letters pages back in the day, and fans weren't writing love notes to the guy; particularly when Gruenwald had Cap blow away a guy with an uzi, and later when Cap temporarily gave up his title. I wouldn’t say fan-favorite dartboard targets like Austen and Bendis had it easy in comparison, but that’s only because the Internet was just a glimmer in Al Gore’s eye back when Gruenwald was scribing Cap.

I don’t know if it would be right to say Brubaker and Epting have worked magic with Captain America, but the fact that I intend to pick up a copy of Captain America: Winter Soldier, Vol. 2 proves its predecessor a success, simply because it’s the first time in a long while that I’ve given a damn about the character or the comic. I don’t think this is a result of Brubaker revealing anything new or insightful about Steve Rogers. I think Marvel has been at a loss as to what the hell to do with Cap for years. He’s a marquee-level character in name, but as far as buzz is concerned until now he’s been somewhere around Brother Voodoo and Man-Thing (unless you count the brief spike in Cap-chatter the release of Truth caused). Brubaker’s just applied a model he’s had success with in other books to one of Marvel's most stagnant characters, and because it’s a model Brubaker’s adept at molding, presto, people are actually buying the thing.

Which isn’t to say it isn’t good, solid espionage storytelling, because it is. It’s suspenseful and engaging, with great, mostly “silent,” action sequences by Steve Epting, and it leaves you wanting more. But it’s no Sleeper, and the only real innovation here is that one Cap rule that Brubaker shamelessly broke (and I won’t spoil it, even though I doubt there’s anyone left for whom it would be a spoiler).

Quantum & Woody: The Director’s Cut
By Christopher Priest and M.D. Bright
Published by Acclaim Comics; $7.95 US (Out of print, so you’re probably going to have to dish out more than the cover price)
Collects Quantum & Woody #1 - #4

I’ve been hunting for this goddamn trade for years. I heard about it when Priest’s Black Panther was in full-swing, and the descriptions from fans plus Priest’s skill on BP made it look too good to not pursue. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that EVERY SINGLE TIME I’ve browsed through Sequential Swap’s trade list that I’ve clicked on the “Q,” saw almost nothing by Queen and Country collections, sighed and surfed onwards. Once it finally showed up, I jumped on it, and luckily I had just filled my own swap list with enough not-completely-bad books that the swapper was willing to give up the goods.

The bad news is that Quantum & Woody was worth the wait, meaning I'll be hunting down the other three trades, and at this rate my 2-year-old nephew will be a freshman in college before I see the things (along with the hardcover collection for Ultimates 2).

Quantum and Woody are really Eric Henderson and Woody Van Chelton respectively, a pair of childhood “friends” who are, ~~in spite of~~ because of their differences, as close to brothers as you can get without sharing a sperm donor. From their playpen to their nursing home, the pair are constantly at odds, with Woody constantly doing stupid things and dragging his highly intelligent and responsible friend Eric down into his world of stupid. When both of their fathers are killed in a suspicious plane crash, Eric is determined to find the culprit and exact revenge, while Woody is determined to get his father’s money and just hang out. Because of an accident in their fathers’ lab, the pair are forever linked, possessing strange armbands that must be clanged together every 24 hours, or else the both of them will become immaterial.

It’s funny, because I have to stop myself from writing something like “With Quantum & Woody, Priest lets loose with the Everett-Ross goofiness and Tarantino-esque time-shifting, that’s comparatively tame in Black Panther, with hilarious results!.” Which, you know, would be stupid since I keep forgetting Q & W actually came first. Though, I guess, considering Priest’s non-linear storytelling, that would be fitting.

So, with Quantum & Woody, Priest lets loose with the Everett-Ross goofiness and Tarantino-esque time-shifting, that’s comparatively tame in Black Panther, with hilarious results!!!!!

Quantum & Woody succeeds where so many other superhero parodies fail, I think, because Priest and Bright are able to walk a line that so many others plummet over. There’s a lot of superhero parody that’s way too parody and not enough superhero. It’s one of the reasons I could never get into Byrne’s She-Hulk or the JLI creative team’s recent take on Defenders. The stories fall too deeply into the goofiness and the result is humor that’s easy, formulaic, and predictable. Priest and Bright never forget that their heroes are heroes. Quantum looks genuinely cool spinning discs at foes or hopping flagpoles down the side of a building, his white cape billowing behind him in cool, Batman-y ways. There’s enough seriousness and genuine heroism to make the book more than just parody.

It’s freaking hilarious, the art is sweet, and goddammit, it’s out of print.

Okay, that’s enough for tonight.

This has actually been pretty cool: writing a bunch of short reviews rather than longer reviews, one-by-one. I might opt to do more of this from now on.

Though, you know, re-reading a lot of this stuff, I don’t know if I can call myself a reviewer. My stuff is more of a recording of impressions, I guess. Oh well. Whatever. I’m a ‘bloggin’, regardless.

Go US Mail System! Go!

2006-07-13T01:47:00.000-04:00

Well, the resurrection of Superheroes, etc. goes relatively slow, mainly because, well, heh, I have the shingles.

That's right. I am suffering from a medical condition that makes me sound like I should have roofers working on me. I looked it up on Wikipedia, hoping that I could find a more technical term, because "shingles" just sounds so damn dirty, and guess what the medical term is? Herpes zoster. HERPES zoster. Much better. It sounds like something you catch from having sex with a priest (and I could've sworn Father O'Reilly was using protection).

From what I've read and heard, I don't have it so bad. My mother said my grandfather caught it once, that he had a rash under his belly, and that it was so bad that it looked like someone tied a rope around his waist.

I've got a few blisters behind my ear and behind my neck, thankfully hidden under my hair. For the past few days I've suffered from a good deal of throbbing pain, not excruciating but too annoying to concentrate on reading and writing. I'm still working, but it's been tough. I've got some anti-virals and pain meds, and I'm already feeling a little better.

My girlfriend is going away for the weekend and I'll have a few days off work, so I'm hoping to do nothing but eat, sleep, read, and relieve myself (emphasis on sleep) until Monday. Since I've watched every damn DVD in my apartment, I'm hoping the mail system will work a little faster than normal. I made a couple of trades at Sequential Swap, and I'm hoping the books reach me by the weekend so I have something to pass the time. In total, I've got 9 books on their way from two different swappers:

Captain America: Winter Soldier, Vol. 1
Conan, Vol. 2: The God in the Bowl & Other Stories
Hulk/Wolverine: Six Hours
Justice League: A New Beginning
Planet of the Capes
Quantum & Woody: The Director's Cut (the trades of Q&W have proven damn hard to track down, in fact I almost hope I don't like it too much, because otherwise I'll want to track down the other three)
Twisted Toyfare Theatre, Vol. 4
Twisted Toyfare Theatre, Vol. 6
Young Gods and Friends

If I don't get them, and I'm feeling well enough, I may begin the first major project I want to do for the blog: reviewing every single volume of Lone Wolf and Cub.

Here comes the love

2006-07-07T03:00:00.000-04:00

If there’s blame to be assigned for my return to this cobwebbed blog, lay it on Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima. I had resigned myself to forgetting Superheroes, etc. I started a new Hulk fan blog called Green Days to satiate my need to run my mouth (so to speak) on comics that wouldn’t bite too deeply into my hectic schedule. Then, after Lone Star Comics threw some credit my way for selling them back issues, I got my hands on the last four volumes of Lone Wolf and Cub and read them all the night they arrived.

I cried. I cried like a big, fat Daigoro with my shoulders on the counter in front of me, and my face buried in my palms. Something happened to me at the end of the series that’s never happened while reading a comic book, a novel, anything.

Hopefully, this won't give too much away: In the final scene, Daigoro listens to his father’s words about life, death, rebirth, and how they relate to the ocean.

And I heard the ocean. I heard it. I didn’t intellectually appreciate the artist’s depiction of the ocean or feel particularly struck by Itto’s metaphor. I just fucking heard it. Not in my head. In my ears (well, I guess they’re part of my head). In stereo. I heard the ocean. I literally heard the waves roll up the shore, lick at Daigoro’s toes, and trickle back. I heard it. To Hell with seashells, I’ve got the final volume of Lone Wolf and Cub.

Then I read the third volume of Runaways. It was okay. Lots of snark. Cool art.

The next day, I thought about my growing collection of trades, hardcovers, OGNs, and anthologies. I thought about how I’d spent close to $300 on Lone Wolf and Cub, how little I regretted losing a dime of that money, how much I looked forward to cracking open the books again, maybe even sharing the stories with my children (they don’t exist yet, of course) once I felt they were old enough for the kind of material inside (Runaways, obviously, would be a safer bet), and finally how much I DID NOT feel the same about my collections of Runaways, Young Avengers, Sabretooth, X-men, Bullseye, WildC.A.T.S., House of M, Young Justice, etc.

It struck me how much I deserved to expect nothing less than stories that were, in some way, extraordinary. Not good. Not okay. Not super-cool or killer. Extraordinary. I felt a simultaneous hunger for stories that could affect me as much as Lone Wolf and Cub, and a complete apathy for series - like those named above - that I’d bought only from a need to gather more ongoing super-soap-operas in which to become engrossed. Not that all, or most, or any of the above-named series were bad, but I didn’t just want "not bad." I felt a strong need for books that genuinely do some of the things art, in any form, is supposed to do: to entertain, to change life, and to maybe even alter the audience’s view of the world. I wanted more of what I felt after reading Watchmen, Moore’s Swamp Thing, WE3, Barefoot Gen, and the Astro City trade that brought me back to comics after a long break.

So I took all the super-soap-opera trades mentioned earlier, and more, and stuck them all on my swap list at Sequential Swap, hoping to barter for some more books that might alter my reality. And then I went out and bought some.

I bought three trades at my local comic shop on Wednesday, and I’ve never had a better comic book buying day. I’ve never bought multiple trades in one day and been so absolutely impressed with all three. I picked up the second book of Bluesman, the first 15-issue collection of Matt Wagner’s Mage (the trade, not the HC, I didn’t become rich since last I updated the blog), and Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan. Again, I read them all that night.

And I wanted so bad to FUCKING TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!

But I couldn’t. The friends I talk to on a daily basis are limited in their comic book knowledge, and usually their body language reveals their lack of interest when I start going on about Lone Wolf and Cub or Starman. The guy who works the shift before me is occasionally willing to talk to me about new or upcoming superhero movies. That’s about it.

So, expect more reviews. I still feel ill-equipped to review non-superhero stuff like Bluesman and Lone Wolf and Cub, but I’m going to give it my best shot because the prostitutes, drunk fratboys, and bikers choking the bars around my radio station tend to be disinterested in my thoughts on classic manga and Harvey Pekar.

Radio Free Mick

2006-05-25T18:02:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be on the radio tomorrow night, talking about X-men 3: The Last Stand.

I'm just a board op there, but the hosts of our live Friday night show know I'm a comic book geek, so they sent me to a pre-screening and interviewed me about it yesterday. It should air sometime tomorrow night between 9 and 10. I don't know exactly when. You can hear it live here or, you can listen to it after it airs here.

I have no idea whether or not I'll sound like an idiot. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare, and I was kind of nervous. I think I was concentrating a little too hard on making sure I didn't say "fuck."

My own Free Comic Book Day

2006-05-06T16:00:00.000-04:00

So, here's the thing. I can't go to Free Comic Book Day. I've got the first draft of a 15-20 page research paper due tomorrow (tomorrow's Sunday, yeah, but I have to e-mail it to my professor), the final draft of a 10-12 research paper due Friday, and my final Journalism paper due Tuesday. I've been very cranky, very angsty, very stressed.

Knowing that I just didn't have the time to go to FCBD, my lovely girlfriend went for me, to Earthworld, our local comic shop.

And that wonderful creature bought me the first three issues of "Planet Hulk," The Incredible Hulk #'s 92-94. It's the first new funnybook stuff I've had in months.

Of course, I told her she'd opened Pandora's Box. I'd been restricting myself to reprints, and now I'm going to have to get all the "Planet Hulk" stuff as it comes out. I'll probably sell the floppies once it's over and get myself the Oversized HC once it comes out.

She also got herself a signed Wolverine sketch from John Hebert (this year was the first year, I think, that Earthworld had an industry professional visiting for FCBD) and issues 13 and 14 of Astonishing X-men. As far as FCBD stuff goes, she got Tokyopop Sneaks, The Fantagraphics Funny Book, Batman: The 12 Cent Adventure, Superior Showcase #0, and Batman Strikes!. Some of the stuff was from last year. She said the store was pretty crowded, otherwise I'm sure she would've picked up X-men/Runaways, since her most moisture-inspiring superhero is on the cover.

Thank you, my lovely Nicole.

The Urethra: Canada's New Crimefighter

2006-05-04T05:38:00.000-04:00

Last night, at the end of a Canadian news radio show called As It Happens, there were two stories with a strong thematic connection, though the show's hosts failed to reveal any outward signs that they were conscious of it.

I only caught the very end of the second-to-last story, but the host said the woman she had just finished interviewing was a member of an organization called "I.P. Justice."

The last story was about a man who has developed a substance to help law enforcement quell violent protesters. It's a kind of slimy liquid that's hosed all over the ground and causes the protesters to slip and, in the words of the developer, "fall on their butts."

In describing the liquid, he said it was "white," "sticky," and "slimy."

Justice takes different forms in Canada, but it all comes from the same place.

Hell, if Marvel does eventually end up starting a new Alpha Flight series, they should borrow from these stories. Kinda gross, sure, but it would be an improvement on their previous marketing strategies for the team (i.e., "Buy it! They're Canadian!").

Superman Returns trailer

2006-05-03T13:49:00.000-04:00

I haven't made the rounds to check, but I'm sure I'l be blogger #35645643 to mention the new online Superman Returns trailer.

The thing is, even though it isn't mentioned at all in the trailer and I think it's a safe bet to assume it won't be alluded to in the film, but I guess I kind of felt a post-9/11 thing going on, particularly with Lois saying "How could you leave us like that?"

Which made it feel very weird to see, at the end of the trailer, Superman tearing the wings off a jet.

Cool news

2006-04-17T11:48:00.000-04:00

Peter David has reported that his prose character Sir Apropos of Nothing will be returning in the form of a novelette titled "Sir Apropos of Nothing and the Adventure of the Receding Heir." It will be published in an anthology titled Heroes in Training, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Jim C. Hines. No release date yet.

As much as I've enjoyed a lot of PAD's comics, with the exception of a lot of his stuff on The Incredible Hulk, there isn't much of his funnybook work that I've enjoyed as much as his first two Sir Apropos of Nothing novels. I've never managed to get my hands on a copy of the third book, Tong Lashing, and apparently the publisher closed shop.

I miss comic books

2006-04-07T03:19:00.000-04:00

Let me start off by saying that I'm aware this blog has been absent of any comic book commentary lately, and there won't be any in this post either. Sorry. All I can say is that the name of the blog is "Superheroes, etc." and consider the blog - at least until this semester ends - firmly lodged in "etc."

That said, I really miss comic books. Even if I could afford to buy any new graphic novels, I don't have the time to read them. I'm in the middle of Small World by David Lodge (for the same course that subjected me to The Waste Land, and it's a surprising and welcome change from the course material so far - surprising because, even though it's a very funny and engaging read, in a lot of ways it's based on The Waste Land) and the previously mentioned Northrop Frye theoretical text The Secular Scripture, and have a paper due on both the Monday after next. Following hard on Spring Break (officially starting next Monday, but starting Friday for me since I don't have any Friday classes) will be Possession: A Romance by A.S. Bryant. For another course, I've just finished Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and will probably have to re-read it for a paper later this month. My final research paper for the class will likely be on Rudyard Kipling's Kim, and that will probably necessitate another re-reading.

I wanted to do the research paper on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and thought I might be able to pull it off because of all the post-colonial stuff we've been covering in that course, but unfortunately I don't think it's an option. My professor has specified that he wants our work in our final research paper to focus on reading criticism about a specific text and trying to highlight what isn't mentioned in that criticism, and so far I haven't been able to find any academic, peer-reviewed stuff on The League. If I remember correctly, the only stuff I've found on Alan Moore at all covered either Watchmen, From Hell, or both. Oh, and apparently a previous English honors student at my school did their thesis on Promethea. I should read that (the thesis, not the series, though I should read the rest of that, too - I've got the first two books).

I miss Lone Wolf and Cub and Tom Strong and ElfQuest and Seven Soldiers. I've tried cracking open the Absolute edition of Watchmen my girlfriend gave me for Christmas and haven't yet had the time to get past the first chapter. I hate going to comic book news sites, review sites, and blogs; and reading about an endless stream of new books and old books I haven't gotten a chance to pick up, and not having the time or money to check any of them out. I hate driving past my local comic shop every night and not having the time or money to stop in and pick something up, even if it wasn't always closed by the time I zoom past it.

Finally free of The Waste Land

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

I am officially free of (and those kind enough to read this blog are free of me bitching about) The Waste Land, which I ranted about two weeks ago.

Remember how I wrote that I was going to get it done by the following Monday. Well, heh heh, that didn't pan out. I was already spending all my time working on a paper for another class. I talked to my professor about it last week and his response was "get it to me when you can." I was hoping to get it done next week during our break, but as of this Monday "when you can" became "Wednesday."

I'm honestly a little impressed with myself. I pounded it out in 4 hours, and it's not half-bad. I think I was able to do it so quickly because of the professor's instructions (that everyone else apparently ignored) to "narrow your focus ruthlessly." And boy, did I narrow. I got 4-plus pages out of a single stanza.

And in the words that readers of The Waste Land should recognize:

Well now that's done, and I'm glad it's over.

Short story available for mass consumption

2006-04-03T14:31:00.000-04:00

I mentioned a few weeks ago that a short story I wrote was being published by The Culture Star Reader. The story, "All the Samurai I Know are Dead," is available online. You can read it here.

Enjoy.